Is speaker selection as critical as it once was?

[3db]

Assuming you have a recevier with room correction featuures such as Audessy or YPAO, and that the receiver has enough power to drive the speakers to sufficiently loud levels, what is so important in auditioning the speakers if room correction mode is used to flatten the frequency response for that room? With room coorection factors in, wouldn't all speakers sound the same?

 

[Xargos]

For speaker selection not to matter, all speakers would have to be free of resonance problems, have relatively well designed crossovers, etc...

Room correction features can only do so much. The speaker still needs to be physically capable of delivering the frequencies and levels requested of it.

 

[j_garcia]

Speakers are still the most important thing in your setup. Making a speaker's response flatter doesn't change the sonic signature (timbre) of that speaker.

 

[3db]

For speaker selection not to matter, all speakers would have to be free of resonance problems, have relatively well designed crossovers, etc...

Room correction features can only do so much. The speaker still needs to be physically capable of delivering the frequencies and levels requested of it.

Just for arguements sake.. take three reputable speaker makes,, ie Polk Paradigm, SVS...throw in a sub so that the entire frequency response is captured...now what??

 

[3db]

Speakers are still the most important thing in your setup. Making a speaker's response flatter doesn't change the sonic signature (timbre) of that speaker.

Isn't timbre a sonic signature based on frequency content?

 

[ski2xblack]

Just for arguements sake.. take three reputable speaker makes,, ie Polk Paradigm, SVS...throw in a sub so that the entire frequency response is captured...now what??

As Xargos stated, each of the speakers will have their own slight variations. They may all be great, relatively flat post eq, but they will not sound identical. Box resonances, crossover coloration, etc, remain, and are unique to each speaker. Surely one flavor or the other would tickle you're ear better than the others, and that is the ultimate measure anyway.

 

[3db]

As Xargos stated, each of the speakers will have their own slight variations. They may all be great, relatively flat post eq, but they will not sound identical. Box resonances, crossover coloration, etc, remain, and are unique to each speaker. Surely one flavor or the other would tickle you're ear better than the others, and that is the ultimate measure anyway.

I can understand cabinet resonances affecting the sound but doesn't the Audessy and YPAO measure this andaccount for this? . Can you explain to me what cross over coloration is. Which leads me to another question..does the two room correction software ( call it rsw to make it shorter) correct for phase as well?

 

[TLS Guy]

I can understand cabinet resonances affecting the sound but doesn't the Audessy and YPAO measure this andaccount for this? . Can you explain to me what cross over coloration is. Which leads me to another question..does the two room correction software ( call it rsw to make it shorter) correct for phase as well?

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. A speaker resonance equalized still present s huge problems.

I don't think those auto Eq programs cut it. I evaluated Audessy with the developer. We had very reasonable but not exotic speakers. Audessy was causing problems and not solving them, the sound was clearly worse. We did do an over ride, and were able to get Audessy to slightly improve the LF region. However outside of that in my view it was a total mess. To me it is a feature I would never use.

 

[lsiberian]

AS doesn't cure problems it does help with calibration, but bad speakers are bad speakers no matter what eq you put on them. EQ is designed for room correction not speaker correction. AS requires several things to be correct for it to be useful. 1. Proper room, 2. Proper speaker placement, 3. Good speakers, 4. Well run calibration. It takes as much time to do well as doing it by ear in many cases.

However when done right it makes for a great theater experience.

 

[3db]

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. A speaker resonance equalized still present s huge problems.

I don't think those auto Eq programs cut it. I evaluated Audessy with the developer. We had very reasonable but not exotic speakers. Audessy was causing problems and not solving them, the sound was clearly worse. We did do an over ride, and were able to get Audessy to slightly improve the LF region. However outside of that in my view it was a total mess. To me it is a feature I would never use.

Thanks TLS. So for the time being, recevier based s/w is not powerful enough yet to correct for all of the defficiencie's equated to that of the speaker and its interaction with the room.

Just bumping this up to theoretical now..if the s/w were powerful enough, would all speakers sound the same? My thinking is that whats maesured by the mic is the cumulative sound of all the aspects that could affect sound and once processed by teh s/w, any anomolies that were found would be corrected. I'm assuming that speakers are being driven well within their limits and that driver excursion or beakup is not beingreached.

 

[JerryLove]

To be fair, equalization can be used to correct speaker efficiency differences (smooth roll off). A crossover does exactly that, to make multiple drivers blend, and it's been done by several speaker manufacturers (from the dreaded Bose, to the not-so-dreaded McIntosh, to the downright liked Martin Logan).

One problem with relying on YAMO or Audessy is that they are, what, 9 frequencies with some sort of logarithmic roll-off? The speaker may not be non-flat in that way.

Said another way, though an equalizer tries to correct to flat, that might not be possible without a custom built (for those drivers) equalizer, and that still won't help if there's resonance (which occurs at a different frequency than the sound). And none of that even begins to touch on-axis-vs-off-axis performance.

There are some respected speaker makers who believe that custom equalization is a good way to correct for some types of speaker behavior (Roger Russell was a proponent of using sealed enclosure bass and and equalizer on (for example) the XR-series), but it will not fix an erratic driver (one with dips and spikes all over), or issues like resonance.

 

[ski2xblack]

I can understand cabinet resonances affecting the sound but doesn't the Audessy and YPAO measure this andaccount for this? . Can you explain to me what cross over coloration is. Which leads me to another question..does the two room correction software ( call it rsw to make it shorter) correct for phase as well?

