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In Reply to: RE: And I believe they do like! posted by Don Till on May 06, 2009 at 09:57:01
"It's my opinion that if someone is just interested in reproducting the waveforms 1 meter in front of a loudspeaker good mid fi equipment with an active eq might be as good as one needs."
You will find it ironic that as simple as it may seem, i am not aware of any loudspeaker at any cost which can do anything like exactly reproduce what it is told.
It is the fact that essentially none can do this, that it makes an ideal target for refinement as opposed to chasing subjectively pleasant coloration which nearly always will also sound worse with other choices of program material.
:"You will find it ironic that as simple as it may seem, i am not aware of any loudspeaker at any cost which can do anything like exactly reproduce what it is told. "I agree. However that being said, reasonable priced loudspeakers meet the same frequency specifications as more esoteric and much more costly loudspeakers.
"You will find it ironic that as simple as it may seem, i am not aware of any loudspeaker at any cost which can do anything like exactly reproduce what it is told. "
I agree. The irony is that expensive gear in general meets the same specifications as moderately priced gear. What this means to me is that we are paying a premium for subjective take and I accept this without any problems.
"It is the fact that essentially none can do this, that it makes an ideal target for refinement as opposed to chasing subjectively pleasant coloration which nearly always will also sound worse with other choices of program material."
I agree to a degree but let me try to split a hair to show my disagreement -
I hate to hear "subjective pleasant" denigrated in the way you have done in your comment. Given that general speaking spec's don't improve with more costly gear, and my belief we are paying for subjective take, I find such denigration somewhat senseless and in fact most convenient for justifying bad sounding more costly audio systems. In my experiences some degree of coloration does not guarantee alienation program material and some degree of coloration may actually be desireable given the nature of real world recordings.
Edits: 05/07/09
" In my experiences some degree of coloration does not guarantee alienation program material and some degree of coloration may actually be desireable given the nature of real world recordings."
Well, no. What you're saying is that you prefer tone controls that you can't turn off.
Coloration in speakers may produce pleasant (to you) sounds on some recordings, but will almost certainly make other recordings sound worse.
A far better approach is to seek the lowest amount of coloration and distortion.
A far better approach is to seek the lowest amount of coloration and distortion.
do understand there are other viewpoints that are equally valid in a world of imperfection. Especially depending upon the type of preferred music. My electrostats are incredibly neutral and pure sounding. On acoustical music, they render a most natural presentation. On the other hand, they are large, possess low WAF, inefficient, highly demanding of amplifiers, as dipoles they are demanding of positioning, require bias adjustments whenever there are changes in humidity, are expensive and cannot play at rock concert levels. Clearly, they are not for everyone.
On the other hand, there are many horn speaker afficianados who demand high efficiency and high SPL output capability and are forgiving of the colorations (midrange hollowness or honkiness) and bandwidth limitations associated with quite a few, if not all of them. After all, that's the way rock music is heard in the live environment!
To each his own.
rw
I'm going to respond to your comments in reverse order.
" A far better approach is to seek the lowest amount of coloration and distortion. "
Of course. Again expensive audio components usually don't measure better than good midfi equipment. At what point does selective compromise become distortion or coloration? It's not like any designer isn't forced to make choices. Designers have to make choices - their designs will deviate from the ideal one way or the other no matter what they do. Understanding and selecting these compromises is what differentiates good audio equipment designers from circuit designers and expensive hifi from good midfi audio equipment.
"Coloration in speakers may produce pleasant (to you) sounds on some recordings, but will almost certainly make other recordings sound worse."
Exactly as you say. Colorations that produce pleasant or desirable results will certainly favor recording quality's exactly like you specify. However other colorations, not those producing pleasant or desirable results, and carefully selected by the designer may effect all recordings equally and may over all benefit the majority of recordings of interests to some/many or even a majority of listeners.
"Well, no. What you're saying is that you prefer tone controls that you can't turn off."
Regardless if we say it or not it's reality for all of us. Most of us chose equipment that sounds best to our ears - period. Where I may differ from some other audiophiles is that I can easily ignore an obvious coloration if it doesn't impede my enjoyment of the recordings I am interested in listening. I listen to all genres of music and wide diversity of recording qualities.
