In terms of traditional passives , Magico’s actually measure pretty well, KEF Blades probably are even better and there is a US brand that sell direct they have a Klippel NFS someone here will know whom I mean.
Out of curiosity, why?
Don’t know why we don’t name them (but maybe why you don’t), that’s Ascend, isn’t it?
Why is it that I have heard of Harbeth but not of Graham, Rosso, Raidho, Devore, Audio Note, Trenner & Friedl, Diapason? I have no idea? Think of something you are not aware of and explain how come you aren't aware of it. That's tough to answer.
Sorry, I misunderstood- I thought you wanted to test all the models except Harbeth for some unstated reason, as opposed to stating that you hadn’t heard of all the others. Carry on.
No worries. I edited my previous to clarify, or, at least, that was my intent when I made the edit.
possibly. i've been here 5 years and couldn't tell ya. i have a vague idea what 3 or 4 people here have/had as careers.
not me.
what "completely different criteria" do you have in mind?
A frequently constructed straw man around here. The idea since you understand, can make use of and value measurements that you don't enjoy music or that music is of lesser importance. When in fact if you can make use of the information many "difficult audiophile decisions" become much simpler, It is much easier and often cheaper to put together a high performance sound system, leaving more time and money to simply enjoy music without the audiophile nervosa.
According to Harman it will often be #1. Not always, but often enough it surprised them when tested. A most common mistake in home audio is the belief more expensive equates with better. It should, but especially in high end may not even be true 50% of the time.
You Sir couldn’t be more mistaken. A well measuring and performant speaker design will have the greatest chance of transferring that stellar performance to your listeneing environment. You seem to incorrectly assume that the standard suite of Measurements and tests performed on Loud Speakers to only be useful as a graph or chart. What we test and measure are real physical audio performance data points. These data points have been developed and refined over decades and decades of rigorous detailed engineering design works and studies. Sir, no offense but you clearly have no clue what Engineers do and your reductive reasoning demonstrates your complete lack of comprehension of the work involved. Another words you don’t know what you don’t know.
The only speaker which will not cause gross coloration with an SET is one with a perfectly flat impedance curve. Otherwise, yes, grossly colored. And even then, microphonics and high distortion, with quite a bit of compression artifact. You can like that, but it's coloration, and the sort that can't be turned off.
Maybe less straw manning would help. I've been in the hobby over 40 years myself. I've heard some version of everything in your post. My comments don't come from "seeing some test chart somewhere on the internet". Quicksilver amps are lush. OTL amps can be pretty poor on wrong load. While I cannot claim to have heard every SET, never heard one that wasn't obviously coloring the sound. Maybe they've not been hooked up to the right speaker, but I have heard them on some very efficient speakers. If they sound relatively uncolored, it will require extremely careful pairing and I know of nothing they bring to the sound other topologies cannot match or exceed.
Yes. I've heard a couple SETs paired with some Maggies as an experiment because they have the nearly flat purely resistive impedance curve. Even playing them at low levels as the 4 ohm load and power requirements of the Maggies are not really suitable they had a sound. Microphonics yes, high distortion yes, and I'm glad you mentioned compression as that is common with them too. My friends and I have also used them as a low gain preamp (the voltages of most of them are not really out of that range) feeding a suitable amp. They are still colored enough you have no doubt when they are in or out of the circuit. Even with various horns or other high efficiency speakers they are supposed to be good with they still add their own coloration from what I've heard.
