You are welcome. Contrary to popular belief science has an answer to most physical phenomena
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Your loudspeakers are too small!
- Thread starter Digby
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You are welcome. Contrary to popular belief science has an answer to most physical phenomena
If there's something we can agree on absolutely, that would be it!
I am never more suspicious than when someone claims "science can't say anything about X" or "WE don't know scientifically how X occurs."
That usually translates in to "I don't know anything about X" or "I am ignorant of the science about X."
The "science doesn't know about my pet thing I really like" is the most common trope of all among people pushing psuedo-science or other dubious phenemona.
Science is vastly more clever in how it can investigate things, and there is much more known than most laymen suspect.
I'm just a layman myself, but I at least try to understand the scientific endeavor and also "stay in my lane" with regard to what I can claim
with any confidence.
A few pages back I linked to a Chesky track on YouTube with drums which is actually part of "Chesky Records Guide to Critical Listening - The Ultimate Demonstration Disc 1" which I'd recommend. Chesky talks about things like dynamics, transparency, etc in brief dialogue before offering a track of music to observe how your system handles these sorts of objective/subjective descriptors.
It's a fun romp at the very least and it was my first introduction to Rebecca Pidgeon which I'll always be grateful for. The complete album is available on YouTube:
It's a fun romp at the very least and it was my first introduction to Rebecca Pidgeon which I'll always be grateful for. The complete album is available on YouTube:
The problem with using the term microdynamics is that there exist different perceptions for its meaning. If it is transient reproduction, then we have something that can be understood and quantified. As for a different meaning, such as ability to discern small differences in how an instrument is being played, it is rather vague.
But transient reproduction can be described, it can be measured, and it is known which measurable properties affect this.
Wow, in 1979 I was fighting communists. That brings back some memories!
Regarding capabilities of large vs small speakers, seems to me Joseph Crowe’s recent blog entry could be relevant.
The consistency of Bl parameter of a driver vs excursion is a big contributor to the Multitone IMD profile of drivers. Joseph also notes that the noise floor of IMD stays a fixed level below signal as you increase volume.
So I see a “baked in” limit of IMD performance, that doesn’t relate to driver size and that limits the intelligibility of the driver. And it seems to be dominant vs classic views of harmonic distortion.
Seems important, maybe dominantly so?
Distortion and Sound Quality --- What is Reasonable?
Introduction In this blog post I would like to discuss distortion levels in loudspeakers in the context of high end audio (HEA). What are reasonable levels of distortion and how do we measure it? Setting a target For the sake of discussion let us randomly select a target distortion level of...
josephcrowe.com
The consistency of Bl parameter of a driver vs excursion is a big contributor to the Multitone IMD profile of drivers. Joseph also notes that the noise floor of IMD stays a fixed level below signal as you increase volume.
So I see a “baked in” limit of IMD performance, that doesn’t relate to driver size and that limits the intelligibility of the driver. And it seems to be dominant vs classic views of harmonic distortion.
Seems important, maybe dominantly so?
killdozzer
Major Contributor
Still, saying something along the lines „how dare you ask the OP for a clarification, don't you care about his feelings?“ is just silly. I mean what are we doing here?
Some members did try to point out that it’s impossible to answer a meaningless or poorly written question, but they got something like; “can’t you just shut up and give any ol’ answer, why you have to be rude?”
People, you have to take a breath and see just how silly this is.
While it is true that several members are contesting this notion of necessity to stick with precise terms, it is also true that those members have absolutely no accordance among them.
One might ask exactly whose personal notion of “bigger speaker = better speaker” are we debating. Read the definitions of these differences among the “subjective-adjective” crowd, they are light years apart. And most importantly, light years away from the OP. It often seems OP doesn’t even understand members who are trying to give him an answer.
On the other hand, I haven’t seen one single member taking the route of helping OP ask the right question.
No one asked about the conditions OP heard these speakers in. Which brand, model, listening room conditions, what was the source, how were they powered, was the room treated, exactly which large speakers he liked and exactly which small speakers made him think bigger are better, what were the differences in set ups…?
I mean, the way we’re doing it, we might as well say, well big speakers are bigger, that’s the difference. And even than we would have a member or two saying my small speakers are bigger than your big speakers.
