Flat Anechoic Measured Frequency Response Speakers

Shadorne, I think I heard that model (or possibly a predecessor) about five years ago at CES. My impression was they would indeed play very loud. They were very detailed, but to my ears they sounded forward and a bit bright. Now they may well have been just a few knob-twiddles away from nirvana, and the waveguides around the mid and tweet do appeal to me intellectually, but going by aural memory I'd prefer any of the big ATCs.

Duke

They were very detailed, but to my ears they sounded forward and a bit bright.

Thanks - although too forward is how many would describe ATC's. The plots indicate these may indeed be a bit brighter in the treble as there is no roll-off at all - beautiful plots on and off axis - apart from a hint of what might be resonance in the metal dome around 16 Khz - I doubt many could hear that but it might add some "glare" - who knows.

Of course as you said with such a perfect response one could simply tone down the treble to get any desired response "nirvana" at all...the key is the balance in on and off axis which remains whatever you do with tone control - beautiful plots!

Shadorne, I hadn't seen your post four up when I typed my reply three up. Congratulations on catching the implications and applicability of that off-axis bump. When working on a design, I place most of my attention on what's happening off-axis rather than on-axis.

Bob, no doubt much of the credit for those impressive measurements is due to a very well executed digital processing system. But signal processing cannot do much about radiation patterns, and the polar maps of those patterns are what I'd give the greatest consideration to (the green plots towards the bottom of the measurements page). You pretty much never see polar maps or any sort of off-axis data becaus it almost always sucks, and the K&H polar maps both look pretty darn good to me.

I recall a thread where there was an argument about the relevance or value of specifications. I can imagine some are rolling their eyes at this current discussion of beautiful looking plots.

For those rolling their eyes, and this is true: Dolly Parton once said that she was best known for just TWO things! Demonstrating so very well that people often see things all too differently. Her answer was, of course,.....her music and her lyrics ;-)