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Announcement: ASR Will Be Measuring Speakers!

restorer-john

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Very impressive!

I hope you have the safety tape on the floor of your garage (like in the video).

So what about the car? Is it outside in the cold now?

So I guess there are different supporting plates for different sized speakers and what is the maximum size you can do? Do the speakers have to be screwed onto the plate? What will the neighbours think of this crazy robotic contraption spinning around and making weird noises in your garage?
 

tsanguine

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These equally scares me and excites me. The logistics are terrifying as is the time commitment. Amir needs a shop monkey to employ.

Scary:
Amir's time spread to thin
Cost of shipping speakers
Sending/ordering a speaker to Amir and having to wait to get it (maybe on par with massdrop)

Excited:
the waves this could cause in the industry
so much guesswork out of my purchases
for vintage speakers how they perform when measured up against modern ones
how smaller outfits like Philharmonic Audio compare to their much better and well known brethren.

Every speaker I have ever owned has come from craigslist so I'm especially interested in classic ones.

I can't stop thinking about the vast number of speakers I would want to see measured. Maybe someone needs to start a list.

NHT, Boston Acoustics, Ohm Walsh, ESS, Magnepan
 
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amirm

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How was the reaction of Mr Klippel when you approached him the 1st time to buy the system and told him what your intentions are? ......did he believed you????
It was positive beyond my imagination! He was extremely supportive and only wished he was retired so that he could take on activities like this. :)
 

Cahudson42

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Curious - do you always use the same power amplifier so as to eliminate that variable? Or will you sometimes be using different Amplifier's with the same speaker? Perhaps to see the effect of bi-amping, amps with similar measurements but different df, different crossovers, etc? Developing EQ profiles? (Like @solderdude for HP?)
 
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amirm

amirm

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So what about the car? Is it outside in the cold now?
The car has not been inside the garage for years. :) The car doesn't mind the outside. Stuff we have in our garages do. :)
 
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amirm

amirm

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Curious - do you always use the same power amplifier so as to eliminate that variable?
These kind of systems/measurements are not precise enough to matter. But yes, I am using the Behringer amp I tested for all my measurements since it has balanced inputs and it was gathering dust. And it has plenty of power as to not distort itself
 

Music1969

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This meant I only had one place to put it which was our garage. With winter here and temps 10 to 15 degrees above freezing. and concrete floor, it was not fun.

Congrats amir. Just a question about cold temps in garage - will this be an issue in speaker performance?

Do you have a minimum temperature in mind where you will not measure if it is below this minimum (because of speaker performance, not because it’s too cold for you)
 

Cahudson42

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vintage speakers how they perform when measured up against modern ones
Except unlike electronics, the effects of physical deterioration (surrounds,etc.) and/or abuse with vintage transducers add another variable with them. Start with 'new' to gain experience? Vintage 'later'?
 
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amirm

amirm

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Congrats amir. Just a question about cold temps in garage - will this be an issue in speaker performance?
It is about 60 degrees in the Garage now. Good thing about living where we are is that temperature extremes are very rare. Summer is probably 70 degrees. If it is much colder than that, I probably won't measure anything. :)

If you measure in far field, then temperature will make a bigger difference as Klippel says in their slides:
1578259505954.png
 
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amirm

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Would it be a good idea to have an ASR curated list of important speakers to review? I think this would be a good use of one of the valuable resources of this site: its members. (How to compile the list can be figured out later.) I know the chances of getting the wide majority of the speakers in for review are slim, but to have it as a sort of stickie might help bring a few more of them in than otherwise.
Yes, this provided useful to gather all the asks and offers in the same thread with respect to DACs.
 

Nango

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Will the results and measurements be comparable along all price categories?? Is it like SINAD with the electronics? ..... And Team Panther can stay!!!!!
 
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daftcombo

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After killing snake oil electronics, Amir will destroy the 5 digit speakers insane business.

We are living the most exciting moments in "hi-fi" since the construction of the first speakers.
 
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amirm

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Will the results and measurements be comparable along all price categories?? Is it like SINAD with the electronics? ..... And Team Panther can stay!!!!!
In general yes. Correlation across all speakers in Harmans speaker tests was 80% but over 90% if you stuck in the same category (bookshelf, vs tower). Of course there will be differences in max SPL and such which I won't test for and will impact the price, size, etc.
 
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amirm

amirm

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+1 Not optional with robotic systems!
It has an extremely sensitive collision detection which shuts it down. Even touching the speaker wires causes it to stop. But yes, the servo motors are quite powerful and can easily crush fingers and toes if allowed.
 

AudioTodd

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May I suggest, to the extent possible, a variety of technologies be tried as soon as possible to create baselines for comparison? I’m thinking omnidirectionals, planars, minimonitors, floorstanders, horns, etc. to kind of quickly survey the universe of possibilities. Of course that will require us and hopefully manufacturers to step up.
 
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