First PS Audio, now SBAF? More Smack Talking...

[Zensō]

That’s a lot of FUD for one week. Sheesh. https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/audio-science-review-review.9827/

 

[Absolute]

The worst pandemic in the world right now isn't Covid-19, it's obviously Stupidity-101.

 

[sweetchaos]

Errr...someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!

This will be entertaining to watch...let me grab my popcorn!

 

[Zensō]

Traffic must be light over there. There’s nothing like poking a stick in a hornet’s nest to get your ad revenue up.

 

[Vini darko]

Here we go again

 

[Mad_Economist]

Although it is quite needlessly combatively phrased, and I don't necessarily expect the criticism to remain salient, IMO the comparison regarding the amplifier in the LSR is quite reasonable: if an integrated amplifier module isn't degrading the LSR305P's performance in ways that limit it compared to other speakers, presumably driven by superior amplification, should we care as listeners?

I enjoy measurements on their own merit, because it's interesting to see how things behave under different circumstances, and I admit that I have a fondness for gear whose specs are more appropriate for lab use than listening applications, but if a DAC or amplifier isn't going to dominate the audible nonlinearities of the playback system, can we really say it's a bad addition to it (particularly in the case of the el cheapo stuff that leaves more money for the speakers/headphones)?

 

[Absolute]

Context. It's easy to dissect any person/site if you drop all context and just single out single phrases that seem contradictory. Adult people know this, but I can see it's still difficult for those that never went beyond kindergarten.

 

[Chocomel]

Although it is quite needlessly combatively phrased, and I don't necessarily expect the criticism to remain salient, IMO the comparison regarding the amplifier in the LSR is quite reasonable: if an integrated amplifier module isn't degrading the LSR305P's performance in ways that limit it compared to other speakers, presumably driven by superior amplification, should we care a listeners?

I enjoy measurements on their own merit, because it's interesting to see how things behave under different circumstances, and I admit that I have a fondness for gear whose specs are more appropriate for lab use than listening applications, but if a DAC or amplifier isn't going to dominate the audible nonlinearities of the playback system, can we really say it's a bad addition to it (particularly in the case of the el cheapo stuff that leaves more money for the speakers/headphones)?

I agree, it's unfortunate that it's done more in a bad faith way but the Measurements speak for themself.

 

[q3cpma]

>Someone who insists on providing color commentary "not recommended, sort of recommended, and highly recommended, etc." This is effect creating a purity test.
What does this "purity test" buzzword mean and does it invalidate anything? Anyway, I do fault people here for not explicitely mentioning that chasing SINAD isn't really about audibility.
>Also, any time there is a human involved, objectivity is lost.
Where's the argument? Measurements are objective by definition, the choice of which measurement (choice that may not even be made by said person when there's a standard) could be subjective but it can be discussed instead of handwaving like all relativists do.
>Changing the goal posts depending on whether the manufacturer is favored or not favored
That's a nice opinion.
>or using voltage levels not in proper context of the gear being used.
Discussed here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...l-is-a-2v-4v-measure-for-an-avr-preout.11686/
>The measurements become something purely for the sake of measurements, to the point where better doesn't matter.
I do somehow agree on the electronic side of it.
>And what would otherwise be good measurements under normal circumstances just a few years ago suddenly become bad.
I hope that's not serious, otherwise I do question the intelligence of someone who can't understand that products bought now have a value relative to the rest of the current market.
>When a limited set of steady-state measurements are implied to be the end-all be-all of sound
Well, again, no argument for why these aren't. I do hope it's not just a babby duck not understanding band limited signal theory.
>without any correlation of what we may or not hear. Focus on easily accessible numbers, rather than looking at behaviors or the whole.
More handwaving. What are those missing "behaviors or the whole"?
>Not taking into consideration the intent of the design. (For example, tube amps are often used by audiophiles for intentional coloration - these are automatically dismissed).
Is he suprised that Audio Science Review focuses on the science of audio reproduction and not audio creation?

There's not a single argument or fact here, just the usual handwaving. There's actual criticism to be given like the use of an unweighted THD metric that's not useful at all, but the technically ignorant people can't even muster that.
Only valid argument (later in the thread) is that electronics' SINAD doesn't really matter when speakers have at least an order of magnitude higher distorsion.

Little reminder on the nature of wisdom (as in the stoics' phronesis):
When he was forty, there came a curious but crucial episode which changed Socrates' whole life. What happened shall be told in the words which, by Plato's account, he himself used at his trial [by which time Socrates was 70 years old (Apology 17d)].

"Everyone here, I think, knows Chaerephon," he said, "he has been a friend of mine since we were boys together; and he is a friend of many of you too. So you know the eager impetuous fellow he [was]. Well, one day he went to Delphi, and there he had the impudence to put this question -- do not jeer, gentlemen, at what I am going to say -- he asked, "Is anyone wiser than Socrates?" And the Pythian priestess answered, "No one."

