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The magic of small speakers

Ayya Khema said:
id also add, I find the ls50 seem to extend to 50hz, the p3esr to about 70hz. comparing the p3 without a sub to the ls50 will advantage the ls50 vastly. the 50 to 70hz add dimensionality and really extends the soundstage and bass foundation. the p3esr will sound outclassed... but with a sub on both the ls50 and p3esr, I prefer so far the harbeth combination quite easily... for now
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I have tried both the speakers "properly" integrated with 2 excellent subs and the LS50 is very, very good indeed (sock in port). The P3ESR was not great and there are several other small speakers I would choose before the Harbs, when used in this way.

Actually I believe that whatever your choice of "magic" small speakers, it is possible to have your cake and eat it by effectively converting them to 3-way using the right sort of dual subs. No need for 2 sets of speakers if this is done right.
 
S-Man said:
I have tried both the speakers "properly" integrated with 2 excellent subs and the LS50 is very, very good indeed (sock in port). The P3ESR was not great and there are several other small speakers I would choose before the Harbs, when used in this way.

Actually I believe that whatever your choice of "magic" small speakers, it is possible to have your cake and eat it by effectively converting them to 3-way using the right sort of dual subs. No need for 2 sets of speakers if this is done right.
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I have scm7 v3, ls50 and p3esr right now. the ls50 is my least preffered.

I guess some prefer the p3 sound and some prefer the ls50 sound.

do you find the ls50 improved with break in?
 
Ayya Khema said:
I have scm7 v3, ls50 and p3esr right now. the ls50 is my least preffered.

I guess some prefer the p3 sound and some prefer the ls50 sound.

do you find the ls50 improved with break in?
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I myself have heard the LS50 on a number of occasions- once with electronics in the same price band as themselves and they sounded good, then heard them with the top Rega CD Player/ amp (circa £10,000) in the same room and they sounded blooming great.:cool:
 
Not mentioned yet so I thought I would say it:

Guru Juniors

Amazing speakers that can sit almost anywhere and great bass. Very limited numbers in the UK due to production issues but available in Europe (so you can get a pair if you really want to). You will not find any secondhand as those that have them will not part with them. I have had mine for over 2 years on the end of my Nait 2. Not going anywhere.

Find/listen to a pair if you can - you will not be disappointed.
 
I had the LS50 with 2 subs and it was a great combo .. problem was in my case that I have a big room and listen loud .. the LS50's dont do loud well.
The advantage of 2 subs is 2 fold, more and deeper bass , and if placed right they can actually smooth the room (toole/geddes/lejeune multiple subs)
 
Tony L said:
Much is academic anyway as the lowest note on a bass is 41.5Hz, lowest on a piano is 32Hz, so 8.5m and a good bit longer respectively, i.e. a room half that size will give a reasonable impression.
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I totally agree. Chasing that last octave is mostly a waste of time and money.
 
Small speakers are ok if you listen nearfield. In this application they give a good soundstage and imitation of bass. Move out of the nearfield and they fall to bits. Subs help, but even then they still don't scale or drive a big room adequately.

Bigger rooms generally need larger speakers.
 
badlyread said:
Not mentioned yet so I thought I would say it:

Guru Juniors

Amazing speakers that can sit almost anywhere and great bass. Very limited numbers in the UK due to production issues but available in Europe (so you can get a pair if you really want to). You will not find any secondhand as those that have them will not part with them. I have had mine for over 2 years on the end of my Nait 2. Not going anywhere.

Find/listen to a pair if you can - you will not be disappointed.
Click to expand...

There are some youtube examples of this amazing speaker. Very impressive.
 
Q - "Hi everyone. If i have a small, square 11'x 11' listening room am i doomed to have no bass? No matter whether i add a subwoofer or two? Can i never get any better bass than 50hz?"

A - "This is a common and, to some, and intuitive conclusion. The assumption is that if you can't fit a wavelength in it, the room can't support that frequency. Intuitive as it may seem, it's wrong.

I wrote an extensive article debunking this myth in a recent AudioExpress issue. Rather than going into that level of detail, let me summarize the principles and conclusions. "Sound," as detected by the ear, is the pysiological response to movement of the eardrum. For the eardrum to move in response to acoustical stimuli requires a periodic chnage in the difference in pressure on one side of the eardrum vs the other. This is germaine to your question, because what is says is simply that you need a change in pressure of a sufficient amplitude and within certain frequency limits to hear the sound.

Now, we do not "hear" wavelengths, we hear pressure variations. So, to perceive a sound, all we have to have is the pressure variations in the air in the vicinity of our ears, variations, again, of sufficient pressure and within a certain range of frequencies in order to hear something.

SO, all the loudspeaker has to do is cause those pressure variations to happen, That's it. It doesn't make ANY difference how big the room is. In fact, consider the lowly headphone> if the "intuitive" conclusion was correct, it would be impossible for headphones to have ANY information below a few thousand Hz, being that the size of the "room" they are working into is only a couple of inches in its largest dimension.

