Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[dshreter]

There have been people on this forum
who’ve said they are seeking high Fidelity equipment and they don’t actually trust their own ears to make that decision. So even listening, in sighted conditions they don’t trust their sighted impressions (presumably even if negative) and would go on measurements.

I would put myself in that camp that I don't particularly trust my ears. I've done enough blind testing of different types and I'm usually disappointed by my individual performance and ability to identify or distinguish between things.

If something doesn't sound good, then I wouldn't listen to it because that would be absurd. But I also think it is more effective to rely on measurements to find something suitable for purpose and get good sound, and I don't consider there to be something special about my ears to require a unique solution. I don't see loudspeakers as being personal like a musical instrument.

I'm comfortable with the idea of picking out a speaker that meets my functional criteria and then worrying about something else. For example, if I was a baker and I bought a stand mixer with sufficient capacity and power to knead my dough, with a scientifically proven ideally shaped dough hook for gluten formation, and then my bread came out poorly.... I wouldn't go shopping for new stand mixers until my bread was good. I would verify that the stand mixer was doing its job properly and consider the other factors that influenced my recipe.

That's how I feel about speakers. If they measure well and are performing to spec, I have little reason to worry about it. I can focus on something else like improving the room acoustics and layout. There's magic in listening to a well performing system, but what speakers do is not mystical, and they only need to do their job, nothing more nothing less.

 

[MattHooper]

I don't see loudspeakers as being personal like a musical instrument.

Understandable. For my own purchases I suppose I’m in the camp of, in a way, approaching loudspeakers as being personal and musical instruments.

I don’t just look at measurements and say
“ OK this loudspeaker is accurate that’s all I need.” That doesn’t work for me. Rather, I generally compare loud speakers to other loud speakers and also to my perception of real life sounds. So I’m usually judging the sound of loudspeaker against something else. And to my mind, all loud speakers sound coloured, if even just with respect to real life sounds. Once I hear certain instruments played through the loudspeaker. It feels like “ OK, I hear its voice, now I know generally how those instruments are going to sound through this loudspeaker from now on.” And then I either like it or I don’t.

That’s one reason I’ve had fun owning lots of different loudspeakers. Pretty much every single one has given me great pleasure, while giving me a somewhat different take on things.

 

[Purité Audio]

That’s understandable all the speakers you have owned have been coloured perhaps try a transparent design?
Keith

 

[MattHooper]

That’s understandable all the speakers you have owned have been coloured perhaps try a transparent design?
Keith

What do you know of all the speakers I have owned? I have had neutral speakers in my listening room. I’ve also carefully auditioned neutral loudspeakers (among them Revel, Kii Audio, Magico and other well measuring brands, professional monitors…). Not to mention for decades I have worked in very expensive studios, carefully and extensively designed employing acousticians for flat response, using neutral monitors.

So I actually am familiar with neutral sound.

 

[NTK]

What do you know of all the speakers I have owned? I have had neutral speakers in my listening room. I’ve also carefully auditioned neutral loudspeakers (among them Revel, Kii Audio, Magico and other well measuring brands, professional monitors…). Not to mention for decades I have worked in very expensive studios, carefully and extensively designed employing acousticians for flat response, using neutral monitors.

So I actually am familiar with neutral sound.

Can you describe how you carefully auditioned them?

 

[MattHooper]

Can you describe how you carefully auditioned them?

Perhaps nothing I say would suffice, but in case you are truly curious..

When I audition loudspeakers, as much as possible, I try to make sure the speakers are set up in a reasonable way for the room which usually means, if the speakers were placed in a compromising way, I move them out into the room to a set up mirroring what I use at home, so there’s lots of breathing room for the speaker. I play with angling of the speaker, I play with seating distances - close, medium (mimicking my own seating distance) far. I listen to the sound standing, kneeling on the ground, off axis, from different parts of the room, sort of informal
“ human spinorama” as it were getting a general gist of the loudspeaker. And I often spend many hours listening to test tracks I know really well. (I also listen with eyes closed and open, which can actually be quite telling sometimes).

That’s about as “ carefully” as I can manage.

And it has served me well, because in doing this, I have never been surprised by the sound of loudspeaker that I heard under audition circumstances versus when I got it in my own room (or when I have audition elsewhere as well). The speaker characteristics I noted in the audition show up in my home and other rooms as well.

 

[Newman]

Can you describe how you carefully auditioned them?

Apparently much the same way as the esteemed prose reviewers at Stereophile or The Absolute Sound use, when heaping praise on horrorshow speakers like Zu, Lowther, ...frankly anything. Because that's how it works.

