OT - Help me understand Hi-Fi speakers

[jim rozen]

On the plus side, with powered or bluetooth being the flavor-of-the-month, you can find all kinds of suplus, good speakers available. Frequently in the trash on pick-up days. Along with build your own and the suplus ones, never had to actually buy speakers. My recent favorite is a bass reflex instrument cabinet that had the gimp wires burned out of it, had a midrange horn and somebody gifted me some dome tweeters. Presently hooked to an old haffler amp, one channel only. Mp3 player and an old instrumentation amp is the program source. Free stuff can be good. This place is a good one for repair parts, antique electronic supply:

Please Wait... | Cloudflare

 

[DDoug]

To quote a famous commercial from the 1970's (IIRC craig car stereos)
"What are you....deaf ?"
loudest rock conert at DuckDuckGo

 

[GregSY]

For years, The Who held the Guinness record of loudest concert. Not sure if they still do. But it's worth noting they didn't set out to try setting a record...I recall reading they had some amps and equipment from a much larger venue and for whatever reason no one knew to turn it down...


As for finding stuff put out for garbage day on the street...that seems to have gone by the wayside thanks to all the shows on TV that convince people their junk is worth millions. I'm the only person left that I know of...if I have just about anything of value worth under a few hundred dollars, I put it out with a FREE sign on it. I'd rather it vanish on its own than me having to try selling it.

 

[blcksmth]

Just a little technical info now. Powered speakers have built-in amplifiers which are powered externally somehow. They also are designed for an input signal voltage of 1.0 volts commonly known as line level. The voltage out from your amplifier's 8 ohm speaker terminals could be as high as 25 volts. This would seriously overdrive the built in amp to distortion or destroy it. The normal range of human hearing is 20 cycles to 20,000 cycles per second. The speaker specs should list the frequency response like 49 HZ to 19 KHZ plus or minus 3db which is 1/2 audio power. The wider this range the more complete the sound. To decide what sounds best to you, if you are buying new, take a familiar CD to the store and ask them to play it on a variety of speaker systems.

Bob
WB8NQW

 

[DDoug]

To decide what sounds best to you, if you are buying new, take a familiar CD to the store and ask them to play it on a variety of speaker systems.

Bob
WB8NQW

Have not seen a "Stereo Store" that you can walk into for at least 25 years now.

 

[CarbideBob]

Have not seen a "Stereo Store" that you can walk into for at least 25 years now.

This was once huge with even the big box stores having a "listening room".
Of note that the higher markup speakers often got the better position in the room.
I once had a collection of records and later CDs that I would take in and spend a few hours auditioning speakers.
I do not think the OP is looking for such craziness.
Big agreement that some names that were very good have become commodity items and not so good.
My like for a big room is the old standby Klipsch Lascala despite the phase problems of such design but the price tag now is just insane.
Bob

 

[IWUP]

I have for my shop this fairly massive receiver...a Denon AVR 5800 which 62lbs. worth of relatively old school radio. I didn't buy it new but they were around $3800 20 years ago.



Denon AVR-5800 A/V receiver | Sound & Vision

I want to buy some speakers that will work well with it.

In looking at speakers...it seems nowadays a great many are 'powered'. That is, they appear to have their own 120v amp and also work off Bluetooth or some other wireless technology...so you don't have to run 'hard' wires to them.


That's great...but I like wires and don't mind running them. I also think the receiver should have enough power to drive speakers without the need for an amp in the speaker box. I also wonder if the amps located in the speaker box will compromise sound quality or have other negative effects.

So....do I ignore all of the powered speakers, or is there no harm in using them if I find a set I otherwise like?View attachment 339479

I have 4 of these in my shop
Klipsch Reference Premiere RP-160M (Ebony) Bookshelf speakers at Crutchfield
and a 12" sub
Klipsch Reference R-120SW Powered subwoofer at Crutchfield
Shop is 32'x70', 13' ceilings
setup works well and I usually Bluetooth connect to the Yamaha receiver with my laptop

 

[IWUP]

Why TF are you still in "New York"?

It's not all blue, why are you still in Virginia?

 

[gustafson]

This was once huge with even the big box stores having a "listening room".
Of note that the higher markup speakers often got the better position in the room.
I once had a collection of records and later CDs that I would take in and spend a few hours auditioning speakers.
I do not think the OP is looking for such craziness.
Big agreement that some names that were very good have become commodity items and not so good.
My like for a big room is the old standby Klipsch Lascala despite the phase problems of such design but the price tag now is just insane.
Bob

Best Buy actually still has a Magnolia section and my local one has a McIntosh stack with electrostatic speakers

But yes, I miss Tech Hifi, and Tweeter and all the other places.

