Some thoughts on ASR and the reviews

I’ve briefly taken a look at some online reviews for budget Tekton speakers from ASR and Youtube. Both are based on Klippel quasi-anechoic measurements to achieve "in-room" simulations.

Your intro is incorrect. Klippel Near-field scanner produces full anechoic measurements of the speaker. It is not at all "quasi." In my testing, it uses over 1000 measurement points to then solve the radiation patter of the speaker. In addition, it makes a secondary set of scans which using phase analysis, allows it to extract all effects of the room reflections. The output then is fully anechoic down to lowest frequencies -- something you can’t even do with any realistic anechoic chamber (most stop being anechoic below 80 Hz or so). There is a reason the equipment costs $100K.

b - Baffle step - As popularized and researched by the late, great Jeff Bagby, the effects of the baffle on the output need to be included in any whole speaker/room simulation, which of course also means the speaker should have this built in when it is not a near-wall speaker. I don’t know enough about the Klippel simulation, but if this is not included you’ll get a bass-lite expereinced compared to real life. The effects of baffle compensation is to have more bass, but an overall lower sensitivity rating.

As I explained above, Klippel NFS fully computes the 3-D sounfield of a speaker.  It does NOT suffer from baffle step issues you mention.  Stereophile measurements though, have this error and hence the reason you routinely see a false bass hump in their frequency response graphs.

Please watch this tutorial video to get proper understanding of ASR speaker measurements:

The ASR crowd was probably never much of a market for his speakers, and as we can see here, lots of people are not very impressed with the way ASR does reviews.

That is a misstatement.  Tekton advertises the M-Lore has having very linear (flat) response which would definitely appeal to ASR membership:

Problem is that it doesn't deliver on that:

But you are right that if Eric Alexander had stuck to the story that measurements don't matter, all would be well. Instead, he complained about the measurements so here we are.

One ASR review spends an amazing amount of time and effort analyzing the ~$800 US Tekton M-Lore. That price compares very favorably with a full Seas A26 kit from Madisound, around $1,700. I mean, not sure these inexpensive speakers deserve quite the nit-picking done here.

There is no attempt at "nit-picking."  You can't analyze a speaker properly without the full suite of measurements I show from various frequency responses to distortion and directivity.  Only then you have a picture of a speaker performance and can compare it to others.

Believe me, I would love to take shortcuts given how much work it is to test a speaker but I can't.

Running the same set of measurements also eliminates the accusation of bias.  Everything is tested the same way regardless of who makes it, how much it costs, etc.

Finally, $800 is fair bit of money for a speaker.  Even if i were inclined to reduce the number of test, it would be for something far cheaper.

But I agree regarding the culture over at ASR and Amir.  He came into the Roon forum to debate Michal Jurewicz from Mytek.  Some of the other members became involved and Amir was quite arrogant and condescending.

Far more people appreciated my posts than anything from Michal.  He would keep repeating the same marketing stories without a single fact backing them.  I was impressed to see Roon members not appreciate that and valuing specific data, references, etc. that demonstrated his claims to be wrong. 

"Arrogance" in my view is claiming something and demanding to be believed.  I never do that.

I just don’t see the value in a site that constantly throws shade on high end gear. IMHO

I have no such position on high-end gear. My speakers alone cost $25,000 a pair. Give me the performance and you can charge whatever you want. Give me poor performance and charge a lot of money and we show data to demonstrate that. The choice is that of manufacturer.

Now, if you value status and marketing of audio products more than fidelity, then sure, we are at odds with your goals.

I think that ASR has chosen an extreme stance not for any particular reason except to incite an even greater amount of tribalism in this hobby.

Nope.  The "stance" I have taken is follow proper science and engineering.  This uses to be the norm in 1970s and 1980s.  Sometime later, folks started to abandoned this and instead, started to tell stories about products.  Audiophiles bought them and this allowed the market to deliver all manner of products that when tested, don't seem to perform.  Instead of doing their best to produce high fidelity gear, a lot of audio companies rely completely on marketing and informercials pretending to be reviews.

As consumers, you need to be more critical and ask for proof.  Don't equate expense with fidelity.  That equation has long been thrown out the door.

1. How does a given measurement translate into something I might be able to hear (or perceive), and what words would I use for the subjective experience?

