The Path to Paradise . . . or the Road to Ruin?

[PeterA]

I listen for the believability of a solo vocalist with acoustic instrument accompaniment being present in my listening room and singing to me. I value most highly transparency, no artificial brightness, true-to-life corporeal and instrumental "body," true-to-life dynamics and true-to-life harmonic richness. I listen for a "natural" sound.

By transparency I mean that with respect to having the sense that a live person is singing to me in my listening room there is nothing "between" me and the singer. I conceive of the recreation of a vocal performance which makes as easy as possible the suspension of disbelief. I want to feel that I hear no electronic adulteration, no artificial or unbelievable "carrier" riding on the signal. Transparency to me means listening to a vocal performance with no electronic neutral density filter of any kind between me and the singer.

Ron, this is a very clear description of what you are looking for in this SOTA system that you are assembling. I met and subsequently became friends with Al M. because I contacted him regarding a discussion we were having on WBF about large speaker systems being able to portray scale equally well/realistically when reproducing both singer with guitar and full orchestra. It had been our shared experience that few large speaker systems that we actually heard could reproduce both equally well. Because we each have mini monitor based systems, we agreed that small speakers can get the size of a solo instrument or singer to sound convincing, but they struggled with large symphonic music and conversely, we had both heard large speaker systems that could do large scale well, but failed at recreating a believable solo instrument or singer.

We have since heard MadFloyd's system which can do both scales well. Which of the large speaker systems that you have recently auditioned are best able to convincingly reproduce the smaller scale performance that you are primarily interested in hearing and do you feel that they could do a better job with this than a slightly smaller speaker system could do? Or do you think there would be a slight compromise in this area so that your large system could excel at the large scale that you would like on occasion but is not your main focus?

 

[DaveC]

Ron, this is a very clear description of what you are looking for in this SOTA system that you are assembling. I met and subsequently became friends with Al M. because I contacted him regarding a discussion we were having on WBF about large speaker systems being able to portray scale equally well/realistically when reproducing both singer with guitar and full orchestra. It had been our shared experience that few large speaker systems that we actually heard could reproduce both equally well. Because we each have mini monitor based systems, we agreed that small speakers can get the size of a solo instrument or singer to sound convincing, but they struggled with large symphonic music and conversely, we had both heard large speaker systems that could do large scale well, but failed at recreating a believable solo instrument or singer.

We have since heard MadFloyd's system which can do both scales well. Which of the large speaker systems that you have recently auditioned are best able to convincingly reproduce the smaller scale performance that you are primarily interested in hearing and do you feel that they could do a better job with this than a slightly smaller speaker system could do? Or do you think there would be a slight compromise in this area so that your large system could excel at the large scale that you would like on occasion but is not your main focus?

Yup, the Magicos approximate a point source and can also play loud, basically what I said a couple posts ago. A speaker like the TAD Ref 1 should be even better, imho.

Ron, for the type of music you enjoy most you are looking in the wrong places imo... A small speaker like a Feastrex driver in a simple BR cab will beat the $hit out of anything you've been considering for female vocals with light instrumental accompaniment... by a mile!

 

[Purite Audio]

Single drivers are the worst, to get any bass you need a large driver which will beam horribly at even moderate HF, the least distortion is found in three and four way loudspeakers.
Keith.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Just throwing a little bit gasoline on the fire :B ...

It is my opinion that the better large speaker can do everything the small do and , of course, a lot more. This aside .. It seems Ron is looking for a speaker that will play his favorite as well as possible and the o "odd" things he may fancy at one point or the other: Jazz, Large Symphonic .. Hip-Hop (Ok! just joking, although I consider it a musical genre like any other with its good and bad pieces) ... Let's add one more data point: Magico.

