The Absolute Sound/Hi-Fi+ Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers

[PENG]

I'll bring some classical music this time.

With the exception of the Operas, I believe I have most of Mozart's works - Symphonies, Violin & Piano Concertos & Sonatas. I have Beethoven's Nine Symphonies, and most of Bach's Organ works.

To audition the 802D I would recommend something else other than Mozart's and Bach's.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

To audition the 802D I would recommend something else other than Mozart's and Bach's.

Yeah, but I like Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, & Bach.

I guess I like the "popular" classical pieces like Pachelbel, Handel, Haydn, etc.

You don't think Mozart pieces are intricate enough?

 

[AJinFLA]

Yeah, but I like Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, & Bach.

I guess I like the "popular" classical pieces like Pachelbel, Handel, Haydn, etc.

You don't think Mozart pieces are intricate enough?

The question in all honesty is, how much live classical do you attend?
If lots, by all means use pieces you are familiar with. Carry at least a few tracks yourself.
My advice for short term listening (as opposed to long term, at home analysis) like your dealer audition, is small group jazz. You don't necessarily have to like the tunes, but the arrangements are simpler and hopefully, you are familiar with what each individual instrument sounds like, so you can focus in, but not lose track of the whole. Perceptually, it's easy for us to focus on something and say wow, you hadn't heard that before, when actually you had, but just was not focused on it previously.
I use something like this Dave Brubeck album (pick it up super cheap, new or used) when demoing my speakers at DIY events. Simple arrangements that feature individual instruments on each track (with Dave on the piano of course).
The double bass on Here comes McBride is a favorite of mine to demo dipole bass for those who have never heard it. Listen for the pitch and definition with the 802. How quickly do the string plucks decay, can you hear the plucks of the strings themselves, etc.
If you've heard a double bass in person many times, it's easy to recognize these things. Ditto for the sax, piano, drums, etc. Hopefully you've heard them all in person, close up, many times.
Familiarize yourself with them as much as possible on your own system, then do your best to compare to memory.

cheers,

AJ

 

[TLS Guy]

Yeah, but I like Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, & Bach.

I guess I like the "popular" classical pieces like Pachelbel, Handel, Haydn, etc.

You don't think Mozart pieces are intricate enough?

There is nothing wrong with your selections at all. Baroque music is a good test of the delicacy of the bass and detail. There are quite a few speakers with deep bass but very few are also light on their feet.

Piano is a really good test of a speaker. Very few speakers can reproduce a piano and make it sound anything like a piano. I always start a listening evaluation with an Angela Hewitt disc on Hyperion. I like to play her at her Fazoli piano and a Steinway.

There is nothing wrong with Mozart for evaluation either, especially the piano concertos.

It is important to include some big orchestral pieces also.

I always include Choral selections with choir and soloists. These almost always separate the men from the boys.

I personally like to include British boys cathedral choirs against the great cathedral organs showing their controlled restraint. I'm very familiar with this repertory and love it. These recordings show up lots of speaker problems from bass to HF. Very very few speakers excel here. Samuel Wesley's anthem Blessed be God the Father, is a speaker torture test all by its self, as well as a really beautiful piece of music.

 

[3db]

There is nothing wrong with your selections at all. Baroque music is a good test of the delicacy of the bass and detail. There are quite a few speakers with deep bass but very few are also light on their feet.

Piano is a really good test of a speaker. Very few speakers can reproduce a piano and make it sound anything like a piano. I always start a listening evaluation with an Angela Hewitt disc on Hyperion. I like to play her at her Fazoli piano and a Steinway.

There is nothing wrong with Mozart for evaluation either, especially the piano concertos.

It is important to include some big orchestral pieces also.

I always include Choral selections with choir and soloists. These almost always separate the men from the boys.

I personally like to include British boys cathedral choirs against the great cathedral organs showing their controlled restraint. I'm very familiar with this repertory and love it. These recordings show up lots of speaker problems from bass to HF. Very very few speakers excel here. Samuel Wesley's anthem Blessed be God the Father, is a speaker torture test all by its self, as well as a really beautiful piece of music.

I agree totally. If you are very familiar with these composers, piano concertos in general, Mozart's Clarinette concertoe, Tchaikovsky violin concerto are perfect pieces to test speakers with. Piano is one of the harder instruments to get right. A concertoe will allow you to hear the instrument by itself and will also allow you to discern how teh speakers behave when the orchestra is under full boil. Like wise with Clairentte and the violin concertoes. Alot of baroque musi has indricate bass weaved in it and its a good way to test the bass of teh speaker like TLS says.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The question in all honesty is, how much live classical do you attend?

I've attended 5 classical chamber music events when I was in college (15 years ago).

The pieces were mostly Mozart, but a few were Vivaldi and Bach.

My wife, her dad (owns a grand piano), and I play the piano (I own a Young Chang piano), so I have a good idea how a piano sounds live.

Well, I'm sure my audition will not be definitive. But I will know PERSONALLY whether I like the sound or not.

And GREAT speakers should sound GREAT to even common non-professional people, right?

