Your "World's Best Audio System" - Page 5

My sentiments exactly... Several large speakers ( X-2, Maxx-2, Dynaudio Temtations And Evidence Master, Von Shweikert VR-9, 7 , many Dunleavys, Maggie MG 20.1to only name these) image as well or better than the best mini-monitor

I would just say you need to get out more

A tower speaker is just an integrated sub/sat system but with a much bigger baffle and therefore, much more acoustic problems and the inability to place the bass where it best integrates into the room. That being said, most bookshelf monitors are ported and therefore not really designed for use with a subwoofer. But that's not usually what I set up.

Keep in mind, I was primarily referring to the JMLabs which never really imaged well because of their bulk.

Of course, we also probably very much disagree on what is 'correctly scaled'. I didn't know we had a real definition of what that was. Many, if not most large speakers seem to exaggerate the size of instruments or throw them where they shouldn't be. I listened to one big speaker with an orchestral piece and one triangle came from just to the right of the left speaker, the other came from 5' to the left of it. Pretty sure that was wrong I remember hearing the big B&W Matrix 800s and it made me create the term 'the dumbbell effect' as 80% of the soundfield was immediately around the speakers with a very thin amount of sound attaching them to each other. But maybe that was just B&W being B&W

I have to agree... I've heard subs and monitors integrated seemlessly more than a few times, as long as they have adequate overlap at the crossover points.

I agree with you on everything! Many speakers are made to have a huge soundstage, because in hifi magazines huge soundstage is = better "more correct". For people that want to hear what is on the recording, like me, this is not correct or good. It will make small soundstages big and really big soundstages smaller.

Could it be that some of these larger speakers were designed for large rooms?

I guess what I'm trying to say is the most kickass, cool, high-end system in a normally dimensioned room might *not* be a traditional tower. I've sold lots of big towers, such as Genesis 300s or 200s or even APM1s that just wouldn't work well in anything less than a gigantic room with taller ceilings and a wide wall. And lots of high-end towers I sold never sounded quite as good as their bookshelf models with a good sub. JMLab, B&W, Meridian come to mind. The Meridian DSP33s were an amazing monitor speaker back in its day, with better imaging, more resolution, more precision than the DSP5500s and DSP6000s, as a fer instance. And the difference is greatened the moment you have bass issues.

Those $22,000 2-way whatstheir name speakers with the titanium midrange would be an interesting speaker to hear with a pair of really high-end subs.

Of course, but then you often see them in rooms that are far too small for them and then people wonder why they run into issues. The best speaker for a big room is likely not the best speaker for a mid-sized, let alone small, room.

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say. I have listened to some really huge speaker systems in really small rooms & it sounds like crap. I see some of these photos of peoples systems and say, "what the hell are you doing?!"

That brings up a question. Why is it that a large speaker needs more room than a small speaker to sound correct?

A lot of factors. If you have multiple drivers playing the same sound, you often have to get further away to make it sound good, especially line arrays (IMO) and a lot of big speakers have too much midbass, designed for a large room that swallows bass. Many big speakers also have rear radiating drivers or bipole/dipole sound that require much more specific placement and acoustics. MBL uses huge rooms to demo their speakers because they would just overwhelm a smaller room with too much sound radiation. The drivers tend to be spread apart, rather than coming closer to a point source.

So, there's lots of reasons that a speaker can be just too big, either physically or because of how it radiates the sound and it what quantities. The big advantage (sometimes) of big speakers is usually low distortion at very high levels, but that doesn't do that much good for you in a smaller room at normal volumes. Surprisingly, the very expensive Wilson speakers aren't nearly as big as they look in a photo, so they're more like a mid-sized speaker compared to many.

we do seem to have drifted off topic

back on topic please

Personally, I think buying the right speaker for the size/shape/type of room is a fundamentally crucial issue to the topic. Jeff hinted at this in his original post and also in subsequent postings. It also has to do with alternatives to the traditional "big speakers, big amps" high-end system as a way of achieving SOTA sound. But I don't decide what is on or off topic.

Jeff, before you go off spending precious money on building the ultimate system, make sure you don't fail to even reinvent the wheel: go check out OB's system... I don't think you'll improve much on it... unless you have a good turntable in which case you would (a dig at OB to fix a huge gaping hole in his system)... but seriously OB's room would be a great performance bar to beat. OB gets a pretty magical experience going, even without alot of acoustic mid and hi freq acoustic treatment.

Hi Jeff. I would say there is sub/sat system and then there are sub/sat system. I will say that no speaker will have the SPL and low distortion as really good sub/sat system. Because having low bassrespons and high SPL must have a lot of space, making the speaker VERY big and I don't think that is possible as a one unit speaker. Plus with sub/sat system you have the possibility to place the sub and sat at each best place, as you already know.

Gosh, it almost sounds like you are defending what you own.

Seriously NIN, I am at a loss to understand why, let's say, a 1" tweet, 5" mid, 8" midbass, and 2 12" woofers somehow need less box volume if they are split up into 2 boxes. You can argue 4 boxes are easier to place, but the volume required by a certain driver is fixed by the driver's characteristics and nothing else. Or one compromises and accepts very high distortion introduced by eq'ing the woofers to reduce volume.