Well, I was fully aware that I knew absolutely nothing. So what could the god mean? for gods cannot tell lies. For some time I was frankly puzzled to get at his meaning; but at last I embarked on my quest. I went to a man with a high reputation for wisdom -- I would rather not mention his name; he was one of the politicians -- and after some talk together it began to dawn on me that, wise as everyone thought him and wise as he thought himself, he was not really wise at all. I tried to point this out to him, but then he turned nasty, and so did others who were listening.
So I went away, but with this reflection that anyhow I was wiser than this man; for, though in all probability neither of us knows anything, he thought he did when he did not, whereas I neither knew anything nor imagined I did."

 

[Promit]

So ... Chicago deep dish pizza?

 

[Zensō]

So ... Chicago deep dish pizza?

Lol. Yeah, maybe we should go directly to pineapple pizza and skip the rest.

 

[richard12511]

Although it is quite needlessly combatively phrased, and I don't necessarily expect the criticism to remain salient, IMO the comparison regarding the amplifier in the LSR is quite reasonable: if an integrated amplifier module isn't degrading the LSR305P's performance in ways that limit it compared to other speakers, presumably driven by superior amplification, should we care a listeners?

I enjoy measurements on their own merit, because it's interesting to see how things behave under different circumstances, and I admit that I have a fondness for gear whose specs are more appropriate for lab use than listening applications, but if a DAC or amplifier isn't going to dominate the audible nonlinearities of the playback system, can we really say it's a bad addition to it (particularly in the case of the el cheapo stuff that leaves more money for the speakers/headphones)?

I see the speaker measurements and electronic measurements as two completely different beasts. The electronics measurements are fun to compare and (imo) important for keeping manufacturers in check, but ultimately are of little use. Most of the time, we can't hear any of it anyway. Even if there are audible differences, they're tiny in comparison to loudspeaker differences. I actually agree with him that we focus too much on tiny inaudible differences in electronic gear. Just pick something that doesn't suck and that you think looks cool and fits your budget. I see nothing wrong with that strategy, and someone who's made such a purchase shouldn't feel like they've wasted their money because there exists a DAC with 9 more SINAD.

For speakers, though, it's different. We're talking tangible differences in sound quality that can be seen by looking at the measurements provided by the NFS. Very few others out there(if any) are providing the type of speaker measurements that ASR is.

 

[Vasr]

>Measurements are objective by definition,

Correct.

Not to take sides here but everything else is mostly subjective. It is the interpretation of the results and the overall narrative that gets to be subjective. Most of it is very subtle but that is the nature of human frailty. I don't think it does anyone favors by pretending otherwise.

The only objective interpretation is when something is really broken engineering-wise and that is surfaced in the measurements. That is the greatest contribution of this site over everything else.

1. The Panther award is subjective.
2. What measurements to make of one equipment vs another when both do not have the same set of measurements is subjective.
3. The tone of the review is subjective (small irritants like the HDMI not working when connected can send the whole review into a negative narrative and interpretation)
4. How much leeway you give a manufacturer who co-operates with ASR than one who is aloof is subjective.
5. The recommendations based on a trade-off of mixed results is subjective.
6. How you normalize measurement of old and used equipment to compare with new equipment is subjective.
7. The evaluation of a piece of equipment relative to its price is subjective.
8. Choosing to selectively mention that a "measurement is not audible" or "that there is very little source content at that FR" but not doing so everywhere puts a subjective spin on the overall narrative.

The above is by no means faulting ASR but it will be taken as such because there is a false sense that the reviews here are purely objective. There is objective data one can choose to interpret any way they want and as objectively/subjectively as they want but one has to admit almost the entirety of the followup discussion is influenced more by the initial narrative tone set up than each one pouring over the data to objectively conclude.

Once can arguably claim that the reviews here are based on objective measures more than any other site but that is a different claim than saying that the reviews here are purely objective. It would be absurd to believe that people are not influenced more by that subjective tone and narrative than by looking at each measurement on their own with no subjective interpetations.

Sites like SBAF have their own narrative as well and behind all the hyperbole, the point really is the above.

It is two communities with their own identity circling wagons and their own form of hyperbole.

 

[Mad_Economist]

I see the speaker measurements and electronic measurements as two completely different beasts. The electronics measurements fun to compare and (imo) important for keeping manufacturers in check, but ultimately are of little use, given that we can't hear any of it anyway. Even if there are audible differences, they're tiny in comparison to loudspeaker differences. I actually agree with him that we focus too much on tiny inaudible differences in electronic gear. Just pick something that doesn't suck and that you think looks cool and fits your budget. I see nothing wrong with that strategy, and someone who's made such a purchase shouldn't feel like they've wasted their money because there exists a DAC with 9 more SINAD.

