Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment | Hacker News Reader

Matrix HiFi – Blind testing high end full equipment

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84 pointsZeljkoS91 comments

If you perform an objective analysis of sound reproduction, it quickly becomes apparent that once you reach a certain price/performance threshold in speakers, the most critical element -- the element that has the greatest influence on the overall sound quality -- is room acoustics.

But it's so much easier to sell expensive cardboard boxes containing obscure brand electronics; there is so much more markup in homeopathic rolls of copper wire, than there is in convincing someone to ruin their marriage over living room decor. Plus, it's just not a sexy investment, and requires expertise to be done properly.

It has become the industry's inconvenient truth.

What about testing these systems with headphones then?

Headphones are great for minimizing issues of room acoustics, but they are not eliminated. Many people swear by various headphone amps and DACs, but the magnitude of difference these components could possibly impart are still pitiful compared to the improvements made possible by controlling the noise floor of the room you're listening in.

This is why in any situation with ambient noise (e.g. planes, trains and open plan offices) the highest quality audiophile headphones on the market right now are the Bose QuietComfort series.

Active noise cancelling headphones are hardly an audiophile's first pick. Almost all NC headphones introduce audible white noise. They are also ineffective at blocking voices in the background.

Earplugs are significantly cheaper and more effective at blocking noise.

That said, Bose does make the best NC headphones.

The point is that the sum of added and reduced noise is smaller in the noise cancellation than in non-noise cancellation, unless you are in an optimized environment.

The problem is that voices or crying babies will be more audible in a noisy environment when using active noise cancelling headphones because they only effectively attenuate low frequencies.

In a room with a crying baby, all pretense of an audiophile experience is gone, no matter what.

you're not going to hear the 'room acoustics' on headphones surely. you may hear some ambient noise from the room if it's not sound-proofed, but that's not the same thing at all

Acoustic treatments also involve sound insulation. An acoustically poor room can also accentuate environmental noise through excessive reflection and transmission.

Active noise-cancelling is counterproductive to a neutral, balanced sound, which is what audiophiles are seeking. The noise produced to cancel out background sounds will also cancel out the music. It is better to just try to use isolating headphones (Beyerdynamic, V-Moda, higer-end Audio-Technica, Mad Dogs, etc).

> neutral, balanced sound

Sounds good! I assume you have tests to this effect?

> Active noise-cancelling is counterproductive to a neutral, balanced sound

NOISE is counterproductive to a neutral, balanced sound.

FTFY.

I have been looking at the idea of doing lots of small speakers with microphones on them attached to a fat lump of computer hardware, that you stick all over and they bleep each other and build an acoustic model of the space they are in, then adjust for it properly.

Would basically be a self-modifying ambisonics system. It looks doable, though possibly a bit expensive.

I believe there are some products in this space. It might be made simpler by integrating dac/dsp and amplifier in the speakers (and the just stream lossless digital audio for playback) -- rather than try and adapt to traditional speakers. It might be the kind of thing that the radical commoditization and continued price drop in hw will make feasible.

Cinemas (and concert venues) do calibrate their sound, here's a sample link that touches on what's involved:

http://education.lenardaudio.com/en/17_cinema_7.html

I'm not sure a combined mic/speaker system makes much sense -- it would appear easier to just model what's important: how the sound sounds where the listener is -- which is typically anywhere other than on top of the speaker.

Model a human head w/ears, but mics in each -- and hook that up to a system that plays/records/compares audio. While dynamically adapting (noise-cancelling when there's construction next door, the garbage truck rolls by?) -- I'm not sure that makes much sense. We're used to acoustics changing a bit -- but having a half-decent base-line would probably be great.

Putting them in the speakers just limits the amount of extra things you you have to install, the idea is that in initial setup each speaker goes through a test pattern while the other speakers stay silent, and this gives you position of all the speakers and the acoustic properties of the space they are in.

Though if you also have some extra microphones, then you can do dynamic adjustments on top and even account for people moving through the space so that they do not block sound or even so a stereo recording follows them around.

Soundsystem techs commonly use a tool called SMART to calibrate a system to the room. It basically does impulse response measurement by blasting pink noise through a feedback loop and putting in various phase adjustments until the room has been cancelled out.

It's a very delicate technique though. When you're talking about phase-aligning soundwaves you're sensitive to sub-millimetre alignment of your transducers.

Bang & Olufsen's Beolab speakers do pretty much what you are describing.

They have a test tone and each one has a little micro dick (only way I can really describe it) that pokes out during the test tone playback to pick up reflections.

More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/technology/how-it-works-a-...

