Laid back?What is that anyway?

[mika]

Hello everybody.I'm setting up a new HT system and i'm auditioning various speakers at the moment.I read all the time that some speakers sound "laid back".Can someone please explain to me what this means and how to recognize that when i audition a speaker?Thanks in advance.

[Florian]

Well laid back speakers sound a little slow, and easy going. If you would match a Klipsch horn with a Krell for instance you would get everything but a laid back sound. The sound would be horribly harsh and forward. If you use a single tube amp the sound will be softer and more laid back.

-Flo

[Geoffcin]

Hello everybody.I'm setting up a new HT system and i'm auditioning various speakers at the moment.I read all the time that some speakers sound "laid back".Can someone please explain to me what this means and how to recognize that when i audition a speaker?Thanks in advance.

"Laid back" is a term people use to discribe a speakers that's not "in your face" or agressive in any way. It has mostly to do with the treble responce being a bit subdued in the upper range. A "laid back" speaker is easy to listen to and unobtrusive most of the time. Laid back speakers are also very forgiving of less than great recordings. I prefer a neutral to laid back spaker for HT. My HT speakers, the Cambridge Soundworks Newtons, are considered a bit "laid back".

[oddeoowphil38]

Hello everybody.I'm setting up a new HT system and i'm auditioning various speakers at the moment.I read all the time that some speakers sound "laid back".Can someone please explain to me what this means and how to recognize that when i audition a speaker?Thanks in advance.

Mika, when I describe a speaker as being laid back what I am referring to is the speakers neutrality. That is, nothing added or taken away from the source material. Not forward or in your face so to speak. One speaker I describe this way is the B&W 602 S3. Others, have referred to the Ascend CBM-170's or the Paradigm Studio 20's as being somewhat laid back. Usually, laid back speakers take a lot of power to get anything out of them. But when you do, the sound is awesome and free of coloration!!!! Anyways, I hope this helps. Be sure to check out the Paradigm monitor series or the studios if your budget allows for it. Personally, I am a Paradigm fan 4 life.

[Geoffcin]

Mika, when I describe a speaker as being laid back what I am referring to is the speakers neutrality. That is, nothing added or taken away from the source material. Not forward or in your face so to speak. One speaker I describe this way is the B&W 602 S3. Others, have referred to the Ascend CBM-170's or the Paradigm Studio 20's as being somewhat laid back. Usually, laid back speakers take a lot of power to get anything out of them. But when you do, the sound is awesome and free of coloration!!!! Anyways, I hope this helps. Be sure to check out the Paradigm monitor series or the studios if your budget allows for it. Personally, I am a Paradigm fan 4 life.

While some less than efficient speakers have been described as laid back, I don't believe that having a laid back presentation has anything to do with it. Laid back is a form of coloration, really just a depression of the upper treble response, and as such cannot be described as "free of coloration" Also; laid back does NOT mean the speakers are rolled off. Plenty of speakers with a lower presentation of the upper range also have an extended response, just not at a pronounced level.

[vr6ofpain]

IMO:

"Laid back" describes a speaker (or system) with slightly rolled off highs, smooth mids, and comfortable bass. A system that might not reveal every last detail, but you could listen to it for hours on end, with never a need to lower the volume level from fatigue.

With a laid back system, brightness has left the building.

[RGA]

Ask six economists the same question and get six different answers -- audio is nary different with the exception that you'll probably find a dictionary term that is vague enough to still yet be interpretable.

Some lesser Klipsch speakers, certainly not all, would be described as forward.
Castle speakers, namely the Castle Eden, I would describe as a laid back speaker.

The problem of course is that to determine what is forward and what is laid back audibly will be based on what sound you think is netral (or the perfect balance in the center). No speaker of any design at any price is truly neutral so of course now you are dealing in the world of sthe sliding scale. One person may have three speakers let them be:

Speaker A= Person 1 thinks is the most neutral speaker in the world
Speaker B= Person 1 thinks is very laid back or an extreme example of laid back(polite boring lacks dynamics)
Speaker F = Person 1 thinks is extremely forward brash aggressive and just too shouty to listen to -- an extreme example of the forward speaker.

