speaker volume

[nandac]

is there something like speaker (driver) volume?

where a big speaker will sound louder than a smaller speaker?

say between floorstander vs bookshelf or bigger bookshelf vs smaller ones?

 

[ranjeetrain]

No.

It is generally observed that speakers with larger cones have higher sensitivity. However, physical cone size doesn't necessarily translate into higher SPL.

 

[nandac]

but don't bigger speakers have a bigger soundstage? isn't there a correlation between soundstage and volume?

 

[theironhorse]

soundstage is what the sound creates : like lively presentation or maype give you the feel of sitting in an open area when you are actually not..

by loudness: we mean DB.. now the question comes that how good the drivers are to deliver distortion free clean sound when pushed to their limits..

and as far as i know driver size has nothing to do with the loudness. if a small driver is engieered to handle more power and go high on output db then that should do the trick however how it might sound compared to the bigger driver is complteely diffrent.

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

In a sealed alignment volume is determined by driver displacement, larger drivers have the inherent edge her due to their ability to displace more air with equivalent excursion, this is particularly important in the bass.

Driver sensitivity also tends to be higher which leads to greater dynamics for a given SPL due to lower power compression and greater linearity over stroke which results in the subjective perception of being louder. Typically a larger driver does "sound louder", especially in the lower frequencies where larger drivers are typically used.

 

[ranjeetrain]

Usually big drivers sound big, if that's what you are trying to get at.

The feel of big and small drivers is different. When you hear a big driver play, you know it's a big driver playing. Most reviewers use the phrase "sounds big" to describe the effortlessness and dynamics of the sound. Another meaning is the speaker sounds like it's using a larger driver in a larger cone.

Like Decadent Spectre above explained, with large drivers come an effortless presentation, due to it's inherent ability to move more air and subsequently generate higher SPL with greater dynamics. However, this comes for a price.

Managing drivers with large cone is not as easy as managing drivers with smaller cones. There are too many factors. Common laws of physics apply. For larger cones the driving motor, the voice coil need to be of much higher quality to control the movement of big heavy cones and the cone material itself needs to be much better quality to provide linear excursion for a distortion free sound.

Cabinet design for a large speaker driver is not as complex as for small drivers. You can suspend a large driver in an appropriate sized box and they can still generate good sound. Things are more complex for small driver cabinets. The number of drivers multiply quickly as designers attempt to simulate the large cone area of large drivers.With increased number of drivers, the cabinet design becomes complex, so does the cross-over design, as there are too many things to synchronize and manage. However, once a set small drivers are made to sing together in harmony, they can't be beat for many a parameters modern day audiophile crave about, most notably speed and imaging accuracy.

In the good old days some of the best sounding speakers were all designed around large drivers. But with advances in computer enabled modeling has enabled designers to try out permutations and combinations of drivers and cabinets without actually sweating it out on drivers and cabinets. No wonder in modern days, some of the best sounding speakers are all using small drivers.

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

I disagree about larger drivers being difficult to manage and being easier to design.

With any design one needs a system approach and the goals of the system dictate what is required to do the job. A sealed box is the simplest to design and is the same for any driver size and one only needs to understand the capabilities of the the driver to make the right cabinet size, the complexity of design is more often in the XO which is key, be it an active or passive design. Designed correctly a larger driver is excellent and does not yield anything to smaller drivers and in fact would only gain performance, dependent on the frequency range. It should be noted that larger drivers are not suited to the higher frequencies.

Here is a studio speaker using 18" drivers crossed at 400Hz -

Genelec 1036A - Extremely Powerful Monitor System for Large Rooms

IMO the best sounding speakers are ones that are designed well overall having key attributes and performance characteristics rather than using smaller drivers or exotic materials which by itself does not mean anything.