2 way vs threeway speakers

[Rickieheinz]

I have Klipsch RF3 II's. And I like them quite a bit but does anyone seem to notice anything different with female vocals down somewhere in the lower mid range.Maybe I'm imagining it.

I wonder if three ways with dedicated mid range speakers have that sound?

[DrWho]

i have heard of one other person complaining about female vocals sounding bad and a klipsch employee responded saying that it is a known issue that has been tweaked as best as it can...i think the newer lineup with the 3 way approach was designed to get around it. If you do a search, perhaps you might find the thread, or perhaps someone else might know of the thread and can guide you to it (i can't find it).

(granted, there are a lot more factors involved when building a speaker, but i just wanted to point out that klipsch does acknowledge the problem).

[Rickieheinz]

9/28/2004 7:36:18 PM DrWho wrote:

i have heard of one other person complaining about female vocals sounding bad and a klipsch employee responded saying that it is a known issue that has been tweaked as best as it can...i think the newer lineup with the 3 way approach was designed to get around it. If you do a search, perhaps you might find the thread, or perhaps someone else might know of the thread and can guide you to it (i can't find it).

(granted, there are a lot more factors involved when building a speaker, but i just wanted to point out that klipsch does acknowledge the problem).

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It's not quite that female vocals sound bad just that some seem a touch off. Is the three- way a fix to the probem? I don't believe that Klipsch is producing any more three ways just two way speakers. Paired with a tube amp ,I'm happy with these speakers for everything except for some female vocals. I'll look to see if I can find the thread. Thanks.

[Rickieheinz]

[On 9/29/2004 9:03:56 AM mdeneen wrote:

I think the female vocal is one of the best speaker tests for "natural sound." I use it all the time. If the female vocal doesn't sound "right" - I just won't like the speaker, period.

I think one common difficulty is crossing from a large woofer to a smaller anything in the range of 1Khz - 2Khz. I've generally found that large cones need to be out of play above 500Hz. Obviously that's a generality, but it's been my finding. The exception is the smaller 6" bookshelf woofers, which often do a better job as a midrange driver than as a woofer anyway.

When a woofer is doing duty at 1KHz, just look at it's displacement visually. It is moving back and forth at several multiples of 1Khz wavelength. This can't be good for phase coherance.

mdeneen

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But would you call an 8 inch anodized aluminum woofer a large woofer? Some female voices sound great ,like Enya's but Roberta Flack can seem a touch off in a couple ares.

The rf3II 's crossover , I think is between 1-2khz.I haven't found any speakers that had a more dynamic, you are there kind of sound in this price range.I love the live type of sound.Avantegarde uno's are way out of my league.

[Klipsch RF7]

Ive solved the female voice issue by just playing male voices exclusively

[D-MAN]

Female sibilance (the infamous "SSSS") needs to be reproduced if it exists on the recording, of course.

The problem can be in the microphone/position and actually get recorded. The only problem is when it's not actually recorded.

Most of this occurs in the upper frequency range, rather than the mids, so its usually a tweeter thing.

DM

[Deang]

Horns can really bring that kind of thing out in the worst kind of way. Stepping up the quality of the --- ah, never mind.

I almost consider ported/passive radiator types "3-ways". Reference speakers have "big cones" with large displacement, but they are tuned kind of high, and the ports are really doing the majority of low bass. It's not like the cones are moving all over the place. Also, the anodized cones do have performance advantages over other cone materials.

http://international.infinitysystems.com/homeaudio/whitepapers/cmmd.pdf

[meuge]

I have RF-3IIs and the female voices sound beautiful, breathy, smooth and natural. Granted that my front-end equipment costs more than my speakers do, but it does get me very good sound out of them. One of my friends has RB-25s and I am going to ask him to bring them over to see what these speakers can do with proper equipment driving them. From what I've heard the 25s are an amazing little speaker when supported by a good subwoofer.

At this point I am torn between trying to decide what my next major upgrade will be, and I guess I'd love to hear some of the old heritage 3-way systems, but there really arent' any Heritage dealers around here as far as I know.

[IndyKlipschFan]

Here is where the driver and horn on the La Scala and K horn shine every time. You have to experience it to really appreciate it. Set up correctly in a good sized room.. HEAVEN.

The La Scala was created as a PA/ Voice speaker to deliver the human voice in a portable unit for the Rockafeller campaign. Paul got it right too.

[IndyKlipschFan]

Here is where the driver and horn on the La Scala and K horn shine every time. You have to experience it to really appreciate it. Set up correctly in a good sized room.. HEAVEN.

The La Scala was created as a PA/ Voice speaker to deliver the human voice in a portable unit for the Rockafeller campaign. Paul got it right too.

In a HT environment you may not need a sub for the K horns.. You will def need one for the La Scala to get the punch.

[sfogg]

Mark,

" I think one common difficulty is crossing from a large woofer to a smaller anything in the range of 1Khz - 2Khz. I've generally found that large cones need to be out of play above 500Hz. Obviously that's a generality, but it's been my finding. The exception is the smaller 6" bookshelf woofers,"

You are probably hearing that the woofer is getting 'beamy'. As the wavelength that the driver is trying to reproduce gets closer and closer to the size of the driver the dispersion starts to shrink. This makes irregularities in the off axis response of the speaker. If a woofer is trying to reproduce a wavelength that is much shorter then the size of the woofer it will be very directional... 'beamy.'

Unless you sit very nearfield in a well damped room the sound the listener hears (even if perfectly located in the sweet spot) is a composite of the direct sound from the speaker as well as the off axis sound of the speaker which is reflected by your room. If the off axis sound has a suckout in a frequency range (because the woofer is beaming and not sending much energy in that frequency range out to the sides to be reflected by the room) you will end up hearing a suckout in the same range.. even when located on axis.

A smaller woofer can reproduce higher frequencies before it 'beams' which is why they can be crossed higher while still sounding good.

There are of course other issues such as simple FR and such of larger cones trying to reach up very high too.

Shawn