Quality speakers for classical music with high output/volume

[JRS]

The problem is NOT with amplifier not having enough power, but with speaker not capable to move enough air and having too high distortion at low frequencies. Adding high pass filter for speaker solves that problem. But now subwoofer looses the "sub" prefix and becomes woofer.

I would still beg to differ. The benefits of bi-amping exploit this characteristic of music, i.e. speakers are an extremely inefficient transducer and nowhere is that more apparent than in moving large amounts of air associated with low frequency pressurization/rarefaction. Think of how a good sub can easily rattle things. Hell my dual long stroke Avalanche 18's could shake parts of the house. I believe Tesla had some interesting observations on the subject. That mechanical energy came from electrical.
So if one had full range speakers capable of hitting 20Hz with authority, relieving them of that duty provides more energy for the rest of the spectrum. Yoiur arguments about distortion are correct and difficulty in general of proper reproduction are valid unquestionably.

 

[fineMen]

The problem is NOT with amplifier not having enough power, but with speaker not capable to move enough air and having too high distortion at low frequencies. Adding high pass filter for speaker solves that problem. But now subwoofer looses the "sub" prefix and becomes woofer.

I pretty much advertised this idea many times in the past, even in this thread. I personally think the whole approach here suffers from a lack of practice. I'm listening right now to "Sprout And The Bean" by Joanna Newsome. The naivety of right thinking, you know?

3k$ is a whole lotta money. Personally I would never ever in all time accept such expenses for nothing but a spare time enjoyment, while the real thing lives around the corner. Contact musicians, they're cheap! Get a pilot's license and lift relevant people to understand climate ... in India .. also.

 

[excelsius]

This thread (or what I have read of it) has been quite interesting to me. I've been listening to classical music, including symphonic music, for about 50 years—both live and recorded. And never once has it occurred to me to try to replicate, dB for dB, the dynamic peaks of an orchestra. It never even occurred to me that some audiophiles have this as a goal. More power to you, I say. But I'll remain blissfully happy with a comparatively less-realistic, though reasonable, facsimile of the real thing.

Completely agree with you there. But spending a few thousand on this system with zero experience and no ability to test them locally, I wanted to get at least the science right. Once done, I'm also going to go back to blissful ignorance and enjoy the music. At least I'm taking good notes so I don't have to go through this again in case of future additions in a larger home. I usually buy the highest quality stuff and don't care to upgrade for many years, if ever. To me, speakers are like an appliance. I just want them to work for my needs and fade into the background. Music is what's important in the end.

 

[excelsius]

OP's opinion re the relative value of extended low end capability appears to be due, at least in part, by his finding little difference between the B&W 603 tower versus the 606 bookshelf when he demo'ed them in the store.

B&W rates the -3 dB LF extension of the 603 at 48 Hz, and the 606 at 52 Hz.

Of course there was little difference.

That's basically just one semi-tone, and the tower is rated at 88.5 dB sensitivity versus 88 for the bookshelf. Pfft.

View attachment 274989

That's a good observation and perhaps should not contribute as much to the discussion then. Although in addition to the range, one could also argue that while the bookshelf went to low frequencies close to the towers, it would not be able to produce nearly the same level of SPLs. Nevertheless, most of my argument for a sub not increasing the total SPL is based on the science that was discussed here and how frequencies at different SPLs add up. So it still stands, unless I'm scientifically incorrect somewhere, in which case would like to know what am I missing.

 

[sejarzo]

Although in addition to the range, I once could also argue that while the bookshelf went to low frequencies close to the towers, it would not be able to produce nearly the same level of SPLs.

And why is that?

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

SPL alone, without knowing how much distortion is present, is not enough for meaningful comparison. Smaller driver may produce the same SPL as larger one (or multiple smaller one together), but with much higher distortion.

Edit: One final precaution: If you try to recreate/reproduce in your living room the same orchestra SPL level as in a concert hall, you will and up with subjectively louder music, despite the same measured SPL!

 

[excelsius]

This is taken from the "Example Reporting for a Passive Loudspeaker System" section of ANSI/CTA-2034 (which defines the Spinorama test and others). The speaker is fictitious, but you can get the idea -- a typical 10 dB increase in SPL with sub(s).

View attachment 274987

Maybe I'm not understanding it. All that chart says to me is that the recommendation is to pair a speaker with a sub that is +10dB louder, regardless of absolute SPL (although I don't know why).

But I don't see how that addresses the use case of playing music with little bass. If music lacks bass in a certain freq range, then a sub will not contribute much/any SPL, per the discussion here on the physics of it.

 

[NTK]

Maybe I'm not understanding it. All that chart says to me is that the recommendation is to pair a speaker with a sub that is +10dB louder, regardless of absolute SPL (although I don't know why).

But I don't see how that addresses the use case of playing music with little bass. If music lacks bass in a certain freq range, then a sub will not contribute much/any SPL, per the discussion here on the physics of it.

