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Bottlehead Forum Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share you ideas and experiences. |
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Bottlehead Forum Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share you ideas and experiences. |
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In Reply to: Questions for S-8 or Linus owners posted by tecnofossil on June 26, 2002 at 03:57:46:
Tom,For the Straight 8 and the Linus line array we really have two different kettles of fish in their design approach. Think of the S8 as a conventional two-way speaker with an elongated midbass/midrange driver which crosses to a point dome tweeter. The Linus is a true line array for the midbass/midrange drivers crossed over to a line of planar tweeters. The S8 will behave primarily as a point source speaker (far field radiation rules) with sound falloff of 6 dB per doubling of distance away from the speaker. In a normal home the Linus will operate as a line array (near field radiation rules) with sound falloff of 3 dB per doubling of distance away from the speaker.
I’ll address your questions from my intimate knowledge of Linus and somewhat limited knowledge (one afternoon listening session) of the S8.
To address your questions:
1. Listening distance. I would judge that for both the S8 and the Linus that the minimum listening distance needs to be twice the speaker height, i.e., 8 feet for the S8 and 12 feet for the Linus. This allows enough distance for the sound to integrate from the multiple drivers. These are not close field mini-monitors.
One thing to note is that with the lower sound fall off of the line arrays means that the sound will literally fill the room. You can even walk up next to one of the arrays and not be blown away by the sound intensity.
2. Distance apart and toe-in. Once you satisfy the minimum listening distance, the spacing apart should likely be approximately the same as the listening distance. For the S8 conventional toe-in rules apply in my opinion while the Linus is more forgiving, i.e., less toe-in needed. The imaging/sound stage for the Linus will be much wider because their lower sound fall off applies for side-to-side sound arrivals.
3. Rear wall/side wall location distances. First, for both the S8 and the line arrays the side wall distances will follow the same rules as conventional monkey box speakers. For either speaker type the horizontal dispersion of their drivers is not changed by their vertical stacking. However, the vertical dispersion is impacted by these vertical driver stacks. Given a rear wall near the listener, the line arrays will have more reflected sound energy from it because of less sound fall off with them. Hence, for the line arrays rear wall room treatment might be more important if the wall is near the listener.4. Listening position versus rear wall distance and other set-ups. For any speakers I would prefer having the rear wall 6 feet or greater from the listener. Alternatively, a well treated wall could be closer to the listening position.
I have tried the line arrays in various set-ups from a 18 x 25 feet dedicated home theater (listening along the long dimension) to a 12 x 18 feet den (listening along the short dimension). Both are very satisfying although the arrays really excel in a large room as the sound is consistent throughout the room and the image is large!5. Point source comparison. The S8 will likely sound very much like a point source once you satisfy the minimum listening distance. The Linus arrays are power tapered for the woofers so the arrays sound very nice but with a much larger sweet spot within the room. The array’s power taper plus the limited vertical dispersion of the planar tweeters creates the best sound within a 2 feet to 5.5 feet high vertical range, i.e., biased for the seated listener.
Hope this helps.
Jim
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Follow Ups
- Re: Questions for S-8 or Linus owners - Jim Griffin 15:05:56 06/26/02 (1)
- Re: Questions for S-8 or Linus owners - tecnofossil 19:58:17 06/26/02 (0)
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