Explain the "big sound"????

[Coytee]

I've had a brief conversation with Roy about this, so I know his thoughts... I'm hoping to get some other viewpoints to help me better grasp the understanding.

If a Heresy can play 105 db's loud using however many watts... and a Khorn can play 105 db's loud, using however many watts...

Why does the Khorn sound so much "bigger" in its sound?

For sake of argument, (and I don't know that it would hold true), what if we took an equalizer to decimate the bass of the Khorn, such that it matched the Heresy.... I'd contend it would STILL have a "bigger" sound....

Why is that? Isn't 105 db's 105 db's??????? [8]

Note: I'm not saying the Khorn is playing LOUDER than the Heresy, I'm saying it's sounding BIGGER, more lifelike in its size.

[maxg]

If I have understood what you are asking I think you are talking about image and soundstage size.

In other words a single violin played on the KHorns will sound bigger than the corresponding violin over the Heresy's.

Correspondingly - a full orchestra will be much more convincing over the KHorns that coming from the Heresy's.

Why? Is the question.

Well - there are a lot of factors that go into the creation of a convincing sound-stage amongst which, and in no particular order are:

The distance between the speakers in relation to the distance from the listening positon.

The amount of bass being produced, the size of the drivers producing that bass and the sizing of the box that contains them.

The height of the drivers from the ground.

Volume will also play a role - up to a certain level.

To elaborate a little:

Different speakers vary in the optimal distance between them to create a credible image. You do not want the speakers so close together that the soundstage appears to overlap the players but at the same time you dont want them so far apart that your ear is no longer fooled into believing that the singer (for example) is actually in the middle rather than coming from distinct left and right sources.

Generally speaking larger speakers can be placed further apart. Khorns - being in the corners (usually), are obviously naturally as far apart as it is possible to be. Heresies would tend to be placed closer together.

What is interesting (perhaps) is that generally the closer together speakers are the greater the sense of depth to the soundstage they can create. Depth is not a strong point of KHorns and it is often relatively easy to setup a pair of Heresies that will present a greater depth to the recording than is possible with Khorns.

Driver size will also play a significant role - as does the depths of the sonic spectrum portrayed. It is startling to add a subwoofer to a pair of Heresies and see how much bigger the whole sound is. Here you are doing 2 things at the same time - you are increasing the range and adding driver area. Even if you are cutting off the speakers at a certain level and playing the sub only from that level you are adding to the driver surface area dedicated to bass reproduction.

Conversly - if you were to disconnect the woofer from the KHorns you would notice a distinct shrinkage in the apparent size (or better yet mass) of the produced result. Having said that I think you are correct in that it would still appear to be larger than the Heresy image (although I have never tested it).

Therein comes the last of the issues - that of driver height. Heresies on risers do better than Heresies without - but I have found that if you put them on stands - raising the tweeter (at least) to ear level the increase in sound-stage is dramatic.

Obviously you can have too much of a good thing - raising the Heresys such that the woofer is in line with your ear probably would not work so well. I am not 100% sure why this should be - but I would guess you start to interact with the ceiling rather than with the floor (or you are losing too much bass boost by being separated from the floor - or possibly both).

The thing is that raising the Heresies to that height does just about make them the height of the KHorn (which is still in contact with the floor). Height is just a huge advantage when presenting a full scale image.

The final point is with box size. In simple terms - play a violin in a small room and then compare the sound to playing it in a larger room. the larger room offers more space for the sound waves to develop providing a deeper, stronger signal is not a higher spl one. This is not unlike the comparison of the sound of a violin Verses a Double bass - bigger box - deeper sound - even if the violin is playing louder.

IMHO / YMMV / AFAIK.....

[dp1954]

bigger horn, bigger sound dispersion and larger soundstage...

[oldbuckster]

Without trying to pick apart what Max wrote, I think the big sound is two different things, one is SPL the 10 or so decibels make a big difference in over all presentation of those speakers, and I really feel the design of the speaker has alot to do with it. I am not as smart, or schooled, as well as some of you guys, but I do feel Acoustic suspension speakers like the Heresy, lack the punch, or the sound stage size of a different type of speaker. Bass Reflex, wheter a port or raditor, seem to cast a larger sound stage, and allow for lower, smoother Bass response, as opposed to acoustic suspension, and the Khorn is designed to give a full sound stage, great bottom response, louder playback, with better detail than most speakers out there. Please understand that this is just my opinion on the subject. I am an Average Guy, with average equipment, I don't have any degrees or formal training in the speaker field, am not a professional critic, just like to listen to music, and this is my honest take on this subject................When you can fill a room with pleasing sound, at not loud volume, the music is clean and detailed, the vocals crisp and clear, the bottom tight and smooth and not BOOMY, I think you have found "THE BIG SOUND".................

