I'm sticking to my position in my first post. This is really a futile discussion.
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?
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?
94 responses Add your response
So if, Analytical = amusical, detailed, cool, clinical, sterile, dry and somewhat bleached. And Musical = edited, less accurate, sweet, rounded with manipulative warmth and ingenious euphonics Then perhaps we want neither? Just give me Realism instead . The very best audio systems I have ever heard are neither analytical nor musical. They do however approximate the sound of real live music. |
05-30-12: Gregadd >"You want neutral speakers plus a tone or tilt control which compensates for the bad recordings so that better recordings are not compromised." Ideally yes. >>How do we know which componet is colored? Competently designed electronics won't be which leaves the recording and speaker/room/placement/listening position combination where relatively monotonic directivity _radically_ reduces the impact of the room. >Or if the source is colored? We attend live unamplified performances and validate that minimally processed (and preferably with one stereo pair for checking spatial accuracy, although that's more ambiguous) recordings sound as close as practical to live on our systems. Having validated that's the case we blame the recording. >It has been suggested to me that EQ negatively alters the tonal balance of a speaker. It changes the tonal balance. That's positive when you reverse some of the damage done by a recording engineer (too many rock recordings have the high frequencies boosted). That's positive when you kludge around typical speaker design problems where directivity broadens crossing from a midrange that's becoming acoustically large to an acoustically small dome tweeter in the 2-4Khz range leading to a harsh sound because your brain's impression of timbre incorporates the excess energy in that range from the reflected spectra. Not coincidentally this is where the BBC dip was applied which reduced output at all angles. While not the best fix (monotonic directivity does better in more rooms) it does exploit the lattitude you have in countering a local directivity minima with a frequency response dip. That's a big negative when you take a neutral recording/speaker/room combination and apply a teenager's smiley face graphical equalizer configuration. This holds whether the equalization is coming from cables, speaker cross-over, digital filters, or op-amp based commercial equalizer. While some of those approaches are more intellectually appealing to "audiophiles" they all net the same effects whether good or bad (on neutral recording/speaker etc. combinations) |
I agree with you, Josh. Digital EQ has improved so dramatically in the past ten years that, at this point, the best ones add virtually no perceptible colorations. I've used both hardware and software implementations of digital EQ and had excellent results with both. Of course, there are still plenty of older generation digital EQ's out there that sound harsh and compressed, and IMO they give EQ'ing a bad rap. From what I can tell, the audiophile preoccupation with accuracy is another obstacle to the acceptance of EQ. But I share view that, because the system itself (esp. speakers and room) is always to some extent inaccurate, the use of EQ can result in a MORE accurate sound at your listening position, which is where it counts. IMO, IME, etc. Bryon |
""How do we know which componet is colored? Or if the source is colored? It has been suggested to me that EQ negatively alters the tonal balance of a speaker." Always a problem. I do three things: - Use well-recorded reference disks for system evaluation and setup. That generally means naturally miked, purist recordings of acoustical music, made in a good hall. Multimiked commercial recordings will generally be bright or screechy by comparison, and don't image well. - Use measurements. They don't tell you everything, but they do tell you which components are flat or not, since aside from the speakers, they should all be a straight line. But usually these days, unless you're using a high output impedance amp, it's the speakers that are the main culprits, followed by the cartridge. I'm not a big fan of using one colored component to compensate for another, though in that I'm probably in the minority these days. That's because I think there are cheaper and more effective ways to do the same thing, namely EQ. - Just listen, because in the end, none of it really matters, it's what you hear with the recordings you listen to that counts. BTW, I think those who are criticizing EQ are thinking of the old analog jobbies. They rarely put the correction quite where you needed it and they tended to introduce other colorations as well. DSP-based EQ is much more effective. However, unless you have a lot of time or are perhaps making a copy of a favorite recording, when it comes to correcting individual recordings I think most of us have to settle for a rather coarse adjustment of the sort that's best suited to really unlistenable recordings. So I'd begin with a few target curves -- maybe hot pop, large ensemble classical, small ensemble classical, all in series with your room and speaker correction, which should be constant. Then I'd use manual correction to make the really offensive recordings listenable. |
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. http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php |
