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Announcement: ASR Will Be Measuring Speakers!

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amirm

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You really like to start the new decade with style... :cool:

Just hoping the community is able to support this new effort to keep your independence safe enough.
The community has stepped up since yesterday. Many people have started to donate, and others have increased their donation levels. Thank you so much to all of you.

Alas, we have a long way to go given the very high expense of this system. The key to that is to help spread the news and keep the membership expanding so the money can come from more people.

Remember, we don't just need money to pay for the Klippel system. I also need money to have a lavish lifestyle that keeps @Thomas savage jealous forever!
 

direstraitsfan98

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If I could send you my speakers I would... wish international shipping rates weren’t so expensive... doesn’t your company sell Harmon products? And you own revel salon2 anyway right? Will you measure those? They already have lots and lots of measurements so I’m not sure if that’s worth doing but what doesn’t have many published measurements is the JBL Synthesis line. I wonder how they fare against vintage Jbl. I notice some of the old Jbl marketing material for speakers like the l300 have some in house measurements but I wonder how they’d hold up today.

Speakers id specifically like to see measured are the Jbl l300, Jbl 250Ti, Jbl 4355/4350, Jbl 4430/4435. And next I would really like to see measurements from the Modern day Jbl Synthesis line. The Synthesis K2 S9900, S4700, 4367. Oh and it would actually be amazing and my dream to see all the differences between the Everest DD series. The 55000, 66000, and 67000. Maybe even measurements of a JBL Paragon...

I’m probably just dreaming though.
 
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amirm

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In order to evaluate speakers you will need some. I can't see many people sending 100kg packets, or entrusting their sometimes thousands of pounds worth of audio investment to a delivery system. Where are you going to get enough speakers to test to make the project useful?
I can get enough speakers to get us started. A lot of speakers of interest are small and light. As I mentioned, I have a commercial UPS account now that helps with return shipping. As to weight, it is a problem for high speakers. But even now, I am testing 65 pound amplifiers in large boxes.

Here is the thing though: there are countless reason not to do this test. All were pointed out and then some when I opened the discussion a few months ago. The biggest hurdle by far was the equipment purchase. I chose to make that a non-issue. The rest is manageable and I need the membership to step up to help. I have had people send me multi-thousand dollar DACs from Europe for testing. Surely we can step up to solve these other smaller barriers. Ultimately this work needs to be done. Let's get it done!
 
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amirm

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If I could send you my speakers I would... wish international shipping rates weren’t so expensive... doesn’t your company sell Harmon products? And you own revel salon2 anyway right? Will you measure those? They already have lots and lots of measurements so I’m not sure if that’s worth doing but what doesn’t have many published measurements is the JBL Synthesis line. I wonder how they fare against vintage Jbl. I notice some of the old Jbl marketing material for speakers like the l300 have some in house measurements but I wonder how they’d hold up today.
Between my contacts at Harman, ownership of some of their products and ability to purchase some of them, I am in good shape there. The main purpose though is to use Harman measured products to compare to me measuring the same. I am hoping they will correlate immediately but if not, I have to work to figure out why there are differences. This is the biggest next step for me and I am focused on it 100%.

As to Salon 2 though, it is a huge speaker and is in another floor of the house. It would probably take 3 people to safely move it and get it on the stand. Likely I have to build a platform to hold it as well. So it is not in the immediate future. :)
 

Darkweb

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A friendly reminder the Marvel Cinematic universe and the latest Taylor Swift record are results of vast market research and user preferences as well.
 
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amirm

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A friendly reminder the Marvel Cinematic universe and the latest Taylor Swift record are results of vast market research and user preferences as well.
An important lesson for people who think "everyone is different." Everyone is not different seeing how millions of people like the above. And like ice cream. Chocolate. Etc.
 

bobbooo

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I agree that listening before measuring would probably be best, but I don't think Amir should be aiming for that because it can't really be done with one person and it's a huge time sink.

Moreover, there's expectation bias any way you cut it. From my experience measuring speakers, either you risk making your listening impressions match objective data, as you mentioned, or you can fall into the trap of doing the opposite and try to make your analysis of the objective data fit your listening impressions.

Even with full anechoic data, there's still room for interpreting the graphs and focusing on different details. Of course, the great thing about amir making this data public is that we can interpret the data for ourselves too :)

Yes, objective measurements should definitely be the priority here as that's what this project is all about, and the resources and careful methodology required for proper scientific listening tests would be immense, probably too much for one person to organise.

