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What would you donate for us to test speakers?

Juhazi

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You are probably aware that not many people share your interest.

Yes I know. I didn't want to say, but you asked for it! But this thread is not about our personal preferences.
 

Another Bob

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I'd gladly donate $10-12/month. I share the concern, however, with what is going to get tested. Although exceptions certainly exist, most speakers that are of interest (to me) tend to be more expensive - both to acquire and to ship - than what might be practical for the ASR business model. (Even class AB power amps have been noted as a challenge WRT shipping costs. Speakers will be much worse.) If it ends up that only one or two interesting speakers get reviewed per year, I doubt I would continue to donate at that level.
 

daftcombo

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Hi,
I would be happy to donate 100$.
I hope that you could measure speakers made in EU also, not only US.
 

watchnerd

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Hi,
I would be happy to donate 100$.
I hope that you could measure speakers made in EU also, not only US.

At a mass-market 200 USD/EUR price point, I doubt many tested speakers would be made in either the US or the EU.

Mexico, China, Vietnam, etc, would be more likely.
 

daftcombo

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At a mass-market 200 USD/EUR price point, I doubt many tested speakers would be made in either the US or the EU.

Mexico, China, Vietnam, etc, would be more likely.

Yes but I would rather be inrerested in more expensive speaker measurements, provided they sound better of course.

What I meant is that it's easier for EU people to listen to and puchase EU speakers.
 

Chrise36

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I would donate 20 dollars a month for a couple of months. Amir should definitely go on with this project i believe we can learn many things about speakers we ignore that manufacturers do not publish although i would trust my ears if i were to buy speakers and not the specs.
 

Vintage57

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[QUOTE="Chrise36, post: 200978, member: 5071] that manufacturers do not publish [/QUOTE]

I ask is that the truth or do they just not know, there’re a lot of good cabinet makers out there.
 

Chrise36

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Hi Shadrach is that the Volt B2500 in your photo? I recently built a subwoofer with it... Anyway i think the meaning of this is not about saving the audiophiles but the rare oportunity of having free access to speaker measurements from a state of the art measurement rig.The data can be useful when buying like the dacs measure in this forum.
 

Rja4000

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The challenge in doing so now is that the gear is the bottleneck. I can't even fund the gear that I need for testing let alone expect someone else to buy a $50K speaker tester, just to write free reviews.

Well, it depends.

Do one need an AP analyzer to perform proper pre-selection tests?
How far can one go with a good software, a good ADC/DAC (like a RMI ADi-2 FS. Not even the Pro) and, maybe, an auto-ranger?
Isn't the most important a proper and 'certified' test protocol?
Re-measuring devices you already tested could help validating and gaining confidence in the procedure.
That should clearly be labelled as less accurate than your own tests. But still a valid indicator.
And, for the bests, or if there is a doubt, you're the ultimate arbiter.
I see a lot of benefits in that: more resources of course, more results, a wider geographic spread (lower logistics costs), more potential DUT,...

As for speakers test:
Do one actually need 50k of gear to measure loudspeakers?
Is what you need not just a robotized arm, able to hold a 300g microphone?
How accurate does the position have to be?
That's the same logic. You may purchase the 'real thing'. And maybe we can find a way to mimic it for a lower price (and footprint) for more basic 'pre-selection' tests.
 
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Shadrach

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Hi Shadrach is that the Volt B2500 in your photo? I recently built a subwoofer with it... Anyway i think the meaning of this is not about saving the audiophiles but the rare oportunity of having free access to speaker measurements from a state of the art measurement rig.The data can be useful when buying like the dacs measure in this forum.
It is. I have them and the early ABR's in my loudspeakers. Expensive but decent.
 

Wombat

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What would Microsoft do before deciding on such a venture?
 
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amirm

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Do one need an AP analyzer to perform proper pre-selection tests?
How far can one go with a good software, a good ADC/DAC (like a RMI ADi-2 FS. Not even the Pro) and, maybe, an auto-ranger?
For your personal testing, you can choose any method. For posting on a forum with so much traffic, it better be known gear and allow for replication of test results by manufacturer and others. Otherwise, the test results won't be accepted by some, there will shouting in the hallways, etc.

On the technical front, the AP has an ultra low distortion analog signal generator. Others use DACs which is flexible but will create harmonic distortion that can be confused with the performance of the device being tested. It also has dual parallel ADCs, one to capture the main tone and the second, for everything else. These two methods all but eliminate harmonic distortion from the analyzer. This kind of performance is needed to test the best in class amplifiers and DACs.

