Compact or Bookshelf speakers?

[RGA]

In other words, you admit that PERFECT integration does not exist, even among the best monitor and floorstanding speakers. Yet, you're going to CES in search of PERFECT integration with subs. Sounds to me like you're creating a new strawman. Look for perfection even when it doesn't exist elsewhere, and when you don't find it (and I ask again how can you make any meaningful observations in a noisy convention hall or small hotel room), use that finding as a platform for another endless stream of attacks on subwoofers.

Give it a rest - you are just posturing and taking everything the extreme literal - typical . Subs IMO Never seamlesslessly integrate and don;t think there are not a ton of people starting with your buddy skeptic who don't agree - People like you say they seamlessly integrate which is exactly the same thing as saying they perfectly integrate for the purposes of listening - I always hear the handoff. I am not asking the room not to create a standing wave or a bit of bloom or boom - I am tallking about the directional hick-up from passing to the subwoofer and making it sound as though it's all one instrument - that can be and SHOULD be attainable in most any room.

I can just predict your rant next January -- "I went to CES, and even when setup by the designers themselves, I couldn't hear PERFECT integration! Therefore, subwoofers suck donkey balls!" Of course, you would fail to mention that the sub was demoed in a convention hall with an ambient noise level above 85 db, or inside of a dinky hotel room with cabin gain that starts above 60 Hz and creates standing waves at multiple frequencies. Hard to make any kind of meaningful conclusions about anything in environments like that.

Well some people ordered up some Sogon speakers at over $120K - apparently some people can make meaningful determinations in the supposedly dinky rooms. Surely they can simply integrate the sub with the front speakers - this is the task I'm asking NOT that they perform miracles with the room. So far I have not heard that.

ZERO to do with the speaker? Do you listen from inside an anecholic chamber? The room acoustics have EVERYTHING to do the speaker because the room interacts with what the speaker produces, and can severely alter their sound properties. You obsess about the box width of speakers as if that's a make or break one-to-one causal effect for every audible malady with speakers. Well, none of that amounts to anything if high reverberation creates time domain distortions, or if the standing waves create +20 db peaks.

The room has these problems no matter what speaker is iin the room and will change with positioning "Think about it this way, if you take a musician with his chosen instrument in a bad room he still sounds OK, why should a speaker not be able to replicate the same?
This is why we recommend having the speakers close to the room boundaries, because it eeduces the room variants."(PQ)

Is there anything with Peter Q that you DON'T agree on? Doesn't matter how good you think your equipment is. If it's placed inside a bad room, you'll get bad sound. How difficult a concept is that to understand?

Well I could agree with people who think the Harman Paradigm approach is right - or a speaker maker that makes realistic sounding music - wonder which I'll pick?
No it is not the case becuase you don't listen you sinply believe what Most of the industry bashes over people's heads. No one and certainly not me has said you will get the IDENTICAL sound in every single room - you are obviously building a straw man to suggest that's what I'm saying.

And how do you propose to get the bass under control? Stick it in the corner like Peter Q says? Yeah, the very location with the maximum reinforcement and most unpredictable room interaction effect. Imaging must be PERFECT at that location too, or is that just wussy stuff for the "homogenous and compressed" crowd?

Well some manufacturers may not understand how to work a corner - he manages to make the unpredictable very predictable - but some are ignorant of the AN sound.

Nice try. But, you were talking about how "homoegenous and compressed" speakers funnel all sounds into the middle even if the aren't supposed to. And you were basically equating imaging to making everything seem like it's coming out of the center. This is news to me because I always thought that imaging was about creating a seamless soundfield that allows you to precisely place sounds from left-to-right (and in the case of a multicannel setup from front-to-back).

No I was talking about voices - duets or solos that get pushed to the middle instead of some that is slightly center left or center right. The soundstagings is smaller and often 2dimensional rather than 3d. Simply listening to your speaker in the same room as mine would tell you that. It's not always simple to put in words what is heard.

I own a set of Paradigms and I've NEVER encountered an instance where a sound that was supposed to emanate from the left got shifted to the center. You claim that certain speakers do something comparable to this and I asked you to cite an recorded example where I can hear this magical phenomenon for myself. Your spinning leads me to believe that you've made up some exaggerated nonsense for argument's sake. Oh heaven forbid!

How would you know where it was supposed to emanate from if the only speaker you're discussing is Paradigm. Read the comparison by contrast essay and try it - I have listed no one album because I can't remember every album I notice this on(But Leahy lakefield is one that would have me immediately cross the 100V3 off the list permanantly and buy the AN's if I must choose one) - The album is not the point - it will work with a selection of any music - but in order for you to see it in action you need access to AN speakers in the same room as the Paradigm speakers. My only concern is that the two speakers prefer different sorts of amplifiers so I would try both with one good amp that i did - the Complete by Audio Refinment. Then hook up the best SS amp of your choice to the Paradigms and the OTO PP or SE to the AN...and run the sessions again.

