How large?
If your talking 12" upwards then pro audio manufacturers are the business. Beyma, B&C, ATC, Volt. There's many choices here and its quite easy to get something very good from names like those. One that I haven't heard but am eager to is Acoustic Elegance. From what I've read these blend pro audio with hifi very well.
I'm building a 3 way for a friend; not sure he can afford Volt etc and being UK based I am looking at european brands/chinese brands like TB as the prices arent inflated. I was thinking to use the seas 10" sub as a woofer or the monacor mentioned at the beginning of the thread, or 2 Dynavox 8" (will suit the dynavox 6" I may use)
Controlled subjective testing (which I'm a big fan of, and professionally experienced in) is probably required to make an accurate assessment comparing "detail retrieval" of system a with system b with an unfamiliar recording, but I think this is one situation where we don't have to over-complicate the situation.
Its known that we are notoriously bad at making blind qualitative assessments of quality: ie comparing to some reference, looking for specific differences or making an assessment of whether A&B is more "accurate".
However one outcome of greater detail is often that we simply hear something we didn't hear before. A reflection in the recording space, some low level cough or truck rumbling, the sound of a hand across a string or fret, something purposely buried way down in the mix by sneaky artists etc.
In this case, the system that lets us hear this, when we didn't hear it before, with known and familiar recordings, can clearly be thought of as more "detailed". More accurate? Who knows. There are always people that will fool themselves into hearing something that someone else points out. I'm not talking about that case. I'm talking about the genuine surprise at hearing something new and unexpected in a favourite recording. The system that produces this is clearly more "detailed".
Is that a good thing? Depends on the trade -offs. I like detail, but only if it comes nearly for free. I subscribe to Corey Greenberg's old philosophy, and the "Great Detail Safari Hunt" rat hole the high end got trapped in holds little appeal for me, personally, but YMMV.
Dave
I'm with Dave on this one
To evaluate a speaker, I use female voices and listen for the breath sounds. Can't attach a number to that idea but it works well to let me know if the crossover works correctly or there are issues with the midrange. The better the detail, the more "mistakes" you hear or low level sounds that got missed.
It is a very slippery slope though, sometimes the "detail" you are hearing is coloration because different does not mean better. Since I have a habit of running in circles, I limit the quest to just speakers and leave wires, capacitors, inductors, wall outlets, DACs, amps and all the other stuff to others.
My latest speaker gizmo is a 30mm dome tweeter from WaveCor, it sounds good although I'm not sure if it is the quality of the tweeter, the psychological effect of it will sound good cuz I built it or because it is very efficient. All, some or none of the above.
To evaluate a speaker, I use female voices and listen for the breath sounds. Can't attach a number to that idea but it works well to let me know if the crossover works correctly or there are issues with the midrange. The better the detail, the more "mistakes" you hear or low level sounds that got missed.
It is a very slippery slope though, sometimes the "detail" you are hearing is coloration because different does not mean better. Since I have a habit of running in circles, I limit the quest to just speakers and leave wires, capacitors, inductors, wall outlets, DACs, amps and all the other stuff to others.
My latest speaker gizmo is a 30mm dome tweeter from WaveCor, it sounds good although I'm not sure if it is the quality of the tweeter, the psychological effect of it will sound good cuz I built it or because it is very efficient. All, some or none of the above.
Detail Shmeetale
Ok - I have a nice recording on CD of Dutoit conducting George Bolet (one of my favorite pianists, btw) doing the usual Russian piano symphonies/concertos. Aside from it being a tremendously excellent performance (phrasing, timing, dynamics and subtleties of fingerings) by Bolet on one piece there is a place where someone wacks a music stand...
Now, I know it is there. And at one time I even knew the time shown where it happens. But no one can seem to reliably actually hear the event an awful lot of the time. Even knowing when it occurs! Waiting for it in anticipation.
Did it disappear from the recording? Did the speakers and amp and CD player change? How about the wires? Phase of the moon? Cosmic radiation?
Would "more detailed" or "accurate" speakers reveal the event all the time, more of the time??
So, how come? And how would that sort of happenstance factor in to so-called "objective" and "double blind" listening tests?
Is the detail there or not there? What changed?
(hint: the observers change...)
_-_-bear
PS. this speaks back to my basic hypothetical construct on how we as people resolve and decode the subtleties encoded in sound and then the reproduction of a sound recording...
