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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: Stereophile to review Magnepan!?.... posted by RGA on June 21, 2015 at 18:22:15:
This is a great post.Peter B.
RGA said:
I have no issue with a person relying on the measurements to count or discount what they wish to hear.My argument is that for that to work one SHOULD have a "personal" experience with correlation to what is preferred - not a read first (this is deemed good) and so anything that is deemed to measure good is good.
And to build that up one still needs to listen to the speakers to figure out that "yes speaker A is ruler flat BUT my preference is for a speaker that has a gentle roll off starting at 8khz." And they will know that by listening to 100 loudspeakers and noting that 9 out of their top 10 favorites all have roll off in the treble."
The fact is you can do a Double Blind test where 90/100 people all choose speaker A - but so long as 10/100 choose speaker B you CAN'T know whether you will be in camp A or camp B - all you have is a greater statistical chance of preferring speaker A and being in camp A.
I use measurements largely to screen certain things as well so I have no real issue with what you're doing personally. The issue is when a newbie is starting out having heard next to nothing we have one camp recommending speakers entirely by measurements - this speaker has flat response and less colour than speaker 2 - but speaker 2 may actually fit more with what the listener may desire - like it has full bodied bass and dynamics - while it may bring 5% more box colouration it may ultimately sound twice as good when actually listening to music. Then there is another camp which will tell him to take a mortgage out for speaker cables. *rolls eyes*
All the other things like availability and set-up etc I agree with. You buy what is available.
I own the KEF LS-50 - it's a really nice speaker - and people can get it. I also have the Audio Note AX Two which is 2/3 the price and IMO sounds better overall. But you can't get it very easily - there's no measurements so it's simply more of a risk.
However, audio shows are cheap to attend and are now located all over the US and parts of Canada - there is the Montreal and Toronto and this year the Vancouver show in Canada - you have several in California and New York and I believe Florida and Chicago on top of all the dealers.
Companies are offering 30-60 day free home trials. Listening in the nearfield gets around some room issues and IMO speakers should be designed to work in most rooms - few people (especially where the wife is the boss) are going to allow you to cover all the walls in acoustic foam or put large bass traps all over the place or even allow the guy to buy a speaker much larger than a Totem Model 1. So whatever a speaker may look like in an anechoic chamber or "open field" at 1 meter isn't all that relevant. Some speakers are designed for the free field - some are designed to take "average" room conditions into account.
I'm fine with show conditions because it's not so much about otherwise good gear sounding bad (sho conditions suck) it's more about getting GREAT sound in bad conditions - let's say you have your system in your living room set-up Properly using audyssy or some other better program - you then go to a show where the room is about the same size as your living space but the room stinks has no DSP set-up and you play your favorite album and your subjective response is "wow this sounds a good 20 times better" - so now you have a speaker in a much worse room sounding much better that your system perfectly set-up. That to me is part of the fun of an audio show - it may not happen of course but when it does it's a pretty exciting scenario - especially if it doesn't cost a crazy sum of money.
You should at least attend one good audio show and listen to the stuff people are on about. If nothing else you get to hear a unique way (even if it is wrong to you) of reproducing music. MBL is a prime example - not in every city so the show might be a person't chance to hear statement omni-directionals. That's worth the $15 3 day pass to a show almost by itself.
Edits: 06/29/15
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Follow Ups
- RE: Stereophile to review Magnepan!?.... - Peter Breuninger 14:47:27 06/29/15 (0)
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