Exposing the fallacy behind small speaker design

I’ve been reviewing speakers for more years than I can remember, but it’s my recent experience with Epos’ excellent ES-7N that has forced me to look at speaker placement from a different perspective. More specifically, how a small speaker fits into a room.

People tend to choose small speakers for one of two main reasons. Either they have a small room and therefore can’t fit anything larger, or they want their speakers to be unobtrusive even if they have space. In such a case, the speaker usually ends up on a stand directly against the wall or on a shelf.

Whatever the reason for choosing a small speaker – and both are equally valid – I find it irritating that the industry generally designs its small speakers to perform best in open space.

By clear space I mean far away from any wall and far into the listening room. More precisely, in Which Hi-Fi system? In the main test room, a decent room measuring 3 x 7 x 5 m (HWD), I find that most small speakers need to be at least 70 cm from the back wall to achieve the optimal balance between convincing tonality and good stereo imaging. Keep in mind that you’ll need a proper, sturdy speaker stand to get the most out of these small speakers, and you’ll end up with a speaker/stand combination that takes up just as much space as a similarly priced floorstanding speaker – something that invariably looks larger domestically acceptable and usually offer more bass, scale and volume.

Wharfedale’s Diamond 12.3s take up no more space than the Diamond 12.1 stand mounts on tripods (Image credit: Future)

Why did the introduction of the Epic ES-7N make me think? Well, here’s a high-quality little speaker that’s specifically designed to work well where “normal” people (i.e. non-hi-fi fans) like to put things. These speakers sound great with traditional hi-fi placement around the room and on a suitable stand; You can also make them shine by placing them on a bookshelf by simply flicking a toggle switch on the back. Much of their development took place while sitting on Ikea’s popular Kallax shelves. The speakers were specifically sized to fit exactly into one of the openings.

Epos ES-7N floorstanding speaker

The ES-7N from Epos in an Ikea Kallax shelf (Image credit: Which Hi-Fi system?)

Epos ES-7N floorstanding speaker

The placement switch of the Epos ES-7N on the back (Image credit: Which Hi-Fi system?)

This toggle switch on the back significantly changes the output of the ES-7N. In the free-space position, carefully optimized for a distance of 30 to 50 cm from the back wall (most competitors would charge about twice that to achieve balanced sound), they are arguably the best-sounding floorstanding speakers you’ll get from them can buy Price: £1890/$2850. To be clear, if you want to hear these speakers at their best, we recommend using them like this: And as always, a good pair of speaker stands is essential.

What’s special about these Epos speakers, however, is that their sound loses surprisingly little when placed directly against a wall or on a bookshelf. Sure, there are hits across the board when it comes to transparency, scale, dynamics and resolution, but they’re nowhere near what we’d normally hear from their competitors. The ES-7Ns still sound balanced and pretty much like themselves.

It’s interesting to understand how Epos managed to do this. While most competitors like to provide users with foam plugs to block the reflex ports in their speakers and thus reduce bass output, Epos has taken the matter far more seriously. This toggle switch on the back changes the crossover filtering. In “shelf” mode, its midrange and treble output is significantly higher than the bass. This is calibrated to take into account the low frequency rise that naturally occurs when the speakers are placed close to a wall (or on a shelf). Add this room confinement effect to the lows that the ES-7N produces and it boosts the bass to match the level at which the mids and highs are.

Switch to free space mode and the mids/trebles will be attenuated to the same level as the bass. This changes the speaker’s sensitivity rating from 89 dB/W/m (limit mode) to 86 dB/W/m (free space). There’s always a compromise somewhere, but we’re happy to accept it given the flexibility Epos offers.

While there are honorable exceptions – Neat’s excellent Iota range comes to mind – most industries don’t take into account how smaller speakers tend to be used. Most are placed against a wall, in a corner or on a shelf. Rather than ignoring the complications of such positioning, I would like to see the industry as a whole make an effort to improve things. If a small company like Epos can try it, surely the big players in the industry can too?

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