PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Speakers / Monitors

OP- you're making it too complex considering your needs. You're gonna complex yourself into not getting speakers for a long time. Careful of that. I realize you want to spend once and spend right. Get in front of speakers and have a listen- at least try to have a listen to the ones you may really want to buy. If you have the room for nearfields, you should give a few a listen as well. Just be careful of too much advise and investigation. It comes down to ears and sound. Good luck to you.

Dan

tommohawk if you were referring to putting a sub in 'the middle' being the middle of the room, you are asking for major disappointment.

Subwoofers are designed to couple into the standing mode shapes of a room. The way that you do that is to put them in a location where they will couple with the most modes - that is in corners. Put it in the middle and you'll have nothing but disappointment.

I agree with shockwave's comments and again stand by my comments that there is a reason that there's a difference between PA speakers which are designed for listening in the far field at higher volumes, and nearfield monitors which are designed for use in the nearfield at lower volumes. Already typed it out many responses ago.

And Mac I flat out got what you did as well - but perhaps you didn't even mean it that way!

For practicing - your concentration should be on practicing not critical listening. If you want volume go get a used crummy little practice guitar amp and some adapters and cables to get the signal into it. It will blow you out of the room with volume and you'll hear all the timing and pitch cues that you will ever need to practice along with music. Don't spend more than 50$ for one from eBay, or even a crummy old shelf stereo system at your local Oxfam store. Then spend your money on some nice nearfield monitors.

-Scott

I can't tell you how far I've gotten along the way from practicing and quality listening on HEADPHONES! LOL! Sometimes the better way will wrap right around your head!

Dan

I wrote this a few years ago - and we can talk more after you've read it:

I feel that it's important that I review some basic laws of physics about how real speakers work in the real world. I'll skip the math and techy stuff and try to present it in easy to understand terms. It all boils down to one basic axiom,and four smaller axioms:

1. The basic axiom: "Everything in designing a speaker is a trade off."

This can also be stated as:

"There no such thing as a free lunch.", or "You want something; what are you willing to give up to get it?"

These are the four smaller axioms:

2. "Small won't get you big, without some tricks."

3. "To get good bass response, you hafta move the air in the room - a lot of air."

4. "As the frequency goes up, the dispersion narrows."

5. "As the frequency goes down, the bass will roll off dramatically at some point, depending on basic axiom 1."

The problem:

Think of the air in a room as a big bale of loosely packed cotton. You want to move the whole bale of cotton, but all you have is a small stick. (The "stick" is your speaker.) The stick won't move the whole bale; all it will do is poke into the bale and move the cotton near the stick. You need what's called "better coupling". Speakers are like small sticks; they don't do a good job of moving large objects. You need a better way to tie the speaker to the air in the room. You can:

Use a bigger stick: You can use a bigger cone, but there are limits to how big you can make it, and drawbacks start to outweigh benefits as the size goes up. if the stick is as big as the room, how do you move the stick? The bigger cone has to be heavier and stiffer, so that it doesn't flex as it moves. Heavier means sluggish. That limits the cone to slower starting notes like pipe organs. Stiffer, yet light cones means more exotic materials (i.e., expensive") like Kevlar, Aluminum, and Graphite Composites.

Move the stick more: This was the principle of the acoustic suspension speakers; make the speaker move longer distances to push more air. Unfortunately, it required a lot heavier cone and a long voice coil which dropped the efficiency way down and made the system sluggish as hell.

Use a lotta little sticks: The Bose approach, where you use multiple bass drivers to simulate the cone area of a larger driver. The problem is still back to basic physics; even though you equal the area of a large speaker, the cone diameter of each speaker determines one of the low frequency cutoff points, and you pay for the bass boost with phase cancellations and beaming at higher frequencies.

Taper the stick from small to large: It's called an acoustic transformer, and that's how horns work. They transform a high energy, large motion, speaker cone to to a lower energy, less motion, signal appearing at the horn mouth that couples better to the air in the room. The problem with low frequency horns is that the mouth of the horn has to be huge and (like every transformer), the throat of the horn (or the transformer's primary) can easily saturate when overdriven.

Tie a second stick to the first stick: This is what a Helmholz resonator does; it can either be done with a tuned hole in the box to move more air in a very small frequency range just below where the speaker starts to roll off (Axiom 5), or by using any tuned mass (like a passive radiator) to move air in that range. The efficiency of this port is tied to a lot of other factors, including cabinet volume.

Use eq to boost the bass and fix problems: That works ok, but only up to a point. You can't fix room nodes electronically, since those are caused by bass buildup over time, and they're different for each room. You can do some slight boost to help a steady dropoff, but you quickly run out of power (or speaker capacity) at very low frequencies.

A brief side trip about Axiom 4: High Frequency Dispersion: This dispersion problem is true of microphones as well as speakers. Even with a perfect omni measurement mic, you have a choice of flat response on-axis, but the high end will drop off as you move off axis, or you can have flat response off-axis, but the high end will increase as you move on axis. With speakers it's the same thing; as you raise the frequency, the beam narrows and you lose highs as you move further off-axis.

