PS Audio got a Klippel NFS

[antcollinet]

It is 1716, and Antonio Stradivari’s violin is rejected because it did not measure well enough.

Reproduction gear is not part of the class "musical instruments" They have different jobs.

 

[antcollinet]

All I'm saying is don't miss the beauty and emotion because you're busy staring at a computer screen.

The beauty and emotion come from the music. The computer screen helps engineers create gear that accurately reproduces all the content of that music so that you can hear the beauty uncorrupted and thereby feel the emotion.

 

[Sal1950]

Reproduction gear is not part of the class "musical instruments"

At least they're not supposed to be.
That's one of ASR's main goals, to separate the gear that operates as a "straight wire with gain" from those that try to add or subtract notes and distortion of their own.

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

All the gear and no idea? Obviously you have to know how to use the equipment, how to interpret the results and how to modify the design (that might be the hard part!).
Your point about simpler measuring tools is well made. I don’t believe that KEF has a Klippel but their loudspeakers are pretty good.
EDIT typo

Edit: Ahhh, I see that this was discussed elsewhere in the thread

I’ve chatted with the engineering folks at KEF (great guys) and used to work with two former presidents of KEF America in my mid-20s. KEF pioneered computer based impulse response measurement of loudspeakers and did so in a large reverberant chamber. I believe that it’s a 60-70 ft cube or so.

They have since added a multi-microphone acquisition system (forming a 90degree arc that they can rotate) of their own design, not unlike what Dynaudio does for their Jupiter system.

While the measurement speed of this system is incredibly fast in comparison to the Klippel NFS, I don’t have a large and quiet enough space to get a long enough window length and the Klippel NFS allows for anechoic measurement in smaller non-anechoic rooms. A lot of older, established speaker companies already have an anechoic chamber or similar and may not get as much value as I will from this system. Well, that’s what I’m guessing as I don’t know their motivations and budgets.

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

Imagine building some of the best speakers there are but having to bend to the will of Kipple accuracy for marketing purposes.

Well, as others have mentioned, the measurement system doesn’t tell you what to build or how to solve the problem necessarily but it does give you a microscope or MRI machine of sorts and is robotic/automated.

Simply getting more turns on a design helps you understand the system optimization problems better and should result in not only better products but is a big time saver.

I just got the multi source license and multiplexer so I can measure a bunch of drive units at once for multi-way systems and capture all polar data at once before bringing it in to my crossover simulation tools and such

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

So....I am confused by this. Aren't these the guys that say measurements don't matter etc?

I would avoid straw man arguments.

Yes, I’m very happy to get this measurement system and it’s going to significantly improve future design efforts.

I have previously been using Klippel lpm and lsi measurements to confirm my FEA and optimize our woofers but using gated, quasi anechoic measurements using a turntable + ground plane bass measurements for the system/crossover design.

If anyone wants to discuss our future loudspeaker development strategy or anything other technical details of our speakers, let me know.

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

Marketing, marketing, marketing !
The good news here is that the subjective world is slowly learning that the objective world can no longer be completely ignored if they want to be successful going forward.
IMHO It's wonderful how times have changed in audio over the last 10+ years.

That’s not at all what is going on here. Actually, it’s much simpler. I developed a pretty successful line of speakers (partly thanks to marketing, marketing, marketing and Paul’s community building and engagement) and am a mostly one man show for design/engineering/QA and have been asking to budget for this for a number of years.

It’s a very unique offering and an automated tool like that will improve product performance, productivity, time to market, etc. I’m now getting the chance to work on a number of new designs and excited to employ it to make better products that will bring enjoyment and beautiful music

 

[RexrothPigeon]

That’s not at all what is going on here. Actually, it’s much simpler. I developed a pretty successful line of speakers and am a mostly one man show for design/engineering/QA and have been asking to budget for this for a number of years. It’s a very unique offering and an automated tool like that will improve product performance, productivity, time to market, etc. I’m now getting the chance to work on a number of new designs and excited to employ it to make better products that will bring enjoyment abs beautiful music

Keep fighting the good fight, Chris!

 

[Sal1950]

That’s not at all what is going on here. Actually, it’s much simpler. I developed a pretty successful line of speakers (partly thanks to marketing, marketing, marketing and Paul’s community building and engagement) and am a mostly one man show for design/engineering/QA and have been asking to budget for this for a number of years.

It’s a very unique offering and an automated tool like that will improve product performance, productivity, time to market, etc. I’m now getting the chance to work on a number of new designs and excited to employ it to make better products that will bring enjoyment and beautiful music

Ah, but you can't deny that more and more it's becoming difficult for manufacturers to market products that measure bad and then depend on the media to sell them with a "they sound good to me anyway" review. The passionate audio consumer is smarter and more appreciative of well engineered products today.
Cheers Chris

 

[TheKoC]

That's good news. I guess the next step is an Audio Precision Analyzer to prove the performance advantage of their power plants und DAC's?

