Speaker Auditions & Confidence

[RBFC]

A recent discussion elsewhere here:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?7860-Evolution-Acoustics-MMMicroOne-loudspeakers

prompted me to consider the process of auditioning speakers. Of special importance is the degree of confidence that we have an accurate, somewhat objective impression of that speaker's performance.

One comment in the above discussion referred to an individual who heard a highly-praised speaker and felt that it had severe cabinet resonances. In the presence of so many positive comments, how do we properly "weigh" this comment and what factors do we consider before we let ANY comments influence our judgement?

If we are seriously interested in a speaker, how many chances do we give that speaker to impress us or turn us off? Do we truly consider set-up issues and possible mistakes there? Do we allow the possibility that we have heard a "broken" sample in the case of a poor audition? As we know, speakers sound different in each environment. While posting our impressions is certainly important, should we not refrain from making blanket statements about a device?

This being the impersonal internet, yet being a resource that is used by those who are in the market for speakers (or anything for that matter), should we not be more careful how we qualify our remarks on products? Unless we have the measurement capabilities of the NRC, etc., do we have the authority to issue concrete statements about performance?

Posting personal impressions, and qualifying them as such, seems like a much wiser choice for most of us. Posting hearsay, without substantiation, can be detrimental to the future of many small audio companies who depend upon internet "referrals". As audiophiles, should we not do our part to support the industry by being careful about what we write (when we do not have sufficient evidence to prove our assertions)?

This effect has not occurred only in the thread linked above. This type of "personal comment becoming an official review" has been posted here in many threads about many products.

I hope that everyone can understand my intentions with this post.

Lee

 

[mep]

Lee-I totally get your point, or at least I think I do. People need to think before they shoot from the lip or their keyboard. I took exception to what was written in the link you posted because someone was trying to pass off hearsay as fact and then had the temerity to ask a professional reviewer if he heard the same cabinet resonance that his friend thinks he might have heard.

I personally don’t believe you will truly know and understand a speaker until you have lived with it in your house and in your system. If you hear the same speaker model enough times under show conditions and you always hear the same strengths even in different rooms and with different gear, that would be a good sign. In order to hear a cabinet resonance under show conditions would require a profoundly bad speaker design. The rooms are noisy and usually filled with a bunch of geriatric gentlemen that are wheezing and yammering away while you are trying to listen. Really, it’s a small miracle that anyone can make a system sound good in a small hotel room.

 

[Jeff Fritz]

A recent discussion elsewhere here:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?7860-Evolution-Acoustics-MMMicroOne-loudspeakers

prompted me to consider the process of auditioning speakers. Of special importance is the degree of confidence that we have an accurate, somewhat objective impression of that speaker's performance.

One comment in the above discussion referred to an individual who heard a highly-praised speaker and felt that it had severe cabinet resonances. In the presence of so many positive comments, how do we properly "weigh" this comment and what factors do we consider before we let ANY comments influence our judgement?

If we are seriously interested in a speaker, how many chances do we give that speaker to impress us or turn us off? Do we truly consider set-up issues and possible mistakes there? Do we allow the possibility that we have heard a "broken" sample in the case of a poor audition? As we know, speakers sound different in each environment. While posting our impressions is certainly important, should we not refrain from making blanket statements about a device?

This being the impersonal internet, yet being a resource that is used by those who are in the market for speakers (or anything for that matter), should we not be more careful how we qualify our remarks on products? Unless we have the measurement capabilities of the NRC, etc., do we have the authority to issue concrete statements about performance?

Posting personal impressions, and qualifying them as such, seems like a much wiser choice for most of us. Posting hearsay, without substantiation, can be detrimental to the future of many small audio companies who depend upon internet "referrals". As audiophiles, should we not do our part to support the industry by being careful about what we write (when we do not have sufficient evidence to prove our assertions)?

This effect has not occurred only in the thread linked above. This type of "personal comment becoming an official review" has been posted here in many threads about many products.

I hope that everyone can understand my intentions with this post.

Lee

Great idea for a thread. One point about NRC measurements . . . not only are these credible, third-party measurements conducted by engineers, but remember this: it is the same playing field for all products. Isn't that -- the same evaluation method -- what we always should strive for? Granted, this is not the case for the subjective listening tests, but it is consistent for the measurements. There are years of results you can compare.

I will say this: If a company does not mind real scrutiny, they should have their device measured at a real facility.

