Analytical or Musical Which way to go?

In light of the fact that there are so many variables that comprise your stereo , I feel you have to go with what sound pleases you, the musicality camp over accuracy. Look, we have an amplifier, preamp,cd player and possible a separate DAC, turntable cartridge and tonearm, cabling, stands,speakers,footers etc. Then you place those in a room, no two of which are alike. You treat that room (or not) with differing products. Then add in that everyone's hearing is different. What if youre over 45 like a lot of us and you have some degree of presbycussis. What use are masurements against all those many variables? If someone says this component measures perfectly flat (as few ever do), how is the person with some hearing loss going to perceive that as opposed to someone with perfect hearing? IMHO 'tis a far far better thing I do to buy components and treat my room in a manner that gives me a sound I like and that I can listen to for hours without listener fatigue.

Many things common to small towns like lack of sophistication, racism, wife swapping, smallness, extreme smallness, lack of hipsters, a lack of "pretentious audio salons", lack of decent porn, are in my book (or pamphlet) obscene. So are Yamaha ns10s.

Also, a lot of brilliant audio engineers and musicians are "older" people who can readily work with music in spite of having old ears. So please, everybody stop with the "ageism" already. I've found that all good ("musical") sounding speakers have something in common: A designer who listens to them and does whatever it takes to make them sound good.

Neither. A speaker has no business editorializing on what you're feeding it "lesee.. a little brighter here, a little boomy there, etc." You should be caught up in the music it's playing and not notice that it's "analytical" or "musical"

>Time and again I read designers yo say the design the speaker to measure as best they can. But it just does not sound like music.

They're either not measuring the right things (on-axis response isn't enough with monotonic power decreases into the first reflections also important) or they've compromised to fit market considerations and budgets (two-way cone and dome speakers with flat baffles and conventional cross-over points are inherently flawed as are electrostatic panels) and done the best they can within those constraints.

In 2004 Sean Olive actually came up with formulas that do a very good job predicting speaker preferences based on polar measurements and bass extension. They work with listeners regardless of nationality, preferred musical genre, experience as criticial listeners, etc.

>Then enters a second speaker that sounds like real music but does not have optimum mesurements?

No speaker has optimum measurements, but all that sound lifelike are very flat on-axis, have fairly monotonic directivity increases with frequency (there's some latitude in compensating for a local directivity minima with an output notch), and provide deeper bass extension.

05-19-12: Drew_eckhardt
Neither. A speaker has no business editorializing on what you're feeding it "lesee.. a little brighter here, a little boomy there, etc." You should be caught up in the music it's playing and not notice that it's "analytical" or "musical"

Well put, Drew.

Going to live acoustic concerts I sometimes do a little "mind trick" where, as the music in playing, I close my eyes and imagine I'm actually at home listening to my stereo. This way the reference for what is real is somehow more potently exposed as what to go after at home; the memory of or mental inclination telling me (with closed eyes) that I'm sitting listening in front of my home stereo, when in fact a live symphony orchestra is playing in front of me, seems a much more effective tool or "revelator" than sitting at home trying to remember the live experience, and go from there.

They're either not measuring the right things (on-axis response isn't enough with monotonic power decreases into the first reflections also important) or they've compromised to fit market considerations and budgets (two-way cone and dome speakers with flat baffles and conventional cross-over points are inherently flawed as are electrostatic panels) and done the best they can within those constraints.

I can't help but feel that a level a conservatism has sneaked permanently into the design of speakers in the wake of it initially being a consideration to the market. Even some of the very large "top-models" from many speaker brands continue to adhere to the approach taken with the smaller and cheaper models, as if maintaining design integrity is more important than seeking to "perfect" the sound reproduction from a perspective of non-consideration to aesthetics and mass appeal; now that these speakers are as big as they are anyway, perhaps a more rigid form-follows-function aproach would result in a design that was much more appealing than squarish boxes.

05-18-12: Charles1dad
No one denies there are good sounding speakers that also measure well. The question is why do some speaker measure well yet sound poor.Why are there good sounding speakers that measure poorly. The debate lingers.

The crux to me predominantly seems to be questioning in the first place how good sounding speakers can measure poorly. I can understand the engineering perspective in this; however, it exposes the movement of the technical/theoretical side of things having become the benchmark of making speakers at the expense of actually listening with a (live) reference, and that the "listener," undeterred by sonic evidence, still chooses the adherence to theory. In a more general sense it may point at how people are being drawn away from nature; from what is actually natural.