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.
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.
I don't need to read articles about sound to know how to listen. I know how to tweak my system and room pretty darn well (considering money and space restraints). I learn new tweaks all the time and I am open to anything direct and practical you or anyone can say to help my system be more transparent.
I really don't care that Amir and the like believe the way they do. I don't NEED to prove him wrong. However, the truth should be told so that people can see what is real and not real. Very simple. Please keep fighting, if you desire, and trying to prove yourself (evenually you will see your own beauty and magnificence and not try and prove yourself any more) and prove Amir wrong. I have no need to fight him or you......but I will point out what I see.....and that includes how we act with each other and how we talk to each other. Everything from the souls perspective can be upgraded.....to the highest love and wisdom that is possible.
We can look at our motivation factor....every second....What are we wanting with the behavior and feelings that we put out. Are we defending ourself or are we being of service?.......is it ego or agape?.....or somewhere in between?......and if it can be upgaded to more love (agape)...then how can I act differently to raise my vibration?......for everything is vibration. Love and joy are the highest vibration and can be experienced continuously.....no....I am not there yet. But I have met a few people who embody continuous love and joy.
You could talk forever to Amir and read him all the books in the world and it will NOT change his mind (ie...from my point of view....you are wasting your time). This is how the ego works......it defines and defends......usually till death of the body. Fortunately...we have infinite lifetimes to get it right.......and let go of our points of view. For the only attitude that is worthwhile is love and gratitude. Everything else is BS. Amir is perfectly fine the way he is...same with you and me. But we need to speak our truth. Be a love addict....it is the most fun....and gives the best benefit to all. Sending you much love.
We take ourselves far to seriously. WE ARE NOT OUR EGO.....we are not our Characters that we play....we are not our opinions.....we are not our body....we are not our country...nothing anyone can say really NEEDS to hurt us (we make it up that we can be hurt by others...it is an illusion). Of course, our bodies can be hurt.....but our emotional bodies....we have total control over them....(if you are awake and not acting from you subconscious mind)....We are here to learn this.....for......we are INFINITE spirit/love/joy....always were and always will be. Everything else just fades away....because in the illusion of time.....everything dies. When you live in eternity....you care less and less about opinions and what others think......you are too busy blissing out and blessing others. Whatever you put your consciousness on......you become........What do you want to become?
I send everyone love, bliss and blessings.....forever.
I have no desire to criticize, castigate, or in any other way demean Amir. However, based on the fact that ASR's reviews do impact (to some degree) a number of companies offering their good-faith best products to the audio enthusiasts' world, I was surprised to learn that his company, Madrona Digital, carries Harmon/Revel products. [Note: I own Revel Ultima Studio speakers and think them to be marvelous.]. Consequently, I just logged on www.madronadigital.com to learn what other product lines Madrona Digital also carries. The fact that I could not discover any list of them disappointed me. I wish that he would disclose all product lines his company offers for sale -- for the laudable value of "transparency" if nothing else.
Now guru ricevs the subject matter of this thread is not about cables measures...
It is about ASR ideology, which is grounded in an erroneous theory of hearing...
My suggested articles and comment here are around these articles under my posts which express if you dont know it , and you dont know it yet by the way , they express and explain an ACOUSTICS revolution about hearing theory...
Then guru ricevs if you are not only a big humble ego only giving character lesson to others, but also a small proud ego about your own audio understanding, read that and EXPLAIN TO ME AND TO AMIR why these articles facts matter and how they destruct the ASR Amir ideology about audio OR NOT ...
if you are not able to do that but only able to talk about tweaks and cables and attacking others character because they take too much place with a false loving attitude,
Sorry but your post is a poison wrapped in sugar...
A character attack with lies:
First :
Who actually replies to Mahgister?.....not many. Who is he talking to?......himself.
Have you read all my posts contributions since a year here , concrete contributions ?
In musics, classical and jazz ?
In acoustics which is not room acoustic , but the science of hearing , the matter that interested me ...
many people answered and thank me here or in private mail...
I discussed 7 days with Amir here , in complete disagrement and he never attacked my character as such as you just did doing what you accuse me of doing : patronizing other behind a false good faith ...
Then you lied about me and caricatured me ...
Then you used your 5 cents psychology to patronize me... You did with me what you say i did... But in the post i wrote above which you mocked i stated acoustics facts perhaps above your head i dont know... Then here you come and you patronize a "beta" me as the "alpha" you wanted to be with a sugar like guru mantra of false love attitude declaration.. True love is gesture not lesson because who claim to teach others here ? You, not me who discuss arguments from others and not their character stating acoustics facts and important articles you NEVER READ...
