Scale and presence

[Overdose]

Regarding scale and presence, what qualities are needed to best deliver?

Is it clarity, with the capacity to go loud, like the ADM9s for example (and this is not meant to be a them vs us debate regarding actives, just using as an example of fairly powerful small speakers) ?

Leaving out or components and assuming the speakers are not being underpowered, is it down to driver size, or maybe just quality of the speakers?

I also realise that recording quality is important.

 

[CnoEvil]

A good source + A high current (powerful) amp with great transient response + well designed large floorstanders.

Also works very well with big powerful Actives (some would say better! >) )

 

[John Duncan]

Big speakers, big amps, in that order. Best examples I can think of are B&W 802s (or something, the cyclops-looking ones), and Wilson Maxxes (or something, the big Alien-looking ones) at the Bristol show a couple of years ago. In both cases, huge amps were used.

ADMs, or any box of those dimensions, don't do that 'size' thing in the same way, IME.

 

[Overdose]

I've never listened to large speakers, so don't know what they really sound like, but have experienced the move to actives, so clarity is something that I can relate to. I have a couple of speakers on my short list, some ATC 50 actives and Event Opals.

Needless to say, I would be demoing the ATCs at least, before buying, unless a particularly good second hand deal came up that simply couldn't be missed.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Regarding scale and presence, what qualities are needed to best deliver?

my advise is; invest a few dozen pounds/ euro in a ticket for a concert of a proper philharmonic orchestra in a proper concert hall and just forget about scale and presence at home. it's simply impossible to recreate what is going on in there in your small listening area. all you can ask for is just a faint impression of what is going on in concert hall at home. even with Diamonds or Wilson Audios. as JD mentioned; AMDs are definitely out of the question...

 

[John Duncan]

I'll add, for the sake of clarity, that my PMCs don't do it either...

 

[Overdose]

Regarding scale and presence, what qualities are needed to best deliver?

my advise is; invest a few dozen pounds/ euro in a ticket for a concert of a proper philharmonic orchestra in a proper concert hall and just forget about scale and presence at home. it's simply impossible to recreate what is going on in there in your small listening area. all you can ask for is just a faint impression of what is going on in concert hall at home. even with Diamonds or Wilson Audios. as JD mentioned; AMDs are definitely out of the question...

Thanks for the advice, if a little impractical.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

oh, I just remembered. maybe fully blown MBL Reference system in suitably large room would bring you closest to what you're looking for. MBLs are omnidirectional.

(I wish I had a chance to listen to an MBL system one day...)

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Thanks for the advice, if a little impractical.

impractical? are you living in the middle of Sahara?

live events are really great fun. and makes you understand how long way still lies before hi-fi.

 

[Electro]

It has always puzzled me that more HiFi enthusiasts don't go out and listen to live music as a contrast to listening to music on their systems , how on earth can you know how you system is performing or in what direction to go if you rarely hear the real thing , it is great fun too there is little better that going out with the wife or friends to a live music venue .

My system has been created in the best way that I can afford to do a very good impression of live music , if fact I have always used live music as an important reference when choosing HiFi equipment and it works for me

 

[idc]

The massive Linn demo system when they had a shop in Princes Sq in Glasgow.

 

[CnoEvil]

The massive Linn demo system when they had a shop in Princes Sq in Glasgow.

Probably an Active Linn Klimax system.

 

[amcluesent]

If you want to get serious... :O

 

[CnoEvil]

If you want to get serious... :O

S E T I

 

[lindsayt]

If your speakers are giving your amps a hard time it will sound like they are giving your amps a hard time. There are a few ways to overcome this:

Difficult to drive passive speakers with hugely powerful amps will partially overcome this.

Going active will partially overcome this too and allow you to use your most powerful amp on the bass units where most power and control is required.

Easy to drive speakers - high efficiency and gentle impedance curves - with low powered amps (including valve SET's) will give you dynamic scale up to the limits of the amplification.

High efficiency speakers with powerful amps will give you scale up to the limits of the speakers. However this will be at the likely cost of some naturalness in the midrange when compared against good low powered amps.

For true presence you're looking at getting a system with good quality (tight) extended bass. Well reproduced deeper bass notes are felt as much as they are heard. They should also start and stop without a resonant drone.

One thing is for sure: if you compare the same piece of music on two systems, one with scale and presence and one without you imediately notice this. IE it is very easy to spot when it is lacking in one system in comparative demos.

Scale and presence comes mostly from the speakers. Just using an example of speakers that I have in my home: EV Patrician 800's with any of my amps including my 8 watt SET have scale and presence in spades when compared to my Linn Saras with 80 watts of grippy solid state amplification. The Saras just sound small and shouty when compared to the effortless nature of the Patricians. Is this difference down to driver size and quality as well as high efficiency? Yes it is. This is not rocket science. It's over-engineering versus under-engineering.

In a vinyl system you also need a truly well engineered record player in order to avoid losing scale and presence there.

