I have no sympathy, whatsoever for Corporate Agenda antics, fraud and dishonesty and I am very grateful for GR Research pulling the wool out of our oversold eyes. The magazines are nothing but sales ads, pushing the same stuff from their own country.
It's exciting to hear Danny expose the truth. I can't wait until I can afford the Bully's.
The problem with Danny is that he doesn't hold back when it comes to criticizing competing products (and sometimes he's even right), but at the same time he praises his own products to the skies.
The fact that Danny presents himself as a "truth teller", as you say yourself, means that consumers with little experience in the field of loudspeaker reviews tend to trust him and lose their critical distance to GR research products.
As a small example of this, let's take a look at the flagship speakers NX-treme and NX-otica. Danny writes about these speakers on his website:
The NX-Otica is a pinnacle of open baffle loudspeaker designs. This model excels in all areas from top to bottom, and can compete with or be compared with any speaker at any price point.
This is completely normal marketing blah blah from a manufacturer and, as we will see in a moment, on the opposite side of "truth".
Because Danny can establish himself as a "truth teller", his customers trust him in particular and even defend his products against criticism - every manufacturer's dream.
Unfortunately, I have to elaborate a little on what special characteristic an open baffle (OB) has, as many people don't have the basics at hand.
First we need to establish what characterizes an OB loudspeaker? Its special radiation - dipole radiation.
This is characterized by the fact that the lateral radiation of the loudspeaker, even in the low frequency range, has a reduced sound pressure level.
In contrast to "normal" loudspeaker designs that radiate omnidirectional towards lower frequencies.
The frequency response (FR) of a woofer without crossover in a flat baffle (a typical OB design) would look as follows with optimally flat on-axis FR (normalized to on-axis FR). For comparison on the right side the typical radiation of a "normal boxed" speaker (by varying the width and depth of the cabinet, the radiation can be improved, especially in the 400-600Hz range.):
Up to around 1kHz (this would be the highest crossover frequency to the midrange or tweeter), this OB speaker example exhibits a typical dipole radiation pattern with strongest sound extinction at 90°. SPL increases again at listening angles >90°.
In a typical OB design, the lateral reflections (usually 40°-60° FR) are even and significantly reduced in SPL - this is particularly advantageous in "unfavorable" listening rooms.
Now let's take a look at the measurements Danny has published for the NX-Otica. In the following I assume that the measurements show the 0°, 10°, 20°, 30°, 40° FR (Danny unfortunately never specifies at which angle the shown FR are).
I think you can recognize without experience that there is something wrong with the expected dipole radiation. To be able to better compare the measurements of the "pinnacle of open baffle loudspeaker design" with the typical radiation of an OB speaker shown above, we take Danny's measurements and normalize them to the on-axis FR as well (same scaling as above).
In this diagram you can easily see that this loudspeaker does not show any dipole radiation at all - it's a disaster. In fact, the radiation is much more uneven than with a "normal boxed" speaker. The lateral reflections that reach the ear are not only extremely uneven, but are also significantly increased in the SPL in the range of the resonances (compared to the on-axis FR).
In the 200-400Hz range, the NX-Otica already shows a higher SPL at 40° than on axis. This is pretty much the opposite of what a dipole radiating speaker should do.
The V-frame shaped baffle of the NX-Otica speaker causes resonances which completely mess up the radiation up to 1.3kHz (when the tweeter gradually takes over) with a couple of resonances caused by the woofers and mid-woofers resonating with the V-frame baffle.
If Danny were to publish full measurements, the problems would be even clearer, as they become more pronounced as the angle of radiation increases.
Don't get me wrong, the speaker can sound quite good under certain conditions (and the hearing is able to adapt to unusual situations), but in terms of an OB speaker with dipole radiation, it is a bad design and not the "pinnacle of open baffle loudspeaker designs" - more details about "
Open baffle speaker pitfalls" is here.
Sorry, I had to go into a little more detail to explain the problem with Danny's "truth teller" narrative with arguments (LS design is a bit complex, but I wanted to show real facts not only opinion). The situation is similar with statements about "cable sound", capacitors, binding posts,....
Someone who is beating up his competitors, even if sometimes rightly so, is not automatically trustworthy when it comes to his own products (that is why independent assessments are so important). Quite a few people seem to forget that.
Update: Got rid of my "mental problem" that always writes "cardioid" instead of "dipole"
