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Binaural blind comparison test of 4 loudspeakers
- Thread starter thewas
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My preference was for "B" (turns out I was not alone
) and I listened with generic Samsung/AKG EO-IC100 USB-C earbuds.Though all have some tonality differences between them, my main reasons for eliminating other speakers were:
- "A" had some bass resonance that muddied-up a few sections in track #2
- "C" is very thin sounding, a bit of the transistor-radio sound - I assume it is some compact or BT speaker
- "D" clipped in a section in track #2
C is really awful, instant disqualification.
D is colored, and not in a good way, I can very clearly 'hear' the room with D. I wouldn't be surprised if that speaker has the most low frequency extension if the output is not EQed at all in the room. either A or D have the most low frequency extension
B and A has less amount of bass, making them the only two options left. but obviously B is significantly louder than A and thus it wins the comparison. Whether the difference in loudness is a function of the frequency response or not i'm not sure. A has the most low frequency extension between the two though.
So in conclusion, B is louder in mid-bass making it sound 'fast' and 'impactful' which plays well in Track 2. Track 1 was not really a good track to showcase differences between speakers imo.
D is colored, and not in a good way, I can very clearly 'hear' the room with D. I wouldn't be surprised if that speaker has the most low frequency extension if the output is not EQed at all in the room. either A or D have the most low frequency extension
B and A has less amount of bass, making them the only two options left. but obviously B is significantly louder than A and thus it wins the comparison. Whether the difference in loudness is a function of the frequency response or not i'm not sure. A has the most low frequency extension between the two though.
So in conclusion, B is louder in mid-bass making it sound 'fast' and 'impactful' which plays well in Track 2. Track 1 was not really a good track to showcase differences between speakers imo.
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I primarily listened for choir/voice distortions and found that loudspeaker B had the least of that using my DT-150 headphones. I have a big suspicion however that loudspeaker B is way too bright in-room and would probably not choose that if I listened live or using binaural-optimised headphones.
that's not what i experienced, B is more neutral with a hump in mid-bass.
Final conclusions: D is a sealed speaker, A is a bass reflex speaker, B has a mid-bass hump.
Could be. I have no idea about the room response in that particular setup. I chose B anyhow.
eyes-on-you
Active Member
My preferences are
Track1
1-a
2-b
3-d
4-c
Track 2
1-a
2-b
3-c
4-d
Track1
1-a
2-b
3-d
4-c
Track 2
1-a
2-b
3-c
4-d
Could you maybe add also with what you listened to the samples?
well i first listened to all 4 of them briefly and realised B is the one i perfered the most, then I realized Drums decay time in B are much higher than all the rest making it louder and punchier, then I realized it's just the drums that behave this way so i thought the speaker has a mid-bass hump.
Well i listened on my headphones EQed to the Harman Target.
TimVG
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None of the tracks sounded great to me, but B overall had the least amount of objectionable flaws to my ears. Tested on AKG K371 and standard samsung galaxy earbuds (which I prefer to the AKG for general listening with a slight bass EQ).
komhst
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I listened all tacks in foobar2000 (no dsp equalisation) -> Behringer Ultramatch 2496 -> AKG K141 MKII Studio
In track 1 I was between loudspeakers B & A
In track 2 I was between loudspeakers A & D
So, I voted A although it was not my first choice for both tracks.
Maybe I'll try to listen again with two other pair of headphones I own (Audio Technica & Marshall) to see if I'll make the same choice...
In track 1 I was between loudspeakers B & A
In track 2 I was between loudspeakers A & D
So, I voted A although it was not my first choice for both tracks.
Maybe I'll try to listen again with two other pair of headphones I own (Audio Technica & Marshall) to see if I'll make the same choice...
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Speaker A didn't have good bass. It was a little wooly and the midrange is unclear.
Speaker B had more bass, but not good bass. Also the midrange wasn't to my liking and seemed to have little treble.
Speaker C had less bass, better midrange, but seemed almost clipping on some loud parts or at least distorting.
Speaker D had well controlled bass with a clear midrange. It too seems like it clipped a time or two, but not often enough to be a problem as it seemed to recover quickly.
Initially listened with an RME BabyFace Pro FS and Sony MDR 7510 headphones.
Speaker B had more bass, but not good bass. Also the midrange wasn't to my liking and seemed to have little treble.
Speaker C had less bass, better midrange, but seemed almost clipping on some loud parts or at least distorting.
