Why doesn't this sound dreadful?

[bigwill]

I was feeling too lazy to hook up my bookshelf speakers, so I hooked up some £10 fullrangers I had lying around. I just wanted to listen to music, I didn't particularly care about the quality at time, I just needed a fix

I put in a CD and was surprised to find that, with the treble almost right up, these things sounded quite nice! Maybe I just have really low standards as to what sounds good, but I'm pretty sure the imaging is better than my £150 bookshelf speakers I have, and although the very top end is missing, you can still make most of the detail. Obviously there's NO bass, but you can feel it through the desk


Anyone else had any pleasant surprises with really cheap speakers?

 

[Netlist]

I'm always amazed how much detail my clock radio outputs.
That 2 inch speaker is very good in what it's supposed to do although it's the best low-fi I have apart from the telephone speaker.

/Hugo

 

[Cal Weldon]

I think it's the galvanized boxes you have them stuck to. No better imaging than that is there?

Cal

 

[Timn8ter]

There may be some psycho-acoustics going on with masking, etc. (not something I know about, just been doing a little reading) but as for the imaging, you're operating a dipole speaker so the wavefront is concentrated a bit more. Sitting right in front of them you're likely to get some good sound, IMHO.

 

[johninCR]

Welcome to the world of open baffle. Tape some cardboard baffles on them and the sound will really fill out. Those metal boxes may also be helping by sucking up some of the magnetic field and raising the Q of the driver.

 

[bigwill]

I'm actually half way through making some wooden baffles for them at the moment I think I should finish them tommorow

 

[johninCR]

The thing I like about cardboard is the instant gratification. How else will you know what size and shape wooden baffles to use?

 

[bigwill]

I guessed I suspect that they're not big enough, actually.

 

[johninCR]

For nearfield, my guess is that they are probably bigger than necessary.

 

[planet10]

I guessed I suspect that they're not big enough, actually.

Usually as big as you can live with isn't big enuff

dave

 

[Nuuk]

This may interest you Big Will!

 

[bigwill]

This may interest you Big Will!

Hehe yeah, I bought those fullrangers exactly because of that article a while ago, but didn't get around to do anything with them. I only just hooked them up properly to see what they sounded like!

 

[Nuuk]

Hehe yeah, I bought those fullrangers exactly because of that article a while ago,

Are you listening Farnell? Where's my commission?

 

[phase_accurate]

The improved imaging is one of the reasons for using fullrange drivers !!!

Regards

Charles

 

[bigwill]

BAD NEWS

For some unknown reason, the voice coil on one of them has started rubbing! They started doing this after I disconnected them. I noticed because I accidently poked the surround with my finger (gently) and heard it rubbing! Whenever you gently push in the cone now, you can feel and hear it rubbing against the magnet. The other one doesn't do this at all I don't know why this is or how it happend They still might be alright, though.

 

[johninCR]

Try turning the driver that rubs 180 degrees and leave it that way for a while. Sometimes gravity is enough to correct a rubbing problem.

 

[bigwill]

Thanks for this, I'll leave it for a couple of days on its front and hope for the best

Edit: Haha I just realised what you meant, the speaker is 180 degrees around from how it was originally mounted