Speakers that are unforgiving of poor-quality recordings - is that a thing?

[Ron Texas]

Yeah, because as great as Toole and Olive are (and they are), there is so much missing from their studies.

That's quite true. The amount of effort required to blind test speakers before many listeners was enormous. There is only so much even talented scientists can do in a lifetime. I recall one open area is the relative weighting of frequency response variations by frequency band.

 

[fineMen]

Our pitty poor audiophools:

The analog tape is lost, the latter is a restauration from vinly, crackle (each, with love!!) removed. Do these guys, the audiophools, really think they could even remotely score studio works?

 

[YSC]

My take is more often it’s psychological. Take example of Anne Marie ‘then’ where there’s severe clipping and distortion in the track. When you listen on say, a phone speaker you kind of will think it’s a defect of the speaker, but once you go to a good speaker or earphones, your brain will go: nope, the recording itself does sucks

 

[gnarly]

Yes, I do think there are speakers that help bad recordings sound better.

Ones that have limited bandwidth, where both bass and high frequency are limited, but in a somewhat balanced proportion.
And ones that produce higher ratios of reflected vs direct sound.

Those two properties help mitigate bad recordings imo.

Bose 901's are a good example of a speaker those has them both.
Nothing but mid-range drivers using EQ to get freq extensions, and built for reflected sound dominance.
I can happily listen to some tracks on them, that my other speakers think are dog food.

 

[mhardy6647]

The heritage Klipsch can be tough to listen to (even) with good quality program material -- but they can be downright unbearable with poorly recorded, mixed, and/or mastered program.

Lowther drivers suffer a similar fate -- they do not present highly processed "pop" recordings in anything close to a pleasant way.

 

[GXAlan]

Yes, I do think there are speakers that help bad recordings sound better.

Ones that have limited bandwidth, where both bass and high frequency are limited, but in a somewhat balanced proportion.
And ones that produce higher ratios of reflected vs direct sound.

Those two properties help mitigate bad recordings imo.

Bose 901's are a good example of a speaker those has them both.
Nothing but mid-range drivers using EQ to get freq extensions, and built for reflected sound dominance.
I can happily listen to some tracks on them, that my other speakers think are dog food.

+1 for Bose 901 for making everything sound pretty good if you have them properly set up. I think Erin from EAC was overloading the equalizer since my in-room has far lower distortion. I read on another forum, the Series VI tolerated higher voltage in before clipping.

In room, I get pretty nice bass response from a 300B SET with the 901 Series VI

 

[mhardy6647]

Quad ESL-57s do a nice job of making everything sound good.

 

[recycle]

The point of studio monitors is exactly reveal the weak point of a mix: that's why they are used in a studio

Studio monitors vs HiFi speakers:
While both categories share common ground in many cases, you’ll generally find a few disparities across the board. Here’s a selection of the main technical differences:

• Active/passive – studio monitors tend to be active i.e. they have built-in power amplifiers. Hi-fi and other home speakers are generally passive, receiving power from a dedicated standalone amplifier.
• Individual power amplifiers – with active speakers, particularly studio monitors, you tend to have multiple power amps in one unit. This means that woofer (bass), midrange and tweeter (treble) cones are each powered individually, making for a more precise sound.
• Crossovers – an extension of the previous point, a crossover splits frequencies to ensure they go to the right driver (speaker). This again adds clarity and precision, so that you can hear every detail across the EQ range.
• Sound – kinda covered in the points above, but studio monitors are designed to have a flat, precise sound for nearfield use. This means they don’t emphasise any one frequency, giving you the most accurate impression of your mix so you can easily pick out imperfections.

Note:
There are a lot of Hi Fi speakers that are based on aesthetics rather than sound engineering, this basically means that they will please your eyes but not your ears

 

[dfuller]

Crossovers – an extension of the previous point, a crossover splits frequencies to ensure they go to the right driver (speaker). This again adds clarity and precision, so that you can hear every detail across the EQ range.

All multi-way speakers have a crossover, studio monitors just tend to be active - ie, they use op-amp or dsp filters rather than passive components.

 

[MattHooper]

Hi
It is sometimes mentioned that some of the best speakers in the world only work well with the best recordings, because they are so good they will expose bad recordings.

It there some truth to that, and if so, what would cause it? It is not something I have experienced myself. Every time I do a substantial upgrade, I think all my music sounds better.
The headline is a direct quote from this review:

Joseph Audio Perspective loudspeaker Perspective2 Graphene

John Atkinson reviewed the Joseph Audio Perspective2 in July 2019 (Vol.42 No.7):

www.stereophile.com

Like you, for me a better speaker makes all my music sound better. And that's what I want. I don't want ever more recordings to become unlistenable.

I have the newer version of that speaker - the Joseph Audio Perspective 2 Graphene - and I listen to recordings with massive variation in quality (especially due to my addiction to what's known as "Library Music" from the 60's to the mid 80s). Variations in recording character are obvious, but everything sounds engaging in my system.

When it comes to speakers that depart from neutral, especially in the highs, it's good to be able to hear for yourself. What may bother one person may be fine for another. This might even be due to the specific hearing notches each of us have typically developed.

