You pay for it and you get it...

daveyf,
I think you are exactly right. I have owned many speakers, and my current speakers for the last dozen years or so have the greatest scale and ease I have experienced at home, because they have large cabinets, and a big center horn and 2 12 inch drivers in each cabinet.
Small speakers can try to sound big, but they are never as successful as the real thing. 

daveyf OP2,068 posts04-26-2021 12:15amThe room clearly has something to do with the ability of the speaker to portray scale, BUT I think even in the big room, a small speaker, like the Sabrina X that I referenced, cannot portray this.

Volume, frequency response, distortion, and dispersion. Those are your variables. There is no reason a small speaker + subs properly integrated cannot achieve all of those the same as a large speaker, which the large is mainly to support the lowest frequencies. Large speakers with a large driver compliment of the same type may have some characteristics of a line array which impacts dispersion.


The two other variables are the room and you. A large room is going to have reflections that take longer to get to you, usually less issue with first reflections, and longer decay time. The only way to get that in a small room is with acoustic control and signal processing.


The problem comparing the Sabrina and Alexx is they are both meant to be standalone. The Alexx is 92db/w, the Sabrina 87db/w. The Sabrina mid/tweeter is intentionally reduced in efficiency to match the woofer that is also reduced in efficiency in trade-off for a deeper bottom end in the cabinet size of the Sabrina. Even if you add a sub to the Sabrina, you have a good sized, intentional efficiency penalty to overcome with amplification.

I know my headphones don’t do it and the driver to room size could not get any bigger than headphones so maybe it is more phase, room/ time delay.

Headphones are excellent at communicating timing information embedded in the recording, but lack the ability to communicate effects related to frequency response from human body interaction. There are programs for simulating this and other aspects of a speakers in a room. They are used in the recording industry.

How high up are the midrange drivers on the Alexx V in comparison to the Sabrina?

Rhetorical question, of course.

Back in 2010 I did a review for Dagogo.com on the Wharfedale Opus 2-3 Speaker and the Opus 2-M2 Bookshelf Speaker along with the SW380 Subwoofer; it can be found at Dagogo.com

Over the years I have several times tried to create monitor/bookshelf/sub systems in a bid to gain similar characteristics of larger speaker systems. This review was an intentional effort to use one brand and a close resemblance of build and drivers, crossover, etc. to see just how close one can come to accomplishing it. I think you will find the review enlightening. 

I caution you; if you think that putting any given bookshelf with any given sub is going to get anywhere close to any given larger floor standing speaker, you are sadly mistaken. People who operate from specifications in such decisions are ignorant of real world HiFi system building. 

ONLY if you have the same brand, the same driver, crossover, etc. THEN you may come very close to accomplishing your goal. I very nearly bought the Opus bookshelf speakers, and several times have pined for them. But, long term, it was probably the best decision to stay with all larger floor standing speakers. I probably would not have used the bookshelf sub combo much. Just the differences in nuances of bass due to the different cabinet volume is for me a strong enough reason to go the direction of a floor standing speaker. 

Note well; if you elect to put together an ad hoc configuration, neither you, nor anyone here can tell you what the result will be, and whether you would enjoy it as much as a floor standing speaker. Only comparison would tell. All the rest of the discussion here is guessing. 

Frankly, now I am moving away from dynamic speakers for the most part. I am increasingly being drawn to Open Baffle, Dipole and hybrid array type speakers. There is one hybrid dynamic that I just bought, and the community will get to see it soon as the article is published. But, for the most part, I'm doing open speakers, a bit of Omni, too. Well, there is some Horn action as well... Too many genres to settle on one!  :) 

contuzzi thinks his question is rhetorical; actually it is not, but it is an important part of differentiating between the sound of a smallish speaker and a larger speaker.   

I caution you; if you think that putting any given bookshelf with any given sub is going to get anywhere close to any given larger floor standing speaker, you are sadly mistaken. People who operate from specifications in such decisions are ignorant of real world HiFi system building.

If you don't know what you are doing. If you know what you are doing and use bass management software to do the integration of the mains and subs, then you can place the mains for ideal imaging, and place the subs in the ideal place for smooth bass response. Done right, you are right, it won't be the same. In most cases, you can make it better, especially in the typical untreated room. However, you must do it right, and in all your posts, I have not detected that you have the knowledge, nor equipment to do that.