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Speaker size and bass

I have a finding and would like to hear what you think.

I always have been using floor speakers in my room thinking the bigger the speaker, the more bass it can produce.  I think this is true based on the physics.  However, I found out a “problem”, that is the listening volume.  
My listening area is 18’ wide x 12’ depth.  It is the listening room, so, I can’t play the music too loud otherwise my wife complaints.  Also, I listen to Jazz and Bossa, doesn’t need to be loud.  It seems that at low volume, it can’t bring out the bass of the drivers.  But if I turn it up, it will be too loud for me.  I think that make sense, the bigger the driver, the louder it gets.

So, when considering the appropriate size of the speakers, besides the room size, is the listening level also a consideration?  That means, for a smaller speaker, is that I can turn the volume knob more, and that will output more power to move the driver more to produce the bass, and yet it will not be too loud?


gte357s

Showing 1 response by steakster

steakster
1,998 posts
 
In other words, having bigger speaker doesn’t really help much in giving more or better bass, because we are constraint by the volume.

Perhaps, a re-phrasing. The challenge is get all of the sound waves to arrive at the listening chair - at the same time - in a coherent manner. Since LF sound waves propagate very differently than HF sound waves, the results will be different for every room - and where the listening chair is located within the room. (Depending on the Hz, bass waves can be anywhere from 10-30 feet long.) That’s why peaks & nulls will be revealed when walking around a room.

At a concert at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, I was sitting 10 rows in front of the bass player - slightly off center - stage left. I didn’t hear any bass notes. Nothing! Was his electric guitar even plugged in? I walked over to the mixing board 20 rows back - center, the bass was full and pounding away.

Some manufacturers (eg: Vandersteen) are now putting amplifiers on woofers in their floor-standers to help with integration. Long ago, I decided that 2 large monitors with multiple powered subs worked best for me - in my room. This allowed for fine tuning the integration - arrival time at the listening chair.


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