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Best Speakers (Studio Monitors) to Hear Reverb

SoundGuy

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Aug 13, 2022
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ATC are great for reverb, inner details and tails. I believe the reason for this is intrinsically damped drivers. The drivers make sound and quickly get out of the way (very little energy is stored and it is dissipated rapidly in damped fabric and paper/pulp designs). This is a trade off because intrinsically damped soft fabric drivers don’t have the broad and extended frequency response of highly rigid drivers. The soft dome is a magical beast - it is the softest driver I know of - it can be pushed in with the tiniest of finger pressure - it is almost as inert and dead as a pillow and yet it is around 94 db sensitivity. This is a unicorn among a market replete with rigid drivers.
 
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SoundGuy

Active Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2022
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120
Reverberation tails are among the lowest-level signals so they are among the most sensitive to the effective noise floor in the room.

Absolutely. This is where an excellent preamp like the Benchmark LA4 can make the most impact. Assuming you do the right thing and keep upstream volume levels at rated output then S/N will be optimal until the preamp attenuation prior to power amplification. Given that preamp volumes are often 30 to 40 dB attenuated for typical listening, the quality of the preamp is crucial to audibility of reverb. Input and output impedance between components is critical too - I find the rule of thumb 10X is not enough because impedances are often specified at 1 KHz and impedances can rise significantly at lower frequencies!
 
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