Amir recommendation criticism

[QMuse]

You almost never want to fix large dips with EQ, so the issue ~75Hz is going to have to stay. Now, maybe he should have used a higher-Q as to not cause the surrounding region to have a slight dip. The other areas with peaks also are surrounded by areas with dips, so that may be tricky.

Oh, I really like when you start teaching me about room EQ.

I can think of at least 2 options to solve this:

- you can search for a better place to position your speaker

- if you have 1000W amp which you like to mention whenever you can afford to sacrifice 5dB of the headroom to get something like this (same overlay like before but with PIR lowered 5dB). In this scenario you simply attenaute all peaks with adequate Qs and you can actually get something quite close to PIR:

 

[MZKM]

you have 1000W amp which you like to mention whenever you can

Maybe you should read who you are replying to...

In any case, it’s not just the amp, it’s the speakers as well. +3dB is 2x the wattage, the speakers may not be able to handle that.

 

[QMuse]

Maybe you should read who you are replying to...

In any case, it’s not just the amp, it’s the speakers as well. +3dB is 2x the wattage, the speakers may not be able to handle that.

I suggest you give some more thinking about what I said: in the scenario I proposed (5dB of overall attenuation) all peaks would be attenuated and no gain would be applied to any frequency. Speakers would not be asked to play any louder than they are now - they would only be asked to play quiter at the frequencies where peaks are. Once you raise the voeral SPL for 5dB they would still be playing lower at those frequencies.

 

[MZKM]

I suggest you give some more thinking about what I said: in the scenario I proposed (5dB of overall attenuation) all peaks would be attenuated and no gain would be applied to any frequency. Speakers would not be asked to play any louder than they are now - they would only be asked to play quiter at the frequencies where peaks are.

Which limits max SPL & headroom, there is no free lunch.

 

[QMuse]

Which limits max SPL & headroom, there is no free lunch.

This is seems like a desperate argument, you should be better than that. When you have 1000W amp you can certainly spare 5dB. You can also compensate for 5dB with DAC/preamp cranking their output.

And all that is totally irrelevant when you're evaluating speakers as you're not doing it at max SPL they can handle.
Or do you think 5dB of headroom is more important than to evaluate speakers with room modes properly fixed?

Btw, my point here was actually not sarcastic at all - I simply wanted to show you cannot possibly evaluate speakers listening to the response as red line is showing, no matter how trained you are.

 

[kaka89]

Btw, my point here was actually not sarcastic at all - I simply wanted to show you cannot possibly evaluate speakers listening to the response as red line is showing, no matter how trained you are.

While I understand what you are saying, your statement imply EQ can correct (almost) any speaker to the "estimated in-room response", I am not sure I can agree with this assumption .

Also, the way you suggested is basically listening to speaker's ability to adapt to EQ, rather than the speaker's nature in-room response. To me they are just two different test, cannot say one is better than the other.

 

[QMuse]

While I understand what you are saying, your statement imply EQ can correct (almost) any speaker to the "estimated in-room response", I am not sure I can agree with this assumption .

Also, the way you suggested is basically listening to speaker's ability to adapt to EQ, rather than the speaker's nature in-room response. To me they are just two different test, cannot say one is better than the other.

The whole point of predicted in-room response made with measurement based on CEA-2034 standard (which Klippel NFS does) is that it should resemble the actual measured in-room response at app 2m distance once you properly EQ the room modes. That remains the fact whether you agree with that or not.

 

[Thomas savage]

I want to say that I really like that this site based on measurements and no feelings or opinions and I really appreciate Amir time and efforts to review and measure all those spekakers but.....
How can JBL and Revel get recommended?
3.8k$ JBL with 4.9 reommended.
1.6k$ Revel with 4.9 recommended.
1k$ Kef with 5.0 not recommended and I saw that Amir did not like the best passive speaker in this list the R3.
Like I said before thank you Amir for all the hard work but at the moment if we look on the list anything above 2k$ can not be recommended.
Price can be measured too and compared to other speakers, the only 2 speakers that worth the money based on measurements are the Elac dbr 62 and the R3.
Everything else is above their prices and with lower scores.

Elac and kef don't pay for this ..,

We gotta eat buddy .

 

[QMuse]

Elac and kef don't pay for this ..,

View attachment 68198

We gotta eat buddy .

