What seems dead is politeness in serious discussion about serious matter...
Personal character attack replace content...
Ignorance presented as the norm seems the way to go ...
Anyone head over the crowd must be cutted ...
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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.
437 responses Add your response
You are not completely wrong... Three or 4 idiots harass all my posts in many threads... ( even in my private mail) They posted no content at all unlike me ... They gave character attack , nobody answered them because it seems my content displease ... Then you are right... Thanks for spelling to me what is evident to all it seems... Not one read the articles and dare to communicate his thinking ... 😊 We are not here to discuss? Anyway , my best to you and my apology for my answer...
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@erik_squires great topic and post, agree with everything you've said, I own some B&W 804 D4s and the measurements are not very complimentary. "One wonders what the B&W engineers are thinking" is the gist of the measurements'' crowd's reaction to the speaker, yet lots of seasoned audiophile like me continue to buy B&W 800 series speakers, so the B&W engineers must be doing something right. Just a thought and my 2 cents the ago ole measurements vs listening/taste debate. |
@mahgister , Get out of the house and pay a daily visit/walk the dog to some coffee shop near your house, preferably one where intellectuals, university professors, students, spiritual kooks, etc show up. Talk about some of these things in real life, listen to some music on your headphones, take your books, play some chess, start talking to the pretty ladies who show up at such places, etc...i.e., get youself entertained out of the house. An online forum filled with grouchy old men may not be the right place/medium for the type of conversations circling in your head. |
😁😊 I am very glad to read someone wise and polite. Wiser than me at least... Thanks for the advice... I like discussion about deep matter but silent contemplation will be better than uninvited answers to unasked questions. My best to you sincerely ...
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Hmm, let's see, a bachelor's degree, few years working as some programmer grunt and ran off into "management" ( the paper pusher and yapper) because even boneheaded programming must have been hard for this cat. No, this dude never designed a circuit in his life....must be way over his head. Anyone can "use" a audio precision kit, read the manual and spit out garbage all day. I have one and I can train a kid in high-school to do it in flying colors. Ask him to design/build a audio precision kit or a dac or whatever (Bear in mind, it is also an engineer with a higher aptitude level who does that), but, certainly not this "manager" (paper pusher).
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Except that "basic engineering" says there should be a difference. Your background is not electrical engineering so you wouldn't understand.
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Thanks rankaudio for this video...😊 A very clarifying video that confirm for me the importance of the measurements that matter at the end and the most important : acoustics physical parameters of the speakers and of the room and ears/HTRF measures... Any electrical measurements of a piece of gear must be interpreted in an electrical, physical and acoustical context and cannot alone define what is S.Q. at all . Hearing theory matter. Gear synergy matter. Electrical design specs matter way less. |
@rankaudio The link you posted provides good food for thought. Another older video (can't find right now) with an Audio Precision Engineer explaining how easy it is to incorrectly measure and/or incorrectly interpret measurements is informative. An expensive piece of test gear does not guarantee accurate or meaningful measurements. Amir, or any other reviewer, leaning on "industry standard" measurements to defend accuracy is interesting. Real Test and Measurement Engineers would call audio industry standards rudimentary and lacking rigorous correlation. Maybe that is good enough for audio. However, ASR and Amir routinely claim the scientific, accurate, unquestionable final authority high ground. The multiple posts from Amir in this thread are a perfect example of Amir disputing and dismissing anything not in agreement with his position. His minions must notify him so he can bombard a thread with the ASR belief system. |
I do check ASR measurements, and I thank them for providing the service. However, this is the task for @amir_asr to figure out why some gear measures better than the other while sounding worse. Or that it measures great while consisting of crappy parts - Topping teardown is available for anyone to see. ASR community reminds me of people who try to prove their point about sampling rates by quoting Nyquist theorem. While knowing little what does it actually proves. Or the difference between theory and actual implementation. If Pass Labs measures not to Amir’s standards, perhaps Amir should write to Nelson Pass and ask. Or ask Viktor Khomenko in forums about BAT. I’d love to see their responses. For some reason I trust Nelson with decades of products that people love and keep more than some Internet forum owner with a scope. |
In my experience discussing with him for 7 days here , he confuse sound quality and electrical measures of the gear for 2 reason: --- For one, it is his own selling pitch , he sell his site, products and expertise,,, ---The second one is he think acoustics is room acoustic.. Even if he know the difference between acoustics and room acoustic he had no idea what we hear when we hear a qualia and a physical property of the vibrating sound source in our own non linmear time domain because for him the ears is a deceptive tool compared to his electrical devices, period. ... It is science : hearing theories are the core of acoustics... He know nothing and dont want to know nothing about that ... Fourier maps is the territory for him . Period... But sorry Fourier maps are not the acoustic human territory ...😊 it is easy to understand the huge difference if we study.
