Seeking recommendations for sanely-priced full-range speakers

I was just trying to help, sorry you took offense.

 

If you say so.

I still like front of bottom ported speakers.

Any typical direct radiator speakers are going to exhibit additional bass reinforcement when place near a rear wall (quarter space) or in a corner (1/8 space).

Your higher frequencies typically rediate out of the front and tend to be more directional as the frequencies increase.

With lower frequencies, they tend to become more omnidirectional as the frequency decreases.

By placing a typical speaker in a corner, this omnidirectional energy is redirected to toward the front, being reflected off the corner walls.

Still, there is less energy to reflect with a front ported speaker, due to more of the energy being transmitted out the front of the cabinet.

With a rear ported cabinet design placed close to the room boundary walls, you are throwing more this energy against the wall.

.

 

Ordered. Let's see if it helps.

 

To All:
This thread has raised the issue of port problems and damping issues. Would like to mention that ported energy is 180 degrees out of phase with the sounding speakers. When I fine-tuned my Double Impact rooms I found that this energy made the bass louder, but "fuzzier." This makes sense when you consider the phase issue. Damping the rear ports was one of three steps taken in order to bring the low frequencies into perfection. Once so treated, the soundstage became much clearer and double bass runs in orchestral music became listenable.

 

Well not just me, that link I provided was from KEF.

Lots of other data out there for the googling.

You'll note in your picture that they don't differentiate between ported or sealed, or where any ports are located.

That is because when it comes to the degree of bass reinforcement, it doesn't matter.

 

The point to the diagrams was not to illustrate effects of different ports, it was to illustrate that a typical speaker when placed in a corner is going to have additional reinforcement from being in a corner placement, simply due to the physics involved.

Unless a speaker is designed to be used in a corner placement or up against a wall, most people will tend to agree that speakers tend to sound better when brought out into a the room a bit, away from boundary walls, which include corners.

If you place a front ported speaker against a wall or in a corner, more of its energy is directed out into the room and there is correspondingly less bass boom, than a similar speaker that is ported in the rear.

Unless you have planer's or true omnidirectional speaker designs, I think that it make more sense to through the acoustic energy in the direction of the listener, as opposed to at the wall in the opposite direction.

Just by their design alone, you are going to incur less placement issues with speakers which are ported in the front.

 

This is not true. It is a tuned resonator, with a mechanical impedance like a crossover filter, that gives an additional phase delay. Otherwise, the output would cancel the front at the transition between direct radiator and port output (like an open baffle box does at wavelengths greater than a fraction the size of the baffle).

Reminder - the wavelength of 40Hz bass, a typical port tuning frequency of a mid-size speaker, is 28 feet. Front or rear port location barely enters into things for cancellation or phase concerns, and they still have similar 1/2 and 1/4 space corner coupling. A port facing away from you means you don't hear as much non-passband distortion (high frequencies that make it through the tube, or port noise), but precludes flush wall placement (the port diameter is usually enough spacing; closer, and the air between wall and speaker starts to act like port air mass).

Why do woofers big or small have ports? They extend the "flat" frequency response to a lower F3 point for a particular driver, and increase efficiency and power output at these lower frequencies, reducing cone excursion.

 

Most overlook the importance of reducing cone excursion and there for the distortion that arises from longer cone excursion.

 

Bingo. It's only out-of-phase below Fb, which is why ported has a steeper rolloff below tuning.

 

Yes - I own them. But I think in general pretty much every rear ported speaker is meant to be placed in the typical free standing position.

I am sure someone with more speaker design knowledge can explain it better but I think most speaker designers design with the Floyd E Toole approach and the National Research Center out of Canada where they design speakers to perform well in an anechoic chamber. Audio Note's Peter Qvortrup tailors them to work in rooms at a further listening distance. As the speakers are not 3 feet out into the room they are already 3 feet further away from the listener.

Audio Note's drivers are very low excursion drivers - indeed Peter refers to the drivers as resonators. And while some take issue with measurements - their distortion is very low.

