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Harbeth 30.2 vs kef R3

Ron Texas

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The idea that all compromises are equal because they're compromises is sophism and nothing else.

I don't see where @Willem said all compromises are equal. It's one of those things which goes without mentioning.
 

Willem

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I certainly did not say that. All I said was that no speaker is perfect and that this leads to different compromises, according to the taste of the designer and fitting different circumstances/markets. Think of it in terms of the economic theory of the production function, where you can have shifts along the production function that represent such different compromises, and shifts of the production itself that represent greater efficiency.
 

Darvis

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I didn't find my Harbeths sounded too "slow," but despite that audiophile descriptions are often disparaged, I do understand generally what someone is getting at by describing sound as "fast" or "slow" sounding.

I had a speaker to audition at my place once that I compared to my older Thiel speakers. The new speaker had a thicker, flubbier bass quality and it had a fascinating effect on the perception of the music. I'd play my various demo tracks which include lots of R&B, electronica, funk and jazzy stand up bass-riff stuff, and the new speaker actually seemed to slow the pace of the music! It was bizzare. I'd play a song that starts out with a tight bass riff rythm and then the drums kick in. On the looser, flubbier speaker it literally sounded like the bass player had relaxed and slowed down the pace of his playing. Back on the Thiels it just tightened up and it had a heart-quickening energy and pace. It was like the difference between playing a bass with new strings, vs with old strings detuned for a looser action. There was a sense of the playing/instruments tightening up, becoming taut and faster.
That's so sad Thiel died, really enjoyable speakers.
 

Soniclife

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I had a speaker to audition at my place once that I compared to my older Thiel speakers. The new speaker had a thicker, flubbier bass quality and it had a fascinating effect on the perception of the music. I'd play my various demo tracks which include lots of R&B, electronica, funk and jazzy stand up bass-riff stuff, and the new speaker actually seemed to slow the pace of the music! It was bizzare. I'd play a song that starts out with a tight bass riff rythm and then the drums kick in. On the looser, flubbier speaker it literally sounded like the bass player had relaxed and slowed down the pace of his playing. Back on the Thiels it just tightened up and it had a heart-quickening energy and pace. It was like the difference between playing a bass with new strings, vs with old strings detuned for a looser action. There was a sense of the playing/instruments tightening up, becoming taut and faster.
I've heard the same thing, and you can make it happen to a certain extent with EQ, and you can fix it with EQ. You see similar opinions regularly in subwoofer reviews. Whilst things like group delay and decay times seem like they are at work I think frequency response is 99% of it.
 

Steve Dallas

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To reiterate a dimension that was mentioned earlier, the room and placement has a lot to do with how a given speaker will sound. The following plot shows the same pair of KEF LS50s as measured in my study and in my media room. The speakers are toed in the same amount and the same proportional distance from the side walls, but different distances from the back wall (farther in the study, closer in the media room). The listening position proportionally similar.

Ignore everything below 300Hz due to room modes and phase issues. They do not look like the same speakers, and they sound quite different in the 2 different rooms. The character is similar, but the nulls and peaks are audibly obvious.

The plots are not level matched, and I think I used a timing reference in the media room and not in the study, but that should have no bearing on the frequency responses.

KEF LS50 Media Room vs Study Frequency Response.png
 

Inner Space

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With identical frequency responses different speaker system using woofers (for example) made of paper, aluminum, ceramic, carbon fiber, poly, bamboo etc. will all have significantly different sound characteristics. Same thing for midrange drivers, tweeters and even subwoofers.
Different compounds, coatings and material thicknesses will also affect pitch, timbre and tonal accuracy in addition to driver base material.

Really? I can't imagine how this can be correct. If the sound characteristics are "significantly different", then the sound waves in the air must be significantly different - but if the FRs are "identical", then where are these significant differences hiding? How else is timbre and tonal accuracy described other than FR? How can cone material affect pitch? Are you saying some materials change an E to an E-flat? Can you explain how?
 

witwald

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This actually brings up another question I have meant to ask for a long time: a lot of people describes the 'speed' of the drivers, usually by people whose musical preference is mainly rock / metal / electronica. ... How do you quantify this characteristic in measurements? How do you measure the start / stop time of a driver, if that's even possible?
The dynamic characteristics of the driver are embodied in its frequency response (its transfer function). This provides the information needed to characterise the response of the driver to various input signals (e.g. impulse, step, tone burst, etc). This applies when the driver is behaving linearly, which is a standard design goal when building loudspeaker drivers.
 

