The Insanity of Marketing Disguised as Science in Loudspeakers

[lsiberian]

I have to respectfully disagree with two of your assertions made above.

1. The notion that loudspeaker listening tests are only valid using recordings of natural instruments is not necessarily true. How "accurate" and "natural" the instrument sounds depends on the skill of the recording engineer and the accuracy of the monitors/listening room interface through which the recordings were made. This is all part of the circle of confusion that exists within the recording/playback chain, and unless the acoustical performance of the playback chain is well-defined, then all bets are off in regards to how accurate the recording will be. There are currently no standards in the music industry that define the performance of the playback chain, and as a result, the quality of all recordings remains highly variable.

The notion that listeners can't discriminate and formulate reliable, valid opinions of loudspeakers using pop/electronic program (versus natural instruments in an acoustic setting) is contrary to what our research tells us. Whether the instruments are natural or electronic becomes moot when you employ a multiple comparison protocol in the listening tests where multiple speakers are compared. In this case, the colorations in the recording are common to all speakers under test. What remains are audible differences among the loudspeakers that become the focus of the listeners' evaluation. Also, through listener training and experience, the listener becomes familiar with the program material, and to some extent, learns how it should sound. The fact that we are able to predict listening test results (using sthis program material) based on a set of comprehensive anechoic measurements, and listeners prefer the loudspeakers that measure the best, indicates that using such material works.

Secondly, the spectral bandwidth, density and continuity of the program material are properties highly correlated with listeners' ability to discriminate among the different loudspeaker under test. In my experience, pop/electronic music on average meets this criteria better than jazz and classical music. See the graph in this article that shows how well listeners identify simulated spectral distortions with different music programs. After pink noise, the best programs for detecting spectral distortions in loudspeakers tend to be pop music -- not classical. As far as evaluating spatial characteristics of loudspeakers, this has a lot to do with the recording techniques used to make the recording.

I definitely can tell the difference between speakers much better with a pop singer than a violin. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm a singer with fairly strong pitch or not, but a soloist is a lot easier to hear flaws from than an orchestra. That said if the designer primarily listens to orchestral music then I suppose he would have more familiarity with it.

 

[3db]

Its the piano that I use to test loudspeakers

Of all the instruments including people's voices, I use the piano as my guide to determine a speakers quality. IHO, the piano is the hardest instrument for a recording engineer to get right and for a loudspeaker to reproduce accurately due to the near infinite number of harmonics being played out. On a well mastered recording, if teh speaker can do the piano properly, then it can everything else right.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Of all the instruments including people's voices, I use the piano as my guide to determine a speakers quality. IHO, the piano is the hardest instrument for a recording engineer to get right and for a loudspeaker to reproduce accurately due to the near infinite number of harmonics being played out. On a well mastered recording, if teh speaker can do the piano properly, then it can everything else right.

Agree, and pianos seem to have a very definite "that sounds live" transition too, that is very rare in recordings and speakers.

 

[haraldo]

I'm pro measurements.... just so that I've said this.....

So why do we do measurements at all, it's all this talk about that a serious manufacturer must have measurements to make his products credible. There are some loudspeaker designers out there going to an exceeding amount of effort to follow this mission.

The late John Dunlavy measured all his speakers and hand tweaked every crossover on every single speaker to make sure that all speakers leaving the factory were as close as possible to the design master.... did this make for better and more consistent speakers, probably very much indeed

Peter Gangsterer from Vienna Acoustics does the same, every single speaker leaving the factory is measured to make sure it is as close as possible to the design master, and this goes for every single speaker.

Pat Mc Ginthy of Meadowlark Audio relied a lot on measuring in the design process of all his products, bu he always refused to publish any measurements because his belief is that they are just being misused and does not provide a proper guidance about the performance of a speaker. he claimed that you can take the microphone an make a perfect waterfall plot.... move the mike just a few inches and it looks horrible.... at least it's what he claimed....
He did not hand tweak every speaker as far as I know but he made good products....

Pat was constantly fighting with John Atkinson because he thought that his measurements were very very wrong, and I agree with him, you cannot measure speakers at 50".... going further John would measure his room and not the speakers, so in this case measurements were probably not so good... because they're don incorrectly

Mr Dunlavy also claimed that these measurements were not optimal for all speakers and as such would be quite misleading...

So....
Dunlavy Audio labs handtweaked all speakers and readily published a bunchload of measurements, did they make good speakers.... yes

Vienna Acoustics handtweaks all speakers but do NOT publish measurements.... I believe Mr Gangsterer really know what he's doing

The same about Pat Mc Ginthyy, unfortunately his company is not here anymoe but many of his excellent Meadowlark speakers are....

So we don't necessarily need published measurements, we just need goo speakers.... if they're thrown over to Gene and co they will show all the possible things that can be measured in a speaker and if there is something wrong anywhere they will find it, but their measurements doesn't prove a speaker to be good sounding....

Measurements cannot prove a speaker to be good, but it can prove a speaker to be bad....

