Help please - first post :)

[paulrlight]

Hi
I have limited floor space (112” for TV, speakers and AVR – Denon 1613).
Total room size 19’ X 12’ X 8’ ceiling

Thinking about :

Sierra-2’s with small sub (recommendations please)

Sierra towers

Goldenear Triton 3’s with built in subs

Most of the music I listen to is streamed via Spotify (higher quality than all of my ripped CD’s).

Will the Sierra-2’s be “too accurate”?

Thanks


Paul

[curtis]

How far would you be sitting from the speakers?

In regards to being too accurate. IMO, it is more an issue with badly recorded music rather than compressed music. Obviously, the best recorded uncompressed recordings you can feed the speakers will result in the best sound.

[paulrlight]

How far would you be sitting from the speakers?

In regards to being too accurate. IMO, it is more an issue with badly recorded music rather than compressed music. Obviously, the best recorded uncompressed recordings you can feed the speakers will result in the best sound.

10 feet back to the couch.

[paulrlight]

Sierra-2's, too accurate? No. Very revealing however? Absolutely. You do have the options of what material is played. You mentioned Spotify being better quality than your ripped CD's, in a semi-true sense, that's certainly right. To that, you are limited again by what your speakers are capable of reproducing. CD's are generally 16bit/44.1KHz, with uncompressed data being easily over 100MB's at times. Now Spotify, unless it's using a lossless version of the same material, either that or just having a super ultra fast with a limited bottleneck internet connection, it can't quite be even CD quality, unless you're simply willing to wait out the download time, before listening.. either that, or the ripped CD quality is 'very' lossy.. or simply bad recordings to begin with..

Sorry, lol. Went on a rant, but basically.. Sierra-2's. (no experience with the others) As far as which Sub, you definitely wouldn't want a sub of lower quality, as that will only end up detracting as a whole. Try looking up Rhythmic subs.

Thanks.

About 12 years ago I had what I thought was a very nice set-up. Audiolab 8000A, Marantz CD player, Monitor Audio 3 floor standing speakers and some ridiculously expensive cables.

I still want high quality but convenience too. I wouldn't see me going back to a CD player for example. Funny, I bought one of the first "reasonably priced" commercially available Phillips CD players with my first months paycheck. 1985 I think.

What about a $600 ish SVS sub? It's a small space.

And, I do have my tunes ripped in JR River, APE files, probably better than streaming direct from iPhone.


Paul

[FirstReflect]

If you only really care about one seating position, then a single subwoofer - carefully positioned within your room and matched with a good pair of speakers - would be what you should be aiming for, regardless of whether that pair of speakers are bookshelf, Towers, or so-called "full range" with their own built-in, self-powered woofers.

The thing you must realize is that the sound that comes directly out of your speakers is not the sound that actually enters your ears - particularly not for the bass. At all times, you are not just hearing the direct sound that goes in a straight line from the speakers to your ears, you are also hearing sounds that first bounced off of a wall or the ceiling or the floor, or bounced between several walls before reaching your ears. It is this ratio of direct sound to reflected sound that allows you to get a very good sense of the size of your room, even with your eyes closed, just by listening.

In the bass, and the deeper the frequencies go, the sound waves themselves are very, very long. An 80Hz note, for example, has a wavelength of about 14 feet, and the wavelengths just keep getting longer the lower you go. 40Hz is about 28 feet long, and 20 Hz is just over 56 feet long!

So think about that for a moment - in the deep bass, the wavelength of the note itself in the air is actually longer than any dimension of your room! In essence, this creates a situation where you are NEVER hearing the direct sound from your speaker or subwoofer. The sound wave itself is quite a bit longer than the distance from the speaker or subwoofer to your seat. So the vibration of the air cannot even form within the direct distance from the speaker or subwoofer to your ear. The first bit of pressure change moves past your ear, bounces off of a wall, and returns the other direction before the pressure changes direction based on the movement of the speaker itself!

Bottom line, when it comes to bass, pretty much all you are ever hearing is reflected sound. And because of that, attempting to play any speaker "full range" almost always results in uneven, inaccurate bass actually reaching your ears.

Your speakers must be positioned where they will produce the best imaging and accuracy for the midrange and treble. That is their primary job. But the best positions for imaging and accuracy in the midrange and treble rarely coincide with the best positions in your room for accurate bass at your seat. So it is almost always easiest and best to use separate subwoofers that can be positioned in the room where they will produce the best bass at the seats. By splitting up the frequencies this way, you can achieve great accuracy throughout the entire audible range of frequencies.

