It’s All a Preference
- Thread starter mep
- Start date
What does that have to do with what I said about peer reviewed articles? Can you show me the acceptance rate for JAES?
And yes a few. Mostly dealing with analog. You know, that two volume compendium.
I am trying to find out if you have relevant data on the organization whose work relates to ours. How many of the JAES papers have you read and what percentage of them are third or second rate?
No. Why should I? I can go by what is there and rate on its quality. It is like you asking me how many engineers BMW didn't hire to judge the quality of engineers who work there and their car.
What was their quality? Second and third rate? If so, can you provide the titles?
Amir, what do you think of this one?
On The Design, Measurement, and Evaluation of Loudspeakers
In the quest for better ways to measure and evaluate loudspeakers, it is natural to search for quantitative objective tests to replace the qualitative subjective methods that are vulnerable to the large variances of individual value judgement. In this pursuit, there is the danger of employing objective standards whose correlation to the ultimate goal of natural sound reproduction is open to serious question. This paper examines the merits and shortcomings of some of the well known measurement criteria and presents some new approaches intended to make steps in the direction of more meaningful measurement and evaluation procedures.
Author:Bose, Amar G.
Affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
AES Convention:35 (October 1968)Paper Number:622Permalink
I'll bet there's a paper published in JAES rationizing the design of, or for a system of measurements proving the superiority of half the speakers Floyd Toole doesn't like.
If you go to the JAES library search you'll get 53 hits on Edgar Villchur, 73 on Paul Klipsch.
On The Design, Measurement, and Evaluation of Loudspeakers
In the quest for better ways to measure and evaluate loudspeakers, it is natural to search for quantitative objective tests to replace the qualitative subjective methods that are vulnerable to the large variances of individual value judgement. In this pursuit, there is the danger of employing objective standards whose correlation to the ultimate goal of natural sound reproduction is open to serious question. This paper examines the merits and shortcomings of some of the well known measurement criteria and presents some new approaches intended to make steps in the direction of more meaningful measurement and evaluation procedures.
Author:Bose, Amar G.
Affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
AES Convention:35 (October 1968)Paper Number:622Permalink
I'll bet there's a paper published in JAES rationizing the design of, or for a system of measurements proving the superiority of half the speakers Floyd Toole doesn't like.
If you go to the JAES library search you'll get 53 hits on Edgar Villchur, 73 on Paul Klipsch.
Last edited:
So which journal do you think is more rigourous in its reviewing process? One that publishes 50% of those submitted or 25% or those submitted? I wasn't necessarily referring to JAES but to a rubber stamp of everything published being the word of God.
As I said, it was a two volume compendium of analog articles published between 1940 or so and 1980. And some were clear clunkers like the paper published by the researchers at RCA on Dynagroove.
I have read the paper and the abstract is not representative of what is in there. The first half of the paper shows (correctly) that we do not have a reverbrant field in our much smaller home listening spaces as exists in large concert halls. He then proposes the famous Bose solution of having most of the sound come out the back of the speaker and bounce from rear wall as to generate much larger indirection sound than direct in the hopes of recreating that reverbrant field (which at the end, he says cannot really be achieved). He then faces a new problem: how to measure the frequency response of such a system since it relies so much on back firing drivers which in an anechoic chamber would not do their job. So he creates experiments for that. There is also a bit about how to mitigate distortion of an array of smaller drivers.
So no, it is not a general model trying to mach up listening test to objective measurements.
Every speaker manufacturer has a rationalization for why they do what they do. How is that relevant here?
What am I supposed to do after that???
I am sorry but seems like there is some friction here. No one is trying to prop up Dr. Toole here. There is data that I happen to know first hand, having sat through some of the experiments. We should discuss it on merit and not worry about whose God is more worthy and should be worshiped more.
I only know of two journals here: JAES and JASA. I am a member of the former and have read many papers. I find them to be good quality. I don't know how JASA compares to it as I have not read much of their work. There are no other avenues that I know of. This is not like looking for which college to go to where there are dozens and you look at their acceptance rate. We have two organizations and that is it as far research work for acoustic related work. There may be others but I don't know of them.
I don't know about such technologies so can't be a judge.
In general, I am very critical of people who put up AES papers and say, "here, you have to believe since it was published in AES." So I am not here to say the mere mention of AES should make one shake in their booth. But the opposite is also true. These are not crackpots publishing third-rate stuff. All such reports should be taken seriously and read carefully. If we can discover flaws, then we can discuss them. But in my view, it is inappropriate and disrespectful to put them down because we don't have their submission rejection ratio and such.
