PS Audio sent Erin their speaker??!!

[Talisman]

Sure, but listening first isn't that useful when the point is the measurements. The measurements tell us what issues to listen for. Distortions and artefacts can be picked up this way, but not so easy with minor FR deviations without a point of comparison (i.e. switching between). I would buy speakers based on measurements alone (although would prefer an in my own room trial), but not on a subjective impression only.

If the measurements are simply an afterthought, I don't agree with this method.


JSmith

If we were talking about a DAC I would agree with you 100%, we just need to see the measurements to know everything we need, but I still don't consider this possibility for speakers, listening and subjectively evaluating a speaker before listening to it is a great demonstration of intellectual honesty Furthermore, it is easier to understand how any problems are actually evident in listening without knowing them a priori (when you know a defect you look for it).
Furthermore, Amir has often overturned or in any case re-evaluated a speaker after listening to it, underlining how some points may seem worse to the eye than to the ear.
Speakers cannot be 100% described by measurements alone.

 

[Sokel]

I don't trust anyone's subjective review unless he points in specific things I can check and even better demonstrate in the charts.
BUT,there are people here and there who -how can I say it- suffer from the same flaws.

So I do align with Erin's taste when he speaks about some hot 3-8Khz sometimes as I can't stand it either but that would be evident by the measurement too.
What I was expecting for and didn't see it is the mid-bass "sweetness" translated on the chart.

I do have an idea how it looks like but it's not there.
So...

As always,the main service is measurements.The rest is what we have to debate about

 

[sigbergaudio]

Wide soundstage and midbass punch are clearly able to be determined from the measurements...

Please elaborate on how you can see in the measurements that the soundstage will be wide, perhaps you can bring closure to the 44 page thread below on the topic. - Perhaps answer in that thread instead of further derailing this one.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...creates-a-large-and-precise-soundstage.48542/

 

[thewas]

Sure, but listening first isn't that useful when the point is the measurements. The measurements tell us what issues to listen for. Distortions and artefacts can be picked up this way, but not so easy with minor FR deviations without a point of comparison (i.e. switching between). I would buy speakers based on measurements alone (although would prefer an in my own room trial), but not on a subjective impression only.

I agree, personally I prefer listening first without doing any measurements to check and make notes what I heard and what not, then do the measurements and then some listening again to check if I (believe to) hear now some stuff I had measured but hadn't noticed in my first listening, so not very different to what Erin claimed doing.

 

[CtheArgie]

I don’t know why it is so complicated. Erin reported his SUBJECTIVE opinion of the speakers. The data show issues regarding FR. Distortion may be low, directivity may be wide and smooth.

But we are talking about a just launched “SOTA” speaker with very wobbly FR that costs $10k or $7.5k if you use PS Audio’s carrots.
And it looks like R2D2 on Ozempic. Appearance is personal. Liking the sound is personal. Accuracy is impersonal.

 

[Somafunk]

But he still gets special treatment from many of his fan girls because he publishes data and he speaks to the science regardless with or without his subjective impression and his corny dad jokes.

Do you think we could discuss this without the use of misogynistic tropes, its no wonder this hobby is rather exclusively populated by men, if you must then at least use the term fanboy.

"Take the term itself: “fangirl.” The creation of this term spawned from decades of fan culture associated with girls and femininity, dating back to the matinee girls of the late 1800s and the “screen-struck” girls of the early 1900s. Their behavior is often generalized as crazy, and the objects of their desire often dismissed as worthless of everybody else’s time."

Edit : It has been pointed out that by quoting the above post by CleansSound it appears that I have singled him out specifically in regard to the use of “fangirl”, this was not not my intention as I was merely trying to highlight the use of certain language tropes.

 

[Ze Frog]

I was amazed that PS Audio allowed the product to be reviewed, fair play to them on that as it was a brave move on their part. Measurements weren't too shabby I guess, although factoring in the price, it's certainly a question of what one defines as value.

Not something I'd buy if I had that kind of outlay though, more on principle really in that the owner is a large part of the problem with the industry.

 

[Ze Frog]

I don’t know why it is so complicated. Erin reported his SUBJECTIVE opinion of the speakers. The data show issues regarding FR. Distortion may be low, directivity may be wide and smooth.

But we are talking about a just launched “SOTA” speaker with very wobbly FR that costs $10k or $7.5k if you use PS Audio’s carrots.
And it looks like R2D2 on Ozempic. Appearance is personal. Liking the sound is personal. Accuracy is impersonal.