The Q3 convinced me they were the real deal and in term of transparent midrange quite the match for any ESL you care to think of... In all Magico speakers there is a clear absence of "noise" for the lack of a better term, that needs to be experienced to be truly appreciated. The Q5 is IMHO better than the Q3 or S5... As for the Q7 IMHO one of the best speaker out there.. It is all the positives you have heard about and not difficult to drive. Its midrange clarity and transparency (its overall ) sound in general is pure to a startling fashion and on voice it is one of the best around there
I didn't want to go proselytizing on subwoofers but there is a lot of myths on the subject. In my book of great subwoofers: I would rate the Seaton Submersive as amongst the best, their most glaring weakness? Their low cost. Whatever we want to think it is a luxury business/hobby/endeavor and we tend to only be satisfied when we have spent a certain amount .. thus a SOTA subwoofer for less < $3500 is an oxymoron for most audiophiles. The (relative ) low cost of the Seaton affords to have more of them thus smoother bass response which most of the time translate in smoother sound everywhere .. Then there is the Paradigm Sub 1 and 2 with also relatively modest prices then there are the JL Audio much more expensive and of course, higher audiophile creds.

Reading the previous posts I noticed DaveC's about Magico

 

[amirm]

Amir, what is more complex or difficult for a speaker to reproduce accurately: a recording of one female singer playing one guitar or a recording of the same singer playing the same guitar plus a piano being played slightly behind and to the right of the singer with guitar?

I am not interested in which example makes it easier for a listening panel to hear differences between speakers. I am interested in which example is more difficult for the speaker to reproduce accurately what is on the recording? I think there is a difference and it is the latter that I discussed in my post to Ron.

"Complexity" as you describe it is not an enemy of loudspeaker performance. Loudspeaker doesn't know whether it is playing two or three instruments. It gets a varying waveform in every case.

Complexity is the enemy of the listener trying to determine fidelity of a loudspeaker. This is why you perhaps think complexity should be used to evaluate loudspeakers.

The biggest problem with a loudspeaker is varying frequency response. Every one of us has the ability to instantly hear these frequency response variations. A boost by 3 db and dip by 2 in another loudspeaker is instantly identifiable. In this respect, it is important to use a set of content that together exercise the full frequency response of the loudspeaker. If you play orchestral music that lacks bass frequencies for example, you would be instantly missing evaluation of that important region. Pop music on the other hand is always rich in that area.

Here is controlled listening test with four different tracks where the frequency response was changed using an EQ in different bands:

Notice that the least revealing track was Canadian Brass. Most effective was Paul Simon, likely the type of music Ron may listen to . The Canadian Brass (orange line) was NOT revealing at 100 Hz (#2) likely because it had little spectrum there. Paul Simon (in yellow) did because it had a rich spectrum. Not higher "complexity" but richness of spectrum.

Loudspeaker timbre is the most important characteristic of a loudspeaker. And it comes through in almost every room. It is important to use tracks that are revealing of it and as it turns out, that selection of music is the type of music Ron is using. Perhaps not correct set but the right genre.

What stresses the loudspeaker is power. Non-linearity creeps in and fast. So again, you need to evaluate the loudspeaker in this manner too. Playing soft classical music at 75 db may not apply. You should evaluate loudspeakers on the loud side of what you can tolerate.

 

[PeterA]

Hi

Just throwing a little bit gasoline on the fire :B ...

It is my opinion that the better large speaker can do everything the small do and , of course, a lot more. This aside .. It seems Ron is looking for a speaker that will play his favorite as well as possible and the o "odd" things he may fancy at one point or the other: Jazz, Large Symphonic .. Hip-Hop (Ok! just joking, although I consider it a musical genre like any other with its good and bad pieces) ... Let's add one more data point: Magico.

The Q3 convinced me they were the real deal and in term of transparent midrange quite the match for any ESL you care to think of... In all Magico speakers there is a clear absence of "noise" for the lack of a better term, that needs to be experienced to be truly appreciated. The Q5 is IMHO better than the Q3 or S5... As for the Q7 IMHO one of the best speaker out there.. It is all the positives you have heard about and not difficult to drive. Its midrange clarity and transparency (its overall ) sound in general is pure to a startling fashion and on voice it is one of the best around there
I didn't want to go proselytizing on subwoofers but there is a lot of myths on the subject. In my book of great subwoofers: I would rate the Seaton Submersive as amongst the best, their most glaring weakness? Their low cost. Whatever we want to think it is a luxury business/hobby/endeavor and we tend to only be satisfied when we have spent a certain amount .. thus a SOTA subwoofer for less < $3500 is an oxymoron for most audiophiles. The (relative ) low cost of the Seaton affords to have more of them thus smoother bass response which most of the time translate in smoother sound everywhere .. Then there is the Paradigm Sub 1 and 2 with also relatively modest prices then there are the JL Audio much more expensive and of course, higher audiophile creds.

