[POLL] Fun Theoretical Question

[Henryk]

Was having this conversation with a good friend:


THE SCENARIO
Someone is deciding between two different pairs of speakers;
Prices are identical.

The person researches the speakers ahead of time.
Reviews and Klippel data of [Speaker B] are superior to [Speaker A].

They then audition both sets of speakers in their own home.
The room has been acoustically treated, with no significant room modes.

After listening to both, they prefer [Speaker A] to [Speaker B].


THE QUESTION
Which speaker - in your opinion - would the majority of people buy?

 

[respice finem]

If no DRC existed, anyone would probably choose A.
But DRC exists, and so long already, that probably the majority knows about it.

 

[Selkirks]

I had a similar real-world situation last month. After in-room listening I chose speaker A.

 

[Adis]

Was having this conversation with a good friend:


THE SCENARIO
Someone is deciding between two different pairs of speakers;
Prices are identical.

The person researches the speakers ahead of time.
Reviews and Klippel data of [Speaker B] are superior to [Speaker A].

They then audition both sets of speakers in their own home.
The room has been acoustically treated, with no significant room modes.

After listening to both, they prefer [Speaker A] to [Speaker B].


THE QUESTION
Which speaker - in your opinion - would the majority of people buy?

I can't say what most would buy, I didn't do a poll, I would buy B. And build my taste based on them.

 

[Henryk]

I can't say what most would buy, I didn't do a poll, I would buy B. And build my taste based on them.

I'm not trying to find out what the actual answer is.
Just want people's opinions, that's all

 

[Duke]

Was having this conversation with a good friend:


THE SCENARIO
Someone is deciding between two different pairs of speakers;
Prices are identical.

The person researches the speakers ahead of time.
Reviews and Klippel data of [Speaker B] are superior to [Speaker A].

They then audition both sets of speakers in their own home.
The room has been acoustically treated, with no significant room modes.

After listening to both, they prefer [Speaker A] to [Speaker B].


THE QUESTION
Which speaker - in your opinion - would the majority of people buy?

I would be fascinated by this outcome and would study the specifics of the speakers and the auditioning conditions to see if I could figure out WHY Speaker A was preferred. In what particular ways was Speaker A preferred? That's what I would look into.

Perhaps Speaker A performed better in a way that was especially important to the listener. For instance, some listeners prefer the greater spaciousness of a wide-pattern speaker, and some prefer the more precise imaging of a narrow-pattern speaker.

In particular, I would take a look at the speaker/room interaction. Does Speaker A + that room = "better" bass (whatever that means to the listener) than Speaker B + that room?

My guess is that the majority of people would pick Speaker A, and imo this would be a valid choice because it takes that particular listener's room and that particular listener's preferences into account. (I'm not saying "Speaker B" would be an invalid choice. There are arguments both ways.)

 

[Henryk]

In particular, I would take a look at the speaker/room interaction. Does Speaker A + that room = "better" bass (whatever that means to the listener) than Speaker B + that room?

My guess is that the majority of people would pick Speaker A, and imo this would be an intelligent choice, because it takes that particular listener's room and that particular listener's preferences into account.

Absolutely.
That's why I stipulated that the room was treated and doesn't have any nasty stuff going on.

Wanted to take the room out of the equation and boil the question down to it's root.

 

[NTK]

I think many here may be a bit over confident in their ability to interpret the spinorama plots. For example, the JBL 4329P has a 5.2 Olive score (no EQ), which is probably considered by many here as decidedly mediocre for (active) speakers that cost USD ~$4k a pair.

Guess what? The Olive of the Olive score fame was thoroughly impressed. Enough so that he bought a pair himself. Could anyone here tell that from its spinorama plots?

#jbl #audioengineering #loudspeakers | Sean Olive | 78 comments

I don't often post about specific products, let alone brag shamelessly about them. But this new JBL 4329P studio monitor is something I am truly excited about because it is a culmination of science, 75+ years of JBL history and acoustic engineering applied to a product with all the modern...

www.linkedin.com

Measurements for speaker JBL 4329P

www.spinorama.org

 

[Adis]

I think many here may be a bit over confident in their ability to interpret the spinorama plots. For example, the JBL 4329P has a 5.2 Olive score (no EQ), which is probably considered by many here as decidedly mediocre for (active) speakers that cost USD ~$4k a pair.

