Worst measuring loudspeaker?

[Recluse-Animator]

I can't even get a regular VISA...

 

[Doodski]

I can't even get a regular VISA...

In the very first months of The USA-Iraq war I was scheduled to go to Iraq to manage a electronics repair team for seismic exploration surveyors looking for oil. I actually had no job because I had not arrived in Iraq yet to confirm taking the job and also I was yet to be accepted into the country of Iraq. So I told the bank guy that I work for a seismic exploration company in 3rd world countries in high pressure political environments and he said OK we can support a Visa card. So I had 3 Visa cards and no job. Now I am retired and I have 2 Visa cards, a overdraft and a loan. When the economy was booming credit cards where easier to get. I think it is easier to get credit cards as one gets older.

 

[garyrc]

Thanks J, are there any recognised audible levels of distortion in loudspeakers?
Are there just too many variables to achieve a consensus?
Keith [bolding mine - garyrc]

I just hit "Reply," and have not read responses between the above question by @Purité Audio and here ... get to them soon.
Modulation distortion in speakers is sometimes considered to move from undetectable to detectable and annoying at about the 2% level at 105 dB SPL (~~ THX full scale --"peak"-- for sound above 80 Hz, in a room as large as a theater) at the listeners' ears. I'd think that would vary with the frequency of the 2 or more input tones. Of course, there are many tones heard simultaneously -- not just 2 -- in music, often delivered through the same speaker diaphragm.
See attachment for a table.

.

 

[MattHooper]

Subtly flashing your black Amex will work just as well. Still signalling, but you can just wear the polo.

Reminds me:

One time my brother-in-law was visiting. In his early 20's he'd gone to live in Japan, started off selling pencils on the street corner, but was a very smart, technical guy and at one point started a software company that translated stuff between North America and Japan (I can't remember the details). Anyway, it made him wealthy and able to retire at a very young age. He was in to good sound and something of an audiophile and wanted to look at buying something here. We went to the highest of the high-end audio stores in the city because he was interested in Krell, Wilsons, Sonus Faber etc.

When we got to the store it was mid-day, virtually no other customers, salasmen in suits hanging around. My BIL asked if he could listen to the Wilson and Krell set up sitting in one room. The salesman took a look at both of us - young in our late 20s, dressed "modestly" and you could just see his interest drain away. He said "sorry, I don't think the CD player is hooked up right now." My BIL and I looked at each other incredulously. "Well, could someone hook it up please, so we could take a listen?"

The salesman was dismissive. "Not today guys."

We asked about another room. "No, sorry."

We couldn't believe it. No other customers there and this guy would not help us. We left utterly pissed.

My BIL went right to another store and bought expensive amps (can't remember if it was Krell or not), Sonus Faber speakers and a Meridian CD player. Boy did they lose out on a sale that day!

I knew people in the audio rag industry at that point and, in passing, mentioned our experience to a writer of one of Canada's audio magazines - one I knew that store stocked. My writer pal was utterly incensed and wrote an article about our experience in the magazine. He said he was contacted by the manager of the store who apologized profusely realizing they had screwed up. In fact, next time I was there the manager recognized me and apologized, said how that salseman had been reprimanded and "what would you like to hear?".

Tough way for them to learn a lesson.

It was always the salesmen who respected me, and let me listen to anything on the floor, who ended up with my business. Even if I couldn't buy some crazy expensive item, they could make sales on some gear just by not being *ssholes.

 

[Doodski]

Reminds me:

One time my brother-in-law was visiting. In his early 20's he'd gone to live in Japan, started off selling pencils on the street corner, but was a very smart, technical guy and at one point started a software company that translated stuff between North America and Japan (I can't remember the details). Anyway, it made him wealthy and able to retire at a very young age. He was in to good sound and something of an audiophile and wanted to look at buying something here. We went to the highest of the high-end audio stores in the city because he was interested in Krell, Wilsons, Sonus Faber etc.