I would go for musical every time, give me euphonic, coloured, tubes and I'm a happy bunny. A more interesting way to express the question, is, how does the Speaker designer work on a new design? Is it by measurement or careful listening and tweaking. Now I know the two are'nt mutually exclusive, that "listener" will measure too and vice versa, but I'm sure different manufacturers rely on one or the other more. There are 3 manufacturers that come to mind, in the"analytical" camp, Wilson, Focal and BandW. Just my view and others may argue I am wrong. All three I find unlistenable for any length of time. Wilson in particuar, I really dislike, apart from the cheapest, Duettes. My own speakers, Daedalus, are largely voiced by listening and they are the best I have had. So what path the manufacturer takes in designing the speaker, seems more important. I quite accept listening and measuring are'nt mutually exclusive. |
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. |
"H. H. Scott was a manufacturer of tubed audio components back in the 1950s and 60s. The chief engineer was Mr. Donald von Recklinghausen. His most famous quotation goes something like this: "If a component measures good and sounds good, it is good. If a component sounds good but measures bad, you're measuring the wrong thing." 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. While this "wrong" measurement is still an appropriate and valuable measurement to make, it is just not the most important measurement anymore." |
"You want neutral speakers plus a tone or tilt control which compensates for the bad recordings so that better recordings are not compromised." Ideally yes. How do we know which componet is colored? Or if the source is colored? It has been suggested to me that EQ negatively alters the tonal balance of a speaker. |
I don't agree. "Analytical" is not synonymous with "accurate", nor is "musical" with "euphonic." One of the problems with measurements is they were only designed to measure sound, whereas musical sound is a subset with a more extensive and stringent set of requirements that include transient response, intermodulation distortion, panel resonances, power response, amplitude delineation, timing and pitch accuracy, the ability to handle complex polyphonies, and so on. Meeting all the tests of test tones and tone bursts may determine that a speaker is "accurate," but doesn't totally address if it's musically accurate. A good example is that I never see tests for amplitude delineation, yet it's the most essential element in musical expression, nuanced dynamics, and the blending of an ensemble. |
The debate rages on. What are we to do? Designing a spealer that measures well in all areas shoulkd be the goal manufacturer. Uh, no. The goal should be to invoke in the listener as much of the thrill and emotional response to live music as possible. Measurements are just one means to the end, as are many others including subjective listening by people who are very familiar with what live music sounds like. The few standard measurements that show up in test reports are nowhere near sufficient to build a speaker to. The one exception may be YG, which uses over 150 different tests and measurements. If you get that granular you *may* be able to go mostly by measurements to reach your goal. But you have to have previously established that satisfying all those measurements does in fact reach the real goal of evoking the proper listener response. And speaking of measurements, are you talking in-room or anechoic? If anechoic, you can definitely come up with a speaker that measures well but has peaks and suckouts in-room. And if in-room, which room? Or do you do an average of several different room sizes and shapes with different amounts of furniture, carpet, and wall hangings? Personally, I find that high resolution is vital for emotional musical involvement, but high resolution is also a two-edged sword. It can give you the little details of venue acoustics, inner detail, the complete formation and decay of notes, the artists' movements and breathing, individual characteristics of instruments and voices that bring the performance alive and connect you with the performers. It can also reveal flaws in the recording chain which--rather than enhancing the musical experience--harshly remind you that you're listening to a reproduction. Getting the one kind of resolution without the other is the tricky part. That's why ultimately there has to be a subjective listening and voicing to balance musical resolution against anti-musical artifacts. |
Drew, I agree. However, many audiophiles dislike tone controls. This I think is a shame because while they shouldn't be, recordings are all over the place, with some so hot that they're virtually unlistenable on a good system. From a speaker manufacturer's perspective, the speaker has to sound good *as is,* because that's how it's demoed and that's how most people will judge it. Some manufacturers go for flat, some go for a downtilt, most have poor dispersion in the highs and, unfortunately, most records are mixed to speakers that have poor dispersion in the highs. Now that digital EQ is readily available, I don't think it much matters. Polar response is more important, because that can't be fixed with equalization. |
>05-24-12: Josh358 >I'd draw a distinction, though, between picture-perfect response and accuracy with real-world material. If, say, pop recordings are hyped in the highs, as many are, you're likely to want a speaker that compensates for that. You want neutral speakers plus a tone or tilt control which compensates for the bad recordings so that better recordings are not compromised. |
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 :) |
Gregadd - Sorry, my post above is likely out of your context and "flavored" with my own presumptions. It makes it seem as if you are somehow in "trouble" with your questions, which I have no right to assume nor was it my true intention. I guess I simply wanted to instill the feeling of being less at odds with prevailing theories on speaker design and marketing, and cue up the more personal approach to, and trust in sound and music itself; get rid of marketing retorics and price hierarchy, and see their jobs as befitting themselves. Something like that.. |
