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In Reply to: RE: Rich, you're missing the point posted by E-Stat on March 17, 2012 at 06:11:02
Thanks for clearing it up. I actually agree with what you've written here. The word reference is to the "real" sound or "real" instruments. The term reference in home audio is the "current" system owned by the review publication or reviewer. So perhaps a better word should be used than the reviewer's "reference" system.Amplified music sources have no reference to reality since their pumped through their own amps/speakers/venues. The contrast method will however tell you more differences between them - a speaker that does a better job of that has a greater level of "resolution" because it can resolve those differences - whether it be unamplified live or amplified daft punk versus amplified Evil Nine. You can't use a comparison to live here since there is no actual real instrument (or maybe there was but it is doctored synthed or whatever else).
We'll have to agree to disagree on level there are a great many who do want bass and do want to have it at levels they can feel it. I'd say the vast majority in fact since the first thing you do with those puny little 2 way standmounts with 4 inch woofers is buy a beastly subwoofer. The whole point of most of those is produce loud bass. And the majority of music is pop - Madonna Lady Gaga kind of stuff.
They want Lady Gaga - StarStruck at relatively high DBs to pound. I maintain that good speakers need to be able to do that and those that can't have no business being called Hi-Fi Speakers - if you can't reproduce 99% of what actually sells in terms of music there is a problem. Even if it has no basis in a live acoustic instrument. I still say stereos need to reproduce the electrical signals it gets fed - even if it is fake music from synthesizer autotuned to the hilt.
I agree however that you can't compare this to live and so that is when you compare it to other recordings across genres.
The Magnepan 1.7 makes the linked recording sound similar to everything else I threw at them that than do my speakers and thus it means the 1.7 is less resolving because it lumps them into something that is far too similar sounding - and that just isn't right. It doesn't have the weight on piano when you hear someone play an actual piano in the room. I am fortunate the school I am at has a baby grand and I can play it and then directly compare what I am playing to a similar recording - so I get the live comparisons. It's my go to first thing - does it sound something like a piano in the room.
I admit though that this music in the link is also somewhat more open to subjectivity but if you can't understand that a big high quality dynamic (or even not so high quality like a Cerwin Vega CLS 215 (though this is better than people would think) speaker "sounds better" than a Totem model one or MMG then I can't help you.
The thing doesn't have to be played at deafening levels to the point that it is doubling. At 75db it still sounds much better than an MMG reproducing it - indeed the problem for the Quads and Maggies is they MUST be cranked in order for them to remotely possess any of the drive and ambiance to take hold of the listener. And I don't want to play everything at deafening levels to get any sense of weight.
Edits: 03/19/12 03/20/12Follow Ups:
Seriously, who cares what that Lady Gaga track sounds like? Not knocking Lady Gaga here, but that hideous nightmare of a recording with its intentionally distorted vocals, shrill synthetic highs, and booming one-note pseudobass has no relation whatsoever to audio reality, and judging a high fidelity loudspeaker on the basis of its ability to reproduce it is useless, the equivalent of judging a concert pianist on his ability to play Chopsticks.The term "high fidelity" means "accuracy" -- fidelity to the original sound. Call a speaker that is optimized for playing this audio pustule what you like, but don't use the term "high fidelity": this recording is antithetical to everything that high fidelity is about.
Edits: 03/20/12
Funny but you'd think supposedly good speakers could play the biggest selling albums on the market somewhat in the realm of competence and be able to get people dancing to it - whether it's deemed real music or not.
It's not about loud that E-STAT is on about it - it is having the ability to generate a visceral sense of body - whether 75 db or 105db. The MMG doesn't do it. Add subwoofers is an admission that in order to get good sound you need umm a DYNAMIC driver in order to do it!
I'm not going to get into who said what about what speakers. I don't have much interest in this. I put more stick into the dealer who sells the brand and listens to the line everyday with a variety of gear in a variety of rooms than individuals such as John Valin.
Better recording of music that those speakers do a bad job of.
Incidentally you misquoted me on Soundlab - they sounded bad under show conditions - incidentally the guy running the room who works for Soundlabs said the same thing!
"Funny but you'd think supposedly good speakers could play the biggest selling albums on the market somewhat in the realm of competence and be able to get people dancing to it - whether it's deemed real music or not."
