What are the specs of a full range speaker?


I've noticed that this term is used pretty loosely around here and I'm wondering what you think of when you read it in an ad. What does "full range speaker" really mean? Is it 20Hz to 20 Khz? I've always considered it to mean a speaker that reaches down into the 30s with some weight. What's your interpretation?
macrojack

Showing 14 responses by muralman1

Similar to Tvad, my speakers flat line through 20 Hz. However there may be room interactions that can immoderate the measurement.

No one has commented on the 27.5 Hz A0 piano key. I say one can't bring the piano into the room unless your speaker can replicate all the notes with equal handling. That doesn't even take into account the sympathetic rumbling the A0 key excites in the piano structure.
Ultra-low frequencies have the power to shake the walls, and physically
pressurize the room. It adds to the visceral experience of say, a really big
diameter pipe.

High frequencies do none of this. Their reported presence in an audio system
just feeds into psychosomatic twitching of true believer's brain.
Maybe it's because I grew up attending a Catholic cathedral on Sundays. The organ play made it all worthwhile. I loved both the huge bass pipes to the ethereal strings.

Away from church, for twisted fun, I tortured the neighbors Shitsuitsu with a dog whistle. It was cruel, but I did learn dogs hear more than we do.

I once read the reason we hear between 20 and 20k, is because that encompasses all that is relevant to our survival. I'm sure that explanation doesn't wash with birds and dogs.

I'm one of those extremes that hears way high and soft. I don't know how many times I hear bright and grainy, when other listeners just hear highs. That leaves me agreeing with the dog, hearing UHF is not all that it's cracked up to be.

All I know is most systems are truly deficient in the 20-20k range, I don't know why anyone would want to perfect what they can't hear before they get what they can hear right.

Maybe it's because most people have trouble hearing above 14Kz they don't hear the deficiencies that their systems scream out between 14Kz and 20Kz.
Bartokfan, there are a four Scintilla reviews to choose from. They all contain
the same praise. Believe it, or not, it's factual. Apogees unfailingly took, "Best
of show," at Audio shows. Apogee was chosen to flank Mozart's piano at the
Smithsonian.

Those reviews were written in the mid-eighties. There are amps much better
up to the task of powering 1 ohm speakers now.
Bartokfan, any speaker that can fulfill the music demands of the genre you like is full range.

Still, there is something hair raising about 18 - 29 Hz, If the room is accommodating. There is a surprising amount of music that dips way down, like Laurie Anderson's Monkey Paws, or almost anything by Bjork.

Even a grand piano's lowest key vibrates at 27.5 Hz (A0). To reproduce a grand piano's full voice your speakers need to be flat through 27.5 Hz. Also, whatever driver is producing the low octaves needs to be fast, in order to sound realistic.

My Scintillas flat line through 20Hz, way into sub woofer range. I once ran a Stereophile Test CD's frequency sweep on my system. The first clue the CD was running was when CD cases started falling out of their stand onto the floor. The tone moved up the scale seamlessly to out of hearing with nary a waver.
I question the validity of supertweeters. If your speaker is a good one, and flat lines up to at least 20 Khz, then, it seems to me, in the audible range, the supertweeeter is merely doubling the speaker's high frequency output.

These ultra high frequencies tend to go unnoticed when in balance. Emphasizing them will produce an upward balance that seems more airy and alive, but does not correlate with real music IMO.
Mdhoover has a valid point. Your speaker is no good if it can do 20hZ whilst sounding terrible. There are lots of speakers that measure flat from where to where, all the while sounding dull, and lifeless.

Bartokfan, you touched on the same subject in your conversations with your speaker designer. In his designs, you give up some midrange fidelity by going to a bigger driver.

It takes a big speaker to bring all the decibels in full orchestra into play, not to mention the grand sweep of a symphony in full cry.
My experience with with sub 30 Hz in music is limited to just two audio systems, and our piano. When my wife is pounding out Grieg there is a lot more surfaces involved than the vibration of coiled wires.

I have a friend who is a conductor. I helped her find a house in Sacramento years ago. She had two requests. The house had to have a room big enough for her baby grand, and it had to have a wood floor.

If you want to hold a grand piano concert in your house, then you better have the real thing or speakers that can put out the power, and range of that piano.
Newbee, Don't be so sure. I have both. It was an Apogee Scintilla in a large stiff listening room that fooled me into believing I was listening to a pianist playing a grand. It did appear to be somewhere in the distance, as down the hall. I was awestruck. My present system takes my Scintillas to far beyond what was possible when they were made. It may be lunacy, but my goal is to duplicate the piano.

I wouldn't be the first. An Apogee enthusiast conductor use to give Mozart lectures at the Smithsonian's display containing the composer's piano. For fun, he would run a blind test on the audience. Alternating between the real deal and an Apogee Diva system. He asked the audience which they thought was real.

The Scintilla is even more convincing with the piano.
Newbee, In the distance was all any amp could do in the 80s. The point is, the instant visualization was for a person playing a grand, although at some distance.

I hear you on the, "Lot of 'vibrations' going on with a live piano." That is the magic I am finding with the amps, preamps, and front end I am using. The sympathetic second, third an on harmonics, reverberations from the piano's surfaces, and nearby walls all add to the realness factor.

A next door neighbor asked me if I had a piano in the house, or could it be my stereo. I just answered yes.

Are you in the Bay area now?
Hi Boa, how are you doing? You have a phone message.

There are no two piano makes that sound the same either. I have no idea what transposes in the studio, when I listen to a cut. There are recordings that are pretty darn good. I just have to be fooled, as you say, to feel sublimely satisfied.

I have one particular Royer ribbon microphone disc that, for sake of fidelity, does their best to minimize all the crap you list above.

I'm now in the process of trying new front ends. I hope you can find a bit of time to critique.
I have a friend who has subwoofers mated to ribbon speakers in a small, very irregular room. He uses TacT, where he can read all the frequency curves reaching the single seat sweet spot. There were big dips in the upper bass area. By some repositioning and equalizing through TacT he managed to straighten things out.

Now his play back is more than reasonably flat through 25Hz, with subwoofer in place.
Great one Dave.

Getting off topic again with real versus canned, I have to rejoin. I have attended orchestral performances from coast to coast. I sat in a Carnegie Hall balcony with Henry Ho, builder of my amps.

Yet, I can still be brought to tears by great recordings unfolding between my speakers, such works as Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade. Between full orchestra crescendos, Anshel Brusilow plays sensitive plaintive violin solos. I have to brush by a tear every time.

You can bet Henry and I were taking notes at Carnegie Hall. A smile on both our faces told all. I truthfully can say, I FEEL no difference, whether I am home or at famous performance halls.