Most people don't care about measurements
And a lot of audiophiles are in love with concepts that have nothing to do with good sound quality (like tubes and vinyl).
You can tell someone that their speaker measures badly but if they like the sound it's insignificant
As much as ASR folks will recoil from these measurements and condemn any such speaker, the fact is we know that some things can sound better than the measurements look. By that I mean certain peaks or dips in frequency response may not sound as obvious or bad as they look on a graph.
And as much as “ designing by ear” is disparaged, it’s not implausible that such a process results in frequency response deviations that “ to the ear” aren’t as obvious as they look.
And of course, the other variable: you can have frequency response variations that are only obvious or offputting with some recordings and not others. I have a bass node or two in my set up but it’s only obvious very occasionally, and in other cases I think it adds a bit of punch that I like.
And then you have the fact that people can adapt to colorations. So if you find you’ve easily adapted to the colorations in the loudspeaker, you may find yourself able to enjoy the good or more compelling aspects of the speaker.
Erin if I recall correctly said that the bass coloration in the X3 could be kind of fun and add a sense of punch, and he also commented on the spacious imaging and the very good image focus.
Likewise my friend who had the X6 noticed the recessed qualities on some piano recording right off the bat, but otherwise and lots of material it didn’t tend to show up as a single obnoxious“colouration” sticking out per se but more of a general slightly recessed, relaxed quality overall, and since he didn’t find that disqualifying of his enjoyment, he was able to enjoy the spacious and focussed imaging, the sense of easy, fine detail and the kick ass quality of the bass response on lots of tracks.
So there can be a valid sense in which we have the measurements and in which that hoary old audiophile response “
but have you heard it?” has a bit of validity. If you’re looking for speakers with “ good measurements” with respect to what ASR accepts as best practises then it’s easy to dismiss any speaker that measures poorly with respect to that goal. It’s less easy for many people to precisely predict exactly how loudspeaker will sound from the measurements. Once you move in to the wild west of speaker designs in which speakers can measure all over the map in terms of combinations of on-axis frequency deviations, off axis behaviour, different room interactions, etc.
I’ve seen some ASR members try to predict from measurements the sound of speakers they have not heard, but which I’ve heard, and some where well off what I heard.
Even people well-versed in measurements like Amir, Erin, JA (and every speaker designer I can remember commenting on the topic) has had surprises here or there moving from how something measures to the subjective impressions? “
with many recordings this particular frequency response deviation did not seem as obvious to the ear as it looks in the graph.”
So do the Borresen speakers measure poorly with respect to ASR criteria? Of course.
I’m with ASR here and feeling that the measurements of Borresen speakers we’ve seen so far suggests “ the emperor has no clothes” in terms of MB’s speaker design prowess.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they sound as bad, or as bad to some people, as the uproar would suggests given the issues I’ve mentioned above.
Maybe some people will latch onto any frequency response deviation they detect and that will be enough to put them off.
But other listeners may adapt to that and enjoy other aspects of the speaker. I’ve heard speakers that I can clearly hear have frequency response deviations, but which nonetheless are doing some other really cool and compelling things that make them fun to listen to.
www.stereophile.com
www.hifinews.com
