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DSP and stores - Anyone else get the feeling they might be sweetening?

One thing I’ve been thinking about especially now that I’m streaming and have EQ at my fingertips, is how easy it is for a dealer to sweeten a mix. That is, alter speakers to sound differently in the store. One dealer would not let me play my own music, at all. That was a big red flag. I didn’t have anything troublesome, just some Diana Krall or something like that.

Another made my ears hurt with speakers others tell me are quite neutral.

In another store the speakers were wired out of phase and painfully bright. In this case it could have been in the speaker setup as they had external resistors.

Anyone else have these kind of quirky experiences in a shop lately?


Best,

E
erik_squires

Showing 2 responses by erik_squires

erik_squires OP
16,687 posts
 
Erik - I deleted my last post because it was not really addressing your concerns WRT:DSP components.


No worries, it wasn’t just about DSP, it was also just about weird experiences.

But aren’t the stores that use acoustic tuning devices/baffles/reflectors doing exactly the same thing ???
- they too are modifying the sound of the speakers - just using a different method.


My concern is not that dealers demonstrate the gear in the best light, but that they do so in a transparent and up front manner. I don’t even mind if they use DSP or tone controls, but that they let you know what they are doing. In the case of the Wilsons for instance, I’m pretty sure they had turned the tweeter up as high as they could.

The reason DSP is dangerous is how easy it is to hide it. I could invite you over to listen to my system, and you’d not know unless I told you.  For instance, I could bulk alter my entire music collection over night, and then you wouldn't even know if you were listening to original recordings or my alterations.

If I see acoustic panels, hell, that’s another sales opportunity! :)
erik_squires OP
16,687 posts
 
Unfortunately the out-of-phase connection is a very common foo-pah - and often due to being rushed in the setup.


Absolutely true!! This alone would not lead me to consider if I was being snookered. The same store though after fixing this issue I had to turn the treble down considerably to get the speakers sounding properly balanced. Some smaller Wilson model.

Maybe the lesson is we need to ask questions about the room and the setup when buying?
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