On a public forum we cannot be alpha to another.....we are all equals. We are each others parent and child but we cannot lay down "behavior modification techniques" like a parent to a child.
We are not parent and child to one another, we are adults and more than mature one...Your claim is absurd as ridiculous pop psychology...
You are so pretentious , you are your own caricature and lying dont seems to pose a problem to you. How can you say that about me : have you read all my posts and discussions? have you read the private posts of people thanking me ?
I already talked a lot about concrete methods to create a good system... ( By the way just few post above i suggested a CONCRETE EXPERIMENT with shungite and quartz) But the last years i was more interested by hearing theory...Are you so ignorant to think that "tweaks" only matter and not acoustics which is not room acoustics ? You suppose no one is interested by hearing theory ?
And now YOU DECIDE WHAT PEOPLE HERE NEED and you declare that my post are useless..
I would love to hear some simply stated words from Maghister about some things that would actually improve my sound or my happiness. I don’t want to hear the word "acoustics" said over and over. I want some real knowledge that I can implement so I have larger goosebumps when listening. That is what I want......a better stereo.....and most peopel here...that is what they want.
Your post is a caricature and a character attack...Your own ego is so big it is comic to read you speaking of the ego of others...
i will stop here because you have no arguments... Save you dont like someone different from you claiming anything over your head as hearing theories facts...
You yourself present yourself as an audio guru with a site...
I am here to discuss with adults about acoustics and music...( not child-parenmt)
I am of good faith even if my posts may be clumsy ( english is not my language)
You never spoke to me nor answered my arguments or articles, you do your show to show others here your own importance by attacking a character a bit too large for your taste it seems ... Despicable ..And pathetic...
«Your ego is too big mine is really small»-- Groucho Marx 🤓
Prof's post cuts right to the heart of the problem with ARS and its devotees. Judgements that others are wasting their money without them listening to the products in question. How do they know, well they measure and just know.
This entire thing is made really interesting knowing that Amir owns a 2 channel dealership. Would you tolerate a Stereophile reviewer that sold the product they reviewed? Oh I forgot Amir relies on science so he is immune. Talk about going from utterly insignificant to highly suspect.
I have not read his reivew of the Nordost digital cable.....but I KNOW.....through listening tests that all digital cables sound different. If Amir thinks he knows what something sounds like (or thinks it has no sound) without listening to it......it is the same as someone knowing what a certain brand of chocolate tastes like by measuring it. Our senses rule....they are more sensitive than any test gear. Check this out.....this will make all you anti snake oil people cringe....he he.
Shame that he may be responsible for guiding enthusiasts away from better sound and in the process decreasing sales from businesses that actually create.
Only if you think in a pseudo-science paradigm, which has been rife in high end audio for years, unfortunately.
Amir has helped so many audiophiles weed through some of the b.s. in high end claims, so they can spend their money more wisely - for instance, his review and measurements of the Nordost digital cable is educational and can help new, or old audiophiles from spending tons of money where it won't make a damned difference.
You may not avail yourself of this information, in which case you make yourself a mark for audio snake oil salesmen, but not all of us want to be a mark.
Divine Mother just says yes to everything.....including what you do
Divine Father is here to teach you how to act loving.
When you embody both.....you have a great parent. The Divine mother part of us says first and most important of all.....I love you, you are beautiful and I am grateful and blessed by your presence. Then the Divine Father part of us steps in and says....er...son or daughter....your behavior right then was not loving.....and I am here to teach you how to be more loving.....so don't do that behavior again....understand? Then Divine mother steps in again and tells the child how much they are loved. Of course, the child will test the parents and this game repeats itself....however, the second time the Father says......we already went throug this once......so, if you do this again.....there will be a consequence you will not like.......then when the child does it again.....the father actualy implements the deterent as the child is being stubborn. All the while divine mother is loving the child.
When we take our ego postion as some serious reality that needs defending then when daddy says our behavior is not great then we get angry and defensive.....we want to hurt daddy.......however, Mommy is always there loving you and daddy is actually just loving you too. It is for your benefit that 'coach daddy" corrects us. We become better and more loving people. We are all "coach daddy" for each other. WE are not our ego, our opinion, we don't need to fight or argue with anyone. We can just state our truth. And the daddy in each of us can see the ego in each other. Most of us are afraid to confront the ego of someone else as we don't think much of ourself and we would not want that person talking about us.....or pointing out our flaws. What a stupid mess.....he he. We are ALL here to grow in love and truth......and therefore we need to be able to hear what daddy has to say....and see if it is true and take the appropriate actions to make ourselves better.
