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Binaural blind comparison test of 4 loudspeakers - II

Which speaker comes closest to the original recording?

  • Speaker A

    Votes: 7 25.9%
  • Speaker B

    Votes: 4 14.8%
  • Speaker C

    Votes: 3 11.1%
  • Speaker D

    Votes: 13 48.1%

  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .
OP
C

ctrl

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I do expect however that there will be more spread in the results this time, as it was a more difficult "test".
That was fully intentional ;) As written, there is no extremely "bad" speaker.
Almost all models are widely known with consistently very good reviews. Well, the latter has a zero information content, since almost all reviews (apart from a few exceptions) are always very good.

For me, there was a stalemate for a long time and that although I already know the speaker models.
I hope we get enough votes together to be able to make clear statements about the preferences. It could come out amazing...
 

Blumlein 88

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I found a couple to not be in the running, and a couple that were very hard to choose between. I noticed the top two vote getters as of now are the same two I regarded as better. Plus at the moment they have equal votes.

Thanks for including the original to use as a reference.
 

PierreV

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I have a suspicion that the acoustic conditions related to loudspeaker setup/placement has an impact on all of the loudspeakers here... can say more about that when the results are revealed.
Please do. There's something bothering me a bit as well, but I can't put my finger on it.
I voted for my preferred tonal balance but I didn't feel that choice was the best in all aspects.
 

dfuller

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I think I have a favorite, and it's [redacted]. I used Pro Tools in X-Or solo mode with Solo In Place to compare them even more quickly.

That said, I have some critiques of the samples.
1, I had to pull them into Pro Tools and time align the different samples so I could flip back and forth quickly - these were not aligned in the slightest. Maybe next time I would recommend doing that so it's easier to do an even more rapid A/B comparison. Have an "example track" of sorts with the original audio examples, and then align the first transient of each in-room recording with that sample.
2, the music choices are very much in the "audiophile elevator music" category, and none of these were something I would consider particularly challenging for a decent speaker to reproduce (but others have covered this).

Please do. There's something bothering me a bit as well, but I can't put my finger on it.
I voted for my preferred tonal balance but I didn't feel that choice was the best in all aspects.
This was definitely done in a fairly live room, and it had a pretty major impact on the speaker responses.
 
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ctrl

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This was definitely done in a fairly live room, and it had a pretty major impact on the speaker responses.

The listening room in which the binaural recordings were made is significantly better acoustically treated than the average listening room, but not as good as a room in a recording studio.
When the information on this is published, there are some things that can be criticized about the recording conditions. Nevertheless, the recording conditions were the same for all speakers.

If the "fairly live room" ruins everything, no favorite is likely to stand out in the ratings. If it does, we'll have to look at the speaker in question in detail and see if the rating somehow correlates with the frequency response measurements.
 

PierreV

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It would be interesting to see how what we currently have/prefer as our long time speakers correlates with our choices. The speaker I least prefer here almost sounds broken to me, even if, from the description of the test, none of them are supposed to be.
 

Thomas_A

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Will be interesting this time. I never compared to the original but only between speakers with focus on the piano session. Timbre and distortion of the piano notes and my preference based on that.
 

dfuller

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If the "fairly live room" ruins everything, no favorite is likely to stand out in the ratings. If it does, we'll have to look at the speaker in question in detail and see if the rating somehow correlates with the frequency response measurements.
I don't think it ruins everything, mind, but we're definitely hearing more of it than we are the speakers themselves if that makes sense.
 

oivavoi

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I don't think it ruins everything, mind, but we're definitely hearing more of it than we are the speakers themselves if that makes sense.

I didn't perceive the acoustic situation as overly lively, tbh. I think that we listen to binaural recordings of loudspeakers, we will perceive the room as more lively than if were in that very room listening to the same loudspeakers. The reason is that our brain doesn't adapt to the acoustics in the room when we are not there, so we don't separate out the direct sound from the reflections to the same degree.

I can hint at what bothered me: I thought all the loudspeakers had a certain suckout in a certain frequency range - I assume either the lower mids or the high bass. The deep bass is there, but in the frequency range above that there's something missing to my ears. I attribute that to either acoustic cancellation due to loudspeaker or driver placement (either from the wall behind the loudspeakers or the floor), OR issues with the baffle design that these speakers have in common (Robert Green claims that all narrow baffle speakers sound too "thin"). I may be completely wrong about this, of course!
 

Triliza

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I have a hard time choosing one of the speakers. What I am hearing from all speakers is a narrower soundstage, is that a general problem with binaural recordings? Also I think I cannot hear a musical instrument at all on the third track from all the speakers, it's something like a maracas. Maybe my headphones are not too revealing, can anyone hear it?
 

Blumlein 88

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I have a hard time choosing one of the speakers. What I am hearing from all speakers is a narrower soundstage, is that a general problem with binaural recordings? Also I think I cannot hear a musical instrument at all on the third track from all the speakers, it's something like a maracas. Maybe my headphones are not too revealing, can anyone hear it?
I don't know that it is a regular problem with binaural, but in this case I also hear a narrowing of the stage.

