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Analytical or Musical Which way to go?

The debate rages on. What are we to do? Designing a spealer that measures wellin all areas shoulkd be the goal manufacturer.
As allways limtiations abound. Time and again I read designers yo say the design the speaker to measure as best they can. But it just does not sound like music.

The question is of course is: what happens when the speaker sounds dull and lifeless.

Then enters a second speaker that sounds like real music but does not have optimum mesurements?

Many of course would argue, stop right there. If it does not measure well it can't sound good.

I pose the question then how can a spekeer that sounds lifeless be acurrate?

Would that pose yhis question. Does live music sound dull and lifeless?
If not how can we ever be be satisified with such a spseker no matter how well it measures?
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Showing 4 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,088 posts
 
The quote goes

"If it measures well but sounds bad you measured the wrong thing."

The above is a fact, and is also pragmatic. Most measurements do a poor job as they really are not attending to human hearing rules.

'Musical' to me implies accurate without editorial. 'Analytical' to me implies excessive energy in the high end and that I might listen politely for a few minutes before trying to get out of the room.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,088 posts
 
How can you debate 'taste' preferences? It does make for a lively discussion, but as I first heard from my Dad...'There is no accounting for tastes'. But again, it does make for a fun discussion.

Its true that there is no accounting for taste. But taste has nothing to do with human hearing/perceptual rules, which are common to all humans. IOW if you have two speakers and one adheres to human perceptual rules much better than the other one, even in a blind test humans will be able to pick it out.

They may not all like the same music though :)
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,088 posts
 
To say that the wrong measurements have been made for decades would be to take the easy way out. It might be far more appropriate to say that in the absence of the "right" measurement, too much emphasis has been placed on the "wrong" measurement.

I can hang with that, but IMO the latter aspect, 'too much emphasis' has been going on for too many decades. This has been a problem in both amplifier and speaker design, in terms of jumping the gap from 'hifi' to 'real music'. The problem is that human hearing rules take a back seat in the generation of many specs and test procedures.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,088 posts
 
David12, the Wilsons are voiced by listening too. If you have them on the right gear they are quite musical, also very revealing. But put them on the wrong gear and they can sound the way you describe.

In speakers its really important to see what the designer is using for a reference, especially with regards to the amplifier. If they use a transistor amp don't expect the best sound with a tube amp, and vice versa. Tubes and transistors don't behave along the same rules, for example transistors can double power when you cut the impedance in half and no tube amp will do that. That can result in very different crossover designs, which may not work right if you don't have the right amp! They behave with different rules.

More on this:
http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php
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