What are the specs of a full range speaker?


I've noticed that this term is used pretty loosely around here and I'm wondering what you think of when you read it in an ad. What does "full range speaker" really mean? Is it 20Hz to 20 Khz? I've always considered it to mean a speaker that reaches down into the 30s with some weight. What's your interpretation?
macrojack
Yikes. The more I read, the worse I feel. I must be jumping in the snake pit to get away from the snakes. The picture I had in my mind indicated much smoother sailing than what you guys are proposing. Maybe I'll get lucky about the bass in my room. It's pretty good now with an outboard sub (also ZU) but there are definitely places in the room where the bass is more pronounced. It's especially good at my desk down the hall in the bedroom about 50 feet away from the speakers.
There's always Zu's return policy to fall back on but this project is clearly going to cost something no matter how it plays out.
Great one Dave.

Getting off topic again with real versus canned, I have to rejoin. I have attended orchestral performances from coast to coast. I sat in a Carnegie Hall balcony with Henry Ho, builder of my amps.

Yet, I can still be brought to tears by great recordings unfolding between my speakers, such works as Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade. Between full orchestra crescendos, Anshel Brusilow plays sensitive plaintive violin solos. I have to brush by a tear every time.

You can bet Henry and I were taking notes at Carnegie Hall. A smile on both our faces told all. I truthfully can say, I FEEL no difference, whether I am home or at famous performance halls.

Macrojack,

Others have answered your question very well and better than I could.

"Small" can be of the order of a few feet at low frequencies.

As Dave points out above, a small amount of EQ (Behringer, Rane, Rives Parc or other PEQ) can help smooth out LF bumps but cannot be used to eliminate nulls (if it aint there it ain't there and besides it is risky to apply boost as this may cause your amp to clip and damage your speakers). A PEQ should always be used sparingly and is probably best avoided above 100 HZ (use shelving functions at most and stay well away from very narrow filters above 100 HZ).

Room design, speaker placement and room treatment are preferable to EQ because this helps with the root cause. These can improve the sweet spot size and will reduce overall reverb levels (delayed vibrations). The reverberations are unlikely to be much improved by an EQ as it reduces the primary signal but has no affect on the relative size of primary signal to reflected energy.

Good luck with setting up your new speakers. Like a Ferrari, speakers with highly accurate extended LF response need careful attention and setup or they may not perform to expectation. Speakers with a smooth LF roll off are easier to handle but, have no doubts, an accurate full range speaker will perfom best under the right conditions.
Macrojack, FWIW, as I have no experience with Zu's, what Zu is offering is probably an excellent solution to providing really deep bass in a meaningful way. A parametric equalizer will go a long way towards solving speaker and room integration.

However (and you knew there was a however coming :-)) whether your room can support this type of bass is one issue and whether your sources/components can withstand the distortions that the additional sound pressure created by this kind of bass can produce is another.

A third issue to consider is that typically an equalizer can be very effective in lopping off the peaks of nodes but isn't nearly as effective in raising the level of the nulls to 'flat' without doing some damage to the sounds of the neighboring frequencies and soaking up a lot of the power available from the amp. That is usually determined by the design of the equalizer, the amount of correction needed and the power available from the amp.

Have you mapped out your room and determined its nodes and nulls and how they will effect the sound at the listening position and where the speakers will be positioned for best sonic results considering the upper frequencies which are determinitive of things like sound staging, balance, and good tonal integration? There frequently is a fair amount of difference between good bass requirements and the requirements of the upper frequencies. Most folks end up with some sort of compromise.

If you haven't worked all this out in advance don't be surprised if you not only don't get a 'big improvement' - you might not even break even.

JMHO - YMMV.
Macrojack

Room anomalies take place in all rooms, and with all speaker systems. The room and the speaker system are an equal partner and must be made to sing together...in harmony.

