I got tired of reading your post the second time through but I couldn't figure out what you were saying the first time through. Is it: speaker builders intentionally invert the phase of midrange drivers? And are you saying that Vandersteen and Thiel do this or do not do this? Wilson does or does not? Thanks for the clarification.
Is harmonic accuracy and timbre important at all?
Disclaimer: I am not Richard Hardesty in disguise. But I have reached similar ground after many years of listening and equipment swapping and upgrading and would enjoy discourse from a position that is simply not discussed enough here.
I feel a strong need to get on a soap box here, albeit friendly, and I don't mind a rigorous discussion on this topic. My hope is that, increasingly, manufacturers will take notice of this important aspect of music reproduction. I also know that it takes time, talent, money and dedication to accomplish accuracy of timbre in speaker design and that "shamanism" and "snake oil," along with major bux spent on fine cabinetry that may do little to improve the sound, exists everywhere in this industry.
I fully acknowledge that Dunlavy and Meadowlark, a least for now, are gone, and that only Vandersteen and Thiel survive amidst a sea of harmonically inaccurate, and frequently far more expensive, speakers.
Can you help me understand why anyone would want to hear timbre and harmonic content that is anything but as accurate as possible upon transducing the signal fed by the partnering amplifier? It seems to me if you skew the sonic results in any direction away from the goal of timbral accuracy, then you add, or even subtract, any number of poorly understood and potentially chaotic independent and uncontrollable variables to listening enjoyment.
I mean, why would you want to hear only some of the harmonic content of a clarinet or any other instrument that is contained on the recording? Why would you not want the speaker, which we all agree is the critical motor that conveys the musical content at the final stage of music reproduction, to provide you with as much as possible by minimizing harmonic conent loss due to phase errors, intentionally imparted by the speaker designer?
Why anyone would choose a speaker that does this intentionally, by design, and that is the key issue here, is something I simply cannot fathom, unless most simply do not understand what they're missing.
By intentional, I mean inverting the midrange or other drivers in phase in an ill-fated attempt to counter the deleterious effects that inexpensive, high-order crossovers impart upon the harmonic content of timbre. This simply removes harmonic content. None of these manufacurers has ever had the cojones to say that Jim Thiel, Richard Vandersteen or John Dunlavy were wrong about this fundamental design goal. And none of them ever tries to counter the fact that they intentionally manufacture speakers they know, by their own hand, are sonically inaccurate, while all the all the same in many cases charging unsuspecting so-called audiophiles outlandish summs of money.
Also, the use of multiple drivers assigned identical function which has clearly been shown to smear phase and creates lobing, destroying essentially the point source nature of instruments played in space that give spatial, time and phasing so important to timbre rendering.
I truly belive that as we all get better at listening and enjoying all the music there is on recordings, both digital and analog, of both good and bad recording quality, these things become ever more important. If you learn to hear them, they certainly do matter. But to be fair, this also requires spending time with speakers that, by design, demonstrably present as much harmonic phase accuracy that timbre is built upon, at the current level of the state of the art.
Why would anyone want a speaker to alter that signal coming from the amp by removing some harmonics while retaining or even augmenting others?
And just why in heck does JMLab, Wilson, Pipedreams and many others have to charge such large $um$ at the top of their product lines (cabinetry with Ferrari paint jobs?) to not even care to address nor even attempt to achieve this? So, in the end I have to conclude that extremely expensive, inaccurate timbre is preferred by some hobbyists called audiophiles? I find that simply fascinating. Perhaps the process of accurate timbre appreciation is just a matter of time...but in the end, more will find, as I did, that it does matter.
I feel a strong need to get on a soap box here, albeit friendly, and I don't mind a rigorous discussion on this topic. My hope is that, increasingly, manufacturers will take notice of this important aspect of music reproduction. I also know that it takes time, talent, money and dedication to accomplish accuracy of timbre in speaker design and that "shamanism" and "snake oil," along with major bux spent on fine cabinetry that may do little to improve the sound, exists everywhere in this industry.
I fully acknowledge that Dunlavy and Meadowlark, a least for now, are gone, and that only Vandersteen and Thiel survive amidst a sea of harmonically inaccurate, and frequently far more expensive, speakers.
Can you help me understand why anyone would want to hear timbre and harmonic content that is anything but as accurate as possible upon transducing the signal fed by the partnering amplifier? It seems to me if you skew the sonic results in any direction away from the goal of timbral accuracy, then you add, or even subtract, any number of poorly understood and potentially chaotic independent and uncontrollable variables to listening enjoyment.
I mean, why would you want to hear only some of the harmonic content of a clarinet or any other instrument that is contained on the recording? Why would you not want the speaker, which we all agree is the critical motor that conveys the musical content at the final stage of music reproduction, to provide you with as much as possible by minimizing harmonic conent loss due to phase errors, intentionally imparted by the speaker designer?