At the risk of stating the obvious, frequency response variations of a speaker are pretty audible.  Too much bass would bring boominess.  Too much treble would sound bright.  Midrange can cause vocals to become forward or recessed.

Traditional frequency response measurements only showed direct/on-axis sound.  Across some 40 years of research, we have learned that reflections (off-axis) sounds contribute to the tonality that we hear and hence, also help set preference.  As such, we want to see speakers that have off-axis response that is similar to on axis.  A standardized set of measurement axis exist that makes such analysis easier (so called CEA/CTA-2034). 

Measurements can also tell you optimal listening angles, both vertically and horizontally.

Further, the beam width or amount of spread you get at mid to high frequencies can predict whether the soundstage will be more diffused and wider, or more pinpoint.  

Harder to assess are distortion measurements although all else being equal, you do want a speaker with less distortion.  Ultimately though, I use my ear to determine the level of impairment here with specialized music tracks that stress speakers, especially in bass and sub-bass where they have most distortion.

Finally, things like impedance measurement together with speaker sensitivity tell us how easy it is to drive the speaker, how much power you may need, etc.

All in all, speaker measurements are about 70 to 80% instructive.  As such, I recommend using them to weed out the bad products and create a short list to listen and select from.  We do however have many who buy by measurements alone and have had great success.

The problem I have with ASR and its followers is the routine contempt heaped on anyone with a different POV from ASR gospel. 

We are not a church and don't have gospel.  We follow establish audio science and engineering.  And rely on what we can prove.

If you say there are qualities in a speaker wire that can't be measured, then we are at odds with each other.  This violates both factors above.

Contrary to claims of people, we hugely value listening tests.  We just ask that they be bias controlled for the same reasons.  This means anecdotal statements that this and that sounds better to your "ear" while you had your eyes wide open, don't get a positive reception.

Mind you, you can have all of these views and be just fine in ASR.  We have plenty of subjectivists that way.  The issue comes up is when you take on the membership and try to tell them how it is done.  Naturally you get strong pushback. But that is something you are bringing onto yourself.

For one ASR imo has no credibility ,there are tons of youngsters that know -0 about real time experiences ,and the way they measure.

I suspect the feeling is mutual.  BTW, I am older than many of you .  While I appreciate being called "youngster," I got my degree in early 1980s....

a perfect example I had mentioned for the money how good the Denafrips Terminator 2 dac was for the money ,and they are giving a comparison just how much better the $800 Topping measured , sonically the Denafrips is light years better sounding, and I ripped into them and all their childish antics . Myself have been an Audiophile-over 40 years and travel and listen to a lot-of gear ,and having-owned a audio store for a decade I have a pretty good grasp on sonics and reality .

If in all of those 40 years, you had spent just one day doing a listening test blind, you would have been so much better off from that moment on.  But no, you allowed your eyes and brain to interfere.  And with it, arrived at the wrong conclusion, leading to wasting money left and right on things like that Denafrips DAC.

As to having an audio store, a friend of mine (older than you) co-founded *the* high-end audio store(s) in this area.  He sold his shares all of a sudden and I asked why.  He said his conscious wouldn't allow him to keep selling things that he knew had no merit audibly.  

I used to buy gear from their stores.  They would always try to sell me cables at the end of the transaction.  I would always tell them that I would take the cables if they were free.  They would immediately discount the cost of the equipment by that amount and give me the cables then for nothing!  That is how I have collected a full suite of Transparent Audio Cables.

Don't get me started on ASR...

Just as one example of their flawed way of evaluating gear:

They reviewed one GR Research's budget stand mount speakers, but all they did was measure it and listen to one speaker.

Oh you mean this "giant" disaster of a speaker?  

That little 4 inch surplus woofer Danny is using produced the most horrible sound possible.  Naturally due to its extremely small size and lack of excursion.  To call that a hi-fi speaker would be a huge stretch.  To call it Little Giant Killer is science fiction.

As to mono listening you better start doing that as that is the most sensitive type of speaker testing you can do.  I have a video on that:

As if things like: imaging, soundstage, ambience retrieval don't exist. 

