KEF LS50 vs. Revel Performa M105

[yepimonfire]

Even just going by the NRC, or Stereophile's measurements it should be obvious that most if not all loudspeakers should be considered colored. Just compare their frequency response and THD vs amplifiers you can see the huge difference. By all available measurements, therefore objectively speaking the LS50s are actually more on the accurate side of the spectrum, but relatively speaker of course.

On the subjective side, all bets are off. To you the LS50 could in fact sounded colored, and I assume you meant compared to the speakers you own or prefer. Yet, even JA, who took most if not all the Stereophile measurements, seem to like the LS50 so much that the magazine included it in the class A group. I don't suppose JA is the highly subjective type who would rank a speaker so high even unless he considers them "accurate" enough in relative term. Just my 2 cents..that even if accuracy is the intended goal, the LS50 should be considered, for near field applications.

They were demoed beside Klipsch RP-150m, which both I and I believe @KEW preferred. Of course, this was farfield, (about 5'), the perceived spectral balance may have been affected by this, whereas the Klipsch has fairly controlled directivity, and is much more forgiving regardless of the room or placement.

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[Beave]

How did you do level-matching between the KEF and the Klipsch?

 

[PENG]

They were demoed beside Klipsch RP-150m, which both I and I believe @KEW preferred. Of course, this was farfield, (about 5'), the perceived spectral balance may have been affected by this, whereas the Klipsch has fairly controlled directivity, and is much more forgiving regardless of the room or placement.

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Not surprising, I always thought you like the Klipsch sound. I don't, not those in Bestbuy but it is possible that I may like certain models in certain rooms and again, it is a highly subjective matter once we get pass the obvious stuff like distortions, dispersion, power handling and dynamics.

 

[yepimonfire]

How did you do level-matching between the KEF and the Klipsch?

An spl meter

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[yepimonfire]

Not surprising, I always thought you like the Klipsch sound. I don't, not those in Bestbuy but it is possible that I may like certain models in certain rooms and again, it is a highly subjective matter once we get pass the obvious stuff like distortions, dispersion, power handling and dynamics.

Fwiw I don't like the old reference II series, if you haven't had a chance to hear the new premiere, I'd recommend you do. They are a massive improvement and perform well above their price point.

I actually only felt two speakers out of the ones demoed that even held a candle to the klipsch were the ls50s and the canton Vento. I'd say the cantons did a bit better than the ls50, I felt the ls50 had slight coloration in the lower midrange.

Outside of timbre, the klipsch was able to resolve much more transient and low level detail than the ls50. The Vento was neither better nor worse, it did slightly better at some thing while the klipsch was better at others.

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[PENG]

Fwiw I don't like the old reference II series, if you haven't had a chance to hear the new premiere, I'd recommend you do. They are a massive improvement and perform well above their price point.

I actually only felt two speakers out of the ones demoed that even held a candle to the klipsch were the ls50s and the canton Vento. I'd say the cantons did a bit better than the ls50, I felt the ls50 had slight coloration in the lower midrange.

Outside of timbre, the klipsch was able to resolve much more transient and low level detail than the ls50. The Vento was neither better nor worse, it did slightly better at some thing while the klipsch was better at others.

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Thank you, will keep that in mind. Wonder if BB have the new premiere.

 

[yepimonfire]

Thank you, will keep that in mind. Wonder if BB have the new premiere.

AFAIK they do. I'll also mention the reason I like them so much, apart from their excellent dynamic range, controlled directivity, and low distortion at high spl, is their timbre is extremely neutral and linear. They seem to add nothing of their own to the sound, simply reproducing it with precision accuracy.

One could chalk it up to marketing slogans, but one of the four design principles if klipsch is a flat frequency response and neutral sound. While achieving this hasn't always been perfect, it's worth noting that klipsch doesn't intentionally voice their speakers for a specific signature, instead aiming for transparency. It seems that they have finally managed to achieve this pretty closely with their latest redesigned horn, eliminating the problems of the previous generations.

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[Beave]

An spl meter

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A little more detail would be helpful. What type of signal? A tone? Pink noise? Band limited pink noise? What spl meter? What settings for weighting?

 

[TheWarrior]

A little more detail would be helpful. What type of signal? A tone? Pink noise? Band limited pink noise? What spl meter? What settings for weighting?

If he did it with KEW on the Marantz receivers, he was limited by the 1.0 dB volume resolution. With some speakers and some music, they just aren't ever a perfect level match.

