Nearfields for audiophile listening?

Yes, but there are plenty that are intended to be placed like this and very competently designed. It's easy enough to check before buying. For example my tiny Wharfedales have the bass port to the front, sound great even if pushed against a wall in corners (they are!), and are shielded and are supplied with spikes if stand mounting is preferred. The others in the range designated for bookshelf use similar front port designs, while the bigger models are more traditional and require space in which to stand.

 

Not that many speakers are designed for quarter or 1/8th space loading. It's not just about putting the port in the front, it's about rolling off the low end as well.

 

Flush mounted is the way to go (IB effect).
I suppose with careful books selection a flush mount can be realized on bookshelf.

 

I'm going to court controversy here and assert that reputable loudspeaker manufacturers know something about acoustic effects and take this into account when designing loudspeakers.

Both (different) pairs of Wharfedale Diamond 9 series I bought came with advice on speaker positioning that is appropriately different for full size and bookshelf models.

 

They mostly know jack and shit and don’t care to find out. If they do know, they clearly don’t give a shit. Wharfdale and B&W all suck. All British speakers have stuff grossly wrong about them (beyond sizing and perceptions of typical driver size physics) that they do not care to fix as what’s awful about them has become their brand’s sound and fixing the problem would kill the established market for the brand. The small passive speakers from brands like Pioneer totally suck balls and shit the bed trying to fill a room. They suck up close too. You’re much better off even with some small cheap meme reddit shit (JBL LSR 305, Vanatoo, iLoud, the new JBL 104 trash) on a work desk if you don’t want floor stands and an interface while an inoffensive indoor PA type home speaker from JBL/Klipsch/whoever will be far better at filling a random room with sound from a weird location than awful bookshelves on bookshelves.

Then there are brands like JBL and Presonus sticking compression drivers and horns in what are marketed as near field monitors meant to be 1-3 meters from your face. Then there’s the infinite list of fragile shit that will fry itself and awful shit with audible horn resonances like Adam A7 non X, JBLs, and Quested to keep it just in that powered nearfield segment. Idiots.

 

Like amplifier manufacturers make power supplies that are designed to take into account less-than-perfect electricity? And sound-card manufacturers make components designed to work inside a PC cabinet?

I actually believe both of those. Loudspeaker manufacturers, though... Some may mention positioning in an instruction leaflet, but rest expect us to find stuff out for ourselves.

 

Psalm post is kinda funny but right in many ways.

If you listen at 85db average, with 20db crestfactor, your looking at a speaker that can at least play up to 105db with less then 1% distortion at 100hz and less then 10% distortion at 40hz. I dont know of any 5 inch or 6,5 inch that can hit those numbers.

4, 5 or 6.5 inch 2 ways are defective by design and should be disregarded if one seek anything resembling hi-fidelity. I was reading Thorsten Loesch words from back in 2012 at diyaudio where he address the issue of small 2-ways. have a read:
"
The issue is that speakers have many problems.

When I see the "generic HiFi Speaker" with it's 1" Dome mounted protruding to a flat baffle and it's 5.25-6.25 Inch "Mid-Bass" Driver I see such a profusion of fundamental problems (or "faulty by design" features) that I can only conclude that the design is not intended to offer anything approaching any kind of fidelity or resemblance to what was mastered in the studio.

Now if people actually REALLY liked the sound these speakers make this would be okay. Yet the compulsive Amp/Preamp/DAC swappers attempt to compensate for fundamental gross failings of their Speakers and are unwilling to let go of their kind of speaker because they have somehow gotten the impression that this how HiFi Speakers SHOULD be like; when in fact these "HiFi" Speakers are more interior design than acoustic design and closer to gear by a maker who'se name is the abbreviation of "Buy Other Sound Equipment" than they'd care to admit.

So they are perenially unhappy, perenially getting new gear and keep a whole industry in business to sell them acoustic treatment, Preamp's, DAC's and Amplifiers all of which fail (predictably) to solve the fundamental acoustic problems...
''
"
For a fairly moderate 85dB playback level with 18dB Headroom (though Brad will probably already be kvetching about inadequate headroom) we need 103dB @ the listening position, unless we Joachim Gerhard, who actually likes nearfield this will place us at 2 - 3m from the speaker requiring between 4-8dB more SPL at 1m (depending on room).

So "adequate SPL" in the definition of THX is 107...111dB/1m. This means:

A Speaker with 84dB/2.83V/1m needs 40V to 62V for this SPL
A Speaker with 87dB/2.83V/1m needs 28V to 44V for this SPL
A Speaker with 90dB/2.83V/1m needs 20V to 31V for this SPL
A Speaker with 93dB/2.83V/1m needs 14V to 22V for this SPL
A Speaker with 96dB/2.83V/1m needs 10V to 16V for this SPL
A Speaker with 99dB/2.83V/1m needs 7V to 11V for this SPL
A Speaker with 102dB/2.83V/1m needs 5V to 8V for this SPL

As for bass, lets return to my comment on the lowest note on the Grand Piano, a reasonable request, I should think, to reproduce it. This means 32Hz need to reproduced adequately, so lets say we accept -6dB (anechoic) at 32Hz due to room gain.

So we have some numbers we can discuss that I would suggest define "minimum fidelity" for music in small rooms.

This is 32Hz -6dB LF extension and 107dB/1m SPL capability at 100Hz and up.