avanti1960

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Really? I can't imagine how this can be correct. If the sound characteristics are "significantly different", then the sound waves in the air must be significantly different - but if the FRs are "identical", then where are these significant differences hiding? How else is timbre and tonal accuracy described other than FR? How can cone material affect pitch? Are you saying some materials change an E to an E-flat? Can you explain how?
pitch and timbre using the terms loosely- e.g. the tone of an instrument- is made up of a range of frequencies all being broadcast at the same time.
take the key strike of a piano or the strike of a cymbal or tom- of course they consist of a range of frequencies and reproducing them so that the reproduced level of those frequencies matches the recorded level as closely as possible is job 1 for a loudspeaker.
With the instruments there is an instant sound (attack) followed by some dwell and sustain and then there are sounds of decay and trailing edges. All the while there are fundamental as well as harmonic frequencies being reproduced simultaneously as well as the resonant frequencies from the piano soundboard. Cymbal and tom strikes also consist of multiple concurrent sounds, tones and frequencies.
These simple basic actions on musical instruments lead to quite a complex array of different sound signatures. A lot of things are happening audibly at the same time and in a precise duration of time. If they are unfolded by the speaker with the correct frequency but the timing of the interplay among all of the frequencies is off, it simply will not sound as accurate as possible. speed / timing is one of the key attributes that differs among different cone materials, coatings and thicknesses. we simply cannot capture those subtleties with frequency response measurements of uncorrelated pink noise.
 

richard12511

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DBT is problematic for an evaluation of any component, especially speakers.
Even the best speakers can sound different or non-optimized depending upon positioning- toe angle, stand height, stand type, distance from back wall, side wall, etc. We go to great lengths (at least I do) to optimize the position of my speakers within my room.
Different speakers have different requirements for amplification too- some have the difficult combination of high amplitude negative phase angle combined with low impedance. feed them with an incapable amplifier and they will not sound their best.
If you are in the audiophile realm- or are serious about the sound you hear when you listen to music- it makes no sense to trust or put value in DBT data.

Sighted listening tests have even more problems, though.
 

richard12511

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One key "secret sauce" that renders frequency response as woefully inadequate in determining the sound is driver materials.
With identical frequency responses different speaker system using woofers (for example) made of paper, aluminum, ceramic, carbon fiber, poly, bamboo etc. will all have significantly different sound characteristics. Same thing for midrange drivers, tweeters and even subwoofers.
Different compounds, coatings and material thicknesses will also affect pitch, timbre and tonal accuracy in addition to driver base material.

Is there research to back up this claim? The only research I'm aware of on the topic actually disputes this.
 

Inner Space

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pitch and timbre using the terms loosely- e.g. the tone of an instrument- is made up of a range of frequencies all being broadcast at the same time.
take the key strike of a piano or the strike of a cymbal or tom- of course they consist of a range of frequencies and reproducing them so that the reproduced level of those frequencies matches the recorded level as closely as possible is job 1 for a loudspeaker.
With the instruments there is an instant sound (attack) followed by some dwell and sustain and then there are sounds of decay and trailing edges. All the while there are fundamental as well as harmonic frequencies being reproduced simultaneously as well as the resonant frequencies from the piano soundboard. Cymbal and tom strikes also consist of multiple concurrent sounds, tones and frequencies.
These simple basic actions on musical instruments lead to quite a complex array of different sound signatures. A lot of things are happening audibly at the same time and in a precise duration of time. If they are unfolded by the speaker with the correct frequency but the timing of the interplay among all of the frequencies is off, it simply will not sound as accurate as possible. speed / timing is one of the key attributes that differs among different cone materials, coatings and thicknesses. we simply cannot capture those subtleties with frequency response measurements of uncorrelated pink noise.

I'm very sorry, but this still makes no sense. If the FRs are identical, then the fundamentals will be identical; the entire harmonic structures will be identical; the timing will be identical; and all so-called sound characteristics will be identical. Conversely, if different cone materials produced, e.g. different "speed / timing" (which actually they don't), then by definition the FRs could not be identical. You can't have it both ways.

And to say "we simply cannot capture those subtleties ... " is simply woo-woo hand-waving. Absent break-up resonances, we simply can't identify cone material by sound alone. It's a common delusion - a kind of audiophile synesthesia, I suppose - to infer cause and effect by material appearance ... e.g. warm copper, bright silver, lots of drive if the amp has a thick faceplate, and so on and so forth. Eyeballing cone material and imagining differences in sound falls in the same category.
 