It's not about the journal, Amir. All of their attempts to discredit the Harman research have been met by more studies, sound methodology, excellent implementation and solid logic. The message -- that there is a direct correlation between measurement and sound, that the measurement can predict preference, and most important, most unwanted -- that the preference runs against their beliefs -- has proven unassailable, but is still unacceptable, so they're attempting to kill the messenger: The journal is bogus, you are biased, it's all just marketing.
It's desperate; headed rapidly toward pathetic. Almost makes me long for Frank to come along and change the subject to eliminating inaudible distortion by wiring his underwear to the microwave. Comic relief would be good about now.
Tim
It's desperate; headed rapidly toward pathetic. Almost makes me long for Frank to come along and change the subject to eliminating inaudible distortion by wiring his underwear to the microwave. Comic relief would be good about now.
Tim
Harman's research in this area seems to me to be accurately categorized as market research and has no relevant bearing on scientific research as far as I can tell. There are no new scientific principles that have been discovered or even hinted at. Even as an engineering paper they have contributed no new engineering design techniques, no advance in an engineering manufacturing or design method to achieve a goal. They are strictly focused on preference (except for the discoveries about subwoofer placement.) And that is not even directed to some greater understanding of psychoacoustic processes. Except for the fact that all of the speakers are located in the same spot in the same room to eliminate that one variable that might affect other evaluation techniques for loudspeaker comparison. Where are the facts different from what I just said? This seems entirely geared towards what will make the most money. But even here, there's been a disconnect. If I understand the papers correctly it seems from the measured data in JA's review that RUS2 didn't even meet its own target performance goals. I'm also not impressed by any testimonial endorsements especially from magazines that seem to try to boost circulation by publishing every issue with an article touting the newest best speaker in the world of the month. And even JA has a paper published in JAES "how I measured 360 loudspeakers under identical conditions (every one of them wrong because they were incomplete???)
Loudspeakers: What Measurements Can Tell Us-and What They Can't Tell Us!
Over the past eight years, the author has measured the acoustic and electrical performance of more than 360 consumer loudspeakers under identical conditions. A discussion of how a loudspeaker should be measured is followed by general conclusions concerning a) which measurements are most informative regarding system diagnosis and b) which measurements best correlate with sound quality.
Author:Atkinson, John
Affiliation:Stereophile Magazine, Santa Fe, NM
AES Convention:103 (September 1997)Paper Number:4608PermalinkImport into BibTeX
Subject:
Unhappily this thread we are mixing under the designation of Harman science or Harman research several very different subjects, some of relevant scientific merit and some that are turned towards marketing.
Harman contributed to this mix - if you see the slides of the last presentation at AES, they do not seem to be targeted towards a scientific audience, but to disseminate their research to general public. They introduce a new subject and end with a repetition of old work.
I can not be sure that the decision of the choice of the bad measuring speaker for these presentations was not taken by scientists, but I also can not understand why the front image of a presentation entitled Some More Evidence that Kids (American and Japanese) Prefer Good Sound needs to start with an image shows four speakers speakers costing between 500 and 3800 usd, when the new some more evidence was centered in an interesting new study about compressed music.
Harman contributed to this mix - if you see the slides of the last presentation at AES, they do not seem to be targeted towards a scientific audience, but to disseminate their research to general public. They introduce a new subject and end with a repetition of old work.
I can not be sure that the decision of the choice of the bad measuring speaker for these presentations was not taken by scientists, but I also can not understand why the front image of a presentation entitled Some More Evidence that Kids (American and Japanese) Prefer Good Sound needs to start with an image shows four speakers speakers costing between 500 and 3800 usd, when the new some more evidence was centered in an interesting new study about compressed music.
Market research? Sure. This is product development and yes, any company investing in it would hope it pays a dividende. Marketing? Hardly. I know marketing when I see it, I've spent my lifetime doing it and if this were marketing there would be full-page ads in AV magazines screaming from the headlines that a $700 pair of Infinitys beat an $11,000 pair of Martin Logans (though they would probably not point out, in the ad for the Revels, that the $700 Infinity's rank neck to neck with them. Welcome to my trade.). New engineering techniques? No, just some new testing methodologies. You're no capital A audiophile, as you've said. What this research does, that is drawing such a howl, is not introduce startling new ideas, but provide very solid evidence for two obvious ones that have long been denied by Audiophiles -- that measurement can predict sound and that price is unrelated to performance. Those are blasphemy in Audiophile circles and the faithful have rushed forward to burn the blasphemers and kill the messenger because they've been unsuccessful in rebutting the message.
Your motivations for working so hard to discredit the obvious? I haven't a clue. But let's summarize again for clarity. There are just two things this research shows that matter:
1) Measurements can predict sound.
2) Price is unrelated to quality
That ever FR was preferred is just a sidebar for the audiophile community. But it's the most useful tidbit for Harman, and they've made very good use of it.
