Two different real speakers will never never sound same. It is technically impossible. Only ideal sound sources would sound same. For this reason, I cannot see the point of this thread.
i have one . its called real life sound and it is 100% free . matching speakers tonally isn't impossible to the small degrees of proper multi surround arrays . takes effort of getting out of the seat , walking around with microphone with REW sound generated , pink noise and watching the RTA and using some xyz coordination of getting soundly physical with the speakers , that are all stupid . spending tens of £ k speakers is mindless . only make them richer . some speakers have good wide dispersion others have narrow dispersion to each and how they are going to be applied in home cinema that can also i remind all of you , do stereo 2 channel .doesnt matter what we want
we could ask that all amps sound the same too, like all dacs
but the reality is we have a million companies all with different ideas on what sounds 'good'
Well I was one of those others, but the goal may not be exactly the same for all manufacturers.. . . . others suggesting it ought to be the goal of any speaker to be accurate/neutral (which if followed through implies a best case scenario where speakers sound essentially the same).
@MattHooper: I hope you will take this in the light hearted spirit it is intended... You are possibly the most polite and engaging troll on ASR!
No, seriously, thank you for your thought provoking comments.
Even if meant in a light hearted fashion, I have to come to Matt Hooper's defence.
I think understanding of the world troll has changed over time, it used to mean someone who would say things purely to get an angry response. On the contrary, I think Matt likes to ask interesting/difficult questions because he is inquisitive, and honest in seeking knowledge. He is not looking just to rile people up, even if that is occasionally the result. Those that get riled up at the polite asking of probing questions, rather than resorting to the word troll, might want to turn that finger inwards once in a while.
Anyone who is particularly inquisitive is at risk of being called a troll, just through their persistence in pursuing an idea where others give up/fear to tread. I don't think that kind of person is actually a troll, although more and more people resort to using that term to attempt to terminate, oftentimes interesting, discussion.
If Galileo had access to the internet in his time, perhaps he would have been considered the biggest troll of them all.
The stereo system and all the flaws with it dont get much attention in this forum .Do We Want All Speakers To Sound The Same?
The thread title may seem a tad hyperbolic, and clearly there will be plenty of nuance involved in replying to such a question.
The question arises first of all because I've seen some criticize Amir and ASR along these lines "That place is boring, they want all speakers to sound the same!"
That strikes me as a caricature. After all, I know members have owned all sorts of different speakers over their audiophile career, and it seems there is some nice variety in member's current speaker set ups.
On the other hand...might there be, in some sense, some element of truth in the proposal "we want all speakers to sound the same?"
After all, any effort to evaluate something like speakers, based on an engineering (and sometimes science) heavy approach will tend to arrive at some sort of "best practices" for speaker design, upon which speakers will be evaluated. It would seem that the general characteristics arrived at from research from Floyd Toole and others have provided such standards for this forum - so ones that are neutral (with the proper off axis response) are selected as "good" and those departing as "poor" to one degree or another.
And since an underlying goal for many ASR members seems to be "accuracy" the logical extension of this would seem to be that the more speakers tend to meet that goal, the more alike they will sound. Which at least implies that if all speaker manufacturers adopted these same goals "ideally" speakers (for any given frequency response) would sound closer to indistinguishable.
It's my impression that some (many?) on ASR would in a sense prefer the speaker to "sound like nothing" in the same sense that a good solid state amp would "sound like nothing." No character of it's own, just neutral, so one isn't 'listening to the system' or thinking about "how the system/speaker sounds" but is simply listening to "the recording."
If much of that does indeed capture some people's goal here, it would imply that..yeah, in some sense, "Ideally, all speakers would sound the same."
I'm not writing any of that to IMPOSE this view on anyone here, only as some talking points to get off the ground. This forum isn't a monolith, it's made of individuals with varying views, so I'm interested in YOUR response to any of these questions:
Would it be THE ideal, or your ideal, that all speakers eventually sound the same, if you could wave your magic wand and send things in that direction? If so why. If not, why not? Should they sound roughly the same, like most should sound close to neutral but you are good with variation in X, Y parameters? Or are you happy with the essentially "Wild West" approach as it has been - some manufacturers striving for neutrality/Toole-approved performance, many heading off in different directions? Do you see the general approach by Amir's approach to evaluating speakers as too narrowly defined and limiting in terms of vetting "bad" from "good" - or does it match your own ideals for performance?
Actually, I have been to so many Classical concert events at some famous London venues over the years.. . . . . They still gonna sound slightly different though, and never as good as the real concert event .
Yes, the illusion can be very good.Actually, I have been to so many Classical concert events at some famous London venues over the years.
Yes they were good, some were excellent.
But a finished recording, mastered and equalized expertly, using multiple microphones, can sound really wonderful - sometimes even better than the live event!
The speakers alone may not match the venue, but together with the right recording material, they may even surpass it.
True.Is it possible given how much we don't control like the room? Even when we have a high accuracy television, and most are reasonably accurate these days, the background color of your wall can dramatically impact color perception. If your wall is a high saturation color, that color will be visually discounted from your TV. That's why color grading studios have a specialized neutral grey wall paint and light conditions which must fit a certain spectral distribution.
Actually, I have been to so many Classical concert events at some famous London venues over the years.
Yes they were good, some were excellent.
But a finished recording, mastered and equalized expertly, using multiple microphones, can sound really wonderful - sometimes even better than the live event!
The speakers alone may not match the venue, but together with the right recording material, they may even surpass it.
So an important part of my question had to do with whether "we want all speakers to sound the same" in that sense - not just "what I want" but "what speaker designers OUGHT to do."
Is it possible given how much we don't control like the room?
Even when we have a high accuracy television, and most are reasonably accurate these days, the background color of your wall can dramatically impact color perception. If your wall is a high saturation color, that color will be visually discounted from your TV. That's why color grading studios have a specialized neutral grey wall paint and light conditions which must fit a certain spectral distribution.
They definitely shouldn't be forced to do anything.
One of the marketing blurb staples that always makes me throw up a bit in my mouth is: "Music, the way it was meant to be heard."
Of course. And I also want all food to taste the same, all cars to look the same and all jeans to have the exact same size & color. That would be so much funDo We Want All Speakers To Sound The Same?
But why can't we do this in real-time? Why can't we create a setup that is always correcting for speaker errors, driving down distortion (by subtracting the speaker distortion from the source) and handling errors in real time?