2-way vs 3-way which is better [Archive]

Pat D

03-13-2005, 11:14 AM

I was wondering, on good equipment, is two-way better better than three-way or is it just a matter of personal preference, I know the 3-way puts hgh/mid frq to twtr and mid/low frq to woofer, and 3-way is high to twt mid to mdrnge and low to woofer, but what should it be, like does it even matter. So which is better for quality accuracy and better sound reproduction? thanks.
A typical two way has some limitations which may or may not be significant for you.. In order to achieve deep bass response, you need a largish driver in a good sized box. Largish drivers start beaming at lower frequencies than smallish ones, so to maintain even dispersion very far off axis, the tweeter must be crossed over fairly low. Alas, tweeters tend to be more delicate and can't handle so much power. Hence, the typical two way has a fairly small woofer, about 6 inches or so so that the tweeter can be crossed over moderately high, but give up deep bass response and power handling capacity. Now, this may not be that much of a limitation for many people, for most people listen at reasonable levels. The typical reasonably priced high quality speaker is a two way.

There are ways around this. The old Altec 19 had a robust 15 inch woofer crossed over fairly low to a sectoral horn tweeter, also quite robust. Those who think it was not a good speaker almost certainly heard them with the midrange and high controls poorly adjusted because they could be adjusted to be quite accurate. Paradigm, which makes its own drivers, has some very robust tweeters which can be crossed over fairly low. They and others also may use more than one woofer so the bass response and power handling can be increased.

Now, a three way system can have one or more largish drivers devoted to the bass, a nice smallish midrange with excellent power handling, and then cross over to a tweeter and a somewhat higher frequency. This can give deep bass response, high power handling, and wide and even dispersion.. The crossover is more complex and since there are more drivers, the cost tends to be higher. So, if you need high volume levels, a three way may well be better, even if you have a subwoofer.

You can have high quality speakers either way, and don't listen to those who say you can't. Two ways plus a subwoofer works fine for me but your needs may be different.

kexodusc

03-13-2005, 11:49 AM

A typical two way has some limitations which may or may not be significant for you.. In order to achieve deep bass response, you need a largish driver in a good sized box. Largish drivers start beaming at lower frequencies than smallish ones, so to maintain even dispersion very far off axis, the tweeter must be crossed over fairly low. Alas, tweeters tend to be more delicate and can't handle so much power. Hence, the typical two way has a fairly small woofer, about 6 inches or so so that the tweeter can be crossed over moderately high, but give up deep bass response and power handling capacity. Now, this may not be that much of a limitation for many people, for most people listen at reasonable levels. The typical reasonably priced high quality speaker is a two way.

Actually, there's tons of tweeters available that have high power handling, the delicacy of a tweeter only presents itself if a poor crossover is employed, and low frequencies are sent there in abundance. The crossover point is a function of acoustic performance in the midrange, the size of the woofer really doesn't have a whole lot to do with this.
There are many drivers of varying sizes that have good off-axis response, again, for woofers, this is rarely an issue because of the wavelenghts of the frequencies woofers are responsible for.

The biggest problem you will run into with 3-way (or more complex) speaker systems is the smooth transition from one driver to the next, and matching the sensitivities of each driver. I don't like just plugging resistors into the circuits to decrease the volume of a driver as it seems to alter the tonality in doing so.

As for power output, there are some very good drivers with very high sensitivities that will play as loud or louder than three way drivers, not to mention those with high power handling capabilities. You have choice, but if you are going to increase cost by adding a 3rd driver, you can just as easily put that money into higher quality drivers in a 2 way.

I think it comes down to personal preference and cost considerations. I love the deep, tight, accurate bass a transmission line speaker presents, the best t-lines I've heard were all 2 ways. No need for a large woofer for the bass here, 5-1/2 inch units are fine. Totem has acheived impressive results with small woofers in using isobaric designs.

A good example of going the other way would be what Paradigm did with the Monitor 5's, replacing a bass reflex 2-way system with a passive radiator design...(not really a 3-way, but still). There's many ways to arrive at the same destination. I don't think it's as simple as saying a 2-way is better or worse than a 3-way, it would always come down to the speakers in question.

RGA

03-13-2005, 12:44 PM

The other aspect with 3 ways is typically that they need a larger cabinet...even two way standmounts that have been converted to floorstanders have added cabinet to get more bass with highly suspect results -- the B&W 305 was essentially the 302 stuck in a bigger cabinet -- while more bass was achieved so was box resonance which muddied the sound.

Many standmounts using cheap cabinets can get away with cheap cabinets because they don't put out a lot of bass -- this is one reason why so many speaker lines' best speaker is the standmount and not the floorstanding model. Mike Ranft and myself were auditioning speakers at Soundhounds and I agree with his take that big boxes also lead to big problems which need to be sorted out -- and I agree with most people who decide that when budget is a major consideration that 2-way standmounts are a better compromise in a number of ways but I only agree with the compromise if you are not sacrificing a large segment of bass response at pretty good levels as well as dynamics.

Too many speakers sound disjointed with the two drivers doing their own thing...I favourably reviewed the B&W 604S3 but here again the bass is one note as if the bass driver is separated from the music...For the money it's good but the 602S3 sounds less conjested and less thumpy. Adding more stuff to be corrected out of the chain as an after effect is less desirable and it's not necessary. There are speaker makers that prove it so get one from them -- I mean Full range standmounts are ideal in that they offer the best of both worlds - and if they are also efficient and sensitive then that's icing on the cake. I have not run across many though.

Pat D

03-13-2005, 02:08 PM

Actually, there's tons of tweeters available that have high power handling, the delicacy of a tweeter only presents itself if a poor crossover is employed, and low frequencies are sent there in abundance. The crossover point is a function of acoustic performance in the midrange, the size of the woofer really doesn't have a whole lot to do with this.
There are many drivers of varying sizes that have good off-axis response, again, for woofers, this is rarely an issue because of the wavelenghts of the frequencies woofers are responsible for.

The biggest problem you will run into with 3-way (or more complex) speaker systems is the smooth transition from one driver to the next, and matching the sensitivities of each driver. I don't like just plugging resistors into the circuits to decrease the volume of a driver as it seems to alter the tonality in doing so.

As for power output, there are some very good drivers with very high sensitivities that will play as loud or louder than three way drivers, not to mention those with high power handling capabilities. You have choice, but if you are going to increase cost by adding a 3rd driver, you can just as easily put that money into higher quality drivers in a 2 way.

I think it comes down to personal preference and cost considerations. I love the deep, tight, accurate bass a transmission line speaker presents, the best t-lines I've heard were all 2 ways. No need for a large woofer for the bass here, 5-1/2 inch units are fine. Totem has acheived impressive results with small woofers in using isobaric designs.

A good example of going the other way would be what Paradigm did with the Monitor 5's, replacing a bass reflex 2-way system with a passive radiator design...(not really a 3-way, but still). There's many ways to arrive at the same destination. I don't think it's as simple as saying a 2-way is better or worse than a 3-way, it would always come down to the speakers in question.
One straight factual point: the Paradigm Monitor 5 is a 2.5 way speaker, which means both the bass driver and the woofer-midrange are driven. No passive radiator. ( A passive radiator is a port substitute anyway, a design choice.)

http://www.paradigm.ca/Website/SiteParadigmProduct/ParadigmModels/MonSeries/MonitorSpecs.htm

Now, a 6 inch bass driver can do well in the bass at small signal levels (which can end up fairly loud). However, if you consider a crossover to a subwoofer at around 70 or 80 Hz, which do you think will run out of steam first at 70-8- hz and below: the drivers on my excellent PSB Stratus Minis or the driver on my 15 inch subwoofer. If I really wanted to play super loud, I would need one of the larger PSB Stratus speakers.

When you talk about midrange performance, you seem to think that directivity has nothing to do with it.

The rule of thumb is that as the frequency rises and the wavelengths get to be equal to or smaller than the diameter of the driver, the dirver starts to become more directional. The crossover to the tweeter should be low enough that it's dispersion is still quite wide, because the tweeter's dispersion will be quite wide at the bottom of it's range.

Now, if you think that there are many tweeters out there that will surpass a good midrange drive in output capacity, that's fine. Go argue it out with speaker designers such as Paul Barton:

http://stereophile.com/interviews/231/

Check especially on page 3 of the interview:

http://stereophile.com/interviews/231/index2.html

In his review in Audio magazine, D. B. Keele called the PSB Stratus Gold-i "The 10,000-watt speaker!" This was with very short term signals, of course and certainly not in the bass. Go argue with Paul Barton about power handling.

I heard and liked the Totem Mani-2, which has impressive bass response for a smallish speaker because it has two woofers, one behind the other in the box (isobaric loading). I'm sure the Stratus Gold-i can put out much more bass at 30 or 20 Hz than the Mani-2. I can assure tyou that my subwoofer surpasses the Mani-2 in performance in the deep bass both in extension and output capability. A small woofer can only do so much. I might prefer the Totem Mani-2 to the PSB Stratus Series, or might not. I've never directly compared them.

kexodusc

03-13-2005, 03:43 PM

One straight factual point: the Paradigm Monitor 5 is a 2.5 way speaker, which means both the bass driver and the woofer-midrange are driven. No passive radiator. ( A passive radiator is a port substitute anyway, a design choice.)

http://www.paradigm.ca/Website/SiteParadigmProduct/ParadigmModels/MonSeries/MonitorSpecs.htm

Now, a 6 inch bass driver can do well in the bass at small signal levels (which can end up fairly loud). However, if you consider a crossover to a subwoofer at around 70 or 80 Hz, which do you think will run out of steam first at 70-8- hz and below: the drivers on my excellent PSB Stratus Minis or the driver on my 15 inch subwoofer. If I really wanted to play super loud, I would need one of the larger PSB Stratus speakers.

When you talk about midrange performance, you seem to think that directivity has nothing to do with it.

The rule of thumb is that as the frequency rises and the wavelengths get to be equal to or smaller than the diameter of the driver, the dirver starts to become more directional. The crossover to the tweeter should be low enough that it's dispersion is still quite wide, because the tweeter's dispersion will be quite wide at the bottom of it's range.

Now, if you think that there are many tweeters out there that will surpass a good midrange drive in output capacity, that's fine. Go argue it out with speaker designers such as Paul Barton:

http://stereophile.com/interviews/231/

Check especially on page 3 of the interview:

http://stereophile.com/interviews/231/index2.html

In his review in Audio magazine, D. B. Keele called the PSB Stratus Gold-i "The 10,000-watt speaker!" This was with very short term signals, of course and certainly not in the bass. Go argue with Paul Barton about power handling.

I heard and liked the Totem Mani-2, which has impressive bass response for a smallish speaker because it has two woofers, one behind the other in the box (isobaric loading). I'm sure the Stratus Gold-i can put out much more bass at 30 or 20 Hz than the Mani-2. I can assure tyou that my subwoofer surpasses the Mani-2 in performance in the deep bass both in extension and output capability. A small woofer can only do so much. I might prefer the Totem Mani-2 to the PSB Stratus Series, or might not. I've never directly compared them.

Hey, you're right, the Monitor 5 isn't a PR design. My bad.
I agree, we could compare huge woofers to tweeters, and yes, sooner or later it's just going to be to impractical to design a high-output tweeter, but most of us don't listen 10,000 watt speakers in our home, nor do we typically try to achieve SPL's above 105 dB for extended periods, something many tweeters have no problem doing in even large rooms...how loud do you listen to your music?

I'm not discounting directivity, but, just pointing out that large woofer size isn't the only way to achieve a full range speaker design. Some other designers would argue against larger woofers, claiming they sacrifice transient response, or a whole slew of other properties (something I don't necessarily agree with, you can design any size driver to do pretty much anything if you want to). Also, there are many woofer/tweeter combo's that present little dispersion problems (some of the world's best speakers are full range 2-ways).

I will grant you, if we want sub 20 Hz response for musical sources (can't think of any instruments off the top of my head that reach that low, but I'm sure there's a few out there) then we'll probably want a larger woofer.

In the end, I think goal of the speaker system will determine its design. If bass response in the high 20's is all that's desired, and output below 100 dB is the expected SPL, I would sooner invest in a higher quality woofer and tweeter at a given cost than lower quality woofers and tweeters just to obtain more output or lower response. If cost is now object, then things would probably change, but that's rarely the case.

Curious, what do you like/dislike about the Stratus Mini's?

Pat D

03-13-2005, 06:36 PM

Hey, you're right, the Monitor 5 isn't a PR design. My bad.
I agree, we could compare huge woofers to tweeters, and yes, sooner or later it's just going to be to impractical to design a high-output tweeter, but most of us don't listen 10,000 watt speakers in our home, nor do we typically try to achieve SPL's above 105 dB for extended periods, something many tweeters have no problem doing in even large rooms...how loud do you listen to your music?

I'm not discounting directivity, but, just pointing out that large woofer size isn't the only way to achieve a full range speaker design. Some other designers would argue against larger woofers, claiming they sacrifice transient response, or a whole slew of other properties (something I don't necessarily agree with, you can design any size driver to do pretty much anything if you want to). Also, there are many woofer/tweeter combo's that present little dispersion problems (some of the world's best speakers are full range 2-ways).

I will grant you, if we want sub 20 Hz response for musical sources (can't think of any instruments off the top of my head that reach that low, but I'm sure there's a few out there) then we'll probably want a larger woofer.

In the end, I think goal of the speaker system will determine its design. If bass response in the high 20's is all that's desired, and output below 100 dB is the expected SPL, I would sooner invest in a higher quality woofer and tweeter at a given cost than lower quality woofers and tweeters just to obtain more output or lower response. If cost is now object, then things would probably change, but that's rarely the case.

Curious, what do you like/dislike about the Stratus Mini's?
There tends to be much less musical energy in the higher frequencies so in fact a tweeter does not have to produce the 105 dB, most of which is in the bass to midrange areas (and it's dangerous to listen at such levels for very long, too). Once CDs became popular, speaker manufacturers began using much more robust tweeters. If you try to push the crossover down much below 2 kHz, you need a pretty robust tweeter. I don't recommend trying to get most tweeters to play continuously at anything like 105 dB.

The point of the comparison with the 15 inch woofer was that it would play much louder than the woofer in the Stratus Mini or the Mani-2 in the deep bass. A smallish two way system with a 6 inch woofer is not going to produce undistorted bass at very high levels, especially deep bass. 105 dB is really stretching it. Now, if you're talking of an Altec 19, that's another story.

32 foot organ pedals have a fundamental at 16 hz. Also some electronic music gets around or below 20 hz.

BTW, what are those 'full range' two way speakers that are among the best in the world?

