Audio Note speakers

[MattHooper]

In theory, a speaker should have as much lack of character as possible. A quick and easy way to judge this (in a store-listening room) is, if there is a tuner, to listen to (public) talk radio. I think that a lot of high end/subjective pleasing/extremely expensive speakers would hearable fail in rendering human voices only, when directly compared to more accurate, well measuring ones. With a.n. you might wish the dealer would put a warning sticker on them. I'm not shure though; I never heard them.

I regularly compare the sound of good vocal recordings through a speaker to the sound of real people speaking, as a sanity check to note the difference. This is whether I'm at an audio show, an audio store, or in my home. My little Spendor S3/5s/CJ amp combo were particularly good at passing this test.

 

[CapMan]

I regularly compare the sound of good vocal recordings through a speaker to the sound of real people speaking, as a sanity check to note the difference.

So have to assume you got someone into a room. Set up a great microphone, recorded said person. Put mono speaker in place of person, played back the recording and assessed the differences?

Surely that is the only way to do this - just playing back ‘some vocals’ gets us back into the circle of confusion - you can’t know how the vocalist sounded in the studio.

Not trying to be obtuse I promise, but it feels like the difference between accuracy - ie how well do the speakers reproduce what came off the desk, and what sounds to you like a more realistic human voice. I can see why the second is preferred , but I think it’s not a guarantee of hi- fidelity .

Just my 10c .

 

[MattHooper]

So have to assume you got someone into a room. Set up a great microphone, recorded said person. Put mono speaker in place of person, played back the recording and assessed the differences?

I'm not referring to rigorous comparisons. Certainly there would be a truly scientific method of doing the test (though Sean Olive seems to think that some of the problems are intractable for truly rigorous testing of live vs reproduced sound. Though I think it's clear to anyone that one can certainly move further or closer to the sound of the real thing, even if not perfectly achieved).

Years ago I did actually record instruments we play in our house, as well as my family's voices, and I would do some direct comparisons of the recordings through various speakers (in stereo) vs the family member standing in between the speakers, speaking. It was very interesting.

But what I have carried on doing since then is just an even more informal "reality check." One can be somewhat mesmerized by a well set up audiophile demo of a well recorded vocal, where the voice that appears between the speaker can have almost startling vividness and clarity, leading to a "more realistic" sensation. But I like to close my eyes and listen in such situations, and compare the sound to other voices in the room, which might be at a show or wherever. And what that does for me is indicate some generalities in the difference between the super vivid reproduced sound, vs how actual organic human voices sound in real life. And I find that the artificial characteristics of the reproduced sound are put in better relief when I do this: it helps me identify WHY that voices isn't convincing and sounds electronic, vs real humans.

So that's the general approach I was referencing. A while back at another audiophile's house we were playing a well recorded male vocal track which was very vivid, and I had my friend stand in between the speakers, placed to about where the recorded voice seemed to be, and just speak. As usual, it revealed some broad differences between a real voice and the reproduced voice.

(Among those reliable differences: a real voice tends to have a sonic presence and density and palpability, a thereness, that the phantom stereo images of voices lack. And there is a very particular combination of "clarity" with "utterly relaxed" detail to the real voice, as well as a roundness and richness and especially an "organic" quality to the voice. Real voices sound like what they are: originating from organic material, damped flesh/muscle, often with some chest resonance. In comparison most reproduced voices sound more "see-through," and harder, more electronic in character, not "made of the same stuff" and less organic than a real voice in direct comparison).

Not trying to be obtuse I promise, but it feels like the difference between accuracy - ie how well do the speakers reproduce what came off the desk, and what sounds to you like a more realistic human voice. I can see why the second is preferred , but I think it’s not a guarantee of hi- fidelity .

Just my 10c .

Agreed.

 

[Rõlnnbacke]

I regularly compare the sound of good vocal recordings through a speaker to the sound of real people speaking, as a sanity check to note the difference. This is whether I'm at an audio show, an audio store, or in my home. My little Spendor S3/5s/CJ amp combo were particularly good at passing this test.

Years ago, a friend and I were auditioning speakers in a renowned store in our town. We were not sure/disagreed about the quality of the different speakers. Then we put on the tuner that luckily was there, tuned to (public) 'dutch radio one' talk/news radio, And both had to agree the kef models were the most 'believable' sounding ones.

So have to assume you got someone into a room. Set up a great microphone, recorded said person. Put mono speaker in place of person, played back the recording and assessed the differences?

Surely that is the only way to do this - just playing back ‘some vocals’ gets us back into the circle of confusion - you can’t know how the vocalist sounded in the studio.

