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In Reply to: RE: Lowther Speakers posted by zako on March 05, 2014 at 07:56:57
So what are the better performers then? I have been interested in a higher efficiency speakers for two reasons. Firstly I will be running limited wattage (maxing out at 30 watts) and i do like the music play back to be at a bit higher level, secondly, but not necessarily in that order, the music must be clear robust and image properly. I have considered Klipsch as a possibility but some how remain relatively unimpressed by the sound. I have much more experience with magneplan, Red Rose and Martin Logans, all of which are are nice sounding, but I'd have to say that the red rose R3's image the best by far and are very nice and clear, the problem is that they barely reach the SPL (I believe that they are 87 db/watt)that I am wanting even on a 100 watt krell amp, or the conrad johnson mf2200. Now that I am starting to work with lower wattage tube amps the only option to trying to increase that SPL is a more efficient speaker. Preferably as good sounding as the Red Rose R3's.. so looking for suggestions. The speakers don't absolutely have to be a full range single speaker... suggestions welcomed Thanks for the reply's in advance.
Follow Ups:
The Klipsch Heresy III's are quite good..99db. So are Cornwalls but they are much larger. I have receded in audio gear and now drive Heresy III's with 5 and 10 watt single ended pentode amps. Try to listen to them...with tubes. :-)
You really seemed to like the speakers from Holland with the French Drivers (Not my cup of tea).... So what happened to them?
I have been running Altec speakers, but I replaced the Bass Bins with Khorn Bass Bins and added a Khorn Tweeter and custom Crossover. I have lived pretty happily for about 8 years now. Bi-amping with SET amps (45s) and Class 'D' chip amps on the Bass Bins.
Cut-Throat
CT,
I just got tired of the chase. The Auris were the best speakers I ever had. They took a long time to settle in. Sold them to a guy in Seattle. One of his cats tipped one over and he sold them. Saw the ad on agon.
This will make you cringe. My main source is an I-Pod with a Pure Audio dock and I use MOG. MOG has the best bit rate. I am going to put my CD's on a server. I'm actually enjoying music again.
Les
Not really MOG is great!...Except MOG is going away next month. So, I switched to Spotify. Spotify has the same bitrate as MOG 320 kbps. I use a Squeezebox touch and a guy on the SB Touch forums came up with a Plugging for Spotify that is very MOG like I have not loaded a CD for 2 years now.
Once I got into Horn Speakers and Compression Drivers, I never looked back.
Cut-Throat
Who is taking over MOG?
I like horns too and the Heresy III's are excellent small speakers and I don't have room for Altec's etc.
beats audio bought MOG - They are shutting it down in April, 2014 . I and other sqeezebox touch users have already cancelled their mog subscriptions.
Cut-Throat
I read about the Beats deal but did not know they are shutting it down.
Read all about it.
Cut-Throat
Looks like I will be moving to Spotify. Same bitrate as MOG, just a bit more $$$. Personally, I believe this is the future of music. I'd like to see better quality but what is available is not bad.
I bought a Decware Mini Torii, a 5 watt single ended 6V6 integrated amp. It's excellent, has an amazing treble cut circuit that really eliminates digital trash. It has preamp out jacks so the teble cut can be used with any amp. Like your Tektons, this is one piece of gear that is permanent.
Hey SETdude,
Don't know if you've had much of a chance to do any 6V6 rolling, but I owned an Audio Note Kit 4 for about 10 years. This little 10 watt push-pull amp used a pair of 6V6's per side, and I had tried countless different variations of this tube over the years trying to get the best performance.
The Fivre 6V6 was my favorite, followed by the Sylvania VT107, and then some old Mazda's. GE's and RCA's were good, just not quite as good as the ones I mentioned.
Since your amp is different you would probably get different results than I did, but these few I listed would be good starting points if you are looking to do some experimenting.
A 87db speaker will reach 105db with 64 watts.
That would be 108db with two speakers and two 64 watt amplifiers in the room.