Exactly. Anyone can have all the subjectives they like in my opinion when they are giving measurements and data to show a window into the engineering involved helping towards a consumer to make their own mind up.

 

[CleanSound]

Do you think we could discuss this without the use of misogynistic tropes, its no wonder this hobby is rather exclusively populated by men, if you must then at least use the term fanboy.

"Take the term itself: “fangirl.” The creation of this term spawned from decades of fan culture associated with girls and femininity, dating back to the matinee girls of the late 1800s and the “screen-struck” girls of the early 1900s. Their behavior is often generalized as crazy, and the objects of their desire often dismissed as worthless of everybody else’s time."

Go and read the comments before and I think you will feel stupid.

 

[Shadrach]

I was under the impression that here on ASR we had got to the point where we accepted that the room the speakers operate in has a major influence on how a speaker will sound to the listener. That being the case, in order for any subjective review to bear any relevance to how that speaker sounds one would have to have an indentical room, listening position, electronics etc, set at identical values, not to mention the same hearing acuity.
So, how can what one person hears in their listening environment have any worth to another person in a different environment?
This alone makes subjective reviews unreliable to the point of being pointless. No need to delve into the motivations of the reviewer or overly complex debates. It's the same for any experiment; change the experiment parameters and one is likely to get a different result.

 

[Somafunk]

Go and read the comments before and I think you will feel stupid.

I was merely making a point regarding the use of the phrase itself as a derogatory term in this thread, and there’s no need to call people stupid.

 

[thewas]

I was under the impression that here on ASR we had got to the point where we accepted that the room the speakers operate in has a major influence on how a speaker will sound to the listener.

The research of Toole and others says rather the opposite, namely that people tend to hear "through" rooms and the perceived sonic signatures don't change much, similar as when we are listening to different human voices in different rooms. Also the region where rooms behaviour even from measurement point of view dominate is the bass region, above the loudspeakers dominate.

Source of image: https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/revi...rs-using-focus-fidelity-filter-designer-r990/

 

[Ze Frog]

I was under the impression that here on ASR we had got to the point where we accepted that the room the speakers operate in has a major influence on how a speaker will sound to the listener. That being the case, in order for any subjective review to bear any relevance to how that speaker sounds one would have to have an indentical room, listening position, electronics etc, set at identical values, not to mention the same hearing acuity.
So, how can what one person hears in their listening environment have any worth to another person in a different environment?
This alone makes subjective reviews unreliable to the point of being pointless. No need to delve into the motivations of the reviewer or overly complex debates. It's the same for any experiment; change the experiment parameters and one is likely to get a different result.

That's exactly why measurements are so important yet still have people arguing that measurements don't equate to sound heard. When really measurements give a very good idea of how a speaker will sound and interact with the room. Subjective take is always welcome though when the measurements are provided alongside in my opinion. It's especially helpful if you can get a judge for what someone like Erin likes having heard a pair of speakers he's reviewed that you may have liked or disliked. With such information you can correlate and cross reference measured stats and see just what particular speaker attributes correlate to you room and preferences. Sadly I think a lot of people who go against measurements don't quite understand what the measurements are actually for even if they understand the meaning.

A speaker may measure not great, but actually sound great in ones specific room, which when using the measurements to crosscheck you can actually find things that work with your room better.

 

[CleanSound]

I was merely making a point regarding the use of the phrase itself as a derogatory term in this thread, and there’s no need to call people stupid.

Again, go read the comments before mine.

Someone else used it to describe Erin fans, and decided to use the term "fan girls" as a way to mock his fans. So I took that term and double down by using it with pride to show I a proud fan of Erin because I am a proud fan of science, engineering and data.

Before you go around being a woke police next time, please do your due diligence.

 

[tmtomh]

@Music1969 is entitled to his opinion. I tend to agree I’m not sure I believe these were done prior to the measurements. If it was Darko saying this, it would be acceptable for everyone to pile on and criticize but Erin seems to be afforded special treatment by a lot here, hence I’m guessing that is where the fan girl comment comes from.

He is a reviewer, we don’t all have to believe everything that he says, even if some of you do.

Especially at a site like ASR, it's depressing to see this logically bogus move of claiming that people have a right to incorrect facts by mis-labeling those incorrect facts as "opinion."

The problem isn't that @Music1969 doesn't believe Erin really heard the 600Hz scoop-out before doing measurements. The problem is that Erin didn't claim to hear that scoop-out before doing measurements. Watch the video - it's only 25 seconds from 9:20 to 9:45, and it's clear that Music1969 misunderstood what Erin actually says.

