Danny Richie's latest...

[Somafunk]

This comment was picked up by one of the long time reviewer and measurement experts, Brent Butterworth in one of his podcasts. I was saddened to see them defending the above practice due to not understanding the full context of what Danny sells and promote.

I subscribe to that podcast and whilst listening to it a couple of days ago I wondered…..”I bet this discussion pops up on the GR thread”

 

[Somafunk]

It was probably removed automatically, since it includes a URL. It's the default setting.

Yeah, YouTube automatically removes any comment containing URL’s

 

[Ktacos]

Who cares? All that matters to me is my NX OTICAS out perform any speakers I ever owned, no eq used either. So Danny is a legit speaker designer in my book.

Your speakers sounding good means you should ignore proper driver analysis with other speakers? What you say makes no sense.

 

[amirm]

I reposted the comment with youtube link this time.

 

[MattHooper]

I was listening to this podcast today and I wondered if anybody would comment.

I’m very curious as to audio unleashed response to your comment.

 

[beagleman]

Who cares? All that matters to me is my NX OTICAS out perform any speakers I ever owned, no eq used either. So Danny is a legit speaker designer in my book.

Your comments do not address the specifics of what we are discussing.
That is a more a generality that implies your subjective opinion of a speaker that Danny R. Designed quantifies everything he does as honest, meaningful and great.


No one is saying he can not design a good speaker, but more the details of his overall "Speaker UPGRADE" products are questionable in some ways that bear discussion and a closer look is all.

 

[beagleman]

As have mentioned before, Danny's upgrade videos are hype to generate youtube hits and are pseudoscience. Would not put much faith in any of it. He manipulates scaling to create his typical narrative of how bad the target speaker is and how it needs his upgrading. I could go on at length but let's just start with the initial failure to baseline against known measurements. For this speaker, JBL supplies much more data than most manufacturers AND states the conditions. Does Danny use it? No, and he flails around guessing at a measurement axis when it is stated in the specs....

"The reference measurement microphone position is located perpendicular to the center line of the mid and high frequency transducers, at the point 55 mm (2.2 in) below the center of the tweeter diaphragm"

After this wasted time, he does his usual misleading measurements and here is the initial result compared to JBL's...

View attachment 379160

Here I have plotted on a standard 50 dB scale (rather than Danny's usual 25 dB scale). I have adjusted his plot to overlay the JBL supplied data. At this point. does Danny question measurement conditions or whether the speaker might be broken? No, it is just poorly designed and needs his upgrade kit! So, rather than try some eq, let's rip out the drivers and design a whole new crossover!  Even when the speaker measures well, he is often replacing parts for the sake of alleged "next level performance". Strange he provides measurements as a weapon but supplies none for some of his alleged improvements. He recently did another No-Rez promo video and there is not a single spec or measurement to illustrate its applicability or effectiveness.

Anyway, seems you already figured out the bottom line with regard to Danny. Hope you get to enjoy the long holiday weekend!

It is like he knows enough for sure to convince some, or even many, but not enough to really debate what is wrong with what he does.

Nothing seems definitive and it seems more like a rushed circus side show to sell tube connectors and high priced caps, than to provide a service, no matter how flawed in key ways.

A service would simply have a paid schematic, and his resultant measurements.

Not $600.00 of parts "Included" .....

 

[RickS]

Thanks for the kind words @amirm!

Your post nicely states the facts that the podcast missed. To clarify a bit more, agree CLIO has a fine legacy, but my understanding is that Danny uses a very old version of it. On the Directiva project, CLIO was not a consideration as the team was already using ARTA and REW. Adding your Klippel measurements and Kimmo's VituixCAD we likely met or exceeded CLIO without needing to buy their products. As am sure you would agree, for many things in engineering there can be more than one path to get a good result.

Anyway, please pardon me while I go back to listening to frequency sweeps. They sound so much better than all the music I have heard over the last few decades!

 

[beagleman]

So how’s that affect you or this forum? Everyone in the hobby knows that ASR rejects this kinda stuff. Have you ever looked at prices for high end connectors? Though $50 isn’t cheap for four connectors, you could waste a lot more.

Because Danny wants it both ways.

He can ridicule others, and how they do things but he wants to be totally immune from ridicule.
Its the "Way" he does things. The attitude and know it all demeanor, when in many circumstances he is often the one with lesser knowledge.

Mostly the "Hey I know it all", when in reality he does not. He sells snake oil, and exaggerates a LOT, and does it with a condescending style of "Friendly" Youtube videos, where the friendly chatty guy demeanor is all just a way to Sell you up on Tube connectors and high priced caps.