[TheEvan]

I'm going to venture a good deal of it has to do woth the speed, effortlessness and "truth" coming from the bass bins. The subjective experience is so different than an equivalent amount of bass being pushed at you from a direct radiator.

[wuzzzer]

I'd venture a guess that most home audio speakers can hit 105dB. Let's say they can, for arguments sake.

Considering the above "fact," I'd certainly hope that my Forte IIs would sound much, much different than my old Bose 401s at 105dB. Otherwise, why am I throwing money away at new speakers every 6 months?? [] Like others have said, sound dispersion, driver size and horn size play a huge factor.

You do make an interesting discussion topic to think about!

[JJkizak]

It's the process of "overwhelmation" at work.

JJK

[Coytee]

I'll post what Roy said to me. I think it had to do with his bubbles to a degree. I posed the question to him using the Heresy & Jubilee.

105 db is 105 db to a point in space. move around and the 105 db generated by the heresy will start to go down while the jub will remain at 105 over a larger space. that is why constant coverage is so HUGELY important. this ensures that the wave that passes by you is more closely approximating a plane wave vs a spherical wave. so the jub will put out more of a plane wave while a heresy can put out more of spherical wave.

now move the heresy in the corner, and you might start to get closer to what you experience with a jub but the horns in the heresy are not presenting you with as a constant coverage as the jubs are. so put larger horns in the heresy, and you get even closer but the heresy is closer to a spherical wave generator than a jub just because of the size of the horns used.

I'm going to see if I can put this into another analogy to see if anyone agrees that I'm "getting it"

The Heresy puts out sound like a basketball and if the leading point of the basketball hits your ears, that outermost POINT is 105 db's (for sake of being consistant with numbers). As you look at different locations on the same basketball that are NOT the leading point, they each represent a dimunation of loudness so as you move side to side, your ear will hear the side of the ball instead of the leading edge (loudest part) of the ball and the sound will fade.

The Khorn (or Jubilee as per my comment to Roy) puts out sound, more like a pool table in that, if the center of the table smacks you, it's playing at 105 db's... If the outer edges of the pool table hit you, they TOO, are at 105 db's because they're on the same wave front as the center of the table (realizing that the pool table would have SOME curvature)

So, if you listen to the "sides" of the Heresy's output bubble, their output will be diminished because they're spherical in nature, and at that, they are a SMALLER sphere than the Jubilee/Khorn.

The Khorn/LaScala/Jubilee put out a more flat sound plane, and for that, you have a lot more latitude to walk around the room and maintain that same level of loudness, hence, they sound "bigger" (since you can hear similar loudness from more locations)

Did I repeat it in a fair way?

[DrWho]

The further you get away from a sound source, the closer to a plane the wave gets (A basketball seems curved because its radius small, but the earth seems flat because its radius is so huge). So if you were outside (no walls) and far away, would the Jubilee still sound larger than the Heresy? What if you were far away from both, but the Jubilee was slightly closer? []

There are also the effects from the room's acoustics - which just happen to improve when you have a flatter power response speaker. It causes the reflections in the room to have a similar frequency balance, making it seem like the speaker is filling the room better - which is often associated with "sounding bigger".

And as mentioned there is always the angle between the listener and the sound sources.

[JohnA]

What you and Roy describe happens.

However, the K-horn "sounds bigger" than my La Scalas. I believe the "big" comes from lower bass notes reproduced with very low distortion, thus sounding "effortless". I find the K-horn and to a great extent my La Scalas never "sound loud". I attribute that to the lack of distortion and believe it is part of "big".

[mas]

"Q", Polar patterns and corresponding intensity plots.

[oldbuckster]

Please remember, when speaking of the Jubilee, you are speaking of a 2 way speaker, as opposed to a 3 way speaker...............yeah, it doesn't make any difference, I think it does...........Coytee, do you have the abililty to run the Jubes as a 3way? Have you ever run it that way, if that is possible? That would be of interest to me if you have the option to run them both ways.................I would be quite interested in that outcome............the Jubes probably did not come with mids? You have cross overs you can change? Or am I way off base here?

