Is there any benefit from woofers exceeding 5 inches, if matched with sub?

[dfuller]

Okay... 2-ways have some inherent compromise re: mid-bass size. You either get good midrange behavior or low end performance but rarely both.
Smaller mid-bass drivers generally let you cross over a bit higher before a severe directivity mismatch sans waveguides which generally improves tweeter distortion figures, but they don't extend as low (somewhat dependent on cabinet design) and their bass distortion performance is not great at high SPLs, even when crossed over with a sub or 2. Plus, given their smaller area, they're not going to be quite so punchy as a larger driver. Larger drivers extend lower, have much greater surface area, and behave better re: bass distortion, but like you'd expect they start to beam lower meaning for good dispersion you have to cross the tweeter over lower which can (if not designed carefully) end up increasing tweeter distortion.

A sub can help with smaller 2-way midbass drivers, but IMO, 3-ways with a dedicated low driver is just a better solution in general. An 8" woofer plus 3-4" mid driver crossed over around 300-500Hz is just plain going to work better than an 8" mid-bass crossed over with a 1" tweeter at like 2KHz.

View attachment 99106
5" woofer

I feel that we should add an asterisk here with this one... This is the distortion vs frequency plot from the 308P, which has the larger woofer and should perform better at low frequencies (all others being equal). It's very likely the 305P performs quite a bit worse re: LF distortion.

 

[Sprint]

I'd say the same about the Genelec 8020as in my wife's room. No way this is just a 4" woofer ...

Just to get an idea. What is the listening distance and how big is the room?

 

[Sprint]

74dB is not too loud, and you say the sound is subjectively amazing. So it sounds to me like the 8340 is perfectly adequate for your purposes

Thanks! But looking at the specs of 8340, at 3,5 meters, it should still have 101 DB max SPL (110 DB at 1 meter as per spec). Is my math correct?

 

[andreasmaaan]

Thanks! But looking at the specs of 8340, at 3,5 meters, it should still have 101 DB max SPL (110 DB at 1 meter as per spec). Is my math correct?

The spec sheet says, "Maximum short term sine wave acoustic output on axis in half space, averaged from 100 Hz to 3 kHz at 1 m: 110dB" (per pair).

It depends a bit how they calculate the figure. It's also a bit ambiguous because it is the max. output averaged over a wide range of frequencies. Presumably, across that 100Hz to 3kHz range, 100Hz is where it's most limited. So the average over the whole range will be higher (probably significantly higher) than the average max. output at 100Hz.

OTOH, in-room at 3.5m you will be getting both direct sound and (in a much higher proportion) reflected sound. In other words, the speakers will not need to produce 110dB for the SPL at the listening position to reach 101dB.

 

[samysound]

Hi all,

My set up consists of 3 Genelec 8340 as LCR, 2 Genelec 8330 as surrounds and 2 SVS Sb-12nsd subwoofers. The 8340s have 6.5 inches woofer. I sit at a listening distance of 3,5 meters. I run movies and music at 74 db average and 85 db max peak.

When I spoke to Genelec dealer here, they said for my room 8340 or 8341 is minimum and 8350/51 will be the best. for economy reasons and due to white color, I chose 8340. Even though 8340 are near field monitors, in my room it seems to be working. During the weekend, I saw Avatar over my blurray and the sound was excellent, better than my movie hall nearby where JBL is used.

what are your thoughts? Will 8340 still produce distortion at 74db at a distance of 3,5 meters? Unfortunately, I do not hear such distortions but I may be tricked by my brain. Rather I find the sound amazing. could it be that since Genelec can play loud at 110 DB max SPL at 1 meter as per specs. So at 3,5 meters (3 db loss for every meter), it is still 101 DB max reducing 9 DB.

Would be interesting to hear your opinion.

Here are the photos of my room

https://imgur.com/a/TaaZzir

.

What freq do you cross-over to the subs at? If at the common 80hz, maybe consider pushing up to 100hz to get a little more head room in the mid-bass range. The SVS subs are pretty flat out to 200hz.

 

[LTig]

Just to get an idea. What is the listening distance and how big is the room?

Distance 3.1 m, room 3.9 x 4.2 x 2.6 m, speakers asymmetric on the long side, one close to the corner, room EQ, no sub.

 

[win]

You can go smaller woofer without any problem, you just pay the price in sensitivity.

 

[Sprint]

The spec sheet says, "Maximum short term sine wave acoustic output on axis in half space, averaged from 100 Hz to 3 kHz at 1 m: 110dB" (per pair).

It depends a bit how they calculate the figure. It's also a bit ambiguous because it is the max. output averaged over a wide range of frequencies. Presumably, across that 100Hz to 3kHz range, 100Hz is where it's most limited. So the average over the whole range will be higher (probably significantly higher) than the average max. output at 100Hz.

OTOH, in-room at 3.5m you will be getting both direct sound and (in a much higher proportion) reflected sound. In other words, the speakers will not need to produce 110dB for the SPL at the listening position to reach 101dB.

Makes sense. On the reflected sound topic, is the reflected sound considered bad? Earlier I had no curtains on my big glass door. Once I placed curtains (not thick ones due to WAF), the acoustics became better. But a bit of reflections should be ok than a dead room, right?. When I look at the Genelecs table, at 3,5 meters, it is still showing light greenish yellow :-D. when I compare 8340 to 8351, the difference seems to be not much.

I tried sitting less than 2 meters listening distance and I prefered the sound at 3,5 meters rather than 2 meters. I do not know, probably the GLM set the speakers considering 3,5 meters.

