What makes big speakers sound "big"and smaller ones sound "small"?

[MakeMineVinyl]

Bigger speakers have an easier time reproducing higher SPL in combination with more extended low frequency response. At low SPLs, a small speaker with the same bass extension would undoubtedly sound similar, but at high SPLs, things would start to fall apart with the small speaker, while the bigger speaker hardly notices the extra demands. At higher SPLs the smaller speaker would also start generating higher distortion, while the large speaker would still have lower distortion.

With my extremely large speakers, when listening to speech or music at lower levels, they actually sound very similar in 'size' to the small speakers I have in the same room.

 

[rdenney]

Sorry for the stupid question but
Bigger speakers also sound bigger to me than smaller ones even at the same volume.
I've been told this is not correct and impossible but i still feel that way, and also other people do because I read the cliche of "these speaekrs sound much bigger than they are" Pretty much everywhere.
What is the cause of this phenomenon?

Loud, tightly controlled, deep bass.

Rick "without hint of boominess" Denney

 

[Jdunk54nl]

Bigger speakers have an easier time reproducing higher SPL in combination with more extended low frequency response. At low SPLs, a small speaker with the same bass extension would undoubtedly sound similar, but at high SPLs, things would start to fall apart with the small speaker, while the bigger speaker hardly notices the extra demands. At higher SPLs the smaller speaker would also start generating higher distortion, while the large speaker would still have lower distortion.

With my extremely large speakers, when listening to speech or music at lower levels, they actually sound very similar to the small speakers I have in the same room.

That is very speaker dependent and not a big vs. small thing. Sure, most floor standers that use same size or bigger drivers, but not all do.
A floorstander that uses 5.25 inch drivers might not be able to get to as high of spl or less distortion compared to a bookshelf that uses 6.5 or multiple 6.5/passive radiators.
A perfect example is the Selah Audio Purezza
It gets up to 103db from Erin's linked review and with very low distortion.

 

[bricksie]

The size of the box. There's so much of what we think of as the "sound" of electronic gear that comes from the look of the gear. Of course, the baffle, the box the speakers are in also gives sonic cues as regards the size of the speakers. This makes me think of the Spica TC 50 speakers, small speakers that could throw a large image. Open you eyes, much of the illusion fell apart [of course, they also were pretty limited in the bass as well].

View attachment 118915

I remember hearing the Spicas at a dealer in downtown Toronto about 40(?) years ago - very impressive soundstage for the size, and really smooth high end, but no bass to speak of, and the dealer wouldn't let me anywhere near the volume control: too easy to blow the drivers.

 

[Robin L]

I remember hearing the Spicas at a dealer in downtown Toronto about 40(?) years ago - very impressive soundstage for the size, and really smooth high end, but no bass to speak of, and the dealer wouldn't let me anywhere near the volume control: too easy to blow the drivers.

No real top either, they start rolling off at 12khz.
Note: Satellites and a sub can have as much bass as the sub can crank out. Stick that behind a curtain in a DBT, see what happens.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

This is all conjectures and anecdotes but ...
Don't we have the same effect in visuals? You take a small 40" diagonal screen and watch in the nearfield, say less than 1 meter from it. IS that the same feeling as looking at a 100 inches diagonal? from ....??
It is not an issue of SPL or bass. Take a small speaker, say a Neumann KH80 DSP or Genelec equivalent properly mated with a pair of SVS 4000 or Neuman or Genelec subwoofers, correctly integrated .. FR flat as a pancake from 20 to 20,000 Hz ... Will that fool you into thinking you're listening to say a Revel Salon 2 or Neuman KH 420, similarly corrected for flat FR?
Allow me to have my strong doubts.

This is the question and the answers reside in something beyond simple SPL. Baffle size for once could be a direction one would go in... Dispersion in the lows , say power response under the Schroeder frequency is a place I would look into ... Not SPL, not even THD or IM ...
From anecdotes and casual observations. The Dutch and Dutch 8C,the Kii3, the JBL 708 even the 308 don't sound small ... In my observations, the JBL 305 does ...
Question needs to be approached with seriousness, not flippancy and outright dismissiveness. IMHO this is a really audible, thus measurable phenomenon.

