Audio Research Ref system
- Thread starter Big Dog RJ
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I don't think you need to move anywhere near as much air in the high freq's as you do in the low...
The length of a 20Hz bass note is somewhere on the order of 25'+...the length of a 20Khz note is in inches.
Although we are not talking of how much air is needed, this is where I believe the difference accrues. It is basically impossible
to create a note that is 20Hz in most people's listening room...due to the length of the sound wave. Which is why it is always so
laughable to hear these guys who are driving around with huge sub woofers in their car audio systems.
Which still begs my question...do you not think a good sub can move a LOT of air?
Davey-The length of a 20Hz note is 56.5' long. Can a good sub move a lot of air? Sure, specially if it has a large driver and has plenty of power. But back to my main point and that is large speaker systems have lots of drivers moving lots of air and not just in the bass frequencies. Part of why I liked my Def Tech BP7000SC speakers was because they had 9 drivers per cabinet and they moved a lot of air which helps in the realism department. My Nola KOs have 10 drivers per cabinet (and I wish they were here now, but I'm waiting) and they sound very real to me. Two-way monitor systems with a sub can sound really good, but at the end of the day they are still a two-way monitor with a sub with all the limitations that implies.
I am going to chime in here as respectfully as I can and with all the appropriate caveats (we all know them). My personal epiphany on this point actually came with the Strads...which replaced the SF Gs in my system. There is a LOT of upper bass/lower mid SCALE that comes with a much bigger speaker. Its like a whole section of the music for me came forward into the presentation. And it added significantly to the realism, sense of effortlessness...and it adds (for me) a totally different dimension to the believability of the presentation that I honestly had not appreciated before. I always went for smaller speakers plus subs...and loved them...and still do. But i am talking about a quality and quantity of musical information that occurs well above the cutoff point of subs (at least where i have cut off my subs since first having them in my system over 20 years ago). And now that I have even more of this musical quality and quantity in the X1s, I consider myself spoiled by it, would not willingly give it up and I enjoy it gratefully every day.
The problem with my observations and DaveyFs question about this phenomena in a smaller room is:1) I listen in a reasonably good sized room and 2) I did not have the knowledge/experience when I was in a smaller listening room that I have today...perhaps I could have set things up better. No idea.
All I do know is that in our current room, that scale has ONLY come when I went from SF Gs to the SF Strads and then upwards to X1s. The Subs are a phenomenal extension of the Gs (and the Celestion SL6sis before them). They had EXTENSION (which is part of scale)...but they never felt the same as when the Strads arrived in terms of overall scale (which again includes lower mids, upper bass, and to an extent even treble mids).
The problem with my observations and DaveyFs question about this phenomena in a smaller room is:1) I listen in a reasonably good sized room and 2) I did not have the knowledge/experience when I was in a smaller listening room that I have today...perhaps I could have set things up better. No idea.
All I do know is that in our current room, that scale has ONLY come when I went from SF Gs to the SF Strads and then upwards to X1s. The Subs are a phenomenal extension of the Gs (and the Celestion SL6sis before them). They had EXTENSION (which is part of scale)...but they never felt the same as when the Strads arrived in terms of overall scale (which again includes lower mids, upper bass, and to an extent even treble mids).
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Agreed! I need to write this down...On 25 April 2014, Rbbert and I actually agreed on something.
And you are just not going to get that scale with mini-monitors and a sub. You can tell yourself you are. You convince yourself that you are, but it doesn't make it so. And what am I listening to right now while I'm waiting for the Nola KOs to arrive? A pair of mini-monitors (Paradigm Mini-Monitor V.3) and a pair of subs. On the other hand, you have to play the cards you are dealt. If you are stuck with a small listening room, you can't just shoehorn in some big speakers and think magic is going to occur sitting right on top of them in a forced near-field setup. Really small rooms call for small speakers.
