Thanks to the genius of Scott Bradlee and PMJ, there’s a wealth of some pretty damned cool remakes of “hits” you might have otherwise wished to never hear again. Very few misses for me in that archive.
I tend to agree, when you have an intelligible speaker it shows across the board.
Though intelligibility is one concern in a sea of potential issues. My thoughts are with higher frequency room reflections, as some have mentioned.
If it was 6db time/phase aligned (pass a square wave intact), i'd argue you are right.
Great discussion here guys, nice to see how others think about this.
I am just now able to reply to this thread, even though it may be too late.
I have a couple of questions:
More intelligible than what?
Do you have example comparisons?
How are you defining "intelligible"?
Cbdb can tell us if TV channels usually add extra compresion to recorded music when broadcasting. Our national TV stations usually played a radiochannel when no TV programs were on. Listening in a car often is radios. I think all of them compress. Most of them way too much. Does a compressor enhance intelligubleti or what was it? Stock car speakers were also mostlt fullrangers 30 years ago.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Back in 1991 at the Jubilee hockey rink in Leningrad I discovered (by accident) the Center Cluster. It was a day I'll never forget. Along the the left and right stacks that play the whole mix, I fly a center cluster that gets only vocals. Wow does it make a difference! So much easier to control and hear the vocals that way. Yeah, you can throw the occasional guitar solo in there if you want, but keeping that bass limited center cluster for vocals makes all the difference.
Great questions.
#1. I'd say more intelligible than your typical well regarded multi-way.
#2. No direct head to head comparisons, other than my own gear.
(which btw, my multi-ways utterly destroy any full ranger i've heard, with regards to speech intelligibility)
#3. I kinda like defining speech 'intelligible' per the installed-sound industry measurement techniques, .....using STIPA, etc.
Intelligible (to me) = easier to understand the voice
I find a full range driver more intelligible than any 2 or 3 way, but a 6db time/phase i consider equal intelligibility, and 24db linkwitz riley @ 5khz was almost as intelligible on "minding my own business with a mug of herbal tea", mug was the tough word.
Even a full range driver through a non 6db crossover, you can hunt and find it with deep male voices, bass guitar, or drums (drum runs up or dowm varying in frequency), harmonics just don't seem to be right.
Cleaner waterfalls help.
I like my current horn the best for an under 2khz crossover (reflections, cepstrum stuff).
Even though it is not a 6db time/phase set, and 1.2khz crossover point (12 and 18db slopes maybe not adding driver roll offs).
The speaker you see now as my avatar does good voice, easily heard in the music, and it is heavily boosted in the bass to compensate for no sub, .3 qts 50hz fs, lower volume listening.
And i have dug into stereo, 1 speaker next to the tv does a better voice than stereo speakers. Crosstalk, side wall reflections, whatever is causing it.
The ambiophonic barrier, with it and speakers almost touching, voice strong and middle like 1 real person in front of you, no barrier and speakers spread apart, voice seems 6db quieter and a 3' wide blob of voice.
That lines up with what pano mentioned above about a center vocal cluster on a pa.
I find a full range driver more intelligible than any 2 or 3 way, but a 6db time/phase i consider equal intelligibility, and 24db linkwitz riley @ 5khz was almost as intelligible on "minding my own business with a mug of herbal tea", mug was the tough word.
Even a full range driver through a non 6db crossover, you can hunt and find it with deep male voices, bass guitar, or drums (drum runs up or dowm varying in frequency), harmonics just don't seem to be right.
Cleaner waterfalls help.
I like my current horn the best for an under 2khz crossover (reflections, cepstrum stuff).
Even though it is not a 6db time/phase set, and 1.2khz crossover point (12 and 18db slopes maybe not adding driver roll offs).
The speaker you see now as my avatar does good voice, easily heard in the music, and it is heavily boosted in the bass to compensate for no sub, .3 qts 50hz fs, lower volume listening.
And i have dug into stereo, 1 speaker next to the tv does a better voice than stereo speakers. Crosstalk, side wall reflections, whatever is causing it.
The ambiophonic barrier, with it and speakers almost touching, voice strong and middle like 1 real person in front of you, no barrier and speakers spread apart, voice seems 6db quieter and a 3' wide blob of voice.
That lines up with what pano mentioned above about a center vocal cluster on a pa.
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I also have a whole thread about it, and the problems caused by two speakers in mono.
Fixing the Stereo Phantom Center
The linked PDF in the thread describes the problem.
Fixing the Stereo Phantom Center
The linked PDF in the thread describes the problem.
True, yet I wouldn´t call it "lack of Bass" but faster-smoother midrange, big time.From the point of view of someone who has sat behind a live mixing console for decades trying to get the voices of lecturers and actors across a PA, I'd say lack of bass has a lot to do with it. Also bumps circa 3kHz and 6 kHz can help. I'll take a little 8" plus horn over a 15" plus horn any day. A high quality fullrange would be the next choice.
A bigger, bassy speaker will sound more impressive, richer, but it won't be as clear on voice. A fought a lot to get smaller, simpler speakers for voice. I didn't always win.
