Speakers least sensitive to the room

[arj]

Let’s look at 4 scenarios. I am not taking into account echoes, etc because these can be managed with normal room furniture, cushions, floor carpet.

Scenario 1

You have enough space from side wall as well as front wall. All speakers will work in such a space.

Scenario 2

You are tight on side wall space but have enough space to pull speakers out from front wall. Here speakers with controlled dispersion will work. Any speaker with a wave guide, cardoid dispersion or CD horns. Planars and dipoles also fall into this category.

Scenario 3

You are tight on front wall space but have side wall space. Here it’s best to use sealed bookshelf speakers which cut off around 60-65 hz and add a sub

Scenario 4

You are tight on both front wall and side wall. Here corner speakers like Audio Note or Klipsch horns will work.

Fantastic post..one of the reasons I do not dare comment on acoustics and stuck to speaker resolution is the presence of masters at this like you !

 

[liverpool_for_life]

Any brands that make such speakers?

I'd suggest looking at JBL/Harman speakers. The M2's and Revels are probably top of the line with those 2. The speakers I own (Seaton Catalysts) are designed for very good off-axis response. I'm sure there are more, but one clue as to whether a speaker designer cares about this: They are familiar with and value Dr. Floyd Toole's work.

Do waveguides play a role? Or concentric drivers?

My limited understanding in this regard suggests waveguides are critical. Coaxial drivers can be used to emulate a waveguide.

 

[prem]

Liverpool_for_life, what you are looking at is speakers with high vertical and horizontal dispersion. The reverberant sound field of these speakers is very high. M2 fits this category. One more model of JBL also fits this category. Not sure which one. I do not know about Revel. I don’t see any details on the vertical and horizontal dispersion of their speakers. But M2 also needs a lot of space around it in the room. Else it won’t work. JBL was the first company to introduce speakers with high vertical and horizontal dispersion. Altec 19 also exhibits these qualities. So do all Sound Lab and Audio Kinesis speakers.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Liverpool_for_life, what you are looking at is speakers with high vertical and horizontal dispersion. The reverberant sound field of these speakers is very high. M2 fits this category. One more model of JBL also fits this category. Not sure which one. I do not know about Revel. I don’t see any details on the vertical and horizontal dispersion of their speakers. But M2 also needs a lot of space around it in the room. Else it won’t work. JBL was the first company to introduce speakers with high vertical and horizontal dispersion. Altec 19 also exhibits these qualities. So do all Sound Lab and Audio Kinesis speakers.

Prem and LFL, does this high dispersion come at the cost of imaging precision?

 

[prem]

I don’t know. I have not heard these speakers.

 

[arj]

Prem and LFL, does this high dispersion come at the cost of imaging precision?

Not specific to these speakers but controlled dispersion should not reduce imaging as long as it is placed right

 

[sound1]

Interesting! In this age we can (re)create the sound we like. There are a few options - Buchardt, KEF etc. I somehow feel that pretty soon, we wont need sound treating the rooms, with room-eq, and sound signature DSP's powered by new cheap ram and cpu's. Model guitar amps are a similar analogy, there are guitar amps that sound as good as the older amps they are trying to replicate. Most guitarists cant make the difference out between a model amp and a real one!

Agree but don't the model amps replicate the sound signatures only and not the room acoustics? BTW Bob Carver could replicate his amps to sound like super high end amps using just oscilloscope and modifying passive electronic components . DSP and machine learning may solve tonality & distortion compensation problems but room acoustics is a physics problem and probaly we may not see a software solution anytime soon since audiophile market is very niche. Right now the best minds are working on making people to click on ads

 

[spirovious]

To add little, most of the time, Laid Back sounding speakers are good to choose. Also towing in speakers helps in general. Rest other members have already explained in detail.

 

[dazoy]

Agree but don't the model amps replicate the sound signatures only and not the room acoustics? BTW Bob Carver could replicate his amps to sound like super high end amps using just oscilloscope and modifying passive electronic components . DSP and machine learning may solve tonality & distortion compensation problems but room acoustics is a physics problem and probaly we may not see a software solution anytime soon since audiophile market is very niche. Right now the best minds are working on making people to click on ads

Yes, I agree with all you say. Thats why I mentioned "with room-eq, and sound signature DSP's" room-eq. like Audessey, Dirac can take care of a lot of room-eq and time alignment issues. Its not perfect, and passive options (bass traps, acoustic treatment) help heaps! We're getting there. someone should give Elon Musk to get on to this - right after the self driving cars and populating Mars!

 

[himadri]

While on choice of speakers and it’s interaction with the room, it’s also important to understand direct sound and reverberant sound. Direct sound is normally from the speakers. Room contributes to the reverberant sound. In our normal lives we are used to a combination of both, direct and reverberant sound. Normally heavy room treatment and digital processing reduces the reverberant sound and gives you more of the direct sound. Reducing reverberant sound improves clarity but our brain might process it as a more analytical sound since we are used to a certain amount of reverberation sound in our daily lives. Mastering studios will like to kill all reverberant sound since they want to improve clarity while mastering.

Speakers like Harbeth normally use thin speaker cabinets to increase reverberance. Which is why a lot of people like it. Audio Kinesis design speakers to give you a reverberant field.

This balance of direct and reverberant sound will be different for different people. Understanding this balance is important for long term enjoyment. You can get this balance through your choice of speakers or through the room.

This may be a bit OT here but thought I would add this to bring a little different perspective.

