New, less bassy speaker recommendations

[MeanandGreen]

There is certainly no harm in activating the tone controls and reducing the bass by a couple of db.

However the speaker positioning and room layout should be as good as can be first. Don't try treating a symptom without finding the cause. We don't live in recording studios, we live in houses. Sometimes a little cut of bass with the tone controls could be all that is required to go from bloated to just right with some recordings. No quality in sound is lost by activating the tone circut, that really is rubbish. With the tone dials set flat there will be no change in sound between active and bypassed. Think of bass and treble like salt and pepper on your food, or brightness and contrast on your TV. It's personal preference.

The audiophile world really did an excellent job with the brainwashing regarding tone controls. Instead of using them, people spend hundreds on new kit, or mess around wasting money on cables etc... I agree that tone controls won't make a poor system sound good, they can't make up for major deficiencies in a system. But used correctly and if it's just a case of a little fine tuning due to room acoustics, or restrictions on speakers placement then there is no harm, it's exactly what the tone controls on a good amplifier are for.

If the speakers can't be positioned in a way that works domestically and sonically, then they aren't right for the room. So a change could well be what's needed and I'd say stand mount is probably the right choice in this case. I would definitley experiment with positioning and bunging the ports as well as a slight cut on the bass dial. If all of that fails then new speakers it is.

 

[davedotco]

The argument that a single driver will be struggling to convey bass & midrange doesn't hold much water IMO, though it's a nice party trick & would mean all full range drivers are useless? - Stand mount speakers cannot have some resonance issues that a larger speaker has (and will need work by the designer to suppress) simply due to physics - IMO you have to pay substantially more to get the same quality in a floorstander than in a stand mount albeit at the loss of some bass frequencies that lots of people don't miss, this can often for some include neighbours.

Standmounts have sifgnificantly higher distortion, less linearity, less bandwith, less efficiency, less SPL, smaller wall of sound, and the tweeter on ear axis is really playing on knee axis. Less cabinet resonance really outweighs all that?

If your room reinforces bass, just turn the bass control down. Or is that not purist enough?

I genuinely do not know what you have been reading lately but your views in recent times seem to have totally lost all the sense and consistency that your posts used to show.

Your fascination with bass extension, seemingly at the cost of pretty much everything else, is poor practice and even poorer advice to entusiasts trying to build a viable system in a normal room. As was pointed out above, smaller speakers, helped out with a little room gain are far more listenable than big flatulent floorstanders.

As I said in an earlier post, overpowering a room with boom and woofle and then trying to correct with tone controls is a nonsense, with better quality speakers you may be able to produce good bass by optimum positioning, but like bass traps and other acoustic treetment, these solutions are not going to be acceptable much of the time.

Over the years I have installed, set up and tuned hundreds of systems in hundreds of rooms and I am struggling to think of more than a handfull that could not be made to produce a good sound, the bigest problem that most people have, by an order of magnitude, is trying to put to much bass into an unsuitable room.

 

[davedotco]

There is certainly no harm in activating the tone controls and reducing the bass by a couple of db.

However the speaker positioning and room layout should be as good as can be first. Don't try treating a symptom without finding the cause. We don't live in recording studios, we live in houses. Sometimes a little cut of bass with the tone controls could be all that is required to go from bloated to just right with some recordings. No quality in sound is lost by activating the tone circut, that really is rubbish. With the tone dials set flat there will be no change in sound between active and bypassed. Think of bass and treble like salt and pepper on your food, or brightness and contrast on your TV. It's personal preference.

The audiophile world really did an excellent job with the brainwashing regarding tone controls. Instead of using them, people spend hundreds on new kit, or mess around wasting money on cables etc... I agree that tone controls won't make a poor system sound good, they can't make up for major deficiencies in a system. But used correctly and if it's just a case of a little fine tuning due to room acoustics, or restrictions on speakers placement then there is no harm, it's exactly what the tone controls on a good amplifier are for.

If the speakers can't be positioned in a way that works domestically and sonically, then they aren't right for the room. So a change could well be what's needed and I'd say stand mount is probably the right choice in this case. I would definitley experiment with positioning and bunging the ports as well as a slight cut on the bass dial. If all of that fails then new speakers it is.

I really don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise.

However the tone control that can cut boom without cutting bass has not yet been made available on hi-fi equipment so the question really boils down to is, just how much boom and woofle you are prepared to put up with.

My personal point of view is well known, I understand that some people prefer a 'warmer' balance but overhang, boom, cabinet resonance and the rest, really?

