GR Research

[squeedle]

Lately I have become really fascinated by the GR Research YT channel, and appreciated his consistent measurement-based approach to analyzing and improving on speaker designs. So much so that I've become seriously interested in his open baffle servo subwoofer offerings, and his NX-Otica open baffle tower speakers. But then he posted those insane "flat earther" videos about speaker cables and now power cables, and it kind of turned my stomach. So I have a couple of questions now...

1) Are his speaker products legitimately good and he's just being kind of a weasel about the cables and whatnot? Or is he a total charlatan?

2) Is there any truth to his claims about good capacitors being "faster" than bad ones? Assuming two different capacitors have the same exact value, do they function identically? (For the sake of this hypothetical, let's ignore any capacitance margin of error which might be more common for cheaper capacitors and assume both ACTUALLY DO have the exact same value, and let's also not get into longevity of electrolytic media, let's just focus on the signal output).

Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this, not trying to start a war or anything. And yes I know there are multiple threads about this guy already, I've read them. Not trying to diss him, give him extra publicity, etc. Hope my questions are well received. Thanks.

 

[MarkWinston]

Following.

 

[Frgirard]

Lately I have become really fascinated by the GR Research YT channel, and appreciated his consistent measurement-based approach to analyzing and improving on speaker designs. So much so that I've become seriously interested in his open baffle servo subwoofer offerings, and his NX-Otica open baffle tower speakers. But then he posted those insane "flat earther" videos about speaker cables and now power cables, and it kind of turned my stomach. So I have a couple of questions now...

1) Are his speaker products legitimately good and he's just being kind of a weasel about the cables and whatnot? Or is he a total charlatan?

2) Is there any truth to his claims about good capacitors being "faster" than bad ones? Assuming two different capacitors have the same exact value, do they function identically? (For the sake of this hypothetical, let's ignore any capacitance margin of error which might be more common for cheaper capacitors and assume both ACTUALLY DO have the exact same value, and let's also not get into longevity of electrolytic media, let's just focus on the signal output).

Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this, not trying to start a war or anything. And yes I know there are multiple threads about this guy already, I've read them. Not trying to diss him, give him extra publicity, etc. Hope my questions are well received. Thanks.

When a guru advises cables, I see a charlatan.

 

[Ageve]

2) Is there any truth to his claims about good capacitors being "faster" than bad ones?

Not really.

It's a problem with "DIY experts". Changing components always results in an improvement. You never see someone saying that they replaced crossover components, and then experienced a decrease in performance. It would be a hard sell for someone like him.

Electrolytic capacitors have a shorter life span, and badly made iron core inductors can cause increased distortion. Some of the best speakers I have heard through the years had rather cheap crossover components.

When a guru advises cables, I see a charlatan.

Yep.

 

[SIY]

2) Is there any truth to his claims about good capacitors being "faster" than bad ones?

Yes, assuming the person throwing the good ones is stronger than the person throwing the bad ones and/or has longer arms.

 

[Vini darko]

Lately I have become really fascinated by the GR Research YT channel, and appreciated his consistent measurement-based approach to analyzing and improving on speaker designs. So much so that I've become seriously interested in his open baffle servo subwoofer offerings, and his NX-Otica open baffle tower speakers. But then he posted those insane "flat earther" videos about speaker cables and now power cables, and it kind of turned my stomach. So I have a couple of questions now...

1) Are his speaker products legitimately good and he's just being kind of a weasel about the cables and whatnot? Or is he a total charlatan?

2) Is there any truth to his claims about good capacitors being "faster" than bad ones? Assuming two different capacitors have the same exact value, do they function identically? (For the sake of this hypothetical, let's ignore any capacitance margin of error which might be more common for cheaper capacitors and assume both ACTUALLY DO have the exact same value, and let's also not get into longevity of electrolytic media, let's just focus on the signal output).

Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this, not trying to start a war or anything. And yes I know there are multiple threads about this guy already, I've read them. Not trying to diss him, give him extra publicity, etc. Hope my questions are well received. Thanks.

Hi welcome to asr. To answer question one. Danny's stated goals of flat frequency response , even off axis response and low resonance are all good practice for speaker design. It's a shame we dont have more third party high resolution measurments of his designs.
Personally I've not heard any of his speakers so can't comment on sound.
You second question. Yes there differences between capacitors , resitors and inductors. How much of that is audible though I dont know.
With regards to the wires he's selling. They should reject noise pick up better than ordinary parallel wires. Again I don't know if any of that is audible.

 

[abdo123]

and appreciated his consistent measurement-based approach to analyzing and improving on speaker designs.

it's so odd that the measurements always agree wit his opinions don't you think?

 

[MarkWinston]

it's so odd that the measurements always agree wit his opinions don't you think?

It isnt odd when his opinions are based on his measurements. Could go either way.

 

[Sharpi31]

I wonder if his business model would be viable without reselling $100 capacitors…. probably not. I do like the idea of measuring and improving off-the-shelf loudspeakers though - I’ve no doubt that standard crossovers aren’t always optimal (Amir’s measurements demonstrate this), and so sensible redesign/upgrade can bring significant improvements. However you can do this without needing snake oil parts.