Permanent ear damage will occur within 4 minutes.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
If you're listening to high quality recordings that have peaks 20 dB above the average, the ability to hit 105 dB (ignoring the effects of thermal compression) implies an average SPL of 85 dB. Whether or not that's enough is a matter of personal taste.
If you want 90 dB with no loss of impact on the peaks, imo that implies at least another 20 dB of amplifier output and another 30 dB of RMS or AES (not "music program", not "peak") power handling from your speakers. So with 30 watts of amplification, we'd be looking at a minimum of 96 dB efficiency for the speakers, and about 250 watts RMS power handling to avoid compression (less power handling required as the efficiency goes up).
(I'm using the word "compression" when "thermal modulation" is probably more technically correct.)
Now there's a lot more to delivering pain-free 110 dB peaks than just the raw numbers, but that's a starting point.
Imo, ime, ymmv, etc.
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
"If you're listening to high quality recordings that have peaks 20 dB above the average,"
I guess I'm not. I can't find any recorded music with that much dynamics.
Here's a song I just finished mastering with a section reduced by 20db.
I know that's not the same thing but it serves to show what the average amplitude would have to look like on a song with 20db peaks.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
At the link below you'll find an article about a demonstration where program material (a Ricky Lee Jones CD) was apparently exhibiting peaks a good 30 dB above the average.I don't know how common 30 dB peaks are, but assume that 20 dB peaks would be considerably more common. But maybe even 20 dB peaks are quite rare, I don't really know.
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
Edits: 03/06/14 03/06/14
30db is fairly rare but it does occur apparently. But, today I would say 20db of headroom above the average level is a good target if you want to reproduce the dynamics on many recordings. Plus, there's also the issue of the speakers themselves; most won't reproduce these levels even if you do zap them with 1000 watts.
Today, I listen to 2A3 amps on 110-112db efficient horns. This gives me about 26 db of headroom at fairly modest (not headbanger) listening levels (probably 87db average at the seat). This is just about enough IMO. The real magic with low power SETs is to use them in multi-amp setups as compression driver amps. Once you hear this, you realize how much they are struggling even on "high efficiency" speakers in the 95db range.
For a typical 98db-ish 15" cone/horn combo with a speaker crossover, I would look into push-pull tube designs if you want real dynamics. PP just makes sense when you want power over 10W or so from DHTs or similarly refined tube amps. The output transformers can be designed for much higher power and also good bandwidth.
It depends on musical genre. For loudness wars compressed junk it might be less than 10 dB. For average small scale acoustic recordings it is more likely to be around 18 dB. For large scale orchestral classical music, it is likely to run up to 24 dB. For high resolution recording of the sound of car keys hitting a stone floor, it could be more than 30 dB. Many recordings have a certain amount of limiting or compression in them, but the higher quality ones have little or no compression or limiting and the best audiophile recordings have none, so you get the full dynamic range played by the musicians. The peak to average ratio will depend on the instruments and their number.
Anyone with a computer audio system can get an audio editor and look at the actual waveforms recorded on a CD or high resolution digital file. The figures listed above come from looking at many files in my computer and using the statistics function of my audio editor to look at peak and RMS levels. My experience is that any recording that has a peak to average ratio as low as 14 dB is going to sound mediocre at best.
As to live music, I have heard people report peak SPLs of 121 dB during a Mahler symphony sitting in the front rows.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Reading the literature, there is a general consensus that the traditional number is 14dB.
Definitions are important though. In this case, it means that during the course of a cut, the maximum reading on a VU meter (i.e. during the loudest parts) is 14dB below the peak instantaneous. VU is a short-term average with a "rise time" of 300mS. This came from the days of tape, where the tape would saturate at 14dB above zero VU, and zero VU is defined for a particular tape. Recording engineers would try to never let the level get above zero VU on the meter. If the cut has quiet passages, they might be well below zero VU.
Songs intended for the radio are often very compressed, with peak to average levels less than 3dB. This allows them to be much louder, and as talk radio has shown, the loudest voice always wins. :^)
Movies, if you follow the standards, have typically a 20dB range, allowing an extra 6dB for car crashes to be louder than the music.
