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I am in the market for a new pair of stereo speakers. I already have surround speakers hooked up to my receiver, but my receiver has second room speaker hookups(stereo only). I wan't to run wire to another room of my house and have my receiver power a second set of speakers. Anyway, I've noticed all the craze is about small, cute little speakers that sound as good as big ones. But I've been reading that a 3 or 4 inch driver can't reproduce 20-20,000 hz effectively. They are usually limited between 200 and 14,000 hz. However, supposedly a speaker setup that contains some good 8 inch woofers can reproduce the entire spectrum. Is this information accurate? If so, then companies like bose must be misleading in their advertising. I have the Bose accoustimass 10 5.1 system and will say that it does sound a tad unnatural. I guess the sub reproduces the mid's as well as to compensate for the satellites lack of frequency response. But I can somewhat detect most mid-range frequency's coming from the sub, so I can detect the fakeness of it all. Anyway, I've been reading a lot of pro-bose and anti-bose articles. But this isn't about Bose, it's about small speakers and what they lack. Does anybody know if I can go with a speaker with a woofer that is too BIG to reproduce things accurately? If so, where is a good middle ground? Any recommendations? I would like some bookshelf speakers, as I don't wan't to take up too much space....

You'd probably do okay with a 2-way bookshelf speaker that has a 5¼" driver and a separate 1" tweeter. About $200 will get you a pair of speakers that perform well down to about 60 Hz.

What about these?

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_065CS26C/Boston-Acoustics-CS-26-Cherry.html?tp=186

I have to buy speakers by the sound. Those look nice, but I can't tell what they sound like.

This is very simple, it's about momentum.
If you have a tiny loudspeaker, or a tweeter, its size permits changing directions easier and more rapidly with less power usage involved. This basically means higher frequencies, typically from 20 to 30 kHz. However, their light weight works against them when they need to do bass (80-240 Hz), not to mention low bass (<80 Hz), because these domains need more amplitude for good quality, and a small loudspeaker simply can't push around enough air to make a difference at these frequencies.

That's where a big loudspeaker ("woofer" or "subwoofer") comes in, it will be heavier, more difficult to move, but once it's moving, it can move a bigger volume of air along with itself. This makes them suited for bass domains, but it impedes their treble (6,000-22,000 Hz) performance, exactly because you'd simply need serious power or expensive materials to vibrate those loudspeakers at very high frequencies.

This is the reason for different frequency performances and the reason why modern speaker sets most often come with a combination of small woofers and a subwoofer, or tweeters and several large woofers.

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With that said, it's hard to tell what would qualify as "bad" or "good" sound performance based purely on size, so you do need to check them out anyway. I'd say if the speaker's front side area is around two CDs' worth at least (12x25 cm), they'll give good all-around sound.

Those would be ok.

The thing I looked for in floor speakers was how the crossovers were set up. If you buy cheap speakers (the ones with 3 separates (sub/mid/tweeter) are the one's I'm thinking of) they are most likely all playing the full frequency range. It's just that each speaker will play what it's best capable of. Tweeters will play highs better than the subwoofer, and vice versa. If you put your ear right next to the speaker you will probably hear highs coming out of the sub as well as the mid. This just causes a lot of distortion and makes the speakers sound really bad. Most likely you won't find that in better speakers, they probably have a good passive crossover in the actual speaker box to separate the frequencies.

I have an old set of Fisher speakers that had no x-over in them when I bought them (almost 15 years ago). So I built my own and wired the speakers in series. Not only did this sound much better once each speaker was only playing the proper frequencies, but running them in series made them louder. 2ohm total load at the amp.

Thanks everyone for the info. Based on what I've read, A larger set of bookshelf speakers should suit me just fine. I'm leaning towards the Boston Accoustics speakers I linked to earlier, but I'll keep doing my research with the info provided. I don't want to go listen to speakers at the store before buying, because I know that many retail outlets use clever tricks to make their speakers sound better, such as specially mastered demo cd's, specially built rooms that they demo their speakers in that are not a realistic environment, and from what I've read(which may be a conspiracy theory), modified versions of the product they sell.

