2. speakers
  3. 149378-2227

Tone, Tone, Tone !


I was reminded again today, as I often am, about my priorities for any speaker that I will own.

I was reminded by listening to a pair of $20,000 speakers, almost full range. They did imaging. They did dynamics.They did detail.

But I sat there unmoved.

Came home and played a number of the same tracks on a pair of speakers I currently have set up in my main system - a tiny lil’ Chihuahua-sized pair of Spendor S 3/5s.


And I was in heaven.

I just couldn’t tear myself away from listening.

Why?

Tone.

The Spendors satisfy my ears (MY ears!) in reproducing music with a gorgeous, organic tone that sounds so "right.". It’s like a tonal massage directly o my auditory system. Strings are silky and illuminated, saxes so warm and reedy, snares have that papery "pop," cymbals that brassy overtone, acoustic guitars have that just-right sparkle and warmth. Voices sound fleshy and human.

In no way do I mean to say the Spendors are objectively "correct" or that anyone else should, or would, share the opinion I had between those two speakers. I’m just saying it’s often experiences like this that re-enforce how deeply important "the right tone/timbral quality" is for me. It’s job one that any speaker has to pass. I’ll listen to music on any speaker as background. But to get me to sit down and listen...gotta have that seductive tone.


Of course that’s only one characteristic I value. Others near the top of the list is "palpability/density," texture, dynamics.

But I’d take those teeny little Spendors over those big expensive speakers every day of the week, due to my own priorities.

Which brings me to throwing out the question to others: What are YOUR priorities in a speaker, especially if you had to pick the one that makes-or-brakes your desire to own the speaker?

Do you have any modest "giant killers" that at least to your way of thinking satisfy you much more than any number of really expensive speakers?



prof
ahofer
225 posts
 
To answer the OP question, "non-fatiguing" was a huge priority for me. Read on.

But first, to respond to the inner thread on Harbeths-

So what I see is a bunch of speaker design "no-nos" all of which coincidentally reduce the
production cost that are then presented as a viable design methodology that doesnt make sense to me and also runs counter to the design philosophies from speakers that I think sound best.


Well, I completely disagree about "homogenizing", but YMMV.   I think it's a stretch to say the whole line of speakers is representative of "inaccurate" designs when most of the recent model line at least measures more accurately than most speakers.

The "no-nos" were one of the things that intrigued me in the first place.  It's counterintuitive that optimizing an older, resonance-managed, design is not only appealing to a ton of experienced listeners but also *measures* flat.  And Harbeths just refuse to sound the way their looks prejudice me.  But it's worth noting that Shaw prolifically defends and explains his methods and design choices on the forum.  And he's made significant and expensive changes to the original design in terms of driver materials and crossover design, so they haven't been sitting still.  I hadn't heard Harbeths before recently, but clearly many people think the last few years have brought huge improvements, particularly with the proprietary driver/material.

As for phase coherence, I moved over from Thiels, much like @prof ,  Thiels famously optimize around phase/time coherence.  Honestly, the Harbeths were the only speaker I heard in my last round of auditioning that (and forgive the imprecise analogy) offered as clean a "window" onto the sound as my old Thiels, while providing an even more lively and natural-sounding presentation of instruments I know well from live performance.  That's where I get the "tone is just right" feeling others are referring to here.  Their marketing catch-phrase is well chosen.

I listen to music for hours every day*, and there can be no doubt that a major search criterion for me is "non-fatiguing".  I was happy with my Thiel CS3.6 for 25 years (!), and I'm becoming similarly wedded to the new SHL5+ (Anniv).

Now, Harbeth's ridiculous additive model naming, that's seriously fatiguing.  I suppose some model down the road will be the "Super HL5 Plus Ultra Enhanced Anniversary of Anniversary Edition"

*as I write this, I'm listening to the Sony Classical/Sol Gabetta-Schumann recording on Tidal - lovely open-sounding recording, close-up image, and lovely tone in my living room.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Prof, The reason ESLs sound "skeletal" to you, and I hate sounding like a stuck record is that the ones you have been listening to switch radiation characteristics in the mid bass. They are acting like linear arrays above 250 Hz but like point source radiators below, square of the distance versus cube of the distance. A linear array has to be taller than the lowest wavelength you need to reproduce. Their ability to radiate power drops off dramatically below 250 Hz as you move away from the speaker. Add dipole effects to this and you wind up with wimpy bass. This is what glued everyone to the Acoustat 2+2s. They were the first planar loudspeaker that did not do this. The Soundlabs you want to listen too if you get the opportunity are the Majestic 845s in an 8 foot room or the 945s in a 9 foot room. A linear array that terminates at boundaries above and below acts as a linear array into infinity. At the beginning of Roger Water's Amused to Death is a segment with a barking dog. A friend's medium poodle went ballistic when the dog started barking. Never play Amused to Death with someone's dog in the house.
This notion that dipole subwoofers fit dipole speakers better is faulty. There is just no getting away from the cancelation and front wall effects. The result is very lumpy frequency response and no bass at all below 40 Hz. They will make the satellites sound better as long as you are crossing out of them but that is about it. The mistake people make is trying to match a point source subwoofer to a linear array loudspeaker. Linear array subwoofers either have to be as tall as the room or as wide as the room. That is a lot of woofers.