Room modes are "modal" or "non-modal" peaks and dips. Modal are room related and non-modal are speaker/seating related...ie, caused by speaker placement or seating placement in relation to room boundaries.

Modal...room treatments can help smooth these peaks and dips out a bit...a small amount of EQing can bring down some of the peaks even more. You can not EQ out a large dip (null) in freq response...move the speakers and or listening position a bit if non-modal...move around or add more room treatments as needed if the problem is modal....could be also a combo of both.

If your the conductor of a large orchestra trying to get all the sections to sing together...in harmony, and the bass instruments just won't cooperate for several reasons...Do you blame them and:

1. Get rid of them and declare the music sounds better without them anyway.

2. find out what the heck the problem is and come up with the fix.

I think some people go with #1

Dave
Dan,
The Definitions have internal amplification for the onboard subs. These have an adjustable gain control on the back of the cabinet. Zu also makes (but doesn't publicize) the Definition Pro which has heavier duty professional grade woofers and requires Bi-amplification. With this arrangement they sell you a RANE PEQ 55 digital parametric equalizer to tailor the response from 40 hz down to 16 hz. This is what I have on order. The difference in price between my old speakers and these new ones is such that I am looking for a big improvement.
I have a friend who has subwoofers mated to ribbon speakers in a small, very irregular room. He uses TacT, where he can read all the frequency curves reaching the single seat sweet spot. There were big dips in the upper bass area. By some repositioning and equalizing through TacT he managed to straighten things out.

Now his play back is more than reasonably flat through 25Hz, with subwoofer in place.
I think Shadorne is referring to equalization in the service of room correction. Which would apply as well to subwoofer equalization a la Velodyne or Vandy 5A. Do the Definitions have user-adjustable equalization?
Shadorne-
Your response concerning room anomalies provides specifics where I previously had only general awareness about these problems. 10 to 20 db is a lot of variation. When you say that room equalization is limited to a small sweet spot I wonder if you mean a pinpoint or a zone across the room being localized front to back.
I currently own a pair of speakers that reach down only to about 38 Hz. They are sold and I'm awaiting a new pair with deep bass capability that is equalized. After reading your comments I'm very curious to see whether or not I wasted a lot of money.
Does anyone here have equalized bass in their speakers and what have you found? Also what are your room dimensions?
I just have to be fooled, as you say, to feel sublimely satisfied.
I ought be the first person to offer miles of leeway (sp?) for that one. I like to say that if our perspectives are delusional, why shouldn't they at least be fulfilling? Unfortunately, I'm not always so good at keeping the cynicism at bay.

Thanks for the invite. We're in pretty heavy with our business stuff, but I may have time later in the week.
Hi Boa, how are you doing? You have a phone message.

There are no two piano makes that sound the same either. I have no idea what transposes in the studio, when I listen to a cut. There are recordings that are pretty darn good. I just have to be fooled, as you say, to feel sublimely satisfied.

I have one particular Royer ribbon microphone disc that, for sake of fidelity, does their best to minimize all the crap you list above.

I'm now in the process of trying new front ends. I hope you can find a bit of time to critique.
Newbee, In the distance was all any amp could do in the 80s. The point is, the instant visualization was for a person playing a grand, although at some distance.

I hear you on the, "Lot of 'vibrations' going on with a live piano." That is the magic I am finding with the amps, preamps, and front end I am using. The sympathetic second, third an on harmonics, reverberations from the piano's surfaces, and nearby walls all add to the realness factor.

A next door neighbor asked me if I had a piano in the house, or could it be my stereo. I just answered yes.

