"Simple" EQ is very important, despite that it only can correct for spl behavior over a driver's useful frequency range. So do apply some decent, "normalizing" EQ before anything else. But that's only the first step when assessing a driver, or when comparing drivers.
As for the quirks and the "personality", e.g. the other factors that will influence on the sonic signature of a distinct driver are the one's like it's distortion pattern, e.g. the harmonic distortions, the intermodulation distortions and other (e.g. stored energy) distortion mechanisms as well. Add to this the polar behavior of the driver over it's useful frequency range. Like equalizing, more or less engaged DIY-er should be able also to perform such simple measurements. Everybody agrees on the value of sites like e.g. Measurements and compare | HiFiCompass
Therefore in general, and especially for this basically interesting thread, it would be most interesting to see some neat measurements results going along with the subjective, psychoacoustically "sonic" perceptions of theirs describer's here. So why not agree on a set of simple, basic measurements to further improve the quality of the posts? Like including at least a standardized (e.g. 90dB@1m, speaker should be equalized/normalized on axis to max. +-1dB in it's useful frequency range) minimal set of a harmonic distortions graph and a multisine IM distortion graph for any of the speakers to be discussed here?
Such a more systematic (you can even call that "scientific") procedere and agreement would also stop the erratic and useless kind of silver-vs-copper-cable-hearing posts we are annoyed here with for the moment: I humbly opt for more lean rationale and for less bloating narcissism.
Last edited:
Some calls that "Bias", and some people see & listen "bias" everywhere... notice the bias coud be hided also by rational explains of a perceived event : aka :the wrong explanation. But the scientific make-up can make it more acceptable, although the explanation is still wrong !
Where is the narcisism ? Btw I need a good swizz adress to fix my watch 🙂
Last edited:
I have one pic 😛 JC sound good period !
I know but the modern ones The Great Debate...and Then Some | Stereophile.com
Attachments
True. However, much of the reason is because many feel that we hear a difference. Being an engineer, this is inexplicable to me. Logically, this must be due to psychological factors.
However, I'll share a very recent experience. I happen to see a video clip talking about audio tweaks, and one of those was the supposed benefit of adding a clamshell style ferrite RF choke on to one's speaker cables. As it happened, I had a few such chokes sitting in a parts bin. This then was an easy enough experiment to try for fun and giggles. But, low and behold, my speakers sounded different for the better. I stopped giggling. The perceived difference has now persisted for several days. How ferrite RF chokes could affect the sound of my speaker cables, given the low termination impedances involved at either end, I can not explain. Perhaps, since speaker cables have physical characteriscs similar to an antenna, I don't know. No, this wasn't a scientific experiement to be sure, but it does bear further experimentation.
That Mr Curl is behind some very good amps is without doubt.
That he lost his integrity by defending the Bybee con on this very site is also without doubt.
Bybee is a brilliant thing seen of the engineering point of view : cost nothing to do, not useful, hence everybody want it, non-destructive in the added network from the fridge to the hifi chain and the main it is expensive It's exactly what industry is waiting for from engineers.
It is what engineering is about : people schooled to work in a sealed proof environment for making goods that work.
However, scientist have a more open mind. They don't care of the diminishing returns and so on. They know what a paradigm is and are ok to break it if the further one can be explained.
Here on diya, most of the tie it's a scaling problem. Indeed we don't care of the silver cable on the present discussion because in the scale it doesn't matter in front of more important thing like for instance power response between two units. It doesn't say there is nothing, it's just not useful for the discussion. But, and it's a big one, that doesn't say the few half percent of diminishing are not important in a hobby as we are fanatics. But when it's outside of your confort zone you want to put in front of it some corporatism.
Be afraid of the Philip Tellock syndrom... It's just here a scaling problem in the discusion. One has to keep an open mind like Ken Newon testimonial, this a healthy reaction, mostly because we talk about feeling and aesthetic reproduction (short one : a photo is not a capture of the reality)
sorry for the off topic, this the word narcism that makes me react while the proposal of his author for a method is not bad, I think it was a "narcisim" sort of & corporate reaction from the member who wrote it. The same that throw people in the fire because they didn't agree the Earth was not the center of the universe.
I'm agree to scale the knowledge relative to our hobby, certainly not to throw all that can be understood yet and even less scaling or sorting out members in relation to that
let's go back to the topic, sorry for that
It is what engineering is about : people schooled to work in a sealed proof environment for making goods that work.
However, scientist have a more open mind. They don't care of the diminishing returns and so on. They know what a paradigm is and are ok to break it if the further one can be explained.
