Yep, dial it in so you have everything in balance. If you listen so bass/mids/and highs are out of balance, you're throwing away much of what you paid so much for to have in the first place.
Just my 2cents worth.
Enjoy,
Dan
Big speakers, are they really the best way to get great sound?
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to some very large speakers that are considered to be at, or close to, the pinnacle in speaker design and ability. Needless to say, the speakers retail in the mid to high $300k range. These speakers, and I will not be naming them, were sourced by about $800k of upstream gear. Room size was about thirty by twenty, maybe a little larger.
To say the the overall sound was BIG would be accurate, but also I noticed something else, that I typically hear with big speaker systems. Generally, the speakers were right on edge of overloading the room, depending on music, the dreaded bass boom could be heard. But, the whole presentation was greater in impact than most any smaller speaker system, yet it was almost unlistenable for the long term.
The question I asked myself, is do we really want this type of presentation in our home audio systems? The speakers threw a pretty large soundstage, but also made things sound somewhat larger than life. I also thought that this type of speaker is akin to the large box dynamic speakers of yesteryear. For example, a set of large horns from Altec Lansing or similar was reminiscent of this sound. Makes me believe that if one has a big room, a similar sound can be obtained from most any large speaker system and at a fraction of the price.
I listen in a very small room, and by necessity in the near field, yet I think the overall intimacy of this type of listening experience is better for me, your thoughts?
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+1 @islandmandan As with most things in high-end audio (and cuisine) in the end it’s all about balance. Also, ignore room treatment at your peril. |
@daveyf -- When you describe the sound of the mega $$ system you’re referring to as "somewhat larger than life," then what do you gather is your predominant reference here - live acoustic sound, or mainly the sound presented by your own setup? In your last paragraph, you wrote:
I believe it would be fair to say that if what you’re being treated with sonically on a daily(?) basis is from a near field listening-based set-up with small 2-way "mini monitors" as seen on your systems page (and a great setup it appears to be - I know those Sonus Faber’s quite well, and they sound exquisite), then judging whether what’s heard from a much bigger system/room is actually larger than life-sounding may be somewhat hampered or "colored" as a credible observation. The question remains whether a larger set-up by necessity does hold the potential to give a more accurate representation of a live event, but in my experience that’s a definite ’yes.’
This to me sounds like an acoustically related issue and a listening space being "saturated" at higher SPL’s (and room modes excited at low frequencies), and it points to the need to properly accommodate a setup capable of higher SPL’s + prodigious LF-output within a given acoustical context. Large direct radiating speakers of low efficiency and more wide and uneven dispersion (if such is the case here) in my experience are typically more challenging in this regard compared to a higher eff. segment of speakers.
If you’re referring to your specific experience then it sounds like a flawed outset that isn’t representative of what a larger system is truly capable of in a home environment. There’s also taste and what one is habitually exposed to. What I have myself (though in a more moderately sized listening space) is definitely the type of presentation I’m after, and that setup could fill cinema auditoriums with sound effortlessly.
Absolutely - or in varying ways at least. That is, price isn't as much a factor here than overall implementation and the segment, principle and configuration of the speakers used. |
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