Is bigger always better with Klipsch Speakers?

[BobK]

I have not really compared Large Speakers like the Chorus to smaller ones in a smaller room.

 

I in my basement area which is not huge,  20 feet wide 16" deep the larger speakers seem fine and do sound more live like.   At lower volumes the do ok too.

 

Is there a situation where Larger Drivers big speakers are actually much worse than say a bookshelf?

 

I mean aside from being harder to move and place, that aside I would think it would have to be a pretty small room for bookshelfs to sound better.    I do have near field monitors from Kef and Swan but I don't think they sound as good as the big speakers.  

 

[Grizzog]

I do certainly enjoy the bigger speakers and their soundstage/presence in the appropriate room.  I would say that large speakers can overwhelm some smaller rooms though.  Even my Quartets were too large and had way too much bass in my office/spare bedroom; they would just overload the room with bass and muddied the sound.  I moved my Heresy into that room and it is a much better fit.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Grizzog

[Coytee]

I've always had the opinion that bigger is better.  Think of a car engine.  A large (strong) car engine will get your car up to speed easier than a small weak engine.  Would you prefer a V8 in your Chevrolet or would you prefer a VW engine in the same car?

 

A 15" woofer will pressurize the room better/easier than a 6" woofer.  The 6" woofer is going to have to move in/out a lot more to move the same amount of air that the 15" will move. 

[totalcomfort]

See my signature!! Yes

[The Dude]

I don't know, but I had Cornwalls in a 10'x10' room and had no complaints.  I now have Heresies in that room, but still don't have any complaints. I just can't complain about good quality speaker, its not in my nature.

[MookieStl]

Of the Klipsch I have owned, if I ranked them by my personal preference, the rank would be the same if I listed them by weight. But I have heard some good things about some of the bookshelf speakers I have not tried.

 

Belle

La Scalla

Cornwall

Heresy

RB 61 II

KSB 2.1

KSB 1.1

HD 300

 

I should also comment that I was pleased (varying degrees) with all of them.

[willland]

Not always in all rooms but that rule rings true most of the time.

 

Bill

[Jim Naseum]

I have not really compared Large Speakers like the Chorus to smaller ones in a smaller room.

 

I in my basement area which is not huge,  20 feet wide 16" deep the larger speakers seem fine and do sound more live like.   At lower volumes the do ok too.

 

Is there a situation where Larger Drivers big speakers are actually much worse than say a bookshelf?

 

Yes. When you sit too close to them (NF). They will begin to sound like individual sound sources.

 

I mean aside from being harder to move and place, that aside I would think it would have to be a pretty small room for bookshelfs to sound better.    I do have near field monitors from Kef and Swan but I don't think they sound as good as the big speakers.  

 

They physics reason for loudspeakers to get "bigger" is that bigger can play louder. Consider for a moment that the most linear, distortion-free speaker in general use is the speaker found in a headphone. It is very, VERY small, but plays at very low absolute SPL (which becomes exaggerated when coupled directly to an ear). The idealized loudspeaker is always considered to be a point-source, which is infinitely small. As environment size grows and the demand for SPL grows, so grows the loudspeaker.

[Paducah Home Theater]

I've always had the opinion that bigger is better.  Think of a car engine.  A large (strong) car engine will get your car up to speed easier than a small weak engine.  Would you prefer a V8 in your Chevrolet or would you prefer a VW engine in the same car?

 

Oh I love car comparisons.  So, would you rather have a big AMC 360 V8 or a dinky little 3.6L Pentastar V6?    The little one is either about equal or far superior to the big one in most every way.  Generally speaking, bigger is not always better.  How smart the final design is makes a difference.  

[Paducah Home Theater]

They physics reason for loudspeakers to get "bigger" is that bigger can play louder.

 

It usually also means they can play at the same SPL levels with less power and excursion, which lowers distortion.  An efficient big speaker just cruising along and yawning is going to sound better than a little inefficient one that is squawking its head off trying to keep up.  