On a public forum we cannot be alpha to another.....we are all equals. We are each others parent and child but we cannot lay down "behavior modification techniques" like a parent to a child. However, we can still tell it like we see it. For that helps people to grow. They might fight against your point of view......but their soul hears the truth (if any) that you might say. So please, tell the truth.....always...it always serves us. To take personally what someone else says about us is childish. Everyones thoughts are simply them talking to themselves. This is me talking to myself. Who actually replies to Mahgister?.....not many. Who is he talking to?......himself. We all talk a lot to ourself.....but is what we say to ourself the TRUTH?......or just made up fiction.
I try to make my words a teaching so others can learn to have better sound and a happier life.....more and more that is all I care about. Why do you post? Do you think that anyone really cares about what you say? Are you helping anyone? I mean helping them get a better stereo or more happiness?
The truth is very simple. If you need a lot of words and paragraphs and posts to say what you could have said in a sentence or one paragraph....then why are you doing it? I would love to hear some simply stated words from Maghister about some things that would actually improve my sound or my happiness. I don't want to hear the word "acoustics" said over and over. I want some real knowledge that I can implement so I have larger goosebumps when listening. That is what I want......a better stereo.....and most peopel here...that is what they want. Will you help us get better sound......with very, very, very simple words?......so we don't tune you out because we have no idea what you are talking about. Will you make my dreams come true. Please help me.....divine mother that lives is Mahgister........MA....Ma...it is your name....you are the MA.....she always says YES, Si, DA, JA, Hai....in every language. Yes, to everyone.....and especially the MA...hgister.
He mocked my post as pretentious non sense...Lacking jokes...
How this sentence sound to your ears if you are the target :
Your first sentence seems to come from: "I am an advanced college Physics teacher and I will tell all you kindergartners what is real. You are all too young and ignorant to understand but someday after you get your Doctorate you will then know that I speak truth."
I dont liked it ...Is it such " astonishing interpretation" for your working brain ?😊
And few trolls here this week mocked already my words count posts length and syntax instead of adressing my arguments..
And if you are interested more to character targetting yourself than by the CONTENT of what is acoustics in this thread and in my post stay out of the discussion...
I will give you a point though : i probably overreacted as usual but i am fed up this week in particular by few idiots attacking my posts WITH NO ARGUMENTS...
I am used to discuss and i never attacked character when someone gave arguments... And by the way my arguments go in the same direction than ricevs then why mocking my post ?
I dont patronize people character here i discuss their arguments then i dont tolerate character targetting ...Not my character nor other character... Period...
By the way read the articles i posted above before commenting about my "character" They are the content, not my character ... ...Or will you go back with another post without content about my character ? This answer of mine to ricevs dont concern you ...
There is not even a scintilla of "mocking", "bullying" nor "attacking" in @ricevspost.
How can anybody interpret the post this way is really astonishing.
This debate between objectivist and subjectivist was going on for years...
And you attacked me ad hominem because i used too much words...It seems you are the joke ...
If you try to think for an hour without joking, you will understand that to settle this question once for all we need to understand what is hearing and what hearing is about ...
Then read the articles i gave in my posts above instead of attacking my character ...
By the way even if we are in complete disaccord Amir never attacked my character for the 7 days we discussed together few months ago...
I prefer his character to your character it seems even if we think the same about the importance of trusting and training our ears... ...😊
« Dont forget that my goddess love your goddess »-- Groucho Marx 🤓
I am sorry but i said acoustics elementary facts as they are...Which FUNDAMENTAL fact is precisely contradicted by many ASR objectivist if you are able to understand what my sentence imply .
I put above others post with many articles of science who explained it all and justify my short last post...
Mocking my writing will not help...Others already did it by the way...
What i learned i learned it in my 2 years experiments room ...
And if you think i am pretentious being short and on the point with this sentence which only express fundamental acoustics truth :
«It is proven by acoustics that we hear qualia corresponding to physical invariant properties of any vibrating sound source...»
What i must think after your mocking of my few sentences about your sentence
:
Let us be still and listen and feel the divine Mother loving us.....right now and forever.......then send that love out to all our childrem (everyone on the entire planet).
When you throw a pot you think the flower you throw after is a gift coming from your divinity ? 😊
I dont like to be bullied and i dont bully but i am ready to be corrected and i corrected when i can... ( my knowledge is limited)
Grow and if something is WRONG in my first sentence CORRECT me without mocking my posts lenght or lack of humor .,.. I dont joke all the time get used to it...I already posted jokes above...It is enough ...
