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How would you best go about level matching speakers to compare them? We know tiny differences in level of electronic components can sound like a quality difference. So how about matching speakers what is a good method?
I think a single tone is no good as speakers may vary too much within a narrow range. Perhaps 1/3 octave white noise centered on 440 hz or 1 khz would work better. Even then speakers variable frequency response would seem to muddy the waters.
Hearing that two speakers are different is not at all hard to do so maybe level matching isn't as important. Yet if one were to get FR rather close it seems matching would become important. I believe the old cliche that hifi is 85% frequency response, but with room correction you can get that FR reasonably close in the listening area. I also ask this question in regards to choosing target curves for DRC.
Dr. Toole had this to say as to why exact level matching is less critical for speakers:
The essence of the timbre of musical and vocal sounds is resonances - these must be captured and preserved. There are other factors, but this is the big one. The job of the loudspeaker is to reproduce those sounds - those resonances - without adding any of its own, thus monotonously coloring everything it reproduces. Research has revealed that levels of resonances in loudspeakers that are just perceptible are perceived as colorations when listening to various kinds of music. The idea is to be able to recognize in a spinorama (see below) the presence of resonances and to be able to evaluate the likelihood that they will be audible when listening to music. Knowing this enables design engineers to manage the compromises that are a part of all loudspeakers, especially those at the bottom of the price scale. At high prices there are simply no excuses for audible resonances.
Low-Q resonances are detectable at very small deviations. This is why broadband spectral variations matter so much. A tilt is detectable at about 0.1 dB/octave or 1 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. We are much more forgiving of high-Q resonances, the ones that ring on and look so alarming in waterfall diagrams. Why? Because in order for them to be energized, a musical spectral component must hit the frequency exactly and stay there long enough to transfer energy. In the ever changing musical sounds, especially anything with vibrato, such instances are rare. It's as simple as that.
Further, loudness grows much more rapidly at low frequencies than at middle to high frequencies, making bass level especially critical. This is a huge variable in recordings and movies because of the lack of standardization in control rooms as can be seen in Figure 2.4 of Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms. The notion that a system can be set up and sound perfect for all recordings is naive.
Now adjusting target curves for a given speaker I have found the tilt to be very critical. Toole says above that .1 db/octave tilt is where it becomes detectable. I have certainly found .2 or .3 db tilts to be easily heard when adjusting DRC target curves for other people's speakers. This leads me to believe level matching when choosing DRC target curves might also require very precise matching yet what is level matched if the tilt of the curve differs?
I think a single tone is no good as speakers may vary too much within a narrow range. Perhaps 1/3 octave white noise centered on 440 hz or 1 khz would work better. Even then speakers variable frequency response would seem to muddy the waters.
Hearing that two speakers are different is not at all hard to do so maybe level matching isn't as important. Yet if one were to get FR rather close it seems matching would become important. I believe the old cliche that hifi is 85% frequency response, but with room correction you can get that FR reasonably close in the listening area. I also ask this question in regards to choosing target curves for DRC.
Dr. Toole had this to say as to why exact level matching is less critical for speakers:
The essence of the timbre of musical and vocal sounds is resonances - these must be captured and preserved. There are other factors, but this is the big one. The job of the loudspeaker is to reproduce those sounds - those resonances - without adding any of its own, thus monotonously coloring everything it reproduces. Research has revealed that levels of resonances in loudspeakers that are just perceptible are perceived as colorations when listening to various kinds of music. The idea is to be able to recognize in a spinorama (see below) the presence of resonances and to be able to evaluate the likelihood that they will be audible when listening to music. Knowing this enables design engineers to manage the compromises that are a part of all loudspeakers, especially those at the bottom of the price scale. At high prices there are simply no excuses for audible resonances.
Low-Q resonances are detectable at very small deviations. This is why broadband spectral variations matter so much. A tilt is detectable at about 0.1 dB/octave or 1 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. We are much more forgiving of high-Q resonances, the ones that ring on and look so alarming in waterfall diagrams. Why? Because in order for them to be energized, a musical spectral component must hit the frequency exactly and stay there long enough to transfer energy. In the ever changing musical sounds, especially anything with vibrato, such instances are rare. It's as simple as that.
Further, loudness grows much more rapidly at low frequencies than at middle to high frequencies, making bass level especially critical. This is a huge variable in recordings and movies because of the lack of standardization in control rooms as can be seen in Figure 2.4 of Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms. The notion that a system can be set up and sound perfect for all recordings is naive.
Now adjusting target curves for a given speaker I have found the tilt to be very critical. Toole says above that .1 db/octave tilt is where it becomes detectable. I have certainly found .2 or .3 db tilts to be easily heard when adjusting DRC target curves for other people's speakers. This leads me to believe level matching when choosing DRC target curves might also require very precise matching yet what is level matched if the tilt of the curve differs?