The obviousness of colorations or distortions present is not, in my opinion, a key indicator to system quality. What's important is how well the system convey's the essence of the music of interest. Sure colorations that favor genre or recording quality are undesireable - but not all colorations or distortions are like this and I think some of them may allow the listener to enjoy the music on a greater range of recordings than some systems with less obvious colorations.
Very good point. How I would put it is the annoyance associated with the coloration or distortion is the main thing, and that's an individual call. I've heard systems that make me want to run from the room that other folks think sounds swell. And vise-versa I'm sure.
All the world is a compromise and we are just the compromised...
Rick
"How I would put it is the annoyance associated with the coloration or distortion is the main thing, and that's an individual call. I've heard systems that make me want to run from the room that other folks think sounds swell."
I agree. I know some say, but I disagree for a variety of reasons, that there's some point where the focus of the reproduction gets so great that the characteristics of the recording become an annoyance or a distraction. It doesn't make sense to me that if accurate reproduction of music is the purpose that there's some reason why some recordings would be better served by less than accurate reproduction. I think I've heard all the arguments, some of them sound smart and reasonable, but my experiences and individual call is they are just excuses for stereos that aren't really working that well.
... Doesn't seem like a great recommendation to me. I'm with you, it indicates a stereo with problems. Push comes to shove if you are aware of your stereo system it isn't doing it's job very well. The idea is to listen through them, not to them.
Accuracy isn't a scalar. In the real audio world there are usually so many tradeoffs that the question devolves into accuracy in what parameter at what cost to which others. Fortunately we are adaptive and can adjust to many shortcomings of our systems, but not to all, and those are the ones that become annoyances or dictate what sort of music it's good for.
I sometimes wonder why binaural recordings and headphone listening aren't standard fare for AA folks. I'd venture to say that it's the most 'accurate' recording/reproduction system available for real sounds, and one that's affordable and practical.
Rick
"I sometimes wonder why binaural recordings and headphone listening aren't standard fare for AA folks. I'd venture to say that it's the most 'accurate' recording/reproduction system available for real sounds, and one that's affordable and practical."
Or active equalizers for those who claim accurate reproduction of the recorded waveform is all important.
"I'm with you, it indicates a stereo with problems. "
Or one that's colored to favor the owners preferences.
I like to think my systems are about getting the most music out of the most recordings. Not everyone will share my purpose. Where ever there is a claim of "most" or "best", except for measureable accuracy, there are going to be colorations involved. Whether it's most live, most real, most music, most recordings, etc. I think there will be a degree of colorations involved leading us to our conclusion.
If someone wants to minimize colorations there's plenty of test equipment and tools available for such endeavors but I'm confident in the end they will end up with a system that sounds pretty average but one that measures the best.
While I'm not a big tube power amp fan (pre-amp is a different story) designs that take various types of output tubes provide, I think, a clear example of coloration tradeoffs.In particular in designs that can accept either EL34 or KT88 (common) I find the KT88 provide a more "linear" sound, accurate, transparent... then swap in EL34 and its (in my experience anyway) pleasant colorations of the "euphonic" sort, easy on the ears, etc.
I can appreciate the EL34 "sound" but I would opt for KT88 for most material. However I acknowledge that's just me, my preference and priorities... nothing more.
Everything matters, don't forget to tweak your placebos!
Edits: 05/09/09
"However that being said, reasonable priced loudspeakers meet the same frequency specifications as more esoteric and much more costly loudspeakers."
The problem is the frequency response does as much to tell you how two cars are alike as saying they were the same shade of red.
Seriously, from an engineering point of view,you simply don't find speakers that measure or sound the same one model to the next, one mfr to another. The only possible differences are departures from a faithful reproducer and room effects (related to directivity)
"The irony is that expensive gear in general meets the same specifications as moderately priced gear."
It may or may not but in general the glitz factor has little bearing on actual performance and when you hear a difference but don't see one in the measurements, your measuring the wrong thing.
So far as coloration, i have to take a different view.
I have no idea who will use the stuff i design,have no idea what they will play etc.
When i depended mostly on my ears, i found i could refine a speaker to a point but then was left wondering what direction to go.
With the drivers i was building, any change you made caused the sound and measurements to change, often i found some alteration made some things sound good but others sound not as good as before.
At that point i decided i would go with which ever one seemed to be moving in the direction of a faithful reproducer, according to the various measurements.
In the case of a multi-way speaker, that also involves making it act like it were one driver in time and space.
Best,
Tom
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