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I assume you have read my book, because I think the info you need is in it. I am currently working on a 4th edition that I think might spell out the process more explicitly. In any event, recognizing a neutral loudspeaker - which is the goal - is primarily to identify if it exhibits audible...

I just dipped into this thread and have a request: please, please stop putting any reliance on the calculated "scores". Learn to interpret the spinorama curves. That will have to do until we have an "educated" AI version of sound quality prediction. The ratings that were calculated by the...

Of course it sounded good - it was mixed for those loudspeakers. The real test of a good mix is how it sounds on neutral (ish) loudspeakers, which, these days are increasingly common in both consumer and professional worlds. Check out www.spinorama.org for evidence - and also evidence of some...

As I understand the industry, the mastering engineer is the last person to have a hand/ear in how a record sounds. In general they listen to relatively neutral "HiFi" loudspeakers in relatively "normal" rooms, while they "polish" the mix and often apply various kinds of compression. I recently...

I visited the BBC research labs years ago and was toured around by Harwood. The BBC has a history of useful research, but budgets had been much reduced, Their loudspeaker designs were of course aimed at radio broadcasting, but also for use in their small, acoustically dead studios, listening at...

In situ means in the listening room. We know, beyond reasonable doubt, that listeners can recognize loudspeakers with certain patterns of comprehensive anechoic measurements - as conveniently represented by the spinorama. We know that listener ratings of sound quality are well predicted by...

I wouldn't hazard a guess at the moment. The research I discussed was supported by the Canadian government at the National Research Council, in a fully equipped laboratory, including the multiple listening rooms and an anechoic chamber, where all of my fundamental research was done. Years of...

Sorry, this is wrong. Revisit the explanation of the origin of what has been called "the Harman curve" in Figure 12.4 in the 3rd edition. It was based on six highly rated loudspeakers, including the M2. The. five others were cone & dome designs. The Figure also shows predicted vs. measured...

Sorry for the seriously delayed response, I have been engaged in moving from California back to my "home' Ottawa, Canada - winter and all. The following is a much simplified response. I will soon be working on a 4th edition of my book and this will be covered in great detail in it. The basic...

I was doing some listening yesterday and again was reminded how variable recordings are in the bass frequency range. My system is essentially flat down to around 20 Hz. Most recordings sound great, but there are some that have an enormous bass "bloom/boom" at very low frequencies, as if the...

I quote from the essay you read: " Because much of the bass in recordings is mono (all of it in LPs) drive both loudspeakers simultaneously to evaluate what is happening at low frequencies." Equalizing them separately is a waste of time. In the real world bass is usually deficient in modest...

Factoid: An L-pad puts resistance in series with the loudspeaker, thereby reducing the effective damping factor of the power amplifier, as well as becoming part of a voltage divider with the frequency-dependent impedance of the loudspeaker - meaning that the frequency response of the loudspeaker...

One is definitely on a slippery slope when all reliance is placed in the typical steady-state "room curves" . They are popular because they are easy to do, not because of any proven virtue. Once sound has been launched into a semi-reflective space it is not possible to discern the complete...

Humans can separate the direct - first arrival - sound from later arrivals - reflections. In terms of sound quality and image localization the direct sound is dominant. That is why it is important to have flat and smooth - i.e. neutral timbre - on-axis and listening window frequency responses...

If you dig through my posts you will see several occasions on which I say something like: "A room curve is a result, not a target". The so-called Harman (with an "a") is what one might measure, above 400-500 Hz in a typical listening room from a loudspeaker that is highly rated in double-blind...

In a multiple-loudspeaker double-blind comparison experienced listeners find the dominant resonances remarkably quickly. The borderline ones take longer to find in ever changing program. If you read the resonance papers you will find that adding resonances to good loudspeakers was how the...

Just a quick response: We have two ears, not one, and it is the binaural processing in the brain that allows listeners to discriminate among sounds arriving at different times from different directions in the listening room. An omni microphone simply sums them all together. A "dummy head"...

Sorry, but your recollection is wrong. It is true that shortly after the loudspeaker research began in earnest it became clear that Consumer Reports loudspeaker ratings were wrong. But it was more than twenty years before we decided to spend the time and money to directly challenge the Consumer...

Classic waterfalls - showing amplitude vs. frequency vs. time - simply confirm what is shown in the frequency response as transducers are minimum-phase devices. That is why smooth and flat curves are desirable - on- and off-axis. If there is a bump in the frequency response that is not...

In previous posts (same thread?) I have discussed the merits and problems of conventional "room curves" measured at the listing position, and environs. They are reliable only below about 500 Hz; in fact they are definitive data at the lowest frequencies. Above that frequency they are a complex...