Generally speaking I just pay attention to what the manufacturers tell you in the manual. I mean people can debate these things but interestingly I have Sealed speakers in the Audio Note K, Ported cabinets in the AN E and AX Two - and all three are recommended for corners and I own Wharfedale Vanguard - three ways with bullet horn tweeters - front porter and can go near walls or corners with aplomb. My old B&Ws - nope needed space.

If you are interested in a detailed response from Peter regarding why Corner placement speakers sound the best here is a link Room Placement & Rear Ported Speakers. - Peter Qvortrup - Speaker Asylum

And Peter wrote that in 2007 and I chuckle because his point can plainly be seen in the absolute "dross" that is MQA that that particular magazine jumped on and manufacturers began including MQA this and MQA that and even MQA CD's and manufacturers had to put the MQA tech in their machines - an MQA "me too" movement or else lose sales. Some companies fortunately held out and instead opted for better sound quality than being slaves to which way the current wind was blowing.

 

There isn't such a thing as a low excursion driver.

Any 8" speaker with the same cone piston area in a sealed box requires the same amount of movement to produce the same amount of sound at the same frequency. There is simply no way to subvert the physics of air movement = SPL.

The cone excursion in ported enclosures is similar, but with significantly reduced driver movement about the tuning frequency. Here, still, there are too many variables when we design an enclosure around the Thiele-Small parameters of a specified driver, which affect the ratio of cone movement vs port excitement around the tuning frequency, to classify one driver vs another "low excursion".

Only practical at higher frequencies, compression horn loading creates a mechanical impedance coupling with the air space in front, which can make for higher efficiency. See for example the eight-foot-long horns used on old Western Electric 555 drivers.

I suppose you can reduce the "excursion" by making the speaker less efficient than the published specifications...

 

I had to go back as my memory of these things is from old conversations on a forum and Peter was comparing speakers to panel loudspeakers so it wasn't applicable here. 2003 eesh.

"... Owning, as I do, one of the larger (and quite good, even if I have to say so myself) music collections (30,000 plus LP/CDs combined) I think I have access to a sufficiently broad selection of good and bad, and I would never argue that most recordings are poor, on the contrary, most have sufficient musical information and get better with better equipment.

If you read Audio Hell you will quickly see that making any product which has colouration "built in" flies directly in the face of the comparison by contrast method or "ideology", if you will, the whole object of the CbyC exercise is to uncontaminate the chain enough to be able to hear what is on the recording best possible.

Colouration in any part of the audio chain will imprint the same "sameness" on every piece of software played and thus immediately reduce the contrast between recordings and thus be weeded out in favour of a less coloured (more accurate) solution very quickly.

I think you would be horrified if you ever heard any of your favourite Infinity or Apogee speakers (I have owned or tried them all!) subjected to the CbyC method against what we consider good, but that is for another day.

I have been around for long enough to have tried pretty much every state of the art solution that has been offered, I still own a Beveridge System II, ESS Transar, Siemens Klangfilm system, several Snell Type A models and one of two more, and have over the years worked on and modified practically every vintage speaker system made and what that has taught me is that the reason panel speakers live in the shade commercially is for good reason, their limitations are simply too glaring for the cold light of the wider market.

You may like them, but that does anything but make you "right".

Long excursion drivers are only needed because designers for commercial reasons need small size enclosures, they represent such a severe compromise that they can hardly be considered, based on any serious merit, certainly not when we talk high quality, linear excursion is the least of the problems, variations in the magnetic field due to the large movement of the voice coil, cone break-up etc. are at least as problematic.

The older drivers represent a far better example of how a driver should be made to work when made to suit less commercial size and cost requirements, the fact that the old enclosures were resonant and less well made should not be held against the drivers of that time.

