"plasticky" Neumanns?

[Digby]

Yeah, that must be it. Your arguments would make perfect sense to native speaker.

You will notice in my posts a liberal use of italics, particularly around words like may and possibly. These italics are used for emphasis, all too often ignored it seems. Are people unaware of what italics mean when used in a sentence these days?

Let's just forget that most professionals today have to work daily in English dealing with multinational companies and teams, from manufacturing, software development to actual science without English as their native language. No, these pursuits are much more easy to deal with than discussing peoples subjective experiences about loudspeakers. I mean it's not like we are dealing with universal, well defined concepts in audio science forum.

I've never once had a non-native speaker convince me they were English, irrespective of their ability in the language. Likely the same pertains to non-natives speaking German, French, Spanish and so on. English, contrary to popular opinion, is a complex language.

It is (or at least it should be) basic decorum to ask someone to clarify their position, if they have any doubt about what is meant. That one can write about as clearly as possible in English and still be misunderstood, suggests there are failures of others to comprehend (usually non-native speakers) or failure in the will to understand (those 'going into battle', usually native speakers).

The latter is definitely worse, because these are people (native speakers) totally capable of understanding the point you are making, whether they agree or not, but they do not actually reply to what you've written, but their own distortion thereof. This is far more tedious and unproductive than disagreements with people that speak a different language, as it is not something that any clarification can settle, as it is a type of mindset that comes with discussions on the internet.

 

[fpitas]

Huh?

That one threw me, too.

 

[fineMen]

Have you asked these people what they mean by plasticky? Getting them to define the term would be a useful first step. Also, how can their be an excess of frequencies?

I get it intuitively. Plastic is smooth like glass, homogenous like a liquid, soft, dull sounding, a bit too close to human skin to be pleasent. Most of all it is fake.

Reiterated, people may refer to the sound as being fake, devoid of life, which it often is. The dislike originates not in the speakers but in bad boring music. Less neutral speakers could offer additional focus points like irregular frequency response, distortion, intermodulation, a bit of fascinating chaos. The typical audiophile listens to the speaker, but not to the music.

I could name dozens of musical marvels which never sound plastic, Neuman or not.

 

[IPunchCholla]

You will notice in my posts a liberal use of italics, particularly around words like may and possibly. These italics are used for emphasis, all too often ignored it seems. Are people unaware of what italics mean when used in a sentence these days?


I've never once had a non-native speaker convince me they were English, irrespective of their ability in the language. Likely the same pertains to non-natives speaking German, French, Spanish and so on. English, contrary to popular opinion, is a complex language.

It is (or at least it should be) basic decorum to ask someone to clarify their position, if they have any doubt about what is meant. That one can write about as clearly as possible in English and still be misunderstood, suggests there are failures of others to comprehend (usually non-native speakers) or failure in the will to understand (those 'going into battle', usually native speakers).

Wow. First off, how would you know if someone passed as English? You wouldn’t (by definition) so of course you only notice the ones you notice. That is how confirmation bias works. Secondly, you are coming off as very xenophobic in a Internet forum that is global in scale.

 

[IPunchCholla]

I get it intuitively. Plastic is smooth like glass, homogenous like a liquid, soft, dull sounding, a bit too close to human skin to be pleasent. Most of all it is fake.

Reiterated, people may refer to the sound as being fake, devoid of life, which it often is. The dislike originates not in the speakers but in bad boring music. Less neutral speakers could offer additional focus points like irregular frequency response, distortion, intermodulation, a bit of fascinating chaos. The typical audiophile listens to the speaker, but not to the music.

I could name dozens of musical marvels which never sound plastic, Neuman or not.

Dull sounding is useful, the rest is just non-sense as far as I am concerned. I also hate when people say plastic is fake. It isn’t fake. It is an amazingly diverse and useful material that is often these days the best tool for the job. Just replaced all my corroded metal pipes with ”plastic” ones that will deliver clean uncontaminated water for longer than I’ll be alive, were cheaper, and easier to install.

 

[teashea]

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?

Flat frequency response and low distortion.