I call it the Spinayarnorama Method. Works every time. Especially the yarn part.

 

[MattHooper]

Apparently much the same way as the esteemed prose reviewers at Stereophile or The Absolute Sound use, when heaping praise on horrorshow speakers like Zu, Lowther, ...frankly anything. Because that's how it works.

I call it the Spinayarnorama Method. Works every time. Especially the yarn part.

The number of loudspeakers that have spinorama measurements available are an incredibly teeny fraction of the available loudspeakers.

Some of us prefer not to be limited to that teeny fraction and are interested in a wider variety of loudspeakers.

The average audio store does not have a Harman Kardon blind speaker listening set up. Given the limitations, I do the best I can with the usual informal auditions at stores .

As I say, this has worked well for me in terms of the perception in the store matching my perception of the loudspeaker when I get it in my room, and since that perception remains consistent, purchases made this way have been very satisfying.

And… I’ve never needed any tone controls.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The number of loudspeakers that have spinorama measurements available are an incredibly teeny fraction of the available loudspeakers.

Yes but more all the time as more companies learn the benefits of it.

Some of us prefer not to be limited to that teeny fraction and are interested in a wider variety of loudspeakers. snip...

And some of us have learned how valuable it is to have those spins so we don't bother if something does not have them. While it does not mean a speaker can be no good it does mean they aren't up to speed on how to design modern speakers.

 

[MattHooper]

Yes but more all the time as more companies learn the benefits of it.

Yes. For instance, we know that Magico now uses spins. But out of curiosity, can you name some other manufactures using a Klippel? I’m wondering if I’ve missed some significantly broader pattern happening.

And some of us have learned how valuable it is to have those spins so we don't bother if something does not have them.

Certainly. I assume that as the default position here. Which is why I occasionally mention it doesn’t necessarily serve everybody.

While it does not mean a speaker can be no good it does mean they aren't up to speed on how to design modern speakers.

Sure. Though in my comparisons so far - E.g between modern design and classic design here - I haven’t detected any paradigm changing advantages so far to such soeakers. Refinement in some aspects yes. But I’ve heard plenty of well-designed modern speakers and while they were clearly excellent designs, I haven’t found myself thinking “ wow that’s providing an experience I’ve never had before!”

Reminds me of the thread I made at one point asking folks here if the ideal was that loudspeaker manufacturing reach the point where all loudspeakers sounded essentially the same (within given frequency limitations).
Essentially commoditized sound quality.
A bunch of people said yes, which I get.
But, while I think there should be plenty of people advancing loudspeaker design in that manner, I prefer the field left open to all sorts of different designs and out of the box thinking, as I really enjoy how loudspeakers can sound quite different from one another.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes. For instance, we know that Magico now uses spins. But out of curiosity, can you name some other manufactures using a Klippel? I’m wondering if I’ve missed some significantly broader pattern happening.

Oh I don't know if they use a Klippel, anechoic chamber or get close with outdoor measurements. Either of these methods could be used with an eye toward Spin data for design. There is KEF, Genelec, Neumann, and I'm drawing a blank, but there are two companies making large floor standing monitors seen in music studios mostly. I believe Sierra Acoustics is doing this now. Dutch and Dutch and Kii seem to use it. I'm also thinking I'm forgetting a forum member who makes speakers using it. PSB was using it, but don't know if they are in latest models. I bet there are some I don't know about as well.

 

[MattHooper]

Oh I don't know if they use a Klippel, anechoic chamber or get close with outdoor measurements. Either of these methods could be used with an eye toward Spin data for design. There is KEF, Genelec, Neumann, and I'm drawing a blank, but there are two companies making large floor standing monitors seen in music studios mostly. I believe Sierra Acoustics is doing this now. Dutch and Dutch and Kii seem to use it. I'm also thinking I'm forgetting a forum member who makes speakers using it. PSB was using it, but don't know if they are in latest models. I bet there are some I don't know about as well.

OK, those are the companies that came to my mind as well.

 

[bodhi]

As there seems to be no valid explanation for why a company won't provide spins for their, speakers it feels pretty safe to skip those products altogether. Or try to figure out some explanation that is believable to you.

Unless of course one doesn't believe that good speakers have good measurements. That's a valid perspective as well.

