Speakers don't matter

[jliedeka]

...much. This sounds like heresy but hear me out. Room acoustics and speaker positioning have more to do with sound quality than the speakers themselves. There are very few speakers that totally suck. There are exceptions like HTIB cubes and Bose but most are decent within certain limitations.

The reason I think this is a life changing experience I recently had. I just finished up a remodel job on my living room. I added drapes and repositioned my speakers. The drapes plus a media shelf at the other reflection point seem to tame the room. You can see from my sig that I have some fairly low end monitors. They sound 10 times better now. There are some issues with cabinet resonance especially with symphonic music but for 90% of what I listen to, they are fine. I've concluded that positioning and room acoustics make all the difference.

I'm still looking to shrink that 10% gap with an upgrade. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't obsessed with good sound.

Jim

[Matt34]

Speaker placement and room treatments are crucial but the source of the sound is still the most important. I think the other two seperate decent systems from great ones.;)

[mazersteven]

While I do agree that speaker position, and room acoustics are very important. I disagree that they are what "makes all the difference".

IMO sound quality starts with the speakers.

[EJ1]

I believe the opposite.

85% speakers
15% placement/acoustics

[MDS]

I agree in principle with jlideka.

The room itself has a profound effect on the sound. I think he is right that speakers that are at least somewhat comparable will sound about the same in the same room and changes to the room can affect the sound for better or for worse.

When my living room went from sparse to fully furnished the sound changed. After recalibrating, it sounded a tad better than it did before but also because I now have lots of 'natural' absorption, I have to turn it up louder to get the same level when my internal snowblower (AC) kicks on.

[Seth=L]

SQ is a 50/50 split IMO. Excellent speakers can sound awful in a poor listening room, and a good listening room won't compensate for poor speaker performance. There are so many factors in a speaker system that affect it's SQ, such as frequency response (are they as near to flat as possible on and off axis?). Another factor is cabinet resonance, most speakers have a ton of it. A select few speakers, in consumer branded audio, can deliver a near transparent experience if they are placed in a dedicated and appropriately treated room. Take the B&W Nautilus 802D speaker system, it has excellent on axis performance. If in properly treated room it is one of the best speakers you can just straight up buy with no cabinet modification that will perform like a speaker should. Now these speakers are expensive, not everyone can afford to go out and get those speakers and I'm not saying everyone should.

There are simply too many factors to be considered when trying to compare importance of room acoustics and speakers themselves to lay a definite percentage to either side, but I believe it will fall some place in the middle as that makes the most sense based on my experience. I have heard good speakers in horrible rooms, it sounds awful. I have heard some speakers sound decent in horrible room. A speaker needs a room and a room needs a speaker, they rely on each other to perform as a quality audio playback system. One cannot function its best without the other and speakers sound hugely different in most cases.

[cutter]

I had Axiom M80's in my living room-- open floor plan, hardwood floors with area rug, not much on the walls.... and I HATED how they sounded. So, I upgraded and exiled my M80's to my upstairs office as punishment (Bad speaker, Bad!) The office is wall to wall carpet, smaller room, floor to ceiling bookcase along one wall... and wouldn't you know it, the M80's sound about three times better! I'll vote for the 50/50 split.

[Exit]

I think the audio system has to be capable of reproducing quality sound first, and the most important part of the audio system, or the part that makes the most difference, is the speakers. If you can hear the system, or at least the speakers, on a demonstration and they sound good, then you know they at least have the potential to sound good if you set up your room correctly, or at least similar acoustically to the demonstration room. This may or may not include acoustic treatments, so I don’t see how acoustic treatments would be the first (most) important thing.

I would guess a majority of Audioholics (and certainly the general public) don’t have acoustic treatments per say (i.e. they may use bookcases, drapes, overstuffed furniture, etc.), although they may still benefit by their use. It would be interesting for the forum to conduct a poll of how much Audioholics spent (and separately plan to spend) on acoustic treatments for their audio setup. This could be done like the poll on how much Audioholics spent on their systems.

I think the room acoustic treatments for a multipurpose room (like a great room, family room or living room) would have a harder time with the WAF than the equipment itself. The wife would probably not approve of a multipurpose room looking like an anechoic chamber, as some vendors recommend. You are crossing the boundary between equipment and décor and that typically is the wife’s turf. If you have a dedicated home theater, then you probably have the say on what goes in it including acoustic treatments, but again I don’t think the majority of Audioholics or general public have dedicated (single purpose) HT rooms. (That’s another poll). So if you don’t get good speakers, you probably are not going to get room treatments as your first priority. It is the audio system, or speakers, first priority, then maybe room acoustic treatments as a second priority if you room needs them.

[AdrianMills]

...much.


Of course they do. Crap speakers will sound crap anywhere.


This sounds like heresy but hear me out. Room acoustics and speaker positioning have more to do with sound quality than the speakers themselves. There are very few speakers that totally suck. There are exceptions like HTIB cubes and Bose but most are decent within certain limitations.


Well, call me picky but I have heard far more speakers that I didn't like than I did (and I've listened to quite a few).