 

[Sprint]

Distance 3.1 m, room 3.9 x 4.2 x 2.6 m, speakers asymmetric on the long side, one close to the corner, room EQ, no sub.

Cool! These Genelecs are really excellent. I did not expect the audio quality from my 6,5" small speakers.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Makes sense. On the reflected sound topic, is the reflected sound considered bad?

Definitely not. There are good reflections and bad reflections

But a bit of reflections should be ok than a dead room, right?

Yeh, most people prefer to listen in moderately reflective environments. But just to clarify, the reflections you're talking about are early, high-frequency reflections. In a typical room, the majority of reflected energy will be in the lower frequencies, and things like curtains and rugs etc will have no effect on those.

This means that most domestic rooms are highly reflective in the sense that, once you're typically 1 to 1.5m from the speakers, the majority of the energy is from reflections.

This brings me to the Genelec graph, which I don't think can be applied necessarily to a living room (it is written with well-treated studios in mind).

I'd be extremely confident that the majority of the sound you are getting in your room, 3.5m from the speakers, is coming from reflections. In other words, well into the yellow zone of that graph. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, btw.

 

[Sprint]

Definitely not. There are good reflections and bad reflections



Yeh, most people prefer to listen in moderately reflective environments. But just to clarify, the reflections you're talking about are early, high-frequency reflections. In a typical room, the majority of reflected energy will be in the lower frequencies, and things like curtains and rugs etc will have no effect on those.

This means that most domestic rooms are highly reflective in the sense that, once you're typically 1 to 1.5m from the speakers, the majority of the energy is from reflections.

This brings me to the Genelec graph, which I don't think can be applied necessarily to a living room (it is written with well-treated studios in mind).

I'd be extremely confident that the majority of the sound you are getting in your room, 3.5m from the speakers, is coming from reflections. In other words, well into the yellow zone of that graph. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, btw.

Feel relieved after reading your note . Thanks for that! I can learn a lot from you. This makes ASR fun and my favourite. I assume that the reflected sound that is coming at 3.5m is low frequencies, correct?

 

[aarons915]

I have a personal story that might be helpful to this question. I used to use the KEF LS50 and have since upgraded to the R3. I liked the LS50 a lot but I was always messing with my bass EQ and how I integrated them with my dual subs. They actually have enough bass to integrate with subs but the problem was in my room I had nulls around 100-110Hz, which is a good place to cross them over but the null made it tough to seamlessly integrate the subs. The R3 don't have that problem because I can cross over at 80Hz no problem, the bigger woofer basically gives them more flexibility to try different things where a small driver like the LS50 realistically is stuck around 100Hz.

So I would say a 5" driver CAN work if they are away from walls far enough to avoid that SBIR dip that seems to always be around 90-110Hz and if you don't listen so loud that a 5" woofer can't handle the SPL without too much distortion.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Feel relieved after reading your note . Thanks for that! I can learn a lot from you. This makes ASR fun and my favourite. I assume that the reflected sound that is coming at 3.5m is low frequencies, correct?

Good

The reflections will consist of both low and high frequencies, but the low frequencies will have both higher intensities and longer tails (i.e. they will fade away after a longer period of time).

 

[Sprint]

Good

The reflections will consist of both low and high frequencies, but the low frequencies will have both higher intensities and longer tails (i.e. they will fade away after a longer period of time).

On top of GLM, is there any way to tame those frequencies a bit more. I plan to add an acoustic panel on the back wall and behind the center. I use a floor chair and place it in front of the glass door to avoid some side reflections.

 

[Sprint]

What freq do you cross-over to the subs at? If at the common 80hz, maybe consider pushing up to 100hz to get a little more head room in the mid-bass range. The SVS subs are pretty flat out to 200hz.

I currently crossover at 80HZ. Thanks for the great tip! I will try 100hz and see how it sounds.

 

[TimVG]

Not necessarily related to woofer size, but a wider baffle will provide pattern control to a lower frequency. Narrow loudspeakers tend to have a 'knee' in the horizontal response, before going omni, which can become audible under the right cirumstances and is part of why phsyically small, narrow speakers tend to sound 'small' from a reasonable distance, all in my subjective opinion. While not always evident from a spinorama, it can be seen in other measurements.

With wider loudspeakers the transition becomes more even

So apart from less distortion and more output, yes there is in my opinion merit to larger speakers

 

[dougi]

I used to think not, until I changed my Proac D2s (with DD10+ sub) to Heritage Lintons. Despite good and well setup room correction the D2+sub not as enjoyable for bass as the larger 3 way on their own, for me. The D2s were quite low distortion as well.

 

[Willem]

My desktop system consists of Harbeth P3ESRs with their 5 inch woofers plus a Kef Kube 8b subwoofer with an 8 inch woofer. Integration is excellent and the sub adds a good foundation to the superb midrange of the mini Harbeths. For an 18 sq m room this is an excellent system with enough but not too much bass extension for a room of this size but there is no way it will fill a large room.

 

[valerianf]

I can only speak about my personal speakers (FI+FR).
In the 80 my first speaker pair had 1x 12 inches woofer.
I still have them even if I modified the tweeter.

Nowadays I have a tower speaker pair with 2x 10 inches woofer each.
By experience I will no got smaller in downsizing.
Why? Because I want a powerful full range sound.

 

[win]

Nowadays I have a tower speaker pair with 2x 10 inches woofer each.
By experience I will no got smaller in downsizing.
Why? Because I want a powerful full range sound.

Why do you need 2 10" woofers on your tower to get full range sound?