Should Speaker Manufactures provide a Frequency Response Graph?


Eric at Tekton Designs has been battling two different reviewers who have posted measurements without his permission, using Klippel devices for their respective measurements.

It seems to me that if manufactures provide a simple smoothed out graph, consumers can see how much a speaker is editorializing with a frequency response that deviates from neutral.  

seanheis1

@mlsstl I didn't use the words "needing permission." You did...creating a strawman argument.

I wrote "didn't have permission" which is a fact and not a value judgement.  

"without his permission" was your wording, not mine, from the opening post.  You should wear it with pride!

 

I ran into a situation with needing a speaker frequency response, but the maker wasn't comfortable with providing me with one for basically a lot of the reasons many have listed here: people not really knowing what they are looking at, not really knowing what they are listening to, nor really knowing what their room is doing...and 'not knowing' also means not truly objectively educated understanding. 

I don't know what Tekton is dealing with specifically, but I would bet that the frequency response of the reviewers, if 90% accurate to the 'voicing' of the speaker, is very important to them and "what makes their speaker sound_______________" and may feel proprietary to Tekton.  I would imagine in general audio companies are constantly battling what I would bet the world battles endlessly: everybody knows just enough to blow themselves up....and possibly a manufacturer with 'just enough' information that makes them dangerous.  

Charts are helpful/useful, but people can easily mis-read them, misunderstand them, and make incorrect claims/assumptions about them.  If all things were equal and proper, if you listened to X-speaker in a room specifically set up and treated by the manufacturer that best represented that speaker, and you bought it based on that sound you heard.....then I could see a chart being useful....to help you change YOUR ROOM to get it to better match what the X-speaker did in the manufacturer's room.    In my specific case I wanted the makers frequency response to help illustrate to someone what their room was doing to ruin what they spent thousands of dollars on. 

I know first hand that peoples hearing, and their brain, can over ride nearly anything.  A frequency chart could do the same, without even remotely knowing/understanding objectively what that chart was showing.   

Not really when an idea of "trusting your ears" is widely used as a sales pitch and extreme lack of education of consumer on how to read and comprehend those graphs.

Notably before 90's graphs, schematics and detailed reference manuals had been provided with purchase, but after 90's such documentation was replaced with wording of not to go "inside box" to avoid electric shock.

Educated consumer might not "trust" unless information provided. Therefore such education has been diminished so sales can go quicker and larger.