For music or for Movies .. Does it really different

[Alok012098]

Hi All,
I am new to this forum .. and while looking at the posts in reply of the speakers help .. I see several times folks saying FloorStandars are good/best for music but if someone wants to get only movies experience .. its fine with satellites ... now my question is 98% movies will have music all the time in the background .. which play significant role in the movie experience .. how can we really separate it .. and say thing about FS and BS and Satellites .. Or am I missing something ..
Thanks
-Alok

 

[joyous]

Nothing is written on stone. It's all about you. What you feel is what matters.

Satalites can play music, so as floorstanders, may floorstanders play music in a better way, but satalites do play music. For most people, that suffices.

Movie sound differs from music sound a bit, it has sudden highs and surround effects, and dynamic range is huge, so speakers get designed according to that.

If you need to feel more musical, then floorstander (or high quality speaker) is the best option. Many people choose floorstander over satalites for this reason.

Also there are some AVR's which sound more musical than the other. It's all personal preference. Companies make what public wants. There are only few audiophiles in this world compared to the other side.

 

[spirovious]

Why don't you take side by side Demo?If you need a serious music listening experience,then you may not like AVR for music.

 

[corElement]

No such thing as best, purely a matter of your individual preference.

 

[Audio_Freek]

Hi All,
I am new to this forum .. and while looking at the posts in reply of the speakers help .. I see several times folks saying FloorStandars are good/best for music but if someone wants to get only movies experience .. its fine with satellites ... now my question is 98% movies will have music all the time in the background .. which play significant role in the movie experience .. how can we really separate it .. and say thing about FS and BS and Satellites .. Or am I missing something ..
Thanks
-Alok

Music (Songs) engage only ears.Max it make you to node to left and right during the surround effect.So the available 2 speakers needs to give Full out of the Music, hence Prefer FS (Can give High,Medium and low frequency from one speaker)


Movies engage eyes and ears, will make you turn left right back and even down during some scene sequence (Car passing from back and drifting in front of you (Movie scene).For this surround sound the Satellite speakers are more towards High and Mid freq and lacking Low(Though its added by Sub,which will be nature for movies and artificial for songs)

Center is dedicated for Voice (Major part of Movie is Voice) Then all other satellite does work only for BGM scores.Hence satellite speaker or HT is most probably ignored for Music(Only) SET-UP.

Just think how worse would be, if you hear voice from a side and BGM at other side of the room while listening your fav song. It would give a feel of Recording studio composing effect, without sync of music and voice.

 

[Shivam]

One small story -
Many decades back when George Lucas started making the star wars, there were no surround speakers. The initial scene had a large space-ship flying in on the screen from the back and top. To achieve a sound effect to create this effect, he and his colleagues found that since sounds below 80Hz are hard to localize they could use that. So a rumble like sound was added to the track when the space-ship flew in on the top into the screen on front. This sound could not be localized but the visual cues on the screen helped the audience to feel that the sound was coming from the space-ship flying in.

Sounds below 80Hz can be localized but not as easily as above it. In music only set-up since the whole picture is created by the sound itself so the speakers have to be very good. All the notes should reach the ears at the same time and all the harmonics too as they would from a real instrument. Lower frequencies can also be localized especially due to the higher harmonics.

In a HT-setup, the screen helps a lot and so speakers can have many compromises and yet sound good. The lower frequencies can come from a subwoofer and some effects like bomb blasts, car crashes etc which are not found in music can be more realistically played back using the subwoofers. The dialogues can come from speakers which don't have to extend very low or high into the frequency bands. The musical score can come from average speakers and would still sound good because of the involvement in the scene. The various frequencies need not be from the same point source and the brain will still perceive them from a point, once again due to the display.

Speakers which sound good in a HT may not sound very good with music only. Speakers meant for music can be wasted money if they are to be used only for HT in my opinion.

 

[KiranPS]

One of the most important things about music is that we usually listen to it much longer than watching a movie. A movie would last 1.5-3 hours max. Second is that movie effects have pretty loud parts with lot of sound effects once in a while for example during fight scenes etc. Most of the time it will be voice or background music. Since we all want to experience the sound effects to the max like buildings falling down, or exploding car with shattering glass, the Home theater speakers tend to hi-light hi frequency more (they are brighter), so you can clearly hear all these tiny clinks and clanks. Even the THX or Dolby demos at the beginning of a movie have them. A speaker that is bright is great for movies since the maximum amount of time you will actually hear these highs for are no more than a few seconds to a minute. When the same thing happens to music then you have a serious problem, most people cannot stand hi frequency continually. You will feel that the music is clear, detailed and sharp at the beginning, but it gets to you very quickly after a few mins . This is called Listener / ear fatigue. Music speakers are generally designed to be more warm where they mellow out the Hi Frequency with out loosing out on the detail so you can listen to music for a long time without ear fatigue.

For ex: IMHO Klipsch is great for HT but very bad for music. B&W is very good for music but not that good for HT.

 

[Alok012098]

Thank You all for giving the insight on this question .. It helps me to decide on the direction of choosing my HT system .. :clapping:
Thanks
-Alok

 

[palu]

Which FS speakers could cater to both movies and music, though it may not give the best for both? Any suggestions based on your listening experience?

