[POLL] Fun Theoretical Question

[tmtomh]

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.

I was talking about the OP's scenario.

 

[TimF]

The speaker with the bigger advertising budget will be the more popular. I'm not being cynical. Reality is what we are told it is.

 

[MarkS]

I would buy Speaker A (and have done so in the past).

I would guess that most would buy Speaker A in this scenario.

Anyone who is going to go by reviews/data would just buy Speaker B without going to the trouble of an in-home audition.

 

[Adis]

I find that logic incomprehensible; the Chicago Bulls played better, everyone saw it, but the Los Angeles Lakers won?

 

[vicenzo_del_paris]

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.

As Duke mentioned, it would interesting to see if speaker A and B have different dispersion pattern (wide / narrow) explaining the preferences.
As you've been using 45° toe in, I would guess that speaker A has a narrower dispersion pattern giving you more focused imaging that you might prefer over a wide dispersion pattern that would fill the room, leading to more reflections and not requiring toeing?

 

[Flaesh]

I was talking about the OP's scenario.

Yes, I understand. The OP's scenario is highly theoretical and likely assumes the average listener from Toole's and Olive's research.

the preferences

A particular listener's preferences don't necessarily match the average, and the spinorama doesn't reflect all the important criteria. Although all my speakers have decent spinorama above 666-777 Hz.

 

[OCA]

the room was treated and doesn't have any nasty stuff going on

No room treatment can completely eliminate all the harmful elements in a room. While decent treatment can help, in my experience, a significant number of treated rooms end up measuring much worse than untreated ones.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Doing inferential estimation based on a sample size of 1 is a fool's errand. I can do stats on it, but the error is super high. So there is no way to know based ONLY on what is provided in the OP.

However, knowing that most here would say more neutral is better in Klippel, and knowing the market a bit, Speaker A is likely bass boosted, and probably treble boosted a bit.

I'll put money on a majority of people in the general population picking boosted bass and sparkly treble over any short term evaluation if the alternative is neutral.

 

[AVKS]

If someone tried both in their home and chose A over B, then that makes perfect sense. Doesn't mean we aren't making a boatload of assumptions one way or the other in this scenario though and that changing those assumptions wouldn't/couldn't also sway the outcome.

I find that logic incomprehensible; the Chicago Bulls played better, everyone saw it, but the Los Angeles Lakers won?

Happens regularly in the sports world.

 

[tmtomh]

Yes, I understand. The OP's scenario is highly theoretical and likely assumes the average listener from Toole's and Olive's research.

A particular listener's preferences don't necessarily match the average, and the spinorama doesn't reflect all the important criteria. Although all my speakers have decent spinorama above 666-777 Hz.

The point of my question about how long the in-home audition was is that I have found that it can take quite some time to fully evaluate a speaker when it comes to day-in, day-out listening to the full range of music that someone might enjoy. “Hours and hours” is a vague assertion of “it was long enough” - but to me that’s precisely the issue. I’ve heard plenty of speakers that sound fantastic… for a while. With some of them, though, my perception changes a bit over time, especially when we’re talking about clearly audible but relatively modest differences from another speaker in a comparison. Listening impressions change; measured performance doesn’t.

 

[kemmler3D]

In your scenario, it's A. Rephrasing the question... "Would a typical person buy a speaker they don't like even though they know it's better on paper"... Of course not!

If the question is meant to draw out something about ASR folks, I'd say the measurement-forward shopper would spend more time listening to speaker B to see if they eventually get accustomed to the more neutral speaker, where the typical consumer wouldn't.

 

[Adis]

If someone tried both in their home and chose A over B, then that makes perfect sense. Doesn't mean we aren't making a boatload of assumptions one way or the other in this scenario though and that changing those assumptions wouldn't/couldn't also sway the outcome.


Happens regularly in the sports world.

For me, the only question is whether the speaker sounds as it should. And we can't know that without measuring it.

 

[MarkS]

For me, the only question is whether the speaker sounds as it should in my listening room. And I can't know that without listening to it in my listening room.

 

[Henryk]

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

Exactly one Platonic year...
That's all though.

 

[Henryk]

In your scenario, it's A. Rephrasing the question... "Would a typical person buy a speaker they don't like even though they know it's better on paper"... Of course not!

If the question is meant to draw out something about ASR folks, I'd say the measurement-forward shopper would spend more time listening to speaker B to see if they eventually get accustomed to the more neutral speaker, where the typical consumer wouldn't.

No no. Not trying to draw something regarding ASR members.
More concerned about the speaker-buying public in general.

Again, just want people's opinions - not facts.

 

[Henryk]

No room treatment can completely eliminate all the harmful elements in a room. While decent treatment can help, in my experience, a significant number of treated rooms end up measuring much worse than untreated ones.

I just wanted to eliminate that variable from people's minds when giving their opinion.
So assume this is in a parallel universe where such things are possible.

 

[Adis]

For me, the only question is whether the speaker sounds as it should in my listening room. And I can't know that without listening to it in my listening room.

In the case of a bass heavy listening experience, can you tell if it's the recording, the speaker, or the room just by listening?

 

[AVKS]

For me, the only question is whether the speaker sounds as it should. And we can't know that without measuring it.

'As it should' can mean different things, and an argument can be made that the one someone enjoys more is more 'as it should' than others.

Again though, comes down to assumptions about one's objective and the large number being made about this scenario. Rightly or wrongly not everyone is concerned with academic neutrality and the thesis that a speaker only exists to reproduce exactly what it's fed. Very understandable though that many prefer to stick to speakers designed to that thesis.

 

[Adis]

'As it should' can mean different things, and an argument can be made that the one someone enjoys more is more 'as it should' than others.

Again though, comes down to assumptions about one's objective and the large number being made about this scenario. Rightly or wrongly not everyone is concerned with academic neutrality and the thesis that a speaker only exists to reproduce exactly what it's fed. Very understandable though that many prefer to stick to speakers designed to that thesis.

How meritorious are those who don't know what a speaker is for, those who go "by feel"?

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

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?

If the Klippel data is complete with measured harmonic distortion and intermodulation distortion with multitone signal, and after that perform listening to both speakers - if I choose measurable inferior speaker, than I will run to the specialist to check my hearing. Only after that I will make a purchase decision.