Just come to this thread and saw this post lol.
For anyone who doesn't understand why I put "lol" - Go to a hifi show where Audio note have a demo system and have a listen. Then to confirm what you heard, go to to a hifi forum (If the show was in the UK, find a UK based forum) and look up the show thread. You will regularly hear people say they gave the best sound of the show (that's a fact).
There are no garanties that loudspeaker that measures well will sound good. What your microphone measures, your ear must evaluate. There are a ton of speakers that measures good but sounds mediocre or awful. Measuring and listening are both very important in building a loudspeaker.
Having said that, if loudspeaker measures well that is the first thing that interests me and that will decide if I even want to listen to it. If I like the sound of it, then I might consider to build it.
Measurements can tell us about basics of sound that comes out of a loudspeaker box (if there is something missing - dip, or there is too much of something - peak). Distortion measurements means a lot in this regard but they are rearilly available.
Measurements can not tell you anything about the rest of the sound (tone collor, presence, etc). But if loudspeaker does not measure well I won't listen to it - simple as that. Did that many times and it always ends up by playing good for most of the time but not all the time. Sometimes there is something missing or muddy or hurting my ears and I just can't live with that.
Good loudspeaker measures well and sounds well. If one of these is missing then it is not a good loudspeaker.
Having said that, if loudspeaker measures well that is the first thing that interests me and that will decide if I even want to listen to it. If I like the sound of it, then I might consider to build it.
Measurements can tell us about basics of sound that comes out of a loudspeaker box (if there is something missing - dip, or there is too much of something - peak). Distortion measurements means a lot in this regard but they are rearilly available.
Measurements can not tell you anything about the rest of the sound (tone collor, presence, etc). But if loudspeaker does not measure well I won't listen to it - simple as that. Did that many times and it always ends up by playing good for most of the time but not all the time. Sometimes there is something missing or muddy or hurting my ears and I just can't live with that.
Good loudspeaker measures well and sounds well. If one of these is missing then it is not a good loudspeaker.
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You may lack the knowledge but how confident are you that others that design, build and measure speakers also lack it?
It says that you like listening to speakers that distort rather than speakers that do not. You are not alone in that.
If the reviewer lacks a lot of basic knowledge about what they are reviewing and has objectives that are poorly aligned with yours as a consumer then I think you may be wise to view what they produce with a healthy degree of suspicion. But why trust peer reviews?
Trust it to be what? What do you think the designer of the Continuum would think of the Reference 3a speaker you find attractive? Perhaps it may be wiser to trust the judgement of only those that agree with what you find attractive? How much weight would you give 5th element if he recommended the sound of a speaker?
I am not surprised to see Audio Note in that list given their kind of products. Peter Qvortrup posts on some forums which enables people to determine to a fair extent his knowledge and approach.
You've got to be careful in criticising a speaker, as Fatmarley points out. The Snell and Audio Note 8" plus 1" speakers were very competent designs with decent second order filters, and low crossovers in their case. They deal with the problems of this combination:
8" bass has a first breakup at 3.5kHz, and a third serious one at 7kHz. This is a matter of cone geometry, and regardless of material. There is also a surround dip around 1kHz. It's how it works.
The Epos M12i and MM 3A De Capo have what I call MIckey Mouse filters, that make for a speaker that can't go loud without distortion from the tweeter, and particularly with the fibreglass De Capo bass, a lot of cone breakup.
Reference MM de Capo i loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
Both have a filterless bass and a single capacitor crossover. This sounds loud and immediate, but turn the wick up and your ears will bleed with the harsh distortion. A LGWAG speaker, as Lynn Olson calls them. You can see the De Capo has worse bass cone breakup than the polycone Epos. Both need proper tweeter filters. The De Capo needs more work than the Epos on the bass filter. Both designs have extremely good drivers, and for that reason I think they are both worth fixing.
