I listened to the Martin Logan Summit at Harvey Radio in Bridgewater NJ five years ago. The setup included a Krell power amplifier, McIntosh preamplifier, and a McIntosh CD player. The recording was the store's, not exactly sure what it was but it was a piece for violin and piano. I was surprised at how many frequency response errors there seemed to be. I counted five. Especially peculiar was the treble. It seemed to have a dip as frequency went up and then it rose again. Bass was barely adequate, very disappointing for a $10,000 pair of loudspeakers. Perhaps I expect too much. But I didn't hear much better from a pair of monster Soundlabs speakers that stood 8 feet tall I heard in someone's home last summer. Similar peculiar treble and bass was not good at all. Maybe I just don't like electrostatic speakers. Their one good feature was that they sounded clear but then so do other types of speakers that are not electrostatic. To me critical listening is hearing a piano and being able to tell by sound alone if it's a Baldwin or a Steinway or some other brand.
It’s All a Preference
- Thread starter mep
- Start date
I have followed Dave Moulton's work for several years, and the site you link to is a trove of interesting and insightful articles about the reproduction of music. In fact, I bought the speakers that was the result of the work he was doing through Sausalito with B&O, mentioned at the end of the link, the BeoLab 5s.
And with reference to the topic of this thread, there's little doubt that the BL5s have the ability to throw a good curve ball at prejudiced listeners. I had them until recently, and am now eagerly awaiting the evolution of that series of speakers. As I wanted to have an all-analog chain in my main listening room, and didn't want the ultra-true BL5s to tell me how mad I was not to only use them, I sold them to a very happy person.
On that project, the B&O engineers and Sausalito were given a free rein, to come up with the best possible shape and function for full-range active speakers that used the Acoustic Lens technology of Sausalito together with the bass-control developed by B&O engineers, with all elements of the speakers being there to support the function. The shape of the speakers is actually dictated by what they are supposed to do, at specific frequency ranges.
It was fun to expose dedicated world class musicians to their sound, and it was fun to expose prejudiced audiophiles to it. The first group ended up getting a pair for themselves, in many instances; the second group couldn't believe what they were hearing, and didn't accept it. Everything was wrong with the speakers:
1. They were active (launched in 2003, before active speakers began moving in on audiophilia)
2. They had thin cables, only S/PDIF, analog RCA Line IN and B&O's proprietary powerlink.
3. They were nearly tweakproof, with built in amplification (quite a lot of it)
4. That amplification was class-D, and that's no good, everyone knows that.
5. They looked funny - "typical designer looking to make a statement," was a frequent comment, from people who didn't realize that everything was there for an acoustic purpose, down to the thick acoustically dead resin, cone-shaped skirt that enveloped the bass units and was shaped to defeat any possibility of standing waves or resonances.
6. "What the hell! Speakers that use the side-walls for reflection? Are you crazy?"
7. "Ha-ha! Those high-hats must ring like hell!" Until you tapped the discs of the acoustic lenses, and realized they were solid aluminum, shaped to defeat resonances, and to direct mid/top in horizontal bands of dispersion that didn't interact with floor or ceiling.
Those speakers were the result of the subjective blind listening that Moulton mentions in that link of yours, to an article of his from 2001, when he was in mid-process on that speaker project. They are amazingly true reproducers of music.
BUT:
1. They were made by B&O, and a lot of people who don't know about the B&O audio dept and its capabilities can't accept that they can be any good, no matter what their ears tell them.
2. B&O themselves made a major error when launching these speakers - they claimed that "you could place them where you wanted, and still get great stereo." Truth is, BL5s are precision reproducers, that should be placed with precision, and where you actually want to use symmetrical placement, wall clearance and side reflections, for the best possible result.
3. Because of sentiments about class-D, and people being unaware of how the on board processors and DACs dealt with the audio signal, people already knew what they sounded like, before they listened.
Anyway, I had great fun exposing people to them in a good listening room. One person, who over the years had spent a fortune on audio components and who has a set-up that checks off on most major audiophile preference lists, delivered the following verdict after an evening of listening: "So, all these years, I've just been fooling myself?"
