Your loudspeakers are too small!

[MattHooper]

Then tell the ignorati that asking how to measure it is meaningless.

(resisting getting sucked into yet one more eristic debate)

Which, yet again, simply ignores the caveat I gave where specific examples of "micro dynamics" would obviously be measurable.

But, yes, please do not succumb to eristic debate. Let's keep this substantive ;-)

 

[Robin L]

Which, yet again, simply ignores the caveat I gave where specific examples of "micro dynamics" would obviously be measurable.

But, yes, please do not succumb to eristic debate. Let's keep this substantive ;-)

Speaking as a devout Discordian, I am deeply offended by all these pejorative references to the great Goddess Eris.

FNORD!

 

[MattHooper]

Actually, I think you just crystallized the disconnect.

I think so too

The musical terms have well defined, or at least well-accepted, meanings in the relevant discipline.
The musical terms don't port over (so to speak) to the art/science/technology (and I'll maintain that it's all three) of sound reproduction.

The audiophile vocabulary that is the subject of the countrapunctal discussion in this thread falls in a grey space in between, I'd submit. Like a lot of jargon, it probably serves more to obfuscate than to clarify.

But that seems to simply ignore any attempts made to specify! I specified to the point of actual specific examples of a guitar player producing "micro dynamics" (which would be measurable phenomena), as well as supplying examples from musician and music production web sits defining and explaining their use of the term "micro dynamics."

If you are going to ask a term to be explained and defined, and just reject the definitions....still casting it as "jargon" and "obfuscation"...what could possibly suffice at this point? (And, again, if the answer is "scientific precision"...this is where the analogy comes in to musical notation...but also, as I've pointed out, it's possible to give examples that are in principle measurable).

 

[Axo1989]

Speaking as a devout Discordian, I am deeply offended by all these pejorative references to the great Goddess Eris.

FNORD!

Yes. I was distressed to see that the ancient Greeks never built a temple to honour her. We've made amends now, by creating the internet.

 

[retroflex]

Microdynamics is obviously a thing, in that a musician can play notes with varying strength. It's less clear how this would apply to speaker performance, and I think this is the core of the disagreement. Any speaker is clearly able to produce a high sound pressure at one instance, and a lower pressure right afterwards, otherwise it wouldn't be able to produce any sound at all. And those high and low pressures need to be rather close to the stimulus signal, otherwise the result would barely sound like music. If a speaker is able to produce all the output levels needed for a pure sine wave, it should have no problem producing a slightly quieter sine wave right afterwards.

I think that when one talks about a speaker as being good at microdynamics, what you're actually hearing is some other factor that makes you notice the microdynamics more. For instance, if you listen to an acoustic guitar recording with a lot of high frequency content, you'll hear fingering and fret sounds that increase the percieved microdynamics of the track.

I'd argue that "this speaker produces better microdynamics than that speaker" might be a decent starting point when comparing two speakers, but in order to get something truly useful out of it you have to take it one step further, and try to determine what it is about that speaker that makes you notice the microdynamics more. That's just my two cents though.

 

[mugbot]

Microdynamics is obviously a thing, in that a musician can play notes with varying strength. It's less clear how this would apply to speaker performance, and I think this is the core of the disagreement. Any speaker is clearly able to produce a high sound pressure at one instance, and a lower pressure right afterwards, otherwise it wouldn't be able to produce any sound at all. And those high and low pressures need to be rather close to the stimulus signal, otherwise the result would barely sound like music. If a speaker is able to produce all the output levels needed for a pure sine wave, it should have no problem producing a slightly quieter sine wave right afterwards.

I think that when one talks about a speaker as being good at microdynamics, what you're actually hearing is some other factor that makes you notice the microdynamics more. For instance, if you listen to an acoustic guitar recording with a lot of high frequency content, you'll hear fingering and fret sounds that increase the percieved microdynamics of the track.

I'd argue that "this speaker produces better microdynamics than that speaker" might be a decent starting point when comparing two speakers, but in order to get something truly useful out of it you have to take it one step further, and try to determine what it is about that speaker that makes you notice the microdynamics more. That's just my two cents though.

Well written, also if the definition is unclear then it really loses meaning. If one person says speaker A produces better microdynamics than speaker B, but another says the opposite - without a definition who's to say who is correct? It can't be both people.

 

[Digby]

I'd argue that "this speaker produces better microdynamics than that speaker" might be a decent starting point when comparing two speakers, but in order to get something truly useful out of it you have to take it one step further, and try to determine what it is about that speaker that makes you notice the microdynamics more. That's just my two cents though.

That's what some of us are trying to do. I think there needs to be some kind of bridge from the touchy, feely (intuitive?) types to the more hard data, logical minded engineering types. I don't think we intuitives are necessarily wrong because we feel something to be true. Something isn't de facto wrong, because it is only felt/believed. It might well be untrue, but isn't by necessity untrue. I feel the hang up is that some consider things that are felt, outside of specific controlled environments, to be so overwhelmingly untrue that almost any claim, without rigorous studies, is dismissed. To me this seems a little like throwing baby out with the bathwater.

There has been some attempt to bridge the gap, but a fair bit of back and forth (much of it, needless) in this thread is a result of differing mindsets and/or philosophies, as much as it is an argument over definitions or whether something actually exists.