I recently bought the equipment to do a similar adaptive-audio job for my living room music / home-theater setup. I have the usual multi-decade collection of once-fashionable home stereo equipment, some in use, some collecting dust in the basement. I decided I needed a bit more bass to enjoy more thoroughly the gunshots and explosions of gameplay and epic action films.

I listened to a stereophile friend eager to give advice, and convinced myself to add a self-powered subwoofer to the existing setup. Adding one shook the house but (to my ear) muddied the sound of music when no explosions were taking place. I could blame the equipment, or more properly myself, and replace some or all of the former. But I thought there must be some way to modulate all this unruly gear so that it produced a provably balanced and pleasant sound.

I will skip over some intermediate steps where I tried to learn the science and engineering of acoustics, using a neutral reference microphone and several fine pieces of audio software available to all of us interwebbily. I learned that I was overdriving the subwoofer, which made sense, but I couldn’t seem to go from spectrum graphs and suchlike to an actual balanced sound system. My final setup worked out quite satisfactorily and is an affordable alternative to building the computer-driven speaker cluster for room modeling.

> I have been looking at the idea of doing lots of small speakers with microphones on them attached to a fat lump of computer hardware, that you stick all over and they bleep each other and build an acoustic model of the space they are in, then adjust for it properly.

When I played in a band, we had to work with the club’s sound engineer or bring our own to get a balanced sound setup before the audience showed up. The more recent gigs showcased an interesting technology, a system that generated pink noise through the actual sound system, from the original sound sources before the mixing board, all the way through power amplifiers to the speakers at front of house. The engineer put a reference microphone in a strategic position, turned on the pink noise generator, and twiddled equalizer knobs to get a roughly even spectrograph (plus unavoidable “sound-guy magic” to de-equalize somewhat for specific gig purposes like dancing or seated listening) for the whole room, using the actual speakers and sound-reinforcement equipment we would be using.

This seemed to me to be the thing I needed in my home theater setup. It would let me balance and compensate for the (now) ten speaker cabinets in the living room (including the powered subwoofer), their real-life positions, the walls and floor coverings, the furniture, and even the cat. I think I could also do it with some combo of REW (Room Equalization Wizard) software, reference mike, and pink noise streamed through the amplifier. But while I was trying to get that approach figured out, I found a cheap piece of audio hardware with all that functionality built-in – no need to dedicate a computer to EQing the sound.

This is the Behringer DEQ-2496, a configurable digital equalization gizmo. It has a room equalization function built in, which is a home version of the room-equalization setup we saw in the clubs, and as a bonus it basically automates the sound engineer’s fingers on the equalizer sliders. I am not sure if it’s the latest model supporting this function, as I got mine used, but it was well below $200 and probably the best money I’ve spent on pretending to be an audiophile.

You set up the room for your listening preference (for me, this involves rolling the softest armchair into the center of the room the best to enjoy all those gunshots and explosions), put the reference mike about where your head will be, activate the automated room EQ process on the DEQ-2496, and sit down in your regular seating position to read for a while. It sends pink noise through the power amplifier and speakers and starts modifying an equalization curve to produce a “flat” room signal across all audible frequencies.

After about 15-20 minutes the EQ settings stop changing and the Behringer has generated the EQ setup for acoustically-neutral room sound. You can save the setup and create others (e.g., for group seating), or modify it manually to match your preferences (bigger bass for film audio, slight high-frequency boost for classical music listening, etc.), and save the modified versions as well. All my digital sound sources pass through it (game consoles, video, and music) in digital format and are equalized before they hit the amplifier and speakers – just as it worked in the clubs.

There are usable reference materials on the web to make up for the DEQ-2496’s obtuse user interface and execrable user manual. It’s not quite the super-flexible software-driven system I might have gravitated toward, but it does what I needed without tying up a computer.

What I like most is that it deals with the real world sound of my setup and room – if I change my setup or furnishings (as has happened a couple of times), I just re-run the balancing process and use the new settings as the baseline for my preferred room EQ. If my subwoofer, say, is turned too high the Behringer sets up a balancing cut in the affected frequencies. If the carpet soaks up some high-frequency signals, they’re boosted to compensate.

If my audiophile buddy gushes about the spectacularly flat frequency response of some new bookshelf system, I relax knowing that even my second-hand and slightly dinged-up speakers have been magically upgraded to subjectively flat (or not, as I wish) frequency responses – in the real world of my living room, not just in the lab or the store. It even has a full panel display of das blinkenlites should I need confirmation things are working properly. Very satisfying!

