RMAF11: Loudspeaker Measurements Explained, John Atkinson, Stereophile Editor

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RMAF11: Loudspeaker Measurements Explained, John Atkinson, Stereophile Editor

Рет қаралды 65,757

Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 61

@namzarf 10 жыл бұрын

One of the most informative and well presented lectures I've ever seen. Thank you for sharing this.

@gryphongryph 7 жыл бұрын

For sure the best speaker I have seen from the RMAF uploads, I wished he had talked a bit about the BBC thin wall design versus the more stiff rigid approach. Also while these uploads are nice, it is really annoying that they can not get the sound right !!! although, this was one of the better ones sound wise, it is a bit embarrassing for a uploader that tries to promote good sound to the masses, can not be more quality conscious when doing so !

@wenda86 12 жыл бұрын

I am surprised that it only receives so little views. I thank you very much for the brief and very useful explanation on reading the measurements.

@Sams911 3 жыл бұрын

have to say, I recently had to downsize my HiFi a lot due to moving into a condo after divorce... After much research I picked up two McIntosh XR50 book shelves.... 81dB speaker's, very hard to drive, so I am using it with my MA9000... but I have to say... HOLY CRAP... they sound like floor speakers 3 times the size... give these a listen if space is an issue, you will not be disappointed.

@Audiorevue 2 жыл бұрын

Very intelligent and extremely thoughtful as always Coming from John Atkinson but I have a suggestion. Perhaps we're going about speaker measurement all wrong, I think perhaps the best way to do it is to take your speakers and take about a 15 x 10' deep hole put the speakers in it with the measurement microphones and then cover the whole ensemble up with concrete.

@D800Lover 10 жыл бұрын

There is something hugely missing here and if I ever get a chance to meet John, this is a topic I would love to discuss - the effect of current linearity in the voice coil/motor and why speakers with a more correct controlled step response, see 54:00 onward, does indeed sound superior and images also in a more superior way, and are more relaxed/accessible to listen to in a way that John alludes to and that this is the very leading edge of loudspeaker system research right now. The understanding that multi-way speaker systems generates lots of noise that kills clarity and that speakers that have the more ideal step response also uses crossovers that by chance also are likely to have a lower noise floor. Here in Sydney, the home of Thiele-Small Parameters, there is something very interesting happening and it will in time have a surprising effect on loudspeaker system design. It will cause many to rethink what they are doing and also help to answer many questions. It is based on the fact that loudspeakers are in fact current devices and yet we insist on modelling their design on a voltage model. This needs to change, and it will.

@fiji5555 10 жыл бұрын

Money makes the world go round and good reviews on Stereophile

@pioferro 8 жыл бұрын

the graph @ 20:27 is a B&W 805 from 10/7/1999.

@lewbarrett 8 жыл бұрын

Excellent video. Thank you for publishing it and your regular test results on Stereophile as well. They're my favorite aspect of any review.

@michelkh87 4 жыл бұрын

52:15 I think he was talking about the Harman/Kardon HK990 integrated amp

@joeygonzo 3 жыл бұрын

one of the best

@word2RG 9 жыл бұрын

Regarding positioning for resonance, if you have some form of room correction, like Audyssey, etc. the opposite would be true. By positioning to centralize the reflections to converge on a central frequency, they are more easily and effectively addressable by the room correction system.

@utubecomment21 10 жыл бұрын

At last, a truly helpful and informative presentation from RMAF!

@RoteKampfSocke 10 жыл бұрын

This was an excellent lecture! But its very odd that in a room of audio professionals nobody noticed the annoying feedback at ~ 800Hz and cut it a couple of dB's.

@StormCentre88 6 жыл бұрын

41:38; the measurement is not lying. Measurements (done correctly) rarely lie. What is happening is that the source material is simply not uncovering (rather; masking) the truth. Doesn't mean the measurement was wrong and/or unreliable.

@StormCentre88 6 жыл бұрын

42:42; the claim that the only reliable judge of quality is the ear is questionable - if so then all the measurements taken would not form the reference they clearly do. The reliability of the ear to judge sound reproduction quality is dubious. Rarely is there a speaker that performs well in all the tests mentioned here that does not sound good to the ear; Mackie HR824 is a good example. Often, a speaker that sounds good to the ear will perform poorly in the tests mentioned here; as shown in the video.

