5",6" or 8" Woofers?

[Tango944]

I have a small spare room (14x9ft)as my home studio, which I haven't sound treated yet, but plan to.
I want to buy some near-field active monitors (as using 2.1 Pc speakers currently) and have been looking at the usual suspects in the budget range (KRK RP5,6,8 and Yamaha's etc).
My ear will judge the monitors, but I'm stuck on the size of the woofer. I write various different types of music including Indie/pop/rock and dance, but probably more interested in monitors, that would be more suited to Indie( elec guitar,vocals, drums, keyboard, bass etc)
The question is, based on the information above, which size woofer would make sense as a minimum?(5",6" or 8"). Is bigger always better?

 

[moresound]

What's wrong with 7"s ?

Just joking a little. I have the Yamahas with the 5' and get great results with them while doing the type of indie music that you do.
But when it comes down to monitors you have to addition some to get what you feel is best for you.
Hopefully your near a store and that they will let you bring home a few different one to do just that.

 

[Chili]

I have Event ALP5's and don't like the low end at all. My room is a little smaller than yours and it is treated. I have been on a campaign to dissuade people from buying 5" monitors. Not sure how 6" would fair...

hope this helps.

 

[moresound]

I have Event ALP5's and don't like the low end at all. My room is a little smaller than yours and it is treated. I have been on a campaign to dissuade people from buying 5" monitors. Not sure how 6" would fair...

hope this helps.

NO MORE 5"s, NO MORE 5"s, NO MORE 5"s, NO MORE 5"s, NO MORE 5"s, NO MORE 5"s, NO MORE 5"s, NO MORE 5"s.

Hey this is just as fun as it was in the 60s .....

 

[Dogbreath]

I've got 6.5 inch woofers in the Adam A7's. They've got plenty of punch but not huge in the "tickle yer butt" frequencies. My room's roughly 14' by 20'.

I would think though, and I could be wrong here, but in a small room, big assed woofers aren't gonna be your friend. I would think you'd have to have A LOT of bass trapping to chill out the rumbling waves that are gonna smoosh the mids and highs.

Like I said, I could be wrong.
It's been known to happen.

 

[Tango944]

I listened to the rp5s and yam hs50m's at Digital Village in Bristol, and found the RP5's to be a little muddy on the bass, and loved the "accuracy" of the Yam's HS50m.
I haven't got a lot of space (bed, desk, bookshelf), so won't be able to have too many bass traps. (missus will not be happy with me altering the walls, so I will need a portable "sound treatment system" that I can move in and out).

So, based on the 8" woofers smooshing the mids and highs, my ears liking the Yamaha's HS50m and Hs80m's and a budget of £350, is there anything to compare with the RP6's? IE 6" or 7" entry budget monitors?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I've heard lust as many 8", 9", 12" and 15"-based speakers that sound like crap as I have 4", 5" and 6". I've also heard some 4", 5" and 6"-based designs that sounded wonderful, along with their larger counterparts.

Don't get hung up on size. Like you said, your ears will decide; that's all that matters.

G.

 

[Tango944]

I'm not in a position to audition the monitors outside of the demo room of the music store. I liked the HS80s, but am concerned (after reading Dogbreath's post) that having Bigger woofers (7" or 8") and without extensive bass trapping in my home studio, the mids and highs will be smooshed?

With the limited bass trapping I can do, in my small room, would you still suggest I go with my ear (HS80s) (whilst in the demo room of the music store), or maybe look again and decide between smaller monitors (Yam HS50 and RP6s)?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The acoustic condition of the room and the size of the speakers are two entirely unrelated issues. If you need bass trapping, you'll need it regardless of the size of your speakers, and vice versa. Bass moding in the room will be there either way, and will mess up what you do with your mixes either way. If you're sitting in a bass null, you'll hear insufficient bass no matter what size your speakers are, and a bass crest will cause you to mix bass weak regardless of your speaker's size.

Also the physical size of the room has nothing to do with the size of speaker selected, other than ensuring you have the physical room for the speakers.

G.

 

[miroslav]

Mmmmmm....but if you have speakers that deliver down in the sub-zone...that will give you more low-end in the room than if you had dinky speakers that quickly rolled off most of the stuff after 80Hz.

I agree that trapping is needed no matter what the size of the room...but I would think a physically larger, and wider-bandwidth, speaker setup is going to fill the room differently than a constrained pair of 4" computer speakers....no?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

but I would think a physically larger, and wider-bandwidth, speaker setup is going to fill the room differently than a constrained pair of 4" computer speakers....no?

