Quote Originally Posted by kexodusc
Hey, you're right, the Monitor 5 isn't a PR design. My bad.
I agree, we could compare huge woofers to tweeters, and yes, sooner or later it's just going to be to impractical to design a high-output tweeter, but most of us don't listen 10,000 watt speakers in our home, nor do we typically try to achieve SPL's above 105 dB for extended periods, something many tweeters have no problem doing in even large rooms...how loud do you listen to your music?

I'm not discounting directivity, but, just pointing out that large woofer size isn't the only way to achieve a full range speaker design. Some other designers would argue against larger woofers, claiming they sacrifice transient response, or a whole slew of other properties (something I don't necessarily agree with, you can design any size driver to do pretty much anything if you want to). Also, there are many woofer/tweeter combo's that present little dispersion problems (some of the world's best speakers are full range 2-ways).

I will grant you, if we want sub 20 Hz response for musical sources (can't think of any instruments off the top of my head that reach that low, but I'm sure there's a few out there) then we'll probably want a larger woofer.

In the end, I think goal of the speaker system will determine its design. If bass response in the high 20's is all that's desired, and output below 100 dB is the expected SPL, I would sooner invest in a higher quality woofer and tweeter at a given cost than lower quality woofers and tweeters just to obtain more output or lower response. If cost is now object, then things would probably change, but that's rarely the case.

Curious, what do you like/dislike about the Stratus Mini's?
There tends to be much less musical energy in the higher frequencies so in fact a tweeter does not have to produce the 105 dB, most of which is in the bass to midrange areas (and it's dangerous to listen at such levels for very long, too). Once CDs became popular, speaker manufacturers began using much more robust tweeters. If you try to push the crossover down much below 2 kHz, you need a pretty robust tweeter. I don't recommend trying to get most tweeters to play continuously at anything like 105 dB.

The point of the comparison with the 15 inch woofer was that it would play much louder than the woofer in the Stratus Mini or the Mani-2 in the deep bass. A smallish two way system with a 6 inch woofer is not going to produce undistorted bass at very high levels, especially deep bass. 105 dB is really stretching it. Now, if you're talking of an Altec 19, that's another story.

32 foot organ pedals have a fundamental at 16 hz. Also some electronic music gets around or below 20 hz.

BTW, what are those 'full range' two way speakers that are among the best in the world?

You have asked about my PSB speakers. Now, my Stratus Minis have excellent dispersion and show a quite even response where it counts most on and off axis. They are fairly insensitive speakers whose impedance gets below 4 ohms in the midbass. They have usable bass down into the mid-30s, believe it or not. Anyway, they seem to play plenty loud enough. While my listening seldom is over 85 dBa, sometimes it gets a little higher into the 90s with no problems at all. If I wanted to play much louder, I would have gotten a bigger model, whether I stayed with PSB or not, simply to enable the speaker to keep up with the subwoofer around the crossover frequencies. If I didn't have a subwoofer, I would have gone for one of the larger models, too, although the Stratus Minis are quite satisfactory on their own with most of the music I listen to.

I haven't compared them directly to the Totem Mani-2, the Paradigm Signature S2, which I haven't heard for quite a while, so what I would think then I don't know. I haven't even heard any of the PSB Platinum speakers yet, some other speakers I would like to hear.
We enjoy listening to music on the Stratus Minis and they don't seem to have any significant faults. I also consider them to be a very good value as they sound to me as good as a number of highly regarded speakers up to several times their price, speakers I also liked. I just put on Diana Krall's Live in Paris CD, which seems to be a superb recording, especially of her voice. I've put my consumer reviews here, at Audioholics and at MyAsylum. The one at Audioholics is the last one and probably is the most complete--anyway, I haven't changed my opinion of them and we now have them even better placed.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums...ead.php?t=3904