It is an engineer in software and a seller and a gentleman ...😊
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Well, I just watched pieces of few ASR videos. Let me tell you, it was not easy for me. The engineer does not how to insert the power cable into the socket (needed "fifty times greater force", must have measured it obviously), doesn't know that ground pin is longer then blades on audio cables. Just two items from my laundry list. It was really amazing experience watching it. I have to lay down now. |
Nothing wrong with longer ground connection. Or requiring more force. The problem is having a jacket around the plug that slides forward as you push it into the socket, making it not possible for all the pins to make a connection. This caused the cable to not even be functional until I realized what was happening! It is all explained in my video:
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You say that but then post a video from the company and not my review and responses. If you watch them, you realize it is Paul who a) hasn't properly measured the product to see if it makes any difference in the output of your audio products and b) doesn't know his own product has current limiting so reduces amplifier performance. I have done no less than three videos on this:
Paul is charismatic on camera and does have good knowledge of audio. But be careful in believing everything he says. Above is a great example. |
It would be a HUGE compliment to say I am charismatic on camera!!! 😁
I am nearing 2,000 measurements of audio gear. Large number of major companies read ASR and participate in it. The level of scrutiny is off the charts. Despite all this, the number of times I have had to re-address a review can be counted on one hand. The reason is simple: I run the same set of tests on every product category. The tests have been battle tested and blow away the meager or non-existent measurements from companies. I have also been measuring audio gear for 30+ years now. I am an electrical engineer and put myself through college repairing thousands of audio gear. My professional experience has spanned all aspects of modern audio technologies such as streaming, networking, operating systems, embedded development, chip design, PCB and analog layouts, safety and regulatory issues, user interface, performance, to name just a few. This doesn't mean I know everything in the world but it does qualify me quite well to be doing what I am doing. When CEO or a company that has been removed from design for years claims that their product does X, when I measure it and it does Y, compared with my knowledge of the design and technology, then you should pay attention. Don't be dismissive and say the opposite.
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@amir_asr You can be measuring to kingdom come while we will look at your charts, shrug and go buy Pass Labs or BAT and not your beloved Topping. Because you "have been measuring" while Nelson and Viktor built tons of gear people love, buy and keep for years. For some reason I trust their engineering chops more than yours. Why is that? Why are you even here? Are you yearning for attention and confirmation of your "achievements"? Maybe you instead should star thinking why is that components with crappy parts and that are not even soldered right measure great - but sound like junk (which is what they are). BTW, in your personal gear you list Levinson and not your "top measuring" gear. Why is that? How do they say at MSFT? Eat your own dogfood? Oh and what were great achievement of "Digital Media" at Microsoft? Like... none? Refusal to support lossless perhaps? Inability to even make a decent media player? |
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Why do you trust anyone? You are buying a product, not the person. It is not like Nelson is going to come to your house with that amplifier. He has built a product that competes with thousands of others. He doesn't provide an ounce of reliable information as to why his amplifiers are better sounding. He wants you to believe that they do and you do. Countless fellow audiophiles are yours who read ASR want reliable information and measurements give that to them. They also want to learn the underlying science and engineering which again, ASR provides. In contrast, you seem to be wanting people to buy products just because of someone's reputation. Which you are welcome to do but then don't ask me to tell you who you are.
You are in a thread that is specifically about ASR and how a company attempted to shut down my evaluation of their product and that of another reviewer. Instead of commenting on that and defending the right of free press, some of you have drifted into misinformation and insults about me and work I do. So once in a while I answer when I get a notification about this thread and me being mentioned.
On your first question, I bought a great system some 15 years ago before I started measuring anything. The most important part of my system is Revel Salon 2 speakers. When John Atkinson of Stereophile was asked which speaker he likes after hundreds he had tested, he said Revel Salon 2, mentioning that "he almost cried when he had to return them." My DAC has since been upgraded from Mark Levinson to Topping. The amplifiers remain Mark Levinson. They produce 500 watts into 8 ohm and nearly twice as much into 4 ohm. I need the power to drive the rather insensitive Salon 2 and other speakers I test. Had I not own them, I would not buy them however and instead, would get a Hypex based amplifier. Finally, on Microsoft, products my team designed have shipped in billions of products and I don't just mean Windows. Whenever you watch video and your bandwidth drops and so does the fidelity of the stream, that is technology we invented in the company we sold to Microsoft to adapt stream quality to bandwidth. We were pioneers in streaming, for which, I was proud to receive the 3rd Emmy award for technologies developed in my team:
Any more off-topic comments you have that you want me to address? |
@amir_asr Off topic? Why, just checking your qualification and credentials. Did you mean destroying shareholder value along with other MSFT VPs until you finally got fired, oh, sorry "retired". Stock was only going down back then. But I am sure you were paid really well. But not engineers who actually did the work. All while Nelson was making real gear. Not "measurements". "Once it a while" according to time stamps means you jump back here as soon as someone mentions you. On Friday night LMAO.
