Do We Want All Speakers To Sound The Same ?

[changer]

Interesting for sure, but of little help for practical comparison here

 

[birdog1960]

Interesting for sure, but of little help for practical comparison here

Why? It is what is attainable. Interestingly, for the author, what was most important in the "Is it real or is it memorex" test was room acoustics and not speakers/amps. It would be interesting to know which were used however.

 

[mj30250]

Please name a few commercially available recordings, acoustic guitar, sax, trumpet ... that have this special "gestalt" for the readers to listen to and evaluate on their own system. I prefer anything that is available on Deezer.

I'm not MattHooper, but here are a few tracks that I use to evaluate / compare acoustic guitar fidelity:

Rodrigo Y Gabriela - Jazz EP - "Oblivion"
Eugene Ruffolo - In A Different Light - "Poor Lonesome Me"
Danny Paul Grody - Furniture Music II - "Returning Light"

For live concert ambience:

Nils Lofgren - Acoustic Live - "Keith Don't Go"

 

[fineMen]

Some recording engineers are great at capturing the real sound, some not so much.

Anecdotally, a professional oboist told me many times, that he can't stand recordings of his instrument. He always argues with the engineers, but they are quite stubborn in polishing the sound beyond recognition. A pianist, not in the recording business, doesn't care about the sound of recordings at all--it's sh*te anyway, she says. She listens to them for reference regarding interpretation in respect to timing and such, but never 'tone'. The precious sweet sound from the stereo is for the naive.

In that sense the audiophile might be right in saying, that many recordings are badly done. But more often it is because his speciality speakers, unforgiving in revealing defects in cables, amps, recording (all the same), are sounded, 'voiced' as they say. Sometimes studio engineers also follow the audiophile narrative. We need the standard for a 'home curve' identical in the studio and at home. A standard like with screws (metric!

 

[birdog1960]

Anecdotally, a professional oboist told me many times, that he can't stand recordings of his instrument. He always argues with the engineers, but they are quite stubborn in polishing the sound beyond recognition. A pianist, not in the recording business, doesn't care about the sound of recordings at all--it's sh*te anyway, she says. She listens to them for reference regarding interpretation in respect to timing and such, but never 'tone'. The precious sweet sound from the stereo is for the naive.

In that sense the audiophile might be right in saying, that many recordings are badly done. But more often it is because his speciality speakers, unforgiving in revealing defects in cables, amps, recording (all the same), are sounded, 'voiced' as they say. Sometimes studio engineers also follow the audiophile narrative. We need the standard for a 'home curve' identical in the studio and at home. A standard like with screws (metric!

but many artists, often less well known but highly talented, make recordings in their own studios that they are happy enough with to release. A Bluegrass artist friend comes to mind.

 

[fpitas]

It's an art, and obviously everybody has their own ideas about what the recording process is or is not. That's not likely to be standardized.

 

[fineMen]

It's an art, and obviously everybody has their own ideas about what the recording process is or is not. That's not likely to be standardized.

Sure, the recoding process shall convey the musical intentions. The how-to cannot be prescribed. But regarding the tool, nothing else is a loudspeaker, we could agree on a standard. I personally think that the development of the technical possibilities is mostly through. Very much like with aeroplanes for commercial use, or internal combustion machines.

 

[fpitas]

Sure, the recoding process shall convey the musical intentions. The how-to cannot be prescribed. But regarding the tool, nothing else is a loudspeaker, we could agree on a standard. I personally think that the development of the technical possibilities is mostly through. Very much like with aeroplanes for commercial use, or internal combustion machines.

Well, I don't have a dog in this race, since my speakers are DIY. But I'll observe that, after a lot of trying different things, my in-room response looks remarkably like the in-room response Amir recommends.

 

[MattHooper]

A lot of sophistry to legitimise conflating non-auditory stimuli and auditory stimuli, to rationalise fetishising esoteric cottage industry designs, and in irrational fear of engineering informed by (psycho)acoustics disrupting this fetishisation and status signalling of one as a connoisseur belonging to a special few. It seems utterly bizarre to me to see someone tie themselves up in making loudspeakers seem much more arcane than in actuality with some pseudo-intellectual tract.