And that's the point of this long reply - most of the time, when we listen with our eyes, prejudices and "what we think others will think," we are fooling ourselves a lot, and that's what Moulton's article tells us.
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Perhaps but one would have to know what each piano sounded like to begin with. Unless you really know your different types of pianos and the sound they produce...
I would be careful in drawing any judgement on the ML based on Harveys. I really don't think you heard the speakers at anywheres near their best. Harveys "was" the last place I'd go to hear anything. I heard the MLs at their store in NY and walked out. I couldn't even begin to argue with them that the speakers sucked. Harveys couldn't even set up a Bose Wave Radio if their life depended on it. All Harveys hoped to do is capitalize on a product's name to make a sale
That said, I wouldn't lump Soundlabs with ML. Two different beasts.I'll bite my lip when it comes to the choice of electronics (Martin Logans aren't going to sugar coat what's going on in front of them either) used but you said you listened to their choice of music. So you were listening to unfamiliar music and there was no really no way you could differentiate between issues in the recording and issues with the system (unless you listened to something else that you brought?). Then again, the only similiarity between the Xs and their predecessor is their shape. But missing bass? Not in my experience so, and you didn't mention the room and set up, I'd really wonder if the speakers were set up correctly.
Nor is violin isn't something that I'd use to evaluate upper octaves. Aberrations lower down into the upper mids for sure. http://www.bosendorfer-audio.co.uk/frequencies_of_music.html Perhaps there was some other music that you listened to?
That said, you seem to be in the Metro area (actually probably not too far from where I grew up) and would be glad to have you over to hear the Martin-Logans. You can bring any music you want (provided it's on vinyl or tape
) and hopefully this would give you a little different impression of the speakers.
I've heard them repeatedly, in a well-treated room,through a pretty wide variety of electronics, and I've moved them around until I was getting the best I could from them. I didn't think theylacked bass either (I don't think they go that deep but they had plentyof bass presence. The thing that is "wrong" with them is the off-axis response. Step out of the sweet spot and they become very bad speakers very quickly. With their smaller panels, it's even more dramatic. Just stand up and it's like you switched to different speakers. To believe this doesn't degrade overall performance from a dipole in anything but a nearly dead room requires some pretty serious mental gymnastics.
Tim
Tim
I would be careful in drawing any judgement on the ML based on Harveys. I really don't think you heard the speakers at anywheres near their best. Harveys "was" the last place I'd go to hear anything. I heard the MLs at their store in NY and walked out. I couldn't even begin to argue with them that the speakers sucked. Harveys couldn't even set up a Bose Wave Radio if their life depended on it. All Harveys hoped to do is capitalize on a product's name to make a sale
I'll bite my lip when it comes to the choice of electronics (Martin Logans aren't going to sugar coat what's going on in front of them either) used but you said you listened to their choice of music. So you were listening to unfamiliar music and there was no really no way you could differentiate between issues in the recording and issues with the system (unless you listened to something else that you brought?). Then again, the only similiarity between the Xs and their predecessor is their shape. But missing bass? Not in my experience so, and you didn't mention the room and set up, I'd really wonder if the speakers were set up correctly.
Nor is violin isn't something that I'd use to evaluate upper octaves. Aberrations lower down into the upper mids for sure. http://www.bosendorfer-audio.co.uk/frequencies_of_music.html Perhaps there was some other music that you listened to?
