The art vs. the science of speaker design..

[DaveyF]

Sonus Faber under Franco Serblin was IMO one of the most artistic run speaker Co's to exist. Today, it seems that the Co., is shifting away from the art leads science way of design and moving more to the technology and science based philosophy. ( the jury is out on whether or not this is a good thing)
The question is how much of the art side is necessary in the design of a Sonus Faber speaker or for that matter any speaker. IMHO there needs to be at least a preponderance of art to science in a speaker design. IMO, all of the greatest speakers that I have heard have a certain artistic aspect that seems to come to the fore and the rest follows. Contrary to the art vs. science designs are manufacturer's like Magico or YG ( IMO,basically pure science and little if any artistic quality). YG being a speaker design that I personally would NOT entertain. This is clearly an area where YMMV is appropriate.
Thoughts...

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tell us a little more about the artistic aspect as you hear it.

Tim

 

[DaveyF]

Briefly Tim, I hear the artistic aspect in the more artistically designed speakers ability to portray timbre and midrange. Some would call them lush or warm, some would call them sublime ( I prefer the latter). Akin to the way you hear the difference between a carbon fibre guitar and a high quality wood guitar. ( I suspect that you can get this analogy, LOL ) or as I posted in the other thread, perhaps the difference if one was to listen to a modern violin, built with the latest in technology vs a real Stradivarius. Maybe you can tell us about how you hear the scientific aspect.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Briefly Tim, I hear the artistic aspect in the more artistically designed speakers ability to portray timbre and midrange. Some would call them lush or warm, some would call them sublime ( I prefer the latter). Akin to the way you hear the difference between a carbon fibre guitar and a high quality wood guitar. ( I suspect that you can get this analogy, LOL ) or as I posted in the other thread, perhaps the difference if one was to listen to a modern violin, built with the latest in technology vs a real Stradivarius. Maybe you can tell us about how you hear the scientific aspect.

Actually I've heard some carbon fibre guitars that seemed very good, though I haven't played one, and you never know about an instrument until it is in you hands. I love a good headphone rig, but I don't like headphones with perfectly flat frequency response. Some simulation of room gain is necessary to make them sound natural instead of very dry. So my approach to cans is not by the numbers. Here's the FR of my favorite headphones:

I love the way these things sound. Can I join the subjectivists club now?

With speakers, however, your room does this for you, unless it is badly over-treated. Do you want to hear the recording and the environment you're playing it in (which you have some control over), or so you want to hear the timbral vision of a tertiary artist (the guy "voicing" the speaker) who doesn't know what music is going to play where and how loud? To my mind, the closest to neutral I can get is the best place to start. I'll adjust treatment, furnishings, speaker placement and, in extreme cases, eq, from there.

With that said, speakers are the weak link in the chain. I have yet to see a pair of complex speakers that approached the accuracy of the flatest in-ear monitors, even in an anechoic chamber. You are more or less forced to choose your color at this end of the signal chain. This is the best place to play. But a speaker that is voiced for color is naturally going to sound better on some recordings and worse on others. The more neutral speaker is the more neutral platform IMO.

Was that scientific? I don't think it was. I think it was just a few opinions.

Tim

 

[LL21]

I actually think the term 'art' gets a bad rap as 'inaccurate' or 'too personalized'...in truth, nearly everything we do has some 'art' in it. It is part of the human condition...we do not always understand why things happen in speaker design, nor can we make the perfect speaker, thus we must selectively make judgment calls to ultimate craft a speaker.

For example, if a speaker designer sets out to make a ruler flat bookshelf speaker...he has to make a judgement call about where to cut off the low-end since it wont be full range...he probably would not cut if off at 70hz...too high...but that's subjective decision...is that really science? not really...its art...a personal choice about where the designer thinks his buyers are going to want the cut off. Off-axis response, dispersion capability, cones vs planar vs dipole vs 2-way vs cones vs ribbons...all judgment calls, all personal designer decisions...all involving some element of 'art'.