In my opinion only two are worthwhile. One has more of the stage width, and a bigger sound. The other is narrower, but the inner detail and musical message seems to get thru better to me. Ultimately I judged it my favorite.
 
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ctrl

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I have a hard time choosing one of the speakers. What I am hearing from all speakers is a narrower soundstage, is that a general problem with binaural recordings? Also I think I cannot hear a musical instrument at all on the third track from all the speakers, it's something like a maracas.
In my opinion only two are worthwhile. One has more of the stage width, and a bigger sound. The other is narrower, but the inner detail and musical message seems to get thru better to me. Ultimately I judged it my favorite.
That's interesting, for me, when asked the question "Which speaker comes closest to the original recording", what matters most is whether the tonality of the speakers matches the original recording. The soundstage of the speakers produced in the binaural recordings was not a priority for me.
 

Thomas_A

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Interesting that we all choose different ways of listening. My primary listening focus on distortion and timbre of voices and in this case piano. Piano can sound distorted and ”hard” if the harmonics of the fundamentals are messed up.
 
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ctrl

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Interesting that we all choose different ways of listening. My primary listening focus on distortion and timbre of voices and in this case piano. Piano can sound distorted and ”hard” if the harmonics of the fundamentals are messed up.
Wow! Since one always infers from oneself to others, it never occurred to me that the tonality of the speakers would not be the top priority - it seems I am too self-centered ;)
The possible distortions or " imperfections " were the second priority for me to compare with the original recording.
 

Triliza

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I wouldn't say that soundstage is the most important factor for me, I became aware of this while visualizing for particular instruments to appear on the stage, so I could compare tonality and timbre, and they would be a little bit more toward the center than the original. Also about that maracas (or whatever it is), in the original it is clearly audible and positioned in the right side of the stage, on the speakers I think it gets lost because of the compressing of the stage.

That said, I wish there was some woman voice in there, piano isn't exactly working for me, I don't have proper music education.
 

TimVG

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I took the question literally and so I didn't find this test to be very hard. I think I spent less than a minute in total comparing each file against the original on my samsung earbuds. I find in general the more and longer I listen the more confusing it becomes. Fwiw, I'm with the majority in terms of results (so far) :)
 

Thomas_A

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Wow! Since one always infers from oneself to others, it never occurred to me that the tonality of the speakers would not be the top priority - it seems I am too self-centered ;)
The possible distortions or " imperfections " were the second priority for me to compare with the original recording.

Well tonality/timbre is one factor also for piano but it is less focused on the bass region in this case, something that I suspect is very revealing. I am still however uncertain of how these binaural recordings take account for the fact that they are binaural when it comes to evaluations. As far as I know one would need headphones that have binaural target curves or room acoustics that show a neutral linear music power vs frequency (thus enabling using headphones with Harman target).
 

PierreV

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Wow! Since one always infers from oneself to others, it never occurred to me that the tonality of the speakers would not be the top priority - it seems I am too self-centered ;)
The possible distortions or " imperfections " were the second priority for me to compare with the original recording.

As I said above I went for tonality as well (ending up with what seems to be the majority's choice) but felt that maybe my choice wasn't the most accurate speakers in terms of other parameters.

The possible explanation for me: after I found the speakers in the other tests "crappy" I did binaural recordings of my own speakers. I found the results to be as "crappy" (if not more) as the initial recordings. Almost everything that made my speakers enjoyable was gone, except for their general tonality which was preserved. In a listening comparison such as this one, I can't help jumping on the parameter that I assume is the best-preserved but mostly the most accessible.

I am probably rambling and repeating myself here but while comparing the crappiest pair of speakers I have on my computer desktop with the most expensive floor standers in my main room (costing roughly 330 times the list price of the desk speakers) would be absurd, yet I haven't felt the need to replace my desktop speakers and I don't find listening to them disagreeable because, on the whole, their FR is similar.

That's why, ultimately I find myself in the position of both agreeing and disagreeing with the work of Toole and others. FR has a major impact on preference ratings but there must be tons of other things that matter given the chasm between my floor standers and desktop speakers.
 

PierreV

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Well tonality/timbre is one factor also for piano but it is less focused on the bass region in this case, something that I suspect is very revealing. I am still however uncertain of how these binaural recordings take account for the fact that they are binaural when it comes to evaluations. As far as I know one would need headphones that have binaural target curves or room acoustics that show a neutral linear music power vs frequency (thus enabling using headphones with Harman target).
Totally agree, but impossible in practice imho (which is why I did not attempt noise/sweep recordings as asked previously). But yes, obviously if the binaurally recorded speaker has a drop that is 1) faithfully recorded by the microphones but 2) compensated by a peak on the headphones used for comparison... any analysis is off the table.
 

RHO

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It would have been much easier to compare the speakers if you hadn't grouped the recordings per speaker but per music clip.
Like: "clip1-> original - speaker A- speaker B- speaker C - Speaker D" in one file. and the same for clip 2 and 3. Or make separate files for each speaker and clip. The shorter the clip the better and the faster one can switch the easier the comparison.

I did not find any reasonable way to compare them so I did not vote.
 
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