What if a high end speaker measures really badly?

This is timely as there have been discussions of specifically the Alta Alyssa here recently.  I was curious about the brand having heard good things so have read several reviews and comments from people who’ve heard Alta speakers at shows, and although there are some glowing comments there are also detractors citing things like frequency balance that can obviously be very room dependent and, more concerning, discontinuity between drivers.  I’m like you in that I look at measurements and find them useful and helpful, but the final arbiter is always my my ears, but in this particular case I can’t help thinking the measurements are exposing issues that might actually be audible for some listeners.  At the very least this would seem to indicate that Alta speakers, even more so than most other speakers, need to be auditioned in person and preferably in one’s own room if at all possible.

I have never cared and highly likely I never will care how a speaker measures. For that matter I have never bothered to investigate how well a speaker measures. The only measurement I care about is how does it sound to me. If I can't audition a speaker I will not buy that speaker.

If it measures badly and sounds good, it is good.

If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad.

Hmmm, let me take a guess.... He a) bought the drivers from someone else b) threw it in a box in an exotic garage and c) wants to charge 20k for something that measures like this...meh

No thanks...I’d probably send this speaker back to its daddy.

(In general, put some high caliber electronics on any pig and it could start to sound pleasing at some point. But, the pig is still a pig that’s getting carried.)

 

If a speaker costs 5k and above, my core requirements are:

a) All drivers need to designed/developed in-house from scratch!

b) Everything about the speaker should be designed from the ground up!

c) Measurements should indicate engineering competence, even if it is not pristine

 

Here are the measurements close to my 30k speaker (everything developed in-house from scratch by the manufacturer)

Here’s the measurement on my 15k speaker (everything developed in-house from scratch by the manufacturer)

 

Here’s the measurement on my 5k speaker (everything developed in-house from scratch by the manufacturer)

 

If it is under 5k, i am forgiving of the drivers coming from someone else. I’ll forgive you!! But, now, it better measure like a pristine cat, because the manufacturer’s doing way less work now!!

So, here’s my 3k speaker (~1500 if ya DIY’d the kit) with drivers from someone else.

 

 

 

 

Narrow-band peaks and dips which occur within about 1/3 octave of one another tend to be "averaged" by the ear. Therefore, that on-axis frequency response graph looks far worse to the eyes than it sounds to the ears.

The on-axis dip at 3 kHz is wide enough to survive the ear's "averaging" characteristic, BUT it corresponds with an off-axis rise in that region.  So my guess is the designer put a dip at the bottom end of the tweeter’s range to compensate for an off-axis "flare". Imo this is a good design choice.

The on-axis emphasis centered around 11 kHz can be compensated for by listening off-axis.

In fact, it looks to me like at about maybe 10-20 degrees off-axis the 3 kHz dip fills in and the 11 kHz bump smooths out.

My guess is that this speaker would sound excellent with proper set-up.

Duke

Not an Alta Audio dealer