Big speakers, are they really the best way to get great sound?

There seems to be many saying large speakers will overdrive a room which I disagree with. A room properly sorted with regards to acoustic treatment will allow any speaker to perform at its best. If a large bass driver will 'overdrive' a room then consider a string quartet pitching up at the venue but are told that the cellist must sit this one out because the room is not big enough for it. Really?

Now, everyone likes bass, not met anyone who doesn't, so the big manufacturers will pander to this and produce speakers that they claim are full range: "Yes Sir these speakers are truly full range"  but they are not told about the problems that can/will arise.

As I'm sure, most here will know that the best placement for a realistic sound stage from these FRS will not be ideal for bass and so what is one to do?

Well two things are possible and optimal results will be realised if both are employed.

@daveyf,  Before getting to that though is to find out from you what if any room  treatment you have in place. Looking through your photos I see some grey coloured panels behind the speakers which will help with mids and tops but the bass issues will need something more.

Without any bass specific treatment your room will produce peaks and nulls, all rooms do, they just do regardless of size. To keep this short, the bass frequencies are bouncing around uncontrolled and are combining sometimes in phase (peaks) and sometimes out of phase (nulls) and here lies the problem. Those peaks are the reason for one-note bass and the reason for boominess and the reason for 'slow' bass and need to be tamed.

What is happening is that the extra bass energy is taking very much longer to decay than the rest of the frequency range and the result is the 3 nuisance phenomena mentioned in the above paragraph.

If you move your speakers around you will find a position where the bass is smoother and will notice more detail and no boom in the room, but, one speaker may be in a corner and the other behind you. Not great for realistic listening.

Bass traps will absorb some bass and smooth out the sound and make a significant change. Understand that in addition to having the peaks reduced is a corresponding filling in of the nulls, nulls that work like a black hole for music. It's cancellation remember so that is music info that heretofore was missing.

Next: I did say there we two things 😎

Add at least 2 subs minimum, better 3.  Now before you guys start shouting   "He already has too much bass"  The multi-sub approach has been well documented with much on the net on how and why it works and also me lecturing you on using it as a solution. The subs will further smooth out the bass and increase the benefits of bass traps.

I strongly encourage both methods. I find it difficult to express what it brings but will finish with stating that nothing you do to your system regardless of $$$ spent will have this much effect. You are essentially removing the damage that acoustics in a small room causes and so what are you left with???  The ideal, transportation to the acoustics of the venue.

Another suggestion is temporarily drag some mattresses into the room corners and borrow from dealer or mates 2 or more subs, even small easy to hide 8" units will do. If you go this route get sealed boxes not ported and make sure they have variable phase.

@daveyf,  without you describing your room treatment I searched through your many photos and only saw those 2 grey panels which I would like to point out represent broad-band absorbers and as such do not absorb down below the Schroeder frequency so have little to no effect where the bulk of room problems lie. Also bass build up happens in the corners of any room. So the vertical floor to ceiling corners or horizontally along the ceiling/wall corners or floor to wall corners, for example fabricating a bass trap to lie horizontally behind a couch This is where bass trapping will be most effective.  It takes up much more space than broad-band absorbers unfortunately but that's what it takes to deal with those long bass wavelengths.  A 40Hz wave is 28ft. long.

If those 2 grey panels form the entirety of your room treatment then I regret to inform you that more is needed if you wish to tame the acoustic character of the room. If you have not taken a measurement of your room then you do not know what you have to deal with and this then IMO should be your first line of defense. 

How did you set up the 2 subs you have so that they help with the room modes rather than make them worse?

@jim2, That is one of the best posts I've read on this, you summed it up beautifully.

There are some manufacturers of speakers who have a model or two just below their flagship full range speakers that use the identical mid range and tweeter drivers mated to a lesser performing bottom end in a smaller enclosure and at a substantially lower price. It is these that represent the best value and mated to an intelligent application of room treatment and proper installation of subs will at lower cost outperform the flagship model for the reasons you mention. Of course the dealer with an opportunity to move his overpriced 'white elephant' might suffer from selective amnesia.

@daveyf, if you had mentioned in your OP the room treatment in place I would not have been inspired to type a long email trying to be of help.

It seems you to like to jump to conclusions about other people's systems

I did not jump to anything! The fact that I mentioned 2 grey panels should tell you that I obviously had a look at your system, not so?  I did not see this as a challenge to 'spot the hidden treatment'

As to why no photos of my system, well I do not feel the need, simple.

I post the photos below, not because of your brash comment but for the benefit of anyone interested in the start of my DIY super-chunk bass traps. They measure 900mm across the width and except for frequency specific helmholtz resonators this is what it takes to deal with the long wavelengths.

@ronboco, Hey I think you can safely call that a dedicated room 😁 Congratulations. I agree with your philosophy of getting the room properly sorted early in the quest. So many ignore or avoid even considering acoustics and end up constantly swapping out components trying to banish brightness, congestion, boom etc.

I have 2 such traps in place but measurement shows I need one more, just need to finish up some house repairs first.

@uberk, yes indeed. The salesman says:  "Sir with these top of the line speakers you will never need a subwoofer, they go down to 20Hz."  This type of comment is a result of BS baffles brain or just plain ignorance.

Get those same speakers into a room, any room, without due cognisance of room acoustics and you will have poor performance. Now place those same speakers in a properly treated room and paradoxically you will still have poor sound albeit better than no treatment. I explained this in an earlier post. The speakers will obviously be positioned where they provide a decent sound stage with good imaging but the bass source will be compromised causing peaks and nulls. Subs can be used as tuning devices where judicious placement will smooth out the low frequencies.

@phusis, your horns look impressive and I'm sure sound the same. This format is rare to see these days and probably intentionally overlooked because of their appearance and also because no retailer would be prepared to stock non-sellers. Pity. I've heard and helped with 2 systems, an Edgar Horn and an Altec VOTT and decided then that one day I would build something similar and to this end was interested in Tom Danley's design but has not happened yet.

Regarding the BBC LS3/5A monitor, it is, IMO, overpriced and over hyped. The original used a Kef B110 mid/bass with a, by today's standard, rough peaky response which required some clever application of notch filters to tame the rising impedance and poor out of band irregularities. This then needed an XO with many components which will even with the best parts suffer. Today with improved technology drivers can be found with smooth roll off extending for a few octaves beyond the chosen knee, vastly simplifying XO design and requiring fewer components resulting in a more natural and for want of a better description, an easier and more rewarding listen. To me the little squeaker, I mean speaker, sounds dynamically constipated. Apologies to all you LS3/5A junkies.

It is amazing how something like the above speaker takes on a position and reputation far beyond its merit, simply because it is so often praised even by folks who have never heard them. Crazy. There are kit speakers available for 1/3 the cost that outperform them.

@phusis , Hi, yes the Synergy Horns, never heard the real thing but a friend and I roughly assembled out of stiff cardboard a mock up and we were both seriously impressed.

Way back I got a DIY design out of either Speaker Builder magazine or Sound Practices, can't remember which. It was an Edgar horn for mids and easy to build, which was at the time considered as the reference for midrange purity.  I later helped build an Edgar horn system which is most unattractive to look at, a pile of ugly boxes but loved the sound. There were no subs at this stage unfortunately.

I firmly believe if more people heard speakers of this ilk with their effortless dynamics and convincing realism some would find a way to incorporate them into a domestic setting.