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There's a lot more bass in a 6.5" driver than most of you think

One topic of discussion I often see new audiophiles touch on is whether to get larger speakers for more bass.

I usually suggest they tune the room first, then re-evaluate. This is based on listening and measurement in several apartments I’ve lived in. Bigger speakers can be nothing but trouble if the room is not ready.


In particular, I often claim that the right room treatment can make smaller speakers behave much larger. So, to back up my claims I’d like to submit to you my recent blog post here:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-snr-1-room-response-and-roon.html


Look at the bass response from those little drivers! :)


I admit for a lot of listeners these speakers won’t seem as punchy as you might like, but for an apartment dweller who does 50/50 music and theater they are ideal for me. If you’d like punchy, talk to Fritz who aligns his drivers with more oomf in the bass.


erik_squires

Showing 9 responses by kenjit

kenjit
1,771 posts
 
drop them in where 
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
This driver will be a drop in replacement for most Seas and Scanspeak 6.5 in. drivers
no it will not. Its unlikely to fit the exact size hole and every driver must be custom tuned to the box. No such thing as a drop in replacement. 
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
and erik is wrong again. 

A 6.5 inch woofer must not do bass. Its too small. You need big 15 inch woofers to do bass. And doing bass and mids is a horrible compromise. Erik is all wrong. 
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
I was astonished by how much clean, low-frequency energy four 5.5" woofers could pump into my room.

yeh right. And he would be even more astonished if i replaced those small woofers with 12 inch woofers. 


kenjit
1,771 posts
 
one reviewer was astounded to see usable bass frequency output down to about 31.5 hz
The woofer would need to move a huge distance to do that. Why push a small woofer to its limit when you could just use a bigger woofer? Do you think you can have your cake and eat it?
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
It's also worth mentioning that all the bass response and crossover simulation is done on a computer. So there's no effort required by the so called designer. The software does it all for you. 
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
What nigels SNR 1 really proves is how easy it is to be a speaker designer. All he has done is put a set of high end scanspeaks into a wooden box. Thats 50% of the job. I assume he didnt cut the wood himself either.

The crossover is simply a matter of taste. Although the graph of the SNR 1 shows an almost ruler flat curve which clearly betrays Eriks desire to boast about what he has achieved. The irony being that a flat response is not correct. So all that effort that has gone into achieving it, has been a waste.
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
 I used a DIY speaker as my example, otherwise many would accuse me of shilling for a particular brand
you used your own DIY designs. And all the effort youve spent making that response curve as flat as a pancake has been a waste because that was the wrong curve. You will need it completely retuned now. We need to examine the off axis curve too.
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
Doing it manually allows one to decide by ear which actions are the most beneficial. Often only minor intervention is necessary.
is what toole say. So in other words this all comes back to custom tuning by ear which is what ive been advocating all along. 
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