The reason I think this is a life changing experience I recently had. I just finished up a remodel job on my living room. I added drapes and repositioned my speakers. The drapes plus a media shelf at the other reflection point seem to tame the room. You can see from my sig that I have some fairly low end monitors. They sound 10 times better now. There are some issues with cabinet resonance especially with symphonic music but for 90% of what I listen to, they are fine. I've concluded that positioning and room acoustics make all the difference.

I'm still looking to shrink that 10% gap with an upgrade. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't obsessed with good sound.

Jim

So what you are saying is that you've finally set up your room and speakers correctly and now from that one experience you're telling us that, 1) most speakers sound pretty good or at least acceptable and 2) room acoustics are far more important at determining the sound we hear than the speakers themselves.

Sure, room acoustics are important for making the most of your speakers but like I said, a crap speaker will sound bad in any room and you can make even a good speaker sound awful in a very bad room but by itself, good room acoustics are meaningless without good speakers.

I've also heard very good speakers (my 804S and JM Lab 1027 for instance) sound very good in what I thought were quite bad rooms; now what do you make of that? :D

[mouettus]

We redid the family room 4 years ago. It was stucco walls and ceiling and carpet flooring. Even those Bose (http://www9.plala.or.jp/seacrop/okigonbe/BOSE301M.jpg) (*speakers were given to my mother*) were having a life back in the days. But when we redid the room (hardwood floors and gyprock), it changed the whole thing. Reflections all over the place. High echo. Still enjoyable. I bought Polk Audio speakers (which are bright) and used them for 3 years then realised it was time for something that fits my tastes a little better. The room is still the same but I have the Energy's now. Good enough for me.

All in all, speakers can really do something in the outcome.

...but wish I still had the carpet to absorb and the big stucco spikes to defuse. (DAMN was it ugly!)

[fmw]

We did some bias controlled listening tests about 10 years ago. In one of them, we put a $5000 pair of speakers in an acoustically poor room and a $700 pair of speakers in an acoustically excellent room. 70% of the testers preferred the $700 pair in the acoustically excellent room. So I have to say Jim is correct. I've said many times that room acoustics make or break an audio system, speakers are a distant second and everything else verges on the trivial.

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I believe the opposite.

85% speakers
15% placement/acoustics

I agree with you here.

[AcuDefTechGuy]

We did some bias controlled listening tests about 10 years ago. In one of them, we put a $5000 pair of speakers in an acoustically poor room and a $700 pair of speakers in an acoustically excellent room. 70% of the testers preferred the $700 pair in the acoustically excellent room. So I have to say Jim is correct. I've said many times that room acoustics make or break an audio system, speakers are a distant second and everything else verges on the trivial.

That is true when the room acoustics is so bad in the first place.

But if the room acoustics were already decent to begin with, then that's a different story.

In other words, not all rooms have bad acoustics.

[Matt34]

We did some bias controlled listening tests about 10 years ago. In one of them, we put a $5000 pair of speakers in an acoustically poor room and a $700 pair of speakers in an acoustically excellent room. 70% of the testers preferred the $700 pair in the acoustically excellent room. So I have to say Jim is correct. I've said many times that room acoustics make or break an audio system, speakers are a distant second and everything else verges on the trivial.

A polished turd is still a turd at the end of the day.;)

Don't mind me, I just wanted to use that saying.:p

[AdrianMills]

We did some bias controlled listening tests about 10 years ago. In one of them, we put a $5000 pair of speakers in an acoustically poor room and a $700 pair of speakers in an acoustically excellent room. 70% of the testers preferred the $700 pair in the acoustically excellent room. So I have to say Jim is correct. I've said many times that room acoustics make or break an audio system, speakers are a distant second and everything else verges on the trivial.

And of course you did an A/B comparison between the $5K and $700 speakers in the same room to get some sort of baseline for the room test? And which did the people prefer then?

Nobody is saying the room does not have any effect but if the expensive speakers were actually better speakers they should have sounded much better in the acoustically good room than the cheaper ones.

[avaserfi]

There are a variety of factors that effect loudspeaker-room interaction. For example, some speakers, such as those with high directivity, will be perceived far more favorably than a speaker with wide, linear, frequency response in highly reverberant, non-treated environments, especially if placed close to boundaries. This is due to minimized room interaction.

Now if one took two such described speakers and placed them in a properly treated room, all else being equal, it has been shown, through credible research using many hundreds of participants, that listener preference will fall with the speaker having wider response whose off-axis matches its on-axis response most similarly.

As such determining the percentage effect that the room has on loudspeakers depends greatly on the specific speaker in question. A high quality horn speaker will have far less effect imparted by the room than a high quality omnipolar speaker. While the latter has potential to be perceived as far more realistic it requires specific acoustic thought to achieve this goal which is not necessary with the former.

As far as properly treating a room goes there are many factors that must be taken into account: resonance, axial and off-axis [directivity] response, room reverberation, room modes, seating location etc...

An excellent source of reading on the subject is Floyd Tooles' Loudspeaker and Rooms for Sound Reproduction - A Scientific Review published in the JAES Vol. 54, No. 6, 2006 June.

