speakers for classical music

I hope the last post I made above was at least useful to one or two people or perhaps it was another case of my misguided efforts to explain something that is largely falling on "deaf ears".

They say "ignorance is bliss" and it may be so for the many people with non pro drivers.

A friend of mine once told me "I'd really rather not know why my speaker sounds awful. Besides, I prefer to think that I can compensate for things through spending more on a warmer/incredibly powerful amp, source and better cables..."

I have not heard Duke's speakers but if his design philosophy and choice of drivers is any indication then they are definitely worth investigating, as Atmasphere suggested.

Sadly however, I suspect this particular area of system performance will remain fundamentally one of "ignorance is bliss". The majority of speaker manufacturers are forced to use cheap mass produced drivers to compete in a tough market with hard to beat price points - besides it is much more important what the drive looks like on the outside than the size of the motor - so I don't think you'll hear much about this topic except on DIY forums and in pro audio.

Harbeth C7ESIII or the Super HL5

Shadorne, thanks for you links and comments. I read it and just didn't think a further comment was needed. Now you've prompted me to ask:

How long is the typical musical peak? If I'm listening at 87dB on average and I have peaks of 105dB, which I have observed and note seem appropriate for the music, if it takes a few seconds for compression to begin, will I experience it often, if ever, in music listening???

BTW, I play electric guitar, so I've actually purposely compressed guitar alnico drivers to get a certain tone quality only available from a compressed speaker (or a good speaker emulator). So, I understand the concept pretty clearly. I'm only wondering how much of a real world factor it is with high quality, high fidelity speakers.

Also, the compression shown on the graphs was actually very small in comparison to the in-room EQ variations of the speakers shown. I'm wondering how much we'll hear those fractional dB losses when taken with all the other interactions.

Don't take this as anti-horn. I plan to investigate Audiokenesis at RMAF, as well as other high efficiency speaker designs. I'm just trying to understand some of the real world implications.

Dave

Hi Atmasphere, you said, "This recording puts most speaker/amp combinations right flat on their face nearly right away, if you are unwilling to change the volume as it plays.'

Could you explaine to me what you mean by this. Are you saying you need to turn up/down the volume for this recording due to its dynamics within the recording?

One volume for all!
Bob

I'm only wondering how much of a real world factor it is with high quality, high fidelity speakers.

On compressed pop/rock and especially the more modern stuff on CD; Green Day/Red Hot Chilli's/Metallica/Artic Monkeys/Kooks/most remasters and thousands of others - not an issue at all - as the music is already compressed crap anyway!!!

On old school dynamic recordings - classical, Mahler, Shostakovich or great jazz recordings of big band and Sheffield Labs/Chesky/XRCD type stuff it is a HUGE issue. The life of the music is robbed by compression. After a few seconds at the start of the track you are already hearing compression.

Remember at 87 db if you have a large room then your speakers may be at an average of 95 db - already the "average" music at that level is starting to be compressed - so naturally the peaks or what immediately follows them will be even more compressed and worse even "modulated" by the rapid cooling and heating of the voice coil from percussion elements. This is why piano rarely sounds realistic and often sounds like a recording.

Analogy: Think of the voice coil as being like the thin resitive wire in a light bulb...how fast does that get hot - what do you think the heat and momentarily increased resistance does to the transient behaviour and timbre of sounds - well it modifes it significantly!!

It is easy to hear - the first few seconds of a loud passage will sound crisp detailed and clear and then it will rapidly start to sound dull. For example Michael Jackson Bille Jean - the opening will be clear and punchy and crystal clear (like a shotgun) and then it will soon become dull and loose its edge on most speakers.