Speakers with fullness and weight?

"One more quick observation: this trait of so many high end speakers which cannot portray richness and power is why so few end up in studios."

Not sure I agree. I think the reason is that speakers used in studios are designed specifically for studio use. Asthetics/finishes play a much lesser role and litening is more often done nearfield there, so room acoustics play a lesser role as well compared to most home setups.

Larger speakers are typically more needed in a typical home setup in a moderate to larger sized room to deliver richness and power largely due to the acoustics of the room. Take that out of the equation and many smaller monitor speakers, both for home and studio use, can deliver in a more nearfield listening scenario.

Headphones are the extreme example that fullness and weight can be delivered out of a very small package but typically only when room acoustics and size are taken out of the equation. I think one has to realize this before passing any generalized judgements on ability of any particular speaker design to deliver fullness and weight.

My <$100 Klipsch earbuds, fitted properly in the ear can do it in spades, for example!!! Fitted loosely or without a good seal, less so, starting to sound more thin and weightless. The tight seal is the key to getting the acoustic results desired, not the speaker (or earbud in this case).

OHM Acoustics is a good example of a speaker maker that realizes this and does thins right. THe entire current line is designed and sounds essentially the same from the smallest (<$1000) to largest (>$6000) models. You are simply buying the ability to perform and sound a certain way in a particular room, not a "better design for better sound" as prices go up. If you like "that sound" this makes speaker selection fairly straightforward. The speaker they recommend will largely depend on room size along the lines of the chart on their website. If the largest model alone cannot fit the bill, then they now start to build powered subs into teh largest model in order to be able to scale up further if needed, for additional cost. Most will probably never have such a need though. Its a pretty unique and scalable approach to speaker design based on very practical considerations, not hype!

Omsed,
I appreciate your thoughts and ontributions to this interesting topic.
Charles,

Its a very interesting and relevant topic of discussion, but I would find it more beneficial if some specific examples of speakers not delivering up to snuff and why were cited to support some the generalized arguments presented that I have trouble buying into as stated.

I would agree that many "high end" audio products including speakers may not offer good value for the money, but some clearly do as well.

I think we tend to know what we like, but may not always be as well informed about the things we do not like as much.

In general, I find it hard to justify paying top dollar for smaller speakers. "Build quality" is often cited as the justifying factor.

Build quality is certainly important but the laws of physics limit what small drivers in a small box can do in regards to weight and fullness in many rooms. Weight and fullness alone is not such a challenge in a smaller room. WHat is more of challenge is getting that along with all teh rest of what is considered positive atributes in good sound. THe bigger the room, generally the bigger the challenge, and probably the more cost is justified to achieve best results. Its mainly a scalability issue, how to achieve optimal sound in a larger room when needed. The solution is always some combination of larger or more drivers in a larger box along with build quality.

I will say that I have heard some smaller speakers with top notch build quality perform surprisingly well in some larger rooms these days. Speakers from Dynaudio, PSB, Focal,Magico and YG are some that come to mind, though there are others. Speaker driver technology seems to have definitely improved over the years, allowing smaller drivers and designs to do better than in the past. I expect that trend to continue into the future still as well. But are the price tags always justified? That where things become greyer for me. WHat is the true value of a smaller speaker that can compete well with larger ones? I think the used market is in practice the only valid indicator.

That's pretty much how I think about it. Most any good speaker under $10000 should be a top notch performer in most rooms I think, as long as the right design for the specific room to meet the listeners needs is selected.

As the room gets larger, the designs up to the task become fewer and larger, and this is where higher costs may justifiably come into play.

Of course, the other factor that comes into play is listener expectations. This site attracts those whose expectations are the greatest in general I would say. So that ups the ante in terms of what is good or acceptable sound and deep pockets certainly affect the market as well, but its clearly not representative of music lovers as a whole

Amps + speakers + room form a "system within a system", of sorts. Boundary reinforcement can warm up otherwise thin-sounding speakers. Likewise a (low damping factor) tube amp can warm up otherwise thin-sounding speakers.

Most speakers exhibit a phenomenon called the "baffle step" that can contribute to thinness of sound. Briefly, as the wavelengths get long in relation to the front baffle width, the energy is not so much concentrated out in front of the speakers, but starts to wrap around more and more, until in the bass region the speaker is essentialy omnidirectional.

Let's walk through an example. Suppose we have a mini-monitor on a stand with a baffle width of 8.5 inches. This corresponds to 1/2 wavelength at 800 Hz. So beginning at 800 Hz, the on-axis SPL gradually shelves down, to approximately -5 dB at 200 Hz or so (in theory we'd be -6 dB at 100 Hz, but in practice we start getting some boundary reinforcement from the floor by then).

Now the baffle step is not as bad as this appears at first glance, because the energy that wraps around is still present in the reverberant sound field. So we end up with a thin spectral balance in the on-axis sound, which is compensated to some degree by the overly warm spectral balance of the off-axis sound (which in turn is what dominates the reverberant sound within the room). How much effect on the percieved tonal balance the direct vs reverberant sound has at the listening position depends on a number of factors, not least of which is listening distance: The on-axis sound falls off with distance much more rapidly than the reverberant sound does (assuming a semi-normal listening room).

What can be done to deal with the baffle step? We can make the baffle wider, pushing the wrap-around frequency lower, so that its effect is reduced. We can move the speakers closer to the room boundaries (close to the wall and/or put them on shorter stands) so that boundary reinforcement kicks in higher up than it otherwise would have. We can compensate by equalizing the output of the speaker to be the approximate inverse of the baffle step, at the risk of ending up with too much in-room low-end energy (so we don't want to overdo it). We can use an enclosure type that is inherently less susceptible to the baffle step (like a bipolar, wherein the output of the rear woofer wraps around and helps out the front woofer).

So if you like your present speakers aside from a bit of thinness, but you don't want to lose soundstage depth by moving them back against the wall, consider using a significantly lower stand so that they get more boundary reinforcement from the floor. Some people don't like the perception that the sound is coming from lower than seated ear level, but try closing your eyes and pretending you're in a balcony seat.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer

Duke's thinking along the same way I was. Speaker builders can't anticipate the room, placement and "loudness" you listen at and we generally don't live in anechoic chambers. There is a transition from 2Pi space to 4Pi space.

Baffle step compensation or diffraction loss can be handled in many ways, including a L-R network, which reduces efficiency to some degree, or a X.5-way crossover/driver configuration, where the .5 drivers provide some bass reinforcemnt.

The next set of speakers I'm building won't have the full 6 dB of BSC because I know they'll be hugging the wall.