Andrew Jones’s new speaker brand - Jones and Cerreta

[Mart68]

People here criticise Andrew Jones for using listening test for designing his speaker in addition to measurement, while many respectable speaker designers here like SigbergAudio, Audiofirstdesigns_Harry, Buchardt Audio also uses listening test when designing their speaker. That is so irony.

They listen to their designs to identify problems that may not be so obvious from the measurements. That's not the same as listening to the design to assess its 'musicality' or its ability to 'convey the emotion', which is what the typical audiophile thinks that they're doing.

 

[Chr1]

I think that this is one of the downsides of the internet, and forums in particular. Everyone gets a chance to voice/shout their opinions. Regardless of their background and knowledge.

 

[antcollinet]

It's not a deception. The brain is functioning normally. The perceptual map just doesn't match with the physical map.

Exactly - that is the whole point. It is a useful and clear demonstration of one of our perceptive biases at play. This one related to speech decoding, not music enjoyment but it clearly demonstrates how unconscious processes can and do alter our perception of the sound detected by the ears based on what is detected by other senses, and life learning. And how - even when we know how and why it is happening, we are unable to stop it.

You can't "critically listen" your way out of perceptive biases. You can't "train" yourself out of them. They are part of the low level "wiring" of our brains.

They happen all the time to all of us - it is how our senses work. We couldn't function if the raw data detected by our sense organs were not "pre processed" and "filtered" before reaching our conscious minds.

 

[amirm]

I would guess that he does. But if he doesn't that would be pretty damning evidence against the argument that controlled conditions are all that critical. He has been designing speakers for 42 years, KEF, Infinity, TAD, Pioneer, Elac, Mofi and Jones and Cerreta. His speakers over this time have almost universally been demonstrated to sound AND MEASUIRE good.

Maybe we should close our doors if that is all it takes to quantify performance of a speaker! You can get that kind of praise for a ton of flawed products in audio. It doesn't mean anything unless it is proven objectively through measurements or subjectively in controlled testing.

I am pretty sure I have objectively and subjectively analyzed more speakers than he has. Yet, I would not for a moment want you to go by my pure opinion not based on objective measurements.

Andrew's designs that I have tested have been mixed. Some have been good, some have had problems. One was serious enough that got a headless panther from me.

The place for subjective tuning is where two measurements are close enough that one could take a chance with listening. Even there though, I prefer a designer give me absolutely neutral speaker and let me tweak the response. I don't need any color dialed in by him as with it, we are back to losing our reference standard. This is not last century where EQ was hard and intrusive.

If I were him, I would at least organized a few controlled test to confirm if his subjective tweaks provide value. I know such testing in my last corporate job was an eye opener.

 

[ShadowFiend]

So,

They listen to their designs to identify problems that may not be so obvious from the measurements. That's not the same as listening to the design to assess its 'musicality' or its ability to 'convey the emotion', which is what the typical audiophile thinks that they're doing.

I respectably disagree with you. In speaker design there are always a trade off somewhere in terms of engineering, especially at crossover point. And experienced speaker designers know it even at design phase, at simulation and before measurement. And at this point, extensive listening test is needed.

I made a comment under the video but somehow I can't see it publicly... but I do wanna mention here regarding the mild dip on-axis around 2.5kHz.

When I was tuning the crossover design, I was mostly targeting a super smooth down-tilted in-room response, but if I made the on-axis completely flat, the in-room response curve would have a tiny bump around that region. So after a few months of listening, I settled on the current design, just because if I can't make something perfect, as a designer's preference, I would rather have a sound signature a touch more on the relaxed side. You can really listen to these for a whole day with no fatigue.

This reasoning of Harry is not that different from "musicality" or "convey the emotion" that Andrew Jones said. The only different is the vocabulary.

 

[amirm]

I respectably disagree with you. In speaker design there are always a trade off somewhere in terms of engineering, especially at crossover point. And experienced speaker designers know it even at design phase, at simulation and before measurement. And at this point, extensive listening test is needed.

You haven't designed it right if that is what is needed.....

 

[Chr1]

I think that the use of EQ here is key.

However I think that we are in the minority here unfortunately. The majority people don't want, or know how to implement it. Even though it's relatively straight forward.

Hence it will most likely be market dependant, and for better or worse, speaker "voicing" will always be a thing.

 

[SigbergAudio]

I think that the use of EQ here is key.

However I think that we are in the minority here unfortunately. The majority people don't want, or know how to implement it. Even though it's relatively straight forward.

Hence it will most likely be market dependant, and for better or worse, speaker "voicing" will always be a thing.

Choices between things like different crossovers (affecting dispersion) can't be fixed or adjusted with EQ by the consumer.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

That's why they're so confident

Well, that and the fact that our critics have to resort to personal attacks for lack of meaningful arguments.

How unscientific do you have to be to disagree that the listening judgments of a man of Andrew Jones' advanced age are not reliable? Is there any reason to doubt that, scientifically? I'm asking all you science experts out there lol

 

[RexrothPigeon]

They listen to their designs to identify problems that may not be so obvious from the measurements.

what's a 78 year old like andrew jones going to hear that the measurements can't much more readily (and accurately) identify?

