Why are fullrangers more intelligible ?

[cracked case]

Light weight cone and voice coil mean less mechanical vibration transmitted to the enclosure, but it's more likely that any phase issues are at the frequency extremes, rather than right in the middle, no one seems bothered by the ( possible ) phase issues of signal transformers, and they're the same. Just have a small full range augmented by a bass driver coming in at around 150 Hz, best of both worlds.

[cbdb]

Originally Posted by Pano

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.

Hollywood figured this out 40 years ago and movies have had a dedicated center dialog speaker ever since. Inteligibility is way more important in movies than music, isnt Jimmy singing "watch out while I kiss this guy".

[Just Dave]

Originally Posted by norman bates

Intelligible (to me) = easier to understand the voice.

I find a full range driver more intelligible than any 2 or 3 way,

Thank you for your reply, although I was hoping for a more indepth answer. The assessment of speech intelligibility involves many factors, including aspects of the listener's hearing, recorded or live source material, audio system qualities, distance from the loudspeaker source, and room acoustics.

For comparing various sources, an identical test signal (in this case, the same speech track) and EQ to approximate the same frequency curve are also necessary.

In the absence of controlled tests with multiple experienced listeners, it's unlikely that any person can definitively say that "fullrangers are more intelligible" than something else. I've observed that well-designed multi-way loudspeakers will not only equal a "fullranger" in an intelligibility test (using SII or other standard), but also outperform it in many other areas which are relevant to high quality sound reproduction or reinforcement. The issue is not "fullrange" versus "multi-way". Rather, it's the quality of the design, and the intended application.

[cbdb]

Originally Posted by Guerilla

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!

Limiter/compressors even EQ, unfortunatley, are standard for broadcast, originating with protecting the kwatt tubes used. Some stations are better than others and some are terrible. Very disheartening when you put your soul into making something sound great only to have it ruined before anyone hears it. I didnt work on it but Game of Drones was one of the worst, 20db of slow compression! When the dialogue stopped the crickets would get 20db louder till some one spoke than the whole mix would dive 20db. I couldnt believe how bad such a big show sounded. All it takes is one deaf engineer at the broadcaster to ruin a great soundtrack.

[cracked case]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Bright

Interesting topic. Here's my observation for what it's worth.
Assumption: I understood intelligibility in the initial post to be about speech or 'clarity' and my response is restricted to that....
The comments about bass got me thinking as my experience is the opposite.
30+ yrs ago I noticed a big difference between vocals when the cassette was played in the car and then in the domestic set up.
By any estimate the quality of the units in our home system should have been significantly better than those in the car.
But I noticed that vocals were noticeably clearer when I was driving compared with when I was sitting at home. I couldn't see a theoretical reason why.
I mentioned this to our Church organist who is a trained musician classical/pop etc. She replied straight away...."Me too, when I want to hear lyrics I always play the song while driving the car...".
Any explanation? What got me thinking was the earlier comments about a LACK of bass helping....in cars the 'noise' spectrum is dominated by bass...the exact opposite.
I don't like mysteries and the only thing I could think of was the following.
Is it possible that our hearing has evolved to hear speech more clearly when facing environmental challenges....i.e. have we developed hearing in the vocal range that is more acute when running away from a volcano, earthquake or when in a loud flood or shipwreck or the heat of battle...
Anyway I'm just throwing this anecdote out there.....
Any ideas?
Cheers Jonathan

Different cassette players do things to the phase, somewhere in the upper mids I think, the difference between the car and domestic cassette players could be down to how much each screws up the phase. I tune crossovers by ear, so full rangers could sound better just because I'm rubbish at crossovers. Do microphones pick up Doppler effect, therefore it would be necessary for the speakers to preserve it? I tried to edit the quote, but my old phone wasn't game, sorry.

[jwags818]

Originally Posted by scottjoplin

Perhaps it's because they have no bass

Not true. My Audio Nirvana 12s have plenty. And driven off a 7 watt 300B set. if I have the right tubes in it.

I know this was tongue in cheek but its really true. my 12s have great bass. granted the boxes are huge but they sound nice.

[planet10]

Originally Posted by mark100

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...

Alpair 10.3 in FHXL will do that for example. It will play as loud as most people need. In Silbury it will go lower and louder.

dave

[planet10]

Originally Posted by cogitech

...can do 50Hz to 30kHz, nearly flat, with an F3 of 40Hz...

F3 is s useless number to humans (Toole), best to look at F6 and F10.

In room you are probably getting useful response into the mid30s.

dave

[planet10]

Originally Posted by mark100

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)

It is worth noting that many ESLs are not FR but have separate mid/bass panels and tweeter panels and some are assited in the bass.

The ones i had (Quad 57 and Accoustat) were 2 ways. I even passive bi-amped the Accoustats.

dave

[cogitech]

Originally Posted by planet10

F3 is s useless number to humans (Toole), best to look at F6 and F10.

In room you are probably getting useful response into the mid30s.

dave

For sure. I am well aware of that. Many people are not, though, and only look at F3 - so that's why I reported F3.