EQ itself adds distortion. You may end up with flat characteristic, but poor sound quality.

Amplifier designers are avoiding capacitors in signal path to minimize harmonic distortion. Now imagine you would put such a beast as EQ in the path...

I understand this argument, but I choose to treat it lightly it in real life because I am mostly interested in the sound I get in my own living room with my own real equipment making sounds for my skeptical human ears. There is a large and creative cohort of audiophiles generating and repeating numerous claims about audio. I cannot really credit many of these claims because they cannot to be reproduced in blind ABX tests, much like the spirits of the departed or the spoon-benders of yore. In truth, the presence of a side-table for my refreshments has a far larger and more measurable effect on the sound I hear than many of the possibly apocryphal sonic indecencies of the electronic components in front of me.

To address your point directly, equalization (the feature of the Behringer DEQ 2496 I am using and discussing) does change the incoming signal, or it would not be a very useful audio component. My hands-on experience with oscilloscopes and digital audio analysis suites indicates that equalization does induce phase changes in the signal – you can see that by comparing input and output signals, or alternatively by doing the simple math that creates band equalization in the digital domain. These phase changes are pretty much unavoidable by-products of the audio filtering process, whether analog or digital.

Better ears than mine sometimes claim to hear the effects of phase retardation, and I can conceive of extreme situations where this might be plausible. Those with golden ears can test themselves by doing a controlled blind ABX test with a conventional EQ system (as I am led to understand the Behringer implements) and a linear-phase EQ system, and publish results from which we all may learn. But I cannot hear phase retardation effects with current audio equipment and I would be interested to see the blind ABX tests that showed them to exist at all in normal human hearing. Ethan Winer has addressed the real-world impact of phase shifting in high fidelity audio on several occasions – for example:

“More to the point, phase shift occurs naturally and unavoidably in all speakers and crossovers, and in every EQ circuit, with no obvious detriment as far as I can discern. Phase shift can be an important factor in speaker and crossover designs, but only because a tone whose frequency is near the crossover point is radiated by two speakers at once. In that case phase shift could cause the two acoustic outputs to partially cancel each other as they combine in the air in front of the speakers. But any time you stand in front of a loudspeaker and then simply take one step backward, you are inducing a large amount of phase shift at the higher frequencies.” [1]

As to the more general implication that the Behringer DEQ 2496 introduces distortion, specifically the kind of distortion I would hear and dislike, this claim may still be argued. I will say that I have not yet run the full suite of digital audio analytics on the signal coming out of the Behringer DEQ 2496, and it may (against the general practice and standards of commercial audio equipment) distort the heck out of the incoming gunshots, explosions, and piccolos. You cannot prove it by me, and if I live up to my responsibilities I will check the manufacturer’s specifications with a digital audio reference suite some quiet week in the future.

I would note, however, in case anyone else is concerned about the capacitors that may be magnifying harmonic distortion in the Behringer signal path, that its EQ process in my setup is conducted entirely in the digital domain, from SP/DIF digital input to TOSLink output. Only the infinitely delicate fingers of the Fourier transform and its ilk have touched those bits, and the reputedly foul influence of capacitors appears, if at all, downstream in the amplifier.

References

[1] From “Dispelling Popular Audio Myths” (http://ethanwiner.com/myths.html, retrieved 2015-05-11).

> EQ itself adds distortion.

Modern digital EQ algorithms don't add any distortion worth talking about. But even in the worst case, it's still an infinitely small amount compared to the wild distortions that your room imposes on the sound.

If EQ can compensate for even a modest chunk of the room's influence, the net result is a huge drop in overall distortion.

"When I played in a band, we had to work with the club’s sound engineer or bring our own to get a balanced sound setup before the audience showed up. The more recent gigs showcased an interesting technology, a system that generated pink noise through the actual sound system, from the original sound sources before the mixing board, all the way through power amplifiers to the speakers at front of house. The engineer put a reference microphone in a strategic position, turned on the pink noise generator, and twiddled equalizer knobs to get a roughly even spectrograph (plus unavoidable “sound-guy magic” to de-equalize somewhat for specific gig purposes like dancing or seated listening) for the whole room, using the actual speakers and sound-reinforcement equipment we would be using."

