I have never used above mentioned drivers in single drivers, i know their limitation so i always used FAsT with a help from woofer+super tweeter, in box or open baffle (wide or very small baffle)
it's not about the box, xo, or implementation. it's the quality of the driver it self that made me dissapointed. if you only have those drivers, never put it side by side with a good midrange then you'll never know what you have lost.
cheap FR is not an option for me, i just thought of "FR with Class A amplifier dream" but yeah it's a bad dream and now i wake up.
i even hold those drivers naked with my hand and connect to my class a amplifier, when Dynaudio MW152 join the test then i can tell each FR flaws differently. honking mid or treble, very annoying to my tinitus ear which is very sensitive.
When i receive Esotar 430 then the story is over, very neutral and balance.
I always test raw driver, hold it with my hand. some flaws can be tweaked with baffle/passive xo/dsp. but when i have raw driver which is born good then why bother with those problematic FR.
it's just like buying a cheap steak vs steak with MB3, eventhough i still imagine how a japanese A5 will taste like 😄 but my wallet never allow me spent too much for my mouth, enough for ears.
just imho...
it's not about the box, xo, or implementation. it's the quality of the driver it self that made me dissapointed. if you only have those drivers, never put it side by side with a good midrange then you'll never know what you have lost.
cheap FR is not an option for me, i just thought of "FR with Class A amplifier dream" but yeah it's a bad dream and now i wake up.
i even hold those drivers naked with my hand and connect to my class a amplifier, when Dynaudio MW152 join the test then i can tell each FR flaws differently. honking mid or treble, very annoying to my tinitus ear which is very sensitive.
When i receive Esotar 430 then the story is over, very neutral and balance.
I always test raw driver, hold it with my hand. some flaws can be tweaked with baffle/passive xo/dsp. but when i have raw driver which is born good then why bother with those problematic FR.
it's just like buying a cheap steak vs steak with MB3, eventhough i still imagine how a japanese A5 will taste like 😄 but my wallet never allow me spent too much for my mouth, enough for ears.
just imho...
What is the definition of full range?
From my point of view, we need to cover at least 30Hz to 20kHz @-3dB. This is the minimum.
In my young days, I could clearly hear 19kHz and still today I can hear below 30Hz.
At home, my stereo 3-way DIY speakers go from 23Hz to 20kHz @-3dB. No subwoofer, just a 80-liter floor standing.
A 5-string bass, has fundamental notes that go down to 30.8Hz (B0) and ordinary pipe organ down to 32Hz (C1).
Lots of churchs have larger pipe organs that go down to 16Hz (C0).
A piano lowest fundamental tone is 27.5Hz (A0), although not so strong in the fundamental.
Electric keyboards produce sounds in this range.
A kick drum can have frequencies from 20 to 500Hz. If you supress harmonics below 50, 40 or 30Hz, you modify the timber/tone of the instrument and different kick drums might sound the same, the sound of the speaker itself, which is not desirable. Speaker should not modify the sound.
Can a small 4" speaker really reproduce at least 30Hz and up with enough SPL? By enough SPL, I mean at least 85dB at 2m away (91dB at 1m).
Do you have frequency response for such loudspeakers?
Or that "full" range is actually more for voice, violin and other instruments that do not have low harmonics?
In this case, it wouldn't be a full range, but a limited range single speaker for specific purpose.
@ron68
FR means those product sold by manufacture as FR, or drivers shown in this subforum "Fullrange". easy, dont complicate things. no one in this FR subforum will mention Fostex 206 as midrange. i wont discuss about low bass or upper treble which is subwoofer/woofer + tweeter/super tweeter area.
even for high end Headphone which will fall into FR because of single driver, i also not enjoying a lot about it's hype. i even tried full Stax setup and still feeling "only this?". Also listened to big Tannoy driven by huge Burmester amp but sound dull for me.
back to this topic, I agree the only advantage of FR for me is simplicity. 1 driver, no crossover, can be driven with low watt amp like tube 45/2A3
FR means those product sold by manufacture as FR, or drivers shown in this subforum "Fullrange". easy, dont complicate things. no one in this FR subforum will mention Fostex 206 as midrange. i wont discuss about low bass or upper treble which is subwoofer/woofer + tweeter/super tweeter area.
even for high end Headphone which will fall into FR because of single driver, i also not enjoying a lot about it's hype. i even tried full Stax setup and still feeling "only this?". Also listened to big Tannoy driven by huge Burmester amp but sound dull for me.
back to this topic, I agree the only advantage of FR for me is simplicity. 1 driver, no crossover, can be driven with low watt amp like tube 45/2A3
Hi JohnnyDee.
