Electrostatic speakers?

[Duke]

Tonality refers to the music, timbre the sound of an instrument.

Are these terms applicable to what a loudspeaker sounds like?

For instance I associate "tonality" with frequency response, but in my mind "timbre" also includes inner detail, and "rich timbre" is perhaps the opposite of "dry".

 

[RayDunzl]

Are these terms applicable to what a loudspeaker sounds like?

A speaker should reproduce the tonality and timbre of the recorded signal.

For instance I associate "tonality" with frequency response, but in my mind "timbre" also includes inner detail, and "rich timbre" is perhaps the opposite of "dry".

"Tonality" is not frequency response in my dictionary.

"Rich timbre", again, should be an aspect primarily of the performance and captured by the recording, I don't think I would want to add to it myself.

 

[RayDunzl]

Why not just run the source through some stomp boxes on the way to the amp if you want some color?

Of course, you could still worry if the speaker is reproducing that correctly.

 

[Duke]

A speaker should reproduce the tonality and timbre of the recorded signal...

"Rich timbre", again, should be an aspect primarily of the performance and captured by the recording, I don't think I would want to add to it myself.

What term(s) would you use to describe the difference between how your Martin Logans sound with the backwave complete absorbed vs with the backwave reflecting off the wall behind it? Anticipating what the difference might be (having some experience with electrostats) the word "timbre" comes to my mind, but maybe there's a better one.

Apparently to @T.J. McKenna these terms can be applied to how a loudspeaker sounds, or how music sounds when played through a loudspeaker, or whatever the correct wording is, anyway I'd like to understand as much as I can about his observations of the KRK and JBL speakers before trying to figure out an explanation for the difference he hears.

 

[RayDunzl]

What term(s) would you use to describe the difference between how your Martin Logans sound with the backwave complete absorbed vs with the backwave reflecting off the wall behind it?

I would use the term "No noticeable difference with a casual experiment".


The unattenuated backwave, per Impulse Response, at 7ms after the direct sound, is about 27dB below the direct wave at the listening position, so, maybe it occupies the "Reflection Free Zone" in my case.

Using ETC display:

In contrast, the little JBL LSR 308 have much higher reflection ratio, and the reflections don't come from the same direction as the speakers

Go figure.

 

[Duke]

I would use the term "No noticeable difference with a casual experiment".

My subjective experience with SoundLabs has been different from yours with Martin Logans, but I don't dispute yours.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Thank you for your very patient and exhaustive explanation. And (honestly!) I feel a sense of ingratitude in asking the following question: I'm not arguing that the JBL and KRK have enough measurable differences to account for perceptual differences between them, but my (unprovable) contention is that the KRK is both superior and more accurate in reproducing instrumental timbre. From the measurements alone you would probably expect the opposite. If I'm correct in my assertion, how does this comport with the belief that accuracy of frequency response determines accuracy of timbral reproduction? Just assume I'm not talking crap for the moment and see if you can explain it. If you can't, then you can always fallback to saying I'm talking crap. But I think you're too nice to do so even if you're thinking it.

Haha, no I don't think you're talking crap here (although I think you may be stretching Popper a little in the parallel discussion ).

It'll be interesting to see what your answers are to @Duke's questions about room and setup etc. Without knowing your answers to that, I'm going to have to include some assumptions and speculation in my list of possibilities here:

1. To oversimplify the science just a little, our perception of a speaker's tonality tends to be based primarily on a speaker's direct sound in the midrange and treble (with some additional influence from early reflections), and primarily on the steady-state in-room response at low frequencies (this is basically a function of wavelength relative to dimensions of the room). It may be that the KRK's dip in the upper-bass/low-midrange partially compensates for an in-room excess of energy in the same region, which restores an overall more accurate tonal balance in a region where it's the in-room response that is perceptually dominant in terms of tonality/timbre.
2. As mentioned, the science tells us that the KRK's much wider directivity in the treble is likely (all else equal) to result in its having a more spacious/enveloping sound. This may be perceived as its having a more realistic tonality or imparting on instruments a more realistic timbre (putting the science to one side, my personal experience is that excellent spatial reproduction is possible from controlled/narrower directivity designs like that JBL, but that quite specific setup conditions need to be met; speakers like the KRK's trends to have more impressive spatial properties when set up conventionally out of the box).
3. Recordings are not reliable: mic setup, recording environment, mixing and mastering processes, etc etc (not to mention the inherent limitations of stereophonic recording and reproduction) all combine to - let's put this in the mildest possible form - prevent us from knowing that the timbre of a recording of an instrument is an accurate facsimile of the original. The most tonally accurate reproduction of a recording may not be the most tonally accurate reproduction of the thing recorded.