Are you in the Bay area now?
My best friend just finished a feature film, and he was present when the Seattle Symphony recorded the score. In the church where they recorded, the composer and sound engineers set up a playback system identical to the one in the studio (which I heard on a recent trip to LA), so they could hear the recording immediately after each piece was played. Back and forth they went, live symphony to recorded symphony, for nearly a week. Very quickly, he said, the difference between live and recorded was so dramatic that the two sounded completely unrelated to one another, irrespective of whether they listened to the playback via the speakers or headphones. Didn't matter. Go to a studio and listen to the musicians play, and then listen to the recording. They are completely different events, always. Even the person at the helm has a huge effect on the resulting sound, so much so that we can recognize a recording produced by Daniel Lanois, or Butch Vig, for example. We might convince ourselves that a recording sounds 'so realistic', but it isn't. Never will be. A piano strike does not sound the same once passed through microphone, cord, processors, compression, gating, mixing, mastering, and the various components and cables that are assembled by nothing more than a personal preference. And we haven't even begun to consider the effects of comparing the recording space to the room where our system resides! Live and recorded, they are not even close to being the same, no matter how many times we attempt to convince ourselves that they are.
Muralman1, I can't dispute what you've heard. Certainly I've not duplicated your experience. FWIW, and not a real comparison, but I'm sure you've heard a stereo system playing 'upstairs'. For those of us who have lived in flats or apartments/condo's etc, that would be common. Well when I lived in a flat in SF the upstairs unit had a grand piano - it never, ever, sounded like a stereo system. Especially transmitted thru the floor above. You knew what it was instantly - there is a whole lot of 'vibrations' going on with a live piano at all frequencies that just seem to elude (most?) audio systems abilities to reproduce with the same degree of dynamics as a live piano.
BTW I assume you meant by 'in the distance' that the sound seemed a bit compressed as compared to 'live' and that certainly would be one of my points of comparison. :-)
Newbee, Don't be so sure. I have both. It was an Apogee Scintilla in a large stiff listening room that fooled me into believing I was listening to a pianist playing a grand. It did appear to be somewhere in the distance, as down the hall. I was awestruck. My present system takes my Scintillas to far beyond what was possible when they were made. It may be lunacy, but my goal is to duplicate the piano.

I wouldn't be the first. An Apogee enthusiast conductor use to give Mozart lectures at the Smithsonian's display containing the composer's piano. For fun, he would run a blind test on the audience. Alternating between the real deal and an Apogee Diva system. He asked the audience which they thought was real.

The Scintilla is even more convincing with the piano.
Muralman1, I agree, and then some.

The real thing is the only thing! No audio system will ever come close, not by a great margin, to ever reproducing the dynamics and power of a grand piano. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't been listening to much live piano music, in the home or concert halls. And it ain't just the sub 30's either. JMHO of course. :-)
My experience with with sub 30 Hz in music is limited to just two audio systems, and our piano. When my wife is pounding out Grieg there is a lot more surfaces involved than the vibration of coiled wires.

I have a friend who is a conductor. I helped her find a house in Sacramento years ago. She had two requests. The house had to have a room big enough for her baby grand, and it had to have a wood floor.

If you want to hold a grand piano concert in your house, then you better have the real thing or speakers that can put out the power, and range of that piano.
I have to agree with Mdhoover and some others who are arguing against the "greater frequency reposnse is necessarily better" viewpoint.

Quality reproduction in the 80 to to 12Khz range is more desirable than a speaker that is "flat" from 20 to 20 Khz but suffers from significantly more harmonic and IMD distortion.

Furthermore, an SPL meter and a test CD will give practically everyone who owns a speaker with a flat reponse from 20 to 20 KHZ a surprise....as most rooms have between 10 and 20 DB response fluctuations (peak to trough) below 80 HZ. This is unavoidable and is caused by standing waves....room treatments can help some but fundamentally some fairly big bumps will remain unless they are equalized out, and then, even equalized, the reverberation problem remains and any EQ'd flat response is limited to a small sweet spot.

A further problem of a speaker with flat extended LF response (no roll off) is that LF frequencies radiate in ALL directions...therefore they reflect off the rear wall and will boost by +6db at some frequencies and will cancel out a quarter wavelength from the wall (producing more frequency response bumps in addition to room modes)

Which all goes to show that flat frequency response down to 20 Hz may not necessarly be a good thing in a speaker.
Dave...