There is an acoustic revolution right now and the articles i posted are proof about it... You dont read them and will not because their lack of jokes and
Just too dang many words
?
And i will correct you :
My post is not a joke and i am not beautiful...
And i dont need to prove anything... I like helping in this debate which is very important... Acoustics is a matter that interest me because my main subject is philosophy in general...
The articles i posted here are for ONE or TWO person who will be interested. I always posted supposing my readers are intelligent and of good faith...i like discussion more than jokes...
Your first sentence seems to come from: "I am an advanced college Physics teacher and I will tell all you kindergartners what is real. You are all too young and ignorant to understand but someday after you get your Doctorate you will then know that I speak truth."
Very funny....qualia, invariant properties, Fourier, abstract ratios, pychoacoustics. I get what you are saying, but most just roll their eyes (including me, most of the time) when you post. Just too dang many words.........I just say, "you need to listen to know anything".......I like to use the fewest words possible. If you have to say the simple truth in an encylopedia......well, I would rather put my mind and heart on the LOVE OF LOVES.
I think you should tell jokes or describe something really amazing and beautiful.....this post is a joke......and you are beautiful.....and you do not have to prove it to anyone.
Let us be still and listen and feel the divine Mother loving us.....right now and forever.......then send that love out to all our childrem (everyone on the entire planet).
It is proven by acoustics that we hear qualia corresponding to physical invariant properties of any vibrating sound source...
Sound is not mere vibrations in the air but real qualia in the vibrating sound source perceived with and through the vibrations in the air...
Ears/brains is not only and more than just a Fourier computer...
Now imagine someone defining sound qualities with a few electrical measures of separated pieces of gear in no room and for no ears...😊
Music is not abstract ratios but concrete "timbre" perception by the brain/body...
Then making claims about hearing without knowing what is hearing and equating it always and mostly as potential delusions in the context of marketing a site, tools and products is at best if not fraud pure ideology but certainly not sciences...
In audio psychoacoustics rules design not the reverse... Tools are tools not truths... Interpretation linking chains set is the core acting mind guiding gesture ...
Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence.
So, are numbers on a distortion meter evidence? Sorry, no. Evidence in audio is how something sounds. You have to start with the sound and then try and figure out a way to measure it so we can repeat the great sound.....or avoid the bad sound. If you start with a myth (made up in Amir’s mind) that a certain SINAD number means total transparency (without any actual listening tests to prove it) then you have zero science.....basically it is ASR....Anti Science Review....or Amir’s Seance Review (channeling dead deaf people). It is simply childish pretense that would lead someone to think a number on a graph means something in REALITY without actually checking reality. Reality in audio.....is how something is perceived by the ear......its called "sound"....percieved by doing listening tests. Real Audio science would be to listen to various things and see if you can hear a difference......if you hear a difference between say two cables......then try and find some way of quantifying it (including measurements).....THIS IS SCIENCE!!!!! The whole purpose of science to to discover what are the underlying things that make something the way it is so we can understand it and use the knowledge to better our REALITY.....and in this case our reality is how something sounds.
Yes, I am one of those who have been kicked off ASR. They did not like my point of view and threw rocks at me.....and when they found out I did mods that do not change the measurements and that I sold "tweaks" that improve the sound but that cannot be measured.....they naturally wanted to string me up for being a "immoral rip off dude"......so within hours I was banished to heaven......for ASR is HELL....he he.....They certainly gave me hell.........so childish.
Here is a guy who hears the difference between cables and amps and lots of stuff and he is trying his best to find some reason why these 32 cables all sound different......this is real science.....unlike the fairy tale on ASR.
Happy Mothers day. I am your Mother and I love you all with all my heart and soul. You are my Mother and you love me with all your heart and soul. We are all the Mother......loving herself....and her children......we are the children, we are the Mother.....please be kind.....our mother wants us to be kind.
Amir anyway sells his "site" ASR as "science" ...The zealots takes it as gold coin. Then anyone using his ears out of a double blind test with ABX is mocked there as a deaf bat..🦇
Imagine if i dare to suggest to the zealots my experiment to them using a piece of shungite and of quartz to demonstrate the impact of the materials on our perception of qualia in the vibrating sound source ... They will call me "tin foil hat" if they stay polite...😁 ( Amir by the way is always polite by contrast )
They equal hearing theory with Fourier maps at best at worst it is a deluded sense easy to fool then not truthfull at all for them . Period...
