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What do we mean by “boxy” sounding speakers?

M

Musiciseverything

pfm Member
Hello.

I’ve come to interpret this term “boxy” in various ways over time since I’ve heard it used in a fair few different ways, so I thought it might be interesting to see if I could get a number of people on here to give their opinion of its definition, to see how many definitions and interpretations of it are, and to perhaps to even hopefully end up with a convincing mean average.

So let’s have em! Can you describe what it is that you mean when you describe a speaker as “boxy”?
 
I always believed it meant that the sound was constrained by its cabinet and engineers have to do a lot of work to get around this, though I’ve heard many that don’t sound constrained . I use LRS speakers now which have a very open, transparent and fast sound with a really big soundstage. Just a different sound really.
 
What I'd describe - personally - as boxy has little in my mind to do with originating from a transducer in a box.
Rather I'd describe it more as though you were having to listen in a cardboard box. I'd characterise the sound as limited at the frequency extremes, dynamically sat on, perhaps with some frequency response aberrations, and a very compromised ability to reproduce either artificial reverbs or genuine acoustics.
An audio vote of no confidence.
That's what I mean when I say boxy - YMMV.
 
I’ve always interpreted/used it to describe speakers where the cabinet is audible in a bad way, e.g. a resonance, honk, port boom/flub etc. Once you get used to speakers with either no or very little cabinet colouration e.g. Quad ESLs, BBC thin-wall etc it is easy to spot.

PS There is another ‘box’ character that is far harder to put into words that I hear in really high-mass or heavily braced MDF speakers that to my ears comes across as a deadness, dryness, lack of flow, or hardness to the sound. I’d be curious to spend some time with speakers I like and don’t like and an accelerometer. My bet is there is a correlation here. I certainly seem to be drawn to panels, front horns, or low-mass thin-wall designs.
 
Literally having box like colourations due to the sound reverberating around in ... a box... and making panels vibrate, sound getting back out of the box via the port or through the speaker cone and adding colouration... the bad effects that disappear when a panel speaker is used.

Nothing to do with dynamics or bass extension etc in my book.
 
My own interpretation is the sound emanating from two distinct sources rather than giving a believable soundstage, where with your eyes closed you couldn't point to a speaker. Probably wrong but there you go.
 
Thanks folks. Interestingly, all completely different. As I thought!

One earlier conclusion I had come to was that it meant that you were very aware that the sound was coming from two boxes, and therefor imaging was poor. Or if someone would say that the bass was boxy, then, the rest of the image may be fairly palpable in space, yet the bass frequencies kept betraying their actual source, as in the speakers. So, boxy meaning an awesome of the speakers or boxes, when listening.

Anyone ever had that interpretation?
 
I wrote a handbook for living with loudspeakers for Celestion back in the 80s which contained a glossary of so-called Colouration terminology. This was put together with listening panel members I knew through Hi-fi Choice, friends and the wisdom and knowledge of the bods at Celestion. I put all colouration terms into 'families' to help categorise them. So 'Boxy' appears in the glossary:
Construction
'Boxy', 'Hollow', 'Open', 'Tunnelly'
Again a hard family to describe though they seem strongly related to the often all-too audibe effects of poor cabinet construction. 'Hollow' and 'boxy' colouration literally sounds as though the speakers were 'boxed in'/ An 'open' speaker is one which shows none of these colourations, while the adjective 'tunnelly' is closely related to 'cuppy' and often means a midband which is 'distant' as well as 'hollow'.

There were ten other families of descriptive adjectives - must admit I've never described a speaker as tunnelly!
DGP
 
Tony L said:
I’ve always interpreted/used it to describe speakers where the cabinet is audible in a bad way, e.g. a resonance, honk, port boom/flub etc. Once you get used to speakers with either no or very little cabinet colouration e.g. Quad ESLs, BBC thin-wall etc it is easy to spot.

PS There is another ‘box’ character that is far harder to put into words that I hear in really high-mass or heavily braced MDF speakers that to my ears comes across as a deadness, dryness, lack of flow, or hardness to the sound. I’d be curious to spend some time with speakers I like and don’t like and an accelerometer. My bet is there is a correlation here. I certainly seem to be drawn to panels, front horns, or low-mass thin-wall designs.
Click to expand...

thats my queston "...honk, port boom/flub etc." how do you tell ( without a panel speaker)?
 
matt j said:
My own interpretation is the sound emanating from two distinct sources rather than giving a believable soundstage, where with your eyes closed you couldn't point to a speaker. Probably wrong but there you go.
Click to expand...
Ha, exactly what I was just writing, and simultaneously at the same time as you!
 
Shut in and rolled off at the top end... can you imagine putting a speaker in a box and then listening to it from outside of the box...? That.
 
Musiciseverything said:
Hello.

So let’s have em! Can you describe what it is that you mean when you describe a speaker as “boxy”?
Click to expand...

Closed in sound, narrow sound stage, listen to cheapo cardboard l/speakers
for budget music centres.

matt j said:
My own interpretation is the sound emanating from two distinct sources rather than giving a believable soundstage, where with your eyes closed you couldn't point to a speaker. Probably wrong but there you go.
Click to expand...

Yes, a good adage.

Setting up my Decca SC4E in a Uni-pivot Decca tone arm, the sound just expanded laterally and vertically when I found the right balance, (a pita) uncanny but amazing reproduction with subterranean bass production.

I do hope TL finds himself a good one soon!

Garrard 401 TT used, no plinth, just a cut out thick steel motor board.

Sorry, no piccies as all currently in storage. :(

Radford used afromosia, (Pericopsis elata) for its first generation Loud Speakers, probably the best material to use, imho.
 
mercalia said:
thats my queston "...honk, port boom/flub etc." how do you tell ( without a panel speaker)?
Click to expand...

Experience really, as ever the more you hear the more you learn. I’d also always recommend having a good pair of headphones around as a cross-reference. If your system sounds hopelessly different to say a pair of HD600-level headphones it is pretty safe to conclude it’s the system or room to blame. They are a reference point that remove most of the issues/failings of loudspeakers, e.g. they don’t have a box/port, they aren’t multi-driver, don’t have a crossover, and obviously aren’t influenced by the room. If I’m in any doubt as to whether something that sounds a bit off to me is on the recording or an artefact of my system I get the headphones out! I actually have one of those old ‘Can-Opener’ boxes so I can hook them up to the speaker outs should I wish.
 
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