Tim
You can't put out an opinion and ask people to disprove it. You have to put forward data to back it. One piece of data would be large scale listening tests such as what we are discussing. And ones that the correlate what we measure to what we hear.
The whole point is moot anyway as I said in my last response to you. We are not here to decide to give a medal to Harman or Dr. Toole. We are here to expand our understanding of speaker sound reproduction. So it matters not if the research is not new or original. It only matters if it is right. So far, I have not seen other data like they have gathered put forward. Or reasons why we would prefer distorted off-axis frequency response.
Building what your customers want will result in that. By your standards, Apple deserves no credit in figuring out the original iPod should have had a tiny hard disk no one else used to get your entire library in your pocket. Or the wheel tho scroll through the same. Or use of a touchscreen as the exclusive input method for a phone. There are versions of all of this in use elsewhere but Apple focused on putting them together in a useful way to serve their customers. You would be calling it market survey because they understood what their customers wanted. I call it great execution and feet of engineering.
As I noted in the BMW example, I don't call someone trying to build great handling cars a market research firm because they figured out we pay for good handling. There is nothing new in consumers wanting great handling either. But getting there, is what is hard and requires excellent understanding of science and human interaction.
In one breath you are saying you don't go by magazine articles and in the next talking about what they say about this speaker? The Revel is an example of a speaker designed using this methodology. The only data that is relevant is if you had listening tests done without bias that shows it to lose to others. That would contradict the research we are discussing.
Have you read the paper and quote what is relevant to our discussion?
For now, you may want to note that he draws from Dr. Toole/Olive research:
"Toole and Olive did considerable work on the audibility of resonances [69, 70]. It is generally held that high-Q,
high-but-narrow peak resonances are less objectionable than low-Q, low-but-broad peak resonances, It is also held
that dips in the amplitude response that might also be associated with resonant behavior are less audible than peaks."
But wait, it gets better!
'WHAT MAKES A GOOD-SOUNDING LOUDSPEAKER?
Dickason [76] offers some discussion of this question, but the definitive answers are to be found in Toole's
comprehensive 1986 papers [77, 78]. Nothing that I can conclude from the past eight years' work, at least when it
comes to conventional forward-firing, moving-coil designs, is in serious conflict with his findings. As 1wrote in
1991 [79], "The best-sounding loudspeakers, in my opinion, combine a fiat on-axis midrange and treble with an
absence of resonant colorations, a well-controlled high-frequency dispersion, excellent imaging precision, an
optimally tuned bass, and also play loud and clean without obtrusive compression."
You can't put out an opinion and ask people to disprove it. You have to put forward data to back it. One piece of data would be large scale listening tests such as what we are discussing. And ones that the correlate what we measure to what we hear.
The whole point is moot anyway as I said in my last response to you. We are not here to decide to give a medal to Harman or Dr. Toole. We are here to expand our understanding of speaker sound reproduction. So it matters not if the research is not new or original. It only matters if it is right. So far, I have not seen other data like they have gathered put forward. Or reasons why we would prefer distorted off-axis frequency response.
Building what your customers want will result in that. By your standards, Apple deserves no credit in figuring out the original iPod should have had a tiny hard disk no one else used to get your entire library in your pocket. Or the wheel tho scroll through the same. Or use of a touchscreen as the exclusive input method for a phone. There are versions of all of this in use elsewhere but Apple focused on putting them together in a useful way to serve their customers. You would be calling it market survey because they understood what their customers wanted. I call it great execution and feet of engineering.
As I noted in the BMW example, I don't call someone trying to build great handling cars a market research firm because they figured out we pay for good handling. There is nothing new in consumers wanting great handling either. But getting there, is what is hard and requires excellent understanding of science and human interaction.
In one breath you are saying you don't go by magazine articles and in the next talking about what they say about this speaker? The Revel is an example of a speaker designed using this methodology. The only data that is relevant is if you had listening tests done without bias that shows it to lose to others. That would contradict the research we are discussing.
Have you read the paper and quote what is relevant to our discussion?
For now, you may want to note that he draws from Dr. Toole/Olive research:
"Toole and Olive did considerable work on the audibility of resonances [69, 70]. It is generally held that high-Q,
high-but-narrow peak resonances are less objectionable than low-Q, low-but-broad peak resonances, It is also held
that dips in the amplitude response that might also be associated with resonant behavior are less audible than peaks."
But wait, it gets better!
'WHAT MAKES A GOOD-SOUNDING LOUDSPEAKER?