I don't think listening tests prior to measuring would have any undue effects on the objective tests though, while eliminating a major source of subjective expectation bias, and so giving listening impressions a bit more reliability. Measurement selection bias can be easily eliminated by deciding beforehand on a fixed set of measurements that are made on all speakers. @amirm using a standardised template for measurement reviews would help here (as well as for DAC/amp reviews), so no measurement is assumed, or forgotten to be measured/posted as has happened in the past. I think Reference Audio Analyzer's 'Reports for Pros' does this standardised format approach well e.g. here is their report for the LG G7 and here is their HiFiMan HE-400i report, which have the same structure for all DAC/headphones reports. Of course, further measurements can be made if a particular feature/failure needs more investigation, but all equipment should be tested with the same initial suite of measurements.

This leaves interpretation bias, which as you say, can be ameliorated by being 100% transparent and presenting all raw measurement data publicly (again, the same goes for the DAC/amp tests), offering opportunity for cross-checking, and will hopefully average out interpretation bias amongst people with different focuses and areas of expertise. This could be done via public online cloud storage e.g. Google Drive / Dropbox / OneDrive.
 
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Darkweb

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An important lesson for people who think "everyone is different." Everyone is not different seeing how millions of people like the above. And like ice cream. Chocolate. Etc.

Uh-huh.

What flavor of ice cream: chocolate vanilla, or strawberry?

Dark or milk chocolate?

If the most popular was vanilla ice cream, should we put a decapitated toy over cookies and cream’s head?
 
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Darkweb

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And just to clarify my position, I think the measurements itself are a great thing. I hope your ethics follow suit.
 

napilopez

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Yes, objective measurements should definitely be the priority here as that's what this project is all about, and the resources and careful methodology required for proper scientific listening tests would be immense, too much for one person to organise.

I don't think listening tests prior to measuring would have any undue effects on the objective tests though, while eliminating a major source of subjective expectation bias, and so giving listening impressions a bit more reliability. Measurement selection bias can be easily eliminated by deciding beforehand on a fixed set of measurements that are made on all speakers. @amirm using a standardised template for measurement reviews would help here (as well as for DAC/amp reviews), so no measurement is assumed, or forgotten to be measured/posted as has happened in the past. I think Reference Audio Analyzer's 'Reports for Pros' does this standardised format approach well e.g. here is their report for the LG G7 and here is their HiFiMan HE-400i report, which have the same structure for all DAC/headphones reports. Of course, further measurements can be made if a particular feature/failure needs more investigation, but all equipment should be tested with the same initial suite of measurements.

This leaves interpretation bias, which as you say, can be ameliorated by being 100% transparent and presenting all raw measurement data publicly (again, the same goes for the DAC/amp tests), offering opportunity for cross-checking, and will hopefully average out interpretation bias amongst people with different focus and areas of expertise. This could be done via public online cloud storage e.g. Google Drive / Dropbox / OneDrive.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm fine with listening before measuring, and it's what I do myself with my own speaker measurements. I just meant to point out that trying to be scientific about listening would probably not be a worthwhile endeavor in terms of effort and time. That said, it would be amazing if ASR could occasionally organize group blind listening sessions, the way has been done on other forums, now that speakers are going to be a bigger part of this community.

It'll be interesting seeing how speaker threads go once the data is available. Unlike DACs, there's a lot more room for interpretation with speakers, even with full anechoic data, in part because of the [circle of confusion](http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html) Some speakers will sound better for certain people , in certain rooms, for certain uses, and certain music. Once linear-ish frequency response is achieved, directivity is king.
 

Nathan Raymond

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This is very exciting news. There aren't many sites I go to that have speaker reviews that I think are very good. This was one of the few I found, and he doesn't do speaker reviews that often:

http://noaudiophile.com/

The rig you have will be taking things to a whole other level! Looking forward to it.
 

Vintage57

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Great news. Can't wait to see the first measurements. May I suggest to start with a few speakers where there are already good measurements available, e.g. by Sound & Recording (German mag, but the graphs should be understandable). These are the models tested so far:
View attachment 44844 PS: Sent a few bucks to ease the investment:).

I bought the review book on line.( 7 Euro I think) I printed and spent a lot of time looking at data and translating as best I could with my phone.
End result was the JBL M2 and the Neumann KH 420 were had the best data for full range in my eyes. I went with the Neumann’s due to size and simplicity’s sake.
I’m very happy with the result and it speaks volumes to me about measured data vs performance
I’m now to try DSP to further optimize my room. Still the weakest link ‍♂️
 

daftcombo

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Happy new year @amirm !

Will you measure these speakers, and when ?