I always took my own CDs to demo. Make sure that the volume settings are the same (or else you'll almost always prefer the louder speaker) and set all of the tone controls to flat (no loudness or other bass boosting, either), then switch back and forth between two sets of speakers. Decide which sounds best to you and make that the new reference to compare to the next set.

I found a very inexpensive set of DCM speakers for my folks that way years ago. I didn't know anything about the brand before I walked into the listening room, but they held up well against other speakers costing three times as much.

My church got some weird off brand of speakers that I never heard of, but they seem very crisp and clear, with vocal dialog anyway. Not sure about music as none has been played over them yet. They did get Shure microphones though, which I guess are top-of-the-line, or among the top. The best loudspeakers I ever heard we're Klipsch in a church in Lubbock, Texas. Oh dang they sounded really really good. Best sound I've ever heard in my life from a live performance. Not trying to get preachy, just that I spend so much time in churches that most of my experience with sound equipment is usually there. Anyway, the Klipsch speakers had compression-horn drivers which made a lot of difference. Not sure how well compression-horn drivers would do in my living room. Might be a bit much from my experience with them. I eventually wan't to get either the Klipsch Cornwall III's, or the Klipschorns, although the size of the Klipschorns might be a bit prohibitive. But all I wan't right now is some bookshelf speakers for another room in the house. When I get the money, whoo, Klipschorns or Cornwall's all the way!

Your experience was probably affected/impaired by the acoustics of the church, things can indeed sound nice in there.

dustyjamessutton wrote:

wan't

Is that a contraction of "wa not"?

dustyjamessutton wrote:

I don't want to go listen to speakers at the store before buying

That really is not a good idea. What sounds good to one may not sound good to you.

dustyjamessutton wrote:

because I know that many retail outlets use clever tricks to make their speakers sound better, such as specially mastered demo cd's, specially built rooms that they demo their speakers in that are not a realistic environment

Like JAE said, bring your own, if they don't allow you to do that, it is probably a clue to run. I auditioned some speakers even in Future Shop (think Best Buy) and I was betting that they did not know better to cheat like that. I tried another shop and they just demo'ed their stuff on their show floor, no special rooms. However, I feel that there are some things that you cannot cheat too much if they play popular music/songs, like the detail in certain frequencies and background stuff. If you have your own set of music that you are very familiar with, then you would know when and where to catch some of the details. Whenever you try some higher end speakers you should always be surprised by the things that you cannot hear before so look out (hear out?) for that.

dustyjamessutton wrote:

from what I've read(which may be a conspiracy theory), modified versions of the product they sell.

Shop at a place with good return policies in case the speakers do not work out in your room. That's about the only thing you can guard against that. Besides, even if no cheating is involved, speakers do sound different in different rooms and you may not like what you hear after you bring the speakers in.

The room will have a big impact on the sound. If you have a large, open room with a high ceiling, bass frequencies will tend to either get lost or resonate in odd lobes throughout the room, and echo will be a problem. If you have a room filled with carpet, drapes, tapestries, upholstered furniture, etc. the sound quality will be damped nicely but it won't carry as far.

A decent pair of bookshelf speakers will be usefull but don't expect bass miracles. A well-designed pair of units with 8" woofers might get down to 45 or 50Hz but not with a lot of presence, and most bookshelf units will start performing well from around 50-80Hz and up. If that doesn't do the trick, your options are to install a larger pair of floor speakers or add a powered subwoofer to the mix.

Also keep in mind that many receivers power the auxilliary outputs in parallel with the main Front-R/L units. This places impedance restrictions -- i.e. either output may support 4-Ohm units if powered alone, but if both outputs are used, 8-Ohm units are required for both.