Auditioning Speakers

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
This interesting article as well as recent discussions have made me think again about how I test the speakers that I am experimenting with, and also evaulating the entire sound reproduction system.

I do not have the sensitive instruments to test my speakers, no an anechoic chamber, but this may be beside the point. I have been, after all, listening to music and testing what I hear 'subjectively'.

I have come up with some working guidelines to evaluate audio systems by ear only:

  • Frequency range - do I hear the lowest frequency and highest frequency instruments?
  • Clarity - Can I hear all the instruments playing all the time clearly. If it is a familiar track, can I hear what I hear with headphones and do I hear any detail I had not heard before?
  • Can I hear what seems to be distortion?
  • Are the percussion sounds sharp and clearly defined or sort or muffled and woolly?
  • Do I hear any unnatural (to me) colorations of sound- boxiness, sizzling sounds from the tweeters?
  • Do the music and vocals sound natural?

There are only a few high powered systems and headphones that will pass fare well in the above set of tests, so it is kind of a basic hi fi filter.

Anything more to add? It seems a good way to do things.
 
Last edited:
Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
Basic HiFI system reviewing chart

Drawing.jpeg

Rudimentary testing chart. Of course it needs to be refined but you get the idea. Interesting to see the variation between people who review a system using this chart to review systems.

What I have shown is what I remember from my on wall open baffle without the tweeter connected.
 
Last edited:
I like to use a wide variety of musical genres to judge my personal attempts in Stereo reproduction. While chances are they won't all be "the best" in audiophile terms of recordings, the last thing I want is to end up with a few (so called) well recorded songs to listen to.

If something is off it might not display itself completely in one genre. I also take my time in judging. Weeks rather than minutes to see if some change is for the better.

I do like my speakers more than my headphones. Not that I have bad headphones or equipment on that side, the speakers give me more thrills resembling "being there".
They should after spending 5 to 6 years coming up with the plans, building it, adjusting it and learning from it all.
 
Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
Attempt at actual audition in living room

Listened to this album (CD)

on the Sony reciever I have pictured in my thread, with the original mini-fridge sized speakers (Sony ES-333).

This time listening for specific instruments. This was a real eye openener - the bass is nowhere as well defined as I want it to be, and I had to listen hard to hear much of the treble - high hat, cymbals.

Also, I now notice that some songs seem to be recorded more loudly than others.

Angling the speakers in a little I seem to have built myself a nice soundstage.

All this from simply attempting to come up with a system for listening to speakers. Meanwhile my friends amp and speakers are so clear and they sound brand new.
 
Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
You make it sound (Yeuch pun) as though speakers deteriorate like paint dis-colours or cushions get compressed. Is that what you meant?

Well yes, in this climate these things tend to deteriorate with age, come to think of it, we live close enought to the sea to cause corrosion. I had a TV that went bad due to not being used for a few years. The system I am listening to was in storage for quite a few years.

But more to the point, audio equipment seems to need to be carefully maintained and kept in good order, the fact that there are few moving parts does not mean much.

How do you care for and mantain speakers? Never heard of it being done. It is all so relevant because once you audition speakers and find or build ones you like they have to be kept that way.

Believe it or not, your sound equipment is most vulnerable not while you are using it, but while you are not using it! Besides the normal wear and tear that you expect to have, to the needle, motor, cords, etc., the biggest enemies your sound system has are dampness, neglect, and helpers.

http://www.hiltonaudio.com/taking-care-of-your-sound-equipment.html
 
Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
“Tweeters change over time, so there’s no guarantee that a new tweeter will match one that’s eight years old. That’s why we recommend that you replace them in pairs,” says Otto Jørgensen, our Customer Care Manager.

“If your speakers are more than 10 years old, we actually recommend you replace your tweeters altogether,” Otto says.

How to Clean Your Woofer Cones

Maybe its the tweeters.
 
Clarity - Can I hear all the instruments playing all the time clearly. If it is a familiar track, can I hear what I hear with headphones and do I hear any detail I had not heard before?

Especially the "do I hear any detail I had not heard before?" comment.

Adding compression and thus harmonic distortion decreases the level between low signals and high signals in audio. The result is that after compression/adding harmonic distortion, the low level signals will be higher in level. And you seem to hear more detail. This can certainly sound nice, that's why its used on 99.999% of every single musical recording released since the latest ice age.



Imo, the reproduced sound should sound exactly like the original sound. If you hear more "detail" in the reproduced sound than in the original sound, then its not an accurate reproduction.
 
A/B testing. I usually use the same audition pieces as well. I also use spoken voice off the radio, which can be very revealing of colourations.

