What's Left In Speaker Design To Reduce Distortion/Increase Detail Retrieval?

[fineMen]

You're the first to ask. See below ( https://purifi-audio.com/blog/tech-notes-1/doppler-distortion-vs-imd-7 ) , not there?

Uuups! You're right, the files appear to be removed?! Maybe they reassessed the issue and so dropped the examples but kept the text?

I assure you, the files were there when I first and reiterated asked the board to do the test. Too late now. Congrats.

 

[Galliardist]

As many do I could pretend to not understand your English. But I won't, and confirm the message. What our dear audiophiles don't get is the mere fact that people use their stereos for a purpose other than showing off in having a stereo. It is a tool to them to listen to preferred (sic!) music; reiterated not listening to preferred speakers. The notorious preference score is a non issue to nearly all consumers, latest when they've got the before mentioned tool for before mentioned purposes.

That said, what are the criteria for a 'good' speaker at all?

Of course all audiophiles who enliven this board / forum rely on Toole's work, which is considered 'scientific' hence reliably ascendent in backing up claims regarding the best choice they made for their own use.

O/k, next criteria. What about, again, predicted preference?

Answer: what the heck is YOUR preference?!

What again and reiterated over and over do YOU feel when listening to music using speakers?

Logic: for what quirky reason do YOU look at others when evaluating YOUR preference?

In post #195 I asked a very humble question which could help to explore one clearly relevant topic, distortion namely (#195). Reaction was active ignorance. Despite the reference to the well reknown Siegfried Linkwitz.

What do you think I should think of you taking best effort to keep a fully ignorant stance?

In case you feel the English is too bad, please visit deepl to translate to your mother tongue, even if it is English. It works. (https://www.deepl.com/translator)

This is that audiophile paradox again. How different is anyone's hearing (assuming no significant hearing damage) from that of anyone else in a similar age range, in practice?
In blind testing, you are likely to prefer a similar response to anyone else taking the same test. No "quirky reasoning" there at all.

It's possible that a small percentage of people who do differ could provide enough actual bodies to drive the subjectivist side of the audio "debate": particularly, that that small percentage may also be driven by hearing mainstream devices differently, to look for alternatives and be over-represented in audiophilia as a result.

The result for most people is that Toole's results give a good starting point for the majority of people, but are not necessarily the end point in selection of equipment. I still recommend auditioning from accurate electronics and speakers matching the results well as the first step, because the majority will find their preferred system, even allowing for sighted audition and listening, among those products. If they really all don't work for you, then just move on and audition more widely. I believe that is what the science around preference tells us.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

What again and reiterated over and over do YOU feel when listening to music using speakers?

Simple: I want the speakers / equipment to get out of my way. To disappear. To not be part of the equation of listening to music at all.
That means: no offensive qualities. Naturally, what offends one person may be benign to the next, so this is up to personal taste unless the equipment does REALLY BADLY.

My current system, as modest as it is, does just that. I can hear nothing wrong, there is no thought of: "I wish my system did X or didn't Y" in my head when I listen to music.
So as far as the "use it as a tool" goes: mission accomplished, back to the music. Plus: they look neat. Lets not forget that speakers are also design objects.

My room/being an apartment dweller.. .well.. different matter. Ugly real life says: "Deal with it!"

Logic: for what quirky reason do YOU look at others when evaluating YOUR preference?

Many people do, actually. It seems an inherent need in most humans to validate one's own choices, perceptions and preferences in some way. That's also why objectivism ruffles so many audiophile feathers. They like their ignorance, they like that they have found other people to share the ignorance.

Same here in this forum, many like the SINAD competitions, getting a kick out of it that "their choice" is praised by others / does will in testing.
Others just go "Uooaaargh!" about the engineering excellence (myself included) and want / buy such devices simply because they admire the workmanship, despite knowing that the stats are complete overkill.

This behavior isn't limited to the audio world or even material goods either.

 

[fineMen]

This is that audiophile paradox again. ... No "quirky reasoning" there at all.

It's possible that a small percentage of people who do differ could provide enough actual bodies to drive the subjectivist side of the audio "debate": ...

I can't agree. Toole's findings are based on the subject's preference. If one would chose an individual speaker from a set of speakers that would be it. No need, really to question the choice referring to a "preference score".

