"Doki" wrote in message
...

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Doki" wrote in message
...

"Woody" wrote in message
...
"Gordon MacPherson" wrote in message
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I listen mainly to classical music. I have had for many years a pair of
Celestion Ditton 44s driven by an equally old Cambridge P50 amp. I
thought about replacing the Dittons with shelf speakers but none that I
could afford gave me the open "easy" clear cound that came from the
Dittons. I am now in a position to think about floor speakers with a
budget of up to around £1000. Any recommendations as to speakers I
shoud investigate?

Thanks,

Gordon



Whatever you do remember one thing. To get the good easy sound that you
like you need to move air, and to move air properly you need a big
drive unit. Ruark and Royd do nice speakers but mainly with small drive
units, so they have to move a long way to shift much air. If you look
at the likes of Linn, B&W, Monitor Audio, and Mission floor-standers
you will find most of them have larger drive units.


That's something that I don't understand. Hifi is supposedly all about
getting decent sound reproduction. However, most hifi speakers have bass
drivers so small they've got no chance of producing any sort of decent
bass. .
That's an overly simplistic analysis. To get you bass you need to move a
lot of air, but that need not necessarily mean a large driver. A
long-throw driver can move as much air as a larger short-throw driver,
whilst the cabinet design also comes into play here. The most extreme
example is the exponential horn, where it's the size of the horn mouth
that matters, not the driver. Horn-loaded cinema speakers from the 1920s
and 1930s often had bass drivers as small as 2".

Throw can help, but at the end of the day, the size of the cone matters a
lot. As an example, a 6" sub driver I looked at for my car has a piston
area of 114cm2, the next size up, which is 7.125" has a piston area of
231cm2. Given similar throws (the larger speaker actually has a longer
throw), you're going to get twice as much air moved by a driver only a
little bit bigger. The dimensions are to the outer edge of the suspension
by the way. For a normal hifi speaker (ie, a box with some drivers stuck
in the front), there's no substitute for a big cone.
A car is hardly a good example of anything to do with HiFi. As for speakers
that are "a box with some drivers stuck in the front", maybe it's better to
engineer a good enclosure than to think that size is all that matters.

Also don't forget the huge effect of the room on the bass performance of a
speaker, it's impossible to get really deep bass in the average living room.

David.

"David Looser" wrote in message
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"Doki" wrote in message
...

snip - cone size and bass

Throw can help, but at the end of the day, the size of the cone matters a
lot. As an example, a 6" sub driver I looked at for my car has a piston
area of 114cm2, the next size up, which is 7.125" has a piston area of
231cm2. Given similar throws (the larger speaker actually has a longer
throw), you're going to get twice as much air moved by a driver only a
little bit bigger. The dimensions are to the outer edge of the suspension
by the way. For a normal hifi speaker (ie, a box with some drivers stuck
in the front), there's no substitute for a big cone.

A car is hardly a good example of anything to do with HiFi. As for
speakers that are "a box with some drivers stuck in the front", maybe it's
better to engineer a good enclosure than to think that size is all that
matters.

A driver is a driver is a driver. Any driver with similar suspension is
going to have similar cone area, so the fact remains that adding an inch to
the size of the cone means a big increase in piston area. It doesn't matter
whether it's in a car, a living room or in my desk drawer, the cone area is
still the same.

Also don't forget the huge effect of the room on the bass performance of a
speaker, it's impossible to get really deep bass in the average living
room.

So what? You still can't magic bass from anywhere. A 6" driver at the same
cost as 7" driver is never going to be able to produce as much bass. Maybe a
6" at double the price. My opinion is that half the speaker design is about
making a small, pretty box rather than something that makes a decent sound.

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:32:24 -0000, "David Looser"
wrote:

Also don't forget the huge effect of the room on the bass performance of a
speaker, it's impossible to get really deep bass in the average living room.


Of course it isn't. Although I will agree that the smaller the room,
the easier it is to extend the bass downwards - assuming you close the
doors and windows of course. I suppose the car is the ultimate small
sealed room, and a six inch sub is all you really need to get good
deep bass. The "ultimate ultimate" small room is a pair of headphones,
with which you get good bass from a minute diaphragm.

It is big rooms that are the problem. For those there is no substitute
for shifting a great deal of air. I use a sub with a 15 inch cone and
nearly two inches of throw.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

In article ,
Doki wrote:
So what? You still can't magic bass from anywhere. A 6" driver at the
same cost as 7" driver is never going to be able to produce as much
bass. Maybe a 6" at double the price. My opinion is that half the
speaker design is about making a small, pretty box rather than
something that makes a decent sound.