As in this cartoon measures understanding is backward and hearing understanding is forward... 😉
Acoustics is their regulated correlation. Ears is gold and measures are silver.
I forgot to say that the cartoon above is draught by the genius of Tom Gauld ...
Did someone say something eluding to the fact that ASR or Amir owns a 2 channel dealership or has some financial interest in a particular brand of electronics or speakers? Is this true or just hearsay?
@audition__audioHe is a Revel/Harman Dealer and his business is called Madrona Digital. You could ask him here what other products he carries/sells.
Feel free to ask him if that would have an impact on competitor brand reviews. We could all get enlightened together.
Did someone say something eluding to the fact that ASR or Amir owns a 2 channel dealership or has some financial interest in a particular brand of electronics or speakers? Is this true or just hearsay?
@mapman That's not quite how the audio equipment industry works (not at all). Capitalization and marketing are essential to sustainability and growth. Some companies remain small and that's okay. It has no reflection on the quality of their goods. Some fail or fail to achieve growth due to poor financial management (boy do I know that after learning about current high end/high quality endeavors by those with 4 and 5 decades in audio equipment distribution).
Then again, companies with goods that are seen as inferior and/or overpriced commonly fail (especially if they lack continuing capitalization/adequate cash flow). The market doesn't always drop bad or inferior products (quality of sound and/or reliability. I don't want to mention names of manufacturers or products.
@audition__audio@mahgisterI agree. I’m shocked! Amir can’t keep off of forums where ASR is taken to task for not being fair to gear he doesn’t endorse or sell (sarcastically).. This clown reviewer who has made some correct observations has caused more problems for audiophiles and music lovers than he has helped. He just can’t keep his mits off of Audiogon forums while booting guys like us off his ASR if we don’t comply with his (not all ASR posters, some who I admire), but many minions who degrade anything LP, fuse, cable, high priced, etc. gear that they say is inferior, or even measures inferior to ASR standards and reviews. The OP hit the nail on the head, different types of speakers require different measurement protocols and may still not reveal in room behavior.
Odd that someone like Amir would gain much traction in this hobby. I used to think he just picked an extreme position to attract some outliers whose stance needs to be reinforced by someone touting "science". Shame that he may be responsible for guiding enthusiasts away from better sound and in the process decreasing sales from businesses that actually create. It appears he would discourage his followers from auditioning products which dont measure properly because they cant sound good. This is a real problem. But he is easily ignored and even more easily ridiculed.
I already did that pointing how you used your small set of measures of some gear design taken separately from any system and from any room synergy as the only acoustics truth , as if they could invalidate any hearing experience of the system/room impression derived from all acoustics parameters at play...
Your accusation of delusion and your attribution of failure to human hearing which is anyway the ground of any acoustics meanings in favor of some aspects of the measured specs of separate gear pieces is only an ideological stance... The fact that your tools are well designed on a scientific standpoint dont imply that the conclusion you want to impose are the acoustics truth and are scientific... They are not at all ... :)
Sciences as i wrote it is always in the plural mode with an "s". I want to distinguish it from the scientism related to any techno-cult. Here in audio many sciences are implied together not just one, the one you wanted to pick ... 😊
And the ears/brain/body of the acoustician, musician, designer, audiophile is king not servant of your ideology...
Feel free to challenge me on anything science related. Happy to provide as much detail as you can handle. :)
But the dude who tried to convert me to his "church" was a nice guy too...
Someone generally who try to "sell" something must be nice anyway...
I get a kick out of ASR. This Amir person (I have no idea who he is) is a gifted linguist and deploys semantics rather artfully. I love statements like: "We follow establish(ed) audio science and engineering. And rely on what we can prove." Well, that’s a loaded statement that can best be defined as a "loaded statement fallacy", which begs the authority of what the writer considers "established" to the extent that any denial implies that the responder does not follow established audio science and thus cannot prove the validity of their response.
And all this emphasis put on a small set of measurements chosen by Amir among all possible measurements as what matter the most and only that with the accusation of delusion about any hearing act, contradict all we know about acoustics science and hearing theory...
Techno cultism ideology is not science. And perceived sound source qualias are not bits and quarks... They are acoustical meanings pointing to the vibrating sound source qualities... The system/room is a vibrating whole.... Not a sum of very partially and very uncompletely measured parts...
@amir_asr These people believe the old urban legends. That is what much of this hobby was founded on.
Measurements are fine (I think they are an important first step), but an acoustically bad room will make the best equipment sound bad and visa versa.
