This has been my confusion too. Because I have never compared a bad recording with a good one. But I have experienced something that may be what it is all about...
Let's say this speaker I'm talking about in this thread is Speaker A, and I have another design called Speaker B. Now I have 2 recordings, one is an audiophile recording and another is a rock recording.
With Speaker B, audiophile recording scores 8 and rock scores 7.5
With Speaker A, audiophile recording scores 10! and rock scores 6.5
Problem is, as noted by CopperTop (hence this thread), I'm not sure if Speaker A is better than Speaker B! 🙁
This speaker I have doesn't have a problem in that if I wake up in the morning I still can follow what is playing in the system. But the level of enjoyment from interacting with the speaker is still so far from the best that I have experienced. Right now for example, I haven't turned on the system. In a "better" system than this I usually don't want to leave home, don't want to sleep, but listening to the music. :_(
Hmmm. Sometimes it is easy to design a crossover/speaker that suits certain recording, either "audiophile recording" or standard/not-so-good recording.
In term of frequency response, we are free to choose whether we want the FR to be in-room flat or not. It is not difficult to make it flat, but why many of us don't want to? I myself prefer an in-room FR that is gradually decreasing from LF to HF but is a straight line.
A pure flat FR is dangerous, especially in the midrange to high frequency, when the recording is not audiophile approved.
Me too !
Many commercial designs are also voiced with declining mids/highs,
flat response is a guarantee for listening fatigue after 5-50 minutes (depending on the songs 🙂 )
What does 'audiophile approved' mean?
And with regards to some speakers sounding better with certain types of music IME that is because those certain types of music tend not to show up shortcomings in a particular speaker. Once you get rid of all (or most) of those shortcomings all music sounds good.
A case in point would be PMC, ATC and Quested studio monitors which are just as common in classical studios as in rock/pop ones.
+100
audiophile speakers sounding good only with "audiophile-approved" music is a myth.
IMO good sound w/o a good tweeter is not possible, much lies there. heard some Seas Excels recently with ad-hoc designed XOs. 2 versions, 1st and 2nd order. both were definitely better than my Morels I used to have which I tweaked some. I also have some other experiences that showed me that the tweeter is responsible for more that 50% of the sound.
also, good sound is not possible w/o bass. maybe it's not so much the driver as the bass alignment (what the box does with the driver). the perception of the whole spectrum is influenced by its portions in ways that IMO exceed what intuition tells us. hearing is highly on-linear. remove part of the spectrum and the remaining will not be the whole minus what you took.
bass should be low and fast. the 80Hz peak can't compensate for real bass.
and the amp matters.
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I have a vintage pair of Tannoy Yorks and my only complaint is that a guy keeps bugging me to sell them to him! Also, my wife complains that they are big and UGLY, like me.
I just love 'em, I can listen to them all day without fatigue. For the last several weeks I have had them hooked up to a $5 ebay TDA7297 board and they sound bloody amazing. I thought the TA2020 sounded great, but the the little chip amp is far superior.
I think it is a common knowledge that "better speakers" will expose what is in the recording, including shortcomings. This makes some poor records sound awful with the "better speakers".
For me, the above is not myth, because I found it as design options. What I disagree with is if the "better speaker" is really better in ultimate term.
AFAIR, AllenB is the only person from this site that also disagree (read his thread: designing speaker without measurement). There are 2 possibilities for those who have such opinion:
1) He never made a "better speaker" such that he doesn't know if such thing (as some recording may sound unbearable with "better" speakers) exist.
2) He knows more than that. His knowledge and experience goes beyond "that".
For me, it is not about yes or no, right or wrong, but options. You cannot have the best of everything in speaker design. You have to decide. But for me, after writing this thread I have made my mind.
I can now say NO to Wilson WATT Puppy 7.
The biggest complaint with my speaker discussed in this thread, is that I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoy most of my other speakers. So I made my mind, changed the crossover and made a very enjoyable speaker (I sacrificed transparency).
