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Jkalman - I'm curious to know what your sound reference is?

Krisjan,

I like acoustical material as well to give me an idea of how accurate a speaker sounds, especially since I have been playing instruments myself for over 18 years (~25 years if you include piano). I play electric as well as acoustic instruments, so I like to hear how that sounds too. The thing about "grain" and "dimension" though, or "lifelike" qualities to the sound. Those are characteristics you notice pretty easily when they are there, or not there, especially when the speakers aren't fooling you into thinking you are hearing the real thing and not just speaker output.

However, if you use studio produced rock/pop recordings as your reference, then anything goes because no one really knows how they should sound except the mixing engineer. Then the evaluations become entirely subjective.

Since every consumer recording is in some way put through a studio engineering process (as far as I am aware), including acoustic music, I don't think that is a practical statement, seeing as "every recording" is, as such, subject to your criticism. So no one "really knows" what any recording is "supposed" to sound like except the engineer who made the masters. You are still left with having to decide based on subjective preference, i.e. - what sounds more "real" to your ears. To my ears, the Wilsons sound more "real," than the Vandersteens.

Also, if you want to really replicate the experience of the engineer, you would need to use the exact speakers the engineer used, as well as his studio space, so you get the same acoustical environmental effects he was getting during the mastering. Unless he used Vandersteens during the mastering process, there is no way they will be accurate in terms of what the engineer was trying to portray, as every speaker is colored differently. I'm sure you can see what a dead end argument the whole thing becomes.

Lasty, you would need the engineers ears and brain as well, since we are each subject to perceptual differences that cause us to hear things a certain way dependent on our unique ear structures and brain processing. http://psy.ucsd.edu/~ddeutsch/

Keep in mind, I never said you should hear "how I hear," or like "what I like." I simply stated that to my perceptions they don't sound as good as the Wilsons (or even close...) or the Dynaudios.

BTW, when you consider the studio monitor speakers used by most sound engineers, and how those monitors sound quality wise, you really don't want to recreate what they originally heard during the mastering process IMO. Often really crappy speakers are used intentionally to account for worst case listening situations.

Take my Samson Resolve 80a studio monitors. Objectively they measure "excellently." Unfortunately, all the best measurements in the world can't stop these speakers from sounding dimensionless, grainy and uninvolving... i.e. they sound "dead." OTOH, if you can make a recording sound even remotely good on those, you can guarantee they will sound good almost anywhere!

Jkalman, I'm glad that you enjoy your Wilson's, but understand that others have different musical tastes/values. I would choose the Vandersteen 5A over the Wilsons anyday, but I understand that others will feel differently. I also understand that neither one of these speakers belong in this thread, as they are not considered contenders by the thread originator, Maxx1973. So there really isn't any need to stray down this path. Perhaps you can start a thread of your own about Wilson speakers.

Cheers,
John

Not sure if you forgot to clean your ears or perhaps you are used to a bright sound but many including Sterophile reviewers noted John's room (Vandersteen) was playing some of the best sounds at the show, I too was there and had a long talk with Richard, it was funny as he didnt really think the Carbon Fiber 5A he was playing were really worth the effort and increased price but he builds for the people.
Maybe Vandersteen is not everyones cup of tea but nobody can dismiss them as sounding like cheap studio monitors and expect to have any credibility.

Many producers of classical recordings use excellent playback equipment during monitoring (eg Telarc). Give me a violn, a cello, a piano recording and I will at least have a chance at judging the accuracy of a piece of stero equipment. You can forget any hopes of accuracy judgement with rock/pop recordings. I'm done highjacking this thread. Sorry for the digression.
Mark