For stage shows, having a proper computer driven sound system with a large array of small transducers would let you do stuff like having the audio follow the position of the instruments and voice accurately, as well as doing some really silly things, like rotating 3d soundfields. It takes some reasonably serious hardware and knowhow though. A good starting point is here - http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/mustech/3d_audio/ambis2.htm

edit - that Behringer thing sounds really cool though, makes me wonder how hard it would be to code something like that in pure data or similar. https://puredata.info/

I am not sure my loved ones would allow me to add 39,990 speakers to the already-intrusive 10 around the living room in order to achieve ambisonic excellence. I do not completely agree with them, although your suggested approach sounds like it might work better in the basement where I have more room and fewer shared furnishings to negotiate over. And though my days of ruling the clubs are far behind, I would gladly spend the night at one that offered rotating 3D sound fields, as you propose.

As for re-implementing the Behringer in code, I don’t think there are any significant technical barriers for a modern PC, or even a high-end mobile device. I have not used Pure Data, but if it’s adequately performant it looks like a fine platform from which to start.

My original plan was to execute the room response mapping with REW (Room Equalization Wizard) on my PC. Then I would hard-code a set of appropriate digital filters into a software plug-in that I could attach to a digital audio I/O board in a PC or equivalent. That filter system could run headless after that, since all the human interaction ends with REW.

The sorry part for my project was realizing I had (at least in part) to dedicate a general-purpose computer to a single minor use. I gave up designing this system in code when I knew I would it meant yet another little PC with suitable digital audio input / output hardware, built to sit up behind the television with all the other gear that gets turned on whenever a game, movie, or song is needed. But my weakness need not be your own.

More power to you in your future endeavors! I look forward to visiting your place once you've got your project up and running.

This is why most car systems tend to be money pits (or status symbols for an ability to set cash alight by remote control).

As it so happens, I inherited a car with an $8k USD system in 1987 dollars, which included ADS speakers and amps, Nakamichi head unit and so on nonsense excuses as to why we couldn't go on vacation that year. So fuck audiophilia and their anti-intellectual, placebo unicorns. Thanks HN for letting me resolve that adolescence issue, you've been a great sport.

I've come to realize there is a good amount of inherent subjectivity with respect to speakers - spatial dispersion isn't something that can be easily quantified, and as you say is going to vary significantly based on the room. So it kind of makes sense that listening tests are the only way to compare.

But for amplifiers, it seems that THD, frequency response, and phase response would capture everything you need to know to fully characterize the component. What else is there?

It's also odd to me that reviewers will sum up their conclusions as a piece of gear being "bright" or "bassy" - isn't that just an EQ setting? It seems that frequency response isn't really an important part of device characteristics since it can always be compensated for (within the physical limits of the driver), while the non-adjustable parts of response are (like, do speakers even give THD specs?). I would think a better methodology would be to use a reference microphone to calibrate the entire amplitude response to flat (or the reviewer's preference), and subjectivize from there.

Then again, a large part of the industry seems to be based around convincing people to spend 10x and try out several pieces of gear (pre-qualifying the price to themselves on their favorite), so I don't expect straight objectivity will ever be a high priority.

Their version of "low end" is amusing to me. But this is hardly surprising. Hifi suffers from a taxic interaction of diminishing returns and snake oil, and I say that as someone who has spent more than a few dollars myself.

After spending a few bucks myself, I second this. The only thing i'd add is, invest in a good pair of speakers, that's where you'd get the best ROI.

Or alternatively, invest in a good pair of headphones--also good ROI.

Much cheaper in absolute terms as well. You can get very good headphones in the $100-200 range (even some under $100), while speaker systems in that range tend to be mediocre.

Ah, but if you are 10 people listening, that's suddenly $10 000 (actually more, as you'd probably need a little more expensive amp to drive 10 good headphones. Nowhere near 10x though).

Er, $1000 for ten people - although this isn't still a small amount it is close to an average mid-range home audio setup. The $10K you mention would be for 100 people, and then you would be looking at audio equipment for small performances and clubs, which can easily cost that much or more.

So, interestingly, the 100 x N formula for cost of audio equipment for N people to listen to, seems to hold. I am curious about N=1000 and above, certainly stadium systems cost over $100K and for 10K listeners I guess $1M is pretty small. Maybe there should be a scaling factor in there, or it might be better modeled by a power-law relationship?

Hah, lol. Yes ofc. But really, what you need for 10 people is ~1000$ worth of stereo equipment, not 10 sets of head phones... Maybe when we get dac's operated into our ears...

http://www.wyldeside.com/rpgs/cp2020/cw-cyberaudio.html

I'm amazed at the quality of older speakers when it comes to value for money. I'm using a pair of Chadwick executive 12 cabinets in my living room and they're simply the best sounding speakers I've owned and they cost next to nothing. The only expense so far is cleaning and light refurb to remove rot.

