Full range speakers for small room 12x9

rojo

rojo

Audioholic Samurai
Wonder what the GermanMAESTRO Heidelberg HD-PF200 towers cost? They claim 20Hz extension, though I have a hard time believing that's -3dB with 8" integrated subwoofers. I'm sure they sound great nevertheless. I can't express high enough praise for my MB Quart speakers. GermanMaestro is where the MB Quart talent all went when the company was bought and ruined by Fosgate.

Edit: Ah, never mind. All the UK retailers only sell their headphones, not their hifi.
 
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lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Good suggestions since he has the limited choice and tastes of the UK sort of audiophl. LOL I couldn't

Since you are in the UK, take a look at speakers by Spendor, PMC, Harbeth, and ATC but especially Spendor.

In the UK you have much better access to good speakers than in the US.
But these dont go to 20hz region(((
Nor are likely any other speakers within your parameters.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Good suggestions since he has the limited choice and tastes of the UK sort of audiophl. LOL I couldn't




Nor are likely any other speakers within your parameters.
He is in a small room, so does not need to go to 20 Hz and shouldn't.

If he had a nicely balanced set of speakers from say Spendor, then I would bet he would feel no need for a sub. The real problem is that most speakers may measure well, but actually do not have the horse power to really deliver what is required in that crucial 80 to 500 Hz range. The result a sub turned up far too high to compensate.

Pretty much all members here are far too focused on the 20 to 80 Hz range, when they should be much more focused on the 80 Hz and up range before they even worry about the former.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
Starting thinking about audio system for my holiday home. It is all very early stage. Ideally would like to start from stereo and later add 2 more channels. Wondering if i can just have 2 speakers and still get decent bass. Say 20hz +-3db. Also would prefer speakers to be rather taller than wider. Not wider than 25cm ideally. Is that possible at all? If so what are the options?
The extra money spent on large speakers could be used to add a sub instead to cover the low end. For that small of a room a pair of bookshelves will do just fine, and I'm willing to bet the cost difference would be nearly enough to buy a sub.

Sent from my 5065N using Tapatalk
 
zieglj01

zieglj01

Audioholic Spartan
The JBL Studio series like 580/590 just might be avail in europe?
The 580 is in stock at JBL USA -- the 590 is said to be back in stock by the end of August -- not any on the JBL UK site
 
zieglj01

zieglj01

Audioholic Spartan
But these dont go to 20hz region(((
The JBL 590 will hit below 30

Canton is sold in the UK -- check into the Ergo and Vento series -- not sure how low they really hit, but still worth checking into -- the closeout prices for these in the USA are really good.
 
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S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
One problem is that its usually large speakers that have really solid bass extension, but many such speakers will be out of your budget or just too large for a small room. I would just use a subwoofer or two and bookshelf speakers.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
One problem is that its usually large speakers that have really solid bass extension, but many such speakers will be out of your budget or just too large for a small room. I would just use a subwoofer or two and bookshelf speakers.
I think that is the advice almost universally given here that is just plain wrong.

I think the obsession with subs, and the money spent on them has actually seriously compromised the results obtained on a dollar for dollar basis. The major wallop if a symphony orchestra is way out of sun range. As I make recordings I note little content in most of the sub range.

My main speakers have no subs. When I do use subs with any of my designs, the power and output from the subs is minimal. The effect of switching them off is very subtle.

These two speakers will come out around his budget.

The Spendor A4

The Spendor A6R

Spendor not well known here, but a has had a long and steady following in the UK produces really fine well balanced sound at the same time offering excellent value for money.

UK speakers from companies like Spendor in my view sound have far better balance and fidelity than speakers originating elsewhere.

The OP does not need to look beyond his own shores.

If he has a choice between Spendor and anything JBL, then Spendor wins hands down.
 
TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
I think that is the advice almost universally given here that is just plain wrong.

I think the obsession with subs, and the money spent on them has actually seriously compromised the results obtained on a dollar for dollar basis. The major wallop if a symphony orchestra is way out of sun range. As I make recordings I note little content in most of the sub range.

If he has a choice between Spendor and anything JBL, then Spendor wins hands down.
You're shaming an active subwoofer and 2 way bookshelf solution while recommending a 2-way speaker with a woofer that is expected to produce sounds from 32 hz to over 3 khz?

A 7 inch driver is going to have a very high directivity index in the mid range it is expected to reproduce by itself, while supplementing bass, making it very difficult for this speaker to sound the same to anyone on the same couch.

Further, I think your understanding of bass response below the transition frequency of a room is lacking at best. The room is in control, making active solutions the best possible due to their adaptability to any room through custom DSP filters that modify naturally occurring room resonances. 'Speed' and 'tight' are descriptors of the time domain, and regardless of driver being used, the dimensions and configuration of parallel surfaces in a room will determine what is heard, when and where.

