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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
13,183 posts
 

Amir refuse to engage on hearing theory in acoustics.😁

He answered only about gear measurements and created discussions about this SECONDARY matter...

Subjectivist takes the bait and gulp it with the line...

😊

What is hearing? and what it is not ?

What do we hear when we hear a sound ?

Is there a difference when human hear speech, stereo playback music and natural sound ?

When we choose a piece of gear and connect it in our system and in our room and for our ears, does it make sense if we see the sheet where Amir has written the verified specs measured again does it make sense to claim that we will be able to predict if the S.Q. will be good or not so ?

The answer is evident it cannot be yes ...

Because there is no linear connection between sound experience and any gear specs ; they are not acoustics measures, then does not means much save for the gear electrical synergy.

Measuring a single speakers did not say anything important about his concrete installation and the resulting acoustic experience but only can confirm what the designer intent was or not with the basic specs.

Amir techno-cultist ideology reflect the state of our social fabric : in shambles because of the gullibility of masses easy to control as sheep going in the "right" direction...

But some are able to read a text in acoustics and makes their own mind and experiments....

And some at least keep secure their only treasure : their ears...

A very deceptive sense according to Amir trained to spot digital artefacts...😊

As if there was a relation between spotting digital artefact and recognizing all sounds in a jungle environment or evaluate any acoustic parameters in a dedicated room for our ears specific psychoacoustics parameters...

All these perceptions about acoustic qualities dont ask for "acuity" as much as they ask for the right concept to be known and recognized...Nobody can recognize and evaluate what he dont know about even if he had sensed it ...

We perceive more, if we had the right acoustic concept nevermind our measured "acuity", than a person with only  top notch acuity but no conceptual experience about the sound qualities and meanings he was hearing...

Amir has acuity but does he know how to change for the better the system/room ears experience in an evident way with a bundle of straws or some empty toilet paper or plastic  roll?😎

Does he understand how work mechanical crossfeed or listener envelopment ?

No because he need to compute each parameters separately for dimensions, geometry, size, location, and there is no simple recipe to compute it optimally for all room geometry, size, topology and all acoustic content, and all room pressure zone locations ( too much factors non linearly linked together ). We need our ears/brain trained with basic acoustics concepts if we want to recognize the S.Q. parameters interaction and their resulting meanings at the end.

Anyway discussing with him about gear specs measures will only comfort his digital ideology...

Amir is not even wrong here ...😊

 

Amir sell gear pieces...

He does not sell knowledge and experiments ...

Nothing will be wrong with that but his ideology about the measures presented as the only truth is the problem...

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

knock1
237 posts
 

@kevn I do agree with you fully. "i am confused now" was a tongue in cheek.

andy2
1,555 posts
 

Hi Amir,

Does the 1KHz tone that you measure on the DAC, does it tell you how good the bass is or how sweet the treble sounds?  Do you have a test for these as well?

dwcda
116 posts
 

This thread is frickin’ awesome, absolutely delivers.

Amir: this equipment measures badly. Here’s my evidence from tests that I performed. Feel free to purchase it at your own risk.

ASR Forum: science trumps all. If two pieces of "stuff" measure the same you will not hear a difference under a blind ABX test. Prove us wrong but if you argue with us, we’ll beat you into submission.

Audigon: this cables sounds great, if you don’t hear the difference your equipment sucks & cannot resolve the difference, your room needs acoustic treatment, you have a tin ear, you don’t know what you’re listening for. Blind ABX tests are meaningless, I don’t need to test my hearing to know that I heard a difference. I attended a Pink Floyd concert in 1978 and I can still remember how great it was. If I like Pasta Primavera more than Chili con Carne I don’t need a blind ABX test to prove that to myself. WRT blind ABX tests... oh, you’re one of those.

Why does Amir keep posting here? No one cares what he has to say... 500+ posts later the argument continues.

deep_333
1,461 posts
 

Mr. Amir in the introduction to one of his videos stated

"we absolutely can measure the differences between cables. The question is do those measurements matter as far as the perception, and the short answer is they don’t"

I am confused now.

Oh, you didn’t know??? The ASR romons can’t perceive cables, but, they can somehow magically perceive 0.0000000001% sinad and they will rank their Toppings and Poppings accordingly on the sinad romon database (purchase guidance shining light).

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