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Ultra high end speaker manufacturers that rely heavily on measurements?

DSJR

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I sadly never heard them, but the Beolab 90 was I think, an early adopter of DSP in the setting up and usage of the speakers. I don't think the thought of using them 'raw' ever came into it as the setting up wa spart of the package.

I remember decades back, B&O and KEF were the first two domestic makers (at least) to have full computerised measurement facilities for loudspeakers. KEF we all know about, but the 1980's B&O Beolab 2500?, 4000?, 6000, 8000 and others which followed all used dynamic eq to get bass from the slim columns, cylinders and lozenges :))) they specialised in back then and which backed the bass eq off with level increases. The 6000 was the subject of a thread here eighteen months or so back and in-room, it measures quite smoothly apart from lack of bass extension...

I also question what exactly is the 'ultra high end' in speakers. I suspect it's price that dictates it.
 

sq225917

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Once you get past a certain price point, or rather a dollar to driver ratio, there's simply nothing more you can add to a speaker to make it better. So all that's left is art for art sake design, like the muon, or bullshit engineering excess like wilson, magico, ybl etc.
 

fineMen

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What ultra high end manufacturers out there rely heavily on measurements and produce products that measure really well?

Vivid, YG Acoustics, Grimm, B&O, Focal and Magico are some that come to mind for me. Maybe Rockport?

Please consider that presumably every manufacturer owns and uses test equipment. And logically they rely on it. In the decade around 1970 the British BBC initiated the advent of the two-way speaker as a new standard. An ill advised attempt, as we now know. It relied heavily and scientifically on measurements, even the newly invented "waterfall", but it were the wrong ones. At least these measurements were evaluated using an invalid model, or theory if You will.

Today's model includes a non-treated listening environment and additionally takes the reverberation field into the equation. Foremost the inclusion of the wild legacy of audio tech set a new standard, namely the Harman tilt. It is used as to equalise the response to the grand total average of possible, non standardised "house curves" used during the voicing stage aka mixing of recordings.

If You understand the idea behind the Harman tilt, and acknowledge its necessity to keep the older recordings as a heritage intact, then You surely know the answer to the question already. And throwing Focal into the ring was only to spike the conversation.

Otherwise, what are You after when saying "ultra"? Is it an idealistic "ultra"? Idealism kills, mind You.
 

DSJR

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Kudos loudspeakers *claim* or certainly used to, that all their speakers were designed by ear alone.. their top Naim driven active Titan models (watch the pound signs roll over ever more rapidly with every word - Naim, active, Fraim rack with many tiers to hold it all at several hundred a shelf - can top £120k easily and the speakers alone are in the mid twenty thousand plus pounds level...
 

sarumbear

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What ultra high end manufacturers out there rely heavily on measurements and produce products that measure really well?

Vivid, YG Acoustics, Grimm, B&O, Focal and Magico are some that come to mind for me. Maybe Rockport?
KEF
 

fineMen

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Sure, KEF is a marvel in the industry. They tried so hard to get a grip on to the original problems stated by consumer (!) speakers. But, the recent LS50, in all its variants doesn' t deliver as much clean sound power as is needed for enjoyable listening. It is purely academic, a show-piece. Very much as the (in)famous LS3/5. Good taken on its own, but not applicable for a room above 10 square meters, just detecting a fault in microphone positioning ...
 

Vacceo

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Once you get past a certain price point, or rather a dollar to driver ratio, there's simply nothing more you can add to a speaker to make it better. So all that's left is art for art sake design, like the muon, or bullshit engineering excess like wilson, magico, ybl etc.
At those prices, if I could afford such speakers, I´d rather give my money to a manufacturer I like so they could spend it in R&D. That would definetly get objectively better results.

If I wanted to spend like a madman, I´d rather get a whole HT made of Blades. :D
 

fineMen

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If I wanted to spend like a madman, I´d rather get a whole HT made of Blades. :D
... nope, really! Do not spend. What I am experiencing right now is "Killíng Time " by "Massacre". I heard it 3 decades back when graduating. But today I appreciate the very same musical ideas. Only the effort has changed. Back then a 10cm fullrange driver mono, now ... whatever, would fill a cinema ....

Same, very same enjoyment! What counts is the musical idea, which is delivered easily.
 

Vacceo

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... nope, really! Do not spend. What I am experiencing right now is "Killíng Time " by "Massacre". I heard it 3 decades back when graduating. But today I appreciate the very same musical ideas. Only the effort has changed. Back then a 10cm fullrange driver mono, now ... whatever, would fill a cinema ....

Same, very same enjoyment! What counts is the musical idea, which is delivered easily.
I listend to Carcass' Heartwork for the first time on a parir of super crappy pc speakers around 96 or so. I have listend to it some moths ago on a pair of Blade metas. The album was as brilliant as the first time and This Mortal Coil is as impressive as it was in the 90's. What changed was the amount of stuff that was in the record and I did not realize till then. And that is something considering the highly distorted music...

