OP, Demo the Kii 3s for yourself. All of the blather will fall away and the music will fill the room.
What are the smallest speakers that are clean and flat down to 20hz?
Also what bass driver or drivers do they use?
Thanks.
Thanks.
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Does not quite meet the parameters you posted, but very impressive low frequency extension for speaker type and cabinet size. Smaller footprint then the majority of stand mounts. http://www.decware.com/newsite/HORN.html Scroll down the page for specifications. No affiliation with Decware |
So bass is one of these subjects that never is settled, as most people will hear and FEEL the sound waves. Perceived bass is all up to the individual listener to make it what it is. I'm very familiar with the Ohm speakers an "Mapman" knows and every time someone tell me they can hear below 20hz with their (insert model) I laugh because that's kind of saying you can hear a mouse fart...sure you can, but mouse farts are very, very quiet. As far as bass I'm using a four 18" driver infinite baffle system that will shake my house to the point it's scary and it can put out 120db with no effort at 20hz. My large Ohm speakers 4/5000 will comfortably crank out 25 real hertz all day long but anything below that level is negligible in a true sense and still nowhere close to what the sub can do.... peter |
I was impressed with folded horns think I will be getting familiar with some of my own. I was exposed to some low bass I could feel more than I could hear at times, like an invisible donkey kicking you in the chest. Up in the more practical musical hz they slam well and make beautiful coherent bass. If I had the space I would love some giant la scalas with matching folded horn bass' that reach for the ceiling. |
Depends on what you want to spend and room size. If it were me after owning the Gamut RS7i (produces clean bass to 22hz) go take a listen to the RS3i monitors if the room is not so huge. These will shock most listeners with their authority and musical accuracy. YMMV but I am serious how good they are. gwalt |
One implication of the Fletcher-Munson curves is that the ear is quite sensitive to changes in SPL at low frequencies (recall that the curves bunch up in the bass region). Thus a 5 dB change at 40 Hz or so is subjectively comparable to a 10 dB change at 1 kHz. So a small change in SPL makes a disproportionately large change in perceived loudness in the bass region. The ear’s sensitivity to small changes in SPL in the bass region implies that it’s pretty good at detecting the unnaturally lumpy bass that most rooms impose on speakers. Which in turn implies that we can expect significant subjective improvement from adopting an approach that smoothes out the in-room bass. While I’m an advocate of distributed multisub systems, ime improvements can show up simply from locating the bass sources in a speaker (the woofers and ports) at different distances from the room boundaries as much as is feasible. As for fairly compact speakers that can do 20 Hz, I once loaned a pair of high-efficiency stand-mount speakers (about 1 cubic foot internal volume) to an equalizer manufacturer for an audio show. He planned to use a subwoofer system as well (not one of mine). The subwoofer crapped out the first day of the show, which would have been a disaster, but this guy was pretty resourceful. You see, my speaker had a large woofer (12") with good excursion (9 mm) and high thermal power handling (900 watts music program). So he used a powerful amp and dialed in a lot of EQ and as I recall he got ballpark 20 Hz bass after all, according to his measurements. Of course this was in a boomy hotel room, which in this case was helpful. Now I didn't sell the speaker packaged with his equalizer so my example doesn't really count, but it does illustrate one way to get 20 Hz at useful SPL from a fairly small box: Aggressive equalization of a woofer that can handle it. Duke dealer/manufacturer |
I suppose the fancy way is to use something like this. http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/09/waiting-for-the-bass-to-drop-with-devialets-samlab/ |
Mapman, In Germany a chap called Matthias has been customising Ohm speakers for some years now and he does an active version of the "5000" series (with John’s approval). In Germany, this is a good idea because their Omnidirectional market is much stronger than anywhere else and the competition prices can take your breath away (German Physic, MBL etc). Looks like John has fully embraced the idea and is scaling up. ;^) |
Check out the Neat Audio Iota Plus speaker recently reviewed in Stereophile this month by staffer Ken Micallef. However, careful,...... John Atkinson, the magazine's technical guru was disappointed by their " measured performance", and Micallef's enthusiasm for the product is somewhat over the top. The speaker should do 40Hz cleanly and without boom, according to him. Good Luck locating a Neat Audio dealer where you can audition them. BTW, the speakers are a midget floor stander at 17 inches tall (on their 1.5 inch spikes). Interesting product, but not inexpensive . |
The new small bookshelf size Watkins speaker (Bill Watkins invented the dual drive woofer used by Infinity in some of their high end models back in the day) will deliver full power down to 41Hz with flat, clean, and detailed response. This utilizes a 6-1/2" custom damped woofer. More info at www.watkinsstereo.com |
The smallest speaker of which I have personal experience that goes down to 20 Hz would be the Hart Audio Phoenix. It’s spec’d by the manufacturer (David Hart) as –3 dB @ 16.33 Hz. Dimensions are: 36" H x 16" W x 20" D. But each cabinet weighs 94 kg (over 200 lbs.), in part because of the great weight of the Tannoy SuperDual drivers used in the design (Type 2510 10" Dual Concentric and Type 3112 12" LF driver) and in part because the cabinets are made entirely of a fibre-impregnated resin. The bass driver is loaded into a folded horn adapted from the Tannoy GRF. Rated system sensitivity is well over 100 dB. They perform equally well with low-powered tube amps and high-powered solid-state amps. As far as I know, sold only direct from the manufacturer. |