What do floor standers really bring to the table?

[DanielT]

There's a debate whether that's true or not
Some say a big speaker in a small room is better than a small speaker in a small room
And that there's no such thing as a "too big" speaker for a room.
Honestly I don't know what is correct

Well, say a couple of line speakers that go from floor to ceiling. Do they fit in any listening room? I do not know. Nice solution with line speakers in any case, I think.

Took an example, even if they do not go all the way floor to ceiling .

This is a better example, from floor to ceiling. Also with tweets in line. Can probably make sense when designing line speakers.

 

[Sancus]

I picked random speakers. Pretty sure this is just another thing people say.

Unless of course I'm misunderstanding something.

Yeah, you could be right. I did say 'some designs' though I do think the difference is marginal in most cases, if there is one at all. I can't recall seeing any evidence posted of floorstanders having significant impact on SBIR or room modes. The only speakers I know of that can have any impact there at all are very specialized designs like the Genelec W371A and the D&D 8C, one of which is not even a floorstander

In general, even if there is some effect in some particular designs, I don't think it works well as a reason to prefer the category in general. But then, I don't think there actually ARE any reasons, you should pick a speaker that has a specific design and measurements that meet your requirements. Not get hung up on meaningless categories and generalizations.

 

[jhaider]

Are you saying that on the basis of having heard them? The measured data posted on this forum doesn't look particularly impressive to be honest:

NHT C3 Bookshelf Speaker Review - HomeTheaterHifi.com

The NHT C3 is a compact 3-way bookshelf speaker with a dome midrange and acoustic suspension cabinet. The C3 replaces NHT's best-selling Classic...

hometheaterhifi.com

 

[DanielT]

NHT C3 Bookshelf Speaker Review - HomeTheaterHifi.com

The NHT C3 is a compact 3-way bookshelf speaker with a dome midrange and acoustic suspension cabinet. The C3 replaces NHT's best-selling Classic...

hometheaterhifi.com

Interesting speaker, the one that Amir tested seemed to be broken. Why then even measure at all?

EDIT: looks like the mid-range is damaged in this unit. It has a dimple on the bottom of it. This could explain the mid-frequency dip. Unfortunately I only have one unit to test so can not verify.

NHT C3 Review (3-way speaker)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the NHT C3 3-way, sealed speaker. It was purchased new by a member and kindly drop shipped to me. It costs US $391 on Amazon for a single unit. I must say, I was impressed by the fit and finish of the C3: The enclosure is sold and dense with a...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Newman]

This is a better example, from floor to ceiling. Also with tweets in line. Can probably make sense when designing line speakers.

If the ‘tweets’ aren’t floor to ceiling, the line is broken.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

A small room does WONDERS for output.

That makes sense. Below is a plot of my left channel only subs (2x18" subs - the other two are on the right channel in the right corner) from the listening position (the Y axis is not calibrated for correct SPL). My overall room size is 20' x 30' with a cathedral ceiling which peaks at 11'. The subs are unequalized. The crossover I use is 60Hz / 24dB per octave, but in this image the crossover is switched out.

 

[pozz]

But this whole thread is about bookself vs floorstander
So the question is what should you choose In this situation?
And if the Kanta were definitely better than I would assume Focal would price them higher than the small bookshelf Utopias

The question is moot unless we have measurements. Any discussions around design are informative, but not more than that.

Yeah, you could be right. I did say 'some designs' though I do think the difference is marginal in most cases, if there is one at all. I can't recall seeing any evidence posted of floorstanders having significant impact on SBIR or room modes. The only speakers I know of that can have any impact there at all are very specialized designs like the Genelec W371A and the D&D 8C, one of which is not even a floorstander

In general, even if there is some effect in some particular designs, I don't think it works well as a reason to prefer the category in general. But then, I don't think there actually ARE any reasons, you should pick a speaker that has a specific design and measurements that meet your requirements. Not get hung up on meaningless categories and generalizations.

Well... honestly I think the SBIR comment is sort of correct, but why it's correct has little to do with what's usually said about bass drivers and so forth. The reasoning is off, in other words. The examples you mentioned are definitely different from run of the mill towers and are more exceptional than not. Since SBIR is specific to the interaction of the speaker with the room, one more step deeper into that definition means looking at non minimum phase cancellations caused by that interaction. The main thing that towers contribute in that area is directivity control down to significantly lower frequencies than bookshelves. Having the omni field start around 200Hz instead of 1000Hz is no small feat. This is keeping in mind that SBIR itself runs out of gas above 1kHz or so, where the transition to the statistical region is more or less complete for most rooms.