05-11-12: Gregadd I believe you're shortchanging your own questions in presupposing(via questioning) one and the other being entangled, as if marketing strategies and speaker developement hurdles have found a troublesome entry into your dealing with sound, and eventually music. At least it seems to me you've somehow become problematically intertwined with these issues, being, to my mind, that they're irrelevant and not least a potentially restricting factor into your grasp of music. What are you in this regard, a listener "only"? Then try and stop worrying about how to articulate and equate in words self-constructed oppositions like "live=lifeless"(I mean, what?) or how measurements are thought to be a ruling aspect of your listening enjoyment. These are aspects the ones selling and marketing this stuff are dealing with; don't make them yours. Make listening to music your OWN deal, something marketers and developers would THEN have to deal with. If live music is something you cherish then I would recommend that you attend more live concerts, give into them fully, and gradually "build up" a resoir of experience that more firmly grounds you in a reference point to go by when choosing the equipment to reproduce your (growing) collection of music. I'd say, whipe the board clean and forget about measurements and what can and can't be sold. |
"Most good marriages have traits in common and most bad marriages are very different from each other" Same with audio, though it may not be measurable. No one denies there are good sounding speakers that also measure well. The question is why do some speaker measure well yet sound poor.Why are there good sounding speakers that measure poorly. The debate lingers. I think one reason is, measuring a speaker is an extremely difficult task. If you look at the spec of a typical $1k speaker, the distortion figures mentioned will mostly be <1%. How is it measured ? Especially after one implements multiple drivers in a cabinet with added crossovers !! If it really is less than 1% then it clearly is not enough. May be our ears dont like distortion beyond 0.01%, so 1% distortion is 100 times more than what we it takes to sound "correct". Or, may be the distortion pattern is very uneven even though it is less than 1%. The point is when a designer doesnt have as good an ear for music as a penchant for numbers, he can only make a good speaker by fluke. On the other hand if a designer has a decent ear but not enough technical expertise he can only make a speaker which is "nice", at the max one can see a camp following his product but not beyond that. Truly great speakers result only when a great pair of ears work with a great brain in tandem. Those speakers measure great, sound great and are actually truly neutral. Unfortunately most such speakers dont come up in the hifi shows and scream "buy me". They are a bit like God, if you are passionate enough and seek them you will not only reach them but also be rewarded with a sound which is a bit like heaven, everything the way it should be. |
The Harman research seems to correlate well with what audiophiles like, though. The main exceptions I can think of are planars, as John Atkinson pointed out in his article. Floyd Toole sheds some light on this in his book -- the Quads (57's?) tested much better in stereo than in mono. And Harman tests in mono. Their speaker positioner also doesn't substitute for the careful setup of an audiophile system, which is particularly crucial with dipoles. One point that Olive and Toole make, and it's one with which I agree strongly, is that speaker preferences are not solely a matter of taste. In blind tests, subjects with normal hearing routinely pick the speaker that is most accurate. I don't find that very surprising. Of course, we also "choose our poison" to some extent, depending on our listening material and levels and what we value most in reproduced sound. But the notion that people prefer inaccuracy doesn't seem to be true. I'd draw a distinction, though, between picture-perfect response and accuracy with real-world material. If, say, pop recordings are hyped in the highs, as many are, you're likely to want a speaker that compensates for that. |
WHen you are dealng with marketing, you want to make products that customers will buy. No one wants to make what they think is a great speker and have it sit on the shelf. Harman IMO has gone full circle. They not only think they make the best speaker. They attempt to replace your idea of what the best speaker is. This may work on a focus group at the Harman factory, let's watch to see if it translates to the market place. I drove a Mercedes with Harmon Kardon system. I was bored and certainly would not have purchased but for the fact it was OEM. That's just me. |
"While the small sample size of listeners does notallow us to make generalizations to larger populations, nonetheless it is reassuring to find that both the American and Japanese students, regardless of their critical listening experience, recognized good sound when they heard it, and preferred it to the lower quality options. " Dr Sean Olive |
A neutral speaker should not sound neutral. I would not want to be in the position of arguing that speakers that don't measure well are preferable. As Atmassphere pointed out, if a speker sounds good but measures poorly you are measuring the wrong thing. I am a criminal defese attorney . When DNA testing first appeared I was against it because the sample size was way to small to apply it to the general population. That of course has changed. Dr. Olive concedes that the results of his test (sample size)is too small to extrapolate it to the general population. Morever saying young people and audiophiles have the same preferences is not only wrong IMO but is not supported by any evidence that I am aware of it. The majority of those who heard speaker that measured well seemed to prefer them over speakers that measured less well. The good news is that as far as I know the test are ongoing. It is likely one day he will have a large enough sample with a proper demographic. Testing students on a high school field trip is hardly a scientific sample. Drew Echardt- I heard the Orion at RMAF 2010. I liked them and found them to be very smooth. |
