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Should we (I) get into speaker testing & measurement
- Thread starter amirm
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I've tested speakers out in a field before, but it is challenging... Hard to avoid extraneous noise, and test without annoying neighbors. I did it on a farm but even there are other animals around (or just wind) that can introduce extemporaneous spurs into the results.
(blush)
I hear what your saying. I would be great to get some good measurements of the small to medium speaker market, following along the lines of DAC and Amp's. Looking to find some gems in the reasonably priced market. You will of course have to lower your expectations just a bit, going by your past writings from HiFi Shows I believe you are a bit spoiled by the demographics of that which you are most exposed to.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.
You might also consider getting more involved in the AVR-Pre/Pro market. There is a void of people doing any serious measuremenst of these components like you have on a few pieces lately. Kal does the multich thing at Stereophile but Atkinson doesn't seem to want to get involved on the tech side. The size of the number of kits out there is pretty small compared to stereo and wide coverage wouldn't involve a lot of components. You look to have a good feel of the market thru Madrona and WRM, maybe you could fold your relationship with them a bit?
Just some thoughts.
PS, I'm voting, Yes, but on a limited basis?
I just couldn't decide on a sensible approach, you would know better.
DDF
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You can use a million points FFT but that gives false/artificial (not real) frequency resolution. Real resolution is limited by window size and sampling frequency.
E. Benjamin, “Extending Quasi-Anechoic Electroacoustic Measurements to Low Frequencies”, presented at 117th AES Convention,
San Francisco, 2004 October 28-31, paper 6218, 16 pages.
The Benjamin paper had a nice overview (high pass the stimulus to shorten impulse length, reverse it in processing, use lots of averaging to get SNR back) but unfortunately I loaned out my hard copy.
I've attached a bit of an evolution on this technique, using a notch. It includes good references, Fincham @ KEF thought of it first.
Vanderkooy's assessment which I think is overly pessimistic: "One method works by equalizing the response down to dc, the other by increasing the effective highpass corner frequency of the system. Each method is studied with simulations, and both appear to work to varying degrees, but we question whether they are measurements or effectively simply model extensions. In practice noise significantly degrades both procedures. Convention Paper 7525 "
Thanks much for the reference, I'll devour it.
OP
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Neighbors are not a huge problem but rain is. Winter is when I can dedicate the most time to the forum and unfortunately it rains most days then.
DDF
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NP, enjoy. I found a teaser to wet your whistle while waiting for the preprint:
http://www.musicanddesign.com/Matched_Filters.html
This would really give ASR a good bit of "weight" or "put ASR on the map". It certainly would take the forum to a new level.
Sustainability needs to be considered if this is undertaken.
Sustainability needs to be considered if this is undertaken.
DDF
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Transport becomes overhead, but do you know anyone in admin at a school or school board? A gym is perfect for this sort of work and any urban area is littered with accessible ones if you have the right connections.
I would love to see speaker measurements, I think there is a great deal to learn about their measured performance. Due to the work of Toole et al we know where they should be but have next to no public data on how they really do perform. I'm not convinced how realistic a possibility this is however considering logistics and cost. If I proceed with my planned speaker dev project I would pay for you to perform testing (not review due to obvious conflict of interest).
I'm not sure we are learning much new from the dac testing, we know what state of the art is and many dacs come close enough to that to make no odds. Still good to keep testing and find rogues and where any particular product stands however.
The other thing to aim for is IMO is amp testing with non (purely) resistive loads. A power cube would making testing far more comprehensive and realistic.
I'm not sure we are learning much new from the dac testing, we know what state of the art is and many dacs come close enough to that to make no odds. Still good to keep testing and find rogues and where any particular product stands however.
The other thing to aim for is IMO is amp testing with non (purely) resistive loads. A power cube would making testing far more comprehensive and realistic.
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I'm so much in favor of someone measuring speakers with spin-o-rama results. If ASR pulled it off, and managed it for significant speakers, it would sure put them into a very special place on the map.
1st concern is how many speakers will come your way? Obviously nothing original in me seeing that. But it will be big concern. And at least a few times we'll want to see you measure some of the heavy hitters in the speaker world. Then finding affordable speakers in sizes that ship UPS which perform in excellent manner will be where the true benefits to audiophiles will be. Along with uncovering some that are ridiculous. This one bothers me. It isn't too hard to see the going will be much, much slower than with DACs or headphone amps.