 

[ahofer]

It is (or at least it should be) basic decorum to ask someone to clarify their position, if they have any doubt about what is meant.

Yes. So what, specifically, does “plasticky” mean?

 

[DJBonoBobo]

You will notice in my posts a liberal use of italics, particularly around words like may and possibly. These italics are used for emphasis, all too often ignored it seems. Are people unaware of what italics mean when used in a sentence these days?


I've never once had a non-native speaker convince me they were English, irrespective of their ability in the language. Likely the same pertains to non-natives speaking German, French, Spanish and so on. English, contrary to popular opinion, is a complex language.

It is (or at least it should be) basic decorum to ask someone to clarify their position, if they have any doubt about what is meant. That one can write about as clearly as possible in English and still be misunderstood, suggests there are failures of others to comprehend (usually non-native speakers) or failure in the will to understand (those 'going into battle', usually native speakers).

The latter is definitely worse, because these are people (native speakers) totally capable of understanding the point you are making, whether they agree or not, but they do not actually reply to what you've written, but their own distortion thereof. This is far more tedious and unproductive than disagreements with people that speak a different language, as it is not something that any clarification can settle, as it is a type of mindset that comes with discussions on the internet.

Your English is hard to understand, btw. Just as a feedback in case you want to improve the clarity of what you want to say.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Dull sounding is useful, the rest is just non-sense as far as I am concerned. I also hate when people say plastic is fake. It isn’t fake. It is an amazingly diverse and useful material that is often these days the best tool for the job. Just replaced all my corroded metal pipes with ”plastic” ones that will deliver clean uncontaminated water for longer than I’ll be alive, were cheaper, and easier to install.

Maybe I just grew up with Radiohead 'The Bends', with 'Fake Plastic Trees', and maybe it is the culture of folks I know but plastic or plasticity is a well known way of describing something and or someone lacking humanizing qualities.
This is as in plastic surgery vs self acceptance or photoshopped beauty vs the beauty of idiosyncratic quirks and 'flaws'.

In a speaker it would to me be 'artificial' vs 'real' or live/alive. Not dull per say but rather 'canned' 'packaged', or lacking in the dreaded, though useful if you are open to the term 'musicality', which despite my love of the objective side has come out in force for me with some speakers and been equally withheld in others.

PVC, which your new piping likely is, is one of the most abundant pollutants in the world. You certainly can't eat it and the production impact, byproducts and energy required to make it available to us has a stunning impact. That fact it will outlive you is something to ponder in more ways than one but this isn't the forum for that. (It certainly could make the vinyl album craze into something I think a lot of the folks hoping into it have not considered.) No it is not 'fake' in the absolute sense or really any practical sense but nothing is. In the poetic sense it is fake.

 

[DSJR]

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 can give you a speaker which does sound a little bit 'plasticky' as in a nasality which actually enhances string-tone - QUAD 57's!!!

Said Quads have a terribly 'beaming' tweeter panel, a lack of 'boxy' colouration which was way ahead of the time it was launched and if you sat just so (just off the main axis near to mid field), they were absolutely enchanting and you could hear through them with ease after a minute or less and I spent many a happy hour listening through a pair a friend had for decades..

Back to listening AS WELL AS measurements... Do any of you oldies remember the Spendor BC1? These old boxes have a fascinating story and evolution to tell and there was a period of around a year in the mid 70's where the sonic magic they could provide went right off the boil yet measurements didn't show it then! The issue was a driver surround choice, subsequently identified and corrected after a fairly scathing review in the first HiFi Choice test book. Other changes were made in it's life (faded away in 1987 I gather) but these were more for better power handling and lower bass distortion which wasn't as audible as one may think...

I don't know any Neumanns so can't tell. Engineer pals respect Genelecs but in past years found them a little 'bright' in balance. Someone here once pointed a finger at the tweeter distortion (and I recall gave a measurenemt to show a little discomfort at 9 - 10kHz), but I'd argue the wide and even dispersion may well give a different subjective effect in some rooms (I suspect I'd love it as I did the Kii's I heard, which were almost 'sweet' up top I thought).

