Have Slim Floorstanding Speakers "Had Their Day?"

[benanders]

Yes, I reckon slim is basically width vs height (but with an upper limit on width perhaps, at least for domestic room scale). It is limited by—but isn't mitigated by—driver diameter (for drivers on the front baffle). And depth doesn't matter much.

So that Infinity mid-treble module at post #108 isn't slim. But the bass module is. For sure if you are an engineer you might be taken by those driver ratio possibilities. My brain shut down immediately on reading those. That's also why nobody talks to engineers at parties (except for other engineers, of course).

For specifics, my speakers are 202 mm wide by 1195 mm tall (which I'll call 200 x 1200 because I'm not building them myself) which is a 1:6 ratio. I reckon 1:5 is still slim but 1:4 is pushing it. They are 370 mm deep but that's of no consequence wrt slimness. Like the KEF designs that followed Audio Physic's lead, the wider bass driver is mounted sideways. Mounting that on the front would lead to ~300 mm baffle, so 1:4 which I'd start to call athletic rather than slim.

For comparison, Focal Utopia series floor-standers are in the 1:3 range and definitely not slim.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, @Axo1989 .

Whatever the ratio rule-of-thumb, there’s gotta be an interaction effect of speaker w:h x room w:h. No telling how that’d scale among individuals’ perceptions.

I think much of this thread is contrasting effects of driver SA / X-max (under the guise of a podcast topic I won’t put time into hearing ). That was hinted at by others in the previous pages.

 

[Shiva]

As an old time fan of the Audio Physic speaker line, had their Tempo 3's quite a while back, and yearned for their Avanti 3's at the time as well. I had also wanted to hear a pair of the Vienna Acoustic Mahler's, never did in the flesh. These speakers look just like a bigger version of the Tempos, without the side firing drivers. The Mahlers came later and ran with the Tempo design, IMO. I would call the Mahler's fairly slim, though not lightweight, being 150 pounds each. Dual side firing 10" drivers.

 

[Axo1989]

Speaking of slim, the KEF LS60 feature on architecture/design site Dezeen this week. i hadn't committed designer Michael young's name to memory but looks like he also had a hand in the LSX (LS50 aren't mentioned but maybe those also).

They've appeared upthread already of course, at 130 x 1042 mm (ignoring the plinth) they present as 1:8 which is stylishly slender. Again the relatively greater depth isn't so significant wrt that impression. The obvious difference between KEF and Audio Physic approaches is the former concentrating the side-mounted bass drivers around the mid-tweeter axis, instead of closer to the floor.

 

[OjoRojO]

This is a prime example of wide goodness in speaker design.

Zaph|Audio SB12.3​

 

[dlaloum]

Let me put another perspective and / or variable into the mix...

With the arrival of Dirac-ART active room treatment, we are seeing the potential for a paradigm shift in speaker setup and specifications.

Where in todays multichannel world, frequency limited speakers are perfectly fine, and often in fact preferred, in combination with multiple (sometimes multitude!) subs... with the arrival of DL-ART, optimal systems might in fact be full range speakers, with a reduced number of subs, or even with no subs.

For the front main speakers this would not alter much in this current discussion - a full range set of mains with some width may well be optimal.

But lets think about the surround (and rear) speakers.

Now we have an environment where there is much to be gained by having the surround speakers able to extend into the bass... lower is better... - If we also assume that the surrounds are designed to be "support" rather than "main" bass speakers - then high SPL capabilities in the bass would not be required - this is dramatically different from the mains and subs - where we probably want the speakers to be full range capable in the traditional sense... of a flat frequency response within its SPL range.

So tower based designs, that take less space in the surround and rear positions (a key factor given constrained domestic space) - are likely to be a requirement - but they will be based on quite different performance needs.

Can we live with 4" or 5" drivers, if our requirements for bass frequencies are at an SPL 10db or 15db below the main signal?
Even spread of sound for the midrange and high frequencies would be important - not too directional!

What would such speakers look like? Perhaps something like the B&O Beolab 6000 & 8000 ? - maybe a bit higher, to ensure that they can be sited at the rear, with the tweeters slightly above seated head height....

Many full range speakers of the last 50 years could do the job... but would be overkill for this purpose (yes I used to run Quad ESL63's for my surrounds... sounded great too... but was not very space/lifestyle friendly).

 

[sk3383]

I love how bookshelves and slim towers can completely disappear.

However, not as much as I love speakers with 12" or 15" woofers.

There's no replacement for displacement!!!!!!!

 

[Angsty]

Why did I even come to this thread? My next speaker is likely to be a Klipsch La Scala. The washing machine sized speaker preference has no place in this convo.

 

[MattHooper]

Why did I even come to this thread? My next speaker is likely to be a Klipsch La Scala. The washing machine sized speaker preference has no place in this convo.