prof OP
3,534 posts
 
mijostyn,

Even my tiny little Spendor 3/5s spec'd only down to 90Hz have a palpable "thereness" that I haven't heard from any electrostat. Adding a dynamic woofer to an electrostat seems to produce pallpability in the region covered by the woofer, but the frequency range covered by the panel has that ghostly sound.

So every electrostatic I've heard (a lot!) either full range or hybrid, has had the characteristics I described.  I guess I'll just have to take your word that a Black Swan version exists somewhere that sounds different.In any case, I'd say my generalization about electrostics, especially any of a size/price I'd ever be in a position to own, is inductively sound. :)




bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,249 posts
 

@prof, I too have heard that "ghostly sound" from planars (most recently a pair of Maggie 1.7’s), but that can be and often is a result of comb-filtering caused by the back wave of the speaker bouncing off the wall behind it, meeting up with the front wave, and causing frequency-related cancellation. Planars are less effected by sidewall reflections than are point source loudspeakers, but much more effected by those from the front wall.

That an OB/Dipole sub cannot produce anything below 40Hz is complete and utter nonsense, assuming it is constructed properly---in an H-frame (GR Research/Rythmik) or W-frame (Linkwitz. See below), to prevent front-to-back dipole cancellation. Anyone who has heard the Gradient made for the 63, such as yourself, can attest to that fact. Robert E. Greene reviewed the Gradient/QUAD 63 combination in TAS, and reported no lack of bass below 40Hz. Same with those (such as myself) who have actually heard the GR Research/Rythmik OB/Dipole Sub.

Remember too that Siegfried Linkwitz employed an OB/Dipole woofer section in his outstanding LX521 loudspeaker, and it also had no problem reproducing the bottom octave. Does anyone really believe an engineer with as much knowledge of and talent at designing loudspeakers as had Siegfried would let one out of his lab if it had no bottom octave output?!

What IS true is that the output in general of an OB/Dipole sub is quite a bit lower than that of a sealed sub using the same driver (for instance, it takes four of the GR Research/Rythmik OB’s to equal the output of a single Rythmik F12G). But that is unrelated to it’s bottom octave---it is frequency-unrelated. It is for that reason some OB/Dipole sub owners use them in multiple sets, stacked atop one another. A Google Images search will lead you to pics of two, three, even four OB/Dipole Sub stacks. Not cheap, but SOTA never is. ;-)

On the other hand, the Gradient SW-57, made for the original QUAD, WAS deficient in the bottom octave. But then, it employed a pair of 8" woofers, and they can play only so low, whether in an OB/Dipole design, sealed, ported, or infinite baffle. The LX521 uses a pair of 10" Seas aluminum-cone woofers, the GR Research/Rythmik a pair of 12" paper-cone woofers designed by Richie and Ding and custom-manufactured for them. The same woofer, with an aluminum cone, is the one Rythmik installs in their F12 sealed sub (the F12G has the paper-cone woofer. Confused yet? ;-).

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Interesting description, "ghostly" as in "not there." That is right, ESLs can disappear. Point source speakers can not. You always know you are listening to a dynamic speaker particularly when you walk up to it. 
Essentially we are in agreement as before I got the 2+2s all the ESLs I had listened to and owned where missing the kind of dynamic punch I was looking for even with subwoofers attached. But, that did not chase me back to dynamic speakers because to me the benefits of ESLs out weighted the problems which proved to be surmountable. What makes the 2+2s and Soundlabs Majestics special (black swans) is that they are full range linear arrays and project power in the bass and mid bass like no other type of speaker. The result is a speaker that disappears but has more thereness. I can put you 10th row center at a Nine Inch Nails concert or front row at a Melos String Quartet performance. I can make dynamic drivers be just as powerful, Bob Carver's Line Source is a good example but they will not do the same disappearing act the 2+2s or Majestics will do. The Majestics are currently the only full range line source ESLs I know of available new which is a pity.
Prof, I love the LS 3/5a. It is the best little loudspeaker ever made and probably the most copied loudspeaker ever made but what I am talking about is in an entirely different league. 

Mike 
More to discover