Full range speakers for Homecinema purpose

[Overkill Audio]

Home Cinema with full range

IMO...
Line array full range speakers are fab for home cinema.

But for real home cinema you are always going to need at least one sub, better with two or even three, corner loaded, sealed 60 litre to 70 litre 20mm to 25mm birch ply or 10mm alloy.
Try a 12 inch Beyma 12SW 1300Nd with 500 watts minimum and a bit of room Eq and you will be in heaven!

I agree with Norman on the point of using identical drivers all round.
I use 16 BMR drivers per side in line arrays for my front left right, 9 BMR's for the centre channel, and 4 BMR's per side at the rear.
Seamless seamless, seamless, really great effects on movies and lovely with music too.

Cheers
Derek.

 

[talaerts]

I contacted a French compagny for the Beyma 5CX200NDNE they are available 181€ each (transport included), this is still expensive for my project, even if the price seems very good compared to other sellers.
then remains the Fostex (FF or Sigma) & Mark Audio (CHR 70 or Alpair 12) although quite difficult to find a reseller in France (do guys knows one?).

Well, the Beymas -while not cheap- are inline with your original budget, for the front 3 channels at least, a bit above for the rear channels.
I still find these a very interesting choice for a good quality home cinema, more realistic than a fullrange solution (and I do like FR drivers, for music that is). The main reasons being that they will be near indestructible in a home cinema setting yet (likely, I haven't heard these) still offer very good quality for music use, and they have much better off axis dispersion than FR drivers which is pleasant when multiple people watch a movie.

 

[jayce996]

the worth with the Beyma is that there is no feedbacks nor builds already done with them, or at least i did not find them

 

[talaerts]

I found a russian site with filter and box design for it. And, for what it is worth, it had an award during a professional trade show.
From my experience with the brand, the sound is likely very good.

 

[jayce996]

Hi talaerts,
can you share the link please?
thx in advance

 

[ODougbo]

Great looking speakers (and daughter (?) btw).
Q. With all the driver coils - Don't they act like a inductor and attenuate the treble?

IMO...
Line array full range speakers are fab for home cinema.

But for real home cinema you are always going to need at least one sub, better with two or even three, corner loaded, sealed 60 litre to 70 litre 20mm to 25mm birch ply or 10mm alloy.
Try a 12 inch Beyma 12SW 1300Nd with 500 watts minimum and a bit of room Eq and you will be in heaven!

I agree with Norman on the point of using identical drivers all round.
I use 16 BMR drivers per side in line arrays for my front left right, 9 BMR's for the centre channel, and 4 BMR's per side at the rear.
Seamless seamless, seamless, really great effects on movies and lovely with music too.

Cheers
Derek.

 

[Overkill Audio]

Multiple driver inductance

Hi Doug,

Thanks, yes my daughter is a real cute kid, her twin brothers are cool dudes too...Going to be a bit crazy round here when they are all teenagers...Gulp!

Re driver inductance, basically its not a problem, in fact using multiple drivers gives you a much cleaner and more open top end ( and midrange too).
It sounds even more extended than a single driver, but measurements show no real difference, only tiny plus or minus driver tolerance variance.

The reason the mid and top sound way better than a single driver is that the each cone in the multiple driver speaker is only moving a fraction ( a sixteenth in this case) as much as a single driver cone would for the same SPL.
This basically eliminates all the problems that single full range drivers have such as : no percussive impact, no bass, high distortion at any decent volume, confused and muddled sound with complex music...etc. etc.

Traditional line arrays have their own problems, esp. two or three way arrays using separate lines of tweeters, bass mids and or woofers. The crossovers can be a real nightmare, and both horizontal and vertical interference can be problematic as well as off axis lobes and rear wall bounce.
Also fake or " mini arrays" i.e. 3 or 4 feet lines of drivers which are the worst of all worlds, wont bore you here but suffice to say you are better off with a good old 3 way rather than a pint sized array.

Hope this helps and all the best
Derek.

 

[talaerts]

Hi talaerts,
can you share the link please?
thx in advance

Here: Äèíàìèê øèðîêîïîëîñíûé Beyma 5CX200Nd, îáçîð. Ïîðòàë "www.marvel-pro.ru".

Many pictures of the speaker itself which looks like a serious piece of kit.

google translate can help.

