In Reply to: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe agrees with you posted by John Marks on August 19, 2015 at 14:43:32:
Kinda puts him in his time and place and thus not up to date, doesn't it?!That statement even for his time is just about as silly as GBShaw's "Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach."
Superficially intelligent.
Measurements and listening are a pair.
I don't think listening on its own is of any use at all, unless it is informed about what matters and how / why it matters in speaker behaviour. Thus listening without a knowledge of that particular speaker's known behaviour is going to be misleading.
And recordings are an issue, too. No multiple close-mono miked mix-down can do coherent ambience, but our speakers and rooms often can fool us. Such are the only 2-ch recordings that can throe images outside the edges of a speaker pair. Such recordings alter timbre, and thus cannot give us any idea about any speaker's tonal accuracy.
[Perceived timbre is driven by attacks, decays and only lastly by the continuous tone and only where it happens. Noting that percussion, harpsichord, guitar, harp and piano notes do not have continuous tone.]
I don't make decisions about speakers except with recordings I know to have a real stereo base, coincident or near-coincident. Not spaced omni recordings.
Few speaker reviews acknowledge this issue.
Diffraction's deleterious effect on wave-launch behaviour - of most speakers still sold - becomes audible once you've lived with speakers whose diffraction behaviour is smooth.
:-)!
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
Edits: 08/20/15
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Follow Ups
- we evolved and still are evolving. - Timbo in Oz 13:19:44 08/20/15 (1)
- RE: "measurements and listening are a pair" -- Zackly! (nt) - goldenthal 15:55:45 09/10/15 (0)