[Coytee]

Can't do a 3 way on them Bucky... (or is that Buckie?) The EV crossover only has 4 outputs so I can do stereo in 2 way format only, unless I got another crossover (or had Al design one, but let's not open that can of worms again [:#] )

If I used a mono speaker, then I'd have 4 outputs on the EV where I could use 3 outputs as a 3 way configuration.

Doc... interesting comments about "big" sound and having them outside. Given my experience with my LaScalas outside, I'd venture to guess that though they both (Jubilee and Heresy) would both sound great outside, the Jubilee would sound great, at a further distance, thereby making it sound / seem bigger? []

[DrWho]

Well it's going to sound small outside because you're getting further away from the speaker - perhaps because the angles between the top and bottom of the speaker are decreasing. The sound all around you is going to be of the same amplitude though. This would point to the plain wave controlled directivity of the Jubilee not being the direct cause - but in light of the room's acoustics it is... At least that's how I see it. I know in the past I have artificially made any speaker sound larger by raising its height and increasing the reflections off the cieling, or even increasing reflections off the side walls too.

[ben.]

Roy's response was something that honestly hadn't occured to me. I think that the result is not entirely a result of the sound holding up as you walk around, but the subtle perception of that wave coming to you from the room reflections as well. Would the effect be less so if one didn't move in the room? I don't think so (spoken as one who sits still for long periods of time on a regular basis, btw).

We hear these things and our brain interprets them without necessarily attaching objective or concrete ideas to them. The Jub is throwing up this large wavefront; the reflections coming to you from the room boundaries are delayed somewhat, but your brain processes them as somehow connected to the direct sound as they have similar charactaristics with regard to distortion, transient response and to a lesser degree frequency response. Contrast that with what the walls are throwing at you as reflections from a Heresy. Those properties that are so consistent relative to the direct sound with the Jub or Khorn will not be nearly as consistent, and they wil tend to be processed as more removed and discrete from the direct sound, and thus detract from the illusion that a large folded horn provides with respect to size.

Part of the picture, anyway...

[djk]

If you stuff a pair of Heresy into a corner and toe them in at 45°, they will have substantially the same coverage angle as either a Klipschorn or a Jubilee.

If you use an electronic crossover at 150hz with a pair of 15s per side underneath tuned to less than 30hz, they will sound huge. I first did this over 25 years ago using four JBL 136A/2235 subwoofers. You have to hear it to believe it.

If the Heresy are not in a corner you have to compensate for diffraction loss, otherwise they will sound thin. Corner placement is still better for not only coverage angles, but power response. Using EQ for difraction loss in the near field may make it measure flat up close, but it will sound muddy in the reverberant field (if you have a larger room with an RT60 of 500mS or higher).

[mike stehr]

"If you use an electronic crossover at 150hz with a pair of 15s per side underneath tuned to less than 30hz, they will sound huge. I first did this over 25 years ago using four JBL 136A/2235 subwoofers. You have to hear it to believe it."

Cool...... Heresy Helper.

[oldbuckster]

Let me ask this, Do you guys REALLY like the Heresy stuffed in a corner? I tried it, didn't like the sound, maybe I didn't listen to them long enough in the corner position? I have mine about 30" out of each corner, and about 10" out from back wall, that at present gives me best sound. I really don't think that Acoustic suspension speakers are that sensitive to corner placement, as say, a Bass reflex type speaker would be, or am I way off base here? Give me your opinions..................................

[DrWho]

Yes.

The only time corner loading sounds bad is when you've got other acoustical issues in the room. For someone that doesn't, corner-loading sounds infinetly better with the Heresy.

[Islander]

Last night, I was listening to some music (Berlin, SSQ, Buggles, Steely Dan, it was an '80s groove night...) and got out my SPL meter. The level was around 85dB on my sofa, 8-and-a-half feet from the speakers, but I was surprised to find that it was also around 85 dB only a metre (39.37in) from the speakers. Only when I put the meter within a few inches from the speakers did the reading go up, to 103-105dB.

The listening room is 18 feet wide and 19 feet long, but opens toward the dining room, making the left half 26 feet long. The right Scala is a foot from the front wall, while the left Scala is about 10 feet from the "other" front wall. The sofa's about six-and-a-half feet in front of the back wall, and the speakers and sofa are placed at an angle to the walls. Big sound in a big room?

BTW, DrWho, have you ever heard Big Electronic Beat, by SSQ? It's on the Playback album. ('80s synth-pop stuff)

Pat on the Island