That said, you seem to be in the Metro area (actually probably not too far from where I grew up) and would be glad to have you over to hear the Martin-Logans. You can bring any music you want (provided it's on vinyl or tape
Myles
Thank you for your observations and kind invitation. I might take you up on your offer and offer to show you something unique I think you'll find interesting in return. I agree that I may not have heard the MLs in a fair demonstration of their capabilies. The Sound Labs speakers were installed in the middle of an enormous room that was acoustically made to be deliberately fairly dead. In this installation I'm certain cost was not a consideration.
treitz3
About the Steinways and Baldwins, I own one Steinway and two Baldwins. About ten years ago I started listening to them more critically than I ever had before. I began to notice considerable differences in their tone and I've observed since that while there are clearly variations from one piano to another of a particular maker, there are also similarities within them. My own Steinway is a 5'-7" type M made in 1927. It was rebuilt at the Baldwin factory in the mid 1980s. It has a very distinctive sound that is highly characteristic of that brand. It's a family heirloom. The two Baldwins are Acrosonic spinet models, one built in 1960 and the other unknown. Although physically smaller, that particular model is the only one I ever heard that sounds like a grand piano. All other spinets sound weak and mute to me. I've observed the similarities as well as the difference between these models and their much larger counterparts, Steinway D concert grand for example and Baldwin SD10 concert grand. Steinways to my ears have more relative emphesis on lower harmonics than Baldwins and are therfore warmer and more forward. Baldwins are slightly more brilliant and colder having a more neutral sound. The Baldwins have a sharper initial attack. Steinways have an attack that to me starts off less sharply and then hits hard. I'd call the Steinway a steel fist in a velvet glove, the Baldwins have as much steel but less velvet. Both are powerful clear sounding instruments and have no discernable difference in tone from one note to the next one adjacent to it. They both have a bell like sound quality many other pianos of different brands don't seem to have to nearly the same extent. I've noticed that these different characteristics are usually audible on recordings as well. Steinway claims about 90% of performing artists prefer to perform on a Steinway. A few that prefer Baldwins are Marian McPartland and Earl Wild. Dick Hyman seemed to prefer Yamaha. There's a sharp disagreement in my house about the relative merits of the two. I like both. The musician of the house is highly prejudiced in favor of Steinways. I've also observed from recordings that because of their huge dynamic range, a piano too large for a room, a concert grand in the average home can be overpowering. The smaller piano is IMO a better choice.
Buy Schiff's recordings of the Beethoven Sonatas recorded at KKL Luzern with a live audience. Try to determine which sonatas are played on the Steinway and which on the Bösendorfer, that he switched between.
Sounds good to me. PM me when you might have time
And I'd be the first to admit that the best speakers out there are the one's we own
Also, I find your comments vis a vis pianos spot on. A while back has the opportunity to accompany a professional pianist on a piano buying expedition. It's very interesting that musicians use much the same language as audiophiles in assessing and describing the sound of the piano they're playing
I agree with you on the Steinways; they seem more built for loudness and to fill a hall with sound, not delicacy and finesse. Personally, my faves are Boesendorfers and Bechsteins 
Let's go back to audiophiole 101:
For a discouse on the pros and cons of on and off axis FR ,See the the posts on this forum by Roger Sanders of SandersSoundsytems. I assume Roger has tools to measure frequency response.
Peter Aczel for one postulated that the time domain was possibly the most aspect of speaker design/performance. Hience his love of the DCM Time Window. His refence was the Beveridge 2SW. He was also a big fan of the Quad and wrote a favorable review of the MartinLogan CLS 1.
***
I beleive someone on this site said blind testing is only necessary for small diffferences. For me at leats if a speaker is bad I don't need to compare to another. Remeber my reference is live music.
Long ago it was the custom of dealers to pack numerous speakers in one room and switcch between them rapidly. I don't do A/B testing any more. To paraphase the late Harvey Rosneberg in a letter he wrote to Stereophile. Buying A because it's better than B is a marketing tactic. Or as a s a dealer told me his job was to show the customer product A and product B. Then convince them they should buy A because be becuase it's better than B.
It would then Be presumptious but entirely unlikey that the purchasers of ML did not make a thorough assesment of ML and its' arguuably more "acurate" compettetors.
Obviously they disagreed with AMIR and the other testakers.
Finally AMIR I apologize if I wrongly atrributed any characteristics of your listening preferences. We have never met nor shared a ny listenig sessions.
