The case for choosing a smaller bookshelf in a 2.1 system

[TheWarrior]

I'd be fearful of the Wharfdale's. Speakerman's comments confirm the 'warm sound' which would reflect the low crossover to a dome tweeter. Remember those active speakers we listened to, one had a lower crossover in exchange for 'better bass extension' and it did not sound near as neutral as the smaller woofer'd model? More obnoxious, and colored the sound more than anything else?

 

[speakerman39]

I'd be fearful of the Wharfdale's. Speakerman's comments confirm the 'warm sound' which would reflect the low crossover to a dome tweeter. Remember those active speakers we listened to, one had a lower crossover in exchange for 'better bass extension' and it did not sound near as neutral as the smaller woofer'd model? More obnoxious, and colored the sound more than anything else?

Both the Dentons and the Diamond 220's use a X-over point of 2.3K/2.2K respectively speaking. That is really not unusually low inmho. Both are buttery smooth, very laid-back, have a good amount of detail, and excel with vocals. Especially, female vocals. Furthermore, there is absolutely no listening fatigue whatsoever. That is, I could listen to either or all day long and never get tired of them.

Most of the time, I never wanted to stop listening to them. Have NEVER been able to say that about any other speaker(s) that I have ever owned. The 220's are more neutral than the Dentons. However, the 220's also have noticeably more upper mid-bass output. The closer to a back wall the more bass you will have. The Dentons were much more fussy with placement and no matter what there just wasn't that much low end extension. A sub is a must w/the Dentons whereas the 220's not so much.

I ended up keeping the 220's ONLY b/c I could get by w/o a sub. My mentioning of being "warm" is a positive attribute. What surprises me is just how much detail there is w/o any hint of brightness. Most people equate detail w/brightness/forwardness. I for one do NOT care for a bright speaker. Listening fatigue will set in on a bright sounding speaker quite rapidly. Wharfedale is known for being very smooth in that nothing is over-pronounced. I still say that the 220's would be a better fit for Kurt given how I know him to prefer a more neutral sound signature.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[TheWarrior]

Both the Dentons and the Diamond 220's use a X-over point of 2.3K/2.2K respectively speaking. That is really not unusually low inmho. Both are buttery smooth, very laid-back, have a good amount of detail, and excel with vocals. Especially, female vocals. Furthermore, there is absolutely no listening fatigue whatsoever. That is, I could listen to either or all day long and never get tired of them.

Most of the time, I never wanted to stop listening to them. Have NEVER been able to say that about any other speaker(s) that I have ever owned. The 220's are more neutral than the Dentons. However, the 220's also have noticeably more upper mid-bass output. The closer to a back wall the more bass you will have. The Dentons were much more fussy with placement and no matter what there just wasn't that much low end extension. A sub is a must w/the Dentons whereas the 220's not so much.

I ended up keeping the 220's ONLY b/c I could get by w/o a sub. My mentioning of being "warm" is a positive attribute. What surprises me is just how much detail there is w/o any hint of brightness. Most people equate detail w/brightness/forwardness. I for one do NOT care for a bright speaker. Listening fatigue will set in on a bright sounding speaker quite rapidly. Wharfedale is known for being very smooth in that nothing is over-pronounced. I still say that the 220's would be a better fit for Kurt given how I know him to prefer a more neutral sound signature.


Cheers,

Phil

Ok, I could then see a case for the 220's, but the 10.1 and 10.2 both have the lower crossover. I wonder why they offer such drastically different 2-way bookshelf speakers....

 

[speakerman39]

Ok, I could then see a case for the 220's, but the 10.1 and 10.2 both have the lower crossover. I wonder why they offer such drastically different 2-way bookshelf speakers....

The Diamond 10.1/10.2's are the older models when compared to the 220's/225's. The Dentons 80th Anniversary are a special edition and an all different animal altogether. They originally were priced at $1K a set!

If Kurt is looking for a more warmer presentation, then the 10.1's would do wonders. The 10.2 give up some of its warmth in the mids to offer more low end extension. The 200 series are much more neutral, but yet still very smooth and laid-back. The Dentons offer even more detail and refinement, but really need a sub to sound their best. The 10.1 and the 220's not so much.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[KEW]

LOL, I have always liked the Wharfedale sound, but I'm not currently in the market for another sub $500 MSRP BS speaker. I'm not looking to buy the Wharfedales! They were just handy as a "real world" and topical (because of the sale) example.

Whereas a novice would likely assume the speaker with the larger woofer (that costs more) would be better, there is often a trade-off in sound quality when going with the larger woofer.

