Do MartinLogan speakers cost more because they are better speakers?

[gene]

IIRC, Gene, what the testers are listening for are abnormalities in the FRz. Sean provides downloadable software on his blog that allows people to train themselves and in this way become better and more discriminatory listeners. Some time prior to the introduction of this software, Sean was posting in the 20K section at AVS. I asked Sean what about other factors like localization, soundstage, or whatever as certainly to my way of thinking those are also factors. He replied something along the lines that they were looking into other aspects of a speakers subjective performance but didn't elaborate.

I would think there are a variety of mathematical approaches that could be used to identify which factors are important and their relative contribution. Then you could use something akin to overlapping resolution mapping to identify what may well be a series of local maxima. Those would then correspond to certain combinations that would yield good results with the important finding that you can trade various performance metrics in an intelligent way to make a well performing speaker. This might have some significance for those designers who opt for sealed, ported, TLS, etc.

In my thinking here, this is just like the work the food industry does where they characterize something like mayonnaise according to a slew of metrics, with only several being important to the actual taste. Make sense, Gene?

Yes that sounds good. I don't think we will ever come to a 100% foolproof method of subjectively testing loudspeaker performance but I'd also stress the importance of sustained listening tests in your own environment to determine what you really like.

As a person that has reviewed and listened to 100s of loudspeakers in the last 15 years or so, I can tell you my opinion changes over time when listening to speakers. This is especially true with speakers that have a deliberate bump in bass/treble response.

I've posted many questions to Sean about his testing methodologies and received a similar response as you did. Hopefully this can be looked at further in the future.

 

[walter duque]

Not to knock ML (I am sure they are great speakers, they have to be, don't they) , but every time I do listend to them I fell like I am listening to two cans of Friskies Buffet.. I don't know why, but that's what comes to my mind.

 

[gene]

Considering how hard it has been to track down the contenders (they don't use this in any advertising), and from some of Dr.Olive's posts: I believe that the point of the testing was to improve their speaker performance.

As such: it would be counter-productive to skew the test in any way. It is certainly possible by accident; but to deliberately change the test to favor your product would make it no longer a test; and therefore a waste of their time.

Your greatly mistaken about this. Harman does market their DBT results, especially at dealer meeetings and at AES conventions. I used to do standards body work for telcom and the company I worked for applied similar tactics to establish themselves as an authorative subject expert. It also gives their dealers talking points. It's a way to indirectly market to the consumer. I suspect if this DBT was performed at Polk, than the Polk speakers would have won against the Infinity's just like Paradigms always win their shootouts, Axiom always wins theirs, etc, etc.

 

[MinusTheBear]

Considering how hard it has been to track down the contenders (they don't use this in any advertising), and from some of Dr.Olive's posts: I believe that the point of the testing was to improve their speaker performance.

As such: it would be counter-productive to skew the test in any way. It is certainly possible by accident; but to deliberately change the test to favor your product would make it no longer a test; and therefore a waste of their time.

They are smart cookies over there but if you claim their research is solely used to gauge and improve their speakers then that research would remain within company or stuffed away in AES journals and not be posted on blogs, forums and discussed on various online websites. One of the purposes of Sean olives blog is to act as a major marketing tool for Harman, especially for that online presence. It works too!

 

[Chu Gai]

A number of years ago, Consumer Reports conducted a review of strawberry jams. They were ranked according to taste by a panel of experts. Well, several years later, some psychologists decided to revisit this only this time, they had regular consumers do the tasting and ranking. With a couple of exceptions, their results largely mirrored those of the experts.

Then they did something interesting. They asked them to define something like texture. IOW, they asked them to focus upon one aspect of the jam. They didn't tell them what constitutes texture, they just had them think about it. Then they administered the test again but now there was no longer any correlation with the previous results. In fact, in some cases, jam at the bottom suddenly vaulted to the top. So even though these people had been eating jam for years, once they had a thought planted in their brains, suddenly they became clueless.j

What this illustrates is that just because you've been doing something for years, like eating jam or for that matter listening to speakers, it doesn't make you an expert. It takes years of training, and some are better at it than others, with rapid feedback to develop such skill sets. There are very few people in the world that have the ability to deconstruct the taste of a product and then still be able to evaluate it as a whole.