You have asked about my PSB speakers. Now, my Stratus Minis have excellent dispersion and show a quite even response where it counts most on and off axis. They are fairly insensitive speakers whose impedance gets below 4 ohms in the midbass. They have usable bass down into the mid-30s, believe it or not. Anyway, they seem to play plenty loud enough. While my listening seldom is over 85 dBa, sometimes it gets a little higher into the 90s with no problems at all. If I wanted to play much louder, I would have gotten a bigger model, whether I stayed with PSB or not, simply to enable the speaker to keep up with the subwoofer around the crossover frequencies. If I didn't have a subwoofer, I would have gone for one of the larger models, too, although the Stratus Minis are quite satisfactory on their own with most of the music I listen to.

I haven't compared them directly to the Totem Mani-2, the Paradigm Signature S2, which I haven't heard for quite a while, so what I would think then I don't know. I haven't even heard any of the PSB Platinum speakers yet, some other speakers I would like to hear.
We enjoy listening to music on the Stratus Minis and they don't seem to have any significant faults. I also consider them to be a very good value as they sound to me as good as a number of highly regarded speakers up to several times their price, speakers I also liked. I just put on Diana Krall's Live in Paris CD, which seems to be a superb recording, especially of her voice. I've put my consumer reviews here, at Audioholics and at MyAsylum. The one at Audioholics is the last one and probably is the most complete--anyway, I haven't changed my opinion of them and we now have them even better placed.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3904

RGA

03-13-2005, 06:50 PM

Pat D

03-14-2005, 07:38 AM

Coincidence -- I just finished listening to Dianna Krall Live in Paris about 5 minutes ago.

I am anxious to hear the Mini -- I didn't really feel the Silver had much bass response so it's a surprise that you're saying the Mini can produce such deep bass with authority.
I didn't say "authority," you did. The measured bass extension for the Stratus Mini is actually about the same as that of another small speakerf, the B & W CDM1, but the PSB is flatter in the mid-bass. I suspect you like that extra warmth in the mid bass. To obtain truly full range performance, either needs to be coupled with a subwoofer.

Don Keele showed in Audio that the Stratus Silver is capable of quite a high level of output in the deep bass. You apparently prefer a somewhat different balance in the bass.

RGA

03-14-2005, 08:24 PM

Judging by the frequency response measurement of the mini it has a +3dbrise in the bass region according to Stereophile - the graph actually looks to be somewhat similar in shape to the AN E.

The Stratus Mini

theaudiohobby

03-15-2005, 12:55 AM

RGA,

Do you have the frequency response graph of the AN-E to hand so that we can look at it against the PSB Stratus Mini? a midbass bump is generally somewhere between 40Hz - 80Hz.

Pat D

03-15-2005, 06:53 AM

RGA,

Do you have the frequency response graph of the AN-E to hand so that we can look at it against the PSB Stratus Mini? a midbass bump is generally somewhere between 40Hz - 80Hz.
It depends on what is meant by mid-bass. You're right if you follow J. Gordon Holt, but I see no particular reason to do so. However, with a graph, one can see where the rise is.

One could interpret that particular graph for the Stratus Mini as a gently declining frequency response. PSB told me that they had made a minor crossover modification since.
.
So far, RGA hasn't been able to show us plots of the frequency response of the AN speakers. You can find the same graph for a speaker he does like, the B & W CDM1, at the following link in Fig. 3:

http://stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/630/index4.html

That does show an upper bass lower midrange peak. However, Stereophile's measurements below the midrange are not as reliable and also this is a frequency range in which room affects are very important to the balance. In any case, there's nothing wrong with liking some warmth.

I like to see NRC measurements for speakers, supplemented by Stereophile's detailed dispersion plots, but this is often not possible.

mr. budget

03-15-2005, 09:43 AM

I don't have a lot of time to post right now, but just to say thanks a lot, I have a much better understanding now, there's an awesome amount of excellent wisdom on these forums. Thanks again.

RGA

03-15-2005, 06:05 PM

The AN E has been described numerously as to roughly how it measures (which gives you zero indication of how it sounds). The AN E is +2.5db -3db in the main band similar to the PSB) and practically flat from 400hz to 20khz ((From 200hz up Paul Messenger said they measure as well as loudspeakers measure).

The German publication audiofile noted the exact same thing graphically and so did Martin Colloms verbally.

Frankly, it all means so little in itself -- the people who have heard and liked Audio Note are not going to all of a sudden change their view and buy Paradigm and the like -- I've been hearing those kinds of speakers for 15 years and not a single one of them can do a simple solo piano anywhere near as well....Dianna Krall forgettaboutit. Yet I have seen very similar measurements all the time -- and still don't get a resemblance and it may have to do with the presurization technique they use and no one else even considers or maybe it's because their woofers are not long throw maybe it's the baffle the cabinet the driver selection the tighter tolerances or a combination of all of that and the fact that leo Beranek wasn;t an idiot and neither was Peter Snell and maybe peter is semi correct in that the actual parts used do matter somewhat to the sound and not just any old part will do.

As meaningless as the graph is here you go (the grey line is off axis which is technically flatter than the on axis response - the 45degree off axis response is identical to the 30degree figure but had a dip of another 4db at 1100hz (otherwise identical).

By the way this is my recreation of the graph in excel then scanned into a JPEG. have no information as to whether this was done in an Anechoic chamber because I can't read German. The German Publication Audiofile gave the speaker 5 Jarres and had another graph similar to the 3d kinds Stereophile uses (a waterfall plot). Presumably they would not have given it high marks if that was poor...but I can no longer find it on the net. I don;t know why AN doesn't send it in because this graph is fine and there is no box noise -- turning it up would become muddy. i like a speaker that can detect the coloutration of the recording process -- few speakers can bring that out.

theaudiohobby

03-16-2005, 01:53 AM

Differences in the lower midrange are best illustrated by looking at the CDM1 in comparison to the 705.

http://www.stereophile.com/images/archivesart/705FIG05.jpg
B&W 705

http://stereophile.com/images/archivesart/BWCDM1FIG3.jpg
B&W CDM1

There is a key difference in the lower midrange behaviour of both speakers, I assume that the new PSB silver looks more like the 705, whilst the older model follows the CDM1 response characteristics. From the discussions I have seen here, some favour a slightly elevated midrange as evinced by the CDM1 and CDM1NT, whilst some other folks favour the more neutral midrange of the likes of 705 etc. Other factors have bearing, such as distortion, box noise, driver resonance, alignment etc. I know that RGA disagrees but box noise, more correctly cabinet resonance is most definitely evident in the AN sound and forms a key part of the basic sound signature, imitation is the best form of flattery and anyone who has followed the UK Audio press in recent months will have noticed that there is another player Bosendorfer (http://www.audusa.com/bose.htm) on the market that regards the suppression of the cabinet vibrations as detrimental to the sound of a loudspeaker. On a humorous note, the Bosendorfer is a narrow baffled design :p , that follows the now classic Audio Physic approach of placing the woofers to the sides, but here only the side panels are allowed to go into controlled resonance, the very narrow front baffle (and some decoupling) ensures that the panels holding the tweeters remain fairly inert relative to the side panels. Looking at some subjective commentary on AA, it seems that both speakers share broadly similar strengths and weaknesses, their signature colourations decidedly favour solo and simple acoustic pieces.

Pat D

03-16-2005, 08:20 AM

shokhead

03-16-2005, 09:15 AM

When you guys say bass,you need to say if its musical bass or LFE bass. You mains should be good enough for most musical bass but for the LFE bass,thats the sub's job. I think you can get a good 2-way that will be good at musical bass. I dont think you can get a 3-way that will do LFE,well for under 2 grand a pair?

RGA

03-16-2005, 06:04 PM

I have never readthat AN canonly perform well with simple pieces -- they are one of the few companies at the CES that isn;t afraid to play anything at any volume level -- and that was noted again this year when peter on his way to a show picked up several heavey metal cds at a shop and played then at ear splitting levels. He also likes to use a coveted organ piece to show off the E's ability to handle 16hz at very loud levels...the Saint Saens is an obvious busy track -- not a great musical piece in my view and more of a show piece for organ depth. I much prefer busy normal, if repetitive, pieces like Ravel's Bolero or Leahy: Lakefield to see if a speaker can keep up with what is going on...most speakers do such a brutal job with these. if you can't get the basic small ensemble works correct then there is no reason to believe that adding 20 more instruments to the mix is going to make it better.

Bosendorfer makes arguably the world's best piano's and has been making Audio note's Cabinets for a long while.

This is not a hard concept - yes the design approach is to control cabinet resonance not to try and throw a bag over it all...you cannot eliminate a cabinet resonance without also taking some of what you WANT to hear with it. So these so-called less coloured speakers I think I Understand why their being called less coloured, they are being damped sometimes heavily -- but as a result they sound like someone is singing with their hand over their mouth -- it sounds less open less resolute have less dynamics and less bass but gee they are less coloured...I guess I don't get why one would want to lose all those things. The cabinet resonance woud show up in the distortion numbers of the speakers...And this is what I don't get...I don't know Bosendorfer's numbers but the AN J and E are under 1% THD and IM across the entire audible band - nothing in a frequency response graph indicates it and certainly not the one I posted. largely because the one I posted doesn;t tell us much -- if the speaker was measured in the corner don;t know don;t knwo the distance don't know if it was in an Anechoic chamber. If it was in a corner --- if you pulled it out from the corner the bass band would drop 3db and that would be virtually dead flat...also what amp is driving it...across the bass band the speaker is 3.6ohms -- tough for a SET, arguably, so a Set may dip that entire band down a SS may not.

I'm not disagreeing with you TAH, AN does use controleed cabinet resonance to augment the bass, and Bosendorfer may be as well (I know little about what they're doing)...AN is one of those (and not alone) that believes in getting as close to a direct through line as possible from source to speaker with as little to slug the sound as is possible in the stream...it makes no logical sense to continually be stiopping and recorrecting and running things through noise shaping and using things to block sound...I remember nakamichi claiming that their Dragon was far superior with all Dolby noise reduction OFF (indeed, i can;t remember for sure if the Dragon even came with Dolby NR) but for sure they wanted it OFF when listening. yes the NR took some tape hiss away -- but it also seemed to take away the musical message less treble less bass and seemed closed in when NR was on (Dolby C IMO was terrible and S was ok but overrated).

What is more irritating with the colouration is that these people are noticing only with certain recordings and my argument is that well yes you are noticing more of what was recorded and the recording process than what the speaker is doing. I use Motley Crue Dr. Feelgood album as an example of this -- I have heard resolution on this cd that I've never heard on any other set of speakers. usually with this kind of music at high volumes speakers tend to become thin and very harsh or brittle in the treble and things get conjested...it's actually a fun recording to play at high volume and hear every individual thing going on with a very open and crystal clear clarity.

Ravel's Bolero when played back to back with an OTO/AN K/Spe combo versus the B&W 705/Bryston 3BSST and Preamp when one plays this piece it has a momentum. The resolution Does not exist in the 705/Bryston combo at the quietest levels it seems forced and strident -- when the crescendo is reached it's game over because the 705 does not have the integration -- the whole thing sounds 2 dimensional and dull as if I heard a recording. The K/OTO has a space a power especially in the treble that jumps out at you. Interestingly you claim to have the exact opposite result I believe. So naturlally I doubt your claim and you will doubt mine, I'll disbelieve you and you will disbelieve me etc ... it really isn't that important though -- because hey I say listen to as much stuff and let people decide for themselves.

When i recommend people to go to Soundhounds, I always WANT them to listen to B&W and Paradigm et al in a direct head to head session that way I've recommended them listen to speakers that all of you guys love -- even if I come across as a homer I do want them to listen to the stuff everyone else supports.

shokhead

03-16-2005, 07:14 PM

Who says everyone else supports those 2 brands?

E-Stat

03-16-2005, 07:59 PM

I was wondering, on good equipment, is two-way better better than three-way or is it just a matter of personal preference...
I rather prefer one-ways myself. And yes, it is a matter of preference.

rw

RGA

03-16-2005, 09:54 PM

Who says everyone else supports those 2 brands?

Good point actually --- a lot of people I know don't like either one of those two but I was more referring to this forum where if you say anything even remotely negative about them you are immediately viewed as a heretic and a shill for something else.

So it is merely taking my view out of the equation as much as possible -- I don;t like the idea of someone buying based off what i have to say -- By all means iof you think you hear things the way I do and vice versa then maybe you'll give something I like a try.

And I used to be a massive B&W fan until some folks on AA kept bashing them and I was there to defend in rather very long argumentative threads the merits of their speakers. And then a few months later I had to eat crow becausde I actually bothered to give a few of their suggestions a shot - and people know I'm stubborn. I still recommend some B&W's but to be quite frank I can never go back. Paradigm is basically - I like some of their speakers -- but I would not want them.

Rather than get into arguments over preferences WHY BOTHER? People here can go to the place I go to and listen to it for themselves and report back...one guy recently on AA sent me an e-mail under a different monicker who has argued with me in the past over AN -- went to Soundhounds and is now going to sell his current system. He just bought the speakers not long ago and the speakers were the very expensive speakers in the title thread discussed along with companies' top of the line amplifier.

At the end of the day everyone sits in some sort of camp and I suppose ti makes sense -- people are adament about electrostats, magnepans, direct radiators, multi-directional speakers -- Skeptic for instance things direct radiators -- all of them -- are utter crap. Other people can ONLY listen to speakers that don;t have a box -- others want horns and nothing else. So it's not surprising that that some will be in the AN camp while another one of the other camps.

the biggest reason I like AN above everything else I have heard is because I LOVE msot everything about what a good Stat does and what gfood horns do but to me they both tend to have some real big drawbacks...AN to me took the best out of what both offer up -- gave up a smidge to both in that the you give a little bit of the brute Dynamics and volume capability of the Horns and a bit of that air in the Stats...JNR had the Quads for 20+ years and the only box he could stomach and replaced his Quads for was - AN. Horn fans who want a more linear response and less shouty presntation give up some efficiency and volume for a smoother balance.

people who love big Stats and Big horns like the Avante Guardes or even the retro horns like the K-Horn I can identify with more -- and even Skeptic in a way of his view on direct radiators --- because quite frankly so far the only Boxed speaker maker I would buy is AN...and then I would move to the open horns or Electrostats(not ML)...because the boxes sound stifled nasal shut in and boxy with one note bass. And gee the stats and horns also like SETs -- coincidence ?

theaudiohobby

03-17-2005, 01:36 AM

RGA, are you really sure of what you are saying that Bosendorfer builds Audio Note cabinets? I hope you realise that Bosendorfer is based in Austria, not Denmark nor Sweden nor Netherlands, Audio Note is based in Hove, England it is highly improbable that they are importing their cabinets from Austria! the logistics are highly suspect.

I think you misundertood me, I said the the signature colourations favour solo and simple acoustic pieces not the other way round, I will respond with a longer post later but your graph validates the subjective opinion that the ANs are severely rolled off in the high treble, this roll-off is less severe as you move off-axis as per the graph, the dispersion graphs will be very useful in analyzing the lower midrange and bass behaviour.

kexodusc

03-17-2005, 04:43 AM

The cabinet resonance woud show up in the distortion numbers of the speakers...And this is what I don't get...I don't know Bosendorfer's numbers but the AN J and E are under 1% THD and IM across the entire audible band - nothing in a frequency response graph indicates it and certainly not the one I posted. largely because the one I posted doesn;t tell us much -- if the speaker was measured in the corner don;t know don;t knwo the distance don't know if it was in an Anechoic chamber.

