Sonus faber vs Marten

[RGA]

MR. P

I never said they would sound the "same" in "any environment."

But this is a product that is meant to enjoy music on - and they should and most are designed to work in a "typical" room environment.

Using an example because I have a pair - The AN E and J are meant to be corner loaded in a given square region. This is the ideal position to sound their best. It is not a requirement however to get good sound from them. Hi-Fi choice has had both speakers continuously win every blind panel listening session they've been in (liking them so much they bought two sets over the last 20 years to be used as their reference) - and their room has no corners. So this is a speaker placed in the least best way you can place them and they like them over other speakers placed in their ideal free standing position. A dealer in HK has them set up free standing and the sound is "elite." despite being free standing and having no toe in.

The bass is deep enough free standing for the vast majority of music so even not corner loaded there is enough dynamics weight and heft to the sound to be full bodied which is why Hi-Fi Choice noted that the AN J (without corners) still beat the floorstanding speakers it was up against for bass.

This is because the sound of the actual speaker doesn't fundamentally change. What changes in rooms is frequency response - but so what - the ear is known to be a huge compensation filter for frequency response. After a few minutes to adjust it really doesn't matter much if a part of the band is a few db down (really depends where it is). The bigger problem tends to be bass boom which is why I try not to judge such aspects of the sound at a show or a dealer because usually you can compensate for that with positioning. You can't compensate for poor driver integration - no room can fix it - nor can a sluggish sounding long throw woofer design - they sound that way no matter the room they're in.

There are many other factors involved - the equipment - the mood of the listener - the type of music you heard in one place versus the other place - and of course room and set-up.

I completely agree with your experience listening to a speaker and getting totally different results - of course this happens and has to me. The 1.7 with Audio Note Soro and AN CD 2.1 sounded wonderful - so much better than hearing same speakers with Bryston 28B and a computer digital source (which sounded rather obnoxious). Same speakers - very different sound - but in fact with the AN gear - the room was considerably WORSE than the room connected to the Brystons. The room was not the problem or a help.

And with my own AN K speakers a number of years back - I had them in a 13 X16 closed room (in corners with big toe in) with Sugden and I enjoyed them - but a fellow audiophile who didn't much care for the AN K had them 3 feet into the room and 8 feet from side walls in a big livng room less than 3 inches beside another set of loudspeakers running 200 Watts power amps from Odyssey (Stratos). He claimed they were bright - he put special speaker dampening pucks on top of them.

I am sure you know a little about Audio Note speakers in that the last thing they're about is being damped. So this guy is putting dampening pucks on them and that may be fine for a Dynaudio, Totem or Paradigm (maybe) designed for that but it runs completely counter to the manufacturer's intent. Then he's running 200 Watt high damping factor amplifiers (which the speaker manufacturer would think is the worst sound in the world) in a room 3 times the size the speaker was designed to operate in. I heard them in his room and yup if I heard that stereo I would not walk out wanting to buy those loudspeakers. So I am in 100% agreement on the room matters and the gear matters and the set-up matters.

What I was saying was that if you get the basics right - you set the speakers up according to manufacturer recommended set-up - you run gear that is noted to be a good match (in other words something the manufacturer would run), and you set it up in the room size the speaker is meant for - not an evidence master in a 10X 9 bedroom or a Totem Model one in a 40 X 78 room then you should get fairly uniform sound.

The other factor is music played. At Audio Shows most rooms play a series of a few CD's of known repute. Or music that puts their speakers in the best light. It is far easier in a sense to judge those rooms because if you are playing a great recording the sound should be great or perhaps it's the system's fault. What do you do with room like Audio Note or Trenner and Freidl when you walk in and they are playing music regardless of the quality of the recording.

A system can't transform a frog into a prince - maybe a nicer looking frog but still a frog. And the opposite of that are room like Magnepan that choose all the music to be played on them and choose the volume setting as well. They get to select a very narrow selection of what the speakers can do well. The owner and dealer of Soundhounds admitted they prefer doing the same thing with these speakers. They want to control the "what" gets played and the how loud it gets played.

Time being short at an Audio Show - it is very easy to walk in and jump to conclusions about soundstage, bass, treble fatigue factor etc of a loudspeaker playing a few cuts from bad recordings and compare it to another room playing immaculate recordings of a different genre.

Because I listen to a wide enough ray of music I can throw highly compressed pop and generally poor recordings (Madonna Hard Candy) to very good recordings of the same artist and genre (Madonna "Immaculate Collection) and I can bring my Oboe pieces, my Beethoven and Vivaldi and Sophie Milmans etc.

Even the rooms that sounded terrific sometimes won't let you listen to your own music the Pass Labs/Sony flagship speakers / Emm Labs were only playing music they made (Iso-Mike) and the room sounded terrific - don't get me wrong - but at the same time the music is completely unfamiliar and since I don't own the album I can't make a comparison to system B. Further if system B plays it back differently - does it mean system B is wrong - perhaps it is actually being more truthful to recording.

So ultimately - I am not saying it will work in any room - but it should work very very close to the same if general room size parameters are met and position is to manufacturer recommendation using similar gear.

[Ajani]

So ultimately - I am not saying it will work in any room - but it should work very very close to the same if general room size parameters are met and position is to manufacturer recommendation using similar gear.

That's quite a disclaimer: It is essentially why so many persons insist on auditioning gear in their own system... Unless you plan to buy (or already own) similar gear and have a similar room, then there are no guarantees that you will get similar performance if you buy the speakers you auditioned at the store or the show...