 

[pkane]

Can @pkane simulate this?

Second harmonic? Yes, no problem.

 

[ROOSKIE]

For professionals, relying on taste that you can't even communicate is indefensible.

One of the biggest differences between a good professional and a mediocre one in pretty much every technical job is the ability to communicate challenging and complex details clearly.

I find the term professional has almost no value.

It is a self congratulatory term and a marketing term.
It is just a fancy way of stating a person makes money doing something and you want folks to know this gig ain't no side hustle.

Most folks are prety darn near average at what they do by the standards of their industry, yet a great many people think they are better than average. That should say it all right there.

Your English is hard to understand, btw. Just as a feedback in case you want to improve the clarity of what you want to say.

Not sure why I am wading into this @Digby's English is not hard for me to understand or follow at all. The posts are crystal clear to me, I even jibe with a good chunk of it.
You stated in post #94 you are not a native English speaker. I get it. I have mad respect for people who speak multiple languages and folks who end up having to use a 2nd or 3rd language daily at work and in business. It is all good and it is what it is, you know? There are going to be some moments.
You should have seen me in Guatemala trying to speak Spanish, luckily the folks there were super chill, just kind as could be and most of them wanted to practice their English anyway.

Your argument is against the subjective language used, that it is too loose, not that they cannot communicate. Studio engineers use a lot of loose language that has meaning between engineers. Where is the failure here, that it is too ill-defined? Perhaps on ASR it is too ill-defined, but it seems to get the job done well enough in that arena. The context matters.

These terms may have significant meaning that translates across individuals. You pooh-pooh them because instead of saying something like a '2db peak centred around 2khz', they instead might say nasally or forward. Will anyone argue against the idea that a 'forward' speaker is one that either has, or is perceived as having, an excess of frequencies in the midrange...if no, then isn't forward an adequate enough descriptor?

'poetic license' is something I take frequently in life. I think 'plasticy' can work (though I like poetry). We just would need to work out what it correlates with (if anything) as OP requested and so far has been elusive in terms of a meaningful level of agreement.

As you said though context matters so here on the ASR forum I use a different voice than I might in another place. The 'know your audience' approach.

I agree with a lot of your basic premises especially in the context of enjoying a hobby and shooting the sh&t.

It can be a 'confirmation bias' to chalk things up to 'confirmation bias', good luck reminding many folks of that.
Plus if you start dealing with people who are really just trying to be 'right', then double good luck.

When I am not on this forum I study people as another hobby, I actually have learned a lot by being here as the great 'subjective' vs 'objective' controversy in hifi is a great source of really ineteresting cruxes.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Flat frequency response and low distortion.

Do you have a study for that or is it your contention? It certainly doesn’t align with what I have heard.

The Neumann KH120s have slightly flatter response than my Amphion One15s, but I’m not sure on distortion.

However the One15s are a lot better at this task than the KH120s.

I think you are probably assuming that frequency response is the answer because that’s what you can measure.

Yamaha NS10s have historically been very good at this task too and are pretty much the opposite of flat.

I personally think it’s time and phase related but that’s just my contention. I’m guessing that if the tweeter and woofer are not point source time aligned then their two sources will arrive at different times smearing attacks. On compressor settings one can be switching between 1 and 5 ms. Timing is very important I think. I also think phase would be important.

Which is why talking about experiences when listening is required. There simply isn’t enough research done on studio monitors to know what measurements relate to specific tasks.

Simply contending flat frequency response is the answer because that’s what domestic hifi listeners prefer the sound of in listening tests seems like a pretty big leap of faith.

 

[lowkeyoperations]

Totally a question. Hence the question mark. Another question: Differences in time will affect the envelope (attack, decay, sustain, release) of the sound, thus the frequency. Thus changes it the timing of compression settings are frequency changes, so if two different speakers are neutral in their FR they will sound the same for given compression settings?