For instance, I owned the previous version of the Perspectives which were a little hotter in the treble. But they never bothered my ears - I could crank them really high. Whereas I also auditioned the Paradigm Persona speakers and after a while found them quite fatiquing and "hard/sharp" sounding in the highs (they have a peak in the upper frequencies). Strangely enough I had a similar problem when I auditioned the Spendor D7 speakers - they had some sort of nasty thing going on in the highs that made them sound steely and wiry and I kept wanting to turn the sound down.

I do think that some audiophiles had developed an incorrect prejudice against neutral/accurate speakers - often associating them with pro monitors "ruthlessly revealing." I've been with some audiophiles who said of a speaker we were listening to "I don't like this, it's too neutral and ruthlessly revealing, the recordings aren't sounding as good." But what they were hearing was a speaker that had a dip in the warmth region and emphasis in the highs. Ruthless they were, but it wasn't because they were accurate!

I've owned quite neutral speakers, for instance Waveform speakers I owned, and they were smooth and a pleasure to listen to. That's the same for a number of other
speakrers as well (for instance the Kii Audio 3 speakers are quite linear, but sounded smooth and un-fatiguing when I heard them several times).

 

[Mr. Widget]

Better speakers make most if not everything sound better. Bad recordings sound bad no matter what you do.
I suppose there are bad speakers with messed up frequency responses that can mask certain aspects of poor recordings but that’s not going to carry over for music that isn’t bad so it’s ultimately not worth it.

+1

From my experience, people who like a particular genre of music from specific era may find speakers with a colored sound works for their favorite recordings, but in general a neutral speaker will sound good with the widest variety of recordings.

 

[jhaider]

High efficiency speakers are never forgiving. What is coming out of the power amps is showing
every flaw up to that point.

IMO that perception mostly comes from inadequately controlled resonances. I’ve found high efficiency speakers with smooth FR don’t sound markedly different from medium or low efficiency speakers with smooth FR, as long as levels are within the limits of both. But it’s a lot harder to design in both high efficiency and smooth FR!

I’ve heard “good speakers make the sound worse” in two cases. One was covered by @thewas above. The other is, and I can’t remember the track, a pumping deep bass artifact that was below the range of most speakers but could be reproduced by multiple closed box subs. Otherwise I don’t think good speakers make bad recordings worse.

 

[Esskay]

Before digital I bought some bookshelf speakers that sounded great in the showroom. Sadly, at home they emphasized surface sounds from the older LPs, along with some high frequency grit from badly recorded albums. The same speakers were models of clarity with clean, well recorded LPs. I returned them to the store where the owner blamed my amplifier. After that, I bought a floorstander that sounded warmer with everything. Bad Lps were much more tolerable, while good ones were a little less lively.

-SK

 

[Tangband]

Poor recordings often sound harsh, so a loudspeaker with a warm (= relatively bass heavy) tuning and a presence dip can make those sounding less shouty and annoying.

True - and a very good speaker will also have less ”sameness”, i.e. different recordings will sound more different than through a less good speaker. This fact will have some consequences:

An enthusiast have to decide philosophy ,- use stereo equipment that sounds nice on most recordings ( but not great with the best ) or equipment that make the best recordings sound wonderful ( and less good recordings less enjoyable ).

One cant have both.

 

[GXAlan]

True - and a very good speaker will also have less ”sameness”, i.e. different recordings will sound more different than through a less good speaker. This fact will have some consequences:

An enthusiast have to decide philosophy ,- use stereo equipment that sounds nice on most recordings ( but not great with the best ) or equipment that make the best recordings sound wonderful ( and less good recordings less enjoyable ).

One cant have both.

Or you just convince yourself that you need more than one system!

 

[Tangband]

Or you just convince yourself that you need more than one system!

True

 

[thewas]

An enthusiast have to decide philosophy ,- use stereo equipment that sounds nice on most recordings ( but not great with the best ) or equipment that make the best recordings sound wonderful ( and less good recordings less enjoyable ).

Or like Toole recommends, use neutral loudspeakers and EQ or the classic bass and treble controls to adjust for poor recordings accordingly.

 

[bodhi]

I'm going with "ceiling is higher with good speakers"-explanation. I have yet to encounter speakers that improve bad records much more than any other good speaker. Most of all I blame non-existent dynamic range when it comes to records that sound "meh" with anything.

 

[YSC]

Or like Toole recommends, use neutral loudspeakers and EQ or the classic bass and treble controls to adjust for poor recordings accordingly.

That's what I am thinking, since a randomly peaking/ highly distorted speaker won't be able to "improve" any recordings, only things like mixing choice according to the era of speaker characteristics say, early roll off bass or treble could have a consistent effect for better speaker will make them sounding worse, with the current convinence of EQ tools which are free, just set a profile to tune the more linear/neutral speaker in a click.

 

[Mart68]

A noisy, gritty 1970s rock recording is the best subjective test. If it can make sense of that then performance with showcase stuff can be taken as read,.

People say 'Come and have a listen to my system' and when you get there they want to play you Yello, or SRV or Patricia Barber. I always scan their shelves for something like Thin Lizzy 'Live & Dangerous' and ask them to put that on instead.

Some demonstrators at shows will refuse to play anything like that on the speakers they are selling. That's just as informative.