Best new loudspeaker


I have heard many loudspeakers ,I own Magnapan , and
a Aerial 10-t . This new loudspeaker I heard at great lengths and many agree is from a new company called
NSR -Sonic Research the D-3 Sonata was absolutely killer
and they were saying the wiring and crossover are not even final as of the Jan show . parts quality is excellent in the Silver finish I saw,for a speaker under $5k to create such a soundstage presence with bass that had articulation and impact is beyond me how they do it ,I am told it is a
sealed focal lens .They will be selling by March ,I for sure will be saving my bucks, this is one loudspeaker to watch ,I am already selling my 10-ts.
audiophile1958
i have never noticed a note jumping out at me. perhaps, it is because my favorite location is the last row orchestra.

The reason certain notes jump out at you when listening to more of reverberant field compared to a direct sound field is because reverberations all arrive at your ears with multiple delays...this causes cancellation and reinforcement of one note viz a viz another. It is similar to the trick that can be used to make sound appear all around you from a stereo speaker by feeding it out of polarity signals. Reverberations can occasionally change the way a particular note on an instrument sounds in some cases it can lead to accents on the notes that the musician does not intend - increasing their audibility noticeably. The audio spectrum will look like a comb...with "suckouts" whereever there is reverberant cancellation. Our ears can compensate for this quite well being placed 6 inches apart as long as they receive different amounts of cancellation. In general a comb filter is well known to make the sound seem spacious and encompassing... like a flanger on the guitar (electronic comb filtering by adding delay). It is also well known that a delay or a strong primary reflection produces a comb filter. The key to understand about a delay comb type filter is that is affects harmonics too - we can and do hear it even with instruments and all their harmonics - unlike a single notch filter or the odd uncorrelated reflection it will affect timbre!

In general this happens with all bass from ALL speakers (except soffit mounted ones) because the bass is omnidirectional anyway and therefore first reflections off the wall behind the speaker will interfere with the forward radiating direct bass signal heard by the listener.

Speakers that radiate BOTH forwards and backwards in the midrange (like dipoles or panels) will have this comb filtering strongest in the direction of the listener as reflection from the wall behind the speaker and forward radition of the panels combines.

Next time you listen to a highly reverberant sound in a room - say from panels with midrange frequencies reflecting off the back wall - try and listen for these effects - it is quite pleasing with an impression of spaciousness - the odd note will usually stick out because your two ears are at the same distance from the speakers AND the wall behind the speakers....in this case the difference between the sounds received by the two ears cannot be used to compensate because there is NO difference as reflected and primary sounds arrive precisely at the same time at each ear. So although the ear/brain is extremely clever, in these rare cases we are unable to separate timbre from reflection effects; this is also the case with ALL bass notes, which have long wavelengths and where 6 inches (between ears)is simply not enough to hear a different sound and compensate.

Ok - so may be this is all too complicated. Here is the EASY way to think of it. Just imagine that you have FOUR speakers and not TWO in your room playing your stereo music. One speaker set is real. The other is the "virtual speakers" that you would see if the wall behind the speakers was a MIRROR. Now before you laugh...this is ACTUALLY what happens acoustically with ALL speakers in the bass and even more so with those that radiate forwards and backwards equally in the midrange - the wall IS AN ACOUSTIC MIRROR unless it is treated. So you are actually listening to FOUR speakers not TWO - no wonder this throws a deep soundstage...

Here is a very simple explanation Cancellations from reflections

This long winded discussion proves nothing as to what sounds better or what people like most! Education and enlightenment in our hobby is more important that "my Dad is bigger than your Dad" purile discussions.

It does explain why Audio Engineers do NOT use dipoles/panels! These engineers are trying to create effects, such as spaciousness, through judicious reverb and delay and mixing tricks...the last thing they want is a dipole speaker doing the very same things in an uncontrolled fashion in the room. So not surprsingly they often listen in near-field with cone speakers.

Notice I did not say what is better sounding...just trying to explain fundamental differences as to why things sound so different to your ears, MrT - that is all.
the placement of microphones is different from the location of audience members. it is gnereally above the stage and sometimes over rows 1 to 5.

placing the microphones in that position gives an orchestra a sound which does not represnt where i prefer to sit.

since when is a seat in rows one to five, the best seat in the house. there is no best seat in the house, just as there is no best amp, preamp, speaker, cable, wife, car, book, movie, candidate running for office, etc. .
i wish they would remove the word "best" from the english language, as it engeneders arguments.

you are entitled to your opinions on a variety of subjects.
an opinion is probably true and probably false.

as to your implication tha an accurate stereo system is "better" than an inaccurate one, that too is your opinion.

your reference to a stereo system which changes the perspective of a recording as being wrong, is also an opinion. obviously you and i don't agree on alot of things.

i hope one day we can meet at a ces show and continue to discuss our differences. as i said before, it keep me mentally sharp to joust with you.

hopefully, they print this post, otherwise you will think i am avoiding you.
For all the Buzz I have been hearing on the NSR D-3 loudspeaker.While Out west I spoke with a few dealers and they thought the final samples sounded superb. I have a tenative appointment in March after speaking with the
guys at Hifidelityaudio the spec sheet he sent me looked
pretty impressive ,I will tell you my thoughts after the listen these are the final specs.
http://www.hifidelityaudio.com/NSR_specifications.htm
Though I have not had the opportunity to hear them the Audio Machina's Pure System interest me intensely. Anyone heard it yet?
Henryhk, they were right next to us at T.H.E. Show. He wanted to hear our amps and I had a backup set of M-60s available- The speaker is easy to drive (bass is handled by an internal amplifier) and every easy to listen to- spacious, detailed, wide bandwidth and very neutral.

MrT, you may not like the way that the record labels make their recordings but the fact is that they make their recordings the way they make their recordings. If you want the perspective to be the way you like it, you will have to go out and make a recording that way yourself. Whether best or not, any system that distorts the perspective of soundstage is in fact distorting the perspective of soundstage. An obvious distortion or inability like that is clearly not 'best', in fact it might be worst (the opposite of best), at least in the arena of soundstage depth.

Soundstage depth is one of many aspects heard by audiophiles. Audiophiles hear these things because they all have ears that use the same rules for sound location, intensity, bandwidth and so on. In fact these rules operate independently of taste.

I once met a guy who hated his teeth and wanted dentures. Loosing my teeth is one of my worst nightmares. Taste is the sort of thing that is so unaccountable that one person can hate their own teeth (even though they are healthy), or hate accurate reproduction of soundstage.

I submit to you that taste has nothing to do with 'best'. The best-sounding amplifier/speaker will be that thing due to the fact that it can reproduce an audio signal more closely according to the rules of human hearing than any other amplifier/speaker. You can still hate it though, for its attention to accuracy, detail, musical nature, relaxed and spacious presentation, bandwidth and impact: you can hate it for the very fact that it is the 'best'. You don't have to hate it consciously- and so to justify the taste issue it is also possible to say there is no 'best', but such would never be the case. It would be a simple denial of what is so.