Even without taking the image broadening that towers contribute into account, that's enough of a reason to get towers over smaller speakers provided the rest looks good.

The only thing holding back someone like me is that I'd like the towers to be active. I don't want to mess around with having separate amplification. That of course also means that I'd like the electronics inside my actives to be top notch, which these days is not a ridiculous want to carry.

 

[Frgirard]

The question is moot unless we have measurements. Any discussions around design are informative, but not more than that.

Well... honestly I think the SBIR comment is sort of correct, but why it's correct has little to do with what's usually said about bass drivers and so forth. The reasoning is off, in other words. The examples you mentioned are definitely different from run of the mill towers and are more exceptional than not. Since SBIR is specific to the interaction of the speaker with the room, one more step deeper into that definition means looking at non minimum phase cancellations caused by that interaction. The main thing that towers contribute in that area is directivity control down to significantly lower frequencies than bookshelves. Having the omni field start around 200Hz instead of 1000Hz is no small feat. This is keeping in mind that SBIR itself runs out of gas above 1kHz or so, where the transition to the statistical region is more or less complete for most rooms.

Even without taking the image broadening that towers contribute into account, that's enough of a reason to get towers over smaller speakers provided the rest looks good.

The only thing holding back someone like me is that I'd like the towers to be active. I don't want to mess around with having separate amplification. That of course also means that I'd like the electronics inside my actives to be top notch, which these days is not a ridiculous want to carry.

Does placing a box filled with mineral or fiberglass instead of the stand solve the problem?

 

[pozz]

Does placing a box filled with mineral or fiberglass instead of the stand solve the problem?

No. Think of the speaker's sound as a 3D field that shoots energy in all directions. The design of the speaker can shift the how strong the radiation is in each direction.

So just putting a speaker on a passive box won't do much. Unless of course the box is active, with its own drivers, and happens to be the W371A, and your speakers are Genelec's 83x1 series.

 

[DanielT]

If the ‘tweets’ aren’t floor to ceiling, the line is broken.

I find line speakers interesting. There seems to be talk of "genuine" line speakers and those that are reminiscent of line speakers. I do not know much about that design principle. It seems to be, a real ditto, a smart design regarding handling reflex from floor and ceiling.

Speaking of floor reflex. I think Peter Snell designed Snell 1 with the intention of minimizing floor reflex.

 

[richard12511]

I'd be interested to see what their measured performance was like over the full frequency range actually.

Same. There are measurements for the 212RT, but not the 215RT. I'd also love to see the new 4 way RTJ monster measured(21" coax horn, 4x10" midbass drivers, and 2x18" bass drivers).

 

[richard12511]

Just tried that with the FV15HP's and I'm not getting much action. I'm -6 dB at 11 Hz (10 Hz on a good day) and 125 dB capable at 30 Hz.

Maybe it's just sealed sub territory.

Interesting. Thanks for trying. I do have to listen very loud to really hear it. Not sure how loud you tried, though I wouldn't want you to break anything. Once, when I was demoing it for someone, I flipped a breaker . The RS2s do dig a bit deeper it seems, but functionally (given the lack of content down there) it's basically the same. My Rythmik and JTR subs sound basically identical(after EQ).

 

[pozz]

I find line speakers interesting. There seems to be talk of "genuine" line speakers and those that are reminiscent of line speakers. I do not know much about that design principle. It seems to be, a real ditto, a smart design regarding handling reflex from floor and ceiling.

Speaking of floor reflex. I think Peter Snell designed Snell 1 with the intention of minimizing floor reflex.

View attachment 160490

Smart. Must have sounded excellent compared to other speakers from back then.

 

[Sancus]

The main thing that towers contribute in that area is directivity control down to significantly lower frequencies than bookshelves. Having the omni field start around 200Hz instead of 1000Hz is no small feat. This is keeping in mind that SBIR itself runs out of gas above 1kHz or so, where the transition to the statistical region is more or less complete for most rooms.