2nd slap you in the face concern is the expense. Lets just round up and say altogether you are looking at $100k to get this up and running. What if you do and speakers hardly ever come your way unless they are mostly low end.
3rd obvious issue if you think the first two aren't show stoppers is how to get the money or how to amortize this so it can somewhat pay for itself down the road. Would I send you $10 on this. Sure. Would I send you $100 on this. Yeah. Maybe if we have subscriptions. $10/month for a year or two. Are there enough people coming by here to make that level of contribution work? If not now, does it appear there will be in a year or two. Would that need to be ongoing to allow you to pay for shipping both ways for people willing to send in samples and that sort of thing?
Other thoughts. Is this the most useful thing ASR could add on next? If you managed to pull it off I'd say it would be one of the most useful things done in all of modern audio actually.
I'm also one of those that think amplifier testing with simulated loudspeaker loads or the Load Cube thing would be highly revealing. Or I think so. See this is something of a dark area. Maybe you'll find within certain fairly simple parameters the loudspeaker load isn't a very big deal at all. I really like those Swedish series amplifier tests. Having done that myself at least back 20 years ago, amplifiers sounded a lot more different than the specs would have you believe. Meaning the specs on resistors are missing what really happens in an amp connected to a speaker. I don't know how many those fellows tested, but they only ever found 2 that passed sighted testing and one that passed blind testing as transparent. I think people buy and sell and swap amps more often than speakers. This might be a good next step prior to speaker testing.
So to me there are too many really big hurdles one right after the other for now for getting the Klippel system. I've read about it ever since it was announced and hoped some publication or outfit would get it and publish test results of all kinds of speakers. So I'd say yes, but not now.
Then again, every time someone manages to do something extraordinary, there usually is a time they look this sort of thing in the eye, and decide despite the odds, they are going to make it happen anyway. Most of the time they fail. Sometimes they don't.
Oh and one more thing. If some of the suggestions by SIY, and Don and others can allow good results, even if the results are slow, I don't see that as a big impediment at least now. I think getting interesting speakers to test is going to be slow anyway. If you can set aside time with a more manual method of lower cost to do one important speaker per month and one other, you'd start to build a good database of what is what.
1st concern is how many speakers will come your way? Obviously nothing original in me seeing that. But it will be big concern. And at least a few times we'll want to see you measure some of the heavy hitters in the speaker world. Then finding affordable speakers in sizes that ship UPS which perform in excellent manner will be where the true benefits to audiophiles will be. Along with uncovering some that are ridiculous. This one bothers me. It isn't too hard to see the going will be much, much slower than with DACs or headphone amps.
2nd slap you in the face concern is the expense. Lets just round up and say altogether you are looking at $100k to get this up and running. What if you do and speakers hardly ever come your way unless they are mostly low end.
3rd obvious issue if you think the first two aren't show stoppers is how to get the money or how to amortize this so it can somewhat pay for itself down the road. Would I send you $10 on this. Sure. Would I send you $100 on this. Yeah. Maybe if we have subscriptions. $10/month for a year or two. Are there enough people coming by here to make that level of contribution work? If not now, does it appear there will be in a year or two. Would that need to be ongoing to allow you to pay for shipping both ways for people willing to send in samples and that sort of thing?
Other thoughts. Is this the most useful thing ASR could add on next? If you managed to pull it off I'd say it would be one of the most useful things done in all of modern audio actually.
I'm also one of those that think amplifier testing with simulated loudspeaker loads or the Load Cube thing would be highly revealing. Or I think so. See this is something of a dark area. Maybe you'll find within certain fairly simple parameters the loudspeaker load isn't a very big deal at all. I really like those Swedish series amplifier tests. Having done that myself at least back 20 years ago, amplifiers sounded a lot more different than the specs would have you believe. Meaning the specs on resistors are missing what really happens in an amp connected to a speaker. I don't know how many those fellows tested, but they only ever found 2 that passed sighted testing and one that passed blind testing as transparent. I think people buy and sell and swap amps more often than speakers. This might be a good next step prior to speaker testing.
So to me there are too many really big hurdles one right after the other for now for getting the Klippel system. I've read about it ever since it was announced and hoped some publication or outfit would get it and publish test results of all kinds of speakers. So I'd say yes, but not now.
