Thoughts on subjective speaker reviews and my own experiences within my listening room.

[Hank Nova]

My main speakers are a pair of JBL 4429 studio monitors.

I have moved these speakers hundreds of times over the past two years.

I have had them in positions that made them downright terrible, to just ok, to amazingly awesome. All with the same equipment, in the same room.

The only variable that changed was speaker position and listening position.

I'm saying all of this to bring up the problem with reading subjective speaker reviews. If I can have such an incredibly diverse array of experiences with just a single pair of speakers in my room, how can I know that a reviewer has optimally positioned the speakers under review? Even if he has, how can I know if my acoustic space is even comparable to the reviewer's?

To emphasize, pulling my JBLs 6 feet from the rear wall as opposed to 2 feet, completely alters tonal balance and soundstaging. It is like a completely different set of speakers. Some positions make them brighter than hell. Some positions make them dark and dull. Some positions the bass slams. Some positions the bass sounds anemic.

These wildly varying results have killed my interest in speaker reviews, almost entirely.

Any discussion on this topic is welcome.

 

[Ron Texas]

Positioning isn't the only thing which is wrong. Reviewers rarely use EQ or pair standmounts with subs. It's not reality, but what is?

 

[Fluffy]

Good to know. I haven't seriously gotten into the speaker game yet, but the more I learn the more it sounds like acoustics are substantially more important than how fancy the speakers are. I suppose though that there are speakers that are more forgiving to bad placement, probably due to a flatter off-axis response.

As for subjective reviews, they just range from unhelpful to downright misleading. Never found any interest in reading those.

 

[Hank Nova]

Well, for instance, if I was reviewing a TV or a camera or a computer, I could pair my subjective experience with some objective data and specs. That would give others a reference to what others can reliably expect to experience with that product. But speakers interact with the room fundamentally. Their performance is strongly effected by the space they occupy.

 

[Fluffy]

Indeed. Usually if I want to learn about how some speakers perform, I search for their measurements at Stereophile, skipping the rest of the review.

 

[Hank Nova]

Indeed. Usually if I want to learn about how some speakers perform, I search for their measurements at Stereophile, skipping the rest of the review.

I guess, to offer a caveat, I find it helpful if the reviewer's reference setup has speakers I've heard and like. That way I can at least make the supposition that we have similar tastes in sound. Hahaha

 

[BillG]

These wildly varying results have killed my interest in speaker reviews, almost entirely.

The audiophile press is composed of creative writing majors, marketing people, and media personalities for the most part. They're not scientific at all, and their subjective opinions I've absolutely no interest in...

 

[Hank Nova]

The audiophile press is composed of creative writing majors, marketing people, and media personalities for the most part. They're not scientific at all, and their subjective opinions I've absolutely no interest in...

I understand completely. But there are so many products, its hard not to indulge curiosity since demoing everything is quite difficult.

 

[ernestcarl]

I generally prefer to read/look for "reviews" that are more focused on the technical side of a speaker. Having waded through many of the "published" subjective reviews for the Presonus Sceptres, for example, I found a lot of conflicting opinions, which was rather frustrating.

I was finally delighted when I found one that was actually succinct and straight to the point:

Figure 1 shows the on-axis frequency response and harmonic distortion performance for the S8. The response is seen to be somewhat uneven but lies just within ±3dB limits from 45Hz to 16kHz, with a very rapid 10th-order (60dB per octave) low-frequency roll-off with -10dB at 38Hz. The harmonic distortion is measured with an acoustic output of 90dB SPL at 1m distance and is seen to lie below -40dB (1%) at all frequencies above 85Hz for the 2nd harmonic and 100Hz for the 3rd harmonic, with peaks to only -34dB (~2%) and -30dB (~3%) respectively at 60Hz. The horizontal and vertical off-axis responses are shown in Figures 2 and 3 respectively. The directivity over ±30° in both planes is reasonably well-controlled and lacks the interference notch at crossover often encountered with non-coaxial designs. At wider angles, however, the horizontal response exhibits some deep notches at 2kHz and 3.5kHz which may or may not be problematic depending on room acoustics.