An 'ideal' speaker would be tiny and a point source. Any discrepancy from
this produces compromises of one sort or another.

--
*Heart attacks... God's revenge for eating his animal friends

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Doki wrote:
So what? You still can't magic bass from anywhere. A 6" driver at the
same cost as 7" driver is never going to be able to produce as much
bass. Maybe a 6" at double the price. My opinion is that half the
speaker design is about making a small, pretty box rather than
something that makes a decent sound.

An 'ideal' speaker would be tiny and a point source. Any discrepancy from
this produces compromises of one sort or another.

That doesn't seem to be taken into account by many of the speaker makers
either. More expensive speakers often have 2 or 3 small drivers (what I'd
term mids) in an attempt to shift enough air to make some bass. There does
seem to be a lot of focus on producing a small cabinet that will fit in
nicely to your wife or girlfriend's plan for the living room.

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:05:32 -0000, "Doki" wrote:


"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Doki wrote:
So what? You still can't magic bass from anywhere. A 6" driver at the
same cost as 7" driver is never going to be able to produce as much
bass. Maybe a 6" at double the price. My opinion is that half the
speaker design is about making a small, pretty box rather than
something that makes a decent sound.

An 'ideal' speaker would be tiny and a point source. Any discrepancy from
this produces compromises of one sort or another.

That doesn't seem to be taken into account by many of the speaker makers
either. More expensive speakers often have 2 or 3 small drivers (what I'd
term mids) in an attempt to shift enough air to make some bass. There does
seem to be a lot of focus on producing a small cabinet that will fit in
nicely to your wife or girlfriend's plan for the living room.

You got it. 95 percent of hi fi equipment choice is a lifestyle
matter, not one of sound.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

"Woody" wrote in message
...
"Gordon MacPherson" wrote in message
...
I listen mainly to classical music. I have had for many years a pair of
Celestion Ditton 44s driven by an equally old Cambridge P50 amp. I thought
about replacing the Dittons with shelf speakers but none that I could
afford gave me the open "easy" clear cound that came from the Dittons. I
am now in a position to think about floor speakers with a budget of up to
around £1000. Any recommendations as to speakers I shoud investigate?

Thanks,

Gordon



Whatever you do remember one thing. To get the good easy sound that you
like you need to move air, and to move air properly you need a big drive
unit. Ruark and Royd do nice speakers but mainly with small drive units,


Not the Ruark Paladins which I mentioned - they have 215mm bass units
(Focal):

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/L1010211.jpg


- I haven't seen bigger in a modern speaker. I would not recommend the
current models with smaller drivers.


On the other hand if you like what you have why change it? I had/have a
pair of Spendor BC1's that I've had for years: I replaced them a few years
back with KEF Q55's - and even now the more I listen to them the more I
regret it.


I don't know anyone who didn't regret trying to move from 'big/old' to
'small/new' and I do know one or two that, having tried it, moved back
again....

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:05:32 -0000, "Doki" wrote:

That doesn't seem to be taken into account by many of the speaker makers
either. More expensive speakers often have 2 or 3 small drivers (what I'd
term mids) in an attempt to shift enough air to make some bass. There does
seem to be a lot of focus on producing a small cabinet that will fit in
nicely to your wife or girlfriend's plan for the living room.

Do hi-fi buffs inevitably attract female partners obsessed with
interior design?

"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Doki" wrote


That's something that I don't understand. Hifi is supposedly all about
getting decent sound reproduction. However, most hifi speakers have bass
drivers so small they've got no chance of producing any sort of decent
bass. .
That's an overly simplistic analysis. To get you bass you need to move a
lot of air, but that need not necessarily mean a large driver. A
long-throw driver can move as much air as a larger short-throw driver,
whilst the cabinet design also comes into play here. The most extreme
example is the exponential horn, where it's the size of the horn mouth
that matters, not the driver.


Length of the horn also....


Horn-loaded cinema speakers from the 1920s and 1930s often had
bass drivers as small as 2".


I have speakers here with drivers that size that have had people looking for
the sub....

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:13:09 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

Not the Ruark Paladins which I mentioned - they have 215mm bass units
(Focal):

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/L1010211.jpg

Is that an upright piano it's tucked in beside? Must get interesting
resonances from those un-damped upper octaves :-)