Psalm gives his opinion on speakers from his mom's basement

I'm going to give this a more serious answer. Maybe we can split the subsequent good quality posts off, or not. Either way, I am ambivalent about the mods' decision.

Open baffle speakers are popular here for a few reasons:

• They are accessible on a retail price level. This is namely due to PAP / Pure Audio Project and the variants that they offer. Their prices seem to have gone up though. People realize that they were a fantastic deal.
• OB speakers are easy to DIY. It's cutting holes onto a flat piece of wood. Even badly cut holes will work.
• Small boxes suck. There is always box coloration no matter how heroic the construction. Bigger boxes are better. OB is better yet. No box. The downside is big woofers or multiple big woofers are required because of the excursion bass and early bass roll-off.
• OB has cancellations off to the side. This seems to result in bass room modes with half the amplitude of monopole speakers.
• OB is about tradeoffs. There is no free lunch.

Big speakers are required for good sound:

• While not fashionable now, I remember many friends' homes in the 70s and 80s with big speakers: Fischer Audio, Pioneer, Yamaha, Klipsch, JBL L100. All these stuff came with a 12" woofer, which is unheard of today. Yes, they did some weird stuff back then like funky alignment of the drivers, but no one seems to remember how good the bass was on the better implementations.
• Big drivers have huge advantages: Inherently lower resonant frequency (in simple terms, bass response takes a dump below this), lower distortion (the force in the magnetic gap deviates from linear as voice coil moves farther away from center), and increase efficiency (free power).
• Unfortunately, to get low bass extension and efficiency, big ass cabinets are needed.
• It is impossible for small speakers to reproduce good bass. Passable bass yes. Good bass no. This is the law of physics. There is nothing wrong with small speakers. But if you claim you are a serious audiophile, then small woofers and small speakers should have no place for you. Small woofers is like saying you are a serious guy car, but you put a 210hp motor into your old FWD Acura Integra that came with a 140hp motor. That would be a fun car, but no.

Widebanders:

• There is following here. Most decent widebanders are fast, highly resolving, and efficient. This is the result of light suspensions and huge magnets. Most widebanders are 8" drivers to get that efficiency. Maybe implemented with a complex horn loaded or transmission line cabinet. A proper cabinet even for a 6" widebander driver is going to be big.
• The efficiency allows the use of tube amps, even flea powered SET.
• The downside is a rising response, beaming, uneven response, and nasty peaks of most except the very best, which cost a fortune. Again, there is no free lunch.
• Some have gone the non-purist route and integrated subwoofers or supertweeters (or tweeters with higher XO points than usual.)
• No crossover! (or minimal network)

Horns:

• Small following here.
• Super efficient, low distortion, super high SPL capability
• Fast and focused sounding
• Uneven frequency response, often with dips
• Controlled dispersion (don't have to worry about side wall treatments as much)
• The compression drivers are small and compact, but a 500Hz or 800Hz horn is gonna be big.

Big panels (e.g. Maggies):

• They also have a following here.
• Special unique sound.
• Require large surface area (there we go again about big).
• Require big power into a low impedance load
• Dipole radiation - same benefits and drawbacks as OB.

CONCLUSION: Big is required.

 

I understand. I wish I was taller. It sucks to be me.

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I suggest revolution. There are upsides to giving the common man guns. There are also serious downsides. There's no free lunch.

 

OK. I'll be serious here. I get that 10-13 cu. ft. (283 liters) cabinets may not work in certain rooms. We don't want a speaker to dominate the room and make us look like we need mental treatments.

What I'm saying is to consider other options that may not exactly be on the radar. Here is an example: The KEF LS50 for $1300 or the KEF R3 for $2000. The R3 has a 6" woofer. No doubt these are good speakers. Well behaved. But they suck in crucial ways.

Why not consider the Seas A26 kit with 10" woofer for $1200 which comes with everything including cabinet. All that is required is Lego blocks skills to assemble. Cabinet is 12" wide. Might still need a sub, but a small sub decent should do. Or the Klipsch Heresy with 12" woofer, 16" wide, cab a little bit of a stretch, but not horrible by any means.

Ports do not prevent use next to walls. This is bullshit perpetuated by HF and other nonsense audiophile sites. If a speaker is designed to be used against a wall, it doesn't matter if its ported or not. It's simply a design decision. This is why I love pro gear where is a switch for baffle step: out in the room, against the wall, or on the corners of a room. The Heresy (sealed and really in too small of a box) actually needs the walls.

Now if you hate horns, and want a classic 3-way, JBL L100 (they have mid and tweeter controls). 12" woofer. Ported. Crossovers are simple old-school = lively vibrant sound. These are like a mini version of what I have. Also JBL 4310 or 4312, the pro versions of the L100. Lots of recone services available for these.

 

I think what happens is that in small rooms, people have no place but to put speakers against the walls, and some speakers just are not tuned to be used like that. The trick is research and finding speakers that can be used that way.

A cramped 8x10x8 room is not going to have any more room modes than my moderate sized 14x12x8 room. In fact, the slightly larger room is likely to have an extra room mode at a frequency lower than the lowest one for the small room. Lots of misinformation. Small rooms will have modes typically above 50Hz. Larger rooms will get an extra one or two modes below 50Hz.

 

JBL 4355 in a small room against the wall.



BTW, elevating the speaker off the floor also has a similar effect to moving the speaker from the back wall. There are ways.