Are the Best Speakers the Big Ones?

Early B.

It seems to me the speakers that are said to be the best ones are almost always massive in size. The Wilsons come to mind. So do the Carver Amazings and Polk SDA's/SRT's on the lower end of the affordability spectrum. Then there are the huge planars and ribbons, line arrays, and those speakers with the big **** horns on 'em.

Of course, to make them sound their best, you gotta have a large, acoustically treated room for them, invest heavily in components and associated gear, etc...

OK, but back to the original question -- are the best speakers generally the bigger ones? If so, is it because size matters in order to throw a massive soundstage? And is the ability to throw a massive soundstage the real magic behind a pair of great speakers?

Thanks.

Shizelbs

I think, in general, anytime you have a speaker that uses a particular technology, crossover, tweeter/woofer arrangement, enclosure, making it bigger and adding larger drivers is usually going to make for a better speaker.

So, I would say there is a trend that strongly correlates as to a speaker's particular value/performance, but as we all know a great bookshelve can outperform a lousy big **** floorstander.

dkg999

I think one of the advantages of big speakers is the huge soundstage they produce, and with the big soundstage comes music you feel as much as hear. On the other hand, I think many smaller monitors and floorstanders need a lot of work with placement and room treatments to sound their best. A big set of speakers, even poorly placed in the room still throws the big soundstage. My Magnepan 1.6's are somewhat of an example, they are currently crammed in a small space with lots of furniture, however they still throw a huge soundstage that overcomes a lot of the placement issues in my living room.

dkg999

Didn't I see a bumper sticker that said "he (or she!) who dies with the biggest speakers wins"

DarqueKnight

Early B. wrote:

OK, but back to the original question -- are the best speakers generally the bigger ones?

Absolutely.

Early B. wrote:

If so, is it because size matters in order to throw a massive soundstage?

Larger speaker = more radiating surface = more air being moved = more realism, lifesize or closer to lifesize images, and more sonic impact.

Early B. wrote:

And is the ability to throw a massive soundstage the real magic behind a pair of great speakers?

What? Are you building a case for replacing the newly acquired VMPS Tower II SE's?

Anyway, to answer your question, I think the real magic for any pair of speakers, regardless of size, is how accurately they reproduce the signal that is fed to them.

F1nut

The better "big" speakers have a presence that I've yet to hear from any bookshelf.

Dennis Gardner

Alot of the reasoning behind large speakers being the choice of many, is simply that they convey the full range of music without the need for processing, external subs, etc. You hear less of the box resonating and more of the drivers, especially in the lowest registers.

pearsall001

"It's not the size that matters, it's all in the performance" So said an old girl friend of mine. The same holds true as far as speakers go. I've heard big speakers sound bad & small speakers sound bad. Then again I've heard big speakers that sounded good & small speakers that sounded "BIG" & good. As a general rule of thumb a big speaker should have a better bass presentation. But that is hardly the case. I'm more impressed with a monitor that can bring it big time & hang with the big boys & chew 'em up & spit "em out. I believe it takes more know how to design & develope a world class monitor then it does to produce a "Big" speaker that sounds good. With all that being said, the Wilson Alexandria's that I listened to at Overture in Delaware were pretty darn good. For $135,000 they sure better be. I'll still stick with my monitors!!

hearingimpared

I've always been enamored with big tower speakers. I loved the old RTR towers, I loved the old magies, the Infinities of the 70s & 80s, and I certainly love(d) the big SDA/SRSs. However, when you get your ears on a really well designed bookshelf or monitor that can fill the room smoothly, create a detailed audio image, and produce a tight bass response even if you have to play around with placement and room treatment. . . you've really got something there. I am referring of course to Phil's AAD 2001s. I never heard a bookshelf/monitor fill a room and throw out a soundstage like these do.

Midnite Mick

When you say big speaker are we talking big cabinets with many drivers or are we talking bigger drivers?

