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I would have thought 3-ways priced at $780/pair would have been able to play louder. Disappointing. At the very least, the tweeter should have been padded down some more.

As I look at the measurements of over-ear headphones, I can't help but notice that basically all of them seem to suffer from cone breakup in the mid to upper treble. Am I correct in that presumption, or is the jagged treble perhaps the result of inherent flaws in the measurement process? Has a...

The trouble with building such a dip into the listener's playback equipment is that there is a high likelihood that the fluctuations in sensitivity of human hearing at varying frequencies have already been accounted for by whoever recorded, mixed, and mastered the music. I prefer to let bad...

I usually only bust out the magic orb-on-a-stick during the spring equinox. There was this one time, when I still an orb-on-a-stick newbie, that I used it during a new moon in September. All my tweeters blew that night, and a black cat tried to eat my soul.

In a world where nothing seems to last, and everything becomes obsolete, I find my audio hobby to be a welcome reprieve.

What if someone were to switch out the cables with ones that have a warmer signature? o_O

Fs of the drivers will definitely drop a smidge, and generally very quickly. This has been tested before. It should affect the bass extension in a very small, but positive way, especially since the manufacturer has undoubtedly factored it into the speaker's port tuning. I can't be certain if...

It depends on the application. Very large room, distant listening position, low-sensitivity speakers, reference-level volume, very dynamic material - the 200W should sound less terrible than the 100W (but probably still terrible). However, for near field listening it wouldn't matter at all...

Unfortunately, there is a lot of knuckle-dragging on most car forums. People quote advertised "CFM" numbers without understanding what the spec really means. "This intercooler / muffler / air filter / cylinder head was flow bench tested to 1000CFM!" Yet, they have no idea how much pressure...

Right - The volume of the air passing through the filter is determined by the displacement, RPM, and volumetric efficiency at that said RPM. For example, a 3L engine that achieves peak horsepower at 5750RPM and has 90% volumetric efficiency at that speed, will pull 300CFM through the filter...

Yep. it really comes to down to pressure drop. One ATM is 407 inches of water. A clean paper filter usually results in 1-2 inches of water pressure drop, and that doesn't change until there is a significant dust loading. (at least 5000-10000 miles worth). If the popular aftermarket brands...

I'm pushing 40 and my hearing starts to roll off quickly above 14K and by 15K it's non-existent. When I was 18, those numbers were 19K and 20K. My kids who are 15 and under, can hear up to around 21-22K. I have no idea why so much emphasis is placed on frequencies that only the cat can hear...

The fly in the ointment is road/wind/engine noise. It can be reduced somewhat, but there will always be a lot of it at higher speeds. The bass is the first thing that seems to get drowned out. I don't like having as much bass boost as that Porsche/Bose system - maybe half of that. I usually...

The flip side of course, is the magic of the placebo effect. If a doctor prescribes an antibiotic for condition that won't actually improve from that antibiotic, but patient believes s/he is now taking the cure and should be getting better, that person is more likely to pull themselves up by...

I'm not sure that these experiments tell the whole story. I took one of these tests once, and I couldn't reliably detect distortion in a 15-second sample of a song unless it was -30dB or greater. However, I do notice that over time, when I listen to equipment that has higher distortion, I am...

Any speakers costing over $1000/pair SHOULD be able to trounce them. It doesn't mean they will, but they absolutely should. I would make sure that you can return them without incurring a loss if the new pair turns out to be more of a "side-grade" than an upgrade. I would love to see what to...

We're starting to see a lot of fancy crossover components in speakers that cost peanuts, and which also sound like they cost peanuts. My guess is that these manufacturers know that the YouTube reviewers and bloggers are going to take them apart and fawn over the caps, coils, and/or resistors...

Those were some phenomenal speakers for the price in their day (and v.3/v.4 were my favorite)- I wonder how hard they will actually be to beat.

I'm in the camp that believes that "batman" curve is intentional. I have a low-budget, slapdash system in my current car with no provision for EQ. It's an old noisy convertible that had a few blown speakers, so I just wanted something that actually worked and could fight the wind noise. To...

I've had a pair of Canadian-made Mini Monitors of one version or another on my desk for the last 20 years, currently V.3. They've brought me so much listening enjoyment over the years relative to how inexpensive they were, that I just can't fathom what direction this company has gone in.