So a multichannel system of Blades for multichannel content probably renders similar, impressive results.
 

bo_knows

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I thought Dynaudio EVIDENCE Master was a SOTA speaker when introduced.
Not sure how big is Dynaudion on measurements but I'm sure they put everything they knew into those speakers at that time.
I was fortunate enough to audition those speakers at a Hi-End dealer (forgot the name but the location was Tarazana CA) in a large room powered by Krell monoblock amplifiers.
I was impressed!
 

NTK

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I thought Dynaudio EVIDENCE Master was a SOTA speaker when introduced.
Not sure how big is Dynaudion on measurements but I'm sure they put everything they knew into those speakers at that time.
I was fortunate enough to audition those speakers at a Hi-End dealer (forgot the name but the location was Tarazana CA) in a large room powered by Krell monoblock amplifiers.
I was impressed!
The Jupiter Chamber is Dynaudio's flagship speaker testing facility. It is a different approach from testing in anechoic chambers. I am pretty sure their Jupiter facility does not cost less than a typical anechoic chamber, and certainly more than a (few) Klippel NFS.

 

pseudoid

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Shouldn't Bowers&Wilkins also get a worthy mention in this discussion?
 

Marc v E

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I wasn't sure myself,it's been a while since I was reading about them and as I can recall they are super flexible because of the DSP and tons of power.
I have heard them and thought they were amazing. In fact before joining ASR they were my dream speaker. Iirc Amir thought they had a way too small listening spot, which they do, because that's the whole purpose of their beam width technology.

For parties or more social listening they can generate a wider listening area.

My thoughts on ultra high end is more anologous to cars, where it means low volume production and a special target audience. Lower volume means higher price. It's just another way of doing business. The more interesting part imo is the budget side: to see what can be achieved for the lowest price possible, while not making any major concessions to sound reproduction, ie transparent hifi.

(I couldn't afford them which I told the B&O retailer beforehand. They let me listen anyway. I experienced this courtious and relaxed behaviour in practically every B&O store I visited. Another remarkable thing is I almost always saw couples aged between 35 and 50 without children; well dressed too. Never your typical hifi enthousiast: 50+. male, weird (imo). This was in the time before B&O decided to significantly up their prices.)
 
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test1223

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B&O? They might measure their designs, but they seem to keep losing the results and then just proceed without …
Bang & Olufson provides state of the art engineering especially the beolap 90 is more advanced than almost any other speaker and of cause measures well.

Some interesting companies which aren't often mentioned here but none of the less have a great engineering team:

Cabasse with La Spere

KS Digital
Backes & Müller

Avantgarde Acoustic

ME Geithain

GedLee

Lyravox

GGNTKT

Bohne Audio

Kling & Freitag even if it is PA it is worth to have a look e.g. the Vida with beam steering

There are many other companies which have really great products and engineering with higher costs.
 

Triliza

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Bang & Olufson provides state of the art engineering especially the beolap 90 is more advanced than almost any other speaker and of cause measures well.

Some interesting companies which aren't often mentioned here but none of the less have a great engineering team:

Cabasse with La Spere

KS Digital
Backes & Müller

Avantgarde Acoustic

ME Geithain

GedLee

Lyravox

GGNTKT

Bohne Audio

Kling & Freitag even if it is PA it is worth to have a look e.g. the Vida with beam steering

There are many other companies which have really great products and engineering with higher costs.
Bang & Olufson provides state of the art engineering especially the beolap 90 is more advanced than almost any other speaker and of cause measures well.

Some interesting companies which aren't often mentioned here but none of the less have a great engineering team:

Cabasse with La Spere

KS Digital
Backes & Müller

Avantgarde Acoustic

ME Geithain

GedLee

Lyravox

GGNTKT

Bohne Audio

Kling & Freitag even if it is PA it is worth to have a look e.g. the Vida with beam steering

There are many other companies which have really great products and engineering with higher costs.
Never heard of any of these companies. I am wondering, wouldn't it be marketing wise for all these companies that rely on measurements to send some of their speakers to Amir for testing (bookshelf ones at least). I understand if they don't want to engage with ASR on a official capacity, but they can pose as a member sending them. Even if they sell only in Europe, the majority of the members here are European (if I am not mistaken).
 
OP
richard12511

richard12511

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Shouldn't Bowers&Wilkins also get a worthy mention in this discussion?

Possibly yes, because of the Nautilus, though I did include Vivid
So unless one finds some hard facts on the speakers you mentioned it will be difficult to answer your question and the thread will turn into a stream of subjective opinions as so many others.

Well that was kinda one of my goals in asking this question. Most of the speakers I mentioned in the OP do have at least some real data out there showing their technical excellence. I'm curious how many more there are.
 
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