I can see it has proper marble pattern and those don't come cheap.

 

[Thomas savage]

I can see it has proper marble pattern and those don't come cheap.

500g txuleta bone-in-sirloin , very nice ..

Thanks Harman

 

[richard12511]

2. I don't find strong correlation at all. Speakers that score 4.x getting recommended while others do not. Audioengine (also not on the list) scored 4.9 and was recommended.

Don't look at individual examples. Look at the overall trend

Sorting by Preference Score(desc)
9 of the best 10 are recommended
11 of the best 15 are recommended
15 of the best 20 are recommended

Sorting by Preference Score(asc)
20 of the worst 20 are not recommended
22 of the worst 25 are not recommended

Olive's preference score is not infallible, and it doesn't claim to be, but the correlation is definitely there, so far.

 

[QMuse]

500g txuleta bone-in-sirloin , very nice ..

Thanks Harman

Allow me to have reasonable doubt that Harman paid for that.

 

[FrantzM]

Much ado about nothing ...
The Man measurements speak for themselves.
Read this, from Ron Texas

 

[Jon AA]

The whole point of predicted in-room response made with measurement based on CEA-2034 standard (which Klippel NFS does) is that it should resemble the actual measured in-room response at app 2m distance once you properly EQ the room modes.

Says who? The very people who invented it go to great pains to state over and over again, it will not be predictive at low frequencies which will be dominated by the room. Nowhere do they imply that a quick EQ job is all that's needed to make a measured in-room response match up with the PIR at low frequencies. Otherwise they wouldn't advocate the use of multiple subwoofers or advise against certain placement (close to wall, or on-wall for example).

The idea that a measured in-room response that's messier at low frequencies than the PIR is an indication of doing something wrong is rather absurd--on the contrary it's quite to be expected. While you may prefer reviews of speaker that are heavily EQ'd, it would be of little value to the huge number of people who will use the speakers without EQ and just open another huge can of worms for argument about whether the appropriate EQ was used for a particular speaker, etc. It would turn the speaker reviews into a mid-high frequency only review as the lower frequencies would be normalized between speakers to a great extent.

 

[st379]

Don't look at individual examples. Look at the overall trend

Sorting by Preference Score(desc)
9 of the best 10 are recommended
11 of the best 15 are recommended
15 of the best 20 are recommended

Sorting by Preference Score(asc)
20 of the worst 20 are not recommended
22 of the worst 25 are not recommended

Olive's preference score is not infallible, and it doesn't claim to be, but the correlation is definitely there, so far.

You are looking at it in the wrong way.
A speaker that manage to score below 0 obviously will not be recommended. How did a speaker manage to score below 0 ?
The last 15 scored below 4.0, I would expect them not to be recommended except for the Jbl with 3.8 that this is quite a surprise.
Look at the speakers that scored above 4.0 and for the third time the list is not complete.
There are numbers of 5.x speakers that are not recommended 5-6 speakers this is quite a lot, again not all of them on the list.

 

[Snoochers]

One thing is for sure, I and many of us are immensely grateful for Amir's measurements. Thank you! I hope you see this.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Do you actually know of any such experiments trying to measure fatigue?

Fatigue is obvious when experienced. Ten minutes in an AMC theater and moved from fatigue to pain in my right ear drum. A perforated ear drum objectively measures gross distortion.

 

[RickSanchez]

Honestly, whether it's speakers/DACs/amps/AVRs I don't even bother reading Amir's measurements nor his subjective impressions. All I read are his donation requests.

For example: the only thing I learned from the Canon S-50 Wide directivity speaker review is that Amir installed the Burger King app on his phone.

/sarcasm

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

It seems to me that it is not a good idea for Amir to post his subjective impressions, just measurements.
But on the other hand, this is your forum and maybe it's your fun to do it.

Well either way people should not really make the listening impression the main point of the review, use the measurements and make your decision accordingly, might be a better idea overall. The subjective analysis often differs from my experience but I do appreciate the measurements.

 

[pozz]

Fatigue is obvious when experienced. Ten minutes in an AMC theater and moved from fatigue to pain in my right ear drum. A perforated ear drum objectively measures gross distortion.

I began going to movie theatres years ago with earplugs. It baffles me that that's necessary. The soundsystems, expensive as they are, sound like they are in terrible condition as well.