Communication is not being established because you’re not referring to the same meaning of those subjective terms.
Some members did try to point out that it’s impossible to answer a meaningless or poorly written question, but they got something like; “can’t you just shut up and give any ol’ answer, why you have to be rude?”
People, you have to take a breath and see just how silly this is.
While it is true that several members are contesting this notion of necessity to stick with precise terms, it is also true that those members have absolutely no accordance among them.
One might ask exactly whose personal notion of “bigger speaker = better speaker” are we debating. Read the definitions of these differences among the “subjective-adjective” crowd, they are light years apart. And most importantly, light years away from the OP. It often seems OP doesn’t even understand members who are trying to give him an answer.
On the other hand, I haven’t seen one single member taking the route of helping OP ask the right question.
No one asked about the conditions OP heard these speakers in. Which brand, model, listening room conditions, what was the source, how were they powered, was the room treated, exactly which large speakers he liked and exactly which small speakers made him think bigger are better, what were the differences in set ups…?
I mean, the way we’re doing it, we might as well say, well big speakers are bigger, that’s the difference. And even than we would have a member or two saying my small speakers are bigger than your big speakers.
Communication is not being established because you’re not referring to the same meaning of those subjective terms.
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We ask questions to ourselves, loosely related to the words in the title of the thread. Whether my comments help OP or not doesn’t bother me, I make comments hoping they do, because I believe them relevant to the theme of the thread.
I have learned at least two important things from the discussion, and my look into things elsewhere…in search of my own answer as to whether or not large speakers have an inherent advantage.
So I like the thread anyway.
killdozzer
Major Contributor
Oh, without a doubt! The thread took a life of its own and some other topics were brushed against. This happens in every thread on this forum which is why I kept reading (and read all 32 pages of it). But, much the same way you noticed, I constantly see this discrepancy among some post even when same words are being used.
I still retain that putting effort into helping someone come to the bottom of what's bothering him or of what he noticed would be a preferred way. I think this because this effort would be satisfactory to most of those engaged.
Otherwise, as I said a couple of pages earlier, it's possible to give AN answer that is not THE answer to the question, but might be taken as THE answer.
killdozzer
Major Contributor
I remember I had this feeling of „big sound“ a couple of times and was only to quick to jump at “big sound = big speaker” analogy.
My first deterrent from this false, and poorly established analogy came when I had this “big sound” feeling from a small bookshelf speaker. It was one of the Sonus Faber’s. And these are notorious for having a deliberate sound signature.
Another clear indicator, I saw in the fact that speakers that played “big” had a huge, huge concentric driver.
I didn’t know of any 12” bookshelves, so I came to a conclusion I won’t be able to compare small speaker to a big one since a small one wouldn’t have such a big driver.
Then, a rather strange thing happened when I had B&W 802’s for awhile in my apartment. It was a Matrix 1 series which had a closed box for the woofers and for the mid. Funny enough, this big speaker with 4 woofers sounded smaller in my small listening room than the petite LS50 (a 6 litre enclosure).
Perhaps it was the smoother roll-off of the enclosed box with no port bump. So, in my small concrete room, big 4-driver woofers seemed to have less bass. I loved to listen to baroque chamber quartets on these, but not much else. I finally decided I can’t have speakers that (IMO) cover so few music styles.
Big ones went, the small ones stayed.
But the riddle of “small/big sound” (relates or not) to small/big speaker, remained. Mostly because of some small speakers sounding “small” and some sounding “big”.
At one point I thought I had it figured out when JA said this:
Fig.3 shows the farfield response of the '302—averaged across a 30 degrees window on the tweeter axis—spliced to the nearfield responses of the woofer and port, as well as the complex sum of those nearfield responses. The balance is slightly swaybacked, a moderate rise in the high treble being balanced by a slight excess of upper-bass energy. This kind of measured response does tend to make a small speaker sound bigger than it actually is, as WP found in his auditioning. The bass is to specification at 6dB down at 59Hz, the approximate frequency of the port tuning. Though the slight peak at 1kHz might make the speaker a bit unforgiving on recordings that are themselves bright, on neutral-balanced CDs it will usefully highlight recorded detail.
www.stereophile.com
It sounded convincing, but some more neutral speakers than B&W is, also sounded “big”. How come? I was ready to accept it had to do with in-room response or the way the speaker was vocalized, but if the speaker is neutral, this should be coming from somewhere else.