Peace

 

[MattHooper]

Hi

This is all conjectures and anecdotes but ...
Don't we have the same effect in visuals? You take a small 40" diagonal screen and watch in the nearfield, say less than 1 meter from it. IS that the same feeling as looking at a 100 inches diagonal? from
It is not an issue of SPL or bass. Take a small speaker, say a Neumann KH80 DSP or Genelec equivalent properly mated with a pair of SVS 4000 or Neuman or Genelec subwoofers, correctly integrated .. FR flat as a pancake from 20 to 20,000 Hz ... will that fool you into thinking you're listening to say a Revel Salon 2 or Neuman KH 420, similarly corrected for flat FR?
Allow me to have my strong doubts. This is the question and he answer reside in something beyond simple SPL. Baffle size for once could be a direction one would go in... Dispersion in the lows , say power response under the Schroeder frequency is a place I would look into ... Not SPL, not even THD or IM ...
From anecdotes and casual observations. The Dutch and Dutch 8C,the Kii3, the JBL 708 even the 308 don't sound small ... In my observation, the JBL 305 does ...
Question needs to be approached with seriousness, not flippancy and outright dismissiveness. IMHO this is a really audible, thus measurable phenomenon.

Peace

Given I spent many years on the AV forums discussing with others that same subject about viewing distances, Field Of View etc on the apparent sense of size, that same analogy has come to my mind on this issue before. As for the displays: I spent many years trying to get as immersive an effect as possible with my 42" plasma (which was HUGE at the time vs CRTs, when I bought it new). I moved my seating close to the screen, I put black out behind the image, watched with the lights out. It was great, but it never fooled my brain in to thinking I was looking at actually large objects. This was really laid bare when I finally moved to projection. Even close up to the plasma, watching a Star Wars movie, it felt like I'd moved to have a better view of toy-sized space ships zipping around. On the big projection screen, the space ships actually had a dominating effect, an impression of size, closer to "real" ships gliding overhead. Size matters.

As to the question of this thread, far be it for me to solve that issue as many here have a far better grasp of the technicalities. But I've noticed that wider-baffle speakers tend so sound larger and richer than narrow speakers, generally speaking.

I've mentioned before that this was particularly the case when I auditioned the Devore O/96 speakers, with their two-way mating of a 10" woofer with tweeter on a squat wide-baffle. Art Dudly in his review of the O/96 wrote this: (Of the modern trend to more decor-friendly, skinny speakers):

" Lower-treble and midrange tones, the wavelengths of which can exceed the radial size of the drive-units that disperse them, tend to reflect from a speaker's cabinet, delaying a small portion of the output. Among the first aspects of the sound to suffer are imaging cues.

But a loudspeaker without a baffle is like a herd of sheep without a fence and a border collie: Much of what you paid for will wander away."

Clearly not an objective technical description, but it nonetheless sort of captures to me the experience or perception I have listening to that speaker (and to some degree other wider baffle speakers). It feels like some of the sound is sort of "getting away" in the upper mid/treble in skinnier speakers where the wider baffle seems to be "corralling" more of the sound to be focused back to the listener. Maybe not true, but I'm trying to account for why the speaker has such an obviously bigger, richer sound, especially mids on up to the high frequencies, than most speakers including the ones I own (Thiel/Joseph Audio). Even things like cowbells, chimes, drum cymbals all sound bigger and more robust.

My Joseph speakers are small and skinny but can sound really big. Though more in soundstaging aspects.

My Thiel 2.7s sound bigger still, richer, instrument sizes somewhat thicker and bigger, and they cast an utterly massive soundstage size when required (and I currently have a subwoofer going with those).

And yet, neither makes instruments sound as BIG as the smaller Devore wide-baffled speaker. The soundstage isn't as massive on the Devores, but the sense of sheer mass, image size and weight just sounds bigger, more like full sized drums, pianos, acoustic guitars, sax...whatever. It's one of the main things that beguiled me about them which has left me pondering how they do it. (And it's among the most common description of their sound by listeners and reviewers, just how big and hefty the sonic images are despite their fairly small stature).

