In search of my last great loudspeaker

[spiritofmusic]

Marty, can you go into a little more detail re your choosing, or more accurately dismissing, some contenders based purely on FR graphs etc?
I find it fascinating you've turned down Divas due to suspicion that the in room subjective response wouldn't be all that, extrapolated from doubts on what you saw on paper
Esp Divas where a linear bass response is one of it's biggest selling points
Aren't you at all wondering that you may have turned down a Giant Killer based on ONLY considering hard stats, and not the subjective experience (as well)?

 

[KeithR]

Wonderful reading Marty - excited to hear about the rest of your journey. Good luck!

 

[RBFC]

The confounding variable in play is the frequency response of the measured speakers IN THE ROOM WHERE THE MEASUREMENTS ARE TAKEN.

IMO, Marty may be measuring anomalies that are not caused by the speakers. The only way to eliminate this situation would be to measure the speakers under consideration in 1) an anechoic chamber. 2) his own room following positional optimization.

Lee

 

[spiritofmusic]

So Lee, home demo trumps all?
Why do so many here tout the concept of liking a speaker at a demo and being reasonably confident you can make it work back at home?

 

[bonzo75]

I don't have much experience with measurements (I wish I did and had backed up my visits with them) but my n previous point on AR 75 was, would under powering a speaker in a massive room lead to such a measurement as opposed to more power in a more bass reinforced room?

 

[bonzo75]

I posted this on another thread, but here goes again

Mr. Kurosawa has equipped his listening room with a wide variety of speakers of every kind—from dynamics to ‘stats to ribbons to horns—so I got a chance to listen to his electronics on just about every kind of transducer extant (with both LP and CD sources). Clearly the Technical Brain products are anything but picky when it comes to what they drive. In fact, the very best sound I heard in Japan (right alongside that of the all-tube Audio Tekne electronics driving Mr. Imai’s SP-9301S four-way horns) came from the Technical Brain solid-state amp and preamp driving what is, famously, one of the most difficult loads on earth: Apogee Duettas. One forgets how great Jason Bloom’s ribbon speakers were, and I’ve never heard them sound more realistic, more like the absolute sound than I did in Mr. Kurosawa’s Canadian-timber listening room. Reproduced sound may get different but it doesn’t get better than this.
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/art...n-part-four-solid-state-from-technical-brain/

 

[Mike Lavigne]

So Lee, home demo trumps all?
Why do so many here tout the concept of liking a speaker at a demo and being reasonably confident you can make it work back at home?

not all listeners are created equal or have equal feel for this subject. so one's rules for speaker choice decision making should legitimately vary.

Marty has decades of fiddling with TacT settings and a challenging bass situation trying to mate subs and the Pipedreams, working with the stock crossover, then switching to the TacT unit. he has spent many hours comparing his own in room issues to published specs. and as a lover of live large scale classical in particular halls he has a clear reference for recorded verses live bass. he knows what he does not want.

no doubt he observes published speaker specs, and published FR plots, then compares those to his cowboy FR device as a strong data point backed up by experience.

so he has done the work to be able to be confident (not infallible) about his judgment on the subject.

I know others like Marty, not many but a few.

 

[bonzo75]

Are published speaker specs in anechoic chambers same as those in somebody's room based on his room bass?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Got that Mike
I don't know Marty so had no idea of his mindset on this
I'm more from the "swing it and see" mindset

 

[Al M.]

The confounding variable in play is the frequency response of the measured speakers IN THE ROOM WHERE THE MEASUREMENTS ARE TAKEN.

IMO, Marty may be measuring anomalies that are not caused by the speakers. The only way to eliminate this situation would be to measure the speakers under consideration in 1) an anechoic chamber. 2) his own room following positional optimization.

Lee

+ 1

Just three feet behind my listening position the tonal balance is changed significantly.

 

[Zero000]

Are published speaker specs in anechoic chambers same as those in somebody's room based on his room bass?

No.

If you put my speakers in another room of different dimensions and furnishing, different source equipment, the FR plots I posted earlier would look quite different.

For that reason take my FR readings with a pinch of salt. I always do whenever I see any. They are smoothed to buggery anyway.

With much less smoothing, it is amazing what you can detect with the right software. You can readily see Lampi tube rolls producing different, repeatable results. I'm certain those Rhodium plugs will be measurable over the gold plated ones I was using.

Some won't believe that. But try it and you know it is true.

 

[cjfrbw]

Thanks for inviting the forum on your journey, Marty. You are willing to take a few arrows in order to achieve the balance of consensus.

I find it interesting when talking in years past with Steve of your love for DSP and the ability to micro-manage frequency response at the listening position. You now want an all-analog chain for the front speakers for whatever reasons.

