Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Big vs. Small - A question answered?

In my wanderings around hifi stores yesterday I may inadvertently stumbled across the answer to my question of size. Most of concerns are with the sound that is ultimately delivered by the setup. Looking at setups of the key areas where the satellites/sub combinations can fall down is the small cones. 
 
All these systems have cone sizes of 4" or less. Obviously with that size driver they tend to excel in the mid-range or vocal band, but all bass information is basically handled by the sub.
When I stumbled across the Wharfedale Diamond 9.3   bookshelf speakers, yesterday, they removed all concern over small cone size. Admittedly though these aren't small speakers by any stretch of the imagination. The speaker is about 45cm high and about 33cm deep (most of this size is purely to accommodate the 8" main driver). The system I was considering would mimic the theory behind the sub/satellite systems and incorporate 6 (3 pairs for a  6.1 system) of the 9.3 Speakers. With the ability to produce bass down to 40Hz the speakers could be configured as Large (or full range) on the amplifier configuration allow the use of a sub purely for the LFE (or .1) channel. The use of 6 identical speakers would result in great steering and the bass capacity would reduce the need for integration with the sub at higher frequencies. The only real concern with the system is the ability of the Large driver coupled only with a tweeter to produce accurate mid-range. However, as there are barely any reviews of the speaker around (plenty of extremely favourable reviews of their smaller brothers) it will have to rely on plenty of auditioning to ensure it was a good surround solution.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

6 B&W 800D's, that's where it's at.