Well, the proverbial "girl with a guitar" type music is not much of a challenge.

 

[excelsius]

And why is that?

I can only extrapolate that to be the case based on KH-150, where Freq vs SPL data is available. If that speaker has difficulty pushing the SPL on lower frequencies (be it due to distortion or any other factor), then it would be logical to assume that a lower quality speaker will have even a harder time to maintain the SPL at very low frequencies. But no direct proof, of course.

 

[fineMen]

But no direct proof, of course.

Wasn't the budget eaten up by the two 150s plus measurement microphone already? And you still wait for them to be delivered. What if they blow you off the chair, and you'll never come back? Wait, the digital formats ... . Anyway, it is well to early to nurse your 'cognitive dissonance' (wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance).

I would say, finished. Next? Pilot's licence, SCUBA training, or hobby pottery.

 

[sejarzo]

Maybe I'm not understanding it. All that chart says to me is that the recommendation is to pair a speaker with a sub that is +10dB louder, regardless of absolute SPL (although I don't know why).

Perception of low frequencies versus higher ones is not just a matter of physics, it's also impacted by our total sense of hearing (ear and brain.)

Bass Management

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

3k$ is a whole lotta money. Personally I would never ever in all time accept such expenses for nothing but a spare time enjoyment, while the real thing lives around the corner. Contact musicians, they're cheap! Get a pilot's license and lift relevant people to understand climate ... in India .. also.

???
Although $3000 are not small amount of money, they are not in the insane/crazy expensive "high-end" territory of loudspeakers. People regularly/monthly spend more money on a far more foolish/mundane things, than on one pair of quality loudspeakers ones in a decade or so.

 

[Newman]

This thread (or what I have read of it) has been quite interesting to me. I've been listening to classical music, including symphonic music, for about 50 years—both live and recorded. And never once has it occurred to me to try to replicate, dB for dB, the dynamic peaks of an orchestra. It never even occurred to me that some audiophiles have this as a goal. More power to you, I say. But I'll remain blissfully happy with a comparatively less-realistic, though reasonable, facsimile of the real thing.

I’ll never understand why some people think that a declaration of one’s modest personal standards for audio reproduction is contributing anything to an audiophile discussion.

 

[tw 2022]

I’ll never understand why some people think that a declaration of one’s modest personal standards for audio reproduction is contributing anything to an audiophile discussion.

Nor taking anything away...thus being benign ..responses sometimes reveal more than statements

 

[excelsius]

Perception of low frequencies versus higher ones is not just a matter of physics, it's also impacted by our total sense of hearing (ear and brain.)

Bass Management

Great piece of information. But given the complexities (and room acoustics), it seems like +10dB for a sub compared to the speaker is a very rough approximation. For example, for 30 Hz, the graph shows the perception difference to be at +50dB, rather than +10dB. This makes it all the more curious that most manufacturers don't seem to publish any SPL data for their subs, much less Freq vs SPL charts. But if we assume that rule of of +10dB is accurate, Neumann's KH-750 sub which is designed to go with the KH-150 certainly doesn't conform to that rule since it has a lower SPL (even if one were to use 2 of them as you had mentioned before):

Wasn't the budget eaten up by the two 150s plus measurement microphone already? And you still wait for them to be delivered. What if they blow you off the chair, and you'll never come back? Wait, the digital formats ... . Anyway, it is well to early to nurse your 'cognitive dissonance' (wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance).

I would say, finished. Next? Pilot's licence, SCUBA training, or hobby pottery.

It's a mere discussion about the science of the speakers, which at least to me is interesting regardless of budget or even if I was not buying any speakers at all. The hobbies you mentioned can be much more expensive than this one. In the end, this is just another hobby based on personal preference.

 

[sejarzo]

I’ll never understand why some people think that a declaration of one’s modest personal standards for audio reproduction is contributing anything to an audiophile discussion.

Because when it comes to whatever ideal of "perfection" some hobbyists strive for, recordings, rooms, and speakers are pretty far from perfect, so everyone has to live with distortion and errors. It's always a question of which ones are unacceptable to that person and can be acceptably mitigated within one's budget. Listening at lower levels works for most people with limited budgets.

 

[Newman]

Maybe I'm not understanding it. All that chart says to me is that the recommendation is to pair a speaker with a sub that is +10dB louder, regardless of absolute SPL (although I don't know why).

But I don't see how that addresses the use case of playing music with little bass. If music lacks bass in a certain freq range, then a sub will not contribute much/any SPL, per the discussion here on the physics of it.

Why do you keep banging on about this? I don’t see any practical relevance to your choice of loudspeaker.

Like I said in my first post on this thread, over 400 posts ago, the practical demands on a loudspeaker’s SPL capability are in the bass, because music overall contains most of its energy in the bass. That’s the type of music you need to be discussing if you want to discuss SPL capability.

