How do Soundbars fill a room with sound?

[3db]

I have a JBL 5.1 soundbar complete with a 10" down firing sub that can get fairly loud and still stay clean sounding. Its not better than seperate speakers but its a huge step up from the TV speakers. In the summer, I take the sound bar + sub to the trailer where it stays for the season.

 

[lovinthehd]

10 x 14 with everything mounted on the long wall.

Wouldn't take a lot of speaker to fill a small room like that otoh. I have two friends with similar soundbar setups, one is in a room about that size, the other in a much larger room also open to kitchen/dining areas. The smaller room sounds "fuller"

 

[rjharle]

Lol. Maybe? I don’t actually know that. I was just throwing it at the wall.

Start looking for the water boards. Let's grab a few engineers and find out

 

[highfigh]

I don't think my imagination came into play here. I didn't mention anything about sound quality. Possibly you imagined my post being more than it was. I was only asking what was the technology to make 3" speakers sound bigger than they should. I remember little speakers sounding little until Bose loaded the 901 with a bunch of 4" speakers.

The only reason the 901 sounded like they were producing bass was because of the equalizer, which altered the response in a way that was similar to making a big V with a 12 band graphic equalizer, pushing the highest and lowest sliders up as far as they go, dropping the 1KHz slider to the bottom and making a relatively straight line between the extremes and the middle. Sure, two groups of four 4" drivers on each flat face benefit from that configuration, but it's really not producing much bass without the equalizer.

3" drivers can't fill a room- that would defy Physics. The amount of air moved by such a small driver and its low excursion limit their frequency response at the bottom and, while they may dip into the 100Hz area, that's two and a half octaves higher than 20Hz. The little Bose dual cubes are crossed over close to 250Hz because they can't do much at low frequencies but because the crossover slope is gentle, the transition form low to high isn't as noticeable if someone's not really listening critically.

 

[rjharle]

The only reason the 901 sounded like they were producing bass was because of the equalizer, which altered the response in a way that was similar to making a big V with a 12 band graphic equalizer, pushing the highest and lowest sliders up as far as they go, dropping the 1KHz slider to the bottom and making a relatively straight line between the extremes and the middle. Sure, two groups of four 4" drivers on each flat face benefit from that configuration, but it's really not producing much bass without the equalizer.

3" drivers can't fill a room- that would defy Physics. The amount of air moved by such a small driver and its low excursion limit their frequency response at the bottom and, while they may dip into the 100Hz area, that's two and a half octaves higher than 20Hz. The little Bose dual cubes are crossed over close to 250Hz because they can't do much at low frequencies but because the crossover slope is gentle, the transition form low to high isn't as noticeable if someone's not really listening critically.

Never owned a Bose 901 or any other Bose product. I only heard them in clubs: generally 6-8 speakers hung from the ceiling; wasn't aware how the bass was produced, only that is it sounded potent. Thank you for the explanation.

I don't think the speakers are designed for the 3" speakers to produce any sound pressure. All the air movement would seem to be coming from the subwoofer. I don't know what the crossover frequency is, but the 3s are only producing a tiny bit of vibration, hardly enough to ever be felt. The only function of the 3" IMO would be to create volume from the mid-frequency on up. Unless there is some kind of wave manipulation, engineered into the speakers, I think that is all there is; sub for the lows, air movement, and 3s for the rest.

As TLS Guy pointed out earlier, "90 db from the 3s can make some noise"

 

[lovinthehd]

Never owned a Bose 901 or any other Bose product. I only heard them in clubs: generally 6-8 speakers hung from the ceiling; wasn't aware how the bass was produced, only that is it sounded potent. Thank you for the explanation.

I don't think the speakers are designed for the 3" speakers to produce any sound pressure. All the air movement would seem to be coming from the subwoofer. I don't know what the crossover frequency is, but the 3s are only producing a tiny bit of vibration, hardly enough to ever be felt. The only function of the 3" IMO would be to create volume from the mid-frequency on up. Unless there is some kind of wave manipulation, engineered into the speakers, I think that is all there is; sub for the lows, air movement, and 3s for the rest.

As TLS Guy pointed out earlier, "90 db from the 3s can make some noise"

I'd think that in a club they had some bass bins helping out....

 

[rjharle]

I'd think that in a club they had some bass bins helping out....

Maybe; didn't see any bass speakers.

 

[lovinthehd]

Maybe; didn't see any bass speakers.

Often in a club you don't (see them, that is)

 

[Kleinst]

I've looked into some Atlantic Tech speakers and notice this sound bar when looking. This one looks pretty stout. This one or at least one of theirs has spots for 5-7 speaker inputs and this runs from an AVR not a small amp in the soundbar.

I was thinking about this. If so many people are thinking this is adequate to watch TV (with at least a sub for crying out loud) and it probably is to be honest. I bet that does well. It made me realize that pretty much any 5-7 channel system of reasonable quality is probably overkill in most instances. But I love overkill. Still the one below looks like it would be great for a kids room or for my daughters rooms at college. That said I bet they wouldn't want to have to deal with the AVR needed to drive it.

 

[rjharle]

I've looked into some Atlantic Tech speakers and notice this sound bar when looking. This one looks pretty stout. This one or at least one of theirs has spots for 5-7 speaker inputs and this runs from an AVR not a small amp in the soundbar.