 

[Bill poster]

another driver which wd work great are Aurasound NS3's, amazing little things

 

[jayce996]

After a long reflexion and budget re-evaluation, i think i'll go with the Beyma drivers.
and so now, final reflexion:
the three models are 5CX200ND , 6CX200ND & 8CX300ND, where the first number is the diameter, and the price is approximately 210€, 220€ & 240€ before negociation, (note that a company was decreasing the price for 5 5CX200ND to 181€ each, transport included)
so the question is the following: which configuration
- 5 (front + center + rear) 5CX200ND or 6CX200ND or 8CX300ND + a Sub (a previously mentionned)
- or 2 Front 8CX300ND + Center 6CX200ND + 2 rear 5CX200ND + a Sub (in order to have better sound in HC & Stereo Hifi)
- or 3 (Front + Center) 6CX200ND or 8CX300ND + 2 rear 5CX200ND + a Sub (in order to have better sound in HC & Stereo Hifi)

 

[talaerts]

if you have the space then I'd take all 5 the same, otherwise like you suggest in option 3 at least the 3 in front of you the same.
With the wide dispersion of the 5" they should be very usable as surround speakers.

 

[Malco]

If I were in you position I would build floor standers so that you dont have to worry about stands or fixing to the wall etc.
These might look quite nice in your room. They will give you some flexability in your crossover point and could be used for hifi if you change your mind. They use the CHR70.

 

[Malco]

The benefit of going with the CHR70s is that there is a lot of information available on line regarding the pros and cons. If you go for the Beymas, I would be very interested to hear your feedback but it seems a little risky given that they are quite expensive and there seems to be little feedback online of how they sound. I don't believe that you can assume they will sound good based on the brand.

 

[jayce996]

Hi Malco, good point regarding the beyma speakers !
regarding the floor standing speakers i cannot build them as they will not fit in my living room, see post #9 at the first page for a picture of my living room, only bookshelves can be used.

 

[vacuphile]

Jayce, looking at the FR response as provided by the manufacturer, my conclusion is that the Beyma's are not really that great. It's at least +/- 5dB from straight. With some very skilled xover design, you might get them a bit better, but it would still be far worse than you can accomplish with an FR88EX or Aurasound NS3 with a small tweeter, at much lower cost.

There seems to be an FR issue with coaxial drivers that no manufacturer has ever been able to overcome. Even the older Tannoys, although they fare better than most coaxials, are still fairly mediocre in this respect.

 

[talaerts]

Jayce, looking at the FR response as provided by the manufacturer, my conclusion is that the Beyma's are not really that great. It's at least +/- 5dB from straight. With some very skilled xover design, you might get them a bit better, but it would still be far worse than you can accomplish with an FR88EX or Aurasound NS3 with a small tweeter, at much lower cost.

There seems to be an FR issue with coaxial drivers that no manufacturer has ever been able to overcome. Even the older Tannoys, although they fare better than most coaxials, are still fairly mediocre in this respect.

If the OP has a modern AV amp with auto eq then an imperfect FR response is less crucial.
I recommended the Beymas since they will be able to handle the slam of a movie, will have reasonably low distortion (which in my opinion is more important than ruler flat behaviour), and have good dispersion in the treble, which is nice if you watch movies with friends next to you, it is not fun to miss a good part of the treble under an angle as is the case with most FR units.

 

[Bill poster]

Very similar to the NS3 is the Dayton nd91, a 3.5 inch with 25mm of travel(!) but it has a more extended treble response up to 17khz. The lower qts means the enclosure vol is smaller too

 

[Overkill Audio]

3.5 inch driver with 25mm travel...!

Billpoter,

IMO any 3.5 inch bass mid (or full range) driver that is being driven to
" 25mm travel" will (a) be unlistenable & (b) will self destruct very quickly.
Any manufacturer / individual using this " feature" as a selling point is either deceiving himself, his customers or both.

I would love to see a video ( with verified SPL and distortion measurements) of the driver doing its " deep as wide" thing, maybe someone has a link?

If the OP is aiming for typical THX levels ( available from £700 to £800 AV amps ) in his / her home cinema, the Beyma's are capable ofmeeting that with ease.... The little 3.5 inch driver's are not. Its not rocket science.

Cheers
Derek.

 

[talaerts]

Derek, I thought exactly along these lines when recommending the Beymas.
I'm not convinced about small FR drivers for decent home cinema at sound volumes higher than just talking volume.
If you play a classic like Terminator 2 it should sound believable.

 

[Bob Brines]

There is nothing wrong with using a 3-4" driver in an HT. I do it all the time. But....

You need to cross to the sub at 150-200Hz. The problem will not be with the wide-range driver, it will be with the sub. There are not that many subs out there that will to 20-200Hz gracefully.

Bob