[moray james]

bigger is better in that a larger horn (we are talking Klipsch horn loaded speakers here) will have more control of the polar response, the larger the horn the lower that polar pattern response control will go down in frequency. Large horns in a small room are much better at controlling dispersion than smaller ones or than dome tweeters do and that means that in a small room you can achieve far far greater control of wall reflections which screw up the sound especially in small rooms. If you have too much bass in a small room that is what tone controls are for. You don't throw the baby out with the bath water. These are facts not fiction. I think that the OP's ears have answered his own question. In a small room big horns are kind of like wearing earphones they eliminate the room from what you are hearing and you sure don't want to be hearing your room. Best regards moray james.

[Fish]

Bigger Klipsch may not always be better, but 99% of the time it is.

[dtel]

They physics reason for loudspeakers to get "bigger" is that bigger can play louder

 

This is what most people think but the truth is something total different. It's the size of the sound not the volume,  almost any midsize speaker can get stupid loud but it will still sound like a midsize speaker.

 

I didn't know the difference either until I heard large speakers, or certain large speakers. We use large speakers but rarely go over 50-75 db, but the sound is huge.  

[moray james]

They physics reason for loudspeakers to get "bigger" is that bigger can play louder

 

This is what most people think but the truth is something total different. It's the size of the sound not the volume,  almost any midsize speaker can get stupid loud but it will still sound like a midsize speaker.

 

I didn't know the difference either until I heard large speakers, or certain large speakers. We use large speakers but rarely go over 50-75 db, but the sound is huge.

the bigger the lower the distortion for a given level. going from small format (one inch exit) compression drivers to large format compression drives has nothing to do with level at home a one inch exit driver can chase you out of the room it has to do with a significant reduction in distortion. Paul wrote a paper on this and proved the less it moves the lower the distortion will be. Best regards moray james.

[Jim Naseum]

In fairness to the science of physics, there are other theories which are quite legitimate such as the small dipole advocated by Linkwitz. I like to be fan too, but I don't allow it to override physics.

[Don Richard]

Bigger generally means:

 

Potentially louder

 

Potentially more bottom end extension

 

Potentially less distortion

 

The speaker has to be designed properly to reach it's potential. With Klipsch, that's likely the case.

[Grizzog]

I agree with the bigger horn concept, but I don't see bigger always better as a whole with speakers for smaller rooms.  If I put my 19s in my office, I wouldn't expect good things from that.  There's a reason speakers are designed for different purposes.  Small studio monitors on a desk may be able to create a sense of space better than a gigantic speaker in that same space.

 

As far as tone controls, I don't know that I agree.  I took my Quartets out of a sub-optimal place and put them in a location where they can shine.  Why would I get speakers that are made for a large room to do what they do best, shove them in a tiny location, and then suck the life out of them by taking away their bass extension or some other part of their response?

[Taz]

just overload the room with bass and muddied the sound.

 

Sounds to me like time to turn the base down.

 

But what do I know? 

[Paducah Home Theater]

Small studio monitors on a desk may be able to create a sense of space better than a gigantic speaker in that same space.

Some of the best sounding most accurate speakers are relatively tiny studio monitors with traditional boring designs, sitting in a heavily treated room. Seems to fly in the face of all things Klipsch but it seems to be true. People are paying stupid piles of cash for them too. Why is that?

My current fun project is very similar to the Vapor Arcus, those things are $6,500 each. 13 grand for two relatively small bookshelves. There's no way they don't sound awesome.

[Fish]

I sold a $5 pair of flea market speakers on ebay for $2000. They were small with like a 4.5 woofer. Rodgers ls5a or something close to that. So somebody likes small speakers, not me though.

I remember years back when Bose created the little speakers. My bud heard em and told me they sounded great, like big speakers. I told him maybe that's what they will have set up at the Pink Floyd concert we were going to see, NOT.