Reading the previous posts I noticed DaveC's about Magico

Yes indeed. The lack of noise from Magico cabinets is indeed one of their characteristics. I would add their sealed enclosures. Very low distortion from this brand and the larger models can indeed do scale very well, though it depends a lot on the rest of the system, room and set up quality. They also have the speed and clarity and transparency of panel speakers , at least in my limited experience with panels.

 

[DaveC]

Single drivers are the worst, to get any bass you need a large driver which will beam horribly at even moderate HF, the least distortion is found in three and four way loudspeakers.
Keith.

Please tell us about your experience with Feastrex drivers. Which drivers have you heard? In which cabinets?

 

[PeterA]

"Complexity" as you describe it is not an enemy of loudspeaker performance. Loudspeaker doesn't know whether it is playing two or three instruments. It gets a varying waveform in every case.

Complexity is the enemy of the listener trying to determine fidelity of a loudspeaker. This is why you perhaps think complexity should be used to evaluate loudspeakers.

The biggest problem with a loudspeaker is varying frequency response. Every one of us has the ability to instantly hear these frequency response variations. A boost by 3 db and dip by 2 in another loudspeaker is instantly identifiable. In this respect, it is important to use a set of content that together exercise the full frequency response of the loudspeaker. If you play orchestral music that lacks bass frequencies for example, you would be instantly missing evaluation of that important region. Pop music on the other hand is always rich in that area.

Here is controlled listening test with four different tracks where the frequency response was changed using an EQ in different bands:

Notice that the least revealing track was Canadian Brass. Most effective was Paul Simon, likely the type of music Ron may listen to . The Canadian Brass (orange line) was NOT revealing at 100 Hz (#2) likely because it had little spectrum there. Paul Simon (in yellow) did because it had a rich spectrum. Not higher "complexity" but richness of spectrum.

Loudspeaker timbre is the most important characteristic of a loudspeaker. And it comes through in almost every room. It is important to use tracks that are revealing of it and as it turns out, that selection of music is the type of music Ron is using. Perhaps not correct set but the right genre.

What stresses the loudspeaker is power. Non-linearity creeps in and fast. So again, you need to evaluate the loudspeaker in this manner too. Playing soft classical music at 75 db may not apply. You should evaluate loudspeakers on the loud side of what you can tolerate.

I asked you if you thought a singer with a guitar or a singer with a guitar and a piano is more difficult for a speaker system to reproduce. You did not really answer my question directly, but from your response, I gather you think they are equally difficult to reproduce. I also think the wave form is more complex when you add the piano into the mix.

A full range piano recording is a challenge for my mini monitor, much more than is a recording of a single singer playing a guitar. I think it has to do with the number and size of the drivers in my speakers. More drivers and larger drivers if implemented properly in a good design would do a better job or reproducing the recording.

When I evaluate speakers, I listen to a variety of music, both singer and guitar and full orchestra. It gives me a more complete picture of what a speaker is capable of doing.

We are going around in circles, so perhaps it is best to simply disagree and leave it at that.

 

[amirm]

I asked you if you thought a singer with a guitar or a singer with a guitar and a piano is more difficult for a speaker system to reproduce. You did not really answer my question directly, but from your response, I gather you think they are equally difficult to reproduce.

I explained that difficulty as you put it, comes in the context of how loud you play. Whether a song does or does not have a rich spectrum to find variations in the response of a loudspeaker is a matter of optimizing for the person doing the evaluation, not matter of difficulty for the loudspeaker.

I also think the wave form is more complex when you add the piano into the mix.

A sine wave is simple. Any piece of music is already complex. More complex or less complex has no meaning here. And even if it did, you haven't explained why a loudspeaker cares about complexity when all it sees is one voltage value after another.

We are going around in circles, so perhaps it is best to simply disagree and leave it at that.

Not at all. This is a super important area. Evaluating sound of loudspeakers is one of the most talked about topics in the forum. We spend so much time comparing notes. Yet we don't step back and try to understand the system and from that, and using research, determine the logical path to do such. This when we are talking about the most imperfect component in our audio chain.