Prerequisite: the set of speakers to chose from comprises at least one 'good' speaker.

The few audiophiles on this board go the other way round. To chose the speaker that statistically by chance was chosen by others as preferrable and henceforth think of it as optimum or even as "correct", as reference they say.

Dr. Griesinger offers a method to equalize headphones to one's hearing, especially to the individual ear canals length. It's headphones, but individual preferences are prime even with speakers.

The fallacy occurs because high end audiophiles in their typical mindset don't want a stereo for pleasure but for objective accuracy. Otherwise it wouldn't serve with lifting their social status. The 'science' is only to avoid the caveat of being outlandish in claiming superiority. In short, the stereo is not about individual fun. Misuse of science and misuse of resource.

ps, as to have this clearly on topic: why is it, that the question "What's Left In Speaker Design To Reduce Distortion/Increase Detail Retrieval?" isn't referred to individual experiences? Why is there no investigation by an individual? Why is it that most of us refuse to, say, finding their individual threshold for detecting IM distortion? Is it really just the lack of proficiency? Two sine generators on the p/c, free software, a set of headphones, ... no deal (compared to buying new speakers), right?! Why the explicated enforcement of a 'scientific', objective approach when on the other hand even Toole relies on subjective preference?

 

[FrankW]

Now you've added the incorrect application of "Begging the question" to your bag of tricks.

The fallacy of begging the question occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. In other words, you assume without proof the stand/position, or a significant part of the stand, that is in question.

I currently listen to some smaller floor standing speakers with good quality drivers (Joseph Audio Perspective 2 Graphene) and I find there to be a gob-smacking sense of clarity and detail in to recordings. Along the lines of "how could it get better than this?" (And I've heard lots of other speakers). (IN YOUR ROOM/MODES at volume X, sighted)
Then I go over to my Pal's place and listen to a pair of big ol' Estelon speakers, one of the newer "it" brands in high end audio circles. I forget which new model, but they retail for something like $65K. ...they just seemed to obviously dig out more sonic information in the recordings. So for instance drums on a track on my system would be well placed in spatial terms, and I can hear if the drums were placed in a reverb. But the Estelon speakers just seem to effortlessly carve out precisely where the drums are in the soundstage and the precise acoustics or added reverb around the drums...and exactly where that reverb "ends" is more vivid and obvious. Basically there is this constant sense of more sonic information, presenting more precision about what is in the recording.
Which had me wondering what accounted for these differences. Better drivers? The more heroic efforts that went in to removing the influence of the Estelon cabinets? The whole design?
Now, that's just accounting for why this question was on my mind. Anyone can simply ignore the above example (it's just my subjective impressions after all) but still get to the issue I'm wondering about: What is left in terms of speaker design to achieve, in terms of lowering audible distortion and hence retrieving more neutral sonic information from recordings?

Zero controls.
Zero blinding.
Zero level matching.
Zero accounting for +/- 20 db differences in room < 500hz (but it's...investigate the speaker for hiding/retrieving "detail"!)
Zero idea "what is on recording" without transduction, by...loudspeakers. In rooms. That Circle...again.
And now, exact same response as I gave several times in thread already:

The reproduced sound quality as perceived by a listener is one of most important criterion for the preference of an audio product. Systematic subjective evaluation requires a doubleblind test strategy and psychometrical tools for assessing the sensations reliably and quantitatively....Subjective evaluation is required to assess the audibility and the impact on perceived sound quality. Some distortion which are audible might be still acceptable or even desirable in some applications

https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/kl...on caused by design_part 1_Klippel_Werner.pdf

 

[Galliardist]

The fallacy occurs because high end audiophiles in their typical mindset don't want a stereo for pleasure but for objective accuracy. Otherwise it wouldn't serve with lifting their social status. The 'science' is only to avoid the caveat of being outlandish in claiming superiority. In short, the stereo is not about individual fun. Misuse of science and misuse of resource.

The majority of high end audiophiles are not here. They are not claiming objective accuracy: in fact they reject it outright, hence the ongoing dispute between forums and system owners espousing objective accuracy and the rest. In fact, though, ASR seems generally to espouse a minimum level of accuracy, when we get to the root of things, with some bias towards high SINAD electronics.

Does my stereo lift my social status? No. In real life, only a few people care, and the ones that do look down on my choice of electronics like such audiophiles do - class D amp, no turntable - ugh. Here, the source I own makes me an uncaring "oligarch". Hah.

