Is there a way of making my speakers better?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Sorry can't agree. I have never heard a transmission line that doesn't ruin the timing of the bass. OK goes deep but doesn't belong to the rest of the music, and also tends to emphasise one or a couple of notes as the line is tuned.

For me there are only two large speaker types, acoustic suspension (infinite baffle) and open baffle, everything else goes wrong to some degree or other. With small speakers the ponly designer to make ported speaker that don't make me wince is Royd.

But of course just my opinion, your ears are your truth.

Yep, have to agree. Having got used to my OB's and statics, I find it difficult to listen to box speakers nowadays, I can always hear the cabinet singing along.

I defy you to hear my cabinets.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Sorry can't agree. I have never heard a transmission line that doesn't ruin the timing of the bass. OK goes deep but doesn't belong to the rest of the music, and also tends to emphasise one or a couple of notes as the line is tuned.

For me there are only two large speaker types, acoustic suspension (infinite baffle) and open baffle, everything else goes wrong to some degree or other. With small speakers the ponly designer to make ported speaker that don't make me wince is Royd.

But of course just my opinion, your ears are your truth.

Yep, have to agree. Having got used to my OB's and statics, I find it difficult to listen to box speakers nowadays, I can always hear the cabinet singing along.

I defy you to hear my cabinets.

[Sovereign]

The Heco's have gone now, sold them last week.
They were excellent speakers, but just too uncontrolled in the bass.
Very happy with my ES22's very solid and detailed and solid in the bass. And only £300

[Daniel Quinn]

that's one way of making them better

[Ali Tait]

The thing with domestic speakers and bass is: you may not realise how flawed the bass in your system is because you may not have heard anything with significantly better bass. That's because speakers that take the easy route to getting good sounding bass are deeply unfashionable. Large to huge lightweight bass cones are unfashionable. Large to huge sealed boxes or speakers built into walls for a true infinite baffle are unfashionable. There are very few purist speakers around when it comes to bass.

It wasn't until I tried Bozak Symphony speakers that I realised how limited the bass was in my Heybrook HB1's and my Linn Saras and my Linn Isobariks. My EV Sentrys have flawed bass too compared to the Symphonys. So do every other ported and transmission line speaker that I've heard so far. You either get bass that is too lean or you get bass bloom where the notes don't stop and start like they should and bass guitar and kick drums get merged into an amorphous bass noise or you get a softening of percussive transients.

Yes indeed, but it's not just the bass extension, more important is the quality IMHO. My OB's have twin 15" bass drivers per channel, but there is no boom or overhang, just tight, deep and above all, natural bass (IMHO) They just sound more natural and real to me than any box speaker I've heard so far.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Don't close your mind, your most important statement is "so far".

[Ali Tait]

Yep, I say "so far" because it means I have not closed my mind. I have always been, and remain, very open minded when it comes to this hobby. I have my preferences like anyone else, but they are not set in stone. I will adopt anything I think sounds better than what I have. The only reason I use what I have is because I've found it to sound better than anything else I can afford. Simple as.

[Lindsayt]

I like to have bass extension, bass quantity in proportion to the midrange and treble as well as bass quality. With the extension being sufficient to capture bass guitars and kick drums as a minimum, with sufficient extension for film sound effects and 64' organ pipes being nice to have.

OB's can be a good solution - as long as you don't get too much of the rearward firing bass energy bouncing back off the rear wall of the room. I like the elegant simplicity of OB's.

[Ali Tait]

And they are cheap to diy. Mine use a pair of Visaton B200 (about 200 quid) four Eminence Alpha 15" (50 quid each) and a bit of wood.