    > Chadwick executive 12

That term has no Google footprint

Raudio chadwick speakers returns some relevant results.

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/index.php?/topic/40792-austr...

> The Executive Monitor from Chadwick Audio Furnishings(NSW) was the top model in the Chadwick range and used a modified Etone245(300mm) unit in a rear vented transmission line enclosure with the Audax 160mm mid/range,25mm dome and an aluminium cone super tweeter. I have no idea how it compared to the imports,in the early 80,s,but many Australian designed speakers outshone the competition in performance and value at the top end of the market;unfortunately there was a cheap product area that supplied bulk stores and these inferior items still surface from time to time.A bit like the white van stuff .

That sounds quite familiar. I got them from my parents many years ago, and they got them new in an audio store in Sydney. I have the original brochure and manual somewhere, I'll see if I can dig them out.

I have some JBL L100s wired to a PartsExpress-sourced Dayton sonic T amp (read: amazingly competent $30 plastic external hdd-sized box). Sounds amazing for all reasonable volume levels living in an apartment. The speakers are pretty big, but they can be found pretty cheap at garage sales, Craigslist, flea markets, goodwill, etc. Wire it up to an Airport Express and you have a pretty much unbeatable home AirPlay set-up for a few hundred bucks.

Good speakers up to 20 years old are often still good. It even seems like old capacitors in the crossovers doesn't really have much of an impact. Amplifiers have gotten more convenient, being lighter, cheaper, with better remote control and standby features, while the sound is still good. That has had the effect of making active speakers increasingly attractive.

Do you mean passive? Active speakers are full kits like KRK Rokits, passive speakers are the "old" speakers you're talking about.

I do mean active. I'm saying old, passive, speakers are very good, but active speakers are becoming more attractive for other reasons.

Another good value company is PSB, they are made right here in Canada.

    > "low end"

No commentary here, but I was interested what it cost, so:

Behringer A500: $200

Sony DVP-NS355: ~$50

ATC SCM 12: $1,500-$2,500

Since the speakers are used in both systems and have the most significant impact on the sound, it had to be something good and not necessarily cheap. The source and amp of the budget system are very affordable on the other hand, I don't see any problem with that setup.

> Behringer A500: $200

Interesting, because locally I can only find the A500 for much more than that.

Paying huge amounts for a CD player is unutterable wankery in this day and age.

Agreed, I'd much rather see a $200 vs a $500 system (vs a $1000 system, vs a $10000 system...).

I'm not sure why anyone would invest something on the order of magnitude of the "expensive" system, and not get full-height electrostatic speakers or something (Not that I think it would be worth it then either...).

It would have been interesting to see what the result where if they'd simply given the testers blindfolds, and had two whole (or preferably three) set-ups -- where all the components where "matched" (eg: $100 system: integrated "boom box"/ speaker with integrated amp & ipod, $1000 system: speakers ~ $500/pair, amp $300, dac $200 etc).

"However, some people challenges the use of an external ABX box (usually by people unused to conduct DBT's) arguing that the use of a commuter like the ABX might modify or flatten the response of the systems, masking the differences they so easily claim to hear at home or at an audio store (or even at some shows). This challenge does not hold water, as we can see from the measurements conducted to the ABX we use ..."

Yeah, people pushing blatant magical woo will, eventually, descend to questioning logic and coherent thought itself.

I'll link again to Alan Parsons (recording engineer and recording artist whose records audiophiles are quite fond of): http://www.cepro.com/article/beatles_pink_floyd_engineer_ala... Fix the room first.

It always buffles me that people who test HiFi audio don't test studio audio equipment, and vice versa. These two categories of hardware try to achieve practically the same result, but just because they target different people (although in a very similar demographic), they are reviewed by different journalists for different magazines and seldom compared to each other.

Why?

Recently, thanks to comments on Hacker News, I've learned to think about where money is being made.

In this situation, there are companies competing for business in the studio market, where equipment needs to be functional (easy to move, install, plug stuff into, etc.), not alter the audio signal in a way which is undesirable and - generally - be worth the money in terms of real benefit.

The home market is entirely different. Across the price range, (most) customers care about looks, how it alters the sound of the music / films they care about to match their personal preference and - less often - be worth the money in terms of audio quality and practicality. There's also trendiness, which is much more of a factor in this market.

A 'classic' example (sorry to use that phrase, especially for such a recent phenomenon) is Beats Audio headphones. They are attractive for the home market because people like how they look (including that they're trendy), they make music sound 'good' (I haven't heard them, but I've been told they enhance the bass but otherwise are lacklustre), and are (based on the other factors) not worth the money in terms of audio quality or practicality.

