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Buying Loudspeakers
By Barry Gardner
Loudspeakers are the single most important component in any hi fi or studio monitoring system. Buying loudspeakers can be a minefield so this will give good advice on how to select the ideal speaker system for you.Manufacturing a high quality speaker system is not an easy task and it is possible to cut corners but never without detriment to the fidelity of the speakers themselves. A loudspeaker is created from a number of components. First the drivers within a loudspeaker will be the actual transducers that will convert electrical energy into vibration. The quality of drivers varies greatly and they can be cheap and cheerful or very high end, high tolerance feats of engineering. The cross over is also a very important part of the speaker system to get right. In passive speakers it will consist largely of inductors, resistors and capacitors and they are the electronics which create filters. These filters split the low frequencies to the woofer and the high frequencies to the tweeter. The selection of the correct crossover frequency and filter type is critical to the end results. Especially since this device operates in an area to which the ear is usually very sensitive. (i.e. the mid range frequencies). A speaker system would not be complete without an enclosure. Most commonly this will be a wooden box enclosure with a port, this is known as a bass reflex loaded speaker. The port in a high quality loudspeaker is carefully designed to provide an extended low frequency response over a sealed enclosure. However this extended bass response comes with a sonic trade off. A sealed enclosure has a less extended low frequency response but it has a smoother roll off making the response of the speaker more accurate in the low frequencies, albeit less powerful sounding on deep bass notes.The vast majority of speakers in the hi fi and studio monitoring markets are bass reflex types. You can occasionally find sealed enclosure types but they are significantly less common. The box in a high quality speaker should be well braced inside as not to produce unwanted resonances. It will also often be coated with a dampening material and also filled with a light weight fluffy material in order to reduce internal standing waves and resonances. Bass reflex speakers also tend to give an exaggerated low frequency response if they are positioned closely to a wall or a corner, this is especially true of loudspeakers that have rear firing bass reflex ports. These speakers will perform most neutrally when they are mounted in a position that is 1 meter away from a room boundary.
Buying loudspeakers that are right for you will be a matter of initially deciding how large a speaker your room can house. There are many high quality 2 way speakers which are perfectly sized for a typical living room space. The common name for such speakers is a bookshelf speaker. The driver sizes will range from 4 to 6.5 inches and they will be combined with a single tweeter. The preferred way of mounting them would be on dedicated loudspeaker stands that will help with positioning for the best stereo image and height. Larger loudspeakers may incorporate a 3 way driver design. Very high end designs can produce a much more revealing mid range as the extra driver is in place to reproduce these frequencies. However just because a speaker system has 3 drivers does not mean it is inherently better than a 2 way design. Unless very stringent design and research has been been undertaken in driver selection and crossover design this may not be the case. In fact I would suggest unless opting for a higher end 2 way loudspeaker system that 2 way designs often outperform 3 way for the above reasons.
Loudspeakers can be budget priced or can cost the same price as a car with everything in between. The prices reflect the design, driver quality, enclosure quality, electrical integrity of the crossover, labor costs and quality control employed. When you are buying loudspeakers it is a good idea to get a demo, most hi fi and music technology shops offer a listening room or space where you can hear the desired speakers for yourself. You can also find a lot of information resources on the internet and there are magazines dedicated to audio equipment. Buying loudspeakers need not be a worrying time if a little effort is put into reading and research before you part with your money.This, coupled with some actual listening will allow you to choose the perfect speakers for your audio listening pleasure.
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Loudspeaker manufacturer 1
| Loudspeaker manufacturer 2
Examples of high quality 2 way and 3 way loudspeakers
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
online mastering
Online audio mastering website
www.masteringmastering.co.uk/onlinemastering.html
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