"plasticky" Neumanns?

[IPunchCholla]

This is typical a fairly common response at ASR used to dismiss listening.

In those comments I certainly understand the sentiment along the lines of “I have no idea how to set compression on Neumanns”.

What measurements will determine the extent to which a studio monitor can help you identify clearly the differences in compression settings?

if a studio monitor has a flat frequency response at different levels 86dB vs 96dB, that would indicate that it should be transparent to compression settings, shouldn’t it?

I guess I also don’t understand the question exactly as I’m a newbie at this stuff, but I listen to songs and adjust compression for them based on several different monitors/speakers as that difference (laptop speakers vs 3way floor standers and subs) is far trickier to balance in terms of compression than within any one monitor, especially at the level of Neuman.

 

[thecheapseats]

ok then... I guess "plasticky" (whatever the hell that is) - has been working great for me for over forty years...

 

[dfuller]

Well, I meant it in a way that I don't know what those comments mean. If I had a measurement that showed specific problems, I might be able to deduce clues as to what might have been bothering the person.
For example, I once read a review of a KH310 where a sound engineer called it "boomy" - I strongly suspect she simply heard a room mode there.
Therefore, I think you can only understand subjective listening reports if you see both the Spinorama data and the measurement on the LP.
Then the subjective reports can certainly contain helpful additional information that one would not have recognized from the measurements.

This is what I was trying to sus out the entire time. There's nothing in any spins or auxiliary data I've seen that would indicate this, but it's a recurring subjective experience across multiple unrelated groups. All I want to know is what I should even look for in measurements.

Instead I was shouted down, which I gotta say, didn't love that.

 

[Da cynics]

I asked Gerhard Westphalen (a famously persnickety speaker designer), and his response:


So... I guess it's all from Neumann doing things correctly?

Why not develop this theory a little further?

 

[goat76]

This is what I was trying to sus out the entire time. There's nothing in any spins or auxiliary data I've seen that would indicate this, but it's a recurring subjective experience across multiple unrelated groups. All I want to know is what I should even look for in measurements.

Instead I was shouted down, which I gotta say, didn't love that.

Is the "plasticky" and "2-dimensional" feel related to each other?

I don't want to dismiss the possibility that the people at that forum have recognized a common thing they truly hear in the monitors, and they may all know exactly what sound aspect they talk about.

One person mentioned that everything sounds a bit glued together as if the mix already had compression.
If a monitor isn’t particularly good at “giving away” the layering of a mix because everything sounds “2-dimensional”, it's probably hard to set the compression level for individual sound objects in the mix.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

This is what I was trying to sus out the entire time. There's nothing in any spins or auxiliary data I've seen that would indicate this, but it's a recurring subjective experience across multiple unrelated groups. All I want to know is what I should even look for in measurements.

Instead I was shouted down, which I gotta say, didn't love that.

As stated before, chasing after subjective (biased) self reinforcing Internet claims gives no viable data whatsoever.

Until someone does something like this, the „plasticky“ claim is all fairytales:

Thread 'Blind Listening Test 2: Neumann KH 80 vs JBL 305p MkII vs Edifier R1280T vs RCF Arya Pro5'
https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...kii-vs-edifier-r1280t-vs-rcf-arya-pro5.43343/

BTW. Despite the limited data the two speakers with the highest preference score (measurement based) also came out on top of the blind listening test.

 

[caught gesture]

This is what I was trying to sus out the entire time. There's nothing in any spins or auxiliary data I've seen that would indicate this, but it's a recurring subjective experience across multiple unrelated groups. All I want to know is what I should even look for in measurements.

Instead I was shouted down, which I gotta say, didn't love that.

Even the term “plasticky” is so vague. Plastic can have so many qualities, so many variations as well. Squeezing an empty PET water bottle gives a type of sound, hitting a Polyvinyl chloride bulkhead with a hammer gives something entirely different. When someone uses such a vague term with so many variables, isn’t it any wonder that people are confused? The best I can think of is that the term relates to being fake as in those plastic rocks that get used in landscaping. To all intents and purposes they look real, even on close inspection. Only when you pick them up do you realise. I have no idea how that correlates to our hearing of mid-high frequencies. With the fake rock we at least have some data to work with. We can compare the weight to the equal real rock that was used for the mould.

 

[DJBonoBobo]

This is what I was trying to sus out the entire time. There's nothing in any spins or auxiliary data I've seen that would indicate this, but it's a recurring subjective experience across multiple unrelated groups. All I want to know is what I should even look for in measurements.

