Double Blind Listening Test
Neither the listener or the person conducting the test knows which option has been selected, taking all psychological cues out of the equation. A strict discipline must be followed to ensure accuracy of results.
See: ABX test - Wikipedia
Neither the listener or the person conducting the test knows which option has been selected, taking all psychological cues out of the equation. A strict discipline must be followed to ensure accuracy of results.
See: ABX test - Wikipedia
Hi,
Measurements are important, but audio is like wine. You can state its composition, but how do you "measure" its taste?
I found that I like specific tone, and also I prefer FRs to two ways, because I have noticed that, unlike "normal" people I am very sensitive to phase issues , and I can hear the "disjointness" of the sound, and it bothers me more than the uneven frequency response...
Measurements are important, but audio is like wine. You can state its composition, but how do you "measure" its taste?
I found that I like specific tone, and also I prefer FRs to two ways, because I have noticed that, unlike "normal" people I am very sensitive to phase issues , and I can hear the "disjointness" of the sound, and it bothers me more than the uneven frequency response...
Got a link to where/who dreamt this up?
I've mentioned some important ones to which I'll add the original Spendor BC1 and Yamaha NS1000. A surprising member of this elite group is Wharfedale E70 which has also done well in DBLTs for HFN & HiFi Choice.
You'll excuse me if I keep quiet about the overall winner. This is no longer made and spares are Unobtainium. Some friends are trying to corner the market on eBay
You expecting a different result? Or better still, have you got different results with more statistical significance?
We can discuss sparse sampling when you provide your data.
Only Blind Tests please and preferably DB
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No, of course not. If you have a diverse test group with a wide range of music tastes the speaker that pleases the most people ends up winning the test, which is neither unexpected nor a bad thing. And in no way I'm ribbing the double blind method.
Conversely, I would always concede the point that a single driver speaker would fare badly in DBLT test over a wide range of listeners, since they can't please all music tastes. Bassheads or lovers of loud, complex music (and treble sensitive hearers, in some cases) need not apply.
My point is that Marks drivers certainly can't please all, but DO bring a next level of musical enjoyment to the listeners that like the sound aspects that full range drivers like few else, such as sound coherence, imaging (albeit in a small sweetspot), liveliness etc. Music taste, musical training, listening habits and other factors quite beside the quality of the loudspeaker are a huge factor in this.
Although some audio types tend to conflate personal taste with absolute iron laws of loudspeaker contruction there's still no accounting for taste and loudspeakers still are specialised tools at best and mostly funny pieces of furniture, and in no way realistic reproducers of live sonic events.
The real question is: is the OP better of with a very good sounding all-round, mass market please-all speaker like the KEFs, or would he be more happy with the more specialised Markaudio's? Only a listening test (DB, haha) will tell.
Hi Lohengrimas,
I like your argument about personal taste being important. Dave's "only trust your ears" argument is similar. But here is my problem with it. If I were to follow that logic I'll be forever playing the guessing game. I'll buy MA drivers. Yeah, I'm enjoying them for now. Then I go to my friend's place and listen to Fostex drivers, yeah, these sounded better than my MA's on the songs we listened to. Or was it the amp, or was it his cables, or his sources, and on and on. This confusion and searching for some answers in the dark is where most audiophiles find themselves. This is not too different from the dark ages where medicine was more shooting in the dark, with some random success, than science. You go to a doctor and he tells you to eat some herbs, or go live in a hill resort and drink pure water only. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Now we know what sounds good across musical genres and personal tastes. Why not employ it? Why continue living like we don't understand what sounds good? This particular guessing game is over.
If you want to buy the Alpair 7, do it for the right reasons. They look cool, easy to build and drive, can be put in small form factor cabs, and of course they make sound. Don't buy them because they are going to blow away better-performing--objectively and subjectively--speakers. We know through science, just like medicine, what works and what doesn't work for a large portion of the population.