I don't. "90% of everything is crap." Why should people pay extra if they don't want to listen to crap?
"It's not about loud that E-STAT is on about it - it is having the ability to generate a visceral sense of body - whether 75 db or 105db. The MMG doesn't do it. Add subwoofers is an admission that in order to get good sound you need umm a DYNAMIC driver in order to do it!"
I would want somebody to demonstrate to me that accurate dynamic bass reproduction has more of a visceral sense of body at a given SPL than planar bass discussion. There was a discussion about this on the Planar Asylum the other day. Everyone was trying to figure out why people say this. The only thing we could think is that people hear crassly underpowered planars at a dealer's (common), or confuse the bass limitations of the small models with the big ones.
People who add subs to their MMG's generally do so because they don't have room to accomodate a bigger panel. The MMG is an entry-level speaker with a -3 dB bass response of 50 Hz. At the opposite extreme, the 20.1 has a -3 dB point of 25 Hz. Planars no more have identical bass response than dynamics.
My point about the Sound Labs was that either you were suggesting the Sound Labs were bad speakers, which they aren't, or they were in a bad room -- which illustrates my point about the problems with show conditions. There just isn't any guarantee that a setup will perform well in those conditions.
I like the track better than the other one, with its horrible chopped-up autotune effect, but again, this has nothing to do with high fidelity, even on my computer speakers you can tell that it's boomy, distorted, equalized, and compressed to death. As with anything loud, well, speakers that play loudly will play it loudly, whether they're quality speakers or not. My 1-D's are great on pop; my little MMG's are not. People are free to buy the speaker that best reproduces the kind of music they want to listen to.
I have a friend who has a pair of Voice of the Theaters that he used to use for parties. They're pretty much the best party speakers ever, but I wouldn't want to use them to listen to a string quartet.
Well here I do agree - The very big panels sound good (some) - unfortunately to me the smallest good panel that I have heard is the Prince II from King Sound - I liked it better than the 20.1 or the Quads which both cost significantly more money. And the Prince II is too large for most people. The smaller panels over the years for me don't cut it.
Of course massive panels have some dynamics and drive - they're finally covering enough area to move some air. This is also the reason dynamic speakers get better in general the bigger they are - but they give up cohesiveness which is a bad trade-off.
Man you and your panel guys must deal with the WORST dealers on the planet. Makes me wonder why you buy panel speakers from hopeless buffoons running the stereo shops you guys go to.
Soundhounds in Victoria BC carries all the Magnepan models, Quad, FInal Sound and used to carry Martin Logan, Acoustat, Apogee.
Please illustrate to me which of the following amplifiers that they carry the top of the line power amplifiers from don't have enough power to drive panels
Ayre Acoustics
McIntosh
Classe,
Sim Audio
Bryston
YBA
Rotel
Most of these have amps capable of 400 + watts into 4 ohms or stable to 2 ohms and some from Classe are 1200 watts into 4 ohms. You can't tell me not a single amp from any of these can't drive a Magnepan when Magnepan uses a 40 watt receiver. If professional installers who have the reps from the speaker makers out there to help can't set them up then why would John Q audiophile with no expertise do a better job?
The people can hear them at the dealer just fine. If you have lousy dealers then why even go? You may as well just order off e-bay.
Listen to Nightwish, The Evil Nine, or Slipknott on a good stereo - if it sounds compressed - it's your system not the speakers. I noticed you played the youtube clip and then judged the recording - really? C'mon - youtube is garbage - it's basically to determine if you'll like the artist and should in no way be used to evaluate the recording quality.
To be clear my first choice of music playback is acoustic well recorded classical music - I am happy to skip the hard metal stuff - and go to something really easy - The Moonlight Sonata - hardly a difficult piece.
The 20.1 with Classe's 1200 watts (a $15,000 loudspeaker) with the amp that has to be fairly pricey (don't know retail). They don't measure up on this piano recording with a number of Soundhounds' boxed speakers (speakers, incidentally, that sell for less than half the price - and with amplifiers for far less money) - it's no contest really. I remember sitting in the big room listening to Jackson Browne's Acoustic Vol 2 which I just heard on a SET/Boxed system in their basement room - it was quite wonderful. Then listening to the 20.1 it was depressing - the sparkle had gone the depth had gone the life had gone. I looked over at one of their salesmen with that look of "what the hell is that" and all he could do was laugh and say "we know."
