Frequency response is everything!?...

[audiofull]

Welcome to WBF. I think a lot of people forget that measurements are objective. But the interpretation of measurements is subjective.

Since the Harman curve has already been mentioned, yes I agree that it most people will prefer speakers that are tuned to the Harman target. However, the Harman target would better be represented as a line with upper and lower limits indicating confidence intervals rather than a line. The failure to depict the target this way has lead to the dogmatic insistence by some people that it has to be strictly adhered to, and that minor deviations indicate a design fault. This I do not agree with.

Then there are things that we can not measure, for example soundstage width and depth. We can predict whether a particular speaker will have good spatial characteristics by doing a CEA 2034 measurement (sometimes known as Spinorama), but how that speaker actually performs in your room depends on your room and your choice of speaker placement. Again, the existence of Spinorama has lead some people to dogmatically insist that "ideal" Spinorama characteristics must be adhered to.

This does not mean I advocate abandoning measurements altogether, just because some of their proponents are militant and shrill. You should pay attention to them, and if possible you should do your own. It is a really educational experience! But in the end, we should be pragmatic about it. I am still a "subjectivist", meaning my ears are the final arbiter of what I like and what I don't. I just use "objectivist" methods to help me get there.

Hi, Keith.

Believe it or not, some insist we can tell soundstage, imaging and resolution from FR graphs. I found it to be nonsense after auditioning identically-measuring products.

 

[Amir]

I do post more on another forum where my more "science-minded" posts are viewed as non-controversial. All the same, it's interesting to read things here written from a subjectivist audiophile's perspective. I do occasionally offer up alternate viewpoints in areas of interest like this frequency response thread or another "Audio Critique" thread where my thoughts about the merits of blind testing being a solution to the problem of expectation bias weren't particularly appreciated.

DSP / room correction is another valuable tool to get one's audio system closer to reality. Unfortunately it seems like many here believe that adding another device to the audio chain corrupts the purity of the audio, rather than seeing it as a tool that offers far greater benefits than whatever negligible losses accompany it. The frequency response problems seen when you put even the finest speakers & components in a room make it extremely challenging to achieve accurate sound unless the listening room has been very well treated with acoustic products, you use a good DSP solution, or both. I'll continue to toss out occasional objectivist suggestions here. I doubt that they'll resonate with most of the folks who post here, but that's fine. Different strokes...

I am sorry if my answer (in my Topic) bothered you , you are welcome here and I think there is no thing wrong if you like to have objective view .
I am Electronics Engineer and my Project was about measuring cut-off frequency of waveguides using numerical method.
I know about 4 maxwell equations and you know what we do is modeling of audio system by these equations.
I am not against measurments and you may find interesting information from It but The problem is audio systems are not linear systems. Non-linear systems are far more complex than linear systems.
Audio measurements of non-linear systems are not easy and what you see in ASR forum is simplified model of audio systems.
For example in Amplifiers PSU you have capacitor. This capacitor has dielectric and In electronics you use simplified model of capacitor and show it as just one number (C). In real world the dielectric is not a simple number and the accurate mathematical model of capacitor is far more complex. Finally simple audio measurements of Mr. Majidimehr (ASR forum) will not show us why we hear better sound from better capacitors.
They claim our hearing system can not detect under X db sound level but I think in 2023 we have no accurate model of human hearing/brain sound processing system and we can not comment about our hearing system.
the real world is not that simple

You can ask expert designers like Ed Meitner and he will show you he has a special tool for correct measuring of jitter. If you check Wadax system you can change the setting and have three different digital signal , all bits are ok but the sound is different.

I had many many blind tests in past and my ears detected difference of a $1 AC cable and a audiophile ac cable. I have also bought three cheap speaker cables and I have compared all of them to my speaker cable and the difference was night and day.

DSP can also degrade the sound specialy at mid/high frequency and you can hear it if you have high performance system.

 

[PeterA]

Just plopping high-end equipment into an untreated room and not correcting acoustic problems will not provide optimal results.

I don’t think anyone advocates just plopping down equipment into a room. Setting up that system and understanding where the listening seat should go and how to position and orient the speakers are fundamental aspects of getting good sound.

I Have never seen an untreated room. Everything from window treatment to rugs to paintings to furniture is treatment. The degree to which it is needed varies. The room dimensions also matter.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I kept being told I could read detail and resolution from measurements,

I think the evil nurse Ratched told inmates the same thing in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest!

 

[PeterA]

I kept being told I could read detail and resolution from measurements, but I have first hand experience of this not being the case. I would seek out headphones with identical graphs, only to find that they were wildly different in technical performance. I can use graphs to eliminate badly tuned products. A graph does tell me - often with high reliability - the quantity of each FR section, but I'd have to measure the quality with my own ears.

Do not forget nuance and ambience, let alone how natural a system sounds. Measurements can be useful tools just like a scale for measuring VTF during cartridge set up. I listen for system wide set up, fine tuning, and purchase decisions.

