Concerning a speaker with atrocious measured performance in the new Stereophile . . . .

[Ron Texas]

@amirm I would rather you be spending your time on something else than moderating. Perhaps social distancing is driving people nuts.

 

[watchnerd]

Huh.

I thought this thread was about one thing, but it became about something else, but I can't tell how or why.

 

[GelbeMusik]

It is because @direstraitsfan98 knows this or another speaker from this brand. He didn't feel so bad about it, in its distant surrounding at some other audiophile's home, where he gave it a listen once in a while.

Same with me. A friend owns Lothers in some big "horn". We play chess. It's o/k so far. I wouldn't complain about his taste. Same if he would change. The charme of it is the imperfection, and still some particular music is comprehensable. Me personally wouldn't pay for the elected hardship as much in space and money. I'm not a lifestyle-yogi.

On topic: these Lothers have something to it. As soon as I recollect the idea, that these were the first loudspeakers ever, as they say, a lot is forgiven.

 

[Alexanderc]

I have always been impressed by the way that Amir and others here have not just been tolerant of criticism, but have considered critiques thoughtfully even when the tone wasn’t kind. I think it’s important to remember there is no editorial board to keep us “on brand.” Anyone expecting to read threads on this forum and get a cohesive, unified message isn’t thinking about what this forum is: a bunch of individuals from a range of cultures and experiences who each have a unique opinion. Sometimes a person is in a bad mood or just wants to fit in. Sometimes a person makes assumptions or takes a comment personally when they shouldn’t. The administration of this forum has been nothing if not understanding and patient with people who aren’t obvious trolls and we could all learn from that.
This is obviously off topic, so apologies for that, but it seems like the right time.

 

[BillH]

So let's go back to what we have here. A writer describing listening to speakers. I know nothing about the writer. But instead of using terms to describe their sonic impressions: the impact of a drum; the snap of a cymbal; or the soft sultry sound of vocals; they write as if they were writing a story that has nothing to do with audio. Why? Maybe because the writer is listening to a speaker that has no justification in the science of audio. The speaker's creator either doesn't own proper engineering tools or chooses to ignore the data they produce. So, if you had to keep your job and write about this speaker, why not write about the path you wish you had followed. It all makes sense to me.

 

[mhardy6647]

This is obviously a terrible speaker, but the impedance graph is the most amplifier friendly one I have ever seen.

Magneplanars would be (could be) even better if they didn't have crossovers

https://www.stereophile.com/content/magnepan-magneplanar-mg16qr-loudspeaker-measurements

 

[ahofer]

I was just marveling at this thread when my JBLs up and played the beginning of Tombeau de Couperin as if it were the end. I hate it when that happens. Darn speakers!

 

[BostonJack]

"They understand that a track has a beginning, a middle, and an end. "



In fairness, that's more than The Grateful Dead ever achieved.

These speakers don't Space Noodle.

 

[SimpleTheater]

It makes me sad when I talk to engineering departments who tell me they don’t push for better sound because nobody cares. I think people would care if they knew what they were missing.

This gets to the heart of losing retail showrooms. I’m very unlikely to order multiple speakers over the Internet because even with a 30 day return window I’ll have to eat $100 or more in sending back the pair I don’t like, yet I’ll buy the same pair of speakers on the Internet and pocket the $50 savings. So knowing that a pair of Elacs will blow away these Totems and cost less won’t be possible because most people know very little about what’s available. Whoever gets their ear at the time of purchase will make the sale.

True story about caring “if you know what you’re missing” from a coworker of mine about a year ago. He ordered two Viewsonic 27” monitors on my recommendation and loved them so much he asked me to take a look at his new setup, standing desk and all. When I got to his office he was speaking poetic about the color quality and brightness of his monitors. If you think he was happy before I got there, he was ecstatic when I peeled the protective plastic film off his monitors.

 

[echopraxia]

At Audioholics we try to tell it like it is. We have lost advertising contracts routinely because of it. And there in lies the rub. If a product is flawed and we are really negative, we are guaranteed to make an enemy of the manufacturer. You might say that is how it should be, but what happens is eventually nobody trusts you and nobody is willing to send you products. You then are stuck relying on buying products or consumers sending you products (which both have big limitations and is not a great model to operate an audio magazine by). That is the consumer reports and Rting model and one of those is nearly out of business due to lack of funds and the other doesn't review audio anymore.

I think we all understand that your industry faces quite the dilemma, as you describe here. From the perspective in the industry, I understand why from your perspective you are doing the best you can to stay afloat while also trying to keep reviews honest, which can be quite the challenge when these two are often at odds with each other.

