sure, but its impossible totally as the recording process already is affecting the sound. live music is impossible to acheive and a bad reference as you dont know how it really sounded in the live event or cannot really compare: you werent there.
Ive read this recently, and thought it was interesting.
Alan from Harbeth, to voice his speaker as best as he can, uses the voice of his daughter and his wife. his speaker need to pass the speech test (meaning his speaker sounds real close to the real voice that he knows so well). I think its a really interesting way and has been working obviously!
This is a very old technique, used by Dave Clark decades ago. It's not a very rich signal to use, even if the concept were one that I agreed with.
Anyone ever thought of using measurements to "voice" a loudspeaker? I wonder how that would work?
A little off topic here, and this has been debated elsewhere I'm sure, but...
True, I wasn't there, and truly convincing live sound is essentially impossible. Microphones color everything, we really can't get much closer than reproducing the mic feed as captured on the recording. I suspect that is what Dr. Geddes is getting at when he stresses reliance on measurements - measurable accuracy should get us closer to the original signal.
Still, my reference ideal is not the sound of someone else's speakers (which are bound to be imperfect in their own way), it's the sound of a real voice, a real saxophone, a real drum kit. I'm a relative novice at this and never expect to reach 'perfect' reporduction, but why strive for anything less?
In the meantime I'm learning, keeping my mind active, having fun and not breaking the bank to buy massively expensive commercial gear as a
'reference'. I'll be taking my latest effort to the NorCal DIY meetup this weekend, so I'll get to compare it to plenty of other speakers (including SL's own pair of LX Mini's). I don't expect them mine be the best thing there, I hope they won't be the worst, and won't be surprised if they are the ugliest. I'm not spending any $$ on cosmetics, at this point everything I build is an experiment.
Bill
Wrong, convincing, live "sounding" sound is possible. Reproduction systems, as a totality, colour the end sound, because they typically introduce too many distracting distortions, making it obvious that the sound is "fake". Perfect frequency and phase response won't make good sound pop out - but eliminating certain low level distortions will. This is something that probably only direct experiencing of such happening will convince a person - but once you've heard it you realise how audibly flawed most playback systems are, especially at realistic volumes ...
No system ive ever heard will have been able to reproduce the effect of a real drum, or a real guitar, ect. it gets close indeed! but the tactile definition and just a lot is missing. the sparks, the real tone, everything is just not the same. some things gets close like the resolution and definition, but then not even. the closer it gets is it sounds exactly as if I was in the recording room, like behind the mixing glass. It can get really quite shocking sounding in naturalness and have a real tactile feel, but the limitation if compared to live music is still HUGE imo.
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You should at least have something like a behringer as a reference. otherwise, your shooting in the dark I think. but dont trust me. im a imposteur at this point. I gave up everything in diy and went the DIY kit way or commercial for my main system.
Measuring speakers is way too revealing of their flaws, usually
Seriously, you can measure way beyond the capabilities of the human ear to distinguish differences.
A loudspeaker that measures well will also sounds well. It is no surprise therefore that the Behringer, which measures well, also sounds quite good. Yet, I had a chance of listening to them at my daughters house this summer, and they do sound somewhat boxy. They don't perform that well on the human voice test in the lower registers as far as I can tell.
Yes, that's the last, hardest step ... the "missing" part is because there is still too much distortion - the typical steps taken won't solve that issue; usually, a lot of fine tuning will be necessary to get over the hurdle - when enough is done, bingo! ... the bite of the real thing is in the room ...
I've got a crazy idea.
What if we establish a set of criteria, then build the speaker to meet that criteria?
For instance, an SPL target, a frequency response target, a directivity target, etc...
I know I'm going out on a limb here, but in my day job this is how we do things, and I thought it might be applicable here (call me crazy)
Well, that is how respectable industry works.
Model xxx shall have an efficiency of so and so, shall not deviate more than 1.5 dB plus or minus, etc. All these parameters are described before r&d starts to develop the product.
What makes you think the Behringers weren't made with requirements a priori? Usually, that is how a product development for a known item works at a big company. By known item I mean something not totally new and ground breaking first of its kind type stuff. Two way studio monitor aimed at low price market is a known item.
Look at specs on Genelec's they pretty much read like this. They are not aimed at low price market but are flat as a board in response.
Look at specs on Genelec's they pretty much read like this. They are not aimed at low price market but are flat as a board in response.
Behringer didn't just rip off the cabinet, looks like they ripped off the drivers too!
Those look very very close to what Genelec uses (Vifa)
Vifa tweeter from Genelec speaker
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Tweeter of unknown origin from Behringer speaker
The Behringer tweeter is a Seas one. Middle-of-the-range ally dome.
Chris
Ported.Measuring speakers is way too revealing of their flaws, usually
Seriously, you can measure way beyond the capabilities of the human ear to distinguish differences.
A loudspeaker that measures well will also sounds well. It is no surprise therefore that the Behringer, which measures well, also sounds quite good. Yet, I had a chance of listening to them at my daughters house this summer, and they do sound somewhat boxy. They don't perform that well on the human voice test in the lower registers as far as I can tell.
Sharp edges.
Yeah that's my hunch too.
My other hobby is recumbent bicycles, and one problem that I run into a lot is that you can buy Taiwanese knockoffs of European bikes, but when they knock off the bikes they make bizarre mistakes.
For instance, I recently bought one that's a clone of a bike from the Netherlands. The clone looks good, it's lightweight, the finish is good and the build quality is excellent.
But it's slow.
After tinkering with bikes for a few years, I discovered they made one big bonehead mistake when they copied the bike. Luckily, it can be fixed, but it will require some work.
The thing is, if I didn't learn about bikes, I wouldn't know how to fix it, and I would likely come to one of two conclusions:
1) the bike is slow
or
2) even worse, I might conclude that the original is a bad design, IE I might think less of the European original because the Taiwanese clone made some mistakes in the copying process
Probably the funniest thing is that the design mistake that they made saved about $10 in manufacturing cost. So it's a pretty close copy, but not close enough.
If you go to Wal Mart you'll see really extreme examples of this; road bikes that are cloned from proven designs, but cost 25% as much. But in the cloning process they cut so many corners, you're basically riding on something that *looks* good but is functionally awful. All form, no function.