General Speaker Advice and Recommendations

It's really about listener preferences.

7050B will make 100dB _momentarily_ as the specs say. It wouldn't even begin to scratch my itch. Also one could look at the <4% distortion spec 30..85hz @ 90dB.

Compare that for example to the "small" Genelec 1032C mains, which are rated _continuous_ at 104 dB. Also <1% distortion at 50..100hz @ 90dB. For me this is the minimum speaker performance I could live with. When I was testing those, I could quite easily hit limiter with bass heavy material, SPL meter was (not surprisingly) around 104dB(C). Genelec has specs you can trust. That's the perfect volume for rocking out sometimes, I don't consider it excessive at all. The extra headroom doesn't hurt listening quieter either.

PS. Both genelec demo and my room are smallish <30m2, max ~2m listening distance. I don't think smaller rooms would make any difference for requirements. Much larger rooms would. Bass is pretty much always the limiting factor.

 

Bigger subwoofers works better than smaller ones if you can place them correctly. That said, if you can place 4 smaller subwoofers you will have a lot better, even bass than with one big one.
Bigger surface, less movement = cleaner bass. Not big fan of big excursion woofers.

 

Makes sense. I'm about 1.5m away and I listen pretty low. I doubt I'm even close to 90dB.

 

Yeah my 4 subs save me in this horrible concrete basement. With mains only there's a nice 10db dip at 45-75hz.. this is a common problem, makes no difference how big mains you have, it can end up sounding very thin..

Basically put the 4 subs all around the room where they could fit... ended up pretty good with 15-75hz crossover.. might try a bit higher.



Here's adding up each one by one...



PS. <0.2% distortion down to 20hz @ 90dB.

 

I think I listen really low. Did a lab in acoustics, turned up my music to a tiny bit higher than my normal volume, put my hd6xxs on the dummy head, read out around 75db.

 

75dB(A) might show 90dB(C) if listening to "untz untz"... so it depends on material... and spl... just listening to singing at 75 is decend volume. I should meter my wife shouting sometimes..

 

I guess I've been assuming bigger = more spl required not just available. Like they won't perform well at low listening levels.

 

I was listening to 21st century schitzoid man, so plenty of midrange that won't be killed by dBa compensation

 

Yessim. What would you like to know? I’ve actually owned two different speakers with 15” woofers. One was the Beyma 15lx60v2 and the other are the current woofers in my current JBL 4367, a slightly modified version of the 2216nd, the same used in the M2 master reference. It goes without saying that these drivers are capable of extreme power handling and spl levels.

 

All this talk of large woofers is cool and all, but I’m sitting here right now in my small room with a big grin on my face, shaking my head at what the little guys on the stands are doing...



Temple of the Dog at ~89dB avg (me sitting mid-field), which is about as loud as I would want it (and the sub putting out about as much bass as my wife would prefer). Probably wouldn’t hold up in my living room, but here this is tons. The room is also a basement with concrete walls, that are untreated (for the moment). Big bombastic bass is not on the menu, but these speakers are doing some amazing shit I’ve never heard before with any other speakers. Bass isn’t only thing you need for great sound.

 

My comment about "responsiveness" was more about handling the upper end of a woofer's frequency band than mid-bass/sub-bass (I need to avoid such vague statements). I'm not a physicist or acoustic engineer, but with few exceptions there's a clear relationship between driver surface area and ideal frequency range application (or we'd have full range drivers and nothing else). It stands to reason then that as a driver's size increases its suitability to reproduce the lower midrange typically required of woofer duty (particularly in a 2-way setup, as @Psalmanazar pointed out) diminishes.

Granted, I don't have much experience with woofers in excess of 12" outside of concert venues, but in my own experience even the 10" woofer in the Dynaudio BM15 (crossed over at 2700Hz) was considerably slower and muddier in the lower midrange than the 6" woofers in either the BM5A MkII or M1. Bigger is certainly better down low but I think where midrange demands are concerned huge drivers are at a disadvantage. That's what 3-ways are for of course, but up goes the complexity and price.

Well that's good, I hate missing out on penis points.

