No worries, my advice would still stand. Keep in mind some gear can measure very very well and be quite sterile and unexciting. If after extended listening you love a given speaker without reservation--that's all that really matters in the end. As I type, I am listening to a SET amp driving full range speakers in my secondary system. I am sure this does not measure well. But it brings me a very large measure of musical satisfaction. Trust your ears. In the end, that is all that matters. Take your time on speakers. Often it take time to reveal shortcomings
3-4 dB dip at crossover region: what should I listen for to hear it?
I haven’t posted here for about 10 years but thought I’d jump back in to ask about my new JBL 4349s. According to measurements on ASR and even JBLs own graphs, the 4349s have a 3-4 dB dip in the crossover region at about the 1.5 kHz mark. What should I listen for to hear this? I understand that music in this range will be quieter, but I’m not hearing any suckout compared to my Omegas or other speakers Ive had in my system. I’ve played some clarinet and violin concertos, two instruments that spend a lot of time in this frequency range, but I can’t hear an obvious difference. Am I listening for the wrong thing? I’d like to be able to hear this deficiency for leaning purposes if nothing else, so any pointers are appreciated.
Many thanks!
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- 60 posts total
@rischa , In general, if you want to catch on to things like that..... - Get a pair of flat nearfield studio monitors with significant clarity and detail like the Yamaha HS8, HS7 or similar (Siiting nearfield at 3ft away can get much of the room's confoundance out if the way). - Hook it up to a processor/DAC with multiband PEQ. - Play tracks you know very well on such monitors and start bumping up/down PEQ bands with high Q, low Q, etc. Discern how it sounds different to your ears with such manual PEQ changes. It can be a fairly quick way to train your ears.
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Couple of things come to mind. First, it could be deliberate to enhance imaging. Next, it may not be "real" in the sense that the overall energy you hear in a room may be different, or it is designed for zero toe in and listening at an angle which eliminates this issue. Despite the guys at ASR getting their panties all knotted up, if a bear poops in the woods and there’s no one there to smell it..... oh, I forgot the metaphor but basically if you don’t hear it who cares? This from a speaker maker who sweats each Hz and each dB!! 😂 Might be fun to MEASURE it in your room, and them switch a compensating parametric EQ curve in and out to see if you care and which you prefer. This is kind of tickling my memory of theater speakers, which were often 2-way and horn loaded. We never had perfect crossover matching, but we did have very good sounding theaters. This horn/woofer alignment striikes me as similar. |
One other thing that I'm thinking about is that ASR is measuring the speaker at 1 watt. Lots of speakers measure close to flat ONLY at 1 watt and then have their performance rapidly degrade when louder or heated up by playing (i.e. thermal compression). For a speaker like this, excellent performance even when played hot would matter more for me. |
- 60 posts total