svart-hvitt
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Because it is not what you think. Nor is it relevant to the topic at hand.
The study I quoted goes to the precise need we as audiophiles have: which speaker is liked better, by a statistically significant number of listeners and what metrics predict that.
The study you linked to is not that at all. They set out to define a few subjective terms (e.g. BassPunch) and then try to see what measurements can correlate with what the rating of the trained listeners were in that regard. It is like trying to define some flavor in wine and seeing if a chemical make up can be correlated to it. It says nothing about whether said wine will be preferred by majority of people.
Indeed in the key metric of "natural," the study failed to generate useful results:
View attachment 29714
In addition as you see, they realized that these characteristics that were defined in advance were actually correlated in some cases. The ones they did use are all correlated to frequency response anyway.
The study is also very small scale and authors readily state that it cannot be generalized. Harman study is very extensive across many listening tests, and countless speakers, type of listeners, etc. This is why it has the weight that it has.
Bottom line: this study is orthogonal to what makes a good sounding speaker. They are trying to give you vocabulary to describe the sound of a speaker, and a model based on measurements to predict that. I guess if you wanted to design a speaker that had high "BassPunch," this paper would be a start on how to go about that. Good luck trying to market such a concept though.
Furthermore, such sub-spectrum analysis is also used in Harman listening tests just as well. This is how data on importance of bass performance was generated for example.
As to your personal note, I have listened and participated in Harman testing twice. I have first-hand feel for it. I imagine you have no such sense about this test. Nor have you read it from what I can tell. Just handing things to use to analyze instead of doing your own homework to understand the scope of a test and its relevance.
And oh, Genelec speakers were used as anchor in the study. May that be the reason it is on your radar???
I found the Volk, Bech, Pedersen, Christensen and Flemming paper using the search function on AES’s journal archive page.
I thought this comment was of interest:
«Loudspeaker specifications have traditionally described the physical properties and characteristics of loudspeakers: frequency response, dimensions and volume of the cabinet, diameter of drivers, impedance, total harmonic distortion, sensitivity, etc. Few of these directly describe the sound reproduction and none directly describe perception of the reproduction, i.e., takes into account that the human auditory system is highly non-linear in terms of spectral-, temporal-, and sound level processing (see, e.g., [3]). This disconnect between specifications and perception have made it challenging for acousticians and engineers (and consumers) to predict how a loudspeaker will sound on the basis of these specifications».
I am surprised you don’t share any of the authors’ observations that traditional descriptors in many cases do not «directly describe perception of the reproduction».
The authors note that none of the traditional descriptors «takes into account that the human auditory system is highly non-linear in terms of spectral-, temporal-, and sound level processing».
Much audio research bypasses a more fundamental model and understanding of human perception. The Harman model seems to be preference oriented, and not so much digging into models of human perception that you’d find in medical schools etc. Maybe the authors being more open to other schools of thought make them see the world differently than you do?