Can Objective Loudspeaker Measurements Predict Subjective Preferences?

Can measurements predict listening preferences in loudspeakers?

  • Yes. If the proper measurements are conducted

    Votes: 67 59.8%
  • No. What we hear is far too complex to fully quantify empirically.

    Votes: 30 26.8%
  • Who cares. Just get what sounds good to you and be done with it.

    Votes: 15 13.4%

  • Total voters
    112
J

Jerkface

Audioholic
The alternative is to simply fix your bad recordings. I've done it for about 19K tracks thus far over the past 6+ years and I find this method works a lot better than trying to buy or build a bad hi-fi system to play those multitude of badly mastered tracks. Since I was a little kid, I could hear these badly done music tracks, and I didn't play them nearly as much because of this fact.
It's a lot of work, but certainly doable if you decide to go that route. Whenever I get around to building my music server, that will be a consideration, especially for the mid-80's Iron Maiden stuff in my collection that is mastered at a far lower volume level and with pathetically weak bass. Having to grab the volume knob in a hurry between tracks is a real pain in the ass, ya know?
 
K

kevintomb

Junior Audioholic
I have found measurements to matter a LOT, but on the same hand, can not "Totally" predict what will make any one individuals music sound great.

Using Pink noise, I have eq'ed speakers to nearly perfect flat frequency response. Yes when play several tracks of music, it will just not sound "Right".....

Of course blame the mastering or mixing or the recording quality, but recordings are what we use TO judge sound, not Pink Noise.

So measuring flat "Alone" is not enough to guarantee great sound. Maybe accurate for sure, but not always enjoyable.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
I have found measurements to matter a LOT, but on the same hand, can not "Totally" predict what will make any one individuals music sound great.

Using Pink noise, I have eq'ed speakers to nearly perfect flat frequency response. Yes when play several tracks of music, it will just not sound "Right".....

Of course blame the mastering or mixing or the recording quality, but recordings are what we use TO judge sound, not Pink Noise.

So measuring flat "Alone" is not enough to guarantee great sound. Maybe accurate for sure, but not always enjoyable.
You don't want flat, you want smooth and preferably, a slight downward tile from low to high frequencies. Flat is for reference and testing, not listening. Our hearing is anything but flat and the 'happy face' EQ curve is a reflection of that- it's basically the inverse of human hearing acuity and that's the reason so many people have found that it makes the system sound better.
 
J

Jerkface

Audioholic
You don't want flat, you want smooth and preferably, a slight downward tile from low to high frequencies. Flat is for reference and testing, not listening. Our hearing is anything but flat and the 'happy face' EQ curve is a reflection of that- it's basically the inverse of human hearing acuity and that's the reason so many people have found that it makes the system sound better.
The "loudness" EQ curve intended to address Fletcher-Munson phenomena was only for low-volume listening though. If you crank a song up, your ears correct themselves.
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
You don't want flat, you want smooth and preferably, a slight downward tile from low to high frequencies. Flat is for reference and testing, not listening. Our hearing is anything but flat and the 'happy face' EQ curve is a reflection of that- it's basically the inverse of human hearing acuity and that's the reason so many people have found that it makes the system sound better.
Chapter 5 of Toole's book deals with this. People prefer a flat smooth on axes response and a nice smooth graphs on the off axes as flat as possible measured in an anechoic room as it gives nice smooth downward tilt in room response as the frequencies move to the highend. What the previous poster did (the one you responded too) to the speakers is to give them an upward tilt if measured in an anechoic room.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
The "loudness" EQ curve intended to address Fletcher-Munson phenomena was only for low-volume listening though. If you crank a song up, your ears correct themselves.
The Fletcher-Munson corves show that, as do the others from that time. The problem is that at high SPL, hearing damage is a major concern and the result of that is decreased sensitivity to the frequencies where the highest/longest duration exposure has occurred, so the curves become moot, to some extent.
 
M

MrBoat

Audioholic Ninja
I have enough different types of pairs of speakers that measure well. They're all pretty much at the mercy of recording (music only, in my case) quality and almost all exceed the average capabilities of what recordings are available. Some speakers are a bit too revealing and I had to learn about if what they were exposing would have been intentional in the original works. Excellent recordings sound flawless to my ears on my newer speakers.

The first clue came to me via JBL L100s, and how good so many rock recordings sounded on those, especially closer to the time that many of those recordings were released. I just thought they were superior speakers. There was no internet and all I had to go on was magazines and being from a small town, it took awhile (years) to connect the dots. I had never really considered that many studios were indeed using JBL. This is also what led many of us to near field listening, with trying to emulate a studio arrangement we had seen from photos in magazines and I think this really worked well. For years after, I tried to get speakers that were close to that style of speaker and it worked for 20 years until I took a break. When I reemerged into serious listening, things had changed, even after only a 5-6 year break from loud, high performance listening.

Most of what had changed was the notion that a whole room should sound good like a large cinema and for movies. We never needed the whole room to sound good for 2-channel music and even when there were parties, the essence of the lower distortion speakers in other parts of the room were still worlds better than what most people were used to hearing elsewhere in their lives. All we needed (or had room for, really) was a nearfield huddle that fit 5-6 people at most, but 2-3 people on average. We would move the speakers into position each time, and put them back out of the way when we were done. Sessions typically lasted for 2-3 hrs, to 2-3 days around weekends. Even now, in the best treated and measured rooms, if there is a get together, most of us old gear heads end up mingling up by the speakers.

What's different now that I have excellent measuring speakers? I end up EQ'ng recordings like I used to, on the fly and being more aware of what I am hearing with regard to unfavorable distortion or noise. What was screwing with me was having to do it via software that was not included with 'new to me' systems and technology, where simple tone controls could at least get us by in the past. Now, I start every album flat, and see what it needs after and make note of it and even store PEQ/DEQ settings by album name. It took awhile. Many get by without any EQ at all, and not just on one set of speakers.

I have measurement equipment and I toyed with it for awhile but I have a friend that is much better/fanatical at it (he follows AH as well) and he actually expected my near field op to be an acoustic train wreck. When he measured my MLP, he was shocked at how close I had gotten to as good as it can get. He ended up changing my settings back to what I had them at. According to him, I had my subs .5db hotter than what measures best as the only thing he could really find at all. But I often tune those by album, or at least genre from one session to the next so that is not consistent, either. Either way, he came out of it with "This is definitely worth doing."
 
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