And what I would want to see is the entire speaker market lifting themselves using the research. Nobody should be making and marketing drivers with poor frequency responses. That's just irresponsible and a waste of resources. It's kind of like wine. If you haven't noticed, it is difficult to buy a bad bottle of wine nowadays. Even the Trader Joe's 2-buck chuck is decent and passable. That's because winemakers have figured out the chemical composition and formula for making good (and bad) wine. Not everyone likes the same bottle, but almost all are drinkable thanks to research.
I like your argument about personal taste being important. Dave's "only trust your ears" argument is similar. But here is my problem with it. If I were to follow that logic I'll be forever playing the guessing game. I'll buy MA drivers. Yeah, I'm enjoying them for now. Then I go to my friend's place and listen to Fostex drivers, yeah, these sounded better than my MA's on the songs we listened to. Or was it the amp, or was it his cables, or his sources, and on and on. This confusion and searching for some answers in the dark is where most audiophiles find themselves. This is not too different from the dark ages where medicine was more shooting in the dark, with some random success, than science. You go to a doctor and he tells you to eat some herbs, or go live in a hill resort and drink pure water only. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Now we know what sounds good across musical genres and personal tastes. Why not employ it? Why continue living like we don't understand what sounds good? This particular guessing game is over.
If you want to buy the Alpair 7, do it for the right reasons. They look cool, easy to build and drive, can be put in small form factor cabs, and of course they make sound. Don't buy them because they are going to blow away better-performing--objectively and subjectively--speakers. We know through science, just like medicine, what works and what doesn't work for a large portion of the population.
And what I would want to see is the entire speaker market lifting themselves using the research. Nobody should be making and marketing drivers with poor frequency responses. That's just irresponsible and a waste of resources. It's kind of like wine. If you haven't noticed, it is difficult to buy a bad bottle of wine nowadays. Even the Trader Joe's 2-buck chuck is decent and passable. That's because winemakers have figured out the chemical composition and formula for making good (and bad) wine. Not everyone likes the same bottle, but almost all are drinkable thanks to research.
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My point is that in DBLTs, the best speakers please ALL listeners (who aren't deaf ie give reliable consistent results), not just 'most' listeners REGARDLESS of 'musical taste' bla bla. This is FACT, with nearly 2 decades of supporting data.
Of course there are the wannabe Golden Pinnae who will ascribe huge differences even when all 3 presentations are of the same system, ie they are deaf. Alas, there are many reviewers in this group.
For them, you say loudly and clearly that your stuff is hand carved from solid Unobtainium by Virgins as there is no point designing speakers to suit their ears. This is FACT too
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I don't really know why you want to read an attack in my statement, but go ahead.
ra7,
Some good points you bring up in response to Lohengrimas's earlier post. However, I'd like to add few of my personal experiences over the years.
I have come across people who enjoy single wide band driver systems with relatively peaky and ragged frequency response. These enthusiasts invariably find more neutral systems "boring". They also prefer single ended tube amps (specially DHTs), with higher levels of second harmonic distortion. They usually enjoy music which is more vocal content based, with acoustic instruments.
On such a system, lot of the music I like (metal, rock, pop, electronic) just does not sound good; but they could care less about that. They find true musical enjoyment and "performers in the room" experience with their music.
I would daresay that these enthusiasts would enjoy a Fostex or a Mark Audio based single driver system more vs a better measuring speaker. Each to his/her own, no disrespect to them because of their preferences. And btw, I think that this group represents a small percentage of total listeners/enthusiasts (however do not have any data to back up this assumption).
Disclaimer: I used to enjoy wide band drivers a lot earlier, but have moved on to multiway systems because of my musical preferences.
Some good points you bring up in response to Lohengrimas's earlier post. However, I'd like to add few of my personal experiences over the years.
I have come across people who enjoy single wide band driver systems with relatively peaky and ragged frequency response. These enthusiasts invariably find more neutral systems "boring". They also prefer single ended tube amps (specially DHTs), with higher levels of second harmonic distortion. They usually enjoy music which is more vocal content based, with acoustic instruments.
