Are 8" Monitors Too Big For A Small Room?

[Michael L]

^^^Yes. 8” are often mid-field monitors.

[Tj Shredder]

The bigger the better, there are physical limitations for getting the low frequencies out of small sizes (8” is even small for 20 Hz). Some tricks like bass reflex can extend it for the price of uneven response. Any room resonances have to be treated anyway, they are independent of the speaker size. The placing of the speakers has a strong influence as well...
If you produce music for dance halls you will be thankful to know if your bass is right. Too often I hear tracks with too much bass in those places, clearly mixed on too small speakers (and not monitored with an analyzer either). The fun part is in the bass, you don’t want to miss it...(your neighbors though might...)

[Forgotten]

Yes it is because to create a note that low required a box twice the size. The pipe had to be physically 32' long to create the note. That note didn't exist before someone made a 32' pipe, went home to the wife and said "f**k me wife for I am a God as I can create thunder with my 32' pipe". She was nowhere near as impressed has he hoped so he set about working on the electric organ, electric bass and then the Sine-Sub.

Technically you still need a 32' room to get that Sub to generate the whole wave cycle clearly - laid out like a picture it is 32' from zero-crossing at the start to the zero-crossing where the wave starts again/repeats its cycle. That is a 32' piece of paper with a picture of a sine wave on it!

Pull up a spectrumulator and press C3. See the space between the spikes. Press C2 and note the space between the spikes has doubled. Now press C1 and see that space between the spikes has doubled again. That's like 4 times the space, which in room terms is huuuuggeee.

Actually that's probably right - I was thinking of EMF wavelength, which is obviously not the same as sound waves as the speed of sound is way less than c, so it will be much lower for a given frequency.

[fgimian]

The bigger the better, there are physical limitations for getting the low frequencies out of small sizes (8” is even small for 20 Hz). Some tricks like bass reflex can extend it for the price of uneven response. Any room resonances have to be treated anyway, they are independent of the speaker size. The placing of the speakers has a strong influence as well...
If you produce music for dance halls you will be thankful to know if your bass is right. Too often I hear tracks with too much bass in those places, clearly mixed on too small speakers (and not monitored with an analyzer either). The fun part is in the bass, you don’t want to miss it...(your neighbors though might...)

The theory of bigger is better is not quite accurate in the context of a studio. You need to match your studio monitors to your room or all those additional low frequencies will not be represented accurately in your room.

As mentioned, 8" or above would typically not be nearfield monitors, they're most often considered midfield. The fact that the corners of the room are so much closer to you will also make it extremely hard to treat the room for such large woofers.

[Scotty]

The theory of bigger is better is not quite accurate in the context of a studio. You need to match your studio monitors to your room or all those additional low frequencies will not be represented accurately in your room.

As mentioned, 8" or above would typically not be nearfield monitors, they're most often considered midfield. The fact that the corners of the room are so much closer to you will also make it extremely hard to treat the room for such large woofers.

Best comment in this thread.

[paulquk]

Yes, I have tried and failed going down this route. It can be tempting to buy a big woofer with the promise of bigger bass but this is not the way to go. Even with the controllable dipswitches that the manufacturer’s put on you will encounter overpowering bass or misbehaving bass cancelling itself out. I had a pair of V8S4’s and the bass was non existent due to cancellation of frequencies