Hmmmm...no, cabinet resonance doesn't necessarily (if at all) show up in distortion numbers...that's usually more mechanical...though it might show up in the FR plots. FR plots I don't think capture enough though...at any given point only one frequency response is being measured, it's rare that our music emits only 1 frequency at a time.
I'm not aware of any spec tests for measuring colorations, though we can all hear it when it's present.

I think your on to something about cabinets and damping though. A well built cabinet (ported) doesn't need much, I've found poorer cabinets (inexpensive ones like your entry level PSB's, Paradigm's, B&W's, Athena's) tend fill a bit more. The trade off is absorbing some energy inside, allowing for less release of the energy (which I think relates to transient response, attack, and decay), and making a cabinet "appear" bigger to the woofer, more bass extension and SPL, not necessarily better sound quality though. For sealed cabinets, you often want to damp the bejesus out of it or you'll hit the other extreme (though this isn't always the case for subwoofers)...I think it goes back to the driver and crossover though, a "faster" midwoofer (which I recently learned use to be called a squawker?) probably would allow for more damping to a point. I think it comes down to taste, and the designer finding the balance he or she (or their customers) prefer.

I've played around with some damping amounts in some of my speakers...right away I notice too much stuffing chokes off the bass...the cabinet can become too big for the woofer (bad), and it seems to reach all the way into the lower midrange which can be really annoying (seems to affect soundstaging too). Upper midrange seems unaffected, proably around the point were the sounds become more directional and don't have much interaction with the cabinet, though I'm not sure exactly.

I don't know or care who builds AN's cabinets, but I can say that I've personally stood on my uncle's AN E's cabinets, not that my 185 lbs frame is massive, but they didn't give at all...a primitive test admittedly, but most people don't dare climb some other speakers. That says something.

theaudiohobby

03-17-2005, 07:03 AM

I'm not aware of any spec tests for measuring colorations, though we can all hear it when it's present.

Cabinet and some driver resonances can be seen on waterfall plots as little spikes of delayed energy. cabinet coloration especially, more correctly symphatic cabinet vibration can indeed be pleasing on certain acoustic instruments as it makes wooden acoustic instruments sound more woody, personally I got annoyed at the unnatural decay and banished it from my speakers. Saying that, I am a fan of planar speakers so I am especially sensitive to cabinet resonance.

kexodusc

03-17-2005, 09:14 AM

Your right, I forgot about waterfall plots...you rarely see enough of those for them to be useful, I wonder why?
Interestingly enough, every speaker I've heard that looks good on either paper, FR or waterfall plot has never overly impressed me. Some mediocre measuring speakers have though. Something's obviously missing in our evaluation methods (or known and just never provided).

Is anyone aware of test where someone measured the properties of a live performance against the recording of that same performance on different speakers, etc??? I don't know what test you'd use for this, but I have a feeling that you need to have a valid point of reference (ie: the real thing) other than +/- 0 dB, 0.00% THD, etc...

newbsterv2

03-17-2005, 11:41 AM

The B&W 705's. Stereophile did a review on them and not only was the waterfall plot extremely clean but the frequency response was very smooth as well. I wouldn't take these speakers for free you know why?? Becuase when I listened to them with a variety of recordings that I own not ONE was fun to listen to. The midrange seemed too forward and hard and the top end was rolled off. Now I can understand graphs for amplifiers because that equipments job is easy. Make the input signal bigger. Period. I can understand that the people who don't like solid state amps because they clip hard but hey dont drive the amp to clipping and there's no problem! Speakers on the other hand are actually energizing the room and must be listened to with a variety of recordings and a developed ear.

Your right, I forgot about waterfall plots...you rarely see enough of those for them to be useful, I wonder why?
Interestingly enough, every speaker I've heard that looks good on either paper, FR or waterfall plot has never overly impressed me. Some mediocre measuring speakers have though. Something's obviously missing in our evaluation methods (or known and just never provided).

Is anyone aware of test where someone measured the properties of a live performance against the recording of that same performance on different speakers, etc??? I don't know what test you'd use for this, but I have a feeling that you need to have a valid point of reference (ie: the real thing) other than +/- 0 dB, 0.00% THD, etc...

RGA

03-17-2005, 07:30 PM

newbster...your result is what I get from the 705...there is way more to it than frequency response -- that includes amplification devices as well as speakers. Perhaps it is the way the equipment arrives at it's faltish frequency response that is more important than the frequency response at the end. Single Ended amplification should be audibly terrible if I went by the numbers -- someone mentioned that colour should be easily detected so one doesn't really need to look at the graph -- but then I'd hear it. What matters is what can and cannot be heard not what can be measured --- only if it has a DIRECT probvable correlation -- which has never been conducted -- it has been advertised mind you by some major corporate entities.

There is a cycle -- good review - person reads review - reads measurement - told that's good measurement - listens to spekaer with a preconceived bias -- buys speaker touts speaker - touts magazine - cycle repeat until the next speaker is raved about even more.

Lynn Olsen is quite grounded in engineering having written a plethora of articles on the pros and cons of driver materials. The basic experience he has had I have had Steve Guttenberg of Chesky have had bout Audio Note amplifiers and speakers -- These people are not clueless and despite the horrendous weaknesses of SET amplification on the bench (and I've only heard SET from one company so I'm not generalizing that they are all good) is that it sounds better for the reproduction of music - reproduction of the graph and spec sheets the marketing department has told the engineering department to recreate is for B&W. Looks good on paper sounds dreadful and costs a bomb.

But whichever camp one has sunk their teeth into - verbiage on internet forums isn't going to change people's minds - I can and have read the impressive looking "this should sound excellent" graphs of hundreds of speakers over the last 15 years -- trouble is for the theory to work it has to be correlational to the observation.

Take the following test about Analog system versus a top end digital system -- long article but it's not surprising http://www.stereophile.com//features/203/index.html

RGA

03-17-2005, 07:56 PM

TAH

I'm not surprised people don't know it because Audio Note doesn't advertise most anything they are doing behind the scenes(much of it like time coherence is a matter of course and just expected that it be done -- many companies take out full page ads telling everyone all about it) -- why? It's not going to make people like the speaker more and if it does then Peter will be upset that someone didn't buy it on the only merit worth a good gall darn and it's the sound. I can't keep my yack shut about them - it took a lot of work to find about Chesky's Guttenberg and that I only found because the guy helped Peter set up his room at the NEW York CES when Rochlin was reviewing several giants in the industry and left with AN.

Audio Note is a worldwide company making certain products in Denmark, Canada, China England, Japan, the US, etc. They machine some products at the Ferrari / Lamborghini plant to use a certain machine that gets their amplifier to within the tolerance they require.

They are big enough not to have to care about some detractors.

theaudiohobby

03-18-2005, 01:33 AM

This thread is moving off-base back to the original question, are 2-ways better than 3-ways? As a proviso, I am a novice in these matters i.e. with a relevant degree but limited experience on the factory floor or in the design room and given that here is my take assuming perfect performance 1-way is best then 2-ways then 3-ways, however owing the various performance limits of prevailing driver technology such as limited dispersion, driver resonance, limited extension, limited loudness, non-linear distortion etc, multi-way of various guises have been designed to address various limitations with varying success. And inferring from previous posts, it is very clear that individual preferences can and may defer from the theoretical ideals much in the same way as musicians through the years have sometimes shown preference for a variety of instruments clearly based on certain subjective preferences. Guarneri or Stradivari, Steinway or Bosendorfer, anyone?

shokhead

03-18-2005, 04:39 AM

Lets try this; a 2-way tower or bookshelf? A 3-way tower or bookshelf?

Woochifer

03-18-2005, 12:00 PM

Hmmmm...no, cabinet resonance doesn't necessarily (if at all) show up in distortion numbers...that's usually more mechanical...though it might show up in the FR plots. FR plots I don't think capture enough though...at any given point only one frequency response is being measured, it's rare that our music emits only 1 frequency at a time.
I'm not aware of any spec tests for measuring colorations, though we can all hear it when it's present.

Stereophile does spectral decay plots using an accelerometer attached to the speaker cabinet as one of its standard measures. Just as the port output figures into the frequency response, so too does the cabinet resonance, except that I think that the effect from the cabinet potentially also figures into the time domain part of the reproduction.

I think your on to something about cabinets and damping though. A well built cabinet (ported) doesn't need much, I've found poorer cabinets (inexpensive ones like your entry level PSB's, Paradigm's, B&W's, Athena's) tend fill a bit more. The trade off is absorbing some energy inside, allowing for less release of the energy (which I think relates to transient response, attack, and decay), and making a cabinet "appear" bigger to the woofer, more bass extension and SPL, not necessarily better sound quality though. For sealed cabinets, you often want to damp the bejesus out of it or you'll hit the other extreme (though this isn't always the case for subwoofers)...I think it goes back to the driver and crossover though, a "faster" midwoofer (which I recently learned use to be called a squawker?) probably would allow for more damping to a point. I think it comes down to taste, and the designer finding the balance he or she (or their customers) prefer.

My issue with highly resonant cabinets is that the cabinetry does not resonate consistently throughout the frequency band. It's much easier to find a driver with an even and consistent tonal response, than to design a resonant cabinet that does not overly emphasize certain frequencies. It might be possible to find a combination that works together constructively, but that seems to be more art than science.

In all of my listenings through the years, speakers with particularly resonant cabinets can sound fine with specific types of sources, but they also produce all kinds of other inconsistencies. Just because a string instrument uses cabinet resonance to create its signature sound is hardly a logical argument that speakers should take the same approach. First off, a string instrument such as a violin, string bass, or piano works in concert with the resonating characteristics of the body to amplify the effect from a string vibration. Other acoustic instruments though use other types of body materials and wave propagation methods to create those sounds, yet I never hear anyone proposing that we go with speakers installed inside of brass tubing just because that's what trumpets and tubas use.

I've played around with some damping amounts in some of my speakers...right away I notice too much stuffing chokes off the bass...the cabinet can become too big for the woofer (bad), and it seems to reach all the way into the lower midrange which can be really annoying (seems to affect soundstaging too). Upper midrange seems unaffected, proably around the point were the sounds become more directional and don't have much interaction with the cabinet, though I'm not sure exactly.

I don't know or care who builds AN's cabinets, but I can say that I've personally stood on my uncle's AN E's cabinets, not that my 185 lbs frame is massive, but they didn't give at all...a primitive test admittedly, but most people don't dare climb some other speakers. That says something.

The relationship between the size of the port opening and the volume of the speaker cabinet creates a specific effect on the frequency response that the driver generates. When you stuff a ported cabinet, you also change the volume, which in turn changes the frequency response curve if the port opening remains constant. The effect of the cabinet adds yet another variable to the mix. There are limits to every extreme, that's why every speaker design out there represents a compromise of some sort.

Woochifer

03-18-2005, 12:34 PM

There is a cycle -- good review - person reads review - reads measurement - told that's good measurement - listens to spekaer with a preconceived bias -- buys speaker touts speaker - touts magazine - cycle repeat until the next speaker is raved about even more.

Okay, so I guess that this cycle works fine for you too since you posted a link to a Stereophile article in this rant.

Lynn Olsen is quite grounded in engineering having written a plethora of articles on the pros and cons of driver materials. The basic experience he has had I have had Steve Guttenberg of Chesky have had bout Audio Note amplifiers and speakers -- These people are not clueless and despite the horrendous weaknesses of SET amplification on the bench (and I've only heard SET from one company so I'm not generalizing that they are all good) is that it sounds better for the reproduction of music - reproduction of the graph and spec sheets the marketing department has told the engineering department to recreate is for B&W. Looks good on paper sounds dreadful and costs a bomb.

Fine, so you like SET amps, but lose all the external crud about how it's "better for the reproduction of music" as if everybody else who doesn't believe in SETs like you do only believe in "reproduction of the graph and spec sheets the marketing department has told the engineering department to recreate." Each side has its adherents and detractors, yet you can't acknowledge this without taking cheap shots at everything that doesn't fit your preferences. Maybe this is a shock to you, but people who own SS equipment can also concern themselves with listening to quality reproduction of music.

But whichever camp one has sunk their teeth into - verbiage on internet forums isn't going to change people's minds - I can and have read the impressive looking "this should sound excellent" graphs of hundreds of speakers over the last 15 years -- trouble is for the theory to work it has to be correlational to the observation.

You really need to make up your mind about this love-hate relationship that you seem to have with "graphs." One minute you're telling everybody that "graphs" do not correlate to the observational, and another minute you're posting frequency response curves for Audio Note speakers. In your mind, what constitutes a "this should sound excellent" graph, given that the response curves for speakers in particular can be very different? Your inconsistency on this topic seems to shift depending on how far the measurements deviate from your preferences. If they agree with your preferences, then you post links and references ad nauseum, but if the technical data doesn't match with what you like, then it's yet another rant about how measurements are marketing creations that have no bearing on what we hear. And BTW, the correlations between what gets measured and what people hear have been very well established, especially when we're talking about the magnitude of difference that exists between speakers.

thepogue

03-18-2005, 01:07 PM

but me wife say's she'd kill me...

:rolleyes: it's 2 way fer this cat....

Peace, Pogue

kexodusc

03-18-2005, 02:22 PM

Stereophile does spectral decay plots using an accelerometer attached to the speaker cabinet as one of its standard measures. Just as the port output figures into the frequency response, so too does the cabinet resonance, except that I think that the effect from the cabinet potentially also figures into the time domain part of the reproduction.

My issue with highly resonant cabinets is that the cabinetry does not resonate consistently throughout the frequency band. It's much easier to find a driver with an even and consistent tonal response, than to design a resonant cabinet that does not overly emphasize certain frequencies. It might be possible to find a combination that works together constructively, but that seems to be more art than science.

In all of my listenings through the years, speakers with particularly resonant cabinets can sound fine with specific types of sources, but they also produce all kinds of other inconsistencies. Just because a string instrument uses cabinet resonance to create its signature sound is hardly a logical argument that speakers should take the same approach. First off, a string instrument such as a violin, string bass, or piano works in concert with the resonating characteristics of the body to amplify the effect from a string vibration. Other acoustic instruments though use other types of body materials and wave propagation methods to create those sounds, yet I never hear anyone proposing that we go with speakers installed inside of brass tubing just because that's what trumpets and tubas use.

The relationship between the size of the port opening and the volume of the speaker cabinet creates a specific effect on the frequency response that the driver generates. When you stuff a ported cabinet, you also change the volume, which in turn changes the frequency response curve if the port opening remains constant. The effect of the cabinet adds yet another variable to the mix. There are limits to every extreme, that's why every speaker design out there represents a compromise of some sort.

