Audioholics Loudspeaker Measurement Standard

A

admin

Audioholics Robot
Staff member
Loudspeaker measurements vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even review publications. Our goal is to provide a consistent and comprehensive testing methodology of objectively measuring loudspeaker performance to allow more meaningful direct to direct comparisons and to also get a more complete picture of performance.

Our measurement protocol covers:
  • On-Axis Frequency Response
  • Sensitivity
  • Listening Window Response
  • Polar Response
  • Impedance & Electrical Phase



Discuss "Loudspeaker Measurement Standard: Our Procedure for Objectively Analyzing Speaker Performance" here. Let us know what you think.

Audioholics Loudspeaker Measurement Standard
 
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Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
Very nice. I humbly think that you should add one more metric, though: Adam's Opinion. I gladly offer up my services to check them out. :D
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Awesome. Now we need to apply this to the speakers from Revel, KEF, B&W, Focal, Dynaudio, TAD, ATC, Salk, Ascend, Funk, Aperion, Paradigm, Legacy, Martin Logan, Magnepan, Monitor, Klipsch, JTR, Seaton, etc. :D
 
Steve81

Steve81

Audioholics Five-0
Welcome to the insanity Joel; looking forward to the reviews using this methodology.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
Thats great!! Would it be possible to test for linearity a well like they do in Soundstage?
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
Thats great!! Would it be possible to test for linearity a well like they do in Soundstage?
The stuff we are doing goes far beyond anything Soundstage or the NRC testing does. Their distortion testing is pretty meaningless and we will be publishing an article on that shortly.

We will be doing power compression testing for distortion but not the simplistic harmonic sine-sweeps that is done in the NRC.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
The stuff we are doing goes far beyond anything Soundstage or the NRC testing does. Their distortion testing is pretty meaningless and we will be publishing an article on that shortly.

We will be doing power compression testing for distortion but not the simplistic harmonic sine-sweeps that is done in the NRC.
I would agree with you that if you include your distortion test that you will surpass what Soundstage is currently doing. However, you did not mention that in your list initially, hence the ask.
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
I would agree with you that if you include your distortion test that you will surpass what Soundstage is currently doing. However, you did not mention that in your list initially, hence the ask.
Yea it is implicit but I will make it more clear in that section of the article with an update shortly.
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
Be careful Gene. I suspect you may get some trouble for publishing the truth on some speakers. Perhaps you could be passive aggressive and not publish the really bad ones.
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
Be careful Gene. I suspect you may get some trouble for publishing the truth on some speakers. Perhaps you could be passive aggressive and not publish the really bad ones.
You're right and thanks for the warning. Loudspeaker companies seem to be the most touchy out of all manufacturers in this field. We do try to pick and chose products we think will sound/measure reasonably well. No sense in reviewing a turd and trying to polish it :)
 
cpp

cpp

Audioholic Ninja
You're right and thanks for the warning. Loudspeaker companies seem to be the most touchy out of all manufacturers in this field. We do try to pick and chose products we think will sound/measure reasonably well. No sense in reviewing a turd and trying to polish it :)
That's a pity, really as to shy away from testing loudspeakers because one doesn't want to hurt a manufacturers feelings or because you might have a real turd in the mix, but maybe these manufacturers have something to hide and these NEW test will make these manufacturers correct their mistakes or debunk their "outlandish claims" . Test all speakers the "Good, The Bad and the Ugly". At least the truth will be out there for customers to pick and chose their new speakers wisely. If a speaker manufacture is afraid of the truth, what does that say about their product anyway.
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
You're right and thanks for the warning. Loudspeaker companies seem to be the most touchy out of all manufacturers in this field. We do try to pick and chose products we think will sound/measure reasonably well. No sense in reviewing a turd and trying to polish it :)
Well as long as you use some wise words in some sort of disclaimer claiming that high distortions or any poor measurements do not mean the speaker will not sound good to some people and vice versa etc. blablabla it will be fine to just call a spade a spade and a turd a turd.:D Afterall there are enough people around that believe the only way to do it is to trust their ears. There are only a few crazy ones including me who prefer to go with numbers and graphs, from credible data of course...

Oh, by the way, can guys like ADTG volunteer to send their speakers in for the bench tests?
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
You're right and thanks for the warning. Loudspeaker companies seem to be the most touchy out of all manufacturers in this field. We do try to pick and chose products we think will sound/measure reasonably well. No sense in reviewing a turd and trying to polish it :)
Speaker companies? :eek: I thought cable/interconnect companies were the most touchy...errm maybe I'm confusing that with almost fraudulent advertising...:eek:
 
MinusTheBear

MinusTheBear

Audioholic Ninja
I don't recall reading anything about the standard that you will apply to rating impedance (4 ohm, 6 ohm, 8 ohm etc). What you would see from a manufacturer spec.

Will it follow IEC 268-5 standard where the minimum impedance shall be no less than 80% of its nominal/specified value (within the pass band of the speaker)?
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
I don't recall reading anything about the standard that you will apply to rating impedance (4 ohm, 6 ohm, 8 ohm etc). What you would see from a manufacturer spec.

Will it follow IEC 268-5 standard where the minimum impedance shall be no less than 80% of its nominal/specified value (within the pass band of the speaker)?
I added the following for clarity:
The lowest impedance is measured at DC, which is also known as the DC resistance. The IEC 268-5 method of specifying nominal loudspeaker impedance is set such that minimum impedance must not fall below 80% of nominal, so for an 8 ohm speaker this would be 6.4 ohms minimum, and for 4 ohms would be 3.2 ohms.
 
MinusTheBear

MinusTheBear

Audioholic Ninja
i added the following for clarity:
the lowest impedance is measured at dc, which is also known as the dc resistance. The iec 268-5 method of specifying nominal loudspeaker impedance is set such that minimum impedance must not fall below 80% of nominal, so for an 8 ohm speaker this would be 6.4 ohms minimum, and for 4 ohms would be 3.2 ohms.
perfect!!!
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
That's a pity, really as to shy away from testing loudspeakers because one doesn't want to hurt a manufacturers feelings or because you might have a real turd in the mix, but maybe these manufacturers have something to hide and these NEW test will make these manufacturers correct their mistakes or debunk their "outlandish claims" . Test all speakers the "Good, The Bad and the Ugly". At least the truth will be out there for customers to pick and chose their new speakers wisely. If a speaker manufacture is afraid of the truth, what does that say about their product anyway.
Making speakers is hard work and engineers are very attached to their creations. I'm scared to death that I will finish my 3-ways and that they will suck.
 
Pyrrho

Pyrrho

Audioholic Ninja
You're right and thanks for the warning. Loudspeaker companies seem to be the most touchy out of all manufacturers in this field. We do try to pick and chose products we think will sound/measure reasonably well. No sense in reviewing a turd and trying to polish it :)
I think loudspeaker companies are probably the most touchy because it is much harder to make a speaker that does not very significantly mess up the sound than it is to make an amplifier or digital source that does not very significantly mess up the sound. If you compare distortion from a speaker at various volumes and frequencies, even the best is not going to look good compared with any decent amplifier's measurements.

However, I think you might want to go ahead and measure speakers that subjectively seem good, but have bad measurements. And then try to explain why it is that they sound good despite their shortcomings. There are certain speakers that sound "magical" (like my Apogee Stage speakers), but I would not want to bet that they measure particularly well compared with comparably priced speakers.
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
Check out our video interview discussing how we measure and review loudspeakers.


Audioholics Loudspeaker Measurement & Reviewing Process
 
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haraldo

haraldo

Audioholic Spartan
I really like the new video series you are making, this is really good stuff :cool:
 
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