|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
71.36.108.88
Whenever I audition an unfamiliar piece of equipment - be it speaker,
amp, or cd player - I bring along the same CDs, and play the same
tracks. I figure this is the only way to accurately judge the
differences between components (insofar as that may be possible, and I
realize there are many other variables at work in any audition).
But it seems to me that when I read reviews of similar components -
say speakers - by the same reviewer, he NEVER uses the same music
twice. Why is this?
MK
Follow Ups:
Hi Mike,
Good question. The following is how I review audio components though I can't speak for other reviewers. I usually spend a month (in total) listening to get a good assessment of a component. This amount of time allows for proper break-in and for changes, whether for placement of speakers or change in cables, etc. I listen to dozens of my favorite albums, and a few new ones during the audition. I will also listen to several compilation CDRs that I've made for reviewing purposes. When I'm ready to write the review I pick four or five of the favorites and perhaps one or two of the new albums to be included in the review. I rotate the favorite albums from review to review, sometimes depending on the component being audition. If I choose the same albums for every review, I think my readership will get bored fairly soon, or think I don't listen to new music. I'm a music lover first, so the equipment is just a means to get me to a more satisfyingly musical end.
It's different for audio shows. I have to make a quick assessment of the sound in a crummy hotel room, so I always bring my compilation CDRs and perhaps one or two CDs for that purpose. I hope this answers your question.
Cheers,
Paul Mah
Stereo Times
I dont think the reviewers need to listen to the same tracks to assess various equipments. They are able to tell by listening to the music in whatever tracks they play. I believe the reviewers have that ability having listened to so much music from such variety of audio equipments with critical assessment.
I guess for us non professionals, the same tracks will be of help.
Cheers
Bill
I always bring a homemade CD-R with a varied bunch of tracks that I know well and which typify the music I listen to (90% classical). Once I forgot to bring this with me and the medium to high end audio store I went to (they stock Paradigm, McIntosh, DefTech) had nothing for me to listen to but a CD of Motown tracks from the 60s--great music but seemingly equalized for AM radio. And I stopped bringing an actual purchased CD after another store's player scratched my CD when their player jammed.
I think to a decent extent it is to make the writing more interesting. Reviewing for a magazine is not submission of a research article. I would be bored silly if the reviews were merely a comparison of a small number of pieces of music.
When I audition things at home, I often break out recordings that I am not so familiar with but really want to listen to that makes me pay attention to the music.
I bring the same music that I listened to when I first started listening to albums (my first CD was a band called "The Outfield" and I still play it on gear.
What I don't do however is judge the result of the stereo on any one particular piece of music even if I like the way the stereo reproduces it.
The problem with using music you know well is that you are USED to the way your own stereo reproduces the music - if it is presented differently on another stereo the knee jerk may be to thing the new stereo(variable) is reproducing it incorrectly - when it may be the home reviewer's stereo that is lacking and our ears just adapted to the way our home stereo (reference) presents music.
What I want is to listen to a huge variety of genres and recording qualities - the ones that differentiate them the most is likely the one doing the better job - because if everything kind of sounds the same - then it (speaker or system) is placing it's own signature on everything.
An awful lot of very highly regarded stereos unfortunately homogenize everything. Most solid State amplifiers, most CD players, most cables. And an easy tell is that no one has been able to successfully tell most of apart when the brands are unseen and the volume levels are matched. If the differences were truly large then you would always successfully tell them apart. So at best they're subtle which means they're still both homogenizing the sound. But that's another issue.
What I don't do however is judge the result of the stereo on any one particular piece of music even if I like the way the stereo reproduces it...if it is presented differently on another stereo the knee jerk may be to thing the new stereo(variable) is reproducing it incorrectly
Reproducing it incorrectly? Maybe that only happens to AN fanboys. :)
I've never had that *trouble* when hearing recordings really open up to me for the first time - which has happened countless over the past thirty years listening to various evaluation systems used by my reviewer friends.
For me, any given system sounds more like live music - or it doesn't (at least according to my preferences). What my systems do with them is irrelevant to that independent assessment.
I don't follow what you've said.
You base a system on whether it sounds more like live music - what about the recordings that were not recorded live - what about recordings that were done 100% with synthesizers (such as Enigma)?
"I've never had that *trouble* when hearing recordings really open up to me for the first time - which has happened countless over the past thirty years listening to various evaluation systems used by my reviewer friends."
I don't understand what you mean by "open up to me for the first time" - .../... on countless" systems. That means all those systems presented your recordings the same way regardless of amplifiers, sources, recordings, speakers, and rooms?
what about recordings that were done 100% with synthesizers (such as Enigma)?
would not be used as the basis for evaluating a system. BTW, I have two of their albums.
That means all those systems presented your recordings the same way...
The answer is: exactly the opposite. Systems providing a significantly more realistic sound - at the time. I've had numerous recalibrations of what a system can do since 1974. My current reference is not the same is the one formed in 1974, 1976, 1980, 1990, 1995, 2001, 2005 or more recently.
The point is that the current state of my system doesn't frame my reference of what can be done.
"The point is that the current state of my system doesn't frame my reference of what can be done."
This is fair enough - doesn't seem to be different than my initial post to NOT base the sound you hear on what you happen to own as your reference system at the time (which I feel most people and reviewers do). But rather an independent reference.
Your choice is comparing to live unamplified music - my choice is compare recordings and the system that reveals the greater degree of difference between them will be the system retrieving MORE information from all the recordings and will in turn take quality unamplified live recordings and make them sound more like real instruments.
All my go to recordings for evaluating systems are single instrument (and voice) unamplified top flight recordings. Most stuff fails outright just making a piano or cello sound like they're the real deal.
However I would not chuck out amplified music entirely because if you have a good idea of the recording engineer and the band's intent and target venue - then you know that synths have no frequency limitations compared to instruments. You can then figure out that the desired midbass drive they intend for a night club (for trance music for example such as what I put in the link) - it doesn't take rocket science to know what sound SHOULD be coming out of the stereo system - if that sound can't be reproduced by said stereo system - then it is failing at reproducing the signal it is being fed.