[jamie2112]

Go ahead buy a pair of bose cubes and take them to abby road studios in the vocal booth and hook them up to a conrad johnson pre and amp and guess what the bose are still gonna sound like S#@T. Speakers are the MOST important part of any HT or music system. In my opinion of course....

[jliedeka]

This is fun! I knew I was going to start a s**tstorm with that comment. :D

I also agree with the comment that cabinet resonance is one of the biggest problems with low end speakers. I have that problem with some music but it usually only comes into play with busy mixes at higher playback levels.

I've recently learned two important things. My low end speakers aren't as bad as I thought. Also, listening for yourself is better than reading a hundred reviews or articles.

Jim

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I've recently learned two important things. My low end speakers aren't as bad as I thought. Also, listening for yourself is better than reading a hundred reviews or articles.



Sometimes we take things, like this audio hobby, way too seriously.:D

All the "low-end" speakers are only relatively "inferior" to their "high-end" counterparts.

Taken on their own merits, most $100 speakers sound pretty decent overall -- even Bose.:D

Just add a good quality subwoofer to a "lower-end" speaker, and you got a nice system all of the sudden.:)

[mazersteven]

We did some bias controlled listening tests about 10 years ago. In one of them, we put a $5000 pair of speakers in an acoustically poor room and a $700 pair of speakers in an acoustically excellent room. 70% of the testers preferred the $700 pair in the acoustically excellent room. So I have to say Jim is correct. I've said many times that room acoustics make or break an audio system, speakers are a distant second and everything else verges on the trivial.

:rolleyes:

I would challenge that all day long.

[Shadow_Ferret]

We did some bias controlled listening tests about 10 years ago. In one of them, we put a $5000 pair of speakers in an acoustically poor room and a $700 pair of speakers in an acoustically excellent room. 70% of the testers preferred the $700 pair in the acoustically excellent room. So I have to say Jim is correct. I've said many times that room acoustics make or break an audio system, speakers are a distant second and everything else verges on the trivial.
But $700 a pair aren't bad speakers to start with. Many everyday people would consider those audiophile quality. And really, most ordinary people don't know what to listen for when they audition speakers. That's why Bose sells so well.

However, I'd like to see that same test done with a crappy $100 pair and see if they prefer them to the $5000 ones.

[WmAx]

But $700 a pair aren't bad speakers to start with. Many everyday people would consider those audiophile quality. And really, most ordinary people don't know what to listen for when they audition speakers. That's why Bose sells so well.

However, I'd like to see that same test done with a crappy $100 pair and see if they prefer them to the $5000 ones.

Price is a poor method for quantifying quality. Even at $100, for example, I could point to a specific 2 way speaker pair that costs $130, and with some very basic modifications, they would excel in the relevant measured performance as correlated to perceived sound quality as compared to most 2 way speakers that are in a price bracket of 10x more.

-Chris

[WmAx]

I think by now most realize the OP has exaggerated in an attempt to maximize attention. At least, that is how it appears to me.

I think most realize that different speakers can have vastly different measured qualities that correlate with known audible differences in controlled double-blinded testing experiments. It is not debatable(by a rational person), for example, that if you use speaker A which has an off axis dispersion at 45 degrees and greater with 8dB variations vs. on axis in a wide 2 octave range of mid band response compared to speaker B that is similar in all other aspects, except is has a nearly identical response off axis at 45 degrees and greater vs on axis, that speaker A will be very audibly inferior in sound quality in a room that has any appreciable ambiance contribution(even most well treated rooms have considerable ambiance contribution).

-Chris

[Seth=L]

fmw, how did the more expensive speakers sound in the treated room? I rest my case with that question.:D

[fmw]

And of course you did an A/B comparison between the $5K and $700 speakers in the same room to get some sort of baseline for the room test? And which did the people prefer then?

Nobody is saying the room does not have any effect but if the expensive speakers were actually better speakers they should have sounded much better in the acoustically good room than the cheaper ones.

And they did. We tested them together in the good room. 100% of the testers preferred the $5000 speakers. I'm not suggesting good speakers don't make a difference and neither was the OP. The point is that the room acoustics are more important than the speakers. Obviously, way more important.

[fmw]

:rolleyes:

I would challenge that all day long.

What did your bias controlled tests show?

[AdrianMills]

And they did. We tested them together in the good room. 100% of the testers preferred the $5000 speakers. I'm not suggesting good speakers don't make a difference and neither was the OP. The point is that the room acoustics are more important than the speakers. Obviously, way more important.

I'm not entirely sure I follow your logic on that conclusion. Surely that depends on a lot of variables? The fact that extremely bad room acoustics can make even a very good speaker sound crap is undeniable (to most at least) but can a very good room make a very bad speaker sound good? I don't think so. At best I will give you that room acoustics are equally important but not more.

[Alex2507]

Go ahead buy a pair of bose cubes and take them to abby road studios in the vocal booth and hook them up to a conrad johnson pre and amp and guess what the bose are still gonna sound like S#@T. Speakers are the MOST important part of any HT or music system. In my opinion of course....