Compared to a JBL constant directivity horn, there will be no contest. I strongly recommend you check out the latest offerings from JBL, they are getting far ahead of the rest of the 'sport', possibly starting their own league.

And that is my recommendation to @Andrein is to look in to JBL 7 series monitors. (I haven't looked, but gotta believe they are sold in UK) The DSP will be a bit of a learning curve but they will play as loud and clean as you could want and would offer as much bass as you could reasonably hope for without high dollar floor standers, in which I would still recommend supplementing subwoofers anyway.
 
rojo

rojo

Audioholic Samurai
You're shaming an active subwoofer and 2 way bookshelf solution while recommending a 2-way speaker with a woofer that is expected to produce sounds from 32 hz to over 3 khz?

A 7 inch driver is going to have a very high directivity index in the mid range it is expected to reproduce by itself, while supplementing bass, making it very difficult for this speaker to sound the same to anyone on the same couch.

Further, I think your understanding of bass response below the transition frequency of a room is lacking at best. The room is in control, making active solutions the best possible due to their adaptability to any room through custom DSP filters that modify naturally occurring room resonances. 'Speed' and 'tight' are descriptors of the time domain, and regardless of driver being used, the dimensions and configuration of parallel surfaces in a room will determine what is heard, when and where.

Compared to a JBL constant directivity horn, there will be no contest. I strongly recommend you check out the latest offerings from JBL, they are getting far ahead of the rest of the 'sport', possibly starting their own league.

And that is my recommendation to @Andrein is to look in to JBL 7 series monitors. (I haven't looked, but gotta believe they are sold in UK) The DSP will be a bit of a learning curve but they will play as loud and clean as you could want and would offer as much bass as you could reasonably hope for without high dollar floor standers, in which I would still recommend supplementing subwoofers anyway.
I don't believe @TLS Guy has any deficits of understanding the effects of a room on speaker response. If anything he might forget from time to time that organ pipes aren't the only symphonic instrument that produces sub bass, or that a healthy house curve can be a guilty pleasure with any music, but especially electronic music. Then again, I haven't heard his TLs, so I'll concede that he knows something about sub bass that I haven't experienced yet.

Anyway, you lost me in your segue from bass response to JBL's horn. Took me a minute to realize that you were beginning a different point rather than continuing the previous.
 
TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
I don't believe @TLS Guy has any deficits of understanding the effects of a room on speaker response. If anything he might forget from time to time that organ pipes aren't the only symphonic instrument that produces sub bass, or that a healthy house curve can be a guilty pleasure with any music, but especially electronic music. Then again, I haven't heard his TLs, so I'll concede that he knows something about sub bass that I haven't experienced yet.

Anyway, you lost me in your segue from bass response to JBL's horn. Took me a minute to realize that you were beginning a different point rather than continuing the previous.
Please don't misunderstand that I have a lot of respect for TLS, but his comment that I quoted was bias driven, and not based in reality. As someone who has a very direct approach to dealing with nonsense, I hope he is able to appreciate mine.

JBL was brought up because TLS mentioned it, I just didn't include it in my quote.
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
I think that is the advice almost universally given here that is just plain wrong.

I think the obsession with subs, and the money spent on them has actually seriously compromised the results obtained on a dollar for dollar basis. The major wallop if a symphony orchestra is way out of sun range. As I make recordings I note little content in most of the sub range.

My main speakers have no subs. When I do use subs with any of my designs, the power and output from the subs is minimal. The effect of switching them off is very subtle.

These two speakers will come out around his budget.

The Spendor A4

The Spendor A6R

Spendor not well known here, but a has had a long and steady following in the UK produces really fine well balanced sound at the same time offering excellent value for money.

UK speakers from companies like Spendor in my view sound have far better balance and fidelity than speakers originating elsewhere.

The OP does not need to look beyond his own shores.

If he has a choice between Spendor and anything JBL, then Spendor wins hands down.
I have examined the spectral content of lots of different recordings, including orchestral music. Sometimes orchestral does have significant bass in the subwoofer range, and other times it does not. A lot of times there is energy in that range but as subharmonic content. For orchestral music, I would certainly want a sound system that is capable in low-frequencies. But of course, there is more music than orchestral music, and some genres have a huge amount of energy in subwoofer frequency bands, and some don't touch that frequency range at all. I don't want to make presumptions on anyone's preferences if I don't know what they like, so if I recommend a system, it will be one that covers the subwoofer band range, whether it includes a sub or not.
 
A

Andrein

Senior Audioholic
Thank you guys for your suggestions. Quite a lot of homework for me to be done. Checked my room again. No really space for sub except boiler room in the front right corner i store my instruments there as well. Would like to keep that if possible. So there are really 2 options. 1) sub and normal bookshelf or narrow tower speakers or 2) narrow 'full range' speakers. Option 1 is obvious but would require rearranging a lot of stuff. And cupboard door will need to be open during listening. Option 2 is preferrable but there are a lot of limitations on what speakers and those speakers that i can fit, even 8" might not give me experience i get in my main house.