I enjoy listening to music, not the equipment, and "accurate" helps me do that, oddly enough. I expect that to be the case for most but not all people.

Why should the stereo be fun? It's a tool. Does a carpenter choose a saw for fun? Or an accountant use the most "fun" spreadsheet? The stereo (or indeed, multitchannel) setup is a tool. The music has the emotional part to do.

Also, Toole relies on subjective preference in controlled testing. There's a big difference between that and me saying "but I don't like B&W speakers", or,say, @tuga saying that he does (I think that's right?). And I would never argue that tuga is wrong to prefer B&W because Toole says he shouldn't.

I may suggest that a newcomer here should audition different speakers ahead of B&W, based on their deviations from preferences derived by Toole from testing. That is more valid than "I don't like them", surely?

 

[FrankW]

The fallacy occurs because high end audiophiles in their typical mindset don't want a stereo for pleasure but for objective accuracy.

April 1st is long gone

 

[Axo1989]

You're the first to ask. See below ( https://purifi-audio.com/blog/tech-notes-1/doppler-distortion-vs-imd-7 ) , not there?

Uuups! You're right, the files appear to be removed?! Maybe they reassessed the issue and so dropped the examples but kept the text?

I assure you, the files were there when I first and reiterated asked the board to do the test. Too late now. Congrats.

Oh that's interesting. I also saw that text previously, but with the material in place. I think I heard/agreed with their proposition, iirc. They may be having a website issue, the graphics aren't coming through for me now either. Nor from @tuga's link. I thought it was my browser being cantankerous.

 

[Axo1989]

Why should the stereo be fun? It's a tool. Does a carpenter choose a saw for fun? Or an accountant use the most "fun" spreadsheet?

For my carpentry, and my number/text crunching, definitely yes in both cases. My carpentry is mostly a hobby (with envelopment, continuing to build the house we live in) but my crunching is renumerated work (albeit often pleasurable).

 

[617]

That would be my experience one or the other often both.
Keith

As speakers with more CD get produced, they sound more and more like headphones.

If you want the ultimate in clarity, headphones show you the limit. Headphones also reduce ambient noise, which speakers cannot do. If you want to hear what's on a recording, high end IEMs are probably the best way to hear.

The sacrifice is envelopment. Envelopment is not exactly opposed to clarity, but lots of envelopment tends to diminish clarity after a certain point.

Modern speaker designs use narrow directivity to avoid early reflections with the assumption that early reflections diminish clarity. There is some debate on this subject, but I think for sound reproduction, narrow directivity is the best way to get envelopment with clarity.

The speaker is only half the problem, however. You need controlled directivity in a room which doesn't eat all your high frequencies. This means a room with reflective, diffusing surfaces, but this of course increases the need for controlled directivity.

I do not believe we will see much of an advance in controlled directivity past what Genelec is offering - cardioid bass, arrays and horns for the mids and treble. The solution is not better speakers, it is multichannel audio.

I believe very firmly that issues like 'phase distortion' (which is intrinsic to all transducers in the recording chain and our listening environment) harmonic distortion, IMD and doppler distortion are sideshows.

 

[robwpdx]

As others have said, driver design and directivity.

Possibly negative feedback, but that requires a lot of power and can go out of control. Mackie and Velodyne used accelerometers on the cone, Rythmic uses current feedback. It should be possible to image the front of the driver in real time with a laser system and use that for correction.

Possibly something with measuring sound pressure fields optically in 3d. Modeling the position of the listener and using beam steering for the high frequency drivers.

Obviously acoustical treatment for the room. One could imagine a business that scans and measures the room, then ships modular acoustical treatment panels, traps, and floor coverings that fit in with the furniture. There could be standard builder designs and packages for listening rooms in new construction. Maybe there is some kind of metamaterial that can make flat panel screens and floor to ceiling windows less a problem. It seems like the wavelengths of sound might make that hard.

I've been curious to try the SubPac https://subpac.com/, or another brand. What I would like to do is combine it with a subsonic synthesizer for electric dance music.

 

[Axo1989]

As speakers with more CD get produced, they sound more and more like headphones.

If you want the ultimate in clarity, headphones show you the limit. Headphones also reduce ambient noise, which speakers cannot do. If you want to hear what's on a recording, high end IEMs are probably the best way to hear.