Hence why I find numerous speakers and systems highly overrated because if it can't reproduce 95% of the worlds most listened to music remotely properly then there is a problem.
The people who dismiss such recordings are the people who owns system's that do such a shitty job at reproducing it they have no choice but to not listen to it. Stuff like the Quad 57 is embarrassingly horrible at remotely accurately reproducing the artist's intent.
Gotta disagree with you on that. The pop sound that comes out of studios varies hugely in frequency response. In part that's creative liberty, in larger part it's trying to make it good on lousy systems by playing it through Auratones or other such small speakers, in part it's because some control and mix rooms have lousy, uncontrolled acoustics, there are some pretty scary measurements out there. So as with LA, there really is no there there. Recordings of live acoustical instruments are bad enough, in that you have to account for different mics, miking, and equalization. But at least you have a fighting chance.
As to whether a speaker can blast synth at the frequency extremes, I say, so what. There are far more speakers that can do boom thump screech than there are speakers that can do acoustical music convincingly. People should choose the speakers that do the best on the music *they* listen to within their budget. Why would someone who listens mostly to jazz, say, give a fig about synth?
Actually you don't disagree with me at all. Which means I am not explaining my point very well or people are miss reading me.------- In part that's creative liberty, in larger part it's trying to make it good on lousy systems by playing it through Auratones or other such small speakers, in part it's because some control and mix rooms have lousy, uncontrolled acoustics, there are some pretty scary measurements out there. -------
The objective is to hear the greatest difference in the recordings whether they suck or are superb they should not sound the same/similar - unless they actually are the same/similar. The fact that rock and pop are highly compressed piles of caca most of the time is not in dispute. But that doesn't mean they all are. A lot of pop/rock is recorded quite well and should sound quite excellent. Poorer systems don't distinguish that very well IME. So quite a lot of recordings that are said to be lousy really are not. Dealers don't help because the bad sound they turn around and say - "the brightness you hear with the B&W is because your Amanda Marshal CD sucks Mr. Austen and the greatness of the world's best speaker designer - B&W - is merely showing you how bad the recordings are.
"Okay" says I there is some logic to this - ignoring the B&W high crossover and beamy kevlar drivers and non cohesive handoff of drivers that many many many people always find to be bright. Yes it's the recording's fault - or the CD player - or the CD technology, or the cables or anything except for the tweeter and Kevlar woofer that don't integrate. Can't possibly be that the brightness is actually caused by the speaker.
Ah but wait - using a bit of logic - which isn't seen in this hobby much - I notice - gee if you go up a model in the speaker range they have a better "fixed" tweeter in their tweeter on top approach - this tweeter reduces the "RINGING" in the lower model.
Oh but wait the dealer and reviewers didn't mention the ringing - no - one just has to look at the model up and the manufacturer practically tells you - this is a better loudspeaker because unlike the lower crappy model - this one has a tweeter that has much less audible ringing (ie doesn't sound as horrifically screechy). Gee just like the 1.7 improving the treble of the 1.6.
Suddenly the Amanda Marshal recording sounds a lot lot better. Oh wait - so it wasn't the recording after all.
------- As to whether a speaker can blast synth at the frequency extremes, I say, so what. There are far more speakers that can do boom thump screech than there are speakers that can do acoustical music convincingly. People should choose the speakers that do the best on the music *they* listen to within their budget. Why would someone who listens mostly to jazz, say, give a fig about synth? ------
I have no problem with the guy who buys a Quad 57 to listen to his Oboe based concertos - great - I played the oboe and the Quads do a great job.The ability not to be able to do remotely well rock/trance etc type music (Ie; Slipknot) may not have the guy care the least fig about. But chances are if it can't blast synth it also can't blast what is in my link.
And why would anyone want a speaker that forces them to only listen to oboe concertos? And worse only at very low volumes!
And what about those of us like ME who listen to everything classical, jazz, metal, rock, fusion metal/opera, trance, pop, country? I like different ice-cream too - not just vanilla and shadings of vanilla every time all the time.
I really don't want something that sounds like crap on half my music collection (either half). My little AN J speakers are equally happy with the classical and oboe and violin and cello and they do a very credible job on the amplified stuff. They're not really geared for that music but they do it better than most. The same store has the 1.7/3.6/20.1 and 2905 all of which sound worse with the oboe, violin and cello and piano and classical music (sans left to right holographic imaging and staging where the Quads win). Then with all the amplified stuff they sound worse - so much worse and cost so much more money and take up so much more space and require (according to their fans) so much more power. Makes no sense to me.
I want my cake and I want to eat it too. I want to play any music at any time at pretty good sound levels and quiet levels and everything in the middle. I want to play Oscar Peterson and then Madonna, and then Motley Crue, and then Loreen McKennitt. I don't want to groan when I do it and say better not put on Buckethead because the speakers suck at that kind of music.
A system that resolves the differences of genres - separating rock from classical will also do a much better job of separating genre specific recordings - classical from other classical or one recording of the 9th versus another recording of the 9th.
And all speakers that I have heard give something up somewhere. You choose the trade-offs. But I personally would like to make the least number of trade-offs as humanly possible. Some technologies simply do a poor job. Single driver and panel speakers (the small lower priced ones) make trade-offs - dynamics, bass, treble extension, volume level but they have gains in seamless midrange sound. Speakers for similar money like the the Cerwin Vega CLS 215 for $999 have a more uncouth sound, box is there but they bring scale and drive (music including classical has that too) - but you trade midrange acuity and seamlessness in.
What you listen to will impact which you might go for and for someone like me that listens to all music I tend to listen to how well the speaker does with music it doesn't do well. So the CLS stomps the crap out out of the MG 12 for the same money on all amplified music. The MMG is better with acoustic classical perhaps. So for me I want to now listen to the CLS on classical/jazz and see how it does and then I want to hear the MMG MG12 on Madonna's Ray of Light or the Evil Nine at reasonably high levels. I quite suspect that the MG12/MMG will doa very much worse job of this music than the CV 215 will do with jazz and classical.
