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Speaker size and bass

I have a finding and would like to hear what you think.

I always have been using floor speakers in my room thinking the bigger the speaker, the more bass it can produce.  I think this is true based on the physics.  However, I found out a “problem”, that is the listening volume.  
My listening area is 18’ wide x 12’ depth.  It is the listening room, so, I can’t play the music too loud otherwise my wife complaints.  Also, I listen to Jazz and Bossa, doesn’t need to be loud.  It seems that at low volume, it can’t bring out the bass of the drivers.  But if I turn it up, it will be too loud for me.  I think that make sense, the bigger the driver, the louder it gets.

So, when considering the appropriate size of the speakers, besides the room size, is the listening level also a consideration?  That means, for a smaller speaker, is that I can turn the volume knob more, and that will output more power to move the driver more to produce the bass, and yet it will not be too loud?


gte357s
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 
As MC suggest DBA bass is better than most, and rightly so. The distortion levels are much lower. The reason is simple, many drivers doing less work. They are easier to control the over shoot. Less distortion in the sub/bass, bass and midbass regions equals a lot cleaner LOW MIDs on up (300 hz >).

Most folks don’t realize 20% distortion in the bass region is tough to hear, until you clean it up. Then everything else sounds better, cleaner, MUCH greater detail.

What your partner is hearing is the annoying left over of ALL the bass, and lack of room treatment.

I’m a column guy, close in theory to DBA. The difference is I like to break up the mid/bass and use it in a stereo fashion. 100-300 hz is pretty dog on directional. Point the MB at your setting position, and control the sub/bass with a servo system.. You and your partner will see a big difference.. You will get wonderful BASS, but you partner won’t get the nasty THUMP!!!

Slow Jazz, salsa, flamingo, just no Yoko Ono....

Regards
erik_squires
16,845 posts
 
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/there-s-a-lot-more-bass-in-a-6-5-driver-than-most-of-you-thin...
erik_squires
16,845 posts
 
https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-not-buy-subwoofer.html
gte357s OP
281 posts
 
It sounds like having subwoofer(s) is the only solution.  In other words, having bigger speaker doesn’t really help much in giving more or better bass, because we are constraint by the volume.
rbstehno
1,550 posts
 
The other thing that you can do is biamp your speakers with an amp that had its own volume control. I did this many years ago when I had a smaller room. At the lower volumes, there was no bass, so I just adjusted the bass amps volume to play a little louder. I eventually went to 2 subwoofers that had a separate external controller that provided eq settings as well as volume
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