Can you have too much speaker presence?

newbee

4,556 posts

07-16-2023 at 05:34pm 

FWIW when I have seen the word 'presence' it has been referring to the mid/upper mid range. 

I was recently watching A British Audiophile's youtube channel. He referred to the "presence region" as being between 2k - 4k. 

Buy the biggest speaker you can  afford.......very rarely does a bookshelf give you the "full" presentation that a Floorstander will give you. You'll get lower bass....equally nice mids.....equally great highs and be able to play them enjoyably at lower volume levels And enjoy them at Higher volume levels without going into distortion. The bigger the better. Good luck in your search.

Stereophile's definition: 

“presence A quality of realism and aliveness. 

presence range The lower-treble part of the audio spectrum, approximately 1-3kHz, which contributes to presence in reproduced sound.”

As I currently have a post about looking at New or Used speakers,it's interesting this post came up. I had a small second room set up  13x13" give or take and a pair of Aria948 Focals, with nice electronics. Too much bass, no matter what I tried. I eventually spoke with FRITZ,  and bought a pair of Bookshelfs,  Fritz Carbon 7's SE model, and have been floored  by the Sound!! (Complimented by SVS SB 3000 sub) WHAT a difference, one of the posts I think addressed this.  Clarity, punch, so revealing and impactful, compared to the Focals. I'm sure most of it was room related. Just adding my 2 cents. Thanks for the above posts. Robert TN

I think that different speakers sound differently and that your own desires, not mine or your dealers, should drive what you buy. 

Think critically about the music you listen to and the volume you like to listen at, then listen like that.

Don't make the mistake of playing the speakers at full volume at the dealer if that's not how you will drive them at home. Like driving a mini van at 100 MPH to see how it handles. :D