Worst measuring loudspeaker?

[carewser]

Do we have a thread already if we have my apologies,
Is this the worst,
https://www.stereophile.com/content/klipsch-klipschorn-ak6-loudspeaker-measurements
I have only heard a Klipsch loudspeaker on two occasions,

Keith

From that review; "The Klipschorn's measured behavior reveals that the performance parameters that are generally held in the 21st century to correlate with good sound quality in both the time and frequency domains have been compromised to achieve that astonishingly high sensitivity"

Jesus, talk about euphemizing. In other words, they sound like shit

I guess if sensitivity is all that matters for that big brash sound one of the Klipsch Heritage Series would appeal to people but it's an engineering marvel how Klipsch has been able to squeeze such little bass out of such, big, heavy, expensive speakers and that's why they've never appealed to a basshead like me

 

[egellings]

My impression of the K-horn is that the mid and high frequency horns do in fact behave like horns and deliver the advertised efficiency. The bass horn is too short to do that at the long wavelength low bass frequencies, even with the room acting as a flare extension.

 

[TrevC]

Here's the B&W 606 measured in my 12x13x9' office without EQ. It's the least attractive Bookshelf FR I have measured in the room. Sound United has their hands full taking over this speaker line.

View attachment 160269

As a comparison, the Revel M105 below sounds better in the same room and appears to have a more downward sloping curve (than the BW606 mess). Both measurements captured with REW at 75dB at a distance of 7 feet. Next step is apply EQ to M105 to study if it makes a positive audible impact. The BW 606 is 2dB more sensitive than the Revel M105.

View attachment 160270

I would expect a £500 speaker pair to measure and sound worse than a £1500 one. You get what you pay for. The 706 S2 at £1200 would be a fairer comparison.

 

[Purité Audio]

This is what £139k loudspeaker looks like,

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Keith

 

[Hayabusa]

This is what £139k loudspeaker looks like,

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Keith

20Hz to 40kHz +/- 4dB... That's not bad at all....

from the review:
"Thus the ~6dB notch in the Alexx V's forward response at 2.7kHz [see Graph 1, below] is indicative only of very nearfield listening, this midrange suckout progressively filling in with distance, tightening the ±3.3dB response error to a superior ±2.5dB."

 

[thewas]

This is what £139k loudspeaker looks like,

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Keith

Would like to see the probably worse off-axis mess, especially vertically.

 

[Purité Audio]

Fyne Audio F500SP loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system, an Earthworks microphone preamplifier, and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Fyne Audio F500SP's farfield behavior, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for its nearfield responses. I left off the grille for the measurements. I used...

www.stereophile.com

This isn’t too pretty either, but it isn’t £139k
Keith

 

[Ultrasonic]

This is what £139k loudspeaker looks like,

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Keith

The review does though point out that this is a nearfield measurement for a speaker very much intending to be listened from far a way in a big room, so it's not particularly representative or meaningful.

 

[Purité Audio]

To be frank it is poor, poor, ugly and hugely overpriced.
Keith

 

[carewser]

I'm pretty sure I own the world's worst sounding loudspeakers:

These things make my Logitech's sound like Focal Grande Utopia's

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

talk about euphemizing

you meant euthanizing, right.

 

[fineMen]

The review does though point out that this is a nearfield measurement for a speaker very much intending to be listened from far a way in a big room, so it's not particularly representative or meaningful.

I've seen this product being praised as a "product of the year". Which year that was, I can't tell, though.

The direct sound is there and used in stereo as an indication for localizing "phantom sources". If a dip in direct sound has to be compensated by the reverberant field, that part is lost for "imaging", right?

I personally don't think too high of stereo imaging, while I appreciate clean and balanced sound in general. I'm afraid that such an attitude, namely to handle the stereo part of the representation very much more relaxed than the enthusiast applies to a bigger part of the population.

The Scan Speak drivers help with the clean, and the balance in room might be ok-ish.

"Worst measuring" may refer to a mismatch in performance versus aspiration. Let alone the design, which with the Wilson's looks odd. I associate a spotlight. That contradicts the reliance on indirect sound. So, the visual appearance is not "industrial", it is just falsehood.***

Performance? Not so much the result bugs me, but the neglect of at least a reasonable "good enough" construction, compared to the entitlement of theirs. The latter clearly stated by the price tag. (The drivers alone would cost me as a hobbyist about 2k or so. Do the math regarding the mark up for the "engineering"!) Exalted shaping and color schemes tell the same.