Everyone there, and that's not hyperbole, who sells them, repairs them, to the owner of the store - also agree. But forget the boxes (a lot of boxes sound just as dead and unyielding in their boringness and most of them get class A ratings and 5 star award tags - I kind of joke that they should be toe tags cause hanging out with the dead would be more entertaining.
Quad sounds so much better on classical acoustic music. Sure the 20.1 has more bass and can play louder - but in every other way (all the more important ways) the Quad sounds better on classical. So does Soundlab, and my brief encounter with King Sound. To me there is no comparison. I totally get the 1.7 - no stats for the money - great - but at $5k? At $15k? C'mon - electrostat is the only way to go if I were to buy a panel
The Soundlab U-1 FWIW sounded very good (as I recall way back on massive monoblock tubes (maybe Lamm I can't remember). They make a compelling case for people with rooms that will support them. Which isn't mine unfortunately. Still for a massive room - spare no expense - Acapella would be an interesting option.
In a panel speaker, size limitations typically affect only bass dynamics and extension. Planar dynamics can be smaller than stats since they move much more air per unit area -- one figure I've seen is 10 x. But it isn't just a matter of how much air they can move, but of baffle size as well: because of the 6 dB/octave bass rolloff of a dipole, the excursion of a dipole woofer increases as the cube below Fequal rather than as the square. Increasing baffle size lowers Fequal. Even a small planar can produce very high SPL's if the low frequencies are handled by a dynamic driver, but you always hear the transition and the blurring of the dynamic driver.
The amps that dealers carry aren't necessary the ones they put on planars. If they demoed them with big amps, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem isn't with people who own planars -- they know that they rarely sound good at a dealer's, not just because of amplification but because of positioning and acoustics as well -- but with people who don't own planars, and are disappointed in the demos.
A 400 watt amplifier only sounds twice as loud as a 40 watt amplifier. And not even that, in practice, they'll both play just as loud, only the 40 watt amp will clip the peaks on the very loudest passages of the very loudest acoustical works, when those are reproduced at natural levels. I do wish people would get this straight because it's the source of endless meaningless arguments among audiophiles. But demo levels frequently aren't the levels to which one listens at home, and people are apt to "turn things up" to see what the speaker can do. Then you'll see the limitations of a small amp on an inefficient speaker: the planars won't "come alive," and people will leave with a mistaken impression of its dynamic capabilities and bass extension (since apparent bass extension is also a function of the Fletcher-Munson curve).
I know the sound of piano better than any other instrument, since I grew up hearing a Steinway L every day. And most boxes don't get piano. Planars do. The characteristic metallic-sounding distortions of ribbon drivers are actually quite compatible with the ringing sound of piano, and the radiation pattern is right -- a piano is, after all, a big dipole. But for whatever a reason, planars excel at reproducing that very-difficult-to-reproduce instrument. I think you'll find that this is a common observation.
Every speaker and its brother gets a Class A rating these days. The don't all deserve it. Not that they're bad, but they can't all be best.
Most boxes in my experience do not do an adequate job of reproducing acoustical music realistically. They do not transport you to the original acoustic and they do not sound like the original music so much as they sound like they're humming along with it. The exceptions are generally pricier than comparable planars, so the choice becomes pretty obvious to those for whom sonic realism is the goal.
As to stats, well, they have their pluses and minuses, and not all stats are created equal, just as not all planars and dynamics are. The Quad is a superb speaker, if you don't want high SPL's. That rules it out for some of us, not for others. The Sound Labs play louder, but they're $50,000 and huge. So again, there will be people for whom they're the ideal choice, but not necessarily the same people who might buy the 20.7 for $13,000. The CLX is closer in price (though IIRC more like $20,000) and size.
From Jonathan Valin's comparison of the 20.7 and CLX in the comments section of his blog review of the 20.7:
"The CLXes are also great loudspeakers of reference quality. They're more detailed and transparent-to-sources than 20.7s (and everything else on earth) and they are much better at lower volumes, but they have considerably less bottom end and somewhat less top treble. Since they're dipoles, the CLXes have the same virtues of time/space travel as the Maggies when it comes to soundstaging, the same life-sized imaging, and the same drawbacks when it comes to dynamic range/impact on the loud end of the spectrum."
