Do you agree?

[SpankingVanillaice]

Many people have told me that specs are important and many says that it isnt important but do you guys think specs are imporatnt to know since it gives you accurite infos about a speaker or receiver? I can say my dad is a pro drumer and he has heard lots of speakers and he tells me many times that trust your ears and don't look at specs. He says just pretend that you don't know the specs and just listen and then decide which speakers you want or headphones you want. But I don't 100% agree with that since I really persionaly think you need to know specs to judge if a speakers is good. Since if you only trust your ear you might pick the worst speakers or headphones that doesn't have good specs at all. My dad did say that everyone hears differently and everyone has different taste on sound so that's why they are tons of speakers out there. But do you guys agree with me or my dad? My dad is a pro musician he has been to many recording studios and done lots of recording.

[poneal]

I'm not a musician but I can tell you it's hard to build a speaker by ear. Now the ear is not out of the equation but I've found that a speaker that measuers flat, has good phase in the crossover region, and impedance phase in the +/- 40 degrees sounds best. Off-axis is no less important. Since most of us listen off-axis, the speaker must be able to stay reasonably flat on-axis as well as off-axis. That's why some speakers need toe-in to sound best--they don't image well off-axis. You can tell this by walking around the room and listening. You will hear highs drop off in some places, mids muddy in others, bass boomy in some parts, etc. Now after I get the thing as flat as possibe both on and off axis, I then listen to it. If I like it for over a month, I leave the design as is. If not, I'll model in a peak or dip where I think it needs it and try that. Over and over until I get what I think sounds right. I then measure it and every time I find the one with the flattest response sounds best.

I think what your dad is saying is "don't trust the specs from manufactureres" because they fib. Who the hell is going to buy a speaker with +/- 5db? No we demand at least +/-3db--the lower the better. So sometimes they lie or stretch the truth to make the literature sound better. Cheers, Paul.

[SpankingVanillaice]

But I thought that the company who makes the speakers or headphones can't lie since if they do they get in trouble if someone finds out that the specs were false.

[poneal]

Whose to say how they measured it? Lies can be made into truth my friend :-)

[SpankingVanillaice]

Well to get to the point my dad did point out and said that use your ear to decide on what speakers sounds the best to you and he said don't worry about specs just listen to each speakers or headphones and buy the one that sounds best to you. But I don't agree with that since you need to know the specs too you know to get good speakers since as you know you could say this speaker sounds the best but the specs could be very poor.

[N. Abstentia]

Specs can be used as a general starting point ASSUMING all other things are equal. In other words, just because a $100 set of 10 watt powered computer speakers specs say it's flat and goes down to 35 hz does not mean it will sound anything like a $600 pair of bookshelves that have the exact same specs. Specs won't tell you how the speakers sound to a human.

Your ears...and more importantly common sense...should be the final deciding factor.