In your response to Bartokfan

>>>...-3db at 45hz would mean bass output (SPL) has dropped by around half at that freq<<<

Is there anyway to tell at what frequency the speakers output is flat?
Dave, from your explantion + the link I looked at earlier today, I finally get the idea of db level.
"with rolloff of 12db per octave BELOW 45hz" That is not much going on in the 45hz range when the amp is at lower volume, which is how I listen.
I think the "inroom usable bass" has something to do with the open baffel in the back, has a interesting baffel system, and so in a large room there will be less, smaller more. As you explain.
Thanks.
Bartokfan

The measurement is from the "Thor"...-3db at 45hz would mean bass output (SPL) has dropped by around half at that freq. Most speaker systems are rated at their -3db points although how and where the measurements are taken is often not clearly stated.

The 12db figure...bass will be down in level by 12db at the next octave lower...a lot

Usable in room response means...some amount of sound that they deem "usable" will be output at those freq's. By saying in room, I guess they are saying that you will get some amount of bass help from the room....Maybe not in your huge room?

Dave
Dave help me out with this: "Thor, The tranmission line (dual 7 inch) produces 4db of bass lift from 20hz to 110hz, with loss less than 1db of ripple....the -3db point is 45hz with roll off of 12db per octave below 45hz. ....Usable in room bass response extends well into the low 30hz range".
They lost me. I see 20hz, 45hz, and low 30hz. Which hz is this speaker producing?
Dave I do not ahve a good grasp of this equation, 3db@45hz vs -3db@90hz. Help me out. Yes thats the ones. Did you use the Thor or Odin measurments? Are they the same?
Gee only to 45hz, the Thors. Well then please ck Tyler's System 2, with the 8 inch. What's that measurement look like? I think Ty has it down at 30hz. So yeah I could notice a difference as "clear as a cloudless day". Those critical 30-45hz's might make my classical take on a new dimension.
Yes?
Bartokfan

"back to the idea of full range, options/tradeoffs."

Your speakers (if they are the ones at the Madisound site have a spec of -3db@45hz, all things being equal...if we compare them to speakers that measure -3db@90hz...which one has more trade off?

If another person has speakers that measure -3db@20hz and we compare them against yours...we have a nearly equal trade off...an octave.

Of course this is assuming we are playing software with fullrange info on it....you can't miss whats not there.

If you listen to a lot of large scale classical music...you are missing a lot and the results would be as clear as a cloudless day with a truly fullrange pair of speakers placed next to yours...assuming again, that you liked the overall sound of the new speakers....Not Apogees of course!

Dave
Muralman, well by going with a 3 way, the single 8inch will bring in the lower hz's that I;m missing with the dual 7's MTMdesign. Fidelity is not the issue, as its the same Seas' drivers. Its that a single 7 acting as the midwoofer in the 3 way (8/7/tweet) will not bring out a full a voice as the MTM/dual 7's. But with the 8 I;'ll get to hear some of the lower octaves that I am missing in my MTM. The bass cellos, cellos, timpini, tubas all have some notes in the 30-40 range that I'd like to hear. It'll be an interresting trade off. I may not like it, and the Tyler 3 ways is a nice chunck of money at $3500. What I;m gaining to hear those rare but precious lower octaves in the 3 ways, may not be worth the sacrifice of losing the fullness of the dual 7's/lower hz's. IOW the 3 way may sound anemic, the lower mid hz's may be a weakened image.
Can I live with that?
Mdhoover has a valid point. Your speaker is no good if it can do 20hZ whilst sounding terrible. There are lots of speakers that measure flat from where to where, all the while sounding dull, and lifeless.

Bartokfan, you touched on the same subject in your conversations with your speaker designer. In his designs, you give up some midrange fidelity by going to a bigger driver.

