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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
amir_asr
777 posts
 

you miss completely the argument...

It is not about measurement here... He explained why it is very difficult to measure this without very serious research... You dismissed it without even getting the main point BECAUSE IT SUIT YOU..😊

It is about measurement.  This is from the summary right at the start:

"SUMMARY. In the discussion about the perceived quality of sound systems the temporal aspect is often neglected or its importance underestimated. In this paper we propose a semi-quantitative property of systems to compare these, taking the temporal behaviour into account. We have tried to find a simple, easily to find and to interpret parameter which by no means will be the final answer to the problems encountered in audio, but can help to improve the comparison of systems in a more objective way and could help to direct future developments."

It can't more clear that he is proposing an objective, measured parameter.  Yet, neither he, nor you apply this to any system to measure it.  Why advocate an objective measurement when you can't or haven't computed it?

The main point is here :

What you quoted is not in this paper.  Please stay on this paper instead of jumping to other ones.  It is a difficult enough discussion to have without doing that.

Then your pretense to predict sound quality with your narrow set of measures is preposterous... 

The paper introduces a dead simple measurement of its own, which is simply met with wide bandwidth.  It completely excludes distortions and noise, two of the most important impairments in audio.  Once again from the paper:

"Disregarding non-linear distortions, the frequency response between 20 Hz and 20 kHz of a system is very often taken as a major parameter determining the quality of a sound reproduction system."

A simple impulse response is not going to tell you anything remotely akin to fidelity of the system.  This measurement has been known for decades and decades yet it is not at all applied in this application.  You want to call a a measurement "narrow" and preposterous, there is no better example than what is in the paper you reference.'

It can be concluded that frequencies
above the hearing limit can indeed generate signals that are below the
hearing limit which could thus influence the perceived sound and the
quality experienced.»

Nothing as such can be concluded unless listening test results are shown to prove it.  Tests of high resolution music which by definition has higher bandwidth and less ringing in audio domain, have failed to provide clear audible evidence.  If doubling or quadrupling the system bandwidth and hence reduction in decay time can't be shown to have value, what he is saying is in dire need of proofs, not pleadings.

All this demonstrate the complete futility to PREDICT sound quality by measuring with Fourier linear tool some aspects of the gear piece ...

There is no such statement or position in the paper.  Per above, audio system non-linearities and noise are put aside and an argument is made for a single, trivial measurement that he hasn't perform to prove anything.

We must listen...

Which neither you, nor the author have done.  Given that, the paper should be dismissed then, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

amir_asr
777 posts
 

Adding on,

All this demonstrate the complete futility to PREDICT sound quality by measuring with Fourier linear tool some aspects of the gear piece ...

As I have repeatedly explained to you in the past, many measurements I perform are devoid of any use of Fourier transform.  SINAD for example is computed using simple signal subtraction (you take out the input tone and all that is left is noise+distortion which we call SINAD).  Signal to noise ratio is just a level differential.  THD+N vs frequency is the above but at different frequencies.

We perform fourier transforms so that we can then apply psychoacosutics to the measurements.  It is not by itself as you keep claiming, is the way measurements are performed.  So please stop calling my measurements Fourier based.  

laoman's avatar
laoman
435 posts
 

If you want to take notice of measurements I suggest you look at Erin’s Audio Corner. He is far more professional and thorough than Amir. Interestingly Amir could not stand the competition and so banned Erin from ASR. Even many ASR minions thought this was unfair.

In typical Amir fashion he shut down the thread because he was afraid some minions would support Erin and leave the cult. This is what Amir always does when he is challenged.

amir_asr
777 posts
 

 Interestingly Amir could not stand the competition and so banned Erin from ASR. 

He is not banned from ASR.  A number of others have started to measure equipment and they do so on ASR.  And I routinely promote their content as long as it is not for monetization.

When Tekton threatened to sue Erin, it was me who came to his rescue, offering $10,000 personally and getting him lawyers.  The latter helped him get out from under Eric at Tekton.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,987 posts
 

Amir you completely distorted what i said and Van Maanen said...

i was not thinking about measurements...

Van Maanen and all the other articles you dare to forgot i used here (5) are about the context of listening psychoacoustics measurement not about specific gear measurements ...

I spoke of the reason why in psychacoustics concerning what we hear and the information we retrieve in any sound phenomenon your measures of the gear so good they can be and i never contest this point, as others here did, so good they could be cannot  be used to predict the quality of sound aqnd it is YOUR MARKETING CLAIM ...

Your answer draw the fish beside the side attacking psychacousticals question you dont ADRESS here in all 5 or 6 articles by different scientists all ;pointing in the same direction about hearing : an ecological theory of hearing..With psychoacoustics measurements in each one...

You distorted what Van Maanen said and only adressed him as you adress an amateur reviewer with no measures when he spoke psychoacoustics science consequence for design and hearing music...

not only that you distorted the matter saying your sinad tool is not a Fourier tool. This is an half truth. why ?

All tools in audio directly or indirectly use Fourier mathematics as direct tool or  as the only context of interpretation.

It is easier for you to not answer anything but distort  and drown the psychoacoustics fishs..

And most people here do not understand anyway, not one comment ...

Three of the articles i cited in psychoacoustics are research of the last year and one from few years ago by an  acoustician , which book i own, demonstrated right by  2 new research of this year, i cited above but you never adressed

you did not adressed nothing save distorting Van Maanen suggesting that he is an "amateur"...

Anybody can verify he is not, you are an amateur in acoustics physics and psychoacoustics..

 

 

 

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