Mike

hearingimpared

Midnite Mick wrote:

When you say big speaker are we talking big cabinets with many drivers or are we talking bigger drivers?

Mike

Not necessarily big cabinets, the old RTRs had narrow towers with 10 and 12 inch woofers. Two woofers one towards the bottom and one over top of the two electrostatic tweeters and cone midranges.

Early B.

DarqueKnight wrote:

What? Are you building a case for replacing the newly acquired VMPS Tower II SE's?

Ha, ha. Hell, no. The VMPS' are already too damn big!!:eek:

Maybe part of the answer to my question lies in the fact that people who can afford to spend lots of money on speakers want big speakers, not a small one, and have the space, etc. to meet the demands for their size. Sort of like houses -- if you have lots of money, are you gonna buy a 1,500 s.f. house or a 15,000 s.f. one?

Maybe the Polk Forum's new slogan ought to be, "Go big or go Bose.":p

dudeinaroom

dkg999 wrote:

Didn't I see a bumper sticker that said "he (or she!) who dies with the biggest speakers wins"

I can make one for ya. Would cost about $5.00 if you really want one. I could also customize it to have you speakers in the back ground

amulford

You can get a small monitor to kick your ****. I had it happen to me, but it was a in a small room, and they were 8" 2 way designs.

The bigger speakers have more ****. No way around it. A sage man once said "There is no substitute for radiating surface area and a real man's amp."

Music is an involving, almost guttural, experience for me. My signature, for me, is the truth...

PolkWannabie

I'd like nothing better than a speaker that sounded like it was 6' tall 2' wide and deep and weighed 500 pounds ( Like a Dunlavy VI ) that actually came in a 2" x 2" cube ... but somehow this doesn't seem feasible ...

hearingimpared

amulford wrote:

You can get a small monitor to kick your ****. I had it happen to me, but it was a in a small room, and they were 8" 2 way designs.

The bigger speakers have more ****. No way around it. A sage man once said "There is no substitute for radiating surface area and a real man's amp."

Music is an involving, almost guttural, experience for me. My signature, for me, is the truth...

Phil's AAD 2001 monitors are in a 34 x 13 room and I can tell you they fill up that loooooong space.

joeparaski

I think a speaker should be visually appealling according to the room it's in. If you have a small room, then a pair of big SRS would look silly in there, bookshelfs would be the better choice.

Conversely, if you have a large basement, with teeny weenie speakers next to your 60" screen, then ThAT would look silly.

Joe

Early B.

amulford wrote:

"There is no substitute for radiating surface area and a real man's amp."

I've read this statement a hundred times. Now I get it.

BlueMDPicker

I spend a lot of time listening 30+ feet, and several feet off axis, from my Revel Ultima Gems/Sub-15. That's where my work laptop sits. This same space (22'x38' with ceilings sloping from 10' to 18' and huge open areas to the side) has seen Maggie MG Is, SDA-2Bs, Cain & Cain Abbeys, SDA SRS, and RTA-12Cs. None of the former occupants could throw a dynamic, crystal clear, full frequency soundstage like the Gems and Sub-15. The only thing that came close was the SDA SRS. Of course, I have the LE-1 sub amp/crossover network in the mix with these stand-mounted "bookshelves" and sub. The bass control and extension puts the SDA SRS to shame--and, they sounded pretty damn good.

To me it's all about the speaker design, system integration, and room characteristics. Sure a larger radiating surface will displace more air. But, from my experiences in my space, the larger arrays have had fairly serious cabinet resonance and time alignment issues.

Another interesting observation has been what's heard in other areas of the house. When the crew is gone, I often crank it up and go take a shower upstairs. With the Gems, I hear detailed music--50 feet away on another level. With the big box speakers I heard a lot of bass resonance and little detail or clarity.

Joey_V

Size does matter.