And then it gets really grey when some designers finalize any design by 'listening' by ear....vs measurements. There is art in both camps. Listening by ear is probably self-explanatory. But even the 'measure camp'. What do you measure? What does the designer think are the relevant measurements to even focus on, in a variety of listening rooms with too many variables you cannot possibly predict? Clearly it has been demonstrated (in anechoic chambers) that very scientific-seeming speakers were specifically designed with upper bass humps...presumably on purpose...that ain't ruler flat, so what gives? Another decisions...how high should this bump be? 3db? 1.5db? Art.

 

[Jeff Fritz]

I've spent years now speaking with the best speaker designers in the industry. From what I have learned, I think the question is being framed all wrong.

The question should be whether a speaker sounds the way that it does because it was intentionally designed that way. Or does the speaker sound the way that it does because of chance or through rudimentary fiddling with the thing. There is art involved in the choices to make a speaker sound warm in the midband, for instance, but it takes science and therefore measurement to purposefully affect just the right area that the designer wants voiced.

Art is not listening and fiddling with the crossover with no measurements and eventually getting a sound you like. That is just a lack of engineering.

Art is making specific design decisions and then using science to make it work exactly the way you want it to. This is what the good companies do.

 

[Keith_W]

I should point out that the sound signature does not change no matter what room you are in. Your wife still sounds like your wife whether she is yelling at you from the living room or in the bathroom. For sure, aspects of the sound change - but she is still recognizable as your wife. Same with speakers. I have heard my system in more than one listening room and its basic characteristics remain the same.

 

[Whatmore]

I should point out that the sound signature does not change no matter what room you are in. Your wife still sounds like your wife whether she is yelling at you from the living room or in the bathroom. For sure, aspects of the sound change - but she is still recognizable as your wife. Same with speakers. I have heard my system in more than one listening room and its basic characteristics remain the same.

Don't tell that to my wife Keith. She'll then tell me that I can move my "bloody speakers" out of the living room and into the garage because "they'll still sound like your speakers"

 

[microstrip]

DaveF,

Borrowing the word art for a thread about speaker design will lead to ambiguous statements, unless you use the terminology of five centuries ago, when the use of expert skills or the use of science was considered an art.

As the main purpose of the speakers is to broadcast the art existing in recordings, we shoudl refer to this art as art and the art in speaker design as art

IMHO, successful speaker speaker design is also related to talent - a concept sometimes difficult to explain, but maybe more appropriate to describe someone who deals with an engineering problem.

 

[puroagave]

My tastes have always leaned towards British speakers because the ‘science’ was mostly solid with a minimum of the “by gosh and by golly” method of engineering which I will call the ‘art’ side of design. If art also refers to the physical beauty then Sonus Faber does that very well.

Considering beauty, in my speaker history there has been an inverse relationship between looks and sound quality with the Apogee Duetta at one end the Quad ESL 57 on the other (being the ugliest if you couldn’t tell) I still own the Quad, the Apogee lasted less than a year before I traded it.

 

[microstrip]

(...)

I love the way these things sound. Can I join the subjectivists club now?

Tim,

Unhappily no, as far as I know you still have to go through a scrutiny process. Only owners of the AKG K701, Beyerdynamics DT880 and Sennheiser HD650 are immediately accepted.

http://www.headfonia.com/old-school-trio-akg-k701-beyer-dt880-sennheiser-hd650/

You know, the famous more recent models sound better and you are supposed to upgrade audiophile law is still being applied for member acceptance ...

Happily you can apply for an exception based on the bad frequency response of the HD600 and your love for music. See you at the club soon!

 

[JackD201]

In my opinion there is no versus between art and science for anything. Even if you substitute engineering for science I will still hold the same opinion.

The definition of art is broad enough to cover both science and engineering. Art is defined as the product of imagination and skill. One look at theoretical physics and surely these theories can be considered art. Mathematicians value elegance in form. Engineers value the same. I daresay more than the average person who has less insight into the inner workings.

Today's engineering was yesterday's art. A good product is derived from a good idea (art and science) and good implementation (engineering).