Nice!!!
Now buy a turntable

I understand, though in the Xd's defense, I felt that the modest amount of compression was subjectively less objectionable than the harshness, lack of refinement and out of sorts behavior I hear on surprisingly expensive towers. For instance, side by side with the Meridian DSP6000s or Genesis V or Thiel CS6 (0-ringing ears in <10 minutes) or B&W 801D, there was almost no listenable volume at which the Xds didn't sound cleaner, smoother, more precise and I never got fatigued by them, even at somewhat ridiculous volumes. Mid/upper bass deviations have been tested to be much less annoying subjectively than even lower amounts of cone resonance or strained treble that occurs on many exotic towers. Also keep in mind that they did address this with the dual sub/high-output crossover version for those that needed higher output with less compression. It's all in how you design the speaker.
Very true, at least in the bass area. But then, most sub/sats are not sub/sats at all, they're a heavily comprised ported bookshelf speaker with a sub slapped in. But, keep in mind that a Genesis I is a sub/sat system as are many flagship systems these days. A sub/sat system could be a slim tower with multiple midbass drivers and a sub with half a dozen 12" woofers in it, allowing you to have the narrow profile and subs that are both tunable and movable to where they best react in the room. The Salon2 is helluva a speaker on its own, but as a satellite with the extension and power of a good sub, it's a whole'nother animal. it also adheres to my minimal baffle/low diffraction preferences.

Lets face it, the difference in quality between some $100K towers and some $10K towers is more about how deep and loud they can play in the bass. How many expensive, exotic towers have less mid/treble distortion at 95dB than, say, a $5500/pr PSB T6? Not that many. Not that the T6 is a model of upper midrange refinement, but you get my drift.

Now, if DEQX can make a tiny little sub/sat speaker sound as good as it did, imagine what it would do for more, better drivers where compression isn't a factor

Now, isn't this an interesting. Jeff proves his point objectively and somebody flip-flops

Wasn't a flip flop. Distortion below 1000Hz is far less problematic than distortion above 1000Hz, I remember reading about a study on this, but forget the specifics. While Jeff would characterize the compression as 'serious', subjectively it is not, at least not compared to upper frequency anomalies that are all too common. Just like a serious phase delays that really aren't noticeable in most cases. Ask any Xd owner and they will all tell you not only how loud Xd plays, but how well it plays loud. Measurements are very useful, but you also have to know it correlates with the subjective.

Funny you should say so..... Not too long ago somebody said:


Flip-Flop babey!


Apologies to Jeff for the digression.

Andrew, you must be doing research for the one of the two presidential campaigns, and if you aren't you ought to be!

Intresting Jeff, do you have any suggestion on one-cabinet system with really high SPL quality and low reproducing of the bass?

No, I'm not defending what I own but only saying that very high SPL with low distortion and abel to do at least 18 hz -1dB, it will be big, really big. For exampel this system


We are missing one of the sat and 2 of the subs, but as you understand, to do this in one-cabinet speaker, it will be a huge one, maybe impossible to do it right.

Well, the fact that $150K Wilsons still need a sub pretty much proves that sub/sat is the way to go I kinda dropped out of 'high-end' when I got my first set of Xds. Who else besides Revel is making a speaker with rigid pistonic drivers and 3"-5" upper midrange? Edit - I mean at the extreme high-end. Is Kharma still doing ceramic stuff?

BTW, I saw a thing about a company called "Biamp" that makes programmable digital processors with some interesting capabilities - http://www.biamp.com/audiamini.php

Well duh, you're wrong. John you were never in high end

Trust me when I tell you that the Wilson X-2 does not need a sub

The fact that I chose to add two Gotham subs to my system was based on the fact that my room is both 2 channel audio as well as HT. I use the Gotham subs only for the latter.
Get your facts straight before you spew any more verbal diarrhoea

OB, you always pretend to be a gentleman, but I've sold C-J, Genesis, Pass Labs, YBA, Meridian, JMLabs, Nordost. I think that qualifies. You're just upset that I still love the sound of Xd and feel that expensive analog speakers are doomed to become extinct. Your speakers would benefit from DEQX.
If it doesn't need it, why would you have two, even if only for HT? Either the speakers can do everything or they can't.

The only speakers that really can't benefit from a high-end subwoofer already come with a true high-end subwoofer.



Speaking of which, Jeff, a really COOL article would be to take 2-5 SOTA tower speakers and compare them directly to 2-5 SOTA monitors, but use steep filter to cut off all the frequencies below 100Hz and listen to *just* the upper ranges to see who is doing the best in these areas. A lot of work though.

I'm also curious about these from the designer of the original Nautilus (which also answers the question "what happens when a sea horse and a hershey's kiss get together"
-

My 2.1 SOTA design at this point in time would be (reasonably priced):

1) Main Speakers: Revel Ultima 2s - $22k
2) Subwoofer: IB with 8 * 18" Maelstrom-X 62 liters of displacement!! - $2.8k (the $17k fan would be nice too)
3) Speaker power amps - Pass Labs X1000.5 $34k
4) Sub Power Amps - Crown i-Tech 8000 $7.5k
5) cables/interconnects - BlueJeans or equivalent - $200
6) Source: Pioneer Elite Blu Ray $1k
7) Pre-pro: Not decided yet (something with active equalization and room correction) - $10k
8) Room treatments (assumed installed otherwise why bother?)

Total Budget: $77.5k so far. Retail of course. Realistically, I'd buy used for less than $50k.
Whatcha think?

Not to mention that many times, the best placement for the mid and highs is often completely different than placement where a smooth bass response can be obtained.

I remember loving the sound of the Apogee ribbon speakers. Nothing I've heard since then has excited me so much. I'm not sure that the excitement I heard at that time would have lasted though.