Just because the equipment is made from the same basic components (in fact, much may be made from the same components) doesn't mean that there aren't two separate markets here. They can't be treated as one because the customers are entirely different. Or maybe they can and you should start a company selling to both!

I needed a new headphone so I read a lot of reviews. It's amazing how much reviews are about the looks while sound quality is the main concern.

I bought an Audio Technica ATH-M40x. These are monitor headphones for studio work. That's why they sound great but cost less than audiophile headphones.

So I must agree with you and our parent.

> It's amazing how much reviews are about the looks while sound quality is the main concern.

Why do you think it's the main concern? I don't think so.

I, personally, am a DJ and music producer, and I, personally, care about sound quality. I also think that after some time invested in listening to stuff on a variety of sound systems I can distinguish between good and bad sound.

But this is just me. I'm not a typical headphone buyer. My wife doesn't hear any real difference between iPhone default headphones and my AKGs, and even when she does, she doesn't really care.

However, aesthetics are important to people. Hell, they are important to me too! I love my pair of AKGs which sound pretty good and are amazingly cost-effecient, however, THEY ARE UGLY. And Beats are not. And if I wasn't that into sound quality, I would certainly buy Beats.

Your distinction works with Beats example (which are a great product for it's audience, by the way). But it doesn't really explain the HiFi speakers niche: Beats are not marketed at audiophiles, they are marketed at the market that doesn't care about flac files or good cables, as HiFi buyers do.

Don't people who buy HiFi speakers and amps want to recreate the "original" sound? Why then they don't just buy the same stuff that the audio engineer had when he did the track?

Also, about equipment being functional — I don't see how the requirement of easy installation and movement is more relevant for studio monitor speakers than HiFi speakers. Both are plugged in and put in their place once for a long time (unlike a mobile sound system) and are expected to be moved only when the whole room (studio or your living room) will move.

No they don't. Why, I never really understood.

I used to read a lot of studio audio magazines and reviewers would often say "these speakers are great studio speakers, but I would never use them at home"

Part of the explanation, I suppose, is that an album is supposed to sound as good as possible on $5 speakers and $5000, so the studio sound might not be the "optimal" sound

I haven't paid much attention to the way studios work recently, but people used to record using flat response headphones (which make music sound, well, flat - great for hearing everything but not pleasant for music) and mix using Yamaha NS10 speakers, which were considered to be a good simulation of the average (slightly rubbish) kit that listeners might have.

If people say 'these are great studio speakers but I would never use them at home', perhaps they're using speakers designed to have a flat response.

On the one hand, the difference can be explained like this: sound engineers want to hear the defects in the source material, home listeners don't.

On the other hand, as a home listener, if you choose a pair of speakers that transform the sound in some way which appears to sound better, how can you be confident that everything you'll ever listen to on them will actually suite this "betterness" that the speakers provide?

On the functional side, there's certainly not as many factors at play with speakers as with headphones, but there are a few: Smaller studio speakers sometimes are expected to be transported, and their surface finish being scuff-resistant is more important than the polished oak finish or whatever that the home listener market might want. Another case is that broadcasters are often very concerned with the support lifetime of the speakers, it's not unheard of for replacement drivers to still be available 20 years after purchase, for example.

I started my career as a recording studio engineer, and was in fact a regular reviewer of professional audio equipment for a national magazine for years, so I fit one of the two groups you mention.

The short answer, honestly, is that the two groups have little in common. The community of people in pro audio are usually very pragmatic people with comprehensive experience and context with audio (i.e. they are musicians themselves, or experts in movie soundtracks, etc) and more to the point have excellent and relatively unbiased "ears" and listening abilities.

Basically any audio engineer with actual real life professional experience and success (i.e. not a "hobbyist") can name half a dozen crappy cheap things that sound way better than the high end alternative in their arsenal. Things like a $80 microphone that is just amazing on harmonica, or a 1980's solid state compressor that is perfect for male vocals, etc etc.

And as a side note, professional engineers almost always have personal audio systems with pretty standard off the shelf equipment. I have never once in my life met a person who makes their living off of pro audio who has a "hi-fi" system of the type you see in stereo magazines. They almost invariably make equipment decisions with their ears.

By contrast, the high end "stereophile" community seems to be more of an analogue to the fashion industry. They are obsessive about concepts, like hand winding of copper, or ground isolation, or Class A or tube amplification, and so on. They care about checking off a list of things that an audio system is "supposed to have" and brand names and so on. Typically listening is a confirmation event for them, rather than a means for making decisions. I couldn't speak to the listening chops of the journalists that cover these things, but the entire sector is based on fashion and spending money and its media reflects those values.

