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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
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.
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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
erik_squires
5,268 posts
 
Please, stop saying that " we don't here the same and we have different tastes in sound quality" If this is the case, how come we agreed on the best sounding music halls around the world? How come we agreed on the best sounding recordings from LP, Master tapes and even CD's?

I think the core statement is provable. With age, gender and individual exposure we all have measurably different hearing.

On top of that, we have very different choices in music, and listening habits and our pleasure centers are trained by our past.

Listening at low volumes vs. concert levels is a very different thing, and we are right to want to judge our speakers based on that alone, not to mention music preferences.

Oh, and then there are rooms, and amplifiers. Both of these can make a significant difference in the sound.

So, the truth is we do not here [sic] the same and we do have very different tastes in the experiences we wish to have.

Best,
E
mapman's avatar
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mapman
15,679 posts
 
When you hear it.
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