Speaker size and soundstage


Question: for floor standing speakers, how does speaker size affect sound stage, bass response, and the depth of music?

I’m searching for a new speaker, and just tested Dynaudio Contour 30 against Tekton Electrons (16x18 room with cathedral ceiling). Tekton’s are bigger (48 vs 45 high, and 10 vs 8.5 wide, about the same depth) and had a much larger sound stage and greater dynamics and depth. Tekton’s as a rule are much bigger than most other brands, which can be imposing in a room, but the size must equate to a greater sound stage. 
But can a smaller tower be designed to achieve the same sound stage and bass depth of a bigger speaker? If so, what what speakers pull this off?
w123ale

Showing 9 responses by mozartfan

Wouldn't the end goal of loudspeaker design be to get as small as possible?
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This is the new science, The New 21wst C speaker is a lotttt smaller , much less weight vs the old models and is far superior in soundstage/fidelity. 
My Seas W18E001  are housed in a  Thor cabinet,  weighing like 60 lbs, I could easily build a  cabinet from snaded plya from HD and build a  cabinet that weighs ,,ohh say, 25 lbs, sound is equal. 
The new speakers in the future will be much smaller in size, weight and price. 
Many times a simple two way monitor will offer a superior and huge image


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Size again does not matter. 
Huge speakers always, always lose out vs a  high quality 2 way,. Take a  Seas W22 Graphene with Mundorf;'s SESGO caps + a  massive Gertz copper coil and add a  Voxativ  8 inch model. maybe add a  tweeter horn or a  AMT Neo tweeter and you havea  speaker that weighs less than 50 lbs and  blows away any speaker 10X;s its size.
Size  of speaker  has absoluetly  nothing whatsoever to do with huge massive gigantic sound stage, Sensitivity makes sound stage. 

knotscott
90 posts06-06-2021 5:39amSound stage has more to do with phasing, crossover points, driver dispersion, driver placement, and the shape and size of t


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Soundstage is defined by the sensitivity of the speaker and quality of materials used in construction (= engineering) of the speaker.
These 2 factors will determine soundstage.
Since the magic of imaging resides in low level fine detail it stands to reason the low sensitivity speaker is other things being equal at a disadvantag

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**Low level fine details**
Yes
The nunances and subtilities spread throughout most classical music, require a  high sensitivity speaker to voice these low level, quite often smothered over by blaring brass section. 
THe higher sensitivity you go, the superior the soundstage and imaging. 
These 2 are the same. 
Lets not split hairs,

2 subs
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Subs can not produce high fidelity, Subs are for HT effects,  useage ONLY, Not for music.
Since the audio comes out of the speakers, many seem to think they control everything

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Some of us here do believe Spaekers reign as The Kings in our system,. Power = power. 
cd player = DAC
Phone gets a tad edge vs CDP, Not much. 
Speakers rule
 The Crown Jewels

I have a  4 inch clone on the Lowther/Fostex design. 
Its ok, nothing great, at a  miserable 91db. I us it for low mids-low highs,  
Although a  tiny 4 inch cone, this lil driver puts out huge massive soundstage that will blow you away in near field/small room acoustics. .
 = Size does not matter, 
db sensitivity is all that matters, 
db sens is the Holy Grail in speaker design. 
This lil fullrange will match the masssive 300 lb Wilson speakers in midrange soundstage. 
Size is not materail, Efficiency is all that matters. In mids/highs, Bass is different. 

andy2
1,365 posts
06-16-2021 6:46pm
In general the bigger the speakers the bigger the soundstage.

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Cavat
The bigger the speaker = more likely to be LOUDER vs a 4 inch FR in midarnge, but certainly more likely to have distortion, fatigue.
WE are not after huge massive wide soundstage via high db/loudness.
Not at all. We are all after the delicate nuances hidden within all music and produced ona  level that  sparkles with fidelity/clarity. 
This can only be achieved via high quality full range.
Due to its super sensitivity. 
All speakers under say 92db may produce a  huge loud sound stage, but most assuredly will lack the fidelity we all demand. 
Big speakers, heavy speakers have never impressed me. Back then, nor now. 


redwoodaudio
274 posts
06-05-2021 8:39pm
Overall size of the soundstage, specificity/precision of the soundstage, dimensionality of the soundstage, scale of the soundstage are, in my experience, distinct and dependent on multiple variables including electronics, isolation, noise, room, speakers, etc.  The only one I’ve found to correlate with size of the speakers/drivers is soundstage scale (eg. musicians and instruments sounding larger or smaller).


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WEll yes, my system ina  room 2x's the size i have , 10x12 8 ft ceiling, would most likely grant the soundtage air to breathe, more open *larger stage*. 
Which is why I listen very near field and preamp vol never more than 9 oclock.
So yeah, like the only other way to grant larger sound stahe either small, mid or  extra large size rooms is via the best option, Yeah you know its comming, thats all I talk about these days is <<Sensitivity> 
You just KNEW it was  a comming.
Every time I notched up the sens values on the full range, (tried 4 cheap chinese FR's) each offered a  different soundstage size.
The lower the distortion = the sweeter the soundstage = more open.
Right now i am using the DavidLouis 4 incher as low mids= low highs. Its not bad, = you get what you pay for. 
= You are not going to get Voxativ quality ina  chinese clone at $200/pair, Not going to happen.
Livable? 
eh, maybe, I mean fatigue free for the most part. Sure beats all the other chinese FR and the Seas Millennium tweeter at $700/pair, thats for sure.
Its was a  a nice lil  experiementation in testing dif FR , I have no plans to ck out other chinese made FR, 
I'm going after the 
*Real Deal*
No not AER, out my budget, as the Thor upgrades  broke my budget at $1400.
The other *Real Deal*
Won;'t mention lab, as *best kept secret* til time comes when I upload  a  YT vid for you guys. 
It will be a  3 way.
Seas W18E001/dual+
Mystery driver+
Magnovox 1963 tweeter horn,
 which may be the best tweeter ever invented. = New is not alwasy better. 
If the mystery speaker performs highs with minimal roll off, I'll take out my fav Magnovox (pulled from Richard Gray's stash room collected over the past decades)  as being un-needed. 
Bottom line = higher you sgo up the sens scale = larger will be soundstage  in whatever size room you have.
Now why is this?
I know the answer only by experiementing with different sens speakers past few months. 
Everyone should buya  cheap FR chinese speaker and test in their system. DavidLouis has many options. Then you can list it on ebay at a  40% reduction. At least now you can compare to what you have. 
Now you can determine which FR on the high end you  can afford. 

corelli
689 posts
06-05-2021 8:30am
Speaker size has a lot to do with bass response

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I mean if you are running 12 or 15 inch woofers well then of course you will get rock solid bass, But I expect upper bass is not very musical, 
So witha  single SEas Graphene Excel W22 in a  24x24x12 inch cabinet you can get all the musical bass you need, close to sub bass effect. 
So true and not true about size cab makes all the difference.