Which speakers did you find bright, fatiguing or just disappointing in some way?

@uncledemp ,

"Humans mean-mouthing humans over stereos, really? It’s a stereo. You’d insult and fight with someone over a stereo?"


Maybe not me and you, but for some dealers, manufacturers and designers, their very livelihood may depend upon the success of their products.

Perhaps it’s might be more helpful to the designers if we could be more specific about any perceived problems we encounter in our experience with various loudspeakers?

It can’t be easy of course.

I heard some very highly regarded 2 way floorstanders a few years back and was very close to buying them there and then.

What stopped me was the way they reproduced John Lennon’s vocals on Across the Universe. They were simply plain wrong. I’d never heard Lennon’s voice sound like that in the mid/lower register before.

It seemed to be an issue with the way the tweeter was crossing over to the woofer and switching to a tube amp didn’t make the issue go away.

The tweeter happened to be the Seas Excel, a renowned and not inexpensive design.

So I could only assume that the designer, perhaps in his wish for optimal dispersion had crossed it over at just a little too low a point for its comfort.

It was a shame as that design was otherwise a highly revealing one and unusually clean through rest of its operating range.

What stopped me was the way they reproduced John Lennon’s vocals on Across the Universe. They were simply plain wrong. I’d never heard Lennon’s voice sound like that in the mid/lower register before.

Very interesting, and reminds me of this interesting quote from Alan Shaw, designer of Harbeth speakers:

The core issue is this. Forget music entirely. Imagine that it never existed, had never been invented. Play well recorded human speech on those so-called high end speakers and the vast majority - practically all of them - have colorations, peculiarities, weird subjective characteristics that are in many cases simply laughable.

So then, why will you never find a hifi reviewer who even attempts to grade loudspeakers by listening to human speech over them? Absurd and pathetic, considering that we are surrounded by speech - not music - all day and every day, and unsurprisingly, our ear/brain is finely tuned to interpreting extremely subtle nuances in speech, even on a telephone line. If we were to be talking now on the restricted bandwidth of a phone line, we could understand each other’s emotions, guess at our age and education, probably income, detect if we are being truthful or concealing something, decide if we are friendly or trying to deceive us or sell us something and so on just by microscopic nuanced changes in loudness, pitch, strain and delivery. Human speech is the ultimate loudspeaker test tool because of the way it can impose its own nature on the underlying subtleties of reproduced speech, changing the listener’s interpretation a little or a lot.

Very interesting, and reminds me of this interesting quote from Alan Shaw, designer of Harbeth speakers:

The core issue is this. Forget music entirely. Imagine that it never existed, had never been invented. Play well recorded human speech on those so-called high end speakers and the vast majority - practically all of them - have colorations, peculiarities, weird subjective characteristics that are in many cases simply laughable.

So then, why will you never find a hifi reviewer who even attempts to grade loudspeakers by listening to human speech over them? Absurd and pathetic, considering that we are surrounded by speech - not music - all day and every day, and unsurprisingly, our ear/brain is finely tuned to interpreting extremely subtle nuances in speech, even on a telephone line. If we were to be talking now on the restricted bandwidth of a phone line, we could understand each other’s emotions, guess at our age and education, probably income, detect if we are being truthful or concealing something, decide if we are friendly or trying to deceive us or sell us something and so on just by microscopic nuanced changes in loudness, pitch, strain and delivery. Human speech is the ultimate loudspeaker test tool because of the way it can impose its own nature on the underlying subtleties of reproduced speech, changing the listener’s interpretation a little or a lot.

Thanks very interesting post.... the most important post of this thread indeed....

Human ears are DESIGNED to identify immediately the human voice TIMBRE in all acoustical settings.... Music was created around this fact....This is history, history of science, history of music, history of acoustic.....

A good speakers must always be able to give the natural human voice timbre first and last period.... Recognition of human timbre is one of the most important social and biological fact for survival and bonding....Music was created and centered around this fact.... This is very fundamental for acoustic, Alan Shaw is very right....

I am glad to know that because even if my actual speakers satisfied me, i sensed that the Harbeth could do more... I think i was right.... 😊 A designer who know that natural voice timbre phenomenon to be fundamental know the essential for me ....

Ultimate test for speakers are NOT some numbers measures but human voice test....Contradicting this fact will always reveal ignorance about what is music for humans....Music is not any  sound, it is a voice/ timbre/ centered event..... 

I almost purchase a pair of Martin Login Motion 60's.  Fortunately, I went back to the retailer and listened to them for two hours.  Glad I did because I found their ribbon tweeters to be to bright.  Ear fatigue is a reality and it is really important to listen to a speaker for a couple of hours to make sure you will enjoy them for years.

ANY speaker except Magnepan's will give you all of that mess and more.

Sorry, but that's the way the listening goes!

Cheers!