There is no evidence that Johnsons account is actually true. Has that occurred to you? Do you realize how biased you are by simply taking his word for it while rejecting mine?
I almost feel sorry for you, as you flail around desperately, attempting to defend your repeated, dishonest claims.
No evidence? Roy had emails and correspondences with you, AMEX and Paypal. There is ZERO chance that he was making those claims up, and, in fact, you did not dispute them. Anyone reading that thread, and Roy's compelling recapitulation of your disgraceful behavior, would believe his account. He also had your subsequent, unfounded attacks on the forum deleted, which further underscores your pathetic bias.
I'm not going to waste readers' time further by addressing your wildly hyperbolic claims about GMA speakers, as they absolutely REEK of bias, which is plain for everyone to see.
Incredible what human hearing perception is, some of the speakers in this thread are loved by so many and hated by others. This basically proves the other factors at play, source, room, amplification and such could potentially be more important than the actual speaker. For my next speaker I’m going to buy a house and build a listening room then I will care about the other factors, maybe next life.
OP interesting thread but don’t know about its relevance.
Here is my take.
I demoed Golden Ear Tritons at a dealer, listening to Tommy, very disappointing, sterile.
The Paradigms Persona some of you don’t like (which I do respect) I listened to RMAF 2018 and IMO these were easily top 6 at that show, I know shows are not a good place to actually expect much for a speaker. The Klipsch Palladiums I still own them on secondary system and I love their sound. I’m not fond of the ML sound, never like them although the looks are incredible.
Harbeth listened to them where was it? RMAF 18 I think, Vinnie Rossi was there with his LIO I expected more from the Harbeth, left unimpressed
Axpona 19 Vinnie had his Stilettos, I think the sound was better than with Harbeths the previous year.
The best sounding speaker (to me) at RMAF 18 I purchased, AudioKinesis Azels, loved the sound and still do.
Of course it is all subjective, I don’t have golden ears, I’m in some digital forums and I follow and do changes on my system like Ethernet cables and such and can’t hear a difference, many others ramble about how different their systems sound.
Everything is subjective
My 2c
Edit: Before I forget +1 Hilde45, the Moabs so disappointing😉Joking aside I heard the Impacts at RMAF 18 and I did liked the sound, they were orange I think or red, not my fav looks and my wife hated the looks and pulled me away immediately, I know, who in his right mind goes with the wife to an audio show?
No evidence? Roy had emails and correspondences with you, AMEX and Paypal. There is ZERO chance that he was making those claims up, and, in fact, you did not dispute them.
I do dispute it. Do you have the emails from AMEX? lets see them? show them to me. Even if i was refunded it would only prove that my complaint against GMA was upheld by paypal. So you are WRONG again.
Nobody cares about that and this thread is a discussion about the sound quality of speakers so you are off topic anyway. There is no more green mountain audio and there is no more Roy Johnson. Face the facts and stick to the topic.
Anyone reading that thread, and Roy's compelling recapitulation of your disgraceful behavior, would believe his account.
And thats the problem. They shouldnt believe it unless there is evidence for it. Do you have evidence? No you dont, So should we listen to you? No we should not.
He also had your subsequent, unfounded attacks on the forum deleted, which further underscores your pathetic bias.
Nonsense. It simply proves that the forum is biased in his favor and does not tolerate criticism. It should be shocking to any reasonable person that somebody could have posts on here deleted at his request just because he didnt like them.
You are either angry with me because I have criticized the sound quality of GMA and you regret buying them or you genuinely cant hear how bad they sound and you are genuinely trying to defend against my remarks. It truly is hilarious one way or the other.
Anybody remember Speaker Lab? They made DIY speaker kits. Their top-of-the-line model was called the Model K. It was a giant corner horn speaker modeled after the Klipshorn. A buddy of mine had four of them, one in each corner of his 10x12 bedroom and driven by a Phase Linear 400 watt amp. I don’t know if they were fatiguing or not. I couldn’t stand to stay in there long enough to find out. If the room is rockin’, don’t bother knockin’.
