The Insanity of Marketing Disguised as Science in Loudspeakers

[cschang]

No, a manufacturer will market to what it believes to be the mass that it believes will be large enough to justify production. What that 'mass' is, is the point in contention. Is this group, in fact, the majority. Has anyone studied the congruencies along large swatches of population to determine a statistically relevant 'normal' to base these assumptions upon? My point in this is that while we have many similarities the evolution has wrought upon us, we also have as many differences to allow us to evolve as the path of least resistance might allow us to follow. Do we in fact hear differently enough to dictate a null event?

Good questions, but I am not sure why you would call it a point in contention.

We have studies/white papers done by Olive/Toole. Those papers are being disputed by some here, but there are no published studies/white papers to prove them wrong.

Here is something else to think about:

A recording artist/engineer/producer records a song/music (live or in a studio). Should it be reproduced "accurately" and as it was recorded, or otherwise?

Would you do the same for a reproduction of an artist's painting?

 

[djreef]

Good questions, but I am not sure why you would call it a point in contention.

We have studies/white papers done by Olive/Toole. Those papers are being disputed by some here, but there are no published studies/white papers to prove them wrong.

Here is something else to think about:

A recording artist/engineer/producer records a song/music (live or in a studio). Should it be reproduced "accurately" and as it was recorded, or otherwise?

Would you do the same for a reproduction of an artist's painting?

The point is, what is accurate? Is it the duplicate reproduction of a sine wave, or is it what the end user actually hears, and what parameters actually dictate this? Hell, if you want to go all the way with this empirical hypocrisy, who really is your control group? Who do you hold as your norm?

The reproduction of an artist's painting would never be held to empirical verification. Science would never enter the discussion.

DJ

 

[Rickster71]

In essence what testing does is attempt to approximate the ideal (a perfectly flat response), which then is used as an indicator for accuracy. It is inherently implied that this is the ideal for the majority from a statistical standpoint. Try to produce a product which sounds good to the majority of people in the most number of situations. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this actually works as advertised given the disparity/diversity in individual hearing abilities.

DJ

Bingo!

 

[Rickster71]

I couldn't believe how you two have such difficulties communicating this very point. Sending end vs receiving end, that is the best point I have seen so far and I hope Rickster now understand what you have been trying to say.

I agree with him we hear differently, but if Rickster raises that 4Khz from the 'sending end' by EQ'ing his sound system, then when he hears the real piano (in the same recording room and recording was done perfectly) that does not have the EQ thing, he would say how come the real piano does not sound the same as the speakers. A person who has perfect hearing will agree with him. Both Rickster and the person with perfect hearing would say the speakers sound brighter (disclaimer:I hate that word) than the piano.

It all started with me tossing around the idea of a better / easier way to match people with the appropriate speaker.
Much like Dr. Scholl's kiosk does with custom fit orthotics - Dr. Scholl's® - Foot Care Products and Pain Relief Orthotics
Having a database of speaker curves overlaid with a person's hearing response curve, and matching them with the appropriate speaker.
I just took the idea and ran with it before I had it fully thought out.
It seemed like a better shortcut than auditioning countless speakers armed only with a few familiar CD's.

 

[markw]

Please, no flames.

No, a manufacturer will market to what it believes to be the mass that it believes will be large enough to justify production. What that 'mass' is, is the point in contention. Is this group, in fact, the majority. Has anyone studied the congruencies along large swatches of population to determine a statistically relevant 'normal' to base these assumptions upon?

If sales are any indication, I'd have to say Bose has done their homework. Say what you will about them, but their client base, on the whole, is extremely satisfied with their purchase and, if it sounded that bad to them, they wouldn't be where they are today, the vilified king of audio marketing.

 

[haraldo]

I'm wondering if my wanting to make eyesight and hearing analogous, created a problem. I was equating EQ and matching speakers to hearing ability, in the same way corrective lenses help a person see clearer.

From what I read in some books and articles our brain processes audio more in a digital manner, our brain is not analog, but it makes samples of the signals, much in the same way as a digital processor, perhaps this bacground info may help you to correct the listening experience

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.

I agree, but then the revel Salon2 are not correct measuring speakers, from what I understand they employ higher order x-overs that just cannot recreate a step response or a square wave, they will not even resemble what goes into a speaker.

This is a step response from a Revel Ultima Salon 2:

Looks horrible....

Compare this to a step response from Dunlavy SC-VI

99% textbook perfect....

According to what you say a perfect measuring speaker must recreate perfectly everything that goes into it.... and then we're left with only a handful of speakers that actually may do these things..... I know only about a few manufacturers that do speakers like this...

So if we say measurements are importane we need to look into all things, also phase coherence and time distortion.... how can a speaker be well measuring if it has a 360 degree phase shift?

 

[haraldo]

In essence what testing does is attempt to approximate the ideal (a perfectly flat response), which then is used as an indicator for accuracy. It is inherently implied that this is the ideal for the majority from a statistical standpoint. Try to produce a product which sounds good to the majority of people in the most number of situations. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this actually works as advertised given the disparity/diversity in individual hearing abilities.

DJ

a perfect flat response doesn't mean a speaker is accurate or even sounds balanced....
For a speaker to be accurate it must perfectly recreate the sound waves that goes into it as electrical signals, and how about dispersions patterns....

How do you make a Stradivarius sound like a Stradivarious, we don't even know what is special that makes this instrument sound like this.... it's a he%%¤¤ of a lot more than a waterfall plot that must be correct for this to work properly.....

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Compare this to a step response from Dunlavy SC-VI

99% textbook perfect....