Let's suppose person 1 has owned his speakers now for five years and is very used to the sound and thinks they're super and or is self-deluded into think his speaker is perfectly neutral (it is either perfectly neutral or it is not neutral -- 2+2=4 or it does not). So when he hears speaker D which leans say a little more forward than what he owns he will call speaker D a forward speaker. Or perhaps he hears speaker C which seems laid back compared to what he owns so it's "laid back" or lacks a bit of life. Now let's say I'm God (I'm sure some would I have the complex at least) and tell the world that "gee Speaker D is indeed the Neutral speaker after all" now that would mess up the whole thing because speaker A which was though to be neutral would be in fact laid back and what person 1 thought was neutral was indeed preference(self-proclaimed Golden Ear) getting in the way of what indeed was the case.

Martin Colloms started a company called Monitor Audio I believe in the 1970s after basically getting the Nobel prize of Electrical engineering acoustics from the UK. What is currently being measured is the tip of the ice-berg of what is really going on with notions of neutrality/accuracy etc. All of us get into traps of terms like this is accurate that is not -- this is accurate to the recording that is not -- this is accurate to the live event that is not. Some speaker makers did demos against live music and people claimed that the recorded stereo was as good as the live event. Several manufacturers by the way have done this from the very first recordings in the early 1900s and it was never true then as it is not true now. Neutral is the recording engineer who is recording the album in the studio through speaker Y in room Z. If you don't own room Z AND speaker Y set up exactly the same way then what you have is not accurate and it cannot be accurate to the recording because there is only ONE perfectly accurate and the RE has it. And even if you own speakers from a recording studio -- well they all use different ones.

And interestingly, My wharfedale speakers(and most I have heard over the years) make a lot of my recordings sound very similar while my other pair does not. So for example a recording that has a very full bodied deep sound front to back is presented and going to another recording it comes up more in 2 dimensions. And this is just some depth issues, no need to go into frequency. Many speakers tend to have a very prominant stamped sound so My Wharfedales and B&W would present or staging very much alike across albums without really dilineating differences very well. In other words a bright speaker tends to sound bright all of the time in severe examples and have a stamped on sound.

Also speaker positioning relative to room boundries can create colourations and can subdue problems of overly aggressive or overly laid back or muddy sound. Some speakers are also geared up for certain music genres where the expectation from the buyer is that the treble can really belt it out to play drums and cymbals real loud. Sometimes a maker on a budget in doing that has to lose some of the finer details elsewhere which may make an oboe or flute sound shouty.

You simply need to listen over long periods and decide what you like rather than get bogged down in audio-techno-babble which is largely created by people who think they have a superior ear than the regular person -- they may have an experienced ear but that doesn't make them better at hearing. When I recommend equipment I NEVER suggest someone should "take my word for it" and just buy it without hearing it first hand. I want people to take my recommendation and listen to it for a long period of time against several other componants precisely to have them devleop a base off which to judge the recordings, the speaker''s ability to flesh out the differences in recordings and ultimately what is prefferred. It is pointless to bring the favorite CD and say gee it sounds different the cymbal crash is more prominant on my speaker so therefore this speaker I'm hearing is laid back...when in fact it may be that the speaker you're used to in fact could be incredibly bright and the new speaker is getting it more right - but it takes a fair bit of time hours of listening usually (unless it's just so obviously out to lunch).

I don't think I want a speaker that "sounds" Forward, Laid-Back, or Neutral. A speaker should not SOUND any such "way." Neutral doesn't exist - and anyone telling you that you are getting EXACTLY what was recorded is a deluding themselves.

[Geoffcin]

Ask six economists the same question and get six different answers --
.

We're talking frequency response. Frequency response can be presented as a graph, and that graph is a lot easier to interpret than the Canadian economy.

Laid back = NOTHING to do with dynamics.

Laid back speakers have a lower level of high frequency output, NOT extension, OR ability to present dynamics. My Cambridge Soundworks T500's are considered "laid back" but are capable of 110 db+ dynamics with the right amplification. God help you if your next to them when they decide to do such a feat.

Speakers that have a rolled off treble ALSO sound "laid back" but that is NOT necessarily so for all "laid back" sounding speakers. A -3db shelf of the upper treble range is what a "laid back" speaker sounds like, even if it has extension to 25khz or more. I could easily make my Magnepan 3.6r speakers sound "laid back" if I decided to insert a resistor in the tweeter loop, but they would STILL have all the dynamics of the speaker only with a slightly subdued treble response. It would NOT affect the extension of the speakers tweeter, OR the dynamics, only the LEVEL of the high frequency response.