Speakers: price and size

Oh come on HH, you must be really bored today… Vinyl wrapped, made in China, with made in China drivers.

ProAc made in the UK real wood veneer, book matched, Scanspeak drivers, better crossover parts.

4 Likes

Would you accept this comparison from this perspective: is the sound coming out of the speakers “larger” than expected (while keeping my eyes closed)?

It’s not the size. It’s the (quality) impact.

I prefer a smaller speaker , with a quick / open sound, over a bigger scale of spectrum (provided by a bigger body) , if comes with a cost of a blurring one

This is a difficult comparison i think, because for example:

For a larger speaker it is easier to sound ‘big’, so a smaller speaker would need a relatively better and stronger construction, as well as higher quality drivers to achieve the same sense of space as a larger speaker. Making small speakers sound big takes effort, and it would then also likely require a more capable amplifier.

So if the end result is more or less equal in terms of sound, would the smaller speaker still be considered better quality, just because it requires better components and construction, and is perhaps twice as expensive, to achieve the same effect?

1 Like

You are right. Mea culpa. Didn’t make myself understood.
I was thinking (speaking ) specifically regarding bookshelves. There are some who can appear to have a bigger sound, compared to others of same size. And that’s because the quality of components and design are great.

When comparing them , with floorstanders , with bigger size ( and scale ) and smaller price , we should evaluate if the different approach
Translate in better sound.

If the results are , like you say, more or less equal in terms of sound, for me , the smaller speaker will be considered better as a speaker because achieved the same with less visual impact/ footprint. So it’s visually more appealing and more flexible.

1 Like

This must be much more confusing for a young budding audiophile.
When I bought the then budget line cresta kef bookshelf for £140, the giddy heights of £400 for the top of the cresta range model seemed unobtainable.
That kef IQ90 speaker is a bit of a beast. For a young chap this is quite a statement to have in the room compared to a mini lifestyle setup and shows commitment to the good cause of audiophilia.
Thus the road to esoteric enlightenment begins in realising better is more than skin deep.

And yes - given the same budget price constraints, a good little one will always be better than a good big one for obvious reasons.
Throw the budget out the window and things obviously gets much more complicated.

I posted this some time back, which may be relevan:

is in the mind of the beholder…

Inevitably for a given sound quality it is cheaper to build speakers with limited or no low bass, than it is to build full range. I’ve posted before on this, the following I think this is of relevance, posted in a discussion on a similar theme:

As a basic principle, with identical components etc., a larger speaker is made from more material and has a larger external finished area, and will weigh more and take up more shipping and storage space. As a consequence the larger speaker will be more expensive - therefore it follows that at the same price the smaller speaker is likely to be of better quality because to be the same price something will have to be skimped in the larger speaker.

From a different angle, the basics of physics dictates that all else being equal, a larger speaker can achieve deeper bass than a smaller speaker, so from that point of view, a larger speaker is better.

And from another angle, whilst mid and high frequencies are easy to reproduce at high quality, the lower the frequency a speaker tries to reproduce the greater the hurdles to doing so while maintaining accuracy (e.g. fast attack and no overhang), greater design hurdles translate to greater cost.

Putting these all together, if anyone wants want full range bass (and a surprising number of people don’t seem to, even rejecting it as too much when they hear it), then big expensive speakers are necessary. If low bass isn’t inportantthen smaller cheaper speakers can give the same sound quality over the range that they can reproduce uncurtailed.

4 Likes

Absolutely not. The drivers and crossovers in your little speakers will deliver a much more accurate representation of the source than the larger cheap speakers. The downside is obviously the lack of bass and the ability to play loud.

Naim go to great lengths to ensure that the components in their products are of a high quality. This should definitely be rewarded with a good quality speaker on the other end, even if that means the speaker must be small one. I’d take a quality mini vs the big cheap speakers any day of the week.

Your little proac’s are a lovely speaker. I am sure they sound really nice and are really well driven from your equipment. For me…. take that level of quality and turn it into a 3 way design with a 10” driver and now were talking.