A 15" speaker reproducing voice is **muddy** (unless it´s, say, a JBL D/K/E 130 modern equivalent: THIN exponential paper cone, light powerful aluminum edgewound voice coil, HUGE magnet, ultra narrow gap), and crossing over to a horn is "too late", you are missing a good chunk.
To boot, you are switching between 2 VERY VERY different transducers, what could go wrong?
The 8" speaker will go high enough that horn or tweeter adds bite or sibilance but is not indispensable.
I love how full range speaker sound, specially in the voice range, with no crossovers messing them.
I absolutely HATE the average 15" + horn found *everywhere* , voice intelligibility destroyers.
Are there good ones?
Yes, but few, typically expensive and from top of the crop brands.
Yes JH, I agree. It's a smoother mid bass that makes the most difference, but that usually comes with less low end, so I tend to conflate the two. 
A 15" woofer with a big horn and 1.4" or 2" compression driver match up better for voice. IME, a 10 or 8 inch with a 1 inch horn can match enough to be as seamless as a fullrange driver. I've been very happy with those for speech, never happy with 15" woofer with 1" horn driver.
A 15" woofer with a big horn and 1.4" or 2" compression driver match up better for voice. IME, a 10 or 8 inch with a 1 inch horn can match enough to be as seamless as a fullrange driver. I've been very happy with those for speech, never happy with 15" woofer with 1" horn driver.
In 1982 I had to design and build a custom PA system for the Moscow Circus, then touring Argentina.
I already described the system in detail, I was originally called as a consultant because conventionall PA systems they rented were a piece of mush inside the extended 45 meter by 95 meter tent.
Their "at home" system was a huge "golf ball" covered in speakers and horns mounted in the triangular holes between frame edges, a huge point source, throwing a spherical coherent soundwave and must have been what you saw in Leningrad.
Excellent sound but it was still in the Soviet Union, 10000 or 12000 km away.
I built a distributed system : 1 narrow long column with 8 x 6"x9" full range , light thin cone + wheezer, placed end to end so column was 18 cm wide (~7") by 2 meter long and about 50 cm deep, hanging from chains from the roof structure, one every 10 meters all around the performing area.
It created a perfect shaped roughly oval wave, equivalent to a point source at the tent, each column was some 10meters away from public and slanted at an angle.
Good from about 150Hz up, Bass was handled by 15" woofers under the seating area.
1812 Overture cannon shots *literally* shook them from their seats.
3 advantages:
1) excellent intelligibility, because of the small fast drivers , NO crossover (both electrical and mechanical) or switching between different speakers within the vital voice range, each column behaved like a sort of line array to its intended audience, other columns being further away and pointing somewhere else, another good factor was that frontwave arrived at listeners ears way before it met any other surface ,whether "walls" (actually hanging heavy canvas), roof (same thing amd too high) and even floor.
2) since system was not a point source hanging from the roof but a distributed hanging column system, columns got in the visual way for people in back elevated seats, building them like "sideways knife blades" meant people , worst case, could still follow the action by slightly moving their heads sideways as needed.
3) not sure it´s clear, columns were hung quite low and close to lissteners, that also helped.
4) Russians/Soviets liked the system so much that they packed and carried it with them to the next Tour leg, Mexico.
Sadly they also carried away Ekaterina, the BEAUTIFUL Écuyère with whom I had fallen violently in love
Oh well.
I think you are talking about mid-range drivers.
Many modern full range drivers quite comfortably extend flat to 30kHz and are capable of producing solid bass down into the 50-60s. Put them in the right box and the entire range (except sub-40Hz) is covered. No, they are not the best choice for playing loud electronic music with heavy bass, or really loud rock/metal. For almost anything else they lack very little and bring a lot to the table that many 2-ways simply cannot.
It is quite well known that the larger the full range driver, the greater the beaming - in other words, the smaller the full range driver, the greater the dispersion. Smaller driver = bigger "sweet spot". Generally.
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I think you are talking about mid-range drivers.
Nopa, I stick by my statement...Yes, I've heard full-rangers that can go to 30Hz, and have heard some than can go to 20K,
but I've never heard one that can do both...well, at least not both with any decent SPL.
Hmm.... i take it back, I've heard full-range electrostats that can do it all..
(my defintion of a full-ranger is a speaker without any xover at all)
Yes, I've heard full-rangers that can go to 30Hz, and have heard some than can go to 20K,
but I've never heard one that can do both...well, at least not both with any decent SPL.
Hmm.... i take it back, I've heard full-range electrostats that can do it all..
(my defintion of a full-ranger is a speaker without any xover at all)
Did someone say there is a full range that can do 30Hz to 20kHz?
My current drivers (in their enclosures) can do 50Hz to 30kHz, nearly flat, with an F3 of 40Hz. I am lucky to have a room mode that pulls that low end up even more. Note: these are new drivers that I just retro-fitted into the enclosures shown before.
SPL into the 90s at the sitting position is more than enough for me.
Also take note that there are literally hundreds of 2-way and 3-way designs that can't do 30Hz effectively.
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Since you did not specify SPL, there's lots.
The Fane 15-300TC can do it at some volume, even in open baffle, with a bit of eq'ing.
I think the SB 8" FR I've been waiting for might get close-ish sans eq in a vented box.
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