Another example of how it is possible for "bass" to exist in a very small enclosure is the Bruel & Kjaer pistonphone calibrator, used for calibratiing microphones. It has a chamber which is on the order of 3/4" in it's largest dimension, suggesting a lower limit, using your rule of thumb, of about 9000 Hz. Yet it operates quite nicely at its design frequency of 250 Hz and, in fact, can be slowed down to a few Hz. Above the frequency here simply air leaks dominate (a fraction of a Hz, the response of this "room" is essentially flat from about 5-10 Hz to about 800 kHz, where is stops working in pressure mode and starts working in various resonant exitation modes.

And that's what's happening in your 11' x 11' room. About 50 Hz is the frequency where HOW the room works changes. At and above 50 Hz, it's operating in various resonant modes. Well above 50Hz, it's essentially operating in a diffuse field mode. Below 50 Hz, it's operatring in pressure mode, down to the frequency where the room "leaks" (determined by the volume of the room and the size of the leaks).

But, most assuredly, you can have bass at and well below 50 Hz in such a room."
 
Rodney gold said:
And that's what's happening in your 11' x 11' room. About 50 Hz is the frequency where HOW the room works changes. At and above 50 Hz, it's operating in various resonant modes. Well above 50Hz, it's essentially operating in a diffuse field mode. Below 50 Hz, it's operatring in pressure mode, down to the frequency where the room "leaks" (determined by the volume of the room and the size of the leaks).

But, most assuredly, you can have bass at and well below 50 Hz in such a room."
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I agree getting a good impression of below 50Hz is easy enough, though the change in the way the room behaves has a profound impact on the way the bass sounds. No matter what you do you will never get the sound of really deep bass in a space not able to hold even the half wave. I'm sorry, but this is just simple physics. It is the key reason why a recording of something like Saint-Saens Organ Concerto or whatever never sounds anything like hearing it live in a good concert hall. Pressure-loading a room can be fun, but it is not real bass. This is obviously far more of an issue in the UK where most people live in houses with very small rooms.
 
From what I remember, the bottom ocative and half are genuinely best served by two or more very powerful active subs utilising digital crossover and room correction.

That's if you can be bothered. There are very little that i've heard that really merits it.
 
Tony L said:
I agree getting a good impression of below 50Hz is easy enough, though the change in the way the room behaves has a profound impact on the way the bass sounds. No matter what you do you will never get the sound of really deep bass in a space not able to hold even the half wave. I'm sorry, but this is just simple physics. It is the key reason why a recording of something like Saint-Saens Organ Concerto or whatever never sounds anything like hearing it live in a good concert hall. Pressure-loading a room can be fun, but it is not real bass. This is obviously far more of an issue in the UK where most people live in houses with very small rooms.
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As you say, there are 2 different types of bass:

directional ['wave bass'] from a large rig in a large space and

pressure bass which travels in from many directions equally. Works best as the room gets smaller than a typical UK size

Since hearing is designed by evolution to pinpoint food and avoid danger it's fairly clear which sounds more natural.

Most speakers don't do good bass in a room partly because they are just poor at bass. Even if they have adequately flat output measured at a low level in room they have little headroom for linear dynamics. High output bass drivers are low sensitivity, which is always unfashionable if it's a full range box. Even with extreme driver design you only gain 6-10dB extra maximum and you end up with low efficiency speakers, low mid xover, incredibly heavy and costly drivers for a manufacturer, expensive inductors etc.
 
How do you verify "good bass". I like good two way systems but my new (old) Spendor SP9/1 deliver so much more authority and volume and yes bass.

I always think that when I listen longer to a good bookshelf two-way-speaker that there is nothing I miss until I hear a speaker like the Spendor.

I only recognize the differenz, when I have the possibility to compare.
 
Cellofan said:
How do you verify "good bass". I like good two way systems but my new (old) Spendor SP9/1 deliver so much more authority and volume and yes bass.
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Good bass to me is tight and fast; starting and stopping instantly. Weight isn't much use if it overshoots and hangs about the room like a stinky fart.
 
Cellofan said:
How do you verify "good bass". I like good two way systems but my new (old) Spendor SP9/1 deliver so much more authority and volume and yes bass.

I always think that when I listen longer to a good bookshelf two-way-speaker that there is nothing I miss until I hear a speaker like the Spendor.

I only recognize the differenz, when I have the possibility to compare.
Click to expand...

Acoustically measuring your room is the first step, REW software is free.
Keith
 
James said:
Good bass to me is tight and fast; starting and stopping instantly. Weight isn't much use if it overshoots and hangs about the room like a stinky fart.
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Though it can be overdone. There is nothing more unnatural sounding than the anemic, lean, dry 'upper harmonics only' thing a lot of systems do. Real bass has a bloom, warmth and depth to it. The thing that amazes me is a good little speaker on the end of a top class amp can reproduce a surprising amount of it.
 
Most speakers than can do bass , do it well , its the room that mangles it , just moving your chair to a position of neutrality..ie not in a peak or dip will cure it..10x more effective than moving speakers

ALL rooms have bass issues , the smaller the room , the more the issues .. at the very least there is room gain at the worst huge peaks or suckouts.

There is only one effective way of smoothing the room and that is to use extensive bass trapping along with a swarm of subwoofers . Smoothing the room will get you better bass at listening position
 
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