What I have gotten out of this thread and AH in general is that:

1. Good speakers are the first important part of good sound quality.
As WmAx pointed out, expensive and good aren't always the same thing. Bose. :)

2. Good placement, room acoustics and set up are needed to keep that good speaker sounding like a good speaker.

To me that is pretty good news. I'm not buying a $5000 pair of speakers anytime soon however the $500 speakers that I do have fall under the "good speaker" criteria. Placement and calibration are pretty easy. Room treatments and electronic speaker management are just improvements on the horizon.

Of course bad speakers will always sound like bad speakers.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I'm not suggesting good speakers don't make a difference and neither was the OP. Actually, I thought he was. That was his point, that room treatments are MORE important then the speakers.

[Alex2507]

Actually, I thought he was. That was his point, that room treatments are MORE important then the speakers.

That was his point in conjunction with his speakers turning out not to suck as bad as he thought. It's a two fold point. He does state that Bose sucks and does not argue that room treatments would make sucky Bose sound good. Is there really any confusion on this? :confused:

[Shadow_Ferret]

This is what he said.Room acoustics and speaker positioning have more to do with sound quality than the speakers themselves. There are very few speakers that totally suck. There are exceptions like HTIB cubes and Bose but most are decent within certain limitations.



That was his point in conjunction with his speakers turning out not to suck as bad as he thought. It's a two fold point. He does state that Bose sucks and does not argue that room treatments would make sucky Bose sound good. Is there really any confusion on this? :confused:
His point is based on his experience. He had so-so speakers and improved the acoustics and now his speakers sound better as a result, Thus, he's of the opinion that room treatments are more important than speakers.

However, I believe from experience that the opposite is true. You can have bad acoustics with bad speakers and by adding better speakers will also improve the sound.

My rec room, which is cement floors and paneling is probably awful acoustically. I've been satisfied with my Sansui SP6300 speakers for years.

I didn't change the acoustics, but I bought better speakers and I can hear a significant difference. So in my experience, speakers are more important than room acoustics.

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I agree that speakers are MORE important than room acoustics.

Dose anyone here believe that room acoustics can make a $50 speaker sound better than a $50,000 speaker?

If not, then speakers are MORE important than room acoustics.

Let's put it another way.

If someone offered you $5,000 to spend on either Room Acoustics or Speakers (only ONE choice), would you pick speakers or room acoustics?

If you truly believe that room acoustics is more important, then you would spend the $5,000 on room acoustics.

[jostenmeat]

Tough one. I think I agree with jliedeka. I believe a bad room and placement will make for worse effects than a "relatively" poorer quality speaker. The difference between a $300 pair of speakers and $3000 pair of speakers will be noticeable if they are well placed in a good room. But the $300 pair in a good environment will sound better than the 3k pair in a bad setup, by orders of magnitude. Which leads me to believe that in most real world scenarios, the room and placement outweigh the speaker choice in impact (outside of tiny HTIB speakers, as the OP has already mentioned).

I've heard BW 802Ds in a horrible room, I thought the tweeters were blown. The tweeters were fine after asking, it was the room that was awful.

Im trying to learn about proper speaker positioning, and treatment positioning in the new stereo room. There are chances that the room is bad enough that I may give up, but I need more time.

A very helpful friend I've made at AVS said this in his last email to me, a portion of it:

The idea of getting your speakers into the room should address one thing in a big fashion. The rear-ward wave will hit the wall. The distance that wave travels tells you something. If your speaker is 4' away from the front wall, you will get a null at the 1/4 wavelength. That is, 1130 ft/s divided by 4' multiplied by 1/4. This yields roughly 70hz. You will get "issues" in the FR at every multiple of that 70hz in addition to the "issues" associated with the 3 dimensions of the room. If you have your speakers 3' away from the front wall, the problem is roughly 94hz. As you go closer to the front wall, the problem frequency increases into the vocal band. In my opinion, Rock music suffers greatly when speakers are close to the front wall. Having a null in the 100hz range hurts the grunge of the electric guitar and makes the rock music lifeless and boring. In small rooms you will trade off bass drum definition and rock guitar grunge. This is where a subwoofer can help, even though you have full range speakers. Get the guitar grunge back, use the subwoofer placed appropriately to get the bass drum back.

The reason why its necessary to make changes slowly and 1 dimension at a time is the following:
1. 3-D room = 3 room modes. Problems at these 3 frequencies and their multiples
2. Floor bounce. If a driver is playing in the range that includes the frequency that correspondes to the distance between it and the floor, there will be an additional 1 problem frequency and at its multiples. Some manufacturers dial this out through the crossover network, some dont.
3. Rear wave. Described above, 1 extra problem frequency and at its multiples
4. Side wave. Similar to above, 1 extra problem frequency and at its multiples

This is a summary of the major problems. As you can see there are 6 frequencies in the 47hz (length mode) through 140hz range (side wall/ rearward wave). If any of these frequencies overlap, they make the problem at that frequency much worse. This holds for any of the multiples as well. This also does not take into consideration tangential modes or oblique modes of the room.

So, how can one get a great sounding system with so many problems? One concept is a large room. Larger rooms have lower modes. The lower the mode, the more multiples you can fit within the spectrum. By having every frequency being a problem frequency in the absolute sense, this also means that the problems at each frequency are relatively small. In order to get close to this absolute, you have to ensure all room dimensions are dissimilar, the placement of the listening position is dissimilar to any of the room dimensions, same with speakers. Similarity is "defined" as divisible by 2 or 4, etc.