And then Ethan Winer came with his short explanation of diffusion where he said that diffusors on a back wall created this illusion that the room is bigger than it is (since less sound is reflected back to the listening position, you get the feeling that it went away to the empty space behind you which is not actually there, it's at 02:04 min/sec).
That finally seemed like an explanation good enough for me. Well treated room may make your end result better, which you then ascribe to the speaker itself. This is why considerably large speakers like B&W 802, didn’t do any magic in my room – dividing the speed of sound to the length of my walls made it clear to me my small speakers are getting the reinforcement in the lower region around the port bump making them look like they have even more lows than they really do.
As far as the distortion from the drivers goes, if this is really the case, Meta should sound noticeably larger than original LS50’s going by the amount of the distortion they eliminated by the meta material.
We could ask all the members who had the experience with both if this is the case.
My first deterrent from this false, and poorly established analogy came when I had this “big sound” feeling from a small bookshelf speaker. It was one of the Sonus Faber’s. And these are notorious for having a deliberate sound signature.
Another clear indicator, I saw in the fact that speakers that played “big” had a huge, huge concentric driver.
I didn’t know of any 12” bookshelves, so I came to a conclusion I won’t be able to compare small speaker to a big one since a small one wouldn’t have such a big driver.
Then, a rather strange thing happened when I had B&W 802’s for awhile in my apartment. It was a Matrix 1 series which had a closed box for the woofers and for the mid. Funny enough, this big speaker with 4 woofers sounded smaller in my small listening room than the petite LS50 (a 6 litre enclosure).
Perhaps it was the smoother roll-off of the enclosed box with no port bump. So, in my small concrete room, big 4-driver woofers seemed to have less bass. I loved to listen to baroque chamber quartets on these, but not much else. I finally decided I can’t have speakers that (IMO) cover so few music styles.
Big ones went, the small ones stayed.
But the riddle of “small/big sound” (relates or not) to small/big speaker, remained. Mostly because of some small speakers sounding “small” and some sounding “big”.
At one point I thought I had it figured out when JA said this:
Fig.3 shows the farfield response of the '302—averaged across a 30 degrees window on the tweeter axis—spliced to the nearfield responses of the woofer and port, as well as the complex sum of those nearfield responses. The balance is slightly swaybacked, a moderate rise in the high treble being balanced by a slight excess of upper-bass energy. This kind of measured response does tend to make a small speaker sound bigger than it actually is, as WP found in his auditioning. The bass is to specification at 6dB down at 59Hz, the approximate frequency of the port tuning. Though the slight peak at 1kHz might make the speaker a bit unforgiving on recordings that are themselves bright, on neutral-balanced CDs it will usefully highlight recorded detail.
B&W DM302 loudspeaker Measurements
Sidebar 4: Measurements The DM302's specified sensitivity, 91dB/W/m, is high for a small speaker, but indeed I measured a B-weighted figure of 90.1dB/W/m—this mini will play quite loud with only a few amplifier watts. However, its impedance plot (fig.1) reveals that it drops below 4 ohms for...
www.stereophile.com
It sounded convincing, but some more neutral speakers than B&W is, also sounded “big”. How come? I was ready to accept it had to do with in-room response or the way the speaker was vocalized, but if the speaker is neutral, this should be coming from somewhere else.
And then Ethan Winer came with his short explanation of diffusion where he said that diffusors on a back wall created this illusion that the room is bigger than it is (since less sound is reflected back to the listening position, you get the feeling that it went away to the empty space behind you which is not actually there, it's at 02:04 min/sec).
That finally seemed like an explanation good enough for me. Well treated room may make your end result better, which you then ascribe to the speaker itself. This is why considerably large speakers like B&W 802, didn’t do any magic in my room – dividing the speed of sound to the length of my walls made it clear to me my small speakers are getting the reinforcement in the lower region around the port bump making them look like they have even more lows than they really do.