And !let's see, so "idiots" talk about frequency response, but more enlightened listeners like you are about "vocal nasality". Patent that one! I'm sure that the speaker designers can't wait to hear you explain the concept to them!!

Frequency response is not unimportant but it's not the whole nest-egg either. For some makers it's obviously the case they have limited their aspirations to a few computer models in the paint by number speaker designs because vocals are positively atrocious on the 100V3 compared to the AN's. Now most people on boards keep comparing the 100 to OTHER very very similarly designed speakers the the 603 or Energy C9. I was as guilty of that as anyone arguing my case for the B&W over the Paradigm etc - but live and learn.

The tonal characteristics of a speaker can change drastically from room to room. It's easy to HEAR this and it's easy to MEASURE this. All you've got to go on is your flimsy and oft-repeated "I have ears and I have Audio Notes" argument. If the Audio Notes truly are unaffected by room acoustics, then it should be easy to verify the phenomenon using a SPL meter or RTA. Or are you now arguing that if drastic differences show up in the measurements that they are invalid because your ears know what real instruments sound like? Funny that you claim to hear huge differences where the measurements show small differences, yet the very room effects that generate huge measured differences you simply refer to as BS and a copout.

No it does not change the fndamentals of an instrument - a C on a piano is a C period in any room - no room mode changes it to something else. Whoever said that the room plays no part? The only strawman is the one you created. I merely said the room is oftene blamed for bad speakers. The better speaker is a the better speaker in any room - provided the room meets the size needs of the speaker and that in AN's case there's a corner --- though like I have said even WITHOUT the designed for corner AN does pretty well and betters competitors anyway. That is more of a compliment in my view.

The room affects the sound - but it has to start right or it's game over - and that means at extremely low volume from the point of off to the very first hint of sound...and that is where far too much stuff out there fails.

The only joke is the one that's been perpetrated on you by whoever's trying to get you to buy into all this nonsense and separate you from your college loan funds.

Yes people do judge AN without hearing them...yes I can't audition two loudspeakers and discern what is better and neitehr can Paul Messenger Martim Colloms who has forgotten more than you'll ever know about this stuff. I should believe people with Paradigm Studio 40s and a Receiver for two channel audio advice on what represents lifelike music - that's the real joke.

Or in your case, by not understanding the benefit of room treatments, you instead chose to upgrade your speakers twice in a one-year period.

I chose to upgrade because of an opportunity to get a better loudspeaker at a significant saving. If the dealer had told me in the first place that they had J's at the price I would have bought them then. It was only because 923129(whatever) had mentioned to me how much the J's were going for that I made an inquiry. It had nothing to do with the K/Spe. (and in fact I later learned that they had sold an E/D between then that may have interested me) The dealer then gave me 100% of what I paid for a 6 month old speaker. (they were not originally going to do that and give me the used value - but they decided several days later via e-mail that because they didn't tell me about the J that they'd give me 100%. The J's are a better speaker...it's not the same but add a driver and get more bass like going from a 40- to the 60 or a 602 to a 603...heck with these it's not necessarily even an upgrade just adding more bass.

No I understand room treatments and have been looking into acquiring some because the room I have moved my system into has a small slap echo at the speaker end - which is not audible in the sense that I notice a problem on music replay - but since it exists then it can obviously be imporved but my room is already pretty dense with furnishing and I already use a difraction method along the back wall behind the listening position. Nevertheless the problems are relatively small compared to some.

I haven't upgraded my speakers in three years and with some very simple room treatments, got substantial upgrades in sound quality. By reducing the reverberation, and by attenuating the room modes, I got audibly and measurably better performance out of what was already a very good sounding system. And the cost was under $200. In case this concept eludes you, room treatments are about maximizing the performance out of what you already have. I already had a system that I was happy with, and I simply wanted it to let it live up to its full potential. It's about minimizing the influence that the room has over what you hear, so that indeed it is the system that you hear. Or if you think the money pit approach is preferable, well if you want to keep dumping money into upgrades, that's your choice.

Then what are you arguing with me about? The room helps you get the most out of the speakers you have - yes I don't argue that at all...I choose to get the most speaker first then the most out of said speaker. I have had my Wharfedales for 14 years. I am not an upgrade happy person. I have had my cd player for about 8 years - I upgraded to a used Sugden from an Arcam but that was to put a mistake right...and I had the Arcam for 7 years. The Sugden is soon to be upgraded - I blame Soundhounds for carrying Audio Note because if it was not for them I would have my Wharfedales still as my main speakers and no amp on the way.