Not really what Herbs descibing is not what I'm hearing there is no exact universal language that can convey this information with enough precision to make sense.
I disagree. Herb's description makes plenty of sense to me. I've heard similar in speakers with similar frequency profiles/resonances.
the actual sonic effect can be different for different people ? not to mention acoustics speaker setup and program material who has greater influence than any good speakers should have and as the listening was not blind we also have to factor unknown biases .
As I said, Herb has directly compared and described two different loudspeakers that I'm very familiar with, having heard both and owned both brands. And his description was like picking the words right out of my head: it was precisely the different sonic characteristics that I heard.
Now you could say it's just coincidence or imagination but you'd have to make that the more plausible explanation. Does this imply that none of us actually know what our speakers sound like? We really have no idea how some speakers we own today differ from the ones we just replaced? That goes down quite a rabbit hole.
Your listening experience is internal and we do not yet have brain to brain transfer of information.
This comes off as a flat refusal to acknowledge human beings can communicate through descriptive language.
If they listened blind comparing to a known reference that would make more sense to me then it would be only one lose end and no bias . and ofcourse in a known acceptable listening room who is the same every speaker review . not some random reviewers home .
Take someone close to you whose voice you obviously know well. Do you suddenly stop recognizing their voice when you walk in to different rooms? No? Why not?
Because as Floyd Toole points out we have evolved to "hear through" room acoustics to identify characteristics of a sound source. Our brains actually do quite a good job of filtering that source from reflections. It's not of course that acoustics don't have any effect on the sound of a voice, but the essential recognizable characteristics remain.
It's the same for loudspeakers. I mean you could take someone and stand them right in the corner of your room, facing the corner talking, and then yeah maybe their speech is going to become less intelligible. But...you don't do that, right? Likewise reviewers are generally reviewing speakers in the same listening room and so have experience both with how different loudspeakers sound in the room, and also where loudspeakers tend to sound their best in the reviewers room, and if they don't sound good they experiment with different speaker/listening positions. So they get a decent picture of how the speaker behaves.
When I audition loudspeakers at audio stores I play with speaker positioning, listener position, walk around them listening,etc, so I get a general idea of the behaviour of the speakers. I am NEVER surprised by the sound once the speaker ends up in my "totally different" room. If you are careful, you really can get an idea of some basic characteristics in a loudspeaker in different rooms. My Quad ESL 63s had the same fundamental characteristics that attracted me to them as when I heard them at my friend's house first in a teeny basement, or at a store.
And you can ofcourse not compare to remembered experiences of past speaker listenings our brains does not work that way .
It doesn't? How often are you forgetting the sound of family and friend's voices? Do you need to be hearing them every single day to recognize a voice? Or...do you have this thing called a "memory?"
gross effect can ofcourse be somewhat trusted like " this speaker has no treble " vs fluff like " voices are slightly forward " that can be the setup or the recording .
Or it can be identifying a true trait of a loudspeaker which has an emphasis, say, in the upper midrange. If a reviewer is familiar with a wide range of speakers, including neutral speakers, this can be identified. Just as audio mixers in the studios become familiar with identifying frequency dips or emphasis, and therefore where to apply EQ.
To be clear: I'm not saying you have no point at all. There are variables involved. I'm disputing the level of skepticism you seem to have taken on the subject.
Cheers.
