GR Research Speaker Upgrade Review (Sierra-2EX V2)

[Maxim-ICOM]

You missed the key point and it doesn't support your subjectivist conclusion.

"One wonders how much better these would sound if they had had preserved all of this and at the same time didn't have the design errors."

arguing for the sake of arguing.

All speaker designs have compromises here and there. "One wonders how much better these would sound if..." - it can be applied to all speakers Thus we need to filter by ears+brain what errors are less affecting sound.

 

[Mort]

arguing for the sake of arguing.

All speaker designs have compromises here and there. "One wonders how much better these would sound if..." - it can be applied to all speakers Thus we need to filter by ears+brain what errors are less affecting sound.

Makes no sense but ok.

 

[Jim Taylor]

Thus we need to filter by ears+brain what errors are less affecting sound.

The "ears+brain" cannot reliably tell you which "sound" has more or fewer errors, the nature of those errors, the total number of errors the sound contains, the absolute degree of those errors, and which errors are due to the loudspeaker and which are due to the room.
Only instrumentation has the required precision to reliably tell us these things.

The "ears+brain" basically tells you one thing - whether or not you prefer the sound. (Because of cognitive bias, it can also trigger alarm ... but that's not a factor in assessing loudspeakers playing music.)

One important thing to note: your preference and your opinion do not extend to other people, because they are not reproducible. Reproducibility is one of the pillars of The Scientific Method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducibility

This includes the quote, " The philosopher of science Karl Popper noted briefly in his famous 1934 book The Logic of Scientific Discovery that "non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science"

It therefore follows that analysis of a loudspeaker that involves competent measurements involving greater instrumental precision - and knowledgeable interpretation of that data - is of greater value. Analysis of less instrumental precision, analysis involving less competence, and interpretation by individuals who are not knowledgeable, is of less value. IMO, the latter describes Danny's work.

At the bottom of the heap is analysis based only on subjective opinion (the "ears+brain" that you mentioned). It has no value.

 

[Spkrdctr]

The "ears+brain" cannot reliably tell you which "sound" has more or fewer errors, the nature of those errors, the total number of errors the sound contains, the absolute degree of those errors, and which errors are due to the loudspeaker and which are due to the room.
Only instrumentation has the required precision to reliably tell us these things.

The "ears+brain" basically tells you one thing - whether or not you prefer the sound. (Because of cognitive bias, it can also trigger alarm ... but that's not a factor in assessing loudspeakers playing music.)

One important thing to note: your preference and your opinion do not extend to other people, because they are not reproducible. Reproducibility is one of the pillars of The Scientific Method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducibility

This includes the quote, " The philosopher of science Karl Popper noted briefly in his famous 1934 book The Logic of Scientific Discovery that "non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science"

It therefore follows that analysis of a loudspeaker that involves competent measurements involving greater instrumental precision - and knowledgeable interpretation of that data - is of greater value. Analysis of less instrumental precision, analysis involving less competence, and interpretation by individuals who are not knowledgeable, is of less value. IMO, the latter describes Danny's work.

At the bottom of the heap is analysis based only on subjective opinion (the "ears+brain" that you mentioned). It has no value.

Fantastic post!

 

[Maxim-ICOM]

At the bottom of the heap is analysis based only on subjective opinion (the "ears+brain" that you mentioned). It has no value.

I did not mention that. I noted that only measured data do not give full info and should go along with listening test.

How you bought your speakers? Have you listened them or bought after looking on measurements?

 

[Vergiliusma]

I noted that only measured data do not give full info and should go along with listening test

I doubt you'd get much disagreement with that. The more information the better.

The measurements give hints to what to listen for that could be potentially problematic like resonances. Not all deviations are audibly objectionable with actual source material.

 

[JPA]

If Danny had a Klippel he would find out that his upgrades are not needed at all…

If Danny had a Klippel he would announce that it's a piece of $hit, then offer a $200k upgrade kit.

 

[Truth Ness]

If Danny had a Klippel he would announce that it's a piece of $hit, then offer a $200k upgrade kit.

"The cheesy Klippel"

 

[beagleman]

arguing for the sake of arguing.

All speaker designs have compromises here and there. "One wonders how much better these would sound if..." - it can be applied to all speakers Thus we need to filter by ears+brain what errors are less affecting sound.

Are you in essence saying "Nothing is perfect, but we decide subjectively which imperfections, tend to bother us or do not bother us"

If so, I agree.

