How Loud is 1 Watt?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, acg said:

 

Oh my Frank. 

 

Did you notice these are nearfield monitors?  What is nearfield distance for a speaker of this size and in the average listening room?  Did you see the 50mm voice coil?  That's some ...massive... excursion to get any sort of SPL and curiously no SPL limits are mentioned in the specs...why do you think that is?  Those 7000i and others like it from Genelec, JBL, Adam blah blah are meant to be very close to the listener so that the direct sound levels are much higher than the reflected sound...they are not designed to fill a room with sound and are rather incapable of doing so because they are grossly SPL limited.  Have a look at an equivalent Genelec monitor at you will see they are limited to about 100dB SPL and I doubt that SPL would include the bass frequencies.  Put them in a lounge room, sit three metres away and suddenly that 100dB SPL is probably 90dB peaks with crappy bass because the speaker is pushed too hard.

 

Ah, the magic of words! Because they are called "nearfield", everything changes - it's like entering another universe! 😁 ... Just checked out a 'real world' review, http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/1207/aad_7001i.htm

... my goodness, sounds just like I would expect such to perform - the only downside is the "lack of vertical dispersion" of the treble - which is something that would annoy me, I have to say.

 

Quote

 

I can see the case for using these woofers for sound production in a guitar speaker as mentioned earlier in the thread, afterall distortion and guitars go hand in hand.  Reproducing audio using these little can-do woofers is probably ok in the right listening circumstances, but their small cone area means large excursion for any kind of spl and while they might be able to handle the task better than their contemporaries there will be an order-of-magnitude difference in sound quality to a decent speaker system where size is a less limiting factor. 

 

Order of magnitude? One fine day I may come across one of these "order of magnitude" better rigs ... but it ain't happened yet!

 

Truth is, for the vast majority of recordings, the size of very ordinary speakers is all that's necessary - especially if your only wish to listen at sensible sound levels - if your game is massive amounts of deep bass, or absurd SPL levels, then everything changes ... I never found a recording that upset my bookshelf B&Ws 3 decades ago - and the situation is virtually the same with the current Edifiers: the exceptions are that that they are much, much cheaper, for the package; and, their bass is more impressive 🙂.

[sandyk]

44 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Truth is, for the vast majority of recordings, the size of very ordinary speakers is all that's necessary - especially if your only wish to listen at sensible sound levels - if your game is massive amounts of deep bass, or absurd SPL levels, then everything changes ..

+1 

 It is more than possible to scale down the SPL in a typical domestic situation and still have it sound great

You can be 100 feet away from a Jazz performance at the beach side,(Manly in Au. as an example) and it can still sound very impressive. The same can happen in a modest domestic situation.

[bluesman]

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 Yes , that is the one I was thinking of. I did think of those magazines as well, but wasn't sure enough to name them.

I  would never have considered constructing them though, or for that matter , having anything to do with Bose.

 But we are now way off topic .😉

Not so OT - despite their conceptual similarity, those are two great examples of the polar extremes of the loudness of 1 watt.  The Sweet 16 (which, I now recall, was in Electronics Illustrated) was fairly efficient and sounded lousy.  The Bose 901 was horribly inefficient and sounded lousy.  The S16 was entirely passive and easily driven, while the Bose had outrageously extreme (and power hungry) EQ.  Both were attempts to leverage the cumulative piston area and efficiency of multiple small drivers, and both failed miserably.  But the bottom line is that 1 watt would probably have driven the S16 to 10+ dB greater SPL than the 901 - and that was not at all a benefit or a reason to make or buy either one.

[acg]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

if your game is massive amounts of deep bass, or absurd SPL levels, then everything changes ...

 

But music is loud!  110dB in an orchestra, that's why many musicians wear earplugs.  Oh my, on one hand you want realism but on the other you don't want volume...they are mutually exclusive in a good system which only gets better as you crank it up.

 

 

17 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 It is more than possible to scale down the SPL in a typical domestic situation and still have it sound great

 

Sure, no arguments there, but at those SPLs we don't hear the bass frequencies and it does not sound "real".  Remember the old loudness buttons...that was what they were for...some EQ for the bass if you could not turn it up to realistic levels...Fletcher-Munson in action.

 

 

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Ah, the magic of words! Because they are called "nearfield", everything changes - it's like entering another universe! 😁

 

They are called nearfield because they are meant to be listened to up close...nearfield or farfield changes the required crossover among other things.

[sandyk]

8 minutes ago, acg said:

Sure, no arguments there, but at those SPLs we don't hear the bass frequencies and it does not sound "real". 

Yeah, but most people don't need to entertain the cows in the paddock, and not everybody has a wife that will tolerate loud music for very long.

