A full range speaker?


Many claim to be, but how many can handle a full orchestra’s range?

That range is from 26hz to around 12khz including harmonics, but the speakers that can go that low are few and far between. That is a shame, since the grand piano, one of the center points of many orchestral and symphonic performances, needs that lower range to produce a low A fully, however little that key is used.

I used to think it was 32hz, which would handle a Hammond B-3’s full keyboard, so cover most of the musical instruments range, but since having subs have realized how much I am missing without those going down to 25hz with no db’s down.

What would you set as the lower limit of music reproduction for a speaker to be called full range?

 I’m asking you to consider that point where that measurement is -0db’s, which is always different from published spec's.
128x128william53b
I used to think such things mattered but now know very clearly they do not.

These specs are measured in anechoic chambers. So unless you listen in an anechoic chamber you can forget about that. Then since you are not in an anechoic chamber all the frequencies are reflecting everywhere creating nulls and modes where they are nullified and reinforced. This is especially bad the lower you go, where the lowest frequencies like you are talking literally criss-cross the room multiple times before you are even able to hear them. There’s psychoacoustic science behind all of this by the way.

Oh, and the top end is way more extended than you think. It extends far beyond 20kHz, to 40k at least if not 60k. No, you cannot hear that high. But instruments produce harmonics that high, which unless reproduced we lose fidelity. Change nothing else, simply add these back in, the whole presentation changes dramatically for the better. See my Townshend Maximum Supertweeter review and read others comments about supertweeters for more on that.

Really low bass, because of the physics of room dimensions, it really does not matter what anyone measures in their chamber it is nothing like what you are going to get at home. No two speakers ever made can do it. Physical impossibility. Unless in a vastly larger room or anechoic chamber.

What does work is multiple subs in multiple locations. With four subs it becomes very easy to achieve super clean articulate low bass. When this happens, another dramatic improvement in the presentation! Now since bass this low tricks our minds into believing we are in a large space the sound stage expands far beyond the room walls and starts to envelop us.

So that is what I think: we really do need everything from super low bass to beyond human hearing- only you cannot get it from any two speakers.   

With two speakers, two supertweeters, and four subs in a distributed bass array you can achieve full range in terms of frequency response. We still haven't touched on dynamic range, something I thought for sure you were going to ask about. But didn't. 
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Actually, no. As always try to pick an expert with broad based experience setting up systems in real rooms with live unamplified music as the reference.

while many excellent speaker designers utilize an Anechoic chamber in testing, development and very importantly QC ( and component matching ( see utube video on production of Vandersteen Treo for example ) they also listen in duh… real rooms. Any of the powered bass models from Vandersteen for example include 11 bands of EQ … below 120 hz. Those 11 bands are based not on octaves but on typical room modes in a wide survey of  listening rooms…( ya somebody was thinking.. ) place speakers for best imaging, dial bass in. 
So at 20 HZ I am up a db and at 24 HZ down 1.

to the Op no bloated piano but w full weight and authority… I spend time in a nice reverberant space with several grands and a pipe organ with world class player ( like people who sit in at cathedrals in Euro during summer vacation time ) My reference is not dominated by a Fender jazz multitrack.

great question but don’t ignore the bass harmonics either… lots of energy up to and above 400 HZ 

have fun, enjoy your journey.
Also, the cited in room response is measured in my listening chair w RTA and calibrated microphone using Vandertones ( free download from Vandersteen website )

This is not new tech, 5 or 6 models over the years feature the 11 band EQ.
@millercarbon

Using an online tone generator I can hear and feel sound down to under 20hz in my listening area, how coherent that is is another matter. But looking at sound generation, no driver moves anywhere near the distances you describe in generating that, so I think you mean distance time delay, and not pressure level peaks. After all, a grand piano’s low A string is less than 8’ long, and to create that tone only requires it to travel a fraction of an inch.

As far as upper limits I will only consider third level harmonics, as that is what the 20khz is for, not actual notes while the energy above that is measurable, most of us cannot hear it, although I think many of us listen with our sense of touch as well, so I'm sure we can feel it.


To @everyoneelse;

It would seem treble is fair game as well. And I am interested in all aspects of musical sound generation/reproduction so to use an upright bass as an example, I want to hear the musicians fingers sliding up and down the strings while playing it; which can go very high up the frequency range, as well as the woods resonance in an acoustic version, and the lower harmonics that accompany the center of the note.

I guess I was assuming that we would be talking about sitting in your room listening measurements/experience and not a speaker in vitro, so no Anechoic chambers allowed. 

I just wonder what people find acceptable, since I know many people have very expensive, to me, systems that can barely manage 40hz, -0db down. 

Unfortunately Vandertones is an .exe, and so not available for the Mac. As I’ve mentioned, I use an online signal generation site. But have bought a decent portable recorder, and am now looking for opportunities to record pure notes of individual instruments, and I have a friend who is the department head in choral studies at a local university, so am going to see if I can wrangle some time in their concert hall to record the piano, which is already there. 
That will be an interesting database to make available to all who might want to add to, or use the file from. Perhaps there is already a start out there?