Hello all,
I'm still into my motorhome dts sound for watching movies project. The z5500 psu on 12V is starting to sort itself out with the help of some kind and knowledgeable people on this forum. The new woofer box is also taking shape and the placement of the amp itself and control components is starting to look neat.
I knew all since the beginning, placing speakers in a motorhome will be a big challenge. There is no way to achieve an audiophile grade placement however hard I try and that is probably not necessary. It is more about a decent compromise between placing the speakers out of the way and enjoyable sound quality.
The dilemma I am facing now is that z5500 speakers that look like small speakers in a living room, but look kind of big in a motorhome situation. Thus the questions below from someone keenly interested to learn, but still new to hi-fi stuff:
1) is it possible to find smaller speakers with smaller enclosures (the latter is the more important part) than the standard thing with z5500, without loosing the sound quality? I almost do not mind the price...
2) how much of the sound quality is due to enclosure design on z5500? could I maybe keep the speakers, but build new, custom, smaller enclosures?
3) how bad would an idea to keep two of the existing speakers (FL and RL, 4Ohm as opposed to 8Ohm z5500 standard(!)) or replacing them with something 8Ohm, but still a different size? if ok, any suggestions?
4) in general, how do one compare the speakers in terms of quality apart from purely listening to them?
I see all these graphs and frequency responses, but how do they translate into "this is better than that"?
Thank you for your time,
/Edmunds
I'm still into my motorhome dts sound for watching movies project. The z5500 psu on 12V is starting to sort itself out with the help of some kind and knowledgeable people on this forum. The new woofer box is also taking shape and the placement of the amp itself and control components is starting to look neat.
I knew all since the beginning, placing speakers in a motorhome will be a big challenge. There is no way to achieve an audiophile grade placement however hard I try and that is probably not necessary. It is more about a decent compromise between placing the speakers out of the way and enjoyable sound quality.
The dilemma I am facing now is that z5500 speakers that look like small speakers in a living room, but look kind of big in a motorhome situation. Thus the questions below from someone keenly interested to learn, but still new to hi-fi stuff:
1) is it possible to find smaller speakers with smaller enclosures (the latter is the more important part) than the standard thing with z5500, without loosing the sound quality? I almost do not mind the price...
2) how much of the sound quality is due to enclosure design on z5500? could I maybe keep the speakers, but build new, custom, smaller enclosures?
3) how bad would an idea to keep two of the existing speakers (FL and RL, 4Ohm as opposed to 8Ohm z5500 standard(!)) or replacing them with something 8Ohm, but still a different size? if ok, any suggestions?
4) in general, how do one compare the speakers in terms of quality apart from purely listening to them?
I see all these graphs and frequency responses, but how do they translate into "this is better than that"?Thank you for your time,
/Edmunds
1) Yes, that is possible. The difficult part will be to find ones that integrate well with the system.
2) A significant part. You could build different enclosures. If you change the volume by more than 20 % or the baffle width by more than 10 % (or if you mount them in the motorhome's furniture), a redesign of the crossover could be necessary.
3) The Z5500 was designed for operation with those 8 Ohm speakers, so 4 Ohm speakers could lead to destruction of the amplifier section.
4) Listening is the best indicator. Most important is listening to them in the environment where you want to use them in the end. The room has an enormous influence on the sound.
2) A significant part. You could build different enclosures. If you change the volume by more than 20 % or the baffle width by more than 10 % (or if you mount them in the motorhome's furniture), a redesign of the crossover could be necessary.
3) The Z5500 was designed for operation with those 8 Ohm speakers, so 4 Ohm speakers could lead to destruction of the amplifier section.
4) Listening is the best indicator. Most important is listening to them in the environment where you want to use them in the end. The room has an enormous influence on the sound.
Dear pacificblue,
Thank you for your elaborate answer! Allow me a few questions, though.
How come the baffle width is important and not depth, height or something else? Volume, I understand, but that is, of course my problem, as it is pretty difficult to make something smaller, while keeping the volume the same.
And the crossover - there is only one speaker per sattelite, I believe, and as I understand the crossover has to do with the part of the amplifier sending different frequences to different speakers. How is that related to the volume of my speaker enclosures exactly?
Thank you for your time,
/Edmunds
Thank you for your elaborate answer! Allow me a few questions, though
.How come the baffle width is important and not depth, height or something else? Volume, I understand, but that is, of course my problem, as it is pretty difficult to make something smaller, while keeping the volume the same
.And the crossover - there is only one speaker per sattelite, I believe, and as I understand the crossover has to do with the part of the amplifier sending different frequences to different speakers. How is that related to the volume of my speaker enclosures exactly?
Thank you for your time,
/Edmunds
The sound waves from the speaker that are smaller than the baffle width or height are reflected and add to the original sound. The wider and higher the baffle is, the lower is the frequency that can be reflected. This is called the baffle step. Thanks to this the speaker output is 6 dB higher above a certain frequency than below. A speaker designer takes that into account in the crossover by choosing the crossover frequency accordingly or adding corrective elements.
Width and height contribute to the frequency response in that respect. The smallest dimension has the biggest effect, in most cases the width. So if you change the width you change the frequency response more than if you change the height.
The volume has an effect on the lower roll-off. It determines the Q factor and the resonant frequency of the speaker. In short the smaller the volume, the bigger Qtc and fres and vice versa. A small Qtc leads to a shallow roll-off with a low resonant frequency, slow ring-in and short decay. Sounds weak but well-defined. Can appear lifeless. A high Qtc leads to a steeper roll-off, a higher resonant frequency with slight overshoot, a fast ring-in also with overshoot and long decay. Sounds more powerful, but less clean. Low notes becomes smeared and boomy. A speaker designer tries to find the best compromise betweeen those extremes for a certain speaker and also takes the resulting low frequency response into consideration during the crossover design.
The numbers I gave in my previous post are rules of thumb. That is why I wrote a crossover redesign could be necessary. Depending on the actual set-up it may or may not work with the original crossover. You will have to try, if you want to find out. Just don't be surprised or disappointed, if it does not sound the same before and after.
Width and height contribute to the frequency response in that respect. The smallest dimension has the biggest effect, in most cases the width. So if you change the width you change the frequency response more than if you change the height.
The volume has an effect on the lower roll-off. It determines the Q factor and the resonant frequency of the speaker. In short the smaller the volume, the bigger Qtc and fres and vice versa. A small Qtc leads to a shallow roll-off with a low resonant frequency, slow ring-in and short decay. Sounds weak but well-defined. Can appear lifeless. A high Qtc leads to a steeper roll-off, a higher resonant frequency with slight overshoot, a fast ring-in also with overshoot and long decay. Sounds more powerful, but less clean. Low notes becomes smeared and boomy. A speaker designer tries to find the best compromise betweeen those extremes for a certain speaker and also takes the resulting low frequency response into consideration during the crossover design.
The numbers I gave in my previous post are rules of thumb. That is why I wrote a crossover redesign could be necessary. Depending on the actual set-up it may or may not work with the original crossover. You will have to try, if you want to find out. Just don't be surprised or disappointed, if it does not sound the same before and after.
You must be a sound scientist or something
. Thank you for your reply. Thank's to it I found this page Baffle Step Compensation and learned a great deal of new stuff. All of this complexity is putting me back at trying the existing speakers with original enclosures once more - maybe it does not look that bad and I can actually live with the bulkiness in favor to better sound ./Edmunds
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.