Does one need to move a lot of air to accurately reproduce a harpsichord or a mandolin? I agree that it helps to move a lot of air if trying to reproduce the scale of a full orchestra, rock band, or church organ, but I'm not so sure that lots of large drivers are necessarily required for the accurate reproduction of timbre or even smaller scale music.
And sure you are fooling yourself if you believe you can reproduce the scale of an orchestra with mini-monitors and sub. But do you really think that you can reproduce that scale with the largest Wilsons or any other brand of speaker? A stereo system just can't do it, IMO.
Somewhere in this thread came the idea that you have to move a lot of air to both recreate scale and sound accurate. I'm not so sure they are interdependent.
And sure you are fooling yourself if you believe you can reproduce the scale of an orchestra with mini-monitors and sub. But do you really think that you can reproduce that scale with the largest Wilsons or any other brand of speaker? A stereo system just can't do it, IMO.
Somewhere in this thread came the idea that you have to move a lot of air to both recreate scale and sound accurate. I'm not so sure they are interdependent.
IMHO the objective of sound reproduction is not reproducing exactly in the physical sense the scale of an orchestra, but recreating this scale, fooling you with your active participation. And some stereo systems using large speakers in appropriate rooms with appropriate recordings do it pretty well for some of us.
I don't think anyone is saying that a Wilson gives you a 120 piece orchestra in your living room. But I do find for me that the much greater scale of the Wilson X1s is preferable to me than the Guarneris for scale. And this is even for a small 4-piece ensemble which is actually very very powerful. And even with a 4-piece band, the X1s may not always feel totally live...but it IS a lot closer to the elements of live scale for me than the Gs were in my room. And that is the point for me...getting closer to what I feel reminds me of live music in my room.
Agreed.
Lloyd, I think G's are basically a small/medium size room speaker. IMO, designed for the small/medium size room typical of what most a'philes have available in Europe and sometimes in the US. ( Like me, LOL).
I have to agree that they cannot create the sense of scale a very large speaker can in a large room. OTOH, I think they do operate at a reasonable level in a large room, which is not something that can be said for
the large Wilson's ( or for that matter any really large speaker) in a very small room, IME.
I'm not sure ANY speaker can deliver large scale in a small room....
Agreed.
Lloyd, I think G's are basically a small/medium size room speaker. IMO, designed for the small/medium size room typical of what most a'philes have available in Europe and sometimes in the US. ( Like me, LOL).
I have to agree that they cannot create the sense of scale a very large speaker can in a large room. OTOH, I think they do operate at a reasonable level in a large room, which is not something that can be said for
the large Wilson's ( or for that matter any really large speaker) in a very small room, IME.
I'm not sure ANY speaker can deliver large scale in a small room....
For a small/medium sized room, I think it might be possible the Gs would be my FAVORITE speaker...coupled with a Velodyne, my favorite speaker system.
(...)
I'm not sure ANY speaker can deliver large scale in a small room....
There is one - but then you will only have space for it, the system and you - the Soundlabs. They can create a wall of sound in small room with impressive scale. Long ago a good friend of mine had them in such room, and I have seen pictures of them in even smaller japanese rooms.
BTW, it would be nice to put some numbers in the small/medium/large room. My feeling is something like 15/30/60 square meters.
Micro, the Soundlabs that I have heard in a small room were an unmitigated disaster. As you say, they take up most of the room ( well they did in the room that I heard them in) and you listen in the near field. ( NOT a bad thing IMO).
However, not only did they NOT have much sense of scale....certainly compared to what I have heard them portray in a large room and certainly compared to a Wilson or similar speaker in a large room. BUT, they were also dynamically deficient and thin sounding. I do think that scale in a small room has to do with the ability of the room to portray that....which makes sense IF you consider the amount of "bloom" that is required. In a big room, the room can accommodate this aspect far better. BTW, i was at a concert two days ago, and the auditorium/concert hall was over-loaded by the size of the wind ensemble....fifty(50) people blowing their instruments hard, LOL.Not that large a venue....
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