Prove it to yourself: find anyone anywhere with a decent sound system, take over to them a CD of “music with little bass” and have a SPL app loaded on your phone that shows peak RMS decibels. Play the music and have the owner turn up the volume as much as he or she is willing, with the aim of getting to 115 dB. See how close you get before you start saying to yourself “this is pointless”.

As for the academic aspect of your questions, all well and good, but it isn’t very helpful (if I understood a couple of posts) to extrapolate backwards from instantaneous SPL readings eg 117 dB to a power demand on amps or speakers eg 8000W. Power demands should be correlated to RMS dB because power is a rate and pressure is a level.

There is every chance that one doesn’t even perceive instantaneous peak SPL or the sound that is causing it. Perception is better correlated to RMS levels.

I think you have already picked this up, but just in case:- if a 6” driver is trying to cover 20-2000 Hz without a sub, and most of its movement is trying to deliver bass tones, then there is limited additional movement available to cover the midrange tones (at the same time in complex music). But if you hive off the bass to a sub, the driver could now deliver much more excursion playing the midrange musical component. Similarly, if the drivers are actively amplified, the driver’s amp has much more headroom for midrange tones.

 

[Keith_W]

I will definitely test Bach's Passacaglia once the speakers arrive.

Yes, Bach's Passacaglia BWV 582 is an excellent test of bass. Some of those pedal notes can go as low as 4Hz. Even my system with 4 subwoofers isn't capable of producing that!

 

[sejarzo]

Great piece of information. But given the complexities (and room acoustics), it seems like +10dB for a sub compared to the speaker is a very rough approximation. For example, for 30 Hz, the graph shows the perception difference to be at +50dB, rather than +10dB. This makes it all the more curious that most manufacturers don't seem to publish any SPL data for their subs, much less Freq vs SPL charts. But if we assume that rule of of +10dB is accurate, Neumann's KH-750 sub which is designed to go with the KH-150 certainly doesn't conform to that rule since it has a lower SPL (even if one were to use 2 of them as you had mentioned before):
View attachment 275001

The pertinent part of the info in that link was the graph that I pasted in. EDIT that somehow disappeared, I see....

Even above the super low non-musical frequencies used for effects in movies, we need significantly higher levels of real energy from our music systems to sense equal loudness as the fundamental decreases.

Measurement microphones sense real energy, not what humans sense as loudness. That's why most people find it necessary to use an EQ curve that boosts the low end. Part of the disparity is made up with room gain, but then we have room modes, which is where the desirability for multiple subs enters the equation. Flat below 120 Hz on the Klippel with "estimated in-room response" or in an anechoic chamber sure as shit does not translate to flat in a real room.

The +10 dB requirement, as far as I know, is so a subwoofer can reproduce low frequency effects at the +10 dB level they are mastered at with respect to the balance of the audio.

All that being said, removing musical energy below 80-100 Hz from mains allows them to play louder without distortion or clipping on transients and let a sub that is designed for those frequencies bear that load.

 

[Newman]

Because when it comes to whatever ideal of "perfection" some hobbyists strive for, recordings, rooms, and speakers are pretty far from perfect, so everyone has to live with distortion and errors. It's always a question of which ones are unacceptable to that person and can be acceptably mitigated within one's budget. Listening at lower levels works for most people with limited budgets.

Of course. Most people across the whole planet, billions, love listening to recorded music, but are not audiophiles and really don’t care about the quality to any degree. It’s nothing to do with perfection, more about having standards.

Why people here keep opting out of the audiophile idea and aligning themselves more with (humour warning) the great unwashed, seems like a completely pointless thing to post about. Unless, as sometimes seems to be implied, they are trying to suggest that, paraphrased, “it’s rather silly to go any further because, y’know, perfection is unattainable”. I mean, how could the poster I was responding to have never considered the possibility (his words) that anyone would want realistic dynamics?

I mean, let’s get this straight once and for all. As a general rule these people are kidding themselves. Toole and Olive drag lay people off the street into their paired comparison tests, and lo and behold, they prefer the better reproducers, just like the audiophiles and pros. The only difference is that they don’t care that they prefer it, and go back into the streets and continue to enjoy music on crappy systems, knowing but not caring that they would enjoy it more on better gear. Same for the fans of flawed reproducers posting on ASR about how much they love their choice: if they got pulled into a blind test and didn’t even know their beloved B&Ws or whatever were in the mix, they would pick against the B&W and in favour of the better stuff.

This is true at any budget. It doesn’t become untrue at a certain low budget, so your budget comment is irrelevant. It’s not about perfection and infinite cost, it’s about relative standards, and the relativities exist at every budget level.

That’s why I sometimes challenge this line of commentary: it seems to be a proud announcement that “I don’t care, and I don’t see why I should, in fact it’s silly to care because, y’know, nothing’s perfect”. In which case, why be here? What is the point? As far as I can tell, the point is to refuse learning, ie denial that they would prefer better reproducers. Why do that? Hmm, maybe to defend past choices born of ingrained bias instead of their own true preference for sound waves.

cheers