ASR MEMBERS: What System Would YOU Choose To Blow Away Non-Audiophiles?

[ferrellms]

Wasn't sure how to phrase the thread title but...

I was re-visiting a couple ASR threads discussing some articles about audiophiles and high end audio. I'm sure many remember the discussions of this article:

Audiophilia and its discontents

Corner Club Cathedral Cocoon, by Sasha Frere-Jones

Audiophilia and its discontents

harpers.org

And

The New York Times visit Ojas:

His Audio Speakers Are Coveted by Supreme, Mark Ronson and Prada (Published 2022)

Devon Turnbull is the founder of Ojas, a high-end audio company. Previously, he was the streetwear pioneer behind Nom de Guerre.

www.nytimes.com

I think the main annoyance with such articles is this: Here we are with some big magazines deigning to write articles about high end audio, and what do we get? A focus on all sorts of goofy retro gear, tube amps and the like. Another missed opportunity to describe where audio actually is now, the advances available, e.g. powered speakers, DSP etc.

So my question is:

If you had the power to have an article written, in which the author and other non-audiophiles were introduced to high end audio, AND were given listening experiences to see what it's all about, to impress them: what type of gear would you talk about and want to demonstrate?

Cost is no object, dream up whatever system you'd think would wow the subjects and demonstrate what can be done. So it's your chance to represent High End Audio in an article, what do you choose?

My system - Kii 3s, some room treatment (Bass traps in the corners and back wall, sound absorption on the floor in front of the speakers), some digital PEQ for room resonances, and sound from my computer directly digital into the DACs in the Kiis, and some Ravel, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Third Coast Percussion, Ghost-Note, Snarky Puppy, or Steven Wilson.

 

[ferrellms]

Which is better per the science, not opinion? Are there scientific papers you can cite that back up your claims I can read? (not at all being snarky, a genuine question, as maybe I have some ignorance here that needs corrected … always happy to be corrected by science).

And maybe I just don’t have golden ears, but I have definitely been blown away by the cardioids I have heard (with no room treatment).

I second that whole-heartedly. I have loved my Genelecs for years, but my Kiis are a whole new bag - cardioid! I did find that some PEQ for the room resonances and bass traps and some sound absorption to kill floor bounce helped - just don't trip over those absorber panels on the floor!

 

[Bjorn]

Which is better per the science, not opinion? Are there scientific papers you can cite that back up your claims I can read? (not at all being snarky, a genuine question, as maybe I have some ignorance here that needs corrected … always happy to be corrected by science).

And maybe I just don’t have golden ears, but I have definitely been blown away by the cardioids I have heard (with no room treatment).

Better in terms of having less room interaction due to the mentioned narrower beamwidth. Especially vertically, but also horizontally with for example 30-60° less beamwidth.
And better in regards to uniformity of the directivity as mentioned. Both of these can clearly be seen in measurements.

And well designed horns are better in areas like distortion, transient response and dynamics. The result is a sound that is more open, detailed, more engaging, and with a illusion of instruments and vocals other speakers generally don't achieve.

 

[Bjorn]

Have you heard an “indoor” cardioid? I have just about heard it all and never heard mid to low frequencies reproduced as well as I have from cardioid … and best of all, with ZERO room treatment. I rather have speakers that adapt to the room and require no room treatment than speakers that you have to make your room look like a sanitarium padded cell to sound decent. Which by the way definitely does not appeal to the masses (room treatment), coming back to the point of this thread.

Again, there is nothing called directivity of the lowest frequencies in a small room due to the size of wavelengths. You probably just heard a room that was quite good and they had worked on placement. Same can happen with monopoles and dipoles. However, they do trigger room modes somewhat differently. So if you are locked to a certain speaker placement in the room, one design can give you a flatter bass response vs another. But with optimization of placement, there's is no design better than the other here. One reason why some find dipoles to work better in the bass, is simply because of the dipole cancellation with less exentension. And when there's less extention of the bass, obviously one triggers less room modes and harmonics too. Same can be achieved with a monopole by using a high pass filter of course.

There is less room interaction above the Schroeder from a cardioid vs a typical front firing speaker with 180° beamwidth. And there's no doubt one can hear that with for example the B&O Beolab 90 or 50 when changing from wide to narrow when they are placed close to side walls. But obviously, a speaker with even narrower beamwidth will have even less room interaction. So if that's the goal, either a larger horn speaker or a large planar speaker would be the way to go as they both have an even narrower dispersion.

You can take a look at some indoor measurements of cardioid speaker to get a picture.
Here's one:

Source here: https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/kii-three-loudspeaker-review-r735/

And here are some with comparisons to another speaker design with no cardioid dispersion:
Kii Three is blue and red is DIY JBL M2 (front firing 15" woofer with no directivity control).

Kii Three blue vs Devialet Phantom red:

Source: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...i-three-measurements.15840/page-2#post-508885

As we can see, the response isn't free from room modes in any way. And the bass response isn't necessarily more even vs a front firing speaker with wider dispersion either.