 

[Purite Audio]

Please tell us about your experience with Feastrex drivers. Which drivers have you heard? In which cabinets?

Over the years many, in many shapes/forms of backloaded horn, but never for long!
My least favourite speaker design, it is just physics one driver cannot cover the entire frequency range.
Keith.

 

[DaveC]

Over the years many, in many shapes/forms of backloaded horn, but never for long!
My least favourite speaker design, it is just physics one driver cannot cover the entire frequency range.
Keith.

BLH usually suck. The thing is, for "female vocals with instrumental accompaniment", 20-20kHz is not required and the coherency and speed of the Feastrex drivers allows them to reproduce music like this without peer... for some kinds of music they are the absolute best. I did say they have their limitations, but for this genre of music it really doesn't matter.

 

[PeterA]

Not at all. This is a super important area. Evaluating sound of loudspeakers is one of the most talked about topics in the forum. We spend so much time comparing notes. Yet we don't step back and try to understand the system and from that, and using research, determine the logical path to do such. This when we are talking about the most imperfect component in our audio chain.

So let's step back and evaluate the data. Based on your research, which speaker is best suited to satisfy Ron's criteria and musical preferences for small scale performances such as a singer playing a guitar?

 

[Purite Audio]

So let's step back and evaluate the data. Based on your research, which speaker is best suited to satisfy Ron's criteria and musical preferences for small scale performances such as a singer playing a guitar?

If you just wanted to hear female vocal, then something like the Elipse single driver ( egg) speakers would probably be perfect , but they are limited.
Keith.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . Which of the large speaker systems that you have recently auditioned are best able to convincingly reproduce the smaller scale performance that you are primarily interested in hearing and do you feel that they could do a better job with this than a slightly smaller speaker system could do? Or do you think there would be a slight compromise in this area so that your large system could excel at the large scale that you would like on occasion but is not your main focus?

I have not been listening with this question consciously in mind.

My tentative answer it that the large speaker systems I have heard do not recreate the solo singer and instrument more believably than the best of the small speakers. I am not sure whether the large speaker systems recreate the solo singer and instrument as believably or slightly less believably than the best of the small speakers.

 

[microstrip]

I listen for the believability of a solo vocalist with acoustic instrument accompaniment being present in my listening room and singing to me. I value most highly transparency, no artificial brightness, true-to-life corporeal and instrumental "body," true-to-life dynamics and true-to-life harmonic richness. I listen for a "natural" sound.

By transparency I mean that with respect to having the sense that a live person is singing to me in my listening room there is nothing "between" me and the singer. I conceive of the recreation of a vocal performance which makes as easy as possible the suspension of disbelief. I want to feel that I hear no electronic adulteration, no artificial or unbelievable "carrier" riding on the signal. Transparency to me means listening to a vocal performance with no electronic neutral density filter of any kind between me and the singer.

Curiously the systems that I have listened to that approach your requirements are not the more "transparent" in the sense they do not have any "electronic adulteration". IMHO OTLs, such as Atmasphere or Futterman, coupled to adequate electrostatics, even the Marantz Project T-1 with horn type speakers such as the Horming Amalme can recreate this corporeal and instrumental "body", this extra realism you are looking for. This is true mostly on vinyl. However, sometimes these great systems lack this capacity of creating the conditions that help the "suspension of disbelief" when there are no human voices in the music.

 

[PeterA]

If you just wanted to hear female vocal, then something like the Elipse single driver ( egg) speakers would probably be perfect , but they are limited.
Keith.

Could you specifically explain what in Amir's data indicates this? He wrote that the speaker does not care about the signal or wave form or something and I could not see from his charts why one speaker is better than another at reproducing this type of music.

It seems Ron is not interested in a speaker with limitations, so he is auditioning many large speaker examples, but he does want one that excels at reproducing female vocals and midrange magic. I raised the issue of scale for this type of music with a large speaker system.

 

[Purite Audio]

Could you specifically explain what in Amir's data indicates this? He wrote that the speaker does not care about the signal or wave form or something and I could not see from his charts why one speaker is better than another at reproducing this type of music.