 

[haraldo]

I don't understand why there's so much emphasis on which music to use, yes of course you have to chose demanding music but mostly the kind of music you really like and enjoy.... to get the sense of.... Do I enjoy listening to the music from these speakers; at least it's what I think

And on B&W speakers in general I believe they are extremely demanding on amps and if dealers cannot match them with very powerful and strong amps (read: they should have huge current reserves) then I don't think the big B&W will be any good at all, simply because the amp will not be able to control speakers... perhaps I'm wrong on this, but.... perhaps it's poor match of amp / speakers that make it so that I don't like B&W

Mostly the local dealers here match B&W 802d with Classe CA-2200, and for me this is not good at all, perhaps the Classe is crap

On another occation I auditioned 802d with Lyngdorf TDAI 2200 amplifier (b.t.w. much less costly than the Classe CA-2200), and this is the only time I kind of enjoyed the B&W.... so perhaps this is all about amp matching

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I don't understand why there's so much emphasis on which music to use, yes of course you have to chose demanding music but mostly the kind of music you really like and enjoy.... to get the sense of.... Do I enjoy listening to the music from these speakers; at least it's what I think

Yeah, I listen to only music I like, and I bring the same exact music to audition.

And on B&W speakers in general I believe they are extremely demanding on amps and if dealers cannot match them with very powerful and strong amps (read: they should have huge current reserves) then I don't think the big B&W will be any good at all, simply because the amp will not be able to control speakers... perhaps I'm wrong on this, but.... perhaps it's poor match of amp / speakers that make it so that I don't like B&W

Mostly the local dealers here match B&W 802d with Classe CA-2200, and for me this is not good at all, perhaps the Classe is crap

On another occation I auditioned 802d with Lyngdorf TDAI 2200 amplifier (b.t.w. much less costly than the Classe CA-2200), and this is the only time I kind of enjoyed the B&W.... so perhaps this is all about amp matching

I don't think the 200WPC 8ohms/400WPC 4ohms Classe amps are even an ISSUE.

The Classe amps are not crap. They are great amps.

Whether the B&W speakers sound good or not has nothing to do with those Classe amps unless they are defective.

 

[3db]

I don't understand why there's so much emphasis on which music to use, yes of course you have to chose demanding music but mostly the kind of music you really like and enjoy.... to get the sense of.... Do I enjoy listening to the music from these speakers; at least it's what I think

Classical get mentioned because of the demands it places on a loud speaker, more so than any other type of music. But you are correct, bring the music you know intimately and like the best. If it happens to be classical, great. If not, thats good too.

 

[TLS Guy]

I'm cross referencing this thread, to a thread that was started by a member inquiring about PMC speakers.

I think this thread may well interest those of you following this thread.

 

[PENG]

Yeah, but I like Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, & Bach.

I guess I like the "popular" classical pieces like Pachelbel, Handel, Haydn, etc.

You don't think Mozart pieces are intricate enough?

Me too! I did mention violin/piano concertos in my previous post, but I was also thinking about something that are more suitable for testing the limits of some speakers if you don't have too much time to spend in the dealerships. It is a little like people using test discs to prove the superiority of the Opp 83's upscaler.

 

[Boerd]

here's a compilation of some of the speakers reviewed in the Absolute sound:
http://bit.ly/aHIqID

I know what many of you think about this magazine and these people
......but still.... there's a lot of stuff here and perhaps some of this may be useful.....

For these ridiculos prices I'd ask at least for 6-8 measurements of the speaker's performance. WTF - 50k$ for a pair of speakers with passive crossover? They're not much better than the 1-2k$ speakers with passive crossover that you can buy from NHT, DEF-Tech, Polk, PSB, etc. How in the world do people buy speakers without clear measurements to show it is X times more accurate than the average (500$) speaker it beats me.
I have listened to:
Martin Logan -13k$
Sonus Faber - 30k$
BW 80x
Vienna Acoustics - Mahler 13k$
and none of them sounds much better than Vienna Acoustics Baby Beethoven which is 4k$. At some point I ran into the NHT XD - my oh my waaay better than anything I have listened to (read the review in my signature should you have nothing better to do).
Also guys - what do you think of the 1k$+ DACs of today??? I find the DAC prices as outrageous as the 50k$ speaker. A speaker driver can easily have THDs around 3% - even for a good speaker. (1% for DSP corrected ones) so how could one justify a 2k$ DAC (even with with .0000000000001% THD?).
I'd buy a DAC under 300$ if it was balanced and had a decent remote + volume control but I can't afford a Benchmark DAC HDR for 1895$...
Ok - time to cool off

 

[haraldo]

Yeah, I listen to only music I like, and I bring the same exact music to audition.




I don't think the 200WPC 8ohms/400WPC 4ohms Classe amps are even an ISSUE.

The Classe amps are not crap. They are great amps.

Whether the B&W speakers sound good or not has nothing to do with those Classe amps unless they are defective.

