Should a reference speaker be neutral, or just great sounding?
"To call a speaker a reference product it should at the very least be objectively neutral."
However, as that magazine points out, many great speakers are idiosyncratic ideas about what music should sound like in the home, regardless of being tonally neutral.
Do you agree? If a speaker is a "reference" product, do you expect it to be neutral, or do you think it has to perform exceptionally well, but not necessarily this way?
In terms of room design, neutral sound is the hardest (most expensive) to attain. Alternatively you can go for the "live/detailed" sound or the "warm/organic" sound with much less trouble. But, AFA speakers go and AFA I'm concerned, neutrality has absolutely Nothing to do with a set of measurements. Neutrality is a subjective perception - nothing more. That's all it is and all it ever was. A speaker in a room either sounds neutral or it doesn't. It can either be made to sound neutral in the room or it can't. |
That's simple. A reference speaker should be Tunable. It would drive me crazy to have a speaker I can't physically adjust to my liking. Why listen to a speaker that one constantly has to blame something else in the system or recording for not sounding good? Serious audio playback systems are Tunable, the rest...well welcome to the never ending revolving door of HEA. Not me, I'd rather be spending my time enjoying my whole musical collection. Very strange to see someone having 40 pair of speakers never hitting the nail on the head. That's not a listener, that's a collector. Nothing wrong with a collector if that's what someone wants to be, but there's another way to get the sound you want. michael |
It's like Robert Parker Jr giving a 95 rating to a bottle of red. The score is calibrated to his own personal palate not some standardized neutral bottle of wine. When you follow his wine ratings you get to know more about his own personal preferences than necessarily how the wine will be received by 1000 randomized sippers. Face it, you need to get to know a reviewer over dozens of reviews and often years to understand if his or her musical priorities match with yours and also discover where they differ. We are measuring an emotional sense of sound and musical pleasure just like a wine reviewer or food critic is trying to score a taste - this cannot be calibrated mechanically. Just accept the human element. |
Wasn’t it Harman that did a lot of speaker tests where the speakers with the flattest response were picked as the best sounding? No matter if it was professional listeners or Joe off the street. John Dunlavy interview. https://www.stereophile.com/interviews/163/index.html |
Isn't it simply the "reference" to what makes you enjoy listening to music the most? By saying a reference has to be neutral starts getting dangerously close to saying it must also measure best (or at least incredibly well). Once we take the emotion out of our listening experience we are doomed. I think it's the Reference to what stirs one's soul - that would be my point of reference. |