It takes a big speaker to bring all the decibels in full orchestra into play, not to mention the grand sweep of a symphony in full cry.
It's useful to think in terms of how our auditory system might have developed. Sensing low frequency vibrations is useful to survival. Sources that make such low frequencies are likely to be harmful. Very high frequencies beyond those used for localization, OTH, are unlikely to be important.

Then consider the mass of the auditory apparatus, an eardrum, three articulated bones with a muscle attached, one of which rocks on a fluid filled structure that houses hair cells along a membrane. Perturbation of these hair cells causes firing of nerve cells, and the firing of those nerve cells leads through higher processing to the perception of sound. Hardly the design for an ultra HF transducer.

Now the argument can be made that beating among higher harmonics can generate combinations tones that are in the audible range, but the harmonics themselves are of much lower levels than the primaries from which they are generated, and any combination tones are at an even lower level.

Disclosure: My doctoral and post doc work was in binaural processing, but most of my pre-retirement career was as a director of a research program then a research center, so I have been out of the technical loop for decades.

I go along with the long-standing notion of 20 to 20 KHz or even 30 to 15 KHz being full range for a speaker system, but I've come to prefer that LF below 80 Hz be handled by a servo-controlled sub. Soundstaging and transparancy are more important to me than absolute frequency range, but I do enjoy that vibration one feels when a big pipe is invoked, whether at an organ recital or in my home.

db
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Ok so a woofer at -3db/30hz may be more ideal than a woofer that produces -1db/30hz's IOW one that voices too much bass of 30hz (-1db)is offering an out of balance image with the rest of the speakers drivers, correct?
I just looked up the db definition and finally have it some idea. What the link said that -3db is a lower volume level IN REFERENCE to the other hz's offered by the driver. ...and so, so forth.
Anyway I can now see how imprortant this db issue is on voiceing each specific range of hz's.
"Mdhoover are you saying is that if a speaker requires 6db of amp volume to produce the 20hz, its not near as efficient and accurate as the speaker that can hit the 20hz register at only 1db.
Correct?"
-Bartokfan
I hadn't thought of it in terms of required amplification volume, and cannot comment on that point. All I meant was that some speakers are flat or nearly flat at 20 hertz, whereas others might measure at minus 6 dB at that point. Clearly, if the stated measurements are even correct (see Hififile's post above), then the one that's flat down to 20 Hz has more bass.

I also don't know the precise relationship between loudspeaker efficiency and the associated frequency response curve.

In terms of accuracy, I've READ that frequency response curve flatness is not necessarily indicative of low distortion and/or high accuracy. That certainly matches my limited personal observations, and may be part of what Hififile's post is describing above*.

