Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

RE: Marten Speakers

Yes the Steve Hoffman forum run by Steve Hoffman on eof the most world renown recording engineers who has used pro studio speakers including ATC - he has AN E speakers.

Citing one guy who brings home a few speakers and likes one over the other doesn't mean you have some extra special credibility.

And actually you have, as usual, failed to understand the concept of synergy. Running a cheap crummy 50 watt class D amplifier into a few different speakers and then saying "I have used the same source and amp" doesn't remotely mean you have kept apples to apples.

In any comparison of two speakers it is NOT necessarily ideal to compare them both using the same amplifier. A Bryston amp into a PMC may be totally ideal for PMC speakers so that you can hear how good the PMC speakers sound - but that Bryston amp may sound godawful with AN E's or Tannoys or whatever. Sure if you are trying to rig your test to make the PMC sound better then by all means.

AN E's are designed FOR Single Ended tube amplifiers - and using anything else is not a "fair test" of what they're about - maybe when someone runs their class D trash on them the AN E simply shows up the terribleness of the amplifiers while another speaker with less resolution doesn't show up weaknesses.

The other problem is that not all speakers are REMOTELY designed to be positioned in the same space - you say This:

"Compare directly A-B test using the same capable amp able to drive both speakers, same speaker position and same source."


Well no - again this is completely and utterly wrong. The positional requirements of an AN E and a Magnepan may and probably are quite different than a B&W or PMC - not to mention room size requirements.

When comparing and AN E to a B&W - one may sit both speakers in the typical anechoic favoured speaker position - 3 feet from all walls 6 feet apart and chair 6 feet back. That's fine FOR the B&W. It is NOT fine for the AN E - or corner designed Klipsches. If your goal is to make big advetisers look good on the graph - you gear the test for B&W to intentionally make the others look bad.

How about this - if every speaker I measure I stuff hard into the corner. I could sure make the E look great then! I could put the B&W 1cm away from the side and back wall and any panel. I can sure make those sound like crap really fast - and I'll run a 5 watt SET amp on them. Eeesh - I can make a B&W sound worse than a Bose in seconds.

When you compare you compare properly - that means you take where and what the speaker is designed for. If the speaker demands a "solid wall" corner and it demands a SET and a certain kind of source design then you evaluate it under it's BEST possible conditions. Whether that is in my home or a dealer room that could in fact be much better for the speaker.

In Hong Kong the ATC 100 is too large for my room - at least it's too large to give it a fair audition. It will be much better sounding at the heavily treated showroom I heard it in in HK. It was good enough sounding that I was able to formulate opinions on my amplifier in order to buy it. You are very likely NOT improving on the sound of that speaker's capability. It has been auditioned in a fair environment with excellent electronics.

I am not bringing home a speaker that the maker would prefer I run a 500 watt SS amps or won't work in the space. It's not fair to the manufacturer for me to be wasting their time.


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