Speaker measurements differences


I noticed that one the same speakers’ measurements differ depending who does the measurements.
Here is an example, first link is Stereophile review of Sophia, note the significant peak in 50-60Hz range followed by another one at 200Hz.
Second one is from SoundStage, no trace of this peak.
MF and HF range look almost identical, same spacing of peaks and dips.
http://stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/619/index6.html
http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/measurements/wilson_sophia/
Who do you trust?
sashav

Showing 1 response by shadorne

These are different speakers. The port tuning looks different to me - you can see this in the impedance/phase plot.

Wilson makes a variety of different sounding speakers and this shows that that the same model may vary even from one year to the next. I don't think it undermines stereophile or soundstage - they just published what they measured - if anything it raises a question about consistency of design philosphy at Wilson. They make many absolutely exceptional speakers but like B&W I think they feel compelled to make changes constantly from year to year...this is probably more marketing related than anything else but it inevitably leads to this kind of result when testing - inconsistent response.

As some have pointed out - your room will probably make a bigger difference on the overall result. Nevertheless, I think this is the likely outcome of a marketing policy that seeks to roll out new models continuously. Cars have the same problems as they are tweaked from year to year...