 

[ahofer]

Oh I don't know if they use a Klippel, anechoic chamber or get close with outdoor measurements. Either of these methods could be used with an eye toward Spin data for design. There is KEF, Genelec, Neumann, and I'm drawing a blank, but there are two companies making large floor standing monitors seen in music studios mostly. I believe Sierra Acoustics is doing this now. Dutch and Dutch and Kii seem to use it. I'm also thinking I'm forgetting a forum member who makes speakers using it. PSB was using it, but don't know if they are in latest models. I bet there are some I don't know about as well.

Ascend? Alan March used elevated outdoor measurements as I recall for the Sointuva.

 

[krabapple]

You may think you prefer the sound of one cable or another, but it can be discovered through testing that you can’t actually tell them apart.

You may think you prefer A loudspeaker over B, but it can be discovered through testing that you are wrong and that you actually prefer B. (At least sonically. You would not be in fact wrong about what you prefer under sighted conditions, but could be wrong in what you believe about why you prefer the speaker, believing you prefer simply the sound itself, when other factors actually are influencing your preference).

Yes, as I've noted multiple times before: stating a preference is fine.
But when you (generic) confidently assert a cause for that preference, based on sighted evaluation, you are on shaky ground.
That's where the science comes in.

 

[krabapple]

The number of loudspeakers that have spinorama measurements available are an incredibly teeny fraction of the available loudspeakers.

Well then let's all of advocate most strongly for more such measurements, rather than more of the same old subjective review garble.

Isn't that the best way forward?

 

[MaxwellsEq]

As there seems to be no valid explanation for why a company won't provide spins for their, speakers it feels pretty safe to skip those products altogether. Or try to figure out some explanation that is believable to you.

Unless of course one doesn't believe that good speakers have good measurements. That's a valid perspective as well.

More "mature" companies may have their own anechoic chamber and so don't see the need to invest in Spinorama as well.

 

[Blumlein 88]

More "mature" companies may have their own anechoic chamber and so don't see the need to invest in Spinorama as well.

If you have an anechoic chamber there is no investment needed. Just do the measurements for spin o Rama data. The Klippel is a easy way to get spin data without an anechoic chamber.

 

[Somafunk]

Good video by Blaine giving a talk at the recent CanJam regarding the variability of headphone/iem measurements and how that relates to a clusterf*ck of misinterpretation regarding the known data

(With occasional interruptions and clarifications courtesy of Oratory)

TLDR/TLDW - Headphone data does not currently portray the range of potential sources of variation perception between listeners

 

[MattHooper]

As there seems to be no valid explanation for why a company won't provide spins for their, speakers

Cost perhaps for some smaller companies, )who also feel their design methods are valid anyway?)

Existing anechoic chambers for some companies?

it feels pretty safe to skip those products altogether.

Yes, that is a reasonable and easy way towards winnowing out loudspeaker candidates, then I’m sure works well for many people here.

Unless of course one doesn't believe that good speakers have good measurements.

Well, I guess on ASR it would be sort of tautological to say that good speakers have good measurements, especially as there is a particular criteria accepted for what defines “ good measurements.”

In this sense to me, it’s obvious good speakers have good measurements, and I’ve yet to hear speaker that measures well (in the ASR criteria) that doesn’t sound good. So I do think that brings in a good level of predictability.

Beyond that, I suppose we can ask how wide the criteria can be for a “ good sounding” speaker. Might someone still quite like, or even possibly prefer, a loudspeaker that doesn’t measure for instance exactly like a Revel?

For instance, the Joseph Audio Perspective 2 speakers I own Seem to measure fairly well in various respects

Not as textbook as a Revel or Neumann. There’s a little rise in the highs starting at around 5K, through which smooth out on the inroom stereophile measurements. I have very sensitive ears and don’t do well with bright sounding speakers, so I might initially have looked at those measurements and wondered if that would be a problem.
But it certainly hasn’t been. I have found the speakers to strike an amazing balance of sounding very even for the most part, with life-like airy highs that are incredibly smooth and easy on the ears. I’ve been been able to crank these speakers louder than any speaker I’ve ever owned Without without them sounding bright and bothering my ears (visiting audio buddies have remarked exactly the same thing, how smooth and easy they are to listen to at any volume).

I’ve dialled them into my liking, including controlling reflections, so I don’t know how exactly they are measuring in my room at the listening position. But I just have to myself and I am extraordinarily pleased with the presentation.

(I don’t seem to be alone in liking the brand: Joseph audio receives probably the most consistent high reviews from audio shows than any brand I’ve seen - even at shows where most people are complaining about the bad sound in other rooms. So I suspect the design is doing some fundamental things, right).

So I guess I’m getting it what type of variations one would consider acceptable within the “ good measuring” parameters.