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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
orpheus10
5,988 posts
 

I can't count how many speakers I've heard that sounded good, but you were hearing the sound of the speaker and not the sound of the music.

I decided I wanted to hear the music and not the speaker; that's why mine are custom made (absolutely not recommended). A speaker design engineer assisted; he designed the crossover, and I chose the drivers. The cabinet was the hardest part, which is why I would never do it again.

Imagine crystal clear electronics, and you got my speakers; by not having a sound of their own, it makes them different from any speaker I have ever heard; they only reveal the sound of the music.

The bottom line is; do you want to hear the music or the speaker?


The speaker you choose is the best speaker for you.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 

Distortion is below 0.5%? In what universe?! On some speakers at some frequencies at some SPL, but nothing more. All speakers produce huge amounts of distortion at even 40Hz (10% is common), let alone 30 or 20. And while above bass and midbass frequencies the percentage is less, it is nowhere near as low as 0.5 at realistic SPL.

You don’t need specs or verification of them to hear the serious colorations in loudspeakers. Buy or borrow a recorder of some sort, a microphone or two, and make recordings of family or friends speaking. Play the recordings on your speakers to hear how much they change the sound of even voices! Do the same with an acoustic guitar, drumset, or piano. The most interesting thing you will learn is how much better (more lifelike) a homemade recording can sound in comparison with a commercial one (LP, CD, etc.).

n80
1,227 posts
 
I don't see how measuring a speaker against what a live guitar or live piano sounds like is practical. Even in a live situation a mic'd acoustic guitar will sound different from an un-mic'd guitar. If we're hearing it on a speaker then that sound has been recorded by someone. And all the manipulation that involves.  A recording is not the real thing. So it seems to me the gold standard would have to be that what you are hearing is being heard the way the engineer/producer intended you to hear it.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 

@n80, did you ever read how Doug Sax (the legendary mastering engineer, producer of the Sheffield Labs LPs) evaluated both equipment and his recordings? Going into the studio, listening to the live sound, then going back into the monitor room and comparing the sound coming out of his (horn) loudspeakers to the live sound, making adjustments as needed to minimize the difference between the two. For equipment evaluation, he would do a by-pass test.

Who knows how "the engineer/producer intended you to hear it"? They’ll be the first to tell you what he heard in the studio and what he captured on tape are miles apart. Having spent a fair amount of time in studios, I guarantee you most commercial recordings are NOT made to sound "accurate", but rather "good". To evaluate, say, loudspeakers using a recording you have no way of knowing the actual sound of is one of the major paradoxes facing the consumer.

kalali's avatar
kalali
1,645 posts
 
Folks who like live modern rock music should take an SPL meter next time you go to a concert in a smaller venue and see how loud it gets. To recreate a similar experience on home audio equipment will require a system that can handle unrealistic SPL levels without either blowing speaker drivers - mostly due to inadequate power, or sound extremely compressed. Other genres are different with exception of certain western classical content and some instruments within that content and during short transients. So the notion of comparing live music with home recreation of that same musical experience is not always a good baseline for evaluation.
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