FOOTNOTE: In my case, the Paradigm Studio 100 V3 speakers seem to have had a very similar dynamic range to that of the Intuitive Design Summits, with the caveat that a killer DAC and better preamp are being used with the Summits. However, despite the perception of similar dynamic range--and therefore presumably similar frequency response curves--the accuracy of the Summits seems far, far superior to that of the Paradigms. (So does the imaging, high end smoothness and detail, and basically everything about them, for that matter. And I really liked the Paradigms--very excellent speakers in their own right.)
Hifi this is a great thread, which has a lot of life ahead, many more astute observations will be presented before we get to the "bottom" of things. Issues not addressed properly, or at least not fully explored as is being done here. No speaker is exempt from this critical thread, all will be revealed when its all said and done. Hype has no place on this thread. Only educated opinions, and some hunches are OK. But nothing overdone please, those days are bygone. We are entering a new phase of critical apprecaition in speaker voicing. Amps I have no comment, pick and choose as you free will.
Type of music listened to has been mentioned several times, and should be taken into consideration. I'm listening right now to a compliation cd Mississippi Blues, produced by PUTUMAYO WORLD MUSIC, bought it at Whole Foods. Pretty high quality, close to reference quality. I have the vol on my amp at 1/4 and find this to be best offering in this msuic for my system under most music. The bass is there, tight, even though its misssing out in the 20-40 hz's, I'm not sure if I really want the speaker to go lower. At 1.4 volume, the sound carries throughout the entire house and this cathedral room of 40X30 is a comfortable level. So though this MTM design is missing the loweest 20-40hz register, the dual 7's make up for a fuller 40+hz register. IOW those who might have a 3way that grabs the 20-40hz may not offer the fullness I get out of my dual 7's that really give you your money's worth at the 40hz level. Trade offs are a part of all things in audio. That happy median is something each of us has to define individually and do his own research as to what is "the ideal" for him.
I wrote Ty about this issue the other day. He wrote and said the 8 inch would give me a lower botton, say 30hz, but I would sacrifice the fullness offered in the MTM, dual 7's, going to 40, maybe the 7 goes to 35/38hz, I cant reacll the Seas specs. So in this blues cd I will get a better bottom end with the 8, but when i switch back over to my prefered music, classical, I'll be missing oyt in the full orch image of the dyual 7's. IOW I may find the 3 ways with only a single 7 may seem weak compared to the MTM dual 7 inch design. And lastly with the 3 way, the 8 by going to 30hz will offer the fq's I am missing with the 7's, in the double bass, cellos, tubas, timpini. I'd like to experience those low registers from the orch. Ty did say that one design gives up something the other offers.
This comparison can be carried over when comapring one lab to another.
So first thing is to know exactly what fits your needs, and knowing comes by discussing speaker issues on threads like this one. No one speaker fits all.
Similar to Tvad, my speakers flat line through 20 Hz. However there may be room interactions that can immoderate the measurement.

No one has commented on the 27.5 Hz A0 piano key. I say one can't bring the piano into the room unless your speaker can replicate all the notes with equal handling. That doesn't even take into account the sympathetic rumbling the A0 key excites in the piano structure.
Most # fudging of specs takes place in the book shelf and small floor stander market...after all, how else can those little speakers move massive amounts of air with out a little fudge on top....added weight so to speak.

Dave
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Mdhoover has raised a excellent observation. How steep is the roll off. Though a speaker goes to say 30, how is the graph angle look like from say 40hz down to 30hz? And for those who calim they want the "last little drops" of the music, how is the woofer that voices the 20-30, is a very steep roll from 35 to 20hz? The last hz's are too weak to make a big overall difference anyway, if there is a very steep roll.
Mdhoover are you saying is that if a speaker requires 6db of amp volume to produce the 20hz, its not near as efficient and accurate as the speaker that can hit the 20hz register at only 1db.
Correct?
What a great thread! Very educational.

From "my" point of view and experiences I no longer use the 20 to 20K benchmark for selecting a speaker.

In the late 70's I was 'spec crazy'! I would not consider a speaker for purchase if it did not boast the 20 to 20K spec in it's literature. What I learned was some of the speakers that claimed this did not sound good to me. Some speakers with worse published specs sounded much better.

I now listen for tonality, timbre, image, richness of musical texture (the rosin on the bow sound) and ease of use.

My most memorable example was purchasing McIntosh speakers based on the superb specs in their brochure. After getting them home they were good but not great.

I traded them in on a pair of AR-3a's which did not have the published bass performance but had better, more realistic sound.

Today we are fortunate to have such a great abundance of fine speakers. Also, until we can get speaker manufacturers to conduct speaker tesing in the 'EXACT' same way to include the same test lab, we will never be able to fully use published specs to make our purchase selections.

"LISTEN WELL"
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Tvad said:

"Not intending to be argumentative here...merely "debative", but it seems to me anything that contributes to a more airy and alive sound also corresponds to the illusion of real music."