Dickason [76] offers some discussion of this question, but the definitive answers are to be found in Toole's
comprehensive 1986 papers [77, 78]. Nothing that I can conclude from the past eight years' work, at least when it
comes to conventional forward-firing, moving-coil designs, is in serious conflict with his findings. As 1wrote in
1991 [79], "The best-sounding loudspeakers, in my opinion, combine a fiat on-axis midrange and treble with an
absence of resonant colorations, a well-controlled high-frequency dispersion, excellent imaging precision, an
optimally tuned bass, and also play loud and clean without obtrusive compression."
"You can't put out an opinion and ask people to disprove it. You have to put forward data to back it. "
Not working in this industry I don't have access to most of the data that would be useful but I'd bet that Bose sold a lot more speakers to home consumers (not counting professional JBL installations) than Harman has over the years even since this research has been done. Harman never came close to equalling Acoustic Research's 32.2% of the domestic speaker market share did they? What did they garner, 3.22% ? I don't know that they ever got close to even that. It's clear from not only actual sales and number of units sold that when it comes to preferences, the market doesn't agree with Harman. Why? Poor marketing? Lack of distributors? Price? Failure to impliment the result of the research in actual products?
Handling of an automoble can be objectively measured and quantified with great accuracy and completeness. Data for loudspeaker performance not only strikes me as incomplete but subject to variables such as room acoustics and program material that are not accounted for in the data and are not engineered to be compensated for either in the equipment itself nor in most audiophile sound systems. In fact they seem to be deliberately omitted. I'd still like to know what is meant by a "good" recording other than one that makes a particular sound system sound "good" to a particular listener. It's too bad we don't have the raw spin-o-rama data for the different speakers tested. I'd like to see how Harman's measurements compare to Atkinson's. Where's the data for bass harmonic distortion as a function of frequency and SPL? Nowhere to be found.
You don't really expect me to pay to download all of these papers do you? Perhaps if I remember when I'm in the public library I'll borrow Toole's book.
I didn't say this is marketing, I said it is market research.
Now here's some irony for you. Long before I ever heard of Toole, I came to many of the same conclusions he did. But I didn't restrict my speakers to be front firing speakers at all. The speakers I designed and built for myself put out an enormous amount of lateral energy and the reflections even taking into account the room boundaries are fllat. And the systems are equalized to be flat and smooth for each individual recording. When I hear Revel Ultima Salon 2 in the next few weeks they will be competing against my own reference that by Toole's standards appears to be a far better execution of his ideas than his own best speaker is.
Tim: "You're no capital A audiophile, as you've said."
I'm not an audiophile with a small "a" either. This is strictly a mathematical puzzle for me. I am not only emotionally involved with the equipment, music doesn't stir emotion in me either. I just enjoy it. My preference.....live unamplified music which to my mind is all that qualifies as music and not as a facsimile of music. The challenge, built a machine that sounds like music, not the one that most people prefer. I don't sell them, I use them myself when I want to hear real music but don't have access to it.
You would actually be wrong if you consider that much of this research results in advancement in automotive sound where it generated billions of dollars in revenue for Harman and amounts to tons of volume. I drive a car with this technology in it. And why would you separate JBL?
Regardless, I see no logic in this argument as I have said repeatedly. What if I invent a great new driver and come and mention it here. You are going to ask me to sell as many as Bose before you take me seriously? Really?
Bose is an incredible marketing machine. That is their claim to fame now. If you want to complain about marketing, I would not pick them as your here brand.
By your definition there are no good speakers today then since none have 32% market share. Is this what you are saying? That everyone's speaker is poor because they have not achieved 32% share? Does BMW M5 have 32% market share of sports cars?
Who cares? We are not discussing why something sells vs not. We are discussing what makes a good speaker and how to evaluate our preferences for such. Xerox came up with the foundation of modern UI for computers for the next few decades. How much money did they make from it?
Not the feel of that steering or how the car corners. I still remember the first time I drove a BMW. You couldn't wipe the smile of may face
. The car had a feel that made you think it was an extension of your arms. I had never felt that before. Many companies can match that g rating and such. But they just didn't have this intangible feel. I remember reading a great Road and Track article where they said every manufacture had surely analyzed their suspension parts. They were all there to see. Yet no one had matched it. They talked about the fact that the steering transmitted a bit of vibration from the road/engine. They talked to the engineer and they said they could easily dial that out with a bushing but doing so took away the road feel.This was 10 to 15 years ago and other manufacturers have surely closed the gap. But that company maintained that lead due to capturing the precise feel drivers wanted in a car. And held that crown for a long time if not still.
So no, it was not simple measures that everyone had. There was more to it.
That is a defeatist position that I used to hold too. Until learned what the research was, and then started to match it up with my own testing/observation. It then clicked that good design stands out even in a room and this is not a random endeavour where we keep guessing at what results in better sound. You absolutely can design a speaker that performs well when placed in a room. Not with 100% confidence but with high confidence.
