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Some thoughts on ASR and the reviews

I’ve briefly taken a look at some online reviews for budget Tekton speakers from ASR and Youtube. Both are based on Klippel quasi-anechoic measurements to achieve "in-room" simulations.

As an amateur speaker designer, and lover of graphs and data I have some thoughts. I mostly hope this helps the entire A’gon community get a little more perspective into how a speaker builder would think about the data.

Of course, I’ve only skimmed the data I’ve seen, I’m no expert, and have no eyes or ears on actual Tekton speakers. Please take this as purely an academic exercise based on limited and incomplete knowledge.

1. Speaker pricing.

One ASR review spends an amazing amount of time and effort analyzing the ~$800 US Tekton M-Lore. That price compares very favorably with a full Seas A26 kit from Madisound, around $1,700. I mean, not sure these inexpensive speakers deserve quite the nit-picking done here.

2. Measuring mid-woofers is hard.

The standard practice for analyzing speakers is called "quasi-anechoic." That is, we pretend to do so in a room free of reflections or boundaries. You do this with very close measurements (within 1/2") of the components, blended together. There are a couple of ways this can be incomplete though.

a - Midwoofers measure much worse this way than in a truly anechoic room. The 7" Scanspeak Revelators are good examples of this. The close mic response is deceptively bad but the 1m in-room measurements smooth out a lot of problems. If you took the close-mic measurements (as seen in the spec sheet) as correct you’d make the wrong crossover.

b - Baffle step - As popularized and researched by the late, great Jeff Bagby, the effects of the baffle on the output need to be included in any whole speaker/room simulation, which of course also means the speaker should have this built in when it is not a near-wall speaker. I don’t know enough about the Klippel simulation, but if this is not included you’ll get a bass-lite expereinced compared to real life. The effects of baffle compensation is to have more bass, but an overall lower sensitivity rating.

For both of those reasons, an actual in-room measurement is critical to assessing actual speaker behavior. We may not all have the same room, but this is a great way to see the actual mid-woofer response as well as the effects of any baffle step compensation.

Looking at the quasi anechoic measurements done by ASR and Erin it _seems_ that these speakers are not compensated, which may be OK if close-wall placement is expected.

In either event, you really want to see the actual in-room response, not just the simulated response before passing judgement. If I had to critique based strictly on the measurements and simulations, I’d 100% wonder if a better design wouldn’t be to trade sensitivity for more bass, and the in-room response would tell me that.

3. Crossover point and dispersion

One of the most important choices a speaker designer has is picking the -3 or -6 dB point for the high and low pass filters. A lot of things have to be balanced and traded off, including cost of crossover parts.

Both of the reviews, above, seem to imply a crossover point that is too high for a smooth transition from the woofer to the tweeters. No speaker can avoid rolling off the treble as you go off-axis, but the best at this do so very evenly. This gives the best off-axis performance and offers up great imaging and wide sweet spots. You’d think this was a budget speaker problem, but it is not. Look at reviews for B&W’s D series speakers, and many Focal models as examples of expensive, well received speakers that don’t excel at this.

Speakers which DO typically excel here include Revel and Magico. This is by no means a story that you should buy Revel because B&W sucks, at all. Buy what you like. I’m just pointing out that this limited dispersion problem is not at all unique to Tekton. And in fact many other Tekton speakers don’t suffer this particular set of challenges.

In the case of the M-Lore, the tweeter has really amazingly good dynamic range. If I was the designer I’d definitely want to ask if I could lower the crossover 1 kHz, which would give up a little power handling but improve the off-axis response.  One big reason not to is crossover costs.  I may have to add more parts to flatten the tweeter response well enough to extend it's useful range.  In other words, a higher crossover point may hide tweeter deficiencies.  Again, Tekton is NOT alone if they did this calculus.

I’ve probably made a lot of omissions here, but I hope this helps readers think about speaker performance and costs in a more complete manner. The listening tests always matter more than the measurements, so finding reviewers with trustworthy ears is really more important than taste-makers who let the tools, which may not be properly used, judge the experience.

erik_squires
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,193 posts
 

@mahgister

Behind the ’apparently scientific’ facade some of these guys are posing under, it is largely a utilitarian life for these ASR types (eat, plug cables into audio precision kit, garbage in/garbage out, look at graph, go to sleep, think about Sean Olive for more street cred, etc). Don’t waste your breath trying to talk about anything that flows into the "metaphysical" realms with this utilitarian crew... 😁

 

 

I only spoke about science, acoustics science with them...

