What if a high end speaker measures really badly?


You know, it's true that I feel listening is more important than measurements and that it's generally difficult to really tie together measurements with pleasure.  Below 0.05% THD do I care?  No I do not.  I really don't care. The number tells me nothing about whether I'd like the amp more or not anymore.

In this one memorable review for the Alta Audio Adam speaker, I really felt shivers go up my spine when I looked at the measurements, especially at ~$20kUSD.   This looks like an absolute hot mess.  Does it sound this bad though?  I certainly don't have the $20K to test that out myself. What do you all think? 

erik_squires

Showing 1 response by bruce19

@erik_squires I don’t think we can say much of anything about that graph, and the others presented here without knowing the level of smoothing applied to the raw data. As I am sure you know anyone who has played around with Room Equalization Wizard software knows that you can make a washboard look like a pancake with adequate smoothing applied to the chart. It’s frustrating because that critical piece of information is very seldom supplied with charts such as these when published.
this has been a nice thread so far, thanks to the OP and all the contributors. It has sparked some thoughts that perhaps I will share in another thread.