I have payed clase attention to your arguments, your stated loistening habits and equipment. I also have visited your store website and and made infereces from the products you carry. For example I PM''d you about the fact that you don't carry cables. Right or wrong combiined with your other postings i inferred that you don't think much of the commercial cable market. Of course HP once said, again paraphtsing, that he could often not spot a defect ubitl he heard a device that was free of it. Again that usually involed samll differences.
As far as my english I'll try to do better. Since youare associated with Microsoft maybe you cant tell me why my grammar/spellchecker suddenly stopped working. (smile)
Of late i find it more important to respond directly to the principle at issue rather than the poster. A vane attempt to avoid the inevitable personal food fight. (smile).
For a discouse on the pros and cons of on and off axis FR ,See the the posts on this forum by Roger Sanders of SandersSoundsytems. I assume Roger has tools to measure frequency response.
Peter Aczel for one postulated that the time domain was possibly the most aspect of speaker design/performance. Hience his love of the DCM Time Window. His refence was the Beveridge 2SW. He was also a big fan of the Quad and wrote a favorable review of the MartinLogan CLS 1.
***
I beleive someone on this site said blind testing is only necessary for small diffferences. For me at leats if a speaker is bad I don't need to compare to another. Remeber my reference is live music.
Long ago it was the custom of dealers to pack numerous speakers in one room and switcch between them rapidly. I don't do A/B testing any more. To paraphase the late Harvey Rosneberg in a letter he wrote to Stereophile. Buying A because it's better than B is a marketing tactic. Or as a s a dealer told me his job was to show the customer product A and product B. Then convince them they should buy A because be becuase it's better than B.
It would then Be presumptious but entirely unlikey that the purchasers of ML did not make a thorough assesment of ML and its' arguuably more "acurate" compettetors.
Obviously they disagreed with AMIR and the other testakers.
Finally AMIR I apologize if I wrongly atrributed any characteristics of your listening preferences. We have never met nor shared a ny listenig sessions.
I have payed clase attention to your arguments, your stated loistening habits and equipment. I also have visited your store website and and made infereces from the products you carry. For example I PM''d you about the fact that you don't carry cables. Right or wrong combiined with your other postings i inferred that you don't think much of the commercial cable market. Of course HP once said, again paraphtsing, that he could often not spot a defect ubitl he heard a device that was free of it. Again that usually involed samll differences.
As far as my english I'll try to do better. Since youare associated with Microsoft maybe you cant tell me why my grammar/spellchecker suddenly stopped working. (smile)
Of late i find it more important to respond directly to the principle at issue rather than the poster. A vane attempt to avoid the inevitable personal food fight. (smile).
Well you should if the piece calls for playing into the lower octaves since the Bosendorfer extends to 28 Hz.
The tool unfortunately requires a $1M+ anechoic chamber which most speaker manufacturers do not have. They usually rent space in one if they are going to test but that doesn't allow for enough iterations. That said, I just did a quick search and I see that Roger agrees with importance of frequency response:
"A speaker must do several things to perform well. In addition to obvious things like linear frequency response and fast transient response, a high performance speaker must also be able to play loudly enough to reproduce music and all its dynamics at realistically life-like levels. No full range ESL can do so. "
I see theories about speaker performance all the time. Indeed, there are hundreds if not thousands of them. Every manufacture has its thing about speaker design. You can and indeed will go crazy trying to rationalize what they say against any other manufacturer. Here is the one big difference here: Dr. Toole and Crew have literally written the books here. While they are not trivial to read and understand, they require surprisingly little technical knowledge to follow. And it is not just opinions. Everything stated is backed by other research and experimental data. No stone is left unturned.
For me, that was an incredible revelation. After 40 years of being an audiophile, I finally understood acoustics and speaker design. Mind you, nothing to the level of enabling me to become a designer. But rather, understanding how all the pieces hang together. I don't mind this as an insult but I am confident if I asked you to prove the time domain thing you won't be able to. But I feel very comfortable proving everything I have read, down to the level that is understandable by all on this forum.
I will be covering more chapters of this in the future. But the net is that we have a professor, Dr. Toole, that not only knows his stuff, but is able to explain it in an integrated and authoritative manner. Others may be right with their point of view but they are unable in my opinion, provide the same convincing story.