"crossover coloration" may be a poor choice of terminology, I guess what I'm referring to is the total coloration imposed by a speaker system, the sum of all it's parts. If you think about it, even high grade crossover components have variances, so even two ostensibly identical speakers from the same manufacturer may not measure absolutely, exactly the same (although one would hope they measure close enough to be sonically indistinguishable). Add in the fact that different manufacturers are using different drivers and crossover components contained in different enclosures, it would be a miracle if they DID produce absolutely identical results.

It seems that you are trying to apply the amplifier theory (all amps sound the same when operating within their limits) to speakers. While this is true for amplifiers, there are too many variables with speakers for this to be applied, and based on Xargos' post, too much for room correction software properly address. Even speakers with equivalently flat freq response will sound different, unless every other possible variable is accounted for.

 

[3db]

"crossover coloration" may be a poor choice of terminology, I guess what I'm referring to is the total coloration imposed by a speaker system, the sum of all it's parts. If you think about it, even high grade crossover components have variances, so even two ostensibly identical speakers from the same manufacturer may not measure absolutely, exactly the same (although one would hope they measure close enough to be sonically indistinguishable). Add in the fact that different manufacturers are using different drivers and crossover components contained in different enclosures, it would be a miracle if they DID produce absolutely identical results.

It seems that you are trying to apply the amplifier theory (all amps sound the same when operating within their limits) to speakers. While this is true for amplifiers, there are too many variables with speakers for this to be applied, and based on Xargos' post, too much for room correction software properly address. Even speakers with equivalently flat freq response will sound different, unless every other possible variable is accounted for.

Thats exactly what I'm applying......amplifier theorey... but I also realize that teh sound we hear from speakers is quite complex with many many factors affecting it. The oly difference betwwen the amplifier theory and the speakers is that there is one hell of powerful black box that affects the signals sent to the speaker to get them to sound the same if thats possible.

When I audition speakers, I prefer to do it in pure direct mode so I know exaclty what I'm hearing from the speaker and not what s/w thinks I want to hear.

 

[JerryLove]

Simple example. I play a given sound at a given volume from a large planar ribbon speaker. I move farther away, the sound drops only a little.

I play the same sound at the same volume (actual db, not volume setting) from a pair of little cubes. Even if it sounds exactly the same, when I move back, the sound volume will drop more dramatically.

Similarly, as I move right and left, in addition to basic off-axis differences, the sounds will rise and fall more with the smaller emitter than the larger one. There's nothing at all that can be done for that by an EQ.

 

[3db]

Simple example. I play a given sound at a given volume from a large planar ribbon speaker. I move farther away, the sound drops only a little.

I play the same sound at the same volume (actual db, not volume setting) from a pair of little cubes. Even if it sounds exactly the same, when I move back, the sound volume will drop more dramatically.

Similarly, as I move right and left, in addition to basic off-axis differences, the sounds will rise and fall more with the smaller emitter than the larger one. There's nothing at all that can be done for that by an EQ.

I moved well past the simple EQ and into theorey...I understand that s/w correction done in A/V receivers does not address all the variables required to make speakers sound teh same. However, I'm convinced that we'll get there in the next 50 yrs or so. Look at how much has been accomplished with electonics to date.

 

[gmichael]

All great explanations already. Let me add that there is distortion created by speakers. Driver cones go out of round due to pressure from the air around it while being driven in the center by the voice coils. No EQ system can do anything about that. A crappy speaker may sound "less-crappy" but it will still be crappy.

 

[ski2xblack]

I moved well past the simple EQ and into theorey...I understand that s/w correction done in A/V receivers does not address all the variables required to make speakers sound teh same. However, I'm convinced that we'll get there in the next 50 yrs or so. Look at how much has been accomplished with electonics to date.

We're kind of headed there already. Think of the R&D facilities utilized by Paradigm, etc, and how that has influenced the speaker market over the past couple decades. As more and more folks utilize such well thought out and researched designs, the collective sense of 'good sound' is improved. The trend is definitely toward some sort of ideal. We used to have the 'british sound', the 'german sound', 'west coast sound', etc. Now, the accepted ideal is toward flat responnse, neutrality and accuracy. Seems so to me, at least.

However, even if some ideal is reached and 'perfect', common signature speakers result, each listener will still hear them differently. (Ear shape? Head size? Neural processing of perception? Subconscious biases? All pretty fundamental to the whole subjective hearing thing, and not the sort of things that can be addressed by speaker engineering.) Due to this, I think we will always have quite a bit of choices speaker-wise, and I for one am glad for it.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Isn't timbre a sonic signature based on frequency content?

Yes, but I seriously doubt even a good 1/3 octave EQ can match timber of different makes. Just not enough frequencies manipulated for that. Even Tool mentions what is needed to do a decent job, something like a 1/12 order or more. Rough correction would not hack it for timber matching.

 

[wyllisx1]

Assuming you have a recevier with room correction featuures such as Audessy or YPAO, and that the receiver has enough power to drive the speakers to sufficiently loud levels, what is so important in auditioning the speakers if room correction mode is used to flatten the frequency response for that room? With room coorection factors in, wouldn't all speakers sound the same?

Nope, I love my speakers because my girlfriend thinks they're pretty. Oh yeah & they sound great to me. I auditioned others but like the ones I bought because they sounded best to me. That was before I made any corrections to me listening area. After I did have them home I changed out my dipoles for bookshelves for ht use.

My so actually plays his crappy music (man I hate rap) on 7 speaker mode & I only have a 5.1 setup, I guess he'd agree with you.

I enjoy sweet sweet pure direct stereo myself. OK occasionally I'll let my big 'ole sub join in too.