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Clearly not an objective technical description, but it nonetheless sort of captures to me the experience or perception I have listening to that speaker (and to some degree other wider baffle speakers). It feels like some of the sound is sort of "getting away" in the upper mid/treble in skinnier speakers where the wider baffle seems to be "corralling" more of the sound to be focused back to the listener. Maybe not true, but I'm trying to account for why the speaker has such an obviously bigger, richer sound, especially mids on up to the high frequencies, than most speakers including the ones I own (Thiel/Joseph Audio). Even things like cowbells, chimes, drum cymbals all sound bigger and more robust..

That's an interesting observation which correlates with why horns tend to sound 'bigger/fuller' - since the directivity is so defined with a horn, there is little of the sound that is 'getting away', but rather its going more directly to the listener. This seems similar to the wider baffle effect you cite.

 

[MattHooper]

That's an interesting observation which correlates with why horns tend to sound 'bigger/fuller' - since the directivity is so defined with a horn, there is little of the sound that is 'getting away', but rather its going more directly to the listener. This seems similar to the wider baffle effect you cite.

Yes I could have mentioned that I've heard that same quality with various horn speakers too. Which, again, is one of the things that attracts me to the sound.

And it also brings in the issue of measurements, subjective perception, what one is looking for in a speaker etc. For those interested in strict accuracy to the recorded signal, I'm sure they'd look at the measurements for some horn speakers (and likely the Devore) and note variations and say "not neutral, don't want it, don't care about such speakers." For me, I am always intrigued by how life-like a speaker can sound to me and I constantly note the way reproduced sound falls short of the real thing, one of those being the diminution of size and body. Everything from snare hits, rim shot hits, cow bells, and drum cymbals tend to sound so much smaller than life on the typical sound-system, including the more neutral ones. Adding lots of bass can help the impression of size in the lower region, but when I hear a speaker produce even a cowbell or cymbal that actually sounds "big" rich and full, closer to the real thing, that absolutely grabs me, because I rarely encounter it in many speakers. (And I also am not sure how one actually predicts such things from measurements. For instance I've listened so speakers that measure quite flat in the midrange on up that don't give this sense of body in the higher frequencies. A totally measurement-oriented audiophile may just dismiss a speaker that isn't flat like that but I may feel "wait, but it's doing something different, getting *something right* to my ears that nobody has pointed out in the measurements).

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Yes I could have mentioned that I've heard that same quality with various horn speakers too. Which, again, is one of the things that attracts me to the sound.

And it also brings in the issue of measurements, subjective perception, what one is looking for in a speaker etc. For those interested in strict accuracy to the recorded signal, I'm sure they'd look at the measurements for some horn speakers (and likely the Devore) and note variations and say "not neutral, don't want it, don't care about such speakers." For me, I am always intrigued by how life-like a speaker can sound to me and I constantly note the way reproduced sound falls short of the real thing, one of those being the diminution of size and body. Everything from snare hits, rim shot hits, cow bells, and drum cymbals tend to sound so much smaller than life on the typical sound-system, including the more neutral ones. Adding lots of bass can help the impression of size in the lower region, but when I hear a speaker produce even a cowbell or cymbal that actually sounds "big" rich and full, closer to the real thing, that absolutely grabs me, because I rarely encounter it in many speakers. (And I also am not sure how one actually predicts such things from measurements. For instance I've listened so speakers that measure quite flat in the midrange on up that don't give this sense of body in the higher frequencies. A totally measurement-oriented audiophile may just dismiss a speaker that isn't flat like that but I may feel "wait, but it's doing something different, getting *something right* to my ears that nobody has pointed out in the measurements).

I've always found that listening to the sound of any speaker from outside the listening room with the sound coming through an open door to that room tends to sound more 'real'. Since my room has also served as a recording studio, I've noticed that listening to something like drums either live or just-recorded tended to sound more similar than listening to that recording in the room. My speakers are big enough that I can match the SPLs. I think this has to do with the elimination of room/visual cues when listening outside the room.

 

[restorer-john]

I made some binaural recordings comparing a very large JBL cinema speaker with KEF LS50 (both with subs). See if you can hear the difference

Where are the actual recordings/link?

