Floorstanding speakers - thin versus fat

[James]

The other factor which I don't want to think about (but have to) is weight. Passive Fact12's weigh about half that of active SCM50's, which is something to think about when you need to shift them around!

[Edit: I did the easy maths and I was wrong. The SCM50's single woofer has about 1.5 times greater area than the Fact12's two.]

I appreciate heavy loudspeakers are a PITA to move around. My Yamaha NS-1000Ms are almost hernia-inducingly heavy too. But they are heavy for good reason.

On driver sizing, it's easy to be fooled into thinking two smaller drivers make up for a big one. Even if they offer identical swept areas, the bigger lone driver will couple with the room air mass more effectively than multiple drivers with the same displacement.

 

[James]

I have a Nait 2 into JBL4429 setup. With 91db efficiency, and a 12” bass unit, the JBLs make the pip squeak Nait sound unusually LARGE.

Likewise, my NAIT2 is effortless and dynamic into 90dB/w/m 12" Yams.

 

[cpg]

Go for the ATC speakers, if they are active you can adjust the bass driver level slightly to make them sound fuller at low levels. Also if they are active they will not have any "fat" upper bass caused by the big inductors in the passive crossover.
(you can compensate for "fat" bass in passive crossovers by adding extra crossover components, but these are expensive and often not specified due to their cost!)

 

[JTC]

I rather like big fat bass drivers. Which is all the more puzzling why it’s taken me nearly 30 years to get to a 15” driver. Soon, be still my beating heart!!!

ps. Had ATC100 active towers and they were superb but they were big, expensive brutes...

 

[lindsayt]

This seems to suggest that you think there are other speakers in the ~£600 price range that can equal or better a pair of active SCM50's.

Is that what you are saying - are do you just mean that you can't afford either speaker?

The sound quality and pricing of speakers is all relative.

There's pretty much no such thing as a bad sounding speaker. There's a huge amount of examples of over-priced speakers. Over-priced for the sound quality on offer.

I know that I can, and have bought OK sounding speakers for under £200 and good sounding (but not quite world class) speakers for under £500.
So for me to rate active ATC 50's as being worth me buying for £600 is quite a compliment to them. But I can't get carried away and call them World Class speakers. Because they're not.

 

[h.g.]

Hmmm.... the thing that made the biggest difference to me going from FB1's to SCM40's was the midrange, which I found astonishing. I kept thinking that I was listening to a remixed track of a familiar song - the midrange detail was so much different. So perhaps I should just go with the ATCs.

The only thing about ATCs is that they will almost certainly be active, and I had wanted to "roll my own" active setup with Hypex Fusion modules. But perhaps I will have to forego that (and perhaps I ~should~ forego that, given my minimal skills in that area). I could try to find some passive SCM50s but they are very thin on the ground.

In terms of technical performance the ATCs are very likely significantly better but they are expensive. If you want to develop an active DSP crossover it would seem odd not to include the drivers and cabinet.

BTW The frequency response plots posted by tuga seems to be from a speaker with a doubtful possibly defective crossover. If you place a 2" midrange driver with a flat response on an infinite baffle in a narrow baffle you will see a rise of 6 dB over an octave or so plus a 2 dB bump or so above as shown in the plots. The designer will then use output from the woofer plus shaping from the crossover and baffle diffraction to introduce what is often termed "baffle step correction" in order to create a flat response at the listening position. The hi-fi critic review here shows a quite different and more acceptable response. Still not without issues but at least more plausible from an established speaker company. There will presumably be a story of some kind behind all this but I don't know what it is. In terms of technical performance it looks a modest design that will likely be outperformed by conventional towers (1" tweeter, 4-5" midrange, 2 x 8" woofer) from a number of established manufacturers at a quarter to a half the price. Of course technical performance is only one factor when choosing speakers...

 

[tuga]

Sorry, I don't know the meaning of shelved-down, but "lean" and "bright" don't sound like what I'm after.

Here is a good explanation of "shelving": https://soundbridge.io/shelving-equalizer/

 

[James]

... if they are active they will not have any "fat" upper bass caused by the big inductors in the passive crossover.
(you can compensate for "fat" bass in passive crossovers by adding extra crossover components, but these are expensive and often not specified due to their cost!)

Where on earth did you learn about such rubbish?

 

[eastone]

I think the sensible choice is to choose the ones that sound the best, rather than worry about fat vs thin.

I think it’s an interesting thread regardless of the particular speakers being discussed. Some of us like speakers that are even wider than they are deep. I’d be happy to learn more about what changes in baffle / diffraction mean for the subjective listening experience.

 

[Hiesteem]

Ideally Your room has got to be in proportion to the size of the speaker your are driving and so has your amplifier really in terms of being able to drive/control the speaker.
They are both very good designs. I heard the ATC50 passive being driven by Naim 500 series amp, server etc, recently.
The midrange is excellent, the bass is deep, but this I feel is where they need the most grip and power from whatever amp is driving them.
I would definitely give the actives a try. My guess is they would have the speaker under more control, especially in the bass.
The PMC sound is very different. I heard the new 5 series recently and was very impressed with the sound coming from 5.24.
They have a new crossover based on the 12's and new tweeter.
Very live sounding and controlled in the frequency extremes. The new SEA's tweeter, is larger and it is able to hold the high frequency far better , losing the old edgyness and retaining that live feel.
I might suggest trying the newly revised 5.26 as it has the extra mid dome unit, given the improvements in the 5 series range.

 

[Del monaco]

I have the thinner deeper type where the baffle is a touch wider than the mid and woofer units. They are B&Ws. They give great imaging, transparency, height and a level of ‘ unboxiness’ that I’ve not experienced in previous speakers. They are quite delicate in presentation with great mid range detail and just enough bass for me. They are more of a stand mount despite their floorstander status. I like this particular type of build.