Not trying to be obtuse I promise, but it feels like the difference between accuracy - ie how well do the speakers reproduce what came off the desk, and what sounds to you like a more realistic human voice. I can see why the second is preferred , but I think it’s not a guarantee of hi- fidelity .

Just my 10c .

You are probably right, but our hearing is specialized in human voices. Even if you don't know the person you hear on a speaker, You often can hear to some degree when a voice is altered, especially when you directly compare different speakers. More so, I guess, when there is no music at the same time.

 

[MattHooper]

You are probably right, but our hearing is specialized in human voices. Even if you don't know the person you hear on a speaker, You often can hear to some degree when a voice is altered, especially when you directly compare different speakers. More so, I guess, when there is no music at the same time.

Certainly. We are all familiar with the human voice. I work in film/tv post production sound. A lot of the work that goes in to sound editing/mixing in dialogue, is getting the dialogue to sound more natural...that is more like what we are familiar with in real life, carefully fixing the sound quality, dialing out the more artificial "tells."

 

[CapMan]

In comparison most reproduced voices sound more "see-through," and harder, more electronic in character, not "made of the same stuff" and less organic than a real voice in direct comparison)

I really get what you say and thank you for articulating your thoughts so well.

 

[Sal1950]

Sal, not everyone on ASR shares your dogmatism on the subject. Haven't you noticed how often ASR members have had to correct the impression that we don't allow for notions of "different preferences" around here? This site's main emphasis, I believe, is promulgating accurate information on how audio gear performs and why. It does not dictate what any reader NEEDS to do with that information, like "therefore you you need to choose X gear."

Well, we do have "recommended and not recommended" components right?
When you come in with your BS about "dictating" to cover up your support of poor performing gear you do our readers a dis-service.. But it's easy to see you simply enjoy being a torn in the side of those of us who look to measurements and the science of audio to move the goal posts forward in the pursuit of High Fidelity. Nothing has ever been gained using the "sounds good to me" approach except to get the un/mis-informed to spend big money on crappy gear. That's what you promote here, sad.

 

[MattHooper]

Well, we do have "recommended and not recommended" components right?
When you come in with your BS about "dictating" to cover up your support of poor performing gear you do our readers a dis-service.. But it's easy to see you simply enjoy being a torn in the side of those of us who look to measurements and the science of audio to move the goal posts forward in the pursuit of High Fidelity. Nothing has ever been gained using the "sounds good to me" approach except to get the un/mis-informed to spend big money on crappy gear. That's what you promote here, sad.

Sal it’s been years of me trying to correct your reliable misrepresentations of my view. I don’t have the patience to bother any more.

You do you. I leave it to others willing to entertain different points of view - appreciating that one doesn’t negate the other - to understand what I’m saying.

 

[Duke]

... a real voice tends to have a sonic presence and density and palpability, a thereness, that the phantom stereo images of voices lack. And there is a very particular combination of "clarity" with "utterly relaxed" detail to the real voice, as well as a roundness and richness and especially an "organic" quality to the voice. Real voices sound like what they are: originating from organic material, damped flesh/muscle, often with some chest resonance. In comparison most reproduced voices sound more "see-through," and harder, more electronic in character, not "made of the same stuff" and less organic than a real voice in direct comparison.

Agreed.

Some systems come closer than others. One of my go-to test tracks goes something like this: "The Fender bass guitar you are about to hear should appear to come from the left loudspeaker only."

 

[Cecill]

I've encountered Audio Note systems at various shows, always curated by an Audio Note representative, presumably to showcase them at their best. The rooms were packed with male crowd, utterly absorbed as if Rostropovich himself were performing live. Instead, it was a recording of Audio Note's own cellist, Vincent Bélanger, aggressively assaulting his cello. Yet, the listeners were thoroughly captivated.
And that is the difference between properly engineered loudspakers (Rostropovich) and Audio Note loudspeaker (Bélanger).

 

[MattHooper]

I've encountered Audio Note systems at various shows, always curated by an Audio Note representative, presumably to showcase them at their best. The rooms were packed with male crowd, utterly absorbed as if Rostropovich himself were performing live. Instead, it was a recording of Audio Note's own cellist, Vincent Bélanger, aggressively assaulting his cello. Yet, the listeners were thoroughly captivated.
And that is the difference between properly engineered loudspakers (Rostropovich) and Audio Note loudspeaker (Bélanger).

I tried...but I couldn't follow that logic.

(If the listeners were "utterly absorbed" that seems to suggest the system was doing something interesting, or satisfying for the listeners).