So, what have we learned? Basically, just three things; that (below a certain frequency), a speaker needs help to produce low end, and that bigger is generally better, but not without some compromises. And, we know that above a certain frequency, the high end dispersion begins to narrow as the frequency goes up.

We add all of this knowledge to our first basic axiom ("Everything is a trade off.") and we can now discuss our choices, the tradeoffs, and make some intelligent decisions about how to choose a speaker system that does more - for less.

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There are really only 2 categories of studio monitors:

Small, Nearfield speakers

Like the poor, they will always be with us. Originally, nearfield speakers were developed to give the engineer an approximate idea of what the album would sound like on a cheap home stereo. Now, they're usually a first choice when starting out with a limited budget, or in a small room. They take up very little space, they reduced room node interference by close placement, and they're often the "only" speakers in small studios. Most are ok for for tracking, but not for making critical mixing or mastering decisions.

Disadvantages: Small size (both cabinet, and woofer) limits low frequency response, very narrow sweetspot, due to limited dispersion. As expected, the "best" nearfield speakers run anywhere from $3,000 up. They include models from Adam, K&H, B&W, JBL, Lipinsky, and Genelac. Below this point, the response and accuracy of the cheaper nearfields are all over the map.

Mid/Farfield speakers

These are the standards for professional studios and will be for a long time to come. They allow realistic levels - as loud as the band is. They let groups hear themselves as they imagine they are - bigger than life. The bass actually sounds like a real bass, drums sound full, rich, and loud, and everybody is happy. Advantage include: wider frequency response, better dispersion, bigger sound at higher levels, and they translate better for mixing and mastering. All of these speakers generally fall into two categories, either free-standing towers (midfields), or soffit-mounted systems (farfields). The best of the bunch are no-compromise speakers - built without regards to price.

The downside is that this kind of sound will only happen in carefully designed rooms, which few home recordists can afford. And of course the price is equally high - from about $5,000, all the way up to $40,000 - apiece !!! Popular brands include Duntech/Dunlavy, Quested, TAD, and some esoteric brands. To compete in this league, the speakers better be damn good, and measure really well.

Disadvantages: Larger size/space restrictive (usually unsuitable for home studios), more interference and cancellations from room nodes in small, non-tuned studios, and dispersion is still limited (which create a still restrictive, "sweet spot"). In addition, all these speakers usually require expensive esoteric amplification for best results. The amplifiers for these speakers can often cost as much as the speakers.

I'll try to get to another installment in a few days.

Hey Harvey, thats a really nice piece. Looking forward to part 2!

But bear in mind that the OP stated that the use of these speakers is NOT for mixing purposes - just playback for praticing the Tenor Sax...


--Mac

Actually, he said:

"Anyhow, I use BIAB and other programs mostly to provide backing for tenor sax. So I need my sound system to be pretty beefy so I don't drown it out. I also do some mixing, (but not pro) so I want the sound to be reasonable quality and as flat as possible. Also of course I want to listen to general music on the same system."

But I'll get into some of the trade offs (that he should consider) in a day or two.

Harvey - those are interesting analogies. For low frequencies, it also matters where you put the 'stick'. In the center of a room just isn't going to work. It's a matter of simple physics and the room mode excitation. But I assume you know this - perhaps that's coming in your part 3. Unfortunately, the bale of cotton analogy doesn't work as it pertains to using the low frequency response in a room, which is dominated by modes in the room for non-designed rooms which will have modes and to get levels the OP is looking for, need to be coupled with.

My opinion - the OP should just go get a used shelf-type stereo system at his local Oxfam or equivalent thrift store for his practicing, and get some small nearfields for monitoring - if it absolutely must be speakers. Otherwise, headphones work fine for practicing and you can have all the level you want at nearly any price point.

-Scott

Yup, I wanted to keep this as non-technical as possible. But, considering his possible budget (and a probably very small room), I figured a short non-techy intro to some of the problems might help a lotta people on the forum. I planned to point out all the "gotcha's" later in the discussion.

But in this situation, it's all about trade offs and compromises. I also agree that headphones may be his best bet.

I stand corrected.


--Mac

Hi all - thought I'd just post to let you know progress I've made.

I thought long and hard about 2.1 but couldnt live with the ones I'd heard - because the satellites lose too much of the low end vocals, and sat at close range i really miss it.

I saw some Wharfedale 8.1 proactive on ebay - they got a pretty good review on soundonsound so I got those for a good price. Initially i was thrilled to bits - great sound, probably a bit too close to hi-fi rather than reference, but that suited me fine.

So happy ending? No chance. After a week I have a hum from the speakers that I just cant lose. It almost certainly isnt a simple earth/ground issue unfortunately.

I wont post the technical detail here, but will start a new thread for this. I guess this is a bit off piste for this forum - but maybe someone has some bright idea which will save the day!

Regards
Tom