Read between the lines. There could be less preferable offers, but at least this is a well chosen candidate for the title in question.

*** because it just came to mind: if the visual design suggests, the speaker would throw a ray of sound at You, is it any good? Shouldn't the (en)lighting come from my side as to illuminate the projected soundfietd in front of me, as to sense it better? Broken logic in every aspect ..., then, is the wrongly reverted phase of the tweeter a signature feature? All Wilsons sport it, it seems judged by so many measurements!

 

[Ultrasonic]

I've seen this product being praised as a "product of the year". Which year that was, I can't tell, though.

The direct sound is there and used in stereo as an indication for localizing "phantom sources". If a dip in direct sound has to be compensated by the reverberant field, that part is lost for "imaging", right?

The direct sound will be different in the far-field and the near-field though. Crossover region dips in the on-axis response are caused by the path-length differences between drivers, which reduce the further away you get.

 

[MarkWinston]

Worst measuring speaker must go to the damn Genelec 8361a. Its measuring my bank account, in the worst way possible.

 

[fineMen]

The direct sound will be different in the far-field and the near-field though. Crossover region dips in the on-axis response are caused by the path-length differences between drivers, which reduce the further away you get.

Thanks for the clarification, the argument is logical. Let's put some numbers in, as is usual in science.

Listening distance 3 meters at a hight of 0,9 meters, measuring distance 1 meter, same hight, is that o/k with You?

Let's further assume, that the angle towards the listening position is spot on, call it the 'reference axis'.

=> Q: by how much is the measurement axis tilted 'out of reference' then, may I say so?

Depends on the actual height of the mid/treble building block! If that is mounted at a height of 0,9 meters, no tilt, zero effect.

But for the sake of argument, assume the mid/treble building block is mounted at a height of 1,2 meters.

That gives a triangle (a) for the listening: height 0,3 meters, base 3 meters
That gives a triangle (b) for the measurement: height 0,3 meters, base 1 meter

Angle for (a): 6°
Angle for (b): 17°

Difference: 11°

So, with a deviation from the 'reference axis' of as little as 11° vertically, the suckout hits the 8dB mark. A design that asks for a mark-up of 135 kiloDollars only for the "engineering" of the x-over (sic!!) and some woodwork, could possibly do better. I feel it should, but that's just an individual opinion. Remember, the drivers, despite of noble heritage, and parts won't cost more than 2..4k$ each/pair whatever.

For that money, speaking of a mark-up of 130+k$$, I would easily get a Cessna 172 and have all the checks done, checks for reasonable engineering, to begin with. And I would have enough money left to refuel that trustworthy ship for a trip around the world still.

Somehow the 'references' when accessing stereo gear's value seem to be quite floating. The art isn't so much in the engineering, but in commerce, I suggest. Well done.

 

[kongwee]

I gonna be botched if I say it sound quite nice and somewhere accurate:

 

[tomtoo]

,"""

Thanks for the clarification, the argument is logical. Let's put some numbers in, as is usual in science.

Listening distance 3 meters at a hight of 0,9 meters, measuring distance 1 meter, same hight, is that o/k with You?

Let's further assume, that the angle towards the listening position is spot on, call it the 'reference axis'.

=> Q: by how much is the measurement axis tilted 'out of reference' then, may I say so?

Depends on the actual height of the mid/treble building block! If that is mounted at a height of 0,9 meters, no tilt, zero effect.

But for the sake of argument, assume the mid/treble building block is mounted at a height of 1,2 meters.

That gives a triangle (a) for the listening: height 0,3 meters, base 3 meters
That gives a triangle (b) for the measurement: height 0,3 meters, base 1 meter

Angle for (a): 6°
Angle for (b): 17°

Difference: 11°

So, with a deviation from the 'reference axis' of as little as 11° vertically, the suckout hits the 8dB mark. A design that asks for a mark-up of 135 kiloDollars only for the "engineering" of the x-over (sic!!) and some woodwork, could possibly do better. I feel it should, but that's just an individual opinion. Remember, the drivers, despite of noble heritage, and parts won't cost more than 2..4k$ each/pair whatever.

