Why evaluating the sound of a single speaker is essential

[amirm]

FYI I post the test clips used by Harman back in 2016: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...sic-tracks-for-speaker-and-room-eq-testing.6/

My selection of tracks follow same idea but I pick them based on specific characteristics such as deep sub-bass, spatial qualities with headphones (I share tracks between headphone/speaker tests), ability to bring out distortion in amplifiers, and general music that I like although not always.

Regardless of genre or origin, I have found selecting just one channel works perfectly with no need to convert anything to mono. I started off creating mono tracks but that is hard to do with streaming content you don't own so it is easier to just use the one channel.

I also have a bunch of them so if I find that I can't make up my mind whether a filter is working, I move on to the next one.

I am confident that regardless of your taste in your music, you can easily find tracks that do the job in single channel without the need to convert to mono.

 

[No. 5]

But shouldn't they be recordings that sound good?

In other words, “are good sounding recordings better at revealing what the test needs them to reveal”?

This is a question that can be answered to some degree in the comfort of your own home with free software. Since the test in question is focused on revealing resonances and spectral balance, it’s easy enough to choose some ‘good sounding’ recordings and compare them to pink noise or the highly rated tracks on the previously posted list to see any are better at revealing the colorations being discussed. It’s a sample size of one, but it can give you an idea of whether or not resonance audibility thresholds change with ‘good’ recordings.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I think part of the reaction against pink noise and dense popular music is it's not classical music. I'm not suggesting snobbery. But for years, reviewers have written flowing prose such as "... I started with the glorious Mahler's 4th conducted by Henshal. These loudspeakers conveyed the energy in the strings without overemphasizing the brass (often a problem with this recording. The image depth was excellent, but width a bit constrained..."

What the research is showing is that to spot flaws in speakers, stereo listening to classical is least effective. So many people have bought loudspeakers based only on listening to stereo classical music. The research shows they may have risked making bad choices!

 

[pma]

Of course, contemporary artificially created pop music with DR5 is ideal for that. You must be joking.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Of course, contemporary artificially created pop music with DR5 is ideal for that. You must be joking.

I'm not. Some of what is being discussed here is about identifying resonances in speaker drivers and cabinets.

The list Amir posted above #761 shows jazz trio, solo voice, solo instrument and to a lesser degree, complex classical music, are all relatively weak at showing up resonances. Pink noise and dense popular music are better at showing up resonance.

This is not about what's nice to listen to. I've heard enough white and pink noise and would be happy to not hear any more of it.

 

[amirm]

Of course, contemporary artificially created pop music with DR5 is ideal for that. You must be joking.

And you must not have read or understood the topic.

Why is it so hard to understand that these are test signals? You use sine wave for testing amps, right? If you listen to that, how enjoyable is it???

Artificially created music can exercise any part of the spectrum at any level. Trying to get that in a live recording is hard or maybe near impossible. This is why my bass tests are synthetic in nature.

A number of my test tracks are movie soundtracks which have incredible dynamics. So your stereotype doesn't hold either.

 

[LSPhil]

Music is emotion, something that cannot be described, just as you cannot determine what's wrong with a speaker just by listening to pink noise. World-renowned companies like Canton, Dynaudio, KEF, and Sonus Faber offer systems that are 100% perfect; the only thing that matters is subjective taste, be it for blondes, redheads, or brunettes. Therefore, trained knowledge about where a resonance lies or at what frequency it accompanies the music is useless when evaluating these products.

Another matter is that when I measure a speaker with pink noise, I know what I'm doing and I understand my goal. Out of necessity, I combined a 10" woofer with licensed XBL² technology, which aims to maintain a linear BL curve at every coil excursion, with a very cheap 1" tweeter. As always, I will listen in mono for now, and what interests me is whether my foot taps to the beat of "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, or if I get goosebumps hearing the violins in Vivaldi's "Four Seasons - Winter."

And I will say this: whether I can hear the violin on the right and a flute on the left is just an amusing triviality compared to the actual substance of the music. Let us instead search for good recordings, rather than obsessing over the sound from the rear of the diaphragm, which radiates, reflects off the back of the enclosure, and, delayed, forces its way back out through the cone itself, smearing the original signal.

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

you cannot determine what's wrong with a speaker just by listening to pink noise.

Nonsense.
Of course - not all, but nevertheless many wrong things can be determined by listening to pink noise.

you cannot determine what's wrong with a speaker just by listening to pink noise.

Have you actually tried? No? Just as I suspected...

World-renowned companies like Canton, Dynaudio, KEF, and Sonus Faber offer systems that are 100% perfect .

100% perfect? No.
Just look and hear (with pink noise) all those resonances and non-flat frequency response coming from Sonus Faber Sonetto V G2 (Stereophile's measurements):

 

[Holmz]

Music is emotion, something that cannot be described, just as you cannot determine what's wrong with a speaker just by listening to pink noise. World-renowned companies like Canton, Dynaudio, KEF, and Sonus Faber offer systems that are 100% perfect; the only thing that matters is subjective taste, be it for blondes, redheads, or brunettes. Therefore, trained knowledge about where a resonance lies or at what frequency it accompanies the music is useless when evaluating these products.