So, the take home message is if you have a smaller room, you have to ensure that your speaker placement and listening position placement does not overlap any of the native problem frequencies that your room already has. By spreading out problem frequencies, the problems become easier to deal with, especially with acoustic traps.

Its gonna be a lot of work, but this hobby is all about that ;)

One final note, in my experience I need to be at least 4'-5' away from the speakers. You might have to sacrifice the 38% rule towards 33% to get this distance as you pull your speakers forward. I would pull the traps out of the room first though. Otherwise you have to rearrange the first reflection traps for every move you make. Also, without the traps, every move you make will cause drastic audible and noteable changes that you can write down.

While you might change out your speakers, this is still a valueable excersize as what you learn now will carry to any of the new speakers. If the new speaker has compensation networks for boundaries, your life is made even easier. However, why use those networks if you can optimize placement first? You would only know those optimized placements if you had done the work previously in that room :) This is tedious, thats why acousticians get paid a lot of money to "make it right". Usually, if you are saving money (by not hiring an acoustician) you are going to make up for that in time costs :)

So, really, when we go audition speakers, it may be very easy to mistake poor placement for poor speaker performance. Right? Im not even talking about the room itself, just placement. I think its nearly impossible to separate room and speakers. Some speakers can be too large for a certain room, while much too small for another.

I think I would say the speaker choice is a very big factor. Its just that room acoustics are either never or rarely considered, and worse yet, people mistake acoustical issues of the room for the performance of the speaker itself.

[Alex2507]

[QUOTE=AcuDefTechGuy;406002]
If someone offered you $5,000 to spend on either Room Acoustics or Speakers (only ONE choice), would you pick speakers or room acoustics?

QUOTE]

Silly question but if you are willing to send me 5 grand I just want you to know that not only do I agree with you 100% but I have always agreed with you. You look good too. Have you been working out? :D

[jliedeka]

I guess my point is that inexpensive speakers aren't necessarily complete crap and can sound pretty good in the right room. Someone earlier said I exaggerated to maximize attention. That's a fair cop.

Another thing that prompted the post is that I ran across one of those endless upstream source vs. speakers debates. I thought that room conditions are at least up there with the other variables. I guess my perverse sense of humor took over and I decided to assert that the room is more important.

I would tend to agree that a $300 set of speakers in a good room will probably sound better than a $3000 set in a horrible room. My other point is that outside of some exceptions there are few completely worthless speakers. In a good room, my ~ $200/pr monitors sound good for 90% of what I listen to.

While I would expect the $3000 speakers to sound better on a level playing field, there is a diminishing returns effect when you start spending more $$$. At least that's what I tell myself as I'm trying to save up $2-3k for a new 5 speaker set.

Jim

[fredk]

I guess my point is that inexpensive speakers aren't necessarily complete crap and can sound pretty good in the right room.
I agree completely.

I think that you can do quite well for $3,000. Maybe not the best of the best, but at least 90% of the way there.

Fred

[itschris]

I've found that most decent speakers sound... well... decent. There are some speakers that have a specific sound or nuance to them that you either like or dislike. Kipsh is one of those for me. There's just something about that big horn that makes the tones sound harsh. Infinity and Martin Logan are two others that come to mind that just have more of a signature style sound. Gimme Def Techs, Axiom, B&W, M&K, Dynaudio, and a host of others and I doubt i'd throw any of them out of bed.

[WmAx]

I agree completely.

I think that you can do quite well for $3,000. Maybe not the best of the best, but at least 90% of the way there.

Fred

If you are willing to go used, you can get 'best of the best', or at least really close to it, if you are a real bargain hunter. B&W 801 Matrix II or III from the late 80's is such a beast. A dead neutral, super low resonance full range speaker system with low distortion. Very good off axis response linearity as well. Combine this unusually neutral system with a high precision DSP equalizer and you can achieve just about any sound signature you so desire.

-Chris

[jliedeka]

I've found that most decent speakers sound... well... decent. There are some speakers that have a specific sound or nuance to them that you either like or dislike. Kipsh is one of those for me. There's just something about that big horn that makes the tones sound harsh. Infinity and Martin Logan are two others that come to mind that just have more of a signature style sound. Gimme Def Techs, Axiom, B&W, M&K, Dynaudio, and a host of others and I doubt i'd throw any of them out of bed.

I haven't listened to any new Klipsch speakers but my horns don't sound harsh. They used a silk dome tweeter in mine while the newer ones use metal. I don't know if that makes a huge difference.

Jim

[jliedeka]

If you are willing to go used, you can get 'best of the best', or at least really close to it, if you are a real bargain hunter. B&W 801 Matrix II or III from the late 80's is such a beast. A dead neutral, super low resonance full range speaker system with low distortion. Very good off axis response linearity as well. Combine this unusually neutral system with a high precision DSP equalizer and you can achieve just about any sound signature you so desire.

