“ Surely you can hear a Cornwall has better Macro dynamics than a Harbeth right?
Who here agrees with him?
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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Refer to earlier comment on how to drop the room’s noise floor to improve the "perception" of dynamics. Talk to guys like Dennis Foley (Acoustic Fields), Poes Acoustics, Anthony Grimani, etc about how to redo the construction, drywall, studs, hvac vents and so on. And yes, there is very much a thing called a faster speaker playing the same notes. A few pages ago, I even hinted to the ASR simpleton how he would start to go about measuring it (atleast one aspect of it) Such a speaker will let you perceive the dynamic contrasts better -> give you a better hint of the silence tied to the space in-between, your room’s low noise floor, etc when you’re playing music. For example, Borresen would fall in that category of speaker. This simpleton will keep doubling down when he doesn’t know about something, keeping his minions in the darkness. I guess it is tied to his livelihood, pretending to be a know it all (so, it is what it is).. |
SMSL rated for measurements 116
PsAudio DirectStream MK1 in 2019 rated 76 almost at the bottom I really want to thank @amir_asr again for his thoughtful responses to my questions but it's pretty apparent that there is a lot more to sound reproduction than just measurements. Am I biased toward my own system? Of course I am. I've spent years getting it to this point and to me it produces the a sound signature that I like. Can a $80 DAC compete with a $6000 DAC? Of course it can't. The differences go way beyond sighted bias. While the SMSL SU-1 does a lot of things well it approaches music like performing brain surgery with a hammer. I A/Bd the dacs using two different sources. The first was a PI2AES using the Coax to the SMSL vs the AES/EBU to the DirectStream both using fairly short cables. When switching between inputs when both sources were connected to the DirectStream they were indistinguishable so I consider it a fair comparison and much easier to A/B as I could just select the input and the amp and adjust the volume. The differences were much more noticeable when using the PI2AES as the SMSL DAC was much grainier and less refined. The other source was a fanless PC using upscaler software. The SMSL has the advantage on paper as it will support higher frequencies of both DSD and PCM than the Directstream but even with that advantage the DirectStream's vocals sounded real vs the SMSLs rendition that would sometimes veer into what sounded like the singer was using autotune. To be honest the $80 SMSL surprised me on how good it actually sounded. The bass went low and was tight. It had good extension and no noticeable background noise. On the other hand the PSAudio was a $6000 DAC when new. Even it hasn't sounded the same over its' lifespan as there have been several software updates to keep improving it. While not a blind test, I believe that measuring better does not mean sounding better and the differences here go way beyond slight bias as they should, comparing the costs. PSAudio Direct Stream MK 1 vs SMSL SU-1 Fanless PC upsampling to DSD. Nnenna Freelon Straighten up and fly right The differences in these two presentations is so obvious that I'm confident I could walk in the room with this song playing and easily identify which DAC was being used. The SMSL has the frequency response and the bass is there as is separation. The Take 6 backup vocalist do come from different locations left, left center right center and right but the presentation lacks depth. It's as if sharpness was turned way up like what happens in photo editing. Everything is flattened and all the hues are lost. The vocals have that digital quality that are almost like they are straining. With the PSAudio the Take 6 vocalists step into the room the finger snaps are in a location on the sound stage and not just snaps on a plane. There was some special engineering on this song that gives it a quality that SMSL just doesn't capture. Woong San Round Midnight I will admit it was more difficult to discern the differences between the DACs on this song. The SMSL was able to capture the frequencies of the bass but still not its body. The notes were there but with the DirectStream you could hear the notes resonate within the instrument. Woon San's voice has an almost whisper quality on this song which was lost on the SMSL. Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris Sweet Spot No contest here. The SMSL was way more forward and harsh. This song has a snare drum where all the intimacies were masked and shoved forward while on the DirectStream the skins rang and again occupied space. I used a sound meter app to make sure the volumes were the same. The SMSL sounded louder and it wasn't lacking in frequency response but its' inability to retrieve detail performed as should be expected at that price point. There is a definite audible difference in DACs and I can reliable state DACS do not sound the same. While the SMSL is rated in the excellent category in 2023 in 2019 the PSAudio DirectStream was rated poor almost at the very bottom. So a quotes like
and
in this instance and from my experience these statements are very misleading and outright wrong. There is a reason that people buy high end expensive DACs and it's not because they are being misled by sight bias or duped by snake oil salesmen. I recently watched a youtube reviewer and he compared DACs for over a month without being able to differentiate between the two but after a while the differences started to appear. This comparison isn't that. The differences are immediately obvious and way beyond subtle differences and bias. I'm sorry Amir but for sound quality price matters more than numbers, believe me I wish it wasn't true but in this case and on sound quality alone your panther has lost it’s head.
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First, thank you for the constructive tone of your response. 😀 If sound quality matters, then I have that for you as well in my review of PS Audio DirectStream DAC:
"Listening Tests In my case, my findings match the measurements. Output transformers are adding significant amount of distortion:
You can see this effect in complex waveform of 32-tone test signal:
Here is the kicker: the designer whose prototype was brought to market by PS Audio, admitted using inferior transformer!
So you pay $6,000 for a DAC and there is still no room to use a proper transformer??? Knowing the source of distortion through my measurements allowed me to focus my listening tests, in this case, bass heavy tracks to better detect them. Otherwise you are just shooting in the dark.
What makes your subjective listening experience right, and mine wrong? The SMSL DAC I recommended doesn't have any of the above impairments. I highly suggest you repeat your test, this time please match levels, do it blind and repeat at least 10 times and see if you can identify your DAC 9 out of 10 times. If the difference is obvious sighted, then this should be easy. And no, I am not saying you are biased. I am saying you are human. And humans are not capable of performing such tests properly without controls in place. |
is that the same song 10 times or 10 different songs? My poor wife... this is going to cost me more than I paid for the DAC. The issue is the gain and getting them to match blindly. I'm running them both directly into my integrated amp so it's easy to switch sources the problem is the gain is much higher on the SMSL which doesn't have a volume control if it was the other way around I could set it on the PSAudio and then just switch back and forth. I do have a preamp that that has the option of a passive attenuation and can match them that way but that could alter the outcome by introducing additional factors??? I'll give it a go and am pretty positive on certain tracks I can get 10 out of 10 while there are other tracks that don't have such obvious markers and I'm not as familiar with which might be able to trip me up on occasion but I"m game. |
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