regular size 6.5in or smallest size 3in bass speaker for podcast vocal listening?

[derekchan]

my 6.5in jbl4309 is 1.6 meter far away from my listening position, and the 3in generic 8010a speaker is 0.5 meter far away from me.

why do I feel the generic play sound focused to my ear like wearing a headphone but not bothering ? compared to jbl it feel to bother my roommate when I try to adjust speaker volume to listen more carefully what is he talking about

 

[ZolaIII]

Small Geenelac is for start playing it 6 dB lower SPL and it has better back to front refraction ratio for same amount. JBL 4309 might be close to the wall behind it and picking up more gain (and same amount lower ratio for back to front). Finally it's designed to sound so. Genelac is more focused regarding dispersion patern so you get higher amount of direct sound to refracted one from all sides and JBL is relatively wide designed to pick some refractions and cover and fill larger space. Ideally you don't want either dead room (no refractions, sounds as headphones) or live and wild one (early and wild refractions). There are desired ratio scales to objective space size limits (as space is just another box) in ISO 3382 (1,2,3) form.