 

[drummerman]

Lol....this thread is getting interesting,

Kit Kat we need an update from you. What amp do you have and does it have tone controls?

Have you tried turning the bass down, and what's your opinion?.... The suspense is murder.

:-D

90odd watts with the option of a few in 'Class A' ... my guess would be it's a Marantz of some years ago (7200?)

 

[lindsayt]

A lot depends on the room, and the furniture in the room.

Big speakers with good bass extension can sound fine in a small room, especially if the room furniture has some similarity to an anechoic chamber.

For example, something like this:

Or this:

 

[hg]

I have the Mission V63 floor standing speakers (these won EISA back in the day), they are a very large twin woofer speaker and although I really have enjoyed them I am starting to find them a bit too bassy (average size living room) so I decided to try an experiment, I brought my Wharfedale 9.1's from the bedroom which I use with a Denon M39 and hooked them up to my main hi-fi, I cannot believe how much more I am enjoying the sound, I don't miss the boomy bass

No bass is not a cure for boomy bass. The idea of spending money in order to remove the bass is daft. If you want no bass using a tone control as suggested earlier would be sensible.

The 2 x 6" midwoofers in your Mission speakers are too small to be used for good quality bass. As a consequence the port needs to be used to provide the bass you hear over much of the bass frequency range. When the port is working the transient response is relatively poor because the port is using resonances to boost the output. Having said that, the most common cause of boomy bass is driving room modes.

A good cure for your boomy bass is likely to be to use subwoofers. The high pass filter on the mains will remove the poor quality bass from the Mission speakers and replace it with better quality bass from the subwoofers particularly if you site the subwoofers wisely with respect to the room modes.

 

[davedotco]

A lot depends on the room, and the furniture in the room.

Big speakers with good bass extension can sound fine in a small room, especially if the room furniture has some similarity to an anechoic chamber.

For example, something like this:

Or this:

I don't think that is really in doubt, big speakers will work if positioned correctly and the room well furnished. The wall furniture you feature in the photos may well help, but lots of soft funishings are the real solution combined with well positioned speakers.

Positioning speakers remain the big issue, the smaller the room, the more space they need and the more 'in the way' they are going to be, great if this is acceptable to you, but as with your 'wall furnishings', a lot of people simple will not find these things desirable in their homes.

 

[MeanandGreen]

I really don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise.

However the tone control that can cut boom without cutting bass has not yet been made available on hi-fi equipment so the question really boils down to is, just how much boom and woofle you are prepared to put up with.

I personally think that with speakers such as these the bass boom is because of too much bass caused by the room and speakers relationship. So a cut of bass in this case may well cut the boom too. The problem is not the speakers themselves not being capeable of good bass, it's just too much bass for the environment they are in.

A twiddle of a dial is free and simple and it just might be effective. I do agree however that stand mount speakers probably would be the ideal type for this scenario. Choosing the right speakers for the room is the single most important thing, I still think the bass dial is worth a try. Even just for the short term, it would help increase the enjoyment from the system as it is.

 

[Vladimir]

The OP has an average sized living room, not a small room as some sugested.

 

[davedotco]

I really don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise.

However the tone control that can cut boom without cutting bass has not yet been made available on hi-fi equipment so the question really boils down to is, just how much boom and woofle you are prepared to put up with.

I personally think that with speakers such as these the bass boom is because of too much bass caused by the room and speakers relationship. So a cut of bass in this case may well cut the boom too. The problem is not the speakers themselves not being capeable of good bass, it's just too much bass for the environment they are in.

A twiddle of a dial is free and simple and it just might be effective. I do agree however that stand mount speakers probably would be the ideal type for this scenario. Choosing the right speakers for the room is the single most important thing, I still think the bass dial is worth a try. Even just for the short term, it would help increase the enjoyment from the system as it is.

I understand what you are saying and, to be fair, every room and speaker is different, and with better speakers you may well be right, but many of the modern inexpensive floorstanders are so poorly and lightly built that I find them irredeemable.

I have no issue with tone controls per se, but mostly I find the usual bass/treble on most amps to be too 'coarse' to be really useful. That said, I once spend a summer in a house with a Quad system, modern-ish 44/606/ESL, and I found the 'Tilt' and bass eq controlls very useful, they were in use all the time.

(Guilty secret, I even use a touch of low bass boost and a very gentle 'upward tilt' when streaming Spotify into my small actives.)