A handful was presented and I have seen tons more. What do you hope to find that wasn't in the ML, B&W, Polk and Kilipsch so presented?
Atkinson doesn't have access to the facilities they do. He uses a real room rather than anechoic chamber and doesn't have a speaker shuffler. Despite that, he has high praise for Dr. Tool's and Olive's research. You presented that paper and are quoting my extract from it. Did you not see that?
Oh, they have it and measure it religiously. From one of the Revel brochures:
"A Laser Interferometer measurement system is used to rapidly scan
a driver’s diaphragm even when it is operating at extremely high
frequencies, providing a visual confirmation that the radiating surface remains pistonic and does not exhibit signs of breakup. The
laser interferometer is also used during speaker cabinet development, to ensure that the cabinet remains acoustically inert and
does not radiate unwanted acoustic energy"
We are discussing one important chapter in speaker design. It doesn't mean he book has only that one chapter. The key point here is that we are not trying to discuss Revel speakers but what we prefer as humans. In that regard, we hear frequency changes with ease. This is why speakers all sound different to us. Distortion and other non-linearities are much harder to hear unless their levels are quite high. Don't waste time fixing those if you got the first order answer wrong.
I expect you to read the research papers you put forward to back your arguments. If you have not read the research, then it is improper to say it backs your point of view. As you saw in the example above, the opposite was true due to this: the JA paper clearly gave credit and huge amount of it to Dr. Toole/Olive research. Had you read them I am sure you would not have put them forward.
And yes, I expect people who care about audio performance to spend money learning about it. I paid the yearly subscription for AES just to learn more. We spend thousands on equipment purchase but the tool that lets us get there, a $55 book by Dr. Toole, seems to take low priority. I don't get that.
It is a negative spin either way. I have done a lot of market research. It never includes the type of data we are talking about. We pay for example to see what name to pick for a product. Or what features people like. When we put them through a listening test, that is what we call it: listening test. We don't call that market research. You are using a derogatory term to distract from the value of the work. It is not proper to do that when it is completely inconsistent with the use of the term in the industry. You can disagree with the work of Dr. Toole/Olive but please show some respect to them. They has spent decades researching and presenting this data to us. The least they deserve is to not soil their work by calling it market research.
So you performed market research too?
Then why all the arguments? Why not come out and give us high five saying he is absolutely right? Why the bit about AR and Bose? Why the bit about Revel Salon speakers? Makes no sense in my book that you would agree yet protest repeatedly that this is market research data and should be taken as a commercial spin.We would only know that if you presented unbiased objective data as they have been brave enough to subject themselves too. So unfortunately your sighted observation going into them with a bias that you know how to build speakers better than they do, won't add any scientific weight to the discussion. But I am pleased that you are open minded enough to at least try.
You would actually be wrong if you consider that much of this research results in advancement in automotive sound where it generated billions of dollars in revenue for Harman and amounts to tons of volume. I drive a car with this technology in it. And why would you separate JBL?
Regardless, I see no logic in this argument as I have said repeatedly. What if I invent a great new driver and come and mention it here. You are going to ask me to sell as many as Bose before you take me seriously? Really?
Bose is an incredible marketing machine. That is their claim to fame now. If you want to complain about marketing, I would not pick them as your here brand.
By your definition there are no good speakers today then since none have 32% market share. Is this what you are saying? That everyone's speaker is poor because they have not achieved 32% share? Does BMW M5 have 32% market share of sports cars?
Who cares? We are not discussing why something sells vs not. We are discussing what makes a good speaker and how to evaluate our preferences for such. Xerox came up with the foundation of modern UI for computers for the next few decades. How much money did they make from it?
Not the feel of that steering or how the car corners. I still remember the first time I drove a BMW. You couldn't wipe the smile of may face
This was 10 to 15 years ago and other manufacturers have surely closed the gap. But that company maintained that lead due to capturing the precise feel drivers wanted in a car. And held that crown for a long time if not still.
So no, it was not simple measures that everyone had. There was more to it.
That is a defeatist position that I used to hold too. Until learned what the research was, and then started to match it up with my own testing/observation. It then clicked that good design stands out even in a room and this is not a random endeavour where we keep guessing at what results in better sound. You absolutely can design a speaker that performs well when placed in a room. Not with 100% confidence but with high confidence.
A handful was presented and I have seen tons more. What do you hope to find that wasn't in the ML, B&W, Polk and Kilipsch so presented?
Atkinson doesn't have access to the facilities they do. He uses a real room rather than anechoic chamber and doesn't have a speaker shuffler. Despite that, he has high praise for Dr. Tool's and Olive's research. You presented that paper and are quoting my extract from it. Did you not see that?