Beautifully explained. Having experienced the Harbeth P3ESR for sometime now , I suspect that one of the reasons for sounding bigger than they physically are is that the reverberant design adds some spaciousness to the sound.

 

[Analogous]

Also can we list specific models of speakers which fall in this category? For example a LS50 or P3ESR? To keep it focused, let’s list speakers within the Rs 30k-3L price range.

Hi @SachinChavan

Thank you starting this very interesting discussion. I have spent a lot of time listening to music on the LS50. Here are some impressions and thoughts related to your query.

I have moved houses six times over the past six years (job and other reasons) and my LS50 has moved with me - to different sized rooms, with acoustic characteristics. They have sounded slightly different in each situation but mostly good (to me). I started listening to them nearfield - on my computer table with a NAD 3020D (30w) and (very quickly) moved to stands and more power. Are they Room independent? Not hardly. But they do a lot of things well in most.
I am sure there are other bookshelf speakers that do this as well or better. I have not heard them enough to comment.

Some random thoughts: It seems clear to me from the posts above that speakers inside a room can not be totally independent of the space. maybe Less dependent as the room is larger. @prem has described the choices we have very nicely. A lot of powerful amplification works in open air concerts (painful if close by) so listening position matters here too, even as there are no walls.....And then there are head speakers, open back, sealed, IEMs... auditory canal being the room. But that’s another discussion (for another forum?)

Not sure if I answered your query, but I think LS50 qualifies to go on your list.

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

Hi SachinChavan, I would like to mention that around 2 years ago, on the advice of many experienced members in this forum, I had gone for the Focal Sopra N3, where I was getting a good price. But afterwards, I was quite disenchanted as the bass was just too much despite many adjustments. Some high-res recordings (like Smash by Patricia Barber) were downright unlistenable (even when bass is OK it is difficult to listen to her). The previous dealer visited me at my home and tried setting up the speakers, but to no avail. He finally gave up and firmly said the speakers were too big for my room and that there was no solution to this problem except room treatment which I was absolutely determined not to do as this was my living room. I then had no option but to try everything under the sun, including unconventional speaker positioning (now my speakers are very slightly outward firing, i.e. toed out), and changing cables (now Belden 8477, which was much softer than the copper Radio Shack cable, blasphemous though this may be to mention, given some posts on another thread), and various DIY interconnects, and no use of tone control (though that is also an available option). I get identical sound in my TT and CD player (another blasphemy) which a couple of visiting FMs have also confirmed in recent days, and neither gives too much bass or too much treble, and system seems to have settled correctly. Bottomline is that unless the constraints are just too tight, I am quite confident based on my own experience that most speakers can be made to work in most rooms. This is not to suggest that some speakers types would not be more suited to some room shapes.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Beautifully explained. Having experienced the Harbeth P3ESR for sometime now , I suspect that one of the reasons for sounding bigger than they physically are is that the reverberant design adds some spaciousness to the sound.

Are the Harbeths designed for room reverb? Or did you mean the body added to the sound by the resonating cabinet?

 

[himadri]

Are the Harbeths designed for room reverb? Or did you mean the body added to the sound by the resonating cabinet?

I meant that the well balanced and full bodied tonality emanating from the small P3ESR resembles larger speakers or even floorstanders , for which a thin walled resonating cabinet may be responsible to a certain extent.

 

[bornfi]

In my opinion it is not the speaker but the volume at which you listen to it governs its interaction with the room. As you go up with the volume, its interaction with room increases and there is a point when both speakers and room are not in agreement and you switch off your system . This is probably the reason why I have been proponent of large speakers because the volume at which it will be in disagreement with the room, one would never go up to that level.. And also, any large speaker moves lot of air at low volume that just gives you a different perspective of your music altogether.

 

[anilpatel]

I have come accross a book "Sound Reproduction The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms" - Floyd Toole. It is recommended by Gene Dellasalla of Audioholics in one of the youtube video. I have downloaded the book but not started reading it.

 

[Analogous]

In my opinion it is not the speaker but the volume at which you listen to it governs its interaction with the room. As you go up with the volume, its interaction with room increases and there is a point when both speakers and room are not in agreement and you switch off your system . This is probably the reason why I have been proponent of large speakers because the volume at which it will be in disagreement with the room, one would never go up to that level.. And also, any large speaker moves lot of air at low volume that just gives you a different perspective of your music altogether.

In the same vein, there is a certain minimum volume level (or range?) in a given room size, where the speakers come alive and start performing well. This is probably dependent on the amplification too?
Below this volume level the speakers can often sound dull and boring,

 

[prateekatasniya]

I have come accross a book "Sound Reproduction The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms" - Floyd Toole. It is recommended by Gene Dellasalla of Audioholics in one of the youtube video. I have downloaded the book but not started reading it.

I finished reading it

 

[anilpatel]

I finished reading it

Great @prateekatasniya .

 

[jenson]

im not worthy enough and have pretty limited exposure..based on my experience i had pulz + pandam satellites plus sub, then cadence arista, then jbl 4312e and now the saadhana.

my experience says, bigger speakers are not fuzzy at all. like the Jbl 4312 with its 12inch speaker, mids and tweets was exciting in a big room and was much more tight and rocking in a smaller room. so i guess speakers with raw power to displace in tandem with a power amp is the safest best for most situations.

secondly, even more satisfying would be speaker + sub-woofer combo. i know sub-woofer is frowned upon in audio hi fi...however, to each their own..i believe it offers lot of flexibility if you don't have space for bigger speakers or want to make your current system more exciting..