The high end stereophile sector is about a lot of things, but faithful audio reproduction doesn't appear to be the highest priority on the list.

For anyone who actually wants to invest in a really high quality system to listen to audio on without getting sucked into this money bleeding insanity I recommend going to a high end pro audio store (such as B&H in New York or WPS in Washington DC, say) with a budget in mind ($1-3k should be more than sufficient) and getting someone to help you put a system together that will impress your friends.

> They are obsessive about concepts, like hand winding of copper, or ground isolation, or Class A or tube amplification, and so on.

If anyone reading this wants a vivid example, check out reviews of amps all built around OEM amp modules (eg ICEPower). The modules have connections for 120VAC, audio in, and speaker out - a complete amplifier without a case. But the peacocking the integrators go through with LEDs, connectors, case styles, is amazing. And the seriousness with which the reviewers go about their listening tests (all testing the same amplifier in different cases) is ridiculous. It coming up on Poe's law from the other direction.

In some sense, I'm happy to see that a cottage industry can survive. But not like this.

They may say they try to achieve the same result, but they really don't.

Studio equipment goes for accuracy. You want what comes out to be as close to what goes in as possible.

Home equipment goes for results that sound good. A decent segment of this market superficially thinks that this is achieved through accuracy, but very few truly believe it. Note how the tests are always about the subjective listening experience. Some have given up on the idea entirely, as can be seen in the "tubs are better!" segment, where distortion (i.e. inaccuracy) is considered desirable as long as it's done right.

You see this at work in all sorts of areas. For example, compare the trucks purchased as personal cars by people who say "I need to haul stuff!" and the trucks purchased as work cars by people who actually use them for a living. They ostensibly have the same needs but they usually buy pretty different things because they aren't actually trying to accomplish the same stuff.

People buy $10,000 handbags without any more functional purpose. Why not luxury electronics? Seriously, if it looks beautiful, and the main purpose is for people to feel good about it, and feel good about other people seeing it - is there any real difference between a luxury handbag (luxury watch) and a luxury HiFi system?

The difference is, nobody is arguing that their luxury handbag can carry more stuff and than acheap handbag. On the other hand audiophiles will swear that they are systems sounds better than others.

That flies in the face of every A/B test I've ever seen - and I'm not an audiophile - presumably they know 100x more than I do about audio quality. Nobody buys $900 stereo cables because they think they'll perform better than $45 monster cables. They buy those cables for the presentation, the craftsmanship, and the brand.

I use an Emotiva UMC-200 (HC preprocessor, fine for stereo too),a Crown XLS 1500 amplifier (intended for professional use) and Quad 22L loudspeakers..

The most noticeable upgrade was the automated room correction included in the preprocessor. It more or less removes the room acoustics from the equation, as well as the speakers coloration.

IMHO correct speakers, powerful amplifiers (professional audio power amplifier may be considered) and good room correction makes a great combination.

Great list. How did you come to choose these components?

Heard several loudspeakers in a local hifi shop and chose the Quad. For the HC preprocessor there wasn't much choice available at Emotiva price point. For the amplifier I was leaning toward a Yamaha from the P-S series (http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/global/en/products/poweramps/p...), Crown happened to be more easily available. This one and the Crown have regulated fans. The Yamaha has less distortion and a security cover to lock volume knobs settings..

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I too use a similar setup with an Emotiva UMC-1, QSC RMX 1450, Mirage Omni 550s and a Pinnacle Baby Boomer. To be quite honest, a few of the decisions were based on emotion, others on what was cheap or what I already had. I love the setup though, it sounds great and gets louder than my room can handle while staying very clean.

Edit: Can't leave out the RasPi running volumio.

From my poor knowledge of music production, in that world "high end" equipment means "as close to truth as possible", not necessarily "pleasant to the ear". I wonder if the expensive set of equipment here measure objectively better than the cheap set. That said, I do believe that the speaker and acoustics of the room determine the objective measures much more than the signal chain...

    > From my poor knowledge of music production, in that
    > world "high end" equipment means "as close to truth
    > as possible",

Yes, and no... Because it seems to mean "as close to truth as possible, as judged by human ears".

The deviation from perfect reproduction of sound is something that could be measured and quantified relatively easy, and even mediocre equipment (probably with exception to the speakers) nowadays is able to reach astonishing linearity.

But then people will discuss endlessly about that they feel things sound more "sterile" or "non three dimensional enough" compared to a system that cannot be distinguished by any quantifiable parameter, hence judging them by the tricks that their mind plays on them.

