But, we do hear the direct sound first, and I have a hard time understanding the reasoning for defending a poor speaker, when there's tons of much better speakers, also for less money - everywhere.
I am not defending this speaker at all. Everyone who has listened to it and claiming that it sounds unnatural or flawed, has my full support, I did not like it either (if it was the very same model, might have been one size bigger or more expensive). I just want to point out that whatever flaw it has, cannot be precisely predicted by the measurements and that I see no reason to condemn it as ´intolerable´ or worst-sounding speaker ever. It appeared to me just as a sounded speaker to serve a certain audiophile audience, that's all.
ignoring any technical and scientific finding from the last 50 years of intensive research in the field - though I can't fathom why.
Neither can I, but let people choose the loudspeaker they subjectively like the most.
Speaking of ´scientific findings´, if you are referring solely to some kind of controlled polling asking groups of listeners about their subjective preference with unknown recordings in an unknown listening room, I fail to understand why this should bear more weight than the personal subjective judgement. Why should I buy speakers because some scientists having published their last manufacturer-independent research in 1986 are saying they are correct, and my ear says the opposite? Happened several times to me and does not make sense.
Zingali is rather easy. Hammer together any square box of scrap wood, apply 2 channel plate amp,..
Are you sure you have not mixed up anything? I thought this brand is mainly known for high-sensitivity passive speakers with rather unusual horn shapes.
Your statements sounds to me like you chose not to be (overly) critical with the speaker for whatever reasons. Sighted impression in a nice room with the aura of exclusivity can go a long way.
This was not the case with the occasion on which I heard them (or likely a more expensive/bigger model), and is anyways unlikely to have influence on my judgment.
The reason why I warn to condemn such speakers is that I have met a surprisingly high number of people who like such ´never-annoying´, distant, warm, silky sound, even if is surely is not neutral. And while I personally don't like it, I understand why people do and which aim they see in high end audio. Telling them how much they are victims to bad speaker design or fraudsters, discussing their mental conditions and how much their ears are kinked in comparison with the righteous speaker science, is more likely to loose them to subjectivistic absurdity forever, than to win anyone back for fact-based audio judgment.
These are all about status (price tag) and sighted impression, and not aiming so much for "pleasing sound" but for your wallet.
I don't really see the point of status or technical detail heavily influencing a sighted test, as they seem to be pretty slim, unlikely to impress anyone as a status symbol.
Having heard a legion of speakers under controlled conditions including blind tests, I am pretty sure the characteristics I have noticed with this particular Børresen model, will be distinguishable in any blind test and people who prefer it, will always prefer it under controlled conditions as well.
We don´t have to agree to that sonic ideal (I surely don't), but cooking up the conspiracy theory that it is just about ripping off some uninformed rich consumers, does not stand the test of time. Such loudspeakers would not sell and exist, if they would not win over competitors in personal comparison tests of potential buyers - however flawed their test design might be and however biased they are.
it looks like the era of enlightenment was back in the 60's and 70's.
Nowadays people go around believing Klipsch Heritage adds dynamics, and that tube amps contribute to this, while class D is somehow revealed to be "non musical" by such speakers.
People believe in power conditioners and super cables. Any review that reveals that a product does not add any real benefits, and that even shows that the manufacturer is pure hoax, is simply ignored.
Interestingly, the era of developers and scientists understanding about acoustics, is now and in the last two decades.
The sad thing in my understanding is that there had already been a time when objective and fact-based audio evaluation failed to convince people but rather lost support of the masses, in favor of fully subjectivistic and often questionable high end philosophy. I mean the 1980s and 1990s. The fact that a good portion of hi-fi buyers have a long time ago moved away from this, I prescribe to a certain degree to the way facts had been presented some 30 or 40 years ago and what was the result of ´fact/science-based´ speaker engineering. It just did not meet peoples expectations, and they quickly understood that all the ´1,800 Watts per channel!´ and ´13-35,000Hz!´ claims had nothing to do with how they perceived sound quality.
Let us not repeat the same mistakes by telling people to mistrust their ears and rely solely on ´science´ and measurements. We have the prove that it did not work.
