So in other words you never have put this to your own tests. You may prefer what you recommend, and other may as will, but that doesn't mean everyone under a controlled test will. Even if they did, I doubt you could remove all the bias and nuisance factors. In other words, your recommendations might be good for you and many others, but not everyone, which puts you in the same boat as me. Of course, I don't bash your speakers, so that's where we differ.
The biases that exist, primarily, are psychological and circumstantial, combined with erroneous speculations based on prior limited listening sessions. I speak of functional preferences free of the psychological bias. For example, it is shown that people will prefer the speaker they judged inferior to one they judged superior, if the inferior speaker is listened to sighted and has a well known reputation and/or position of being an 'elite' product. But in regards to actual preference based on sound, the speaker preferred due to psychological bias is different. In that specific regard, of course, you would be correct. These situations were also found by Toole in a series of control tests.
Y
ou said you saw the insides of the cabinets. Here is your exact wording:
"Yes. Utterly average cabinet construction that is found on most other hi-fi speaker cabinets."
So I ask, where and how? How do you know that? I want proof that you have seen them, as you say you did.
I am not sure where the images have gone, but on the Salk website, used to be pictures of the construction process showing cabinet internals. I think it was the Songtower, but it may have been the higher end Salk speaker also, which I find infeasible that the lower line unit would be built superior.
I presume that while you call one speaker's cabinet design "utterly average" that you also recommend only the speaker's of your choosing, which would be the same thing manufacturers and other forum members do, but while NOT bashing other speakers. In other words, you are no different than us, as you recommend only what you think is the best. Where you do differ is you bash and/or dismiss other offerings without ever having heard them.
I have a strict policy on my recommendations, and it does adjust based on cost. I will recommend the speaker(s) that most closely will be neutral devices suitable to electronic manipulation for the given price bracket. The B&W model recommended is unique in it's perceptually relevant characteristics within it's price bracket. Besides the cabinet which has about 1/2 the amplitude of output on the panels as compared to most others in it's class, it has unusually even/flat response both on and off axis. As you know, the off axis response being similar to the on axis is critical for ideal sound quality in varying acoustics conditions, especially where lesser acoustic controls are present, as when the off axis and on axis differ greatly, the human perceptual reaction is to judge it as a reduction in sound quality; a conclusion repeatedly found to be true in testing among large numbers of test subjects in the battery of thousands of subjects by NRC in the 70's by Ian Paisley and in the late 80's by the massive research project by Toole in: Loudspeaker Measurements and Their Relationship to Listener Preferences: Part 2. In addition, given the proper placement, wider and even off axis output will actually result in more realistic and higher satisfaction of timbre, in the recordings of the music, assuming the speaker has low resonances that will not color the timbre itself. This was a side effect that was found in the Toole Olive paper: The Modification of Timbre by Resonances: Perception and Measurement. The paper also principally covers the specific threshold of resonances in differing acoustic condition and with differing signals and music.
It's not a claim, it's a fact. I've attached an image of a few of the papers I have from Harman Int, Toole and some other great minds. The most important thing I have learned is there are no certainties unless ALL biases, nuisance factors and other distracting and questional variables can be taken out of the equation. Only then is the research and results viable. Unfortunately, it's not plausible for most of the human population, so going through the trouble is useless. If this is something you disagree with, then perhaps you are the one who doesn't have any faith in the works.
Okay, you show an image a small handful of papers.
I agree with that, which I said earlier. But remember, those results only apply to that group of participants. My point is that most of the audio community is not going to be listening under completely controlled circumstances, thus what's the point? Just let them pick out what they prefer. If we used your method, and it was actually viable, the B&M's and most other audio companies would go out of business, thus this hobby would go to the dumps. It would also mean we had become a brainwashed cult, at least concerning all things audio.
But that misses the conclusion. The results of measured characteristics are consistent among people in different test sessions and different people. The biases I specified in earlier in this reply apply to the differing people and audio companies. But if you take these people and have them compare in the same acoustic setting, different speakers, the ones that have a specific set of measured criteria are going to prevail by overwhelming majority.
Again, you prove my point that you are no different than the next guy making a recommendation. You only recommend what you prefer and think the others will prefer. But in your case the intricacies involved won't be plausible for many many people.
In fact, I don't prefer monopolar speakers at all for stereo music playback. But due to several reasons(a
vailable acoustic spaces users usually have, cost and availability of omni polar systems with the correct attributes for high fidelity, etc.) monopolar speaker systems are the most common and most practical type of speaker system.
The intricacies? Well, it is true that my recommendations do involve much more than just hooking the speaker up to the amp and pressing play. But my recommendations do outline the requirements, and if it's beyond someone's comfort zone I do not act unreasonably and demand that they do it anyways; the most I will do is ask them to reconsider and offer my full assistance in PMs or e-mails to help them set up/configure the system. But to say my recommendations are no different than anyone else's is rather inaccurate. How many people make recommendations based on such extensive reference to human perception statistics and measured behavior(s), in the objective to have a system that is fully adjustable by the user to meet their preferred sound?
And even if it is, they will have been influenced by your bias, rather than there's. The latter is preferred because this is their system, for their ears being used in their rooms. THEY should make the decision whether it's a speaker that measures horribly or not. All that matters is that they like what they hear in their own room. If one can find a speaker that sounds good in their room, why go through the effort of buying one that doesn't, spending money on EQing and an active crossover and more unnecessary expenses?
Most people, even experienced audiophiles or audio enthusiasts have never had experience or been exposed to a set up as I specify/recommend. Which is a shame. A lot of wasted time and money could be saved along with having something that was far more satisfying, since it was customized to their preference(s).
If a speaker is highly resonant, or has substantial off axis problems, etc.; it has built in coloration that make it unsuitable for the customized response adjustment that I recommend. They have to make do with the built in coloration.
Are you reading what I write? I am not speaking of controlled environments because almost all listener's rooms and homes aren't 100% controlled, thus making it all moot. I already said I agreed about controlled environments, such as Sean Olive's case study in 2003. We're talking abut the general population here man! Who of those people is going to have a room that is completely controlled and a frame of mind with zero biases?
I also make further refined recommendation if a user specified an unusual room situation or acoustic problem. But most people are looking for a standard type of monopolar speaker and have a situation that is suitable for such a system. The monopolar set ups I recommend are specifically chosen for the ability to be adjusted to a huge variety of signatures.
You can't answer those questions by listening? Do you NEED measurements because you can't hear the flaws you speak of? If not, why not just listen, like everyone else does?
I do listen, but not like every one else. I spend lots of time setting up blinded randomized tests, including speaker audibility control tests, but I feel it little value to state my subjective opinions on a speaker's signatures in a serious thread like this. I will rarely make a statement to such effect, and if I do, it will usually be in a different type of statement than the average person would have, such as "When comparing speaker X with same recordings and approximate level to reference headphone directly for resonance detection in store conditions where measurements are not practical, I could hear blatant timbre distortion in X signal...." or "No obvious non linear distortion seemed to be present at X SPL at Y distance in Z room".
-Chris