Even the biggest advocates of double blind testing repeat this line. It absolutely is wrong. The confusion comes from the fact that people keep thinking double blind tests are to be used as binary tests of audibility. For my entire career of developing audio technology at Microsoft, we used double blind testing but never as a binary test. We always graded outcomes that were different. Likewise in speaker testing, the same thing happens. So personally I never fell in that ditch of thinking there is one use for blind testing and it is to know if small differences are audible.
That can't be. When you go and shop for a speaker, there is no live band you can AB with. There is nothing you are hearing that has anything to do with the live performance. You are hundreds of edit decisions away. Yes, you can be a good judge of what is good sound potentially but let's not confuse that with knowing what the original performance sounded like to the talent or the audience. We are very far from that.
I think this whole ML thing is getting out of hand. Nothing about this research has to do with Martin Logan. It happened to be a sample in there as with countless other speakers which did not perform well in the listening tests and had correspondingly poor off-axis and on-axis response.
I like you to please put aside this brand and think about the simple idea that you hear the direct and indirect sound of the speaker and that the sum total should have a smooth response. That if it doesn't, you have to be really non-caring about audio fidelity to not hear its impact. A 5 db dip in 2Khz is going to change those vocals. It just is. Everything else will be secondary to that tonal impact there. If that did not matter, we could use an EQ and recreate that situation and no one would care. I am confident though that no one would flunk this test here. It will not be subtle.
I like to make sure people don't equate me with my company. My views here are personal and not always reflected in what we have to do as a business. There is nothing related to cables in this discussion so I prefer that we do not take it there. If you are saying that we don't know good audio because we don't market cables, then please create a new thread and I will address it. For now, it is off-topic.
I can't tell you that. But I can tell you to use Google Chrome which has a real-time spell checker. It it is not a great one by any measure but does catch basic mistakes. I gave up on using IE long, long time ago.
Yeah, it is interesting ain't it.
But when you think for a little bit, it can make sense you know. Firstly, forget for now sighted and previous bias/conclusions etc, we only ever hear things in isolation. What I mean is, when something is taken alone with NO counter reference, it can be just accepted and we have nothing to compare it to (well duh
BUT, suddenly have a counter reference we can immediately compare it to, then things change dramatically. All of a sudden, that is when peaks etc jump out at you. (think the colour chart comparison, take one alone...but have two side by side and a different ball game)
Same deal with the Dave Moulton, dunno if you or anyone bothered to read it (he is a very well respected figure in audio btw) he was absolutely and completely convinced he and his partners were on to a winner with their speaker. How many times and in how many different situations did he hear them??
Same deal tho, when he was suddenly able to juxtapose them with other sound references (blind of course) and be able to directly compare them, he too had the audio epiphany you spoke of with amir.
Look, it is kinda like habituation. It is a relatively recent phenomenon but flat bass etc is a good exa,ple of that. The vast majority oif people have and live with lumpy poor bass (tis only in the last decade say that some have begun to measure in their room at home, prior to that it woulda cost thousands just for the program let alone the technician to go with it!).
Yet the majority of them would be completely unaware of that, and listen to that sound as if there was nothing up. (we still have arguments on forums about bass, subs and measurements, there are many audiophiles out there still completely stuck in the dark ages).
Now, suddenly flip that switch and have the bass sorted and smooth, WOW! And it is not just the bass, the perception of the entire frequency range changes completely.
If you have ever experienced that demo, then you'd have an idea of what I am talking about. The point is however, that for *years* we have been completely happy with the sound we had, and it is only by that process of side by side comparison that gives us the reality.
Were the Harmon products unique? Was the presentation unigue? If I nwere there and picked the ML and found the others unacceptable would not that have been regarded as a statiscal anomaly.
I just assmend that amongst the pros and trained listeners they had significant experience.
