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What role should listening play in speaker design

amirm said:
So what is the answer? That we believe his ears and preferences???

Fact is that we need a standard. We are lucky that the preferred on-axis response is flat. There is zero excuse in producing a speaker with serious deviations from that. Certainly not when it is one designer's opinion.
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This misses a point that I personally feel is very important in terms of a speaker brand's ability to continue to actually produce speakers .. that of the company continuing to exist by making consistent sales !

If you go down the path of great technical measurement being your brand image .. then you're in a world where ultimately price is the determining factor as to whether someone chooses *your* speaker or another company's model .

Maybe you can try to convince them of build quality or style .. but that then normally pushes you to chase a very very small market of rich customers looking for prestige, whilst also choosing via measurement - next to no brand loyalty, so you're having to constantly convince customers from scratch to buy new models .

Add in the "taste" of the designer, make the brand around the designer and you'll get loyalty to the image and past designs of that person. If someone liked a previous model, they will already be primed to feel they will like your next model or those higher up in the range.

Some folks want to create long term stability in their business rather than perhaps creating short-term excitement in the market with a couple of amazingly measuring models, only to be forgotten a few years later ...
 
I convinced that all speaker designers do measurements.

But the more old school designers don’t think it’s presentable to consumers as that’s not how consumers choose speakers .
And the measurement would be misunderstood , and most of us would not be able to weigh the different factors that made that particular speakers what they are .
So they rely on also have a brand story to tell .

Some are ofcourse stuck in thier ways and don’t want to be called out for not acknowledging the latest scientific research on speakers.
 
LuckyNat said:
This misses a point that I personally feel is very important in terms of a speaker brand's ability to continue to actually produce speakers .. that of the company continuing to exist by making consistent sales !

If you go down the path of great technical measurement being your brand image .. then you're in a world where ultimately price is the determining factor as to whether someone chooses *your* speaker or another company's model .

Maybe you can try to convince them of build quality or style .. but that then normally pushes you to chase a very very small market of rich customers looking for prestige, whilst also choosing via measurement - next to no brand loyalty, so you're having to constantly convince customers from scratch to buy new models .

Add in the "taste" of the designer, make the brand around the designer and you'll get loyalty to the image and past designs of that person. If someone liked a previous model, they will already be primed to feel they will like your next model or those higher up in the range.

Some folks want to create long term stability in their business rather than perhaps creating short-term excitement in the market with a couple of amazingly measuring models, only to be forgotten a few years later ...
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^This! A brand that tries to live on measurements alone is doomed to becoming a commodity.
 
I expect that the "listening" part of the Jones and Cerreta process wasn't undertaken just by Jones. I'd bet money that one or both of the Cerretas also had a say. And again, they are tube/vinyl voodoo believers...
 
Tweaking speaker design using measurements from Klippel Knippel can be done by any (competent enough) engineering team
Tweaking speaker design using his ears can only be done by him. That creates a legacy and a myth that makes his speakers special. I guess that's what he is selling to the believers
 
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My listening for filter design generally involves gauging how the tweeter level is and adjusting it up or down, that's kind of it. Spins in vcad tend to determine a lot of metrics for you, so if you've got good integration in terms of dispersion, phase, and on axis response, all that's really left to do is adjust the driver levels to taste.
 
davidc said:
If every speaker designer, or golden ear, over the age of 50, got an audiogram and took a look and compared them, I don't know how anybody could argue that listening to a speaker is a valid way of designing one. Here's my audiogram. Fairly typical curve, but probably 15-35dB deeper than average for a 60 yr old.View attachment 523630
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The hearing test is performed to determine the minimum sound level that the ear-brain system can detect versus frequency. However, it is not a "frequency response" of the ear in the way that a sensitivity curve is a frequency response of a microphone - because of the nonlinearity of level perception and the acclimation over time. You may need to turn up the volume enough for system's overall SPL level to reach 90dB to begin to detect energy at 7kHz according to this sensitivity graph, but this does not mean you hear the other content 256 times as loud. People I know with hearing damage tend to listen very loudly, in the 80-90 dB range (much more than I find necessary), but this does not mean they perceive the sound of the speaker to be grossly non-flat, within their ability to detect audio. Someone more versed in audiology can explain the hows and whys of this, but I don't think it's the whole story to say that you perceive sound at 7kHz at a level 90dB below sound played at the equivalent level at 300 Hz when sound at both frequencies is detectable by your ear and brain.
 