Gregadd, funny that you mentioned John Atkinson's article because I was about to mention it when you asked whether measurements can predict colorations. What I was going to mention was in Part 3 of the article, though. Some of his conclusions: "What Makes a Good-Sounding Loudspeaker? "Vance Dickason offers some discussion of this question, but the definitive answers are to be found in Floyd Toole's comprehensive 1986 papers. Nothing that I can conclude from my past eight years' work, at least when it comes to conventional forward-firing, moving-coil designs, is in serious conflict with his findings. As I wrote in 1991, 'The best-sounding loudspeakers, in my opinion, combine a flat on-axis midrange and treble with an absence of resonant colorations, a well-controlled high-frequency dispersion, excellent imaging precision, an optimally tuned bass, and also play loud and clean without obtrusive compression'." And "Most important, while measurements can tell you how a loudspeaker sounds, they can't tell you how good it is. If you carefully look at a complete set of measurements, you can actually work out a reasonably accurate prediction of how a loudspeaker will sound. However, the measured performance will not tell you if it's a good speaker or a great speaker, or if it's a good speaker or a rather boring-sounding speaker. To assess quality, the educated ear is still the only reliable judge." http://www.stereophile.com/content/measuring-loudspeakers-part-three-page-9 |
05-22-12: Gregadd >The advent of large corporations put us in difficult position. Who are the arbiters of what we hear and the standard by which we judge it? When the baby-boomers die off what will the standard be? Without any hearing defects the baby boomers and generation Y share the same tastes in speakers : flat on-axis response, a monotonic directivity trend, and extended bass regardless of age and preferred musical genre. For example: http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-new-evidence-that-generation-y.html Moving forward we can expect more speakers built to this standard because it's what people want to buy and something that can be targeted by engineering departments - Dr. Sean Olive has distilled this into a formula which ranks speakers based on polar measurements in horizontal and vertical circles which corresponds very well to blind objective comparisons. |
Unless you are a DIY yourself guy you are dependent on products supplied by manufacturers. Ultimately it is they who decide what you have to choose from. The advent of large corporations put us in difficult position. Who are the arbiters of what we hear and the standard by which we judge it? When the baby-boomers die off what will the standard be? |
Mrmitch...I did not think you were knocking my age group, I just used your comments as an opportunity to rant, and for that I thank you. Measurements for speaker design are important to see where a design is headed, but ANY speaker designer has to LISTEN to the damn things or they're idiots. If this listening results in adjustments to a final product that consumers feel isn't "musical" or "something I think sounds good", then so what? Consume elsewhere. I've had gear that was well regarded by the audio community and I thought it blew chunks, so to speak. That gear will not be used in my abode, and was abondoned, replaced by gear with which I abide for my abode. To sum up, abandon that which you abhor, and admonish absolute adherence to that which you deem abominable. |
Wolf-garcia, sorry you felt I was knocking an age group of which I'm a part (62 yrs. old). That wasn't my intention at all, it was just ONE example of why measurements aren't the end-all be-all. Seems a bit odd that many speaker designers voice their speakers by listening rather than adhering to a set of measurements, doesn't it? |
05-18-12: Charles1dad The crux to me predominantly seems to be questioning in the first place how good sounding speakers can measure poorly. I can understand the engineering perspective in this; however, it exposes the movement of the technical/theoretical side of things having become the benchmark of making speakers at the expense of actually listening with a (live) reference, and that the "listener," undeterred by sonic evidence, still chooses the adherence to theory. In a more general sense it may point at how people are being drawn away from nature; from what is actually natural. |
05-19-12: Drew_eckhardt Well put, Drew. Going to live acoustic concerts I sometimes do a little "mind trick" where, as the music in playing, I close my eyes and imagine I'm actually at home listening to my stereo. This way the reference for what is real is somehow more potently exposed as what to go after at home; the memory of or mental inclination telling me (with closed eyes) that I'm sitting listening in front of my home stereo, when in fact a live symphony orchestra is playing in front of me, seems a much more effective tool or "revelator" than sitting at home trying to remember the live experience, and go from there. They're either not measuring the right things (on-axis response isn't enough with monotonic power decreases into the first reflections also important) or they've compromised to fit market considerations and budgets (two-way cone and dome speakers with flat baffles and conventional cross-over points are inherently flawed as are electrostatic panels) and done the best they can within those constraints. I can't help but feel that a level a conservatism has sneaked permanently into the design of speakers in the wake of it initially being a consideration to the market. Even some of the very large "top-models" from many speaker brands continue to adhere to the approach taken with the smaller and cheaper models, as if maintaining design integrity is more important than seeking to "perfect" the sound reproduction from a perspective of non-consideration to aesthetics and mass appeal; now that these speakers are as big as they are anyway, perhaps a more rigid form-follows-function aproach would result in a design that was much more appealing than squarish boxes. |