Klipsch speakers all were too forward in the upper mids for my taste. the Speakerlab knock-off big horns sounded [aside from the bass] the way i wished the Klipsch Horns themselves sounded [mellower]. also the "little" Vandersteen 1Ci which sounded totally mellow in the dealer’s humongous listening room [bigger than some little houses] but terrible [honky due to their crossover, i was told] in my tiny 14’ listening space. those pups need lots of space to sound as they were designed to sound. the tiny Thiel cs.5s that replaced ’em sound fantastic in the same small space. the Bose Lifestyle system also needs a big space to sound proper, in little rooms their sound is on the hard metallic side with boomy superficial bass. in the dealer’s humongous listening room [notice a trend?] their sound opened up, mellowed out and the bass bloomed and straightened out.
Anybody remember Speaker Lab? They made DIY speaker kits. Their top-of-the-line model was called the Model K. It was a giant corner horn speaker modeled after the Klipshorn. A buddy of mine had four of them, one in each corner of his 10x12 bedroom and driven by a Phase Linear 400 watt amp. I don’t know if they were fatiguing or not. I couldn’t stand to stay in there long enough to find out. If the room is rockin’, don’t bother knockin’.
Speakerlab used to be here in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle. Back then Speakerlab, Hawthorne, Magnolia and Definitive were all on the same street well within a hundred yards of each other. From DIY and quality budget to mid- and high-end we had it all within easy walking distance. Those were the days!
The crazy part was that on any given trip it was a toss-up who would have the best most engaging system. Speakerlab was generally the biggest bang for the buck, but not always, especially not if you like to listen deep into the recording. But they were good, and loud, and had some cool ideas like mounting a sub in a floor or wall, turning the whole room into a speaker baffle and generating some pretty darn deep powerful bass in the process!
Their space is still there with the same blue awning, just no more Speakerlab. Magnolia too is gone. Only Hawthorne, with it's eclectic mix of new and used turntables and systems geared to millennials listening to small systems in dual use rooms and apartments. Definitive is a ghost operation, specializing in Microserf and Goolag millionaires who would rather pay a so-called advisor expert than have to actually learn a thing or two about anything, let alone learn to (shudder!) listen.
A very sad situation. Years ago before Stewart Marcantoni retired he seemed to specialize in replacing complete six figure systems these guys had bought only to learn the hard way that Levinson and Wilson are unlistenable. Stewart told me at one point he sold 6 complete six figure systems to customers who replaced entirely everything they had bought from Definitive. In one month.
Don't know what happened to Speakerlab. Or Magnolia either, for that matter. On any given trip you were more likely to find good speakers at either of those than at Definitive. Another one to throw on the pile of things I will probably never understand.
-Klipsch RF-7 III, owned, shrill and bright. -Zu Dirty Weekend, owned, sounded good 50% of the time, the other 50 was a whole mix of peaks and valleys and strangeness that I could never put a finger on. I really wanted to dig them but just couldn’t.
Weird thing is I have a set of WATT Puppies that I don’t find bright at all. Maybe a smidge but never harsh.
In the 1970's, Altec Segovias. They were so bright that they had ten decibel attenuators for the tweeter. They were still bright with the attenuators turned up to ten. I went into a stereo shop in Brooklyn to buy a pair of AR 3A's. The dealer pulled a bait and switch on me - claiming the AR's were out of stock. I had borrowed a friend's car and didn't want to impose on him again, so I ended up with the Altecs. My next speakers were B&W 802's. They were so heavy that the UPS guy refused to bring them up to my condo unit. He literally left them in the parking lot. But they were excellent speakers ... until I discovered Magnepans.
Everything Klipsch is like a brain drill to me, B&W and Wilson are only somewhat painful, oh, and GMA is an aural dumpster fire. I’m an inaccurate AF Sonus Faber / McIntosh listener so I’m probably more sensitive to brightness than most as my ears have put their feet up over the years.
“There is. Unfortunately very hard to find. Fast as they build em, fanboys snap em up.”
So now we have a good short list of dud’s. I”What are those speakers where everything just seems to fall into place? I am itching to replace my 20 year old Avantgarde’s but everything so far just seems to disappoint. Many speakers have real strengths but equally have some glaring weaknesses. Nothing I have found (under $30k new) seem to do everything well.
From the scurrilous stories we read about the business behaviour of Roy Johnson and Kenjit it would appear dealings with both were/are stringently to be avoided.
The GR Research 2 way with the ribbon tweeter. Forget the name. Was so poorly integrated you can immediately tell which driver is which and obvious you close your eyes and can just about draw in the air where the boxes are.
I ASK AGAIN: PLEASE NO MORE ARGUING OVER A SPEAKER BRAND THAT DOESN’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE! FFS!