Ok - I have a nice recording on CD of Dutoit conducting George Bolet (one of my favorite pianists, btw) doing the usual Russian piano symphonies/concertos. Aside from it being a tremendously excellent performance (phrasing, timing, dynamics and subtleties of fingerings) by Bolet on one piece there is a place where someone wacks a music stand...
Now, I know it is there. And at one time I even knew the time shown where it happens. But no one can seem to reliably actually hear the event an awful lot of the time. Even knowing when it occurs! Waiting for it in anticipation.
Did it disappear from the recording? Did the speakers and amp and CD player change? How about the wires? Phase of the moon? Cosmic radiation?
Would "more detailed" or "accurate" speakers reveal the event all the time, more of the time??
So, how come? And how would that sort of happenstance factor in to so-called "objective" and "double blind" listening tests?
Is the detail there or not there? What changed?
(hint: the observers change...)
_-_-bear
PS. this speaks back to my basic hypothetical construct on how we as people resolve and decode the subtleties encoded in sound and then the reproduction of a sound recording...
This is definitely a factor and IMO, what "burn in" is all about. But what if a system consistently retrieves more detail?
I meant a cite supporting the statement, "Its known that we are notoriously bad at making blind qualitative assessments of quality: ie comparing to some reference, looking for specific differences or making an assessment of whether A&B is more "accurate"." That cite shows the opposite- that we're bad at making judgments when things are NOT blind.
http://www.nousaine.com/pdfs/Can You Trust Your Ears.pdf
I figure the mind is a very complex thing and sight plays into your hearing ability. Figure it is like taste, food that looks like it was scraped out of a dumpster does not taste as good if it looks good. It could be the same thing but the brain is wired for survival so if it looks wrong, it is wrong.
Linkwitz (the crossover guy) studies the brain interfering with sound processing and noted oddities with all sorts of situations. The brain actually alters sound depending on many different factors.
Does the mind filter the sound or change how you perceive it if you see things that are supposed to improve the sound? Blind testing shows that there is no difference between Wazoo Cable regular and Wazoo Cable Platinum series but if you see the cables--does that change how you perceive the sound?
If you tell a person that a $5,000 detachable power cord gives more detailed highs, will the mind alter what they hear to bring out the highs? They might know the rules of electricity, how power supplies work etc. but will the mind change it's settings when it is suggested? Granted, if they can't see it, they won't know the difference but if they know it is supposed to sound better--does it?
Through blind ABX testing I learned I could not tell the difference between speaker cables, RCA cables or 8 times VS 16 times oversampling. Since my tin ears can't tell that--I apply it to capacitors, power cords, speaker stands, green marker on CDs etc. If my ears were so bad in my 20's, I don't think they have improved much since I'm in my 40's.
Since I know how something looks changes peoples perception on what they hear, my latest speaker is very pretty. My inlaws bought me the midwoofers for Christmas and will visit this week to hear how they sound. It has a great sound but for them, it has to look good first. I'm going to hide the ugly speaker cables...
I figure the mind is a very complex thing and sight plays into your hearing ability. Figure it is like taste, food that looks like it was scraped out of a dumpster does not taste as good if it looks good. It could be the same thing but the brain is wired for survival so if it looks wrong, it is wrong.
Linkwitz (the crossover guy) studies the brain interfering with sound processing and noted oddities with all sorts of situations. The brain actually alters sound depending on many different factors.
Does the mind filter the sound or change how you perceive it if you see things that are supposed to improve the sound? Blind testing shows that there is no difference between Wazoo Cable regular and Wazoo Cable Platinum series but if you see the cables--does that change how you perceive the sound?
If you tell a person that a $5,000 detachable power cord gives more detailed highs, will the mind alter what they hear to bring out the highs? They might know the rules of electricity, how power supplies work etc. but will the mind change it's settings when it is suggested? Granted, if they can't see it, they won't know the difference but if they know it is supposed to sound better--does it?
Through blind ABX testing I learned I could not tell the difference between speaker cables, RCA cables or 8 times VS 16 times oversampling. Since my tin ears can't tell that--I apply it to capacitors, power cords, speaker stands, green marker on CDs etc. If my ears were so bad in my 20's, I don't think they have improved much since I'm in my 40's.
Since I know how something looks changes peoples perception on what they hear, my latest speaker is very pretty. My inlaws bought me the midwoofers for Christmas and will visit this week to hear how they sound. It has a great sound but for them, it has to look good first. I'm going to hide the ugly speaker cables...