 

[lindsayt]

If you want to get serious... :O

When I heard this system at Scalford with my test record I thought that it was seriously lacking in presence. I think that this was down to a room / setup / listening position issue when I heard them. The key to getting presence in this system would be the filing cabinet type boxes not shown in this photo that provide the bass in this system. I'm sure that this system would have a lot more presence when properly set-up in SpeedySteve's room at home and the system would sound really good there.

 

[Electro]

If your speakers are giving your amps a hard time it will sound like they are giving your amps a hard time. There are a few ways to overcome this:

Difficult to drive passive speakers with hugely powerful amps will partially overcome this.

Going active will partially overcome this too and allow you to use your most powerful amp on the bass units where most power and control is required.

Easy to drive speakers - high efficiency and gentle impedance curves - with low powered amps (including valve SET's) will give you dynamic scale up to the limits of the amplification.

High efficiency speakers with powerful amps will give you scale up to the limits of the speakers. However this will be at the likely cost of some naturalness in the midrange when compared against good low powered amps.

For true presence you're looking at getting a system with good quality (tight) extended bass. Well reproduced deeper bass notes are felt as much as they are heard. They should also start and stop without a resonant drone.

One thing is for sure: if you compare the same piece of music on two systems, one with scale and presence and one without you imediately notice this. IE it is very easy to spot when it is lacking in one system in comparative demos.

Scale and presence comes mostly from the speakers. Just using an example of speakers that I have in my home: EV Patrician 800's with any of my amps including my 8 watt SET have scale and presence in spades when compared to my Linn Saras with 80 watts of grippy solid state amplification. The Saras just sound small and shouty when compared to the effortless nature of the Patricians. Is this difference down to driver size and quality as well as high efficiency? Yes it is. This is not rocket science. It's over-engineering versus under-engineering.

In a vinyl system you also need a truly well engineered record player in order to avoid losing scale and presence there.

Very true especially the bit in bold type .

 

[CnoEvil]

If you want to get serious... :O

When I heard this system at Scalford with my test record I thought that it was seriously lacking in presence.

Blimey, it's the one thing it appears to have in abundance!

 

[Anonymous]

What about the Tannoy DC10? They can go loud.

 

[Electro]

For me good scale and presence is not just about loud although that can help It is best described as hearing the music at almost full size or a good impression of full size and being able to imagine the size and shape of the recording venue.

It should be possible to hear the music reflecting from the venue walls ( mainly with live recordings ) and this gives the listener an idea or impression of how wide and deep the room or hall is and where the people playing the instruments are in relation to the boundaries . Good very deep undistorted bass really helps a system achieve this and for me this is where a reasonable sized transmission line speaker really excels .

It is amazing how much low bass energy there is on a lot of recordings that is totally missed or distorted by a lot of speakers .

Another way to explain it is imagine walking into a large empty room with a blindfold on , even though you cannot see the size of the room you can instantly hear it is a large room and have a fair idea of it's shape even when there is only a low level of noise in that room . Human hearing has evolved in a way that allows us to do this and if a HiFi system can reproduce this effect through a pair of speakers then it has the definition of scale and presence .

Just my opinion I hope it makes sense to everyone

 

[batonwielder]

Regarding scale and presence, what qualities are needed to best deliver?

my advise is; invest a few dozen pounds/ euro in a ticket for a concert of a proper philharmonic orchestra in a proper concert hall and just forget about scale and presence at home. it's simply impossible to recreate what is going on in there in your small listening area. all you can ask for is just a faint impression of what is going on in concert hall at home. even with Diamonds or Wilson Audios. as JD mentioned; AMDs are definitely out of the question...

Precisely my thoughts. Best I'm hoping for is to get a partial view of the orchestra right.

 

[busb]

As for live music - I can't agree more. Having gone to many classical concerts in my life has me realising how far even fabulous systems miss the mark. For me, it's not the bass but the purity of the treble that struck me - instruments like brass don't come close. As for bass you can feel, hearing Goldfrapp playing at a Lovebox event a couple of years back did the trick & more recently, a large pair of Leema speakers at the Bristol show has my stomach rattling in my diaphragm (not sure what model 'cos the Xones look too small).

 

[Diamond Joe]

... a large pair of Leema speakers at the Bristol show has my stomach rattling in my diaphragm (not sure what model 'cos the Xones look too small).

That'll probably be the Leema Xandas, I thought they were fairly amazing too - if rather ugly.

 

[busb]

... a large pair of Leema speakers at the Bristol show has my stomach rattling in my diaphragm (not sure what model 'cos the Xones look too small).

That'll probably be the Leema Xandas, I thought they were fairly amazing too - if rather ugly.

Cheers Joe

No, they weren't particularly pretty but their bass authority was quite satisfactory! I spoke with a friend of the Leema guys who used a pair of those speakers as a rear pair in a surround system - he was what's called being "comfortably off!"