Then again, every time someone manages to do something extraordinary, there usually is a time they look this sort of thing in the eye, and decide despite the odds, they are going to make it happen anyway. Most of the time they fail. Sometimes they don't.
Oh and one more thing. If some of the suggestions by SIY, and Don and others can allow good results, even if the results are slow, I don't see that as a big impediment at least now. I think getting interesting speakers to test is going to be slow anyway. If you can set aside time with a more manual method of lower cost to do one important speaker per month and one other, you'd start to build a good database of what is what.
Hi
I'm a newcomer here.
What impressed me, on top of your strict methodology and 'savoir faire', are the results.
It's a game changer for me to see a $99 DAC performing that well. Or a $200 headphones amp. Or even a $900 DAC + headphone amp + DSP.
Or a $1200 class D power amp.
That looks like 'problem solved'.
My thoughts are very selfish: what do I need?
A proper multi room system, to have music everywhere in my house, with good streaming service (Qobuz in my case), streamer software (Roon?), streamer hardware (any, actually), DAC (done, with different levels of cost, comfort and quality), Power amp (done, but only at a cost) and room correction (well, what's my choice outside of Dirac? But that limits my hardware choice or increases the costs too much. So, not 'done', for me)
Then loudspeaker is the last point. The most difficult.
Testing all available electronics is a waste of time: you'll never catch up.
But we need at least to have a pair of options tested per category. Currently, we have enough DACs, headphone amps options. But not enough power amps, and especially cheap ones.
Investigating and measuring practical and cheap room correction options or methodologies, which are, if I'm not wrong, even more important than loudspeaker for the sound, is completely missing.
Then, providing a detailed method (and support) for the common to test their DAC or amp at home for relevant quality (make sure the thing is not 'broken', not measure the difference between 110 and 120dB SINAD, but >96dB) without breaking the bank, and allow and organize publication here of standardized results (while making a clear distinction that this is member contribution, with lesser reliability) would allow much faster pace, add a lot of data quickly.
And also provide a good pre-selection of devices to dive deeper in.
Bottom line: my preference is that you solve a problem at a time, starting with the most impactful AND practical, then, when enough 'solutions' identified, move to next.
And, please, document (and experiment), with other knowledgeables here, how we could measure ourselves with reasonable accuracy.
Loudspeaker, obviously, is key. But that's also, by far, the most difficult, isn't it?
Wait, no. Headphones may be even worse...
I'm a newcomer here.
What impressed me, on top of your strict methodology and 'savoir faire', are the results.
It's a game changer for me to see a $99 DAC performing that well. Or a $200 headphones amp. Or even a $900 DAC + headphone amp + DSP.
Or a $1200 class D power amp.
That looks like 'problem solved'.
My thoughts are very selfish: what do I need?
A proper multi room system, to have music everywhere in my house, with good streaming service (Qobuz in my case), streamer software (Roon?), streamer hardware (any, actually), DAC (done, with different levels of cost, comfort and quality), Power amp (done, but only at a cost) and room correction (well, what's my choice outside of Dirac? But that limits my hardware choice or increases the costs too much. So, not 'done', for me)
Then loudspeaker is the last point. The most difficult.
Testing all available electronics is a waste of time: you'll never catch up.
But we need at least to have a pair of options tested per category. Currently, we have enough DACs, headphone amps options. But not enough power amps, and especially cheap ones.
Investigating and measuring practical and cheap room correction options or methodologies, which are, if I'm not wrong, even more important than loudspeaker for the sound, is completely missing.
Then, providing a detailed method (and support) for the common to test their DAC or amp at home for relevant quality (make sure the thing is not 'broken', not measure the difference between 110 and 120dB SINAD, but >96dB) without breaking the bank, and allow and organize publication here of standardized results (while making a clear distinction that this is member contribution, with lesser reliability) would allow much faster pace, add a lot of data quickly.
And also provide a good pre-selection of devices to dive deeper in.
Bottom line: my preference is that you solve a problem at a time, starting with the most impactful AND practical, then, when enough 'solutions' identified, move to next.
And, please, document (and experiment), with other knowledgeables here, how we could measure ourselves with reasonable accuracy.
Loudspeaker, obviously, is key. But that's also, by far, the most difficult, isn't it?
Wait, no. Headphones may be even worse...
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I vote yes absolutely.