I know there are people who hold onto the notion that playing ALL frequencies from the speakers is somehow more "pure" or closer to some sort of ideal. And, indeed, if you were suspended over 56 feet in the air with truly full range speakers 56 feet away from you with at least 56 feet of free air in every direction around you and another 56 feet of free air beyond the back of every speaker, that really would be the ideal! Even 20Hz bass notes would be directional with that distance between you and the speakers and completely free air with no boundaries all around you and every speaker. But that REALLY is not a realistic listening scenario, is it? It is certainly not even remotely close to your room that you described!

So I would challenge anyone still holding onto the idea of "full range" speakers as being some sort of lofty goal to just play some bass sweeps. For one thing, extremely few speakers can truly remain linear and accurate in their output all the way down to below 20Hz. But even if the speakers themselves could do so, they still would not actually SOUND that way at your seat in anything that could be considered a "real" room. At some bass frequency, the wavelength of the sound waves themselves will exceed the distance from the speaker to your seat, and eventually exceed all of the dimensions of your room. And when they do, you will cease to hear the direct output of the speakers themselves, and instead, only hear reflected sound that is, in essence, omnidirectional and victim to a tremendous amount of sound wave interference due to all of those reflections.

So play a frequency sweep through any speaker in any room, and eventually, its bass response will become uneven at your seat. You COULD move the speaker to different positions in your room until you find a spot where all of the sound wave interference due to all of the reflections does not produce any huge dips or peaks in the frequency sweep at your seat. But when you find that spot, you will almost certainly discover that it is not a particularly good location for also maintaining good imaging and accuracy in the midrange and treble.

So the solution is fairly simple: use a subwoofer. If you care about more than one seating position, use at least two subwoofers and position them so that they will create as even and uniform a distribution of sound waves as possible. For two subwoofers, those positions would be the very mid-point of opposing walls. Diagonally opposite corners will also work fairly well. And if the only available position is, say, on the front wall 4 feet in from the left side wall, then place the second subwoofer on the back wall 4 feet in from the right side wall. In other words, mirror image the subwoofers. Again, the goal is to produce bass sound waves that are as even and uniform in their distribution throughout your room as possible so that every seat gets very similar bass response.

To make a very long reply short: a pair of good bookshelf speakers with a subwoofer can be a superior setup to just a pair of Towers on their own -- even if those Towers have built-in, self-powered woofers. If all you have are the Towers, you have very little freedom in terms of where they can be placed. And if nothing else, both Towers will certainly be at the front of your room, meaning the bass sound wave distribution will always be denser at the front of your room than at the back. That pretty much guarantees you will have some large dips and peaks in the bass frequency response at your seat, and it guarantees that from seat to seat, the bass will not sound uniform -- every seat will hear something different in the bass.

So if getting the Sierra-2 means you will be able to afford a subwoofer, but getting either set of Towers means you will not be able to afford a subwoofer, then I highly recommend getting the Sierra-2. We sometimes get mislead by thinking of subwoofers as some completely separate category. All a subwoofer is doing is turning a 2-way bookshelf into a 3-way full range speaker, or a 3-way Tower into a 4-way full range speaker. It's just that with a subwoofer, you're also able to position that 3rd or 4th speaker driver in a different location within your room than the rest of the speaker!

So keeping all of the drivers in the same enclosure is not more "pure" or more "ideal". It's just more limiting! Subwoofers give you the freedom to work WITH your room, rather than having to fight against it. That makes it a much easier decision, in my opinion

Best of luck in your purchase!

- Rob H.

[paulrlight]

If you only really care about one seating position, then a single subwoofer - carefully positioned within your room and matched with a good pair of speakers - would be what you should be aiming for, regardless of whether that pair of speakers are bookshelf, Towers, or so-called "full range" with their own built-in, self-powered woofers.

The thing you must realize is that the sound that comes directly out of your speakers is not the sound that actually enters your ears - particularly not for the bass. At all times, you are not just hearing the direct sound that goes in a straight line from the speakers to your ears, you are also hearing sounds that first bounced off of a wall or the ceiling or the floor, or bounced between several walls before reaching your ears. It is this ratio of direct sound to reflected sound that allows you to get a very good sense of the size of your room, even with your eyes closed, just by listening.