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8" bass has a first breakup at 3.5kHz, and a third serious one at 7kHz. This is a matter of cone geometry, and regardless of material. There is also a surround dip around 1kHz. It's how it works.
The Epos M12i and MM 3A De Capo have what I call MIckey Mouse filters, that make for a speaker that can't go loud without distortion from the tweeter, and particularly with the fibreglass De Capo bass, a lot of cone breakup.
Reference MM de Capo i loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
Both have a filterless bass and a single capacitor crossover. This sounds loud and immediate, but turn the wick up and your ears will bleed with the harsh distortion. A LGWAG speaker, as Lynn Olson calls them. You can see the De Capo has worse bass cone breakup than the polycone Epos. Both need proper tweeter filters. The De Capo needs more work than the Epos on the bass filter. Both designs have extremely good drivers, and for that reason I think they are both worth fixing.
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Ja I realise that you can alter the aesthetics of a design but I worry about just how much you can get away with before you start screwing with the sound. Shape of the baffle and all that.
Like the finalists seem pretty much what I am looking for in terms of drivers and budget. It's a bit of a box. Yeah I could facet the front but how much before I ruin the design? Could it become a floor stander? Could the mid and the woofer live slightly further apart with the 8 in its own box on the botton and the 5+1 have a box of their own that sits on top maybe on some cool looking short steel posts? Could I curve the side panels?
I've got too many aesthetic design ideas but my brain goes "gurhudelwinblahfrurrrrnamanada" with the physics bit [emoji20] and I don't think paying more attention in school would have helped in this case either lol.
Fatmarley pointed out that positive reviews of Audio Note speakers are posted on forums. He did not comment on the sound quality of Audio Note speakers.
You genuinely consider the Audio Note speakers to be a competent design at their price point? You do not perhaps consider it a reasonable design for a budget speaker that has opted for a particular set of attributes?
Changing the baffle and speaker arrangement will change the sound of a speaker and, given a competent initial design, probably for the worse. Reworking the crossover should fix some things but not necessarily all depending on what was changed. A better approach is to settle on a configuration first and then juggle the driver placement, baffle dimensions, crossover points, etc... to get something reasonably in balance before building. Which is of course designing a speaker.
The Finalists have an unusual midrange arrangement which will significantly influence the sound heard in the room. I would suggest some caution in assuming that it will on balance be for the better. As a first project my recommendation would be for a safer more conventional arrangement.
If you keep the same volume for the woofer and the same baffle width the performance will not change greatly. You will have introduced edges in the middle of the baffle that were not originally present. What will change is some of the ups and downs in the frequency response on and off axis. If the designer has juggled things like the speaker location, baffle dimensions and crossover with a view to smoothing some of these then you can expect things to get a bit worse. If not then you can expect them to be different.
Well I think you need to read the threads properly over on the HT guide forums. They discuss turning them into floor standers and there's a design for tuning them into a transmission line too.
If you want to add facets or small changes to the box then what you'd need to do is draw up a plan showing exactly what you had in mind, because other than that we're just guessing as to what your intentions are. After you've done that you could post this in the Finalists thread over there and say if I build this will it be okay etc.
I think the Finalists were designed specifically to be easier, rather than harder, to build, which means no facets, no round overs. This doesn't mean you cannot add any, but you'd need to ask the designers for their input on your ideas.
You should easily be able to get away with some small changes and these can often change the way a loudspeaker looks quite significantly. Like adding in a round over to an otherwise straight sided box will make a box look quite more pleasing than without.
If you want to add facets or small changes to the box then what you'd need to do is draw up a plan showing exactly what you had in mind, because other than that we're just guessing as to what your intentions are. After you've done that you could post this in the Finalists thread over there and say if I build this will it be okay etc.
I think the Finalists were designed specifically to be easier, rather than harder, to build, which means no facets, no round overs. This doesn't mean you cannot add any, but you'd need to ask the designers for their input on your ideas.
