Speakers don't matter

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Yes, I suppose it is a matter of degree and definition. My point was that the $5000 high fidelity speakers couldn't trump the room acoustics against $700 high fidelity speakers even though everyone preferred the $5000 speakers when tested in the same room. Hope that's accurate enough for you, sea lawyer. If the $700 speakers had been Bose instead of Boston Acoustics then all bets would have been off.

LOL

Poor Bose!

 

[Art_H]

Loudspeaker and Rooms for Sound Reproduction - A Scientific Review[/I] published in the JAES Vol. 54, No. 6, 2006 June.

Floyd Toole now has a book out releasing July 18, 2008.

Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms

amazon has a listing with info.

Looks good. 576 pages as well...

My first post, glad to be here.

I would compare speakers and rooms to tires and suspension.

A great tire will make the biggest difference in vehicle performance, but a good suspension is needed to take that performance to the next level.
No matter how good your suspension is, a crap tire will always give crap performance... Obviously tires are not speakers, just trying to help give perspective.

I see the situation as a speaker (speaker and enclosure) as an enclosure within an enclosure. ie. the room it's in.
I would say that it's all about tuning. From the speaker enclosure to the shape and material on the walls of the room.

It was posted earlier that a good tuner with a bad antenna is better than one with a bad antenna, or something like that. No matter how well the antenna is tuned, if the tuner isn't on the correct station, all you're going to get is static... Tuning.

I agree that a good speaker will sound better than a bad speaker. Isn't that what makes the 'good' speaker the good one to begin with??? Let's leave cost and pricing out of the equation. (Aside from the obvious $25 plastic specials etc.)

What makes a $700 speaker inferior to a $3000 speaker?
1. Enclosure design?
2. speaker actual quality. cone type. surround. magnet? etc
3. crossover? a big one for passive setups?
4. enclosure materials/build quality?
5. Marketing/appearance?

No matter how you look at it, a speaker (conventional style) is a very crude though effective method of transducing electrical energy into mechanical energy into sound energy.

There is a couple cool videos on youtube where some guys made homemade speakers using a styrofoam plate and a magnet with a wound voicecoil around business cards. Bus. cards also used for the suspension. It didn'y sound that bad considering the crappy audio on youtube. I'm not saying they were great either.

I'm not saying I have the answers. I would just like to have the discussion move in a more scientific approach to differences in cheap to expensive speakers, as opposed to they just sound better. Why do they sound better? (focusing more on the speaker and not the speaker with room)

If the cheaper speakers were removed from the box and tested for T/S and placed in a well built matched box sound as good as the expensive speakers?

Maybe the answer is in depleted uranium speaker enclosures....

Great to be here...

 

[Joe Schmoe]

I have learned from direct experience that a pair of studio monitors in a nearfield configuration can sound as good as any speaker system, regardless of price. Listening to the awesome remaster of Pyramid last night on my Alesis Monitor Ones, I was virtually sitting next to Alan Parsons at the mixing console.

 

[fmw]

I have learned from direct experience that a pair of studio monitors in a nearfield configuration can sound as good as any speaker system, regardless of price. Listening to the awesome remaster of Pyramid last night on my Alesis Monitor Ones, I was virtually sitting next to Alan Parsons at the mixing console.

Most studio monitors are a little lean in the bass. That is one of the reasons that so many mixes have accentuated bass lines in them. There are other reasons, of course. The studio monitors normally have pretty good reproduction in the mids and highs. Listening near field does improve bass response over filling an entire room with bass, but they are still a little lean. Add a sub to a pair of studio monitors and that's a very good approach.

My own studio monitors are home made. They have 8" Vifa woofers and 1" Vifa dome tweeters in enclosures with twice the volume that the software calculated. They are also fairly lean in the bass.

 

[Joe Schmoe]

Most studio monitors are a little lean in the bass.

Mine are -3dB at 45Hz. That is pretty good.

 

[WmAx]

I have learned from direct experience that a pair of studio monitors in a nearfield configuration can sound as good as any speaker system, regardless of price. Listening to the awesome remaster of Pyramid last night on my Alesis Monitor Ones, I was virtually sitting next to Alan Parsons at the mixing console.

Any speaker system? Incorrect. A proper acoustical property room with very wide dispersion speakers of very low resonance and high linearity will sound far more realistic in terms of timbre and spatial reproduction.

Listen, I have a set of studio monitors, in a highly acoustically treated space, that is far superior in regards to measurable linearity, dynamic capability, and resonance behaviors, as compared to most high end monitoring systems used in studios. They can not compare in realism to a properly engineered/built system as described above. Besides, to claim otherwise is in conflict with the credible perceptual research in the field.

-Chris

 

[jliedeka]

Even in a near field situation, the room still affects the sound. I started this thread because I had the experience of a huge jump in sound quality from better speaker positioning and some changes to my room. I anticipate improving my room further before upgrading my speakers because I want to realize the full benefits of better speakers.

Oh, yeah. I also started this thread as a bit of a provocation. It's fun to see whether people will respond rationally or emotionally.

Jim

 

[croseiv]

Oh, yeah. I also started this thread as a bit of a provocation. It's fun to see whether people will respond rationally or emotionally.

Jim

Yeah I figured that was the case.

 

[Joe Schmoe]

Any speaker system? Incorrect. A proper acoustical property room with very wide dispersion speakers of very low resonance and high linearity will sound far more realistic in terms of timbre and spatial reproduction.

Listen, I have a set of studio monitors, in a highly acoustically treated space, that is far superior in regards to measurable linearity, dynamic capability, and resonance behaviors, as compared to most high end monitoring systems used in studios. They can not compare in realism to a properly engineered/built system as described above. Besides, to claim otherwise is in conflict with the credible perceptual research in the field.

-Chris

I have heard systems costing well over 100X as much as mine that did not sound better (equally good, but not better.)

 

[mouettus]

I have heard systems costing well over 100X as much as mine that did not sound better (equally good, but not better.)

So how does your ego feel now? lol

 

[WmAx]

I have heard systems costing well over 100X as much as mine that did not sound better (equally good, but not better.)

First let's consider that most so-called audiophile systems are priced far higher than they need be, due to over-priced exotic audio hardware and cables, and speakers that have mediocre measured performance(I can can count on one hand, the number of actually remarkable measuring speakers I have seen in Stereophile in the last 5-7 years), but very high price tags... compounded by usually being in a mediocre acoustical environment.... price really has less to do with it than most think it does...

-Chris

 

[WmAx]

Even in a near field situation, the room still affects the sound.

Sure, but not by a significant amount, unless poor set up is true: fore example, placing speakers near a boundary wall without a large surface area covered with high bandwidth absorbers to remove the majority of the reflection(s). LF can still be an issue, but mid-range and treble is not difficult to get to a point where it has no substantial effect by the room placed upon it, if used in a proper near field set up.

-Chris

 

[annunaki]

Any speaker system? Incorrect. A proper acoustical property room with very wide dispersion speakers of very low resonance and high linearity will sound far more realistic in terms of timbre and spatial reproduction.

Listen, I have a set of studio monitors, in a highly acoustically treated space, that is far superior in regards to measurable linearity, dynamic capability, and resonance behaviors, as compared to most high end monitoring systems used in studios. They can not compare in realism to a properly engineered/built system as described above. Besides, to claim otherwise is in conflict with the credible perceptual research in the field.

-Chris

Based upon the design of Chris's nearfield monitors I totally agree with him here. They rival any of the best monitors available, regardless of price, period.

A properly designed, linear, resonance free, wide dispesion speaker system will easily sound more pleasing to most people than nearfiled monitors if both were set up properly.