I have not used super tweets before " more airy and alive" does fit with what people who have used them have described to me. It may be like the deepest bass thing...not something you hear outright but still can detect (although not in the same way we detect deep bass, ie...massive amounts of air movement). Maybe some degree of upper freq harmonic structure is reproduced from the recording that (normal?) tweeters can not dig out, but can be detected when reproduced.

Deep bass:

I have two full range speaker systems...one plays well below 20hz, the other is flat to 30hz...both fairly large mass.

The differences are both "very small" and "huge"...depending on choice of music, (or movie). Mostly small for my musical tastes which are Jazz/Blues/Rock.

Dave
Thanks for clarifying. I've never heard a 'super"tweeter before. But I imagine its "super"imposing something on the recorded medium. Adding something that is "really' not there. You have Apogee's correct? Thats a panel ribbon yes? Well those do not produce the highs and lows very well from my experience. They do provide a interesting soundstage, a big one...provided you are in front row, sitting. It would get on my nerves if I move around and the image cahnges, "the sweet spot' moves.
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Tvad, you are not understanding what Muralman is alluding to about the "supertweet" 's ability to hit the 23K-25K+ range. What he is getting at is , just because the hz's are produced, are they being "mechanically fabricated" that is are the supertweeters stretching some fq's that are in fact in the recorded medium, but do these super high hz's meld into the overall image , that is keep in line with a seamless soundstage.
If you want to haer a first class tweeter, go to Tyler's web, and look at the list of addresses for home demo of his speakers. One may be near your location. This to me is a balnced tweeter. Though it gives up the very highest fq's, it makes up in the "beefier" bottom where it meets the midwoofer. This is the supreme quality of a tweet, how well does it merge with the midwoofer. Reemphasing that I am not really interested in the highest hz's, there 's not much there in classical music. Jazz and blues buffs may have a different goal for their "ideal" speaker.
Bartokfan, there are a four Scintilla reviews to choose from. They all contain
the same praise. Believe it, or not, it's factual. Apogees unfailingly took, "Best
of show," at Audio shows. Apogee was chosen to flank Mozart's piano at the
Smithsonian.

Those reviews were written in the mid-eighties. There are amps much better
up to the task of powering 1 ohm speakers now.
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Another point to consider in all of this is the variable degree of honesty and precision with which different loudspeaker manufacturers report their products' frequency responses.

Even assuming total honesty and/or accuracy of reporting, another question is this: How steep is the low end rolloff? For example, we all know that minus 6 dB at 20 hertz is NOT the same thing as minus 1 dB at 20 hertz.
supertweeter = superhype. Suupertweets are good for HT sound effects, nothing more.
Mural I just googled Scintilla, and came up with Apogee Scintilla Sterophile review by AHC. Once agin I do not understand much of what he is saying, and hardly believe a word on the things i do understand. Once agin audio reviews are near worthless. btw I do not like ribbons/planars/panels at all, none whatsoever. I could care less how low they go, the overall image doesn't work for me. I'm strictly a traditional cone affeciando.
I question the validity of supertweeters. If your speaker is a good one, and flat lines up to at least 20 Khz, then, it seems to me, in the audible range, the supertweeeter is merely doubling the speaker's high frequency output.

These ultra high frequencies tend to go unnoticed when in balance. Emphasizing them will produce an upward balance that seems more airy and alive, but does not correlate with real music IMO.
Tvad why would you be "more likely" interested in a speaker that goes down to 25hz /model A slightly less interested in speaker B that "only" goes down to 30hz. Like someone mentioned the most important factor is how well does the speaker perform in the CRITICAL MASS AREAS of 30/35hz through 15K/18Khz. The woofer than may go as low as 25hz, might not meet the midwoofer/midrange "as seamless" as does the 30hz woofer.
I don't place as much importance to the 18K-20Khz area as well. Considering orchestras offer little in term sof above 15K hz;'s. But in jazz/bules its nice to have a clean vivid 18Khz voice.