 

[Vladimir]

The 2 x 6" midwoofers in your Mission speakers are too small to be used for good quality bass. As a consequence the port needs to be used to provide the bass you hear over much of the bass frequency range. When the port is working the transient response is relatively poor because the port is using resonances to boost the output. Having said that, the most common cause of boomy bass is driving room modes.

A good cure for your boomy bass is likely to be to use subwoofers. The high pass filter on the mains will remove the poor quality bass from the Mission speakers and replace it with better quality bass from the subwoofers particularly if you site the subwoofers wisely with respect to the room modes.

I had sa similar dilema and decided to get a pair of closed box floorstanders instead of a sub. Absolutely no boom, regardless how close to the walls I place them. Just smooth well behaved deep bass.

 

[Thompsonuxb]

Man, I hope kitkat comes back....

 

[Thompsonuxb]

I have to say, Dave I think you're very wrong.

There is nothing wrong with budget floor standers. And your suggestion they are all bad is out of order.

I have owned budget ported floorstanders and was able to achieve excellent textured bass through them by reducing the bass of my amp using tone controls (Sony 176s - £200 speakers)

Granted it was not has good as what I have now but it was more than good enough.

If the OP indeed owns the Marantz 7200 which comes with tone controls, this issue may be easily resolved.

The bass tone control should give about a 3db to 6db sweep etheir side of 0 on the amp.

The mid range and top end should cover anything his standmounts can deliver. Probably adding better timbre and depth by comparison.

Reducing the bass and then increasing it by single increments should give the OP what he wants. With decent bass quality above and beyond what those budget stand mounts can with the option to crank it up if he desires. Those suggesting the OP spend 2 to 5 hundred pounds on New speakers.....just wicked, honestly.

Like I said the footprint will be about the same.

 

[BigH]

You do what?

Put the Missions back on and if you have tone controls then set your treble to -/+0 and the bass has low as possible.

Then increase the bass in single increments till happy.

A pair of standmounts on stands will have the same footprint and leave you a couple hundred quid lighter.

Try the tone controls and then decide. Consider you're not happy with the 'pure' sound.

You have nothing to lose.

By the way what amp do you own?

Prefer to bypass these for purer sound.

i must tommo you do talk a load of twaddle. Stand mounts costs £200 more. If you mean stands you can buy decent stands for about £60. To get the equilovent standmount as a floor stander you often have to pay nearly x2 the amount, see Tannoy and Pmc who have same speakers as stand or floor mounts. I agree with Dave most cheap floor standers are to be avoided.

 

[MeanandGreen]

How much were these particular Mission floorstanders when new? I'm intrigued as to what qualifies as a budget floorstanding speaker?

 

[Bender]

(Guilty secret, I even use a touch of low bass boost and a very gentle 'upward tilt' when streaming Spotify into my small actives.)

Oh your God! Call yourself an audiophile?

 

[MeanandGreen]

Actually forget my last post. A quick google search has revealed that they retailed somewhere between £500/£700 when new in 2002. I don't condider a speaker in this price range as 'budget' personally and I certainly wouldn't say that this price range isn't expected to produce decent quality bass responce.

Further googling seems to suggest that some people really loved/love these Missions and some feel that the frequency extremes dominate the 'hollow sounding' midrange.

Persoanlly I think they just aren't working in the OP's room, but the suggestions that they aren't worthy due to being 'budget' are absurd.

 

[dim_span]

(Guilty secret, I even use a touch of low bass boost and a very gentle 'upward tilt' when streaming Spotify into my small actives.)

Oh your God! Call yourself an audiophile?

Hey Bender .... what speaker cables do you recomend?...

 

[Vladimir]

Actually forget my last post. A quick google search has revealed that they retailed somewhere between £500/£700 when new in 2002. I don't condider a speaker in this price range as 'budget' personally and I certainly wouldn't say that this price range isn't expected to produce decent quality bass responce.

Further googling seems to suggest that some people really loved/love these Missions and some feel that the frequency extremes dominate the 'hollow sounding' midrange.

Well done.

Research FTW!

Everyone came on the Missions as if they are £150 Jamo.

Persoanlly I think they just aren't working in the OP's room, but the suggestions that they aren't worthy due to being 'budget' are absurd.

They worked for years but suddenly they stopped? *scratch_one-s_head*

 

[Myers]

The argument that a single driver will be struggling to convey bass & midrange doesn't hold much water IMO, though it's a nice party trick & would mean all full range drivers are useless? - Stand mount speakers cannot have some resonance issues that a larger speaker has (and will need work by the designer to suppress) simply due to physics - IMO you have to pay substantially more to get the same quality in a floorstander than in a stand mount albeit at the loss of some bass frequencies that lots of people don't miss, this can often for some include neighbours.