In the bass, and the deeper the frequencies go, the sound waves themselves are very, very long. An 80Hz note, for example, has a wavelength of about 14 feet, and the wavelengths just keep getting longer the lower you go. 40Hz is about 28 feet long, and 20 Hz is just over 56 feet long!

So think about that for a moment - in the deep bass, the wavelength of the note itself in the air is actually longer than any dimension of your room! In essence, this creates a situation where you are NEVER hearing the direct sound from your speaker or subwoofer. The sound wave itself is quite a bit longer than the distance from the speaker or subwoofer to your seat. So the vibration of the air cannot even form within the direct distance from the speaker or subwoofer to your ear. The first bit of pressure change moves past your ear, bounces off of a wall, and returns the other direction before the pressure changes direction based on the movement of the speaker itself!

Bottom line, when it comes to bass, pretty much all you are ever hearing is reflected sound. And because of that, attempting to play any speaker "full range" almost always results in uneven, inaccurate bass actually reaching your ears.

Your speakers must be positioned where they will produce the best imaging and accuracy for the midrange and treble. That is their primary job. But the best positions for imaging and accuracy in the midrange and treble rarely coincide with the best positions in your room for accurate bass at your seat. So it is almost always easiest and best to use separate subwoofers that can be positioned in the room where they will produce the best bass at the seats. By splitting up the frequencies this way, you can achieve great accuracy throughout the entire audible range of frequencies.

I know there are people who hold onto the notion that playing ALL frequencies from the speakers is somehow more "pure" or closer to some sort of ideal. And, indeed, if you were suspended over 56 feet in the air with truly full range speakers 56 feet away from you with at least 56 feet of free air in every direction around you and another 56 feet of free air beyond the back of every speaker, that really would be the ideal! Even 20Hz bass notes would be directional with that distance between you and the speakers and completely free air with no boundaries all around you and every speaker. But that REALLY is not a realistic listening scenario, is it? It is certainly not even remotely close to your room that you described!

So I would challenge anyone still holding onto the idea of "full range" speakers as being some sort of lofty goal to just play some bass sweeps. For one thing, extremely few speakers can truly remain linear and accurate in their output all the way down to below 20Hz. But even if the speakers themselves could do so, they still would not actually SOUND that way at your seat in anything that could be considered a "real" room. At some bass frequency, the wavelength of the sound waves themselves will exceed the distance from the speaker to your seat, and eventually exceed all of the dimensions of your room. And when they do, you will cease to hear the direct output of the speakers themselves, and instead, only hear reflected sound that is, in essence, omnidirectional and victim to a tremendous amount of sound wave interference due to all of those reflections.

So play a frequency sweep through any speaker in any room, and eventually, its bass response will become uneven at your seat. You COULD move the speaker to different positions in your room until you find a spot where all of the sound wave interference due to all of the reflections does not produce any huge dips or peaks in the frequency sweep at your seat. But when you find that spot, you will almost certainly discover that it is not a particularly good location for also maintaining good imaging and accuracy in the midrange and treble.

So the solution is fairly simple: use a subwoofer. If you care about more than one seating position, use at least two subwoofers and position them so that they will create as even and uniform a distribution of sound waves as possible. For two subwoofers, those positions would be the very mid-point of opposing walls. Diagonally opposite corners will also work fairly well. And if the only available position is, say, on the front wall 4 feet in from the left side wall, then place the second subwoofer on the back wall 4 feet in from the right side wall. In other words, mirror image the subwoofers. Again, the goal is to produce bass sound waves that are as even and uniform in their distribution throughout your room as possible so that every seat gets very similar bass response.

To make a very long reply short: a pair of good bookshelf speakers with a subwoofer can be a superior setup to just a pair of Towers on their own -- even if those Towers have built-in, self-powered woofers. If all you have are the Towers, you have very little freedom in terms of where they can be placed. And if nothing else, both Towers will certainly be at the front of your room, meaning the bass sound wave distribution will always be denser at the front of your room than at the back. That pretty much guarantees you will have some large dips and peaks in the bass frequency response at your seat, and it guarantees that from seat to seat, the bass will not sound uniform -- every seat will hear something different in the bass.