Oh, they have it and measure it religiously. From one of the Revel brochures:
"A Laser Interferometer measurement system is used to rapidly scan
a driver’s diaphragm even when it is operating at extremely high
frequencies, providing a visual confirmation that the radiating surface remains pistonic and does not exhibit signs of breakup. The
laser interferometer is also used during speaker cabinet development, to ensure that the cabinet remains acoustically inert and
does not radiate unwanted acoustic energy"
We are discussing one important chapter in speaker design. It doesn't mean he book has only that one chapter. The key point here is that we are not trying to discuss Revel speakers but what we prefer as humans. In that regard, we hear frequency changes with ease. This is why speakers all sound different to us. Distortion and other non-linearities are much harder to hear unless their levels are quite high. Don't waste time fixing those if you got the first order answer wrong.
I expect you to read the research papers you put forward to back your arguments. If you have not read the research, then it is improper to say it backs your point of view. As you saw in the example above, the opposite was true due to this: the JA paper clearly gave credit and huge amount of it to Dr. Toole/Olive research. Had you read them I am sure you would not have put them forward.
And yes, I expect people who care about audio performance to spend money learning about it. I paid the yearly subscription for AES just to learn more. We spend thousands on equipment purchase but the tool that lets us get there, a $55 book by Dr. Toole, seems to take low priority. I don't get that.
It is a negative spin either way. I have done a lot of market research. It never includes the type of data we are talking about. We pay for example to see what name to pick for a product. Or what features people like. When we put them through a listening test, that is what we call it: listening test. We don't call that market research. You are using a derogatory term to distract from the value of the work. It is not proper to do that when it is completely inconsistent with the use of the term in the industry. You can disagree with the work of Dr. Toole/Olive but please show some respect to them. They has spent decades researching and presenting this data to us. The least they deserve is to not soil their work by calling it market research.
So you performed market research too?
We would only know that if you presented unbiased objective data as they have been brave enough to subject themselves too. So unfortunately your sighted observation going into them with a bias that you know how to build speakers better than they do, won't add any scientific weight to the discussion. But I am pleased that you are open minded enough to at least try.
"You would actually be wrong if you consider that much of this research results in advancement in automotive sound where it generated billions of dollars in revenue for Harman and amounts to tons of volume. I drive a car with this technology in it. And why would you separate JBL?"
The JBL brand sells to several different markets. It's professional division is highly competitive selling individual installations worth many hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars each. It automobile sound system sales are entirely ancilllary, nobody I ever heard of decided to buy a car because of the factory installed sound system in it. I've owned 2 Lincolns with JBL sound systems as I reported previously. The first one bought new added only about 2% to the price of the car. The second in a used car I bought did not affect my decision to buy that car one way or the other. My own experience with it is that it is a very poor product and I would not choose it as an option on a new car again. Frankly automotive sound systems don't interest me anyway, if I listen to a car radio at all it's usually to hear the news. If I listen to music on rare occasions I don't pay much attention to the sound system. I was somewhat familiar with some of the JBL consumer speakers like the S series, the Northridge N series and the Ti series. The high end Ti speaker struck me as similar to the original RUS at a much lower price.
"If you want to complain about marketing..."
I have no complaint about marketing so long as people tell the truth about their products. Marketing is part of life. A good book about marketing that's no longer in print is called "I can sell you anything." What I'm observing is that marketing research should not be confused with scientific research. They are both legitimate areas of investigation but they often have nothing to do with each other.
"By your definition there are no good speakers today then since none have 32% market share. Is this what you are saying? "
No, I'm saying there are no good speakers because there are no good speakers. At least not by my criteria among those I've heard. How many have I heard? More than I can count over many many years including some that were very highly praised and some that were very expensive. How many speakers have been on the market in say the last 50 years? I'd bet over 100,000. I didn't hear more than a few percent of them. I gave up that pursuit a long time ago. Occasionally I'll go out into the world to see what it's up to. That's why I'm willing to give a few of them a listen now. You really dont hear much at trade shows which is why I skipped New York a few weeks ago.
"We are discussing what makes a good speaker and how to evaluate our preferences for such. "
What is your definition of good? Toole's seemed to be what pleases most people. That's not my definition at all. Having considered the problem I've decided that the best that can be expected of a conventional two channel sound system, what most audiophiles seem to regard as their preferred system, recreating the tonality of musical instruments accurately or convincingly insofar as memory serves is the most one can hope for and the one uncompromising standard by which I make judgments of relative worth. This is because where I learned music, tonality was stated as one of the four basic elements of music, imaging is not and therefore doesn't mean beans to me. When I hear a recording of the greatest violinist of the 20th century play a ten million dollar violin, I want to hear what that violin sounds like as closely as possible. I've heard that violin live and I've heard another very much like it many times. If a $100,000 sound system can't do that, it isn't high fidelity in my book and it's of no value to me no matter how many people like it.