Guess what? The Olive of the Olive score fame was thoroughly impressed. Enough so that he bought a pair himself. Could anyone here tell that from its spinorama plots?

#jbl #audioengineering #loudspeakers | Sean Olive | 78 comments

I don't often post about specific products, let alone brag shamelessly about them. But this new JBL 4329P studio monitor is something I am truly excited about because it is a culmination of science, 75+ years of JBL history and acoustic engineering applied to a product with all the modern...

www.linkedin.com

Measurements for speaker JBL 4329P

www.spinorama.org

And what's the other USD ~$4k speaker, one that measures worse?

 

[Henryk]

I think many here may be a bit over confident in their ability to interpret the spinorama plots. For example, the JBL 4329P has a 5.2 Olive score (no EQ), which is probably considered by many here as decidedly mediocre for (active) speakers that cost USD ~$4k a pair.

Guess what? The Olive of the Olive score fame was thoroughly impressed. Enough so that he bought a pair himself. Could anyone here tell that from its spinorama plots?

#jbl #audioengineering #loudspeakers | Sean Olive | 78 comments

I don't often post about specific products, let alone brag shamelessly about them. But this new JBL 4329P studio monitor is something I am truly excited about because it is a culmination of science, 75+ years of JBL history and acoustic engineering applied to a product with all the modern...

www.linkedin.com

Measurements for speaker JBL 4329P

www.spinorama.org

He owns Salon2's and was still impressed by the 4329P?!
Wow!

 

[kyuu]

I think many here may be a bit over confident in their ability to interpret the spinorama plots. For example, the JBL 4329P has a 5.2 Olive score (no EQ), which is probably considered by many here as decidedly mediocre for (active) speakers that cost USD ~$4k a pair.

Guess what? The Olive of the Olive score fame was thoroughly impressed. Enough so that he bought a pair himself. Could anyone here tell that from its spinorama plots?

#jbl #audioengineering #loudspeakers | Sean Olive | 78 comments

I don't often post about specific products, let alone brag shamelessly about them. But this new JBL 4329P studio monitor is something I am truly excited about because it is a culmination of science, 75+ years of JBL history and acoustic engineering applied to a product with all the modern...

www.linkedin.com

Measurements for speaker JBL 4329P

www.spinorama.org

I think conflating the spinorama and the Olive score would the first sign of not interpreting measurements well.

 

[Duke]

Absolutely.
That's why I stipulated that the room was treated and doesn't have any nasty stuff going on.

Wanted to take the room out of the equation and boil the question down to it's root.

The specifics really do matter. For instance, you mentioned room treatment that "takes the room out of the equation". Imo the best approach to room treatment would be different for a wide-pattern speaker vs a narrow-pattern speaker vs a dipole speaker. To the extent that the in-room reflections matter, the specifics of the speaker/room interaction matter, in my opinion. And there is variation in personal preference for different types of speaker/room interaction.

I'm probably not answering the question you want answered. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you want to strip away all real-world variables and have your question be a hypothetical "subjective versus objective" question.

My point is, I would want to figure out WHY in this case the subjective preference did not track the objective data, and use that information to inform my choice. This might actually be a science-y approach.

 

[Henryk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you want to strip away all real-world variables and have your question be a hypothetical "subjective versus objective" question.

Quite right!

And again - just looking for opinions, not what the real truth is.

 

[Flaesh]

variation in personal preference

Yeah. And even with the same speakers in the same room, one can get quite different sound. For example, by placing them in parallel or toed in..

 

[tmtomh]

My first question would be, how long was the audition period - approximately how many hours?

 

[Rick63]

Not sure about the majority, but for me it's a no-brainer. Speaker A.

 

[Jokke]

The WAF also counts.

 

[Flaesh]

My first question would be, how long was the audition period - approximately how many hours?

Many, many hours for the 45º toed in. And occasionally tens of minutes for the parallel, as a fun or curious curiosity. At home.
But I know people with opposite preferences.

 

[Flaesh]

Subjective preferences are subjective; physical laws and technical means are objective.
One might love fullrange speakers with terrifying resonances and a rough frequency response.

 

[JSmith]

Reviews and Klippel data of [Speaker B] are superior to [Speaker A].

Members can't know which is "superior" without seeing all the measurements of each.


JSmith