What makes speaker's sound big?

Two of the DIRECT causes of image-size and scale are 1) Volume and 2) the Recording itself.

You forgot the most important one...

The only one that matter and which is under your control save the volume control trivial remark:

Controls of " timing" of early and late " reflected" wavefronts, and controls of the speakers characteristics by driving them through the pressure zones of your room with the addition of new pressure zones : Hemholtz resonators ORIENTED grid...

 There is more than trivial  volume control  here...

 And for sure if the recording engineer of the live event was a bad one, you will not replace the cd quality  with acoustic... But this is trivial...

I’m not saying the latter should trump (no pun intended) the former, but that some coexistence is necessary here.

I think that all is linked to the size of the room...In relation to the speakers...

And i then understand your point and we understand each other i think...

Thanks and my best regards to you....

A smaller listening space will be less demanding with regard to speaker size/displacement area, but the more authentic sense of real, sonic size and girth as anything reminiscent of a live event requires a moderate to large listening room and not sitting too close to the speakers, and this in turn will place more demand on speaker capacity and displacement area. I know, big speakers aren’t popular (typically not in the eyes of the missus), but there’s no way around blunt physics - again, all in relation to the listening space needed to be covered. Report t

Not necessarily completely true...

I own 7 inches speakers box 2 way, and the Brass orchestra filled my entire 13 feet square room with soundstage OUT of the speakers at the left and at the right and imaging 3-d with clear tuba notes and Horns...The brass orchestra is in my room....Not between the speakers in reduction.... The results is less related to my speakers themselves than to acoustic controls...

ACOUSTIC controls is way more important than speakers size in a small room and most of the times in a moderate bigger room...It is my experience only but.....

It is not raw power of the gear or mostly the size of the drivers mostly that makes event livelier but acoustic control of the room....

Thanks for you kind appreciation...

I thank you for your post that will remind all readers that NO upggrade can replace the powerful controls in the three working embeddings dimensions of any audio system... Especially the acoustical one...

By the way it is possible to replicate what you listen to at no cost.... It takes only time for listenings experiments.... It is way better than to boast about a 100,000 bucks amplifier like some reviews did.... 😊

1. The ROOM is more important than the "stuff" you use. This was made clear when various "high-end" manufacturers entertained me in their showrooms and showed me how good and bad the same stuff could sound when the room was changed around or things moved.
2. ALL BOXES DISTORT.
3. Horns belong on the top of poles at high school football stadiums.
4. Pure electrostatics will burn your ears out (listening fatigue) fairly quickly at any volume.

All your post will be very useful to others.....

thanks for that....

Only a small observation about your righfull remark that boxes distort the sound....

It is precisely the reason why especially with boxes speakers damping, isolation from vibrations and controlling internal resonance could give so much correction and compensation... It is precisely for that reason that ACTIVATING the room with the pressuring engines which are my 18 Helmholtz tubes and pipes compensate in some degree for this distortion.... Dont rectify it completely, but compensate for a specific pair of ears: mine....Musical timbre perception here is the key to feed back listenings experiments correction.....


Boxes are not perfect but could be very good for the price in a small room.... I succeeded...Cost of speakers: 50 dollars used....And i prefer my sound to some 250,000 dollars system i listen to on youtube where the room is catastrophic and nobody ever even has been conscious of this fact ....

I dont say that my speakers are better, not at all, they are trash compared to costly one, but in a controlled room they can be on par with anything very costly which is working in a non controlled room .... People cannot imagine what are acoustic laws and why they are so powerful....At best they imagine sound waves bouncing from the passive walls....It is way more complex than that... The audio superstition in the market speak the language of electronic design and his measuring concepts, the upgrading motto...This is half-truth....Worst than a lie ....

Being audiophile is more linked to acoustic consciousness than being obsessed by electronic design....All thread reflect the opposite... It is the main reason why so many people are frustrated and deceived by their system.... It was mine to begin with.... It is no more the case for me without any upgrade....



I concur with all your post....

It is very important that all those who reviewed gear in a room realize how futile it is to describe sound that make sense only for their specific ears...

It is very important that people realize that upgrading BEFORE controlling and activating a room is throwing money to sellers that dont care about  audiophile experience and the installation of a system in his 3 working dimensions but about their products first and it is normal....Anything anormal here....It is the duty of people to educate themselves in the way to install any gear in a room....