I think I have learned something from my latest experience, but I need to make sure that my conclusion is right by doing some simple measurements. In brief: if I want to make the most transparent speaker using a given midrange driver, I have to make it 3-way. If I make it 2-way (reaching quite low down to LF) then transparency means un-enjoyable sound. An unavoidable compromise.
My opinion too that at higher level, HF performance plays a critical role, in speakers and in amplifiers. That's why I go overboard with anything related to HF performance, even if "theory" doesn't require such perfection.
Once upon a time I thought I had a fair amount of poorly recorded music but the better the speakers I was using got the fewer bad recordings I seemed to own.
By now I cannot categorically say that I own any bad recordings, merely that I may have made different choices during their production had I been in charge.
Regarding your bolded statement: You sure it is transparency that makes the 2way un-enjoyable or is it the inevitable increase in intermodulation distortion compared to a 3way?
By now I cannot categorically say that I own any bad recordings, merely that I may have made different choices during their production had I been in charge.
Regarding your bolded statement: You sure it is transparency that makes the 2way un-enjoyable or is it the inevitable increase in intermodulation distortion compared to a 3way?
Now I have made my mind, I choose speaker B. I don't have those impressive sound that I experienced with audiophile recording with speaker A. Speaker B is not the most transparent speaker anymore (I voiced it just a little bit more transparent than a Scan-Speak paper cone speaker) but I can enjoy ANY recordings, ANY music.
With speaker B, all music scores 8, but I will use the best amplifier to boost it to 9 or more (and I have better amps than just F5 😀).
Yes, it is the inevitable side effect. Easy to measure, harder to proof that it is inevitable. But I believe so. Hard to proof I know.
I think you have just answered your own question. you asked why audiophile recordings sounded good, but rock sounded bad on a particular speaker. I would put forward that it has to do with the density of the music spectra. The audiophile recording is relatively light. not too much going on. the rock recording is heavy.
Tthe midrange driver has a harder time reproducing the dense spectra, by going to a three way you limit the bandwidth it is trying to reproduce, reducing IM distortion..
Iif you go to active cross on the bass (but still passive on the mid/tweeter) , your tweeter aslso benefits, because it has double filtering (outside of it's passband).
Tony.
I'm still not sure what an 'audiophile recording' actually is.
Is it a certain type of music or is it a certain way of recording it?
Can electronic music of any variety (from the late '60s to the present) be an 'audiophile recording'?
If so against what is it measured?
Is it a certain type of music or is it a certain way of recording it?
Can electronic music of any variety (from the late '60s to the present) be an 'audiophile recording'?
If so against what is it measured?
An audiophile recording is one that exists mainly for audiophiles to use as test or demonstration signals for their equipment. It may boast particular technical attributes (e.g. "recorded at 192/24 with no compression") or may have achieved audiophile status due to sounding 'good' on egregiously bad audiophile equipment e.g. vinyl played through a single ended triode into a full range speaker. Dave Brubeck's Take Five is an example of this. As wintermute notes above, there may be other recordings that specifically sound 'good' when used as test signals on two way systems or three way systems, depending on their content. An audiophile recording is generally in an easy-listening middle-of-the-road genre to reflect the general cultural taste and limited hearing range of middle aged men. The popular audiophile sub-genre of 'Girl and Guitar' is a manifestation of audiophiles' ongoing mid-life crises. 🙂
I think it is just a marketing label. But there is distinct effort to produce "audiophile quality" recording. From miking to choosing of the venue. Big church, even out in the forest. And unfortunately some also remaster it digitally (e.g. for uncontrolled environment like live music). Search the net for how Telarc or Chesky and the like do their things.
Normally such speaker doesn't really need 100W. But often cheap woofers have low sensitivity and cheap woofer must go with simple crossover where peaks are not fully controlled.
Hmmm... actually I think it is more complicated than that (related with pshyco-acoustics). But of course that is one obvious reason. That's why like posted previously I prefer an in-room non-flat FR. Theoretically this is not right, but nothing is right to have a flat FR when the drivers or the recording is not up for the task.
And no, it is not just about light or heavy recording. "Bad" recording can be a light music, or even only vocal. I think there is a lot of HF hash with some recordings.
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