-Chris

I just blew a bunch of money on a receiver and a sub so I won't be buying any speakers until fall probably. I am keeping an eye on Audiogon and my local Craigslist. I'd be willing to take a chance on some decent used speakers I haven't heard because I probably wouldn't lose much if I had to turn around and sell them.

One thing I'm concerned about is being able to properly drive higher end speakers with my receiver. I don't need a lot of watts in my small room but I have no experience with inefficient speakers. I'd really like to try out some of the Totem monitors like Model Ones or Rainmakers. I would also be interested in some Quad L series monitors but they tend not to last too long on Audiogon. I saw a listing for some 12Ls from today that was already marked sold.

Jim

[croseiv]

I'd say it depends on the initial quality of the speaker, and then the room acoustics/positioning. If the speaker is crap, the acoustics don't matter at all. If the speaker is good but room acoustics are poor, then postion and treatments can help tame a bad room. Of course, really poor initial placement will squelch even the finest speaker.

[ivseenbetter]

I had some old crap speakers in my living room. They seemed to sound ok to me. Then I upgraded to some decent speakers. I placed them in the same place as the old speakers and they sounded tons better. In this situation there was no change to my room acoustics. The difference was so big that my wife, who can't stand anything I do with this stuff, even commented on it without my asking. To me, that tells me that the speakers have a huge impact on sound quality. More so than acoustics.

[Joe Schmoe]

I had some old crap speakers in my living room. They seemed to sound ok to me. Then I upgraded to some decent speakers. I placed them in the same place as the old speakers and they sounded tons better. In this situation there was no change to my room acoustics. The difference was so big that my wife, who can't stand anything I do with this stuff, even commented on it without my asking. To me, that tells me that the speakers have a huge impact on sound quality. More so than acoustics.

Agreed 100% Speakers make a huge difference in my room. Also, treatments don't make much difference because it is pretty decent acoustically to begin with (drywall and carpet.)

[trnqk7]

I had always thought my old DIY speakers sounded pretty good but upgraded with the wife's permission (gotta take it when you get it!) I took my DIY speaker into the shop where I was demoing my current speakers (see sig) and they sounded terrible. The DIY speakers sounded absolutely terrible compared to the way they did at my house. The demo was done in a treated theater room, the very one I thought my new Dali's sounded so great in.

With the Dali's now in place, they don't sound quite as good at home as they did in the treated room, although they do sound better than the old DIY speakers did at home.

I just find it curious that the DIY speakers sounded ok/pretty good in an untreated room and terrible in a treated room....

[gmichael]

An audio chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. No matter how much you spend on a few of the links, it only takes one to break the whole chain. Balance is the key. You need your speakers, electronics, wires and room acoustics to be at about the same level. You could have the best of any three of these, but if you neglect just one of them, then your system will be as bad as that one link.

[fmw]

[QUOTE=AcuDefTechGuy;406002]
If someone offered you $5,000 to spend on either Room Acoustics or Speakers (only ONE choice), would you pick speakers or room acoustics?

QUOTE]

Silly question but if you are willing to send me 5 grand I just want you to know that not only do I agree with you 100% but I have always agreed with you. You look good too. Have you been working out? :D

Speakers because there isn't a lot you can do about room acoustics if the dimensions of the room are bad or if the room doesn't allow for good placement. There is no question that room acoustics matter more than speakers. However, speakers can be upgraded where room acoustics cannot always be upgraded. I think the confusion in this thread is that people think speakers are more important that room treatments and indeed they are. However, they aren't more important than room acoustics - most of which results from room size and dimensions and speaker placement - not treatments.

[Joe Schmoe]

[QUOTE=Alex2507;406103]

Speakers because there isn't a lot you can do about room acoustics if the dimensions of the room are bad or if the room doesn't allow for good placement. There is no question that room acoustics matter more than speakers. However, speakers can be upgraded where room acoustics cannot always be upgraded. I think the confusion in this thread is that people think speakers are more important that room treatments and indeed they are. However, they aren't more important than room acoustics - most of which results from room size and dimensions and speaker placement - not treatments.

Well put. I have been in rooms where treatments would make a big difference (lots of brick, eg.), but in many rooms they will not.

[markw]

While not diminishing the importance of room treatments and speaker placement, saying the seaker itself doesn't matter in this equation is like saying that genetics plays no role at all in the making of a supermodel.

[fmw]

While not diminishing the importance of room treatments and speaker placement, saying the seaker itself doesn't matter in this equation is like saying that genetics plays no role at all in the making of a supermodel.

I don't think anybody is saying that speakers don't matter. They do. The argument seems to be the relative importance of room acoustics to speaker design and quality. In our test 70% of the audiophiles preferred an inferior speaker in an acoustically good room to a superior speaker in a poor room. 100% of those audiophiles preferred the superior speaker in either room. So while speaker design and quality is certainly easily perceptible audibly in an extreme comparison, the speakers themselves can't trump overall room acoustics in a similarly extreme comparison. Lets say room acoustics are first, speakers second and room treatments third. I think that would be accurate based on our tests.

[markw]

In our test 70% of the audiophiles preferred an inferior speaker in an acoustically good room to a superior speaker in a poor room.

and...