Why did Dunlavy go out of business in 2002?

 

[haraldo]

Why did Dunlavy go out of business in 2002?

Certainly not because he made bad speakers?
They were probably not flashy enough.....

Dunlavy is a good example of speakers that were made to sound good without invoking all these flashing lights and fancy stuff...
He chose quite cheap Vifa drivers because they were the ones that sounded best and measured best and worked best in his designs, no drivers with ultra mega super duper stiff titaniumstrontium....

Speakers sounded well then because they measured textbook perfect in all aspects of measurements... yes?

I don't understand this we talk about here that we should look to measurements..... and then we just ignore some measurements like time/phase accuracy..... to me this is two faces approach to measurements.....

 

[Hocky]

Why did Dunlavy go out of business in 2002?

dang knee jerk response there after a dig on your speakers? haha

 

[Irvrobinson]

From what I read in some books and articles our brain processes audio more in a digital manner, our brain is not analog, but it makes samples of the signals, much in the same way as a digital processor, perhaps this bacground info may help you to correct the listening experience




I agree, but then the revel Salon2 are not correct measuring speakers, from what I understand they employ higher order x-overs that just cannot recreate a step response or a square wave, they will not even resemble what goes into a speaker.

This is a step response from a Revel Ultima Salon 2:

Looks horrible....

Compare this to a step response from Dunlavy SC-VI

99% textbook perfect....

According to what you say a perfect measuring speaker must recreate perfectly everything that goes into it.... and then we're left with only a handful of speakers that actually may do these things..... I know only about a few manufacturers that do speakers like this...

So if we say measurements are importane we need to look into all things, also phase coherence and time distortion.... how can a speaker be well measuring if it has a 360 degree phase shift?

It is a conundrum... several speakers I've auditioned over the years are time-coherent like the Dunlavys, but none sound better than the Salon 2, which isn't. I auditioned the Dunlavy V extensively in 2001, but I was unconvinced to trade out even the Legacy Audio Focus I used at the time, which is blown away by the Salon 2.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Certainly not because he made bad speakers?
They were probably not flashy enough.....

Tragic.

If only they could produce the aesthetics of the B&W 802D with the SQ & measurements of the Dunlavy. 20 layers of beech, 10 coats of lacquer, and 4 days of polishing.

If only those damn Stereophile & Soundstage/RC people would review the Salk, Philharmonic, and Ascend.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

dang knee jerk response there after a dig on your speakers? haha

No, I was going to add them [Dunlavy] to my collection.

But not if they are out of business.

Homey don't play that.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Certainly not because he made bad speakers?
They were probably not flashy enough.....

Dunlavy is a good example of speakers that were made to sound good without invoking all these flashing lights and fancy stuff...
He chose quite cheap Vifa drivers because they were the ones that sounded best and measured best and worked best in his designs, no drivers with ultra mega super duper stiff titaniumstrontium....

Speakers sounded well then because they measured textbook perfect in all aspects of measurements... yes?

I don't understand this we talk about here that we should look to measurements..... and then we just ignore some measurements like time/phase accuracy..... to me this is two faces approach to measurements.....

IMO a big part of Dunlavy's business problem was that the reasonably sized IVs were good but not great and had a lot of competition, and the Vs and VIs, which were near-great, were enormous and very expensive.

As for the cheap drivers sounding best, well, I remember reading John's opinions on that, but in my auditioning that didn't strike me as correct for the highs, as the Legacys were better.

 

[haraldo]

It is a conundrum... several speakers I've auditioned over the years are time-coherent like the Dunlavys, but none sound better than the Salon 2, which isn't. I auditioned the Dunlavy V extensively in 2001, but I was unconvinced to trade out even the Legacy Audio Focus I used at the time, which is blown away by the Salon 2.

Depends what you want.....
Lots of effects and something that blows you away, then the Salon's are probably for you....
If you want genuine music pleasure then Dunlavy's are better perhaps...... (that's just my subjective opinion)

Perhaps the Salon's make recordings better than what they are in real life...

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Well, that is why we buy speakers that sound "Best" to us, not best to others.

I don't think we can debate that. I don't think we can convince many PSB Synchrony One or Paradigm S8 or B&W 800D owners that other speakers sound better than their speakers by using many different adjectives and wordings, nor should we try.

Musical, neutral, genuine, flashy, exciting, boring, flat, bright, warm, etc., are all different to all of us.

 

[haraldo]

Well, that is why we buy speakers that sound "Best" to us, not best to others.

I don't think we can debate that. I don't think we can convince many PSB Synchrony One or Paradigm S8 or B&W 800D owners that other speakers sound better than their speakers by using many different adjectives and wordings, nor should we try.

Musical, neutral, genuine, flashy, exciting, boring, flat, bright, warm, etc., are all different to all of us.

he he he, yes, that will make some people behave like they're attacked in an ambush
perhaps I'm like that too......

 

[MinusTheBear]

Remember that optimizing time coherence is a trade-off. It's a parameter that doesn't come free like everything in loudspeaker design.

 

[haraldo]

Remember that optimizing time coherence is a trade-off. It's a parameter that doesn't come free like everything in loudspeaker design.

Yes agree; it's all a balancing act but taking away time coherence is also a tradeoff by throwing out the time accuracy, by saying time accuracy doesn't matter.....

 

[randyb]

Isn't the problem with time coherent speakers is that they are only time coherent in a very narrow listening spot? That said, Vandersteen seems to have a pretty good one with his most expensive speaker but who has those kind of bucks......