Goodness. What triggered that Alice In Wonderland-level flourish?

I'll wait for the English translation

 

[MattHooper]

It's OK with me, especially in that you actually read my post, so thank you, but you took the one statement out of my post, and replied to it out of context with the rest of my post. It was only a part of my reply to the question "Do we want all speakers to sound the same?" So the single statement wasn't intended to stand on its own.

I was aware of the context. However, if someone is making a sound argument every premise has to hold up.

It's like if I argued

1. My contention is that many North Americans only like McDonalds burgers because they haven't experienced eating a home-made burger.

But:

2. They could be educated to prefer home made burgers.


That first premise is likely false. Many people who eat at Mcdonald's have likely made or eaten home-made burgers. Adding the second premise doesn't make the first premise any less false.

Similarly I felt you were starting with, at least in many cases, a likely a false premise: "My contention is that listeners only "prefer" some speakers because they haven't experienced speakers that measure better." That was a pretty unequivocal statement, which is why I mentioned there are numerous exceptions (from what I've seen). Of course I'm referring to how most people hear speakers: casual listening, not rigorous blind testing.

As to the idea people can be educated out of their current preference is, I suppose, plausible in some cases. Hasn't worked for my wife though - 22 years of being married to an audiophile and she still prefers listening on her laptop :_)

I'm not able to get my head around your discussion of the speakers, though. You know that the Devore's don't measure as well as the Performa F228be, but you didn't buy either of them, you bought Thiels and Josephs, but you don't know how they measure compared to the two you mention auditioning, so how do you know that you don't actually prefer the better measuring speaker?

Stereophile has measurements for both the Joseph Perspective and Revel Performa speakers. If I'd only gone on the measurements, using the criteria many hear use, I suppose I would have just chosen the Performa's. Except I auditioned both pretty exensively and highly preferred the Joseph speakers. (I also preferred the Devores to the Performa...though again, there was a question mark about whether I'd get along with the Devores over the long run in my home).

In any event, if we want all speakers to sound the same, what criteria will "we" (who?) use? Scientific measurement? Which measures? Who decides? Does a final decision on the speaker specs rule out incremental improvements over time? If not, voila, we have at least two speakers, A and B, and they don't sound the same. Now what?

Good questions!

 

[YSC]

I was aware of the context. However, if someone is making a sound argument every premise has to hold up.

It's like if I argued

1. My contention is that many North Americans only like McDonalds burgers because they haven't experienced eating a home-made burger.

But:

2. They could be educated to prefer home made burgers.


That first premise is likely false. Many people who eat at Mcdonald's have likely made or eaten home-made burgers. Adding the second premise doesn't make the first premise any less false.

Similarly I felt you were starting with, at least in many cases, a likely a false premise: "My contention is that listeners only "prefer" some speakers because they haven't experienced speakers that measure better." That was a pretty unequivocal statement, which is why I mentioned there are numerous exceptions (from what I've seen). Of course I'm referring to how most people hear speakers: casual listening, not rigorous blind testing.

As to the idea people can be educated out of their current preference is, I suppose, plausible in some cases. Hasn't worked for my wife though - 22 years of being married to an audiophile and she still prefers listening on her laptop :_)



Stereophile has measurements for both the Joseph Perspective and Revel Performa speakers. If I'd only gone on the measurements, using the criteria many hear use, I suppose I would have just chosen the Performa's. Except I auditioned both pretty exensively and highly preferred the Joseph speakers. (I also preferred the Devores to the Performa...though again, there was a question mark about whether I'd get along with the Devores over the long run in my home).



Good questions!

which Joseph speaker did you ended up using? I did a quick search they seems to be pretty flat and with ok directivity, but some have boosted bass and some with a midbass dip. with such I suspect it's the bass response in room making you feel so, like if you put them really near front wall/corner, the Revel will have bloated and mudd bass due to massive bass hump while the josepth with a mid bass dip can make it sound cleaner, opposite can be possible if the joseph have a bass bump and you put it in the location where the bass is cancelled out a bit, for the on axis response and limited directivity plot on stereophile it don't seem like much is different from the revel

 

[MattHooper]

Please name a few commercially available recordings, acoustic guitar, sax, trumpet ... that have this special "gestalt" for the readers to listen to and evaluate on their own system. I prefer anything that is available on Deezer.