 

[MattHooper]

I've always found that listening to the sound of any speaker from outside the listening room with the sound coming through an open door to that room tends to sound more 'real'. Since my room has also served as a recording studio, I've noticed that listening to something like drums either live or just-recorded tended to sound more similar than listening to that recording in the room. My speakers are big enough that I can match the SPLs. I think this has to do with the elimination of room/visual cues when listening outside the room.

I've noted the same thing (as have many others) and the "outside the room test" is something I've done for years. In fact when I had some omni speakers I actually fooled some people that there was a live instrument playing in the next room.

My take is that it's not simply a visual thing, not seeing the speaker. It's the way, when you are outside the room, the room sound gets integrated with the speaker sound. Stereo imaging is inherently flawed in terms of reproducing the real thing. It's never really as dense and perfect as the real thing, whether it's a voice, a sax, a small band or whatever. There is always something gossamar in the illusion your brain knows it's not real.
And when you only use a mono speaker, even then there is something of the sense that a sound is coming out of, or stuck in, a speaker.

But when you move outside the room, it's no longer about processing that stereo illusion, or hearing that the sound is coming from a speaker.
Now it's sort of "summed to mono" in a sense that it's now just one big signal of the music and the room, coming out in one mass, through the room opening JUST like would be the case with live instruments.

So for instance I'd recorded my son practicing his saxophone. When I'd play that back through great speakers in my room it could be astonishingly vivid in both imaging and it's tonal presence. And yet there was always something in the stereo (or even mono) illusion that was cuing me it was vivid...but not real, an illusion.

But from outside the room those cues were gone. It was now about the tonality and sound power of that saxophone interacting with the room, combining in to one sound, like a real sax. With the right speakers it just "sounded real" with very little cues it wasn't the real thing. (The omnis did best with this. And, btw, I found omnis like my MBLs also did higher frequencies in a fuller fashion than narrow skinny speakers).

 

[Inner Space]

... but when I hear a speaker produce even a cowbell or cymbal that actually sounds "big" rich and full, closer to the real thing ...

No speaker should sound either big or small. The phantom image is what we listen to, and it should be appropriately sized. A cowbell should sound as big as a cowbell really is - and softly played, the ting of the stick is precise and tiny.

I think what's at play here is that big speakers tend to get more widely separated in the room, and may be taller too, which stretches the "canvas" on which the images may appear. If pair matching is good, and there is no cabinet "talk", precise images should be laid out for examination.

But generally big cabinets have more "talk", which smears and spreads the images and makes them sound bigger. Extension and SPLs aside, big speakers sounding big is a distortion.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

No speaker should sound either big or small. The phantom image is what we listen to, and it should be appropriately sized. A cowbell should sound as big as a cowbell really is - and softly played, the ting of the stick is precise and tiny.

I think what's at play here is that big speakers tend to get more widely separated in the room, and may be taller too, which stretches the "canvas" on which the images may appear. If pair matching is good, and there is no cabinet "talk", precise images should be laid out for examination.

But generally big cabinets have more "talk", which smears and spreads the images and makes them sound bigger. Extension and SPLs aside, big speakers sounding big is a distortion.

It matters greatly how the instruments are recorded too, either from one inch from the bell of a trumpet or from several feet. That difference effects the relative recorded 'bigness'. A good speaker should resolve that difference, whether its big or small.

 

[MattHooper]

No speaker should sound either big or small.

Well, maybe in an ideal world, but in practice we may agree to disagree. I tend to like speakers that sound bigger, for the reasons I gave.
Whether it's a function of how many instruments were recorded, how they are diminished in body by typical loudspeakers, or some combo, I find
most hi-fi systems to be skeleton versions of life, lacking the heft of the real thing.

I think what's at play here is that big speakers tend to get more widely separated in the room, and may be taller too, which stretches the "canvas" on which the images may appear.

Certainly a fair speculation. I've done tons of playing with speaker distance/width as I tend to like as expansive and big a sound as I can get.
But it only goes so far.