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

This seems like a good update from the company that used to sell those stupid noise harvesters. Their speakers do seem fine, pretty interesting in many ways, Chris seems like a bit of outlier at the company in a good way, but for me hard to look past the selling of a literal scam product in the past. I guess all you need to sell that kind of stuff is marketing, marketing, and marketing

Has PS audio ever made a statement that those things do nothing, because if they did it would do a lot to regain my respect.

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

At least they're not supposed to be.
That's one of ASR's main goals, to separate the gear that operates as a "straight wire with gain" from those that try to add or subtract notes and distortion of their own.

Electronics are easy to measure these days and we should make products that measure well and sound good.

 

[Jonazkur]

I would avoid straw man arguments.

Yes, I’m very happy to get this measurement system and it’s going to significantly improve future design efforts.

I have previously been using Klippel lpm and lsi measurements to confirm my FEA and optimize our woofers but using gated, quasi anechoic measurements using a turntable + ground plane bass measurements for the system/crossover design.

If anyone wants to discuss our future loudspeaker development strategy or anything other technical details of our speakers, let me know.

Gated,quasi anechoic+ground plane or nearfield for bass is completely fine too. You dont need klippel for designing speakers but ofc its nice to have. Imo more important than klippel is to understand the measurements and what you want.

 

[Chris Brunhaver]

Gated,quasi anechoic+ground plane or nearfield for bass is completely fine too. You dont need klippel for designing speakers but ofc its nice to have. Imo more important than klippel is to understand the measurements and what you want.

Well, there are some significant limitations in midrange resolution, depending on your ability to get a long enough window length for our gated response. That has been a significant issue for me.

Scott Hinson that used to run the DIYBasslist back in the day (if any of your are old enough to remember usenet and listserves), has a pretty good white paper on this issue:

Speaker Freakers | I measured a tiny little speaker...and wrote about it a lot | Facebook

I measured a tiny little speaker...and wrote about it a lot. The same concepts apply to bigger speakers...which makes things a whole lot more complicated.

www.facebook.com

 

[Titurel]

You're confusing instruments, which are art, with speakers and electronics, which are tools.

Who's confused? Violins are not art. They may be works of art(istry) or objects capable of facilitating the production of art. But they are not art. They are tools, tools which are the product of a craftsman's art. (See: instrumentality. i.e., a means to an end - not the end itself). You might also note that Yamaha manufactures both hi-fi gear and musical instruments, neither of which are art, though both are designed and manufactured to produce or reproduce art.

Is a Klippel (a work of) art or an elegant solution - a very nifty tool?

 

[CtheArgie]

Someone should inform this to Paul McGowan:

"Electronics are easy to measure these days and we should make products that measure well and sound good." Brunhaver dixit.

 

[staticV3]

Who's confused? Violins are not art. They may be works of art(istry) or objects capable of facilitating the production of art. But they are not art. They are tools, tools which are the product of a craftsman's art. (See: instrumentality. i.e., a means to an end - not the end itself). You might also note that Yamaha manufactures both hi-fi gear and musical instruments, neither of which are art, though both are designed and manufactured to produce or reproduce art.

Is a Klippel (a work of) art or an elegant solution - a very nifty tool?

Unlike a speaker/Amp/Klippel NFS, a violin does not have hard performance metrics which need to be met before it is considered a good violin.

It can be built in a myriad of ways with a myriad of resulting timbre characteristics, and no one could reasonably argue that one is objectively better than the others.

It all comes down to personal preference, just like art.

 

[Titurel]

Unlike a speaker/Amp/Klippel NFS, a violin does not have hard performance metrics which need to be met before it is considered a good violin.

Actually, the performance metrics (defining or describing a good fiddle) are probably much tighter (and more subtle) than you think. Being a straight wire with gain would describe a useless violin and a perfect amplifier - vastly different beasts. Just because the metrics for one class of object are useless for describing another, does not necessarily mean that the appropriate metrics for the second are any less rigorous.

and no one could reasonably argue that one is objectively better than the others.

A friend of mine was offered the choice of 2 fiddles to use on particular gig - a Strad. and Guarneri. He could have performed well enough with either instrument, but chose the Guarneri, feeling it was better suited to country fiddling than the Strad., even though the Strad's market value (then c. $3.6M) was probably twice that of the Guarneri. If you read up on the sound of two instruments, you might begin to suspect the objective reasons for borrowing the Guarneri.

It all comes down to personal preference, just like art.

Just like art, but not art. I have an aesthetic of kitchen cutlery. Fiddles are tools, not art.

 

[Ropeburn]

I learned a new word today.

I dunno, sounds like resonant piss scent to me... which you probably get when measuring speakers in a tiled public toilet.

 

[Cbdb2]

Too many years of Pauls snake oil for me to ever look at gear produced by BSaudio. Hes still a used car salesman who knows little about electronics.