Another matter is that when I measure a speaker with pink noise, I know what I'm doing and I understand my goal. Out of necessity, I combined a 10" woofer with licensed XBL² technology, which aims to maintain a linear BL curve at every coil excursion, with a very cheap 1" tweeter. As always, I will listen in mono for now, and what interests me is whether my foot taps to the beat of "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, or if I get goosebumps hearing the violins in Vivaldi's "Four Seasons - Winter."

And I will say this: whether I can hear the violin on the right and a flute on the left is just an amusing triviality compared to the actual substance of the music. Let us instead search for good recordings, rather than obsessing over the sound from the rear of the diaphragm, which radiates, reflects off the back of the enclosure, and, delayed, forces its way back out through the cone itself, smearing the original signal.

Your post, like a lot of music, is laden with noise

 

[Jim Taylor]

Music is emotion, something that cannot be described

Emotion can be described, but the description is worthless. Emotion cannot be reliably replicated between people. What one person thinks is interesting, another thinks is obnoxious. What one thinks is sublime, another thinks is boring.

you cannot determine what's wrong with a speaker just by listening to pink noise

I believe what you mean to say is that YOU cannot determine what's wrong with a speaker just by listening to pink noise. You really shouldn't come in here and start laying down the law about what other people can or cannot do. You have absolutely no idea what they can or cannot do ... especially as regards some of the members here, who have contributed to the scientific community and the audio industry for many years.

 

[Holmz]

Emotion can be described, but the description is worthless. Emotion cannot be reliably replicated between people. What one person thinks is interesting, another thinks is obnoxious. What one thinks is sublime, another thinks is boring.



I believe what you mean to say is that YOU cannot determine what's wrong with a speaker just by listening to pink noise. You really shouldn't come in here and start laying down the law about what other people can or cannot do. You have absolutely no idea what they can or cannot do ... especially as regards some of the members here, who have contributed to the scientific community and the audio industry for many years.

Why all the emotion @Jim Taylor

 

[LSPhil]

Why all the emotion @Jim Taylor

There is, in our hi-fi world, a certain faction of technocrats who treat their systems like machines. For them, it is often a neurotic urge to possess something exclusive, a box-ticking exercise of specifications, the audiophile equivalent of the photographer with the most expensive Leica, yet without any feeling for composition, light, or the decisive moment. The soul of the art escapes them.
We, who listen to music, take a different path. Our system is not an end in itself, but a medium, a window as transparent as possible into the emotion the composer felt when writing. When a Mahler symphony raises goosebumps, when a jazz trio appears so vivid in the room that you could swear you can smell the smoke, that is when the loudspeaker has fulfilled its highest purpose.
All the technology, all the measurements, all the knowledge about cones and diaphragms serve, in the end, only one goal: to open this window as clearly and as widely as possible, so that the boundless beauty of the music, with all its emotional force, can pour into our hearts unadulterated.
Everything else is, if you’ll pardon the phrase, poking about in the fog of technology while the sun of music is shining.

What do you think? Are you also more drawn to the emotional journey than to the pure hunt for flaws?

Is this conversation helpful so far?

 

[Purité Audio]

Not really.
Keith

 

[RickS]

There is, in our hi-fi world, a certain faction of technocrats who treat their systems like machines. For them, it is often a neurotic urge to possess something exclusive, a box-ticking exercise of specifications, the audiophile equivalent of the photographer with the most expensive Leica, yet without any feeling for composition, light, or the decisive moment. The soul of the art escapes them.
We, who listen to music, take a different path. Our system is not an end in itself, but a medium, a window as transparent as possible into the emotion the composer felt when writing. When a Mahler symphony raises goosebumps, when a jazz trio appears so vivid in the room that you could swear you can smell the smoke, that is when the loudspeaker has fulfilled its highest purpose.
All the technology, all the measurements, all the knowledge about cones and diaphragms serve, in the end, only one goal: to open this window as clearly and as widely as possible, so that the boundless beauty of the music, with all its emotional force, can pour into our hearts unadulterated.
Everything else is, if you’ll pardon the phrase, poking about in the fog of technology while the sun of music is shining.

What do you think? Are you also more drawn to the emotional journey than to the pure hunt for flaws?

Is this conversation helpful so far?

Suggest you focus your presumptuous opinions regarding others to yourself or (at least) a more appropriate thread. Your posts are off topic here, but your agenda has become more apparent.

Before you post again on this thread, please ensure the content is appropriate to evaluating a single speaker.

Thanks!