There is[was?] a place in Harvard Square that I made the point of driving into to buy my last CD player. [Audiolab is still there it appears although it appears the grumpy bastard who sold me that CD player is not doing so well]

It is hard, because we are always looking for a good deal, aren't we?

Add to that that basically 'no one' buys stereo equipment anymore.

 

[IWUP]

Pleased to have helped turn it SANE ...again ...292 years on, as my tribe don't give up easily.

"Mosby Country" "Blue"? Yah .. well.. our Sheriff and our Clerk of Court are elected officials. Republican Ticket. With rather a lot of Democratic votes, even.

Taking stupid pills doesn't fly well, here.

Virginia Gov. Youngkin's day-one executive orders include investigating Loudon County officials, CRT ban

But The Old Dominion was still salvageable. One Civil War was one too many, already, y'see. F**KJoe Buyed-in can just go away and bite his OWN decomposing ass.

Only way I can see saving the Five Boroughs is to give them back to the Dutch.

Amerindians have already refused it, figuring the cheap glass beads were far the better deal, considering the "baggage" as has accumulated!



More seriously..easily avoidable costs, overheads, and taxes, MOST other US States, any "colour"?

BT,DT,GTTS Cable & Wireless (NY), Inc ==> My new creation, Cable & Wireless Americas, Inc., HQ shifted to .... Virginia! 1986. Go figure we saw NYC's decline coming?

Recent years, Virginia had been nearly alone in gaining economic refugees from "blue" States even whilst we were - nominally - still "blue" ourselves.

Folks live better and eat more reliably if we can just do our f*****g JOBS and raise kids that have a fair chance of finding honest work in THEIR turn, too.

You keep referencing NYC, I don't live anywhere near there, there's more to New York than NYC
It's the equiv of me assuming you live in NOVA

 

[IWUP]

There isn't a lot of New York State I haven't traversed. Some of it right nice country, and most of it right decent folk.

You are still butt-f**k as badly by Albany, regardless if DeBlasio I or the new one - DeBlasio II - is yer "Czar" in the Five Boroughs.

Hard for a County or municipality to overcome that.

Very hard.

Thanks for your contribution to this thread. I'm sure the OP will take your input into account when trying to source speakers for his receiver.

 

[Garwood]

I have a pair of powered JBL 15" 400 watt speakers hooked to Pandora and it works good for loud shop music. Sometimes, with some songs, I notice they aren't as clear as I think they could be.

I had some Cerwin Vegas that my dad bought new in the early 70's and they were amazingly clear and VERY loud until the foam fell apart. I thought I saved them to repair someday, but now I can't find them. I've been thinking about trying to figure out what those speakers were and locating another good pair to compare to the monster JBL's I have now. I remember the grills were a very coarse foam with a checkerboard pattern.

 

[Tony Quiring]

Cervix Vega D8 sound good and loud.

Foam surrounds rot away but can be replaced.

Too big for wall hanging.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

 

[jim rozen]

Taking stupid pills doesn't fly well, here.

The problem we see may be self-limiting.

Trump Backs Boosters. Clearly, Someone Did the Math for Him. | by Donald G. McNeil Jr. | Jan, 2022 | Medium

 

[CarbideBob]

How and why would anyone inject Trump into this thread. It makes no sense at all.

 

[jim rozen]

How and why would anyone inject Trump into this thread. It makes no sense at all.

Termite summoned me with the fuck biden comment. Blame him.

 

[EPAIII]

I did not mention speaker impedance before, but it is an important factor. And it is not just the lower, the louder.

What is important is that the impedance be properly MATCHED. The cable from the amplifier to the speaker(s) is what is known in electrical circles as a TRANSMISSION LINE. It is no coincidence that the amplifiers are rated in their power output. This has been so from the days before stereo, not to mention four, four, six, eight channel audio and their fractional channel bass. And there is a very basic principal that says that ANY electrical/electronic transmission line will transmit a maximum amount of power when the SOURCE and DESTINATION impedances are the same. That simply means that an amplifier with an eight Ohm output will transmit the most energy to an eight Ohm load (speaker). And, by the way, that maximum amount of energy is 50% of the energy being consumed by the amplifier's output stage. The other 50% becomes heat in that output stage and is the reason for the heat sinks usually found there.