So, i will probably check all speakers and brands mentioned select best speakers i find in uk for <=2-2.5k and will audition them. Most show rooms in uk are small rooms so hopefully this will be a good check. If nothing is good enough i will have to use sub then.
 
A

Andrein

Senior Audioholic
Forgot to say i listen to classic music quite a lot. Bach, Rahmaninov, Chaikovski, Vivaldi, Chopin. Would not like to loose anything in those recordings.
 
TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
Thank you guys for your suggestions. Quite a lot of homework for me to be done. Checked my room again. No really space for sub except boiler room in the front right corner i store my instruments there as well. Would like to keep that if possible. So there are really 2 options. 1) sub and normal bookshelf or narrow tower speakers or 2) narrow 'full range' speakers. Option 1 is obvious but would require rearranging a lot of stuff. And cupboard door will need to be open during listening. Option 2 is preferrable but there are a lot of limitations on what speakers and those speakers that i can fit, even 8" might not give me experience i get in my main house.

So, i will probably check all speakers and brands mentioned select best speakers i find in uk for <=2-2.5k and will audition them. Most show rooms in uk are small rooms so hopefully this will be a good check. If nothing is good enough i will have to use sub then.
Focus on the treble and midrange clarity, those are the sounds a speaker should produce well in ANY room. Female voices that might crack on lesser speakers, and general dialog from characters listening in 2 ch stereo make it easy to turn subjectivity in to probably cause (to eliminate one selection over another) when you take away a mono center channel.

Also try listening in Mono, that will really eliminate any smoke screen. Yes much of your classical music recordings were intended for stereo, but modern sound tracks are multichannel - if a speaker doesn't sound good by itself, adding a second won't change that, but it could mask other problems!
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Forgot to say i listen to classic music quite a lot. Bach, Rahmaninov, Chaikovski, Vivaldi, Chopin. Would not like to loose anything in those recordings.
There is a chasm of difference of opinion between the UK and North America about subs. I think this is because of the much greater amount of orchestral music listened to in the UK. I firmly believe you do have to plan your system differently depending whether you are in the rock/pop or classical camp largely.

Most UK speaker manufacturers strongly discourage setting main speakers to small, and just gently supplementing the bottom end if you use a sub.

The reasons for this are compelling.

Here is the frequency spectrum of most orchestral instruments.



I'll add the tuba which comes in different sizes with fundamental ranging from 29 to 44 Hz.

The orchestral bass drum is of particular interest, as it can give the orchestra at times that massive punch and wallop.

The initial crack is a huge energy output from 100 Hz to 15 KHz with a decay from 20 Hz to 100 Hz. The big energy punch is in the attack.

You will see that only three instruments have fundamentals just below 30 Hz. Only very large pipe organs have fundamentals at 18 Hz and most not below 32 Hz. That is because most organs only have 16 ft stops at the deepest and not 32 ft.

Now the preponderance of the energy radiated by instruments is in the range of the fundamental.

So you can see where the power is really required, it is from around 60 Hz to 1.5 KHz. And I will say this again, but the bass range extends to at least 600 Hz and many would say 900 Hz. Mid range starts somewhere between 600 and 900 Hz. I tend to think the higher number is more realistic.

When you really absorb what I have been saying you realize where amp and speaker power really needs to be concentrated. You can clearly see it is not in sub range.

Not only that, but a sub not only really separates a lot of instruments from their fundamentals but actually puts a crossover right at the range of the fundamental of a lot of instruments.

I agree with one of my mentors, the late Ted Jordan, that crossovers have a deleterious effect separating fundamentals from harmonics. The usual sub crossover is in a terrible place. The flat room response is not the total package at all, as it says nothing about time, which is the neglected issue.

So this is why my speakers are designed the way they are. There are six voice coils handing the range from 45 to 600 Hz. Supplemented by two cones and voice coil covering 20 to 60 Hz.

There are is minimal violence done to phase which means time.

800 watts is allocated to the former range and 300 to the latter. The choice fully justified by the physics of sound reproduction.

The speakers are truly extraordinary. I had an engineer who teaches sound production come out here last week to see what the buzz. That was the first time I now there was a "buzz" on!

Any how he said he had been on lots of high end studios and had never heard such realistic reproduction at concert levels. So I'm now threatened with another mastering job in two to three weeks.

The point is that in your small room the type of speakers I outlined will do an excellent job of handling your musical preferences.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Why not KEF Q900? They are tall, slim, have solid bass and fits the budget. In small room i strongly believe that you'd get bass down for to 20
 

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