My best to you.....

And "full" is still a factor of SPL at your listening location, over an extended frequency range, no matter how you achieve it, and what gets to you is a combination of direct and reflected. Larger room, and the reflected is reduced. Damped room and the reflected is reduced. Line source and there is less direct loss with distance, but less reflected energy to contribute to the arriving SPL. Larger drivers provide the ability to achieve higher SPL with less cone movement at low frequencies. Multiple small drivers can achieve the same thing. You still need to move the same amount of air, area*excursion, to achieve a similar pressure wave.

It is precisely why an array of 18 Helmholtz tubes and pipes can do marvel in modifying the sound pressures zones where they are located making possible a better synchronization of the speakers and the specificity of the room...

The measured sound pressure coming from a pair of speakers in a particular room could change much in frequencies range if we implement the H. grid with the appropriate ratio volume/ neck...

I did it with great result for my speakers point source : a soundstage filling the room and not coming from the speakers but completely encompassing them...A better timbre perception also... . In 2 listening position, different but astounding results...

The room is not only a passive set of walls where waves are boucing or absorbed or diffused only, it can be ACTIVATED with heteregenuous zones pressure distribution , modulo the varied locations of the Helmholtz pipes and tubes...

This is concrete science easy to verify....

Then your analysis is correct in a STATIC room with a definite homogenuous pressure atmosphere but you forget to say that we can compensate, increase or decrease the sound pressure levels at will with more active acoustical tools... Helmholtz bottles engines grid are only one type of these tools.... I use others also....

Acoustic is way more than what it is speak about in most audio thread by most people....

Most people have no idea because many acoustic tools are not suitable at all for a living room....

And most acoustic companies sells what is EASY and esthetical to sell, not what could be an optimal or more powerful tool but less easy tool to install with a complex set of experiments to deliver the results... Bass traps and passive surface materials are supposed to be all there is to do for most.... This is not true....


The room is not a set of walls, it is a pressure ENGINE....Helmholtz dixit.....

And "full" is still a factor of SPL at your listening location,

To conclude with your opening remark, we cannot complety change each characteristic of the different type of speakers, your post is clear and very right about that, but we can adapt them optimally to the room and adapt the room optimally to them.... That was my point....




My best to you......

let’s not confuse a speaker set sound big with sound like real music playing live

stereo’s largely miniaturize the sound

someone said ’it all sounds fake... we are all just picking the flavor of fake that we enjoy’...

That is another debate....It is not the precise question of the OP.... How a sound could fill the room ?

Not, how a live performance could be equal to a stereo system ?.... It cannot.... It is like caned tuna and real tuna around a boat.... The same fish not the same recipe.... 😊






It seems i answered your post too speedily.... I apologize jjss49  ...

And you are right all speakers need their own space and needs...

My best to you.....



«There is love and there is love over the phone»-Groucho Marx

Martin, no point source speaker is going to produce a life sized image. What you get out of them is a mini sound stage like you are sitting all the way in the back of the hall.

Sorry but you are wrong.... Too much play with equalizer not enough with acoustic...

We must use not only passive treatment acoustic , but activated room acoustic...

My point source speakers produce a life size image filling all my room, the sound dont come from the speakers at all...

Why?

My room is activated by my devices, my grid of Helmholtz resonators doing great work and some others devices...

It is not the type of the speakers that matter, it is the relation between the speakers and the room first, and the method for activating the room...

The sound is not only a passive result of the boucing back of waves.... This is simplistic acoustic....It may be the result of a controlled pressurized dynamical atmosphere with different devices....Helmholtz teachings....


What make the sound big? many factors some here have already mentioned; but the main factor is an ACTIVATED room, there exist 2 necessary and COMPLEMENTARY ways in acoustic of small room: the material passive treatment, and the active non electronic one....Helmholtz resonators grid are very powerful....


Anyway even if you forget my acoustical remark, think about the absurdity of your affirmation.... All designers of point size speakers would have designed speakers condemned to always produce a "mini soundstage" betweeen the boxes? Asking the question is answering it....

The fact that you have never set a pair of point source speakers the right way yourself is a more probable answer....Sorry....

By the way i know how magnepan can sound in a bad room and in a better one....Each type of speakers ask for his type of room geometry and proportion and acoustic treatment and specific acoustic control....You dont put magnepan anywhere and small box speakers anywhere also....