 

[henrich3]

I am sorry if my answer (in my Topic) bothered you , you are welcome here and I think there is no thing wrong if you like to have objective view .
I am Electronics Engineer and my Project was about measuring cut-off frequency of waveguides using numerical method.
I know about 4 maxwell equations and you know what we do is modeling of audio system by these equations.
I am not against measurments and you may find interesting information from It but The problem is audio systems are not linear systems. Non-linear systems are far more complex than linear systems.
Audio measurements of non-linear systems are not easy and what you see in ASR forum is simplified model of audio systems.
For example in Amplifiers PSU you have capacitor. This capacitor has dielectric and In electronics you use simplified model of capacitor and show it as just one number (C). In real world the dielectric is not a simple number and the accurate mathematical model of capacitor is far more complex. Finally simple audio measurements of Mr. Majidimehr (ASR forum) will not show us why we hear better sound from better capacitors.
They claim our hearing system can not detect under X db sound level but I think in 2023 we have no accurate model of human hearing/brain sound processing system and we can not comment about our hearing system.
the real world is not that simple

You can ask expert designers like Ed Meitner and he will show you he has a special tool for correct measuring of jitter. If you check Wadax system you can change the setting and have three different digital signal , all bits are ok but the sound is different.

I had many many blind tests in past and my ears detected difference of a $1 AC cable and a audiophile ac cable. I have also bought three cheap speaker cables and I have compared all of them to my speaker cable and the difference was night and day.

DSP can also degrade the sound specialy at mid/high frequency and you can hear it if you have high performance system.

Hi Amir,

I appreciate your welcoming tone here. You did make it clear in your Audio Critique thread that you were only looking for subjectivist comments, so out of respect for your wishes I took my leave of that thread. No problem however.

You had linked to your post over at ASR where you made similar arguments to what you just posted above, essentially trying to make the case that measurements aren't very useful when it comes to evaluating audio systems. Your namesake "amirm" over there had responded with the following:

"I make little attempt at modelling any audio device. Indeed I do the opposite and treat it as a black box -- an input and output. All non-linearities combine to produce the distortions you see in measurements. Same with cables. They either add distortion, add noise, or change frequency response or don't. Measurements I perform are amply accurate to find all of these differences to well below the threshold of hearing.

Let's remember that these measurements agree with controlled testing when it comes to such things as cables. They simply don't produce a sound of their own when we hide their identity. Our hearing is not one of modeling a device either. It treats the audio device as a black box just as I do."

Since I don't have the expertise that amirm has, I will just say that I find his comments credible and that I tend to be skeptical of claims to the contrary.

I think that it's great that you took the time to do blind testing of low-end & high-end power cables and speaker cables. Your conclusions are quite different that those of other blind tests that I've read however. I wish that I could have been there with you to see how those tests were performed, and assuming that everything was done properly, heard what you heard. Maybe I'd be singing a different tune right now.

Regarding your claim that DSP systems degrade sound quality, there certainly are room correction systems that do more harm than good. I would put Audyssey's MultEQ XT in that category, for example. Audyssey's XT32 eliminated the biggest problems that XT had, so I believe that RC tool is useful. My Trinnov's room correction is far more sophisticated than Audyssey's solutions, and I would think it unfair for those who haven't demo'ed an audio system with & without that correction to disparage or dismiss it. Just my two cents...

Cheers.

 

[henrich3]

I don’t think anyone advocates just plopping down equipment into a room. Setting up that system and understanding where the listening seat should go and how to position and orient the speakers are fundamental aspects of getting good sound.

I Have never seen an untreated room. Everything from window treatment to rugs to paintings to furniture is treatment. The degree to which it is needed varies. The room dimensions also matter.

My "plopping down" comment was tongue-in-cheek, of course. I know that audiophiles spend a great deal of time positioning & orienting their speakers. The point of my post was that even if an audiophile obtains the finest speakers & components and optomizes the speaker positions, the problem of room acoustics will still remain. While audiophiles may well be pleased with what they hear in their untreated rooms, in most cases sound quality can still be improved with properly placed acoustic panels. Rugs, paintings, and furniture are not normally sufficient to optimize acoustics.

 

[Al M.]

My "plopping down" comment was tongue-in-cheek, of course. I know that audiophiles spend a great deal of time positioning & orienting their speakers. The point of my post was that even if an audiophile obtains the finest speakers & components and optomizes the speaker positions, the problem of room acoustics will still remain. While audiophiles may well be pleased with what they hear in their untreated rooms, in most cases sound quality can still be improved with properly placed acoustic panels. Rugs, paintings, and furniture are not normally sufficient to optimize acoustics.

My room did sound really bad without ceiling diffusers, for example, and installing them (ASC brand) was a huge improvement. No non-specialized room treatment can substitute for something like that, I agree. Not every room needs them, however.

 

[Gregadd]

Off axis FR can affect s.oundstage.

 

[Hear Here]

You say that you have no criticism of them, but then imply that they're not highly accomplished individuals. They are. Toole's book "Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms" is considered the bible of acoustic research by many. It includes studies done by Olive, Welti, and other distinguished acousticians. Anyway, no need for me to defend these gurus in the field of acoustics. You're free to your opinions...

Theoretical clap-trap even if 100% true.