 

[Purité Audio]

When I take loudspeakers to ( potential) customers homes for evaluation I always ask them to leave their current systems in place ( whenever. possible) so we can compare measurements and the cardioid designs always have tidier measurements particularly through the cardioid response.
Remember for most there are very few options for speaker placement, speakers whose adjustability allow them to be placed close to a front wall are of considerable benefit.

Keith

 

[rdenney]

I've heard Large Advents sound good, particularly stacked large Advents. But my sense was always that they lacked focus in the upper midrange, I'm guessing in the general vicinity of the crossover. They are good with vocal music. Had a pair in the 1990s, listened exclusively to digital sources through them. The Infinity Primus 250 towers I'm now using sound a lot better than the Advents. They are limited on the bottom (thus the sub) but otherwise deliver all that I want at any reasonable volume level.

I guess it all depends on program material. I'm listening to a lot of classical music these days, was getting paid to record it thirty years ago. Piano music in particular exposes the speed variations of LP reproduction. It may not be that big of an issue for people who listen to a lot of other genres, but it is a big issue for me.

I don't think the Bose Wave Radio was the beginning of the end, it simply addressed a part of the market that hadn't been addressed for a long time. The KLH model 21 tabletop radio addressed that sector of the market long before that. I've got a Boston Acoustic radio in the kitchen that does more or less the same thing. It's got an aux in that I use with my Digital Audio Player (Fiio M3K), sounds good enough while cleaning the kitchen. What Bose had and has going in its favor are good advertising campaigns.

There are better speakers than Advents, but at their price they were game changers for a lot of people our age and means when we were young.

But those table-top radios and CD players signaled the beginning of self-contained contained “stereos” with pretensions of excellence. It was the way the Bose was advertised (you don’t need separates) that traces a path to BT speakers used in lieu of a nice home system.

Rick “noting table-top and click radios were mono early on” Denney

 

[Descartes]

Personally I think Beolab 90 and 50 are best cardioid speakers I have heard. They are both cardioid in narrow mode. Whilst I didn't exactly get blown away by the sound from them, there are those who have.
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Cool industrial design! They are super expensive and their target markets are men between 40-55 with substantial disposable income!

 

[sergeauckland]

In my experience, what impresses non-audiophiles is boom 'n' tizz. A properly neutral system will sound to them quite boring on first hearing.

I have lost count of the number who, when seeing my 'speakers, ask 'How many watts are those?' As if that mattered, but clearly does to them.

Relatively so few people attend Classical music concerts, or other unamplified acoustic music concerts that what 'real' music sounds like is unknown to them.

I've given up demonstrating my system to 'civilians' as they just don't get it.

S.

 

[gnarly]

Relatively so few people attend Classical music concerts, or other unamplified acoustic music concerts that what 'real' music sounds like is unknown to them.

You know, maybe that is THE great divide in terms of desired audio reproduction.........unamplified acoustic vs amplified.

Personally, classical bores me to death. Some intimate unamplified acoustic is awesome, but quite rare to experience.
Amplified moves me, caresses me, rocks me.

A can agree with regards to wanting a neutral system...but it better have SPL and bass balls, or it is not neutral...it's neutered!
(come to think, I think most all home audio is neutered....for either classical or amplified)

 

[MattHooper]

Personally I think Beolab 90 and 50 are best cardioid speakers I have heard. They are both cardioid in narrow mode. Whilst I didn't exactly get blown away by the sound from them, there are those who have.
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The Beolab 90 is to me one of the most awful looking speakers of all time. Even if I could afford them I couldn't let those things in my house.

 

[Bjorn]

The Beolab 90 is to me one of the most awful looking speakers of all time. Even if I could afford them I couldn't let those things in my house.

Kudos to B&O for designing a speaker where form follows functions. Still, I don't think it has the "blow away quality" which some speaker designs have.

What's really impressive to me is the experience of hearing real instruments and real voices. That requires another speaker design and good hifi tend to get a bit borring when you're experienced that.

Besides certain speaker designs, my other blown away experience was when I visited a mastering studio with a type of treatment I hadn't heard before at that time. While I had listened to a good number of rooms before with excessive treatment, I had never heard a room with so much late arriving diffuse energy. It had the combination of detail/accuracy with a high level of energy that was comple mesmerizing. I realized then how vital it is to remain energy and avoid dryness, but still without the detrimental effect of high gain specular energy. Something almost no one achieves, nor have experienced.

 

[rdenney]

Reviewing this thread, I can’t help but think most of us are missing the point and are trying to impress audiophile-wannabe friends who are actually willing to be impressed. So, thought experiment: imagine the target friend is someone one is attracted to sexually who one is trying to impress, but who is not interested in audio. I add the sexual component because then impressing them matters to us a lot more.

When impressing someone really is important it suddenly becomes easy to hear the system with their ears instead ours. And then the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Lots of people love music, but simply care not one whit how (or how well) it is produced. Stuff we think we notice is invisible to them. The realization of that can be like Truth descending upon us in one great crashing wave.

I’m reminded of Stanley Tibbets (played by Dudley Moore) in the movie Foul Play: “I’ve got it all,” spoken with decreasing conviction as he realizes his stuff isn’t making the impression he’d hoped it would.