@greg7
With the exception of my very first post, I haven’t really been arguing over a speaker brand, but rather pointing out the bias and dishonesty displayed by a very active member of this community. You may not care to read about that, either, but they are two very different things, and the exposure may have value in helping some members to view kenjit’s comments on other topics with a circumspect eye.
I think most of the Focals could easily end up high in this ranking. I used to have the Mezzo Utopia and although paired with Naim it was quite fatiguing.
@whipsaw - I bought the Europe’s after reading all of the rave reviews. All I can say is every other speaker I placed in that room didn’t sound harsh and fatiguing as the Europe’s did. I guess I needed to power them with a Rowland amp, not Conrad-Johnson. I heard what I heard, and have no reason to make it up. Not sure why you think my claim dubious.
"And yet if every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? Imagine this race transported to a Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without any delay and keep one another without any difficulty: in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is."
There are no absolutes. Everything posted so far is purely anecdotal.
I just recently listened to a speaker that sounded harsh and fatiguing on one particular amp and then simply glorious and unparalleled on another amp. Not to even mention the myriad of other components that play a role. It is not necessarily the speaker, it is rather how they matched up with certain components.
I have owned a pair of Klipsch RP-5000 and I have auditioned the Forte IIIs. I found them both to be hard to listen to for long periods of time. The La Scalas I auditioned had a nice airy sound to them, but the sound stage and imaging were lacking. Many people say that Focals are bright. I have not found this to be true. I can listen to my Aria 936s all day and they never annoy. I power them with a Hegel H390 and use a Audiolab 6000CDT transport played through the Hegel DAC. Speakers I have owned: Infinity Kappa 7 Klipsch RP-5000 KLH Kendall Focal Aria 936
Focal Aria. Lacquer finish had orange peel to it. Detail in speakers were great, but the range of the speaker didn't seem to come together. A lack of unity between frequency.
I recently home auditioned the highly lauded KEF LS50 Meta with McIntosh solid state and hybrid amplification. They were listenable but didn’t wow me. They lacked high-end presence and the sound was just kinda boring. Perhaps because I’m used to them, but I much preferred my old DefTech SM-450s in my smallish room.
I heard what I heard, and have no reason to make it up. Not sure why you think my claim dubious.
I didn't suggest that you made up the claim. I simply found it odd, given both my experience, and the relative lack of similar opinions from other owners whose feedback I have read.
How can someone can passed a judgement on any speakers in an uncontrolled and untreated room?
This the the proof almost no one lived through an acoustic room transformation...
A too warmish, too low centered speakers cannot be elevated to the "lark ascending highs" for sure; in this case if they are perhaps not bad but really are not so good speakers....
But a too harsh, too cold and too detailed speakers with fatiguing highs is most of the times the results of an undercontrolled or undertreated room...I already detected many times horrible unnnatural harsh sound coming from the costlier speakers it seems...No way that was the room unbeknownst to the listener boasting about them....
It is easy to put a fatiguing speaker on the other end of the spectrum if it is not a design defect....Most very costly speakers are not defect design....For sure little box speakers with no bass are fatiguing without redemption... But Focal speakers need a room for example we cannot fault the design....
Then most really should put their critic with more caution....
"Taste" is the audio word signifying most of the times i dont know what i speak about...
A natural timbre instrumental sound coming from some speakers are always what musicians and true audiophiles wanted and it has nothing to do with "taste".... It is always a relatively "objective-subjective" experience with the musicians in an orchestra and more of a consensus among them and an habit than a particular "taste"....It is a "learned" experience all along their musical life.... Not a taste....
I didn't suggest that you made up the claim. I simply found it odd, given both my experience, and the relative lack of similar opinions from other owners whose feedback I have read.
How is it odd that some people dont like the sound of a speaker? It happens with every speaker. And given that Johnson had a proclivity to have inconvenient posts deleted at his request, is it any surprise that we didnt see many negative feedback on his speakers?
@glupson"
Virtually all Bowers & Wilkins (except one older model)."
I had the very same experience, somewhere in the late 80s I listened to B&W model?, I think 800, anyway the biggest they made with all McIntosh tube gear and they sounded great. Now I can't listen to them at all. Their room at RMAF 2019 was atrocious. Oh well.
But that's not the worst.......
Plasmatronics, with the ozone tweeter. A point source radiating 360. No upper limit on the tweeter because it in effect has zero mass. OMG talking about ear splitting...window shattering. And the salesman was gushing over the accuracy!
