amir_asr
You cannot help yourself, you are such a rude and objectionable person. Learn some basic manners.
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.
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@laoman you state that Amir cannot help himself, and is "such a rude and objectionable person" and he should "learn some basic manners." Rather than paint with such a broad brush that it precludes the reader from gaining any actual knowledge and understanding. Why not give specific examples of Amir's rude behaviour and clarify what actions violate "basic manners"? If your goal is to encourage better communication from Amir, would your post not benefit from actual examples? Would Amir not be more open to persuasion (about his communication style) if you were able to provide clear examples of this behaviour? Please note that I am not suggesting you are wrong (or right) in your assessment, I am just noting that as a reader, it is impossible to gain any value in such generic and broad statements. One last point, disagreeing with others is not an example of rudness. Providing evidence for one's claims or to challenge another person's claims is not inherently rude. The manner a person communicates can be rude and lack basic manners even if said person agrees with you. |
"Rather than paint with such a broad brush that it precludes the reader from gaining any actual knowledge and understanding. Why not give specific examples of Amir's rude behaviour and clarify what actions violate "basic manners"? With all due respect, both others and I have given many examples of Amir's rude, condescending behaviour in this thread and in others. Read the whole of this thread for examples. |
I like to summarize online discussions to try to tease out what the central points and realizations are. Often they amount to the collective desires of the participants to simply participate, which is understandable. I read the Roon community for specific details on new Roon Ready certifications, the fate of MQA, and technical details about using MUSE. I read ASR for reviews of new (and old) products and how they objectively perform, as well as new insights about the science and engineering of audio systems. Here at Audiogon, however, I just check in after I get a Friday summary list and really don't see much new information at all. We have committed listeners who tell long narratives about how trusted friends told them about a product, or how everyone should try some new cables, and how listening convinced them of this or that. But what we don't get is any real or actionable information beyond "If you liked Nordblost's Mjolgurniator III, just wait until you can trade up to MRT's Fusionator 3000!" I've yet to discover something novel beyond the brief deep-dive that I participated in above (and was prompted by the prolific and occasionally challenging @mahgister) concerning how exactly listening and measurements might have a divergence...at least currently. Now I might be biased slightly towards novel and actionable information that has some depth to it based on my background and passions, but I am curious what other contributors get out of all this bashing and clashing, promoting and diminishing? I'm curious why folks argue and contribute here besides the obvious commercial interests of dealers cultivating sales (a bit of a sad and fundamentally small market to be captive to, alas)? I'm developing a book on the topic, so any insights/confessions/realizations are of interest to me! |
@markwd “Well, fair enough, but you have not demonstrated that human hearing exceeds those measurements for music listening purposes!”
@markwd “If we had just one great ABX test that showed me wrong, I would be thrilled because that would pave the way to something new.”
@markwd “All those dynamics would dance again and the mad scientists who brought the systems to life would be celebrated for rightly finding a path towards a new audio Xanadu”
@markwd “I'm certainly indoctrinated in the epistemic humility to be as careful as possible in assessing ideas, my own and those of others who hope but have not fully honed those hopes with the calm clarity of rationality.”
@markwd “I’ll note also that I think you may be misinterpreting the Fourier uncertainty principle in this particular context as I and Amir have mentioned to @mahgisterin several contexts. The authors are showing that if you used Fourier analysis as a model for human hearing there are limits to its applicability because there is likely nonlinear bucketing that allows for discrimination of time/frequency in excess of what a linear system is capable of.”
@markwd “The speculation is that the fine acuity is derived from evolutionary pressures and the mechanics of it are due to the shape of the cochlea”
@markwd “…but I can change "edge" to "newly found" to remove any stigma the term invokes!”
Markwd, for more, please refer to my coming reply to amir’s question to me.
In friendship - kevin |
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