 

[MAB]

There is, in our hi-fi world, a certain faction of technocrats who treat their systems like machines. For them, it is often a neurotic urge to possess something exclusive, a box-ticking exercise of specifications, the audiophile equivalent of the photographer with the most expensive Leica, yet without any feeling for composition, light, or the decisive moment. The soul of the art escapes them.
We, who listen to music, take a different path. Our system is not an end in itself, but a medium, a window as transparent as possible into the emotion the composer felt when writing. When a Mahler symphony raises goosebumps, when a jazz trio appears so vivid in the room that you could swear you can smell the smoke, that is when the loudspeaker has fulfilled its highest purpose.
All the technology, all the measurements, all the knowledge about cones and diaphragms serve, in the end, only one goal: to open this window as clearly and as widely as possible, so that the boundless beauty of the music, with all its emotional force, can pour into our hearts unadulterated.
Everything else is, if you’ll pardon the phrase, poking about in the fog of technology while the sun of music is shining.

What do you think? Are you also more drawn to the emotional journey than to the pure hunt for flaws?

Most of us are in it for improvements to reproduction. People here also listen to music. Your post is quite condescending.

Is this conversation helpful so far?

No it really isn't, you clearly don't understand measurements and the role they play, and misconstrue the rest, especially about people's motivations to measure and how it relates to improvements.

Your post also has nothing to do with why a single speaker is essential for evaluating performance and the presence of resonances which ruin the speaker's ability to reproduce the sound in a room.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

not only is it unhelpful, condescending, and misinformed, it's also written by ai

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

There is, in our hi-fi world, a certain faction of technocrats who treat their systems like machines.

That small group of technocrats actually are designing, building and selling loudspeakers - which you can see and hear in the shops. You are extremely lucky that such group exist at all. Without that small group of technocrats you wouldn't had the opportunity to wax lyrical about the music you are listening through "your" loudspeakers.

What do you think? Are you also more drawn to the emotional journey than to the pure hunt for flaws?

I am designing, building and selling loudspeakers for living, so yes, I am into the pure hunt for flaws in loudspeakers. Only when I am satisfied with the loudspeaker I designed (without flaws as possible, within a reason), then I will sell my loudspeakers to the customers (i.e. - you) - who care only about the emotions in the reproduced music.

Is this conversation helpful so far?

No.

 

[Duke]

That small group of technocrats actually are designing, building and selling loudspeakers - which you can see and hear in the shops. You are extremely lucky that such group exist at all. Without that small group of technocrats you wouldn't had the opportunity to wax lyrical about the music you are listening through "your" loudspeakers.

Yup.

If a speaker sounds good, it's because the designer got the technical aspects right.

 

[Holmz]

Not really.
Keith

^that’s^ savage.

There is, in our hi-fi world, a certain faction of technocrats who treat their systems like machines. For them, it is often a neurotic urge to possess something exclusive, a box-ticking exercise of specifications, the audiophile equivalent of the photographer with the most expensive Leica, yet without any feeling for composition, light, or the decisive moment. The soul of the art escapes them.
We, who listen to music, take a different path. Our system is not an end in itself, but a medium, a window as transparent as possible into the emotion the composer felt when writing. When a Mahler symphony raises goosebumps, when a jazz trio appears so vivid in the room that you could swear you can smell the smoke, that is when the loudspeaker has fulfilled its highest purpose.
All the technology, all the measurements, all the knowledge about cones and diaphragms serve, in the end, only one goal: to open this window as clearly and as widely as possible, so that the boundless beauty of the music, with all its emotional force, can pour into our hearts unadulterated.
Everything else is, if you’ll pardon the phrase, poking about in the fog of technology while the sun of music is shining.

What do you think? Are you also more drawn to the emotional journey than to the pure hunt for flaws?

Is this conversation helpful so far?

A better speaker probably makes it easier to get to your emotion, than one with obvious flaws.
Yeah I have a Metabo boom box, and that sounds just fine when I am in the shed or garden. Plus I do not have to drag an amplifier outside.

But you do you.

 

[Mnyb]

We ordinary members can put these clowns on ignore.

But our professional members representing their bussiness and similar can not do that , they must be very polite and professional and post very carefully thought out responses to *everything* ( even if they want to rip your head off ). Please don’t burden them with bullsh*t .

And realise where the burden of proof lays, if you also have peer reviewed science or similar grounds for an alternative or model hypothesis for testing speakers please go ahead .

“ I think it’s wrong “ is just noise in this tread .

Ask more questions and learn stuff .

As I don’t design speakers and don’t have any scientific cred on the topic and can’t contribute much ( and realises that ) . My opinion based on reading here on ASR and in dr Tooles book etc is that he and his peers are very likely close to the truth about speakers , the explanations sounds plausible to me as an engineer . Of course all science can be improved upon . Criticism off the type this test is not done to six sigma level off accuracy ( like the LHC collider ) and therefore must be wrong is kind of silly there are limits on how to get empirical data out of human test subjects .

And realise the limitations of empirical models and their explanatory power , they’re are on some level a bit fussy and blunt .

And can not answer the wrong questions.

For example this model can probably help speaker builder’s design speakers that works better for more people in different acoustic circumstances with a more predictable sound quality .

It can not explain why you like Diana Krall