Your preaching to the choir here.

The only thing I would add on cabinet resonance is, from my own experience, it seems a highly resonant cabinet has a few frequencies (or maybe ranges) where it triggers a response, and sometimes it's only noticeable at higher SPL's.

Just as bad a cabinet with resonance issues (but often overlooked) is a cabinet with excess leakage. Take a look at some older speakers, poor foam surrounds, butt joints with only glue or even nails/screws to seal the cabinet...yikes. Lots of energy lost there...

RGA

03-18-2005, 05:57 PM

Okay, so I guess that this cycle works fine for you too since you posted a link to a Stereophile article in this rant.

Was it a review of a specific product? I post reviews and graphs for people who want them -- I do not NEED them for myself -- I do respect the fact that many people won;t even listen to a prduct without reading a review or seeing a graph. I don't really get it but I try to accomodate info people want if I have something...and it's never enough anyway because then they want 47 more graphs which still isn;t going to tell them about the way it pressurizes the room or the kind of dynamics and resolution that is on tap.

Fine, so you like SET amps, but lose all the external crud about how it's "better for the reproduction of music" as if everybody else who doesn't believe in SETs like you do only believe in "reproduction of the graph and spec sheets the marketing department has told the engineering department to recreate." Each side has its adherents and detractors, yet you can't acknowledge this without taking cheap shots at everything that doesn't fit your preferences. Maybe this is a shock to you, but people who own SS equipment can also concern themselves with listening to quality reproduction of music.

How many people who get all over SET and rave about SS have heard an Audio Note SET running their speakers? I don;t mind if someone disbelieves in them when they leave Soundhoundsafter listening to some top end SS stuff versus the 1/10 the price worth of AN SETs... I respect those who have done at least that and made the non set choice -- OR if they made a choice related to other factors like not wanting the hassle of tubes or want surround sound, a Remote etc.

You really need to make up your mind about this love-hate relationship that you seem to have with "graphs." One minute you're telling everybody that "graphs" do not correlate to the observational, and another minute you're posting frequency response curves for Audio Note speakers. In your mind, what constitutes a "this should sound excellent" graph, given that the response curves for speakers in particular can be very different? Your inconsistency on this topic seems to shift depending on how far the measurements deviate from your preferences. If they agree with your preferences, then you post links and references ad nauseum, but if the technical data doesn't match with what you like, then it's yet another rant about how measurements are marketing creations that have no bearing on what we hear.

The graphs I post for those who probably think I support a speaker that are down 50db at 2khz or that they measure badly -- most speakers measure pretty well these days and many that have quite big dips sound quite excellent -- to me they mean little to others they mean everything it seems.

And BTW, the correlations between what gets measured and what people hear have been very well established, especially when we're talking about the magnitude of difference that exists between speakers.

Oh please no they most certainly do not provide proof of any such thing - DBT's cannot prove a damn thing either way (it's in the test definition). If you have irrifutable proof not based on probablity please post it for me to read. There is a general correlation which is what they try and lead to that a few factors of sound reproduction are common to what people will like in the tests that have been conducted -- but that is hardly exhaustive and there are many OTHER attributes that are not considered. The obvious point to that is that if they were right with their laughably limited and linear research I would love a lot more speakers that do well according to the criterian they invented (and they invented it).

The link I posted was a longer term session that those NRC sessions that people liked a certain kind of measured response. A certain kind of measured response does not help because they do not know that it was the overal response that turned people on or off to a given sound or several or certain localized events...

Woochifer

03-18-2005, 07:06 PM

Was it a review of a specific product? I post reviews and graphs for people who want them -- I do not NEED them for myself -- I do respect the fact that many people won;t even listen to a prduct without reading a review or seeing a graph. I don't really get it but I try to accomodate info people want if I have something...and it's never enough anyway because then they want 47 more graphs which still isn;t going to tell them about the way it pressurizes the room or the kind of dynamics and resolution that is on tap.

Interesting though that for all the mantra that you put out about not believing reviews, about not believing anything that you see in audio magazines, about how everything out there is a conspiracy driven by advertising dollars, here you are posting an article from one of those very magazines that you persistently take shots at.

How many people who get all over SET and rave about SS have heard an Audio Note SET running their speakers? I don;t mind if someone disbelieves in them when they leave Soundhoundsafter listening to some top end SS stuff versus the 1/10 the price worth of AN SETs... I respect those who have done at least that and made the non set choice -- OR if they made a choice related to other factors like not wanting the hassle of tubes or want surround sound, a Remote etc.

I've heard plenty of tube components over the years, and while they convey a noticeably different sound over SS equipment, I hardly regard that sound as universally "musical" sounding with all sources. Your persistence in trying to distill the choice down to "music" versus "graphs" is just an disingenuous way of conveying what IMO is nothing more than a simple preference. While I see the merits to using tubes, they just don't fit with my preferences.

Oh please no they most certainly do not provide proof of any such thing - DBT's cannot prove a damn thing either way (it's in the test definition). If you have irrifutable proof not based on probablity please post it for me to read. There is a general correlation which is what they try and lead to that a few factors of sound reproduction are common to what people will like in the tests that have been conducted -- but that is hardly exhaustive and there are many OTHER attributes that are not considered. The obvious point to that is that if they were right with their laughably limited and linear research I would love a lot more speakers that do well according to the criterian they invented (and they invented it).

Your kneejerk reaction anytime anyone posts that it is possible to correlate technical measurements with observational inferences is getting pretty comical. I don't know of anyone who gets so worked up into a lather anytime anybody DARES to somehow say that a lab measurement bears ANY resemblance to what we hear. The simple fact is that measured differences of sufficient magnitude are CLEARLY audible and affect our perception over how things sound. How do you think hearing tests are conducted? How would I know where to equalize my subwoofer without conducting a frequency response measurement? The problem is when the technical measurements don't support your preferences, so you go off on these tangents about what sounds more "musical" or has better PACE or some other made-up subjective criteria that means different things to different people.

Are the existing sets of measurements sufficient for capturing all audible phenomena? Probably not. But, that does not therefore mean that all other existing measured data has no bearing on what we hear. You don't acknowledge this simple point and go on attacking any kind of testing that attempts to take the sight biases out of the equation. Sure, there are flaws in the DBT methodology. But, in my experience, sighted listenings have even more gaping flaws. Over the years I've pretended to swap out components numerous times, and had people tell me how huge an improvement they heard, when in fact the listenings were identical. Of course, all of them claimed to be experienced listeners with great hearing. Others who've tried this same kind of foolery have obtained similar results. It's quite a revealing experience when you listen to something and try to differentiate it from something else without knowing what, if any, changes were made. Differences that once seemed "night and day" suddenly reduce in magnitude or disappear altogether.

shokhead

03-19-2005, 05:02 AM

Wow,has this gotten boring. Remember 2-way vs 3-way. How about we ditch the graphs and spec's and go by whats important,our fricken ears.

46minaudio

03-19-2005, 06:06 AM

Wow,has this gotten boring. Remember 2-way vs 3-way. How about we ditch the graphs and spec's and go by whats important,our fricken ears.
Yep RGA has turned this into another ad fest for AN..He is not happy with pushing just speakers..He is now pushing AN electronics..2-way vs 3-way..ummmmmm

Lord_Magnepan

03-19-2005, 07:58 AM

Well to push back i must say that i have heard audio note 2 way speakers (K i think) before and they sucked to my ears.

A great 2 way speaker is the Kharma 3.2fe, also i currently have both VMPS RM30 and Magnepan MG 3.6R and both have great strength and downfalls.

Trust your ears and dont give a damn about those damn specs.

AN is more like a overprized paper cones in a cheap wooden box....

-My opinion, but some love them...same as always

Lord_Magnepan

03-19-2005, 08:05 AM

TAH
at the NEW York CES when Rochlin was reviewing several giants in the industry and left with AN.

Audio Note is a worldwide company making certain products in Denmark, Canada, China England, Japan, the US, etc. They machine some products at the Ferrari / Lamborghini plant to use a certain machine that gets their amplifier to within the tolerance they require.

They are big enough not to have to care about some detractors.
Magnepan and VMPS won both best of CES award in the High end Catagory. John fi chooses the Kharma 3.2fe above all. YG acoustics uses technology from a F16 fighter jet......who cares. All this rumble doesnt mean **** to the sound.

Buzz Roll

03-19-2005, 08:37 AM

I've always liked the simplicity of two-ways. Probably because I'm in front of studio monitors all day but also because a decent sounding three way is out of my budget. I'm always pushing my Ohm walsh speakers because it's a very simple two-way with the tweeter kicking in above the critical mid-range (around 8k). My speakers are not the best speakers in the world, but it would take a very sophisticaed (expensive) three way to sound as natural, and to actually take the performance to the next level.

RGA

03-19-2005, 01:11 PM

Edited

Not bothering -- been down the road.

RGA

03-19-2005, 01:21 PM

DELETE

RGA

03-19-2005, 01:27 PM

DELETE

Florian

03-19-2005, 02:04 PM

I knew it would get your attention.

Please stop advertising, i used to do the same with Magnepan but your going overboard!!!

Woochifer

03-19-2005, 06:30 PM

No I want people to prove what it is they claim IF AND ONLY IF they are claiming something as science. UI could care less about Joe Smirtz claiming to hear cable differences-- I do care about engineers butchering science and psychology to claim to "know" all about the preferences of the masses when they are under a corporate umbrella --- and when the science is incomplete and not detailed then I have issues with them. There is no proof to your claim "measured differences of sufficient magnitude are CLEARLY audible and affect our perception over how things sound" If you were current you would know that there are other aspects that have MORE of an effect on the perception of sound than Frequency response. And evven combining those big three that harman posts -- AN speakers do quite well on those as do most current manufacturers at most all price points -- so clearly there is more to it.

This is just another example of how overboard you anytime a technical point is discussed. Go on and on and on and on attacking the measurements as "engineers butchering science and psychology". All that this post really distills down to is the fact that you do

No proof to the claim that measured differences of sufficient magnitude are clearly audible? You're so full of crap. What do you think a hearing test is all about? You mean that +12 db peak that I measured with my subwoofer has no bearing on what I heard? Are you now saying that ear doctors and hearing aid vendors are peddling snake oil and that their tools and measures are no better than flipping a coin to determine hearing loss? Amazing.

If I'm so behind the times with my knowledge of how measures correlate to what we observe, then please enlighten the rest of us as to what IS a "current" measure. I look forward to an updated list of more nonsensical subjective descriptions that make no sense to anyone else but yourself.

Probably Not? no it is NOT! It may or may not have a bearing -- the evidence on it is not great it has never been proven and DBT's BTW are question begging...no one not I have said that because there ARE issues with DBT's that we should just believe every sighted session -- but there are also a plethora of psychologuical reasons why we don;t chuck everything and only support DBT's because we ASSUME we are removing all bias and not introducing a whole new set of problems.

The Stereophile article for instance was actually more of a question that the one person who was there ALL-DAY listening by the end could only stomach one set-up...how long do people listen in typical test environments again -- not all day...those tests at the NRC are so horribly off that any pea brain in the first year psych course even at an American University should be able to opunch about 50 holes through. they are making QUITE a rather larger leap that people will prefer X frequency response X being cliose to Flat...sorry that is a blatant outright lie. people liked a SPECIFIC measured response froma specidfic speaker under test over a SPECIFIC frequency response of another speaker -- the one people liked more happened to have a flatter looking response and better off-axis response so the conclusion is "flat is far better and everyone will like it more" no no no. That is a very big leap.

"Any pea brain"? Hmmm, so all of the books on acoustics that make the same conclusions about how measured data about time domain errors, frequency response shifts, and reflected wave interactions affect what we perceive can be debunked by your psych prof? Okay, so what methodology would you propose to make a more consistent basis for evaluating audio equipment, since you've obviously put your own knowledge and expertise above that of the engineers and acousticians.

The part that you leave out is that NO speaker measures perfectly flat, so therefore every model out there has a measureable and audible deviation of some kind. And the listening tests that the NRC conducted were based on a lot more than just the frequency response, another fact that you persistently and blatantly ignore. All you do is call everything a "graph" without even acknowledging that these "graphs" cover a multitude of measures. The frequency response is simply the easiest one to measure at home, and the one that DOES have the most bearing on what we hear. Are you saying that a speaker with no measured output above 2,000 Hz can still sound "bright"? Or that a speaker with no measured output below 500 Hz can still sound "boomy" or bass heavy? Your persistent strawman argument about how "flat" speakers sound like crap is nothing more than a deliberate misrepresentation of what the listening tests conclude.

As flawed as the DBT methodology can be (and DBT is not the only form of bias control out there), I put more stock in listenings conducted under blind conditions than the inconsistent and unreliable conclusions that people draw from sighted listenings. I've compared my own conclusions from sighted and blind listenings, and am very well aware of how huge an influence sight has over what I think I hear. I can tell that you've never done a blind listening before. You should try it out sometime. While it may put dents in the ironclad confidence that you have in what your ears tell you, it lends much needed perspective to what can be reasonably concluded based on sighted listenings.

I am very bad I ask people to go and listen to them in the same room (their own room in their own home treated or not, the stores room, any room doesn't bother me) instead of JUST relying on reviews and graphs and listening to virtual carbon copies of the design theory from differring manufacturers. I think AN is largely correct in their view because when I listened - their products did the proving in the listening sessions -- their measured resposne is according to the competition no worse than very good - the reviews have said they have measured very well - the blind listening panels say the same. I'd like others not to make the MISTAKES I made and could very well have made. Unfortunately i can;t put it across any other way than sounding like a snob. I try to be as diplomatic as possible but my sessions have made that incredibly difficult to do --- and believe me I have been incredibly retrained as to my true opinions comparing speakers(and other gear) that Soundhounds has carried and does carry. And if that pisses people off who have not done exactly what I have done in my sessions then no one should have any complaint.

And when has anybody around here EVER advised people to just buy speakers based on reviews and specs alone? Aside from some of the mail order speakers, almost everybody here talks about the importance of listening before buying.

You simply have a preferred speaker, but when you start putting the choices in terms of "music" versus "graphs", that's a disingenuous way of reinforcing a preference by creating a false choice. When you start attacking "flat" measuring speakers, you're ignoring the fact that every speaker out there has measured deviations of some kind.

You don't catch flak on the board for articulating a preference, you catch it because you can't praise what you prefer without also taking cheap shots at everything else, and often for irrelevant tagental issues like marketing and advertising.

Nobody has a problem with you preferrring Audio Note. It's when you presume that preference to also therefore mean technical superiority to every other approach that people get on your case. You're not the only one out there who's listened to a lot of audio equipment, so all these suggestions to just go to Soundhounds is merely an affirmation of YOUR experience. It doesn't acknowledge that others out there have done equally valid listenings for their own preferences.