And before you laugh at the Cerwin Vega name badge
http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/cerwinvega_cls215.htm
http://www.avguide.com/review/tested-cerwin-vega-cls-215-loudspeaker
You know a speaker that actually has some balls isn't a bad thing. maybe for the Frasier Crane Sherry drinking wussies out there but I want some Guinness in the speaker's delivery.
Edits: 03/21/12
I guess I'm a little confused. You say that there are good and bad pop recordings, agreed. You say that a good speaker will make it easier to tell which are good and which are bad, agreed as well. And of course one shouldn't blame a problem in a speaker on a recording. I'm not sure what this has to do with the improvements in the B&W and 1.7, though. As price increases, manufacturers can make a better product. And as time goes on, technical advances and R&D efforts allow a better product as well. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
As to a speaker having balls, well, guess why I have Tympanis? They combine near-dynamic punch and bass extension with near-electrostatic detail and near-line source imaging. And I've always loved that about them -- that they're magnificent on everything, from quartets to metal to movies.
But I love the little MMG's I got for my office as well. In fact, I was so amazed by what they give you for $600 that I used them for a couple of years in my main system while I searched for a pair of Tympani IV-A's (my old 1-D's won't fit in my new listening room). No, the MMG's aren't rock speakers, but many people don't care (even those who listen to pop don't always do so at high levels) and people usually use them with subs, anyway. Stock, they'll do 110 dB peaks, with subs removing the under-80 Hz load they'll do significantly better. And, personally, if my choice were between the realism of slightly-modified MMG's and higher SPL dynamics at a similar price, I'd choose the MMG's in a flash.
There aren't any full-range stats in that price range, but I think a similar argument applies. The Sound Labs excepted, stats are even more dynamically limited than a stock MMG, but Peter Walker said that ESL-63 was loud enough for 90% of listeners and I don't doubt him; Kentaja on this board currently owns ESL-63's and he's owned the IRS V!
I'm not one of those who believes that there's much that's relative about component quality. However, since all loudspeakers and stereo itself are imperfect, and loudspeaker design often involves trading one imperfection for another, component choices inevitably reflect the type of music we listen to, how we listen, and what we most care about -- as well as what we can afford, fit in our rooms, and get past our wives. So I don't think you can call a speaker mediocre because it doesn't meet your particular needs.
There are plenty of mediocre speakers, just as there are plenty of mediocre cars. But would you call a BMW a mediocre car because it can't race like a Ferrari, or a Ferrari a mediocre car because it isn't as good at shuttling the family around as a BMW? A speaker has to be judged by fitness for purpose. And that's why I did a double take at your characterization of the 1.7 as a mediocre speaker. I for one would take it for a second over any box I've heard in that price range, because, properly set up, what it does is so much more spectacular with acoustical music. I'm not aware of anything that comes close to it for $2000, if realism of reproduction is your goal.
Finally, I wanted to pass on something magiccaarpetride said the other day in another forum:
"So I took some time to have a go at Wilson Sophia and Sasha, as well as some high-end Totem and Focal speakers. I spent a lot of time doing focused, critical listening, comparing many of the models by playing same or similar tracks over and over.
"Here is my overall impression -- many of these speakers sound amazing and breathtakingly precise. But there are two things I've been consistently noticing while auditioning:
"1. All of them, from the more modest models to the top shelf models, suffer from the same symptom -- they produce sound that is unmistakably a representation of the real sound. There is no way that you could be fooled by the sound coming out of these speakers and think that it's a sound produced by a real event in front of you. In other words, all these remarkably precise and tight speakers produce sound that feels somewhat 'coated', or 'staged'. Almost similar to those dishes made out of resin that you sometimes see in the window of a fast food restaurant -- the semblance of the real dish is remarkable, the colors and the texture are quite faithful, and yet you can right away see that it's not a real dish."
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/MUG/messages/18/187212.html
Précisément!
...NOT base the sound you hear on what you happen to own as your reference system at the time (which I feel most people and reviewers do).
Most certainly not the reviewers I've known for decades. Care to cite one?
...and the system that reveals the greater degree of difference between them will be the system retrieving MORE information
You should start your own magazine called The Relative Sound .
...if it can't reproduce 95% of the worlds most listened to music remotely properly then there is a problem.
"Properly?"
Problem only for dance club inveterates who seek little more than loud thump. Crown and Klipsch playing MP3s work fine for them.
The people who dismiss such recordings are the people who owns system's that do such a shitty job at reproducing it they have no choice but to not listen to it
LOL! My musical tastes also include less than stellar recordings, too. I just don't use them for evaluation purposes. Playing crappy recordings on truly spectacular sound systems merely reveals their limitations and nothing of the system's performance envelope.
Even so, I greatly prefer hearing Madonna on my system (especially using uncompressed 45 RPM singles) than the decidedly hard and dreadful sound reinforcement environment which is "live". That was also the observation of a lady from work who heard my system (at less than ear bleeding level) just after attending Madonna's show in Atlanta at the Philips Arena. "I can actually hear the music". Imagine that.
Daft Punk is well chosen. :)
"Most certainly not the reviewers I've known for decades. Care to cite one?"
Any reviewer who owns a stereo system who at any time in the review EVER says - "the bass on my system, however..." or "The soundstage was larger than on my reference..." - or any review EVER that mentions their own piece to compare to the reviewed piece. Please name the reviewers who never ever at any time compare the reviewed piece to their own equipment. I think they all do.
"Relative Sound"
This is not a difficult concept. A system that can differentiate 20 different shades of green and lets you see the variance is better (more accurate) than one that lumps 10 of them into dark green and 10 of them into light green. The former has far more resolution and is accurately reproducing the information it is given. The latter a bucket and dumps the colours into the shades it can handle reproducing rather than reproducing what is clearly there.