For me there is no question that amps may play you great tricks

Even different amps from same vendor may make the speakers perform very differently

I rememeber auditioning the Vienna Acoustics Mahler with Electrocompaniet AW180 amplifiers, these amps have an extremely good reputation and are amongst critics being hailed as v ery well sounding amps.... For me it was inadequate with a muddy bass and very uninteresting and I didn't like this at all.... well, to make it better they changed to Electrocompaniet NEMO blocks, I really didn't expect anything better but to me now, it sounded like there were totally new speakers in front of me, bass was tightened up and came like gunshots, midrange was better and very real, and the drums from Underworld's Dark & Long were so fast and powerful....

So I don't buy this thing that amplifiers doesn't matter.... unless they are broken

After this I consider Vienna Acoustics Mahler as some of my favorite speakers

 

[cornelius]

Also guys - what do you think of the 1k$+ DACs of today??? I find the DAC prices as outrageous as the 50k$ speaker. A speaker driver can easily have THDs around 3% - even for a good speaker. (1% for DSP corrected ones) so how could one justify a 2k$ DAC (even with with .0000000000001% THD?).
I'd buy a DAC under 300$ if it was balanced and had a decent remote + volume control but I can't afford a Benchmark DAC HDR for 1895$...
Ok - time to cool off

Like the uber amplifiers out there, most of the expensive DACs are another way for people to wast their $. You mention the Benchmark, and I know what you mean, but I actually think they're gear is priced ok. Their DACs measure very well and have great features (Lavry too). But the esoteric $5K DACs are silly...

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

So I don't buy this thing that amplifiers doesn't matter.... unless they are broken...

A lot of people don't believe that.

Double-blinded tests have proven that amplifiers don't create sounds of their own, and that is why a lot of people do believe that statement.

There are no published double-blinded tests to prove that amps sound differently once level-matched.

But, we don't have to agree.

 

[Boerd]

Like the uber amplifiers out there, most of the expensive DACs are another way for people to wast their $. You mention the Benchmark, and I know what you mean, but I actually think they're gear is priced ok. Their DACs measure very well and have great features (Lavry too). But the esoteric $5K DACs are silly...

Benchmark actually has some real engineering and (from what I've heard) stellar customer support. BUT I cannot hear the difference between my squeezebox v3 DAC (299$) and a Benchmark simply because the NHT XD speakers have THD+N up to 0.3% while the squeezebox 0.0017% (according to Stereofool http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/906slim/index3.html) which means the floor noise of a 299$ DAC is ALREADY WAAAAY under the electro-mechanical noise of top-of-the-line drivers of today (in real world).
I am not debating the engineering of Benchmark - it just doesn't make an audible difference for me.

 

[Boerd]

A lot of people don't believe that.

Double-blinded tests have proven that amplifiers don't create sounds of their own, and that is why a lot of people do believe that statement.

There are no published double-blinded tests to prove that amps sound differently once level-matched.

But, we don't have to agree.

Ha Ha!!!
Last time I checked 0.5% THD+N was the limit where somebody could tell an amplifier from another while using a CD as a source (a source with 96db or so SNR). Today's amplifiers are much better than that. Let me tell you I had a 499$ Marantz integrated amp (in my previous system) and I got suckered into buying a 1500$ integrated from Primare (see my signature). I couldn't hear a difference ... My wife (she has classical music training - piano and violin) couldn't hear a difference either. First day I was sooo pised I got suckered like that. Next day I look again and I found a reason to keep the Primare - much better looking and an "audiophile name to show off" - and I kept it.
That won't happen to me again. EVER.
Also I tested with a CD the audible range of my friends using my NHT XD.
Two guys go up to 19Khz - one to 15Khz while ALL the others are under 13Khz (they were basically guessing above 13 Khz).
The wifes hear a lot better (???) all of them did 15Khz or better - dig that
This begs the question - why a 2k$ amplifier????

 

[haraldo]

A lot of people don't believe that.

Double-blinded tests have proven that amplifiers don't create sounds of their own, and that is why a lot of people do believe that statement.

There are no published double-blinded tests to prove that amps sound differently once level-matched.

But, we don't have to agree.

No we don't have to agree

But I'm sure there are DBT's proving otherwise too....
I can hear difference between using single ended and balanced input on my Krell KAV400xi , balanced being better than single ended... using outputs from same source (Benchmark DAC 1) and I'm sure I would be able to prove this in a DBT test.....

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

No we don't have to agree

But I'm sure there are DBT's proving otherwise too....
I can hear difference between using single ended and balanced input on my Krell KAV400xi , balanced being better than single ended... using outputs from same source (Benchmark DAC 1) and I'm sure I would be able to prove this in a DBT test.....

I have friends who believe the same as you, and I don't even try to convince them that they are wrong. It's kind of fun debating with them, though.

I have a cousin who said he could hear the differences in interconnect and speaker cables too.

I don't believe that; I gave my Kimber Kable speaker cables to my little brother.

 

[haraldo]

I have friends who believe the same as you, and I don't even try to convince them that they are wrong. It's kind of fun debating with them, though.

I have a cousin who said he could hear the differences in interconnect and speaker cables too.

I don't believe that; I gave my Kimber Kable speaker cables to my little brother.

Most impartantly is...... TO ENJOY THE MUSIC, my friend