RGA

03-19-2005, 09:29 PM

"Your persistent strawman argument about how "flat" speakers sound like crap'

Never said this

"You mean that +12 db peak that I measured with my subwoofer has no bearing on what I heard? Are you now saying that ear doctors and hearing aid vendors are peddling snake oil and that their tools and measures are no better than flipping a coin to determine hearing loss? Amazing"

never said this

There is MORE to it than frequency response not frequency response means nothing -- READ for a change. And ther eis more than off axis response and the third thing harman touts of which is not vcoming to mind at the moment -- I notice they make no mention of time or dynamics resolution.

"Are you saying that a speaker with no measured output above 2,000 Hz can still sound "bright"? Or that a speaker with no measured output below 500 Hz can still sound "boomy" or bass heavy"

Another idiotic strawman -- no you are the one saying this not I. I find it laughable that you attack me about using a strawman and then immediately go into produce several of your own. Hello Pot.

"I can tell that you've never done a blind listening before."

Really -- not only have I been in them I've conducted them and done research papers on them at the university level in psychology. And I did them correctly scoring A's in those papers and courses. I have discussed this test with multitudes of professors Phd students and the way the AES is doing it is not sound (pun alert).

"when you start putting the choices in terms of "music" versus "graphs",

No this is what one has to do because the graphs are indicating what should sound good and what should sound bad -- that is not the case -- indeed, speakers measure well and may sound good or lousy -- speakers(or amps) may measure poorly and sound good or bad. And at Stereophile it doesn;t matter how the hell anything measures because the reviewer always likes it. Yes they may notice a sonic deviation that may corelate with the graph but it never seems to impede on the musical value - the Reference 3a MM De Capo comes to mind immediately as a less than stellar graph that sounds better than a lot of "deemed good" measurements. I have nothing against the measuring of frequency response -- I do have a problem with the notion that if A is flatter than B A is better than B. That has never been established -- it may be talked about and written about and parrotted over and over and over by several different sources -- that doesn;t mean it was right at the outset however. Scientist kept telling people Blacks and Jews were inferior species and deserved to be killed or enslaved and it was repeatred and repeated and repeated but it didn;t make it right. The Canadian and American Food guide can set a food group guide and drill it into kids and adults heads for 30 years but it was never right or PROVEN at the outset that this was the best way to eat. And now this guide is taking heat.

Every speaker has AT LEAST a slightly different measured frequency response - So the theory should prove the slightly flatter one is better --- where is the irrifutable 100% proof then that say the CBM 170 (a very flat measuring speaker) is better than say a magnepan which typically measure all over the place.

Florian

03-20-2005, 02:53 AM

Who cares about the measurments ??

I care about how it sounds.

shokhead

03-20-2005, 05:07 AM

Florian,you mean after you listen to something and it was great,dont you have the charts next to you saying,nope,that shouldnt have sounded good,look at this drop in db at 76.66Hz. You didnt notice? Take those speakers back. Spec's are important but no one and i mean no one has a perfect set of speakers or a setup. Spec's are a guide but my ears are the end results. Anything can be overdone but in electronics,its double. We can agree that there are good 2-way and good 3-way and most likly on a 3-way,a bit better bass response and on the 2-way,a bit tighter mids. Not written is stone,but in general.

Florian

03-20-2005, 06:33 AM

I think that there is no definetive guideline. My VMPS are 4way speakers, my Maggies are 3way speaker. The Kharma 3.2fe is a 2 way speaker and the Apogee Caliper is a 2 way speaker.

They all sound very different and the bass response on the 2way Apogee is a heck of a lot better than most 3 way speakers that i know. My big 3.6 Maggie plays down to 35Hz acording to the specs, but noone knows a right way to measure such a huge Planar. My RM30's go down to 28, but the 3.6 has definetly lower bass out put than my RM30.

It all depends on the room and the design.

Now i did listen to the Audio Note speakers, and i was not impressed at all. and thats ok, the loewthers driver is supposed to be very special and i did not like it.

-Florian

RGA

03-20-2005, 01:51 PM

I.

Now i did listen to the Audio Note speakers, and i was not impressed at all. and thats ok
-Florian

Which speaker? Where? When? How long? What was it connected to? What did you listen to? And what was it compared to?

I'm surprised because my dealer sold his maggie 20 for the E/LX and Peter Q currently owns the Apogee Scintilla --- if you're in England you can hear them directly against eachother. Peter owns 100s of coimpetitors componants precisely for such demos.

this reviewer OWNS the Duetta Signature among others and is not a corporate reviewer --- reviews the stuff he owns. Way more balanced than I am perceived as being. http://www.stereotimes.com/speak071701.shtm (it should be noted in AN's defense that the speaker is less than 1/2 to 1/5 the price of the others in the review).

Florian

03-20-2005, 01:56 PM

I have a friend who lives in Raleigh and we visited a Audio Store in NC. They had the K series as far as i remember. They used Bluecircle equipment and we listened to Loreena McKinnet, Therion, and my Phantom of the Opera.

The AN sounded small and compressed. The pipe organ had no weight nor size to it. Very much like a studio monitor of plays the music like it has no emotion or feeling.

Instruments were smaller than in real life and the speaker just didnt make music. Sorry, but i just didnt like it and no matter what reviewers and paper specs say is gonna convince me otherwise.

I dont trust review people one bit. Why someone would sell a MG20R for anything AN makes is a mistory to me.

Florian

03-20-2005, 02:07 PM

Now i will say this on the record

Its all personal taste !!!!

I am not saying that it was a bad speaker, just that i didnt like it very much. But i also dont like most ML's and B&W's.

I would have no problem selling my 3.6R/SE and buying a pair of AN's flagship....if it were better

theaudiohobby

03-20-2005, 02:47 PM

I'm surprised because my dealer sold his maggie 20 for the E/LX and Peter Q currently owns the Apogee Scintilla --- if you're in England you can hear them directly against eachother. Peter owns 100s of coimpetitors componants precisely for such demos.

Get real... not every one who hears AN speakers will prefer them to the competition, there will be a sizeable number who will hear them and decide against them, simple market reality. Your comments about Peter Q owning 100s of competitors product seems hyperbolic, a few maybe but 100s..hmm, even less likely if as you say he recommends a whole system approach.

RGA

03-20-2005, 09:17 PM

TAH

Peter was a dealer for years, just like Terry at Soundhounds, they have to buy equipment that they sell and basically like Terry try out combinations of all sorts of gear all day day in day out -- not like people who make it a hobby and spend 15 minutesd in a store and listen to a few cuts of a cd and decide because it sounds different than their own system then it must be wrong...

He bought most of these panels and planar designs (especially defunct ones like Apogee) because he was looking to make the best sounding system and Snells fit that mold best and could be re-worked based of the bel-laboratory and JJ Beranek works on acoustics along with Snell's re-worked blueprint. Horns he doesn't care for though they would have had the driveability requirements.

He has SS amplifiers kicking around he's built some, and no doubt several products from the prior company he since sold Audio Innovations (which i believe is still going under new ownership) - products from Linn, Oracle Voyd helius systemdek Sonic Frontiers etc etc. Pulling them apart and seeing what was effective about the other guys stuff and what about it was causing the problems. And then hiring people who can do the heavey duty designing where he cannot. One can listen and decide what is good but hiring the top guys from other companies and world class Engineers to achieve the results is probably the way to go. So taking people and using prior research from defunct companies from Sonic Frontiers, Quad, Phillips, Sony, Audio Note Japan(Kondo-San), apogee, Rega, Goldring, Vanden-hul, and also exploring the recording end of it so he has a better idea of what is on the recordings took a big investment in the recordings as well (70,000+) now --- and the micing systems

Some companies make good stuff but don;t have the sustainability to go on in the market place or ride out the down turn in fads and fashions. Voyd made some of the best turntables arguably the best, but with digital out Voyd collapsed...Peter resurrects it corrects the drive mechanisms and bearings and re-badges it under the AN name. Snell dies and the accountants took over replaced the expensive to make and test originals for slapped together garbage pay some hefy advertising premiums in Stereophile and voila you have a well known Snell -- which finally has soured over the years because the people finally caught on that the reviews were crap because the Snells were crap.

Boston Acoustics bought Snell and they too have the rights to the original Snell and Snell II models. Here's the difference with Audio Note than most companies -- They WANT other people to copy them and they don't care which is why they have kits. Terry has badgered Boston Acoustics owner to build the original Snells because BA's owner is frustrated that his speakers are not considered to be a high end outfit, Largely because his speakers sound a lot like all the other stuff of similar design out there.

BA is concerned that the LOOK can't sell and this is a very viable complaint...Audiophiles may buy ugly speakers in the name of sound but will the masses? So yes they know it sounds better than whatthey currently sell under the BA and current Snell umbrella - but taking the risk to sell the ugly box is going to be difficult and pay the premium for the parts. Still BA could sell them cheaper than AN can -- but there in lies a problem -- priced too low and they are not taken seriously by audiophiles with deeper pockets --- and selling theugly to the masses isn't going to fly. If they sell upmarket and compete with Audio Note well BA isn't going to make the profits they're making now.

B&W's designers of whome you can meet as Peter noted will point blank tell you his speakers are better than what they make -- and they will also point blank tell you that they could never sell it to audiophiles because there is no marketing whirlwind around a chubby ugly 2 way speaker that doesn't have any fancy new advertising gimmick to sell. One year it's nautilus tweeters, another year it's Kevlar another year it's diamond tweeters, and heck they even tried to sell the leather wrap versions(butt ugly IMO). It's ok the other stone age designs have the pendulum swinging as well -- Ribbons crop up from time to time and seem to have a resurgence and even horns are more abundant these days, and panels and planars -- well the ship sunk on them with a few still conning people.

My dealer sold the maggie 20(something flagship) and the dealer dropped the company simply because they got too many returns. The maggie may be a good speaker but they don't work in most rooms -- which is why so many seem to rave and rave and then a few years later by something totally different --- or own several sets of speakers because the maggie can't do it all. The bass depth and power is totally unaaceptable to me.

I have heard only three maggies in my life and none of them do bass properly -- anything that is a drum doesn't work, the SMG doesn't work at all though it is old -- and the 3.6 that Sound Plus has on broadway in Vancouver I'd want a second and third listen before I rail on them because it amy have been a system matching issue with Bryston(which can be the case with Bryston off my past experiences).

There is no singularly right answer TAH and I know this -- it IS a preference.

I understand Florian's response because from what I understand from Bob Neil the AN K and Blue Circle gear is a bit of a mismatch...He has put Blue Circle with Jean-Marie Reynaud (a speaker I would like to hear --- heck it sounds like it has class just from the name -- oh oh preconceived bias.

Florian

03-21-2005, 01:44 AM

If i listen to a live concert, than the stage is at least 10m wide and at least 5 meters depp and endlessly tall.

No AN speaker throws that stage !!! It cant, it doesnt have the size. You have never heard a properbly setup Maggie, and i can tell.

-Flo

You can stick with AN, and i will stick with Maggie and VMPS.

thepogue

03-21-2005, 04:01 AM

to see what all the woopla is about...but I dont think they sell them within driving distance, in fact I looked for dealers and they are far and few between...which surprises me cuz' if they are as great as I'm lead to beleive they shoud be in very home in north america....soooooo what does that tell me?......now I'm sure there is some very long explaination that only the insiders know....I mean heck they wouldn't be all that special if everyone had a set.......

Peace, Pogue

Florian

03-21-2005, 04:10 AM

I think that AN speakers are for the poeple that listen to specs and live in the believe that a "technically perfect" speaker is the right choice. I am not one of them.

There are many reasons why a speaker such as AN cannot reproduce the scale and power energy of a live concert.

theaudiohobby

03-21-2005, 05:36 AM

Peter was a dealer for years, just like Terry at Soundhounds.. Yes I know he was a dealer, but that does not mean he keeps 100s of competitors products around for customers to compare against his products, your original statement is a hyperbole.

There is no singularly right answer TAH and I know this -- it IS a preference. True, but it repudiates almost everything you said before it where you go as far as saying

Ribbons crop up from time to time and seem to have a resurgence and even horns are more abundant these days, and panels and planars -- well the ship sunk on them with a few still conning people. referring to other businesses as cons because you do not like their products is uncalled for.

You have touched on a bunch of contentious topics that I prefer not to discuss for a variety of reasons. And by the way, you are doing an awful lot of name-dropping, almost compensating for AN lack of formal print media adverts. If as you say you like AN's advertising policy, why do you spend so much time advertising and name dropping on their behalf? From Bosendorfer to Ferrari to Fortex to Steve Guttenburg the list goes on and on. And almost without fail little or no factual information to back it up.

I hope we can get back to discussing speakers without attacking the business ethics of other industry participants. Audio Note and its proprietors are no better, if the FR graph you have provided is anything to go by, they grossly overstated the nominal sensitivity of the AN-E by over 5dB, and that is just one example.

Woochifer

03-21-2005, 01:49 PM

Really -- not only have I been in them I've conducted them and done research papers on them at the university level in psychology. And I did them correctly scoring A's in those papers and courses. I have discussed this test with multitudes of professors Phd students and the way the AES is doing it is not sound (pun alert).

Plenty to respond to, but I notice that you've deleted your earlier posts, so I'll leave it at that. Also, my earlier statement was unfair presumption, so I apologize for that.

Florian

03-21-2005, 02:00 PM

Who cares what the doctor said?

You love AN and i love Maggies and my VMP's. I am sick of reading all this technical crap and theories. It takes the whole darn fun out of this hobby.

newbsterv2

03-21-2005, 02:07 PM

Hello everyone!!!

I hate to rain of everyone's parade but for the first time in my auditions I have actually found a speaker that not only sounds right but also measures exceptionally well! It's the Joseph Audio RM33si. When I listened to these speakers I couldn't help but comment on how fast they were and how the music seemed to emerge from nowhere at all. Then I stumbled upon the measurements from stereophile's website. Look at that spectral decay plot there's almost no delayed energy there!! Yes the speaker is a little "hot" which can be seen in the frequency response graph but thats nothing a little tone control can't easily fix. After seeing the graphs and hearing the speaker I'm defeinetely on the side of the scientists who use measurements to design products. Also I listened to these speaks with tubed equipment and I heard the artificial tube-iness very clearly. Happy listening!!

http://www.stereophile.com//loudspeakerreviews/476/index7.html

Who cares what the doctor said?

You love AN and i love Maggies and my VMP's. I am sick of reading all this technical crap and theories. It takes the whole darn fun out of this hobby.

Florian

03-21-2005, 02:19 PM

Well the funny thing is that you can measure 1 speaker by 5 profs. and get 5 different answeres :p :p

Thats why you should trust your ears, and also there is no "written in stone" way to test speakers. There is noone that agrees on how to measure large Planars such as Maggies, Soundlba, Acustat, Apogee etc...