For speakers, though, it's different. We're talking tangible differences in sound quality that can be seen by looking at the measurements provided by the NFS. Very few others out there(if any) are providing the type of speaker measurements that ASR is.

I'm not entirely sold on "keeping manufacturers in check", to be honest - I mean, in cases like the original Asgard's shutoff behavior, or arguably something like the strange low level muting behavior on this Monolith unit, where what you've detected is essentially a fundamentally broken functionality of the device, I certainly agree. But threads like the recent DSPeaker review give me pause - when a subjectively irrelevant level of distortion or noise disqualifies a product before its likely-to-be-quite-audible features are considered, that seems more to me like we're keeping ourselves in check than manufacturers...

I'm 100% behind electroacoustic measurements as a major focal point, and I've been loving the NFS plots - indeed, if I had my way, speakers and perhaps headphones would be pretty much the only thing that got measured around here - and reading Marv charitably, his take isn't that Amir's evaluation of the LSR is in any way wrong, but rather that it shows where we can stop worrying too much about specs chasing in one dimension from a sound quality standpoint.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Although it is quite needlessly combatively phrased, and I don't necessarily expect the criticism to remain salient, IMO the comparison regarding the amplifier in the LSR is quite reasonable: if an integrated amplifier module isn't degrading the LSR305P's performance in ways that limit it compared to other speakers, presumably driven by superior amplification, should we care a listeners?

Nope. But neither should we forget that standards for full-range amplifiers in terms of distortion are higher than those for ones in active speakers. (Conversely, noise becomes more of an issue.)

Two potential caveats regarding the measurements that I can see:
1. I do hope the input ADC was out well of clipping. The distortion spectrum looks more like "low-current Class B" kind of crossover than what you might typically expect out of a Class D amp.
2. JBL would be using 8 ohm drivers, and as such using 4 ohm loading may be unrealistically harsh in this case (expect +6 dB of crossover).

Besides, 5 W would actually make quite a racket. Bare 6.5" driver, maybe 87-ish dB/W/m? About 92 dB SPL then. Plus another amp for the tweeter above crossover which is a lot more sensitive (so way less power required), hence the famous noise issues.

Standards for decidedly inexpensive hardware like these JBLs would also be lower than for much fancier equipment. As long as measured performance of the whole thing stacks up OK, there's nothing really wrong with that. Nasty high-order amplifier distortion like that should be quite measurable though, it would pass through the midwoofer essentially unmasked (but affected by its frequency response - maybe an IMD measurement would be in order). It's not commonly done because it's not a common problem.

 

[Jimbob54]

So ... Chicago deep dish pizza?

Not on your life, but that other conversation has led me to question whether other members here actually know what a casserole is.

It is of course a stew, as taken round to sick or otherwise aggrieved neighbours in Australian reality TV show, Neighbours.

 

[solderdude]

Haters gonna hate. That's all it is.

A bit like the Paul McClown story... a bit of truth mixed with a bunch of nonsense and misinformation that appeals to its fan base.

SBAF is what it is with their own fanclub, BS audio has their own fanclub, ASR has their own fanclub.
There is little compatibilty in thought processes.
Why not leave it at that ?

 

[Mad_Economist]

Nope. But neither should we forget that standards for full-range amplifiers in terms of distortion are higher than those for ones in active speakers. (Conversely, noise becomes more of an issue.)

Should this necessarily be the case, though? We could set a different bar for active speaker amplifiers if we want to, but you can cram a Purifi/Hypex module in there with some elbow grease. I'm not averse to saying "this amplifier measures meaningfully better than that one", but I start to get pretty leery when we're calling products meant to be listened to bad because of nonlinearities we don't hear - I think a lot of less versed people get misimpressions about where their money is best spent, among other things.

 

[Jimbob54]

Haters gonna hate. That's all it is.

A bit like the Paul McClown story... a bit of truth mixed with a bunch of nonsense and misinformation that appeals to its fan base.

SBAF is what it is with their own fanclub, BS audio has their own fanclub, ASR has their own fanclub.
There is little compatibilty in thought processes.
Why not leave it at that ?

Ive picked my side, Swiss penguin...

 

[restorer-john]

But neither should we forget that standards for full-range amplifiers in terms of distortion are higher than those for ones in active speakers.

This is 100% correct.

Active speakers are a holistic product and tested and used as such. You can't start pulling out the amplifier section and testing it the same way as a power amplifier. For a start, many have significant EQ or DSP built in to the front end and will give meaningless results and/or they are tailored specifically to the impedance characteristics of the bass driver itself.

About all you could do is run the plate amp up to full power for clipping level and comment on that. No other testing is really relevant for a bespoke subwoofer plate amp or an active speaker amp.