 

[Vini darko]

I wonder if his business model would be viable without reselling $100 capacitors…. probably not. I do like the idea of measuring and improving off-the-shelf loudspeakers though - I’ve no doubt that standard crossovers aren’t always optimal (Amir’s measurements demonstrate this), and so sensible redesign/upgrade can bring significant improvements. However you can do this without needing snake oil parts.

On the subject of snakeoil caps. Heres the information on three "audio" capacitors. Two have data sheets. One has bs prose. Only one has for real electrical specs stated.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

Always remember one thing, no matter whether you're considering electronic gear, government spending, political analysis or pharmacological safety:

A little bit of truth makes b.s. more effective.

It's handy to go through life with that principle in mind. Jim

 

[dfuller]

1) Are his speaker products legitimately good and he's just being kind of a weasel about the cables and whatnot? Or is he a total charlatan?

He isn't a total charlatan as he does understand how crossovers work, but most other stuff he's wrong about.

2) Is there any truth to his claims about good capacitors being "faster" than bad ones? Assuming two different capacitors have the same exact value, do they function identically? (For the sake of this hypothetical, let's ignore any capacitance margin of error which might be more common for cheaper capacitors and assume both ACTUALLY DO have the exact same value, and let's also not get into longevity of electrolytic media, let's just focus on the signal output).

So... long and short, any film cap of the same value will behave exactly the same in a passive crossover. Electrolytics can have somewhat higher distortion if pushed hard as they're far less tolerant of ripple current. Otherwise... Nah!

 

[RMW_NJ]

Danny is a bit polarizing but he actually designs pretty good sounding and measuring speakers. Amir measured the X-LS Encore last year https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...esearch-x-ls-encore-kit-speaker-review.14957/

I built the AV3 about 15 years ago and it still sounds good today.

 

[mansr]

Yes, assuming the person throwing the good ones is stronger than the person throwing the bad ones and/or has longer arms.

Maybe it's referring to terminal velocity if dropped from a tall building.

 

[TheBatsEar]

[...] Or is he a total charlatan?

[...] Is there any truth to his claims about good capacitors being "faster" than bad ones?

Answer appears to be no in both cases.

He knows how to read a graph and make speaker networks. He isn't perfect however, that cable stuff was really hard to swallow. Doubt he believes it himself, seems more to help sell his stuff to a certain audience.

 

[squeedle]

Wow thanks everyone for the responses, have enjoyed reading them all! It is strange that the bulk of his work is based on measurable results, and then he just dives completely off a cliff and abandons all of that for other aspects of what he does. I'm desperately curious to hear his NX-Otica speakers to compare to Spatial's offerings, and I am still leaning toward buying the OB sub setup he sells. But I hope he cuts out the childish mud-slinging and snake-oil pitches...though, not holding my breath.

 

[garbz]

So... long and short, any film cap of the same value will behave exactly the same in a passive crossover. Electrolytics can have somewhat higher distortion if pushed hard as they're far less tolerant of ripple current. Otherwise... Nah!

That isn't 100% true. "Film" caps come in many varieties with different construction methods and different electrolytes. They will have measurably different distortion characteristics and for some film caps these are high enough to be within the audible range. That said we're talking several orders of magnitude lower than the speaker drivers themselves so take that for what you will.
Just wanted to mention that so people don't generalise your comment to "different capacitors don't matter" in a general sense.

That said that doesn't justify "audiophile" caps.

 

[Shazb0t]

He's been able to design some competent diy speakers and offers the kits, but apparently there wasn't enough money in that so now he's a grifter hawking expensive audiophile "upgrade" components, "tube connectors", speaker wire, and power cables. The standard audio voodoo high profit margin BS.

 

[Wseaton]

Danny takes me as somebody that is good within their specific niche' of engineering, but his expertise is brought about by street smarts and experience fussing around in his basement and not formal electronics training. When I used to work in high end audio I heard engineers for some pretty reputable companies say dumber things and yet deliver good products. I've also talked to engineers that seemed extremely credible and had multiple letters behind their name deliver speakers that were laughably bad. Danny's recent jihad into the realm of snake lubricant stinks of desperation.

In regards to speaker frequency tests, one of the first speakers I ever bought was a pair of JBL 2600s. Consumer reports gave it a stellar review and the audio press raved about their neutral response. As a kid I thought they were great. Then I heard some competing pairs of bookshelf a few years later in the same price class and realized how *bad* the 2600's were in comparison; shrill, incoherent, harsh, boomy, totally unmusical. But....they had flat frequency response......right? My point is that Danny is essentially 'breaking' some of the newer speakers he's so called 'fixing' given the engineers are obviously trying to fix some issues by not having a perfect response.

His cap argument has some validity...to a point. Caps have other electrical values other than voltage, farads and the magic smoke threshold. Cheaper ones can drift resistance under different thermal conditions, there's parasitic inductance, and other issues mainly brought about by small size and cheap materials. All this can futz with time domain issues and deliver some of the complaints that really cheap xover networks deliver. This just proves again how passive speaker designs are outdated and active speakers with discrete controlled output for each driver need to be the standard for high end audio. In short, Danny doesn't help his cause.

 

[Moravid]

If selling overpriced Caps and power cables to audiophiles allows him to sell well deigned DIY kits cheaper then so be it...