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Amir it is time for you to exit this thread. With each post you dig your grave deeper with yet another nail placed in the coffin lid. You are not doing yourself any favors. When I briefly checked your reviews very few high end companies actually send you their product to review. A bunch of mid-fi with customers sending you, apparently, the "higher end" stuff. At least on this site, your 15 minutes (being generous) is up. Your lack of understanding is pitiful.
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Personally, I have never been bothered by Amir's conclusions. We have exchanged few notes here, but after I read that he do not 'hear' ('believe' , 'measure' or else) difference between various different cables, I understood that any other conversation is pointless. On the other hand, I have many audiophile friends, who have very different 'standards' about hi fi than me. Should we all start 'fighting' with anyone who believes or does things in a way that differs from ours? I believe not. So, instead of trying or pushing him (or anyone else of that matter) away from these pages, I guess the smart way would be to choose conversations where you can actually learn or share some information with people whose opinion you care about. The rest is just a waste of time and energy. He will not change his point of view and neither will anybody else who has a different one. Him, being pretentious a bit, should not be so annoying for anyone to loose good manners about it |
He's a YouTuber who uses this site to promote his, just as numerous others have done here before him. They all rely on controversy and drama to whip up enthusiasm and if there's not enough excitement to generate the clicks they'll invent their own conflicts. Another common YouTuber technique is to cloak oneself as a savior - a protector against a corrupt industry, snake oil, and unscrupulous dealers. Those that fail to embrace the savior are thus "afraid of the truth" or hopelessly deluded. Those patterns are really obvious.
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Mr. Amir in the introduction to one of his videos stated "we absolutely can measure the differences between cables. The question is do those measurements matter as far as the perception, and the short answer is they don't" Why then he bothers to do the measurements? Isn't the perception behind the whole idea of the sound reproduction? I think these are rhetorical questions. @alexatpos "I understood that any other conversation is pointless" exactly
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I do not agree with Amir's measurements are the end all point of view. This is because I have purchased the best gear as stated on his site and compared with other gear. However, I do find his site and tribe useful for me to figure things out. Some gear that is praised to the hilt on this site was also not preferred by me. I have learned to understand the sonic preferences of A'gon posters. That give me some context. I will hear everyone out on their audio experience since it gives me more data points to figure things out on my own. |
I dont think that it is good politic and proof of understanding to attack any character or person here instead of discussing his rational arguments...
I myself discussed for many days already here with Amir and he never attacked my character. For sure some posters on ASR as in Audiogon can gangstalk someone and many had attacked or mocked many people here or in ASR . But Amir was and is a gentleman...😊 I disagree completely with him about the order of the factors importance : hearing theory and experience must rules gear measurements not the reverse. And anyway physical speakers/room/ears acoustics measurements takes the cake over some small % differences of some cherry picked electrical tool measures applied to one piece of gear design, out of any specific system synergy and out of any specific room acoustic for no specific ears ...
Anyway only rational discussion makes us different from raging apes..😊
myself i think the same as
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mahgister
I agree with you, however, you should see what he and his henchman do to others who say anything that doesn’t jive with their cultist methods or how they sensor people who question their methods. Amir deserves everything that was said to him. |
I know how you feel... I was served the same medecine by some ASR zealots when i posted unusual experiments propositions with Quartz and Shungite.Then i quitted ASR under sarcasms and not very polite comments about these experiments propositions .. And i decided to stay here 😊 I only read time to time many excellent threads on ASR .... But i dont think Amir will go so low himself attacking people opinion, he is enough confident in himself to act civilized and rational with his own arguments .. But ganstalking fanatics exist even here ... We must pick our language carefully then... I dont think Amir is a "narcissist" because his hearing theory is superficial and subordinated to what he measured in a short set of measures presented as the main element to pick the right gear piece .. ...😊 i apologize if i reacted and gave my opinion on your post but ... My best to you sincerely ...
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My youtube channel was started way after I created ASR by user requests. Like ASR itself, it is not commercial. Has no monetization, sponsorships or ads of any sort. In that regard, I am NOT like any other audio youtuber or most youtubers. Mind you, with nearly 50K subscribers, there is good money to be had but I refuse to go there. So whether one person views my videos or a million, it doesn't make a difference to me.