Yes, if Darko made the claim people wouldn't believe it. and If Erin made the claim - which, again, he did not - then people would also be justified in being skeptical too - this has nothing to do with "Erin fanboy-ism." Once again, Erin does not make that claim in the video, so as a matter of logic (not opinion) you can't claim he's lying since he never actually made the claim you say he's lying about.

Music1969 is entitled to his opinion - but he is not entitled to his own facts, and he is not entitled to make claims without a response. In this case that response is that his opinion is stupid - not because I disagree with his perspective, but rather because his opinion is based on a factual claim that Erin did not make.

This is Crazytown territory, and it's way beneath what ASR should be about.

 

[Shadrach]

The research of Toole and others says rather the opposite, namely that people tend to hear "through" rooms and the perceived sonic signatures don't change much, similar as when we are listening to different human voices in different rooms. Also the region where rooms behaviour even from measurement point of view dominate is the bass region, above the loudspeakers dominate.

Source of image: https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/revi...rs-using-focus-fidelity-filter-designer-r990/

The research of Toole and others says rather the opposite, namely that people tend to hear "through" rooms and the perceived sonic signatures don't change much, similar as when we are listening to different human voices in different rooms. Also the region where rooms behaviour even from measurement point of view dominate is the bass region, above the loudspeakers dominate.

Source of image: https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/revi...rs-using-focus-fidelity-filter-designer-r990/

Yes I accept that our brains compenstate to some extent for the variations in the environment but as you demonstrate in the chart above, a rather important portion of the frequency range is room dependant.
I can only suggest you move your system into your bathroom and report back.

 

[thewas]

Yes I accept that our brains compenstate to some extent for the variations in the environment but as you demonstrate in the chart above, a rather important portion of the frequency range is room dependant.
I can only suggest you move your system into your bathroom and report back.

We are talking about normal/typical listening rooms which are used for reviews and not extremes like reverberation or anechoic chambers, let me quote Toole from his book:

Within some range of “normal” rooms, we seem to have a built-in ability to “listen through” a room to attend to even minute details of the sound source.

 

[Shadrach]

We are talking about normal/typical listening rooms which are used for reviews and not extremes like reverberation or anechoic chambers, there what Toole says is true.

Would you care to define what a normal listening room is?
I have my system in a 4m x 3m x 2.2m room. I've had it in a much larger room and the response was both subjectively and measurably different.

 

[thewas]

Would you care to define what a normal listening room is?
I have my system in a 4m x 3m x 2.2m room. I've had it in a much larger room and the response was both subjectively and measurably different.

Typical reflectivity absorption, so no extremes like the above mentioned. Of course you are also allowed to your own impression and opinion, I just showed that this is not the consensus here as you initially had presented it.

 

[CleanSound]

Let me be blunt: I don't trust any reviewer who measures that they listen without peaking at measurements. It is like saying everyone who takes a test doesn't look at the answers if they had them. There may be exceptions but the rule must be what I said. They routinely make comments that imply they have looked at measurements. Even trained listeners are not able to get so specific as some of these people are.

Don't let your guard down.

I'll be honest, I do have my guard up. Every time Erin says, he does his subjective listening before he looks at the data, I tell myself don't put all my stock into this statement because that how one goes bankrupt.

But that does not take away the value of his subjective impression (whether he peeped at the measurements to make himself come across as a golden ear or not) because there are things the measurements can't tell. For example, with the Revel F228Be, you said "The sound was boomy and vocals lost in the midst of all that." one would never guess that from the data (granted it may have been room modes or other room acoustic properties, unless you did a REW measurement to prove otherwise); then there was a Magico bookshelf you review (which I can no longer find on ASR), the measurements were meh, but your subjective listening test was better than the measurements and you said in paraphrase: I told you guys I will be honest with you, so I am, while these speakers didn't measure great, but they sounded good, I recommend them.

Another example, I mentioned I recently got a pair of Ascend Acoustics Sierra LX, Ascent publishes their NFS data on their website, no where in that data (and I know I am no expert and I can be ignorant to reading the data) that can tell me the degree 3D imaging, the width of soundstage and the slam of mid bass punch.

Am I saying I believe everything in Erin's subjective review? Hell no, just like I can't take everything unquestioned in the subjective portion of your speaker reviews (case in point the F228Be's boominess, there was no REW measurements to go with it, so who is to say it wasn't a room mode). But the subjective portion does give a little bit more color, albeit one MUST take it with a grain of salt. That is why I always encourage others to examine the data and audition the speakers first (and at home if possible) before committing to it.