Personally I might find this a trifle too high on the LF and too low on the SPL, but it should be adequate for acoustic music in small rooms and for 2-3m listening distance, if the speaker is not subject to gross distortion and compression.

I would be very interesting to be introduced to a 3" (woofer/fullrange) based speaker that can "measure up". Actually, to make the job easier, take a 6.5" one, I want you to at least stand a chance here...
"
https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/the-lounge/200865-sound-quality-vs-measurements-475.html

 

That depends what you want and the use.
Nearfields are meant to be used as nearfields. People who use the small, detailed ones as anything but and judge them poorly for not being able to fill a room with bass or actually revealing recording flaws are delusional. A three way speaker or a big woofer two way will never have that same set of details due to an additional crossover, further distance, and the big bass woofer having to cover the upper bass and low low mids (in a typical dome three way) or everything up to around 1.6-2kish in modern two way monitors. They have their usage scenario.

That being said, trying to fill a room with a 5,25” woofer is retarded.

 

I dont see how he's full of shit.
unless you implement a sub system that highpass the 6.5 " driver, you will get distortion galore with or without sub.

 

this is my biggest question, can a 12 or 15 " driver can be as detailed as 6.5" drivers between 160hz to 1 khz?

when you listen to music from 20hz to 1khz with a lowpass at 1khz, it seem that details are not in that range, it seems to be the tweeter that adds what we perceive as details?

 

The other thing with ports in the nearfield that bugs me more than the wall loading is that all too familiar chuffing, or sometimes it almost rings out. I'll admit I'm probably more sensitive to this than others though.

It's commonly repeated that you don't want to put rear ported speakers at the wall because the port needs to "breathe" (something like at least two port diameters from the wall? I forget), but also because the chuff/honk/whatever is also going to get magnified, and a specific honk is always going to bug me more than a general boost to the low end.

 

I'd just like to apologise for opening a can of worms. Next time I need a tiny stereo pair for bookshelf use I will not be so utterly stupid as to buy a stereo pair designed and manufactured for this purpose by a company who has successfully being doing so for many decades. And I will simply refuse to be influenced by my own current and previous positive experiences of the same, and also will ignore all test data that annoyingly and stupidly correlates with said experiences. I pledge to ignore as many so-called facts as I have been able to assimilate into my woefully undersized cranium. I will instead set aside aprox. 40x more money than has ever been required to achieve a very simple goal and then proceed to invite da intarwebs to make my choice for me.

Thank you.

 

From what I've heard I think it depends more on the specific drivers and the crossover design than their size. With headphones or in-ears I also don't really hear a correlation between driver size and resolution. I'd go for drivers with low moving mass per surface area, a good surround, etc.
I don't really agree with Psalm and I think you can do crossovers almost transparently with very good parts, good planning and good drivers, but I also haven't heard it yet in studio monitors.
I'd play around with Equalizer APO a bit - see if you can hear phase shifts when the FR is still the same. Crossovers always introduce phase shifts unless you do a first order (but that's almost impossible and introduces a lot of other problems). I found that I can hear a 30° phase shift fwiw.

I wouldn't say a 15" driver can perform as well up to 1kHz as a 6.5". Size becomes an issue - beaming and driver spacing will be bad. But I would say that good 3 way speaker with a well done crossover can be as resolving (or even more resolving) in the midrange as a 2 way with a 6.5" midrange. And better bass quality absolutely makes the ranges above sound much better.

FWIW I agree with a lot of Thorsten's points on diyaudio. Smaller drivers struggle at realistic volume levels even in the midrange. I haven't heard a <6" midrange (unless you count horns) that managed a convincing sense of scale and didn't sound compressed at realistic volume levels.

 

Seriously.

"Hi SBAF! looking for small $150 speakers for desktop, don't need sub-40hz bass, but prefer even tonality and good imaging, listening at lower levels"

(SBAF) "YOU NEED A f'ing $2K THING @ 110db CRUSH IT AND DUEL 18" SUBSWOOFNER AND f**k YOU AND B&W AND f**k EVERYTHING ELSE CAUSE ALL SPEAKERS SUCK AND CLASSD IS FOR GIRLZ AND IS LIMPDICK EXCEPT FOR SOMETING I WON'T SAY CAUSE YOU NEEDA FIGURE IT OUT YURSELF."

It's like this thread has turned into the opposite of damning by feint praise.

 

Yeah, some of these posts have been pretty far from the threads original intention, just look at the title.

 

The midrange in a smaller two-way vs bigger three-way midrange modern speakers depends on what you’re listening for. The three-way will typically be better for vocals and “pop out” more than two-ways with a larger woofer (or two-way active with too far extended bass with a limiter) but for instruments that can straddle both crossovers, the reproduction typically loses cohesion even if the “weight” is better than two ways. With those you must sacrifice midrange clarity, bass extension, or volume. There is no real winning. You do lose something with more distance and crossovers. I guess the modern, digital, linear phase ones are the future but the bigger speakers that have them are typically priced exorbitantly and sound underwhelming like the Kii and DSP Genelecs.

Smaller woofers (less than 8” typically) totally suck outside of nearfield detail listening, as you won’t even get that detail. Then again often the smallest speaker in the brand lineup is the best one so ymmv.

 

if you consider those HT receiver hi-pass as hi-fi... I dont. I think Thorsten refers to using 5" or 6.5" fullrange though.