I was thinking about this. If so many people are thinking this is adequate to watch TV (with at least a sub for crying out loud) and it probably is to be honest. I bet that does well. It made me realize that pretty much any 5-7 channel system of reasonable quality is probably overkill in most instances. But I love overkill. Still the one below looks like it would be great for a kids room or for my daughters rooms at college. That said I bet they wouldn't want to have to deal with the AVR needed to drive it.

View attachment 53819

I have an idea. How about 5 self powered sound bars around the room with 5 subs. That would be a 5.5 system. You could lay them out with the fronts and sides vertical and center horizontal. 5 x 90 db plus the air movement of 5 subs could produce an interesting sounding environment.

We could move away from the bulky speakers and have more room for your stuff.

 

[highfigh]

I'd think that in a club they had some bass bins helping out....

We had some smaller bars with low ceilings that had 901- they were OK, but it wasn't a p lace for serious listening, either. We got a few pairs in trade at the stereo store where I worked and we tried to 'reverse engineer' the response with graphic EQs, but that was before an RTA was anywhere near affordable and it was long before smart phones. The least expensive RTAs at the time were from GoldLine & Audio Control and the latter was $3500 in 1988, IIRC.

 

[highfigh]

I have an idea. How about 5 self powered sound bars around the room with 5 subs. That would be a 5.5 system. You could lay them out with the fronts and sides vertical and center horizontal. 5 x 90 db plus the air movement of 5 subs could produce an interesting sounding environment.

We could move away from the bulky speakers and have more room for your stuff.

Ick. Small speakers can't compete with larger speakers in the midbass, either- that's a critical range. A system will sound far better if the response from about 50-20KHz is solid than a system with sub/smaller speakers that are weak in the midbass, even if the sub's crossover is set higher because the sub isn't really designed for midbass. The transition between the sub and tiny speakers really has a lot to do with the sound quality. The main speakers should be able to stand on their own without a sub, IMO- if they can't sound fairly full at 60-100Hz, the sound will lack impact and 'feel' on many instruments, whether solo or in a group.

Also, horizontal center channel is known to be a poor choice, especially in an MTM arrangement and depending on the sound bar choice, delays between them may cause problems.

 

[rjharle]

Ick. Small speakers can't compete with larger speakers in the midbass, either- that's a critical range. A system will sound far better if the response from about 50-20KHz is solid than a system with sub/smaller speakers that are weak in the midbass, even if the sub's crossover is set higher because the sub isn't really designed for midbass. The transition between the sub and tiny speakers really has a lot to do with the sound quality. The main speakers should be able to stand on their own without a sub, IMO- if they can't sound fairly full at 60-100Hz, the sound will lack impact and 'feel' on many instruments, whether solo or in a group.

Also, horizontal center channel is known to be a poor choice, especially in an MTM arrangement and depending on the sound bar choice, delays between them may cause problems.

Ok, Scratch that idea.

 

[rjharle]

We had some smaller bars with low ceilings that had 901- they were OK, but it wasn't a p lace for serious listening, either. We got a few pairs in trade at the stereo store where I worked and we tried to 'reverse engineer' the response with graphic EQs, but that was before an RTA was anywhere near affordable and it was long before smart phones. The least expensive RTAs at the time were from GoldLine & Audio Control and the latter was $3500 in 1988, IIRC.

I once had a pair of Acoustic Research AR3A. I think they were the first air suspension build. Up until then, the speakers wear open back - I think. However, I remember they had great base.

 

[MrBoat]

All of the tiny 2.1 desktop systems I was into during the first 5 years of this century were potent and easily able to fill this 12 x 20 room. The HK Sound Sticks only had 4, 1" wide band drivers in a vertical array, and a 4.5" ported subwoofer, splitting 40ish watts between sub and mains. Certainly, smaller than a sound bar. Even the Stock Dell type offerings got reasonably loud in a small room. My son uses my Soundsticks and sub for video games now. I had forgotten how potent it was until I feel the bass and such coming from that end of the house.

 

[rjharle]

All of the tiny 2.1 desktop systems I was into during the first 5 years of this century were potent and easily able to fill this 12 x 20 room. The HK Sound Sticks only had 4, 1" wide band drivers in a vertical array, and a 4.5" ported subwoofer, splitting 40ish watts between sub and mains. Certainly, smaller than a sound bar. Even the Stock Dell type offerings got reasonably loud in a small room. My son uses my Soundsticks and sub for video games now. I had forgotten how potent it was until I feel the bass and such coming from that end of the house.

Yea loudness is one thing but, I think the problem with small speakers IMO are they don't have any musical body or impact. Sure you may hear the music, but I don't think you can get physically involved.

 

[MalVeauX]

Hi,

Well, there's no wizardy when it comes to the soundbar itself other than cabinet size, woofer size and the overall sensitivity at whatever power.

Turn off or disconnect the "sub" and you'll find it's doing more than just sub bass. And then yes it will sound quite similar to what you'd expect from 2 inch or 3 inch drivers in a fairly sized room. Thin.

Very best,

 

[MrBoat]

Yea loudness is one thing but, I think the problem with small speakers IMO are they don't have any musical body or impact. Sure you may hear the music, but I don't think you can get physically involved.

Tell that to people who like headphones.

 

[rjharle]

Tell that to people who like headphones.

When did a headphone ever produce pounding in your chest bass or the feel of an electric guitar? They may feel it thumping in their heads but, isn't anything like being in front of 90 dbs of floor standing speakers/subs banging the air around a room. You think you could feel the effects of Saving Private Ryan with a Sound Bar or headphones?

 

[cpp]

Tell that to people who like headphones.

I don't use headphones for the deep bass, as I'm not a bass head.,