There isn't anything particularly special about the tracks I use - many of them are used out of familiarity and because I love the music. I don't need The Perfect Recording Of An Acoustic Guitar - many tracks will tell me what I want to know. I don't have my audition track list with me at the moment, but off the top of my head I'll play things like Gordon Lightfoot's album Sit Down Young Stranger for male vocal/acoustic guitar. For classical guitar instruments I'll play some John Williams or some tracks from Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. Sax - Kind Of Blue among other recordings (I love big band-type dramatic music so tons of my tracks have many band instruments). Drums...lots of recordings, among them Dave Brubeck quartet live, Joe Morello's drums in general and the solos. It's not that I'm looking for the perfect recordings of instruments - I put on music I actually enjoy listening to, and the instruments have to sound "right" to me.
Buena Vista Social Club presents … Omara Portuondo...love the rich horns and especially the sax section back ups through this album. Like I mentioned I grew up listening to all these instruments played in my house all the time, I played sax in concert and stage bands etc. When I close my eyes listening to live sax I get a certain picture of a sax, I see that brassy warm "color" and on many systems I just don't get that same timbral "color." Like watching a TV with the color's looking "not quite right" or black and white. But on some systems when I listen with my eyes closed, ...yeah...that impression clicks and it sounds "right."

(BTW, there are of course tons of audiophilish drum recordings, but if you want a really fun work out, vivid recording of Double Bass/Drums in a quartet, check out the album The Chord by bassist Koichi Osamu, especially the opening track. The drum solo at the end sounds amazing on many systems, but it was one that for me felt like being in the presence of "real drums" on the Devores).

 

[MattHooper]

which Joseph speaker did you ended up using? I did a quick search they seems to be pretty flat and with ok directivity, but some have boosted bass and some with a midbass dip. with such I suspect it's the bass response in room making you feel so, like if you put them really near front wall/corner, the Revel will have bloated and mudd bass due to massive bass hump while the josepth with a mid bass dip can make it sound cleaner, opposite can be possible if the joseph have a bass bump and you put it in the location where the bass is cancelled out a bit, for the on axis response and limited directivity plot on stereophile it don't seem like much is different from the revel

I own the Joseph Audio Perspective speakers. (And Thiel 2.7).

From my experience (and the experience of many others), both the Devore and Joseph speakers need quite a bit of room to "breath" in terms of being away from the back wall. Otherwise the bass overwhelms.

However I was able to manipulate seating and speaker positioning when I auditioned the Devore, Joseph and Revel speakers. All pulled well out from the back wall, and away from side-walls. The Revels sounded VERY even and balanced. The Devores still rich in the bass. The Joseph closer to the Revels, but still a little richer in the mid bass. One of the main things that attracted me to the Joseph speakers when I encountered them at an audio shop was a particular type of clarity and smoothness. Other speakers sounded, for lack of better word, a tad "grainy" in comparison. Listening to instruments played on the Josephs was like looking at colorful pebbles at the bottom of the stream, where the water had been cleaned of all silt, so the colors seemed so clean and vivid. In that same sense, the exact timbral qualities of voices, acoustic instruments etc sounded so clearly revealed and"free of distortion" and grain or mechanical/electronic artifact, that I was continually blown away. I just did not get this impression to the same degree on the Revel (or the Devore). And it's this "pure/clear/grainless" character that, I later found out, was cited by most reviewers of the Joseph speakers, as well as many listeners and owners. I don't think it's magic - any audible differences will be somewhere in the measurements. But...it's kind of subtle thing that I personally wouldn't be able to tell from the measurements of the Revel/Joseph speakers. I mean, I heard "competent" sound from the Revels, but I could take or leave the listening experience. Whereas I couldn't tear myself away from the Joseph speakers when listening. I still can't whenever I sit down in front of them. This kind of stuff gets a shrug and an eye-roll around here, so...I'm left to choose speakers as I hear them. Which is fine by me.