So for instance, I did a massive speaker-audition quest to see if I could replace my Thiels (big 3.7s at the time and my 2.7s). When I got home I would always immediately go through the same tracks on the Thiels I just played on the auditioned speakers, to see how I felt about the Thiels.
I auditioned the Devore speakers numerous times, measuring distances, so about 7 feet apart, 8 or 9 feet listening distance, and then come home to play the tracks on the Thiels which were bigger speakers, and 8 1/2 to 9 feet apart, about the same listening distance. The Thiels had the more massive, cinematic wide-screen soundstage and depth. But the instruments themselves within that bigger soundfield still sounded smaller and less substantial than on the smaller Devore speakers. In other words, there was a lot more "space" around the images on the Thiels, but the actual instruments didn't sound as realistically big. And the Thiels are by no means thin sounding. In fact, the Thiels would typically sound richer than most of the speakers I auditioned. But in this area the Devores clearly pulled ahead.

But generally big cabinets have more "talk", which smears and spreads the images and makes them sound bigger. Extension and SPLs aside, big speakers sounding big is a distortion.

If we are talking about the wide baffle effect, perhaps it's still playing a part in focusing more of the sound energy towards the listener. Also, there may be perhaps port and cabinet colorations in the specific case of the Devore that you would simply count as distortion, but which may be registering as "more realistically rich sounding" to my ears.

I think a lot of what appeals to us can be due to our personal audio history or journey, where we are in honing in on what we like. For instance, someone starting off with the amazingly boxless "see through" sound of Quads may have moved on to being more excited when hearing the punchier more dense sound of a good box speaker, where someone who started with a good box speaker then hears the Quads and it seems a whole new world of "realism" because he's used to hearing a box-speaker sound.

 

[mitchco]

Where are the actual recordings/link?

JBL 4722 compare to LS50 plus dual subs binaural recording (45 MB wav DR12)

The binaural recording switches back and forth between the two different speakers every ten seconds.

 

[AdamG]

From a very simplistic perspective. Same reason big engines sound big and little engines sound little. Displacement, displacement, displacement. Moving larger quantities of air.

 

[Duke]

IMHO this is a really audible, thus measurable phenomenon.

I agree that "one speaker sounding bigger than another" is an audible phenomenon, but it is not obvious to me which acoustic measurements readily and reliably predict it. For instance I design bass guitar cabs which are generally similar to one another in that they all use big woofers in ported boxes, and neither frequency response nor efficiency nor off-axis response reliably predicts which cab will sound "bigger". Ime an educated guess is arguably more reliable.

Likewise it is not clear to me which measurements readily and reliably predict soundstaging, nor which speaker "disappears" as the apparent sound source better than another, nor which speaker conveys the "feeling of listening to live performers" better than another. Obviously I am assuming these subjective perceptions are valid and that they matter.

In other words, imo the ears are more sensitive to some things than our measurements (and/or interpretations thereof) are.

 

[Inner Space]

I auditioned the Devore speakers numerous times, measuring distances, so about 7 feet apart, 8 or 9 feet listening distance, and then come home to play the tracks on the Thiels which were bigger speakers, and 8 1/2 to 9 feet apart, about the same listening distance. The Thiels had the more massive, cinematic wide-screen soundstage and depth. But the instruments themselves within that bigger soundfield still sounded smaller and less substantial than on the smaller Devore speakers. In other words, there was a lot more "space" around the images on the Thiels, but the actual instruments didn't sound as realistically big.

Yeah, I'm not arguing against you - just exploring. I have had the same experiences. The only thing I question is your last clause, in particular the word "realistically". My experience would suggest that the Thiels might have made the instruments the right size, and the Devores made them unrealistically large. Impossible to be definitive, of course, because of @MakeMineVinyl's good point in post #34, about close or far recording.

 

[mitchco]

1) Sighted bias. We see big and think big, we see small and think small. Don't believe me, try a test and hide the speakers and have someone randomly change between the two (making sure all other things are kept consistent like in any blind test)

2) Low frequency response is a HUGE factor in sound quality. Floyd Toole and others have pointed this out many times through research. Big speakers usually have bigger drivers that extend lower (or more of them).

Way to go @Jdunk54nl this pretty much sums it up. A somewhat blind test is listening to the binaural recordings in post 36. The difference in size of speakers and directivity is about as wide a difference one can get. Can anyone hear a "size" difference?