Amir,
You are a knowledge man, and you are doing much more and better than me when exposing the Harman research. But in my very humble opinion your too sure perspective sometimes distorts the intentions of the author, mostly because it is impossible to summarize such a long and deep research in a few posts. People reading your sentence But the net is that we have a professor, Dr. Toole, that not only knows his stuff, but is able to explain it in an integrated and authoritative manner will get a wrong idea of his book. F. Toole exposes his views in his book, surely defends them, but also exposes other views and the limitations of his work. I do not have the time to type it all, and in part because of it moved out of the debate, but interested people should read page 469 of the second edition of Sound Reproduction.
BTW1 a debate in which only one has read the original texts and others just send supporting or against posts is just a monologue.
BTW2, my sad criticism to Harman in all this was that they were exposing rival speakers in unfair conditions and nominating them or allowing easy identification, knowing that 99.9% of the public will only read the figure captions, nothing else. This will cause fights in any debate about their research and I have to say I am not interested in participating in more fights in WBF.
You are a knowledge man, and you are doing much more and better than me when exposing the Harman research. But in my very humble opinion your too sure perspective sometimes distorts the intentions of the author, mostly because it is impossible to summarize such a long and deep research in a few posts. People reading your sentence But the net is that we have a professor, Dr. Toole, that not only knows his stuff, but is able to explain it in an integrated and authoritative manner will get a wrong idea of his book. F. Toole exposes his views in his book, surely defends them, but also exposes other views and the limitations of his work. I do not have the time to type it all, and in part because of it moved out of the debate, but interested people should read page 469 of the second edition of Sound Reproduction.
BTW1 a debate in which only one has read the original texts and others just send supporting or against posts is just a monologue.
BTW2, my sad criticism to Harman in all this was that they were exposing rival speakers in unfair conditions and nominating them or allowing easy identification, knowing that 99.9% of the public will only read the figure captions, nothing else. This will cause fights in any debate about their research and I have to say I am not interested in participating in more fights in WBF.
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Appreciate the kind words.
I agree that it would be a mistake to say that we know everything with 100% confidence. We don't. But we have very strong evidence of one set of data mattering. This is the final paragraph on page 469:"Obviously, all of the answers are not known, but much seems to have been
proved beyond reasonable doubt. Most of the evidence fits together in a logical
pattern, and although not simple, it is eminently comprehensible. The greatest
encouragement is that the basic rules for designing good sounding loudspeakers
seem to be sitting in front of us."
If you listen to Dr. Toole, Allan Devantier, etc. in person you see that the points that I have been emphasizing are the cornerstone of their thesis and ones that they are very comfortable defending. Per above, while they leave the door open for other explanations, it is not at the expense of this factor.
I am sorry I don't follow your English
. What do you mean? If you mean I am only saying this because I have read a book, that is not the case at all. I have spent days talking, listening and interacting with Harman researchers. I have been to their lab, and listened over and over again to their presentations. While I am probably not doing full justice to it, I think I am conveying the overall message right. I actually think Harman is not being transparent enough here! When I attend private events with them, I get the far more data on specific speakers and brands. Yet a tiny fraction has been exposed here. It is eye popping to see how bad these speakers can get.
The data should be out there and manufactures free to come and respond with their tests, optimally positioning or whatever they feel is necessary to do the test right. But so far, they have not. Whether it is the test of Room EQ systems or speakers no one else has published such tests. As I always say, perfection is hard to come by in such tests. So flaws are to be expected. But so far, the others have not shown contrary data for us to examine or better tests for that matter. We always say what we hear matters. Yet all we get from other manufacturers is talk of this driver and that material. Why not a listening test?
I'm puzzled about Floyd Toole's work. I did not read his book but I've read many comments and references to it and to other work he's done. It seemed to me the one contribution of note he made was to determine the number and placement of subwoofers for uniform bass response in a small room. You almost never see audiophiles following that advice.