When we got to the store it was mid-day, virtually no other customers, salasmen in suits hanging around. My BIL asked if he could listen to the Wilson and Krell set up sitting in one room. The salesman took a look at both of us - young in our late 20s, dressed "modestly" and you could just see his interest drain away. He said "sorry, I don't think the CD player is hooked up right now." My BIL and I looked at each other incredulously. "Well, could someone hook it up please, so we could take a listen?"

The salesman was dismissive. "Not today guys."

We asked about another room. "No, sorry."

We couldn't believe it. No other customers there and this guy would not help us. We left utterly pissed.

My BIL went right to another store and bought expensive amps (can't remember if it was Krell or not), Sonus Faber speakers and a Meridian CD player. Boy did they lose out on a sale that day!

I knew people in the audio rag industry at that point and, in passing, mentioned our experience to a writer of one of Canada's audio magazines - one I knew that store stocked. My writer pal was utterly incensed and wrote an article about our experience in the magazine. He said he was contacted by the manager of the store who apologized profusely realizing they had screwed up. In fact, next time I was there the manager recognized me and apologized, said how that salseman had been reprimanded and "what would you like to hear?".

Tough way for them to learn a lesson.

It was always the salesmen who respected me, and let me listen to anything on the floor, who ended up with my business. Even if I couldn't buy some crazy expensive item, they could make sales on some gear just by not being *ssholes.

For some it's a numbers game and they view the demographics like your story detailed. For the best of the best they relate to the customers like they are not only a customer but they are being trusted for a major purchase and let into the customers' lives while doing that. It's not only a feeling it's a quality too.

 

[Deleted member 53587]

I only wear bespoke suits but don't wear them on visits to audio stores as a matter of principle.

LOL

 

[MRC01]

... My BIL went right to another store and bought expensive amps (can't remember if it was Krell or not), Sonus Faber speakers and a Meridian CD player. Boy did they lose out on a sale that day!
...

Another good one: I went to university at UC Davis which back then was a farming town. Some of the local farmers are quite wealthy but dress like farm laborers. One of them walks into the local bank wearing dirty coveralls and boots, asking if the bank can cash a check for him. You can imagine the poor treatment he got based on his appearance - ignored in line, hassles from the teller, etc. Finally he says, I'd like to close my account, please issue a cashier's check. Of course it was a 7 figure amount, the teller went to the back room, the manager came out to apologize etc. but too late. At the time, the story made the local paper and I still get a kick out it.

 

[garyrc]

One guy who used to be at Carver (was it Frank Malitz?) said they couldn't find any measurements that correlated with the sound of speakers except sensitivity (for level only), so that the only way to judge speakers is by listening.

This is interesting:

Everything else being equal, three way speakers often have less modulation (Doppler, IM) distortion than two way.

Doppler distortion; an excerpt from Stereophile …

“The results were intriguing. Distortion of the flute was gross at 10mm peak diaphragm displacement and not in the least bit euphonic. On the contrary, Doppler made the sound as harsh as you might expect of a distortion mechanism that introduces intermodulation products.

Music signals are less revealing of Doppler distortion than this special brew. But these findings undermine the view, widely accepted in the last two decades, that Doppler distortion in loudspeakers is not something we should trouble about. Having done the listening, I side with Moir and Klipsch more than with Fryer, Allison, and Villchur on this issue—something that may come as no surprise to anyone who has heard the effects of low-level jitter and sees where the Fryer criterion appears in fig.2. .

It has often been claimed that, with a two-way speaker, there are audible benefits to using a crossover frequency below the typical 3kHz, the usual explanation being that this removes the crossover from the ear's area of greatest sensitivity. But I wonder. Perhaps this not-uncommon experience Everyone who uses a two-way speaker (me included) can take heart from the fact that most actually has much more to do with the D word. A three-way solution is potentially even better. Three-way speakers bring new design challenges, of course, in particular the need to achieve another perceptually seamless handover between drivers. But from the Doppler perspective, having a crossover for the bass driver at 400Hz or 500Hz is, unquestionably, better (URL unfurl="true"]https://www.stereophile.com/content/red-shift-doppler-distortion-loudspeakers-page-3)[/URL]”

I once listened extensively to 3 speakers: a pair of Klipschorns, a pair of Bozak Concert Grands and a pair of B&W 801Fs. Each had at least one quality that the others didn't have. Bozak had sweet string sound, B&W good balance, Klipschorn dynamics, great brass, clarity, and as J. Gordon Holt said his mail reflected, "triggering the listener's musical Gestalt," reminding me of my years hearing and playing in orchestras. I bought the Klipschorns.

