what Makes A Speaker "Good"? (Moved From White Van Syndrome)

[purplepeople]

I don't know about others, but I don't just evaluate with one style of music. I am fortunate that my tastes are extremely wide and that I have enough musical training to know what both acoustic, amplified and electronic instruments sound like in small venue. It saddens me when others with musical training take the same care when selecting their home systems. (I'm not saying they should choose the same as me, just that the equipment I see tells me they don't really care.)

The benefit of all this is that my travelling set of CDs includes some great recordings that can really show the faults of a component or speaker. I've had expensive speakers fail to give me everything - and I mean everything, like detail, smoothness, LF extension, vocal clarity. As I've said before, I've seen some scared looks on salespeople when the CDs start going in the player.

I discovered a website a while back and found that they could put into words how I listen to music when I'm evaluating. Check out their speaker reviews. When I've listened to the same models, I've come to the same conclusions, but with less skill. It's also how I know I'm not a golden ear - at least not compared to the industry types doing the reviews.

www.proaudioreview.com

🙂ensen.

 

[cowanrg]

im still holding steady on my belief that the listener has nothing to do with evaluating whether or not a speaker is good or not. a good listener will most likely agree with a good speaker, and vice versa.

being in sales with audio, i have seen very many bad listeners. i have seen people crank a $150 subwoofer up to max with rap and say they thought it sounded good. i like rap, and have no problem with bass, but some things just make me want to vomit.

i think only a few people in the world are qualified to really judge a speaker as good or bad. which leads me back to my original qualification, the speaker is inherently good, with out without the prescense of a listener.

 

[wintermute]

Re: Re: Hmmmm I was thinking the same thing.

As for manufactured sound on classical recordings, that is a
common and serious problem. I am always hesitant, thinking
at least twice before buying anything recorded later than,
say 1965 or so. When they started to use multitrack tape
recorders, put close-up microphones everywhere in the
orchestra and trying to mix this to a coherent stereo image,
it all went wrong. I guess the 70's and 80's were the most
problematic period. It seems many companies have realized
the problems and try to get back to simpler microphone
techniques etc. to get a more natural sound. I don't you if
will believe me, but many mono recordings from the 1930's
give a much better impression of natural acoustics than many
modern stereo recordings do.

Musician friends of mine said this is a real problem. The said it's not unusual for say a piano piece to be spliced together from multipe different recording sessions. They said the easiest way to pick it was that the performance would sound too perfect, and maybe a bit clinical.

I can also see that the multiple mics up close to various instruments would completely ruin any chances of getting a decent sound stage!

I have lisstened to a 96Khz remastered Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong recording from the 40's and the sound quality is absolutely amazing, one of the best recordings I've heard.

Regards,

Tony.