EDIT: As an endnote, our hearing is propbably the best measuring equipment that exists, the threshold of what you can hear is so tiny that it represents a movementy of the eardrum that is less than the diameter of a Hydrogen molecule....... (Ref: Master handbook of Acoustics)

 

[haraldo]

Measurements matter to me. I want speakers that measure good in many ways. I don't "believe" that a poor measuring speaker is ever optimal.

I agree, poor measuring speakers can't be good
but: Good measuring speakers can be horrible

 

[Jeepers]

EDIT: As an endnote, our hearing is propbably the best measuring equipment that exists, the threshold of what you can hear is so tiny that it represents a movementy of the eardrum that is less than the diameter of a Hydrogen molecule....... (Ref: Master handbook of Acoustics)

The older one gets, the less one hears so whatever you hear depends on how damaged your hearing is. So your hearing is only whatever you perceive to be and not what really is.

 

[GranteedEV]

Good measuring speakers can be horrible

.....for example....??????

 

[haraldo]

.....for example....??????

B&W 801d to me they'r absolutely horrible speakers.... I just can't stand them
(This is my personal opinion, many will disagree.... probably)
Why I don't like them.... to me they make it very clear that you listen to an artificial recording, I cannot believe that I listen to music through them and then.,.. as such they fail as loudspeakers...

You can find measurements of 801 here, it all looks quite nice except for step response which is UGLY UGLY
http://www.stereophile.com/content/bw-nautilus-801-loudspeaker-measurements

 

[haraldo]

The older one gets, the less one hears so whatever you hear depends on how damaged your hearing is. So your hearing is only whatever you perceive to be and not what really is.

Yes of course but still..... it's pretty good instruments we do have (ears I mean)

 

[GranteedEV]

B&W 801d to me they'r absolutely horrible speakers.... I just can't stand them
(This is my personal opinion, many will disagree.... probably)
Why I don't like them.... to me they make it very clear that you listen to an artificial recording, I cannot believe that I listen to music through them and then.,.. as such they fail as loudspeakers...

You can find measurements of 801 here, it all looks quite nice except for step response which is UGLY UGLY
B&W Nautilus 801 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Stereophile's wierd frequency response graphs are impossible to guage anything from. The slope used is apparently odd-order. A floor or ceiling reflection might give you an intense +3db of energy in the crossover region of 3-5khz from the way the drivers sum. Actually, it looks like the tweeter/mid drivers are in phase as there is what looks like a response peak directly on axis. Tough to judge from the given graph.

The polars are not very good... they show a rise in off axis response above ~2.5khz peaking around 4-7khz.

The impedance is horrid around 70hz.

There's no power compression test either.

I don't think that's a good example...it shows how incomplete measurements can be, not that a well-measuring speaker can sound good.

 

[haraldo]

Stereophile's wierd frequency response graphs are impossible to guage anything from. The slope used is apparently odd-order. A floor or ceiling reflection might give you an intense +3db of energy in the crossover region of 3-5khz from the way the drivers sum off axis.

The polars are better than the diamond series but still "meh"... they show a rise in off axis response above ~2.5khz peaking around 4-7khz.

The impedance is horrid around 70hz.

There's no power compression test either.

I don't think that's a good example...it shows how incomplete measurements can be, not that a well-measuring speaker can sound good.

Well if you read my previous post you would see that I don't actually applaud Stereophile's measurements...... but from what I believe it's been acclaimed to be well measuring when done under proper conditions!

But this is not the point of this thread so we shouldn't go further into this......

 

[GranteedEV]

Well if you read my previous post you would see that I don't actually applaud Stereophile's measurements...... but from what I believe it's been acclaimed to be well measuring when done under proper conditions!

The polars alone preclude it from being well-measuring under any condition. They've got a rise in off axis response right where the on axis response shows a peak.

I don't think a truly well measuring speaker could ever sound horrible. I don't buy however that the improvements fromba Revel F12 to a Revel Salon2 are limited to SPL and Aesthetics....maybe they are though.

 

[haraldo]

I don't think a truly well measuring speaker could ever sound horrible. I don't buy however that the improvements fromba Revel F12 to a Revel Salon2 are limited to SPL and Aesthetics....maybe they are though.

I cannot scientifically prove this my statement

 

[Rickster71]

Bad analogy. It's more like having a TV, and playing around with the calibration settings for your idea of what's white, what's green, what's red, what's black, even if the rest of your family has to sit through green whites, exaggerated skin tones, and gray blacks. Why not calibrate the TV accurately so the skin tones look on TV how they look in real life? Because your vision sucks??




Speakers are not hearing aids though. Hearing aids are hearing aids. Glasses are glasses and TVs are TVs.



If your brain can't differentiate between the live concert and the speaker then there is nothing flawed or imperfect about it.




We don't "see differently". You don't see a square when I see a triangle. You don't see black when I see white. You might not see as adequately as me, you might not be legally allowed to drive a car without glasses on. That doesn't mean there's a car that slams the brakes for you when you fail to see a pedestrian crossing the street, because it knows you can't see when you don't have glasses on.