You should easily be able to get away with some small changes and these can often change the way a loudspeaker looks quite significantly. Like adding in a round over to an otherwise straight sided box will make a box look quite more pleasing than without.
Please dont put words in my mouth. I have never critic any speaker I have never heard
what are yo utalking about speaker that distort? I'm listening right now to continuum from jeff bagby, they do not distort.
If you are refering to tannoy red, again, ignorance is bliss. Tannoy red 15 inch is a sublime speaker, no matter what the measurments shows.
I do not care what jeff bagby thinks of ref 3a mm de capo. I have heard them and they shine. Also, some respectable designer also think highly of ref 3a mm decapo (thorsten Loesch).
Again, I trust anybody opinion. But a opinion on a speaker must be based on listening test, not measurments. I guess you also fall in line with judging a speaker based on measurments, but I dont. My experience in the real world has shows me better.
How can 5th element be taken seriously when he recommend a speaker he never heard? and he blast audio note speaker and ref 3 a, both speakers who have huge following and sounds amazing but he never heard. but he recommends a speaker that measures well but has never heard.
Isnt 5th element knows that some speaker that measures well still sounds bad? So 5th eleent recommend a speaker that may well sounds bad, and thats my problem. If he had listened to the speaker he recommends, then thats another issue and I wouldnt say anything.
what are yo utalking about speaker that distort? I'm listening right now to continuum from jeff bagby, they do not distort.
If you are refering to tannoy red, again, ignorance is bliss. Tannoy red 15 inch is a sublime speaker, no matter what the measurments shows.
I do not care what jeff bagby thinks of ref 3a mm de capo. I have heard them and they shine. Also, some respectable designer also think highly of ref 3a mm decapo (thorsten Loesch).
Again, I trust anybody opinion. But a opinion on a speaker must be based on listening test, not measurments. I guess you also fall in line with judging a speaker based on measurments, but I dont. My experience in the real world has shows me better.
How can 5th element be taken seriously when he recommend a speaker he never heard? and he blast audio note speaker and ref 3 a, both speakers who have huge following and sounds amazing but he never heard. but he recommends a speaker that measures well but has never heard.
Isnt 5th element knows that some speaker that measures well still sounds bad? So 5th eleent recommend a speaker that may well sounds bad, and thats my problem. If he had listened to the speaker he recommends, then thats another issue and I wouldnt say anything.
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Yes you have, you've made blanket statements like this.
This comment made directly after we'd already been discussing some excellent three way kits. You cannot get more critical than that.
Distortion doesn't just have to be something that sounds like it is broken. Distortion comes in many shapes and forms, in this respect Andy was meaning that the frequency response deviates significantly away from being flat. This is linear distortion and will not give you an accurate, neutral sound.
Because they measure like crap. A loudspeakers job is to take the input signal and reproduce it as accurately as it can. If the frequency response is a mess then it has failed at its number 1 job. There is nothing more to it than that.
If you want to mess with the sound afterwards, to suit your tastes, using a DSP or box of tricks, then that's up to you. You can add in as much EQ or spacial affects as you want. This still doesn't change the fact that the loudspeakers job, in fact your whole hifis job, is to reproduce the signal that is input to it in the most accurate way. Even if you tweak the xover afterwards to end up with a less flat response by increasing the midrange output and decreasing the tweeter output you still need to start off with flat and go from there. Not at some arbitrary point where the frequency response looks like a mountain range.
Your continuums grossly distort music because they have no bass. Several of the speakers you claim to like introduce quite unnecessary levels of distortion as shown by the measurements. Yet you deny this distortion presumably because the word has bad associations? You might be surprised by what some people associate with words like musicality.
We can take it you respect Thorsten Loesch but what types of people do you think share that respect and what types do you think may not?
Do you think that you are judging speakers on the same criteria as others? Some speakers you judge to be "good" are being judged as "bad" by others. Is this because everybody that is judging them to be "bad" has not heard them? Take Audio Note for example which is likely to be familiar to most in the UK.