Over the years, I've heard many "High End" loudspeakers, costing a lot more than the Klipschorns, in many stores in the S.F. Bay Area, many recording studios, a few film studios, and at audio fairs; the "good" speakers all did something well, but nothing was as exciting as the Klipschorns.

So, for me, all around it would be the Klipschorns (haven't heard the Klipsch Jubilee yet), if I were to listen to nothing but strings for the rest of my life, I'd pick the discontinued Bozaks.

 

[Beave]

One guy who used to be at Carver (was it Frank Malitz?) said they couldn't find any measurements that correlated with the sound of speakers except sensitivity (for level only), so that the only way to judge speakers is by listening.

That same Frank Malitz that has posted (on other forums) lots of, well, very questionable claims about the relationship - or lack thereof - between measurements and audibility for both speakers and amps? It seems like he reached his conclusions 40+ years ago and won't consider, or is unaware of, any new advances or the work of others since then.

 

[JohnBooty]

That same Frank Malitz that has posted (on other forums) lots of, well, very questionable claims about the relationship - or lack thereof - between measurements and audibility for both speakers and amps? It seems like he reached his conclusions 40+ years ago and won't consider, or is unaware of, any new advances or the work of others since then.

Yeah, I guess he became set in his ways decades ago when speakers had crazy uneven dispersion and it was a total crapshoot how any given speaker would sound in any given room.

I feel bad for those people. They're missing out on a lot of fun.

One wonders if they even believe their own BS... or if they just feel compelled to repeat it because they've committed to it so publicly for so long.

Ten minutes with the ultra cheap JBL 3-series monitors should be enough to change these fossils' minds. They sell for basically chump change, are designed around sound Harman principles, are highly amenable to EQ, and sound right in any room. Not the greatest speakers ever but they're pretty stunning proof of what Toole/Olive/etc have been preaching.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Are the Epilogs fully passive?

I've wanted to hear Goldmund loudspeakers before, but dealers seem loath to demonstrate them for someone who looks like a working man.

The ones I have are.
As a range they started as passive. I had understood they had a complex crossover network but they are amazingly efficient anyway. I haven't looked.

It was the prototypes at my audition and I had to wait a while for the Epilog 1 and longer for the Epilog 2.

The enclosures must have cost a fortune to make with blind holes (the most expensive feature to machine in the era they were made), "O" ring seals and caphead bolts.

I think later versions may well have been DSP active, Goldmund were amongst the first manufacturers to use DSP.

For me the problem with Goldmund has always been the amplifiers, they are fine but ridiculously expensive and the actives are marketed as including x thousand pounds worth of amplifiers.

I heard the Prana at a show at Ascot racecource and for me it was the best system I heard and the nicest made and wireless except for power. Not super value for money though...

 

[DanielT]

Reminds me:

One time my brother-in-law was visiting. In his early 20's he'd gone to live in Japan, started off selling pencils on the street corner, but was a very smart, technical guy and at one point started a software company that translated stuff between North America and Japan (I can't remember the details). Anyway, it made him wealthy and able to retire at a very young age. He was in to good sound and something of an audiophile and wanted to look at buying something here. We went to the highest of the high-end audio stores in the city because he was interested in Krell, Wilsons, Sonus Faber etc.

When we got to the store it was mid-day, virtually no other customers, salasmen in suits hanging around. My BIL asked if he could listen to the Wilson and Krell set up sitting in one room. The salesman took a look at both of us - young in our late 20s, dressed "modestly" and you could just see his interest drain away. He said "sorry, I don't think the CD player is hooked up right now." My BIL and I looked at each other incredulously. "Well, could someone hook it up please, so we could take a listen?"

The salesman was dismissive. "Not today guys."

We asked about another room. "No, sorry."

We couldn't believe it. No other customers there and this guy would not help us. We left utterly pissed.

