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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
 

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

It is the full truth.  Fourier transform takes a time domain signal and converts to fundamental sine waves that created it.  This is a proven mathematical relationship.  Just like Pythagorean formula.  It is not subject to debate.  And  no experiment whatsoever has disproven it.  Again, it is a mathematical proof ("theorem").

There is an observation with respect to such a transform that follows the same in quantum mechanics called Heisenberg uncertainty principle.   It says that the more you know about a particles momentum, the less you know about its position and vice versa.  The comparable version for Fourier transform is that to get more accuracy in frequency domain, the less you know about its timing and vice versa.  Here is a nice video explaining all of this briefly:

 

The research you put forward says that our hearing system due to its non-linearities, doesn't follow this relationship.  That when we trade off timing resolution vs frequency, they don't follow a 1:1 relationship.  But this has no bearing whatsoever on audio measurements!  In audio measurements, we have a known, usually simple input signal.  At no time are we interested in its characteristics with respect to time domain.  What we want to know is when it goes into our audio system, does it create noise and distortion that is NOT in the audio signal that was input.

Take my dashboard for example:

 

On the left is a simple sine wave.  In a perfect system, its fourier transform would produce a single spike (on the right) at its frequency and that would be it.  Above is not an ideal system so we see harmonic distortion and noise.

The uncertainty principle comes into play in that I had to select large enough number of audio samples to give us the resolution we need on the right to clearly see the spurious tones created by the non-linearities of device under test.  For my dashboard, I use 32,000 samples. 

It is true then that you don't know where in those 32,000 samples that distortion profile exist from the fourier transform.  But you do know that because the above sine wave never changes!  It goes on forever producing a single tone at 1 kHz.

I demonstrate all of this in my view on FFT:

 

Because the number of samples I use is programable, the fourier transforms I show hugely outperform human ear!  To wit, I can measure the frequency components of a signal to less than 1 Hz if I want.  Human ear has far lower resolution, expressed as ERB:

 

At 10 KHz, our hearing's frequency discrimination is as poor as 1000 Hz! 

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

No, no, no. Some of the measurements I perform have been around for nearly a century!  Way before we have had any audio analyzer had any computing ability to produce fourier transform.  You can go on ebay and buy analog THD+N analyzers such as this:

 

My analyzer produces a more accurate version of these measurements but no fourier analysis is used, and even if it had, it would not matter per my explanation above.

Take this PrimaLuna tube amplifier:

 

You can take to the bank that it has power supply noise and distortion.  There is no uncertainty about that.

Finally, our knowledge of psychoacoustics is strongly based on actual human listening tests.  Whatever the ear+brain can do, is already embedded in that science.  The experiment you keep citing does not change any of that.

So please, for love of everyone, don't keep repeating what you have been saying about measurements, how they work and their use of fourier transform, or not.

 

Post removed 
ricevs
1,543 posts
 

One one hand we have the untruth of Amir stating that all amps, preamps and DACs that measure a certain way are totally transparent and that all wires sound the same and that power cords, fuses, footers, getting cables off the floor, my tweako things, etc.....are totally nonesense (all because he refuses to listen to these things).........and on the other hand we have the Mahgister with his constant rants that no one cares about. You guys should take your act over to Audio Asylum.......he he.

What is missing is happiness. Happiness is our true and real state of being. Basically, we mind f..k ourselves into thinking we are something else and not deserving of happiness......so we try to prove our worth....or our unworth. All false identities are just that.....false. When you just sit still and quiet the mind and open the heart.....guess what happens?.....you become peaceful and happy.

Whatever you think, say, feel and do every second creates your next reality....and all your realities....and everyones reality. We are powerful.....and we can create as much happiness as we want. But being addicted to our mind and our righteousness does not bring happiness......only separation.and despair. When Amir and Mahgister are posting they are not in Bliss (our true nature)....at least, that is my guess. However, they could feel their bliss and then write words that reflect their true nature. Then we would all benefit. I try and write from bliss. I am getting better at it. Perfection takes forever.......How much more love and bliss can you or I feel and share? What are you doing on this forum.....are you looking to increase your love and bliss.....or are you here to affirm your ego beliefs? Are you here to be of REAL service? For when you feel more and more love and joy....you want EVERYONE to join in.........like Frampton said....."Do you feel like I do?" I want to feel like the Sun.....like the Moon......like eternal lovers.....like a new born baby......like a child or pet playing......like a dancer in total ecstacy.......I want everyone to feel this way. What do you want?

While standing, imagine a two foot wide circle in front of you on the ground. Imagine the quality you want to embody and mentally put it into that circle....now step into the circle and feel that quality and become that quality. This is ALL there is to creation. We are that powerful. It has nothing to do with anyone else.....what they think or say or do. YOU CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY.......moment to moment. So step into conscious circles and bubbles every moment you can remember and become more and more love and joy.......It is a fun dance......and we can all join in.

texbychoice
163 posts
 

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.

Only part of the story.  Erin may not be banned currently.  He was banned from ASR in the recent past.  After that ban was put in place, Amir defended himself by claiming he warned Erin multiple times but allowed violations to continue for almost a year.  Erin defended himself as "monetization" links were added by others posting Erin's reviews - a situation beyond his control.  

Why would violation of a core principle of the ASR code of conduct be allowed to continue for so long?  Appears to be selective rule enforcement to support another agenda.  Half truths and a lack of full transparency are not the hallmarks of an honest broker.

audition__audio
1,678 posts
 

Very few more positive emotions than shame and guilt. Hopefully we rarely feel these but they are a wonderful way of keeping ourselves in check. Happiness is a wonderful state of being but it must be earned. To be in a constant state of happiness requires a special type of person that is able to recognize the significance of humanity as well as the pitfalls of self-interest. Our true nature is one in which how we feel varies from day to day and is situational.  

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