@charleskingReal 4 жыл бұрын

JA fudges the issue here. Not surprising given that we're talking about Stereophile (where he's attracted criticism for daring to measure these things _at all_). The most revealing section is at kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oJ1nia6onrHcZok.html where he shows the rather poor measured response of a Linn speaker that ended up getting a positive review. In trying to explain this discrepancy the facade slips a bit he ends up admitting that the reviewer's evaluation was based on a limited variety of music and an inability to discern correctly the large swings in response. Of course this is followed by a bout of hand-waving, as one would expect. "Things are not always equal when it comes to interpreting measurements." I have no idea what this means. There's an editorial column from Steve Guttenberg in the August '18 issue of Stereoplile in which he relates a strange phenomenon wherein his expensive and well-reviewed system sounded heavenly one day, but rather drab the next. He puts this down to humid weather and eating too much pizza, whereas the previous day he'd had a nice massage, was feeling very relaxed and his wife had gone out with some friends. Well ... yeah ... It's sad that it seems to have escaped him that this effect may be happening on a regular basis and directly undermines the entire premise that you can evaluate performance simply by listening. Ho hum.

@D800Lover 4 жыл бұрын

Dear Jim, clearly you are not fully aware of John Atkinson's past. He himself has quoted Toole many times. What you are saying is one thing and he is saying something else. I believe that he has a similar view to that of Joseph D'Appolito: *"The controversy over subjective versus objective loudspeaker evaluation has raged on for decades. He has great knowledge of that side of things. However, to my mind, there is no controversy. These criteria are simply two faces of the same coin."* Full article: audioxpress.com/article/testing-loudspeakers-which-measurements-matter-part-1 What we all want is *correlation* between what we hear and being able to *capture* by means of measurements what we are hearing. That is on-going, and we are *ALL* hoping that we are getting better. But in the meantime, designers like me and friends (quite a few recognised brand designers) do our best to get you to listen to good speakers. They are less interested in"wars" that serve not real purpose. As John alludes to, the very choice of measurements we *choose* is subjective as we hope that they are the most important, so a value system is already at play. Then we have to interpret. those measurements. The fact that we can fool ourselves and our ears only makes us stick at it and get it right. That there are some successes and some failures, well hey, that's life. Do we want it any other way? JA's presentation is a limited one, but he has the best interests of his audience and readers in mind (the need to inform is quite a challenge). We know that because he is genuine in what he does.

@Oneness100 10 жыл бұрын

I would think that taking room measurements is also important since the room acoustics will play an important part in how your system sounds. Bad room acoustics will make a great system sound horrible, or a mediocre system sound great.

@kt72383 7 жыл бұрын

That was an absolutely fantastic presentation. Thank you!

@tomthumb6269 2 жыл бұрын

Such a shame you didn't have the lazer pointer on the graphs

@MrRad21 11 жыл бұрын

Very informative presentation. Thanks for posting this John.

@83cat 9 жыл бұрын

what is the bad speaker he mentioned? Lyn speaker? anyone mind to point it out?

@ChaseNoStraighter 3 жыл бұрын

Non linear distortion is easily measured with a two tone test.

@JEG6919 5 жыл бұрын

Greg timbers would have been the go to authority on this.

@konadbenz3383 6 жыл бұрын

excellent thank you

@weeooh1 7 жыл бұрын

With this presentation, JA has probably reeled in many new subscribers/readers to Stereophile.

@tms372 7 жыл бұрын

Probably loss more over this rubbish then gained. Let your ears be your guide.

@James_Bowie 8 ай бұрын

Great presentation. Very poor audio management on the day.

@miguelbarrio 5 жыл бұрын

Great. Thank you!

@WV591 10 жыл бұрын

Thumbs up 4 sure

@Veryconcerned99 6 жыл бұрын

At 7:04 in the video, he said that the maximum current occurred when the voltage was zero. Wouldn't that be true for 90 degree impedance shift? in this case, it is about 55 degrees at worst.

@StormCentre88 6 жыл бұрын

The phase has swung from +45 to (just past) -45. Effectively it has swung through 90 degrees.

@carewser 5 жыл бұрын

This video is a real aphrodisiac for the ladies

@jasonjackson3114 5 жыл бұрын

Hahaha. I read your sentence in an english accent.

@ActuallySettle 10 жыл бұрын

Compare and contrast to the guy trying to sell equipment racks which improve imaging

@teashea1 6 жыл бұрын

Well done

@bogior896 4 жыл бұрын

can i ask you to measure if there's a difference in cables with silver rather than copper^'? Same gauge of course... i know that audionote make expensive internal wiring in silver but i was wondering if you can measure any difference in db at certain frequencies... i saw something here but i guess that with a mic it will be better to measure dbl effect to sound coming out of speakers, i saw something here kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pKuRhdac0tazipc.html

@cduncan7272 6 жыл бұрын

oh thats interesting

@viperracing2889 5 жыл бұрын

He is wrong about the correlation between good measurements and good sound. Harman did 350 loudspeaker blind tests which clearly showed that atleast 9 of 10 people will prefer the sound of a speaker that has a more flat on-axis reaponse and more uniform off-axis response. The correlation was 0.86 i.e. 86% of the listeners agreed. That number increased to 0.996 when comparing products that were more similar in size etc, for example comparing only 2-way bookshelf speakers. That means 996 out of 1000 people agrees, or 99.6%, that the speaker with the best measurements sounds the best. If you don't believe me, search KZfaq for Floyd Toole and watch his lecture. About 47-50 minutes into the clip he starts talking about these blind tests.