As far as the distortion from the drivers goes, if this is really the case, Meta should sound noticeably larger than original LS50’s going by the amount of the distortion they eliminated by the meta material.
We could ask all the members who had the experience with both if this is the case.
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Thanks for linking Joseph Crowe's blog !
(I'll repost the link since I'm quoting it below) https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/distortion-and-sound-quality-what-is-reasonable
In addition to your mention about the IMD noise floor staying a fixed level below signal,
here's a quote from the blog that seems particularly relevant to this thread:
"It has been my observation that for any given increase in SPL there is a corresponding reduction in dynamic range. To explain this further, for every +5dB increase in test SPL, there is a corresponding -5dB reduction in dynamic range as defined by the noise floor level against the test signal level. This has only been observed during multitone testing."
Oh dear!
When did such horrifically loud SPL became the normal? Is he mad or more apt, is he deaf already? Who can enjoy listening to music at 90dBSPL? He must be using a wrong meter.
There is no SPL meter in the world that will show you RMS levels. RMS only works for sine waves. There is no RMS for music. That is why LU is created.
That is not noise! That is his visual explanation of the average music. It has no relation to noise nor anything. He just made that up but used a known term for it. Besides, he started talking about SPL and then switched his graphs to dBFS. Make up your mind, man.
At that point we should give up reading.
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It's a very enjoyable, and more realistic sounding level for me, on a great deal of material. Not all music, but a significant portion of what I enjoy.
Crowe said he was using an RMS decibel meter, which no doubt means an integrating SPL meter.
Blog shows ARTA's meter, which definitely is an RMS meter, and definitely measures music.....unless i am vastly misunderstanding things.
REW's help file says its SPL meter is based on the RMS level of the input channel.
Why do you say there is no RMS for music?
Hmm, given your previous comments ....I can't at this point give your take on his blog any credence at all. Please explain....
How do you measure your levels?
There is ample doubt when you use the wrong term. RMS has no place in measuring music. If you are using some source of integration you should define your units. Such as LU. You cannot simply make up your units! It is simply not done in engineering nor in science.
REW is a test software. RMS can be used if you use steady state signals of known waveform. Music is neither.
It is your prerogative but you seem to have a lack of understanding how signal processing works.
I use three programs interchangeably, ARTA, REW, and Smaart. With measurement mics, calibrated with a calibrator.
All three have integrated SPL meters....RMS meters....that in addition to standard exponential time measurements, can take Leq (Time-Average Equivalent SPL). I most often use Leq as my go to SPL meas.
All three programs meters give the same results, I imagine because they all adhere to the same IEC standards.
I have no idea what or why you are carrying on. I see RMS specified for music measurements all over the place.
Here's a snip from ARTA's manual.
It can definitely be used on both steady state and variable state. Here's REW's SPL meter help file.
So far, must say it seems the other way around
I listen at SPL's around 90db, too. That's at around 3m listening distance. For me, listening to the stuff I enjoy the most, that level delivers a minimum realism. Live events sound more "live" to me here as well as the funk and jazz stuff like Tower of Power. It just pulls me in.
I don't get that feeling that it's too loud while listening. You just feel the energy that's there in the recording. Then you're "there" so to speak.
I don't get that feeling that it's too loud while listening. You just feel the energy that's there in the recording. Then you're "there" so to speak.
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DanielT
Major Contributor
Have you come to medium size - dynamics yet? Or are you stuck on micro-dynamics? In the middle between medium and micro? I may have missed it in that case.
Trell
Major Contributor
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Have you come to medium size - dynamics yet? Or are you stuck on micro-dynamics? In the middle between medium and micro? I may have missed it in that case.
There is nano-dynamics for those with especially discerning ears.
If that's directed toward me I'm afraid you've got the wrong guyHave you come to medium size - dynamics yet? Or are you stuck on micro-dynamics? In the middle between medium and micro? I may have missed it in that case.
DanielT
Major Contributor
Oh, it gets harder for each post.The devil is in the details...or the dynamics , the Hifi dynamics devil that is.
Edit:
Forget that. I tried to be funny, but it just got weird, sorry. Do not understand myself what I wrote.
Maybe easier to talk about established: FR, Distortion, Noise.
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