Buzz Roll

03-21-2005, 03:30 PM

I would hardly call the measurements the Joseph exceptional. For a speaker of that price range, that's one of the worst step response measurements I've ever seen. That measurement explains the sound that I heard from a pair of Pearls a couple of years ago.

newbsterv2

03-21-2005, 03:59 PM

I honestly believe that the sprectal decay plots are more important than the step response is. Ever heard the Thiel 1.6's?? They have an excellent measured step response yet their spectral decay measurement isn't so hot in the upper midrange. I couldn't stand listening to the 1.6 for more than 5 minutes yet I spent almost an entire hour with the 33's and wasn't fatigued even though the treble was indeed a little hot. I honestly believe that resonances from the woofers are more bothersome than the tweeters are. I mean if you think about it a resonance at let's say 20khz is not going to be as immediately obvious as lets say a range of frequencies between 500hz and 2khz will be. That's dead smack in the midrange where we are most sensitive to sound. Isn't it a cruel joke to designers of loudspeakers that the region where the midrange and tweeter usualy meet is the point where we are most sensitive to sound?? Indeed it takes a crafty and talented speaker designer to make a decent sounding set of speakers at ANY price range. As much as I love my maggies as much as Florian does their quasi ribbons have lots of resonance problems in the upper passband of the woofer panel and lower passband of the tweeter panel. I actually spoke with Jim Winey's son last year regarding an idea I had for an active crossover to make the speaker have a flatter response. His statement was "the flatter you make the midrange on those MMG's the more the peakiness and resonance will show itself". That's the reason they use a shallow first order crossover.

I would hardly call the measurements the Joseph exceptional. For a speaker of that price range, that's one of the worst step response measurements I've ever seen. That measurement explains the sound that I heard from a pair of Pearls a couple of years ago.

Buzz Roll

03-21-2005, 05:57 PM

I don't know, I had the same response to the Pearls that you had with the Thiels, so I guess it's just personal preference.:) This is also my opinion, but I still believe the simple step response is the most important test - all of a speaker's frequency, amplitude and timing errors are revealed at once.

I know what you mean about where to xover the drivers. I like my Ohm Walsh speakers so much because of the fact that the crossover is around 8k, above the critical midrange that you mention.

newbsterv2

03-21-2005, 06:49 PM

I actually have never heard the Ohm Walsh's or the Pearls. The guy at the hifi store said the Pearls were the most 3 dimensional speaker he'd ever heard but they didn't have them on display. I still really don't understand the step response. All the other measurements make sense to me except for that one. Could you explain? I'm not being a smartass either I'm totally serious.

I don't know, I had the same response to the Pearls that you had with the Thiels, so I guess it's just personal preference.:) This is also my opinion, but I still believe the simple step response is the most important test - all of a speaker's frequency, amplitude and timing errors are revealed at once.

I know what you mean about where to xover the drivers. I like my Ohm Walsh speakers so much because of the fact that the crossover is around 8k, above the critical midrange that you mention.

Buzz Roll

03-21-2005, 08:24 PM

The Ohms are a lot fun - interesting design. I heard the Pearls when I was picking up my amplifier. They were hooked up to a McIntosh system including a pair of McIntosh 1200 Watt Monoblocks. I was surprised that I didn't like the Pearls better.

Sterephile is one of the very few who publish the step response, but don't put much emphasis on it. The step is basically this: from a condition of rest, the speaker is asked to instantly compress the air. A smooth step response shows a speaker whose acoustic output is a duplicate of its electrical input - which I've always thought was the goal of a pair of speakers. If the step response is a squiggly mess, then clearly the output waveform bears absolutely no resemblance to the input waveform. The speakers basically just jumbled up the music. In my opinion this is exactly why 99% of the speaker designs out there are fatiquing and uninvovling. We're beginning to see more and more designers latching on to this idea of time coherence, but it's hard to design and requires higher quality (costly) parts.

That's just my take on it - my preference.

RGA

03-21-2005, 09:41 PM

Florian

I have no relation to Audio Note -- and the one thing you and Peter Qvortrup will agree on is listening - I am the person who recreated the graph from a German Reviewer -- Audio Note produces little information on measured response because it isn;t going to tell you if it sounds good or not (unless it's way the heck out of whack and most everything priced from the Atom to the Dynaudio Evidence Master is not). I am the one who catered to what people were asking for which of course TAH you are indeed correct I probably did AN a disservice on this front.

I will say that I don't buy the notion of scale -- the AN K cannot produce the scale of a full scale live event that is true but there is no other speaker that size I have ever heard that could either and neither can the SMG - Listening to Tina Turner with the speaker properly set-up that is abundantly obvious. Something like the Avante Gaurde Uno might but to be qquite frank with AMPLIFIED music at most live concerts few home systems -- read NO - home systems mentioned ont hsi board so far in the years I've been here can replace the live event -- and the ones that can produce the levels and scale and BASS and dynamics are NOT magnepans --- Avante Gaurde's system posted here probably comes the closest but can one stomach it for listening to music the way a home system was meant for?

Soundstages are not limitless in height either so idf that is what maggies is doing it is faking it. Recordings are not recorded for the msot part like a stage but in a recording studio and often done in separate tracks and then mixed together -- they were doing that for what 40 years now laying background vocals in after lead vocals and instruments compeletely separately some of the time. I think I get why the fellow bought the SMG and why one would by a stat and a 3.6 - but it isn't me and it's not more realistic to me.

Florian the people say nothing about the speakers but generally about a certain testing methodology used in the audio industry...it has nothing whatsoever to do with any speaker so I apologise for the confusion.

TAH.
You can ask Peter what he owns presently -- it's quite a lot of gear. As for names you are correct I should not be posting what obviously he does not feel the need to do...he said to me that he does not feel it's right to convince people by listing recording studios and names etc (unless it's a specific issue/product related to a specific conversation about the issue/product and to a specific person on a forum or on the phone etc). The reason is to likely to protect the people in the industry who could get into trouble if they are fielding calls about a competitor's product. That would indeed look bad if I am working for speaker maker X, and it leaks that I prefer speaker maker Y's product. There is some tact that needs to be maintained and I again I should leave that. Mentioning names is inapriate I agree and not what AN would desire.

Pogue.

I understand the complaint and so does Audio Note. This company has been around since the 1970s but for most of that period has sold ultra expensive gear. People like Paul Lam who is a dealer who sometimes posts on forums told me that the price to get into Audio Note is too high for him to be able to carry such a line. The dealers hit North America I believe 3-4 years ago and sit at about 25 dealers in North America. Soundhounds picked them up because the store owner had already owend Snell E's. He happened upon them and decided to carry them because he wanted a SET line. In the last three years they have dropped at least 4 speaker lines and a number of their amplifier lines and AN is the biggest seller he has. Considering the price of AN gear when you are selling MORE stifly priced ugly non home theater friendly products versus way more household names then they're doing something.

Few dealers have these kinds of very deep pockets - they are the biggest Rega dealer in North america. Not every dealer around WANTS tube amps let alone SETs. Hi Fi Center in Vancouver has been sitting on a Jadis amp for 3 years -- it's probably STILL in the front window and when i was in they were going to give ti to me for $1700.00 -- it was retailing for $6k. But they have nothing(speakers) in the store that likes tubes.

So you are a businessman with limited dollars - are you going to sell the home theater room which is relatively low cost outlay to you, where the stuff looks cool does everything, and then sell the person several boxes, the stuff has so many write ups that you really don;t have to do anything but tell the customer how much it is and let them play with it for 20 minutes and then collect the money, where the whole set-up is $1500.00 -$2k. You can sell a LOT of these because many more people can buy it --- and in more areas of the country. OR do you want to sell a $3,000.00 10 watt amplifier where every few years you have to buy tubes to stick in) and ohh there is no remote control and forget home theater compeltely. Ohh you want speakers and a cd player at that level as well - now you're into $10k...and you still don't get surround sound...how many people are going to lay out that kind of coin? And that's a pretty entry levelish system for Audio Note if you want a true representation of what they're really about. Even the dealers who ARE currently carrying Audio Note in North America - many of them are compromises to Peter's vision of how it should be sold - some carry them because they really like the stuff but carry very little content. Soundhounds is a success because one can hear several models of everything so one can hear the difference between levels -- but more importantly they can also hear big big competitors.

But maybe what you are saying is that because they are not readily available that means they are not as good? But we know why this argument is less succeful because one can see the analogy that Rolls Royce and Ferrari are not around every corner - but Caveliers and Focuses are. Bose is sold all over the place, Magnepan, Dynaudio and many many higher end speakers are not available in a lot of areas. As an example, There is one maggie dealer in this Province of over 4million people -- Bose is at every Future shop(and they are as common as Best Buy to you guys in the US) --- and Bose is even sold at the dealer the maggie is sold at.

I'm sorry but if I want to make massive money I'm going to try and carry what I know will sell with the least possible fuss and most people can afford.

And if I'm going to sell to people a product that has no features, is butt ugly, has little to no real information (measurements or press reviews relative to the rest of the stuff carried in the store), is expensive etc etc and have them base their decision on the sound quality of the system and ignore those major areas where they're beaten --- then by heaven it had better be vastly superior to the other stuff I'm carrying --- and I better be damn sure I'm selling in an area where people will indeed go by the sound quality by spending many many hours. Then the dealer better want to invest that timne as well. FEW are going to want that hassle...I wouldn't. Another dealer said they'd kill to sell B&O -- sure it's crap but it sells and has huge profit margins -- who cares about the sound?

Florian

03-21-2005, 11:35 PM

Well maybe i put it wrong.

When i listen to Maggies (3.6 not the hundred year old SMG) then what i hear is a lot more like live music than other speakers that i know. The VMPS RM30 are awsome in that regard too, exept for the image height.

-Flo

shokhead

03-22-2005, 06:45 AM

What ever happened to 2-way vs 3-way? I just love runaway threads.

Florian

03-22-2005, 07:58 AM

Lol, i guess w kinda stole the thread.

i think that there is no better or worse. It all depends on the designers implementation and room acoustics.

mr. budget

03-26-2005, 06:50 AM

Lol, i guess w kinda stole the thread.

i think that there is no better or worse. It all depends on the designers implementation and room acoustics.

Hey, did you guys see x-men2 when xavier sits in that room with the helmet. I'm way off topic here...you guys heard of wall of sound but how about a sphere like that made of speakers and you could even get noises from below. Like youd walk out on that ramp and there'd just be a sphere of speakers everywhere around you...That's really similar to surround nowadays but have you ever heard of in floor or in-ground speakers? I know wall units and ceiling units, how about in floor units. Or propjectile units that could go through the wall and zap your neighbour with a hit of acdc!?!

shokhead

03-26-2005, 06:58 AM

Here's one. A tower and a bookshelf,each has the same tweeter and mid/bass speaker,two-way. How the sound and freq range different? Also is it more likly one would be ported and the other not or it wouldnt matter?

thepogue

03-26-2005, 05:13 PM

I'll just never be able to make a sound decision without hearing them...and that IS a shame...

Florian

I have no relation to Audio Note -- and the one thing you and Peter Qvortrup will agree on is listening - I am the person who recreated the graph from a German Reviewer -- Audio Note produces little information on measured response because it isn;t going to tell you if it sounds good or not (unless it's way the heck out of whack and most everything priced from the Atom to the Dynaudio Evidence Master is not). I am the one who catered to what people were asking for which of course TAH you are indeed correct I probably did AN a disservice on this front.

I will say that I don't buy the notion of scale -- the AN K cannot produce the scale of a full scale live event that is true but there is no other speaker that size I have ever heard that could either and neither can the SMG - Listening to Tina Turner with the speaker properly set-up that is abundantly obvious. Something like the Avante Gaurde Uno might but to be qquite frank with AMPLIFIED music at most live concerts few home systems -- read NO - home systems mentioned ont hsi board so far in the years I've been here can replace the live event -- and the ones that can produce the levels and scale and BASS and dynamics are NOT magnepans --- Avante Gaurde's system posted here probably comes the closest but can one stomach it for listening to music the way a home system was meant for?

Soundstages are not limitless in height either so idf that is what maggies is doing it is faking it. Recordings are not recorded for the msot part like a stage but in a recording studio and often done in separate tracks and then mixed together -- they were doing that for what 40 years now laying background vocals in after lead vocals and instruments compeletely separately some of the time. I think I get why the fellow bought the SMG and why one would by a stat and a 3.6 - but it isn't me and it's not more realistic to me.

Florian the people say nothing about the speakers but generally about a certain testing methodology used in the audio industry...it has nothing whatsoever to do with any speaker so I apologise for the confusion.

TAH.
You can ask Peter what he owns presently -- it's quite a lot of gear. As for names you are correct I should not be posting what obviously he does not feel the need to do...he said to me that he does not feel it's right to convince people by listing recording studios and names etc (unless it's a specific issue/product related to a specific conversation about the issue/product and to a specific person on a forum or on the phone etc). The reason is to likely to protect the people in the industry who could get into trouble if they are fielding calls about a competitor's product. That would indeed look bad if I am working for speaker maker X, and it leaks that I prefer speaker maker Y's product. There is some tact that needs to be maintained and I again I should leave that. Mentioning names is inapriate I agree and not what AN would desire.

Pogue.

I understand the complaint and so does Audio Note. This company has been around since the 1970s but for most of that period has sold ultra expensive gear. People like Paul Lam who is a dealer who sometimes posts on forums told me that the price to get into Audio Note is too high for him to be able to carry such a line. The dealers hit North America I believe 3-4 years ago and sit at about 25 dealers in North America. Soundhounds picked them up because the store owner had already owend Snell E's. He happened upon them and decided to carry them because he wanted a SET line. In the last three years they have dropped at least 4 speaker lines and a number of their amplifier lines and AN is the biggest seller he has. Considering the price of AN gear when you are selling MORE stifly priced ugly non home theater (#) friendly products versus way more household names then they're doing something.

Few dealers have these kinds of very deep pockets - they are the biggest Rega dealer in North america. Not every dealer around WANTS tube amps let alone SETs. Hi Fi Center in Vancouver has been sitting on a Jadis amp for 3 years -- it's probably STILL in the front window and when i was in they were going to give ti to me for $1700.00 -- it was retailing for $6k. But they have nothing(speakers) in the store that likes tubes.

So you are a businessman with limited dollars - are you going to sell the home theater room which is relatively low cost outlay to you, where the stuff looks cool does everything, and then sell the person several boxes, the stuff has so many write ups that you really don;t have to do anything but tell the customer how much it is and let them play with it for 20 minutes and then collect the money, where the whole set-up is $1500.00 -$2k. You can sell a LOT of these because many more people can buy it --- and in more areas of the country. OR do you want to sell a $3,000.00 10 watt amplifier where every few years you have to buy tubes to stick in) and ohh there is no remote control and forget home theater compeltely. Ohh you want speakers and a cd player (#) at that level as well - now you're into $10k...and you still don't get surround sound (#)...how many people are going to lay out that kind of coin? And that's a pretty entry levelish system for Audio Note if you want a true representation of what they're really about. Even the dealers who ARE currently carrying Audio Note in North America - many of them are compromises to Peter's vision of how it should be sold - some carry them because they really like the stuff but carry very little content. Soundhounds is a success because one can hear several models of everything so one can hear the difference between levels -- but more importantly they can also hear big big competitors.