 

[andromedaaudio]

In loudspeakermanufacture in my expirience (and i dont even use expensive materials/construction untill now ) the biggest cost is the " box " and there is off course a price point where cabinetresonances become audible less or more , one cannot expect a 1000 $ loudspeaker to be inert at high volume , this is just generally speaking

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I completely understand your intentions, Lee, but I don't see a lot of difference, frankly, between posting personal impressions and reporting the impressions of a friend. Either way, it IS qualified as personal, subject to the expectations/experiences of the reporter, the rest of the system, the conditions in the room, etc. If some people on the internet take these personal impressions too seriously and accept or reject equipment they know nothing else about, based on one or two reports, that's where the weakness lies, not in the reporting. Of course some people will still respond that way. Hopefully the deserving manufacturers will benefit more than they will suffer from such a weak research process.

Regarding rooms, a couple of recent listening experiences have changed my attitude toward them. I'm beginning to think "room treatment" should be about dealing with bass and the rest should be in the world of final tweaks for that last bit of detail. I've heard some speakers that sounded really good in untreated rooms and am, I think, slowly concluding that if a high quality pair of speakers sound bad in a normal domestic environment, it is the speaker design's problem, not the user's failure to turn his home into a laboratory for audio testing. YMMV, of course.

Tim

 

[RBFC]

Two immediate thoughts from the replies:

1. If the NRC, etc. receive a speaker for measurement, what steps do they take to ensure that there is no shipping damage, etc. that would produce any substandard results they find? How thorough is the contact process with the manufacturer to ensure that the sample under test is indeed representative of standard production?

2. One of the reasons that audiophilia is so rife with "snake-oil" accusations, etc. is due in part to the writings of so many of us. Being impressionable, excitable humans, we get all crazy when we put a bowl of kitty litter in the corners of the room and hear a "night & day" improvement, etc. As WBF sincerely attempts to hold itself above other audio forums, we should strive for a higher standard of discussion and accountability when we post information. Comments such as "This new tweeter improves the sound by 50%" are somewhat misleading. The real question is "What is this new tweeter doing that makes it sound different/better than the old model". We have developed ties with the industry, and are working on more of these, whereby we can actually receive hard data that supports/disproves subjective impressions. One of the most damaging things that can occur to any manufacturer is when science disproves a company's claim regarding its product. We can work to support the correlation of subjective and objective quality if we measure our comments a bit more carefully.

Of course, in the end, each of us has "levels" of quality and performance with which we are satisfied. Drivers of Ferraris cannot understand how anyone could drive a Yugo. Drivers of Yugos cannot understand how anyone would spend the ridiculous amount of money for a Ferrari, when the Yugo gets them to work on time. There is too much variability in the personal "judgement" spectrum, so the emphasis may be better placed as follows:

"What performance attributes can $1000, $5000, $10,000, etc. buy in overall speaker performance? In what ways does the device-under-test exceed/fall short of the typical price range parameters?

More musings for Sunday morning....

Lee

 

[Groucho]

This being the impersonal internet, yet being a resource that is used by those who are in the market for speakers (or anything for that matter), should we not be more careful how we qualify our remarks on products? Unless we have the measurement capabilities of the NRC, etc., do we have the authority to issue concrete statements about performance?

Posting personal impressions, and qualifying them as such, seems like a much wiser choice for most of us. Posting hearsay, without substantiation, can be detrimental to the future of many small audio companies who depend upon internet "referrals". As audiophiles, should we not do our part to support the industry by being careful about what we write (when we do not have sufficient evidence to prove our assertions)?

But of course any idiot can set themself up as an audio journalist and, based purely on the floridity of their prose, forge a career as a reviewer, or whatever. As far as I can tell, like art or wine, audio journalism is based on 'provenance' i.e. because blind tasting.. er testing so often demonstrates that the experts don't know what they're talking about, the review is usually based with research into a company's background and whether their marketing is convincing. Only then can the reviewer wax lyrical about ''presence' and 'soundstage' etc. with no fear of any embarrassing comebacks.

 

[RBFC]

But of course any idiot can set themself up as an audio journalist and, based purely on the floridity of their prose, forge a career as a reviewer, or whatever. As far as I can tell, like art or wine, audio journalism is based on 'provenance' i.e. because blind tasting.. er testing so often demonstrates that the experts don't know what they're talking about, the review is usually based with research into a company's background and whether their marketing is convincing. Only then can the reviewer wax lyrical about ''presence' and 'soundstage' etc. with no fear of any embarrassing comebacks.

The only positive influence we can have is to hold ourselves to a higher standard so that the "idiots posing as reviewers" are seen as further outside the norm. There will always be those who relinquish their personal honor to make a buck. We need to be above that.

Lee