@hilde45 I totally agree with you, it is human nature. And I’m certainly not disputing the validity of your post/reference.
We live comfortably as long as our human nature sensibilities agree. Unfortunately, when our human natures differ, in extreme cases we slaughter one another. (And everything in between.)
Fortunately, most of us can sort ourselves out to some degree and keep our darkest nature at bay. Even small things like respecting each other on an audio discussion board is a step closer.
My point is it’s not cool to develop a habit of abusing others. It hurts feelings and is unsettling, especially to tender hearted people. I think those who do it online, do it offline, they just have to choose victims more carefully.
How is it odd that some people dont like the sound of a speaker? It happens with every speaker.
It's not odd at all, but you have predictably produced yet another dishonest straw man. I responded to a specific objection to the speaker, not a broad one.
Why don't you do readers a favor now, and stop polluting this thread with your biased, and frequently dishonest posts.
I responded to a specific objection to the speaker, not a broad one.
What was the objection? Bright and harsh? In which case I will ask you again. Why is it odd that some people think a speaker, in this case the GMA, sounds bright and harsh whereas others dont? Could it not be equally odd that you fail to hear the brightness and harshness that others have reported? Could it be that you have hearing loss? Could it be that you are refusing to admit the truth? Could it be that you have bad hearing? There are clearly many possibilities that would need to be looked at.
Why don't you do readers a favor now, and stop polluting this thread with your biased, and frequently dishonest posts.
Why would my opinions be biased? for what purpose? If they sounded world class, why would i lie and say they sounded horrible? I'm afraid your argument makes no sense. You are the one that is biased because you believed everything Johnson said despite there being no evidence. You have been duped I'm afraid. You refuse to condemn the fact that Johnson had a proclivity to having posts that were inconvenient deleted. You have nothing to say about the reasons I mentioned that the GMA sounded bright and harsh. Face it. You are in denial.
If I had a nickel for every time you were dishonest in your posts, I’d be able to purchase some very fancy cables.
Of the many archived posts relating to the subject speaker, the "bright and harsh" complaint is almost never found, and the vast majority of reactions are quite positive. It’s that simple. The specific criticism is very uncommon, hence the logical question of whether or not the problem may have been related to something other than the speakers themselves.
But wait … let me guess. Your next painful (for all readers) contortion will be to argue that all of those who liked the speakers may have been suffering from hearing loss, and were therefore unable to discern the brightness and harshness.
"Humans mean-mouthing humans over stereos, really? It’s a stereo. You’d insult and fight with someone over a stereo?"
Maybe not me and you, but for some dealers, manufacturers and designers, their very livelihood may depend upon the success of their products.
Perhaps it’s might be more helpful to the designers if we could be more specific about any perceived problems we encounter in our experience with various loudspeakers?
It can’t be easy of course.
I heard some very highly regarded 2 way floorstanders a few years back and was very close to buying them there and then.
What stopped me was the way they reproduced John Lennon’s vocals on Across the Universe. They were simply plain wrong. I’d never heard Lennon’s voice sound like that in the mid/lower register before.
It seemed to be an issue with the way the tweeter was crossing over to the woofer and switching to a tube amp didn’t make the issue go away.
The tweeter happened to be the Seas Excel, a renowned and not inexpensive design.
So I could only assume that the designer, perhaps in his wish for optimal dispersion had crossed it over at just a little too low a point for its comfort.
It was a shame as that design was otherwise a highly revealing one and unusually clean through rest of its operating range.
What stopped me was the way they reproduced John Lennon’s vocals on Across the Universe. They were simply plain wrong. I’d never heard Lennon’s voice sound like that in the mid/lower register before.
Very interesting, and reminds me of this interesting quote from Alan Shaw, designer of Harbeth speakers:
The core issue is this. Forget music entirely. Imagine that it never existed, had never been invented. Play well recorded human speech on those so-called high end speakers and the vast majority - practically all of them - have colorations, peculiarities, weird subjective characteristics that are in many cases simply laughable.