Many SWMBOs prefer their music at a level where they can still carry on a conversation.

 Even the kids will complain despite wearing earbuds with their mobiles to listen to their music

[acg]

6 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Yeah, but most people don't need to entertain the cows in the paddock, and not everybody has a wife that will tolerate loud music for very long.

Many SWMBOs prefer their music at a level where they can still carry on a conversation.

 Even the kids will complain despite wearing earbuds with their mobiles to listen to their music

 

Yep, certainly no arguments there.

 

As an interesting aside, we had friends over (when restrictions permitted) to watch the live stream of Nick Caves "Live at Alexandria".  So, two audiophile husbands and two wives, Nick Cave on the big screen, and the music cranked to realistic piano levels, which as we all know is loud.  Piano fortissimo is supposed to get to 103dB or so so I set the volume by ear and then sat back and really enjoyed the show, it was magnificent, while the two women took notice of the show from time to time, sang along to the songs they wanted to and in between chatted and drank wine and ate cheese while my friend and I refained from asking them to be quiet and let us enjoy the show (that would be nasty). 

 

Anyway, I pulled out the SPL meter at one point between songs and to the girls surprise the loud peaks of the music were sometimes hitting 105dB just like they should.  No-one complained about it being too loud (that was my question that led to the SPL meter being pulled out).  So four people sitting comfortably in a room listening to a solo piano concert for a couple of hours, peaks up to 105dB and chatting and holding a regular conversations. 

[sandyk]

22 minutes ago, acg said:

 

Yep, certainly no arguments there.

 

As an interesting aside, we had friends over (when restrictions permitted) to watch the live stream of Nick Caves "Live at Alexandria".  So, two audiophile husbands and two wives, Nick Cave on the big screen, and the music cranked to realistic piano levels, which as we all know is loud.  Piano fortissimo is supposed to get to 103dB or so so I set the volume by ear and then sat back and really enjoyed the show, it was magnificent, while the two women took notice of the show from time to time, sang along to the songs they wanted to and in between chatted and drank wine and ate cheese while my friend and I refained from asking them to be quiet and let us enjoy the show (that would be nasty). 

 

Anyway, I pulled out the SPL meter at one point between songs and to the girls surprise the loud peaks of the music were sometimes hitting 105dB just like they should.  No-one complained about it being too loud (that was my question that led to the SPL meter being pulled out).  So four people sitting comfortably in a room listening to a solo piano concert for a couple of hours, peaks up to 105dB and chatting and holding a regular conversations. 

What resolution was the Audio ?

 We are being short changed with Aussie TV, as I know that many of the USA Late Night Shows are in 5.1. and have a few saved from their .ts streams.

 I thought that The Graham Norton show from the U.K. with it's live performances might hopefully have some decent audio, but although the video was of a very high resolution, the audio was a miserable 2 channel  Dolby 128kb/s.

[acg]

9 minutes ago, sandyk said:

What resolution was the Audio ?

 

Couldn't say Alex.  It sounded good and I listened in stereo.  Saying that, I don't expect top-of-the-range sq from streaming or even bluray like I would expect from my dac.  Most of my concert bluray or dvds get watched/listened to on the stereo mix...just sounds better in my room.  The surrounds are decent JBL Pro 708P's, bi-amped with 8" woofer and waveguide tweeter but they just don't seem to run with the fronts in terms of SQ.  Perhaps it is that I have not spent a great deal of time sorting them out or perhaps I just don't get 5.1 sound for music, not sure, and they are great for movies, but music is not quite the same.

[sandyk]

16 minutes ago, acg said:

  Perhaps it is that I have not spent a great deal of time sorting them out or perhaps I just don't get 5.1 sound for music, not sure, and they are great for movies, but music is not quite the same.

 Most of the USA Late Night show music in 5.1 sounds pretty good, even when converted and istened to as Stereo.

 The Yanks know how to do it well.😊

[Confused]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

My last experience of the big driver setup was one of these,

 

 

in this sort of room. The most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time, so far from being able to sound like a piano ... it was an insult.

Out of interest, what are these speakers?  An interesting and unusual design.

 

Also out of interest.  Frank - You did not like the above, which is fair enough.  We know you like the Dynaudio Confidence C4's (at least with Byston power), which are arguably in the "medium sized" driver category.  (2 x 8" bass drivers)  So my question, are there any other larger driver speakers you have heard and actually liked, and any others (specifically) you did not?

[fas42]

4 hours ago, acg said:

 

But music is loud!  110dB in an orchestra, that's why many musicians wear earplugs.  Oh my, on one hand you want realism but on the other you don't want volume...they are mutually exclusive in a good system which only gets better as you crank it up.

