Doing it manually allows one to decide by ear which actions are the most beneficial. Often only minor intervention is necessary.is what toole say. So in other words this all comes back to custom tuning by ear which is what ive been advocating all along.
There's a lot more bass in a 6.5" driver than most of you think
One topic of discussion I often see new audiophiles touch on is whether to get larger speakers for more bass.
I usually suggest they tune the room first, then re-evaluate. This is based on listening and measurement in several apartments I’ve lived in. Bigger speakers can be nothing but trouble if the room is not ready.
In particular, I often claim that the right room treatment can make smaller speakers behave much larger. So, to back up my claims I’d like to submit to you my recent blog post here:
https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-snr-1-room-response-and-roon.html
Look at the bass response from those little drivers! :)
I admit for a lot of listeners these speakers won’t seem as punchy as you might like, but for an apartment dweller who does 50/50 music and theater they are ideal for me. If you’d like punchy, talk to Fritz who aligns his drivers with more oomf in the bass.
I usually suggest they tune the room first, then re-evaluate. This is based on listening and measurement in several apartments I’ve lived in. Bigger speakers can be nothing but trouble if the room is not ready.
In particular, I often claim that the right room treatment can make smaller speakers behave much larger. So, to back up my claims I’d like to submit to you my recent blog post here:
https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-snr-1-room-response-and-roon.html
Look at the bass response from those little drivers! :)
I admit for a lot of listeners these speakers won’t seem as punchy as you might like, but for an apartment dweller who does 50/50 music and theater they are ideal for me. If you’d like punchy, talk to Fritz who aligns his drivers with more oomf in the bass.
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Small drivers doing bass or big drivers doing high frequency doesn’t sound like a great plan. There are better ones out there......... I’ve never said otherwise. My entire point of this thread was about room gain, and how it affects a speaker’s response. Audiophiles focusing too much on -3 dB points may not fully understand what is affecting their sound quality. |
Myself and 2 other Audiogon members have received our Purifi PTT6.5 WO4 drivers this week. Longtime coming with all the Covid delay. They look amazing ..fit and finish and unique features can hardly wait to drop them in. and they will for both Seas and Scanspeak drivers. Purifi sent along a template gasket that perfectly matches the drivers bolt pattern of the 2 brands I mentioned. All three of us have speakers from different manufacturers so the outcomes will be interesting to hear and hear about. Stay safe..Tom |
The Purif measurements here made for very interesting reading: https://hificompass.com/en/reviews/purifi-audio-ptt65w04-01a-midwoofer In particular, nice to see that IM distortion measurements for drivers is still being used to good effect, since I posted an article about this here, but also the possibility for a 3-way speaker to improve clarity by removing IM distortion, and by extension, a properly integrated subwoofer. But I hope everyone immediately stops doing 6.5" midwoofers with Mundorf AMT tweeters, tats my very own shtick. :) |
I agree, ck out the small but potebnnt 6.5 Seas magnesium mid woofer here in my system. lots of bass here in Miles Davis Kind of Blue. I still have a sub that will add ina new upcomming YT vid. Adding for classical muisc, ,But here in this jazz, the 6.5;'s offer a full rich bass. for my sized room/sub not necessary/nor needed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-viI0SYQHko&t=1s |
Hello mozartfan, I watched your YT video you attached on your post from yesterday. I liked your equipment, your choice of music tracks played and especially your cool cat Cleo. But c’mon man, your room is so bright we all need shades. I had listening fatigue by the end of your 34 minute video. I watched your video on my laptop but bypassed the computer’s inboard audio and listened via a combination of an external JDS Labs usb dac, Aune headphone amp and a pair of Sony Z7 headphones, an audio combo I would describe as accurate and detailed with a bit of warmth but never bright. I believe the brightness I heard is a result of an accurate representation of your very good system reproducing music in a substandard room. I describe your room as substandard because your room looks and sounds like it consists of 6 hard and highly sound reflective surfaces (ceiling, floor and 4 walls) with the only acoustic room treatment being a medium sized and thin rug on the floor, which