So, listening is as important as measurements. Hence, why I do both (heretical, I guess). I also know, if a piece of equipment sounds bad, no amount of 'break in - (🤣) will change that.
The other issue is everybody's ears measure different. There is no standard to them. This is also part of the equation that everyone ignores. That is why I ask people, 'Can they hear with my ears'. It is also based on personal experience, that also biases our hearing and other senses.
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.
ASR is what it is. TEkton is what it is. So are all the other vendors and hifi websites including Audiogon. The good news is you get to pick and choose. The more choices the better! THe good ones will survive and the others not so much. Does that settle the dispute?
I agree with everything you're saying, however several of the bigger YouTube channels are sellouts as well, so they're not much different than the magazine's. Some of them get free gear.
Measurements will tell you nothing how a speaker will sound in your room, using your equipment, and what kind of music you listen too. It’s been proven that some of the best sounding gear measures bad and vice versa. I never look at a reviewers measurements, and I don’t take any of the audio reviewers from the magazines conclusions since they are always positive. I only subscribe to a couple of these magazines to see what is new.
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.
As Amir stated earlier, it’s really only when specific measurement claims are made and not met that there is any real problem. Nobody is doubting anyone’s subjective impressions and preferences, although we may doubt the stories told about what causes those preferences.
I like that kind of art too. I mentioned the photograph’s effect because at one time I was looking at paintings made through the centuries and noticed a sudden ability towards incredible realism around the late 1800s. It then occurred to me that it happened about when photography hit the scene, and then I learned that a lot of art focused people consider that kind of art to be not very good art. It would have been an incredible feat if someone had done it without seeing photography. And there were some who did it at least somewhat by using camera obscuras.
" few electrical measures of the design pieces will not do and measuring speakers will not be enough to complete the optimization process."
A few measurements are insufficient perhaps, but very useful. Ears don’t lie. They just do what they do. Brains come up with stories about what the ears did. Brains try to tell a useful story. Hence we don’t evaluate colors for precisely what hit our retinas in one particular area, but interpret the color that hit there in relation to what hit in other areas. This is why painting is so hard. The photograph changed painting because it just happened mechanistically, directly, without judgement, without having to pass in and out of a human perceptual filter, and allowed us for the first time to see what a picture looked like when our filters got out of the way. I should include the camera obscura as step in that direction too.
Now to be fair we know very well how "halo effect" in psychology really works...
If a product as a stradivarius is surrounded by an aura of holy S. Q. because of his price tag and historical meaning, acousticians will use blind test to study the relation between perception evaluation and the biases associated with it for example in a study of the stradivarius materials composition compared to modern violins.....
This does not means that human hearing is not faithful this means that he must be supervised when the "Holy value and price tag" play a role and put under controls and trained anyway...
This in no way can be used as an argument to devaluate all hearing abilities and mocking them as "golden ears" and militate to replace listenings evaluation by electrical small set of measures of the gear design and systematic double blind test in regular day to day audiophiles decisions and optimization process ...
Thanks very much Amir for your measures service review indeed ... But we dont need the ideology which some ASR people stick to ...
Now if i was wrong here stating that Human hearing is generally very trustful this article will be wrong relating to this discovery explained very well here :
«People can simultaneously identify the pitch and timing of a sound signal much more precisely than allowed by conventional linear analysis. That is the conclusion of a study of human subjects done by physicists in the US. The findings are not just of theoretical interest but could potentially lead to better software for speech recognition and sonar.
Human hearing is remarkably good at isolating sounds, allowing us to pick out individual voices in a crowded room, for example. However, the neural algorithms that our brains use to analyse sound are still not properly understood. Most researchers had assumed that the brain decomposes the signals and treats them as the sum of their parts – a process that can be likened to Fourier analysis, which decomposes an arbitrary waveform into pure sine waves.
However, the information available from Fourier analysis is bound by an uncertainty relation called the Gabor limit. This says that you cannot know the timing of a sound and its frequency – or pitch – beyond a certain degree of accuracy. The more accurate the measurement of the timing of a sound, the less accurate the measurement of its pitch and vice versa......
Oppenheim and Magnasco discovered that the accuracy with which the volunteers determined pitch and timing simultaneously was usually much better, on average, than the Gabor limit. In one case, subjects beat the Gabor limit for the product of frequency and time uncertainty by a factor of 50, clearly implying their brains were using a nonlinear algorithm.»
This means that the eras/brain work in his own time domain and in a non linear way. The Fourier maps are not enough to understand human hearings. They are only a part of the complete unknown process which is mysterious in all his ramifications.