The response of the S8 to a step input signal is shown in Figure 4. It can be seen that the high- and low-frequency parts of the signal rise at exactly the same time, indicating perfect time-alignment between the drivers. There is a delay of about 2.5 milliseconds, equivalent to moving the speaker about 1m backwards, due to the DSP, which should be borne in mind if these speakers are mixed with others in a multispeaker system. The acoustic source position, shown in Figure 5 shows that the very low frequency parts of a transient signal appear to emanate from a position a further 6m behind the position of the mid- and high-frequencies; a consequence of the rapid 10th-order roll-off. Figure 6 shows the power cepstrum, which highlights any echoes in the response. There is evidence of quite g activity after about 0.4 milliseconds, equivalent to a path length difference of about 140mm, which may be responsible for some of the frequency response irregularities. The combined time/frequency performance of the S8 is shown as a waterfall plot in Figure 7. The decay rate at low frequencies is slow, but no slower than many speakers with shallower low-frequency roll-offs, and there is some resonant activity that corresponds to a notch in the on-axis response at 550Hz.

Overall, the Presonus Sceptre S8 is a solid performer, its coaxial design ensures that the off-axis responses are consistent and, in combination with the accurate DSP time-alignment, should give a very good approximation to a point source regardless of off-axis angle. The frequency response is more uneven than may be expected, given the DSP equalisation capability, particularly as most of the irregularities are present off-axis too; however, this may be offset by the accurate mid- and high-frequency transient response.

I mean, I would have loved for there to be even more detailed plots and graphs -- and even spinorama measurements -- but the above was quite a rather refreshing read in comparison to all the pages and pages of SUBJECTIVE reviews and MARKETING fluff out there in the wild.

No romanticizing. No glamorizing. Maybe a little healthy speculation, but that's it. Reading stuff like "this monitor is better than this... I heard the following studio monitors... but this one definitely trumps them all IMHO etc." kind of nonesense I find to be mostly a waste of time.

 

[BillG]

But there are so many products, its hard not to indulge curiosity since demoing everything is quite difficult.

I can understand that. But might I suggest that you at least indulge your curiosity with reputable sources? Such as the following:

https://www.audioholics.com/product-reviews

 

[ernestcarl]

I understand completely. But there are so many products, its hard not to indulge curiosity since demoing everything is quite difficult.

I do occasionally read reviews/watch youtube "reviews" sometimes, but I always view them with huge dose of skepticism.

 

[Hank Nova]

I can understand that. But might I suggest that you at least indulge your curiosity with reputable sources? Such as the following:

https://www.audioholics.com/product-reviews

I've read and mostly enjoyed their site for years. I wish they would cycle through a larger variety of gear outside of Monoprice and RBH, though.

 

[kevinh]

Impossible to evaluate absent the room acoustics. The Room/Speaker really act as a system.

 

[jhaider]

Positioning isn't the only thing which is wrong. Reviewers rarely use EQ or pair standmounts with subs. It's not reality, but what is?

Hear! I've gotten so much flack for insisting on using room correction (usually up to 250Hz) for any speaker under review, but I neither want to subject myself to crappy-sounding bass nor do I think it's fair to the speaker to review its sound along with my room modes.

 

[Ron Texas]

Hear! I've gotten so much flack for insisting on using room correction (usually up to 250Hz) for any speaker under review, but I neither want to subject myself to crappy-sounding bass nor do I think it's fair to the speaker to review its sound along with my room modes.

The whole thing is pretty messy. Reviewers make a big deal about whether this or that speaker goes down another 5hz when a sub makes that irrelevant. Then again, integrating a sub isn't so easy for us amateurs.