While ShadyJ's point that we don't know until we measure is valid, I think we can all agree that given woofers of very similar design/quality but scaled to different sizes, the smaller woofer will most often present an easier task for blending with the tweeter.

For a 2.0 system, the extra bass may be worth the loss in the woofer to tweeter blending, but,
in a 2.1 system, the benefit of the larger woofer is minimized and you are likely to end up spending more money for worse sound quality.

That is what I meant to communicate.

Sorry about the confusion!

 

[KEW]

@yepimonfire , you make some good points: Certainly max SPL will typically be greater for a speaker with a larger woofer. I generally think of a BS being used in a bedroom or office system, althought there are plenty of 6" or greater speakers that can fill a normal LR. For that matter, my 5" LSR305's can easily run me out of my LR, but they are starting to sound a little stressed at that high of a level - pushing the SPL limit for that speaker.

In reality, a larger woofer with a lower xover to the tweeter (assuming the tweeter can handle it) will always outperform a smaller woofer, so long as directivity is matched.

Agreed. That is pretty much my point. In the specific case of the Wharfedales (as well as many others), they did not lower the crossover point and I am willing to believe the directivity also takes a hit. So the two qualifiers (in bold) are two of the biggest problems I see with increasing the woofer size.
A third factor is a smaller mid-woofer will generally provide better detail at a higher frequency (given same design, just scaled down); whether it is an audible difference depends on the specific drivers and frequencies, but without a way to be sure, I would always hedge towards greater detail.

Most of the rest of your post is discussing the virtues of wave-guides and how they ameliorate many of the concerns of crossing to a larger woofer in a two way design.
That is a good point. As I understand it, a well designed compression horn allows a tweeter to cover substantially lower frequencies. The modern mainstream Klipsch speakers do not use compression drivers, but I would still expect real benefit from their wave-guides allowing the tweeter to get more SPL out of less excursion. Klipsch has been doing this long enough that they know how to take advantage of these properties to produce a speaker that is very competitive with more traditional designs.

 

[KEW]

The point of this thread was intended to give the novice some food for thought that bigger (and more expensive) does not always buy better.

Only twice have I had the opportunity to critically listen to two speakers side by side which represented the same series, only with one larger than the other:

Behringer Truth 3020 vs 3021 - 6.75" vs 8.75 woofer and in this case, they went from 3/4 to 1" on the tweeter, but the 6.75" model was cleaner in the midrange (I presume transitional) frequencies.

Presonus Ceres 3.5 vs 4.5 - 3.5" vs 4.5" woofer. Same tweeter and the 4.5 was a bit congested as compared to the 3.5" woofer.

 

[yepimonfire]

@yepimonfire , you make some good points: Certainly max SPL will typically be greater for a speaker with a larger woofer. I generally think of a BS being used in a bedroom or office system, althought there are plenty of 6" or greater speakers that can fill a normal LR. For that matter, my 5" LSR305's can easily run me out of my LR, but they are starting to sound a little stressed at that high of a level - pushing the SPL limit for that speaker.


Agreed. That is pretty much my point. In the specific case of the Wharfedales (as well as many others), they did not lower the crossover point and I am willing to believe the directivity also takes a hit. So the two qualifiers (in bold) are two of the biggest problems I see with increasing the woofer size.
A third factor is a smaller mid-woofer will generally provide better detail at a higher frequency (given same design, just scaled down); whether it is an audible difference depends on the specific drivers and frequencies, but without a way to be sure, I would always hedge towards greater detail.

Most of the rest of your post is discussing the virtues of wave-guides and how they ameliorate many of the concerns of crossing to a larger woofer in a two way design.
That is a good point. As I understand it, a well designed compression horn allows a tweeter to cover substantially lower frequencies. The modern mainstream Klipsch speakers do not use compression drivers, but I would still expect real benefit from their wave-guides allowing the tweeter to get more SPL out of less excursion. Klipsch has been doing this long enough that they know how to take advantage of these properties to produce a speaker that is very competitive with more traditional designs.

Klipsch does use compression drivers in their flagship models such as the rf 7 II/III and the rc-64 II/III. A compression driver vs dome really does nothing different but offer significant increases in sensitivity. Regardless, a waveguide or horn by itself attached to a dome also greatly increases sensitivity. More than likely the dome tweeters without the waveguide would measure in the low 90s, mounted to the waveguide I wouldn’t be surprised if the sensitivity approached 100dB. Without knowing the specifics, it’s hard to tell just how much more sensitive the rf 7 tweeter is compared to the dome tweeters, but I’d guess the compression driver is probably at least 3-6dB more sensitive.