My BIL went right to another store and bought expensive amps (can't remember if it was Krell or not), Sonus Faber speakers and a Meridian CD player. Boy did they lose out on a sale that day!

I knew people in the audio rag industry at that point and, in passing, mentioned our experience to a writer of one of Canada's audio magazines - one I knew that store stocked. My writer pal was utterly incensed and wrote an article about our experience in the magazine. He said he was contacted by the manager of the store who apologized profusely realizing they had screwed up. In fact, next time I was there the manager recognized me and apologized, said how that salseman had been reprimanded and "what would you like to hear?".

Tough way for them to learn a lesson.

It was always the salesmen who respected me, and let me listen to anything on the floor, who ended up with my business. Even if I couldn't buy some crazy expensive item, they could make sales on some gear just by not being *ssholes.

Another good one: I went to university at UC Davis which back then was a farming town. Some of the local farmers are quite wealthy but dress like farm laborers. One of them walks into the local bank wearing dirty coveralls and boots, asking if the bank can cash a check for him. You can imagine the poor treatment he got based on his appearance - ignored in line, hassles from the teller, etc. Finally he says, I'd like to close my account, please issue a cashier's check. Of course it was a 7 figure amount, the teller went to the back room, the manager came out to apologize etc. but too late. At the time, the story made the local paper and I still get a kick out it.

A variation on the theme is, for example:

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www.cbs.com

Celebrities Who Dress Homeless | Worst Celebrity Style

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www.shefinds.com

 

[Evgeniy]

Nice topic.

 

[garyrc]

One guy who used to be at Carver (was it Frank Malitz?) said they couldn't find any measurements that correlated with the sound of speakers except sensitivity (for level only), so that the only way to judge speakers is by listening.

This is interesting:

Everything else being equal, three way speakers often have less modulation (Doppler, IM) distortion than two way.

Doppler distortion; an excerpt from Stereophile …

“The results were intriguing. Distortion of the flute was gross at 10mm peak diaphragm displacement and not in the least bit euphonic. On the contrary, Doppler made the sound as harsh as you might expect of a distortion mechanism that introduces intermodulation products.

Music signals are less revealing of Doppler distortion than this special brew. But these findings undermine the view, widely accepted in the last two decades, that Doppler distortion in loudspeakers is not something we should trouble about. Having done the listening, I side with Moir and Klipsch more than with Fryer, Allison, and Villchur on this issue—something that may come as no surprise to anyone who has heard the effects of low-level jitter and sees where the Fryer criterion appears in fig.2. .

It has often been claimed that, with a two-way speaker, there are audible benefits to using a crossover frequency below the typical 3kHz, the usual explanation being that this removes the crossover from the ear's area of greatest sensitivity. But I wonder. Perhaps this not-uncommon experience Everyone who uses a two-way speaker (me included) can take heart from the fact that most actually has much more to do with the D word. A three-way solution is potentially even better. Three-way speakers bring new design challenges, of course, in particular the need to achieve another perceptually seamless handover between drivers. But from the Doppler perspective, having a crossover for the bass driver at 400Hz or 500Hz is, unquestionably, better (URL unfurl="true"]https://www.stereophile.com/content/red-shift-doppler-distortion-loudspeakers-page-3)[/URL]”

I once listened extensively to 3 speakers: a pair of Klipschorns, a pair of Bozak Concert Grands and a pair of B&W 801Fs. Each had at least one quality that the others didn't have. Bozak had sweet string sound, B&W good balance, Klipschorn dynamics, great brass, clarity, and as J. Gordon Holt said his mail reflected, "triggering the listener's musical Gestalt," reminding me of my years hearing and playing in orchestras. I bought the Klipschorns.

Over the years, I've heard many "High End" loudspeakers, costing a lot more than the Klipschorns, in many stores in the S.F. Bay Area, many recording studios, a few film studios, and at audio fairs; the "good" speakers all did something well, but nothing was as exciting as the Klipschorns.

So, for me, all around it would be the Klipschorns (haven't heard the Klipsch Jubilee yet), if I were to listen to nothing but strings for the rest of my life, I'd pick the discontinued Bozaks.