"a defeatist position that I used to hold too. Until learned what the research was..."
"You absolutely can design a speaker that performs well when placed in a room."
Not any speaker I've ever seen or heard. Studying how musical instruments propagate sound and how it interacts with a room before it reaches my ears and studying how loudspeakers do it, the huge disparity explains why. That's why I have to design my own or more accurately fix what's wrong with theirs (usually easier and cheaper to start with something already partway there than to start from scratch.)
"A handful was presented and I have seen tons more. What do you hope to find that wasn't in the ML, B&W, Polk and Kilipsch so presented?"
A product tha does what they said it would, sound like real musical instruments. Their's don't at least not to my ears. But then I hear the sound of actual real music, not recordings almost every day in my own home. I'm not surprised some would be frightened by live versus recorded demonstrations or even dismiss them. If their products can't create a reasonable facsimile of music upon direct comparison even under the most contrived conditions what can be said about them? Once upon a time reproducing music was the goal of this industry. But it's clear, the problem has beaten them. They can't solve it. They've thrown up their hands and said it is beyond solving, at least it is for them. As I said, my interest was solving a puzzle. So what is the next best thing they can do to justify their companies, their jobs? Redefiine the goal to be something else, something they can achieve...like produce the best product they can, judged by what the most people like from what's available. Only when you don't win that race, you chalk up the success of the guy who did to marketing. Sour grapes IMO.
" I see no logic in this argument"
I hope you are not taking any of this too seriously. I'm not. For me it's just an exchange of views. I don't work in this industry, I don't sell or make products in this industry, what people buy or don't buy, think or don't think about products or theories has no bearing or effect on me personallly.
Not at all. It is not like they put probes in your brain and see which neurons fired that has to do with pleasure. You hear 3-4 speakers playing the same song and you decide which one is best at it. Then the next song and the song after that. It is a comparative preference of one speaker compared to others. This is precisely what we all try to do when we shop and evaluate speakers. Except that we are doing it deaf and blind, hearing one speaker in one place, and another in some other place. Here, you can compare all you want with 4 seconds. What comes out is the speaker you like to own relative to others. With a basis that is far, far more logical than shopping without it.
I realize it is hard for this message to get across without being there. The closest thing I can suggest is to test two compressed audio files. There are AB tools that do this. Take a file and compress it at 128k with AAC and another with MP3. Then compare. What you pick is the one that sounds better to you and has higher fidelity and not what is more pleasurable. In such testing, our ears are acting as test instruments, not pleasure sensors.
Fortunately, a speaker or item that does well here, brings pleasure later with high fidelity reproduction. Major international standards such as AAC were developed this way.
That is neither here nor there since you have no idea that CD that you are playing is faithful to that instrument in any of those metrics you mention. You say there are no good speakers so a bad speaker was used to preview and approve that very recording! And you expect it to magically sound better on your speakers? How is that possible? If your speakers sound different, then you are hearing something different than the talent approved. If yours sounds the same, then the other speaker is good too.
What is important then is what does justice to what is delivered to you. The only way to make that call is to take away your bias and have you compare the candidates blind. There is a show in US called The Voice where the judges have their backs to the singers. They have to decide to bet on them without seeing them. Funny how many non-good looking people get picked this way
. It is a challenging discussion as it is getting argumentative. When it gets to this point, I lose interest. I must have addressed the point of Dr. Toole work being "market research" a half a dozen times and yet it is brought up over and over again. If you have some fresh data, research, etc. please put it forward so that we can discuss it. What you personally prefer especially if it is a view distinct from all others (that there are no good speakers for example) is not something that is useful to others reading these posts.
Not at all. It is not like they put probes in your brain and see which neurons fired that has to do with pleasure. You hear 3-4 speakers playing the same song and you decide which one is best at it. Then the next song and the song after that. It is a comparative preference of one speaker compared to others. This is precisely what we all try to do when we shop and evaluate speakers. Except that we are doing it deaf and blind, hearing one speaker in one place, and another in some other place. Here, you can compare all you want with 4 seconds. What comes out is the speaker you like to own relative to others. With a basis that is far, far more logical than shopping without it.
I realize it is hard for this message to get across without being there. The closest thing I can suggest is to test two compressed audio files. There are AB tools that do this. Take a file and compress it at 128k with AAC and another with MP3. Then compare. What you pick is the one that sounds better to you and has higher fidelity and not what is more pleasurable. In such testing, our ears are acting as test instruments, not pleasure sensors.
Fortunately, a speaker or item that does well here, brings pleasure later with high fidelity reproduction. Major international standards such as AAC were developed this way.