I wanted an all-analog front because my primary listening was vinyl. However, because I use surrounds, the surrounds and the bass are DSP room corrected with the generic, built in YSPAO program and microphone of the Yamaha home theater units. With the adjustability of a four way analog crossover for the fronts, this allows as much flexibility as I crave, but I am not stuck on any measurement parameters, I play it by ear.

I would always vote for Apogees because I am a great fan. I also think that a nice set of rebuilt Apogees in the price range you describe would give monumental bang for the buck.

However, I know that Apogees also require a kind of special commitment, and I would not routinely suggest them to anybody who was not prepared to work with them on their own terms.

It sounds like all of your choices are good, so I doubt you will wind up with anything that doesn't work for your preferences and objective measuring criterion.

 

[RBFC]

So Lee, home demo trumps all?
Why do so many here tout the concept of liking a speaker at a demo and being reasonably confident you can make it work back at home?

I was commenting on the validity of judging frequency response as measured in different listening environments than your own. I have no doubt that Marty has a good idea of what a speaker will sound like in his own room, but it has to be very difficult to predict a fairly precise response plot considering all the variables. I'm watching this thread closely, as he's being very honest about the hurdles associated with off-site speaker evaluations. No offense intended to Marty (or anyone here, for that matter), it just seems like a very difficult task to predict in-home frequency response from an audition conducted in a different space, with different equipment.

Also, I believe that Marty wants to be more than "reasonably confident" that he can make it work back home. His experience with tailoring frequency response (and being able to discern the changes) is certainly at the elite level. Therefore, I doubt that he would be satisfied with something "almost right". Witness his experiences with the Apogee designers....

Lee

 

[LL21]

look forward to reading more...

 

[fas42]

Regarding horns, it's rather simple for me. I have just never heard a set of horns that impressed me with formidable full range capabilities. Period. There are some horns out there that are superb midrange reproducers (I think of DDK's system in particular) but to capture the full audio spectrum generally requires some mating with subs below and something else on top, or at least horns that do top end better than the one's I've heard, which generally lack the requisite air or "penumbra" of sound I hear in the hall. Furthermore, once horns are mated to something else either below or on top, they never sound like a system that is cut from the same cloth, IMHO. Now I will also be the first to admit I have far more limited exposure to horns that just about any other transducer design, but the truth is, I'm just not interested in exploring them any further based on what I've heard to date. I may be entirely wrong on this as I know there are strong devotees of horn systems out there, but I'm just not one of them. I do however, like the sound of a good saxophone. Does that count?
Marty

The "requisite air or "penumbra" of sound" is an aspect of overall system competence, rather than speakers IMO. The "percussive effect" or intensity impact, as I call it, of live music happens automatically if the rig can go to high SPLs without displaying obvious audio flaws - nearly all setups show quite audible misbehaviour when realistic sound levels are called for, and the "penumbra" never happens ...

Yes, getting a real saxophone happening is a good test - I grab every opportunity to sidle up to real musicians foolin' around, to check this out ... .

 

[mullard88]

Hi Marty,

Thank you for sharing your thought on your search for your speaker. I look forward to your next installment to understand and learn more about your process in your search. Finally, have a great time going through this search or journey.

Sam

 

[marty]

+ 1

Just three feet behind my listening position the tonal balance is changed significantly.

3 feet? My tonal balance changes with 3 inches! Line arrays are critical in this regard and the sound perceived varies with miniscule changes in listening position. In fact, nobody knows for sure where to place the mike if you want to measure the response at the listening position with one mike to get an average of what the two ears hear. Do you place it at the distance of your nose? A point midway between the ears? The occipital cortex? Other? What I do know, is that if you wish to measure your response 3 feet behind your listening position, you should place your mike in that vicinity. Perhaps I do not understand your point Al, as the relevance of the example you gave to what you hear in the actual listening position is not clear to me.

 

[Al M.]

3 feet? My tonal balance changes with 3 inches! Line arrays are critical in this regard and the sound perceived varies with miniscule changes in listening position.

It depends on how you define significant. My bass does change significantly within a 2 inch distance.

Perhaps I do not understand your point Al, as the relevance of the example you gave to what you hear in the actual listening position is not clear to me.

The point is that if within a short distance inside a single given room the tonal balance can change significantly, you have even less reason to extrapolate between different rooms. What you measure in another room may not hold for your own room.

However, I would agree if a mid-bass hump, for example, is a common known phenomenon for a speaker in many different rooms, then great caution is advised. I wouldn't buy such a speaker either. It's really disappointing if an expensive speaker (in this case Raidho) does that consistently. How can such a simple mistake occur in such an expensive design? It makes you rethink the entire high-end hype.

 

[maslak34]

raidhospeakers takes at least 500 hours to fully burn in. unless you listen you a fully burnt in pair you will hear that bump..it's hard to believe but at 500+ hours its a magical speaker

 

[steve williams]

Are you saying that the bass bump disappears with burn in