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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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In Reply to: RE: One of the problems with ezines... posted by RGA on February 27, 2012 at 16:35:05:
When I audition a speaker, I'm focused on the big picture as well. Namely, does it sound like real live music. Comparing it to my auditory memory of real live music.
However, it doesn't take long before I start noticing specific aspects of the sound -- is it detailed, is it peaky, how does it image, etc. These are the kind of thing that, in concert, determine whether the speaker will sound realistic or not. And I think it makes sense for a reviewer to report these aspects of the sound, so the reader can better determine whether the speaker might be of interest to him, what its special qualifications are, etc. Forex, if a critic says "Speaker X is wonderful in most respects, but a bit bass shy," and you happen to be a bass freak, you're probably going to want to look elsewhere.
Measurements are dangerous. I grew up in the High Fidelity/Stereo Review era, and as a teenager, really thought that great-looking response curves and distortion pictures told you everything you need to know about the sound. Then, as I heard a broader range of equipment, I realized that that wasn't so. Typical measurement suites are partial, and it can be difficult to correlate the measurements with what we hear, e.g., we're more sensitive to broad low Q peaks than narrow high Q ones, and there's research that tells us how sensitive, but how do you apply that to a frequency response curve? Still, with experience, I find that the measurements, and the overall speaker design, can tell me a lot about a speaker even before I hear it. There's a stat sound, a horn sound, a ribbon sound, a mini-monitor sound, etc., and while speakers of course vary sonically within their categories, they tend to share certain family characteristics as well, because of basic constraints of practical design. You can also see design flaws and good design -- if a manufacturer departs from good practice in one aspect, he's likely to do so in another. And you can tell a lot from the measurements, though it requires I think a fair amount of experience to do so. For example, what does diaphragm self-noise look like, and sound like? Metal cone breakup? Standing waves in mylar? Arguably, two waterfall plots that look comparable to the eye will sound completely different to the ear, depending on the harmonic (or aharmonic) relationship of the resonances, their Q, etc. The mylar resonances in electrostatics don't even sound the same as the mylar resonances in planar speakers. The more experience you have, the better you can make those distinctions.
In one regard, I think, measurements are invaluable: they keep us honest. In their absence, you chase your tail. There's too much of that in audio, producers who listen to the mix on a crappy little Auratone because it better suits the lousy equipment they think their customers will have, rather than just making a good recording and leaving it to the consumer electronics people to improve their gear. They can also tell me whether the reviewer is overlooking something that would almost certainly bother me, like certain response aberrations -- but again, you have to have the experience to know that ruler-flat response isn't always desirable, and that one meter and on-axis measurements don't necessarily correspond to what you'll hear in your listening chair.
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Follow Ups
- RE: One of the problems with ezines... - josh358 17:55:27 02/27/12 (0)
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