I wish you didn't need such an expensive box but it is hard to avoid it.
 

RayDunzl

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amirm

amirm

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As for speakers test:
Do one actually need 50k of gear to measure loudspeakers?
Is what you need not just a robotized arm, able to hold a 300g microphone?
How accurate does the position have to be?
That's the same logic. You may purchase the 'real thing'. And maybe we can find a way to mimic it for a lower price (and footprint) for more basic 'pre-selection' tests.
We have discussed all of this in the parallel thread. The research leading to preference of consumers to speakers relies on anechoic chamber testing. The chamber costs a few million dollars. Renting room in one will cost more than this tester after a few tries.

The work-around used in magazines and elsewhere is to use two independent measurements:

1. Gated measurements. This stops the measurement before the first reflection reaches the measurement mic. Unless you have a massive room and elevate the speaker many feet above ground, your cut off frequency at the low end will be 200 Hz or so. It is actually worse than this in that next useful sample is at 400 Hz, etc. In other words, you not only lack low frequency information but also lack resolution in what you capture in upper bass.

2. To get the low frequency information, a microphone can be placed right in front of the speaker. This does give you low frequency information but due to boundary effect of a large surface in front of the microphone, the bass response is exaggerated. This cannot be dialed out because it depends on the surface size of the speaker, its overall shape, etc.

Even if you put up with all of this, you then have to sit there and rotate the speaker a few degrees and masure. Then do that again in vertical dimension. It is super time consuming. and hence the reason that the pace of speaker reviews is so slow for the outfits that do them.

At the end of the above, you have a some data points but not the same ones used in research so you can't use them reliably to predict listener preference.

The biggest issue is that while the above can be done on the cheap, it doesn't appeal to me. It is a manual process, taking so much of my time.

The automated system can produce the data we need by just placing the speaker, setting a couple of positional information and pressing go. We get authoritative, repeatable data that we can do something with. And not have it be a major chore just to test one speaker.
 

PierreV

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Nothing about this effort is about high-end speakers. My goal is to sift through hundreds of budget and mid-priced speakers to see which ones are worth buying. RIght now, with everything I know, I can't give an ounce of advice about any random speaker out there. There is just no information to say anything reliable. Joe blogger says this speaker is good. Someone says another speaker is good. Where do you guys go with that?

I voted "no" in the initial poll and still think "no" - some thoughts

- "hundreds of budget and mid price speakers" - that means at least 200 - let's say that one pair is tested every 3 days (or published every 3 days if they can be bulk tested) does that mean we are contemplating an avalanche of almost two years of mostly crappy speakers?? How long will that keep people's interest? Even in the best case (totally unrealistic) scenario, say DAC-like, where 90% of speakers would be rated good enough for the price, how would that keep us interested? Would the advice then be "buy anything, just focus on looks"?

- users in that market don't really care about measurements I think. Looks, functionality, good deals in firesales (see JBL for example)

- a $100 DAC can measure as well or even better than a $30000 one, ready to use/implement chipsets and algorithms guarantee that. A $100 speaker will never match bigger speakers, physics guarantee that. We won't ever get something like the KTB measures as well as the DCS in the speaker world.

- what's the standard? for DACs and, to a lesser extent, AMPs, it is clear, what goes in must come out intact. For speakers, will it be "should match what has been shown to be what most people prefer"? Why would it be important to give advice about budget and mid-price speakers? What would be the advice? No audible distortion is valuable advice for a DAC. No audible issue at a given power driving a given load is valuable for amplifiers (but already a can of worms)

- what the rationale behind a ultra high-end testing device on budget and mid-price speakers? Forgive the automotive analogy, but this looks a bit like testing the cheapest cars and most sedate sedans with a complete racelogic setup (https://vboxmotorsport.co.uk/index.php/en/) when most people would be concerned about how many shopping packs they can load and their mileage/maintenance costs.

- if one looks around, there is quite a bit of data about a lot of speakers already, at least the significant - in terms of market/aura - ones. And measurements don't bring us very far. Take the LS50 for example - absolutely everything about them has been measured and documented multiple times, including their whole design process - and what's the result in practice? Some people simply love it, some people just hate it. The market has decided it is a great speaker, quite a few people still think it is just well orchestrated hype.

On the "financing" side of things, it is either one of three things

- a hobby: lots of late middle age white males with disposable incomes have expensive hobbies ( I can use those "harsh" terms freely as I am a late middle age white male with disposable income and expensive hobbies ;) ) but I am a bit too old-fashioned to think my hobbies should be sponsored by the community.