That is neither here nor there since you have no idea that CD that you are playing is faithful to that instrument in any of those metrics you mention. You say there are no good speakers so a bad speaker was used to preview and approve that very recording! And you expect it to magically sound better on your speakers? How is that possible? If your speakers sound different, then you are hearing something different than the talent approved. If yours sounds the same, then the other speaker is good too.
What is important then is what does justice to what is delivered to you. The only way to make that call is to take away your bias and have you compare the candidates blind. There is a show in US called The Voice where the judges have their backs to the singers. They have to decide to bet on them without seeing them. Funny how many non-good looking people get picked this way
It is a challenging discussion as it is getting argumentative. When it gets to this point, I lose interest. I must have addressed the point of Dr. Toole work being "market research" a half a dozen times and yet it is brought up over and over again. If you have some fresh data, research, etc. please put it forward so that we can discuss it. What you personally prefer especially if it is a view distinct from all others (that there are no good speakers for example) is not something that is useful to others reading these posts.
I'm glad you're not taking this any more seriously than I am.
Having given up on what other people design and build, I've been far more satisfied with my own efforts. I'm still willing to keep an open mind but I never compromise, it's not in my nature.
Seeing a loudspeaker as only one element in a system that starts with the sound that reaches the microphone and ends with the sound that reaches my ears it's clear to me that there are many variables not only beyond the loudspeaker's control but beyond the playback system user's control. Spectral balance should not be one of them. Skillful use of playback equalization can compensate for the variation of spectral variables that occur from any recordiing to any other recording. My experience is that spectral balance of CDs and to a lesser but real extent phonograph records is all over the place. This is because there are no standards for making recordings. Therefore compensation must be made to each one individually. This takes a great deal of experience hearing live music and skill using an equalizer, almost invariably far beyond the capabilities of audiophiles. For that reason they may be better off without them as they can make things murch worse as well as better.
"Pleases", "comparative preference", this seems to me like merely a difference in terminology. It's the antithesis of which sounds closer to A? B or C? Often there is no answer to that question because both sound different but in different ways. Which radio sounds more accurate, Crossley or Atwater Kent? What if my room has different acoustics from the test room, won't that affect which speaker I prefer? What if my collection of recordings I want to listen to are different from those deemed "good recordings" by those running the test. I'm no particular fan of James Taylor. I have no idea how one of his CDs wound up in my house although I did wind up with a few LPs on a lark a few weeks ago when I bought 110 LPs I'll will probably never listen to because they're not my kind of music for $10. I can't resist a bargain.
I don't do streaming files with different compressions yet. I still live in a world mostly of RBCD and rarely an LP.
"And you expect it to magically sound better on your speakers? How is that possible?"
Math, science, and electrical engineering
"If your speakers sound different, then you are hearing something different than the talent approved."
You bet I am. You think I'd settle for that junk they monitored it with? RCA Olson LC1A, CBS Altec voice of the theater, London FFRR probably Tannoy. And that was in the era of vinyl phonograph records when monitoring systems equalization was checked and tweaked at major studios once a week by a technician with a calibrated microphone and real time spectrum analyzer and sweep generator. Today I think many balance engineers use near field monitors like the one in the clip from BBC about the $16,000 KEF speakers used. Others use various audiophile type speakers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9562304.stm
"The only way to make that call is to take away your bias and have you compare the candidates blind."
The only bias I've got is for real music. I've seen speakers of every shape, size, and color. There's no way to know what to expect about what will come out of them until you hear them. Not only am I open minded abot RUS2, I'm still open minded about ML even though with the dealer's own recording in his own controlled showroom where the Summit was the most expensive speaker he had I heard five obvious FR errors. Remarkable there could be so many of them. The treble was wierd falling with frequency and then rising again and of course no upper bass. a typical flaw of many audiophile speakers.
Last edited:
It's actually worse than that, Amir. Deaf and sighted. No real ability to compare sonically, with all the brand, price, visual and prestige biases fully in play.
I haven't read every line of this thread...it's just too much...but it is interesting and strangely familiar. You're arguing against an approach that defies the existing science, that takes unusual approaches that are not supported by anything but the reported experiences of a single individual. That individual swears to attaining gravity-defying results on the cheap, results that have completely evaded all the best minds in the industry, through rather bizarre homemade remedies.
Don't you think this one belongs in DIY? I think it so belongs in DIY.
Tim
"arguing against an approach that defies the existing science, that takes unusual approaches that are not supported by anything but the reported experiences of a single individual."
Actually it is not only supported by the mathematics used to develop it and a lot more, it's supported by a United States Patent. It's a patent that nobody was interested in. And it does sharply disagree with prevailing theories and shows where many of them are wrong. I'll PM you if you like.
Similar threads