View attachment 239830View attachment 239830View attachment 239831

 

[Purité Audio]

Wow,

ELAC Concentro S 503 Loudspeaker Lab Report

Lab Report Measured on the coaxial mid/tweeter axis, or between this and the bass unit below, the forward response trend of the Concentro S 503 is essentially unaltered and very distinctive. Three peripheral, magnetically-attached DCRs (Directivity Control Rings) are included in the box, the...

www.hifinews.com

£6500 plus stands
Keith

 

[MattHooper]

Wow,

ELAC Concentro S 503 Loudspeaker Lab Report

Lab Report Measured on the coaxial mid/tweeter axis, or between this and the bass unit below, the forward response trend of the Concentro S 503 is essentially unaltered and very distinctive. Three peripheral, magnetically-attached DCRs (Directivity Control Rings) are included in the box, the...

www.hifinews.com

£6500 plus stands
Keith

Holy cow!

 

[Mart68]

Wow,

ELAC Concentro S 503 Loudspeaker Lab Report

Lab Report Measured on the coaxial mid/tweeter axis, or between this and the bass unit below, the forward response trend of the Concentro S 503 is essentially unaltered and very distinctive. Three peripheral, magnetically-attached DCRs (Directivity Control Rings) are included in the box, the...

www.hifinews.com

£6500 plus stands
Keith

Maybe they were measured after a truck had driven over them?

 

[Axo1989]

Wow ...

£6500 plus stands
Keith

Reading the somewhat half-arsed commentary on the measurements in the Hi-fi News review makes you appreciate the efforts and knowledge Mr Atkinson puts into the equivalent at Stereophile.

The graph has a 30 dB vertical scale vs the preferred 50 dB which makes FR of those speakers look rather worse than the idiosyncratic tuning would appear 'normally'. I also imagine there may be some who enjoy the likely forward/detailed presentation, although coupled with very modest bass extension I doubt I'd be in that group. There's no measurement of off-axis FR so we can't tell if that mid-range chasm fills in as some speakers do. Or really what they will sound like in a room. The interchangeable directivity rings are an interesting idea. So I'm not going to go all Purité ring on the whole thing. Of course, I'm not going shopping for them either.

 

[Mart68]

Reading the somewhat half-arsed commentary on the measurements in the Hi-fi News review makes you appreciate the efforts and knowledge Mr Atkinson puts into the equivalent at Stereophile.

The graph has a 30 dB vertical scale vs the preferred 50 dB which makes FR of those speakers look rather worse than the idiosyncratic tuning would appear 'normally'. I also imagine there may be some who enjoy the likely forward/detailed presentation, although coupled with very modest bass extension I doubt I'd be in that group. There's no measurement of off-axis FR so we can't tell if that mid-range chasm fills in as some speakers do. Or really what they will sound like in a room. The interchangeable directivity rings are an interesting idea. So I'm not going to go all Purité ring on the whole thing. Of course, I'm not going shopping for them either.

That's generous. I see a speaker with no real bass to speak of, there's no glossing over that the crossover region is a mess even if it might all work itself out in the wash, and that huge peak above the presence band might give a bit of 'air and space' but I personally find such obvious colourations get irritating over time.

Added to that they are insensitive, and with them being a small two-way you won't be able to put much power into them before they audibly distort.

If they were a couple of hundred then you could do worse, but at six grand? I don't see how such products can find a market, but some do seem to manage it.

 

[617]

Towers
https://www.stereophile.com/content/volti-audio-rival-loudspeaker-measurements
https://www.stereophile.com/content/auditorium-23-hommage-cinema-loudspeaker
https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-683-s2-loudspeaker-measurements
https://www.stereophile.com/content...and-symphony-edition-loudspeaker-measurements
https://www.stereophile.com/content/nola-metro-grand-reference-gold-loudspeaker-measurements
https://www.stereophile.com/content/voxativ-ampeggio-loudspeaker-measurements

Standmount
https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-805-d3-loudspeaker-measurements
https://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-benesch-square-one-series-2-loudspeaker-measurements