Do you know of small speakers that sound ''BIG'' ?


I was wondering if anyone has heard of small or monitor speakers that defy perception by sounding larger or bigger than they are ? I have always owned floorstanders and do not have much experience with the smaller fry....for the sake of discussion I would like that we NOT include small floorstanders - just speakers that we would normally use a stand with. Thanks !
soniqmike

Showing 2 responses by douglas_schroeder

Everyone knows small speakers they want to sound big. I have never found any small speaker to actually foot the bill; small speaker = small sound. It's physics. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing bookshelves. It's just that a person isn't going to get a floorstander performance from a pint size speaker.
Take any line of speakers and move from the monitors to the floorstanders. Huge difference. One monitor in any given line might sound better than a floorstander in another line. I think that is often confused with considering the smaller speaker to sound "bigger."
But it seems to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to consider a 1 foot tall monitor as being up to the task to compete with a floorstander with x cubic feet more volume for bass. If they could actually GET the performance of the bigger speakers without building them bigger, we'd have no big speakers to buy! They'd all be the size of the Boze cubes. (That's not to say that someday technology may take us there. maybe.)
If I had the 1 square foot of floorspace, which most of us do, I wouldn't even dream of monitors (unless budget or WAF dictated) if I could have floorstanders. And, yes, I've owned several pair of monitors over the years. I don't think I'd ever go back. A small speaker is what it is, not what it isn't.
Soniqmike,
Great point about some of these faux large speakers. Like the floorstanders that use 6" wide and 40" tall aluminum cabinets and have about four to six 4" bass drivers...
Yah, that's a joke for a big speaker. Nice to look at but c'mon, that's not sound. That's marketing. I think in particular of the Difinitive Mythos - hype. You fall for that and you've spent lots of money for mid-fi sound. Of course, most people don't REALLY care what it sounds like. They're too busy trying to impress others with the looks. Of course, WAF has vast influence on this issue...many of our bretheren suffer under the burden of WAF.

I recall the B&O speakers of old. Pretty, and pretty BAD sounding! Eye candy and ear crap. Made it into the Smithsonian primarily on looks, like a woman with great body and no wit. You'd be a fool to marry her. At least divorcing such pseudo speakers, you'd not need a lawyer.