What is Alan Shaw on about? (is "coloration" unmeasurable?)

[JRS]

Interesting situation, particularly given the intensity of the guy's discomfort without being able to even begin to identify the cause. My best guess would be an unpleasant (but maybe not huge) room mode, which gives him a subliminal cringing-in-advance feeling, which I'm sure is mentally very fatiguing, because of a chronic inability to relax. Or, possibly, a hyper-sensitivity to high midrange, where human hearing is very acute. I have known a couple of people who suffer like that. They describe it like being hit in the forehead with a hammer. The solution there is also EQ, in the form of a deep scoop, like a super-BBC dip.

That's a very good and not so obvious point. Even though I am in my sixtis and have significant hearing loss above 10k, if I am in reflective room with much HF content, I lose my bloody mind, just as a claustrophobic might react to being stuck in a closet. No one else seems phased. It's something of a shame as many restaurants and brewpubs operate in some awful repurposed bldgs with the exposed ductwork and what not, and few bother with hanging some absorbers. I swear they must all be deaf.

 

[ahofer]

That's a very good and not so obvious point. Even though I am in my sixtis and have significant hearing loss above 10k, if I am in reflective room with much HF content, I lose my bloody mind, just as a claustrophobic might react to being stuck in a closet. No one else seems phased. It's something of a shame as many restaurants and brewpubs operate in some awful repurposed bldgs with the exposed ductwork and what not, and few bother with hanging some absorbers. I swear they must all be deaf.

I recently installed new dimmers in the apartment, and the high frequency whine really bugs me. My wife (the musician) laughs at me when I adjust them or turn them off. She doesn't notice.

 

[JRS]

I also suffer easely from listening fatigue, and did not find yet what cause it. But i'm sure you can measure it, you just need to find what to measure (and i did not find it yet, nor found someone who did). And in my case it's not room depending for me, it's more speaker depending. Older Genelecs were terrible to my ears (altough they measure good), but the new ones do it it better as example. And i'm not the only one who has this kind of issue, not depending on room.

But Allan Shaw, altough he is very capeble speaker designer, is also a salesman that knows his speakers are very easy on the ear, and here he is clearly trying to sell something, cfr one of his speakers. He smells an opportunity and acts towards catching it.

I hear you, I sold highly praised Thiel CS3.5's and Dunlavy Sc-IV's for that very reason. I am sure they both measured very well. Needless to say, I have never bought speakers w/o extensive home audition first, and instead of taking my favorite reference tunes for store auditions, I took well recorded material that was on the edge of grating for me. Shame I wasted so much $$ first.

Now I just build my own. Life is much simpler.

 

[theREALdotnet]

So, for example, chasing a noise floor in the electronics of -120dB is just daft when the loudspeaker's dominant noise floor is
perhaps only -40dB, or in some frequencies only -20dB or even less.

Speakers have a noise floor? Does he mean distortion, or are we talking about active speakers?

 

[ahofer]

It's interesting that in these new "Techtalk" videos, the first point he makes (the conclusion he reaches by end of video #2) is that you need to have access to the on-axis FR of loudspeakers *before* auditioning, since *removing* FR notches can make the sound seem colored (more so than in the other direction).

Our Designer's Blog - Harbeth

Our designer’s blog Video Series Harbeth TechTalk Episode 4 https://vimeo.com/714474953 Watch here Episode 3 https://vimeo.com/704591991 Watch here Episode 2 https://vimeo.com/702008443 Watch here Episode 1 https://vimeo.com/699378035 Watch here Blog Harbeth XD Series To understand the technical...

harbeth.co.uk

That would certainly be a lot easier if he published the on-axis FR of his loudspeakers, and, as I suggested in our conversation above, manufacturers released an agreed-upon set of measurements like CEA 2034.

I'm watching these videos and thinking of the conversation above and....

 

[krabapple]

Latest post from A.S. about this topic.
The consumer auditioned a Harbeth speaker and bought it.
What a beautiful way to end the story, to promote his speakers.

"Reader, I sold him!" THE END

 

[krabapple]

Of course, "listening fatigue" also means it might be time to turn the stereo off.

Humans also exhibit various...let's say 'quirks'. It's possible this guy will never be finally satisfied.

 

[krabapple]

He's right, there's no metric for colouration, it's a combination of steady state and transient distortions, power response, polars, timbral inaccuracy and electrical and thermal compressions caused by a raft of interactions in constant flux.

Colo(u)r me amazed.

Amazed by what, I shan't say. A raft of interactions in constant flux makes whatever I say now no longer the case ..........now.

Give up, science! You've met your match!

 

[Soniclife]

It's interesting that in these new "Techtalk" videos, the first point he makes (the conclusion he reaches by end of video #2) is that you need to have access to the on-axis FR of loudspeakers *before* auditioning, since *removing* FR notches can make the sound seem colored (more so than in the other direction).

Our Designer's Blog - Harbeth

Our designer’s blog Video Series Harbeth TechTalk Episode 4 https://vimeo.com/714474953 Watch here Episode 3 https://vimeo.com/704591991 Watch here Episode 2 https://vimeo.com/702008443 Watch here Episode 1 https://vimeo.com/699378035 Watch here Blog Harbeth XD Series To understand the technical...

harbeth.co.uk

That would certainly be a lot easier if he published the on-axis FR of his loudspeakers, and, as I suggested in our conversation above, manufacturers released an agreed-upon set of measurements like CEA 2034.

I'm watching these videos and thinking of the conversation above and....

I don't have the inclination to watch the videos, but I don't follow whats being suggested.
Why only the on axis?
Anechoic measurements?
When you say notches do you just mean the dips?