 

[Cote Dazur]

Erin and Andrew Jones in a panel discussion.

Thank you for this great video, the last 20 minutes with Jones discussing room/speaker interaction and how the different speaker design interreact with the rooms differently is fascinating.

 

[Mart68]

what's a 78 year old like andrew jones going to hear that the measurements can't much more readily (and accurately) identify?

Well that's a specific case plus I doubt he designs in a bunker and no-one else even gets a listen until the speakers are in the showroom.

We don't know how bad his hearing is, it may be very good for his age.

Most of his speakers measure and sound good, the proof is in the pudding and all that.

 

[SigbergAudio]

I don't understand why we insist on making this so black and white. We all know speaker measurements aren't perfect. Even the concept of neutral is pretty complicated as soon as you put a speaker in a room.

As I said in the thread about this topic, I also find it baffling that anyone would suggest that the designer of a thing that has the sole purpose of being listened to, should not have "listen to it" as part of the evaluation.

 

[Pearljam5000]

 

[thewas]

Even himself mentions the limitations of the listening in that video:

"And if I I'll design to a target measured performance that I think I want to achieve, then I go listen to it. And if I think I hear anomalies, which of course they always are, I'll go back to the curves and say to myself, is what I heard there showing up in the measured data? And I think I think it's this region there. It's either got a bump or dip or distortion or a rattle or something.
So, I'll postulate that's what's causing it. Let me fix that. Remeasure, see if the fix worked, then listen to it again and see if I think the problem has now been fixed. Now, that's highly subjective and subject to bias. I did something that I think is the right thing and I listen to it hoping it's gone and I persuade myself it's gone.
Right? That's in a sense not truly objectively scientific. But it's very difficult to do better than that other than through hopefully experience of I think I know what I'm doing and it seems to work and people seem to be buying it."

 

[SigbergAudio]

Nothing's perfect. That doesn't mean it isn't useful and/or isn't worth doing.

 

[Curvature]

Neumann simulate their drivers and speakers and then measure them when the prototypes are finished. Listening is not part of the decision process. The main thing is rigorous simulation, testing and measurement. Their business and resources are of course very different since they mass produce a highly competitive and tight product list.

Jones works as a consultant or something like it. He designs drivers and the rest, and the way he makes compromises between significant defects is through the listening assessment. I would imagine at TAD the development and manufacturing allows more budget per speaker to introduce driver and other changes to improve the performance than elsewhere, so the results are better. But those are extremely expensive speakers relative to ELACs. The economics of these companies are strange in that sense. I think the only reason they survive is because technical assessment is not part of the mindset of the average customer. Reputation rules and allows the market to be inefficient. How good are the drivers Jones makes relative to offerings by Tymphany or Scanspeak? I would imagine they are competitive but need to be fairly cheap to make to justify customization, which means compromises need to be made.

Neumann don't allow their technical targets to sway so much. The on axis flatness must be prioritized and off axis must be consistent with every other speaker in the line. The speakers must be linear with a very large range of signals. And each one off the line has to match as tightly as possible to the one before. Again, they have the resources to do this kind of work and are building on the knowledge of Klein & Hummel before them.

Erin said in that interview he's never seen a speaker with an on-axis response within 0.5dB deviation. The KH150 is within 1dB. https://www.spinorama.org/speakers/Neumann KH 150/ASR/index_asr.html And then the pair deviation is within, well, whatever this is: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/neumann-kh150-review.64775/

Recently I realized that the KEF Blade 2 Meta (released 2022, USD 14k) has nearly the same -6dB contour as the KH420 (released 2014, USD 5k):

KEF

Neumann

The economics allowing this level of disparity in price vs. performance are just incredible.

The J&C Troubadour speaker (USD 34k) looks like it uses the same basic coaxial driver design as the Mofi speakers, changing out the motor. I'll bet that the overall frequency response and directivity are largely similar, though tighter below 1kHz, and that they play a little louder with lower distortion compared to the 888 (USD 5k) or the V10 (USD 8k).

Edit: Error in price as noted by @thewas.

 

[thewas]

Nothing's perfect. That doesn't mean it isn't useful and/or isn't worth doing.

Yes, as long as the one doing it is aware of its limitations/problems and there is no better alternative. A blind AB(X) comparison with several trained listeners would for example be significantly better but we have to be aware of the tiny size of the high end audio industry. Hope the big players like Harman will continue such efforts belonging now to Samsung.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

it may be very good for his age.

it may. that's still nowhere near good enough.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I don't understand why we insist on making this so black and white. We all know speaker measurements aren't perfect. Even the concept of neutral is pretty complicated as soon as you put a speaker in a room.

As I said in the thread about this topic, I also find it baffling that anyone would suggest that the designer of a thing that has the sole purpose of being listened to, should not have "listen to it" as part of the evaluation.

The thing is, we all know that "listen to it" sighted is not actually "listen to it." Meanwhile, we're being asked to believe that ears that predate the Vietnam War bring something useful to the table even when listening sighted. Why? because a famous guru guy is telling us so.