So these are the kinds of choices people make. Quads aren't loud enough for me, Sound Labs are too big for my room too, CLX's don't go deep enough, and all but the very best boxes aren't realistic enough. (I still haven't heard the Kings and Princes.) I would add that Maggies have traditionally gotten in-room response right, something that many competing speakers *do not* and that in my experience correlates very highly with realism. Studies say that a speaker should have both good on-axis and power response, and this is something that is very difficult to achieve in an ESL -- as far as I know only the Quads, with their delay line, and Sound Labs, with their very wide arc, manage it. (The Logan arc is too small, their polar pattern will change as the wavelength increases and starts to approach the radius of the arc and, in the CLX, transitions to the dipolar flat panel woofer.)
Anyway, these choices merely reflect my personal circumstances. There are people for whom the Quads would be the best choice, or Magicos, or Sound Labs. Where Maggies fit in all of this is that they routinely punch way out of their price class for those whose first priority is high fidelity reproduction, particularly if they also listen to rock or use their speakers for home theater, where stats won't play.
Okay after thinking about this over the last few days - and taking out three or four boxed speakers that are off the beaten path that I think are better then I can't really argue against what you've said - and based on what I've heard the 1.7 and stats are capable of doing. Save for a very small handful of boxes that most people never listen to in a good set-up either then I would definitely buy the 1.7 over probably 99% of the stuff that I have heard.
First - pretty much all standmounts in the price range don't exactly have bass or play loud - so it's not like they possess any trump cards. Virtually all of the sub $2k floorstanders have serious box issues that mar the sound. I can even go with you on the punch above their price class as floorstanding boxes in the $4k range still have box problems and most standmounts like the N805 still don't have bass or dynamics to speak of.
Although I did note that I had the 1.7 ranked in my top 3-5 earlier I believe in the price range. The question though is to myself - what are the others in the price range - and I can't declare them as necessarily better. Better in parts worse in parts.
I would be intrigued to try some single drivers.
Being driven by a SE tube amp is a must - if it can't the result simply isn't going to be the best music reproduction. Garbage in garbage out - fortunately magnepan sounded better with a SET than they've ever sounded - so that's actually a plus because now it can take advanatage of quality front end amplifiers (ie; SE tube amps).
Yeah, that's the thing. I understand that the box is the most expensive component in a dynamic speaker. So panels are going to have a price/performance advantage for those who value the kind of naturalism they offer.
There's something seductive to the sound of single driver speakers, but for me, the sacrifices are too extreme. I feel much the same about SET amps. Since everything has flaws, I prefer a balanced approach that suits my own purposes -- accurate reproduction of acoustical music first, but I also want to be able to listen to rock and use my speakers for home theater.
But again, I think this has to be an individual decision. And I think, actually, that the heart has to be involved. Buying a componet for other reasons is I suspect a recipe for dissatisfaction. Really, when all is said and done, component selection isn't a very cerebral thing for me -- they either sound real to me, or they don't.
Here's a thread that Wendell Diller at Magnepan sent on to me. Needless to say, threads like this warm the heart of a marketing director! But I think we've all enjoyed that kind of reaction to a component, and that, to me, is the important thing -- that whatever we end up with yields this kind of delight.
...Lady Gaga - StarStruck at relatively high DBs to pound.
LOUD
There are plenty of horns that do that. Drive 'em with a Crown or QSC. Easy and cheap to do.
but if you can't understand that a big high quality dynamic speaker "sounds better" than a Totem model one or MMG then I can't help you.
Are we having the same conversation? Four inch woofers? Never heard a Totem before. Aren't they designed by the guy with big hair? Although I've heard quite a few Magnepans, the MMG is not on the list. As for achieving high SPLs and bass, I think you'll be in disagreement with Big Guy in ATL who runs two kilowatts and a pair of subs with his "Probably loudest MMG system out there". :)
110 db peaks
And I don't want to play everything at deafening levels to get any sense of weight.
Why play anything at deafening levels? At least if you care about your hearing!
Not a Gaga fan, but I do enjoy cranking Rihanna at mid 90s peaks. Love the first octave bass foundation. You'll never hear the poor guy playing the acoustic guitar when played "live"!
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