It would be a waste of time and money to use the CD in the smaller reference models, since the dome tweeter itself is already much more efficient than the woofers, and must be attenuated to match. A CD makes sense for the RF 7 because the standard dome would be a weak link if paired to the dual 10” woofers.

 

[shkumar4963]

I'm not talking lifestyle mini-cubes, this is about real bookshelf speakers.

A good immediate example (because of clearance sales) is the Wharfedale Diamond 10 series.

If you like the Wharfdale sound and are looking for a BS speaker, you can currently get the 10.1 at $200/pr (MSRP=$350) and the 10.2 at $275/pr. (MSRP=$450)

https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/any-holiday-sales-thread.77597/page-47#post-1224343

So which to buy?

It seems reasonable to think that the 10.2 is the better option! You are getting a great discount either way and figure with the money you are saving, you can "splurge" for the 10.2's! However, that might not really get you the best sound!

The reason is that in a two way speaker, the designer is playing a game of how much bass vs a smooth transition between the woofer and the tweeter.

The major factors are:
1) How low can the tweeter go before it becomes distressed? You can only expect a 3/4" or 1" tweeter to extend so far down into the mid-range frequencies before it is pushing its capability.
2) How high can the woofer go before it becomes distressed? The larger a speaker, the less capable it is of extending into the upper midrange.
3) How much bass do you want from the speaker? Item 2 would suggest a smaller woofer is better, but that limits how deep the speaker will go.

So, the 10.1 has a 5" woofer and the 10.2 has a 6.5" woofer. Both have 1" tweeters, both cross to the tweeter at 1.8kHz, and both are rated at 86dB Sensitivity. The 10.1 is rated at 48Hz - 24kHz and the 10.2 is rated at 40Hz - 24kHz.

Now, let's look at the Tower version of this speaker (Diamond 10.7, MSRP=$1300/pr. on sale for $700/pr). It has the same 1" tweeter and the same 6.5" woofer as the 10.2. It also adds a 2" midrange and a second 6.5" woofer (without the phase plug and with a low pass filter at 150Hz).
The most relevant aspect of this, in my "armchair analysis", is that Wharfedale chose to use a good chunk of the tower's additional cost to add a 2" midrange (with additional crossover) which takes over the duties from 850Hz to 4.5kHz! From this, it seems likely that the transition from 6.5" woofer to 1" tweeter might not be so smooth as it ideally could be!
A 2" mid-range at 4.5kHz might be the ideal, but it is an easy bet that a 5" woofer will better blend with a 1"tweeter than a 6.5" woofer!

The benefit of the larger driver is additional bass: 40Hz instead of 48Hz. However, if this is a 2.1 system and you cross at the traditional 80Hz (or higher), I don't believe the 6.5" woofer adds anything audible over the 5" woofer!

Consequently, the 10.1 is likely to sound better in a 2.1 system.
(If it were a 2.0 system, the added bass may well be worth a somewhat less smooth transition)

As a contrasting example, lets look at the SVS Ultra Bookshelf. Here we have the same: A 6.5" mid-woofer crossed to a 1" tweeter... but at 2kHz!
However, when we look to the tower, what did they do? They use the same 1" tweeter, use dual 6.5" mid-woofers as midrange drivers, and add dual 8" woofers!
Obviously, they felt like the transition from 6.5" to 1" was good enough for their flagship speaker. If you consider that the street price is roughly 2.5 times the street price of the Diamonds, I would speculate that the quality of the Ultra 6.5" and 1" drivers allow them to more successfully blend/crossover.

Disclaimer: I am no speaker designer, and, as compared to many members of this forum, am quite ignorant of Speaker design concerns. However, from a pragmatic/generalized standpoint, I think my statements are valid and I welcome any corrections, education, or additional information more knowledgeable members provide. What I am describing is my own thought process which may be a useful stepping stone for those who have not yet obsessed much over such matters.

Here are some similar thoughts from Dr Toole comparing M105 with M106

Revel Owners Thread. Post # 10692.
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?url=http://www.avsforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=55346946&share_tid=710918&share_fid=47413&share_type=t&share_pid=55346946

[quote name="filmnut" post=55346670]I'm considering the M105 and M106 in a 2-pair (quad) music-only setup in a dedicated listening room. According to Revel's specs, the only relevant differences are ......


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