On such a system, lot of the music I like (metal, rock, pop, electronic) just does not sound good; but they could care less about that. They find true musical enjoyment and "performers in the room" experience with their music.
I would daresay that these enthusiasts would enjoy a Fostex or a Mark Audio based single driver system more vs a better measuring speaker. Each to his/her own, no disrespect to them because of their preferences. And btw, I think that this group represents a small percentage of total listeners/enthusiasts (however do not have any data to back up this assumption
). Disclaimer: I used to enjoy wide band drivers a lot earlier, but have moved on to multiway systems because of my musical preferences.
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Obviously, my statement was never anti-science. And yes, I do think that modern measuring methods and research has yielded far better loudspeakers than the guesstimates of the ancients. And I don't think that speaker development in general has passed the full rangers by, certainly not in the materials department.
However, I do think there's still a lot of guessing and tinkering involved. This is not unscientific at all, a friend of mine got his PhD in atomic level physics and easily conceded at his thesis defense that many of his experimental results were the results of just finagling about with the scanning tunneling microscope rearranging atoms until something funny happened.
Also, I do think there are some very good verifiable and measurable reasons in the domain of regular loudspreaker physics and the more conjectural side of psychoacoustics why FR drivers work well. Timbral unity of single material drivers and single vibrating membranes are not rocket science.
All good reasons indeed.
Which is exactly what I say, which is why these speakers have a small but loyal fanbase, I wasn't talking about the "large portion"!
True, yes, and I do think there's FAR too much snake oil in audio. Expensive cables, promises of "realism" and "huge bass from a small box" - yes, far too much.
Also, I do think the market is already moving to the "acceptable wine"-point. Look at car audio; lots of cars, even in the lower regions, are getting set up with direct DSP and on the fly correction for all the drivers. Home audio will surely follow suit. And looking at amplifiers, for instance, cheap, good and reliable amplifier power is a doddle with current gen amplifiers.
On the other hand, the "cheap but good wine" point will be hard to reach for loudspeakers, since things that make good loudspeakers good are impossible to do at a mass market price point, which has far more to do with the problem of making enclosures and shipping them from China than with the drivers per sé. It always puzzles me how many €1000+ speakers have thin MDF enclosures finished in cheap vinyl.
Anyway, I do think that single-driver loudspeakers are elegant and a lot of fun. There's something to be said for system elegance, by doing a lot with a few elements - to me a pair of small FR speakers and a single box for source and amplification is a lot more pleasing then HUGE loudspeakers driven by a rack of disparate components held together with loads of money and dinky cables, but hey, I like fixed gear bikes and stark scandinavian furniture. These things matter to me.
Objectively the best? Not by a long shot. Very good and certainly unique at certain aspects? Yes. A great way to get enjoyable and engaging audio in the home? Hell yes. But not to all, but esoteric FR drivers from small manufacturers were never about the masses anyway.
Excellent points, Lohengrimas! I like full range drivers too! I had a huge bunch of them. Simple, elegant, and so easy to DIY. They are a lot of fun. And as zman said above, they do sound good on some types of music. This balanced point of view makes a lot of sense. Thank you for bringing this perspective.
zman, couldn't agree more. To each his own, indeed, with the addition of 'please be armed with the right knowledge.' There are definite advantages to single driver systems. Coherence is very important to good reproduction and full range drivers, all of them, deliver that in spades. There are a lot of multi-way designs that just sound awful because the drivers don't go well together or the crossover is poor, or for a thousand other reasons. It is simply more difficult to properly design a multi-way speaker. But we have to take a balanced point of view.
zman, couldn't agree more. To each his own, indeed, with the addition of 'please be armed with the right knowledge.' There are definite advantages to single driver systems. Coherence is very important to good reproduction and full range drivers, all of them, deliver that in spades. There are a lot of multi-way designs that just sound awful because the drivers don't go well together or the crossover is poor, or for a thousand other reasons. It is simply more difficult to properly design a multi-way speaker. But we have to take a balanced point of view.
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