Instead I was shouted down, which I gotta say, didn't love that.

i have a reverse point of view. i think i know from the measurements that the people who wrote the statements are wrong and that there is actually no problem with the speaker. i don't take the expression of them seriously. so normally i wouldn't bother to look at it seriously at all.
but, if i did want to make an effort, i would at least take seriously that something disturbed the persons.
Therefore, I would look for deviations of their LP measurements from the Spinorama and consider what could have caused this. If there would be nothing objectively wrong i would accept these people just did not like something, which is ok, but would not irritate me. I would not try to find "plastic" in the measurements, the term is simply useless for that. hence the harsh reaction and the question how that should be measurable.

 

[Mart68]

Most audiophiles have heads full of nonsense and that prejudices their listening experiences

Terrible sounding systems comprising poorly measuring equipment are praised because what 'respected reviewers' have said dictates what is heard.

Even if you demonstrate good sound reproduction to them they will insist it is due to pixie dust ('Clean mains') or the magic 'Synergy' stumbled on purely by accident. They won't accept that it is a result of solid engineering practice based on research and logic. It's not what they have been taught to believe.

A friend who falls into that category had a demo of Kii3 - he told me they were uncouth and harsh, like a bad PA. I was at the same demo and was so impressed I seriously considered buying them. How do you square that circle?

Their opinions should not be taken seriously and it's certainly not worth the time running around trying to find justification for them in the measured performance.

 

[Digby]

Most people are. Until they actually take the test.

Why guess, get it done.

Where does one 'get it done'? I doubt I could pull it off to high enough standards in my own living room. It would be interesting to see how many people could do so in a group, more than on individual level IMO.

This forum BTW:

1. An individual hears something about a speaker and characterises it a certain subjective way, forum responds "well, that is just your ears/room and they are different from other people's, so this has no merit"
2. A number of people notice a 'character' to a certain speaker, across different rooms and setups, forum responds "well, these people are imagining things and/or these things aren't seen in the measurements, so they don't exist"
3. Sean Olive sets out to investigate the most preferred curves for headphones, names them Harman Curves, forum responds "This is science. These preferences are totally valid and scientific, even though they rest upon wholly subjective impressions at a group level"

Do you see the disconnect? The first two are dismissed, yet the third is accepted. Granted, the first two aren't rigorous scientific studies, but doesn't all science begin with one or more people noticing something and then trying to figure out why it might be that they are noticing said thing.

When Sean Olive started his research he started with conjecture, suppositions and subjective impressions, sans a scientific framework or study.

I'm not suggesting we take everything people say as a given, but to dismiss things entirely because there is not yet a rigorous paper on the topic is uninquisitive and possibly unscientific too, unless you believe the science is 100% finished and settled.

 

[DJBonoBobo]

This forum BTW:
(...) 2. A number of people notice a 'character' to a certain speaker, across different rooms and setups, forum responds "well, these people are imagining things and/or these things aren't seen in the measurements, so they don't exist"

It seems you are reading only what fits this false narrative. Between the subjective statement "This loudspeaker sounds plasticky" and the publication of a scientific paper about it lies a certain span.

 

[Digby]

It seems you are reading only what fits this false narrative

Me? I refer you to the last three paragraphs of my previous post, in case you missed them.

 

[Colonel7]

I once had a set of Neumanns delivered in the rain. The box was soggy and that’s how they sounded. Mildew and mossy, damp even. Like they needed an umbrella and a pair of bright yellow boots. Even sad. Like Sorrows of Young Werther sad. Then it occurred to me. They’re Goethe-esque- why don’t the CTA-2034 show this? Then it occurred to me that I was reading the measurements in English and not German.

 

[DJBonoBobo]

Me? I refer you to the last three paragraphs of my previous post, in case you missed them.

Maybe i did not understand your point correctly. I am not a native speaker. Not important anyway.

 

[bodhi]

I'm not suggesting we take everything people say as a given, but to dismiss things entirely because there is not yet a rigorous paper on the topic is uninquisitive and possibly unscientific too, unless you believe the science is 100% finished and settled.

That is a straw man. Claims don't get dismissed here because they lack evidence, it's mostly because the claims contradict already existing evidence and research.

And when it comes to multiple people having same kind of bad experience with certain speaker: you know that people who think their products behave like they expected are usually not going to be telling about it in forums. But when you get one person complaining about weak bass then everybody who feels the same regardless of whether or not the phenomenon really exists chime in and now you have "A number of people notice a 'character' to a certain speaker".