 

[Beave]

If he did it with KEW on the Marantz receivers, he was limited by the 1.0 dB volume resolution. With some speakers and some music, they just aren't ever a perfect level match.

A 'perfect' level match, or any level-matching for that matter, depends heavily on how the level-matching is done in the first place.

Don't Marantz receivers have 0.5dB volume adjustments? I think Denon receivers do, and I would expect Marantz to be similar to Denon.

 

[TheWarrior]

A 'perfect' level match, or any level-matching for that matter, depends heavily on how the level-matching is done in the first place.

Don't Marantz receivers have 0.5dB volume adjustments? I think Denon receivers do, and I would expect Marantz to be similar to Denon.

Can't remember which model these are, but this particular pair only do 1.0dB. When we felt the difference was really really critical we would compensate by alternating which speaker was slightly louder.

 

[yepimonfire]

A little more detail would be helpful. What type of signal? A tone? Pink noise? Band limited pink noise? What spl meter? What settings for weighting?

500-2000hz band limited pink noise using an iPhone with studio six spl meter set to c weighting.

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[PENG]

Can't remember which model these are, but this particular pair only do 1.0dB. When we felt the difference was really really critical we would compensate by alternating which speaker was slightly louder.

Interesting, wonder which model he has? All my D&Ms have 0.5 dB resolution, even my oldest Denon AVR-3805, but before D&M, Marantz models could be quite different. The level adjustment (not volume) may still have 0.5 dB resolution though.

 

[TheWarrior]

Interesting, wonder which model he has? All my D&Ms have 0.5 dB resolution, even my oldest Denon AVR-3805, but before D&M, Marantz models could be quite different. The level adjustment (not volume) may still have 0.5 dB resolution though.

I just looked back at my old Bookshelf Speaker Shootout - SR 6001.

 

[PENG]

I just looked back at my old Bookshelf Speaker Shootout - SR 6001.

Thanks again, so I guessed right, according to the user guide the levels can be adjusted in 0.5 dB increments.

 

[TheWarrior]

Thanks again, so I guessed right, according to the user guide the levels can be adjusted in 0.5 dB increments.

Then hopefully someday they get hooked up to a TV and adjusted.....

 

[KEW]

Then hopefully someday they get hooked up to a TV and adjusted.....

I really haven't thought about it, but these have never seen a TV connection. I spent many 10's of hours going through the menu charts in the manual!

Like my dad used to always tell me:
"Son, when you're dumb, ya gotta be tough!"

 

[Beave]

500-2000hz band limited pink noise using an iPhone with studio six spl meter set to c weighting.

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Thanks for the info. It's always interesting to me to see how others do level matching with speakers.

 

[yepimonfire]

Thanks for the info. It's always interesting to me to see how others do level matching with speakers.

I do it this way for several reasons. The band limiting is standard for dolby/thx calibration, a full frequency pink noise signal would skew the results due to room mode interactions at low frequencies, and high reflectivity off the walls at higher frequencies. C weighting is an obvious one, since it's mostly flat from about 100hz-4khz.

When Calibrating a sub, an spl meter is useless due to both the c weighting roll off below 100hz and the behavior of room modes. The only way to properly calibrate and level match a sub is to use an RTA set to 1/3 octave and adjust for equal in band gain.

My subwoofer measures 68dBC with an spl meter, while my speakers measure 75dBC, if I were to turn the gain up to match the speakers on an spl meter, my sub would be way too hot. On an RTA, the gain shows an average of 75dB.

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[Beave]

I do it this way for several reasons. The band limiting is standard for dolby/thx calibration, a full frequency pink noise signal would skew the results due to room mode interactions at low frequencies, and high reflectivity off the walls at higher frequencies. C weighting is an obvious one, since it's mostly flat from about 100hz-4khz.

I agree that it's a good idea to high-pass filter bass frequencies, but 500Hz is higher than I've seen anybody else do. I've used 250Hz, since my AVR allows that as the highest HPF setting. I've also relied on the NRC's sensitivity measurements sometimes, which are from 300Hz to 3kHz.

High reflectivity of high frequencies off of walls isn't that big an issue with pink noise, because the highs have much less spectral power than the lows in pink noise, and also because speakers become increasingly directional with increasing frequency. So I doubt your results would change much if you increased your upper frequency. I think 3 or 4kHz is perfectly reasonable, since that covers all the mids and into low treble. 2kHz is not unreasonable either, but to me it seems a touch low.

C weighting seems almost redundant when you've already constrained the pink noise bandwidth to the range of 500Hz to 2kHz. It's not doing much versus no weighting at all in that case.