The sacrifice is envelopment. Envelopment is not exactly opposed to clarity, but lots of envelopment tends to diminish clarity after a certain point.

Modern speaker designs use narrow directivity to avoid early reflections with the assumption that early reflections diminish clarity. There is some debate on this subject, but I think for sound reproduction, narrow directivity is the best way to get envelopment with clarity.

The speaker is only half the problem, however. You need controlled directivity in a room which doesn't eat all your high frequencies. This means a room with reflective, diffusing surfaces, but this of course increases the need for controlled directivity.

I do not believe we will see much of an advance in controlled directivity past what Genelec is offering - cardioid bass, arrays and horns for the mids and treble. The solution is not better speakers, it is multichannel audio.

I believe very firmly that issues like 'phase distortion' (which is intrinsic to all transducers in the recording chain and our listening environment) harmonic distortion, IMD and doppler distortion are sideshows.

Some aspect of envelopment and (not exactly the same thing) tactility in the low frequencies make speakers more enjoyable for me than headphones. Even though deep bass is reproduced by (some of my) headphones with accuracy, it doesn't work in the same way. Not flat headphones but with bass approximating the usual Harmon curve. And EQ running to reduce room effects at LP for the speakers. In the room we still have an increase in reverberation time etc for the lower octaves.

While this deviates a bit from the question of the thread, the amp-room-speaker system is ultimately what matters. The last few posts here have veered in that direction, and it's logical to consider.

We have measures for clarity/definition of course. The common reverberation time can be supplemented by the definition metric D50 being the ratio between the sound energy between 0 and 50 ms and the total energy of the impulse response expressed as %. Clarity or C50 is the basically same metric expressed as dB, but my software does C80 instead, not sure why. Here they are:

Spoiler: RT and D50 and C80

They correlate fairly well in my case but as the absorption is mostly from floor and ceiling it's worth checking for anomalies (there's no added acoustic treatment in fact, it's simply constructed like a traditional Japanese house rather than a European one). Also notable that my speakers will sound different (and clearer) in my relatively dry room compared to rooms of friends/family who live in concrete apartments.

I expect the advantages of lower distortion (of all types) in speakers are more evident when the room exerts less destructive influence.

 

[fineMen]

April 1st is long gone

In case I've got the audiophile mindset wrong. I've never heard (sic!) of an audiophile who does not "explain" why a certain "solution" is preferable by objective means.

Calming down hot electrons in cables, single source speakers with no (!) timing issues, avoiding resonances in crossovers, you name it. There's always a rationale, in contrast to just and only subjective liking.

In parts the spinorama may replace the usual nonsense for equally minded individuals. Not saying that the spinorama is nonsense in any way, I appreciate it way way more than those, it is based on some liking, an inherently unquestioned subjective verdict. A funny twist indeed.

My target point is, why a request for more of something ("resolution") doesn't start with personal experience. Some proof of work, if you will. Trying to grasp the problem and only after look out for a solution.

Why don't you trust yourselves?

I investigated my own ability to identify intermodulation and harmonic distortion for instance. This is my guideline when objectively evaluating speakers. I know--for myself, which is the only relevant criteria, the heck, what would be good enough for me. It led me to avoid the all too common two way designs. Isn't that an achievement? It took me 20 minutes to get there.

 

[617]

Some aspect of envelopment and (not exactly the same thing) tactility in the low frequencies make speakers more enjoyable for me than headphones. Even though deep bass is reproduced by (some of my) headphones with accuracy, it doesn't work in the same way. Not flat headphones but with bass approximating the usual Harmon curve. And EQ running to reduce room effects at LP for the speakers. In the room we still have an increase in reverberation time etc for the lower octaves.

While this deviates a bit from the question of the thread, the amp-room-speaker system is ultimately what matters. The last few posts here have veered in that direction, and it's logical to consider.

We have measures for clarity/definition of course. The common reverberation time can be supplemented by the definition metric D50 being the ratio between the sound energy between 0 and 50 ms. and the total energy of the impulse response expressed as %. Clarity or C50 is the basically same metric expressed as dB, but my software does C80 instead, not sure why. Here they are:

Spoiler: RT and D50 and C80

View attachment 287586
View attachment 287587
View attachment 287590

They correlate well in my case but as the absorption is mostly from floor and ceiling it's worth checking for anomalies (there's no added acoustic treatment in fact, it's simply constructed like a traditional Japanese house rather than a European one). Also notable that my speakers will sound different (and clearer) in my relatively dry room compared to rooms of friends/family who live in concrete apartments.