A lot of my videos are educational which by definition don't fall in that category. I actually don't publish many product reviews in youtube but when I do, many are positive and without controversy. Here is a combination of both where I talk about performance of Genelec 8050B speaker and how to read and understand speaker measurements:
Videos are recorded live and uploaded with no edits. No fancy purple lighting. No clickbait titles, etc. The only reason to dislike them would be because you don't like it when reliable data, science and engineering speak. But yes, there are a number of reviews showing poor performing gear. Compare that to reviews on audio channels which they don't dislike anything they review. As long as they get free loaner gear to test and drive traffic to their channel, the product is the best they have heard, punches above its weight, has darkest background, widest and deepest soundstage, sound analog, etc. In other words, you can get an AI to write the reviews!
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Emotionless listeners have the same MO. They’re mostly civilized and rational because they have no emotion. I judge music and sound based on inner emotion. If I want civilized and rational, we’ll have plenty of that when artificial intelligence/unintelligence takes over. Why do we watch movies that have emotion? We watch them to be entertained because if actors didn’t act with emotion, they would be boring, like robots. You see, we live in this day and age where people think they need to know everything. If I’m watching a magic trick, I don’t want to know how it’s done. I want to be fooled, I want to be entertained. What is sound, what is music without emotion? Singers sing with emotion. That’s what makes them great. What the heck are people listening to these days? Amir needs a chart to tell him what sounds good? He needs it because he doesn’t know himself what sounds good. Amir hates tube amps because they measure bad, yet countless audiophiles love tubes, myself included. The guy wouldn’t pass a blind test to save his life. He needs a chart to tell him.
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I am very far myself from techno-cultism pervading the engineers crowds especially in A.I. I dont confuse not reduce wisdom and knowledge. I dont reduce knowledge to science , and i dont confuse science with technology. and I dont confuse technology with techno-cultism religion. But hearing studies are sciences also not only emotion... All my audio system is stunning at peanuts price because i learned and study acoustics basics... Acoustics measured parameters with my ears or not, matter in audio experience way more than ASR fetichism of electrical engineering what we evaluate an audio system"room and even with a piece of gear ... Thats my point of contention with Amir... Calling him names is childish ...😊 Emotion is what i felt with my stunning system each day thanks to acoustics basics... I tuned my resonators and diffusers by ears by the way because the tools needed to do it will cost more than my system price and will not do better ...😊
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I both own tube amp and have passed countless blind tests:
Neither do I. I don't care what is inside your gear. All I care, and so do many of your fellow audiophiles, is that the signal that is sent to it, comes out the other end unmolested and as such, respects the content as authored. A tube amp that has copious amount of distortion and adds coloration due to its high impedance, doesn't do that. You can still "love" said tube amp but don't go making an argument out of it. |
@amir_asr Its fascinating how blunt your words are.I would write the same even if you have substituted 'tube amp' for 'ss' one.There is no place for generalization or exclusiveness of any kind, in hi fi. There are many people here, constructors, with vast knowledge and experience who have probably forgotten more than you will ever know and never read that any of them was so pretentious and tried to pronounce his conclusions or beliefs as a final and only truth. For doing something like that, person must be at least deprived of social intelligence or have delusional impression of his own importance. Either that or you are just trolling. For your own sake, I hope its the latter |
@amir_asr distortion numbers are important, but so is linearity, and as far as I know triodes are the most linear devices without feedback. |
mahgisterI must say, you certainly raise excellent points. Really enjoyed your constructive post. Thanks again for sharing that. |
The bottom line is that the only way to know..."if the signal comes out unmolested" is to listen to it.......measurements with out listening is insanity. How can you know how transparent a component is (has no sound)....unless you do listening tests. You cannot assume your measurements mean anything unless there is actual LISTENING Tests that prove that your measurements mean ANYTHING at all. Amir does not know sound.....he just knows how to read his meter.....and assumes what the meter says somehow correlates to sound.......a false conclusion that is NOT based on empirical science......as I stated before ASR stands for Amirs Seance Reviews.....for he is predicting things from the other side (the other side of reality...generally called Make Believe)......When you make up stuff that is not proven and call it truth.....it is called lying. Should be ANSR.....Absolutely NO Science Review. We are all beautiful and worthy. However, if you make up sheet and call it truth then you really do not love yourself or anyone else. You are not living your highest potential. Truth is what you experience.....with all your senses (including intuition and natural knowing). There is nothing Natural with what Amir is doing......but is it natural for humans to digress into their ego and defend over and over what they say. There is very little chance that Amir will change his mind about anything from whatever I say or anyone else says. This is how stroing the ego is. It would rather be DEAD right than admit to being wrong. I hope he does not take this lying game to his grave......but we have eternity to get it right (there is no death). I just want to see everyone happy and living in truth.....right now. We choose every second....to either live in love or to be right. Choose wisely grasshopper. |