 

[notsodeadlizard]

Maybe the reason is that after all these are professional near-field studio monitors designed for work, and not for enjoyment of listening to music?
Maybe Ken Rockwell is right?

Neumann KH 120 A & D Review

 

[tuga]

A common complaint I hear about Neumann monitors is that they're "plasticky" and "2-dimensional". This, across multiple different groups who have never interacted with one another.

So, what is it that would cause this? I'm sure this is a measurable phenomenon.

They could learn a thing or two from Nelson Pass :

When I had a custom batch of SITs made by SemiSouth, the first thing I did was test the performance of the part in the simplest possible circuit, which was just the one transistor in single-ended, class-A, Common Source mode without feedback. The SIT being very much like a triode, it is easy to make a single bias adjustment which affects the second harmonic distortion of the device, ranging from a relatively large amount [of] positive phase second [harmonic] through a null point with no second [harmonic], to large, negative phase second-harmonic distortion.

The result was so interesting that I released it as the SIT-1, with a knob on the front panel and a meter showing the voltage/current operating point of the SIT, so that users could make the adjustments and decide what they liked best. We floated some prototypes around and found that most people preferred a particular setting. There was a consistent subjective observation that there was a difference not only with the level of second harmonic, but phase also. Negative-phase second harmonic tends to expand the perception of front-to-back space in the soundstage, separating instruments a bit. Positive phase does the opposite, putting things subjectively closer and "in your face." I have heard this sort of comment from people who were not in a position to have expectation bias, so I treat it seriously.

Of course, there was also such a thing as too much second harmonic. It is a trick best done in small doses.

Nelson Pass: Circuit Topology and the End of Science Page 2

We have gain devices; basic topologies; values of the many passive components, like resistors, capacitors and inductors; classes of operation (bias points and load lines); and a host of other detailsbut it's more about process. Because I personally do not have anyone dictating the desired...

www.stereophile.com

 

[lowkeyoperations]

if a studio monitor has a flat frequency response at different levels 86dB vs 96dB, that would indicate that it should be transparent to compression settings, shouldn’t it?

I guess I also don’t understand the question exactly as I’m a newbie at this stuff, but I listen to songs and adjust compression for them based on several different monitors/speakers as that difference (laptop speakers vs 3way floor standers and subs) is far trickier to balance in terms of compression than within any one monitor, especially at the level of Neuman.

Is that a theory or a fact?

Compression settings are not only functions of volume, but just as importantly time. What measurements are required to determine which speakers can best articulate the audible differences between a 10ms attack setting and a 5ms attack setting?

 

[fpitas]

ok then... I guess "plasticky" (whatever the hell that is) - has been working great for me for over forty years...

Obviously, your system isn't resolving enough.

/Going with the cliche

 

[fpitas]

They could learn a thing or two from Nelson Pass :

When I had a custom batch of SITs made by SemiSouth, the first thing I did was test the performance of the part in the simplest possible circuit, which was just the one transistor in single-ended, class-A, Common Source mode without feedback. The SIT being very much like a triode, it is easy to make a single bias adjustment which affects the second harmonic distortion of the device, ranging from a relatively large amount [of] positive phase second [harmonic] through a null point with no second [harmonic], to large, negative phase second-harmonic distortion.

The result was so interesting that I released it as the SIT-1, with a knob on the front panel and a meter showing the voltage/current operating point of the SIT, so that users could make the adjustments and decide what they liked best. We floated some prototypes around and found that most people preferred a particular setting. There was a consistent subjective observation that there was a difference not only with the level of second harmonic, but phase also. Negative-phase second harmonic tends to expand the perception of front-to-back space in the soundstage, separating instruments a bit. Positive phase does the opposite, putting things subjectively closer and "in your face." I have heard this sort of comment from people who were not in a position to have expectation bias, so I treat it seriously.

Of course, there was also such a thing as too much second harmonic. It is a trick best done in small doses.

Nelson Pass: Circuit Topology and the End of Science Page 2

We have gain devices; basic topologies; values of the many passive components, like resistors, capacitors and inductors; classes of operation (bias points and load lines); and a host of other detailsbut it's more about process. Because I personally do not have anyone dictating the desired...

www.stereophile.com

I think you'll find that only works for specific music, where the IMD doesn't get obnoxious. Fun, but hardly a panacea.