I expect the advantages of lower distortion (of all types) in speakers are more evident when the room exerts less destructive influence.

Nice to see audiophiles exploring clarity measures. Maybe in the future instead of people doing blind tests of capacitor preference they'll be tabulating speech intelligibility index.

 

[Galliardist]

In case I've got the audiophile mindset wrong. I've never heard (sic!) of an audiophile who does not "explain" why a certain "solution" is preferable by objective means.

Calming down hot electrons in cables, single source speakers with no (!) timing issues, avoiding resonances in crossovers, you name it. There's always a rationale, in contrast to just and only subjective liking.

In parts the spinorama may replace the usual nonsense for equally minded individuals. Not saying that the spinorama is nonsense in any way, I appreciate it way way more than those, it is based on some liking, an inherently unquestioned subjective verdict. A funny twist indeed.

My target point is, why a request for more of something ("resolution") doesn't start with personal experience. Some proof of work, if you will. Trying to grasp the problem and only after look out for a solution.

Why don't you trust yourselves?

I investigated my own ability to identify intermodulation and harmonic distortion for instance. This is my guideline when objectively evaluating speakers. I know--for myself, which is the only relevant criteria, the heck, what would be good enough for me. It led me to avoid the all too common two way designs. Isn't that an achievement? It took me 20 minutes to get there.

I'll give you some of this. But we have found down the years many reasons not to just trust ourselves: not just the blind test thing, but finding others supposedly better than ourselves like reviewers, who get things utterly wrong. My favourite story in all of hifi was when Paul Miller of HiFi News measured the then new PS Audio Directstream DAC, and found out that another reviewer who described the effects of the different filters on the sound in detail - before they had even been written. Then there was the Ivor Tiefenbrun affair where he couldn't hear things he claimed when tested. The cartridge sample, incorrectly wired, that got rave reviews until it was discovered.

As for the objective accuracy claim, the flaw in your argument is that for most audiophiles, they are abusing objective claims to back up their true belief, which is in their own subjective accuracy. They are "superior" in their hearing, and because they hear something the rest of us can't, they have to fall back on something affecting the soundwaves, to explain their claim to other audiophiles. It's essentially pseudoscience, and it is at its worst when a manufacturer does this and makes claims for profit. "Custom quantum tunneling", anybody?

I don't actually understand your later claims here. Can you back them up with a proper description of what you did and why, and why only distortion determines your choice of speakers, let alone why all two way speakers would fail against your criteria. It seems just as subjective as all the things you condemn...

 

[gnarly]

Nice to see audiophiles exploring clarity measures. Maybe in the future instead of people doing blind tests of capacitor preference they'll be tabulating speech intelligibility index.

Let's hope ! But let's not hold our breath either.......haha

I've been on a relentless pursuit of more clarity in speakers, with DIY builds and advanced processing techniques.
And feel I've come quite a way in that pursuit.
Once, when I felt I'd achieved a quantum leap and couldn't find any of the usual measurements to show any significant improvements,
I tried speech intelligibility measurements such as STI, %Alcons, and Modulation Transfer Function, etc.
There may be promise with those, if better refined, dunno.
Maybe some form of multi-tone testing will emerge. (I'm kinda convinced modulation distortion is a bigger concern than harmonic.)

 

[Bjorn]

IMD is definitely a lot more audible than THD. That we know. But IMD is likely still not sufficient.

We are dealing with something we are to able hear quite easily, but don't have the right measuring tool at the moment or we are uncertain which is the right one(s). It's the case with both speakers and headphones. Considering there isn't much money to make on high fidelity, not much research is going in to it either.

 

[fineMen]

IMD is definitely a lot more audible than THD. That we know. But IMD is likely still not sufficient.

We are dealing with something we are to able hear quite easily, but don't have the right measuring tool at the moment or we are uncertain which is the right one(s). It's the case with both speakers and headphones. Considering there isn't much money to make on high fidelity, not much research is going in to it either.

Also in reply to all the other replies. What I'm after is the phase aka frequency aka Doppler intermodulation.

