Twl: I think that there is a BIG difference between poor tonal balance and proper timbre. Tonal balance has to do with frequency response linearity. Timbre has to do with pitch, harmonic structure and transient response. Judging from what the market is buying and manufacturers are selling, it doesn't seem as if either are important.
Jrd: For some manufacturers, the goal of achieving utmost accuracy and purity of signal leads towards price no object components. Other manufacturers ride the price escalation train and simply raise their prices without the associated effort or increase in performance. To be fair, it takes time, money and research to build the best product that you can. To expect phenomenal results at very low costs is simply day-dreaming. On the other hand, paying tall cash without obtaining some type of performance returns demonstrates a complete lack of value.
Drubin: For your reference on each review mentioned:
Fig 5 p 80 Legacy review states: "Legacy Focus 20/20, anechoic response on ribbon-tweeter axis at 50".... As a side note, the HUGE bass peak measured here would be even more prominent if sitting off axis of the tweeters. Given that the tweeters are 45" above floor level and an MTM array drastically limits vertical dispersion, one could expect an even boomier tonal balance. The phenomenal peaks at ( +5 dB's @ 6K and +8 dB's @ 12K ) may help balance this out though due to psycho-acoustics.
Fig 4 p 114 Piega C8 LTD review states "anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50". Once again, as one moves further off axis of the tweeter, either vertically or horizontally, bass response will seem to become stronger due to treble response softening. At least with the Piega, the tweeter appears to be closer to the average seated listening height. Compared to the Legacy which was reviewed in the same issue, Piega's would therefore sound "brighter" ( or "leaner" depending on perspective ) than the Legacy's with their tweeter positioned off axis. You have to compare apples to apples.
The Aerial review fig 5 p 137 states "anechoic response on tweeter axis at 50"... Given the height and position of the tweeter in this speaker, the perceived tonal balance might soften on top a bit compared to the Piega but would also be "hotter" than that of the Legacy. That's because the tweeter is centered between the two different speakers in terms of listening height.
As far as your comments about "non-humped" bass NOT sounding "right", that's because people aren't used to natural sound and don't listen to acoustically performed music. They have been "brainwashed" into thinking that elevated bass response, poor transient response and swapping more "apparent" bass aka "bloat" for true extension to be "normal" and how things should sound. As i've commented before, most people hear but they don't know how or what to listen for. Part of this could be personal preference, part of it could be a lack of familiarity with how instruments really sound.
As far as naming specific speakers go, that would be hard to do, especially in stock form. Can you point me to a well designed speaker that offers coherent arrival of the sound, linear in frequency response without major abberations, offers minimal ringing at any given frequency while producing good bass extension? Quite honestly, i can't think of a single modern day product that meets that criteria. Then again, finding one that was ever produced would still be tough : )
Nutella: Kudo's to you. Keep reading and learning. you'll end up with a better system and a lot more money in your pocket. Those that can't figure things out for themselves and get their information from the "candyman", who claims that sugar and starch don't cause tooth decay, are doomed to deal with a lot of "rot".
Agaffer: There are single driver speakers that produce deep and powerful bass, they just aren't made anymore. As to being "accurate", they can do that too, so long as spl's aren't climbing. There's much to be said for a speaker that produces the proper timbre with good dimensionality. If you don't know what timbre is, read my response to Twl.
Ed: Compared to many of the other offerings available, i would agree with you. That is, the Aerial probably is a better sounding speaker than most of the stuff out there. Given that i've never even heard these, i can tell that they have more design effort into them than many others. Reading the test results and knowing how to interpret them, it isn't hard to judge their over-all linearity, phase response, dispersion characteristics, etc... as being as good or better than much of the "high dollar" competition. Then again, there is obviously a LOT of room for improvement in this design, so what does that tell you? It tells me that either it costs more to build a great speaker than $23K will buy or the manufacturers aren't doing their homework.
Bigtee: I think that you are going to join me and a few others in the "outcasts of the audio society" if you keep saying things like this.
Drubin: Yes, linear response is the building block of both a pleasent and accurate system. If linearity doesn't matter, you might as well start using your old 10 band graphic EQ to colour the response to your personal tastes. After all, what's the difference in 5 - 8 dB's boost or cut if done at the speaker or at the EQ???
Bigtee: Thiel's and Vandy's both have problems with bass response linearity. Passive's are slower than ports in terms of transient response.
Other than that, my one major question is: Why don't speaker designers take into account the accepted "facts" of a normal installation and incorporate these attributes into their designs? Room gain, seated listening height, reflections, etc... along with linearity, transient response, etc... all seem to be "foreign words" to most of these folks. Sean
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