Well a few things about that.

First, I gotta say, Miro, that it drives me goofy sometimes the way everybody always assumes that a larger woofer automatically equals more and/or better bass. That's *maybe* true, if and only if, all else in the speaker system design and the design/construction of the woofer element itself is equal. The material out of which the cone is made, the cone's shape, the size of the dustcap and voicecoil, the size of the magnet, the amount if power driving it, the crossover, the design and construction of the cabinet in which it sits, and the combination of all those factors factored together all play into it just as much as the diameter of the woofer itself. I've heard some loudspeakers with 6" woofers that deliver tighter, punchier and *more* bass than some 10" designs. And vice versa, btw. Size is not everything.

Second, base modality is a function of the room dimensions, not of the speakers within the room. No matter how much bass from what size loudspeaker you pump into a bass null of, say, 80% cancellation, your mix is going to be effed up if you mix with your ears in that null any way you slice it. Same if you mix with the speakers and mix location crammed into the corner of the room. It's not going to matter a whole lot whether you have 5" or 8" woofers in that corner, your mix is likely going to be messed up in the bass pretty big time unless you're one hell of a translator.

Third, who cares what the woofer diameter is anyway? Your ears can't tell the diameter, and your eyes can't tell you what a speaker sounds like. When you think about it that way, worrying about woofer size seems kind of silly. I'd recommend auditioning speakers with blindfolds on if people didn't think I was either crazy (men) or too kinky too soon (women) if I suggested that .

As extra credit, go ahead and look at the top shelf studio reference-class towers that both Massive Mastering and Masteringhouse are using for their mastering suites. Check out the size of the speaker elements in their loudspeakers (as well as the size of the cabinets in which they operate). Where's the humongous woofers and cabs one would expect based upon the theory of woofer size alone meaning all that much?

G.

 

[mixsit]

With all that in play and considered then, and still given 'pick the ones you like', then it would seem what you really gain with a larger woofer/cab is the potential (equal design/quality considerations here for the moment) for extended bandwidth- and head room- I.e. less distortion/limitations for given playback volumes.
Lots of generalizations here obviously.
No I'm not a designer, and there may be other compromises (in the mids, upper mids?) in taking this to the extreme end. The 15"/1" domes come to mind for example, as does having to be too close to a rather larger speaker.

I'll take this opportunity to give a bump for Aether Spirit or Timepieces here as a good example of an alternate solution- An 8" operating in it's full piston mode by limiting it's upper bandwidth and extending the 1" to 600-700. They are also a bit more pricy than the big guys can do.

 

[miroslav]

First, I gotta say, Miro, that it drives me goofy sometimes the way everybody always assumes that a larger woofer automatically equals more and/or better bass. That's *maybe* true, if and only if, all else in the speaker system design and the design/construction of the woofer element itself is equal. The material out of which the cone is made, the cone's shape, the size of the dustcap and voicecoil, the size of the magnet, the amount if power driving it, the crossover, the design and construction of the cabinet in which it sits, and the combination of all those factors factored together all play into it just as much as the diameter of the woofer itself. I've heard some loudspeakers with 6" woofers that deliver tighter, punchier and *more* bass than some 10" designs. And vice versa, btw. Size is not everything.

That's all fine...I agree that there ARE all kinds of monitors and that JUST speaker size is not the only way to judge/pick them.
However, I did specifically say a wide-bandwidth, larger monitors VS a dinky computer setup. With that, I've identified that one is potentially a better design….so let’s put that aside.

But now, let’s take two identically designed/engineered (as close as can be) monitors, where the one with the 5" speaker rolls-off the low end a lot faster and more dramatically than the one with the 8" speaker.
With that in mind...the type of low end that you put in the room is going to be different with each set of monitors, is it not?
Therefore, even though the room has the same base modality in both cases...if one speaker is not putting out much of anything below say… 80 Hz, and the other is pumping flat even down at 40 Hz...that will change how the room "hears" what each speaker system is outputting...will it not?
So, if there was say…a bass null at 47 Hz…it will be more obvious if your are pumping lots of 40 Hz material than if you were hardly pumping anything much below 80 Hz.

I know these are very specific conditions…and your overall points are well taken…but all other things being as equal as possible…bigger speaker size often = more low end and more extended low end, and that can be something to consider if you are in a small room VS a huge room since low-end waves will not build up as much/quickly in a huge room as they could in a very small room (bass trapping considered).

