Maybe they give instructions to testers during studies but the two times I took them, they just gave us score sheets to fill in. This was my sheet early in the testing:
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As you barely see, we were told to score from 0 to 10. It is up to you to decide how you figure that out.
Instructions to pick the most ‘accurate’ speaker could hypothetically bias results, though I would not expect this in naive listeners.
I am just confounded by my experiences with ‘accurate’ speakers. We have Genelec 3040s in our main studio and to my ear they are uncannily accurate. If you have mics live in the recording space the playback on the speakers sounds very much like the actual sound in the room.
But on most commercially recorded music they sound ’incorrect’ to me. There are a number of plausible explanations for this:
- the recording was produced on inaccurate monitors which introduces coloration exposed by the Genelecs. There is perhaps some association with eras of popular music.
- the music is produced/mastered for compromised playback systems. This could dovetail with above point. For example, I think the Beatles original recordings sound quite ‘wrong’ on studio monitors. Artists of that era needed to make sure for satisfying listener experience on cheap radios
- taking again The Beatles, I grew up listening to them on all kinds of systems but none remotely like studio monitors. So I have a ‘sense memory’ of how they should sound. Ironically, I find the Beatles recordings remarkable in how well they translate across a bizarrely diverse set of playback environments. Studio monitors are one of the few places I don’t think they translate well.
- whatever perceived deficiency I experience with the Genelecs is simply biased perception that would completely disappear in a blind test. This is highly likely, but the effect is persistent enough for me to question it. I do have a source of bias here in that I associate studio monitors with work, which is stressful, and makes me feel grumpy at times.
- Genres of music, I know this was considered in the Harman studies, but I still think it could be a factor. One issue with the concept of ‘accurate’ monitors in the musical sense is that the way rock music is produced involves a lot of techniques to convey ‘loudness’ at all playback levels. I think most people don’t realize what a profound illusion this. My theory is that playback systems which have some perceptible resonance can ’enhance the illusion.’ Our perception of volume is based in part on our innate ability to perceive the effects of sound energy vibrating physical matter. Even though much of this experience can be captured purely timbraly, having the sound energy of the speaker vibrate the matter of the speaker cabinet itself might help provide some ‘versimaltude’ to the effect.
I have a portable speaker that I quite like, and like most of these speakers the whole physical system is perceptibly energized. This makes rock music sound ‘tough’ especially vintage seventies rock like Aerosmith or AC/DC.
- I am listening to the Genelecs in a recording studio environment. It is highly damped. The speakers are pretty isolated from the floor by heavy stands. The net effect is that the speaker does not energize the room in the way it would in a normal listening environment. In a home listening environment playing a speaker at a relatively high level causes reflections and vibrations that provide cues about the ‘loudness’ of the music that give some of the same effect as the vibrations of the enclosure I discussed. The Genelecs sound pretty ‘inert’ I detect virtually no cabinet resonance at all from them.
For anyone pondering these things who are rock music fans, think about how AC/DC ’should sound.’ It should be shakin’ the walls!
- nostalgia, the speakers I enjoy listening to are from the era I grew up in. This may be purely a ‘placebo’ effect, or it could be nostalgia for actual sound characteristics.