Speakers: Perceptions, Descriptions, and Tastes

[mustang_steve]

I think when designing the ideal speaker, the room should not be thought of, since if you are altering the speaker's sound to work with a certain room, you have now possibly invalidated other rooms, possibly making whatever issues they had even worse.

The ideal solution to that is making a "pure" speaker, as in no screwing with the speaker to blend in better in certain room layouts.

Flat frequency response is the first place to start. Next is the range of frequencies it can cover. Finally is the off-axis response. Once those are covered, there's a good chance it will be the perfect speaker.

Stop thinking about comparing instruments to it...start thinking about "is this as close to what's on the CD as possible?"

I think too many of us have strayed from this path too often. Thinking about stuff like exotic cables, CD transports, tubes vs transistors, etc....when the biggest innacuracies are still due to the speaker.

...it astounds me that speakerbuilding is not as popular as cablebuilding considering how much more value a good pair of speakers can be.

 

[soniceuphoria]

[0QUOTE]I believe a point earlier was made about, I'm guessing, electrostatic speakers having limited bass response. This is a result of their directionality of sound reproduction, in that, unlike ordinary speakers, bass frequencies are much less strongly emitted from the back of the speaker enclosure, thus the speaker does not excite room nodes as strongly as conventional designs. Electrostatic speakers can be very transparent in their reproduction (eg. the Quad electrostatic).[/QUOTE]

Not entirely true. while planar speakers (including electrostats) are very directional, that is not the reason for the limited bass response. The concept is very simple actually. Planar speakers are limited in their excursion capabilities, meaning that they have a much smaller xmax as compared to conventional speakers. Which in turn means that to produce a large low frequency wave (especially at very low frequencies) they would need a giant radiating surface. Which is the reason that very few planars' are capable of producing low frequencies at very high volumes. They are simply incapable of moving the air that is required to do so. All planar sreakers emit as much sound from the rear of the speaker as the front, which is another reason that reproducing bass frequencies is so hard. The sound waves emitted from the rear of the speaker are 180 degrees out of phase as the waves from the front, and opposite waves cancel each other out. Which just adds to the diffaculty of producing low frequencies. That is why a lot of planars are hybrids. Which means that they are combined with a woofer to strengthen the bottom end. Planars are about as close as you will come to a perfectly flat frequency response (for now). The battle for the perfect speaker will be a never ending one to say the least. Simply because as stated above like no two instruments are exactly alike, no two ears are exactly alike. Happy Listening.
Greg