Here are some measurements of an expensive Audio Note speaker. Why do you think the reviewer said it measured better than he expected given the measurements are poor? Might it be that his expectations were based on having heard a strongly coloured (if that is a more acceptable word than distorted) speaker?
lol, so now a tannoy red isnt up to task. Is this for real?
you dont respect thorsten loesch?
I have never heard someone who heard audio note to say that they sound BAD. Some will say they sound okay, might be overpriced, but never bad.
you dont respect thorsten loesch?
I have never heard someone who heard audio note to say that they sound BAD. Some will say they sound okay, might be overpriced, but never bad.
There are a couple of threads.
Here is the original post introducing the design.
http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?40400-Announcing-The-Finalists!&highlight=finalists
Here's the thread that discusses the TL
http://www.htguide.com/forum/showth...ni)-Statements&p=590402&viewfull=1#post590402
Here is the original post introducing the design.
http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?40400-Announcing-The-Finalists!&highlight=finalists
Here's the thread that discusses the TL
http://www.htguide.com/forum/showth...ni)-Statements&p=590402&viewfull=1#post590402
you take one sentence out of context. dude!
you however do exactly the same to a extent where you bash some great speakers.
Why do you recommend a speaker you have never heard?
how can you say they are excellent if you never heard them. ridiculous, blashphemy, criminal!🙂
I dont use dsp, only for subwoofer use.
You totally ignore simple statements like: a speaker that measures good can still sound bad. A speaker that measures bad can still sound good.
So you recommend a speaker that COULD sound terribly bad but measures well. Good Job!
Everybody knows that you cannot judge a speaker sound on measurements, but you I guess.
you however do exactly the same to a extent where you bash some great speakers.
Why do you recommend a speaker you have never heard?
how can you say they are excellent if you never heard them. ridiculous, blashphemy, criminal!🙂
I dont use dsp, only for subwoofer use.
You totally ignore simple statements like: a speaker that measures good can still sound bad. A speaker that measures bad can still sound good.
So you recommend a speaker that COULD sound terribly bad but measures well. Good Job!
Everybody knows that you cannot judge a speaker sound on measurements, but you I guess.
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Thorsten is a talented guy and a skilled engineer but he has very specific ideas to what constitutes ideal sound. Of all the things he has posted his designs strike me as having been designed to sound a certain way rather than being absolutely neutral.
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But it wont sound terribly bad, it will sound excellent because the measurements speak for themselves.
Loudspeakers that measure excellently always review extremely well in stereophile. Some have very minor issues, but never anything significant.
Loudspeakers that measure poorly however can sound good or bad depending on where the poor bits are. It's a gamble if you go with a design that measures poorly, but they will never sound neutral.
You keep preaching about certain designs and saying you'd need good testimonials before buying, The Finalists have some excellent testimonials from those who have built them, what is it you're after, a couple of high brow magazines to say these sound good? That and the fact that many people have built the various other designs by the same guy and praise those highly too.
Loudspeakers that measure excellently always review extremely well in stereophile. Some have very minor issues, but never anything significant.
Loudspeakers that measure poorly however can sound good or bad depending on where the poor bits are. It's a gamble if you go with a design that measures poorly, but they will never sound neutral.
You keep preaching about certain designs and saying you'd need good testimonials before buying, The Finalists have some excellent testimonials from those who have built them, what is it you're after, a couple of high brow magazines to say these sound good? That and the fact that many people have built the various other designs by the same guy and praise those highly too.
I owned the Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mk 2 and they were the most boring speaker I've ever heard. The electronics I used were were up to the job and known for sounding anything but dull (Naim 102 pre 180 power)
Here's a link to the Stereophile measurements - LINK - Now compare those to the Audio note E and tell me which one sounds worse?
Here's a link to the Stereophile measurements - LINK - Now compare those to the Audio note E and tell me which one sounds worse?
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