Now what's interesting about this is that it illustrates the power of smart advertising which not only comes from the vendor, but reviews and even listening to one's peers. You focus on one thing, say the sensitivity of a speaker, and your ability to rationally evaluate the product goes in the crapper.

Another interesting thing they did was set up two tables where people could buy jam. One table had only a few while the other had quite a lot. They found more jam was bought at the table with the limited selection suggesting that when consumers are faced with too many choices, sensory overload if you will, they're less likely to buy. IMO, the analogy to speakers with the strawberry jam is fairly relevant.

 

[JerryLove]

They are smart cookies over there but if you claim their research is solely used to gauge and improve their speakers then that research would remain within company or stuffed away in AES journals and not be posted on blogs, forums and discussed on various online websites. One of the purposes of Sean olives blog is to act as a major marketing tool for Harman, especially for that online presence. It works too!

The only fair way to settle this is to reproduce the test ourselves. Audioholics blind shootout. Who has a giant turntable ?

 

[JerryLove]

[...] they had regular consumers do the tasting and ranking. With a couple of exceptions, their results largely mirrored those of the experts.

[...]

What this illustrates is that just because you've been doing something for years, like eating jam or for that matter listening to speakers, it doesn't make you an expert.

I would think it illustrates perceptual bias.

 

[gene]

The only fair way to settle this is to reproduce the test ourselves. Audioholics blind shootout. Who has a giant turntable ?

LOL we've done blind tests. They are a lot of work and many manufacturers shy away from them. Some even dropped us as an advertiser when the results weren't in their favor sadly.

 

[JerryLove]

LOL we've done blind tests. They are a lot of work and many manufacturers shy away from them. Some even dropped us as an advertiser when the results weren't in their favor sadly.

It is the catch 22 faced by every reviewer that wants to be honest. Honest will cost you both sponsors (needed to pay for whatever you are using to distribute your reviews) and companies willing to send their products for review.

It's hard to be Consumer Reports.

 

[Adam]

Great. Now I've got a serious hankering for some strawberry jam.

Wait...this thread already skipped the rails a few pages ago, right?

Back to the DBT discussion. Thank you for indulging my hunger pains.

 

[gene]

It is the catch 22 faced by every reviewer that wants to be honest. Honest will cost you both sponsors (needed to pay for whatever you are using to distribute your reviews) and companies willing to send their products for review.

It's hard to be Consumer Reports.

Actually I envy Consumer Reports. Their reviews are 1-2 paragraphs long, have either no or very crude measurements, and people worship them. I think they have a much better business plan

 

[JerryLove]

IIRC, Gene, what the testers are listening for are abnormalities in the FRz. Sean provides downloadable software on his blog that allows people to train themselves and in this way become better and more discriminatory listeners.

He uses both trained and untrained testers. There were datagraphs about properties and preferences broken down by age, gender, and trained/untrained somewhere.

 

[Bachtoven]

I don't think that ML speakers are overpriced at all. In fact, you'd probably have to pay considerably more for a dynamic speaker that even came close to the ML's transparency and detail. Of course, many dynamic speakers can play louder, provide more "slam," and perhaps provide a wider listening area, but for acoustic music and sheer clarity, ML's are hard to beat. I currently own a pair Theos, and years ago (before I got married...) I had a pair of ReQuests.

 

[Cos]

If you like the sound of the of the ML 4,6,8 series, you might also want to take a look at the GoldenEar Superstat Speakers.

GoldenEar Wins Innovations Awards | GoldenEar Technology | A Passion for Sonic Perfection

I really do like their HVFR Tweeters. GoldenEar has spread like a cancer in my bedroom as I have been very pleased with the sound quality for the price point.