 

[mondie]

Narrow baffles never figured into acoustic engineerings fundamentals. Rather they were a consequence of the move away from large bass drivers to smaller drivers due to cost and convenience. The marketing men did the rest, cooking up a story around narrow baffles to paper over the shortcomings of small bass drivers that sound inferior to wide baffles and big, efficient drivers.

 

[manicatel]

Buying £5k speakers without auditioning first is a bit bonkers, even if they’re 2nd hand. I wouldn’t do it.
If you HAVE to buy speakers now, I would buy 2nd hand for under £1k to see you through & then when you can audition properly, make the £5k decision then.
Selling on some sub£1k speakers will limit your losses compared to laying out £5k only to realise they don’t suit the room or your tastes.
I’m another ATC fan, using the active scm40’s. I think they’re excellent. A mate has the passive version, driven by a very tasty Vitus amp & they also sound superb. I prefer them to any PMC I’ve heard, including the Facts. But that’s just me. PMC’s are very good speakers with great pedigree & have a large fan base.
Anyway, good luck with your speaker quest.

 

[Del monaco]

Narrow baffles never figured into acoustic engineerings fundamentals. Rather they were a consequence of the move away from large bass drivers to smaller drivers due to cost and convenience. The marketing men did the rest, cooking up a story around narrow baffles to paper over the shortcomings of small bass drivers that sound inferior to wide baffles and big, efficient drivers.

This is very probably true and I think lifestyle and new housing styles were also in the mix. I’ve never really been a bass chaser so it’s not really relevant and despite the shortcomings you refer B&W managed to make a damn fine speaker within those limitations.

 

[James]

...I’ve never really been a bass chaser so it’s not really relevant ...

If you haven't heard the dynamic effortlessness of large loudspeakers, you really ought to find an opportunity to do so. It's not about being a bass head, but about the clarity and visceral immediacy of bass that little drivers cannot imitate.

 

[Del monaco]

I’ve heard CLXs and their bass transparency was very impressive but I’ve never really gone for impactful bass for the sake of it.I can understand why this might be impressive but it kind of tires me. I remember hearing a Kef 107 reference with the Kubes a few years ago.They kept playing Also Sprach Zarathustra on them and saying, listen to that bass.Very impressive but I was thinking what about the rest of the music?

 

[Antifon]

Go for the ATC speakers, if they are active you can adjust the bass driver level slightly to make them sound fuller at low levels.

That's true, but not easy to do on the current generation of ATC amp packs - as far as I'm aware, the "domestic" version no longer has any controls to trim HF and LF levels. Not sure why they decided to remove them, but I suspect it was for reasons of reliability.

ps. Had ATC100 active towers and they were superb but they were big, expensive brutes...

Indeed - once you get up to the 100's and 150's you are dealing with big slabs of wood. I find it difficult to think of many "home" settings that can take a pair of SCM150 towers and not have them completely dominate, visually.

The sound quality and pricing of speakers is all relative.

There's pretty much no such thing as a bad sounding speaker.

It's probably true these days, though I have heard some in the past. I was lent a pair of 8-driver Videotons in the late 70s and they did not sound good in any way!

 

[Antifon]

Some of us like speakers that are even wider than they are deep. I’d be happy to learn more about what changes in baffle / diffraction mean for the subjective listening experience.

It was actually the Heko Direkt that got me wondering about "fat versus thin", because that's a speaker with a layout that seems to hark back to the much older designs - which all tended to be wide and shallow. It's a shame the Direkt is (to me) such an ugly speaker (with apologies to any Direkt owners here!).

I might suggest trying the newly revised 5.26 as it has the extra mid dome unit, given the improvements in the 5 series range.

This is something I've been tempted by, if only to hear a 3-way PMC design. The low-to-midrange PMC products tend to depreciate in value fairly quickly - possibly because PMC seem to change their range every few weeks - so it would not be a hugely expensive experiment.

Narrow baffles never figured into acoustic engineerings fundamentals. Rather they were a consequence of the move away from large bass drivers to smaller drivers due to cost and convenience. The marketing men did the rest, cooking up a story around narrow baffles to paper over the shortcomings of small bass drivers that sound inferior to wide baffles and big, efficient drivers.

Agreed - that and the "wife acceptability" (sorry about the sexist nature of this comment) of a narrow speaker that does not dominate the room.

 

[Antifon]

If you haven't heard the dynamic effortlessness of large loudspeakers, you really ought to find an opportunity to do so. It's not about being a bass head, but about the clarity and visceral immediacy of bass that little drivers cannot imitate.

I’ve heard CLXs and their bass transparency was very impressive but I’ve never really gone for impactful bass for the sake of it.I can understand why this might be impressive but it kind of tires me. I remember hearing a Kef 107 reference with the Kubes a few years ago.They kept playing Also Sprach Zarathustra on them and saying, listen to that bass.Very impressive but I was thinking what about the rest of the music?

One of things that impressed me about the SCM40s was the fact that the bass is very well controlled. I would almost describe them as slightly bass-light, which given that they are located on an upstairs chipboard floor is (to me) a good thing.

The intended location for the new speakers will be downstairs, on a concrete floor, where I think a slightly more bass-heavy speaker would work better.

But I'm not a fan of very bass-heavy speakers, because although they can make some tracks sound fantastic, badly mixed music (mixed to be listened to on a mobile phone) can be intolerable.

 

[Dozey]

The PMC Fact 12 speakers are the best speakers I have heard. Great bass depth and impact driven by Bryston power amps at HiFi Lounge.

Never heard the ATCs.