It seems Ron is not interested in a speaker with limitations, so he is auditioning many large speaker examples, but he does want one that excels at reproducing female vocals and midrange magic. I raised the issue of scale for this type of music with a large speaker system.

Amir's data shows different types of music, and how successful listeners found them to evaluate sound, the Elipse loudspeaker ,because it is a single driver, will be phase and time coherent, it will of course have a limited frequency range.
So it will not be suitable for all types of music but for voice and acoustic guitar fine.
Keith.

 

[Groucho]

A sine wave is simple. Any piece of music is already complex. More complex or less complex has no meaning here. And even if it did, you haven't explained why a loudspeaker cares about complexity when all it sees is one voltage value after another.

I disagree: it is a question of intermodulation distortion which can come through a variety of mechanisms. Literally the more audio sources you have in your recording, the greater the proportion of objectionable intermodulation distortion present. And no: "even order" or "low order" harmonic distortion won't help here.

When a complex musical passage is the source, the IMD products can be quite extraordinary. The result is serious aural confusion of the signal, where what used to be an orchestra with different instruments becomes a 'wall of sound'.

http://sound.westhost.com/valves/thd-imd.html

An example of intermodulation distortion is doppler distortion which cannot be eliminated even with the most perfect zero distortion driver. You really don't want your mid-range riding on top of the bass cone displacements. Splitting the signal into several 'ways' will help to reduce this and other forms of IMD.

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/1104red/#4UvsqZx3uXiiXORl.97

The results were intriguing. Distortion of the flute was gross at 10mm peak diaphragm displacement and not in the least bit euphonic... At 3.16mm peak displacement (below Fryer's suggested detectability threshold) the distortion level was obviously lower but still clearly audible; and even at 1mm it could still be heard affecting the flute's timbre and adding "edge."

...It has often been claimed that, with a two-way speaker, there are audible benefits to using a crossover frequency below the typical 3kHz, the usual explanation being that this removes the crossover from the ear's area of greatest sensitivity. But I wonder. Perhaps this not-uncommon experience actually has much more to do with the D word. A three-way solution is potentially even better. Three-way speakers bring new design challenges, of course, in particular the need to achieve another perceptually seamless handover between drivers. But from the Doppler perspective, having a crossover for the bass driver at 400Hz or 500Hz is, unquestionably, better.

Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/...rtion-loudspeakers-page-3#rYBuAWexhYefkTjz.99

 

[PeterA]

I have not been listening with this question consciously in mind.

My tentative answer it that the large speaker systems I have heard do not recreate the solo singer and instrument more believably than the best of the small speakers. I am not sure whether the large speaker systems recreate the solo singer and instrument as believably or slightly less believably than the best of the small speakers.

This aspect of being able to correctly reproduce a sense of scale is one of the things I specifically listen for when evaluating speakers. I like small scale acoustic music, but if a large speaker makes a cello or voice seem much too large, it fails in my view to sound convincing. If I want to hear a female singer sound huge, I go to a live performance at a Boston jazz club where invariably, the singer is singing into a mic and the monitor is hanging from the ceiling. I see the singer in front of me playing the piano but the voice is huge and coming from above my head. And it is often way too loud. I've heard large speakers do this also and if the recording is supposed to sound natural and was engineered to sound natural, but I hear it as huge from large speakers, I loose interest pretty quickly. They may be great at reproducing large scale symphonies, but if they also make a string quartet sound huge with giant instruments, something is very wrong.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I don't know Keith. This has not been my experience.

I think large speakers can be shoehorned into a too-small room with a lot of elaborate room treatment and careful speaker placement, and a lot of expense and brain damage. But even then the outcome may be less ideal than if smaller, more room appropriate speakers were selected in the first place.

A certain, immutable distance between the listener and the speaker is required for the multiple drivers of tall loudspeakers to integrate, I think.

Absolutely agree with you Ron! The size of the room is so fundamentally important for me. I love enormous scale in a reference system and that can only be ever achieved in a large room with big speakers. I would love a bigger room at home! Mine is decent enough but wish I could get a lot more space from my speakers to the rear wall. I also really wish I did not have to sit against the back wall. Compromises.

As a general statement, I think one has to generally work hard to get large speakers to work well unless you have a really nice big room. Monitors are always easier to integrate into a room ime.