"Problem only for dance club inveterates who seek little more than loud thump. Crown and Klipsch playing MP3s work fine for them."
Nice straw man - that's not the point. The fact that nightclub speakers might suck - depends on the nightclub or bar however as some use very good speakers - is that the intent of the recording engineer and the artist is that there be a powerful full sounding "thump" to use your word.
If the CD has a loud thump - the stereo needs to be able to reproduce the loud thump - or you have a crappy loudspeaker PERIOD!! The fact that some brands can ONLY produce the loud thump doesn't make them good either - yes they can do the boom boom the kids like in the clubs but then I wasn't saying those were high quality loudspeakers simply because they could do that. Those speakers may truly be abysmal on everything else they try and reproduce. Quality systems can do everything and do everything very well.
"I greatly prefer hearing Madonna on my system (especially using uncompressed 45 RPM singles) than the decidedly hard and dreadful sound reinforcement environment which is "live"."
I agree. I am not saying the home stereo should try to recreate lousy concert sound - what I am saying is that when one puts on Madonna's Erotica and turns the volume way up that that bass should be felt in the stomach and rattle you - that is CLEARLY what is on the disc - that is CLEARLY what they intend to do - and that is CLEARLY what a High End system should be able to put out into the room.
That doesn't mean it has to put it out into the room to sound like crap like a rock concert. And that is why they need to be used in evaluations because similar sound just doesn't occur in classical music (not any I've heard) and different kinds of bass at different kinds of levels is important. Some speakers illustrate dramatic differences in the recordings of all aspects of the sound while others present them within their narrow "capabilities"
The boom and sizzle (JBL) speaker will boom and sizzle on every recording and that may actually favour Daft Punk but stink on the Moonlight Sonata - conversely the midrangy Quad 57 will be quite happy with the moonlight Sonata but will be laughable with Daft Punk.
Both speakers are poor - the only reason the 57 is held in high esteem is because MOST audiophiles listen to the sort of music that the 57 plays to reasonably well. The masses even if they could buy them both for the same money - would choose the JBL because it plays their Daft Punk music a million times better.
I find them both poor because both can only play a very restricted range of music and I listen to everything so it needs to play it all well.
And when it makes the trade (they all do) I want the systems that can trick me into not noticing the weaknesses (lies by omission well).
PS - I am not insulting panels - the big ones very obviously do a better job of covering wider genres of music. Indeed, this applies to boxed speakers - big full range speakers from the makers making the puny standmounts also do a much better job covering more genres of music.
I mean virtually every speaker company you look at the top of the line more expensive models are significantly larger than their entry level models.
Please name the reviewers who never ever at any time compare the reviewed piece to their own equipment. I think they all do.
I'll start with HP. You'll note that while he might contrast how one component handles a given performance parameter as compared to another, it is ALWAYS in context to how either one reproduces live music. The gear is NEVER the reference. Only how one more closely sounds like the real thing. How else would you know what the target is?
I'll give you an example of the difference I hear in the midrange reproduction of my VTL MB450s vs. the Threshold Stasis. I'll illustrate using this favorite piece of music:
The VTL captures the full emotion of this cello solo. The tonality of the cello's body. The nuance of the rosin across the strings. The rich harmonic structure that is uniquely cello. By contrast, the Threshold, like many solid state amps, conveys the shape of the tones very well yet it misses conveying the soul of the instrument. Part of the flesh is missing. The richness of the sound is not entirely there. The Stasis has a matter-of-fact sterility to it not present with the real thing.
So, I've used two of my components to contrast their behavior - using live music as the reference to which the sound should mimic!
A system that can differentiate 20 different shades of green and lets you see the variance is better (more accurate) than one...
Would you kindly provide an instance of this multi-shade palette concept using your Daft Punk musical example?
the stereo needs to be able to reproduce the loud thump - or you have a crappy loudspeaker PERIOD!!
Sorry, I have ZERO interest with listening to anything at dance club sound pressure level! I think you'll find not everyone's goal is in that direction. I'd prefer a clean thump. Free from overhang and doubling distortion.
Thanks for clearing it up. I actually agree with what you've written here. The word reference is to the "real" sound or "real" instruments. The term reference in home audio is the "current" system owned by the review publication or reviewer. So perhaps a better word should be used than the reviewer's "reference" system.Amplified music sources have no reference to reality since their pumped through their own amps/speakers/venues. The contrast method will however tell you more differences between them - a speaker that does a better job of that has a greater level of "resolution" because it can resolve those differences - whether it be unamplified live or amplified daft punk versus amplified Evil Nine. You can't use a comparison to live here since there is no actual real instrument (or maybe there was but it is doctored synthed or whatever else).
We'll have to agree to disagree on level there are a great many who do want bass and do want to have it at levels they can feel it. I'd say the vast majority in fact since the first thing you do with those puny little 2 way standmounts with 4 inch woofers is buy a beastly subwoofer. The whole point of most of those is produce loud bass. And the majority of music is pop - Madonna Lady Gaga kind of stuff.
They want Lady Gaga - StarStruck at relatively high DBs to pound. I maintain that good speakers need to be able to do that and those that can't have no business being called Hi-Fi Speakers - if you can't reproduce 99% of what actually sells in terms of music there is a problem. Even if it has no basis in a live acoustic instrument. I still say stereos need to reproduce the electrical signals it gets fed - even if it is fake music from synthesizer autotuned to the hilt.
I agree however that you can't compare this to live and so that is when you compare it to other recordings across genres.
The Magnepan 1.7 makes the linked recording sound similar to everything else I threw at them that than do my speakers and thus it means the 1.7 is less resolving because it lumps them into something that is far too similar sounding - and that just isn't right. It doesn't have the weight on piano when you hear someone play an actual piano in the room. I am fortunate the school I am at has a baby grand and I can play it and then directly compare what I am playing to a similar recording - so I get the live comparisons. It's my go to first thing - does it sound something like a piano in the room.