So if getting the Sierra-2 means you will be able to afford a subwoofer, but getting either set of Towers means you will not be able to afford a subwoofer, then I highly recommend getting the Sierra-2. We sometimes get mislead by thinking of subwoofers as some completely separate category. All a subwoofer is doing is turning a 2-way bookshelf into a 3-way full range speaker, or a 3-way Tower into a 4-way full range speaker. It's just that with a subwoofer, you're also able to position that 3rd or 4th speaker driver in a different location within your room than the rest of the speaker!

So keeping all of the drivers in the same enclosure is not more "pure" or more "ideal". It's just more limiting! Subwoofers give you the freedom to work WITH your room, rather than having to fight against it. That makes it a much easier decision, in my opinion

Best of luck in your purchase!

- Rob H.

Rob,

That's some reply. Thank you.

The question is, in a first floor apartment how much bass do you need (2000 cubic feet) or can get away with?

In terms of which sub?
Paul

[FirstReflect]

You're welcome!

2000 cubic feet is on the smaller side of a "medium"-sized room. 1500 cubic feet or so is the top end of a "small" room. And anything over 3000 cubic feet is a "large" room. So your room is in between, but closer to 1500 than 3000 cubic feet. It's a "medium" room

Just in terms of sheer loudness of output, you don't need anything crazy. The LV12R from Rythmik would easily fulfill your bass output needs. The VTF-2 MK4 from HSU would be another ideal choice for that room size. The SVS PB-1000 would also be an appropriate choice for that size of room while still giving you full 20Hz extension.

Naturally, you can go higher in price and higher in the lineup from any if these brands. Throw the Outlaw Audio LFM-1 Plus into the mix as well. SVS' 2000 Series subwoofers exceed what you need in terms of output, but if you really want some hard hitting tactile bass, or you want a physically small, sealed subwoofer that can still fully pressurize your room without getting too crazy expensive, then the PB-2000 or SB-2000 would be excellent choices, as would Rythmik's F12.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you don't mind giving up a tiny bit of the very deepest frequencies below 25Hz, the HSU STF-2 is perfectly fine in terms of just sheer output. And it's low price would allow you to get two of them for about the same price as just one of some of the options I've listed above. As I said, if you care about more than one seat, the only way to get uniform bass from seat to seat is to use at least two subwoofers. So the HSU STF-2 is a fantastic option when price is a factor, but you really need two subs.

[paulrlight]

You're welcome!

2000 cubic feet is on the smaller side of a "medium"-sized room. 1500 cubic feet or so is the top end of a "small" room. And anything over 3000 cubic feet is a "large" room. So your room is in between, but closer to 1500 than 3000 cubic feet. It's a "medium" room

Just in terms of sheer loudness of output, you don't need anything crazy. The LV12R from Rythmik would easily fulfill your bass output needs. The VTF-2 MK4 from HSU would be another ideal choice for that room size. The SVS PB-1000 would also be an appropriate choice for that size of room while still giving you full 20Hz extension.

Naturally, you can go higher in price and higher in the lineup from any if these brands. Throw the Outlaw Audio LFM-1 Plus into the mix as well. SVS' 2000 Series subwoofers exceed what you need in terms of output, but if you really want some hard hitting tactile bass, or you want a physically small, sealed subwoofer that can still fully pressurize your room without getting too crazy expensive, then the PB-2000 or SB-2000 would be excellent choices, as would Rythmik's F12.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you don't mind giving up a tiny bit of the very deepest frequencies below 25Hz, the HSU STF-2 is perfectly fine in terms of just sheer output. And it's low price would allow you to get two of them for about the same price as just one of some of the options I've listed above. As I said, if you care about more than one seat, the only way to get uniform bass from seat to seat is to use at least two subwoofers. So the HSU STF-2 is a fantastic option when price is a factor, but you really need two subs.

Thanks again.

1 seating position is good. If I needed 2 I probably wouldn't be able to buy.

What's the difference in the SVS line PB vs SB? Music/movies 70/30.

image.jpgimage.jpg

[natetg57]

What's the difference in the SVS line PB vs SB? Music/movies 70/30.

image.jpgimage.jpg

In the SVS lineup, PB stands for'ported box' and SB stands for 'sealed box'. As a general rule, sealed box subs are a bit cleaner sounding than similar ported subs. Ported subs usually have the advantage in output at certain frequencies. A factor you should consider is the size. If space is an issue, that might limit your choices.

[catsAf]

This is the best explanation for a subwoofer I have ever read. Thank you. I will ask my question later on.