Best Loudspeakers for Rich Timbre?

I vote for Legacy Focus (originals or 20/20) for the best bang for the buck with the "warm" sound of analog music using Kevlar mid-ranges.  Cheaper, more efficient and easier to drive (current hungry though) than so many new speakers.  Deep bass, wide soundstage.  What's not to like from a guy who had Acoustat X, 2&2s and Martin Logan Monolith IIIs for over 20 years prior.

audiokinesis,

3. There can be either too much or too little energy in the reverberant field. Too much and clarity and imaging are degraded; too little and timbre is degraded.

I’m sure it depend on how much you mean by "too much" in each case, but generally speaking I find the opposite.


The more reflected room sound the brighter "clearer" and more present the sound. But the cost is a sort of reflected/hash signature that starts to overlay the sound, homogenizing instrumental timbre. The more room reflections are taken out, the more I hear the subtleties of individual instrumental timbre in a recording.

This is certainly the case in my own room where I have good control over some of the liveness of the room (via being able to pull curtains across reflective area, or open them up, use some diffusors I have, or not, etc).

This has been true in virtually every case I’ve ever encountered (it’s my habit when auditioning speakers to investigate the direct-to-reverberant sound quality via taking different positions to listen - further for more room, closer for more direct sound. In every case I’ve ever known, the observations I mention have applied.


It just strikes me as strange that your comment *seems* to point the arrows the other way.

The Room or the Recording?

Why is audio so complicated? What's all this nearfield business?

It does make sense that if you want to hear the speaker primarily then you can either sit close up or if possible take it to a quiet place outdoors and do your listening there.

On the other hand if you want to hear the effect of the room then you should sit as far away from the speaker itself as possible.

Then there are good rooms which can add via reflection to the direct/ original sound. Since no one listens in an anechoic chamber some room effect must be taken into consideration by the designer - eg dispersion patterns, placement etc. 

Perhaps audiokinesis has developed some form of refined DSP (unlike those crude ones found on many surround sound systems) which can subtly change the sound of your room. Perhaps it is possible to increase 'sympathetic' room reflections which could give a sense of increased realism. Sounds phenomenally difficult but it's certainly interesting.

As if all this wasn't complicated enough then there's the issue of the Fletcher-Munson/ Equal Loudness curves which prove that ours ears cannot hear frequency (bass to treble) in a linear fashion. 

The following article suggests that as the actual loudness/volume changes, the perceived loudness of the bass and treble frequencies that our brains hear changes. The actual frequencies don't, it's just that we hear them differently. Nature gives more importance to the midrange frequencies.

https://ehomerecordingstudio.com/fletcher-munson-curve/

• At low listening volumes – mid range frequencies sound more prominent, while the low and high frequency ranges seem to fall into the background.
• At high listening volumes – the lows and highs sound more prominent, while the mid range seems comparatively softer.

I'm not sure what all this means for our perception of timbre, but it certainly makes evaluating loudspeakers more tricky. I guess most of us do need  tone controls after all.

Anyway, until audiokinesis can demonstrate otherwise, and it will be fantastic if he can, then we still rely primarily upon the speaker cone for our perception of recorded sound.

I'm guessing, and it's only a guess, that DSP will be the future of all reproduced sound once all the software algorithms, processors, and hardware have advanced sufficiently. 

I used to think that tone controls were necessary decades ago. With the ability to hear music at both high and low levels, I don’t have a problem with hearing frequency extremes and mids. My 78s have limited bandwith and I only need e.q. for their differing recording e.q. (especially acoustic horn recordings). As to modern recordings, I leave it up to the mastering engineer to determine the sound. Overall, the sound is usually more than adequate. I’ve noticed on some other audio systems that (low cost generally), they are unable to consistently sound adequate with differing recordings (some sound great, others sound bad or unlistenable) as well as an inability to sound good at low or loud volumes. These are not good audio systems.

@prof, my comments about “too much or too little” reverberant energy arise from some experiments in varying the amount of reverberant energy while leaving the first-arrival sound untouched.

Briefly we used a fairly directional main array aimed at the listening area for the first-arrival sound, and then used a dedicated reverberant-field-only array (optimized for good power response) aimed off in a different direction, so that it made no contribution to the first-arrival sound. By varying the level of the reverberant-field-only array we could independently manipulate the amount of energy in the reverberant field. We found that the additional reverberant energy generally improved timbre, but too much and clarity started to degrade. Hence my comments.

@cd318 wrote: “Perhaps @audiokinesis has developed some form of refined DSP (unlike those crude ones found on many surround sound systems) which can subtly change the sound of your room. Perhaps it is possible to increase ’sympathetic’ room reflections which could give a sense of increased realism. Sounds phenomenally difficult but it’s certainly interesting.”

No DSP, but your “sympathetic room reflections” guess is right on the money!

We borrowed a page from concert hall psychoacoustics: The difference between a good seat and a poor seat in a concert hall arises from the amount of time between the first-arrival sound and the onset of reflections. In a good seat, there is a time gap between the two. In a poor seat there is no such time gap; the reflections start arriving too early, and the effect is, clarity is degraded.

These principles can be transported into the listening room, despite the difference in scale. Done “right” (see my reply to prof at the top of this post), we think we can improve timbre with no detriment to clarity. We also think we can reduce “small room signature” such that you actually hear less of your room and more of the acoustic space on the recording.

Admittedly it is highly counter-intuitive to think that ADDING reflections can REDUCE your room’s signature, so let me explain the theory behind this:

The basic premise is, if your system was in a big room, you would hear more of what’s on the recording because your room’s acoustic signature would be less intrusive.

The ear/brain system judges room size by the “center of gravity” of the reverberant energy. The later in time that “center of gravity” occurs, the larger the apparent room size. By injecting additional late-onset reverberant energy, we can push that center of gravity to later in time and thereby increase the apparent room size. By making sure this additional reverberant energy is spectrally correct and by not injecting too much, we preserve clarity.

I’ve been working with improving timbre by paying attention to the reverberant field for many years. The increase in apparent room size (thereby reducing small room signature) is an unanticipated but welcome side effect.

Duke