I admit though that this music in the link is also somewhat more open to subjectivity but if you can't understand that a big high quality dynamic (or even not so high quality like a Cerwin Vega CLS 215 (though this is better than people would think) speaker "sounds better" than a Totem model one or MMG then I can't help you.
The thing doesn't have to be played at deafening levels to the point that it is doubling. At 75db it still sounds much better than an MMG reproducing it - indeed the problem for the Quads and Maggies is they MUST be cranked in order for them to remotely possess any of the drive and ambiance to take hold of the listener. And I don't want to play everything at deafening levels to get any sense of weight.
Edits: 03/19/12 03/20/12
Seriously, who cares what that Lady Gaga track sounds like? Not knocking Lady Gaga here, but that hideous nightmare of a recording with its intentionally distorted vocals, shrill synthetic highs, and booming one-note pseudobass has no relation whatsoever to audio reality, and judging a high fidelity loudspeaker on the basis of its ability to reproduce it is useless, the equivalent of judging a concert pianist on his ability to play Chopsticks.The term "high fidelity" means "accuracy" -- fidelity to the original sound. Call a speaker that is optimized for playing this audio pustule what you like, but don't use the term "high fidelity": this recording is antithetical to everything that high fidelity is about.
Edits: 03/20/12
Funny but you'd think supposedly good speakers could play the biggest selling albums on the market somewhat in the realm of competence and be able to get people dancing to it - whether it's deemed real music or not.
It's not about loud that E-STAT is on about it - it is having the ability to generate a visceral sense of body - whether 75 db or 105db. The MMG doesn't do it. Add subwoofers is an admission that in order to get good sound you need umm a DYNAMIC driver in order to do it!
I'm not going to get into who said what about what speakers. I don't have much interest in this. I put more stick into the dealer who sells the brand and listens to the line everyday with a variety of gear in a variety of rooms than individuals such as John Valin.
Better recording of music that those speakers do a bad job of.
Incidentally you misquoted me on Soundlab - they sounded bad under show conditions - incidentally the guy running the room who works for Soundlabs said the same thing!
"Funny but you'd think supposedly good speakers could play the biggest selling albums on the market somewhat in the realm of competence and be able to get people dancing to it - whether it's deemed real music or not."
I don't. "90% of everything is crap." Why should people pay extra if they don't want to listen to crap?
"It's not about loud that E-STAT is on about it - it is having the ability to generate a visceral sense of body - whether 75 db or 105db. The MMG doesn't do it. Add subwoofers is an admission that in order to get good sound you need umm a DYNAMIC driver in order to do it!"
I would want somebody to demonstrate to me that accurate dynamic bass reproduction has more of a visceral sense of body at a given SPL than planar bass discussion. There was a discussion about this on the Planar Asylum the other day. Everyone was trying to figure out why people say this. The only thing we could think is that people hear crassly underpowered planars at a dealer's (common), or confuse the bass limitations of the small models with the big ones.
People who add subs to their MMG's generally do so because they don't have room to accomodate a bigger panel. The MMG is an entry-level speaker with a -3 dB bass response of 50 Hz. At the opposite extreme, the 20.1 has a -3 dB point of 25 Hz. Planars no more have identical bass response than dynamics.
My point about the Sound Labs was that either you were suggesting the Sound Labs were bad speakers, which they aren't, or they were in a bad room -- which illustrates my point about the problems with show conditions. There just isn't any guarantee that a setup will perform well in those conditions.
I like the track better than the other one, with its horrible chopped-up autotune effect, but again, this has nothing to do with high fidelity, even on my computer speakers you can tell that it's boomy, distorted, equalized, and compressed to death. As with anything loud, well, speakers that play loudly will play it loudly, whether they're quality speakers or not. My 1-D's are great on pop; my little MMG's are not. People are free to buy the speaker that best reproduces the kind of music they want to listen to.
I have a friend who has a pair of Voice of the Theaters that he used to use for parties. They're pretty much the best party speakers ever, but I wouldn't want to use them to listen to a string quartet.
Well here I do agree - The very big panels sound good (some) - unfortunately to me the smallest good panel that I have heard is the Prince II from King Sound - I liked it better than the 20.1 or the Quads which both cost significantly more money. And the Prince II is too large for most people. The smaller panels over the years for me don't cut it.
Of course massive panels have some dynamics and drive - they're finally covering enough area to move some air. This is also the reason dynamic speakers get better in general the bigger they are - but they give up cohesiveness which is a bad trade-off.
Man you and your panel guys must deal with the WORST dealers on the planet. Makes me wonder why you buy panel speakers from hopeless buffoons running the stereo shops you guys go to.
Soundhounds in Victoria BC carries all the Magnepan models, Quad, FInal Sound and used to carry Martin Logan, Acoustat, Apogee.
Please illustrate to me which of the following amplifiers that they carry the top of the line power amplifiers from don't have enough power to drive panels
Ayre Acoustics
McIntosh
Classe,
Sim Audio
Bryston
YBA
Rotel
Most of these have amps capable of 400 + watts into 4 ohms or stable to 2 ohms and some from Classe are 1200 watts into 4 ohms. You can't tell me not a single amp from any of these can't drive a Magnepan when Magnepan uses a 40 watt receiver. If professional installers who have the reps from the speaker makers out there to help can't set them up then why would John Q audiophile with no expertise do a better job?
The people can hear them at the dealer just fine. If you have lousy dealers then why even go? You may as well just order off e-bay.
Listen to Nightwish, The Evil Nine, or Slipknott on a good stereo - if it sounds compressed - it's your system not the speakers. I noticed you played the youtube clip and then judged the recording - really? C'mon - youtube is garbage - it's basically to determine if you'll like the artist and should in no way be used to evaluate the recording quality.
To be clear my first choice of music playback is acoustic well recorded classical music - I am happy to skip the hard metal stuff - and go to something really easy - The Moonlight Sonata - hardly a difficult piece.