I could probably offer one or two other ideas, but I think those are the most likely without knowing more...

 

[T.J. McKenna]

Go ahead, formulate a hypothesis, and do an actual controlled experiment. Put the methods and results to peer review (and that can be as simple as posting the details here and taking/accepting suggestions on improving your methods if they are lacking). That's a great thing, and we routinely applaud people who do that.

The issue is your categorization of anyone who won't accept a wild claim offered without evidence to be worthy of spending any effort on or of explanation as somehow closed-minded, dogmatic, whatever pejorative.

My point is that seemingly wild claims can be useful in advancing the science, and are the kind of thing Thomas Kuhn believes result in new scientific paradigms (after testing, of course). And yes, they do need testing, testing, and more testing but they're vital in keeping science alive. Otherwise, it becomes complacent and dogmatic. Oh, we won't bother with that one because it's so patently absurd. Now I believe that the kind of hypotheses I'm talking about are more likely to come from the scientifically naive than from the ranks of the sophisticated. And no doubt most of these hypotheses will disintegrate under the withering gaze of dispassionate scientists. But, when I read much of ASR, I'm struck with the closed-mindedness of many of the more scientifically-inclined contributors. Any anomalous phenomena are "explained" by manhandling them into the prevailing theory rather than jettisoning said theory. It's as though the "case closed" files are in constant rotation.

 

[SIY]

And no doubt most of these hypotheses will disintegrate under the withering gaze of dispassionate scientists.

It's up to the claimant to provide evidence. Physicists don't spend time looking at every crackpot letter they get starting with, "I have figured out how to unify gravitation and electromagnetism, but I need help putting this in math terms."

Any anomalous phenomena are "explained" by manhandling them into the prevailing theory rather than jettisoning said theory

Name one where there was actual evidence. One. Just one.

You haven't given any examples of your earlier claims either.

 

[Blumlein 88]

My point is that seemingly wild claims can be useful in advancing the science, and are the kind of thing Thomas Kuhn believes result in new scientific paradigms (after testing, of course). And yes, they do need testing, testing, and more testing but they're vital in keeping science alive. Otherwise, it becomes complacent and dogmatic. Oh, we won't bother with that one because it's so patently absurd. Now I believe that the kind of hypotheses I'm talking about are more likely to come from the scientifically naive than from the ranks of the sophisticated. And no doubt most of these hypotheses will disintegrate under the withering gaze of dispassionate scientists. But, when I read much of ASR, I'm struck with the closed-mindedness of many of the more scientifically-inclined contributors. Any anomalous phenomena are "explained" by manhandling them into the prevailing theory rather than jettisoning said theory. It's as though the "case closed" files are in constant rotation.

Give us one good example you've seen here on ASR.

SIY beat me to it.

 

[T.J. McKenna]

Indeed I would have expected the opposite!



Personally I would not have used the phrase "determines accuracy of timbral reproduction", because in my experience it's more complicated than that.



Okay, I think I see a correlation between some of this and the curves for the KRK that andeasmaaan posted in post #270 above.



Though none of this was directed at me, I'd like to play along, if you don't mind.

Can you put into words the diffrence between "tonality" and "timbre"? I have my (somewhat shakey) concept of what the difference is, but I'm more interested in what yours is.

Can you tell us about the setup? Is it identical for both speakers? Nearfield or farfield? How close to nearby walls? General room acoustic conditions, and in particular what are the nearby walls like?

Would you describe either as "more lively"?

Would you describe either as "more edgy or harsh"?

Would you describe either as "better at conveying complex instrumental textures"?

Would you describe either as "more relaxing to listen to long-term"?

Unless this would be redundant, can you describe what the KRK does right (and wrong) as far as timbre goes, and likewise what the JBL does right (and wrong), timbre-wise?

Thanks!

"Tonality" is the overall balance of the speaker: "warm", "bright", etc, although these terms tend to oversimplify all the anomalies and contradictions we perceive because very few speakers fall completely into any broad category. "Timbre" is the individual sound which differentiates every instrument and voice from every other one. It is "primary" and "sui generis" in that it can't be reduced to more basic factors like "tonality". An oboe, a flute, and a violin are all "bright" and cover similar frequency ranges yet could hardly sound any different from each other. And because timbre is "sui generis" it can't be fully described or analyzed in any other terms than itself. Which is why you can't "describe" the sound of a violin adequately no matter how much of a wordsmith you are: all you can do is point to the actual sound of one playing. And this "untranslatable" sound is maintained through a wide variety of "tonal" environments. It may sound thicker or thinner, warmer or brighter, tonally, but it still maintains its violin-ness. Timbre is so distinctive that it only requires a low threshold to be discriminated. The most low-fi playback system can still distinguish between flute and trumpet even playing the identical music. But it's not an "all or nothing" phenomenon: the reproduction of timbre is not complete once you've established the mere identity of the type of instrument that is playing. "Better" playback systems (at least in the area of timbre) will make the instrument sound more "individual", more "like itself": the piano will sound like a Steinway as opposed to a Bosendorfer. The cor anglais will sound less like an oboe in its lower range and more "itself".

Anyway, to listening conditions: largish room (3600 square feet); wooden floors; plaster walls with a couple of glass doors; bookshelfs scattered around room; cardboard boxes containing speakers; curtains in front of one set of glass doors; speakers on wooden stands eight feet from wall behind and around 5-6 feet from side walls. Six feet listening distance.

I don't use the same terminology as most listeners in evaluating speaker sound. To be honest, most of the analytical tools they use seem irrelevant and misleading to me. I believe that your evaluation of the speaker is dependent on your conceptual framework and that a proper evaluation requires a proper framework. First, I ask myself what the purpose of the playback system is. My answer is: to transmit the music. By "music" I don't mean an amorphous body of more or less pleasant sounds, as I suspect some audiophiles of my acquaintance regard it, but individual pieces of music that, if at all successful, become "sui generis", "untranslatable", "concrete" rather than "abstract", unexpressible in any terms but itself. And practically speaking, that means that the more successfully it is transmitted the quicker you will "get" it. You know how when you first listen to an unfamiliar piece of music, at first it's merely an instance of a "genre", be it "jazz" or "metal" or "classical" but you rarely on the first lesson grasp more than the broad, relatively undifferentiated, contours of the piece. It may be sombre or cheerful in mood, for example, but you would be hard-pressed initially to distinguish it from other pieces of the same ilk. But the more times you listen the more it detaches itself from similar pieces, the more "individual" it becomes. The better the piece the more "untranslatable" it becomes: it seems to inhabit its own "world"; you hear "Fur Elise" and you know nothing like it exists outside of itself. It's what I call a "mystery", which I define as "something that is known but not understood". By this, I mean it's not able to be analyzed because the "elements" that comprise it only exist in that particular configuration. If you remove any single "element" it ceases to exist as it did in that particular configuration. Within that, it is "charged"; outside of that it is "dead".

Sorry for the discursiveness but I was just trying to make myself clear (are you joking? I'm sure some of you are thinking). To get practical again, what this means is that the better the playback system is the quicker you get to this point with unfamiliar music. With the "good speaker", you get an immediate sense of "purpose", of musical "coherence" and potential "unity" although you're unlikely to get it all on a single listen. With the bad speaker it tends to sound disorganized, lacking in purpose, perhaps even ugly. With the good speaker, music sounds "simpler", with the bad it sounds "complicated". So, with a lot of music (especially that with voices) I prefer the JBL; with "sensuous", timbre-dependent music (mostly instrumental), I tend to prefer the KRK.

 

[T.J. McKenna]

It's up to the claimant to provide evidence. Physicists don't spend time looking at every crackpot letter they get starting with, "I have figured out how to unify gravitation and electromagnetism, but I help putting this in math terms."



Name one where there was actual evidence. One. Just one.

You haven't given any examples of your earlier claims either.

No, it isn't up to the claimant. He may simply be asking an awkward question but his lack of expertise does not preclude the possibility that his question may point out something problematic with the established science. Sometimes the crazy man is right.

And for multiple examples of what I was talking about when I said "manhandling" just consider the constant attempts on this Forum to interpret everything in terms of frequency response, radiation patterns, and harmonic distortion, with implicit "end of story!" conclusion.

 

[T.J. McKenna]

Are these terms applicable to what a loudspeaker sounds like?

For instance I associate "tonality" with frequency response, but in my mind "timbre" also includes inner detail, and "rich timbre" is perhaps the opposite of "dry".

