What are the specs of a full range speaker?

I have a friend who has subwoofers mated to ribbon speakers in a small, very irregular room. He uses TacT, where he can read all the frequency curves reaching the single seat sweet spot. There were big dips in the upper bass area. By some repositioning and equalizing through TacT he managed to straighten things out.

Now his play back is more than reasonably flat through 25Hz, with subwoofer in place.

Macrojack

Room anomalies take place in all rooms, and with all speaker systems. The room and the speaker system are an equal partner and must be made to sing together...in harmony.

Room modes are "modal" or "non-modal" peaks and dips. Modal are room related and non-modal are speaker/seating related...ie, caused by speaker placement or seating placement in relation to room boundaries.

Modal...room treatments can help smooth these peaks and dips out a bit...a small amount of EQing can bring down some of the peaks even more. You can not EQ out a large dip (null) in freq response...move the speakers and or listening position a bit if non-modal...move around or add more room treatments as needed if the problem is modal....could be also a combo of both.

If your the conductor of a large orchestra trying to get all the sections to sing together...in harmony, and the bass instruments just won't cooperate for several reasons...Do you blame them and:

1. Get rid of them and declare the music sounds better without them anyway.

2. find out what the heck the problem is and come up with the fix.

I think some people go with #1

Dave

Dan,
The Definitions have internal amplification for the onboard subs. These have an adjustable gain control on the back of the cabinet. Zu also makes (but doesn't publicize) the Definition Pro which has heavier duty professional grade woofers and requires Bi-amplification. With this arrangement they sell you a RANE PEQ 55 digital parametric equalizer to tailor the response from 40 hz down to 16 hz. This is what I have on order. The difference in price between my old speakers and these new ones is such that I am looking for a big improvement.

Macrojack, FWIW, as I have no experience with Zu's, what Zu is offering is probably an excellent solution to providing really deep bass in a meaningful way. A parametric equalizer will go a long way towards solving speaker and room integration.

However (and you knew there was a however coming :-)) whether your room can support this type of bass is one issue and whether your sources/components can withstand the distortions that the additional sound pressure created by this kind of bass can produce is another.

A third issue to consider is that typically an equalizer can be very effective in lopping off the peaks of nodes but isn't nearly as effective in raising the level of the nulls to 'flat' without doing some damage to the sounds of the neighboring frequencies and soaking up a lot of the power available from the amp. That is usually determined by the design of the equalizer, the amount of correction needed and the power available from the amp.

Have you mapped out your room and determined its nodes and nulls and how they will effect the sound at the listening position and where the speakers will be positioned for best sonic results considering the upper frequencies which are determinitive of things like sound staging, balance, and good tonal integration? There frequently is a fair amount of difference between good bass requirements and the requirements of the upper frequencies. Most folks end up with some sort of compromise.

If you haven't worked all this out in advance don't be surprised if you not only don't get a 'big improvement' - you might not even break even.

JMHO - YMMV.

Great one Dave.

Getting off topic again with real versus canned, I have to rejoin. I have attended orchestral performances from coast to coast. I sat in a Carnegie Hall balcony with Henry Ho, builder of my amps.

Yet, I can still be brought to tears by great recordings unfolding between my speakers, such works as Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade. Between full orchestra crescendos, Anshel Brusilow plays sensitive plaintive violin solos. I have to brush by a tear every time.

You can bet Henry and I were taking notes at Carnegie Hall. A smile on both our faces told all. I truthfully can say, I FEEL no difference, whether I am home or at famous performance halls.