But maybe what you are saying is that because they are not readily available that means they are not as good? But we know why this argument is less succeful because one can see the analogy that Rolls Royce and Ferrari are not around every corner - but Caveliers and Focuses are. Bose is sold all over the place, Magnepan, Dynaudio and many many higher end speakers are not available in a lot of areas. As an example, There is one maggie dealer in this Province of over 4million people -- Bose is at every Future shop(and they are as common as Best Buy to you guys in the US) --- and Bose is even sold at the dealer the maggie is sold at.

I'm sorry but if I want to make massive money I'm going to try and carry what I know will sell with the least possible fuss and most people can afford.

And if I'm going to sell to people a product that has no features, is butt ugly, has little to no real information (measurements or press reviews relative to the rest of the stuff carried in the store), is expensive etc etc and have them base their decision on the sound quality of the system and ignore those major areas where they're beaten --- then by heaven it had better be vastly superior to the other stuff I'm carrying --- and I better be damn sure I'm selling in an area where people will indeed go by the sound quality by spending many many hours. Then the dealer better want to invest that timne as well. FEW are going to want that hassle...I wouldn't. Another dealer said they'd kill to sell B&O -- sure it's crap but it sells and has huge profit margins -- who cares about the sound?

vr6ofpain

03-26-2005, 06:17 PM

I really want to listen to the Spendor S5e. Though I cannot afford it at this point in my life, but I like to wish I could.

http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/904spendor/

http://www.stereophile.com/images/archivesart/904spendor.jpg

Though honsestly I am also very interested in the EPOS M5's, which I could afford.

abstracta

03-26-2005, 10:46 PM

and they will also point blank tell you that they could never sell it to audiophiles because there is no marketing whirlwind around a chubby ugly 2 way speaker that doesn't have any fancy new advertising gimmick to sell

Probably because most two way speakers are grease off the same meatball and sound the same anyways regardless of what the audiophiles tell us, and please state your official affiliation with B&W to be speaking for them. I'm not a huge B&W fan citing my own opinion that their designs might have the highest cost per lack of dymamic extension ratio in the industry. Still, I give B/W credit for building what I consider among the most seamless sonic integration between tweeter and midrange I've ever heard in a typical cone design. Even the more complex time phase corrected designs I've heard often don't seem to be able to 'gell' the upper stage drivers together like I've heard B&W 801's do.At least somebody at that company got a clue and finally figured out 'gee, if we reduce baffle area and hence second order reflections, it might sound better.' Seems they were right (at least to my ears), but too many audiphiles are listeing to the inner beauty of their millimeter thick glued on Rosewood finishes and $1000 tonearms to realize this.

About the only "ugly" speaker I've seen/heard that actually sound good are Wilson's.

and panels and planars -- well the ship sunk on them with a few still conning people.

Magnepan owners are some the most loyal, satisfied and pragmatic speaker owners I know, so I'm not sure where you are getting your demographics. I'll also take a big pair of Maggie 1.6's over the over hyped "small driver - big box' designs you seem to be promoting simply because they have an over engineered crossover. The 'big box - little driver' philosophy can be seen at any high end audio shop by multi thousand dollar two way designs that feature large, 3-4' tall speaker cabinets, but only a single 6.5" woofer and tweeter. These type designs were hugely popular in the 90's, and are frankly the most over-rated junk made because they all rely on box gain to produce a few more DB extension on the lower end for you brave audiophiles out there willing to listen to something else besides your stupid violin concertos and light jazz ensembles. Nothing like having a big empty box of MDF to create bass for you, but we need endless pages of spectral diagrams about why some PhD in electronics is smarter than the the other speaker geek, but it's the crossover that counts, right? Cut the big empty box out, and you have nothing more than another $4000 book shelf speaker.

Small speaker = small sound. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the laws of accoustic physics. That right there in a nutshell illustrates my almost complete and total apathy for two way designs, and increasing contempt.

At least the maggies have more than half a square foot of piston area trying to fill an average size room, which is another case of denial in the audio industry. As for 'returns', I'm betting most of them are from users not willing to sit with their head in a vise - not because of having room problems. I'm not willing to put up with head in a vise sweet spot restrictions either, but I'll admit I adore the sound field produced by the big maggies.

I have heard only three maggies in my life and none of them do bass properly

Says you. The bigger maggies do bass better than a big empty box of MDF and a whimpy 6.5" driver, that's for sure.

Also note that there are far more speaker designers than drivers available on the market, and far fewer high end drivers worth using. Many, many high end cone based speakers use the same frikken driver, yet claim a sonic superiority or unique quality over another speaker using the exact same components. Dude, unless your guru is designing and building his own drivers and mating them with custom crossovers, save us the razzle dazzle. I'll let my ears and common sense decide.

Soundstages are not limitless in height either so idf that is what maggies is doing it is faking it.

The maggie accomplishes it by having a huge radiating area, linear dispersion area, and very narrow sweet spot. Your "superior" solution seems to be a small cone driver radiating from a logical single point in space and using an empty box of MDF to augment low frequency sound. I'd rather get a pair of headphones......they sound better, and are cheaper.

vr6ofpain

03-27-2005, 12:04 AM

I run bookshelves and a sub because that is what I can afford right now...

I find it interesting what you were saying about the 'bookshelf' speakers in a large 'tower' enclosure. I have always wondered how much they actually use the larger enclosure space. To me when you look at them you wonder why they didnt put in more drivers, or if it is a lower line model, 'missing' other drivers.

What kinda of speakers are you running?

Florian

03-27-2005, 02:29 AM

Probably because most two way speakers are grease off the same meatball and sound the same anyways regardless of what the audiophiles tell us, and please state your official affiliation with B&W to be speaking for them. I'm not a huge B&W fan citing my own opinion that their designs might have the highest cost per lack of dymamic extension ratio in the industry. Still, I give B/W credit for building what I consider among the most seamless sonic integration between tweeter and midrange I've ever heard in a typical cone design. Even the more complex time phase corrected designs I've heard often don't seem to be able to 'gell' the upper stage drivers together like I've heard B&W 801's do.At least somebody at that company got a clue and finally figured out 'gee, if we reduce baffle area and hence second order reflections, it might sound better.' Seems they were right (at least to my ears), but too many audiphiles are listeing to the inner beauty of their millimeter thick glued on Rosewood finishes and $1000 tonearms to realize this.

About the only "ugly" speaker I've seen/heard that actually sound good are Wilson's.

Magnepan owners are some the most loyal, satisfied and pragmatic speaker owners I know, so I'm not sure where you are getting your demographics. I'll also take a big pair of Maggie 1.6's over the over hyped "small driver - big box' designs you seem to be promoting simply because they have an over engineered crossover. The 'big box - little driver' philosophy can be seen at any high end audio shop by multi thousand dollar two way designs that feature large, 3-4' tall speaker cabinets, but only a single 6.5" woofer and tweeter. These type designs were hugely popular in the 90's, and are frankly the most over-rated junk made because they all rely on box gain to produce a few more DB extension on the lower end for you brave audiophiles out there willing to listen to something else besides your stupid violin concertos and light jazz ensembles. Nothing like having a big empty box of MDF to create bass for you, but we need endless pages of spectral diagrams about why some PhD in electronics is smarter than the the other speaker geek, but it's the crossover that counts, right? Cut the big empty box out, and you have nothing more than another $4000 book shelf speaker.

Small speaker = small sound. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the laws of accoustic physics. That right there in a nutshell illustrates my almost complete and total apathy for two way designs, and increasing contempt.

At least the maggies have more than half a square foot of piston area trying to fill an average size room, which is another case of denial in the audio industry. As for 'returns', I'm betting most of them are from users not willing to sit with their head in a vise - not because of having room problems. I'm not willing to put up with head in a vise sweet spot restrictions either, but I'll admit I adore the sound field produced by the big maggies.

Says you. The bigger maggies do bass better than a big empty box of MDF and a whimpy 6.5" driver, that's for sure.

Also note that there are far more speaker designers than drivers available on the market, and far fewer high end drivers worth using. Many, many high end cone based speakers use the same frikken driver, yet claim a sonic superiority or unique quality over another speaker using the exact same components. Dude, unless your guru is designing and building his own drivers and mating them with custom crossovers, save us the razzle dazzle. I'll let my ears and common sense decide.

The maggie accomplishes it by having a huge radiating area, linear dispersion area, and very narrow sweet spot. Your "superior" solution seems to be a small cone driver radiating from a logical single point in space and using an empty box of MDF to augment low frequency sound. I'd rather get a pair of headphones......they sound better, and are cheaper.

Thank you, finally someone with brains. Now some points of my own, my 3.6R/SE plays down to 30Hz flat in the room with no stupid box coloring the sound. They load the room equally and create less room modes than those stupid boxes. The have canceling sidewaves and a huge radiating area.

I dont know where RGA comes from, but when i go to a live concert the stage is at least 60feet wide and deep. The instruments are very large and radiate sound 360 degree al around. Your stupid little box will never ever throw a realistic soundstage with the sheer size and pinpoint precision as my 3.6R/SE's. you have heard a 15 year old MG1 and you judge the Maggies by it.

Maggie fans are the most loyal, and in 99% of all cases is the 3.6R or the 20.1 the last speaker people will even by.

I sold my sub after i got my 3.6's, since they will make your carpet move.
The Maggies have soooo much more surface area than your small box its not even funny. Bass is made by moving air, and the Maggie move mre than 10 times the air your AN does.

Stop writing crap with stupid PHD geeks telling me how i am supposed to listen to music. When i listen to my system, than i have the players and the instruments in my room !! No small presentaion.

You are gonna tell me that the grand piona used my the munich ffilharmonica orchestra is small ??? It is huge, and it has a huge open sound. And noo box will give me that.

Give me planar or death !!!! Either Magies, Apogees, Soundlabs...

I have a wonderfull box speaker here, which is the RM30. It uses Planar ribbons from 166Hz to 7K, all in phase and no stupid x-over in the critical area. Now thats a box i like to listen too, and on paper it goes down to 28Hz but the Maggies still crush it.

END---Rant :::

Geoffcin

03-27-2005, 05:32 AM

I really want to listen to the Spendor S5e. Though I cannot afford it at this point in my life, but I like to wish I could.

Though honsestly I am also very interested in the EPOS M5's, which I could afford.

Just goes to show you that audio mags are worth reading.

shokhead

03-27-2005, 06:40 AM

I dont care what kind of really neat speakers anyone has,to get rid of a sub or not have one is doing a diservice to you speakers. Those poor things are yelling for some relief,get me a fricken sub so i'll sound even better. Guess its a man o man thing,got these bigo speakers,i dont need no big woofer.

Florian

03-27-2005, 06:46 AM

Could use please explain your post so that peopl can actually understand what you mean? I read it twice, and have absolutly no idea were you stand or what you are trying to say.

Geoffcin

03-27-2005, 06:57 AM

shokhead

03-27-2005, 08:28 AM

LMAO Thats what i'm talk'n about. :D

shokhead

03-27-2005, 08:30 AM

Could use please explain your post so that peopl can actually understand what you mean? I read it twice, and have absolutly no idea were you stand or what you are trying to say.

I'm not supprised.

Florian

03-27-2005, 09:50 AM

What the hell is that supposed to mean?
if it is what i think it is, then crawl back to Best Buy were you came from :p

shokhead

03-27-2005, 12:53 PM

Oh,ok. Well lets stop talking about you,your speakers and me and get back to 2 and 3 way speakers. I'll start. I think a good two-way bookshelf not only will sound good but save abit of money over a tower.

RGA

03-27-2005, 03:06 PM

abstracta

Your post is quite strange indeed, knocking boxed speakers for lack of dynamics -- why support planars -- which woefully are innadequat in this regard - even by those who favourable review them say that?

A great many reviews and personal opinion note B&W's lack of driver integration.

Yes many speakers do have small drivers in a bigger cabinet -- AN is Birch ply or chipboard in their inexpensive enclosures. MDF has been used strategically as a wrap for some less expensive models.

As for soundstage -- AN recommends the sepaker be placed in corners preceisely because the stage will be as large as your room can hold and bass is reinforced so that the perception is that the sound is the size of your wall (it should be not artifially faked to be larger). The two driver two way can reach 16hz-18hz (with a usuable frequency to 12hz) at reasonably loud levels.

Audio Note's woofers act in a radiating manner and not as pistons augmenting the cabinet to expiditiously remove resonances outside of the audible realm.

I respect the fact that people may like Magnepan and electrostatic panels --- not everyone does -- Reviewer John Marks of Stereophile doesn't like them -- big fat hairy deal -- if you guys like em then that's the point -- your money your preference --- ditto for me.

Geoffcin

03-27-2005, 05:27 PM

abstracta

Your post is quite strange indeed, knocking boxed speakers for lack of dynamics -- why support planars -- which woefully are innadequat in this regard - even by those who favourable review them say that?

Planars are incredible for dynamics. Case in point; My daughter just turned me onto the soundtrack from the Pirates of the Carribean. The classical score is huge in dynamics, but I didn't know how much until I pulled out the SPL meter. The swing was from ~40db to well over 105db (I briefly saw 107) My entire house was shaking and it sounded like a 140 piece ochestra was right in the room with us, 3 sets of Tympani and all. If your standmounts can recreate this type of music in this way then god bless you, because I've never heard such from ANY standmount speaker ever made.

Geoffcin

03-27-2005, 05:51 PM

abstracta

As for soundstage -- AN recommends the sepaker be placed in corners preceisely because the stage will be as large as your room can hold and bass is reinforced so that the perception is that the sound is the size of your wall (it should be not artifially faked to be larger). The two driver two way can reach 16hz-18hz (with a usuable frequency to 12hz) at reasonably loud levels.

My room is 16 feet wide. If I were to place 2 standmount speakers in the corners it would sound like what it is; two standmount speakers in the corners with NOTHING in the middle. Since they are not dipoles, NOTHING would be coming from the center of the room except the sound of sucking air. Perhaps that's what you call soundstage debth, but to me it would sound like a big vacant hole.

The bass re-enforcement your talking about does occur, but even with just rudimentry math you can easily figure that an 8" speaker with a free air resonance of 25 hz at best can only produce a few db of bass below that without major excursion of the driver, and hence massive distortion. It's simple physics, and unless you've found a way to create cold fusion there's no way around it.

Usable frequancy @ 12 hz?! Not even my twin 15" Velodynes could give you that, for that you have to go to the massive multi-thousand watt (6000 thousand but who's counting) Velodyne Digital Drive 1812 Signature Edition. Are you saying your 8" woofered standmounts can compete with a sub like that, or perhaps they can only just outdo my two 15" velodynes?

Geoffcin

03-27-2005, 06:00 PM

[QUOTE=RGA]
Audio Note's woofers act in a radiating manner and not as pistons augmenting the cabinet to expiditiously remove resonances outside of the audible realm.
QUOTE]

Your woofers are just that, woofers. They are mechanical pistons; no more, no less. I don't know what you've been reading but the mechanical properties of woofer dynamics have been thoroughly explained. It's not rocket science, and there's no magic that AN has found to release your woofers from the realm of the physical world.

RGA

03-27-2005, 08:54 PM

My room is 16 feet wide. If I were to place 2 standmount speakers in the corners it would sound like what it is; two standmount speakers in the corners with NOTHING in the middle. Since they are not dipoles, NOTHING would be coming from the center of the room except the sound of sucking air. Perhaps that's what you call soundstage debth, but to me it would sound like a big vacant hole.

The bass re-enforcement your talking about does occur, but even with just rudimentry math you can easily figure that an 8" speaker with a free air resonance of 25 hz at best can only produce a few db of bass below that without major excursion of the driver, and hence massive distortion. It's simple physics, and unless you've found a way to create cold fusion there's no way around it.

Usable frequancy @ 12 hz?! Not even my twin 15" Velodynes could give you that, for that you have to go to the massive multi-thousand watt (6000 thousand but who's counting) Velodyne Digital Drive 1812 Signature Edition. Are you saying your 8" woofered standmounts can compete with a sub like that, or perhaps they can only just outdo my two 15" velodynes?

Actually not only am i saying this Peter will bet you on it...he has said and argued on forums before that while the competition has speakers with 4 multiple 12 inch woofers per side (he owns some of them and big Apogee Scintillas) that it is not NECESARRY for Full range bass.

There is also complex physics apparently -- maybe everyone is sticking only to simple physics. (Usable response is -10db and the E is 12hz here) -- though I don;t know if that is ALL the E's or just the higher ones where there is a different HF Alnico woofer being used. There is no doubt that the cabinet itself is augmenting the deep bass. (now there is a volume capability limit here however - A subwoofer can play 20hz way louder (where the physics comes in) and Audio Note isn't designed to play at a 140db...which is why when you pay more you are not just getting another driver slapped in a box to add 4hz you get better sound. Also there is a room size limit -- AN is built for normal listening rooms not 4000square foot gymnasium sized rooms. so of Course you can get MORE deep bass with a dedicated massive subwoofer -- whether it will be GOOD bass or not well that is something else again -- and for people who think bass is just bass - have yet to hear it done properly.

The AN E will however do the 16hz organ pedal test and at the shows a few years ago several people from competitors were looking in the ceiling for the "hidden subwoofer" because it is "impossible" to achieve bass that deep from that size cabinet with that size driver --- impossible for some maybe(BTW this was also done via LP on their turntable and was more about demonstrating that than anything else). Now these figures were confirmed by Martin Colloms in Hi-fi News and these figures ARE in room response with the speakers in the corners...so yes they are helped by their position and wall reinfrcement -- but that's the design - the cabinet adds about an octave apparently if one of the reviewers who said it was correct --- though. And to be fair these are Bigger than your average standmounts.

The speakers are not heavily damped (they have taken the damping out so much so as to remove the ferro-fluid cooling) - they use strategic damping to alleviate that boxed nasality which is why SOOOOOO many people including me never "upgraded" to boxed speakers". Your descriptions of boxed speakers is not surprising and I don't think it's wrong -- when i first heard Stats there was a sound there that I despearately wanted.

When I listen to the AN J or E and then listen to a Totem or B&W it's like someone has thrown a wet blanket over the thing -- why the hell do you think I go into forums and become the human torch?

There is a fellow here who owned the Mani 2 for several years spent a whole 10 minutes with the E and that was that, --the Mani2 was gone. Another fellow the last time I was at Soundhounds owns the top of the line GIGANTIC Tannoy Winchester or whatever it's called (whcih Soundhounds carried as well) That speaker is at least 3 times the volume maybe 4 or 5 that of the E. This guy and his wife were sitting behind me and we were listening to Also sprach Zarathrustra and some Leanard Cohen and Allison Krauss and his wife was gee that sounds better doesn't it...he was shaking his head in rather frustrated disbelief. Yeah a whole 8 watts driving it.

It is also not surprising that 3 different quad owners (who I know personally and on forums) who have heard Audio Note have said it's the only boxed speaker they have ever heard that they'd consider giving up their panel for (which granted was said about the E and not the K)...indeed, one of them has owned Quad for 25 years and now has the E...it has the open sound (not artificially created with a spitty metal tweeter) it has the scale and more importantly, and a BIG reason I like them, is that they have the speed and attack on acoustic instruments that I have never heard from a BOXED speakers (thanks to paper and high efficiency baflfe and lack of overdamping perhaps).

They have been described as the best of horns and stats rolled up together into one speaker.

Peter could have taken the rights of Apogee and used those as models (and he could charge way more to boot) to improve -- he owns the top Apoogees 9scintillas which are panels?) and has dealt Quad -- Quad has contracted Audio Note's top designer Andy Grove. Peter does not claim to know everything -- he steals everyone elses stuff and makes it better -- no reason to re-invent the wheel when it's perfectly round --- many other ocmpanies had to make big compromises due to finances -- Peter doesn't need to.

Bottom line is they've been around since the 1970s selling uber expensive gear - UK side of things have come to down to a saner price level -- and NO not everyone is going to like it -- and yes it is a bit of "religious" conversion -- I e-mailed him a while back and he said many people get that - and yes I respect that many won't.

Florian

03-28-2005, 12:53 AM

Planars are incredible for dynamics. Case in point; My daughter just turned me onto the soundtrack from the Pirates of the Carribean. The classical score is huge in dynamics, but I didn't know how much until I pulled out the SPL meter. The swing was from ~40db to well over 105db (I briefly saw 107) My entire house was shaking and it sounded like a 140 piece ochestra was right in the room with us, 3 sets of Tympani and all. If your standmounts can recreate this type of music in this way then god bless you, because I've never heard such from ANY standmount speaker ever made.

I can only state the same. The dynamics and realistic recreation of the performance. Your soundstage is as big as your room RGA ? I pitty you, because mine extends beyon the natural boundries of the room. If you like to quote people from Stereophile etc... then here goes one for you

Jonathan Valin, of Fi Magazine, said in December, 1998, Volume 3, Issue 12,

"So what have we got here? A big planar speaker that throws the widest, deepest, tallest, most coherent soundfield I've heard from a hi-fi system, filled with the most naturally-sized instruments I've heard from a hi-fi system, with the sweetest, most natural timbres I've heard from a hi-fi system, the finest dynamic nuance I've heard from a hi-fi system (particularly in the treble), and the most natural illusion of instrumental "action" I've heard from a hi-fi system. What we've got here, in sum, is "realistic reproduction" in the highest sense of the phrase, in the sense I spoke of earlier, the virtual duplication of instruments and voices rather than mere analogs of certain aspects of their sound....While it's hard to call anything that costs nearly ten grand a bargain, I can tell you this; if it were my money, and I were shopping for the very best, these are the speakers I'd buy."

Oh another one

Stereophile's by Brian Damkroger said this about the MG3.6 in August 2000

Taken on its own, however, the Magnepan Magneplanar MG3.6/R is a sensational speaker and, at $3750/pair, very reasonably priced. In some respects it's the best speaker I've heard period. Even in the areas where it's perhaps not the very best, it's awfully close -even when the very best is several times more expensive. Some speakers I admire, some I like ... the Magnepan MG3.6/R, I think I'll keep. Very highly recommended!

I suggest a competition, give me one person in germany with some AN speaker and we will compare it to the 3.6R/SE...

Florian

03-28-2005, 12:57 AM

Peter could have taken the rights of Apogee and used those as models (and he could charge way more to boot) to improve -- he owns the top Apoogees 9scintillas which are panels?) and has dealt Quad -- Quad has contracted Audio Note's top designer Andy Grove. Peter does not claim to know everything -- he steals everyone elses stuff and makes it better -- no reason to re-invent the wheel when it's perfectly round --- many other ocmpanies had to make big compromises due to finances -- Peter doesn't need to.
.

Sounds to me like he saw an oppertunity to market a cheap mdf box through the marketing of phd people and sell it for waay to much. Actually, doesnt BOSE do that?

RGA

03-28-2005, 08:27 PM

I don't know the processed Silver alone in one of his AN E level speakers will run you $40,000.00 just for the silver -- they use some of the best Paper drivers available on this planet and the best Alnico magnets. All Birch Ply real wood cabinets...how much is a piece of cloth running these days?. Every speaker is hand tested and aligned -- labour is more expensive that parts in this and most industries.

Soundhounds did the demo you seek -- the result of which is that they no longer carry Magnepan --- and indeed, while they're site lists Martin logan -- they only carry them in name (ie you can order it through them) but it was too embarrassing a match-up.

Bose was very good at falsifying soundstages as well so that everything played through a 901 sound enormous whether it is suppose to or not. My session with the 3.6 and Bryston was not particularly great with unevenness and open but sizzly quality to the proceedings - bass was deep not the least bit credible in the dynamics -- so let me guess it's the amplifiers fault and or the room correct? Yeah I hear this one a lot.

You want to argue cost to price ratio you shoud be real sure where you get the information - Skeptic already got into a long thread with Peter about this on AA and the cost to end price of Audio Note is strikingly low relative to most out there...and that includes their $125,000.00 speakers -- and it doesn't avoid the fact that that every other company isn't selling their speakers at cost.

Your rhetoric of limitless high stage is idiotic sorry because when i see a band play I am not hearing the singer 50 feet in the air wither her band up there?? Heck man what the hell are you talking about? magnepan reminds me of watching a movie in pan and scan where everything is blown up larger than it is in life and misses a lot of the content for "air'

I don't really want to argue the point because I like it more than most and I get why some people would really not have anything else -- I'm not trying to convert you - but it is my opinion that ONE speaker should play all kinds of music -- a lot of maggie owners seem to always end up buying other speakers for other kinds of music or because they "Have a change of mood today?" That to me is an obvious indication that the speaker lacks for some music -- music such as rock where this kind of rythm dynamics is required.

If all I listened to was acoustic music Magnepan and Quad and ML(even with the woofer problem) I would enjoy.

Florian

03-29-2005, 12:19 AM

Your rhetoric of limitless high stage is idiotic sorry because when i see a band play I am not hearing the singer 50 feet in the air wither her band up there?? Heck man what the hell are you talking about? magnepan reminds me of watching a movie in pan and scan where everything is blown up larger than it is in life and misses a lot of the content for "air'

If you heard the band play 50ft in the air, than you have listened to the Maggie with the 100% wrong electronics, and wrong setup first of all. Second, i listen to mostly heavy metal, symphonic metal and rock. If the Maggies would have no dynamics and only good for jazz do you really think that i would spend 8000$ for my speaker ?

I suggest, you go to the planar asylum and post your responses and you will see what you get. Incl. an invitation to hear a real Maggie system. Besides, whats the first thing to make up for boomy bass?, move them out from the wall. Treat the room for room nodes, but what do you recommend?, to put the paper box in the corner and use the enforcment. What a bunch of crap, since the US has wood houses, and we have stone houses. Both materials that reinforce frequencys differently. The whole theory is a joke, sorry.

PS: You obviously have never heard a life instrument or a 200 man orchestra since at least by then you would realize why your paper box will never recreate the event.

shokhead

03-29-2005, 06:58 AM

Can we end this thread because i would rather talk about 2-way and 3-way then somebodys great speakers and buy the way,i've been to a couple of concerts and there isnt any speaker that sounds as good. Now i'm off to BB to look at some speakers. {Maybe Maggies} LOL

Florian

03-29-2005, 07:23 AM

Check out some 1.6's, but you have to loose your electronics in order for them to sing. Also at least 5ft from the backwall and ribbons on the inside.

newbsterv2

03-29-2005, 08:49 AM

RGA,

Do you work for Audio Note?? Are they paying you to overhype the hell out of their products?? Any company who charges a crap load more money for the SAME SPEAKER with silver wires is running a scam big time. I went to their website and was laughing the entire time. This Peter clown stating that SET's do less damage to the speaker and all this nonsense......any engineer with half a brain will tell you that even though it's second order consonant distortion it's.......distortion!!! Most solid state amps are practically distortionless unless they are driven to clipping when they sound like crap. Tubes sound like crap and the louder you go the more tubey they get! Also I find it funny how he uses custom cabinets that vibrate in sync with the drivers and bla bla bla. One of the most well engineered and great speakers I've ever heard was the Dynaudio temptations and have you ever seen their graphs??? Smooth on and off axis frequency response with no goofy midrange dips or peaks. Inert cabinet. Clean waterfall plot. THAT is engineering. You're polluting these newbies minds with your crap and I'm sorry to hear that a lot of them are going to listen to you. Maybe you should take an electronics class and read some amplifier/loudspeaker design books and then come back. I believe in trusting your ears to an extent but hifi is much more than "magic". It's a science plain and simple.

I don't know the processed Silver alone in one of his AN E level speakers will run you $40,000.00 just for the silver -- they use some of the best Paper drivers available on this planet and the best Alnico magnets. All Birch Ply real wood cabinets...how much is a piece of cloth running these days?. Every speaker is hand tested and aligned -- labour is more expensive that parts in this and most industries.

Soundhounds did the demo you seek -- the result of which is that they no longer carry Magnepan --- and indeed, while they're site lists Martin logan -- they only carry them in name (ie you can order it through them) but it was too embarrassing a match-up.

Bose was very good at falsifying soundstages as well so that everything played through a 901 sound enormous whether it is suppose to or not. My session with the 3.6 and Bryston was not particularly great with unevenness and open but sizzly quality to the proceedings - bass was deep not the least bit credible in the dynamics -- so let me guess it's the amplifiers fault and or the room correct? Yeah I hear this one a lot.

You want to argue cost to price ratio you shoud be real sure where you get the information - Skeptic already got into a long thread with Peter about this on AA and the cost to end price of Audio Note is strikingly low relative to most out there...and that includes their $125,000.00 speakers -- and it doesn't avoid the fact that that every other company isn't selling their speakers at cost.

Your rhetoric of limitless high stage is idiotic sorry because when i see a band play I am not hearing the singer 50 feet in the air wither her band up there?? Heck man what the hell are you talking about? magnepan reminds me of watching a movie in pan and scan where everything is blown up larger than it is in life and misses a lot of the content for "air'

I don't really want to argue the point because I like it more than most and I get why some people would really not have anything else -- I'm not trying to convert you - but it is my opinion that ONE speaker should play all kinds of music -- a lot of maggie owners seem to always end up buying other speakers for other kinds of music or because they "Have a change of mood today?" That to me is an obvious indication that the speaker lacks for some music -- music such as rock where this kind of rythm dynamics is required.

If all I listened to was acoustic music Magnepan and Quad and ML(even with the woofer problem) I would enjoy.