For that money, speaking of a mark-up of 130+k$$, I would easily get a Cessna 172 and have all the checks done, checks for reasonable engineering, to begin with. And I would have enough money left to refuel that trustworthy ship for a trip around the world still.

Somehow the 'references' when accessing stereo gear's value seem to be quite floating. The art isn't so much in the engineering, but in commerce, I suggest. Well done.

Yeah its funny, if this would be a cheap china speaker with that on-axis response it would get ripped in peaces in a micro second in here. Buuuut if the same FR costs 100k, many will find a reason why thats perfectly ok. The hifi world is strange.

 

[kongwee]

This is what £139k loudspeaker looks like,

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Keith

Would like to know all the mid, tweeter setting tweak measurement.

 

[Ultrasonic]

The calculation to do is the path length between the two drivers

Thanks for the clarification, the argument is logical. Let's put some numbers in, as is usual in science.

Listening distance 3 meters at a hight of 0,9 meters, measuring distance 1 meter, same hight, is that o/k with You?

Let's further assume, that the angle towards the listening position is spot on, call it the 'reference axis'.

=> Q: by how much is the measurement axis tilted 'out of reference' then, may I say so?

Depends on the actual height of the mid/treble building block! If that is mounted at a height of 0,9 meters, no tilt, zero effect.

But for the sake of argument, assume the mid/treble building block is mounted at a height of 1,2 meters.

That gives a triangle (a) for the listening: height 0,3 meters, base 3 meters
That gives a triangle (b) for the measurement: height 0,3 meters, base 1 meter

Angle for (a): 6°
Angle for (b): 17°

Difference: 11°

So, with a deviation from the 'reference axis' of as little as 11° vertically, the suckout hits the 8dB mark. A design that asks for a mark-up of 135 kiloDollars only for the "engineering" of the x-over (sic!!) and some woodwork, could possibly do better. I feel it should, but that's just an individual opinion. Remember, the drivers, despite of noble heritage, and parts won't cost more than 2..4k$ each/pair whatever.

For that money, speaking of a mark-up of 130+k$$, I would easily get a Cessna 172 and have all the checks done, checks for reasonable engineering, to begin with. And I would have enough money left to refuel that trustworthy ship for a trip around the world still.

Somehow the 'references' when accessing stereo gear's value seem to be quite floating. The art isn't so much in the engineering, but in commerce, I suggest. Well done.

I'm not sure that's the best way to try to look at this. Let me try a calculation of my own that I think is probably more informative.

Let's consider listening on the tweeter axis at either 1 m or 3 m away and that the mid-driver is directly above the tweeter by your 0.3 m.

I calculate that at 1 m the path length between tweeter and mid is 4.4 cm, and at 3 m it is 1.5 cm. If we consider a 2.5 kHz crossover frequency then the individual driver contributions look as follows (with the horizontal axis being time):

So that at 1 m you'd get the blue curve and the orange curve summing, whilst at 3 m you'd get the blue curve and the grey curve summing. The summed results look like this:

Ideally you'd want the contributions to be in phase and so sum to an amplitude of 2 above, which we are a lot closer to at 3 m than 1 m (-0.5 dB vs -5.5 dB). Increasing the distance from the speaker would slightly improve things further.

 

[fineMen]

The calculation to do is the path length between the two drivers
...
Increasing the distance from the speaker would slightly improve things further.

You change perspectives from angle to path length. My caveat here is the comparison to more competent speakers at one percent (!!!) of the price. One percent of 139k$ is anything but cheap, namely 1,39 thausend dollars. For some that is a considerable financial effort, when it comes to a luxury product. Remember, luxury is defined by not being useful ;-) The speaker in discussion is exactly not a proper inverstment, because it doesn't give back.

Back to listening angle sensitivity. There are speakers in the range of 130$ (not kilo dollars) per pair, which do way better. Regularly! With a reasonable, easily do-able design it needs about 30° of a deviation from 'reference axis' to come close to a 6dB dip. Here we have 8dB at only 11°, which can be seen as a 'cutting edge' achievment.

If this 'product of the year' was about being fancied by extraordinary engineering? If it was about some true as can be sound presentation? At best it is, mid towards low-ish performance for a price that comes close to space travel costs. If "worst measurement" means the discrepancy between aspiration, price and performance, this may be it.

Otherwise I still use a Motorola Razr3i cellphone. I wonder how that measures spinorama wise. Maybe I better switch to the 'i'?