Honestly, when I see people talking about these things, the first thing that strikes me is that they are not taking their own variability into account. Our senses are not infallible, quite the opposite, perception changes all the time based on our changing physiology and psychology at the moment. I find it is very useful to first assume that me and my hearing are the problem. I have mixed things that sounded amazing, come back later and found they sounded terrible. Looking at the current sound on the compression curve along with how the music is being represented in the waveform graph of the compressor and what the limiter is doing, usually susses it out very quickly. The measurements are far better than my ears, especially at the end of a session when I have been listening to the same thing over and over. And while I finalize the mix based on listening that is always verified via the data the compressor is telling me.

I don’t think two speakers with the same frequency response will sound the same at a 1ms attack setting if they have different step response, if one is a point source and the other isn’t or if one has a tweeter and woofer in phase vs out of phase. I think frequency is just part of it. Not all of it.

When I had my KH120s and One15s in the studio together they were side by side on a switch. The comparisons I could hear between the two when setting and adjusting compression were instantly made.

I’m sure you have had the experience of changing an attack setting on a compressor and thinking “did that make any difference? Is it sounding better or worse than the previous setting”. I’ve done that many times. And like you say the graphic representation can help.

But working on the KH120s I had that thought about compression often. I found it difficult to make those mixing decisions. I also found the low end difficult to make eq decisions on, perhaps because the frequencies were right around the port tuning frequency.

The One15s really make compression settings more apparent and the devision making process more easy to make. They reveal the changes more clearly than the KH120s. Looking at the frequency response charts I don’t see how anyone could make that conclusion.

Likewise if I’m wanting another pair of speakers that might make more improvements in that regard above my One15s then I’m not confident that just buying a pair of speakers with a fairly flat frequency response is all I need to know.

I for sure would be asking users of other speakers what their experience is using them.

 

[boxerfan88]

I'm growing very fond of it - and it's fun to say... ... ... "plasticky" "plasticky" "plasticky"... .see?...

Ditto. After all that is said and done, I like to listen to my “plasticky” Neumann speakers very much

 

[dfuller]

I also found the low end difficult to make eq decisions on, perhaps because the frequencies were right around the port tuning frequency.

The 120s don't extend particularly low (F3 ~52hz) and the port is maybe a bit too much - the Q of the system is above 0.707, which pops out from its frequency response - it jumps right before it drops off. .

Neumanns in general in my experience improve dramatically from adding subs, at least from the 310 on down.

 

[IPunchCholla]

Maybe I just grew up with Radiohead 'The Bends', with 'Fake Plastic Trees', and maybe it is the culture of folks I know but plastic or plasticity is a well known way of describing something and or someone lacking humanizing qualities.
This is as in plastic surgery vs self acceptance or photoshopped beauty vs the beauty of idiosyncratic quirks and 'flaws'.

In a speaker it would to me be 'artificial' vs 'real' or live/alive. Not dull per say but rather 'canned' 'packaged', or lacking in the dreaded, though useful if you are open to the term 'musicality', which despite my love of the objective side has come out in force for me with some speakers and been equally withheld in others.

PVC, which your new piping likely is, is one of the most abundant pollutants in the world. You certainly can't eat it and the production impact, byproducts and energy required to make it available to us has a stunning impact. That fact it will outlive you is something to ponder in more ways than one but this isn't the forum for that. (It certainly could make the vinyl album craze into something I think a lot of the folks hoping into it have not considered.) No it is not 'fake' in the absolute sense or really any practical sense but nothing is. In the poetic sense it is fake.

Not PVC. PEX. When talking about outlasting us, there is a difference between lasting usefully and unusefully. There are bad plastics (the use once and toss bags and bottles) but it has been a long time since plastic and fake were synonymous. I was born after The Graduate and the hippy use of the term, but not by much and definitely inherited that view. But it is well over 70 years later and no longer really applies. Even plastic surgery/cosmetic surgery is often incredibly useful to the person. I know three people off-hand whose plastic surgery probably saved them years of avoidable torment. I just find the “steel is real” plastic is fake to be so tiresome. I have plastic and steel bikes. All of them are real.