Now ff a four Ohm speaker is connected to an eight Ohm amplifier output, then this transmission line is not properly terminated and there will be an impedance mismatch. Between Voltage and current, one will be greater than the optimal value, but the other one will be less and the product of the two which gives the amount of power in the speaker will be LOWER. So the full power of the amplifier will not be transmitted to the speaker. Worse yet, transmission lines are frequency sensitive so different amounts of power will be transmitted and converted to sound at different frequencies. That super flat amplifier response curve that the audio nuts just brag about will not appear at the air in front of the speaker and all that engineering effort and expense will be for naught.

If multiple speakers are connected to a single amplifier output, then the same principle applies but the overall effective impedance of the several speakers must be the value used. So two, eight Ohm speakers connected in parallel to one amplifier will act as a single four Ohm load and would be connected to a four Ohm amplifier output. Likewise for other parallel combinations. Series connections add so two eight Ohm speakers in series would be a 16 Ohm load and should be connected to a 16 Ohm output.

The problem of connecting multiple speakers to a single amplifier output, such as would occur in a PA system, is solved by using what is called a constant Voltage output with proper impedance matching transformers (and volume controls) at each individual speaker. That way large numbers of speakers can be connected to one amplifier while preserving good audio fidelity. These constant Voltage lines are NOT low impedance as this post would imply. In fact, they are HIGH impedance lines and only those individual transformers at the individual speakers bring the impedance down to the common speaker levels of 4, 8, or 16 Ohms.

Oh, and a 4 Ohm amplifier output impedance was NOT unheard of at that time. In fact many tube amplifiers, which had inherently high output impedances, often/usually had output transformers that supplied a choice of low impedance outputs, including 4 Ohms. Again, this goes back even before the days of stereo. Can you say "monaural audio"?

To a certain extent, modern, solid state audio amplifiers do employ feedback techniques at the output stage in order to deliver good quality audio regardless of the impedance of the speaker that is attached. This, again to an extent, makes the impedance matching of less concern. In effect the amplifier's output senses the load and effectively adjusts it's output impedance to match. But there are limits to this and if you want the best possible audio quality, then some attention to the combined speaker impedance is still called for.

So many questions, for you, I have.

That receiver is legit. I had one.
The power output is rated at rms, not peak, as all new garbage is.

I'd use the internal amp, fuck that yellow tooth shit.
As stated above (gustafson), you have to pay attention to impedance (ohms). It's resistance. (pm me if you'd like to understand this better, as with series or parallel wiring, you can cheat)
If I remember correctly, I didnt skim that spec link, it's rated for 8 ohm speakers, but is stable down to 4ish. That's basically unheard of, for it's time.

So without boring you with alot of bullshit, the lower the impedance, the more power is output, as long as the amp is stable at that impedance. That receiver gives you SOOOOO many options for speakers.

I've built more than a few car systems that have been in magazines, and some home systems that cost more than all my houses, and the dudes I've worked with have forgotten more than I'll ever know.

 

[kustomizer]

There are connections for 10 speakers and a subwoofer on that amp, I have only 6 hooked to mine

 

[Yan Wo]

[lots of good info trimmed]

... The audio purists will lecture you all day long about the advantages of their favorite speaker wire which is made with pure gold (or better) and costs millions of dollars an inch due to some highly proprietary process. But I have actually conducted BLIND tests with such wires against regular lamp cord as purchased at the local hardware and THEY can not reliably tell any difference. They then claim the test was not fair for some reason. But it wasn't. They just did not know which was which before hand so they were just guessing. ...

When I was more into this subject, I had fun asking the audio store salesman if speaker cable made a difference. They invariably said it did. I'd then ask, "Would it be better to spend $100 on speaker cable or $100 on better speakers?" The answer was always spend it on better speakers.

I was highly amused at the "unobtanium" cables that had directional arrows printed on them so you wouldn't hook them up backwards.

 

[MCMLXIX]

They are still making music in this century.
There are still a few breeders left that can carry a tune without injuring or killing any auto tunes.

Some current events for those who like the sound of cheese eatin surrender monkey.

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For the pasta loving fascist cult members.

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Something for 'Mericans living in the past.

Dream On - Postmodern Jukebox ft. Morgan James (Aerosmith Cover) - YouTube

Don't want to leave out those who claim the self appointed moral high ground.

Creep - Vintage Postmodern Jukebox Radiohead Cover ft. Haley Reinhart - YouTube

A little hope for the future generation amid this dark winter of discontent.

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The wings of destiny can be broken.