MattHooper

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These simple basic actions on musical instruments lead to quite a complex array of different sound signatures. A lot of things are happening audibly at the same time and in a precise duration of time. If they are unfolded by the speaker with the correct frequency but the timing of the interplay among all of the frequencies is off, it simply will not sound as accurate as possible. speed / timing is one of the key attributes that differs among different cone materials, coatings and thicknesses. we simply cannot capture those subtleties with frequency response measurements of uncorrelated pink noise.

Curious: you’ve made a technical claim. If the differences rendered by different cone materials/coatings/thickness can not be captured in frequency response measurements, how can they be measured?
I mean, the claims derive from measurable driver phenomena rather than sheer speculation, correct?
 
OP
Pjetrof

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It think that one thing that may be confusing the OP is his lumping Amps, DACs, and Speakers, as electronic devices. Amplifiers and dacs are electronic devices. Speakers are an electromechanical device, converting electrical energy into mechanical energy.

With electrical devices, we have very quantifiable measurements that are highly correlated and inform us of their qualities. With speakers, the audibility of the different measurements we make become less correlated, in large part because every room is different, placements within rooms different, resulting in vastly different sound, even for the same speaker, when moved from room to room. We know that in general, most people prefer speakers with a flat frequency response that continues off axis. That is correct in most cases, but say you have a large room that is extremely over dampened and listen from 5 meters away. A flat speaker with smooth off axis response will lack high end response, while a tilted up speaker will sound correct.

So while we can predict with strong certainty if an amplifier or dac will work well (is the SN ratio sufficient, does the amp have enough power to not clip), we cannot predict what room a speaker will be put in, the setup of the speakers, or the furnishings in the room. This is why in home speaker auditions are so important for speakers, but not for dacs, amps or other source components.

Finally, the OP asked if two speakers of the driver design and layout will sound the same. The short answer is sometimes, maybe. You can build two identical speakers, but use two different crossovers, say a 6db/octave versus a 24db/octave, which will give the same on axis response, but entirely different off axis responses, resulting in very different sounding speakers.

thx for this reply understand it now
 
OP
Pjetrof

Pjetrof

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Curious: you’ve made a technical claim. If the differences rendered by different cone materials/coatings/thickness can not be captured in frequency response measurements, how can they be measured?
I mean, the claims derive from measurable driver phenomena rather than sheer speculation, correct?

i m sorry I m not an engineer but do I read your response right, that same like amp and dac a speaker can be measured?

so in an open place where there are no walls or a room that not interact with the speaker, is it correct to say the best measurement speaker is the best. The only thing we can’t measure is how a speaker interact with a room.
what I find difficult to believe why would for example a worse measured speaker sound better in a specific room then a better measured speaker in that room.
cause we can adjust the sound with eq or adjust the room with room correction.
 

MattHooper

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i m sorry I m not an engineer but do I read your response right, that same like amp and dac a speaker can be measured?

so in an open place where there are no walls or a room that not interact with the speaker, is it correct to say the best measurement speaker is the best. The only thing we can’t measure is how a speaker interact with a room.
what I find difficult to believe why would for example a worse measured speaker sound better in a specific room then a better measured speaker in that room.
cause we can adjust the sound with eq or adjust the room with room correction.

I’m confused. Did you perhaps quote me by mistake when you meant to respond to someone else?
 

ferrellms

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Not necessarily. The score is based on average listener preference. This means that more listeners will like a higher scoring speaker. It does not mean that every listener will like a higher scoring speaker.

The preference score is a perfect tool for commercial manufacturers who want to sell as many speakers as possible. It is not perfect (though helpful) for the individual buyer.
Of course, one should listen to speakers before buying, preferably in one's home. One might have idiosyncratic taste in sound, or an oddball room. But one should go to high average listener preference speakers for the speakers to try. They are the most likely to satisfy as shown by empirical test.
 

Alexanderc

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I think people hear the sound signatures of various musical instruments and try to apply the same characteristics to speaker cones. I think this is a mistake.

Acoustic musical instruments will sound different based on numerous factors, including the fact that they actually vibrate at resonant frequencies. A trumpet and a clarinet playing the same pitch at the same volume will sound different in part because the materials they are made out of are vibrating sympathetically (but differently) with the player’s lips or reed.

If this resonance happened in a speaker driver it would presumably be both audible and unwelcome. I assume that if this resonance was loud enough we might be able to identify the material the cone was made from. The speaker cone of a correctly designed speaker, however, is not vibrating, it is being physically moved back and forth (albeit very quickly). If I were able to swing a clarinet and a trumpet around several hundred times per second, they would make sound, but I would bet nobody could tell by the sound which one I was swinging.

Of course, if I’ve made a mistake in my thought experiment I hope someone with actual data and research will correct me.
 
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