I assume both failed to show correlation at the same time, as you're not going to get one without the other, but I'll leave that to Geddes or people that have read the papers well. So far in my speaker building endeavors, I've had other stuff to worry about (and nonlinear distortion has been fairly low anyway, useless metric or not).He doesn't (from my perusal of his website and papers) seem to have done anything related to IMD on music signals (meaning high crest factor signals). So do please give me a helping hand here. What I've read about is THD weighting for higher harmonics, but THD is old hat
Everyone. Data vs. no data is a nonstarter. Geddes makes a pretty convincing argument that THD and IMD numbers in conventional form are not good metrics for subjective sound quality. Various alternatives proposed are already mentioned above. In that (this) context, what's left to talk about without new data?
Reasons why the data previously gathered were not relevant or had oversights in the measurement process?
So far I have seen handwaving in the direction of data on IMD in electronics but no, nada, zero data presented so I must conclude the original remark was just handwaving despite the banner of 'science' being unfurled on this thread
So far I have seen handwaving in the direction of data on IMD in electronics but no, nada, zero data presented so I must conclude the original remark was just handwaving despite the banner of 'science' being unfurled on this thread
This is where people always miss the point: the "a lot more limited headroom" is due to the driving amplifier starting to collapse, and using extremely efficient speakers is the easy workaround for this. Now, if I used the Bryston monoblocks on those Behringers, people would get a different view of the speaker's capabilities ...
Only excursion limited if you hit it with deep, deep bass notes. Higher up, cooking of the voice coil could be a problem, if you wanted to be silly about it.
What impressed me about the Behringer, the active version, was the excellent control over the cone when being driven hard, even with the raw electronics. Other, "lesser", units - including Dynaudio, - with the same source material, the midwoofer diaphragm started to visually 'blubber' about when given the whip - this is where the cone excursion issues are going to rise ...
What impressed me about the Behringer, the active version, was the excellent control over the cone when being driven hard, even with the raw electronics. Other, "lesser", units - including Dynaudio,
- with the same source material, the midwoofer diaphragm started to visually 'blubber' about when given the whip - this is where the cone excursion issues are going to rise ...
"Littleness" of the cone has nothing to do with it, it's the inner engineering. As an example of what can be achieved, look at the Morel SCM634 midrange: "only" has an an effective size of about 5" diameter, "only" has excursion limits of +-5mm, and what can it do? Frequency range of 100 to 10,000Hz, and takes a transient peak of 1,000W, roughly translates to a 120dB peak sound at 1metre - this would have no trouble giving you permanent deafness after 5 minutes or so ...
1) IMD was part of our study on the perception of nonlinear distortion. It did not fare any better than THD. Both were meaningless numbers when looking at perception. And we did use music as a source.
2) the Behringer is going to be limited in SPL no matter what you do. The small woofer and 1" tweeter are just not going to hold up at higher SPL levels. An aspect of the OP study that was not explored. But then both the Orion and the Behringer would not hold up well at higher SPLs. Small tweeters just cannot take that much power without excursion and thermal problems.
2) the Behringer is going to be limited in SPL no matter what you do. The small woofer and 1" tweeter are just not going to hold up at higher SPL levels. An aspect of the OP study that was not explored. But then both the Orion and the Behringer would not hold up well at higher SPLs. Small tweeters just cannot take that much power without excursion and thermal problems.
I think the fact that the speakers that "won" were bose clones just proves that there is a big difference between what sounds "better" and what sounds "normal" based on previous experiences.
Many people will choose what they are familiar with even if it it inferior.
I know several like that.
It's like going to olive garden your entire life but when someone moves into the building next door selling authentic Italian food and still not giving it a shot.
Many people will choose what they are familiar with even if it it inferior.
I know several like that.
It's like going to olive garden your entire life but when someone moves into the building next door selling authentic Italian food and still not giving it a shot.
ORNJ
A lot of what you say about expectation is true, but the Behringer's are nothing like Bose speakers.
The other point here is that there was no "winner" in this study. The two speakers were not found to be statistically different. That's a big win for the cheaper speaker and a big loss for the more expensive one, but neither was "The winner".
You also have to keep in mind what not being found statistically different means. It means that within the designs of the test the subjects could not determine one as preferred over the other. In no way does this mean that the two speakers sounded the same. Not at all, just that the test, or the listeners were unable to come to a conclusive result. It is entirely possible that the test was just so poorly setup that nothing useful could be determined from it. That was my take on it and I have said so. The test was flawed from the get-go. It failed to find anything statistically significant. Completely random results.
A lot of what you say about expectation is true, but the Behringer's are nothing like Bose speakers.
The other point here is that there was no "winner" in this study. The two speakers were not found to be statistically different. That's a big win for the cheaper speaker and a big loss for the more expensive one, but neither was "The winner".
You also have to keep in mind what not being found statistically different means. It means that within the designs of the test the subjects could not determine one as preferred over the other. In no way does this mean that the two speakers sounded the same. Not at all, just that the test, or the listeners were unable to come to a conclusive result. It is entirely possible that the test was just so poorly setup that nothing useful could be determined from it. That was my take on it and I have said so. The test was flawed from the get-go. It failed to find anything statistically significant. Completely random results.
Lets say 100 dB in the room. That's 106+ dB at 1 meter, and that's very conservative for a movie. A theater will exceed 110 dB at the seats. So theater playback levels would require 116 - 120 dB at 1 meter. The complete lack of Hi-Fi speakers that could do that was a big reason why I developed my speakers. A 1" tweeter simply cannot do a theater level playback without completely loosing it.
While I did not listen to the Behringers in this test, I am sure that they would not do movies very well. A friend of mine uses them in his theater and that pretty much proves my point, although I can't be sure of course. I only know that his theater isn't even close to mine in sound quality. Speaker performance makes a difference.
Casual listening to music is not a major task for most speakers and high level performance is not an issue. But if you want to use the same system for HT then HI-Fi speakers just don't cut it.
And "peak sound" before burn out says absolutely nothing about sound quality at these levels over a 2 hour movie. It just not relevant. Most companies rate speaker SPL performance to failure. Poor sound results at far far less numbers.
While I did not listen to the Behringers in this test, I am sure that they would not do movies very well. A friend of mine uses them in his theater and that pretty much proves my point, although I can't be sure of course. I only know that his theater isn't even close to mine in sound quality. Speaker performance makes a difference.
Casual listening to music is not a major task for most speakers and high level performance is not an issue. But if you want to use the same system for HT then HI-Fi speakers just don't cut it.
And "peak sound" before burn out says absolutely nothing about sound quality at these levels over a 2 hour movie. It just not relevant. Most companies rate speaker SPL performance to failure. Poor sound results at far far less numbers.
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A reference to this study would be great. Is it available online to read?
How did you go about measuring IMD when music is used as source?