The 20.1 with Classe's 1200 watts (a $15,000 loudspeaker) with the amp that has to be fairly pricey (don't know retail). They don't measure up on this piano recording with a number of Soundhounds' boxed speakers (speakers, incidentally, that sell for less than half the price - and with amplifiers for far less money) - it's no contest really. I remember sitting in the big room listening to Jackson Browne's Acoustic Vol 2 which I just heard on a SET/Boxed system in their basement room - it was quite wonderful. Then listening to the 20.1 it was depressing - the sparkle had gone the depth had gone the life had gone. I looked over at one of their salesmen with that look of "what the hell is that" and all he could do was laugh and say "we know."
Everyone there, and that's not hyperbole, who sells them, repairs them, to the owner of the store - also agree. But forget the boxes (a lot of boxes sound just as dead and unyielding in their boringness and most of them get class A ratings and 5 star award tags - I kind of joke that they should be toe tags cause hanging out with the dead would be more entertaining.
Quad sounds so much better on classical acoustic music. Sure the 20.1 has more bass and can play louder - but in every other way (all the more important ways) the Quad sounds better on classical. So does Soundlab, and my brief encounter with King Sound. To me there is no comparison. I totally get the 1.7 - no stats for the money - great - but at $5k? At $15k? C'mon - electrostat is the only way to go if I were to buy a panel
The Soundlab U-1 FWIW sounded very good (as I recall way back on massive monoblock tubes (maybe Lamm I can't remember). They make a compelling case for people with rooms that will support them. Which isn't mine unfortunately. Still for a massive room - spare no expense - Acapella would be an interesting option.
In a panel speaker, size limitations typically affect only bass dynamics and extension. Planar dynamics can be smaller than stats since they move much more air per unit area -- one figure I've seen is 10 x. But it isn't just a matter of how much air they can move, but of baffle size as well: because of the 6 dB/octave bass rolloff of a dipole, the excursion of a dipole woofer increases as the cube below Fequal rather than as the square. Increasing baffle size lowers Fequal. Even a small planar can produce very high SPL's if the low frequencies are handled by a dynamic driver, but you always hear the transition and the blurring of the dynamic driver.
The amps that dealers carry aren't necessary the ones they put on planars. If they demoed them with big amps, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem isn't with people who own planars -- they know that they rarely sound good at a dealer's, not just because of amplification but because of positioning and acoustics as well -- but with people who don't own planars, and are disappointed in the demos.
A 400 watt amplifier only sounds twice as loud as a 40 watt amplifier. And not even that, in practice, they'll both play just as loud, only the 40 watt amp will clip the peaks on the very loudest passages of the very loudest acoustical works, when those are reproduced at natural levels. I do wish people would get this straight because it's the source of endless meaningless arguments among audiophiles. But demo levels frequently aren't the levels to which one listens at home, and people are apt to "turn things up" to see what the speaker can do. Then you'll see the limitations of a small amp on an inefficient speaker: the planars won't "come alive," and people will leave with a mistaken impression of its dynamic capabilities and bass extension (since apparent bass extension is also a function of the Fletcher-Munson curve).
I know the sound of piano better than any other instrument, since I grew up hearing a Steinway L every day. And most boxes don't get piano. Planars do. The characteristic metallic-sounding distortions of ribbon drivers are actually quite compatible with the ringing sound of piano, and the radiation pattern is right -- a piano is, after all, a big dipole. But for whatever a reason, planars excel at reproducing that very-difficult-to-reproduce instrument. I think you'll find that this is a common observation.
Every speaker and its brother gets a Class A rating these days. The don't all deserve it. Not that they're bad, but they can't all be best.
Most boxes in my experience do not do an adequate job of reproducing acoustical music realistically. They do not transport you to the original acoustic and they do not sound like the original music so much as they sound like they're humming along with it. The exceptions are generally pricier than comparable planars, so the choice becomes pretty obvious to those for whom sonic realism is the goal.
As to stats, well, they have their pluses and minuses, and not all stats are created equal, just as not all planars and dynamics are. The Quad is a superb speaker, if you don't want high SPL's. That rules it out for some of us, not for others. The Sound Labs play louder, but they're $50,000 and huge. So again, there will be people for whom they're the ideal choice, but not necessarily the same people who might buy the 20.7 for $13,000. The CLX is closer in price (though IIRC more like $20,000) and size.
From Jonathan Valin's comparison of the 20.7 and CLX in the comments section of his blog review of the 20.7:
"The CLXes are also great loudspeakers of reference quality. They're more detailed and transparent-to-sources than 20.7s (and everything else on earth) and they are much better at lower volumes, but they have considerably less bottom end and somewhat less top treble. Since they're dipoles, the CLXes have the same virtues of time/space travel as the Maggies when it comes to soundstaging, the same life-sized imaging, and the same drawbacks when it comes to dynamic range/impact on the loud end of the spectrum."
So these are the kinds of choices people make. Quads aren't loud enough for me, Sound Labs are too big for my room too, CLX's don't go deep enough, and all but the very best boxes aren't realistic enough. (I still haven't heard the Kings and Princes.) I would add that Maggies have traditionally gotten in-room response right, something that many competing speakers *do not* and that in my experience correlates very highly with realism. Studies say that a speaker should have both good on-axis and power response, and this is something that is very difficult to achieve in an ESL -- as far as I know only the Quads, with their delay line, and Sound Labs, with their very wide arc, manage it. (The Logan arc is too small, their polar pattern will change as the wavelength increases and starts to approach the radius of the arc and, in the CLX, transitions to the dipolar flat panel woofer.)
Anyway, these choices merely reflect my personal circumstances. There are people for whom the Quads would be the best choice, or Magicos, or Sound Labs. Where Maggies fit in all of this is that they routinely punch way out of their price class for those whose first priority is high fidelity reproduction, particularly if they also listen to rock or use their speakers for home theater, where stats won't play.
Okay after thinking about this over the last few days - and taking out three or four boxed speakers that are off the beaten path that I think are better then I can't really argue against what you've said - and based on what I've heard the 1.7 and stats are capable of doing. Save for a very small handful of boxes that most people never listen to in a good set-up either then I would definitely buy the 1.7 over probably 99% of the stuff that I have heard.