On top of that it doesn’t seam very useful as a descriptor of sound. Like tapping on a plastic jug - better. But better still would be overemphasized mid tones. It sounds fake. Ok. But fake how? Small or like an imitation? That would make me think about DR. Blurry, smeared, etc would point to issues of distortion. Im not saying don’t use metaphors. But to think of why you are using that particular metaphor and then when communicating that to others consider if there are fairly well used terms that might be more easily understood in order to set context. As in “It sounds plasticy, like the mid tones are both too prominent and slightly distorted. The bass and treble are good though so it is a subtle effect making the music feel fake, not fully there.”

 

[lowkeyoperations]

The 120s don't extend particularly low (F3 ~52hz) and the port is maybe a bit too much - the Q of the system is above 0.707, which pops out from its frequency response - it jumps right before it drops off. .

Neumanns in general in my experience improve dramatically from adding subs, at least from the 310 on down.

Definitely. But another difference between the KH120S and One15s I have experienced is that whilst the Neumanns go a bit lower the Amphions are easier to hear eq changes on. I put that down to the bass reflex port vs passive radiator designs. Bass notes on the Neumanns seemed to be harder to hear the beginning and end of.

 

[IPunchCholla]

I don’t think two speakers with the same frequency response will sound the same at a 1ms attack setting if they have different step response, if one is a point source and the other isn’t or if one has a tweeter and woofer in phase vs out of phase. I think frequency is just part of it. Not all of it.

When I had my KH120s and One15s in the studio together they were side by side on a switch. The comparisons I could hear between the two when setting and adjusting compression were instantly made.

I’m sure you have had the experience of changing an attack setting on a compressor and thinking “did that make any difference? Is it sounding better or worse than the previous setting”. I’ve done that many times. And like you say the graphic representation can help.

But working on the KH120s I had that thought about compression often. I found it difficult to make those mixing decisions. I also found the low end difficult to make eq decisions on, perhaps because the frequencies were right around the port tuning frequency.

The One15s really make compression settings more apparent and the devision making process more easy to make. They reveal the changes more clearly than the KH120s. Looking at the frequency response charts I don’t see how anyone could make that conclusion.

Likewise if I’m wanting another pair of speakers that might make more improvements in that regard above my One15s then I’m not confident that just buying a pair of speakers with a fairly flat frequency response is all I need to know.

I for sure would be asking users of other speakers what their experience is using them.

Interesting. One thing that sticks out to me is the one12s have a bump in the bass and a slower roll off on the low end? So might make the low end easier to deal with?

I wouldn’t buy based on FR alone, but might with FR and distortion and would prefer all the measurements available from the spinorama.

In my day job, we often agonize over color changes that even trained viewers have a hard time distinguishing the difference between. No casual viewer would even notice in a side by side comparison, much less with only seeing one example. I’m pretty sure any choice is pointless at that point, either would work, but the pieces benefit from us agonizing over every detail. It’s not the 1ms difference in attack in the compression settings that is going to make it break the song, but agonizing over those choices will likely shine the music up as best as possible. The rest is up to the music. Me? If I can’t hear a difference or doubt that I can, I go on to the next thing to improve and maybe circle back round later, when my hearing is rested. I seem to be the biggest issue in the audio chain at this point.

 

[ernestcarl]

I don’t think two speakers with the same frequency response will sound the same at a 1ms attack setting if they have different step response, if one is a point source and the other isn’t or if one has a tweeter and woofer in phase vs out of phase. I think frequency is just part of it. Not all of it.

The newer Neumann monitors (KH80, KH150, and 120 II) have now linearized much of their phase response -- i.e. so much improved transients. I guess (this specific weakness) is a non-issue in their newer models. Hmmmn... extensive psychoacoustic testing of the theory is needed, of course.

But, I have said it before myself that there are certain "effects" processing that's not nearly as easy to hear on the KH120 as they are on the Sceptre S8 which are (mostly) linear phase between the mid-HF sections. Nowadays, I certainly don't believe it is only a matter of the mid-HF "transient response" -- magnitude frequency response and dispersion characteristics likely plays a bigger role -- but like you, I do still suspect that difficulty in hearing additional EQ processing is at least may be coming from this non-minimum phase crossover distortion.