2-way vs 3-way which is better

[theaudiohobby]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[Woochifer]

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]

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]

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


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


Peace, Pogue

[kexodusc]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Edited

Not bothering -- been down the road.

[RGA]

DELETE

[RGA]

DELETE

[Florian]

I knew it would get your attention.

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

[Woochifer]

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]

"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]

Who cares about the measurments ??

I care about how it sounds.