2-way vs 3-way which is better

[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?

[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]

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]

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.

[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.

[RGA]

Edited

Not bothering -- been down the road.