MDF is used by many manufacturers because of its stable quality.
Laminated wood and plywood can be good or bad depending on the material.
Since COVID, only poor quality laminated wood and plywood have been sold in Japan.
My recent builds tend to use MDF.
High quality laminated wood > High quality plywood > MDF > Low quality laminated wood > Low quality plywood
Hi gadut.
It's great to challenge yourself for a good sound, good luck!
Hi ron68.
If it can reproduce 200Hz-10kHz sufficiently, it can be said to be full range.
I don't know of any multi-way speaker on the market that can adequately reproduce 30Hz.
It is interesting to note that 30Hz may be produced by sweep, pink noise, and white noise measurements, but not enough for a music source.
For reference, here is a peak hold graph of the spectrum from "Better Be Home Soon - Andrea Zonn".
Ok, 200Hz to 10kHz might be a commercial definition to classify a speaker as a full range.
But it is far from full range musical reproduction needs.
If you don't reproduce frequencies from 30Hz up, you are partially reproducing a record.
Language wise, partial is not full.
In this case I agree with you, if you consider the consumer speakers. But this was a commercial decision, not engineering decision.
Small full range or 2-way speakers are better for logistics, home installing, wife acceptance, cheaper to make etc.
3Way speakers for studios, like Genelec, do reproduce low frequencies. I listened to a 3-way 15" pair last year - But, I know, it costs a fortune.
That's why I build my own speakers and they reproduce way below 30Hz.
Let's take your reference. If you listen to this track in my speakers, you would observe that there is a good amount of frequencies between 30 to 40Hz coming from the drum (I don't know if is a drum kit or any other kind of drum).
I've captured the song you indicated in Audacity and applied a 4th order low pass filter at 40Hz.
See the wave form of when the drum plays - it has 35.7Hz component and I can listen it clearly here at home- very pleasant, indeed.
What happened, during last years, is that people got used to not listen to the real full range reproduction due to commercial shift towards small speakers that are limited in low frequencies.
People compare super expensive A speaker with another expensive B speaker, but none is able to reproduce full range.
It's a kind of a limited area of conversation.
Even people that uses 2-way speakers only, they spend a lot of money and they are not enjoying all the richness of a true full range reproduction.
Hi gadut
I see.
But opting for a loudspeaker just for simplicity is something that intrigues me.
For a similar price, similar size and a bit of effort to build the crossover, you can get the whole (full) range of sounds we can hear at home.
During last year, I've been trying to understand several points of view when building speakers.
So I truly want to know what people like and search on a specific type of speaker.
The pros/cons etc.
So if a full range single speaker really have advantages over 3-way, I'd like to know which are these advantages, but keeping a distance from marketing/commercial references.
I started diy while living at the office during Beijing's Covid semi-lockdowns, after disappointment with a pair of used Monitor Audio Studio 10 -- bass not low enough for plucked doublebass and organ. The easy solution was placing Roland Cube's 12" drivers over waste baskets; nearly every recording gained twice the musical content as before. The fun solution was making 7L tapered TL, AMT/fiberglass honeycomb, inspired by Eve Audio SC-205. This "HeilEve" 1m TL didn't quite go deep enough for lowest organ but sound-quality-wise trounced all my previous commercial speakers including ESL63, multi-ways, and fullrange Fostex/Lowther/etc. Old school cabs plus new materials.
As a result most of my diys are either compact quarterwave or big driver over a barrel. These aren't single-driver fullrange but in spirit and technique they are kind of fullrange-plus.