First - pretty much all standmounts in the price range don't exactly have bass or play loud - so it's not like they possess any trump cards. Virtually all of the sub $2k floorstanders have serious box issues that mar the sound. I can even go with you on the punch above their price class as floorstanding boxes in the $4k range still have box problems and most standmounts like the N805 still don't have bass or dynamics to speak of.
Although I did note that I had the 1.7 ranked in my top 3-5 earlier I believe in the price range. The question though is to myself - what are the others in the price range - and I can't declare them as necessarily better. Better in parts worse in parts.
I would be intrigued to try some single drivers.
Being driven by a SE tube amp is a must - if it can't the result simply isn't going to be the best music reproduction. Garbage in garbage out - fortunately magnepan sounded better with a SET than they've ever sounded - so that's actually a plus because now it can take advanatage of quality front end amplifiers (ie; SE tube amps).
Yeah, that's the thing. I understand that the box is the most expensive component in a dynamic speaker. So panels are going to have a price/performance advantage for those who value the kind of naturalism they offer.
There's something seductive to the sound of single driver speakers, but for me, the sacrifices are too extreme. I feel much the same about SET amps. Since everything has flaws, I prefer a balanced approach that suits my own purposes -- accurate reproduction of acoustical music first, but I also want to be able to listen to rock and use my speakers for home theater.
But again, I think this has to be an individual decision. And I think, actually, that the heart has to be involved. Buying a componet for other reasons is I suspect a recipe for dissatisfaction. Really, when all is said and done, component selection isn't a very cerebral thing for me -- they either sound real to me, or they don't.
Here's a thread that Wendell Diller at Magnepan sent on to me. Needless to say, threads like this warm the heart of a marketing director! But I think we've all enjoyed that kind of reaction to a component, and that, to me, is the important thing -- that whatever we end up with yields this kind of delight.
...Lady Gaga - StarStruck at relatively high DBs to pound.
LOUD
There are plenty of horns that do that. Drive 'em with a Crown or QSC. Easy and cheap to do.
but if you can't understand that a big high quality dynamic speaker "sounds better" than a Totem model one or MMG then I can't help you.
Are we having the same conversation? Four inch woofers? Never heard a Totem before. Aren't they designed by the guy with big hair? Although I've heard quite a few Magnepans, the MMG is not on the list. As for achieving high SPLs and bass, I think you'll be in disagreement with Big Guy in ATL who runs two kilowatts and a pair of subs with his "Probably loudest MMG system out there". :)
110 db peaks
And I don't want to play everything at deafening levels to get any sense of weight.
Why play anything at deafening levels? At least if you care about your hearing!
Not a Gaga fan, but I do enjoy cranking Rihanna at mid 90s peaks. Love the first octave bass foundation. You'll never hear the poor guy playing the acoustic guitar when played "live"!
"So at best they're subtle which means they're still both homogenizing the sound."
Not necessarily, it can just as easily mean that they are working well. If we could magically achieve design and implementation perfection then everything WOULD sound the same and that would be a good thing.
My hope is that you actually base your recommendations on performance rather than novelty!
Regards, Rick
But they don't.A recording in studio A that was recorded by Fred with Fred's ears in a 200 square meter room with ARC equipment and Wilson speakers will have a sound. Studio B recorded by Bob in 600 square meter room with PMC speakers and Bryston amplifiers and entirely different micorophones will have a a very very different sound.
A hi-fi system that makes both of those very different recordings sound very much the same is a bad system no matter how much you paid - no matter what rave the reviewer gave them.
Take a a typical disc that is geared for a nightclub - big midbass drive and usually an overextended treble - assuming the recording is still high quality which some are. You know from the very genre of music what the engineer is after - a powerful chest hitting lower midbass thump - gets the dancers dancing.
A Quad 57 is laughably bad at reproducing this music. Sorry but it can't do it and it can't do it at the level required for even being remotely believable. And because it can't deliver the set of frequencies XYZ and Volume 123 - it ALSO isn't doing those on Mahler or Beethoven should they be there. Of course a lack of bass/dynamics is often viewed as "clearer" but a speaker should not care what music it is being sent it should reproduce the disc the way it was intended whether it be Slipknot or oboe.
Of course all systems give up something somewhere so you have to make the choice of which aspect you'll part with for which strength you can't live without. But assuming you're only able to buy one system for your house I prefer the ones that will do do all genres well and is the least homogeneous.
Edits: 03/15/12
I didn't mean that the ideal was for all RECORDINGS to sound the same, I meant that all SPEAKERS should converge on the same sound for a given recording.
Regards, Rick
Ahh sorry - that does make some sense. But then we're in that game of which sound is the best sound that other sounds should converge upon.
And that is where the argument debate and endless spirals wind up heading. I mean people with excellent hearing can't even decide on tuntables and CD or SS versus tubes. Or for that matter different kinds of SS and different kinds of tubes.
Speakers that wield even greater differences - lol - forgettaboutit.
"people with excellent hearing can't even decide on tuntables and CD or SS versus tubes."
It isn't OUR fault, it's them, it's the revenge of the machines...
I'm still playing CD's in my main system and have added players for new formats like DVD and SACD so I now have three players that can feed SPDIF to my old EAD DAC and the SACD player can also feed audio to the preamp. I haven't bothered to add more line level switching as it's already enough of a morass.
The bottom line for most CD's is that one of the players will beat out the others, sometimes quite significantly. Worse, each time I've added another dimension, another way to read the disks, the media have obligingly responded by developing more refined player preferences.
So what gives? Either I am a delusional nut-case with a keen imagination or there are multiple uncontrolled variables in the signal chain. Of course they aren't mutually exclusive but I prefer the latter explanation!