Agreed, except I would say "sweet" is the opposite of "dry".

 

[Blumlein 88]

No, it isn't up to the claimant. He may simply be asking an awkward question but his lack of expertise does not preclude the possibility that his question may point out something problematic with the established science. Sometimes the crazy man is right.

And for multiple examples of what I was talking about when I said "manhandling" just consider the constant attempts on this Forum to interpret everything in terms of frequency response, radiation patterns, and harmonic distortion, with implicit "end of story!" conclusion.

Questions can be awkward or they can be foolish. If one is so lacking expertise, then one can't know the difference in the two. What such a person believes is awkward quite often is foolish. Foolish enough it doesn't bear looking into further or it is understood only in terms the claimant doesn't understand or accept. Then you have an impasse where the only way forward is for the claimant to provide evidence or drop the claim. Even if the claim should turn out to be true as in the crazy man was right, it makes no sense to use time and resources investigating every far fetched claim.

So as I see it, you've failed to even point to one example or even something remotely close to an example of general closed mindedness.

 

[RayDunzl]

Agreed, except I would say "sweet" is the opposite of "dry".

No, no, no...

Sweet is the antonym of sour, and synonymous (but to a lesser degree) with syrupy.

 

[RayDunzl]

Anyway, to listening conditions: largish room (3600 square feet)

That could be a 45 x 80 foot room.

What would a large room be down there?

 

[RealityCheck18]

Agreed, except I would say "sweet" is the opposite of "dry".

The last time I checked, "wet" was the opposite of "dry"---or, moist if it is "less wet". (Checked with my wife, she agrees)

I'm lazy, I just call it "accurate" or "excessive/lean highs/mids/bass etc. My EQ does not have a slider for "boomy", "dry", "shiny", "airy" etc. I do live sound mixing on occasion--no "suck" knob either... can't turn down the suck--it is out of my hands.

However, I did find a video from B&C Speakers--the crew down Italia way that make professional drivers. They don't make "audiophile" drivers and generally avoid any consumer audio gear although some people use their stuff in their speakers (I do!) Anyhoo, here is a tongue-in-cheek video as they explain their pro drivers in "audiophile speak"... yep, some people DO like "wet" midrange--who knew? Enjoy! (Yes, they are making fun of audiophiles...no skin off their butt, NOT their market)

 

[Duke]

Thank you T.J. for your in-depth and educational reply. You paint with words. Are you a writer?

Anyway, to listening conditions: largish room (3600 square feet); wooden floors; plaster walls with a couple of glass doors; bookshelfs scattered around room; cardboard boxes containing speakers; curtains in front of one set of glass doors; speakers on wooden stands eight feet from wall behind and around 5-6 feet from side walls. Six feet listening distance.

... With the good speaker, music sounds "simpler", with the bad it sounds "complicated". So, with a lot of music (especially that with voices) I prefer the JBL; with "sensuous", timbre-dependent music (mostly instrumental), I tend to prefer the KRK.

Was that supposed to be 3600 cubic feet?

I assume neither have obvious flaws which stand out to you, each is better in some ways, and the KRK's superiority on timbre-dependent music is imo quite interesting.

The most obvious (to me) difference in the measurements is that the KRK is putting out more off-axis energy especially in the 2-8 kHz region where there's a lot of overtones, which convey timbre. Also from the curves it looks to me like the KRK's low-end has a "kicker" between 40 and 50 Hz, which may help to balance the spectrum so that it doesn't sound tipped-up. Imo whoever did the crossover on the KRK did a great job, considering that this relatively inexpensive speaker competes with the JBL.

You are not the first (nor second nor third) musician I've recently encountered who prefers a different "voicing" than what Harman's research suggests. Hmmmm.

Agreed, except I would say "sweet" is the opposite of "dry".

I can see that. "Sweet" makes sense to me.

 

[Wes]

I wish this thread would stick to the topic and attempts to wander off into the philosophy of science should be met with 'start a new thread'

In case anyone is wondering what the actual topic of this thread was - it's "Electrostatic speakers"

 

[andreasmaaan]

I wish this thread would stick to the topic and attempts to wander off into the philosophy of science should be met with 'start a new thread'

In case anyone is wondering what the actual topic of this thread was - it's "Electrostatic speakers"

@BDWoody what's the policy re: non-review threads staying on topic? I kind of like how these threads meander since I think it leads to discussions that may not necessarily evolve otherwise. But perhaps it's strictly against forum policy?