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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
terry9
931 posts
 
Kenjit, I would say that correct phasing and driver coherence is just as important as FR. By driver coherence I mean that the sound is the same from both drivers at the crossover frequency. Better yet is no crossover. Some new ESL’s are like that, like new Quads.

How do you know? You'll have to listen.
agilisred
3 posts
 
As an old, very old, user of Acoustic Research speakers; esp the AR-3A, I believed in their testing of the quality of sound from a speaker. It was how near a live performance could be had. They would put a string quartet behind curtains in a outdoor setting and asked people if they could tell the difference between a live performance and a playback on their speakers. A good speaker should be neutral and add nothing to the original sound. After more than 45 years and thousands upon thousands of dollars spent.....I have not reached the mountain top. Close and yet still wishing.
rbstehno
916 posts
 
By listening with your ears! Measurements (most of them) are worthless. I need to know how efficient the speaker is so I know if I’m going to need a different amp or if my existing setup will work. If I like a pair of speakers that are 65db efficient, I will need a larger more powerful amp.

As for most measurements in audio, when have you seen measurements for the new car you are buying? You might want to know mpg and if it will tow a trailer. The manufacturer might state the car has 300hp, but does the new owner really know if the engine measures 250 hp or 310hp? We don’t, and we don’t care. On the test drive, if the car responds to my right and left feet and my 2 arms on the steering wheel, I’m good to go. I don’t need to know if the hp is lower than specified, or cylinder leakage is out of range or what the vacuum pressure is?
why would we care if distortion of 1 amp is .006% and the other amp has . 00.005% distortion. Like we can hear that.
tannoy56's avatar
tannoy56
4 posts
 
Dear Audiophiles, 
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? 
bigkidz
1,784 posts
 
Lots of stuff here.  From some of the comments I read above my post my two cents is that the speaker only passes the information that is sent to it.  For example what "you" may think is the best speaker might not sound as good in every system as stated above.  But to me a speaker will sound good if you components can deliver the goods first.  So how do you know what a good speaker is, I knows it when I hears it!


Happy Listening. 
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