Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused
17 of 23 speakers in my studio and home theater systems are internally powered. My studio system is all Genelec and sounds very accurate. I know the best new concert and studio speakers are internally powered there are great technical reasons to design a speaker and an amp synergistically, this concept is much more important to sound quality than the vibration systems we often buy. How can an audiophile justify a vibration system of any sort with this in mind.
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The BS that AES75 recognizes and attempts to address is that you need verifiable standards, not some whack job with a volt meter measuring stuff in his thread bare living room: " AES75 is designed to be independently verifiable, using analyzers and microphones typically used by audio professionals. By being independently verifiable, AES75 provides system specifiers and users a much more enforceable metric to use in quotes and architectural specs.” |
On come on @kota1, you should be ashamed to even provide that first link to superbestaudiofriends. That is nothing but someone upset that someone is pointing out that their high priced equipment probably does not do what they say it does. I don't know Amir, but looking at this photos and background, he does not appear to be hurting for money. To suggest he is on the take from some Chinese vendors, or to link to such an article, without any proof at all, is morally corrupt. Attacking the messenger because some companies are able to sell low cost products that perform very well? When has attacking the messenger been anything other than a deflection? Do you want me to go through that whole SBAF mess? Free gear? I saw his system. Hardly seems to need free relatively inexpensive gear. Amplifiers and DACs with inaudible distortion being rated poor? I already covered that. There was a comment about a MOTU being incorrectly compared using single-ended versus balanced. Looked at the review. That is incorrect. Balanced was used and even used at higher output than standard as the result was better.
I will take on one specific topping in that attempted hatchet job because it applies to this topic and that is specifically the comments made about his review of the SVS Ultra Bookshelf versus the JBL305 (at which time he compares the JBL control 1). Now the point the author seemed to be making is special treatment of JBL. As a first point, he effectively said the JBL Control 1 is really awful. Hardly special treatment. He did say he liked the JBL 305 a lot, but not the SVS Ultra. As noted, his listening area appears to be untreated. He listens single speaker, not sure if near field or not. Let's dissect the dissection that the person incensed with audio science. He makes a claim about the calculated in room response being pretty good, and said Amir's comments didn't match the graph. Amir's comments were warmth or brightness depending on how your draw the line. That is exaclty correctly. The calculated is just that, calculated based on a "typical". Depending on your room, it may be bright or warm. The incensed also took issue that the JBL room response was not as smooth as the SVS, and felt this could be corrected.
Perhaps the biggest issue with Audio Science is that it presents highly technical measurements that are then interpreted incorrectly by people who don't understand them. You can't make conclusions about a speaker by looking at one graph. The SVS has several glaring issues. It has some dips in the on-axis response. These will be audible. Worse, it has a serious off-axis response at 3KHz and at 7Khz with varying issue in between. Right there, you have broken 2 generally fundamental aspects of designing a good speaker by modern standards. What that means if you attempt to correct the room response as the SBAF person suggested, you would wreck the on axis response even more causing worse issues, not fixing them. There is also some additional directivity issues from 2-3KHz you don't want in a modern design, and the cabinet resonances seem high. The JBL305 is not perfect, but the on axis response has not broad irregularities. The ones that are there are narrow, so far less audible, but not so narrow they look like resonances except around 1.7Khz but that could be crossover overlap (Amir notes are resonance). Off-axis is very smooth and simple a sloped shift from on-axis. That is very important as it means you can correct the room response fairly well without breaking the on-axis response. The 305 does not appear to have any directivity discontinuities. When you look at the totality of the measurements, and you understand what they mean and how they interrelate, then it is not at all surprising that Amir did not like the sound and that he could not EQ it to fix the issues. He did comment it played loud without distortion by the way. |
I can only assume @kota1 , that by whack job you mean Amir at audio science? Do you feel you are in a position of knowledge or experience to make that conclusion.
It did not take long to figure out that audio science is using a Klippel for speaker measurements. This is hardly a volt meter, and represents the state of the art in audio measurement. I think he runs it in his garage, but it almost does not matter as long as you have enough space. The point of the Klippel is that it does not need an anechoic space or treated room to measure accurately. It is a great tool, though a bit slow as a development tool. The Klippel will export a CEA2034 compliant test report. That is a far more extensive test standard than AES75. The reports that audio science publishes are from within the CEA2034 measurement set and appear to cover most of it. CEA2034 would also be considered "independently verifiable", as it sets out the full test standard, methods of test, equipment requirements, reporting, etc.
This contrasts with the AES75 standard, which has one, and only one function,
I don’t consider his apparently very high end electrical test gear "a volt meter" either and fail to see how his thread bare living room will make any difference on the measurements. From my colleagues, apparently the standards around electrical performance tests are not extensive and all over the place. They also say it does not matter much as long as the fundamentals of the test is communicated. The speaker testing is well beyond anything anyone else has done previously in online reviews. I don’t know all the ins and out of the electrical testing, but even if there are flaws, it still appears far more detailed than what has been done previously.
I will comment that listening is not done as per AES20, but no audio reviewer comes even close. AES20 requires a stereo pair, but it also places requirements on the room and placement, as well as the requirement for blind testing. Without an optimized conforming listening room, single speaker listening will provide the most repeatable results which appears to be done.
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