From what I can glean, Toole's research related to market preferences which concluded that the most liked loudspeakers coincided with among other things flat frequency response and early lateral reflections. Insofar as the reflections are concerned, Leo Beranek came to the same conclusion expressed in his many treatises regarding concert halls. I presume the Revel Salon Ultima was the best expression of the sum total of his knowledge incorporating everything he'd learned. The version he designed had a rear firing tweeter which would result in lateral high frequency reflections, something contrary to the goals of the mainstream of speaker design today which often strives for beaming high frequencies along a fairly narrow solid angle. But as soon as he retired, the speaker was redesigned in a series II version which removed the rear firing tweeter. If I got this right, how would you explain this shift in desing philosophy? Any thoughts about that?
I am sorry I don't follow your English
Apologies for the poor sentence- misspelling or for of spoil ed it - I am tired of pushing heavy weights
and a short night sleep. Just wanted to say that as no one else other than you has read the original articles and book, no real debate is possible. BTW David and Goliath is a nice story, but only a fool or someone having no business connections would accept to fight openly against Harman. Judging by the reaction of most people at WBF it would be a ruinous and unfair fight - and who wants to fight against Robin Wood?
BTW2 The previous long paragraph of page 469 is also very interesting ...
Whoever said that doesn't understand what blind testing is; they have confused AB/X testing with all blind testing. AB/X testing is about differences. As I've summarized it before:
Here's A. Here's B. Here's X. Is X A or B?
Very simple. Probably the best way to determine the audibility of differences, and completely unnecessary if those differences are not subtle, so yes, AB/X testing is only necessary for small differences. AB/X can be DBT, but DBT is not necessarily AB/X. That's where the confusion occurs. There are many things that can be evaluated through blind and double blind testing that are not subtle. These speaker tests we're talking about here are a great example.
Blind testing merely removes the biases associated with seeing the product your listening to -- visual design, brand, cost, etc. Double blind does that and also assures that the people conducting the tests cannot consciously or subconsciously influence participants.
Tim
Perhaps you should blind yourself to Harmons resources. It seems to influence you greatly. Being flat in anechoic chamber does not replicate real world conditions. Many manufacturers show themselves sittiing in anechoic chamber. I assume they make good use of it.
Saying linear response is important is iakin to saying the "son is hot." Read Rogers' white papers where he reounts many factors eg. on axis reponse(narrow sweet spot),distrotion, transient repsonse, high spl witouht brekup. Admittedly elctrostantics varying impedance acroos tthe audio spectrum causes problems. It does represent a trade off. Hence my refence to time domain vs frequency domain. See my reference to Peter Aczel above. I use him as example of one not known to ignore measurements.
Ratinalizing theoriies may be agonizing. I find evaluating thier implementation not difficult at all.
Is not ringing a time doiamin error? I find it highly objectionable?Don't you? BTW just how would I go about proving that to you? (time domain v Frequency response)
Right or wrong eerts usually prevail over layman.
.
Realy I don't mean to make this personall, but it was you who said blind testing is only necessary for detecting small differences.... I remember becaus4 it came as quite a shock.
First I guess you missed the part where I said I don't do A/B testing. While my mmeory is less than perfect my idea of what a piano or drum sounds like is sufficient for audition purposes. I might be an exception Sonuc memery is real. Musicians tune their instruments by ear. You may recall my reference is live music not the source.
Agreed. It's not about ML I;m 'concerend about.Iit's waht appears to be an epihany that concerns me.
EQ only cures one problem.
I thought we endeavored to hear only the first launch. Remeber your complaint on Robert harley for proclaiming a systemthe best he heard in an untreated room.
No problem. We are however the sum of expereince. Conflict of interest is real even if you think you are immune. I seem to remeber you asking me how I proported to know things about you when I had not made an inquiry of you. I tried to explain. It's you who have stated your chose products based on science. All you have to is clink on the link themn click on products.It's you who have endorsed SEan Olives methods. I merely made some inferences based on that knowledge.
Thank You I hope my English is decipherable.(Tongue planted firml in cheek)
Gregadd
Tim,
Ideally, yes. In practice it removes a lot more than that. BTW, Jorma Kaukonen "Blue Country Heart" sounded better than ever yesterday. Blessed advice from you and blessed biases!
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