Is Jay talking about Amir?

[raif71]

I got my terrible 80s bands* mixed up and thought you'd posted this one:

*retrospectively, I may have liked either at the time

I missed this 80s song as I got into music listening circa MJ beat it/billie jean debut year which was around 1983 ?

 

[redshift]

We all know that in the end, do you like what you hear? For example, a speaker can measure very well, be very good looking , but if you listen to it and don't like it, it will not be enjoyed. A great flat speaker is put into a room and then when you look at the frequency response in room, it is horrible. Today we can do a lot of "room correction" that was unavailable years ago. Anyways, the point is that measurements are not everything. They do help you decide what type of speaker to audition. I would say measurements CAN weed out the speakers that have problems even before you put them in a room. But, after that you will ultimately have to go by if you like the sound. I "think" that was what he was trying to say. No one listens to measurements. We DO use measurements to get something that "should" sound good and then give it a try. So measurements matter (well except for DACS and headphone amps!). But in the very end, the buying decision will be made by the consumer if they like the sound. Showroom curves on speakers are notorious for enticing buyers to buy speakers that get tiring very quickly.

Oh, and that dig on headphone amps and DACS was just to see if you actually read the post that far!

I’ll bet it is fairly common to throw good money after bad. E.g. trying to band aid with a DSP/EQ/Correction to “fix” a bad speaker setup and room combo?

 

[redshift]

Its a pitty if specialist like you leave this forum. My feeling is that the game is over for dac and amp which perform way beyond human threshold.
But there is still a lot to understand with speakers, drivers, room interactions, EQ, parameters which matter vs others (IMD, linear distorsion, group delay), etc... VituixCAD is a game changer in this area, I still have a lot to discover in it but thanks for your work.

I doubt that. Once theoretical max is reached in comes various processing features/effects and amp/dac/streamer integration jobbies.

After all; tone controls and loudness has been around for quite some time, and lay people use those quite a lot. Mixing and mastering engineers, well, no need to mention those.

Unless you’re a Puritan. That seems a quite neurotic and anxious way to enjoy music.

 

[kimmosto]

* IMD is basically reduced as you go from 2 to 3 or 4-way (incl. subwoofer), it isn't really necessary to measure it beyond knowing these facts, I'd say.

Usually IMD can be predicted by just looking the speaker and counting number of ways, but some surprises exist so it's not smart move to skip. For example tweeters could leak pressure from woofer or mid to rear side of the surface causing significantly increased IMD. Conventional coaxial drivers are very bad in 2-way, but also coaxial compression driver in a horn could show quite high IMD also in 3-way.
Real objectivist does not guess and make assumptions (which is mother of all f*****s)

* Concerning phase/GD, I think research is lacking but there is quite the consensus on how minor it is;
...
So, do you have research to convince us to share you interest? I only know of Genelec's recent GD paper. I didn't read it, but from its abstract, I doubt it pertains to the psychoacoustical importance of GD, only its audibility threshold.

I don't do any official science so I can offer just subjective impressions from few decades. I agree that good timing is not always very perceivable and necessary though it's fundamental feature of sound: energy smoothing causes kinda dynamic distortion in addition to possible changes in timbre. Very dynamic speakers are strong enough with transients such as percussion, acoustic guitar and piano also without perfect timing, but situation gets worse if both fail. For example very simple and cheap Kef 2-way coaxial could produce significantly more dynamic piano hammer than 3-way studio monitor with steep IIR XO. Probability is the same with most of my own designs; close to 1.0 with 2-way and close to 0.0 with 4-way with steep IIR XO. Weaknesses locate to upper bass...low mid e.g. left hand keys of piano.
Personally I don't care very much about changes in timbre. Good spinorama is more important benchmark for that. Investigating audibility of changes in timbre might be more common in science than perceptibility of transient dynamics with whole body. Therefore I have some doubts that official science would help much in this. At least I've been on my own.

University study where one person and probably some gear from Genelec participated indicated that group delay of almost every multi-way with (steep enough) IIR XO is audible. Purist would read that more strictly that I, but it's good time to admit that it's audible. So it should be measured and published on ASR without unnecessary explanations. Significance is case dependent so I'm willing to ignore whole term especially if data is free and easily available.

 

[q3cpma]

Usually IMD can be predicted by just looking the speaker and counting number of ways, but some surprises exist so it's not smart move to skip. For example tweeters could leak pressure from woofer or mid to rear side of the surface causing significantly increased IMD. Conventional coaxial drivers are very bad in 2-way, but also coaxial compression driver in a horn could show quite high IMD also in 3-way.
Real objectivist does not guess and make assumptions (which is mother of all f*****s)



I don't do any official science so I can offer just subjective impressions from few decades. I agree that good timing is not always very perceivable and necessary though it's fundamental feature of sound: energy smoothing causes kinda dynamic distortion in addition to possible changes in timbre. Very dynamic speakers are strong enough with transients such as percussion, acoustic guitar and piano also without perfect timing, but situation gets worse if both fail. For example very simple and cheap Kef 2-way coaxial could produce significantly more dynamic piano hammer than 3-way studio monitor with steep IIR XO. Probability is the same with most of my own designs; close to 1.0 with 2-way and close to 0.0 with 4-way with steep IIR XO. Weaknesses locate to upper bass...low mid e.g. left hand keys of piano.
Personally I don't care very much about changes in timbre. Good spinorama is more important benchmark for that. Investigating audibility of changes in timbre might be more common in science than perceptibility of transient dynamics with whole body. Therefore I have some doubts that official science would help much in this. At least I've been on my own.