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic. If someone wants to manually EQ their speaker so it sounds clearer to their ears then that's a choice they should have, but the rest of their family might be the ones getting screwed over. My maternal grandma, God bless her, is virtually deaf... we have to yell into her hearing aids just to have a conversation. It would be unrealistic to have custom speakers for her hearing curve alone. It's sad but true.

Sounds like this is getting a bit too far afield.
I'll try to make my original point in a clearer way.
My rational was that a measured flat frequency response was wasted on a person that didn't have the ability to hear it.

I thought it would be interesting to see the Frequency Response of my hearing test, overlaid with the frequency response graph of many different speakers.
So lets say, if I had a dip in my hearing ability at 4,000 Hz, I would look for a speaker that had a corresponding peak at 4,000 Hz.

Or, an EQ that took our personal hearing curve and room into account, would be nice.
Or even a kiosk in the store that tests your hearing and gives suggestions for speakers that closer fits a person's hearing. A bit like Dr Schools does with the custom Orthotics at the drug store.

My thoughts were mostly with personal speakers in mind, maybe a 2.1 setup, not a public venue.
As for the rest of the family's taste in my speakers? I worked those 60 hr weeks so I could get my speakers, for me.
Not going to worry if a 15 year old son, or next door neighbor doesn't like the sound stage.

 

[Alex2507]

So lets say, if I had a dip in my hearing ability at 4,000 Hz, I would look for a speaker that had a corresponding peak at 4,000 Hz.

Is that why Marie is always yelling at you?

Seriously that's a bad idea. I actually do have a dip at 5K according to one hearing test done in a doctor's office that I later noticed had a high noise floor from traffic but to address your point: Compensating for your hearing deficiency with an inverse EQ curve would sound unnatural to your ear.

 

[Rickster71]

Is that why Marie is always yelling at you?

Seriously that's a bad idea. I actually do have a dip at 5K according to one hearing test done in a doctor's office that I later noticed had a high noise floor from traffic.

You just want to steal my 'In store Kiosk" idea.

Compensating for your hearing deficiency with an inverse EQ curve would sound unnatural to your ear.

Maybe not inverse, but just raising the valley up to flat.

 

[cschang]

Sounds like this is getting a bit too far afield.
I'll try to make my original point in a clearer way.
My rational was that a measured flat frequency response was wasted on a person that didn't have the ability to hear it.

I thought it would be interesting to see the Frequency Response of my hearing test, overlaid with the frequency response graph of many different speakers.
So lets say, if I had a dip in my hearing ability at 4,000 Hz, I would look for a speaker that had a corresponding peak at 4,000 Hz.

Or, an EQ that took our personal hearing curve and room into account, would be nice.
Or even a kiosk in the store that tests your hearing and gives suggestions for speakers that closer fits a person's hearing. A bit like Dr Schools does with the custom Orthotics at the drug store.

My thoughts were mostly with personal speakers in mind, maybe a 2.1 setup, not a public venue.
As for the rest of the family's taste in my speakers? I worked those 60 hr weeks so I could get my speakers, for me.
Not going to worry if a 15 year old son, or next door neighbor doesn't like the sound stage.

A piano is playing.

A person with deficient hearing, hears this piano. How the person hears it is natural and accurate to him/her.

An "accurate" reproduction of that piano, will produce the same experience for that person.

Now, if you are looking for a piano that deals with compensating for someone's particular hearing deficiency, than that piano is NOT a "standard" piano, and will not provide the same experience as the standard piano to that person.

 

[lsiberian]

A piano is playing.

A person with deficient hearing, hears this piano. How the person hears it is natural and accurate to him/her.

An "accurate" speaker, will produce the same experience for that person.

Now, if you are looking for a speaker that deals with compensating for someone's particular hearing deficiency, than that speaker is NOT going to be reproducing anything accurately or naturally.

All pianos don't sound the same in every room though. Many pianos are out of tune too.

 

[cschang]

All pianos don't sound the same in every room though. Many pianos are out of tune too.

Looks like you caught my post while I was editing it.

OK..so lets say the piano is in tune, and is a particular piano.

Also, you don't "EQ" a piano...so how it sounds in the room...well...is how it sounds in the room.

 

[Rickster71]

A piano is playing.

A person with deficient hearing, hears this piano. How the person hears it is natural and accurate to him/her.

An "accurate" reproduction of that piano, will produce the same experience for that person.

Now, if you are looking for a piano that deals with compensating for someone's particular hearing deficiency, than that piano is NOT a "standard" piano, and will not provide the same experience as the standard piano to that person.

I was speaking more to matching a speaker closer to a person's hearing.
Much like finding the shoe that 'fits' in a shoe store.

I'm having trouble understanding (for example) how a person with less sensitivity at 4,000 Hz will hear a piano note that's at that frequency.
How would they possibly hear that note as well as someone with perfect hearing?