But perhaps you don’t realize the real damage this review industry does to the speaker industry, and the damage done to consumers like myself who wasted $4000 on a pair of Bowers and Wilkins 702 S2’s (the last speaker I bought before realizing the importance of measurements) in part because the Stereophile review (and others) seemed to overwhelmingly glowing things to say about them. I’m not blaming you or anyone here personally, but I think we all know something is wrong and needs to change.

Someone above mentioned “toxic positivity”, and I think this is a great phrase to describe the state of these speaker reviews. It wasted a lot of my money on relatively bad speakers, before I realized this bizarre trend that all speaker reviews are always made to appear glowingly positive, no matter how good or bad the speaker actually is.

As a result, the consumer is not empowered to make better buying choices. Good speaker companies are not rewarded more than bad speaker companies. Confusion is increased all around. And so the end result is that this “toxic positivity” unfairly benefits bad speaker companies, unfairly downplays good speaker companies, and unfairly confuses and misleads consumers into wasting their money on bad products.

Ultimately then, such magazines or review companies are nothing more than sold out advertisements pretending desperately to be somehow more legitimate than they actually are. Because they’re definitely not reviews in any meaningful sense, when you are gagged so severely as describe here (and elsewhere — it seems this is a pretty “open secret”).

As far as I am concerned, the work Amir is doing here makes AudioScienceReview one of the only, if not THE only truly legitimate review site for speakers out there. And until a review site is similarly willing to openly admit a speaker is bad when a speaker is bad — I’m sorry to say but you’re not a review site, you’re just a thinly veiled ad company.

 

[Liberal Democracy]

It is a bit negative to post some creative waffle by a audio story teller and then have us all pile on and jump up and down on it.

I believe the 'pile on' over this kind of thing is some kind of social bonding expression. It's one of those behavioural things that we need to understand reflect on and manage.

So yes , the review is bullshit and it's all that's wrong with the self indulgent world of audio but should we spend our time belittling it? Is it not a little puerile or at best shows a staggering lack of ambition.

I'm inclined to agree with @restorer-john in some respects though maybe not with where that ended up and I can understand @direstraitsfan98 frustration too.

We should concer ourselves with what we stand for , promote that with positivity. Embracing as much common ground as we can with as many people as we can so we are as influential as we can be.

Now I'm closing this thread as it's not constructive, bad tempered and not worth my time or yours .

Cheers

 

[Liberal Democracy]

I think we all understand that your industry faces quite the dilemma, as you describe here. From the perspective in the industry, I understand why from your perspective you are doing the best you can to stay afloat while also trying to keep reviews honest, which can be quite the challenge when these two are often at odds with each other.

But perhaps you don’t realize the real damage this review industry does to the speaker industry, and the damage done to consumers like myself who wasted $4000 on a pair of Bowers and Wilkins 702 S2’s (the last speaker I bought before realizing the importance of measurements) in part because the Stereophile review (and others) seemed to overwhelmingly glowing things to say about them. I’m not blaming you or anyone here personally, but I think we all know something is wrong and needs to change.

Someone above mentioned “toxic positivity”, and I think this is a great phrase to describe the state of these speaker reviews. It wasted a lot of my money on relatively bad speakers, before I realized this bizarre trend that all speaker reviews are always made to appear glowingly positive, no matter how good or bad the speaker actually is.

As a result, the consumer is not empowered to make better buying choices. Good speaker companies are not rewarded more than bad speaker companies. Confusion is increased all around. And so the end result is that this “toxic positivity” unfairly benefits bad speaker companies, unfairly downplays good speaker companies, and unfairly confuses and misleads consumers into wasting their money on bad products.

Ultimately then, such magazines or review companies are nothing more than sold out advertisements pretending desperately to be somehow more legitimate than they actually are. Because they’re definitely not reviews in any meaningful sense, when you are gagged so severely as describe here (and elsewhere — it seems this is a pretty “open secret”).

As far as I am concerned, the work Amir is doing here makes AudioScienceReview one of the only, if not THE only truly legitimate review site for speakers out there. And until a review site is similarly willing to openly admit a speaker is bad when a speaker is bad — I’m sorry to say but you’re not a review site, you’re just a thinly veiled ad company.

Just about all audio reviewing outlets are merely promotional copy for the industry. Often is not actually the manufacturers that benefit that much it's the distributors that really drive all that IME.

There's also quite a complex social dynamic to high-end audio as it's a small world and everyone knows each other. if you say something negative about anything there's a massive backlash and the industry as a whole self sensors in a way to prevent this uncomfortableness.

That's what I found to be the case on my look behind the glass .