 

[Waxx]

I don't get the Audionote hype neighter, and i'm also loving some very compromised systems (diy single driver fullrange speaekrs) and use them daily. Audionote is just bad executed, based on old tech that worked, but not done right. If you like that sound, it's your personal preference. But objectively they are very bad. Just like most (if not all) single fullrange driver systems are technically inferior to wel executed multiway systems. But i like that sound...

AN and other brands with coloured speakers are like with my single driver fullrange systems, if you love it, you can listen to it. Just don't claim they are superior and for everyone the best, because they are not. I'll never do that with my preference of technical bloated speakers. It's a personal preference, not an objective quality that draws me to them.

The big problem i have with AN is that they have all kinds of claims that are simply not true, and attach a ridiculous high price to it. And that they keep claiming that you can't measure their quality. You can measure any objective and many subjective qualities today. I know what i want in numbers and graphs to satisfy my subjective preference, and i know it's not for most and that it don't fit the preference of the big majority of listeners, here and in general.

 

[Ilkless]

Sighted listening impressions are moderated by non-auditory stimuli like provenance, narrative, intuition, social factors (some people - subconsciously or otherwise - want to feel special by identifying with some arcane cabal of enthusiasts who can appreciate esoteric design configurations despite very sound reasons backed in psychoacoustic principles otherwise). And that's fine. Just don't pretend this multimodal impression of fidelity is definitive and exempt from critical scrutiny -- if not from others, at least from oneself.

Also, an objective approach doesn't mean everyone uses the same few speakers. Quite the opposite as I pointed out previously in a somewhat similar context:

My final note would be that just because a speaker relies on evidence-based engineering doesn't mean that the end product is insipid and uniform and less enjoyable (which is implied in your backhanded compliment of Genelec gear). One enjoys music, not the equipment through which it is transduced. In fact, there is a huge variety of well-engineered designs covering various design formats that comply much better than the likes of Harbeth to what is established, while proposing their own solution to the questions that remain contestable for want of evidence. That these questions remain contestable does not mean that every speaker design, regardless of how backward it is, should be legitimately considered an equal option to well-engineered speakers. It also does not mean that each of these speakers will all sound the same to each other. Different dispersion widths/shapes, bass extension, max SPL, size requirements, intended listening spots, all cause variations.

And here on a list of manufacturers I need to keep updating:

There is a surprising variety of driver configurations and design choices in the list that follows - much more so than proponents of subjective intuition-led audio reproduction often assert when they speak of a "boring" homogeneity/convergence arising from evidence-based audio.

Far from being more innovative and creative, the hi-fi woo market is actually much more stagnant. There are plenty of objectively-driven alternative speaker configurations like CBT arrays, Synergy horns, waveguides of all sorts. Just to name a few.

 

[Sal1950]

Sal it’s been years of me trying to correct your reliable misrepresentations of my view. I don’t have the patience to bother any more.

You do you. I leave it to others willing to entertain different points of view - appreciating that one doesn’t negate the other - to understand what I’m saying.

Blah blah blah, Same ole, same ole in defense of you coming in every time a "cult" component is exposed for it's
"new clothes" but poor performing status. " If it sounds good to you it's OK" is not the way to guide the uninformed
on a path to having a High Fidelity system.
This is the same old subjectivist craptrap we've heard for years in so many sites and magazines. It goes hand in hand with the BS we received there when we exposed the uselessness of expensive cables, widgets and cords.
"Why do you care how we spend our money, if it sounds good to us and makes us happy why do you dictate your dogma?"
In truth I have absolutely no interest or concern how an single individual spends his money, but I do care when some use their
ridiculous subjective claims of what is HiFi and really does sound good to set others on a path to wasteful spending.
Take a second to once again read my signature, it's the "it's all good" position you constantly expound that promoted the
distortion of the true path to High Fidelity.
"How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

 

[Mnyb]

Certainly. We are all familiar with the human voice. I work in film/tv post production sound. A lot of the work that goes in to sound editing/mixing in dialogue, is getting the dialogue to sound more natural...that is more like what we are familiar with in real life, carefully fixing the sound quality, dialing out the more artificial "tells."

And they do that by listening trough speakers, that’s the circle of confusion right there .

 

[DanielT]

I don't get the Audionote hype neighter, and i'm also loving some very compromised systems (diy single driver fullrange speaekrs) and use them daily. Audionote is just bad executed, based on old tech that worked, but not done right. If you like that sound, it's your personal preference. But objectively they are very bad. Just like most (if not all) single fullrange driver systems are technically inferior to wel executed multiway systems. But i like that sound...

