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.
- ...
- 1166 posts total
I realize the OP was talking about ASR speaker measurements and I went off on DAC measurements but this post has turned into an ASR free for all.
This my be the most logical explanation of why all DACs don't sound the same and why chasing the best measurements doesn't produce the best sound quality.
|
The most "logical" explanation is one that takes science into account and tells you that sighted evaluations by the designer and reviewer have no value especially at these low levels of detail. Fortunately Cameron is starting to learn this as you can tell from this video of his produced 5 months later than above video. The title is clickbait as he does not at all test two different DACs but do listen to the introduction where he fully acknowledges that such testing must be blind and repeated:
|
I’m not familiar with all of Monster’s models, but found an article that talks about the relationship and history. I’m assuming every model since those early designs is some variation (aside from the mainstream Monster products that were sold at Best Buy) based on those patents. I also have some bulk Powerline Signature 400 cable and it’s comparable to what Furutech is selling for many, many times the price. Stereophile: Noel Lee Interview I’m a bit skeptical of those listening tests since there are pretty easy ways to game them. The Kimber one at Axpona compared also their cheapest (thinnest) cable with their high end. I like Kimber and own a run, but a better test would be to compare a similar gauge wire. I haven’t heard the D70, but heard their D90 III and it was terrible. I do like SMSL’s ES9039MSPRO-based DACs for the price and leaving it in a spare system. The bigger problem with Topping/SMSL is that product support is nearly non-existent and their sales channels are an absolute nightmare with some genuinely dishonest tactics (such as many burying their ’certified’ no return policy). You’re pretty-much buying a disposable device you anticipate may never get a firmware update and may die at any moment. I don’t have extensive DAC audition experience, but have heard MBL’s 101 X-tremes at a private audition, which were running through their Sigma Delta-based DAC (not sure the chipset) and I doubt I could tell the difference between SMSL’s D1se2 and their 1611 F. (I’m going off of memory compared to the SMSL running into my 101s, which isn’t a direct comparison.) I ended up buying a Laiv recently and it sounds good, works with how I use my system and isn’t a furnace. Digital audio has come quite a ways from the ’high-end’ soundcards everyone was happily running. |
Had a member send me $30,000 worth of CHORD DACs/Resmpler/Cables for testing. I asked him how fast I needed to test them and to my surprise, he said to take my time. And that he had bought a Topping DAC and couldn't tell the difference between them so he was going to use that until I returned his gear. Who is right? You or him? Measurements demonstrated by the way that the two DACs would sound the same but of course, Topping was more than 30 times cheaper. Then there are views like this:
Again, are you right or him? Topping sells thousands and thousands of these models. Why is it that they don't all return them if they sound "terrible?" I tell you why: until you learn to only assess fidelity with your ears alone, you will continue to live in the fog of subjectivity and not know what is what. Once you do these tests properly, then you will that there is no conflict between objective performance of these products and what you truly hear. |
- 1166 posts total