«My ears lie sometimes and my wife too but they are trainable and truthful at the end of my day»--Groucho Marx 🤓
I read about human hearing beating Fourier Transform and thought it was an exciting thing. That’s why the company I work for started analyzing rooms using short tone bursts of known frequency so we could see time domain information in bass notes to a greater accuracy since the frequency doesn’t have to be calculated out of a sine sweep. This works well, but there are more methods than Fourier Transform to separate time and frequency. Wavelet analysis can closely approximate human hearing and vision. I was surprised to find out that I could take a sweep of a room and then make an impulse file out of that. With that impulse I could simulate any acoustic environment through wavelet convolution and get the same pulsed tone results as I got from actually recording them. As I’m sure you’ll agree, human hearing doesn’t violate laws of physics so there is still time required for our ears to distinguish tones, and we have limited accuracy for detecting the start and stop times of tones. We’re much better at detecting the difference in timing between each ear than the absolute timing.
Our hearing definitely doesn’t beat the microphone and the digital recording electronics, which pick up far more than our hearing mechanism. It wasn’t designed for that. The telescope analogy is a good one. The analysis of the sound is what we do that’s so impressive. We can make sense of it.
We’ve got a bunch of resonators in our ears, so we can pick up on a tone as soon as a resonance differential between them is physically established, and that takes at least a half wave cycle to get started. A wavelet transform does something very similar, by running little wavelets through the signal at many different frequencies to see when in the signal a resonance occurs at that frequency. It’s an ear simulator of sorts. And it’s about as precise as you’re going to get in biology or electro mechanics.
Picking up differences between two signals is very easy for measuring equipment. A null test can reveal the slightest difference deep down into the noise floor.
I haven’t seen a single case yet of signals that could be audibly distinguished as different by the human ear but showed up as identical in reasonably competent measurements.
For sure what i call a vibrating sound source may be the "timbre" of a musical instrument for example. A musician hear perfectly well and can classify immediately the different qualias and qualities pertaining to the physical invariants behind any of these vibrating sound sources (violin) ... He can detect the wood qualities the strings qualities and the micro dynamic gestures of the players too .
A system/room vibrate as a whole any listener can detect the quality of it ... If i put diverse acoustics content in this room even a single straw located at the right place a difference will be audible... I know because when i tuned my 100 resonators the length and size of ONE neck matter and make a difference ...
Ignorant who know nothing about acoustics and who never design a Helmholtz resonators will call me a liar and will ask for a double blind test,...😊
It is why to evaluate a system the room conditions matter a lot more than the THD of the amplifier for the final perceived exam ...😊
Now if you want to know how much information can be read in the vibrating sound sources immediate environment read this and you will fall of your chair :
Extracting audio from visual information
Algorithm recovers speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag filmed through soundproof glass.
«“When sound hits an object, it causes the object to vibrate,” says Abe Davis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and first author on the new paper. “The motion of this vibration creates a very subtle visual signal that’s usually invisible to the naked eye. People didn’t realize that this information was there.”»................
«“We’re recovering sounds from objects,” he says. “That gives us a lot of information about the sound that’s going on around the object, but it also gives us a lot of information about the object itself, because different objects are going to respond to sound in different ways.” In ongoing work, the researchers have begun trying to determine material and structural properties of objects from their visible response to short bursts of sound.»
Then people contemptuously bragging about a few electrical measures of some pieces of design claiming that it is all we need to know if a system will sound good it will sound good for them in ALL specific environment for ALL ears and ALL brain/body, this is pure ideology to market and sell some tools . Thats all ... A good design for sure will stay a good design in all conditions for all owner but it will need an optimization process to make it shine. All audiophiles interested by "tweaks" in mechanical, electrical and acoustical conditions know what i means.
The ears/brain decode vibrating sound source Qualias associated with physical invariant properties of the vibrating sound source in acoustic environmental conditions in very specific and competent way and these acoustic content of an environment , being Nature or a listening room matter a lot for the optimization of any design.
A system/room cannot be evaluated by a mere subjectively selected choice of small set of electrical measures among all the electrical measures possible, among all the mechanical measures possibles, among all the acoustical measures possible and even with all the psychoacousticals measures possible, it will lack the qualia experience by a conscious feeling body associated with the physical invariant of the vibrating sound sources.
Then we must create a system/room for a listener characteristics, few electrical measures of the design pieces will not do and measuring speakers will not be enough to complete the optimization process.