A spoken voice off the radio is not a good test, most of the presenters have their voices electronically modified to sound more manly or feminine,
I can Remember Terry Wogan in that UK TV show Blankety Blank, he needed a mic on a stick, giving him the close mic (increase bass) setup that is used in radio.
 
A spoken voice off the radio is not a good test, most of the presenters have their voices electronically modified to sound more manly or feminine,
I can Remember Terry Wogan in that UK TV show Blankety Blank, he needed a mic on a stick, giving him the close mic (increase bass) setup that is used in radio.

I agree in absolute terms. But I do not test as to how "accurate" the voice is, but compare with a known reference speaker. I find that colouration a really do get highlighted. Music I find much less obvious for spotting colourations.
 
Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
My headphones are not listed, but I was very very annoyed by the test: the speakers all sounded so different, one was bright, the other had the best balance I thought, the other one was too muted.



If these are all HiFi they should sound close to the same, or they are all far from HiFi. What is going on here.



Surely speaker building is a black art.
 
I use the same set of tracks to audition and test speakers, although now it's more comparing my DIY builds to my reference speakers: Curt Campbell's 'Slapshots' MTMs. They include:

Bach Gavotte and Rondeau by Julia Fischer
Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem, Calro Maria Guilini
Angel by Sarah McLachlan
Up on Cripple Creek The Band
Box Sam Brown
So What Miles Davis
Don't Let Me Down The Beatles
Freedom Jimi Hendrix live LA Forum 1970 bootleg


I find these tracks give a range of material both well and poorly recorded (important, as much of our music isn't so well recorded or mixed), vocal, drum and bass performance and top end. The Verdi is a huge choral piece which will test just about any speakers or system. Up On Cripple Creek has a bass/drum pattern which will challenge any woofer and the drum sound on Box is just great and should sound so. The Bach violin is a nice test of upper treble and harmonics reproduction. The Hendrix is a good audience recording of a great concert and will sound pretty thin on speakers which are too 'clinical'.

These are all tracks which I listen to many times and I know how I like them to sound. That said, my hearing only goes to 10,000 Hz so I may well be missing out on something in my testing.



Geoff
 
Last edited:
There are several reasons speakers would 'go bad', caused by but not limited to:
1. Ferrofluid (if used in any of the drivers, usually dome tweeter and/or dome midrange) becoming thick and gummy due to age.
2. Electrolytic capacitors in the crossover drying out due to age
3. 'Soft parts' such as foam/rubber and doped fabric surrounds, silk domes - hardening, cracking, warping and perishing due to aging, heat cycling and sun exposure.
4. Dust and debris getting lodged in the magnetic gap or moving parts
5. Mechanical damage due to over loading or physical impact from the outside e.g. a hole punched in the cone, a voicecoil being bent and now rubbing due to the cone being bottomed out or forced by curious fingers.

(1) may be able to be fixed by replacement of the fluid if the tweeter is serviceable (not glued together), however be aware that tweeters can be extremely fragile and sensitive to alignment during assembly so if the ferrofluid is still good, attempting to replace it may do more harm than good. Not all tweeters use ferrofluid, so if you don't know if they do you're running the risk of damaging the tweeter to open it just to find out.

(2) can be rectified easily by replacing the capacitors with new ones of the same values.

(3) some soft parts may plausibly be replaced, such as the surrounds of woofers however OEM replacement parts are likely to be no longer available (or never were). Using generic replacement surrounds will certainly sound better than a perished surround, however it will never sound exactly the same as it did from factory. When soft parts go bad on a tweeter, you typically replace the entire diaphragm assembly. In the event of no new replacement being available or the diaphragm not being easily replaceable (glued in), you could source an entire second hand tweeter (if you can even find one - I would think highly unlikely for the Sony model you have) but who is to say that the replacement hasn't aged just as badly as your original. Replacing drivers with a different brand/model is generally a bad idea as the crossover has been designed for the response of the original drivers and it is a total gamble as to what sound you will get by blindly substituting them with another model.

(4) and (5) can be difficult or impossible to resolve perfectly without replacing the entire driver with an undamaged item.


If you have speakers that are 20-30+ years old, they likely have started to develop many of the above issues. It might be time to move on to a new set of speakers. Many of the 'monkey coffin' speakers from decades past, while ok performers for their time, aren't anything to write home about these days anyway.
 
Last edited:
Member
Joined 2015
Paid Member
(important, as much of our music isn't so well recorded or mixed)


Well its not just the speakers that are ugly. That said, a lot of the tracks listen to - I can only admire the recording engineers skills - have you listened to any Eagles tracks? The engineer was a former US nave Sonar Operator chosen for his hearing skills.


Is the YouTube version of the tracks you listed of sufficient quality to test speakers? Or do we have to have the CD?
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.