Thoughts on Audioholics discussion on "Improving Loudspeaker Specifications Standards for Consumers"

[johnp98]

Audioholics has posted a video of their livestream discussion on "Improving Loudspeaker Specifications Standards for Consumers"
I am curious what people think of the discussion.

I have not listened to the whole discussion yet, but skimming though some sections I had some thoughts.

1) Curious why ASR and Erins Audio Corner are not mentioned / included. I am sure Audioholics is aware of what goes on on those two sites and so curious why they did not get a plug or an invite. Are they just afraid of losing viewers or do they want to be seen as the only one doing more objective reviews? I am not sure I have figured out where Audioholics lands on the subjective / objective spectrum.

2) Amazing to see Sean Olive on there, as I don't know if I have seen many long form interviews with him (feel free to point me in the right direction if that is not the case though). Maybe Amir should try and interview Sean Olive and Floyd Toole as maybe it is less difficult to have a discussion with them that I assumed. One can dream that Amir can sit down have a chat with them sometime.

3) Seemed like it took quite the while to get the information across, and what was presented was not nearly as in depth as what your typical ASR / Erin's review discusses. I guess all of that is to say that I am greatly enjoying this site and the density of information and expertise that can be found here. I am especially impressed with the youtube videos by Amir as they really have been killing it in my opinion.

Curious what your thoughts are.

 

[HooStat]

Curious why ASR and Erins Audio Corner are not mentioned / included.

I saw that Erin was listening. He was in the chat on the right.

 

[bo_knows]

During the video, most of my attention drifted to Dr. Sean Olive's room and his Revel Salon 2 speakers.

 

[amirm]

It is a weird video and concept. It should have just been Tony's presentation about work he is doing in CEDIA or create a spec sheet for speakers when advertised. Having the rest of the guests there made no sense to me, nor did it make sense to make it a "live" session.

I don't understand the concept of these "live" youtubes where there is no time to hardly take any questions from people watching. They should do them offline and then take the opportunity to fix the audio/video issues they had.

 

[Chrispy]

It is a weird video and concept. It should have just been Tony's presentation about work he is doing in CEDIA or create a spec sheet for speakers when advertised. Having the rest of the guests there made no sense to me, nor did it make sense to make it a "live" session.

I don't understand the concept of these "live" youtubes where there is no time to hardly take any questions from people watching. They should do them offline and then take the opportunity to fix the audio/video issues they had.

Let alone the silly visuals such live videos create. Everyone wearing fugly headphones and not exactly in sync in a few ways. Altho the off the cuff/spontaneous thing I suppose adds some value but rather have a better designed video to watch. Then again don't care for many videos vs a good write-up.

 

[johnp98]

It is a weird video and concept. It should have just been Tony's presentation about work he is doing in CEDIA or create a spec sheet for speakers when advertised. Having the rest of the guests there made no sense to me, nor did it make sense to make it a "live" session.

I don't understand the concept of these "live" youtubes where there is no time to hardly take any questions from people watching. They should do them offline and then take the opportunity to fix the audio/video issues they had.

Yes, I think the "live" sessions can be a double edged sword, they often play on peoples fear of missing out and making something feel like a newsworthy exclusive event (yet when they are recorded they clearly are not) but they also can generate a sense of community based on the interaction during the event.

Anyways, I guess I was amazed that you could get such large names to sit down for 100min when they individually contributed little structured content. Maybe I am just projecting how I would feel.

@amirm have you ever reached out to Sean Olive or Floyd Toole or other big names in the industry (sorry I am new to this hobby / lifestyle so I don't know many of the titans of audio that I also should be paying respect to) and asked if they would do a joint youtube video with you?

Maybe that is asking for too much, as I am just thrilled you have made youtube videos as many of my peers are very receptive to learning via that medium as opposed to buying and reading Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms or reading though forms.

 

[amirm]

@amirm have you ever reached out to Sean Olive or Floyd Toole or other big names in the industry (sorry I am new to this hobby / lifestyle so I don't know many of the titans of audio that I also should be paying respect to) and asked if they would do a joint youtube video with you?

Thanks for asking. I have not done that. I have to become more of a "TV personality" to want to do this kind of interview than I am right now. I know I miss a lot of advanced questions I could ask which is not done in their current interviews.

 

[alex-z]

Unwieldy format that wastes the time of presenters and listeners.

It would be much better content to have a 5-10 minute interview with each presenter, then have Gene stitch them together and provide an overview at the end.