- a non-profit testing operation: fair enough, and that would be the best option in terms of ethics, but in that case it should be set up differently and very precisely imho.

- a business/potential business: should, imho, be self-financed, supported by investors, etc... In that framework, I'd support neutral advertisements (as opposed to product placement) but while one million page views per month is significant in this market segment, it can be a bit low as far as advertisement revenue is concerned.

Ultimately, it boils down to why people come here... In that respect, I can only speak for myself and I know I come here mostly to read the pearls of wisdom distilled by the dozen or so incredibly competent people who post here. I value repair tips dropped by @restorer-john or the contributions of other experts (for example the guest tutorial posts) way more than the 67th or so test of a cheap DAC. Hundreds of tests of budget speakers, if they actually materialize, would just be noise added to the signal.
 
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amirm

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Ultimately, it boils down to why people come here... In that respect, I can only speak for myself and I know I come here mostly to read the pearls of wisdom distilled by the dozen or so incredibly competent people who post here.
I can answer this. We all have two hobbies, not one. One is audio, the other is talking about audio. We realize the former, but not the later.

You ever watch a cooking show? Or a DIY home remodel? Do you intend to cook that meal or rebuild your house? For 99% of the people the answer is no. Yet they watch the shows.

Same is going on here. You all read my reviews even though in vast majority of the cases, you have no interest in the product. I recently reviewed a dongle from LG phones. Here are the stats on that:

1563671070663.png


Over 4000 views. For a little dongle available in China.

So don't judge what I do based on what appears on the surface. We are here because there is fresh content and a mystery to resolve with every audio product tested. It is entertainment with information value. It isn't satisfying a need above and beyond that for many.

We have taken steps beyond DACs to amplifiers, phono stages, etc. If I polled you all and cost was involved, based on comments here, I would have been discouraged to do any of this testing. We have hard data that this has worked.

Recently Z recommended a speaker. People rushed to buy out the stock on Amazon. Aren't you least bit curious if it actually performs well based on objective data? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I know I am curious to know but have no means to get there right now.

This is why our traffic is 10X of what it was when were just a forum.

Now, maybe the ROI on speakers will be poor. I know I thought testing any DAC would be such but turned out to be different. Until I try it, I won't know. The risk of it having low ROI is what keeps me from taking all the risks. I was hoping that you all defray enough of the cost so that I can take on the rest. That's all.
 
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amirm

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- a $100 DAC can measure as well or even better than a $30000 one, ready to use/implement chipsets and algorithms guarantee that. A $100 speaker will never match bigger speakers, physics guarantee that. We won't ever get something like the KTB measures as well as the DCS in the speaker world.
How did $100 become the norm for what I plan to test? I said budget to mid-range. I plan to test speakers up to low thousands of dollars.

Just like electronic testing, I plan to also occasionally test much more expensive speakers. I have my Revel Salon 2 for example ($25,000 a pair). Have JBL M2s at work. And access to what local members have who may be interested in driving them back and forth for me to test. So there will be testing of more expensive products. I just don't want to set that as a goal and deal with how we are going to get large number of them shipped back and forth.

But yes, all of these are barriers. So what? Do we shy away and sit in a corner and decide we can't solve this collectively? Wouldn't our audiophile life be better if we had 10 speakers at different capabilities that we would recommend to friends, families and strangers online? And have the data to back it?

We all know that if all of us contributed, we would have the money yesterday. That we don't means we may not have thought through what we can do to impact this industry broadly, and serve our community at the same time.

There is this unwritten rule that what we are doing is not possible. That without direct profit model, and collaboration with companies to get freebies, we can't exist. So far we have proven them wrong with electronics. Very wrong. Do we want to leave out speaker and headphone testing and leave this equation half solved?
 

PierreV

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So don't judge what I do based on what appears on the surface. We are here because there is fresh content and a mystery to resolve with every audio product tested. It is entertainment with information value. It isn't satisfying a need above and beyond that for many.

Oh, I don't judge (which is why I said I could only speak for myself) and infotainment is a perfectly fine goal.

Recently Z recommended a speaker. People rushed to buy out the stock on Amazon. Aren't you least bit curious if it actually performs well based on objective data? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I know I am curious to know but have no means to get there right now.

Honestly, no.

This is why our traffic is 10X of what it was when were just a forum.

No question that the way you managed this forum is the main driver behind the presence of quality contributors and discussions here. And that is indeed remarkable.
 

Wombat

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WE.

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