It is a bit of a circus side show thing mixed with equal parts of actual knowledge.
He knows enough to know he is peddling snake oil.
If that makes sense...??

....Some call it Ego, Some call it Narcissism...some call it self confidence.....
I have watched most of his videos, out of interest in speakers mostly and Danny is never wrong.

 

[Todd68]

Your speakers sounding good means you should ignore proper driver analysis with other speakers? What you say makes no sense.

I thought his reasoning behind not measuring below 200hz is because the room has too much influence. And you can’t really change a speakers lower range response much without redoing the cabinet design which would be a complete waste of time and not cost effective. Or the drivers themselves are not very good to start, it’s mostly budget speakers people send in. I think he try’s to find obvious anomalies in a speaker that can be improved with crossover changes.

As far as his own designs, he explains that in a video. In short, He has enough experience with his own drivers to accurately predict the lower end response as he measured them when he had a facility to measure the lower range. Though his one center channel that you guys like to ridicule didn’t far well with that approach.

I think even some major speaker companies use higher quality crossover parts in their expensive top line models, no? If it makes a difference is up for debate, but can’t hurt. I wasn’t pushed into getting the parts upgrade when I ordered my NX Otica kit, I did it because of prior positive experiences with upgrading budget parts in an amplifier, just a personal experience right or wrong I’m sticking to what I experienced, this is just a hobby anyway so to each their own. No need to constantly complain and argue about “the other sides” approach. Just my two cents, I’m prepared to be cut to pieces, go ahead it won’t hurt my feelings.

 

[Mart68]

.

I think even some major speaker companies use higher quality crossover parts in their expensive top line models, no? If it makes a difference is up for debate, but can’t hurt

They do that because the market is guided by mysticism not facts so buyers expect it. It's demonstrable that they don't measure or sound any different.

Whether it hurts to do it or not, well, it won't make the speaker sound worse. But every extra dollar spent on the crossover is $10 on the retail price so it can add up quite fast. You can end up with a situation where corners are cut on things that do matter so they can spend on things the marketing department want.

Most speakers have a set retail price before the design work even begins. So where do you want that $200 in component budget spent? Drivers and cabinets or fancy capacitors?

 

[beagleman]

They do that because the market is guided by mysticism not facts so buyers expect it. It's demonstrable that they don't measure or sound any different.

Whether it hurts to do it or not, well, it won't make the speaker sound worse. But every extra dollar spent on the crossover is $10 on the retail price so it can add up quite fast. You can end up with a situation where corners are cut on things that do matter so they can spend on things the marketing department want.

Most speakers have a set retail price before the design work even begins. So where do you want that $200 in component budget spent? Drivers and cabinets or fancy capacitors?

Quite right!
And, Danny often does push high priced caps, as being far superior to, in his words, "Cheesy parts" that almost all retail speakers use.

I have never found anything definitive about higher priced caps TRULY sounding or measuring better. I think many like to imagine or simply believe they are better, but nothing concrete really supports that notion.

I have even tried higher priced caps a few times, and yeah I think I did imagine they helped the sound or added some "hidden detail", I was not able to really tell high priced from "junk" caps, when put to a blind test. So the brain must play a huge part in this type of stuff.

 

[beagleman]

I think even some major speaker companies use higher quality crossover parts in their expensive top line models, no? If it makes a difference is up for debate, but can’t hurt.

It can not hurt almost for sure.
As for being up for debate, to me it has been settled long ago, as I can find literally zero information, conclusively showing it does make a difference.

I think those, that want to believe it might make a difference, feel it is up for debate, but removing the human brain/perception part from the equation, nothing seems to verify it really matters.
I do think there COULD be very tiny changes, but a lot of this stuff falls into the audio myth category.

Most times when you have "Two sides" arguing about something, it is almost always NOT TRUE.
The arguing is coming from some people simply "hearing what they want to hear" and never from a point of having done a blind test to verify what they can hear or not.

 

[Spkrdctr]

The arguing is coming from some people simply "hearing what they want to hear" and never from a point of having done a blind test to verify what they can hear or not.