This is hard to summarize in a single post; the entire forum history has been devoted to it. In a sentence ot two, I would say a decent fullrange driver plays a single note of music more realistically than most multi-ways regardless of price. If you think a more realistic single note cannot possibly be more important than the content of an entire score, well that's a matter of preference. As for how it can be true technically, it's the same old argument whether time-aligned coherence (such as Dunlavy et al.) is necessary for very high fidelity transcients and imaging especially soundstage depth. Fullrange drivers by being coherent point-source dispensing with the usual crossover at hearing's most acute 2-4khz range, have an inherent advantage that very few multi-ways overcome -- playing a single note realistically.
As a result most of my diys are either compact quarterwave or big driver over a barrel. These aren't single-driver fullrange but in spirit and technique they are kind of fullrange-plus.
This is hard to summarize in a single post; the entire forum history has been devoted to it. In a sentence ot two, I would say a decent fullrange driver plays a single note of music more realistically than most multi-ways regardless of price. If you think a more realistic single note cannot possibly be more important than the content of an entire score, well that's a matter of preference. As for how it can be true technically, it's the same old argument whether time-aligned coherence (such as Dunlavy et al.) is necessary for very high fidelity transcients and imaging especially soundstage depth. Fullrange drivers by being coherent point-source dispensing with the usual crossover at hearing's most acute 2-4khz range, have an inherent advantage that very few multi-ways overcome -- playing a single note realistically.
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Hi!
If this is an advantage, ok, although I would like to have technical references indicating why this realism occur in a single speaker and does not occur in a multi way speaker. One of the arguments was that in single speaker there is no phase shifts. Ok, there is no electrical or geometrical, but there are acoustic phase shifts.
In addition, to get this realism, we are throwing away a lot of musical content in the bass region and upper frequencies which keeps us far from realism considering the whole frequency range.
If we agree that is best to reproduce voice region (200Hz to 4K) in a single speaker, ok!
That's what we can easily achieve in a 3-way speaker:
Woofer from 20Hz to 200Hz
Mid-range from 200Hz to 4kHz (voice region in one speaker) and this range can easily be streched using a full range speaker if needed
Tweeter from 4kHz to 20kHz.
This way, you get the best from both ideas: realism from a single speaker where it matters, and low and hi speakers to not loose important music frequency content.
I'm trying not to accept that I have to choose one thing or another.
We have engineering in our hands to solve problems, but we need to understand what is exaclty the problem so as to provide a solution.
This is indeed (more or less) what many people do -- often called WAW (woofer-assisted-wideband) or FAST (fullrange-and-super-tweeter?). No one could reliably recall the acronym FAST so I made one up: fullrange-augmented-straight-through, the point being that "fullrange" is used as adverb how the driver is run, without high/low pass filters. That said, it is nearly impossible to find a 200-4khz midrange driver except ones marketed as "fullrange" (the 3-way thus becoming "fullrange-plus").
Technical evidence -- I'll once again point to @tmuikku basic impulse response simulation (go back up the message chain to see IR curves for perfect driver, bandwidth-limited driver, and ideal 2-way).
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Cool! I'll make some tests observing impulse response. I just need to grab a good full range.
Thank you!
I would love to build a loudspeaker to these parameters. Unfortunately there are very few drivers that can cover those ranges. The easiest is the tweeter region, Many tweeters can fill the coverage required. Next you will probably need a wideband to cover the mid-range because many so called mid-ranges start to break-up wildly at 2K-4K and make crossovers crazy difficult to realize even with DSP. A woofer that covers 20-200 is rare as a white buffalo. Woofers can be forced into this range by DSP, this creates tons of distortion and rumble but it's not bass. Part of the problem with sub-sat systems is the crossover to the sub is too low, the mid-range is forced to reproduce bass below 200hz and this causes a lot of distortion. I think it's better to have a crossover between 100-300hz to allow the mid-range to handle what it does best - mid-range. A sub-sat system needs an exceptional woofer in the satellites to cover 50-3,000hz and if you are going to design that why not go with a three way in the first place and use dual sub-woofers? The difficult thing is getting that crossover at 200Hz right so that it doesn't disturb the mid-range. If you raise the low frequency requirement up to 35hz then you can find a woofer where you can use 1st order crossover at 200hz and the phase is great but the bass distortion edges back in. It's all trade-offs. To get rid of the crossover challenges and to match driver timbre people use full-ranges. I like the WAW concept but to match the wideband driver you need a real woofer, not a sub-woofer. Then this system turns into a three way but the mid-range is unaffected by the tweeter crossover and distortion caused by high excursion is reduced.