 

Where did I say I don't want volume? What I don't want is unrealistic bass - acoustic instruments should sound like the real thing, including orchestras - and when I hear a crescendo in a symphonic piece, the last thing I think is, "Gee, wasn't the bass in that fantastic!!" 🙂

 

4 hours ago, acg said:

 

 

Sure, no arguments there, but at those SPLs we don't hear the bass frequencies and it does not sound "real".  Remember the old loudness buttons...that was what they were for...some EQ for the bass if you could not turn it up to realistic levels...Fletcher-Munson in action.

 

Ummm, a system in really good shape always sounds real - just like being right up close to the musical action of real musicians, or hearing it from a distance; you just know it's the real deal ... convincing reproduction performs the same 'trick'.

 

4 hours ago, acg said:

 

 

They are called nearfield because they are meant to be listened to up close...nearfield or farfield changes the required crossover among other things.

 

Why the crossover?

[fas42]

26 minutes ago, Confused said:

Out of interest, what are these speakers?  An interesting and unusual design.

 

 

I'm surprised ... I thought most people would be familiar with them, http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/steinway/1.html

... I'm not sure what it did for Steinway, 🙄.

 

And, he's now part of the Purifi family, https://purifi-audio.com/about/

 

Quote

Also out of interest.  Frank - You did not like the above, which is fair enough.  We know you like the Dynaudio Confidence C4's (at least with Byston power), which are arguably in the "medium sized" driver category.  (2 x 8" bass drivers)  So my question, are there any other larger driver speakers you have heard and actually liked, and any others (specifically) you did not?

 

I did a post just recently, mentioning a very impressive analogue setup - this was a copy of the HP combo, using Infinity RS 2Bs; with separate columns of bass drivers. Note, this had been heavily tweaked by the owner, a well known high end retailer in Sydney - including, gasp!!, hardwiring all the connections in the speakers, 😉. Apart from that, no rig with large, multiple bass drivers has been memorable.

 

When we were checking out options for the original good rig, the dealer had these Duntech Sovereigns on demo,

 

 

These were okay, but they did nothing that made me say, this is something special.

 

[Confused]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

I'm surprised ... I thought most people would be familiar with them, http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/steinway/1.html

... I'm not sure what it did for Steinway, 🙄.

 

And, he's now part of the Purifi family, https://purifi-audio.com/about/

I am as sure as I can be that most people would not be familiar them!  Maybe a few on this forum though, as opposed to the normal folk in the general population.  As far as I can recall, they have never made it to any of the UK shows I have attended over the years.

 

Not cheap either:

 

https://danishaudiocompany.com/product/steinway-lyngdorf-model-d/

[Racerxnet]

4 hours ago, fas42 said:

this was a copy of the HP combo, using Infinity RS 2Bs; with separate columns of bass drivers. Note, this had been heavily tweaked by the owner, a well known high end retailer in Sydney -

The Infinity RS2 B was a single column for left and right channels. The RS1 B was the 4 column system. I owned both prior to the Genesis system at home. The emims could be replaced with the Graz diaphragms.

 

I have followed Infinity for a decade or better. 

 

RS 2

RS1 B

KAPPA 9s

GENESIS 2s

 

Mak

[fas42]

6 hours ago, Racerxnet said:

The Infinity RS2 B was a single column for left and right channels. The RS1 B was the 4 column system. I owned both prior to the Genesis system at home. The emims could be replaced with the Graz diaphragms.

 

I have followed Infinity for a decade or better. 

 

RS 2

RS1 B

KAPPA 9s

GENESIS 2s

 

Mak

 

Definitely were a 4 column setup! Every time I mention that system I have to check what I think the model number was, and I obviously get the number wrong at times - this is what it looked like,

 

 

they were driven by a pair of these,

 

 

and the appropriate AR preamp - can't recall the model, and source was

 

[fas42]

Also heard these, or a model very similar, at the home of the maker in the local area, Equinox Audio,

 

 

This was in a room that was very heavily treated - I hate the ambience of this style of room treatment; feels very unnatural ... respectable performance, using a highly regarded local ME amplifier - but not outstanding ...

[Racerxnet]

29 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Definitely were a 4 column setup! Every time I mention that system I have to check what I think the model number was, and I obviously get the number wrong at times - this is what it looked like,

 

Looks like someone is missing the Low pass crossover. You also needed to make sure the amp signal wasn't inverted. They were OK sounding. I drove them with 4 Bryston 7BSST amps at the time. A little over-kill for the needs, but plenty of headroom. This was in a spare room that was to small, but sounded pretty decent.

 

MAK