So then, why will you never find a hifi reviewer who even attempts to grade loudspeakers by listening to human speech over them? Absurd and pathetic, considering that we are surrounded by speech - not music - all day and every day, and unsurprisingly, our ear/brain is finely tuned to interpreting extremely subtle nuances in speech, even on a telephone line. If we were to be talking now on the restricted bandwidth of a phone line, we could understand each other’s emotions, guess at our age and education, probably income, detect if we are being truthful or concealing something, decide if we are friendly or trying to deceive us or sell us something and so on just by microscopic nuanced changes in loudness, pitch, strain and delivery. Human speech is the ultimate loudspeaker test tool because of the way it can impose its own nature on the underlying subtleties of reproduced speech, changing the listener’s interpretation a little or a lot.
Very interesting, and reminds me of this interesting quote from Alan Shaw, designer of Harbeth speakers:
The core issue is this. Forget music entirely. Imagine that it never existed, had never been invented. Play well recorded human speech on those so-called high end speakers and the vast majority - practically all of them - have colorations, peculiarities, weird subjective characteristics that are in many cases simply laughable.
So then, why will you never find a hifi reviewer who even attempts to grade loudspeakers by listening to human speech over them? Absurd and pathetic, considering that we are surrounded by speech - not music - all day and every day, and unsurprisingly, our ear/brain is finely tuned to interpreting extremely subtle nuances in speech, even on a telephone line. If we were to be talking now on the restricted bandwidth of a phone line, we could understand each other’s emotions, guess at our age and education, probably income, detect if we are being truthful or concealing something, decide if we are friendly or trying to deceive us or sell us something and so on just by microscopic nuanced changes in loudness, pitch, strain and delivery. Human speech is the ultimate loudspeaker test tool because of the way it can impose its own nature on the underlying subtleties of reproduced speech, changing the listener’s interpretation a little or a lot.
Thanks very interesting post.... the most important post of this thread indeed....
Human ears are DESIGNED to identify immediately the human voice TIMBRE in all acoustical settings.... Music was created around this fact....This is history, history of science, history of music, history of acoustic.....
A good speakers must always be able to give the natural human voice timbre first and last period.... Recognition of human timbre is one of the most important social and biological fact for survival and bonding....Music was created and centered around this fact.... This is very fundamental for acoustic, Alan Shaw is very right....
I am glad to know that because even if my actual speakers satisfied me, i sensed that the Harbeth could do more... I think i was right.... 😊 A designer who know that natural voice timbre phenomenon to be fundamental know the essential for me ....
Ultimate test for speakers are NOT some numbers measures but human voice test....Contradicting this fact will always reveal ignorance about what is music for humans....Music is not any sound, it is a voice/ timbre/ centered event.....
I almost purchase a pair of Martin Login Motion 60's. Fortunately, I went back to the retailer and listened to them for two hours. Glad I did because I found their ribbon tweeters to be to bright. Ear fatigue is a reality and it is really important to listen to a speaker for a couple of hours to make sure you will enjoy them for years.
@prof I am surprised by the Spendor D7. I have auditioned it with some really good front end electronics. They were not fatiguing at all. I would say, I auditioned them for a max of 20 mins continuous listening. But I do keep hearing that they do not sound like vintage Spendor sound. Don't know what that means though.
I found to my utter surprise that the D7 sounded somewhat wiry, hard and forward in the high frequencies and I had to keep turning it down.Confused by this I looked up other user reports and found a number of other people felt the same, which was interesting.
Not long after I was in another audio store and sat down in front of a pair of speakers playing, not taking notice of the brand. I noticed a similar quality that I found off-putting. When I looked at the speakers closely it turned out they were Spendor A7 floor standing speakers.
I guess I just don’t get along with the New Spendor Sound of their modern floor standers.
(Which isn’t to say I’m only about cozey, comfy rolled off sound. I use Thiels and Joseph speakers at home as well as Spendors, which are very extended in the high frequencies, but they don’t cause my ears to shut down like the Spendors did).
@mahgister I have an answer to your question: deficient set up. Certainly I have heard bright speakers that I felt I could never own and enjoy, but there have been many mentioned in this thread that don't fit that camp, and I can only imagine that the weren't "cared and fed" well.
I have run speakers for the last 6 years that ride that razor's edge, and what I appreciate about them is that they reveal everything - - in the gear, in the cabling, in the mastering of the recordings, but, most importantly, in the music making. When things aren't lined up well in my system, the result can be too much "sound" focused and not enough "music" focused. But put in the sweat to tune the system, and I believe the reward is greater, more immersive in the emotion of the music and the thrill of the music making. Every speaker has its "needs" to attend to, and if you don't address them (with respect to your room, other system elements, and taste), you don't realize their potential.
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