Whoever started this thread must be a real ignorant jerk and should probably be banned.
Are you kidding?
It is one of the most helpful people here...
We will ban you or me before banning the OP... 😊
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.
As an amateur speaker designer, and lover of graphs and data I have some thoughts. I mostly hope this helps the entire A’gon community get a little more perspective into how a speaker builder would think about the data.
Of course, I’ve only skimmed the data I’ve seen, I’m no expert, and have no eyes or ears on actual Tekton speakers. Please take this as purely an academic exercise based on limited and incomplete knowledge.
1. Speaker pricing.
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.
2. Measuring mid-woofers is hard.
The standard practice for analyzing speakers is called "quasi-anechoic." That is, we pretend to do so in a room free of reflections or boundaries. You do this with very close measurements (within 1/2") of the components, blended together. There are a couple of ways this can be incomplete though.
a - Midwoofers measure much worse this way than in a truly anechoic room. The 7" Scanspeak Revelators are good examples of this. The close mic response is deceptively bad but the 1m in-room measurements smooth out a lot of problems. If you took the close-mic measurements (as seen in the spec sheet) as correct you’d make the wrong crossover.
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.
For both of those reasons, an actual in-room measurement is critical to assessing actual speaker behavior. We may not all have the same room, but this is a great way to see the actual mid-woofer response as well as the effects of any baffle step compensation.
Looking at the quasi anechoic measurements done by ASR and Erin it _seems_ that these speakers are not compensated, which may be OK if close-wall placement is expected.
In either event, you really want to see the actual in-room response, not just the simulated response before passing judgement. If I had to critique based strictly on the measurements and simulations, I’d 100% wonder if a better design wouldn’t be to trade sensitivity for more bass, and the in-room response would tell me that.
3. Crossover point and dispersion
One of the most important choices a speaker designer has is picking the -3 or -6 dB point for the high and low pass filters. A lot of things have to be balanced and traded off, including cost of crossover parts.
Both of the reviews, above, seem to imply a crossover point that is too high for a smooth transition from the woofer to the tweeters. No speaker can avoid rolling off the treble as you go off-axis, but the best at this do so very evenly. This gives the best off-axis performance and offers up great imaging and wide sweet spots. You’d think this was a budget speaker problem, but it is not. Look at reviews for B&W’s D series speakers, and many Focal models as examples of expensive, well received speakers that don’t excel at this.
Speakers which DO typically excel here include Revel and Magico. This is by no means a story that you should buy Revel because B&W sucks, at all. Buy what you like. I’m just pointing out that this limited dispersion problem is not at all unique to Tekton. And in fact many other Tekton speakers don’t suffer this particular set of challenges.
In the case of the M-Lore, the tweeter has really amazingly good dynamic range. If I was the designer I’d definitely want to ask if I could lower the crossover 1 kHz, which would give up a little power handling but improve the off-axis response. One big reason not to is crossover costs. I may have to add more parts to flatten the tweeter response well enough to extend it's useful range. In other words, a higher crossover point may hide tweeter deficiencies. Again, Tekton is NOT alone if they did this calculus.
I’ve probably made a lot of omissions here, but I hope this helps readers think about speaker performance and costs in a more complete manner. The listening tests always matter more than the measurements, so finding reviewers with trustworthy ears is really more important than taste-makers who let the tools, which may not be properly used, judge the experience.
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And what devices typically produce which types of distortion? The level of distortion becomes much more audible and relevant based on the type. So it would be incorrect to directly compare 2nd order harmonic and higher ordered types as being the same. Also inaudible levels of distortion still have a profound impact on the sound of the device at any output level. |
Pass Lab second harmonic generator. Makes the sound more like tube. Some people like that. https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/amp/messages/24/244324.html |
People are being tested double blind. Only their ears are involves so if they hear something, they hear it.
There is a specific paper that shows effective of training vs measurements starting at 40:00 minutes but I highly suggest you watch the whole video. For audio impairments, again, I provided a video tutorial for that:
I explain the techniques used such as listening to high impairments when the distortion is quite high and audible and then reducing it gradually. Further, knowledge of the system design and what the impairments can be, is very helpful in finding specific parts of a music clip that better highlights the audible problem. Finally, in all cases, you want to use music that is revealing of the type of distortion you are looking for. This is explained in both of the videos above. This is no different than an athlete training. While they will become very good at their specific domain, they also become more performant in general. Of course, if you worry about bias, you should never do sighted evaluation as that surely corrupts and biases the results. |
I don't know how you are defining "dynamics." I define it as how loud it can play cleanly. Distortion tests help with this but ultimately I like to listen with specific music clips that show the ability of the speaker to do so with sub-bass content.
There is no such thing. Every sound has its frequency and speaker driver needs to only be "fast" enough to play that. The perception of slow bass likely comes from non-flat bass response of the speaker combined with the room it is in. Both of these are measured using frequency response.
Same answer as above.
Both of your statements are invalidated in stereophile review. This is the frequency response:
This is not remotely an example of a speaker "measuring well." Treble is exaggerated and there are serious signs of tweeter resonances. JA's measurements have an error in them which shows a peak in bass but this is shows even more energy as he explains: "The lower midrange and upper bass do feature a rise in level; while some of this will be due to the nearfield measurement technique, some is indeed real, and possibly contributes to the speaker's occasionally "puddingy" low frequencies. " In other words, there is too much (upper) bass, than not. Of course in room and without EQ, you would have a lot of room modes to content with so even if your impressions are right, you would have to untangle them before blaming the speaker. I have a room mode at 105Hz which I dial out in my speaker reviews for this reason.
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