Speaker D had well controlled bass with a clear midrange. It too seems like it clipped a time or two, but not often enough to be a problem as it seemed to recover quickly.
Initially listened with an RME BabyFace Pro FS and Sony MDR 7510 headphones.
I second that, using both EQed HD800 and K371 (with a little less bass than recommended by @amirm). These are my subjective impressions:
| Speaker | K371 and HD800 |
|---|---|
| A | on both tracks: boomy bass, muddy mids, no highs |
| B | most neutral FR, no resonances but also no/low bass - I prefer more. 2nd score with Bach and favorite for Beethoven, hence my overall winner |
| C | Bach: one note bass of low amplitude Beethoven: very thin |
| D | Bach: My favorite due to its clearer intelligibility of the voices - which may be due to age related hearing loss. Beethoven: much too bright with no bass - could it be an Adam studio monitor? Might sound fatiguing with neutral recordings. |
| Notes | No real effect of head related soundstage with the K371, much better with the HD800 |
I was listening over a D10 DAC/JDS labs Atom/Drop HD-6XX headphones (Sennheiser equivalent).
At the bottom:
C was terrible, really terrible.
A seemed confused, lacked any detail what was this, a telephone land line?
I preferred D over B, going against consensus. D seemed natural, clear, maybe I share that age related hearing loss.
B was a close second for me, nothing bad but little base, slight muddiness.
Binaural recordings (at least these examples) are just plain weird. Even a mediocre Spotify/Pandora sounds better than this. Youtube "speaker tests" sound better. What is going on?
Ok, here are my impressions. Listened on the Sony MDR-7506, which to my ears are superb (tonality/FR is spot on, and the added distortion doesn't seem to bother me). My experience was that I found it hard to form a clear preference with the first track (Bach). I thought I had a preference, but I wasn't sure about it and whether it would be consistent if I did a re-test later.
With the second track (Beethoven), however, I had a very clear preference for loudspeaker B. I assume it was easier for me to form a preference on this track because this track is more intensive and thus demands more of the loudspeaker. I won't claim that my listening provided me with a detailed technical analysis of what I was hearing, because it wasn't like that and I didn't bother listening in detail once I formed a presence. In subjective terms, I perceived a higher presence of the music. I would guess that the mids may be somewhat elevated in this speaker compared to some of the others, but I may be wrong about that. The presentation also seemed more coherent in a way.
Second-best for me was loudspeaker A, which I thought was the one which was closest to B in overall sound.
C was the worst-sounding by far.
D was different - it sounded more airy, less direct. Bass was worse than B and A to my ears. I would guess that this is a loudspeaker with broad dispersion. I often like such speakers in a room, but reproduced through headphones it sounded strange to me. Or was it about a different frequency response, a more pronounced treble perhaps? I'm not sure.
With the second track (Beethoven), however, I had a very clear preference for loudspeaker B. I assume it was easier for me to form a preference on this track because this track is more intensive and thus demands more of the loudspeaker. I won't claim that my listening provided me with a detailed technical analysis of what I was hearing, because it wasn't like that and I didn't bother listening in detail once I formed a presence. In subjective terms, I perceived a higher presence of the music. I would guess that the mids may be somewhat elevated in this speaker compared to some of the others, but I may be wrong about that. The presentation also seemed more coherent in a way.
Second-best for me was loudspeaker A, which I thought was the one which was closest to B in overall sound.
C was the worst-sounding by far.
D was different - it sounded more airy, less direct. Bass was worse than B and A to my ears. I would guess that this is a loudspeaker with broad dispersion. I often like such speakers in a room, but reproduced through headphones it sounded strange to me. Or was it about a different frequency response, a more pronounced treble perhaps? I'm not sure.
I agree with these examples sounded complete off. I thought this was going to be a test of something with a massive HF rolloff as a red herring to see how many people complained about the recordings versus who could hear a difference and rank them. Using AKG K3003 with a Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS. (great IEMs by the way; sold for $1300 10 years ago, now just $400)
I waited until Monday before analyzing the tracks, relying just on my "this sounds off" post as my proof.
Ran the soundprint on the files today for Sample 1
A B
C D
In B and D, you can clearly see that missing band around 10 khz which might be what I thought I was hearing. It's not that high of a signal though.
B was the winner in this group and what you can see is that B and D had the highest content in 6K and down range, but D has a broader hole between 5-6kHz.
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It's not blind anymore once you open up the spectrogram.
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