Yes. as Amir, JJ myself and a few others on this site know, there has never been a blind test done where anyone could ever tell a difference in wires, interconnects, normal amps (unbroken), length of speaker wires (unequal lengths by 15 feet) and other such audiophoolery. So we have 50 years of no one ever passing a blind test when they claimed before the test that anyone could hear the difference and it would be EASY to pass the test. As soon as the test was blind, they failed miserably. So with 50 years of 100% failure rate, you are in good company believing it doesn't matter in the the items I mentioned. The one item that can be picked out is speakers. The speakers swamp all of the other factors in a sound system. That is why I stay out of the "engineering discussions" on many topics. The human ability to hear differences is so amazingly poor that you can do a blind test that is set up at home and not set to high level engineering standards and STILL no one can pass. I was involved in trying to set up messed up systems with unequal speaker level wire lengths, channel imbalances of 2 to 3db, wire gauge difference from one channel vs the other (18 gauge vs 12 gauge), It seemed no matter how many audio myths we incorporated into the testing that were supposed to destroy the audio, it was never found to actually matter at all. The most amazing thing is that we tested each audio myth separately and then we did them all together! Having three different supposedly easy to tell items all going on at once, yet still couldn't be picked out in tests. 95% of what people think matters, does not matter at all. Speakers and room are where all the magic happens. So rightfully the manufacturers started offering room compensation with Dirac and YPAO etc. Millions have been spent on exactly what it needs to be spent on. This is why Amir has different levels in his testing. The Excellent level is way, way beyond what is necessary unless you just want the absolute best available. The very good category is actually fantastic in use with no audible differences. So you end up with a nice wide selection of product that comes in all different prices. You then pick the features, and power level you want. Amir has really made getting very high quality equipment rated so you can find the well engineered gems that may cost 40% less than another piece with the same performance. Amir has advanced the the audio arena a lot, and debunked so much audiophoolery he should be in an audio "Hall of Fame" in my opinion. Amir is really that good for the "common man" on the street trying to buy decent equipment without going bankrupt! I was very surprised when Pres Trump didn't pick Amir as VP!!!!

 

[Jim Taylor]

Anir is really that good for the "common man" on the street trying to buy decent equipment without going bankrupt!

That's the real purpose of this site. Not arguing with "audiophiles", just helpful information for the hundreds of millions of people out there who might be looking for decent audio equipment to enjoy music.

Sometimes, people can't see the forest for the trees.

Jim

 

[Spkrdctr]

That's the real purpose of this site. Not arguing with "audiophiles", just helpful information for the hundreds of millions of people out there who might be looking for decent audio equipment to enjoy music.

Sometimes, people can't see the forest for the trees.

Jim

Great summary Jim. The problem is that after being on this site for some years now, it is amazing how the snake oil industry just keeps going even though all of their lunacy has been proven wrong. The problem is not near enough people read ASR reviews. We should have millions of members on ASR. If I was a manufacturer I would make a deal with Amir where I could get an ASR approved sticker on my amp or receiver (whatever) just like they have ATMOS, Dirac and other stuff on each piece of equipment. Then a buyer could buy with confidence the unit was tested and there were no glaring problems at all. It is a well engineered piece that does what it claims to do. So If Amir got $5 for every sticker times 1 million pieces of equipment sold, he would net a cool 5 million without having to leave his AP555. Easiest money he would ever make AND help the Audio world kill off snake oil. I hate snake oil.

 

[RickS]

I was checking up on the CSS Typhon speaker and discovered Jay Lee has close to 100K youtube subscribers. Popularity is not everything but those are some impressive numbers for a younger reviewer. Still is not Robinson's 380K subscribers. The younger crowd wants video and podcasts. ASR has great technical depth but also can be intimidating for many lay people. Maybe a Young Amir show would help.

As for dumbing down, Danny’s latest youtube is how to determine how much NoRez to buy. Was expecting some discussion of when it may be needed acoustically or not, but was just how to measure the physical material. As you might guess with Danny, more is better as more NoRez sales pad his wallet more!

 

[Todd68]

Blind test have limited use in audio IMO. You need to live with a change for a while to decide if it’s better, even room treatments and positioning of treatments. Trying to select a pair of speakers this way may not work so well. If you preferred a certain speaker model tor example, it could have been hyped highs or extra bass, but in the long run the sound may cause fatigue or you wont want to listen as often. If you have a setup and you tend to just want to listen to music instead of focusing on perceived flaws, then you done good, regardless how you got there.

 

[JaapD]

Blind test have limited use in audio IMO. You need to live with a change for a while to decide if it’s better, even room treatments and positioning of treatments. Trying to select a pair of speakers this way may not work so well. If you preferred a certain speaker model tor example, it could have been hyped highs or extra bass, but in the long run the sound may cause fatigue or you wont want to listen as often. If you have a setup and you tend to just want to listen to music instead of focusing on perceived flaws, then you done good, regardless how you got there.

Imho blind tests are there primarily to identify whether there are any differences. It’s not so much about one's personal taste.



Cheers.

 

[RickS]

In his latest episode, Danny rips into a Monitor Audio center channel and significantly lowers the midrange crossover point without regard to whether the driver might have power handling or distortion issues when crossed lower. I just realized that he never seems to listen to his results either.