Blind Study of Speakers. Take a look!

[Rolyasm]

Okay, I know I had been threatening to do this, and though I am sure it will not prove to be incredibly useful, it might be fun exercise for you big-brained people.
I am going to list specs on speakers, but not tell you what speaker company made what speaker. Our jobs, as a group, is to decide from specs alone, what would be the best speaker. Here we go: These are all tower speakers:
Speaker A: B: C: D: E: F:

Freq: 37-22 38-20 20-35 45-20 35-20 30-22

Sens: 89 88 89 91 90 90

Imp : 8 6 8 8 8 6

Max: 250w ? ? 300w 200

Crossover:? Tweeter at ? 200Hz/5khz
3.8Khz
ugh: fomatting: speaker B has tweeter at 3.8 khz, prog. array, variable slope
Speaker F: Has high pass at 4,500 Hz @18db and Low pass at 200 Hz @12dB.
The other speakers I couldn't find info on.

Wt: 47lbs 56 47 40 79 68

Notes: Speaker A is a 3 way, triple vortex porting, with anti-standing wave cabinets, 5-way gold plated binding posts. Drivers: titanium tweeter, 5.25" Aluminum midrange, (2) Aluminum Woofers

Speaker B is a multi-way, 5 driver direct radiating system, vented enclosure with 2 rear firing flared ports:
Drivers: Vifa Ring Radiator Tweeter, (4) 5.25" long-throw aluminum woofers

Speaker C: Passive Radiator bass reflex- SLAPS:
Drivers: (2)1" Tweeters (2)Aluminum core 4" midrange
(2) Aluminum core 4" woofers, 10" SLAPS-passive radiator bass reflex

Speaker D:3 way 5 element 4th orde rear vented.
Drivers: 1" liquid cooled silk tweeter, (2)4"glass fibercone (GF) midrange, (2)4" GF woofers. Solid Brass Isolation Cones

Speaker E: Drivers: 28mm Silk Dome Tweeter, 165 mm midrange Kevlar/Paper, (2)200mm gold anodized alloy woofers

Speaker F: 3 say bass reflex, Bi-wire design with 5-way gold plated,brass binding posts. Drivers: 1 1/8" doped silk dome diaphragm, ferro-fluid cooled tweeter, (2) 6.5" doped wool semipaper cone midrange, 10"side firing wool non-press paper woofer.

Probably have too much info for many to respond, but see what you can do. No cheating and trying to figure out what speakers are what. Just give your opinion on each, and after a few days I will tell you what speakers are which. Thanks.
Roly

[David Meek]

Roly, we need the impedance for missing speaker (5 shown). Or, is the smiley supposed to be an 8 ohm?

[Andrew Pratt]

Probably have too much info for many to respond,

Nope..too little info IMO. I'd like to know more about the crossover's on each speaker and a true response plot not just a stated upper and lower F3? response quote.

I cleaned up some of your post to edit out some text that was causing the problems David eluded to and to correct a typo on the Vifa tweeter

[Rolyasm]

that is some of my problem. On some of these speakers it is very hard to find all the specs, not to mention the same specs can be different. For instance, most speakers list only one sensitivity. So what is the difference between Anechoic and SPL, and if only one is listed, what measurement are they probably using. David, all speakers are 8 Ohm impedance, except for speakers B and F, both having 6 Ohms. Crossovers are hard to find on most. Speaker B is tweeter only at 3.8Khz, Speaker D is 200 hz and 5khz, speaker F is High Pass 4,500 Hz at 18db, Low pass 200 Hz at 12 dB. I will do some further research and see if I can find crossovers. I have some emails in for crossovers. What else would you like?
Matt

[purplepeople]

...and a true response plot not just a stated upper and lower F3? response quote....

At least a +/- dB rating for the stated range.

ensen

[Rolyasm]

All these speaker co's are claiming the ratings for frequency are +/- 3. What is upper and lower F3?

[Burke Strickland]

Blind Study of Speakers. Take a look!

I'd rather "take a liisten". :>) It is fun to guess what a given design might sound like based on the spec sheet, but the only way to know for sure is to play some music through them and listen. So while we might be able to give our opinions of the listed specifications, we really can't form a valid opinion of the speakers themselves without listening to them. Then we get to the almost "religious" debate between "golden ears" and engineers: should we be allowed to identify what we are listening to -- whether by brand or by specs -- or do a double blind test?

Enjoy!

Burke

[Rolyasm]

I'd rather "take a liisten". :>) So while we might be able to give our opinions of the listed specifications, we really can't form a valid opinion of the speakers themselves without listening to them.

I agree Burke. So can you all give me your opinions? I need to learn what all this stuff is, and by describing what might be good or bad based on just specs, I will learn about what to look for or what to avoid. What the heck is a crossover and why does it affect me or my speakers? Will it use my toothbrush and knock up my wife when I am not looking? hehe. Update on speaker A crossover: 200 Hz and 2 Khz.

[Rolyasm]

Another speaker just popped onto the scene. I will just tell you the name, and you can check out the site if you want. It is Aperion speakers at http://www.aperionaudio.com/. Check out the Intimus 522D-PT Powered Tower. Click on specifications and you will get a list of all kinds of things: VAS, Qms, etc. They even list specs for each driver. Maybe this would be a good speaker to teach me on. Below is a list of the woofer specs w/o numbers. Just things you can explain to me if they might make a difference on how a speaker will sound.

5.25" MID WOOFER SPECIFICATIONS
Nominal Impedance
Voice Coil Resistance
Nominal Power
Short Term Max Power
Long Term Max Power
Music Power
Sensitivity (1W,1m)/(2.83V,1m)
Frequency Range
Free Air Resonance
Voice Coil Diameter
Voice Coil Height
Air Gap Height
Voice Coil Inductance
Effective Cone Area
Moving Mass (incl,air)
Magnet Weight
VAS
Qms
Qes
Qts
Thanks, Roly

[Andrew Pratt]

I'll take a stab at some of those tomorrow...most are useless by themselves though as its the combination of them all that are important. As for crossovers they are there to split the full range signal between the various drivers. If you have a simple two way speaker with a tweeter and a woofer then the cross over's job is to split the signal at some point between the tweeter and the woofer. Ideally this cross over point should be at a point where both drivers are still opperating within spec...ie not at a point where the tweeters frequency response is no longer flat. The cross over from one to the other is never a hard wall but a slope which varies in steepness from a shallow first order to a very steep drop off...there's benefits to both so long as the end result is a nice smooth transistion from one to the other...that's where the frequency response plots are handy to see vs just a upper and lower range. The +-3 dB simply means that the freq response should be flat within 6 dB (3 up and 3 down) from perfectly flat from the lowest number to the upper range...usually its the lower one that's of more concern and the point the crosses over the -3 dB line its called the F3 point. This is useful to know as it largely determines where you should cross your speakers over to the subwoofer to maintain a smooth response.