The only satisfaction ASR types get is that the target paramours will roll their eyes even more on seeing foolishness like cable lifters and vacuum tubes.

Rick “cook them a great meal, and leave the sound level low” Denney

 

[gnarly]

Reviewing this thread, I can’t help but think most of us are missing the point and are trying to impress audiophile-wannabe friends who are actually willing to be impressed. So, thought experiment: imagine the target friend is someone one is attracted to sexually who one is trying to impress, but who is not interested in audio. I add the sexual component because then impressing them matters to us a lot more.

When impressing someone really is important it suddenly becomes easy to hear the system with their ears instead ours. And then the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Lots of people love music, but simply care not one whit how (or how well) it is produced. Stuff we think we notice is invisible to them. The realization of that can be like Truth descending upon us in one great crashing wave.

Funny you should bring in impressing a lovely lady. My system is truly designed with that in mind!!!
After playing some nice pretty music to let her get used to the clarity, dynamics, and bass extension, I pick up the music tempo and turn the volume up a bit.
And keep both climbing.
Usually before you know it, we are dancing like crazy.
Good sound often leads to some really good fun!

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Kudos to B&O for designing a speaker where form follows functions. Still, I don't think it has the "blow away quality" which some speaker designs have.

Perhaps but my experience tells me otherwise. I first heard the Beolab90s at B&O in Struer when I traveled there to learn about a new but undefined product. Their "Tonnmeister," Geoff Martin, took me to a small studio where the front half was blocked from my view by an acoustically-transparent curtain. For several hours, I listened to recordings that I brought with me without knowing anything of what was behind the curtain. I took notes but, overall, it was among the best sounding handful of experiences in my life, possibly the best but it is not possible to know that.

After I was satisfied that I "knew" what I was hearing, he removed curtain while the music was playing and I was stunned. The pair of proto-90s were nothing like what my mind had conjured and placed differently than I imagined the unknown speakers to be. Even the space they were in and their placement in regard to the sidewalls were surprises. It is not certain I would have judged the sound as I did had I been biased by the appearances.

Under those blind conditions, would these "blow away" a novice or a non-audiophile? I doubt it. Their size and design might.

 

[Bjorn]

I heard the Belolab 90 the first time at a hifi show in Stockholm in 2016. I believe that was the first official exhibition for the Beolab 90. Not the best pictures, but in large room as one can see.

Both me and my friends thought it was a complete dissapointment. The bass was tuned way too high and it just sounded off with lack of better words. I don't think they were finally tuned, which the review with measurements also confirmed.

We went straight down to a small room with Klipsch Cornwall and low cost Rotel electronics. We looked at each other in disbelief. At that time the Cornwall cost much a less then today, but we all heard instruments sounding like the real deal. I had heard before from certain horn speakers, but my friends had never experiences that kind of realism from a speaker. They were definetly blown away. Not that the Klipsch Cornwall are without weaknesses though, but they did something no one other speaker at that show did.

Later I was able to hear the Beolab 90 at a local B&O dealer and sounded really good, especially in cardioid/narrow mode. Probably one of the best auditions I have had in hifi store. And Beolab 50, which I heard later in the same store, also sounded good. But neither of them gives an the experience of listening to real vocals and instruments. It's only good hifi.

 

[Mr. Widget]

Later I was able to hear the Beolab 90 at a local B&O dealer and sounded really good, especially in cardioid/narrow mode. Probably one of the best auditions I have had in hifi store. And Beolab 50, which I heard later in the same store, also sounded good. But neither of them gives an the experience of listening to real vocals and instruments. It's only good hifi.

My only experience with the Beolab 90 was similar to yours. At the time I was working for a company that B&O was trying to convince to become dealers. They invited a few of us to a local B&O factory store for an exclusive demo. The speakers sounded nice. I was not excited by their sound and the aesthetics is something that you either love or you don't. As a point of comparison, the first time I heard Revel Salon2s I knew they were special, though I didn't care for their aesthetics either.

 

[Purité Audio]

I spent a great deal of time with the 90s I tried ( extremely hard ) to be allowed to sell them without success, I really rate them particularly in their ‘narrow’ mode, pricing appears to have gone through the roof though, perhaps one of those cases where they were too cheap at their original £60k.
Keith

 

[Bjorn]

Hate them in narrow mode? Why? That's the one with cardioid dispersion. Price is ridiculously high, agree about that.

 

[Purité Audio]

Rate ( value highly) not hate. After the initial release secondhand prices dropped to around £30k which wasn’t too painful.
Keith

 

[kapone]

Large horn system with broadband constant directivity and low crossover. Separate bass solution with great capacity and low modulation distortion. Acoustical treated room with control over low frequency resonances and specular energy, and with late arriving diffuse energy.
Low distortion electronics and of course active with amp to each driver.

Large horns - check
lots of bass capability - check
lots of amplifier channels/power - check
lots of DSP channels - check
Zero visibility (once I complete the surrounding panels) - check.

Does this qualify?