My own system is all solid state driven, and sounds NOTHING like the Klipsch Jubilees did at that show. Thankfully!
20 db boost via dsp comes at a cost.
I have a 300B and SS Class A amps. Perceptually, the high 2nd order distortion of the 300B masks some of the hardness and breakup of some driver and horn combos. But, to me, it undoubtedly comes at the cost of fidelity, i.e., some detail is lost. It can sound wonderful. Point is that masking by pleasing distortion is a significant mechanism. What you want is smoothness and lack of hardness from the driver/horn combo and then you don’t need tube amps to cover it up.
I have a 300B and SS Class A amps. Perceptually, the high 2nd order distortion of the 300B masks some of the hardness and breakup of some driver and horn combos. But, to me, it undoubtedly comes at the cost of fidelity, i.e., some detail is lost. It can sound wonderful. Point is that masking by pleasing distortion is a significant mechanism. What you want is smoothness and lack of hardness from the driver/horn combo and then you don’t need tube amps to cover it up.
I agree, but these things happen. I hear it a lot at shows. But Klipsch should know better.
i have 2 300B Set , one with transformer interstage and monolith magnetics OP , the other more simple with coupling caps and Tango output transformer , and two solid state amplifier , a transistor First WAT M2 , and a Class D PURIFI AMp . the big 300B sounds the best with the medium , i can put the PURIFI everywhere it sounds good too and not an inch of noises unlike the others . the first Watt 2 is in beetween not as coloured than the 300b and not as straight and clean as the Purifi . for a sensitive tweeter like the HF108 and it"s 110DB it is a great thing to have a perfectly silent Amp like the Purifi or the M2 . for the 15inch driver the Purifi wins hands down with it's autorithy and perfect silence ( without the input buffer gain )
YA! 😎
But you are being too harsh with Klipsch. I thought they were the biggest let down at the show but not the worst sound. There were others that could not even raise to the level of HiFi.😉
After visiting quite a few shows, I've come to the conclusion that worth to pay attention to setups that sound outstanding, which means that they definitely can. Bad sound can have too many reasons - unfortunate room, installation errors, something with the electricity affects the electronic equipment, etc.
As an example, the first time I listened to JBL Everest with Mark Levinson in Munich, the setup sounded disgusting, it was like a big boom box, with booming bass, failure in the middle, annoying tops. Later I listened to them twice, including at the last Warsaw show and they sounded great, also with Mark Levinson, though in a small room for them. There were several such examples.
However, if the problem repeats in different conditions, then you can draw certain conclusions.
As an example, the first time I listened to JBL Everest with Mark Levinson in Munich, the setup sounded disgusting, it was like a big boom box, with booming bass, failure in the middle, annoying tops. Later I listened to them twice, including at the last Warsaw show and they sounded great, also with Mark Levinson, though in a small room for them. There were several such examples.
However, if the problem repeats in different conditions, then you can draw certain conclusions.
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With great reputation comes great responsibility (to slightly paraphrase Spiderman 😉)
That a good point that can be flipped around: if you cannot raise to the occasion at the premiere world show what are the chances that you are going to care about a regular customer buying your gear?
One of the major issues I have noticed at shows is the poor stereo image. The impression of the sound is coming directly from the two separate L+R drivers is more severe with horns since they are single point source for a large portion of the spectrum. This seems like a time/phase alignment or poor positioning of the speakers. I feel that is something that an expert sound tech with a modicum of hearing should be able to solve.
That makes sense, too. There's another side to it, sometimes "bad sound" is bad for you (for us)) but can be great for a lot of other listeners. Sometimes successful sales mean customization to the target audience, not absolute quality.
I usually don't care about the success of this or that brand, I'm looking for inspiration and an understanding of the possible upper bar of sound quality. Or just to understand where to go next, or not to go. In this sense, the "pay attention only to the great" approach works.
By the way, I've never once heard a Klipsch setup that impressed me. Although conceptually this is "my" type of sound, but all implementations have limped on one or two legs 🙂
This is common misconception. Nobody is stopping you to do a (very) long term ABX listening test.
This is interesting, because you mention details... fidelity and wonderful.
Wonderful is probably too subjective.
Fidelity=faithfulness which implies true to the signal/recording and/or lossless.
Details: minutiae, particulars, specifics, technicalities, points, elements, information, data, finer points, trivia, the lowdown, ins and outs, the nitty gritty,
the scoop etc.
In order not to drown in the ocean of audiophool terminology, the 'attractiveness' of objective interpretation based on science, measurement data, ABX testing etc. emerges in this kind of discussion.
Very briefly my own experiences at shows:
In roughly 80% of the demos you are mainly overwhelmed by a tsunami of details.
Then there are a number of rooms where you stay longer because 'something' is going well, or not much is wrong.
Sometimes it stops there, but fortunately highlights also occur.
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Impractical is a small price to pay for the truth.
Comparing two drivers: two identical horns mounted in identical sub-enclosures, each with different driver and with appropriate crossover, atop each of the other (both atop the midbass enclosure) and switched through speaker selector switch. Sighted or non sighted, it doesn't matter - you don't know which driver is on the top or on the bottom horn. At some time point (hour, day, ...), when you are not watching, your friend/girlfriend/wife changes (or not!) the top horn with the bottom and changes (or not!) connectors in the speaker selector switch. And the listening continues...
And yes, I have done this impractical ABX test, on several occasions. The result? Long term listening gave the same result as (reasonable) short term listening (long term listening is a myth!). And both corresponds to the amount of the measured intermodulation distortion, plus how clean is the waterfall diagram (no resonances!). So I quit this impractical ABX listening test long time ago and now I am doing the measurements only.
Axi is a 300-20kHz design.
In your experience, is there audible limit for waterfall diagram? (ms, cycles)
Did you conduct the measurement yourself? If so, what kind of IMD measurement are you using?
In your experience, is there audible limit for waterfall diagram? (ms, cycles)
Who needs to do ABX anymore? If he stay there than the sound is Ok for me too😅
IMD, IR, FR etc; the 'basics' iow.
Since this thread is about compression drivers, there's evidently a correlation between these data and perception/preference.
Troy (Joseph Crowe) - who 'discovered' the latest 1.4" benchmark budget driver, went to Munich last year and really liked this rather unusual and illogical loudspeaker. This concept, from the manufacturer whose expensive DAC landed at the bottom of ASR's SINAD list, violates quite a few established 'truths'.
FWIW, it received a lot of favorable reviews from the press and many folks online.
"Constant directivity horn used only above 3.5KHz" > I suppose we all understand what TotalDac's objectives were.
Now for long-term listening pleasure, without headache - if you also appreciate low-fi recordings...
I came across this video of a supposedly superior high-end setup:
Why don't such brands ever play old rock, new wave etc. from Led Zeppelin, Joy Division, Velvet Underground, Pixies, or sublime but noisy classical recordings from the 1930's up to the 1950's etc.?
"Mingus Quintet 2 has five drivers with immaculate control and power, including a pure diamond tweeter...
pure ceramic mid-range...
and aluminum sandwich cones"...
It's a far cry from the earthly, human, natural reproduction of, for example, the Iconics.
What's "truth" when it comes to prolonged listening to good music that isn't recorded according to audiophile standards?
Forgivingness is important in humanity, it's just not measurable.