Here on diya, most of the tie it's a scaling problem. Indeed we don't care of the silver cable on the present discussion because in the scale it doesn't matter in front of more important thing like for instance power response between two units. It doesn't say there is nothing, it's just not useful for the discussion. But, and it's a big one, that doesn't say the few half percent of diminishing are not important in a hobby as we are fanatics. But when it's outside of your confort zone you want to put in front of it some corporatism.
Be afraid of the Philip Tellock syndrom... It's just here a scaling problem in the discusion. One has to keep an open mind like Ken Newon testimonial, this a healthy reaction, mostly because we talk about feeling and aesthetic reproduction (short one : a photo is not a capture of the reality)
sorry for the off topic, this the word narcism that makes me react while the proposal of his author for a method is not bad, I think it was a "narcisim" sort of & corporate reaction from the member who wrote it. The same that throw people in the fire because they didn't agree the Earth was not the center of the universe.
I'm agree to scale the knowledge relative to our hobby, certainly not to throw all that can be understood yet and even less scaling or sorting out members in relation to that
let's go back to the topic, sorry for that
Last edited:
That rather depends on one's criteria for judging amplifiers. His track record shows him to be a successful designer of audiophile amplifiers. That is without doubt. But to some good amplifier are those that maximise technical performance for minimum cost while maximising parameters like efficiency, reliability, stability, difficult loads, high power, etc... the relative importance of which will vary with intended use. Can his audiophile amplifiers be classified as good against drier criteria like this rather than audiophile enthusiasm?
I am not seeking to dismiss Mr Curl's achievements within the audiophile field but more to point out that success/good within a specialist marketing-lead luxury goods sector will not necessarily read across to other sectors where technical performance and value for money are likely to be more highly valued.
You are right. Narcissism is as off topic as copper and silver. Therefore ... let's go back to the topic, sorry for that.
Last edited:
Yes.
Are they appreciably better than MC2 Audio amps? No but in some aspects similar ie high bias ClassAB amps which operate in Class A until they exceed 10-20W.
Curl's Parasound amps are good, stable, quiet amps but compared to pro-audio amps of similar abilities they cost too much.
You claim yes they are good amplifiers but then go on to contradict it. If they are too expensive for the technical performance provided then they are not good amplifiers in terms of the dry criteria of technical performance for the price asked. For those that view amplifiers as largely commodities in the sense of audible neutrality being straightforward to achieve at reasonable cost this is primarily how amplifiers are judged.
In order to become good amplifiers in the sense of being what one would purchase or put on the short list factors other than technical performance and price need to become important and significantly so. Broadly this is the status/appeal that luxury good brands seek to build. John Curl is part of this process for those audiophiles that assess amplifiers and their performance by criteria that are significantly different to that of an engineer. There is of course nothing wrong with this when it comes to luxury goods within a community of like minded enthusiasts so long as such skewed criteria are not assumed to apply outside.
Almost everything in domestic HiFi is overpriced compared to pro audio alternatives starting with bare drivers for diy.
Yes! I would be most interested in a side-by-side test of e.g.
- 200$ Seas Excel W12CY001
- 20$ FaitalPro 4FE35
These drivers both have an SD of approx 50cm^2 and seem well suited for the upper midrange.
Test Setup:
Compare these two drivers e.g. between 600Hz ... 2.5kHz. Hang them up by strings "as is", as naked drivers, e.g. as dipoles. This will avoid any baffle/housings artefacts. Equalize and linearized on axis to a LR4 bandpass by DSP. For testing, drive them to a level of 90dB@1m @ 800Hz ... 1250Hz.
First round:
Subjective listening, mono and stereo with syntesized (sines, pings, noise) and music input. Do calibrate yourself before testing: assess your own hearing threshold for distortions by ABX-testing yourself along with audio material which contain distinct amounts of distortions:
Listening Test
Second round:
Physically/technically assessed by three different tests: Harmonic distortion, multisine (IM) and stored energy. Late S.Linkwitz did that for some drivers shootout for one of his projects, and I encourage every speaker builder to do this also, if two ore more similar drivers might seem attractive for a project:
Midrange distortion test
No more, no less, there is no lunch for free. And then, let's see. If the 20$ driver is eaqual to the 200$ one, then it really, really would be a "SHOCKING result" for all these who naively may have wasted 180$.
You may of course adapt this suggestion for any other suitable driver's pair to be crosschecked.
Last edited:
It makes sense.