Neither. A speaker has no business editorializing on what you're feeding it "lesee.. a little brighter here, a little boomy there, etc." You should be caught up in the music it's playing and not notice that it's "analytical" or "musical" >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. They're either not measuring the right things (on-axis response isn't enough with monotonic power decreases into the first reflections also important) or they've compromised to fit market considerations and budgets (two-way cone and dome speakers with flat baffles and conventional cross-over points are inherently flawed as are electrostatic panels) and done the best they can within those constraints. In 2004 Sean Olive actually came up with formulas that do a very good job predicting speaker preferences based on polar measurements and bass extension. They work with listeners regardless of nationality, preferred musical genre, experience as criticial listeners, etc. >Then enters a second speaker that sounds like real music but does not have optimum mesurements? No speaker has optimum measurements, but all that sound lifelike are very flat on-axis, have fairly monotonic directivity increases with frequency (there's some latitude in compensating for a local directivity minima with an output notch), and provide deeper bass extension. |
Many things common to small towns like lack of sophistication, racism, wife swapping, smallness, extreme smallness, lack of hipsters, a lack of "pretentious audio salons", lack of decent porn, are in my book (or pamphlet) obscene. So are Yamaha ns10s. Also, a lot of brilliant audio engineers and musicians are "older" people who can readily work with music in spite of having old ears. So please, everybody stop with the "ageism" already. I've found that all good ("musical") sounding speakers have something in common: A designer who listens to them and does whatever it takes to make them sound good. |
In light of the fact that there are so many variables that comprise your stereo , I feel you have to go with what sound pleases you, the musicality camp over accuracy. Look, we have an amplifier, preamp,cd player and possible a separate DAC, turntable cartridge and tonearm, cabling, stands,speakers,footers etc. Then you place those in a room, no two of which are alike. You treat that room (or not) with differing products. Then add in that everyone's hearing is different. What if youre over 45 like a lot of us and you have some degree of presbycussis. What use are masurements against all those many variables? If someone says this component measures perfectly flat (as few ever do), how is the person with some hearing loss going to perceive that as opposed to someone with perfect hearing? IMHO 'tis a far far better thing I do to buy components and treat my room in a manner that gives me a sound I like and that I can listen to for hours without listener fatigue. |
"Years ago a Supreme Court Justice, in describing Porn said, 'I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I know it when I see it.' (Paraphrase)" They went on to leave it up to community standards. What's obscene in a small town would not be obscene in the big city. So like most speaker designers/ reviewer5s they punted. |
How do you know that what where measuring for is really the way to a great sounding loudspeakers? Would have to have the assumption that designers truly know what to measure, how to measure it and if it really has a major effect on quality. And while we have made much progress loudspeaker design relies on measurement, simulations but mostly on ideas skill talent and yes listening. |
No sound from speakers without amp. Amp got it easy without a source. No hear sound without ears, brain. My ears look funny. How about yours? When I cup my hands behind them everything becomes more musical! Cheap tweak! Girls laugh though. Bummer! How many audiophiles understand the intricate details of how the brain works? How many neurologists even? Any audiophile neurologists or neurosurgeons out there? Please help us. |
Einstein once said: "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." To my way of thinking this is apropos to this thread...right down to the ground. When designing a loudspeaker, the question should be, the FIRST QUESTION: 'Does it SOUND LIKE music?' If there is any equivocation, change whatever is that is mitigating that realism. For years, some speakers have been maligned for 'too much treble' or 'too much bass'...given that we ALL hear differently this isn't surprising. But...BUT, there is no doubting that flat frequency response is the start, just the START of a design. Tonal aberrations are generally disqualifiers for most people as we usually can pick apart some tonal glitch that makes a cello sound 'wrong', or a clarinet sound 'wrong', as most of us have a good inner reference since we've heard these instruments first hand. As usual, Charles Dad and Atmasphere give sage advice. Years ago a Supreme Court Justice, in describing Porn said, 'I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I know it when I see it.' (Paraphrase) Speakers, to me, at least one's that sound real, are the same. You'll know it when you hear it. And one final thought...any slight aberration becomes major, MAJOR in a short while...so if you hear 'a little too much treble' at first, within a week, you'll be absolutely crazy...at least I am. Larry |