apparently has no positive acoustic effect. Both of your speakers have been launching sound waves into this highly reflective and acoustically unfriendly environment/room from about 50 Hz on up, or about 27 Hz on up if you utilize the optional Merlin BAM electronic component-Bass Augmentation Module. The longer and omnidirectional bass sound waves under about 250 Hz behave much differently than the much shorter and unidirectional midrange and treble sound waves behave in your room. However, a common behavior of all sound waves is that they will continue moving at the speed of sound outward until they meet a hard and reflective room surfaced boundary such as a ceiling, floor or wall. At this point, the sound waves are redirected, bounce or are reflected off the hard surfaced boundary and continue on in this new direction until they encounter the next hard surfaced room boundary and are redirected once again. In a highly reflective room with many hard surfaced room boundaries, this process continues until the sound waves either encounter an acoustic room treatment or run out of energy. Here’s a pair of diagrams visualizing this process - just scroll down to the direct vs reflected sound diagrams on this linked page: https://www.magicoaudio.com/news/magico-news-for-fall-2019 As you can see, Magico estimates that about 80% of the sound you hear at your designated listening seat is reflected sound. Based on the brightness I heard on your video, you may be receiving even a higher percentage of reflected sound at your seat. If I was an audio doctor, I’d be admitting your room to the ICU right about now and calling your room’s next of kin. The bad news is your room is acoustically seriously ill. The good news is that your room’s not dead yet and there is a reasonably priced cure called acoustic room treatments. I suggest you visit the GIK Acoustics website linked below and request a free acoustic analysis of your room. https://www.gikacoustics.com/acoustic-advice/?gclid=CjwKCAjw2a32BRBXEiwAUcugiOIH9bLbsRdKbH7SIwJe9I9n3ltBBVZk96n6Qk1nsiH2ZK3Q58nsiRoCUTAQAvD_BwE I’m in no way associated with GIK, just a very satisfied recent customer. I find it hard to imagine how you could possibly be perceiving the high quality, wide and deep, three dimensional stereo sound stage illusion, with solid and stable images of the musicians properly arranged and portrayed realistically within it, that I know your Merlin speakers are capable of creating when precisely positioned in relation to your listening seat. I believe you’re going to be amazed at the significant and dramatic improvements that an assortment of properly positioned, high quality acoustic room treatments actually make to your room and overall system sound quality performance. Sorry about sidetracking this thread a bit but I’m certain you’ll consider this reasonably priced investment a complete bargain once you experience the exceptionally positive results it provides. Best wishes, Tim |
Right out of the box and into the cabinet these Purfi drivers are clearly better than my very nice Seas..sound as if I installed a highly articulate 10..As I type it opens up.. fun to hear and watch.. Dave G installed his today in his Merlins and has several hours on those. Maybe we will hear from him..These maybe the new king. Tom |
Some some very interesting comments here. I’ve always been a fan of multiple smaller drivers For producing bass. As a speaker builder hobbyist when I started out with lower cost drivers, one of my goals was to get quality bass from smaller drivers in a smaller cabinet. One of the most frequent comments people made when hearing them was surprise at the amount of bass volume from the smaller drivers. Yes, to get bass you need to move air, but you can do that with multiple smaller surface areas, each with their own motors. It just makes sense that the effect will be greater accuracy and definition, at least in what the drivers are producing. Once that’s in the room, a lot more comes into play, to Erik’s point. But flabby bass from the get go only gets worse in a less than friendly environment. What my experience has shown me is that my preference is sealed cabinets, with multiple smaller drivers. For me, it’s well worth the trade offs. I find that longer slope of the sealed cabinet oh so satisfying! Thanks for the original post, it seems like a topic that doesn’t get visited enough. Dave |
I use Mirage M290 two ways with 6.5 inch mid/woofers as computer speakers. They produce a good sound with a balanced frequency response, but to compare the bass from ported 6.5s to the bass from good 15" woofers loaded in 25 Hz Bill Fitzmaurice designed corner horns in my main DIY speakers would be as unfair as comparing a T Model Ford to a new Porsche Turbo S. Also the bass from the 15 inch woofers is as tight and fast as any 6.5 inch woofer I have ever heard. |