Not at all. Your choice of the La Scala is exactly what this thread is about. Wider cabinet speakers have made a comeback.

 

[MarkS]

Shirley Manson, Queen of the 90s, explains how I feel about slim floorstanders:

 

[moonlight rainbow dream]

This is a prime example of wide goodness in speaker design.

Zaph|Audio SB12.3​

Speaking of Zaph Audio, he has a great one paragraph answer to thread topic:

The slim and compact front face helps the woofer maintain a very smooth response on it's top end by minimizing diffraction ripple. You can see this in the raw driver response curves. There are often debates about wide cabinets vs narrow. In the commercial arena, think along the lines of the Sonus Faber Stradivari vs the Audio Physic Virgo. The fact is that both of these are great cabinet designs because they keep the diffraction ripple out of the critical midrange. The Stradivari pushes it lower and smoothes it out with the wide rounded front. The Virgo pushes the ripple higher, and smoothes it out by effect of the ratio of driver width to cabinet width. Response above the baffle step becomes smoother as that ratio gets closer to 1. It's the cabinet sizes somewhere between these two that have a more ragged effect on the midrange response. In summary, you're best off if you pick either narrow or wide, but not somewhere in between. In this design, we chose a narrow enclosure.

 

[dlaloum]

The kings of lifestyle audio, B&O popularised the slim tower.... the Penta proved a slim tower could sound good and look good (both subjective of course - although the Penta was a good speaker objectively too).
To this day tower (or more descriptively "column") speakers feature in their range - but no longer so prominently as in the past.

The day B&O no longer have a column speaker in their mid to upper series, then you will know that "tower speakers have had their day"

No company is more attuned to fashion and the marketplace than B&O....

(Anyone else think a set of vintage Penta's or Beolab 1 columns would make great full range surround speakers, in a Dirac ART setup...?)

 

[fpitas]

I love how bookshelves and slim towers can completely disappear.

My speakers disappear. No one would call them "slim".

 

[Theta]

No, that's not correct. A speaker driver's maximum output is determined by the swept volume, which is cone area (Sd) multiplied by the maximum linear excursion (Xmax). If a pair of drivers has the same total swept volume as a single larger driver the outputs will be the same.

You might be thinking of the increased sensitivity that multiple drivers achieve when they are wired in parallel, but that doesn't result in any additional maximum output capability.

Two 6 inch woofers don't sound anything like a 12 inch woofer.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Two 6 inch woofers don't sound anything like a 12 inch woofer.

Well. No.

And in general I find that even more smaller drivers with total equal cone area don't sound like one driver with equal cone area. I can't explain that convincingly but there are a couple of threads on ASR discussing that phenomenon.

 

[JPA]

Well. No.

View attachment 350273

And in general I find that even more smaller drivers with total equal cone area don't sound like one driver with equal cone area. I can't explain that convincingly but there are a couple of threads on ASR discussing that phenomenon.

Well, yeah, because you're only looking at cone area and ignoring excursion. Small drivers tend to have lower excursion than large drivers, so simply increasing the number of smaller drivers probably isn't going to equal the output of a large driver.
This is not rocket science.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Well, yeah, because you're only looking at cone area and ignoring excursion. Small drivers tend to have lower excursion than large drivers, so simply increasing the number of smaller drivers probably isn't going to equal the output of a large driver.
This is not rocket science.

The comparison is of course only with cone area. Assuming excursion is equal. With high excursion comes other issues as well.

I disagree that smaller drivers tend to have shorter excursion. The small woofers usually have much higher excursion to compensate (a bit) for the lack of cone area.

 

[Salt]

Compare the volume of air that is moved at Xmax.

 

[Soniclife]

Well. No.

View attachment 350273

And in general I find that even more smaller drivers with total equal cone area don't sound like one driver with equal cone area. I can't explain that convincingly but there are a couple of threads on ASR discussing that phenomenon.

You cannot use simple maths for driver equivalence, the specified size is she distance between the screws on the frame, not the cone diameter, which is inevitably smaller. You need about 8 6" drivers to match a 12", ignoring xmax differences.

 

[Angsty]

You cannot use simple maths for driver equivalence, the specified size is she distance between the screws on the frame, not the cone diameter, which is inevitably smaller. You need about 8 6" drivers to match a 12", ignoring xmax differences.

But, I don’t think you can ignore xmax differences. I’m thinking of designs like the KEF Blade that use multiple smaller woofers highly effectively.

 

[sigbergaudio]

The comparison is of course only with cone area. Assuming excursion is equal. With high excursion comes other issues as well.

I disagree that smaller drivers tend to have shorter excursion. The small woofers usually have much higher excursion to compensate (a bit) for the lack of cone area.

So 6" drivers usually have much higher excursion than 12" drivers? I think you will find this is not the case.