 

[amirm]

It would be much better content to have a 5-10 minute interview with each presenter, then have Gene stitch them together and provide an overview at the end.

Indeed. That is the typical roundtable at conferences. Each industry insider/expert gives a short presentation and then take questions from the audience. Gene said he wants to do a round 2 of this. I hope he doesn't and revises the format. I worry that these industry people won't show up to these things if their time is not well spent.

 

[MZKM]

I commented what I realistically want from manufacturers:

• Disclose spec parameters.

• Use anechoic (or similar) data and not estimated in-room performance.

• Report max SPL.

• Report bass extension, whether -6dB or -10dB (referenced to mean sensitivity).

• Produce a Listening Window graph (smoothed no more than 1/12oct).

• State minimum impedance between 100Hz-500Hz.

• State dispersion characteristic. I calculate this currently by via the average of the Sound Power DI over a range and arbitrarily stating specific values as wide/normal/narrow/Omni.

The above would be in the “brochure” that salesman can give to customers, I want a true spec sheet also available that goes into much more detail.

 

[abdo123]

I don't think the Audioholics YouTube channel has any video editors.

So if i would have a choice in the matter I would rather have this format instead of someone wasting time they would otherwise spend on making more reviews.

It can take 6 to 8 hours time to edit both the Audio and Video of such large content.

 

[aac]

We already have cta 2034.
Any single speaker that has full cta 2034 set of measurements? Even a third party one, like from a reviewer?
What's the point of this discussion if nobody will publish all that data anyway?

 

[More Dynamics Please]

For technical information I'll take print over video any day. Much easier to quickly skim through the fluff and focus on the important stuff which is often a small fraction of a total presentation.

 

[nerdoldnerdith]

I'm guessing they had something similar planned for CEDIA, but that got canned, so they tried to emulate the presentation/discussion online.

 

[Promit]

Olive is quite accessible in general - I believe he linked one of Amir's videos earlier this week in a Twitter subtweet. I have to imagine he'd be willing to join a discussion if Amir wanted to set that sort of thing up, but that stuff easily becomes a lot of work - and puts you in the crosshairs for a lot of criticism. It's genuinely difficult to do well.

 

[amirm]

What's the point of this discussion if nobody will publish all that data anyway?

Indeed I see no pathway to such information becoming broadly accessible. It can only help sell less produces, than more! We don't even have Harman doing this which pioneered a lot of this!

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

I commented what I realistically want from manufacturers:

• Disclose spec parameters.

• Use anechoic (or similar) data and not estimated in-room performance.

• Report max SPL.

• Report bass extension, whether -6dB or -10dB (referenced to mean sensitivity).

• Produce a Listening Window graph (smoothed no more than 1/12oct).

• State minimum impedance between 100Hz-500Hz.

• State dispersion characteristic. I calculate this currently by via the average of the Sound Power DI over a range and arbitrarily stating specific values as wide/normal/narrow/Omni.

The above would be in the “brochure” that salesman can give to customers, I want a true spec sheet also available that goes into much more detail.

The salesmen would not understand significance of these disclosures much less 99% of buyers.

 

[MZKM]

The salesmen would not understand significance of these disclosures much less 99% of buyers.

You mean the disclosure of spec parameters?

If they don’t understand it, that is even more reason for it to be disclosed or even pressured to be the same. It‘s bad form on companies like Klipsch to use in-room parameters to trick customers into thinking their speakers are much easier to power than the competition.

 

[Sean Olive]

It is a weird video and concept. It should have just been Tony's presentation about work he is doing in CEDIA or create a spec sheet for speakers when advertised. Having the rest of the guests there made no sense to me, nor did it make sense to make it a "live" session.

I don't understand the concept of these "live" youtubes where there is no time to hardly take any questions from people watching. They should do them offline and then take the opportunity to fix the audio/video issues they had.

Agree. I’m not sure why I was there. At one long stretch we just sat while Tony presented his slides ( some of them on loudspeaker measurements and listener preferences which was my work ), and I almost got up to make a sandwich and pour a glass of wine.

 

[voodooless]

The salesmen would not understand significance of these disclosures much less 99% of buyers.

That doesn’t matter. For one, when you keep hiding the facts, you’ll never educate the buyers. Secondly, even if some people don’t understand, others do, and there is pressure on the companies to deliver decently measuring products. See what happened to the DAC market in a few years since people like Amir started calling them out.

But none of this will happen. Companies in general are not interest in delivering decently measuring products. They need to differentiate.