Throughout our lives the brain profiles and preconditions itself to determine things in the most efficient manner. We pre-emptively assess every situation, even something as benign as a listening test, and gather as much information as possible and then make a conscious or subconscious decision based on the pattern of preconditioning inherent to our own brain. Its sometimes called gut feeling.
Its all part of a bunch of survival mechanisms from back when we were hunter gatherers and this sort of thing could save your life but for a listening test this is less useful bias.
The less you know the better
The only thing I know of was mentioned earlier in the thread, but I'm quite sure that there is more to it--why I was hoping to see some evidence for the observations stated. So far, that's all we(non-industry audiophiles) have available for our reading that I know of. My narrow directivity speaker(but we were talking drivers) with great perceived detail retrieval has MFB, a cast aluminum baffle and very low measured diffraction. I bet there is something in those things that equal detail retrieval that go beyond driver.
Dan
I was listening to an "archive" recording of one of our performances from a couple years ago when I heard a truck out on the street . . . didn't sound like the UPS truck, so I got up and looked to see what it was. No truck. Oh, wait. Bus. Driving by the church during the concert.
Fooled me . . .
OTOH I made the mistake (a number of years ago) of putting out at a violin concerto performance some "untested" chairs that seemed more comfortable to some of the orchestra musicians. A couple of them squeaked. Much anger and unhappiness ensued, mostly from the soloist. Never did manage to hear it on the recording . . . (and I've tried) . . .
Live and learn . . .
Hi,
I´d say that ´Detail´ is the speakers capability for low level resolution of faint acoustic details. For example the impression of clapping hands in a life-concert or all the inavoidable small noisy events in a classic concert.
It can also mean the authentic reproduction of a voice or the bow exciting the strings or the velvety structure of a synthesizer note. And it also means the impression of preserving a natural dynamic range even when played at really low volume levels.
Those acoustic events should be reproduced such that You recognize them as ´natural (side)effects´ in the process of making music. If the driver itself pretends high resolution by e.g. modifying the amplitude response, those tiny acoustic events will simply not be there or won´t sound natural and authentic. You´d immediately recognize them as a artificial reproduction.
A driver with a high degree of direct radiated sound and low amount of (early) reflected sound like horns will also ´feign´ more resolution.
So it´s not that easy to distinct between a driver exhibiting true high lowlevel resolution and a faker because its about subjective impressions that can´t or can hardly be measured and correlated.
To my experience dynamic drivers are rather restricted especially when listened to at very low volume levels. There are drivers that seem to literally stop reproducing at all below a certain treshold level or that sound ´dynamically very ´flat´. Amongst the selection of dynamic drivers I like the Thiel-Accuton drivers and think that they belong to the best one can listen to in the dynamic driver range.
Off of the standard type of drivers the ribbons and even more the electrostats can open up a whole microcosm of fine detail and lowlevel resolution. Even more exotic drivers may also have the potential of very high resolution, plasma-drivers come to mind.
jauu
Calvin
I´d say that ´Detail´ is the speakers capability for low level resolution of faint acoustic details. For example the impression of clapping hands in a life-concert or all the inavoidable small noisy events in a classic concert.
It can also mean the authentic reproduction of a voice or the bow exciting the strings or the velvety structure of a synthesizer note. And it also means the impression of preserving a natural dynamic range even when played at really low volume levels.
Those acoustic events should be reproduced such that You recognize them as ´natural (side)effects´ in the process of making music. If the driver itself pretends high resolution by e.g. modifying the amplitude response, those tiny acoustic events will simply not be there or won´t sound natural and authentic. You´d immediately recognize them as a artificial reproduction.
A driver with a high degree of direct radiated sound and low amount of (early) reflected sound like horns will also ´feign´ more resolution.
So it´s not that easy to distinct between a driver exhibiting true high lowlevel resolution and a faker because its about subjective impressions that can´t or can hardly be measured and correlated.
To my experience dynamic drivers are rather restricted especially when listened to at very low volume levels. There are drivers that seem to literally stop reproducing at all below a certain treshold level or that sound ´dynamically very ´flat´. Amongst the selection of dynamic drivers I like the Thiel-Accuton drivers and think that they belong to the best one can listen to in the dynamic driver range.
Off of the standard type of drivers the ribbons and even more the electrostats can open up a whole microcosm of fine detail and lowlevel resolution. Even more exotic drivers may also have the potential of very high resolution, plasma-drivers come to mind.
jauu
Calvin
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