SF AIDA OR EVIDENCE PLATINUM W MOMENTUM PRE & AMP

While I'm sure both speakers are excellent examples of their respective philosophies, imo in this case the Sonus Faber Aida starts out with a superior paradigm: Getting not only the direct sound, but ALSO the reverberant soound, right.

The (adjustable) rear-firing drivers on the Aida imo give it an advantage over its front-firing-only competition, as there are definite psychoacoustic benefits to adding a bit of later-arriving reverberant energy to the mix.

Unfortunately audiophiles tend to resist this sort of thing on general principles because intuitively it seems like you're adding "more of the room" to the mix, but this is a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. When done right, reflections can actually improve clarity, and in practice let you hear "more of the recording". This, according to Dr. Floyd Toole, is because the ear/brain system can better decipher complex sounds when it gets multiple "looks" in the form of spectrally-correct reflections.

I seldom post in threads about speakers in this price range because frankly it's not a price ballpark that I have much in common with, but I do like to acknowledge what looks to me like exceptionally intelligent design when I see it. Again I have zero experience with either speaker, but I do have experience with the psychoacoustics behind the Aida's unorthodox configuration.

Duke

Inna wrote, presumably referring to what I said about reverberant energy:

"Yeah, 'if done right' is the key. The room should be précisely tuned too, in this case especially so, I assume."

Actually speakers that generate spectrally-correct (or nearly so) reverberant fields are less demanding of room acoustics, and are far less likely to need room treatment in order to sound good. This is because whether the room bounces back a little energy or a lot, it's going to enhance the experience rather than degrade it.

Let's take a grand piano as an example. Plunk a grand piano down in just about any room and it will sound great. Yes it will sound even better in a recital hall than in your living room, but you don't have to fix your living room before it will sound great right there. Why is this so? In large part because the reverberant energy of the grand piano is spectrally correct. Likewise, outside of extreme situations, a speaker that gets the reverberant field right doesn't require you to "fix" the room in order for it to sound good. But if the reverberant field is spectrally skewed because the speaker is putting out significantly more off-axis energy at some frequencies than at others, then well-thought-out room treatment becomes a much higher priority.

The choice is not between having reverberant energy in the room or not. If we're not in an anechoic chamber, it will be there. The choice is between having the reverberant energy be beneficial or detrimental, and how much so, and this is largely a function of the speakers' off-axis response characteristics.

Imo, ime, ymmv, etc.

Duke
speaker designer

Hi Inna,

We might not be talking about the same thing, I should have paid closer attention to your wording.

What do you mean by "tuning" the speaker/room pair?

And you're right, (acoustic) guitar would have been a better example.

Thanks!

Hi Inna,

I really don't think Michael Green's approach (room acoustic treatment that preserves beneficial reverberant energy) and mine (starting out with speakers that don't need to be "fixed" by room treatment) are mutually exclusive.

Maybe we're just using different terminology. You talk about "...the system... singing with one voice...", and I talk about "the reverberant field should be spectrally correct", and I think we're saying the same thing.

Duke