2 Likes

I have a set of Kev surround speakers (including a sub) that I use with my AV system. I’ve had them for about 10 years, they’re made in China and weren’t that expensive, I’m always pleasantly surprised how good they can sound.

2 Likes

When i lived at home with my parents i remember my dad rebuilding a pair of kef q55 speakers. He made sure to use the same dimensions and internal damping but with much stiffer cabinets and less resonance in the panels. When he finished they sounded flat and boring. We came to the conclusion that kef must have worked some magic with the cabinet resonance being an intended part of the sound. When he put the components back in the original cabs it was clear that they were more lively and exciting to listen to. It was pretty interesting to hear. I really liked those speakers. I’d love to hear the Kef blade.

The Blades have always interested me but unfortunately I’ve never had the opportunity to hear them. Re my Kefs they are an odd shape, friends are often surprised that they’re part of my second system. I think they were pretty good value.

1 Like

This prompted me to look up the weight of my ATC SCM 19s and they are 1kg heavier than those floor standing KEFs.

3 Likes

You only need to watch you tube vids on atc speakers to see just how big the drive units are compared to others :open_mouth::slightly_smiling_face: The magnets are massive in comparison…

3 Likes

Yeah they are huge. The motor assembly is almost as big as the basket and cone.

2 Likes

The other interesting issue here is the number of expensive speakers with blingy looking drivers and cabinets that have very poor quality crossovers. The type and quality of components used inside a speaker make a real difference to the sound quality achievable but given the price multipliers involved (VAT, markups, dealer profits, etc) a high quality crossover can add significantly to the final price so many manufacturers take the out of sight out of mind approach. And of course us music lovers come along and are persuaded to pay small fortunes for speaker cables to connect to these cheap crossovers.

3 Likes

I was going to reply saying something similar. As an example, one well known capacitor manufacturer sells an 8.2uf capacitor starting at 4GBP going up to 500GBP at the top of the range. In my experience, building speakers with different quality crossovers is like having a window with glass that gets clearer the more expensive the components get. The 4GBP cap is like frosted glass.

2 Likes

Well said. The handicap is: I (we) need (too much) space to correctly accommodate the “elephants ” that can reproduce the full range.

:sweat_smile:

It’s got nothing to do with the cost of manufacture, and everything to do with supply and demand.

I don’t begrudge a manufacturer in any industry charging an apparently exorbitant fee for a different finish. If they can make more money from someone wanting a fancier finish, fair play to them.

With Hi-Fi, I imagine that the basic marketing behind it is first to get a consumer to like the product, then charge them a premium to get the colour they want.

Some veneer finishes will be so much harder to do though. The extra price will be justified in some way and not just inflated for the sake of it. Unusual timber grains will be hand picked to be matched and may need many more sheets as opposed to one sheet with something more simple like maple. I looked into more exotic veneers and for example, Birdseye maple would have cost me 4-5 times what the maple did, but also it wasn’t available in paper backed veneer, only raw, meaning it would have to be treated completely different in order to achieve a perfect lasting finish. This will definitely cost much more to construct. Some of those nice ATC veneers must be so pricey.

2 Likes

It’s reassuring that the responses have generally supported what I thought to be the case, that something big and cheap is very likely to be made of poorer quality materials than something a tenth of the size but the same price. I was really wanting to find out whether my thinking was misplaced.

I’m sure it’s easier to sell a £1,000 speaker that’s three feet high with lots of shiny drivers than it is a pint sized box that looks totally unassuming, to the casual purchaser anyway.

The laws of physics comments are interesting. Obviously you can only achieve so much with a small box, but the T10 and Linn Kan are the same size sealed boxes, yet the bass is far superior on the T10. I’m no speaker designer but the choice of drive units, crossover design and cabinet structure must be making a huge difference. So it’s stretching the lawns of physics as far as possible. I was listening to Marc Johnson’s new solo double bass album yesterday and the sound was phenomenal, way beyond what you’d imagine possible.

Obviously it’s not as extended as a large speaker, but in the choice between a small and large speaker, both for the same price, it has to be a balance between quality and quantity I suppose.