Ok enough said... Read the articles... 😁
English is not my language. I apologize for my clumsy sentences. I never spoke english where i live and read in english only philosophy or science. 😊
( There is no concrete vocabulary in these books, no humor, no popular or slang expression and most scientists and philosophers are not great writers then if i can wrote top poetry in french, in english i am lagging a lot 😉😊 but you are lucky i wrote the shortest possible posts here in English because of that , imagine what it could be if my english was top litterature, my posts will be unbearable as short novel)
Remember that human hearing dont decode sound qualia and information ONLY and MERELY by computing air waves and the waves signals but also and mainly "read" the physical invariant behind any vibrating sound sources as a qualia belonging to the vibrating sound sources physical invariant ( like in the design of a drum ) and touching also our physical and emotional body, as demonstrated in the book of Essien and the two independent research articles above :
an ecological theory of sound needs also a body-image theory of sound..
«The definition of sound in physics as vibrations in an elastic medium establishes a link between the sound source and the organism. Thus, it satisfies an essential psychophysical prerequisite for a theory of perception. However,
over the past 170 years since Ohm’s law (1843), and some 137 years since Helmholtz’s resonance theory (1877), psychoacoustic procedures founded on air vibration have shrouded music and speech in mystery. Ecological theories have fallen short, not only of Gestalt invariance, but also of the link between the distal object and the organism. This paper approaches auditory analysis from the standpoint of sound production. It argues that although air vibration produces sound, sound is not air vibration; and that exploitation of features of air vibration
can hardly (if ever) lead to accurate understanding of the principle of the auditory mechanism in speech or music perception. Evidence is provided in support of the definition of sound as the vibratory image of the sonorous body.
It establishes isomorphism between characteristics of a sonorous body and auditory attributes of sound. Wherefore, a body is different from the sound it produces in much the same way as steam is different from ice ─
two different forms of the same entity. The data under consideration offer succinct insights into the way the auditory mechanism extracts from sound wave invariants for use in speech or music regardless of chaotic production and acoustic variability.»
This comes from this acoustician article and book :
Measures are used to increase the design process quality. But i must add that they may and must incorporate some psychoacoustics facts to improve the design too.
Anyway it is psychoacoustics and acoustics research who drive audio first and last, improvement in other field as DSP for example will help a lot but must be coupled to psychoacoustics to mark a revolution as done by Dr, Choueiri with his BACCH filters...
I know they cannot understand because they are in a cult or brainwashed. They dont want to read and study and debate about the articles i put here..
They dont want to understand, some defend their site ideology and they sell their services doing so then they had no interest to look farther than their ideology ...
But ad hominem arguments are useless it is why we must used articles of research and their conclusion to make a point ...
i posted my articles to help those who may be interested in astounding facts about acoustics ...If i can help one person this will be useful.
i did not posted all i could it will be too long...😊
By the way i want to be clear... For me ASR is useful site...It is the ideology behind their measurements which is simplistic...
I thank Amir for his measures verification but the ideology is useless and childish...
Double blind test is a circus, everybody had biases, trained positive one and negative one so what? Placebo effect as invoked by ASR people is ridiculous to debunk the claim of trained acoustician as the claim of an ignorant audiophile... Etc ...
I am not against double blind test they are regularly used in acoustics experiments...but when used to debunk what someone say in regular life it is contemptuous and come from an ideology not from acoustic science specific research in specific context...
@mahgister My friend. Why are you still arguing with people who clearly don’t want to share your opinions? I’m sure you’ve jeard that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Do yourself a favor and let it go. Listen to some music. Cheers.
Thank you. When I was a grad student we use to joke about the linearity assumption - which is where quite a lot of mathematics lives, because it's far easier. Didn't know about this research, which is important for our hobby.
Well I am almost done with this conversation. Prof you probably think you are proving a point but you are doing nothing more than showing your biases. Sorry that you appear to not have the confidence in your own senses to judge equipment by sound and need a bit of help with your measurement blue pill. Do you think you could tell the difference between a soft dome, aluminum done, compression and ribbon tweeter? I hope you could. Now which tools would allow you to tell the tweeter type by measurement?
I think that instead of a double blind for with my inclinations, you and Amir should do a double blind of gear that measures well vs. gear that doesnt.
These tools you so revere were developed only to assist in the design process. The sonic difference between most tube and solid state amps has very little to do with how they measure. The very best designers, I think, used measurements as a basic stepping stone and out of curiosity regarding the effect of design changes and probably materials. If what you believe is true, then measurements would always win out and poorer measuring designs would always be abandoned.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