 

[YSC]

I own the Joseph Audio Perspective speakers. (And Thiel 2.7).

From my experience (and the experience of many others), both the Devore and Joseph speakers need quite a bit of room to "breath" in terms of being away from the back wall. Otherwise the bass overwhelms.

However I was able to manipulate seating and speaker positioning when I auditioned the Devore, Joseph and Revel speakers. All pulled well out from the back wall, and away from side-walls. The Revels sounded VERY even and balanced. The Devores still rich in the bass. The Joseph closer to the Revels, but still a little richer in the mid bass. One of the main things that attracted me to the Joseph speakers when I encountered them at an audio shop was a particular type of clarity and smoothness. Other speakers sounded, for lack of better word, a tad "grainy" in comparison. Listening to instruments played on the Josephs was like looking at colorful pebbles at the bottom of the stream, where the water had been cleaned of all silt, so the colors seemed so clean and vivid. In that same sense, the exact timbral qualities of voices, acoustic instruments etc sounded so clearly revealed and"free of distortion" and grain or mechanical/electronic artifact, that I was continually blown away. I just did not get this impression to the same degree on the Revel (or the Devore). And it's this "pure/clear/grainless" character that, I later found out, was cited by most reviewers of the Joseph speakers, as well as many listeners and owners. I don't think it's magic - any audible differences will be somewhere in the measurements. But...it's kind of subtle thing that I personally wouldn't be able to tell from the measurements of the Revel/Joseph speakers. I mean, I heard "competent" sound from the Revels, but I could take or leave the listening experience. Whereas I couldn't tear myself away from the Joseph speakers when listening. I still can't whenever I sit down in front of them. This kind of stuff gets a shrug and an eye-roll around here, so...I'm left to choose speakers as I hear them. Which is fine by me.

Well from stereophile it have a upward tilting treble, which, would explain the vivid and apparent clarity and is a typical showroom tuning

 

[loafeye]

I was aware of the context. However, if someone is making a sound argument every premise has to hold up.

It's like if I argued

1. My contention is that many North Americans only like McDonalds burgers because they haven't experienced eating a home-made burger.

But:

2. They could be educated to prefer home made burgers.


That first premise is likely false. Many people who eat at Mcdonald's have likely made or eaten home-made burgers. Adding the second premise doesn't make the first premise any less false.

Similarly I felt you were starting with, at least in many cases, a likely a false premise: "My contention is that listeners only "prefer" some speakers because they haven't experienced speakers that measure better." That was a pretty unequivocal statement, which is why I mentioned there are numerous exceptions (from what I've seen). Of course I'm referring to how most people hear speakers: casual listening, not rigorous blind testing.

As to the idea people can be educated out of their current preference is, I suppose, plausible in some cases. Hasn't worked for my wife though - 22 years of being married to an audiophile and she still prefers listening on her laptop :_)



Stereophile has measurements for both the Joseph Perspective and Revel Performa speakers. If I'd only gone on the measurements, using the criteria many hear use, I suppose I would have just chosen the Performa's. Except I auditioned both pretty exensively and highly preferred the Joseph speakers. (I also preferred the Devores to the Performa...though again, there was a question mark about whether I'd get along with the Devores over the long run in my home).



Good questions!

I think that for some reason you won't grasp the whole, you seem to want to pick one piece and put a hole in it.
It's not at all like your burgers; the point is , that you agree that there will only be a reference-burger, no MacDonald's burgers exist, so you will be educated to believe that home-made burgers are the best, or you won't be eating burgers. Get it? It's not about your wife's laptop, or your guitars, or the speakers you did or didn't buy, or the fact that cymbals from different manufacturers all sound a little bit different. It's about whether we want all speakers to sound the same. You asked the question in opening this thread; I slapped together a quasi-futuristic scenario illustrating perhaps one possible answer to your question for someone maybe to think about. So I did that.
As an aside, it's now interesting to me that I've never "referred" to my own acoustic guitar playing tones when evaluating speakers, as picky as I am about their tone.
See you in the next thread .