AN and other brands with coloured speakers are like with my single driver fullrange systems, if you love it, you can listen to it. Just don't claim they are superior and for everyone the best, because they are not. I'll never do that with my preference of technical bloated speakers. It's a personal preference, not an objective quality that draws me to them.

The big problem i have with AN is that they have all kinds of claims that are simply not true, and attach a ridiculous high price to it. And that they keep claiming that you can't measure their quality. You can measure any objective and many subjective qualities today. I know what i want in numbers and graphs to satisfy my subjective preference, and i know it's not for most and that it don't fit the preference of the big majority of listeners, here and in general.

I got stuck on the word fullrange plus you mention price.

For that price, for the baffle width that the Audio Note AN-E for example has (14.25" (365mm) W ), it should be a three-way speaker with 12 bass at the bottom. Also, what does that baffle width give support up to? 500 Hz? There should thus the crossover point to the midrange lie.
Increase the depth a little and you have more volume to play with. Why not the good 12 inch bass driver BMS 12S305? Perfect in around 100 liter boxes. Then as midrange a 3-5 inch and...and so on. But ok it will be a completely different speaker then.

The point, generally speaking, if you are going to have floor-standing speakers that take up space, I think they should have good low bass capability. Otherwise, you can have bookshelf speakers and one or more subwoofers. Okay there is a challenge in integrating sub- speakers in a good way but still. There are then so many more options, combinations of sub-speakers to choose from.

 

[Mnyb]

Hence that’s also why I remove AN from the pool of products to be considered.

you might under some circumstances with some tunes and rooms find something charming, but in the end these type of hifi brands are some kind of random walk to nowhere. They are not getting anywhere. It s a waste of time . Their next product might be different but it’s just that not progress.

Pick speakers from the large pool of reasonable designs out there and if sound technicians and producers do the same the circle of confusion might get smaller over time .
its an active choice if everyone has “Toole compliant” speakers or what to call them , we could have a small chance hearing what the producer intended us to hear

“produced voices“ are made to sound good on almost anything so as a test it’s not a very strong one . But it’s useful to some extent to weed out terrible designs if they can’t even do that it’s really bad .

so I do that too .but it has limits what about if two speakers reproduce voices really realy good but they still sound different ? You can’t pick them apart by using more voice recordings that may or may not sound as intended different production may shift the balance in favor of one speaker or the other . This is where you pick the most “correct“ speaker design and live with that .

 

[Richard Austen]

Speaking of how one is positioned when listening or how to position the speakers, I thought of this thread below. I haven't gone that far myself. Then I'd rather use headphones BUT I really appreciate the, in my eyes, wild testing that UltraNearFieldJock engages in.
The lust for experimentation lives on.
View attachment 367477View attachment 367478

Anyone has got or had an experience with ultra near field listening?

For about one year my absolute favourite listening setup is an active stereo 3-way (3 separate amplifiers) DIY construction with listening distance of 10-20 cm (depend on the Head position), made from HIFIMAN HE500, Visaton AL-180 for the bass (analogue crossover) and 2 x Dayton Epique E180 via...

audiosciencereview.com

__

I'm curious. Richard, you seem to have good finances, have a large listening room and like tube amps. Have you not tried horn speakers? Low powered tube amps and horns are a classic combination.

There aren't that many commercial horn speakers and the ones that do exist I think are very expensive, in my eyes with my wallet anyway, but I don't think that in itself is an obstacle for you. Horns usually also fit well in large listening rooms, among other things because their physical size in a large room is not so noticeable then, so to speak.
If money is not an obstacle, you can also,if you cannot find commercial horns that fit, hire a carpentry company to build them according to wishes.

I live in Hong Kong (from Canada) - space is at a premium here. And while I have spent for audio - largely that is because the income tax rate is far lower, the pay for teachers is far higher than in Canada and I have not needed to own a car for the last 13 years. Utilities are cheaper and so are things like internet and phone. Not owning a car and all of the expenses that go with that over a decade sure saves a lot of money. The transportation system in Hong Kong is outstanding to where people who do own cars will take longer to get where they are going and it will cost them far more.

As an aside - while the income tax rate maxes out at 17% (progressive), there is no sales tax, duties, or tipping. But if you buy a new car there is a hefty tax applied so if you buy a $75,000 Mercedes - you pay $75,000 tax on it. Plus you need to buy your own parking space ($50,000) and gas is $3.20 Per litre not per gallon. The government waived that tax on Tesla for a while which is why the sales were so high. The tax does not apply to secondhand cars.