And they dont understand acoustics at all ...

many ASR people act as someone who sees nails everywhere because they own a hammer...

ASR sell this little set of measures as the ONLY solution to qualitative audio experience...

This techno-cultism has then anything to do about science...it is an ideology...They are not even conscious that we need an hearing theory background to define concepts...

For example what is "timbre" and what are we perceiving when we perceive a "timbre"... The subject is so complex i discovered only one book , a doctorate thesis, about this phenomenon... And i read this book and used it when i argued with another engineer here 3 or 4 years ago...

In an extraordinary set of events i just read two scientific papers few weeks ago that confirmed the ecological theory of hearing i begun to understand reading this book ... It is an acoustic revolution ...

i spoke about that in the thread "sound as a mystical experience" ...It is pure acoustics i spoke about not mystics experience even if sound has healing and spiritual effect...

I never dare to speak "metaphysics" as you said with them, if they dont understand what timbre is and the acoustics primacy in audio how will you begin to understand metaphysics ?

Prof once said to me that the astrology Kepler and Newton studied all their life is bogus matter for deluded people... I asked him what studies he has done of astrology ... he answered none... I myself bought near 100 books and studied Indian as western astrology as a hobby and i know what is meaningful and what is meaningless in astrology ...

I did the same in linguistic...I read my first linguistic book 40 years ago ( a doctorate thesis about the greatest linguist since Panini a french , Gustave Guillaume)

I did the same in mathematics... ( i studied Logic and Set theory and number theory )

As for acoustics...( i wanted to set my system/ room, it takes me 2 years full time and some narrow mind dare to claim that i need a double blind test with ABX , this is comical because when you tune a room you use simple blind test all the time, it is a tool not an ideological circus )

Now i did the same for economy... ( the root of the market idea is not from Adam Smith nor the classes concept from Marx )

Most people think for example that Capitalism and Marxism are economic theory... They are not... They are techno cultist specific way to allocate products and services in an open centralized way (Marxism) or in relation to market price and money supply control ( hidden centralization controls as with Blackrock nowadays) ... Capitalism and Marxism are ideology not economical science ... As Nazism theory of race is a techno cultist ideology not biological science.... Those who think that these 2 techno cultists ideologies are part and center of the real economy which is an ethical science are like our friend for which owning a hammer means that all is nails...

By the way i learned about the originator of the market idea , Bernard Mandeville from an Hayek conference 70 years ago where he called Mandeville genius "our master to us all" Guess why ? He knows a bit about economy with 8 Nobel prize among his disciples...

 

 

Ok i spoke too much ...

 

Thanks for your kind word ...

 

 

😊

 

rankaudio
154 posts
 
botrytis

171 posts

 

@rankaudio That is nice. Have anything CONSTRUCTIVE to say?

 

No. I had a very bad experience with him and his henchman in their forum. I'm amazed he hasn't been sued into oblivion by several companies. He's really an oddball and I wouldn't want to bore anyone with the story. 

rankaudio
154 posts
 

BTW, can someone explain to me how you evaluate the sound of a product you don't even listen to?

audition__audio
1,519 posts
 

Well I dont think anyone is suggesting, except Amir, what you propose. The crux of this entire thing comes down to the fact that most measurements do not tell you how a device will sound. How else then could it be that an amplifier with identical specifications doesnt sound exactly like another amp that measures the same? This is where Amir is so completely wrong. We do not know how to measure the things in the audio chain which some of our ears perceive as the most vital in reproduction. Why listen to Amir in the first place? Compared to those that make and create he is, on his best day, a tourist. 

 

 

rankaudio
154 posts
 

I base my decisions for audio gear only by how they connect me to the music emotionally. I realize this is just flowery nonsense for tech-heads. I don’t care how a product measures as long as it connects me to the music. I envy a person who sits in a car, listening to what many may consider a substandard car stereo but is enjoying the heck out of the song. The car stereo is connecting the listener to the emotion of the music. It’s that emotional connection I want. I could care less about measurements. Let qualified engineers do that. I am NOT qualified nor do I pretend to be. Amir is just black&white on audio. He doesn't have or express any emotion to connect himself to any music. He reminds me of a robot or AI who has zero emotional connection to gear. He probably has a serious case of alexithymia.

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