I've suggested before that it would be good if manufacturers provided convolution or filters to improve passive designs, similar to the headphone corrections provided to roon by one manufacturer.

 

[mSpot]

I don't have the inclination to watch the videos

They are worth watching and discussing.

 

[Waxx]

Basicly he says the same like what is said here, your ears can fool you very easely, and measurements tell what's really going on. He bases his info on old BBC studies about the subject by the founder of the company, H.D. Harwood, who is a former engineer and speaker designer for the BBC.

 

[ahofer]

Basicly he says the same like what is said here, your ears can fool you very easely, and measurements tell what's really going on. He bases his info on old BBC studies about the subject by the founder of the company, H.D. Harwood, who is a former engineer and speaker designer for the BBC.

Yes. The asymmetry of going back and forth was new to me. Interesting point.

He does focus on on-axis anechoic measurements (for him, renting a 'true' anechoic chamber is without parallel in Klippel or elsewhere). The more cynical among us might say there's a reason he tends to avoid off-axis measurements.

 

[Chromatischism]

Is this guy a British Jon Lane or what?

 

[FeddyLost]

I'm sorry that I'm so late for this thread, but if the problem can be demonstrated with some specific records, it's not a big deal to find out exact trouble - exaggerated bass, compression artifacts or raised presence freqs.
Without independent evaluation it might be just the way of promoting some "overly comfortable speakers" ... oh, wait ...

PS I'm sure that AS is NOT technically incompetent. Most probably, he is a good psychologist and makes his equipment for those who seeks everything nice and polite. otherwise he'd make control monitors of "ear-bleeding-until-all-is-nice" class.

 

[ThoFi]

A.S. did start a discussion about DSP On his forum.
He told that Harbeth has a speaker prototype with DSP. He sees the potential and the power of DSP but he is very concerned to give the consumer the full control…. He is afraid that in the end the customer tweaks his neutral designed speaker in a bad way… DSP makes a good designed speaker (of course Harbeth) worser….and so on.
Also in this thread he starts talking about coloration again. He told that he bought a perfect flat measuring speaker but we he listened to it and within a few seconds he could hear coloration. To him the speaker was unlistenable…
He stated that a flat speaker doesn’t always sound great.
And he said that you can’t measure coloration.
Why is that, he didn’t explain….
?

 

[Chromatischism]

A.S. did start a discussion about DSP On his forum.
He told that Harbeth has a speaker prototype with DSP. He sees the potential and the power of DSP but he is very concerned to give the consumer the full control…. He is afraid that in the end the customer tweaks his neutral designed speaker in a bad way… DSP makes a good designed speaker (of course Harbeth) worser….and so on.
Also in this thread he starts talking about coloration again. He told that he bought a perfect flat measuring speaker but we he listened to it and within a few seconds he could hear coloration. To him the speaker was unlistenable…
He stated that a flat speaker doesn’t always sound great.
And he said that you can’t measure coloration.
Why is that, he didn’t explain….
?

Sigh...

A speaker does one thing: reproduction. It is an input/output device. Anything less than a perfectly flat response is colored. If he thinks he's hearing coloration from a flat speaker, it's the mastering of the source material that is to blame.

 

[Waxx]

A.S. did start a discussion about DSP On his forum.
He told that Harbeth has a speaker prototype with DSP. He sees the potential and the power of DSP but he is very concerned to give the consumer the full control…. He is afraid that in the end the customer tweaks his neutral designed speaker in a bad way… DSP makes a good designed speaker (of course Harbeth) worser….and so on.
Also in this thread he starts talking about coloration again. He told that he bought a perfect flat measuring speaker but we he listened to it and within a few seconds he could hear coloration. To him the speaker was unlistenable…
He stated that a flat speaker doesn’t always sound great.
And he said that you can’t measure coloration.
Why is that, he didn’t explain….
?

I also red the discussion, and he actually doesn't know what that colouration is and is searching it by disassembling the speaker and measuring the seperate parts to see if he can find where it's comming from. No conclusions yet.

And about the DSP discussion, i can understand him. Here we are mostly all technically minded, but most consumers, especially those from brands like Harbeth are not, they want something that works out of the box. So his hesitation to give full controll over the dsp he may implement is not that rare. I would also hesitate in that case. And in most dsp controlled speakers, you don't have much controll yourself neighter. In best case you can adjust the eq and room correection part.

 

[ThoFi]

I also red the discussion, and he actually doesn't know what that colouration is and is searching it by disassembling the speaker and measuring the seperate parts to see if he can find where it's comming from. No conclusions yet.

And about the DSP discussion, i can understand him. Here we are mostly all technically minded, but most consumers, especially those from brands like Harbeth are not, they want something that works out of the box. So his hesitation to give full controll over the dsp he may implement is not that rare. I would also hesitate in that case. And in most dsp controlled speakers, you don't have much controll yourself neighter. In best case you can adjust the eq and room correection part.

if A.S. makes and share his findings and explanation, please share.

Harbeth, his forum is science based. A.S. always says that.
Interesting to me is that that in the past A.S. always claims that measurements (FR) is totally important and gives u all needed information. And many of his followers said that they would buy a speaker without hesitation after only looking at the FR measurements, without listening….
Things change…

 

[ThoFi]

Sigh...

A speaker does one thing: reproduction. It is an input/output device. Anything less than a perfectly flat response is colored. If he thinks he's hearing coloration from a flat speaker, it's the mastering of the source material that is to blame.

A.S. says coloration has nothing to do with FR…?
it must be something magic

 

[ThoFi]

@ahofer: maybe you could share more about this thread..