 

[afj]

quality of speakers affects movies / music equally. obviously the quality of each speaker will go down if you have to spend on 5 instead of 2 at the same budget.

music cds are recorded in 2 channel mode and thats why you require only 2 speakers. movie dvds (including the music score) is recorded in surround sound mode, now 7.2

 

[paramesh]

One of the most important things about music is that we usually listen to it much longer than watching a movie. A movie would last 1.5-3 hours max. Second is that movie effects have pretty loud parts with lot of sound effects once in a while for example during fight scenes etc. Most of the time it will be voice or background music. Since we all want to experience the sound effects to the max like buildings falling down, or exploding car with shattering glass, the Home theater speakers tend to hi-light hi frequency more (they are brighter), so you can clearly hear all these tiny clinks and clanks. Even the THX or Dolby demos at the beginning of a movie have them. A speaker that is bright is great for movies since the maximum amount of time you will actually hear these highs for are no more than a few seconds to a minute. When the same thing happens to music then you have a serious problem, most people cannot stand hi frequency continually. You will feel that the music is clear, detailed and sharp at the beginning, but it gets to you very quickly after a few mins . This is called Listener / ear fatigue. Music speakers are generally designed to be more warm where they mellow out the Hi Frequency with out loosing out on the detail so you can listen to music for a long time without ear fatigue.

For ex: IMHO Klipsch is great for HT but very bad for music. B&W is very good for music but not that good for HT.

can you tell me which FS or BS speakers can good for both music and movie?

 

[KiranPS]

The way I built my system was to use a bright speaker for the center and a mellow speaker for L and R so this way for movies most of the sound comes from the center so I can clearly hear the dialog etc. The L & R performs well for Music. The SR and SL can also be brighter than the L & R. I used the ELAC FS 58.2 for L&R and CC 181 for the center since it has a ribbon tweeter.

 

[rohigupt]

Imo a good ideal speaker amp setup should perform equally well for both music n movies. Of course keeping no of speakers equal to no of channels music or movie is recorded in. FS or BS or satellites it shud not matter.

 

[Audio_Freek]

IMHO, The speakers which sounds good for music would same for movies too(Ex BS,FS),But we cant expect the good sounding speaker for movies to perform on music(EX, 5.1 set up Satellite speakers)

Music Speaker has more energy to give 50Hz-20Khz with bass,But mostly movie speakers sensitive for mid and high(As the low frequencies will be sent to Sub),so might not be good for music as low frequency will be missing.

 

[Santy]

One of the biggest factor why a speaker would be appreciated for music is its speed. Its difficult to rate the speed of a speaker by simply playing SFX (sound effects) or dialogues. In other words, you don't need that fast a speaker (though ofcourse, preferred) for movies which you would expect for music.

 

[navin advani]

movie dvds (including the music score) is recorded in surround sound mode, now 7.2

Is 7.2 already a standard? I thought they were only standards for 5.1.

In a HT-setup, the screen helps a lot and so speakers can have many compromises and yet sound good.

can you tell me which FS or BS speakers can good for both music and movie?

For Movies the current wisdom is that all wide range speakers (that excludes the subwoofers) must be the same (or as similar as possible).

Some companies like Klipsch, B&W, M&K offer THX speced systems that are priamrily designed for Home theater but can also reproduice 2 channel audio. B&W and Klipsch also offer 2 channel systems.

Others like Focal, Tannoy and Monitor Audio offer prefer instead modify their 2 channel offerings for home theater use.

See links.

Experience the B&W CT7.3 LCRS - Bowers & Wilkins | B&W Speakers

THX Ultra2 Home Theater System | Klipsch

MK 150 Professional surround system

Electra 1000 Be 2 - Focal

Tannoy - Residential - Summary

Platinum | Products | Monitor Audio

What seems to be a good compromise between using towers for 2 channel and similar drivers for at least the front 3 channels is to use 2 (6-9") woofers mated to 1-2 smaller (4-6") mid-woofer and tweeter. In the towers these drivers could be WMTMW or WWMT(M) while in the center channel the same drivers could be configured to W-MT-W.

I posted some pictures of my HT - 2 channel system in the "My Audio/Video Setup" section of HFV. they may help.

The way I built my system was to use a bright speaker for the center and a mellow speaker for L and R so this way for movies most of the sound comes from the center so I can clearly hear the dialog etc. The L & R performs well for Music. The SR and SL can also be brighter than the L & R. I used the ELAC FS 58.2 for L&R and CC 181 for the center since it has a ribbon tweeter.

Ideally the front 3 speakers should be tonally the same so to allow for a seamless transition from left to center to right. ideally all speakers need to have the same tonal signature but in a home (especially small Mumbai apartments) these factors are diffcult to achieve.

The extreme is like the family in the photo below. LOL (I got it from the net but dont have the link).

 

[alphacentury100]

Some prefer floorstands for music because the floorstands can dig deep (go low in frequency) due to the larger cabinet and more drivers, and so they can also be used without a subwoofer. And compared to bookshelfs, more floorstands are 3-way speakers and theoretically a 3 way speaker should reproduce all the frequencies more accurately than 2 way.

 

[grunthos]

Very interesting and informative thread. Thank you everyone who contributed

 

[Santy]

And compared to bookshelfs, more floorstands are 3-way speakers and theoretically a 3 way speaker should reproduce all the frequencies more accurately than 2 way.

wow. that's quite a statement.

Sent from my GT-I9001 using Tapatalk 2

 

[prosenjit]

very nice thread....thanks to all...