100% of those audiophiles preferred the superior speaker in either room.

The fact that the "superior" speaker was preferred in either room tends to make my point fairly succinctly. The better the material you're starting with, the better the end result.

Need any more clarification?

Look, I use a similar comaparison to FM tuners and antennas where I'll say that "A mediocre tuner with a great antenna will outperform a great tuner with an mediocre antenna" and, to a point, it's true. But, all else being equal, that superior tuner will do better than that mediocre antenna on either antenna. Same with speakers and room interaction.

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Silly question but if you are willing to send me 5 grand I just want you to know that not only do I agree with you 100% but I have always agreed with you. You look good too. Have you been working out? :D



The check is in the mail.:D

[AcuDefTechGuy]

...In our test 70% of the audiophiles preferred an inferior speaker in an acoustically good room to a superior speaker in a poor room...



Yes, but the "inferior" speakers were $700, not $25 Wal-Mart speakers!

If the speakers were truly significantly inferior ($25 speakers), people would pick the truly superior speakers ($25,000) 100% of the time regardless of room acoustics.

[TLS Guy]

I had some old crap speakers in my living room. They seemed to sound ok to me. Then I upgraded to some decent speakers. I placed them in the same place as the old speakers and they sounded tons better. In this situation there was no change to my room acoustics. The difference was so big that my wife, who can't stand anything I do with this stuff, even commented on it without my asking. To me, that tells me that the speakers have a huge impact on sound quality. More so than acoustics.

Of course that is true. Good speakers are the most important part of the equation, and there are very few that are any good.

[Joe Schmoe]

Of course that is true. Good speakers are the most important part of the equation, and there are very few that are any good.

I find the exact opposite to be true. The vast majority of today's speakers are quite good, with poor ones being a rare exception. It is fair to say, however, that very few are anything special.

[3db]

Of course that is true. Good speakers are the most important part of the equation, and there are very few that are any good.

Good is a relative term. Speakers unless throwing a ton of money at them are at best a compromise of designs as many of the design paramaters are at at opposite ends of the spectrum.

[fmw]

Yes, but the "inferior" speakers were $700, not $25 Wal-Mart speakers!

If the speakers were truly significantly inferior ($25 speakers), people would pick the truly superior speakers ($25,000) 100% of the time regardless of room acoustics.

Yes, I suppose it is a matter of degree and definition. My point was that the $5000 high fidelity speakers couldn't trump the room acoustics against $700 high fidelity speakers even though everyone preferred the $5000 speakers when tested in the same room. Hope that's accurate enough for you, sea lawyer. If the $700 speakers had been Bose instead of Boston Acoustics then all bets would have been off. ;)

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Yes, I suppose it is a matter of degree and definition. My point was that the $5000 high fidelity speakers couldn't trump the room acoustics against $700 high fidelity speakers even though everyone preferred the $5000 speakers when tested in the same room. Hope that's accurate enough for you, sea lawyer. If the $700 speakers had been Bose instead of Boston Acoustics then all bets would have been off. ;)

LOL:D

Poor Bose!:D

[Art_H]

Loudspeaker and Rooms for Sound Reproduction - A Scientific Review[/I] published in the JAES Vol. 54, No. 6, 2006 June.

Floyd Toole now has a book out releasing July 18, 2008.

Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms

amazon has a listing with info.

Looks good. 576 pages as well...

My first post, glad to be here.

I would compare speakers and rooms to tires and suspension.

A great tire will make the biggest difference in vehicle performance, but a good suspension is needed to take that performance to the next level.
No matter how good your suspension is, a crap tire will always give crap performance... Obviously tires are not speakers, just trying to help give perspective.

I see the situation as a speaker (speaker and enclosure) as an enclosure within an enclosure. ie. the room it's in.
I would say that it's all about tuning. From the speaker enclosure to the shape and material on the walls of the room.

It was posted earlier that a good tuner with a bad antenna is better than one with a bad antenna, or something like that. No matter how well the antenna is tuned, if the tuner isn't on the correct station, all you're going to get is static... Tuning.

I agree that a good speaker will sound better than a bad speaker. Isn't that what makes the 'good' speaker the good one to begin with??? Let's leave cost and pricing out of the equation. (Aside from the obvious $25 plastic specials etc.)

What makes a $700 speaker inferior to a $3000 speaker?
1. Enclosure design?
2. speaker actual quality. cone type. surround. magnet? etc
3. crossover? a big one for passive setups?
4. enclosure materials/build quality?
5. Marketing/appearance?

No matter how you look at it, a speaker (conventional style) is a very crude though effective method of transducing electrical energy into mechanical energy into sound energy.

There is a couple cool videos on youtube where some guys made homemade speakers using a styrofoam plate and a magnet with a wound voicecoil around business cards. Bus. cards also used for the suspension. It didn'y sound that bad considering the crappy audio on youtube. I'm not saying they were great either.

I'm not saying I have the answers. I would just like to have the discussion move in a more scientific approach to differences in cheap to expensive speakers, as opposed to they just sound better. Why do they sound better? (focusing more on the speaker and not the speaker with room)

If the cheaper speakers were removed from the box and tested for T/S and placed in a well built matched box sound as good as the expensive speakers?