I mean that's true, but it's generally down to woofer size in the absence of "design tricks". For example if you compare the 8351B or the 8361A(mind colors, dark green on S&R ~= yellow on Amir's charts) to the 328Be, there's only maybe 100-150hz difference, and that seems like it should be significant. But considering you can improve control by ~100-150hz by rotating the 8361A, and that it was tried on here, measured, and made little if any difference, I'm skeptical of the impact. The KH420 also does very well with its 10" woofer and no particularly unusual design.

But I think to make a significant difference on SBIR you do need something like a W371a with both a specialized design and DSP that works together, unfortunately there aren't really many competitors and the price is out of reach for most.

 

[DanielT]

Smart. Must have sounded excellent compared to other speakers from back then.

It would have been fun to listen to a a couple Snell 1.

I can guess that the design itself is currently not aesthetically pleasing and thus has no commercial potential. But for a knowledgeable DIY (I'm not that) with modern high-performance speaker elements, it would have been interesting. I could easily imagine building a couple of these, if I saw one well constructed that measures well.

That I am single, I hardly need to mention.

 

[youngho]

Speaking of floor reflex. I think Peter Snell designed Snell 1 with the intention of minimizing floor reflex.

I haven't been paying much attention to the discussion recently, but it seems like you're talking about speakers designed to reduce floor bounce, which typically affects the 200-300 Hz range in what I believe to be typical listening setups (can see here), and in the opinion of Robert E Greene, can rob symphonic music of its "weight" and power. Because this is related to path length differences, which will vary with listening distance and height (as well as speaker height, in the case of "bookshelf" speakers), this is not the same as the "floor bounce" measurement shown in the Early Reflections measurements curve.

Most of the higher end PSB tower models do this with multiple woofers, including one positioned low in the cabinet close to the floor, following in the tradition of many Roy Allison designs. The Gradient 1.x (not including the Helsinki 1.5) speakers have long had down-firing woofers for this reason, as well. Besides the line arrays shown above, there are also CBT designs like the Epique CBT24 that also have less floor- and ceiling-related effects.

Because of the spatial averaging, there would be some expected sampling variability, but perhaps compare the PSB Imagine 3T output in the 200-300 Hz range relative to, say, frequencies 400-3000 Hz with the Vanderbilt 7 Mk II shown, maybe the Kef Blade II, in JA's room.

Young-Ho

 

[Chromatischism]

That makes sense. Below is a plot of my left channel only subs (2x18" subs - the other two are on the right channel in the right corner) from the listening position (the Y axis is not calibrated for correct SPL). My overall room size is 20' x 30' with a cathedral ceiling which peaks at 11'. The subs are unequalized. The crossover I use is 60Hz / 24dB per octave, but in this image the crossover is switched out.

View attachment 160476

That is reasonably good. And that's a very large space. I'm working with 1400-1500 cubic feet so not only do I get the multi-sub boost, I get a lot of room boost as well. Most of the time the FV15s are just coasting along. Imagine how low the distortion must be.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

That is reasonably good. And that's a very large space. I'm working with 1400-1500 cubic feet so not only do I get the multi-sub boost, I get a lot of room boost as well. Most of the time the FV15s are just coasting along. Imagine how low the distortion must be.

I don't have any measurements handy with both the left and right sub stacks working, but from what I remember, the low frequency extension was just a bit lower but not massively. The smoothness of response was about the same. I used to have a PEQ on the subs but couldn't hear an audible difference between equalized and non-equalized. The unequalized response is still within a +-5dB or so envelope.

 

[Chromatischism]

Interesting. Thanks for trying. I do have to listen very loud to really hear it. Not sure how loud you tried, though I wouldn't want you to break anything. Once, when I was demoing it for someone, I flipped a breaker . The RS2s do dig a bit deeper it seems, but functionally (given the lack of content down there) it's basically the same. My Rythmik and JTR subs sound basically identical(after EQ).

Your output is rising where mine is naturally falling. That must be beastly.

 

[izeek]

Attached is a pic of my living room where I listen to music.

Since there is hardly any place to keep a woofer next to my speakers, I was thinking of keeping the woofer inside a no-door wooden closet (see red circle) that is located behind the curtain, which means at least 1 foot behind the speakers and also behind the curtains.

What do you say about the proposed location of the woofer? Your gut-feeling comments are also welcome.

between that chair on the left and the table next to it. always put decorations on it for waf(lol).