Why anyone would choose a speaker that does this intentionally, by design, and that is the key issue here, is something I simply cannot fathom, unless most simply do not understand what they're missing.
By intentional, I mean inverting the midrange or other drivers in phase in an ill-fated attempt to counter the deleterious effects that inexpensive, high-order crossovers impart upon the harmonic content of timbre. This simply removes harmonic content. None of these manufacurers has ever had the cojones to say that Jim Thiel, Richard Vandersteen or John Dunlavy were wrong about this fundamental design goal. And none of them ever tries to counter the fact that they intentionally manufacture speakers they know, by their own hand, are sonically inaccurate, while all the all the same in many cases charging unsuspecting so-called audiophiles outlandish summs of money.
Also, the use of multiple drivers assigned identical function which has clearly been shown to smear phase and creates lobing, destroying essentially the point source nature of instruments played in space that give spatial, time and phasing so important to timbre rendering.
I truly belive that as we all get better at listening and enjoying all the music there is on recordings, both digital and analog, of both good and bad recording quality, these things become ever more important. If you learn to hear them, they certainly do matter. But to be fair, this also requires spending time with speakers that, by design, demonstrably present as much harmonic phase accuracy that timbre is built upon, at the current level of the state of the art.
Why would anyone want a speaker to alter that signal coming from the amp by removing some harmonics while retaining or even augmenting others?
And just why in heck does JMLab, Wilson, Pipedreams and many others have to charge such large $um$ at the top of their product lines (cabinetry with Ferrari paint jobs?) to not even care to address nor even attempt to achieve this? So, in the end I have to conclude that extremely expensive, inaccurate timbre is preferred by some hobbyists called audiophiles? I find that simply fascinating. Perhaps the process of accurate timbre appreciation is just a matter of time...but in the end, more will find, as I did, that it does matter.
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- 59 posts total
If professional sound/recording studios use incorrect speakers to mix the albums they produce (which must be the case since they aren't using the speakers you listed, at least none of the really famous studios I know of), then what does it matter at all how correct your personal home audio speakers are? Anything you listen to was recorded in the studio to sound correct on the so called incorrect speakers. I personally agree with Plato's points. You get rid of one fault for another when you strive for total perfection in one or two areas of speaker design, and total perfection isn't possible, which is probably why these perfect speaker companies aren't cornering the market and in a lot of cases have gone stagnant. An acquaintance of mine was saying their teacher told them about an experiment someone did where they tried to make the perfectly "correct" system you are striving for. The teacher said it might have been correct, but it sounded so boring no one wanted to listen to it. I don't know if this was a real experiment or if his teacher was trying to make a point about the nature of sound, but I am interested in any one's opinion why his teacher said this or why this might be true. |
I agree with Plato that harmonic and timbral accuracy are not all there is to compelling music reproduction. I'm sure they are the most important aspects for many people, myself included, but not for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with that. My Harbeths do not share the design approaches of Vandersteen and Thiel. They image less well than those speaker lines, but in many ways seem to be more true to the sound of instruments. Which brand is more correct? |
Steve, good post. The answer to your question is simple: Most speaker designers don't know the physics behind designing a time/phase accurate speaker. It's much easier to claim that it's not audable. I suggest that anyone owning a pair of well designed time/phase coherent speakers for 6 months would never be able to go back to what most manufacturers claim as "hi end" again. I have been listening to Green Mountain Audio speakers for the last 3 years and I can now hear the crossover in every non time/phase coherent speaker I hear. Live sound direct from an instrument to our ears does not have delay that changes with frequency superimposed on its original response. It is an artifact of speaker physics. We would not tolerate such phase smear in our consoles, mixing boards, amplifiers, pre-amps or any other piece of gear. As speaker technology improves, the remaining clues that we are listening to speakers, such as distortion, horn signature and other artifacts, are reduced. Phase delay is a subtle but critical clue to our ears, and its reduction puts us closer to the real thing. All other things being equal, the speaker with the flattest phase response sounds the closest to being there live. Every time. To claim that our rooms cause problems therefore we should accept phase shifts on the order of one full cycle from our loudspeakers does nothing but fuel the fire for the designers that lack the knowledge to build a time/phase coherent product. |
Great post songwriter! "I suggest that anyone owning a pair of well designed time/phase coherent speakers for 6 months would never be able to go back to what most manufacturers claim as "hi end" again. I have been listening to Green Mountain Audio speakers for the last 3 years and I can now hear the crossover in every non time/phase coherent speaker I hear." Glad I'm not the only one that notices this. I even hear it in 1st orders that aren't time/phase coherent. Tarsando Here's an article on the subject. You may become tired of reading it also. Phase, Time and Distortion in Loudspeakers . Plato does make good points. There are certainly no perfect speakers. You pick your poison and live with it. I just hope designers don't get too far away from the time aligned and phase correct approaches. With more and more people listening to compressed crap on Ipods. It looks dismal for the guys designing speakers without the hyped treble and pronounced midbass humps.. |
- 59 posts total