John Atkinson's thoughts on the New Vandersteen System Nine from LA Show

I won't get into the politics of it all as it's not always pretty (but can be depending on who you may deal with), but I've said for years that designers are voicing their speakers in a way I described above.  Vandersteen and Avalon before him, never do that/did that. Real world listening and anechoic chamber listening are also totally different as you know Erik.  

There needs to be a balance to get things right in an every day environment, but the problem to ME, is that we have these references forced down out throats by the pubs/bloggers and so many don't go to enough live performance's or they just listen to others and not their ears. 

Thanks for sharing likes to support what you are sharing.  Makes it much easier to understand.  I'm much more in your camp IRT the manipulated curves.  That's just the way audio is and always has been.  Folks are told what to believe and most don't fully trust their own ears and so many rarely, if ever go to live events. Even at live events, it may be at a venue with crappy sound (so many are).  

You get used to what you own and that's what counts.  Folks always say how happy they are, but Audiogon proves that most aren't.  I look back at my last 5 years in audio and asked myself if I'm being a hypocrite by saying that as I've changed every component in my own system during that time frame.  

Went from a new system of Vandersteen Treo's (now own Vandersteen Quatro's), Music Hall DAC/headphone amp (then to the Empirical Audio ODSE/SE and now the Ayre QX5/20), Ayre AX7e integrated (then the Ayre AX5 and then upgraded to the 20 version).  Music server is the fully rebuilt (by Steve Nugent) Mac Mini with Paul Hynes LPS.  Bought a Basis 1400 TT (just sold it to a friend) and an Aesthetix Rhea Phono pre stage completely rebuilt and updated by Jim White's team (about to put it up for sale).  

I need to get out of Vinyl due to health reasons (can't get up and change albums ever 20 minutes), but I've stayed with the same company for my changes and all were major upgrades that I expected to do when I got my new system 5 years ago.

I don't feel the need to tune with new cables or anything else.  I did go from a Synergistic Research Powercell 10 mk 2 Tesla power conditioner to the new Audioquest Niagara (yes, putting the SR power cell up for sale too, lmao).  I have had all balanced AQ cables and when I did the A/B testing, felt the Niagara was better for my system in my room.

In my ears I trust, lol. Interesting where the thread is going.  

@erik_squires From what I can tell a lot of (if not most) reviewers (including JA) have significant hearing loss in the high frequencies.  Given this, it makes it really difficult to discern much from most speaker reviews.   That's besides the ridiculous fawning for the big speaker advertisers in most magazines.  Somehow every speaker from these advertisers sets a new standard in something or other.  Can't say I blame the magazines since these guys pay the bills, but it guts the credibility of any review regarding those manufacturers.

JV is known for this in Absolute Sound. Every review the product brings out things he's never heard before. I could vomit.

erik,

Your "stereophile curve" is an intriguing hypothesis...but I just don't see nearly enough data supporting it.  And I very often see JA lauding a speaker when it measures very flat, so there's much counter evidence IMO.

BTW,

The discussion as to "what sounds natural" vs "artificial, over-hyped" is one that interests me.  You always see audiophiles - and reviewers - talking about some approach to speaker making being more honorable, and for those who really appreciate "natural sound" vs "hi fi."

And yet you see audiophiles making that same claim, yet preferring speakers that are all over the map.  One audiophile's "more natural/realistic" sounding speaker is another audiophile's "artificial" sounding speaker.  The problem, it seems to me, is that we are currently stuck in the classic "blind men and the elephant" problem.  Currently no audio system can produce thoroughly realistic sound (and add to that the limitations/colorations in the recording chain).  And so the perception of what sounds "natural" or "real" tends to fall to whatever an individual focuses upon most as missing from, or included in, a presentation.
One person may insist on greater dynamics as being the barometer of a more natural system; another on smooth instrumental timbre, another on detail, another on fullness of tone, another on incisiveness, another on a relaxed presentation, etc.  I can't tell you how many systems I've sat in front of were the owner waxed about how he preferred the less hyped natural sound from his components...that left me completely feeling the opposite.  And so it goes...

I myself have favored using tube amps for many years - in particular designs that add a bit of classic tube richness - because one of the things that immediately strikes me as different between live and reproduced acoustic sounds is the relaxed and rich nature of live sound.
Tubes, for me, tend to help add just that quality - even if it's an artificial add on, the result to my ears is more consonant with live sound.

But that's simply what MY mind has tended to focus on.  If you focus your mind on other aspects of live sound, you'll find them missing in many audio systems and want to emphasize that aspect (dynamics, clarity, pitch control, whatever).

One of the biggest boogey-man, as we've seen mentioned here, is the appeal to a rising treble, or treble peak, as being unnatural.  However, in a sense I can see this as just one of the blind men speaking his opinion, while appealing to the part of sonic reproduction he finds natural.
I myself generally go for a coherent sound, so that high frequencies don't stick out and sit "in" to the rest of the spectrum in an unobtrusive manner.  Yet I've heard many speakers that do just this...and yet sound "unrealistic" in another aspect: they lack the jump, surprisingness, "thereness" in many instruments.

I recently listened to a pair of speakers that were designed, in the end, to the ear of the designers who appreciate the vividness of live instruments.  The speakers had a more prominent treble region, and something of a leanness overall.  BUT....damn did they sound more "real" in many instances than even my far more expensive and neutral-measuring Thiels speakers.  Percussion, drum snares, bongos, bells, triangles, etc had a they-are-there pierce the air quality that you can get from those instruments in real life.  Many neutral sounding speakers can render a recording with a holistic fabric, but high frequency sounds don't "pop out" of the mix the way high frequency or percussive instruments can in real life.   There WAS something more life-like about aspects of the sound, vs many more neutral speakers, and if that's what one focuses on, those speakers could be the "more natural sounding" type of speaker.  That is one reason why a hyped treble has often been created in the first place - it can create a sensation that some find mimics a more "realistically clear and present" sound.