I thought Gene did have a pair, in his office or something? What speakers am I thinking of if not? Still, the post says it's from Gene, Theo should post under his own name or Gene could use some indication he's quoting someone else?
He does.
We’ve been discussing this. So I have a piece of software that was designed for researchers to use in capturing something audible and reproducing it in binaural fully calibrated to the individual listener. It has full head tracking and allows you to believably recreate what you would have heard in the room. This module was specially designed to allow A/B comparisons. As you can imagine, actual AB comparisons would be near impossible, so this would be the next best thing.
I would maybe like to head up to Genes and do exactly this. Capture a pair of his speakers in his room with and without these. Then apply the(distortion) of each to tracks for rapid AB comparisons. I think that would be the best and most valid way to objectively test sound quality.
I do have an acoustic accelerometer somewhere around here and numerous very good microphones. We could do a full sweet of measurements. I think the problem however is that these measurements may not tell us much. Let’s say we don’t measure anything. It is completely possible that the benefit these have is related to improvements in transient performance. This may happen in a way that is swamped by reflections in a room. Our brain might tease this out, but the mic wont. This is why we don’t typically measure the transient performance of a speaker in a room. It’s not accurate. The room tends to dominate it.
what if we measure and we get a frequency response difference in the steady state amplitude measurement? Which one is right? The flatter looking one? I wouldn’t trust such a measurement either way. Again,too much room for error. I can’t think of a good reason that a decoupler would change the amplitude response much. I can think of lots of reasons a change in position or height would.
what about vibrations? What if I show less vibrations being transferred to the floor? As they do. Is that good? Here is the thing, the vibrational energy created by the speaker is fixed. Coupling or decoupling doesn’t change that. If we reduce the transfer to the ground, where did it go? If all you do is decouple, then the energy stays in the speaker until it eventually dissipated as heat. Isn’t the floor a far better place for that to happen. Think of the mass of the floor, the energy in the speaker will do very little to it as compared to the cabinet. So if that’s the goal, I question why. If those feet are actually damping the vibrations out by converting them to thermal energy, then I think they are made wrong for that. A series of steel plates and elastomers would make more sense. Someone already made that. No idea if it works or is desirable but it’s a better way to dissipate energy.
even the idea that you don’t want the vibrations to transfer to the floor bugs me. Why not? You know that research has shown that we perceive the bass of headphones as being 10dB less than for speakers with the same response because we can’t feel the pressure. The tactile piece is huge. So why not let it transfer to the floor.
min any case, I feel like this is a tough thing to talk facts about. I don’t think we have much science to explain what is better and why. I am not aware of any great research on this. My hunch is that this is dealing with the .0001% of sound perfection if at all. There are so many bigger fish to fry.
On the other hand. Nothing wrong with a little audio jewelry. I know some folks who have very nice and expensive speakers. They need their speakers to sit higher by a few inches. This is a nice option. I am sure it at least does no harm.