Third, who cares what the woofer diameter is anyway? Your ears can't tell the diameter, and your eyes can't tell you what a speaker sounds like. When you think about it that way, worrying about woofer size seems kind of silly. I'd recommend auditioning speakers with blindfolds on…

Well…just considering the *size* may not the whole point.
It’s just that in most cases…a big 8” is going to perform better in the low end than a dinky little 4”!
I’m sure there are some exceptions…but most are usually just self-serving myths!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

then it would seem what you really gain with a larger woofer/cab is the potential (equal design/quality considerations here for the moment) for extended bandwidth- and head room- I.e. less distortion/limitations for given playback volumes.

There's no guarantee for either of those, quite frankly. Yeah, there's a potential or possibility there, but not much - if any - more than you have with a smaller sized woofer/cab. Not without taking all else into consideration as well.

Just for a couple of examples: First, the larger the diameter of the woofer, the greater the "potential" chance of the surface of the cone distorting in shape, especially under fast attack transient loads, and especially with cone materials that aren't absolutely 100% rigid under all conditions. The more surface shape distortion, the more the sound is distorted.

Second, the diameter of the dustcap helps determines the amount of cone surface area. An 8" cone with an oversized dustcap (usually because of a larger voice coil, which itself often isn't necessarily bad) could potentially have less surface area than a 6" with a much smaller dustcap, and less surface area can mean less air actuallly cleanly moved.

Those are just two factors that can mess with the significance of woofer diameter. There's many more, including cone depth, throw distance, magnet size, etc. etc. etc.

I know people want so bad to find neato little rules and shortcuts to help them decide so that they don't actually have to trust their ears, but to simply say that I'll get a speaker that is x inches in size instead of y inches in size for z reason does not necessarily work unless z reason is that I like the way that x-inched speakers look.

G.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

It’s just that in most cases…a big 8” is going to perform better in the low end than a dinky little 4”!

I'd put money on there being about a 50/50 split, within 10 percentage points or so. There's a whole lot of 8" speakers that perform like crap in the bass.

I used to have a pair of 15" three ways a long time ago. They had bass coming out the ass, for sure. But you couldn't pay me to mix or master on them. I've also heard plenty of 10"ers that were so freakin' anemic and flabby in the bass, you'd swear they were 6"ers. Then there were designs that were nothing but arrays of 4-inchers and did just fine in the bass. And those aren't just rare exceptions to any rule, there are plenty enough "exceptions" - i.e. a rather high percentage of them - out there to make the "rule" meaningless, IMHO.

Just use your ears, and forget about woofer size. It tells one nothing of any certainty, IME/IMHO, and only complicates the equation.

And as far as the amount pumped by the speaker at the same null frequency, that's totally irrelevant. It's like the vibrations of a guitar string; the null points of the vibration remain in the same place and by the same amount regardless of how hard one plucks the string. The same with "waves" in the room's response.

And if you have a bass null at 47Hz, you have it regardless of the speaker's range. Having a range extending below that may help a bit, but you'll still have a hole that'll affect the mix. And, BTW, most nulls will affect a bit larger of a spread than just one or two Hz. There may be a bit of a curve in the amount of the null by frequency, but the difference between 80% cancellation at one frequency and 75% at another isn't worth fighting about. If you got a serious room null down there, it's going to mess with the bass at more than just 47Hz.

G.

 

[miroslav]

Your girl was on Greta Van Susteren just a few minutes ago.

I know people want so bad to find neato little rules and shortcuts to help them decide so that they don't actually have to trust their ears, but to simply say that I'll get a speaker that is x inches in size instead of y inches in size for z reason does not necessarily work unless z reason is that I like the way that x-inched speakers look.

Yes...it is dumb to just pick by-the-numbers.

I ended up with the 8" Mackie 824 monitors after auditioning a lot of monitors.
But...I quickly found that most of the smaller speaker monitors just didn't have the low-end that most of the 8" ones did.
In the end...I auditioned about six models, side-by-side, all with 8" speakers...and I settled on the Mackies.
So while I didn't just pick by-the-numbers...the numbers told a very similar tale across many models.

 

[miroslav]

And as far as the amount pumped by the speaker at the same null frequency, that's totally irrelevant. It's like the vibrations of a guitar string; the null points of the vibration remain in the same place and by the same amount regardless of how hard one plucks the string. The same with "waves" in the room's response.

Is this that "if a tree falls in the woods...." thing?