Should the three way speaker be:
Sub-woofer (-)20-50
Woofer 50-200
Wide-band 200-15,000?
This would decrease bass distortion and you could actually use the WAW as a main loudspeaker and relegate the sub for pipe organ and movies.
For me, the main purpose of domestic (for music) speakers it to enjoy music; I've recently put together some full range speakers, with 2 1/2 inch drivers, do they go down to 30Hz? - not even close, but last night I listened to Lenard Cohen, and it was like he was 6 foot away; today, after panpipes (wind of the Andes) I had System of a down (toxicity) on, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I might not have had all the bass, but the bass lines and "chuggyness" was there, the expression of the music was well represented, largely because the little speakers have so little stored energy, they could stop and start, revealing the punctuation of the tunes. This was made apparent with the panpipe CD, the fast strummed strings (of something like a ukulele) came across as individual strings, rather than one blurred sound. I actually enjoyed toxicity on those little 2 1/2 inch drivers more than any other speaker, much to my surprise. I listen to music to enjoy it, and if I enjoy it more on speakers lacking low down bass, that's what I'll chose. But I'll still try to get the best of both worlds with a WAW.
Hi,
Let me know what you think.
I use a subwoofer speaker as the woofer role.
If you live in US, there are many options of speakers in Parts Express that can cover 25Hz and up using a ported box tuned below 30Hz for a 3-Way system.
I use what is manufactured in my country (much less quality than what you find in US) due to the high import taxes.
Despite of that, I can achive the real full range from 23Hz to 20kHz (-3dB). No fancy or high end component.
This is a 60 liter 10" ported speaker I've recently built for a friend.
Tweeter: I used a 1.5" silk dome which responds from 1.5kHz to 20kHz with good overlap with the mid-bass.
Mid range: I use a 5" mid-bass, with a small box behind it (3 liters), as a mid range and it goes from 150Hz to 4kHz and breaks up at 5kHz.
I add a notch filter at 5kHz to suppress what is left by the low pass filter.
Subwoofer/Woofer: I use a 10" which responds from 30Hz to 1kHz and breaks at 1.5kHz in actual measurement with the influence of my backyard.
In simulation it crosses 24Hz @ -3dB.
There is a good range for overlaping between woofer and the mid.
These are the actual measurements before the crossover, thus each speaker was directly connected to the amplifier.
Tweeter, mid and woofer. Crossover is based on 12dB/oct and some tweaks here and there like notch filters, resistors etc.
Simulation
Hi ron68.
If you record the sound played by your system and compare it to the spectrum of the sound source, you will see that there is less bass than in the midrange.
Hi,
Sure, 35Hz is well below the mid-range, but it does exist.
And if you listen to this song in a simple full range system that only plays 50 ou 60Hz up, you are not going to listen to all the spectrum that was recorded in the studio.
Hmm 🤔, I don’t want to boast, but I’m pretty confident that I have very good bass around 35htz from my 8 inch single drivers!
My boxes are around 115 litres and my room is big, so no doubt that helps!
The top end is beginning to drop away around 10khtz, but my hearing doesn’t go much over 11khtz anyway!
Most people, by the time they are 50 -60, have lost a large amount of the high frequency hearing!
So, talking to all the old blokes here, Full Range 20 Htz to 20 Khtz exists in theory, but You can’t hear it!!! 😆
My boxes are around 115 litres and my room is big, so no doubt that helps!
The top end is beginning to drop away around 10khtz, but my hearing doesn’t go much over 11khtz anyway!
Most people, by the time they are 50 -60, have lost a large amount of the high frequency hearing!
So, talking to all the old blokes here, Full Range 20 Htz to 20 Khtz exists in theory, but You can’t hear it!!! 😆
Hi ron68.
It would be good to visualize the sound coming from ron68's system and share it with everyone else.