Maybe the answer is in depleted uranium speaker enclosures....

Great to be here...

[Joe Schmoe]

I have learned from direct experience that a pair of studio monitors in a nearfield configuration can sound as good as any speaker system, regardless of price. Listening to the awesome remaster of Pyramid last night on my Alesis Monitor Ones, I was virtually sitting next to Alan Parsons at the mixing console.

[fmw]

I have learned from direct experience that a pair of studio monitors in a nearfield configuration can sound as good as any speaker system, regardless of price. Listening to the awesome remaster of Pyramid last night on my Alesis Monitor Ones, I was virtually sitting next to Alan Parsons at the mixing console.

Most studio monitors are a little lean in the bass. That is one of the reasons that so many mixes have accentuated bass lines in them. There are other reasons, of course. The studio monitors normally have pretty good reproduction in the mids and highs. Listening near field does improve bass response over filling an entire room with bass, but they are still a little lean. Add a sub to a pair of studio monitors and that's a very good approach.

My own studio monitors are home made. They have 8" Vifa woofers and 1" Vifa dome tweeters in enclosures with twice the volume that the software calculated. They are also fairly lean in the bass.

[Joe Schmoe]

Most studio monitors are a little lean in the bass.

Mine are -3dB at 45Hz. That is pretty good.

[WmAx]

I have learned from direct experience that a pair of studio monitors in a nearfield configuration can sound as good as any speaker system, regardless of price. Listening to the awesome remaster of Pyramid last night on my Alesis Monitor Ones, I was virtually sitting next to Alan Parsons at the mixing console.

Any speaker system? Incorrect. A proper acoustical property room with very wide dispersion speakers of very low resonance and high linearity will sound far more realistic in terms of timbre and spatial reproduction.

Listen, I have a set of studio monitors, in a highly acoustically treated space, that is far superior in regards to measurable linearity, dynamic capability, and resonance behaviors, as compared to most high end monitoring systems used in studios. They can not compare in realism to a properly engineered/built system as described above. Besides, to claim otherwise is in conflict with the credible perceptual research in the field.

-Chris

[jliedeka]

Even in a near field situation, the room still affects the sound. I started this thread because I had the experience of a huge jump in sound quality from better speaker positioning and some changes to my room. I anticipate improving my room further before upgrading my speakers because I want to realize the full benefits of better speakers.

Oh, yeah. I also started this thread as a bit of a provocation. :D It's fun to see whether people will respond rationally or emotionally.

Jim

[croseiv]

Oh, yeah. I also started this thread as a bit of a provocation. :D It's fun to see whether people will respond rationally or emotionally.

Jim


Yeah I figured that was the case.:)

[Joe Schmoe]

Any speaker system? Incorrect. A proper acoustical property room with very wide dispersion speakers of very low resonance and high linearity will sound far more realistic in terms of timbre and spatial reproduction.

Listen, I have a set of studio monitors, in a highly acoustically treated space, that is far superior in regards to measurable linearity, dynamic capability, and resonance behaviors, as compared to most high end monitoring systems used in studios. They can not compare in realism to a properly engineered/built system as described above. Besides, to claim otherwise is in conflict with the credible perceptual research in the field.

-Chris

I have heard systems costing well over 100X as much as mine that did not sound better (equally good, but not better.)

[mouettus]

I have heard systems costing well over 100X as much as mine that did not sound better (equally good, but not better.)

So how does your ego feel now? :D lol

[WmAx]

I have heard systems costing well over 100X as much as mine that did not sound better (equally good, but not better.)

First let's consider that most so-called audiophile systems are priced far higher than they need be, due to over-priced exotic audio hardware and cables, and speakers that have mediocre measured performance(I can can count on one hand, the number of actually remarkable measuring speakers I have seen in Stereophile in the last 5-7 years), but very high price tags... compounded by usually being in a mediocre acoustical environment.... price really has less to do with it than most think it does...

-Chris

[WmAx]

Even in a near field situation, the room still affects the sound.

Sure, but not by a significant amount, unless poor set up is true: fore example, placing speakers near a boundary wall without a large surface area covered with high bandwidth absorbers to remove the majority of the reflection(s). LF can still be an issue, but mid-range and treble is not difficult to get to a point where it has no substantial effect by the room placed upon it, if used in a proper near field set up.

-Chris

[annunaki]

Any speaker system? Incorrect. A proper acoustical property room with very wide dispersion speakers of very low resonance and high linearity will sound far more realistic in terms of timbre and spatial reproduction.

Listen, I have a set of studio monitors, in a highly acoustically treated space, that is far superior in regards to measurable linearity, dynamic capability, and resonance behaviors, as compared to most high end monitoring systems used in studios. They can not compare in realism to a properly engineered/built system as described above. Besides, to claim otherwise is in conflict with the credible perceptual research in the field.

-Chris

Based upon the design of Chris's nearfield monitors I totally agree with him here. They rival any of the best monitors available, regardless of price, period.

A properly designed, linear, resonance free, wide dispesion speaker system will easily sound more pleasing to most people than nearfiled monitors if both were set up properly.