 

[Jim Taylor]

I did not mention that. I noted that only measured data do not give full info and should go along with listening test.

How you bought your speakers? Have you listened them or bought after looking on measurements?

In this day and age, I would not even consider a loudspeaker for which I did not first have adequate measurements ... something on the order of those offered by ASR or Erin's Audio Corner. This would weed out the choices with obvious problems. (I consider this to be the primary purpose of measurements .... finding defective units. Radiography in welds and Testing To Destruction in concrete serve the same purpose.)
This is not to imply that different people must necessarily agree on the choice of speakers. You might prefer Bombardier and I might prefer Gulfstream, but specifications and measurements will assure us that they are both excellent jets.

If someone isn't willing to put forth the effort to learn how to read loudspeaker measurements NOR THE TIME TO CORRELATE THEM TO PERSONAL NEEDS AND REQUIREMENTS, INCLUDING THE INTERACTION WITH ROOM CHARACTERISTICS, then that's not the fault of the measurements. That's the fault of the listener.

So far in my experience, buyers who relied on listening rather than an adequately complete suite of measurements simply didn't understand measurements. (A similar situation exists with mathematics. Some people use it as a second language, while some people have not been taught how to use it.)

Using measurements this way isn't exactly easy, but it isn't astrophysics, either.

 

[heflys20]

If you look on graphs only Tune Tot loos terrible, but Amir wrote he preferred it over better measured Revels.

Yes, after applying extensive equalization to them.

I did not mention that. I noted that only measured data do not give full info and should go along with listening test.

How you bought your speakers? Have you listened them or bought after looking on measurements?

And where am I going to listen them at? In some crappy showroom? Most speakers I'm interested in are difficult to audition. Should I spend the money, without reviewing measurements, and pray they sound good; relying on some reviewer or random redditor's opinion? Nah, I'm good.

 

[Dave Bullet]

Danny never does non linear distortion measurements. A simple csd / waterfall shows time domain or linear distortion. Stressing a tweeter with a lower xo point requires increasing levels of power to see if excursion related distortion becomes a major problem. We never see any at power testing

 

[beagleman]

Danny never does non linear distortion measurements. A simple csd / waterfall shows time domain or linear distortion. Stressing a tweeter with a lower xo point requires increasing levels of power to see if excursion related distortion becomes a major problem. We never see any at power testing

Lowering the tweeter crossover point, seems to be one of his "Go to" ways to "Improve" every speaker.
He often says, "I don't get why the manufacturer chose a higher crossover", showing his lack of ability or care as to why other real engineers made choices.

 

[Gremlins]

Did someone called dany to talk about it and get his feedback?

 

[Buckchester]

Waiting for Danny to upgrade a Tekton speaker. That's long overdue...

OMG imagine the drama. This would be priceless. Truly priceless.

 

[PristineSound]

No response from Danny yet. Maybe he couldn't come up with any semi-plausible pseudoscience to refute all the science and facts dropped on him.

I think we can close this chapter on move on to more important things now.

 

[Everett T]

I think we can close this chapter on move on to more important things now.

Danny loves this attention, he controls the narrative on his channel and his sub fourm. He believes, and it's probably true, that this type of attention helps him sell more mods and speakers (as long as he is in control). He'll be back with another "FUBAR" mod and this will start over again.

 

[R-Carpenter]

Danny never does non linear distortion measurements. A simple csd / waterfall shows time domain or linear distortion. Stressing a tweeter with a lower xo point requires increasing levels of power to see if excursion related distortion becomes a major problem. We never see any at power testing

Tweeter in that design was stressed to begin with. 1% distortions is not great.

 

[Davey2156]

Tweeter in that design was stressed to begin with. 1% distortions is not great.

Agreed. The trade-off in using this type of tweeter has never been a good one. We've yet to see one that can check as many boxes as a good dome tweeter.
(Especially when crossing to a larger six inch driver, like in this application.)

People have been objectively testing these fragile tweeters for many years.
John Krutke did a dive on these twenty years ago.
The results are as expected.

Zaph|Audio

Zaph|Audio archive: Zaph|Audio. DIY speaker designs and measurements by John Krutke. Preserved and hosted by Madisound Speaker Components.

zaphaudio.com

 

[amirm]

Watching another one of Danny's "upgrade" videos. In there he said in passing that he has sold over 300 upgrade kits for Klipsch 600M! So he is moving fair bit of these. That one I reviewed and happened to work but still, this is significant amount of business he is doing selling "parts."