 

[noobie1]

I usually don’t bother with subjective reviews except for a few. One guy I will take time to read is Jeff Fritz. I don’t agree with a majority of his audio philosophies but I subjectively like pretty much all the speakers that he has recommended over the years.

 

[JohnBooty]

Hear! I've gotten so much flack for insisting on using room correction (usually up to 250Hz) for any speaker under review, but I neither want to subject myself to crappy-sounding bass nor do I think it's fair to the speaker to review its sound along with my room modes.

I'm not familiar with your work, but I stop reading immediately if a reviewer notes they're using room correction.

Unless a speaker is truly wretched, room correction will make any speaker sound pretty passable and it really irons out a lot of the differences between speakers.

Having done some (shoddy) amateur reviews (with outdoor measurements, though) myself, I realize that this is a lot of work and might not be economically feasible, but I think a truly thorough speaker review would need to have the following.

1. Outdoor (pseudoanechoic) measurements at various angles so we can get an idea of the speakers native frequency response and dispersion characteristics

2. Evaluation of the speaker, with no EQ or room correction, in a fairly decent listening room where the reviewer has made a best effort to find some kind of optimal position for the speakers. (Not everybody runs EQ or room correction!)

3. Evaluation of the speaker with EQ and/or room correction, to give a sense of what the speaker can do when fully dialed in.

4. Optionally... if it's a small or otherwise bass-shy speaker, discussion of how it performs when crossed over to a subwoofer (or subwoofers)

 

[Frank Dernie]

My main speakers are a pair of JBL 4429 studio monitors.

I have moved these speakers hundreds of times over the past two years.

I have had them in positions that made them downright terrible, to just ok, to amazingly awesome. All with the same equipment, in the same room.

The only variable that changed was speaker position and listening position.

I'm saying all of this to bring up the problem with reading subjective speaker reviews. If I can have such an incredibly diverse array of experiences with just a single pair of speakers in my room, how can I know that a reviewer has optimally positioned the speakers under review? Even if he has, how can I know if my acoustic space is even comparable to the reviewer's?

To emphasize, pulling my JBLs 6 feet from the rear wall as opposed to 2 feet, completely alters tonal balance and soundstaging. It is like a completely different set of speakers. Some positions make them brighter than hell. Some positions make them dark and dull. Some positions the bass slams. Some positions the bass sounds anemic.

These wildly varying results have killed my interest in speaker reviews, almost entirely.

Any discussion on this topic is welcome.

This has been my experience too (though I haven't moved mine that often!)
In the same way one excites the modes of the string in a guitar, say, differently and gets a different tone depending on where you pluck it you excite the room modes differently depending where the speaker is, and it is much more complex since it is a 3d space rather than 1d string.
A friend of mine has been doing room optimisation since long before electronic means were available and it is based on room treatment but even more so speaker and listening positions.
I did my listening room about 20 years ago myself based on what he told me and he came later with all his mearuring equipment to fine tune it.
A few years ago I bought an Antimode 2.0 device which made a difference but was only effective in my system on the computer output whereas I mainly used CDs and LPs so it is of limited use, but unlike lots of other people here I don't consider room correction to be crucial as long as the speakers and listening position are optimised.
Having written that few people would be happy with the aesthetics of the room with speakers optimally placed, so if it is a small room or family room this option may not be attractive, so having electronic means of achieving the effect becomes the easiest way out...

 

[Hipper]

When I look for another set of speakers I have the following plan:

1. Select the type of drivers I might want to try - electrostats etc..
2. Do a rough check at a dealer using my music to hear if they have some qualities I like.
3. Get them home for a true audition.

As I've gone down the route of careful positioning, room treatment and some EQ I've got no chance of making a good decision at the dealer. And little chance of accepting most reviews.

 

[Sal1950]

Then again, integrating a sub isn't so easy for us amateurs.

That's why God gave us the modern DSP wizard. LOL