Let's simplify this.
Two speakers...one puts out almost nothing below 80Hz and the other puts out strong, down into the 30's.

How the heck does a null at 47 Hz come into play in both cases if there are no 47 Hz waves being output into the room by the first speaker?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

You're positing the assumption that one speaker is automatically going to be better at some frequency. You're right the better speaker will be a better speaker. That tells us nothing. Nor does it have anything to do with the fact that it won't change what the room does to either one of them, nor does ittell us what the woofer diameter is on either of them.

Let's re-phrase that in terms relevant to the thread: Two speakers, one 6" and one 8", which one gives you better response below100 Hz? And which of those two speakers will do more to mitigate the effects of a bass null?

I'll give you the answers, because I'm just that magnanimous of a guy :

There's no way to know with a better than 50% random chance which one will have the better response.

And neither one will do a damn thing to help mitigate the effects of the null. The null is a property of the room and has nothing to do with the speakers or their response, and will cancel both of them out equally, if they both go down that far.

G.

 

[miroslav]

You're positing the assumption that one speaker is automatically going to be better at some frequency.

Yes...I'm creating a specific situation, otherwise it's just a lot of theory discussion.

Two speakers, one 6" and one 8", which one gives you better response below100 Hz?

I already agreed that the numbers alone don't tell the whole story...but I also noted that in my own speaker selection process...maybe it was pure coincidence (though I doubt it)...but the 8" speakers across all the models that I tested had better, deeper low end than the smaller speakers across all models...
...and I think that's not really unusual, and possibly the reason why some folks just assume a bigger speakers has better/more low-end...
…but again, I agree that the numbers alone don't always say it all.

And neither one will do a damn thing to help mitigate the effects of the null. The null is a property of the room and has nothing to do with the speakers or their response, and will cancel both of them out equally.

Yes...I agreed on this too, that the null is a property of the room...but I ask again, if the null exists at a point in the frequency range where one speaker is hardly able to hit at all while the other is hitting it in spades...then the two speakers will respond differently in that same room.
Even though a room has a given null point…a teeny-tiny null (or non-existent, because one speaker can’t really hit it) at xxx Hz is not going to be much of a consideration compared to a DEEEEP null at same xxx Hz when the other speaker is pushing very hard at that frequency….is it?
Why does a null matter if the speakers are not able make it appear? A room with nulls needs speakers/sound that hit/excite those nulls for them to matter.

It ain't just the speakers and it ain't just the room...it's a combination, and isn't that why we all agree you gotta try various speakers in your room 'cuz they are not all going to sound the same in that same room.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I already agreed that the numbers alone don't tell the whole story

Then why the need for the debate???? Good lord, man, nothing personal, but it can get exasperating at times. You agree that woofer size itself means nothing, and yet you expend all this energy trying to debate otherwise.

I also have the Mackie 824s at my home mixing desk as you know, so we do have a platform of agreement to jump off from. As you also know, the 824s have woofers under 7" in diameter*. The bass response on those is far superior to the bass on the historically much-vaunted JBL 4411s that my partners have in the new studio, and yet those speakers have 12" woofers.

I also used to own a par of Infinity bookshelves many moons ago (back when Infinity was actually a pretty decent brand), not long after I sold those 15"ers I referenced earlier (yeah, I went from 15" to about 6" in one fell swoop), and the bass response was much more usable and accurate on those little 6" bookshelves than it ever was on those 15"ers, or on the 12"ers I had before the 15"ers.

These are not exceptions to a rule, they are the rule. That's the rule; size is not a determining factor.

I have had years of experience listening to and selling hundreds of different speakers of every size and shape on a daily basis, and no matter how you want to slice it, it all boils down to one thing and one thing only: how does it sound to you. The rest is all just bullshit. And the size of the woofer guarantees nothing.

And remember this; more bass does not necessarily always mean better bass. A response of 40Hz +/- 6dB is not necessarily better than 50Hz +/- 2dB.

There is a real tendency for folks to look for simple "common sense" oversimplifications that allow them to think they are making informed decisions without having to worry about the way reality usually does not conform to such "common sense" simplicity all that often. Baloney like "condensers are better than dynamics", "studio monitors are flat, consumer speakers are hyped", "toobs are better than transistors" and so forth. "Bigger woofers mean better bass" is right in there with the rest of them.

* They advertise the 824 as having an 8.75" woofer. But that's a bit of marketing slight-of-hand; 8.75" is the size of the mounting frame containing the speaker element, but the cone itself is actually only about 6.5" in diameter.

G.