1578341246166.png


more info here: http://www.totaldac.com/d150-speaker-fr.htm

"I was impressed by both of them. The d150's sound was relaxed very wide open and delightfully coherent.
These beautiful turned-wood horns were driven, not by a compression driver, but by a full-range cone driver;
which is crossed over to a 15" bass driver at 150Hz. I was immediately impressed by how smooth, vivid, and 3-dimensional the sound was.
Think big, full, open, and exceptionally coherent. I would have nominated Brient's system for best sound at show, but is was only the morning of my first day, so I moved on."
Herb Reichert, Stereophile (à propos de l'ancienne version de d150)
"One of the first things that struck me sonically about the d150 was its cohesion, and stunning linearity. Visually, the loudspeaker is gorgeous, with the large turned-wood mid-driver horn dominating the aesthetic, but it was the sound that captivated, and held my attention. I lingered in this room far longer than I had time for, but it was so fatigue-free in presentation, with a rich tonal, and timbral accuracy to string instruments, horns, and piano that I had to stay, and let the experience soak in. This is the type of point-source imaging, pitch stability, dynamics, and transparency to source that I’ve come to appreciate from only the finest tube/solid state amplifiers, and high-efficiency speaker designs." Rafe Arnott, part-time audiophile.com (à propos de l'ancienne version de d150)

39.000€ / pair
 

idkwho

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@amirm not sure if you've heard of ATC Loudspeakers - I believe there is a dealer in the US maybe you could measure some such as ATC SCM20

ATC-SCM20SL-Classic.png
 

Thomas savage

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Uh-huh.

What flavor of ice cream: chocolate vanilla, or strawberry?

Dark or milk chocolate?

If the most popular was vanilla ice cream, should we put a decapitated toy over cookies and cream’s head?
It's the mix of sugar and fat that's irresistible for the vast majority of humans and thusly makes Amirm's point.

Maybe next time mate lol.
 

daftcombo

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@amirm not sure if you've heard of ATC Loudspeakers - I believe there is a dealer in the US maybe you could measure some such as ATC SCM20

ATC-SCM20SL-Classic.png
I heard a ATC driver in a DIY speaker and was very impressed. And look at this beautiful glossy dome!
 

Thomas savage

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The community has stepped up since yesterday. Many people have started to donate, and others have increased their donation levels. Thank you so much to all of you.

Alas, we have a long way to go given the very high expense of this system. The key to that is to help spread the news and keep the membership expanding so the money can come from more people.

Remember, we don't just need money to pay for the Klippel system. I also need money to have a lavish lifestyle that keeps @Thomas savage jealous forever!
Lavish, freezing your balls off in a garage .. digestive system ravaged by time and having to get up 3 times a night for a pee.

Colour me relieved.

Oh , mind your back with those speakers Gramps X
 

bobbooo

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How much time I have to do this, I don't know. But my goal was to test blind and use my youngest son who has excellent high frequency hearing (and overall sensitivity). I pursued help to get an automated turntable to switch speakers quickly but got too much for me to handle. If someone can help build this, it would be great. It is just a simple table that you put 3 speakers on, and it rotates them into position using external control. My thought is to limit it to smaller speakers right now. Once there, I can put an acoustically transparent curtain in front of it and perform ABC tests while someone else listens. I can use my dedicated theater which is extremely quiet and has the space to hold such contraption. :)

Wow, you really are going all-out on this project! :) While obviously not as rigorous as full ABX/ABC studies with multiple listeners, this does sound like a good idea that could produce a useful indication of the subjective audibility of differences in speaker performance. Hopefully someone can help you build the switching system for future tests.

Failing this, I just plan to turn on the speaker and give it a quick listen in my main system area/lab. This would be a casual test but sufficient for people who say, "did you listen?"

Probably a good idea, even if it's not that reliable, hopefully it might introduce these people to the world of objective measurements. Otherwise they might be put off from reading the reviews entirely. But as I said, I'd do these listening tests before taking/looking at measurements, to at least take one source of expectation bias out of the equation.
 

Gedeon

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Well, I was hoping it would be JBL 305P powered monitors. I was "smart" and ran an XLR cable through the central column for powered speakers. I was dumb to not think that I would also need to run AC power the same way! Duh! So I dangled an AC cable on the side, and sat there watching it in the cold garage for an hour to make sure it doesn't tangle. Well, all the moving caused the extension cable to lose connection with it and a bunch of measurements were just noise. I was hoping the Klippel software could deal with that but could not. It generated totally garbage data. So today's project is to fish an AC cable up the post. There is no room to do that with a normal extension cable as the head won't fit there. Will have to cut the head off, fish it up, and then put it back down. All the while making sure the harness is not too thick to fit the slot in the platform.

While it was running, I was impressed by how smooth its curve was compared to the JBL Control 1 speaker. Wish I had not lost the data so I could share it with you all.

Anyway, stand by until I get that out. I am hoping it will help refine reporting, analysis and workflow. As such, I won't be offering it as "review" as much as a measurement put forward for discussion.

In fact I started donating today through the upgrade account option. Hope it'll help.
 
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