How to design speakers for Stereophile reviewers

[GDO]

Toole and Olive have found, by conducting LISTENING experiments and comparing them to measured (in 3D) frequency responses of the same loudspeaker, that this type of response is preferred in a wide variety of home listening environments.

Sorry Charlie, know that, been there, but am not a researcher at Harmann nor have to please Olive panels. With pleasing myself have more than enough...

 

[sreten]

Hi,

The "Stereophile Curve" is nonsense and does not exist.

rgds, sreten.

 

[Juhazi]

GDO, do you have anything to give us except spam? It is ok to think different and get pleased the way you want, but blaiming widely accepted dogms as nonsense and irrelevant is just crazy. You are so egocentric, wheew! (Sorry to say that)

Please sleep overnight and then tell us how you define a good loudspeaker(sound). Perhaps you have written an article or a book about that? Name some good ones, go and check if you can find measurements of those. Then we can get on and see, if someone else likes those speakers too.

 

[eriksquires]

Well, it's possible that it's really the B&W curve, and that if you buy the hype that they are neutral and studio monitor speakers, then your ears would become accustomed to that. It would then follow that neutral sounding speakers would be perceived as dull, and something like the Golden Ear Triton 5 would sound more like a $20k speaker.

 

[GDO]

GDO, do you have anything to give us except spam? It is ok to think different and get pleased the way you want, but blaiming widely accepted dogms as nonsense and irrelevant is just crazy. You are so egocentric, wheew! (Sorry to say that)

Please sleep overnight and then tell us how you define a good loudspeaker(sound). Perhaps you have written an article or a book about that? Name some good ones, go and check if you can find measurements of those. Then we can get on and see, if someone else likes those speakers too.

Feel free to ignore my spam, no problemo...

 

[GDO]

I can achieve this kind of response using an open-baffle or nude (baffle-less) mounting of the driver(s). This doesn't mean I only build that kind of loudspeaker, but mostly those sound much better than "boxed" loudspeakers that I build... because it is difficult to get the power response of a boxed system to be as smooth as with an OB type system.

It's possible to play games and design for off axis, leaving the "on axis" hotter at higher frequencies to try and balance the power response. I have not found this to help the boxed speaker all that much. It's not horrible, just that the BO/dipole system is able to present the recording with better dimensionality and less coloration.

The fullrange driver used by Linkwitz for LX mini has a definitely rising response on axis. All decent full range behave like this: the bigger their diameter, the hotter on axis in an effort to save the power response.

Dipole, or closed boxed loading is quite secondary imho.

 

[Clashing]

First off, very interesting theory and great perception, but no...
I honestly do not the inner workings of magazines like Stereophile and TAS but I can say with a fair degree of certaintity that there is no method to their madness, at least not an objective one anyway...
As I said though, interesting theory,
Clashing

 

[Gnobuddy]

I suspect that the reviewer chimps are working off old memories of live music's sound

Oddly enough, I hear more musicians these days who deliberately set their equipment in order to create the same sorts of ear-piercingly bright sounds.

Perhaps it's just another contemporary fad, like fluorescent orange shoes with neon green laces, sized to fit adult feet?

-Gnobuddy

 

[Juhazi]

Oddly enough, I hear more musicians these days who deliberately set their equipment in order to create the same sorts of ear-piercingly bright sounds.

Perhaps it's just another contemporary fad, like fluorescent orange shoes with neon green laces, sized to fit adult feet?

-Gnobuddy

I think that you are on right tracks. The ideal of good sound and balance for pop-rock musicians is an amplified and mixed eq'd sound played through classD amps and cheap compression divers "live". This applies also to the people going to their gigs and discos.

In real life, "life performace" without mixing, effects and amplification are rarities for many people. Room affects sound and eg. pianos and guitars always sound different in every room. In classical music recordings, alike Instruments sound different - room, microphone technique and model, recording engineer etc. leave their marks.

 

[perempe20]

That will always be true I'm afraid. Sorry was typing from a bar at the end of a basketball game.

Erik

Klay was awesome.

 

[eriksquires]

Sorry, a minor mistake, the chart I posted was for the original 802D, not hte D2 for which I have no data. The rest of the posting still applies

The chart does contain the data for the 802D, 802 D3 and GE Triton 5.

Best,

Erik

 

[5th element]

I guess one thing to bare in mind is that Stereophile has reviewed some very well designed loudspeakers, both in terms of how they measurea and in terms of design ethos that do review extremely well. Designs from Revel/KEF/YG Acoustics for example.

 

[eriksquires]

True, the YG certainly have unimpeachable measurements. How do you hear a YG speaker, love it, and hear the B&W and rave about it, unless you have no hearing at all above 5kHz.

 

[Eldam]

Frankly I listened to 90 minutes the Kef Blade II ! Not Worth 20 K USD nore the half of that ! ANd the flag ship certainly don't Worth the double !


I believe there are more differences between two cars with the same price range ! A little disturbing !

 

[rayma]

True, the YG certainly have unimpeachable measurements. How do you hear a YG speaker,
love it, and hear the B&W and rave about it, unless you have no hearing at all above 5kHz.

Stereophile has multiple reviewers, and they all will have different preferences.
Any particular speaker is a large collection of compromises, after all.

 

[Eldam]

.... but the huge différences in prices even in a same Class (A+, A, B, etc...), don't reflect the difference in sound qualities ! This is completly mad to see 100 K USD speakers being not so far than 10 K speakers... these last not being a sound miracle most of the time !

For me true Hifi is when some sucess to make a good device with a serious price (reasonable I mean)!

To rephrase it : it's not the Triton speaker which is an UFO for the price ! This is all the others !

 

[GDO]

.... but the huge différences in prices even in a same Class (A+, A, B, etc...), don't reflect the difference in sound qualities ! This is completly mad to see 100 K USD speakers being not so far than 10 K speakers... these last not being a sound miracle most of the time !

The question is by no means the difference between the speakers, but rather the differences between the guys which can put 1k on a pair of speakers and the guys which can put X10 or X100 times that money...

That's what very high end audio and its social mission is all about: pump and redistribute excess wealth...

 

[rayma]

.... but the huge différences in prices even in a same Class (A+, A, B, etc...),
don't reflect the difference in sound qualities ! This is completly mad to see
100 K USD speakers being not so far than 10 K speakers.

The reviews are based on performance, without respect to price.
Having products with a range of prices all in one class is what you would then expect.
There are people happy to pay such high prices to get what they want,
just like with cars, jewelry, real estate, etc.

 

[Eldam]

Rayma, Are you serious ?

@ GDO, do you mean the people who can are 10 x or 100 x more stupid ? When you buy a ferrari or a Porsche there are differences, not too much in Hi-fi : price scale here is stupid for the most expensives ! (any industrial reality behind !)

 

[Bill poster]

YG make their driver cones from solid aluminium billets. Sounds like a waste of a lot of money for a small return.