Mono vs Stereo Listening Testing: Best Way to Evaluate Loudspeaker Performance?

[Kachda]

A good video from audioholics. Thanks @Gene DellaSala and @Matthew J Poes

 

[AdamG]

Already have a thread about this. Can you repost this here please: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/speaker-testing-why-mono-is-better.21681/

Let me know when done so I can delete this thread and post. Thank you kindly

 

[Kachda]

Hi Adam, I am not sure how many people will find the post on page 23 of an existing thread. Maybe it's worth a new post since it's an entirely new video even though on the same topic ?

Already have a thread about this. Can you repost this here please: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/speaker-testing-why-mono-is-better.21681/

Let me know when done so I can delete this thread and post. Thank you kindly

 

[AdamG]

Hi Adam, I am not sure how many people will find the post on page 23 of an existing thread. Maybe it's worth a new post since it's an entirely new video even though on the same topic ?

OK, you got it.

 

[amirm]

I will repeat what I said in the other thread: no reliable information comes from assessing "imaging" or spatial qualities of speakers in some reviewer's home. We have no way of checking to see if what they say is indeed true. No objective measure exists as stated in the video. With imaging being the most abused characteristic of audio systems, I see no reason to encourage it from any reviewer that is grounded in audio science. It is like wanting a license to just throw words at us.

With speakers, we need to take care of tonality, power handing and distortion. Once a speaker is superb in those regards, the rest will take care of itself. No need to go and try to quantify nebulous things that are so content, room, and listener specific. To the extent a listener spends days and week on stereo listening in the home, they are putting the wrong priority on what I expect them to do.

 

[Duke]

With speakers, we need to take care of tonality, power handing and distortion. Once a speaker is superb in those regards, the rest will take care of itself.

Hmmm. That MIGHT be true for speakers which truly are "superb in those regards", but what about for other speakers (i.e. the vast majority)?

Also, Floyd Toole differentiates between Sound Quality and Spatial Quality (the latter not being a subset of the former, as I mistakenly thought for a long time), which imo implies that the scoring in the one category may not necessarily carry over to the other. On page 178 of his book (third edition), he shows two different questionnaires used in at least some listening tests, one for Sound Quality and one for Spatial Quality:

According to a paper written by Wolfgang Klippel and cited by Toole in his book (third edition, pages 185-186), the “feeling of space” makes a 50% contribution to "naturalness” (realism and accuracy), and a 70%(!) contribution to "pleasantness" (general satisfaction or preference). Here is how Toole sums it up (page 186):

"Sensations of sound quality and spaciousness contribute equally to impressions of "naturalness", and spatial quality dominated the impression of "pleasantness". Therefore whether one is a picky purist or a relaxed recreational listener, the impression of space is a significant factor."

no reliable information comes from assessing "imaging" or spatial qualities of speakers in some reviewer's home. We have no way of checking to see if what they say is indeed true. No objective measure exists as stated in the video.

There seems to be a correlation between imaging precision and narrow radiation patterns, and between spaciousness and wide radiation patterns (and it would be interesting if a speaker was simultaneously good at BOTH imaging precision and spaciousness). However I think it is also possible that cabinet reflections and/or diffraction can screw up the imaging precision by introducing false timing cues before the Precedence Effect kicks in, which MIGHT even show up as a pleasing increase in Apparent Source Width (ASW) in mono.

If a given reviewer has earned my trust, I'd probably find his comments on spatial quality to be useful, assuming they made sense to me. For instance I find your comments on headphone spatial quality to be useful.

Nor does the fact that your loudspeaker reviews do not include stereo listening diminish their usefulness to me. I simply do not expect them to tell me much about the speaker's spatial qualities beyond what can be inferred from the radiation patterns.

So to sum up, I think that spatial quality matters a lot, and given that objective assessments are not possible at this time, subjective assessments MAY be better than nothing. Or they may not... perhaps this is a point upon which reasonable people could reasonably disagree?

 

[MattHooper]

I will repeat what I said in the other thread: no reliable information comes from assessing "imaging" or spatial qualities of speakers in some reviewer's home. We have no way of checking to see if what they say is indeed true. No objective measure exists as stated in the video. With imaging being the most abused characteristic of audio systems, I see no reason to encourage it from any reviewer that is grounded in audio science. It is like wanting a license to just throw words at us.

With speakers, we need to take care of tonality, power handing and distortion. Once a speaker is superb in those regards, the rest will take care of itself. No need to go and try to quantify nebulous things that are so content, room, and listener specific. To the extent a listener spends days and week on stereo listening in the home, they are putting the wrong priority on what I expect them to do.

Disagree about the worthlessness of subjective reports on imagine/soundstaging.

Or, at least, I wouldn't go that far.

I've seen some nice descriptions of the imaging/soundstaging characteristics of some speakers that match quite well other other inter-subjective assessment of the same speaker (mine, other people who have heard them, etc). A certain speaker for instance may have soundstaging/imaging characteristics particular enough in some cases to have a fairly consistent signature.

Sometimes I have the hunch that those who disavow the usefulness of subjective reports/descriptions are those who, in not having use for them, don't spend much time correlating them. In other words, the subjective stuff starts to flow, the eyes glaze over and skip to the measurements or whatever. Those of us "more in to" the subjective description side may, perhaps, have spent more time and effort correlating subjective impressions with audio gear, triangulating on various audiophiles impressions, etc, to some useful degree. And I find imaging/soundstaging can be usefully described.

 

[Kachda]

I will repeat what I said in the other thread: no reliable information comes from assessing "imaging" or spatial qualities of speakers in some reviewer's home. We have no way of checking to see if what they say is indeed true. No objective measure exists as stated in the video. With imaging being the most abused characteristic of audio systems, I see no reason to encourage it from any reviewer that is grounded in audio science. It is like wanting a license to just throw words at us.

With speakers, we need to take care of tonality, power handing and distortion. Once a speaker is superb in those regards, the rest will take care of itself. No need to go and try to quantify nebulous things that are so content, room, and listener specific. To the extent a listener spends days and week on stereo listening in the home, they are putting the wrong priority on what I expect them to do.

What they discuss in the video is that ideally the reviewer can do both. Mono listening for tonality and then stereo for image precision. And as they point out, in mono listening a wider directivity speakers has an advantage due to its spaciousness, but in stereo a narrower directivity speaker can benefit from precision and soundstage. Depending on the type of room a person has, a narrow directivity speaker can be preferred over one with wider dispersion which can smear the image due to a lot of strong reflections.

 

[Thomas_A]

”Imaging” is related to detail. Besides frequency response and distortion, details are affected by early reflections. Early reflections are both speaker, setup and room dependent. Also, stereo setups have the usual comb filtering effects that need to be dealt with regarding ”imaging”.

 

[daftcombo]

Hmmm. That MIGHT be true for speakers which truly are "superb in those regards", but what about for other speakers (i.e. the vast majority)?

Since you can have a pair of superb ELAC-DBR62 for 400 €, why even bother?