The audio community has been duped too long by dishonest manufacturers who are bent on deceiving the public with sub-par gear sold at ridiculous prices. This forum has done more to educate new comers who just want to know how to buy a nicer headphone amps and dacs than any other source. Thank you so much Amir.
Independent testing is the only way to check the dishonest manufacturers, and more objectivity in this space, the better.
I don’t know how good these machines are or whether they would do the job properly, and I would leave it to Amir to do the right thing.
If measuring speakers is too challenging financially or logistically, perhaps headphone testing might be a better bang for the buck, since people naturally come here for headphone amp and dac reviews. I would love to see headphone measurements compared to the Harman target model and ranked.
If there was a go-fund-me or a donation account, I am happy to chip in.
My cynical side says that the forum is mostly sales reps, who would definitely not want good objective measurements and associated ranking of their gear (speakers cost way more than amps, with more variability) so this effort might backfire.
tl;dr YES YES YES! hooray objective measurements!
The audio community has been duped too long by dishonest manufacturers who are bent on deceiving the public with sub-par gear sold at ridiculous prices. This forum has done more to educate new comers who just want to know how to buy a nicer headphone amps and dacs than any other source. Thank you so much Amir.
Independent testing is the only way to check the dishonest manufacturers, and more objectivity in this space, the better.
I don’t know how good these machines are or whether they would do the job properly, and I would leave it to Amir to do the right thing.
If measuring speakers is too challenging financially or logistically, perhaps headphone testing might be a better bang for the buck, since people naturally come here for headphone amp and dac reviews. I would love to see headphone measurements compared to the Harman target model and ranked.
If there was a go-fund-me or a donation account, I am happy to chip in.
My cynical side says that the forum is mostly sales reps, who would definitely not want good objective measurements and associated ranking of their gear (speakers cost way more than amps, with more variability) so this effort might backfire.
tl;dr YES YES YES! hooray objective measurements!
It would be the natural next step for ASR, i also believe most of what we look for actually comes from the speaker. Getting big ones might be difficult but i think regular, smaller, more affordable speakers would be as interesting to review, the hundreds of bookshelves in the 250/500/1000$ range currently available is a lot a material to work with already. Not even counting all the studio/active monitors part of the market, which im sure many professionals would even pay to get this kind of datas.
I know subscription is maybe not the philosophy most would like to see applied here, but if it means getting such game changer datas, i would be up for it personally.
Besides, for reference this is the currently available spinorama datas afaik : https://speakerdata2034.blogspot.com/2019/03/all-spinorama-data-index.html
I know subscription is maybe not the philosophy most would like to see applied here, but if it means getting such game changer datas, i would be up for it personally.
Besides, for reference this is the currently available spinorama datas afaik : https://speakerdata2034.blogspot.com/2019/03/all-spinorama-data-index.html
I have a question about the loudspeaker measurement method here:
What about dynamics?
What's important for loudspeaker subjective quality is not just the frequency response and directivity.
It's also the distortion and the ability to transcript dynamics.
How is this method doing in that regard?
Another point of concern: there may be 'good enough' DAC at $99.
You've been able, through your measurements, to create a credible definition of 'good enough', in that case.
But will you be able to have such a definition of 'good enough' for loudspeaker that will work for the majority of us ?
As for frequency response and directivity, I guess, Toole's work is our bible
But then will you be able to find any 'cheap' loudspeakers falling in that category?
How objective and measurable will that be, if you have to choose between several shortcomings?
And are the frequency response and directivity enough to define a 'good enough' speaker?
What about dynamics?
What's important for loudspeaker subjective quality is not just the frequency response and directivity.
It's also the distortion and the ability to transcript dynamics.
How is this method doing in that regard?
Another point of concern: there may be 'good enough' DAC at $99.
You've been able, through your measurements, to create a credible definition of 'good enough', in that case.
But will you be able to have such a definition of 'good enough' for loudspeaker that will work for the majority of us ?
As for frequency response and directivity, I guess, Toole's work is our bible
But then will you be able to find any 'cheap' loudspeakers falling in that category?
How objective and measurable will that be, if you have to choose between several shortcomings?
And are the frequency response and directivity enough to define a 'good enough' speaker?
Last edited:
BillG
Major Contributor
If you can swing it that would fantastic and much appreciated. However, for the time being I'll just rely on speakers manufacturered by the Harmon group of companies given their reputation...
Hugo9000
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