Why is this speaker so well regarded?

[morbo]

Take a look at these measurements:

http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/me...ce3a_mmdecapo/

I've heard local and internet audiophiles raving about this speaker, but looking at the measurements... I mean seriously, WTF? To me this looks awful. Anyone heard these?

[Nelson Pass]

I've seen worse - only the 2nd off axis curve looks that bad.

[Michael Rothacher]

There's a cool article out there somewhere by Floyd Toole which postulates that a ruler-flat response curve isn't nearly as important as taming the deep resonances which affect the speaker's overall timbre.

[morbo]

taming the deep resonances which affect the speaker's overall timbre.

While this may be true, I'm not sure it applies to this speaker in particular. My understanding is that they run the woofer with no crossover and a first order high pass on the tweeter. Perhaps they are taming these resonances mechanically though? Or perhaps I misunderstand how such resonances would be tamed. From this plot:



it looks to my untrained eye like there is a big resonance at 1k. (More measurements here: http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeak...3a/index4.html )

Certainly there are worse measuring speakers out there, but the FR looks a bit ragged here, and the stereophile measurements seem to point to other problems with ringing. I don't have a lot of experience interpreting measurements, so perhaps there's something I'm missing about them, or perhaps I'm making a mountain of a molehill? For comparison, many of these similar but much less expensive speakers seem to measure as well or better to me. I know these measurements aren't the final word (no impulse response, waterfalls, etc), but I was under the impression that a relatively flat frequency response, on and off axis, and low distortion, were two of the main attributes of good speakers.


http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/me...ascend_cbm170/

http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/me...digm_monitor5/

http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/me...onnoisseur_c3/

I guess I just don't understand what makes this speaker so great, especially for $2500 US. Do the benefits of this type of minimalist crossover really outweigh the drawbacks? For that matter, audiophile platitudes aside, from an engineering POV, what are the benefits of this type of design?

PS All the measurements I posted come from www.speakermeasurements.com, a very useful site.

[Michael Rothacher]

I wasn't defending any speaker in particular, just the notion that the timbre of loudspeakers can't always be undersood from the bode plot. I can think of a few "highly regarded" speakers that don't have great looking FR graphs.

I'm not trying to be controversial - it's just the old problem of trying to match a subjective opinion to a measured result. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Is box office sales a measureable indicator of a good film?

[morbo]

I wasn't defending any speaker in particular, just the notion that the timbre of loudspeakers can't always be undersood from the bode plot. I can think of a few "highly regarded" speakers that don't have great looking FR graphs.

Understood and agreed. And I wasn't arguing with your point in general, just pointing out that in this case, it may not apply.

Is box office sales a measureable indicator of a good film?

This analogy doesnt work at all IMHO. You could equate box office sales to speaker sales, or quantifiable visual/audio quality (ie resolution, bitrates, etc) of a movie to quantifiable quality (measurements) of a speaker. But this is an apples/watermellons comparison.

[Bose(o)]

Like always, it comes down to listening to the speakers.

I too am under the impression that a flat response is an attribute of a good loudspeaker. FR Response, phase coherence, Low distortions. Those are at the top of my list. Oh, and a large and wide soundstage.

[Michael Rothacher]

I agree all the way around.

I used the film analogy just for fun to point out that popularity and good taste aren't always the same.

When I was younger, I worked for a notorious self-proclaimed golden-eared audio guru. While testing a new speaker, I told him we had made an adjustment in the XO. He listened for a few minutes and said something like 'Wow, much wider soundstage!'

Of course, I hadn't changed anything.

I'm sure he had good ears (as well as a keen sense of marketing), but I learned a valuable lesson that day about the power of suggestion and valuing the opinions of others at the expense of my own.

Trust, but verify.

Mike

[Brett]

I've never heard the speakers first mentioned, but I don't feel any more that a flat FR is that big a deal. Years ago I had a set of Linn Kans, and whilst they had lots of issues, especially if you measured them, they were one of the most FUN speakers I'd ever listened to for the music I liked.

[Wodgy]

Many expensive speakers don't measure well. Even the Wilson WATT/Puppies are pretty mediocre, and worse than that off axis:
http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/me...on_wattpuppy7/

There are some "high end" speaker designers who don't appear to own any measurement equipment at all (e.g. nOrh). Other small boutique outfits just haven't spent the money for a decent measurement room. Past $2000, for many vendors it's no longer about performance anyway.

IMHO, you tend to get the best measured performance in speakers in the $500-1500 range. Also, companies that do their design in Canada or have a historical connection to Canada's National Research Council (PSB, Paradigm, Energy, Infinity, Axiom, etc.) generally seem to place a great emphasis on measurements, and this trickles down to their lower end models. There are some exceptions, e.g. Totem.

Measurements aren't everything though, as speaker measurements are generally woefully inadequate in capturing their sound. For example, rarely do we see harmonic distortion spectra for loudspeakers.

Still, it's been my experience that measurements do correlate to some degree to how a speaker sounds.