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How do you know what a good speaker is?

Frequency response for high end speakers at every price level is usually relatively flat. The differences in audible sound quality reported by audiophiles is disproportionate to the differences in frequency response between different speakers therefore frequency response cannot be a very significant factor in what we're hearing.
Distortion is usually below 0.5% so again the same reasoning applies.
I'm not convinced that polar response is quite as important as is sometimes claimed. 

If you look at the specs of most ultra high end loudspeakers,  there's no hard evidence provided by the manufacturers to justify their claims that their speaker is vastly superior.
And if there was it would need to be independently verified.

So how does the consumer know how close any given loudspeaker is to the ideal loudspeaker? How do we know how close a loudspeaker is to recreating the sound of a violin, cello, piano, human voice, or anything else? 

What makes a magico vastly different from a yg or Wilson? On the other hand if the difference between these speakers is extremely small then why is there such a discrepancy in opinions and why do we need a yg and a magico and Wilson and tidal audio and b&w etc on the market if they're all so similar?  







kenjit
sdj888
9 posts
 
+1 n80

On the sold and heavy cabinets, mine are 80kg (176lb) ea. And they are not so good looking, but provide countless hours of joy. And I understand some isolation from the (stout) stands (or floor) is critical,  currently using asorbathane of the firmer type (70 duro). 
I imagne good speakers can be found in lots of places, but great ones are a treasure, and often worth their weight - pardon the pun. 




gryphongryph
85 posts
 
When I hear the violin on a good recording of Erbarme Dich on my Graham Audio LS 5/9 as I did this morning before going to work, know I have the speakers for life, they might not have the deepest bass or the most detailed highs, but the music they make sounds so realistic and true that the shortcomings are totally forgotten, also to be able to listen for hours on end without any fatigue is such a nice pleasure, if a manufacturer gets the human voices and instruments right, then some shortcomings in bass or treble it is possible to live with, but for me get the midrange wrong! Then I can not listen long to that speaker, also getting older it is not so easy to hear the highest notes;-) so for me a rolled of treble is no disappointment.
n80
1,227 posts
 
@rbstehno Its funny how different we all are. I study car specs very closely. They actually tell you an awful lot if you are using the vehicle to its maximum potential. Not saying everyone should, but if you do then the specs are critical and you have to know how to evaluate them. 

I have high expectations for my traveling car (comfort, handling, hp/torque curve, etc. My truck has to pull 9000 pounds strongly and safely and my track car has to keep me safe and keep up with the Miatas (which can be harder than you might imagine.)

My analogy probably does not carry over to speakers, just saying that in some areas specs can be important.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
cleeds
2,065 posts
 
inna4,896 posts12-18-2018 2:59am
Wrong. This is an awkward effort to please the crowd and renounce objectivity. Really good speakers will be acknowledged as such by everyone with hearing regardless of sound preferences.
No speaker system is perfect. That means weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each is a personal, subjective opinion. There can be no universal consensus and to argue that there is, or should be, is simplistic or naive.

rbstehno
916 posts
 
N80 - We are different but probably more in common than we would think. My point was that MOST people will put down $50k to hundreds of thousands of dollars on a car and they don't know much about the true specs of the car. Sure they know that it has XXHP, XXmpg, size, and they base their decision on seat of the pants test drive or from past experience. I've owned Porsche's and even then I didn't ask the Porsche dealer for a cylinder leakage test or dyno results before buying the car. For a track car, if I had a guy build me a 1 off engine that was supposed to get 600hp, then yes, I would demand proof of that. But since we buy production line audio equipment and cars, we tend not to have to go into that deep into specs
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