University study where one person and probably some gear from Genelec participated indicated that group delay of almost every multi-way with (steep enough) IIR XO is audible. Purist would read that more strictly that I, but it's good time to admit that it's audible. So it should be measured and published on ASR without unnecessary explanations. Significance is case dependent so I'm willing to ignore whole term especially if data is free and easily available.

I agree for phase/GD at least. Unlike multitone, it's probably a very easy measurement. Amir has said before that IMD wasn't possible because the test tones were annoying the ears of the household.

 

[gsp1971]

I think he undersells how important and predictive they [measurements] are in terms of predicting sound quality. Yes, listening is still necessary but measurements get you 90% of the way there.

Thank you, Dr Olive.
Perhaps I should copy-paste the above quote into several threads to end several discussions.

 

[Blaspheme]

I agree for phase/GD at least. Unlike multitone, it's probably a very easy measurement. Amir has said before that IMD wasn't possible because the test tones were annoying the ears of the household.

That's funny. Not science then, politics.

 

[Blaspheme]

Thank you, Dr Olive.
Perhaps I should copy-paste the above quote into several threads to end several discussions.

You think 10% is (small) enough to curtail discussion? Crikey.

 

[amirm]

Difficult to understand why several features with some importance is totally ignored.

Nothing is being ignored. Everything is considered. But only what makes sense and can be backed is presented. No more. The number of graphs presented is inversely proportional to how much people read a review. Learn this and memorize it because this is key. More is worse. Not better.

I have measured everything there is to measure with speakers. But at the end, have settled on the set you see because the rest don't make sense, don't correlate with what sounds good, aren't backed by science, etc.

I have and happy to add more measurements if a proper case made for them. If you think something like IMD is important, then show information on how it correlates with preference. Also demonstrate that you understand the underlying math that IMD is 100% correlated with distortion of two independent tones. Sum those with phase and you get IMD. If you don't know the math, then you think it is something magical when it is not. Lacking this, complaining, acting rude, etc. is not going to get you anything. It simply reflects poorly on you that you don't know how to make a technical case for what you want.

 

[Blaspheme]

Lacking this, complaining, acting rude, etc. is not going to get you anything. It simply reflects poorly on you that you don't know how to make a technical case for what you want.

I haven't seen anything particularly rude in kimmosto's posts. Why express yourself this way?

 

[amirm]

Should he do multitone distortion measurements? I agree.

You shouldn't. Multitone with speakers has nowhere near the value that it has with electronics. The problem here is that the frequency response of each speaker varies. This means the amplitude of each tone varies once it comes out of the speaker. This means that intermodulation between the tones varies and is completely frequency response dependent.

Worse yet, the noise floor is high so the bottom of the graph where we see the nice "grass" in electronics is polluted big time as well.

So the peaks are bad, the floor is bad, and the intermodulation inaccurate due to the first factor. This means as a human you have no chance of looking at the results of multitone and make a quick judgement like you can with electronics that have flat frequency response and vanishingly low noise floor.

You have seen me post these measurements. I stopped because I could see no value in them and I know what they are doing! I played a ton with them to try to get them to make sense and they simply don't. Seeing how they add a bunch more work and take away time from reviewing something else, there is no sense in providing such data.

What people miss is that what I post is not just a sequence of graphs. It is a "story" that ties everything together leading to a conclusion. If some measurement doesn't fit such, it has no value and only serves to lose people's interest. Biggest failures I see online are people who run scrips that spit out 30 measurements. They don't know what it takes to clearly communicate a device's performance to people.

 

[amirm]

I haven't seen anything particularly rude in kimmosto's posts. Why express yourself this way?

Say what?

Research and reality you refer does not cover special gradient radiators and/or complex listening environments so I think that you know nothing...

What do you call this, a compliment?

 

[Blaspheme]

What do you call this, a compliment?

No, not a compliment, but deal with the paragraph. I can see why you may find it rude. But you've made it look much more insulting by removing what he argues you "know nothing" about.

 

[More Dynamics Please]

Threatening to leave a forum is often used as a gambit to rally support.

 

[Blaspheme]

Threatening to leave a forum is often used as a gambit to rally support.

As is threatening to close a thread. People get emotional, it's pretty normal.

 

[restorer-john]

I got my terrible 80s bands* mixed up and thought you'd posted this one:

What about this one (Chicago 1976)? Much more appropriate lyrics!

"When tomorrow comes and we both regret the things we said"

 

[Blaspheme]

What about this one (Chicago 1976)? Much more appropriate lyrics!

Yes—and I remember that one too, I hope people don't go too far back in time or I'll start to feel old

 

[amirm]

No, not a compliment, but deal with the paragraph. I can see why you may find it rude. But you've made it look much more insulting by removing what he argues you "know nothing" about.

He has said nothing specific or useful in half a dozen posts. Just complaints about this and that. The bar to add measurements is very tall. What absolutely doesn't work is stomping one's feet, threatening to quit, etc. Person needs to demonstrate proper research and strong reasoning. I asked him to provide a single in-room measurements on why EQ is not needed and he refused to provide. So no wonder that nothing else has been forthcoming on the other complaint list either.

 

[amirm]

Threatening to leave a forum is often used as a gambit to rally support.

Which absolutely, positively does not work with me. I don't care if you have a million posts or a thousand supporters. Make threats and want to hold us hostage to do as you want and I will show you the door.

You want change? Show objective information, demonstrate you know the topic well, and I will listen. That's the only path and plenty of people have managed to do that.

By "you" I mean him by the way, not you.

 

[restorer-john]

Yep, I remember that one. I hope people don't go too far back in time or I'll feel old

Great piece of music. David Foster/Peter Cetera.