 

[MattHooper]

Well from stereophile it have a upward tilting treble, which, would explain the vivid and apparent clarity and is a typical showroom tuning

Yep. Though I've heard the newer version which is less tipped up and it has the same "super clean" quality. I also have listened to plenty of speakers that have a treble emphasis (e.g. B&W, some Focal, Kudos speakers and a bunch of others) and those didn't strike me as having the specific "grain-free" sound I'm trying to describe. In fact I suffer from Tinnitus and hyperacusis, which means my ears are VERY sensitive and don't do well with obvious high frequency peaks in most speakers. Had I seen the measurements first I might have written off these speakers. Yet, there is something about the sense of low grain/low distortion in the sound of the Josephs that actually allowed me to turn them up louder than I do for other speakers, without discomfort. Something I'd have to hear for myself, and not what I might have predicted from the measurements.

 

[MattHooper]

I think that for some reason you won't grasp the whole, you seem to want to pick one piece and put a hole in it.
It's not at all like your burgers; the point is , that you agree that there will only be a reference-burger, no MacDonald's burgers exist, so you will be educated to believe that home-made burgers are the best, or you won't be eating burgers. Get it? It's not about your wife's laptop, or your guitars, or the speakers you did or didn't buy, or the fact that cymbals from different manufacturers all sound a little bit different. It's about whether we want all speakers to sound the same. You asked the question in opening this thread; I slapped together a quasi-futuristic scenario illustrating perhaps one possible answer to your question for someone maybe to think about. So I did that.

Ok, thanks. Peace.

As an aside, it's now interesting to me that I've never "referred" to my own acoustic guitar playing tones when evaluating speakers, as picky as I am about their tone.
See you in the next thread .

Is that perhaps because you don't really evaluate speakers on such criteria? I don't know. I actually recorded my guitar, my son playing sax, trombone, my family's voices, and I used to use those recordings to do live vs reproduced comparisons when I'd have new speakers in my home to evaluate (and I'd bring them to audition speakers too). Again, I wasn't expecting sound indistinguishable from the real thing, but some speakers got closer to the characteristics I cared about in the real sound, others didn't. And it was always the ones that did that gave me the most satisfaction listening, no matter what genre of music I played.

Plenty of ASR members have said that reference to real sound is a fool's errand. They generally aren't really using some expectation of "sounds like the real thing" when choosing their speakers. All we have is a recording, and if it's reproduced accurately that's all we can ask for. It sounds like what it sounds like - not "how I want it to sound." Some of us are coming at a slightly different angle.

 

[YSC]

Yep. Though I've heard the newer version which is less tipped up and it has the same "super clean" quality. I also have listened to plenty of speakers that have a treble emphasis (e.g. B&W, some Focal, Kudos speakers and a bunch of others) and those didn't strike me as having the specific "grain-free" sound I'm trying to describe. In fact I suffer from Tinnitus and hyperacusis, which means my ears are VERY sensitive and don't do well with obvious high frequency peaks in most speakers. Had I seen the measurements first I might have written off these speakers. Yet, there is something about the sense of low grain/low distortion in the sound of the Josephs that actually allowed me to turn them up louder than I do for other speakers, without discomfort. Something I'd have to hear for myself, and not what I might have predicted from the measurements.

By now it seems more like sighted bias than anything, but as long as you feel happy, you can go whatever direction u go

 

[kemmler3D]

Random thoughts: "we" definitely don't want speakers to sound the same, even just reading this one page of the thread. I think that if a genie granted everyone's wish of a perfect speaker, everyone's would be slightly different, and we'd have about 3-5 groups of similar "perfect" speakers.

More random: I audition speakers with a set of tracks that are all specifically challenging in certain ways. One has a sweep down to 16hz. One has a really poorly mixed sub-bass synth. One has ALMOST harsh cymbals. One has too much going on in the sub-bass. Two have really fine modulations in the bass synth that are hard to hear. One has sibilant Paul Simon vocals. One has a bunch of step responses in it. One has a really badly mixed midrange that tends to mask an entire instrument. One has a really congested midrange that makes detail retrieval hard. One has people turning pages really quietly in the background. Etc.

