Analytical or Musical Which way to go?

The question remains who is the final arbiter? Measurements,reviewers or cutomers. Assuming some consensus could be reached about what measurements are important from a business point that would seem to be your choice.

Certainly there is no consistency between reviewers and customers.

I would go for musical every time, give me euphonic, coloured, tubes and I'm a happy bunny.

A more interesting way to express the question, is, how does the Speaker designer work on a new design? Is it by measurement or careful listening and tweaking. Now I know the two are'nt mutually exclusive, that "listener" will measure too and vice versa, but I'm sure different manufacturers rely on one or the other more.

There are 3 manufacturers that come to mind, in the"analytical" camp, Wilson, Focal and BandW. Just my view and others may argue I am wrong. All three I find unlistenable for any length of time. Wilson in particuar, I really dislike, apart from the cheapest, Duettes.

My own speakers, Daedalus, are largely voiced by listening and they are the best I have had.

So what path the manufacturer takes in designing the speaker, seems more important. I quite accept listening and measuring are'nt mutually exclusive.

David12, the Wilsons are voiced by listening too. If you have them on the right gear they are quite musical, also very revealing. But put them on the wrong gear and they can sound the way you describe.

In speakers its really important to see what the designer is using for a reference, especially with regards to the amplifier. If they use a transistor amp don't expect the best sound with a tube amp, and vice versa. Tubes and transistors don't behave along the same rules, for example transistors can double power when you cut the impedance in half and no tube amp will do that. That can result in very different crossover designs, which may not work right if you don't have the right amp! They behave with different rules.

More on this:
http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php

""How do we know which componet is colored? Or if the source is colored? It has been suggested to me that EQ negatively alters the tonal balance of a speaker."

Always a problem. I do three things:

- Use well-recorded reference disks for system evaluation and setup. That generally means naturally miked, purist recordings of acoustical music, made in a good hall. Multimiked commercial recordings will generally be bright or screechy by comparison, and don't image well.

- Use measurements. They don't tell you everything, but they do tell you which components are flat or not, since aside from the speakers, they should all be a straight line. But usually these days, unless you're using a high output impedance amp, it's the speakers that are the main culprits, followed by the cartridge. I'm not a big fan of using one colored component to compensate for another, though in that I'm probably in the minority these days. That's because I think there are cheaper and more effective ways to do the same thing, namely EQ.

- Just listen, because in the end, none of it really matters, it's what you hear with the recordings you listen to that counts.

BTW, I think those who are criticizing EQ are thinking of the old analog jobbies. They rarely put the correction quite where you needed it and they tended to introduce other colorations as well. DSP-based EQ is much more effective. However, unless you have a lot of time or are perhaps making a copy of a favorite recording, when it comes to correcting individual recordings I think most of us have to settle for a rather coarse adjustment of the sort that's best suited to really unlistenable recordings. So I'd begin with a few target curves -- maybe hot pop, large ensemble classical, small ensemble classical, all in series with your room and speaker correction, which should be constant. Then I'd use manual correction to make the really offensive recordings listenable.

I agree with you, Josh. Digital EQ has improved so dramatically in the past ten years that, at this point, the best ones add virtually no perceptible colorations. I've used both hardware and software implementations of digital EQ and had excellent results with both. Of course, there are still plenty of older generation digital EQ's out there that sound harsh and compressed, and IMO they give EQ'ing a bad rap.

From what I can tell, the audiophile preoccupation with accuracy is another obstacle to the acceptance of EQ. But I share view that, because the system itself (esp. speakers and room) is always to some extent inaccurate, the use of EQ can result in a MORE accurate sound at your listening position, which is where it counts.

IMO, IME, etc.

Bryon