We have a rich tradition of that sort of thing with cartridges, tonearms turntables and as you say amplifiers and speakers and ears... "System synergy" and taste still hold sway and always will to some extent but I believe better measurements would help constrain the former. Everybody talks about things such as interference rejection but nobody in this field seems willing to DO anything about it. We quantify and control it most everywhere else, what's different about home audio? Users buying magic power cords, bags of crystals and ultra-expensive unspecified "power conditioners" to go along with their gear of unknown susceptibility is not the trail to real progress.
Regards, Rick
Well now I've gone and done it. ;) Got my post moved. I'm not sure if it was my lack of civility, my outspoken honesty, or just my generally obtuse humor. :)
In any case, let me re-state, in a revised sort of way, what my facitious/tongue-in-cheek point was. If a person is attempting to compare products on the proverbial "level playing field", it's not possible if they use one set of tracks on one product, and another set of tracks on another product. The engineering of the recording and the space it was recorded in can easily be so different as to render a comparison invalid, even if the reviewer believes they have a mental familiarity with it. I would not even attempt to play one recording on one system, and a different recording on another system, and make any judgement about the systems, if my JOB is to make comparisons and judgements. I can do that on a casual basis as an experienced audio professional and musician, and my conclusions would be just as relevant/irrelevant as someone who gets paid to do it. If a critical listener doesn't have a set of tracks that they play whenever a different product is put into the system, then they have no reference point or baseline by which to make comparisons or judgements.
That's all I was saying.
I always use a potpouri of software(often with a lot of overlap) but I always begin with two CDs that almost always very quickly tell me the factors that are most important to me.
> But it seems to me that when I read reviews of similar components -
> say speakers - by the same reviewer, he NEVER uses the same music
> twice. Why is this?
You're painting with too broad a brush. All reviewers have their "got-to"
recordings that enable them to get a handle on the sonic signature of
whatever it is they are reviewing. But then, when they write the review, they
list recordings that illustrate various aspects of the product under test.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Hi John:
How much consideration do reviewers devote to room size when choosing which speaker to review? And do you ever have to intercede when a member of your staff (with a large room) mentions to you that he’s thinking of reviewing a pair of mini monitors? Or the opposite scenario: large speaker/tiny room?
Eye-yie-yie. "Reviewers". They can take a hike. No, wait, I gotta get me a gig like that. lol
Anyway...
I've been reviewing products since decades ago.
All I know is whether or not a system sounds like an actual musical instrument, or faithfully reproduces the recording.
I don't need no reviewers to tell me what I should buy.
Maybe I'm just stupid.
But I can understand why you might feel that way.
First of all, as far as I know, without exception, every time I change something in the system I check the setup with the Channel ID and Phasing tracks from Stereophile's "Test CD 2." It is cheap insurance against painful embarrassment. I frequently comment upon the sound of the bass guitar in terms of timbral and dynamic trueness, and also the length of the "tail." The degree of difference between the in-phase and out-of-phase tracks is also very important, and I comment upon it.
I almost always play Ella Fitzgerald's "Easy to Love" from "The Cole Porter Songbook, Vol. II," and I frequently comment upon it.
When I was writing for TAS, I organized an entire series that lasted about two years, trying to get the most bang for the buck playing back the Telarc Robert Shaw Atlanta Brahms German Requiem.
The original Grex Vocalis' "Renassance for Chor" on Kiku CD has been a staple for years.
For the past two years, I have used Christy Moore's "This is the Day" a lot.
But no, I do not have a punchlist of ten tracks every new speaker must suffer through.
And I think that the readers would get bored of it right quick.
JM
This message has been moved to a more appropriate venue .
always mention them in the review. In the end it's how I feel about the piece of gear after a few weeks of listening that is most important to me.
I agree with mkuller that many reviewers that a handful of reference recordings
they repeatedly use in evaluating new components. I certainly have some,
though they are not necessarily favorites; they are references for assessing
certain characteristics of the device being reviewed.But to your point, I offer the following just to show that 'never' is not quite
accurate. I'm sure there are others, from my reviews and the reviews of
other writers. These are albums I happen to like, have on both vinyl and
CD, and can tell me a lot about what a component is bringing to the game.You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce
Cain & Cain Ben
Art Audio Vinyl Reference
Walker Audio Precision Motor Controller
Audion Silver Knight 300BShort, Sharp, Shocked, Michelle Shocked
Audience Au24 cabling
TRL modded SACD player
Cain & Cain Ben
Walker Audio Precision Motor Controller
mhi Evidence speakersHot Buttered Soul, Isaac Hayes
Audio Horizons phono stage
Art Audio Vinyl ReferenceNew Favorite, Alison Kraus
Cain & Cain Ben
Art Audio Vinyl ReferenceStrange Angels, Laurie Anderson
Cain & Cain Ben
Art Audio Vinyl Reference
Walker Audio Precision Motor ControllerAcadie, Daniel Lanois
Art Audio Vinyl Reference
Harmonix RTA-78iScheherazade, 1960 Reiner
Pass Labs INT-30A
Omega Speaker Systems Grande 6
...a handfull or reference recordings they repeatedly use in evaluating new components.
HP uses a number of standard reference recordings, for example, but mixes them up with others.
But it gets boring hearing the same discs used overe and over, i.e. Valin's show reports, and when I was reviewing I always liked the opportunity to expose readers to new music I liked.
Exactly!I use the same tracks from the same albums all the time. I have worn the digits off those pieces of music. So much so in fact that they are almost no longer really music to me. I rarely cite them in reviews because it would soon become unremittingly dull for readers.
So, I discuss the music I also listen to when assessing the product. This also stops me from seeming like I last bought a piece of music in 1994 or that I only own a dozen discs, which can be a problem if you cite the same benchmark discs over and over again.
The recordings used do change over time, but generally change slowly. The difficulty is some are very hard to replace, because there aren't newer recordings of the same quality (I largely shy away from 'audiophile' pressings, because I feel they are made to show off a system not show up its limitations).
-
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus magazine, Lun-duhnn, Ingerland, innit
Edits: 03/13/12
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: