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Should we (I) get into speaker testing & measurement

Should we get into proper speaker measurements?

  • Yes

    Votes: 247 76.5%
  • Yes, but do it later.

    Votes: 30 9.3%
  • No. Stay with Electronics.

    Votes: 46 14.2%

  • Total voters
    323

Vintage57

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Where does this project stand?
 

Vintage57

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Good to hear.
 

Thomas savage

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I am seriously working it behind the scenes. Will report when I have something concrete.
Translation,

I'm in Canada obsessively cleaning my camper van and iv just spent three months of forum donations on a 19th century royal Mountie uniform so I can walk my dogs looking splendid.
 

Juhazi

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This is why Stereophile shows both listening impressions and measurements - article published in 1966 by the founder J. Gordon Holt

The fact that every loudspeaker is an imperfect reproducer of at least some aspects of a total sound is what accounts for the tremendous diversity of opinions as to what constitutes "the best" loudspeaker. Different listeners judge reproduced sound according to different criteria, and assign different "weights" to the various aspects of the sound.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/subjective-loudspeaker-testing-page-2#2kTRJTmmP2YuogIv.99
 
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beefkabob

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Where's the money going? It's going into the pockets of Benchmark, Massdrop, and others who have greatly benefited from your positive reviews. How many people are lined up, waiting for their Okto DAC? How can you leverage your work to get paid enough to do what you want? Seems like YouTube is the way to go nowadays. Shudder. You're in an interesting spot. Keep going as you are, making an impact on these companies but not getting paid much for your effort, or try to go big. I don't think crowdfunding or donations are gonna get it done, though. Memberships probably won't either. Advertising is tough on a small site. 200 people viewing? Ad views are cheap, even targeted ones.
 

digitalfrost

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I agree with @beefkabob. I would never have bought the AHB2 if it wasn't for the review here. And I got two Topping D50 because of this site. Maybe you could negotiate affiliate links to shops where the reviewed units can be bought - 1 for EU, 1 for US.
 

FrantzM

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Where's the money going? It's going into the pockets of Benchmark, Massdrop, and others who have greatly benefited from your positive reviews. How many people are lined up, waiting for their Okto DAC? How can you leverage your work to get paid enough to do what you want? Seems like YouTube is the way to go nowadays. Shudder. You're in an interesting spot. Keep going as you are, making an impact on these companies but not getting paid much for your effort, or try to go big. I don't think crowdfunding or donations are gonna get it done, though. Memberships probably won't either. Advertising is tough on a small site. 200 people viewing? Ad views are cheap, even targeted ones.
I would try first to see what the membership or/and additional/supplemental crowdfunding will do ... I have a hard time with advertising. It is a bout selling a product, not (even, ever?) trying to tell the truth. I do agree with you though that this will involve a lot of work .. I believe also there are logistics issues that need to be addressed... Say, they were to send Amir a Wilson Audio Chronosonic for testing :p....
 

ahofer

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Forgive me if this has been covered, I didn't read the whole thread. I reached a stalemate with Alan Shaw of Harbeth on the measurements behind his claim of having the "least colored" loudspeaker (see link below). He is big on using specific terms, but he gets squishy on this subject. Basically his assertion is that the RADIAL material has rigid properties that reduce coloration. But he didn't share a picture/measurement of what that looks like next to a more "colored" speaker. I agree with him, subjectively, but I'm very curious whether there's something measurable there.

https://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup...harbeths-unique-radial-cones.79430/post-79477
 

phoenixdogfan

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Answering the last bit, yes, it is a lot more work including physical aspects of handling speakers. My current thought is to mostly limit the testing to small to medium with some exceptions here and there. In the larger scope, I am more worried about the cost of the instrumentation than the rest. I can go on a better diet and learn to lift 100 pound speakers. :) Can't wish for $70K to fall on my lap.

The measurements will be very different than stereophile and much more understandable. The system will measure a complete sphere around the speaker, not a few degrees left and right. This allows to one plot a curve like this:
View attachment 28327

A weighted sum of the three lines above allow one to predict listener preference to high degree. It takes 70 measurements for Harman to produce the above graph in an anechoic chamber. This method of correlation is based on measurements of countless speakers and hundreds of listeners across many trials.

In contrast, the stereophile measurements are rather crude:

508Ushfig5.jpg


Notice how their measurements stops at 300 Hz on the low side.

There is also the question of the future of stereophile measurements. I am not confident that JA will continue in this role to make measurements, speakers or otherwise.

On availability of speakers to test, that is an open question to membership. I can source fair number myself without purchasing. There are also a ton of budget speakers/monitors which would be good to review from Elac to Yamaha. I think if we just profiled every small speaker, we would be in a far better place than we are now.

We also have a number of manufacturers that sell on measured performance such as 8C, Kii, Dutch & Dutch, Genelec, etc. who over time may be willing to send samples in for testing. Indeed some may not have access to such measurement system and see it as a value to them just to have the data, much like some companies do with respect to Audio Precision APx555 which I have now for electronics.

But yes, this is a complicated thing and hence the reason I am asking for feedback. :)
If your measurements identified something less expensive than D&D 8cs and Kii3s that had a comparable CEA-2034 performance envelope that would be like finding the Khadas Tone Board of speakers.
 

phoenixdogfan

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I would try first to see what the membership or/and additional/supplemental crowdfunding will do ... I have a hard time with advertising. It is a bout selling a product, not (even, ever?) trying to tell the truth. I do agree with you though that this will involve a lot of work .. I believe also there are logistics issues that need to be addressed... Say, they were to send Amir a Wilson Audio Chronosonic for testing :p....
If they did, Dave would probably be inside, tightly wrapped and perfectly preserved.
 

Ilkless

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Forgive me if this has been covered, I didn't read the whole thread. I reached a stalemate with Alan Shaw of Harbeth on the measurements behind his claim of having the "least colored" loudspeaker (see link below). He is big on using specific terms, but he gets squishy on this subject. Basically his assertion is that the RADIAL material has rigid properties that reduce coloration. But he didn't share a picture/measurement of what that looks like next to a more "colored" speaker. I agree with him, subjectively, but I'm very curious whether there's something measurable there.

https://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup...harbeths-unique-radial-cones.79430/post-79477

It seems for Alan Shaw that the definition of "least coloured" is not empirically grounded, but grounded in what will sell to audiophiles and their intuition-based understanding of audio. Harbeths are better than the (poor) average in the market segment he targets, and show some commitment to evidence-based engineering but there is no basis to his categorical claim. Not when he hasn't worked to reduce other known and verifiable non-driver sources of distortion. Think directivity matching. Diffraction reduction with extremely contoured cast enclosures. Active operation. Think Neumann KH120A, not a leaky ply box with caps and coils as crossover. This assumes that the Radial cone even really lives up to the claims.

This is debatable for a couple of reasons. First, specialists like SEAS have implemented sophisticated cones such as Curv woven polypropylene, which show sufficient self-damping to roll off naturally with barely any breakup peaks. I cannot believe a cottage industry (even if they just ask someone to design to spec - knowing how and what to spec can be a knowledge-intensive process and constrained by MOQs/development costs) can do any better than large specialist firms (eg. SEAS) allied to specialised materials engineering firms (eg. Propex, which designed Curv) both with deep knowhow, capabilities and economies of scale to design a material to optimal specs. Second, cone resonance behaviour forms but part of the composite that is driver performance. Bad performance everywhere else (eg. compression, nonlinear distortion, excursion) renders a purportedly brilliant cone rather moot.
 

geek101

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Let us say we have N members with a speaker brand X. Will it be possible to send some piece of equipment to each of them like electronics for room correction and measuring gear. This might need predicting room effect using some other source?.

The data gets uploaded and some algorithm will try to approximate the curve using N measurements.

What would be this number N be?. And can room correction be undone to approximate anechoic chamber measurement of the same speaker?. I am not a sound or electronics engineer. I welcome getting some education in that front!!.

This eliminates the need for shipping speakers?.
 

Nango

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Where's the money going? It's going into the pockets of Benchmark, Massdrop, and others who have greatly benefited from your positive reviews. How many people are lined up, waiting for their Okto DAC? How can you leverage your work to get paid enough to do what you want? Seems like YouTube is the way to go nowadays. Shudder. You're in an interesting spot. Keep going as you are, making an impact on these companies but not getting paid much for your effort, or try to go big. I don't think crowdfunding or donations are gonna get it done, though. Memberships probably won't either. Advertising is tough on a small site. 200 people viewing? Ad views are cheap, even targeted ones.
There is no other way than charging (high!) those mfr who send in it's gear to the benefit and maintenance of the site. Of course this should imply the results will be published in any way no matter how much they paid. But regrettably the site already decided not to do so.
 

digicidal

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There is no other way than charging (high!) those mfr who send in it's gear to the benefit and maintenance of the site. Of course this should imply the results will be published in any way no matter how much they paid. But regrettably the site already decided not to do so.
Of course, the largest problem with that is the fact that any manufacturer willing to comply - will naturally be one that has already run a full suite of similar tests on the same equipment prior. That would make ASR more of a "measurement confirmation site" rather than an objective review and analysis forum.

You might have some takers on a "pay regardless, but retain final say on publishing" contract - but that wouldn't benefit the consumers in cases of poor results (although an anticipated review that was marked "manufacturer denied publication" would speak volumes).

This is the dilemma with scientific research in a variety of areas... precise measurement devices (and competent technicians to operate them) are very expensive - so large budgets are needed. Other than a few grants and endowments, the owners of the fattest purses have them (in most cases) because of controlling the truth... rather than exposing it. IME at least.

I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt there are many companies (especially in retail audio) who would pay significantly for a potential risk to their reputations - all so the consumer could benefit. Even the honest, competent engineering companies aren't likely to pay too well - they spent that money on their own R&D and payroll to attract the best talent. If that represented a significant majority of manufacturers - then reviews would be mostly meaningless in the first place. They'd all just make incredibly well engineered products at very reasonable margins with full published specifications - and we'd all be happy with almost everything on the market.

Instead many of them are busy figuring out exactly how much nylon sleeving, semi-precious metal, and sexy marketing is required to sell a $25 cable for $5000. Or how to spin the mediocre performance of their $15K DAC as being more bespoke audio than their competition. :rolleyes:
 

Vintage57

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One idea for new speakers or speakers we have original packing for. We could ship one or both speakers when purchased to Amir for testing and then have it forwarded or returned back to us. Those of us curious to know how the factory measurements verify would be one source of material.
 
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fredoamigo

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that would obviously be yes, but given the growing success of the ASR site, I'm afraid that as for wine, Amir will become the robert parker of audio with many perverse effects and lead to an increase in the prices of new and second-hand products.

https://www.robertparker.com/
 
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Vintage57

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that would obviously be yes, but given the growing success of the ASR site, I'm afraid that as for wine, Amir will become the robert parker of audio with many perverse effects and lead to an increase in the prices of new and second-hand products.

https://www.robertparker.com/

First of all wine is a consumable.
Wouldn’t it be better to have products retain their value due to merit versus marketing. How do we know what we’re getting now.
This wouldn’t be a conversation if there were truth in numbers from manufacturers.
 
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