For instance if one read few 1" compression drivers test at diyit site...a thymphany compression that has good IM distorsion test and that is liked for its good price is far from the first of the test on some others aspects...the author also conclude from a subjective test as it is with a standalone cheap horn for all the test; he liked more the BMS driver and the thymphany compression even not in the 3 best in the final rank.
For instance if one read few 1" compression drivers test at diyit site...a thymphany compression that has good IM distorsion test and that is liked for its good price is far from the first of the test on some others aspects...the author also conclude from a subjective test as it is with a standalone cheap horn for all the test; he liked more the BMS driver and the thymphany compression even not in the 3 best in the final rank.
I have two pairs of small speakers which are remarkably similar in some ways: About 5.5L in volume, 63-65Hz lower cut off, 5.25" midwoofers, similar crossover frequency and output at 1W.
One pair uses Audax aerogel drivers which when they were available cost around £70, the other uses FaitalPro 5FE120s costing £20 each.
I haven't specifically measured them but to my ears the Faitals sound far better than the Audax plus they have a substantially larger Xmax.
Somebody else has gone further and did actual measurements in his search for the best 5" mid he could find. He ended up with two outstanding options, one a very boutiquey, very expensive HiFi driver from a manufacturer I had never heard of and who probably doesn't exist anymore while the other one was probably the cheapest he tested: The BMS 5S117.
His test is probably still available on the net, I just searched for 'BMS 5S117 test' to find it.
PS: I've done the Klippel test you linked to. I eventually failed to hear a difference when the distortion reached -48dB using my regular main speakers.
One pair uses Audax aerogel drivers which when they were available cost around £70, the other uses FaitalPro 5FE120s costing £20 each.
I haven't specifically measured them but to my ears the Faitals sound far better than the Audax plus they have a substantially larger Xmax.
Somebody else has gone further and did actual measurements in his search for the best 5" mid he could find. He ended up with two outstanding options, one a very boutiquey, very expensive HiFi driver from a manufacturer I had never heard of and who probably doesn't exist anymore while the other one was probably the cheapest he tested: The BMS 5S117.
His test is probably still available on the net, I just searched for 'BMS 5S117 test' to find it.
PS: I've done the Klippel test you linked to. I eventually failed to hear a difference when the distortion reached -48dB using my regular main speakers.
FR may be king but I suspect that, at least in part, that may be because of the relative ease of testing it.
One factor that may be under valued is the spurious output of drivers outside their intended range. It is
simply not practical for most of us to switch off/disconnect drivers to reveal the sound produced by the remainder.
One exception is sub-woofers. Being discrete, it is easy to switch off the main speakers and listen to the upper bass/midrange rubbish coming out of the woofers! I found this most revealing, and would recommend that everyone (who use a sub-woofers) try it. In my case it revealed that my otherwise excellent woofer (JPW SB1?) desperately needed a high order low pass filter (which it now has). This has cleaned up the high-bass/low-mid performance of the system as a whole.
One factor that may be under valued is the spurious output of drivers outside their intended range. It is
simply not practical for most of us to switch off/disconnect drivers to reveal the sound produced by the remainder.
One exception is sub-woofers. Being discrete, it is easy to switch off the main speakers and listen to the upper bass/midrange rubbish coming out of the woofers! I found this most revealing, and would recommend that everyone (who use a sub-woofers) try it. In my case it revealed that my otherwise excellent woofer (JPW SB1?) desperately needed a high order low pass filter (which it now has). This has cleaned up the high-bass/low-mid performance of the system as a whole.
Listening to a sub alone you need steep filters for subs as our ears aren't very sensitive at low frequencies. The mains output however will mask the sub output. The same applies to the various drivers in mains speakers, although a tweeter plays mid frequencies, you won't hear them.
Hi,
I don't like the ABX method and it doesn't help me to judge, many of my friends also abandoned that method after they were fooled by the ABX comparison and bought a new HI-FI equipment, and coming back to take back what they had changed.
Each of us needs our time to judge.
However, the modalities of a test can also be changed to facilitate judgment, the important thing is that whatever method you want to use does not have to be a test of skill.
I write the listening impressions on a sheet, and listen again for many days, I use no less than 5 discs up to 10, it depends on the quantity and quality of the change that I have to judge, each disc is chosen to bring out different sound characteristics and musical genre, then I listen at different times, every time I write the impressions, the judgment is reliable when it coincides from a minimum of 5 to 10 times.
It is not a quick process, but haste is a bad ally.
the important thing is to make the right choice and enjoy it for a long time.
Choosing with hasty judgment leads you to a condition of insecurity and dissatisfaction and after a while you feel the need to change.