I apologize if the following is pointless since I have not read the entire thread. Yesterday I listened to two different speakers which measure almost identically flat. They were level matched and we had an excellent A/B device. They sounded quite different to me. They had different tweeters, which reflected what are differences in the design goals of each. I had a clear preference. I know enough that this sighted listening is inherently flawed, but I will stand by my observation that they sounded different. Of course one needs to listen, but as long as the listening is sighted we need to question our conclusions as statements of fact.
 
mziegler said:
I apologize if the following is pointless since I have not read the entire thread. Yesterday I listened to two different speakers which measure almost identically flat. They were level matched and we had an excellent A/B device. They sounded quite different to me. They had different tweeters, which reflected what are differences in the design goals of each. I had a clear preference. I know enough that this sighted listening is inherently flawed, but I will stand by my observation that they sounded different. Of course one needs to listen, but as long as the listening is sighted we need to question our conclusions as statements of fact.
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How "identically flat" is identically flat, measurements? What about the off-axis measurements? Is a different make and/or model tweeter the only difference between the two?
 
Satanica said:
How "identically flat" is identically flat, measurements? What about the off-axis measurements? Is a different make and/or model tweeter the only difference between the two?
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Good question which I cannot answer -- sorry about that. Both drivers were different. One tweeter had a wave guide, and the other was a dome. I would assume these were on-axis measurements, but I am not sure. I know that one of the speakers was made by someone who really likes wide dispersion (I hope that's the correct term). I think the two designers had different preferences/goals, which I think demonstrates my point that listening is important.
 
mziegler said:
Good question which I cannot answer -- sorry about that. Both drivers were different. One tweeter had a wave guide, and the other was a dome. I would assume these were on-axis measurements, but I am not sure. I know that one of the speakers was made by someone who really likes wide dispersion (I hope that's the correct term). I think the two designers had different preferences/goals, which I think demonstrates my point that listening is important.
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Yeah OK, there were obviously measurable differences between the two speakers.
 
AcousticTheory said:
The hearing test is performed to determine the minimum sound level that the ear-brain system can detect versus frequency. However, it is not a "frequency response" of the ear in the way that a sensitivity curve is a frequency response of a microphone - because of the nonlinearity of level perception and the acclimation over time. You may need to turn up the volume enough for system's overall SPL level to reach 90dB to begin to detect energy at 7kHz according to this sensitivity graph, but this does not mean you hear the other content 256 times as loud. People I know with hearing damage tend to listen very loudly, in the 80-90 dB range (much more than I find necessary), but this does not mean they perceive the sound of the speaker to be grossly non-flat, within their ability to detect audio. Someone more versed in audiology can explain the hows and whys of this, but I don't think it's the whole story to say that you perceive sound at 7kHz at a level 90dB below sound played at the equivalent level at 300 Hz when sound at both frequencies is detectable by your ear and brain.
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Agreed. And that's why I did not imply that it was.
There is a lot more to hearing.than 99.9% of audio files know. I have learned a huge amount since I noticed my hearing loss 5 plus years ago and got hearing aids.
 
mziegler said:
Good question which I cannot answer -- sorry about that. Both drivers were different. One tweeter had a wave guide, and the other was a dome. I would assume these were on-axis measurements, but I am not sure. I know that one of the speakers was made by someone who really likes wide dispersion (I hope that's the correct term). I think the two designers had different preferences/goals, which I think demonstrates my point that listening is important.
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If you share the measurements (which you say are identical) I'm sure we will note some differences. What you are describing is not somehow beyond the reach of today's measurement regimen.
 
mziegler said:
I apologize if the following is pointless since I have not read the entire thread. Yesterday I listened to two different speakers which measure almost identically flat. They were level matched and we had an excellent A/B device. They sounded quite different to me. They had different tweeters, which reflected what are differences in the design goals of each. I had a clear preference. I know enough that this sighted listening is inherently flawed, but I will stand by my observation that they sounded different. Of course one needs to listen, but as long as the listening is sighted we need to question our conclusions as statements of fact.
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2 speakers that look different will never measure the same.
 
Jonazkur said:
2 speakers that look different will never measure the same.
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Well...;)

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