Is15 inch overkill for music?????experts

[Andre Baptiste]

HEy experts.....is 15inch over kill for music on d whole?????

[5th element]

Depends on the size of the room, the SPL you want to achieve and how low you want to go.

Usually really high sensativity drivers dont do as low, so you'd want a bigger driver to get lower for the same sense.

However if you are talking about a normal size living room then its only overkill really if you cant or will find it a hassle living with a big box.

[jewilson]

Big speaker are impressive to look at, however there are reasons you don't see them in many speaker designs using them.

1) The mass of the driver makes it sound slow and lack of detail.
2) Cabinet volume
3) Cabinet Size which increasing the front baffle causing diffraction.
4) They don't sound correct till they bring played louder than a smaller driver.
5) It is not necessary that your speaker go to 20Hz unless your room that can produce a 20Hz wave length.
5) Most bass guitars only go down to about 35Hz.

But they do have a cool factor for your friends

10” is about all you need, most of the time you can get buy with an 8 inch woofers
Now if you can afford a 15” Focal that is a cool speaker.

[sreten]

Generally yes.

For domestic use a 12" with more excursion is a better idea.

But if a long excursion 12 is not good enough then......

sreten.

[richwalters]

Hi there ........That 15 incher...to keep size down..... there's nothing wrong using this for music in closed box C2nd 3 way alignment....it's going to need power as efficency is way down compared to reflex versions......
Choose driver with spec roughly, Vas = 10Cuft; fs= 13Hz; Qt= 0.31; Box Vol comes roughly 3Cuft. Drivers like this don't come cheap.
Anything is poss.

rich

[OMNIFEX]

5th element offered the best advice.

You cannot say yea or nea without considering room
size, and, application. (Home, or Commercial use)

[454Casull]

Originally posted by jewilson
Big speaker are impressive to look at, however there are reasons you don't see them in many speaker designs using them.

1) The mass of the driver makes it sound slow and lack of detail.
2) Cabinet volume
3) Cabinet Size which increasing the front baffle causing diffraction.
4) They don't sound correct till they bring played louder than a smaller driver.
5) It is not necessary that your speaker go to 20Hz unless your room that can produce a 20Hz wave length.
5) Most bass guitars only go down to about 35Hz.

But they do have a cool factor for your friends

10” is about all you need, most of the time you can get buy with an 8 inch woofers
Now if you can afford a 15” Focal that is a cool speaker.

1) Slow? How fast do you think a 40Hz wave is?
3) I doubt diffraction has that much effect on LF.
4) ???
5) How does a room produce a wavelength? I think you're talking about room gain, though if the output at 20Hz is only 40dB, no amount of normal room gain will let you feel it.
6) http://www.contrabass.com/pages/frequency.html - though many of the instruments higher up on the list are pretty rare.

[jewilson]

454Casull

I have only head a few speakers that had tight bass that used a 15" woofer that was a JM Audio Lab Utopia. Great for sound reniforcement.

No problem with low frequency diffraction but when you build the rest of the cabinet you will end up with a wide cabinet.

You have to have a room that is long enough to reproduce a 20 Hz wave length or it does not happen.

Most 15" drivers don't sound good till they are playing loud.

6) http://www.contrabass.com/pages/frequency.html that interesting but most of us don't listen to a Tuba.

So what 15" drivers do you like......

[Luke (Uof Iowa)]

Originally posted by jewilson

You have to have a room that is long enough to reproduce a 20 Hz wave length or it does not happen.

How is it reproduced in cars then?

[Variac]

High quality pro 15" drivers can sound great.
The reason I find most logical is that they can move a lot of air without compresing it. Generally high quality pro drivers have much lower distortion than typical HiFi drivers.

Yes, the cone is heavier than a smaller driver, but the motor is usually much stronger, so the cone is usually proportionally lighter than a typical driver. This is reflected in the much higher efficiency for pro drivers. As mentioned, they are also more efficient because they don't really go that low- usually a little less than 40 hz flat. Keep in mind that there is still bass much lower, it just is tapering off. As has been pointed out, that covers most instruments. I don't agree that they sound correct only at high volumes. They are often less distorted , which some people don't like.

The Pass Rushmore uses pro drivers for all but the tweeter.
-including a 15"

I guess the biggest question is whether one is talking about pro PA type 15" drivers , or 15" sub woofer drivers.

The pro PA drivers usually have pretty low excursion but of course large area. This accounts for the low distortion I believe. They sound very fast and very detailed. Smilar to the way planar
speakers sound- but planars have even more area and move even less!

Sub woofer drivers TEND usually to have very large excursion, aren't particularly efficient, have higher distortion, and are made to reproduce very low notes. These notes are mostly on movie sound tracks.


So it's apples and oranges. I LOVE my 15" pro drivers in my home stereo- they sound more realistic to me. Yes, the boxes are big though...

I don't like the bass of 15" subwoofer drivers that much except for the lowest notes. They often do sound slow and bloated.