Until recently I’d never been able to treat a room to optimize the sound. When I was a younger man my solution was to take my speakers outside away from all reflective surfaces, with a lounge chair centered just right... I lived out in the country so the birds were really the only noise distraction.. My “large speakers” sounded infinitely better outside versus my small 2 ways, even though the smaller ones were a “higher end brand” and big ones were not. No comparison. Inside my house, the small 2 ways sounded better and I could listen for hours - but they did not sound as pleasing as the big boys sounded outside. Obviously many other factors could be considered in my little indoor/outdoor “experiment” .. but I think the people talking about room treatment etc. are on the right path here. All else being equal bigger is probably better…and YES to using dedicated subs to allow for low frequency tuning.
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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- 203 posts total
- 203 posts total