What matters is not the theory but what it actually sounds like and this means listening to real world equipment in real world rooms.

 

[Hear Here]

DSP can also degrade the sound specialy at mid/high frequency and you can hear it if you have high performance system.

Agree 100%. Leave DSP to the multi-speaker AV guys or those who don't have the inclination to bother getting their speakers properly set up by more effective and conventional means.

 

[henrich3]

Theoretical clap-trap even if 100% true.

Not a fan of science?

What matters is not the theory but what it actually sounds like and this means listening to real world equipment in real world rooms.

I completely agree that what ultimately matters is what a system actually sounds like. Where we disagree is that I believe that knowledge of acoustics & psychoacoustics can help move us towards audio excellence if we then apply what we learn.

 

[Gregadd]

The question is who must possess the knowledge of acoustics and psychoacoustics and how it is applied
Moreover how we weight its' importance
.

 

[Keith_W]

DSP can also degrade the sound specialy at mid/high frequency and you can hear it if you have high performance system.

I disagree. If you apply DSP to the mid-high frequencies, then you are by definition changing them. Whether it is an improvement or not depends on what you started with in the first place. If there was nothing wrong with the mids and high freqs, you can always choose to only apply DSP to the bass frequencies, and the mids and highs will be bit perfect and not degraded at all. There is good DSP and bad DSP, and the most important thing about DSP is whether you know what you are doing.

The Kii Three's are fully DSP'ed loudspeakers. Same with Lyngdorf and Meridien. And the Australian brand "Kyron". I have heard every one of these speakers and I can tell you that if I was not aware there was DSP I would never pick it.

 

[henrich3]

The question is who must possess the knowledge of acoustics and psychoacoustics and how it is applied
Moreover how we weight its' importance.

Many people "possess the knowledge of acoustics and psychoacoustics". If you read & understood the book that I referenced, you too would then possess that knowledge. How that knowledge is applied & what weight you assign to those sonic improvements is up to you.

 

[Amir]

Hi Amir,
You had linked to your post over at ASR where you made similar arguments to what you just posted above, essentially trying to make the case that measurements aren't very useful when it comes to evaluating audio systems. Your namesake "amirm" over there had responded with the following:

"I make little attempt at modelling any audio device. Indeed I do the opposite and treat it as a black box -- an input and output. All non-linearities combine to produce the distortions you see in measurements. Same with cables. They either add distortion, add noise, or change frequency response or don't. Measurements I perform are amply accurate to find all of these differences to well below the threshold of hearing.

Let's remember that these measurements agree with controlled testing when it comes to such things as cables. They simply don't produce a sound of their own when we hide their identity. Our hearing is not one of modeling a device either. It treats the audio device as a black box just as I do."

Hi and thank you for your comment.

Actually Mr. Majidimehr did not undrestand my comment. Yes we can see a electronic system as black box and start to measure the box but do you know for measuring a non-linear black box you may need to have over 100 diagrams?
I think Mr. Majidimehr should read about non-linear system measurements. He publish only a simple THD diagram and it is not true way to measure non linear system.

if you want I will publish more details about non-linear systems

 

[Hear Here]

If there was nothing wrong with the mids and high freqs, you can always choose to only apply DSP to the bass frequencies, and the mids and highs will be bit perfect and not degraded at all.

This is where you are wrong I believe. If the DSP is built into a full-range amp, the entire frequency rage signal has to suffer the processor. Only if you split the signal first and send bass only to an amp with DSP while the rest goes to another amp without DSP can you avoid the problem described. I have to agree totally with Amir that the top end is degraded as a result of being subjected to this complex processor and this can be easily demonstrated with high quality speakers. In fact the DSP in my amp can only adjust sub-500 Hz yet the top end is clearly slightly spoilt.

 

[HenryD]

This is where you are wrong I believe. If the DSP is built into a full-range amp, the entire frequency rage signal has to suffer the processor. Only if you split the signal first and send bass only to an amp with DSP while the rest goes to another amp without DSP can you avoid the problem described. I have to agree totally with Amir that the top end is degraded as a result of being subjected to this complex processor and this can be easily demonstrated with high quality speakers. In fact the DSP in my amp can only adjust sub-500 Hz yet the top end is clearly slightly spoilt.

That does not work for sure. The DSP bass part would be time delayed. The speakers will never sound "right." If DSP, then it is DSP on all drivers.

 

[henrich3]

Hi and thank you for your comment.

Actually Mr. Majidimehr did not undrestand my comment. Yes we can see a electronic system as black box and start to measure the box but do you know for measuring a non-linear black box you may need to have over 100 diagrams?
I think Mr. Majidimehr should read about non-linear system measurements. He publish only a simple THD diagram and it is not true way to measure non linear system.

if you want I will publish more details about non-linear systems

Thanks Amir, but no need to post more about non-linear systems. It's a bit off topic for this thread. Also my old man brain has a tough time slogging through that kind of info. I'm quite certain that amirm is well acquainted with performing a variety of non-linear system measurements. I know from your posts on that forum & here that you disagree however.

Cheers.

 

[HenryD]

if you want I will publish more details about non-linear systems

Please do, I am interested.