I don't think listening to nicely mixed, clean, beautiful recordings tells you a damn thing about a speaker, really. What defines a speaker is its limitations and compromises, you don't find those by feeding it the easy stuff. If you can hear the same things on every speaker, but on some of them they just sound *nicer*, I think you are giving yourself a very hard task of deciding whether something is 95% nice or 100% nice. What's easier is to check and see if you can hear the damn lead synth AT ALL.

My two cents...

 

[MattHooper]

By now it seems more like sighted bias than anything, but as long as you feel happy, you can go whatever direction u go

I think that conclusion is a bit rash. Plenty of speakers have "lots of detail." But I've been trying to describe a particular blend of clarity and smoothness. Zero "roughness" especially in the midrange/highs. Not just "detailed" but super clean/smooth, free of grit, un-mechanical. Subtle variations in instrumental timbre seem notably clear.

Numerous JA owners have cited the same quality. In fact someone who owns Harbeth speakers and recently recieved the JA Perspectives started his remarks with: "The very first thing that made me sit up and take notice when playing the Perspectives was the utter lack of grain. The SHL5+ are very accomplished in this aspect, but I feel the Perspectives just take it several notches above and beyond."

And the above characteristics were noted over and over in reviews of the JA Pulsar and Perspective speakers, which share that same sound:

-----------------------------------------------------


Stereophile: Herb Reichert review of JA Pulsar: In show reports, I've described Joseph Audio speakers as "quiet"—mainly because, through them, no fuzzy, blurry, grainy stuff happens between 1 and 4kHz. Unlike most two-way box speakers, the Pulsar's sound in that region fades to silent "black," not a gray haze.

Fremer's review of the Pulsar:
but the picture was clear and clean from top to bottom of the audioband,

The Pulsar's high-frequency performance was sweet yet fast and airy, and minus even the slightest hint of edge, etch, or glare. In fact, the Pulsar was among the least mechanical-sounding speakers I've ever heard, regardless of price,

Absolute Sound, on the Pulsar:

The first thing I noticed about the Pulsars was their midrange purity and lack of grain.

The Pulsar’s midrange speed and clarity reminded me more of a planar or electrostatic speaker than a dynamic-driver-based transducer.
The Pulsar’s upper frequencies walk the fine line between dark and light. This tweeter has a sweet character that portrays upper frequencies in a very natural and relaxing way. First violins and piccolos had sparkle and shimmer without sounding forward or metallic.

From the Soundstage review of the Pulsar:

Play something like Shakti’s Natural Elements (CD, Columbia 4897732), and the speed of Zakir Hussain’s tabla playing, wrapped together with guitar god John McLaughlin’s steel-string guitar, was a mind blower, never once tripping into leading-edge hardness.

PartTime Audiophile:

There’s an overall smoothness to the sound that’s distinctive—I feel like this is a speaker I could identify blindfolded in a room full of other speakers.


John Atkinson reviewing the Perspectives:

very clean and articulate,

midrange clarity and lack of coloration

I was again impressed by the Josephs' ability to play loud but without the sound becoming harsh or the small details of the scoring being blotted out.

-----------------------------------------

I suppose someone might blow all those reports of the smoothness/clarity of the sound as...I don't know...coincidence? Maybe the speakers don't actually sound clean and clear as they describe but, somehow, the speakers caused the very same bias effect in all those listeners? Not impossible...but...is that the most plausible inference? Isn't it plausible that the speakers actually DO sound very clean and clear, which is why they are reporting that characteristic?

I heard the Joseph Pulsar first at a dealer, before I knew much at all about the brand, and before I'd read any reviews. The exact qualities described above stood out to me. Then I heard the Perspectives the same day. Same thing. Then I found out most listeners seem to be struck by those characteristics too. We aren't talking about AC cables here: speakers do sound different from one another. I personally don't want to be quick to just wave away lots of similar impressions by lazily attributing it all to sighted bias or presuming "no reason to think the speakers really do sound like that." (Not saying you have necessarily done this).

Cheers.