If a speaker is colored, or distorts like hell, I wouldn't care about those factors.  That aside, much of what you talk about is in the content and has little to do with the speaker itself.  Pan an instrument to the left.  Even the crappiest speaker will demonstrate that.  Spatial effects are also quite obvious in mono listening.

"I suppose I do not get the point of this thread. Once a speaker is placed and set up in a typical listening room, all bets are off, no matter what measurements were used in the design of them."

Above transition frequencies of a few hundred hertz, speaker dominates.  Yes, there are secondary such as reflections but we have a good model to represent them in measurements as well.  See this standard CEA-2034 measurement in every speaker review I do:

We can even predict the response with decent accuracy in a room:

In bass domain, the room dominates almost independent of the speaker.  So there, you must have a strategy for dealing with room modes, again, independent of what speaker you use.

"Is the amp class A or A/B, how many watts in class a?

It is well proven that components that have measured bad sound very good and vice versa. This goes for this guys measurements and stereophiles. 
Your ears are the best instruments to use when evaluating audio components."

It doesn't matter what class an amplifier is. It is all in the implemention/engineering.

And no, it is not remotely proven that badly measuring devices sound better.  At best, they sound the same if the impairments are not bad enough for listening to hear.  

Your ears can be very useful in assessing fidelity but not when you involve your other senses such as eyes, and sources of bias.  Even when there are provable, audible differences, these sources of bias dominate outcome of listening tests.  Without controlled testing, you are just generating noise, not data.

And what if you can't listen to the device?  Those of us who know the power of measurements, can easily deal with this.  Those that don't, miss out on great audio gear.

I’m not arguing this at all. I’m just saying that, by definition, it’s quasi. :) The results may be better than anechoic, but the measurements are considered quasi.  We are estimating an anechoic response even though the measurements themselves were not done in an anechoic environment.

Nope.  There is no "estimation" going on.  Klippel NFS makes dual scans separated by fixed distance.  This allows it to then detect the direct sound vs reflected sound due to phase differential.  The reflections are then filtered computationally.  This is what makes it superior to anechoic chambers which lose that characteristics at lower frequencies.  There is nothing "pseudo" about that.

Gated measurements are called "pseudo" because they lack low frequency resolution.  That makes them an estimate that is good at mid to high frequencies but not bass.  Klippel NFS solves this problem (and with higher SNR to boot).

"Fortunately for low frequencies we have ground plane measurements, which I believe are actually anechoic... but I’ll leave that to the scientists to debate. :-)"

Ground plane measurements have sources of error.  And require stitching to the gated measurements which again, can introduce errors. 

To be sure, you can get really good results with ground plane+gated measurements but it is very tedious.  See this post from our resident expert in that field: 

Many of us aren’t arguing the measurements. I’m arguing that Amir and ASR have a toxic culture that permeates other audio forums with condescending tones that have been normalized and promoted at ASR.

There is absolutely nothing toxic about ASR culture.  We thrive on information and knowledge about audio products, engineering and research.  If you walk in dismissive of all that, then you will get strong pushback.  It is no different than going to your doctor, claiming to know more than him because you know your body and he doesn't.  Most doctors would throw you out of their office if you said that.  The toxicity then, is yours, not ours or your doctors.

Many days we celebrate on ASR for discovering something new.  Latest example is a DIY speaker that blew us away in its performance despite its very low cost:

The speaker not only measured great, it sounded great in my listening tests.  There is nothing but happiness as a result of this.  Someone like you coming in to pick a fight is not what we are about.  But if you engage us that way, as I mentioned in the above post, we will hand your hat to you.  Not because we shout louder but because we have the research and data on our side. If that is cause for unhappiness, then don't visit ASR.

"Just look at his image on the ASR site. A Geisha with a sneer. His intent is pretty clear with that alone."

That is no geisha.  She is a gorgeous bride getting married at a Shinto shrine in Ueno park in Tokyo:

Different couples get married every half hour there.  They put them through stock poses which is boring.  I waited for the break between pictures to capture this lovely picture of hers.  

There was no intention behind picking this picture for my Avatar other than this being one of the prized images in my photography portfolio.  It shows beauty, culture and tradition.  There is zero negativity in it much less what you are reading into it.