Subjectively (I mean it) I found that I can like a three way speaker much more than a two way speaker, especially when playing the common electro pop. I've no access to a larger panel of blindfolded subjects to falsify the hypothesis, namely that my preference for a multi-way construct is determined by my subjective preocupation. And how would that be correct in terms of 'science' anyway?

In short I circumvented the prob/ with some math. The Doppler can be calculated from basic physics (cone moving). I determined how high the threshold for detecting AM (amplitude mod/) is for me personally. I'm pretty much sure that my critical threshold in the most sensitive frequency range is somewhat around 0,3..0.5%, happily accepting 1% with a more complex real world signal.

I assume that AM and Doppler are objectively nearly identical when listening in-room, not with headphones. Siegfried Linkwitz gave a brief introduction to Doppler in-room, which strongly supports the identification in-room.

With all this I mathematically deduced that a common 2-way will always step beyond that particular threshold for AM/Doppler detection which I determined for myself. This clarified the case for me. AM/Doppler, which is physically unavoidable with 2-ways is a problem for me personally. A 3-way is going to reduce the harm considerably. Again, given my very personal awareness. Even a 12" bass/mid running up to 1kHz might be considerd not quite ideal.

****
Taken as an example, why should I doubt my subjectively gained achievements?
****

In case this renders the urge for high excursion drivers mindless, it is not me to tell that. Derive your own experiences, subjectively!

****
Btw/, I'm using the 3-way KEF R3 (outdated version) with a sub up to 75Hz without any complaint.

 

[617]

IMD is definitely a lot more audible than THD. That we know. But IMD is likely still not sufficient.

We are dealing with something we are to able hear quite easily, but don't have the right measuring tool at the moment or we are uncertain which is the right one(s). It's the case with both speakers and headphones. Considering there isn't much money to make on high fidelity, not much research is going in to it either.

I think it's revealing how much more tricky the parameters of the Gedlee distortion metric are compared to the HD%, which even an oscilloscope can measure. One of the big insights is that the audibility of distortion seems to be both amplitude and frequency dependent, and I think that is the bare minimum number of factors you would expect for a perceptual metric. Blood alcohol percentage has an enormous effect on audio perception, but I don't see anyone measuring that.

But I think we need to step back from 'distortion' as a concept. I think audio people are reluctant to engage with perception because perception is so hard to describe, test and model. But perception is what we're talking about. Ironically I think that audiophiles are describing 'real' things when they say, you know, 'veiled' or 'rhythm pace and timing' or whatever, and we shouldn't dismiss that, even if those adjectives are totally useless as design guidelines. We really need to make an effort to describe what enhances and detracts from our experience of music in qualitative terms and then find ways to communicate these experiences to others.

 

[617]

I'll give you some of this. But we have found down the years many reasons not to just trust ourselves: not just the blind test thing, but finding others supposedly better than ourselves like reviewers, who get things utterly wrong. My favourite story in all of hifi was when Paul Miller of HiFi News measured the then new PS Audio Directstream DAC, and found out that another reviewer who described the effects of the different filters on the sound in detail - before they had even been written. Then there was the Ivor Tiefenbrun affair where he couldn't hear things he claimed when tested. The cartridge sample, incorrectly wired, that got rave reviews until it was discovered.

As for the objective accuracy claim, the flaw in your argument is that for most audiophiles, they are abusing objective claims to back up their true belief, which is in their own subjective accuracy. They are "superior" in their hearing, and because they hear something the rest of us can't, they have to fall back on something affecting the soundwaves, to explain their claim to other audiophiles. It's essentially pseudoscience, and it is at its worst when a manufacturer does this and makes claims for profit. "Custom quantum tunneling", anybody?

I don't actually understand your later claims here. Can you back them up with a proper description of what you did and why, and why only distortion determines your choice of speakers, let alone why all two way speakers would fail against your criteria. It seems just as subjective as all the things you condemn...

This is a great point, and even 'scientistic' audio people have pet theories and hypthesis about what different physical phenomena sound like. There was a bit of a spat in the thread about the big new Genelecs which feature a phase linearization setting, ostensibly because it sounds better. I am highly skeptical of this claim, but Genelec is not immune from the forces of marketting, and such linearization doesn't make the speaker worse...so why not make the claim?