 

[retroflex]

That's what some of us are trying to do. I think there needs to be some kind of bridge from the touchy, feely (intuitive?) types to the more hard data, logical minded engineering types. I don't think we intuitives are necessarily wrong because we feel something to be true. Something isn't de facto wrong, because it is only felt/believed. It might well be untrue, but isn't by necessity untrue. I feel the hang up is that some consider things that are felt, outside of specific controlled environments, to be so overwhelmingly untrue that almost any claim, without rigorous studies, is dismissed. To me this seems a little like throwing baby out with the bathwater.

I agree to some extent, but in discussions like this there tends to be a whole lot of bathwater, and very, very little baby. There have been 36 pages of this discussion, and it's not even clear what is meant by a large loudspeaker. Is it the drivers that have to be large? (Well, it can't be the tweeters, obviously). Is it the cabinet volume? Or the area of the front face of the speaker? Is it that three way speakers are better than two ways?

And even if we can agree on some definition of a 'small' and 'large' speaker, is the claim that every 'large' speaker is better than every 'small' speaker? (unlikely) or that the best 'large' speaker is better than the best 'small' speaker? (probably true). Or is it that the average 'large' speaker is better than the average 'small' speaker? (probably true, but rather meaningless imho).

There has been some attempt to bridge the gap, but a fair bit of back and forth (much of it, needless) in this thread is a result of differing mindsets and/or philosophies, as much as it is an argument over definitions or whether something actually exists.

Agreed.

 

[Ra1zel]

@matthocan you cite any technical book that mentions the term "micro-dynamics" in music reproduction?

 

[Axo1989]

@matthocan you cite any technical book that mentions the term "micro-dynamics" in music reproduction?

I expect @matthocan would need to exist to answer that?

 

[Waxx]

I did not read the whole discussion, but i know i prefer big cabinets and bigger drivers in general. I do have speakers i've designed with 5.5" drivers that produce a lot of bass (in an MLTL), but the speaker next to it has a 12" and does it better in a reflex. The cabinet is 175L altough (so massive) but the sound is less stressed than with the 5.5" drivers. It also needs a lot less watt and is way more efficient (mostly i'm not even feeding it one watt because it's 98dB/2.83v/1m measured). And i think that is the reason they sound better, the are less stressed, have more headroom and the wider baffle helps with the better dispertion of sound.

But i also know that big speakers are not always practical. In my office i have bookshelfs, idem in my kitchen. Because space is limited there. And when build and used right they can give a good bass also, only not that good as biger speakers and drivers.

 

[Waxx]

And about microdynamics, a lot of small speakers mask those in driver compression, distortion and running out of xmax because they need to be driven to their limit to get a certain spl. While bigger drivers have more headroom to avoid that. This is off course a generalisation, as there are small drivers who can do that, especially on low volume. But bigger drivers with a low mms and the right damping can do that better.

A high mms driver will have the issue that it needs some power to move the cone, what may be masking it, but those drivers are mostly p.a. drivers that are used on high power where the ear distorts way before the speakers...

 

[Rednaxela]

Last year I played around with a pair of Fane Sovereign 15-300TC full range drivers.

They ended up in a half hearted attempt at an open baffle setup. I made the baffles too small, there was hardly any bass, their frequency response was all over the place, they had disastrous directivity.

But their effortlessness people, their effortlessness. They did about everything wrong, but this one thing, that I sadly find very hard to describe, was really quite special and addictive.

Sold them, put my active bookshelves back. Got proper sound again. Except…

In my (very limited!) experience there seems to be something about bigger or perhaps wider speakers with bigger drivers that may be hard to replicate with smaller equivalents. I don’t know. But I think I understand the OP.

 

[Digby]

Last year I played around with a pair of Fane Sovereign 15-300TC full range drivers.

Out of interest, why did you choose such a large full range driver?

 

[Rednaxela]

Out of interest, why did you choose such a large full range driver?

Basically inspired by this story. It starts out with the 12-250, but halfway he also acquires a pair of 15-300’s and those are briefly discussed too.

 

[krabapple]

And about microdynamics, a lot of small speakers mask those

That's a shame. Btw, what are microdynamics, exactly?

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

That's a shame. Btw, what are microdynamics, exactly?

Larger than nanodynamics.

 

[Digby]

and smaller than macrodynamics.

 

[SIY]

And way smaller than megadynamics.

 

[Waxx]

Basically inspired by this story. It starts out with the 12-250, but halfway he also acquires a pair of 15-300’s and those are briefly discussed too.

The 12-250 is way better than the 15-300. I use it in a big oldschool kind of speaker. But i would never do that with the 15-300 as the sound is very ragged for a fullrange and the bass is to light to be a woofer. On the 12-250 i do use some passive eq circuit to tame the resonances and as long as i keep the power under 20w it gives all the bass you want to the low 30's.

But for those who don't know, there is a kind of cult following for big fullrange drivers, even if they mostly suck. Brands like Audio Nirvana, Lii Audio and some more esotheric brands (E.M.S., Phy, ...) make a good bussiness out of it. But the only one that does it more or less right is the cheap Fane 12-250 (at least of those i heared). It's not hifi in what most people understand under it here, but it does sound very good when used right and is so sensitive (real measured 98dB/2.83v/1m) that you can use it with small amps and never run out of power or in amp distortion area (i use a 15w amp with it.) But it's certainly not everybody's cup of tea .