You need far more and much wider experience to be able to make the sort of sweeping statements you make, one way would be to join the audio industry circus yourself and test whether your theories "float", but as you may already know only Quad, ML, Soundlab and Magnepan have managed to stay alive making panels and if your expressed preferences are anything to go by then neither of them made or make the best, so draw your conclusions and make your decision from that"

Interestingly the poster Peter was talking too back in 2003 is a reviewer who now touts horn speakers - not panels. So that's something

 

It seems the rambling quote (which you should set off with italics, so one can see your post is almost all a quote) is more talking about large vs small speakers, or overhung vs underhung voice coil drivers. The latter, a typical example of which would be a 12" midrange used in an old console or sound reinforcement, have small voice coils and simply aren't capable of large linear excursions. Discussion of those would be about three steps removed from this thread's topic.

 

So OP, if you're still following, your solution is to forgo your budget of $1200 and buy some Audio Note speakers.

 

To this day, I don't even know what MQA stands for, let alone use it...

 

Well, I must admit, the budget is the most flexible of my requirements. I can spend more if I need to. But, the fact that pretty much no competition can touch Zu Omen DW's price once again tells me what a huge achievement Zu have made, and what great value these speakers are.

For now, I've tamed the bass boom a bit by playing a little with the speaker placement. I'd pulled them away from the wall/corner by about a foot or a little more each. The boom is considerably tamed, yet still there, a little. The current speaker position is very uncomfortable vis-a-vis reaching the CD's in the towers, but I guess that's the price I have to pay. I've also ordered some rubber gym tiles to put under the speakers, hoping they will somewhat damp the bottom port, thereby reducing/eliminating the boom altogether. I will try to install them today. If that's a success, the question of new speakers will be off the menu, for now, at least in that room.

I'm still thinking of maybe getting a new pair for the bedroom, where I now have my old PSB's playing, with Aperion super-tweeters atop. The sound is rather thin, to my liking, at least compared to the gorgeous lushness of the Wharfedale's in the living room. But, before I do that, I have half a mind to try a sub-woofer there (something I've avoided for eternity). Cambridge Audio Minx 30 goes down to 31 Hz, and is pretty sanely priced, at only $449. If I like it, it solves the problem, if not - I can return it, and come back to original question.

 

Yes AN makes speakers starting at $750. Save some cash.

 

Looking at what you currently have and the restrictions of being in a N.Y. apartment, I don't really see much improvement that can be made at reasonable price points.

Between your ZU DW's and your Wharfedale's, you have so many bases covered all ready.

 

Au contraire, AN sells speakers for only $750, and of course, whatever
they offer, at any given price point, is the absolute best. Come on man, you've been around here long enough to know that.

 

Most small cabinet speakers have their port on the rear because of room - they can't put a front port w/o making the cabinets larger.

Your expectations will never be met if you insist on going your route. No small/monitor speaker in your price range will go down to 35 Hz - most tower speakers can't do that.

Plug the rear port.

 

Here's one:

Whitewater v2 monitor speakers

This one goes to 35 Hz, it's a small bookshelf, albeit rear-ported.

My Zu's go down to 35 Hz, my Wharfedale's go down to 30 Hz. You can find what you're looking for if you bother to look.

 

Can't see any AN speakers in your system profile

 

It was sarcasm.

 

So the manufacturer is telling us a 5" woofer is going to go down to 35 Hz in a small cabinet !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In his dreams!!!!!!!! But then again anybody can say anything and someone will believe them which proves PT Barnum was right!!!!!!!!!!!

What's the X-max of this 5" speaker because it will have to be quite a bit if it supposedly goes down to 35 Hz.

The Wilson Audio Duette that costs $14K and has an 8" woofer with 1.5" of X-max only goes flat to 36 Hz.

And of course you measured your speakers in situ using a calibrated mic and software to arrive at your figures.

 

Actually, not a fan of their $750 speaker. Not my cup of tea. But they've been selling em for 20 years so maybe some other folks like them. Kind of like Magnepan. I don't like em but they sell well so some people like em.