Standmounts have sifgnificantly higher distortion, less linearity, less bandwith, less efficiency, less SPL, smaller wall of sound, and the tweeter on ear axis is really playing on knee axis. Less cabinet resonance really outweighs all that?

If your room reinforces bass, just turn the bass control down. Or is that not purist enough?

My Roksan K2 does not have tone controls nor would I want them, my MA Silver 2's IMHO are superior to the floor standing 8's I had for some time, SPL is quite sufficient (the 8"bass/midrange driver can rarely seen moving) & more for my room which I would describe as average (16 feet long).

I’m also happy with the efficiency - Am I not allowed to have a preference? My next upgrade will be stand mounts too - Is that OK? I look like dealing with the distortion, though. What a large, small or average room size is will always be subjective - ‘ tweeter on ear axis is really playing on knee axis’ You lost me there! I personally don't have an issue with room reinforment as I can have the speakers well away from the rear wall, but have heard some dire systems with floorstanders pushed in corners & against a wall where smaller speakers would be far better, again IMO. It's usually horses for courses & one size don't fit all.

 

[davedotco]

(Guilty secret, I even use a touch of low bass boost and a very gentle 'upward tilt' when streaming Spotify into my small actives.)

Oh your God! Call yourself an audiophile?

Nope, not ever....!

Back in the shop we used to define an audiophile as "a person who interferes with small amplifiers".

To be avoided at all costs.

 

[davedotco]

Actually forget my last post. A quick google search has revealed that they retailed somewhere between £500/£700 when new in 2002. I don't condider a speaker in this price range as 'budget' personally and I certainly wouldn't say that this price range isn't expected to produce decent quality bass responce.

Further googling seems to suggest that some people really loved/love these Missions and some feel that the frequency extremes dominate the 'hollow sounding' midrange.

Persoanlly I think they just aren't working in the OP's room, but the suggestions that they aren't worthy due to being 'budget' are absurd.

They are 'not worthy' because frankly, they are awful. The price is irrelevant.

To be fair, modern speakers are cheaper than they used to be, mainly because of where they are made. There are decent budget floorstanders, but with the modern obsession over 'bass', they are few and far between. Those that work well in a average size room are even rarer.

Bizarrly I rather like the Q Acoustics 2050i, but they need space, quite unsuitable for most people.

 

[Vladimir]

The argument that a single driver will be struggling to convey bass & midrange doesn't hold much water IMO, though it's a nice party trick & would mean all full range drivers are useless? - Stand mount speakers cannot have some resonance issues that a larger speaker has (and will need work by the designer to suppress) simply due to physics - IMO you have to pay substantially more to get the same quality in a floorstander than in a stand mount albeit at the loss of some bass frequencies that lots of people don't miss, this can often for some include neighbours.

Standmounts have sifgnificantly higher distortion, less linearity, less bandwith, less efficiency, less SPL, smaller wall of sound, and the tweeter on ear axis is really playing on knee axis. Less cabinet resonance really outweighs all that?

If your room reinforces bass, just turn the bass control down. Or is that not purist enough?

My Roksan K2 does not have tone controls nor would I want them.

Why?

 

[Prof. Hurbert J. Farnsworth]

(Guilty secret, I even use a touch of low bass boost and a very gentle 'upward tilt' when streaming Spotify into my small actives.)

Oh your God! Call yourself an audiophile?

Hey Bender .... what speaker cables do you recomend?...

You want the BenderTec 3000 cable.

It's made from the purest Osmium crystal mined from the planet Omicron Persei 8 and has triple layer EMI shielding made from Nibblonian dark matter poop. You can buy some for just 10,000 Earth Credits per meter. Order one today and I'll even throw in a free hooker.

Sweet zombie Jesus! You audiophiles will believe anything.

Any scientist knows that standard MomCorp OFC cable of a suitably thick gauge will suffice.

 

[Bender]

(Guilty secret, I even use a touch of low bass boost and a very gentle 'upward tilt' when streaming Spotify into my small actives.)

Oh your God! Call yourself an audiophile?

Hey Bender .... what speaker cables do you recomend?...

You want the BenderTec 3000 cable.

It's made from the purest Osmium crystal mined from the planet Omicron Persei 8 and has triple layer EMI shielding made from Nibblonian dark matter poop. You can buy some for just 10,000 Earth Credits per meter. Order one today and I'll even throw in a free hooker.