The tax rate on buying a car - HKD to USD is around $7.8 to 1 $150,000=~$19,000US

Private cars	TAX
(a) on the first $150,000	46%
(b) on the next $150,000	86%
(c) on the next $200,000	115%
(d) on the remainder	132%

On the flip side - universal healthcare. I had to go to the hospital for an infected finger and I had two operations with anesthesiologists - in the hospital for 11 days - 3 months of physiotherapy and bandage changed - all medications - and three meals a day in the hospital - I paid $350 USD total. It would be free if I was a lower-income earner. I was off work for a month - all paid as we can bank our medical leave so I had over 168 days banked. HK is an interesting place when you consider that it is an ultra-capitalist City under communist control - very low tax rate and unions are frowned upon, very low violent crime rate, and free universal healthcare. It's probably why China leaves it alone for the most part because it works. For how much longer I can't say, but I lived in China too so I will wait and see.

I like a large number of speakers but they are either too expensive or too big or require too much room for my rental in Hong Kong - some would fit in my townhouse on Vancouver Island but I am only home a month per year so I still use my trusty 1991 Wharfedale E-70 (Vanguard Edition) speakers (horn tweeters).

In a large room - I would probably prefer something like the Acapella Audio Arts with their plasma Ion tweeters - but the cost is so high and when I move back to Canada - I will have other priorities. I'd rather retire a few years early than spend big on audio.

I may look at something like the Paradigm Persona series because it can double as a home theatre music set-up. I quite liked my last audition with the Persona 9H (also very expensive but perhaps the lower models will be as good sans deep bass) - And they're also lower-power amp-friendly. 96dB sensitive and they recommend as little as 15 watts per channel - which means 5 will be fine. They're the best Paradigm speakers I have ever heard. And as a side bonus - being designed at the NRC - they probably measure great too.

 

[Mart68]

We really need to get away from this idea that live instruments or voices are some sort of benchmark for the accuracy of playback equipment.

If I record a piano where do I put the mic? On top of it? thirty feet away? What's the FR of the mic? What processing do I do to the recording once I have it? None? That's unlikely.

How can we then jump to 'Well the Steinway sounds like a Steinway so it must be an accurate speaker.'?

This is why we measure the speaker. If we could just judge its accuracy from a recording then there would be no need for hundred thousand dollar Klippel. Or million dollar anechoic chambers.

There are some speaker designers who use that method and the result is speakers that render many recordings badly because they have voiced the speaker by ear trying to get Diana Krall's voice to sound 'natural'. The usual result is a big midrange hump.

Now Krall sounds 'enhanced' but Lynyrd Skynard is unlistenable. Oh but it's a 'bad recording'.

No it isn't! It's a bad speaker!

 

[Richard Austen]

My ATC's were ACTIVE, not the hugely inferior (as heard and drummed into me by designer Billy Woodman himself at the time) passive models which to this day have compromises in blending the mid dome to the bass driver as the mid dome are used pretty much wide open which is a huge risk and which has bitten them on more than one occasion in the past I recall, especially when others tried to use it. I gather Line Magnetic amps apparently are seemingly not good at driving a speaker load properly without equalising it severely.

Nah, I don't want the sound rig to tell me how and what to listen to as I went down that path in the early 80's and came out of it much wiser. I don't want an amp to act as a graphic equaliser as it tracks the passive speaker impedance curve or adding compression so everything sounds the same sonic 'flavour.' Each to our own and anyway, my deep respect for ATC is now seen as yesterday's news here so I'm regarded as only one or two steps ahead of you in terms of 'tech.'

I'm kind-of getting the feeling here that some are deliberately choosing badly conceived and designed, expensive equipment putting it together to get a sound not remotely truthful to the original in the hope of a magic moment and using it as a finger-up to those who choose more on performance first before listening. Live music lacks almost all the 'audiophile expressive' aspects but maybe recording it compresses and magnifies these 'artistic impressions' more? Glad I'm out of it frankly now if that's the scene... Trust one's ears? Do leave off

I have a list of speakers I like that includes both speakers that measure well and ones that do not - ATC is one of them as it was a runner-up for me. It may be that I am a speaker slut. The dealer that connected the ATC 100 - used his own personal speakers he used to demonstrate all the tube amplifiers - the dealer sold speakers like Zu Audio and other HE speakers but it was the ATC I preferred - the ZUs sounded too shouty and in my face. I did like one of their models but the other 2 were hard to listen to - similarly didn't care for Voxativ.

The thing I liked about ATC is they do what they're supposed to do in that they contrast well the recordings and the equipment you put on them - which is the point of a recording studio speaker. In the end, living in Hong Kong - they were ultimately nixed because they simply would not fit. Well, they would but it would be awkward.