Hi! just to make one thousand😁
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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That's right. Leave it to content creator to make that illusion for you. That illusion is objectively there, and is predicted and explained by psychoacoustics. Imagining differences in playback hardware that is not there is naturally not explained by any science. The difference will disappear once you stop comparing things. And hence the reason some audiophiles are constantly upgrading/tweaking. And believe in "everything mattering" when everything can't possibly be mattering.
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Almost all the review magazines, almost all high end manufacturers, 90% of all Audiophiles, 90% of those on this forum, 90% of manufacturers showing at high end audio shows, etc. etc. into infinity do sighted A/Bs of equipment and generally come to the same conclusions......without talking to each other. For instance, almost all the reviews of the Topping gear say it is very detailed but lacking in soul, ambience, subtly, macro dynamics, imaging, decay, etc. They all came to this on their own. They agree. AND THEY LISTENED. There have been people who believe like Amir for a long, long time. He just made the game more real for some by adding a measurement machine to make it look like there is some truth to that point of view. As, I have stated over and over again....there is no proof that if a DAC, preamp or amp measures a certain level of SINAD......that it is SONICALLY TRANPARENT. Never been tested......never. Amir made this up in his mind....It is a fantasy....that he speaks as THE TRUTH........and only believed by those that are super nerdy, cynical and angry at the high end pricing and have little money. So, you have a quarter million audiophiles, engineers, designers, and customers, etc. from all over the world saying that they hear differences in all DACS, preamps, amps and cables (using sighted a/bs)......and on the other hand you have this rogue dude saying that HUMANS are flawed and cannot make a correct decision in listening without double blind listening tests......and of course, Amir and his crew do NO listening tests......They would be afraid to do sighted tests with a bunch of people in a room. If they said that there was no difference and the other 10 all heard a certain difference then they would spread the word all over the net that Amir cannot hear. If Amir agreed with their test results (hears the same difference) then his whole world would collapse into ego hell. His whole purpose would be wiped out.....his website would have to be taken down for he has now joined "the dark side"......which is really where he lives already. He is in the dark.....afraid of the llght. He has no proof.....none. Those of us that hear a difference in everything do not need to prove it to anyone We know what we hear is real.....we hear it....We trust what we hear......What we do is common knowledge.....almost every magazine from around the world does this......they compare and state what they hear. THEY TRUST THEMSELVES......Amir trusts no one. Especially himself.....otherwise he would try sighted tests of stuff. But he made up his mind years ago about this SINAD silliness and is going to defend it to his grave (more than likely). However, it is very sad that he limits himself to OK sounding gear.....but does not want to go for the big goosebumps. You will not get big goosebumps with Topping...(well, maybe with enought drinks in you....he he). Here is a cool true story. I had a woman employee that was soldering my Ultimate Attenuators while I was tweaking my stereo (modded Quad Electrostats, etc.). I was adding pieces of Navcom to some of the digital chips in my NEC cd player to make those nasty digits behave. The more Navcom I added the warmer the sound. This lady had her left ear towards the stereo and commented that when I added them it got warmer......so, I think to myself.....well, she certainly can hear. So, after she was done working I had her sit in the "seat" and told her to concentrate on the sound of the cymbals......nothing else. BTW this woman had never ever listened to a high end stereo. I then went into the bedroom and did something and told her to listen again.....after the track was done I asked here if she heard any difference. She told me that the second time through the cymbals were more pure and real sounding......I then told here what I did.....which was.......I unplugged my LED digital clock that was next to my bed. There was only one circuit in that apartment so anything you did to the AC was heard loud and clear. She heard IT. Not a golden eared super trained listener.....a complete novice.....a virgin of stereo could hear the difference. What I just stated will make Amir go into complete freak out mode.....I cannot wait for his response. Here is a couple of guys who are doing sighted and BLIND a/bs and are also doing measurement tests to see if there is some correlation to what they hear. This is way more scientific than what Amir does.....but they claim they are doing "no science".......they are humble.....they just listen and test every way they can. Here is a session where they listen to plug in line filters and one of the guys is blind and the other is not and they basically agree on the differences.....and they already had measured these things on the bench......pretty interesting. I wish you all the most ginormous goosebumps ever.
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The whole concept of stereo, a fossilized old technology is just dumb! The whole concept of object based audio...or even a dumbed down something called BACCH that hasn’t been picked up by everyone is just a mind boggling denial of technological advancement and audio nirvana. This brief transient lifespan is about exploring/experiencing new things (one would think), but, not when it comes to "purist audiophilia"... pure and goofy till the brief lifespan comes to an end, i suppose. |
@amir_asr just like some of the measurements don't matter the way you think they do. I used to think the great measuring equipment was best until I heard the sound of a tube system. |
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