With digital the peak is exactly a digital "0". There's nothing ambiguous about it.
For the average level of the rest of the song to be at a -30db is very hard for me to believe and nothing I've ever seen.
I don't believe the linked article for one minute. They had something wrong in their setup.
If I owned the RLJ CD I would rip it into Sound Forge and find the snare "thwack" and post a screen shot.
It would surprise me if it's even 10db above the average level.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
I need to back up the bus a little.
I looked at the statistics in Sound Forge and now I see that the RMS level is lower than I would have thought.
The song I was working with shows -14db for the RMS.
If I look at the main "body" for the music (my words), the peaks of the main body hit at about -6db so there can be nothing higher than 6db above the "tops" of the main body of the music.
That's what I was talking about.
On the other hand, I reduced the volume of that song by 16db so now the RMS is -30db.
I still find it hard to believe that a RLJ CD would have peaks at 30db above the RMS, or to say it the other way, I find it hard to believe that the RMS value of that RLJ song is at -30db. -30db is real tiny.
I would have to see it to believe it.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
What would the dynamic range look like
from a large symphony, late Bruckner for example.
Or a romantic piano sonata?
I have a 1 W amp on > 110 dB horns,
and it is not enough at all to my ears.
Mats
"A 87db speaker will reach 105db with 64 watts."
Only if you disregard the effects of speaker compression, which with many direct radiators becomes a problem before even 100db is reached.
That might be a good argument against using 87db speakers.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Well thanks for that info. none the less I still have very good hearing (according to my audiologist) you need to take into account that you calculations assume that each ear is no more than one meter from my speaker and of course your talking about a continuous tone at that wattage level rather than a regular rise and fall in the music. trust me its not that loud
Edits: 03/05/14
If the system is in an enclosed space the reverberant field takes over and you will not lose 6db for every doubling of distance.
6db per doubling of distance only occurs in open space. Even outdoors, if there are buildings or other things that the sound can bounce off of, you don't lose 6db every time you double the distance.
You would in an anechoic chamber.
In most living rooms, with direct radiator type speakers, the reverberant field starts at about 39" (how convenient is that?).
I use direct radiators and the volume stays the same no matter where I am in the room except for a little bass build up in the corners.
BTW 12db (going from 4 to 16 feet away from a speaker in open space) is a large volume difference. I have a stepped volume control, 2db per step. Six clicks up is a lot louder.
I can move from 4' to 16' away from my speakers in my living room and except for the aforementioned bass buildup, 2db maybe, there's virtually no change in volume.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Tre' Be that as it may, I still have concerns using the red rose R3's with a 30 watt triode, when I have a problem driving them with a 120 watt amp, maybe I need to add a powered sub to bring up the bass a bit... not a big fan of powered subs, or maybe i just need to do some room treatments to get it right. (that might be difficult my wife already thinks I nuts... She may be right) at any rate I will try the amp on the R3's when it arrives and consider after that weather I want a higher efficiency speaker. I hate to get rid of the R3's they are a one of the best speakers I have ever heard! Searching for audio nirvana I guess. I was looking at the full range speakers, as a bit of an experiment... I'm sure you all know what that is like, my stereo equipment tens to change slowly over time, some I regret letting go others not so much.. the R3's I think I will keep regardless. but have not been that impressed with the Krell amp, it is accurate the imaging is good but it lacks the warmth that I had with my conrad johnson...that I should have kept! Than ks all I will look up the reviews on the lowthers at stereophile and consider the hersheys.
I'm sure you all know what that is like, my stereo equipment tens to change slowly over time, some I regret letting go others not so much.. the R3's I think I will keep regardless. but have not been that impressed with the Krell amp, it is accurate the imaging is good but it lacks the warmth that I had with my conrad johnson...that I should have kept! Than ks all I will look up the reviews on the lowthers at stereophile and consider the hersheys.
Get an almond Hershey.
Seriously, if you like the speakers you have keep them and find a tube amp that will drive them. Perfection does not exist in this hobby and you can go broke and nuts. AA sponsor Jim Mc Shane does wonders with Citations.
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