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,

Unhappily no, as far as I know you still have to go through a scrutiny process. Only owners of the AKG K701, Beyerdynamics DT880 and Sennheiser HD650 are immediately accepted.

http://www.headfonia.com/old-school-trio-akg-k701-beyer-dt880-sennheiser-hd650/

You know, the famous more recent models sound better and you are supposed to upgrade audiophile law is still being applied for member acceptance ...

Happily you can apply for an exception based on the bad frequency response of the HD600 and your love for music. See you at the club soon!

It gets worse. Mine are actually 580s. Replaced by the 600s years ago, but just a cosmetic upgrade.the sonic upgrade is the 650, but I just don't like them as well. They go deeper, but they also seem to pull back. The 650s are box seats at the opera. The 580/600 is a front table at the Village Vanguard.

Now, if that doesn't get me in, I'm giving up the dream.

Tim

 

[DaveyF]

Jack, basically I do agree with your statement. One could certainly say that all great products are derived from art and science. However, i do believe that there many speaker designs that are purely based in science and have not come out as well as one might think. Perhaps the use of the word 'art' isn't the best descriptor of what I am referring to...maybe a better term would be 'human touch'. After all, I feel that the best speakers I have heard, have had a very close relationship to the 'human touch' of the designer. The chosen shape, the materials used and how they are constructed ( take the many oils and varnishes that my GH's have applied in their build as an example of this) and lastly the choice of driver and material that is utilised by the artisan. All have a significant impact on the finished product, just IMHO.

 

[JackD201]

History is one of my favorite subjects Davey Many times we forget that much of what we enjoy today came from periods in history where the ears were the only measurement tools What measurement tools did was accelerate the process of progress but they can never replace the intuition that dictates their use.

A good example is the lute shape made popular by Sonus Faber. Back then the concept of standing waves was unknown but through trial and error artisans ended up adopting these shapes for their instruments. Realizing this SF adopted the shape for their loudspeakers hundreds of years later. Another example is that of doubling of perceived loudness. It's no coincidence that there are as many violin chairs as there are in an orchestra. Adding another violin didn't double perceived loudness. All this before loudness perception was set to a logarithmic scale.

One thing for sure is all SF's I've heard share a house sound. Clearly there is an aesthetic that their engineers work towards. That is not to say they do not employ a lot of engineering to get them that way. Perhaps this is what you mean vis-a-vis companies that strive to meet not aesthetic curves but rather flat response? Another thing for sure is that SF knows how to make a damned good looking loudspeakers, well, except the snail sat/sub perhaps. I think the company is a good example of how a company can be successful by not trying to be all things to all people.

Now we could look at these "scientific" loudspeakers in another way. They require more involvement from the user in both associated equipment and set up. If they are flat, have high resolution and wide bandwith, you can make them sound sweet and warm or sour and icy and anything in-between. This type of thing isn't for everybody either. For those that enjoy the process of tuning their systems to taste (dead neutral included) however they are more flexible tools.

Even if I am not one of the folks that go for the SF house sound preferring flatter loudspeakers with wide, wide bandwidth and preferring to inject colors I want myself upstream, it doesn't mean I don't like how they sound. I do and very much so. If you are going to imprint a sonic signature might as well make sure it's a good one. SF's is definitely good.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to "art." I wouldn't call any of the activities you guys are talking about art. I'd call it design, and craftsmanship, at best. And then only when there is hand work involved. No, to me it's not semantics. I reserve "art" for the music, and some of that is questionable.

Tim

 

[DaveyF]

I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to "art." I wouldn't call any of the activities you guys are talking about art. I'd call it design, and craftsmanship, at best. And then only when there is hand work involved. No, to me it's not semantics. I reserve "art" for the music, and some of that is questionable.

Tim

Tim, there is a lot of truth to that. However, much of what I am referring to is handwork done by artisans at the SF factory. The woodworking and finish of some of these speakers has to be seen to be believed, leading to my description of art.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim, there is a lot of truth to that. However, much of what I am referring to is handwork done by artisans at the SF factory. The woodworking and finish of some of these speakers has to be seen to be believed, leading to my description of art.

I do love beautiful woodworking. It can crack the line between craftsmanship and sculpture.

Tim