For me and my electrostatic tastes, the larger the stat panel, the better the sound because it can technically do away with the lower crossover. However, in my case, the larger the panel, the more difficult the room integration will be.

Double edged sword? Yes indeed. Not to mention WAF, er GAF.

Joey

ledhed

The biggest factor is the way a sound wave is presented. It is, essentially in a dumbed down, easy to wrap your head around, version,compressed air. The wave would look something like so... llll lll l ll llll llllll l llll lll.... so, the size of the line = the size of the cone lets say this point 2 font is a 6" woofer. Now for a 12" woofer... llll lll l ll llll llllll l llll lll Larger waves would make biger sound, larger sweet spot and wider sound stage no?


Of course, I could be way off base depending on if my Physics teacher knew her stuff

EDIT: Also, this is only at the cone. The waves get bigger and bigger and propagate onto infinity but, the larger woofer yields larger waves sooner.

VR3

I dunno...

The only large speakers that have really blown me away are the Wilson X1 and the JM Lab Grande Utopia...

I've heard the 1.2TL, the 2.3(TL I presume) and every time I'm just not wanting to listen, something about the sound they produce doesn't appeal to me.

At Polkfest, my favorite speaker by far was the LSi9, it didn't have the best staging - but it presented far better detail and clarity to me... but it still wasn't enough detail and clarity where I want to be...

But, someone above was comparing 6.5 to 12 inch drivers, gotta remember - there are not to many ocasions left where a 12" woofer is better than a smaller midwoofer, when you figure in a 12" woofer just isn't as fast as a 6.5 for mids - while it may not throw off as large of a sound, the 12" woofer may become so disoriented at louder volumes due to all the info its doing, it really wouldnt matter about its size...

I think Polk kind of knew this before every once else, they always used multiple upon multiple 6.5" drivers... and now you see 2, 3, 4 or so midbasses per speaker now in some ocasions - which really is enough.

But I think it all comes with what you want too, I want good staging, but to me staging isn't as important as say... detail, clarity, texture - I don't think staging should suck or anything, I want seperation, good width, lots of depth, height - but I don't exactly want SDA width, depth, height...

Early B.

I'm gonna post some more thoughts on this issue from a different perspective in another thread 'cause I don't wanna hijack this one...

zombie boy 2000

At least one thing a smaller speaker has over its larger bretheren is its ability to utterly disappear if done right....

steveinaz

DarqueKnight wrote:

Absolutely.
Larger speaker = more radiating surface = more air being moved = more realism, lifesize or closer to lifesize images, and more sonic impact.

Anyway, to answer your question, I think the real magic for any pair of speakers, regardless of size, is how accurately they reproduce the signal that is fed to them.

Exactly. Scale is very important to create a realistic soundstage. I've tried to go the bookshelf route a number of times; I always came back to floor standers.

Early B.

zombie boy 2000 wrote:

At least one thing a smaller speaker has over its larger bretheren is its ability to utterly disappear if done right....

I see no reason why a big speaker can't utterly disappear in a large room when properly set up.

amulford

It can. I have my CA's set up in a rather small room for their given size. When you close your eyes, they sonically dissappear.

hoosier21

The largest speaker is usually the mfg "flagship" speaker, so it should be the best sounding speaker in the line, the smaller models would be "scaled down" versions of the flagship model.

This is not always the case, but it usually is.

zombie boy 2000

I didn't say larger speakers can't.... it just takes a bit more TLC and at the end of the day, that might not be enough.

Just an advantage.... not a black/white issue.

PolkWannabie

joeparaski wrote:

I think a speaker should be visually appealling according to the room it's in. If you have a small room, then a pair of big SRS would look silly in there, bookshelfs would be the better choice.

Function before fashion ... WAF be damned ...

Early B.

hoosier21 wrote:

The largest speaker is usually the mfg "flagship" speaker, so it should be the best sounding speaker in the line, the smaller models would be "scaled down" versions of the flagship model.

Good point.