Whether or not any of the above is actually helpful though is situational. True - it's not fair to discount efficiency, especially where it concerns tube amps. But for anyone like me running a 100+ wpc amp for moderate level music listening in a small room, distortion is a non-issue. The SPL required for a halfway decent 12" woofer to start breaking up and distorting is way beyond my listening levels.

Extension I will give you, for sure. But then again (Michael Bay booms aside) the percentage of music with sub-30Hz content is pretty slim.

This is sadly a big factor; I nearly bought a pair of EV 16" LF cabinets awhile back until I realized I physically couldn't fit them in my space. Oh well.

I'm not making an argument for tiny woofer bass here, just that those of us listening to music in an oversized closet might not have much to gain from 16" that we can't get from 12".

This might also be my subconscious working to prevent me from spending more money on speakers.

 

@purr1n To be fair I don't currently own anything with bigger than 12'' woofers.
Nevertheless, there is chivalry in my bones to defend the honor of 15'' and 18'' high eff paper woofers.
I have played around enough with speakers using those.

 

If I'm trying to horn load a 32" driver, I think that requires building an antechamber underneath the basement...

 

You're still thinking inside the box. They're is no box.

Design the house around the horn, not the other way round.

 

I realized a while ago that moving mass per surface area is probably what matters more than moving mass itself. I hate it when people say that 8" woofers are lighter than 15" ones and thus more responsive. When you have 4 of them for the same surface area, the total moving mass will often be higher than the 15" woofer! In that regard 15" drivers are often the best compromise - bigger drivers get heavier and smaller "audiophile" woofers are often heavier too. Obviously magnets and suspension matter too, but I made a spreadsheet for Mms/Sd a while ago with values for a few drivers calculated from their specsheets. I also calculated a few new values for newer drivers now.

Some examples (in g/m²):

Spoiler: Long List

Eminence Omega Pro-18A
1161.02

Eminence Beta 15A
728.42

Eminence Beta 8A
761.90

Eminence Beta 6A
846.81


Accuton AS250-8-552 Cell woofer
2408.38

Accuton S280-6-282 woofer
1531.86

Accuton C173-6-090 midrange
1127.82

Accuton C50-8-044 2" tweeter
500

Accuton C25-6-158 Cell tweeter
471.38

Accuton BD25-6-258 Cell diamond tweeter
508.47


Seas Prestige A26RE4 (H1411) from A26 kit
1068.57

Seas Excel E0026-08S W26FX001 Al/Mg
1706.06

Seas JA8008-HMQ Troels
818.18


Scan-Speak
Ellipticor 21WE/8542T00
1201.72

12MU/8731T00
810.34

10F/8424G00
769.44


SB Satori MW19P-8
1031.65

SB Satori WO24P-8
1745.10

SB42FHCL75-6 15" woofer
1952.94


18Sound 21LW1400 21" woofer
1780.99

Two woofers Troels seemed to like:
AT 10C77-20-10 KA
1451.82

BMS 10N630
2550.20


Lowther PM6C 8" widebanders
423.81

Fostex FE208EZ Sigma
661.69

Viawave GRT145 sealed ribbon
25.71

I do believe that up to a certain point lower moving mass is better all things being equal, but all things are never equal.
I actually expected the tweeters to be heavier due to their big voice coils compared to other drivers, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

Like this guy?
http://curiousphotos.blogspot.com/2009/12/biggest-subwoofer-in-world.html

 

Dang. I wonder what kind of delay he needs to put between his subs and his tweeter.

 

A useful reference:

How to Build a Small Budget Recording Studio - F. Alton Everest and Mike Shea
Chapter 4, pg44 ~ 56, residential

The advice also applies to listening rooms but provides information on advanced topics.

Consider wavelength = C / frequency where C = (1.106 * Temp deg F) + 1052 feet.
20 Hz has a wavelength of 56 feet.

More considerations:
1. room modes (look for a calculator for basic information)
2. first reflections (ETC curve will help find these)
3. materials in room (absorption and reflection)

 

This is a start:
amroc - THE Room Mode Calculator
Room Modes - Standing Waves - Calculator
Room coustics for home audio