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.
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".
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 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.
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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.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
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.
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
...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
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
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.
Yep, and that is exactly where I got the idea. (I'm also a projectionist)Holywood figured this out 40 years ago and movies have had a dedicated center dialog speaker ever since.
Wow, no - Leningrad didn't have one of those, I would have loved to have seen and heard that. The Jubilee hockey rink had big white horns and woofer boxes that looked like Altec knock-offs. I wanted to take a pair home with me, but it didn't happen. My center was just 3 or 4 small PA boxes that we had meant for surround sound but didn't use, so I made a cluster over downstage center. It really did fix so many of my worries with vocals. Hockey rinks are not known for clear vocal acoustics.Their "at home" system was a huge "golf ball" covered in speakers and horns mounted in the triangular holes between frame edges, a huge point source, throwing a spherical coherent soundwave and must have been what you saw in Leningrad.
Our sound crew was a little luckier than you. We both returned to Paris with an Annya each. Mine didn't stick around long, my buddy got married.
The ones i had (Quad 57 and Accoustat) were 2 ways. I even passive bi-amped the Accoustats.
I believe all acoustats before the Spectra series were all FR - the 3 wire panels did not have a portion reserved to bass and treble.
Although they did have HF and LF transformers with a "mixing circuit", and would guess that this could be considered a crossover, but the panels themselves emitted all frequencies.
I guess the Martin Logan CLS operated in same manner. But the Acoustat 2+2 I had clearly had much more bass than the CLS IIz I had.
I believe all acoustats before the Spectra series were all FR - the 3 wire panels did not have a portion reserved to bass and treble.
We were selling Accousat from the original. All the ones i have seen are 2-way.
Although they did have HF and LF transformers with a "mixing circuit"
Driving different panels and the "mixing circuit” was a 1st order XO. They sounded significantly better bi-amped.
Dayton-Wright (forgot about those) were 1-way but loaded in gas to get bass.
dave
loaded in gas to get bass.
SF6 - Sulfur Hexafloride - 6x more dense than air. Looking to see if I can order some at work and take some home for DW type "experiments"...
My "experiments" are now just planning some dry ice, but CO2 only 1.5x more dense than air. Sigh.
Hi Dave, john65b,
Yes, quite aware many electrostats are two-way, or at least have some kind of dividing electrical network. It's why i added my definition of a full-ranger....no xover at all.
The very first Acoustat i think was the Acoustat-X with its direct-drive high voltage amp.
I do believe it qualifies as a full-ranger, under my definition at least.
Yes, quite aware many electrostats are two-way, or at least have some kind of dividing electrical network. It's why i added my definition of a full-ranger....no xover at all.
The very first Acoustat i think was the Acoustat-X with its direct-drive high voltage amp.
I do believe it qualifies as a full-ranger, under my definition at least.
No whizzers then or whatever this is called One Pair | 6.5 Inch Full range Hi-Fi Speaker Driver | Bakelite Cone | Superb Mid | M6 - Lii Audio, unique speaker, amplfier, quality and cost-saving parts for HiFi DIYIt's why i added my definition of a full-ranger....no xover at all.
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