Still waiting for the "paid shills" that classicrock so often mentions to show up.
Some thoughts on ASR and the reviews
I’ve briefly taken a look at some online reviews for budget Tekton speakers from ASR and Youtube. Both are based on Klippel quasi-anechoic measurements to achieve "in-room" simulations.
As an amateur speaker designer, and lover of graphs and data I have some thoughts. I mostly hope this helps the entire A’gon community get a little more perspective into how a speaker builder would think about the data.
Of course, I’ve only skimmed the data I’ve seen, I’m no expert, and have no eyes or ears on actual Tekton speakers. Please take this as purely an academic exercise based on limited and incomplete knowledge.
1. Speaker pricing.
One ASR review spends an amazing amount of time and effort analyzing the ~$800 US Tekton M-Lore. That price compares very favorably with a full Seas A26 kit from Madisound, around $1,700. I mean, not sure these inexpensive speakers deserve quite the nit-picking done here.
2. Measuring mid-woofers is hard.
The standard practice for analyzing speakers is called "quasi-anechoic." That is, we pretend to do so in a room free of reflections or boundaries. You do this with very close measurements (within 1/2") of the components, blended together. There are a couple of ways this can be incomplete though.
a - Midwoofers measure much worse this way than in a truly anechoic room. The 7" Scanspeak Revelators are good examples of this. The close mic response is deceptively bad but the 1m in-room measurements smooth out a lot of problems. If you took the close-mic measurements (as seen in the spec sheet) as correct you’d make the wrong crossover.
b - Baffle step - As popularized and researched by the late, great Jeff Bagby, the effects of the baffle on the output need to be included in any whole speaker/room simulation, which of course also means the speaker should have this built in when it is not a near-wall speaker. I don’t know enough about the Klippel simulation, but if this is not included you’ll get a bass-lite expereinced compared to real life. The effects of baffle compensation is to have more bass, but an overall lower sensitivity rating.
For both of those reasons, an actual in-room measurement is critical to assessing actual speaker behavior. We may not all have the same room, but this is a great way to see the actual mid-woofer response as well as the effects of any baffle step compensation.
Looking at the quasi anechoic measurements done by ASR and Erin it _seems_ that these speakers are not compensated, which may be OK if close-wall placement is expected.
In either event, you really want to see the actual in-room response, not just the simulated response before passing judgement. If I had to critique based strictly on the measurements and simulations, I’d 100% wonder if a better design wouldn’t be to trade sensitivity for more bass, and the in-room response would tell me that.
3. Crossover point and dispersion
One of the most important choices a speaker designer has is picking the -3 or -6 dB point for the high and low pass filters. A lot of things have to be balanced and traded off, including cost of crossover parts.
Both of the reviews, above, seem to imply a crossover point that is too high for a smooth transition from the woofer to the tweeters. No speaker can avoid rolling off the treble as you go off-axis, but the best at this do so very evenly. This gives the best off-axis performance and offers up great imaging and wide sweet spots. You’d think this was a budget speaker problem, but it is not. Look at reviews for B&W’s D series speakers, and many Focal models as examples of expensive, well received speakers that don’t excel at this.
Speakers which DO typically excel here include Revel and Magico. This is by no means a story that you should buy Revel because B&W sucks, at all. Buy what you like. I’m just pointing out that this limited dispersion problem is not at all unique to Tekton. And in fact many other Tekton speakers don’t suffer this particular set of challenges.
In the case of the M-Lore, the tweeter has really amazingly good dynamic range. If I was the designer I’d definitely want to ask if I could lower the crossover 1 kHz, which would give up a little power handling but improve the off-axis response. One big reason not to is crossover costs. I may have to add more parts to flatten the tweeter response well enough to extend it's useful range. In other words, a higher crossover point may hide tweeter deficiencies. Again, Tekton is NOT alone if they did this calculus.
I’ve probably made a lot of omissions here, but I hope this helps readers think about speaker performance and costs in a more complete manner. The listening tests always matter more than the measurements, so finding reviewers with trustworthy ears is really more important than taste-makers who let the tools, which may not be properly used, judge the experience.
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Measurements are a starting point not the be all end all. If everything measured the same assuming we could measure everything (cannot) we would just have one speaker to choose from. Maybe a small/med/large. The china brand dacs they love so much might measure amazing on a 200 buck dac but are they sure don't sound as good subjectively. If I'm not mistaken the newer Topping D9x or something or other does not measure near as well as it's predecessor but it's pretty unanimous it sounds better Subjectively.
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That's right. You need to then apply understanding of those measurements, the engineering behind the design and science of hearing. With all of those factors combined, you can build a high confidence idea of how good a piece of audio gear is vs other choices.
Once you bring in electro-mechanical components like speakers, then what you theorize is impossible. Heck, a pair of speakers from same company and model will likely measure differently. So no sense in talking about speakers measuring the same. In controlled listening tests though, we can get speakers that tie statistically based on listener preference. In those situations, you can then apply other buying factors such as price, looks, support, etc. Above is what we do at ASR. We narrow down the near-infinite choices down to good number of speakers which you can then select from, knowing with high confidence that you are not buying a dud.
Putting aside the fact that those China DACs are part of whole category that includes such companies as Schiit and JDS Labs in US, your claim there is without evidence. Come back in a controlled test to show that what you say is true and then we stand up and take notice. Until then, I can put two identical DACs behind a screen and get every one of you to say they sound different. So forgive us if we don't put much value behind such claims. Fact is that the best designs in DACs today come from these mass market companies. They have a closed loop design process where they measure and optimize for transparency. And since DACs can be highly optimized from manufacturing point of view, you get superb, transparent sound for as low as $80. That's not to say there is no room for much more expensive DACs. Some of us, and that includes me, appreciate other things than sound such as looks, features (VU meters, EQ), etc. The Chinese companies are almost getting there on this front as well, while still charging reasonable prices. Here is a recent example, the Eversolo DMP-A6:
For $850, you not only get an excellent DAC but a full blown streamer running Android as well. Would love to see more high-end DAC companies produce high performance DACs that also look luxurious. |
“That's right. You need to then apply understanding of those measurements, the engineering behind the design and science of hearing. With all of those factors combined, you can build a high confidence idea of how good a piece of audio gear is vs other choices.”
says who? You? How far can you travel off the perfect measurement path Amir? “That's not to say there is no room for much more expensive DACs. Some of us, and that includes me, appreciate other things than sound such as looks, features (VU meters, EQ), etc. “
So the only difference between a $200 topping and a 2k dac with meters is meters? .. well not many dacs have meters so there’s that. Why the F would they have a meter? lol
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