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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.
stevecham
piezo
302 posts
 
when Plato stated

"Also, once you put any loudspeaker into a room and connect it to a bunch of random components, it could be the most accurate speaker in the world, but it sure won't measure or sound that way. I think that is when some of the other performance parameters become important"

i think he hit a vital point but i would interpret it a bit differently. With all the random variables in a system, room (probably the limiting factor in almost everyones set up admit it or not)and recording environment/process i would want my speakers to be as accurate as possible so as not to add coloration at the most important point in the signal chain. If your speakers are right you can begin to address the other issues such as room to get the whole thing right. Having inaccurate speakers, especially those whcih may have been designed in part by ear in the design environment, just adds one more thing to work around. Even as the rest of the system and room comes up to snuff that problem will remain.
warrenh's avatar
warrenh
2,286 posts
 
Since we're talking about hamonic accuracy how come there are (not a one) no takers on my question? What speakers have you listened to that are harmonically accurate? Particulary the man himself: Richard Hardesty.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
Alot of this is over my head but since I've had my Decware 1.5s, ALL other traditional speakers (as suggested in the opening and 2nd by songwriter) just sound wrong (plain awful?), no matter how they've done the crossovers. My Decwares aren't perfect: far from it. What they do get right is the sound, timber, call it what you will. With no crossovers, save for a capcitor on the tweeter, the sound seems so pure and unadulterated and whole. It may be off in some aspect; not have enough bass; etc. but it's VERY convincing. Making up for a poorly designed network by lavishing attention to cabinetry is just another way to market your product and seems rampant in this industry. By the way, 'The Audio Critic' used to point this out all the time and wasn't afraid to name names. I'm not saying he was right all the time (he wasn't) but he stood on his soapbox, as we all should, especially when it comes to such a great hobby and cost is such an issue.
gmood1
1,251 posts
 
The only speakers I've heard so far and spent any real time with that are close to harmonically accurate for me have been GMA Europas and my speakers the Brines Acoustic FTA-2000s. Some of the Thiel models do this well also. The Vandies have one of the flattest FRs I've seen. I thought the Meadowlarks also did Harmonics and Timbre well. They all may sound boring when playing mass market compressed crap however.

All are different designs but share similar traits. Well damped bass with no midbass humps, minimal phase shift, and no exaggrated treble. Also their FR responses are all extremely flat with minimal variations through the frequency range. I'm sure there are others I just haven't heard them .

I'm talking unamplified acoustic music without the hyping in the frequency extremes.
audiokinesis
1,872 posts
 
Recreating an exact acoustic analog of the original performance is a very noble-sounding goal, but is not possible at the current state of the art for most performances.

A much more practical goal would be this: To recreate the same PERCEPTION as would be experienced by a listener at the original performance. To do this requires the application of acoustic and psychoacoustic principles, some of which are well established, some relatively new discoveries, and perhaps some as yet undiscovered. Yet creating a perceptual replica is much more feasible than creating an actual acoustic replica.

I would say that tonal balance is the most important issue in recreating the perceptual replica, noting that the on-axis anechoic frequency response curve does not reliably predict perceived tonal balance. Tonal balance is of primary importance to timbral accuracy. I am not saying it's the only thing that matters, but it is I believe among the top few.

I have lived for years with time-and-phase correct loudspeakers, but based on my listening experiences would not claim that time-and-phase correctness is of primary importance in recreating the perception of a live performance. My understanding is that the current state-of-the-art in hearing mechanism theory discounts the audibility of phase above roughly 1000 Hz.
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