@michelkh87 3 жыл бұрын

You are absolutely right. Dr. Floyd toole is God in audio. He is a big win win for the audio community. I trust Harman because they apply science in eveything they do. Cheers

@hni7458 4 ай бұрын

No use listening to a speaker that doesn't measure well, said Carlsson - he with the orthoacoustic Sonabs you know. Might not be a controversy...

@scottlowell493 7 жыл бұрын

Frightening, considering how badly Wilson watt-puppy 5 and Alon speakers measured, but get HIGH ratings by stereophile, despite audio flaws.

@mcnyregrus 6 жыл бұрын

Almost anything that costs a fortune gets rave reviews in Stereophile, sadly.

@cengeb 10 жыл бұрын

And Fremer demagnetizes plastic records,and claims of course they sound better!!! What causes these fantasy observations? $2,100 RECORD demagnetizers!!! hahahahahahahahahahaha, big advertisers in the mags! Hmmmm, is there a connection?

@ashokakb6907 3 жыл бұрын

Subtitles is very need. Video presentation is less effective than real presentation. step response is explained easily & understood where as horizontal vertical plots were not understood by video viewers. many Audio mag publishing house doesn't have a anechoic chamber/typical listening room. Conclusion: Measuring is still an art & not a science.

@bmill7353 2 жыл бұрын

JA's glee at another magazine giving a poor measuring speaker a thumbs up followed swiftly by his magazine doing the same (with a lame excuse) is jarring. Does he not see the hypocrisy?

@hni7458 4 ай бұрын

? They didn't measure did they? So JA's approach was to stress the complexity where the music used for testing might be testing you instead you the speakers.

@Audfile 7 жыл бұрын

the most offensive , relatively costly speakers I've ever heard were from GR Research.

@freetv6100 7 жыл бұрын

Here's something you may want to include in your analysis of speakers / crossovers. "How do they sound?" I could give a shit about all your charts, theories and predictions. You can't predict everything, the listening position, the shape and size of listening room, the floor and wall surfaces and area, ceiling height, area and surface, window surface area, furniture, floorplan and many more impossible to predict and account for variables that affect sound by coloration, reinforcing frequencies or cancelling frequencies.

@mcnyregrus 6 жыл бұрын

That's what the other writers for Stereophile are for: Take something that costs $50,000 to $200,000 but that is faulty by design and then write a rave review about how it's the best thing they've ever heard. Examples could be reviews of the Zanden CD player/DAC combo ("worst digital product ever measured" but "best CD player I ever heard"), The EgglestonWorks Andra speakers (first model from 1997), the Larsen Hifi 8 loudspeakers, the Lector Strumenti Audio Digitube S-192, and the list continues. All products that cost a fortune and received rave reviews, but were faulty by design. Buy a $1000-$2000 product and you often get better engineering.

@snakeoilaudio 2 жыл бұрын

flat frequency response is for people who have no personal taste

@kevinbeckenham3872 5 жыл бұрын

There no such thing as a prefect loudspeaker, if you can live with it ; and it make you happy, so what. Your friends love it, so what. The hifi critic's can go to hell. I am happy. If you have good old fashion valve amp, what give's that so called valve sound we all love is caused by the lower damping factor of the amplifier.In other word more bass lower down there due to less global negative feedback. People who own these so call hifi magazine they employ critic's and they may own valve hifi. The say it as lots of energy in the sound. Your mum may so as a nice tone in that valve amp.People with some knowledge may realize and know that valves have really big lump iron on it called output transform, it stores electromagnetic energy & it as to go somewhere; that some where is the loudspeaker.That is why good valve amp sound great, plus few phase shifts , it sound great, you cannot measure it, what person is feeling. The hifi critic said he can measure, by the he way critic is getting drunk on the manufacturer's wine and beer; he say any thing you like Just so he can sell few hifi magazines. So your happy with that sound so what

@gregfisk1327 5 жыл бұрын

Whoever the clown Afile is who said GR Research speakers are offensive and costly doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. They measure better that most speakers and since they are open baffle they interact with any room much better than coffin speakers.