My intent on ASR is to bring reliable facts and data into the conversation about audio fidelity.  Many love that as evidenced by massive growth of ASR in such a short period of time.  Naturally, if your views are based on anecdotes, and stuff you have read online, and you are library of audio research and engineering is empty, you are going to see them opposed.  You are welcome to stick to your opinion but don't go making stuff up like you did above.  You get your hat handed to you that way. 😁

Then Amir, please reciprocate.

Amir has an opinion like anyone else.  He wraps that opinion in some pretty paper that he calls science.  His weak minded followers seem to overlook his lack of credentials and his inaccurate metrology methods.

Weak minded?  Is that the level of respect you have for your fellow audiophiles?  They better think like you or they are not worthy?

As to my background, it is in my signature on ASR: 

Pretty sure that makes me qualified to test audio gear.  Go ahead and link to the background of any subjective reviewer who you think a) has designed audio gear and b) is more qualified than me.

Go back to your own house and find some peace.

I am at peace.  But seemingly you all are not creating threads like this, specifically discussing ASR: "Some thoughts on ASR and the reviews"

So here I am correcting the incorrect things you say about ASR. Surely I should be able to do that. 

On your way out, tell everybody here why you were banned from every audio forum out there. 

I would if there were any truth to your statement.  Do you not consider this site an "audio forum?"  

Amir gets on and takes a somewhat radical position because it is not effective to be balanced. 

There is nothing radical about following science and engineering knowledge and data to determine fidelity of audio gear.  What is radical is throwing all of that out of the window and opining based on anecdotal and inaccurate personal listening tests.

In addition, when I measure something, the data speaks for itself.  There is little of "me" involved in that.

 I dont believe that anyone actually believes that all sonic attributes can be measured.

In all cases we can measure what comes out of your audio gear.  What to do with that data depends on what is being tested.  Take cables.  When basic engineering says they don't make a difference, and we measure and show that nothing remotely has changed that is coming out of your amplifier, then that is that.  It is impossible for there to be a sonic effect when the waveforms have not changed. 

When people don't believe that, I have done null tests with music showing that the difference between cables is zero, audibly and objectively.

Change that to speakers and there is room for subjective evaluation.  Same with headphones.  This why I listen to all of these devices when I review them.  The listening tests are formal though and not random audiophile listening.

Put another way, what we do is use multiple vectors to determine fidelity of gear.  We use measurements as data point.  Add to it psychoacoustics and engineering knowledge and if needed listening.  We then combine these to have a high confidence opinion of a product.

In contrast, there is zero value in a reviewer listening to an amplifier and opining about imaging this, tight bass that.  These are all made up notions and believing them is the closest you can come in audio to running with myths.

I truly dont care how others spend their money and certainly dont have the hubris to believe that I could know any motivations.

I don't either. This is why I have tested and recommended very expensive gear such as this Mola Mola DAC:

It costs nearly $12,000.  Doesn't matter to me.  What matters is that it is superbly engineered.

Back to motivation, you seem so comfortable to guess mine per what I quoted above so i suggest you are what you say others should not be.

Measurements will tell you nothing how a speaker will sound in your room, using your equipment, and what kind of music you listen too.

Countless formal listening tests looking at correlations between listening tests and specific set of measurements which I perform say you are wrong.

It’s been proven that some of the best sounding gear measures bad and vice versa.

This has been claimed but never shown to be true in any controlled test. Just because people keep repeating this argument doesn’t make it true. In my own experience, I either don’t hear the artifacts from poorly measuring gear or hear them as degrading fidelity. Not one time have I heard distortion and noise to be good.

I attend many audio shows and I get a feel on how the speaker will sound. If I feel these speakers will sound good in my room with my system, then I will work with the dealer or manufacturer for a 30 day trial.

I have listened to hundreds of systems at audio shows. The main thing you can learn there is how dynamic a speaker can play. Otherwise, tonality will be difficult to perceive. Home trials are pain in the neck because of size and heft of speakers to schlep or ship back and forth. Best to look at measurements and rule out the bad designs and then pick from the good ones.

  This Amir person (I have no idea who he is) is a gifted linguist and deploys semantics rather artfully.

No one has ever complimented me on my linguistic skills!  So thank you for that.  As to who I am, it is in my signature on every post at ASR:

Feel free to challenge me on anything science related.  Happy to provide as much detail as you can handle.  :)