> even mediocre equipment (probably with exception to the speakers) nowadays is able to reach astonishing linearity.

While we have much better cheap amps now than we used to, there's still quite a bit more of noise in the bottom end. You make it sound like $10 of electronics would give great sound (assuming eg: flac audio source, dac and "digital"[1] amplifier). It's not quite that simple. Feeding the whole thing from a battery power source is simple, cheap and can work to reduce the most common/obvious source of noise -- the AC mains (but is only practical for head-phone use).

As for measuring distortion -- it's a little bit like with lossy image codecs: it doesn't really matter what the numbers say, what matters is how we perceive it. In audio-mastering/studio production lossy-ness matters (because if you loose n% of the signal on every iteration, and you do 100s of iterations through the pipeline, the noise crowds out the signal). In testing, it helps guide the development and production (quality assurance).

But in the end, that's just a guide. The trick, is to not buy into the placebo -- while at the same time recognizing a basic fact: the human brain is great at patterns, and filtering out noise. Listen to a badly tuned radio long enough, and you no longer hear the noise. Until someone walks in and adjust it to be on station again.

Listening to really crappy sound (eg: at least two generations old embedded audio from laptops -- not sure about latest generation(s)) -- there'd be a ridiculous amount of noise. Couple it with cheap head-phones with eg, little or no bass -- and listen to music like that for a couple of months -- and you'll be able to convince yourself that that's just fine. Just like if you smeared a thin layer of vaseline on your computer screen and left it on there for months, you'd probably stop actively noticing it was there -- but if you wiped half you would instantly see the difference.

Then compare it to any low-end "hi-fi" set-up, and you'd be surprised how much clearer, and better most things sound. If not, stick with what you like.

It makes absolutely no sense to buy a more expensive setup than what you can tell the difference between. And even if you can buying the best at any price doesn't make sense.

And if you want to sit in a room and really listen to music/soundscapes -- be that classical music, pink floyd, jazz or anything else -- the room is just as important as the gear, as other's have mentioned.

Oh, and if you want to get the most out of your setup - calibration is always good. One reason I prefer stereo is that it is comparatively simple. I'm sure that in theory one could develop a "CalMan"[2] for audio -- given that pretty much every source now is digital, one could probably set up a test track that allowed one to correct for many distortions (created by the system, the speakers, the room...) in real-time.

But I must confess, while I would love to calibrate my monitor to get more correct color -- I'm highly sceptical of the idea of programming my DAC to get "more natural" sound. But that's probably the audioplacebo talking, not the rational mind.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class-D_amplifier

[2] http://calman.spectracal.com/store/p71/CalMAN_RGB_with_Spect...

It's a bit like VHS vs Blu-Ray IMO. I used to watch movies on tape and never be concerned about poor image quality. But now I'm used to high definition, going back and watching VHS is almost intolerable at first. You get used to what you have.

As for monitor color, try installing f.lux : https://justgetflux.com - it varies your color by time of day, so effectively your display is never the 'correct' color. But you won't notice it after a little use.

> You make it sound like $10 of electronics would give great sound

No, that's not what I wanted to convey. But if you get yourself $100/€100 90s HiFi Amps on eBay, you are pretty much there, in my opinion for domestic HiFi use. You might want to blow out the dust, replace the scratchy volume knob, and bypass the rusty input-selector switches, though...

If you talk studios, of course some other factors are getting important such as the proper input connectors (most HiFi has Cinch/RCA, studios will have XLR at +4dBU levels), being able to put into a 19" rack and operate for long times at an elevated temperature, having a stepped, instead of a continuous, gain selector to have repeatability when setting up multi-amp systems..., but that's not really related to the audio quality, noise or distortion. You'll pay for all these features, and for additional build quality.

> loose n% of the signal on every iteration, and you do 100s of iterations

If you do 100s of iterations, you are doing something wrong! People do run 100s of iteratios for fiddling with parameters, but they'll NOT always re-record and play back every time. Just imagine the additional noise, not from the converters, but from the outboard gear mainly, adding up! Especially as people tend to like using outboard gear for the imperfect reproduction and coloring that analog provides.

But also for studio use, there's the crappy end (say, <€50 soundcards/audio interfaces) which will have easily noticeable hiss and spurs from badly shielded DC/DC converters you can easily see in any spectrum analyzer software. As soon as you are above $1000/€800 or so for a name-brand 8-ch in/out converter, I claim that you will not be able to measure any difference to a >€5000 2ch "32-bit, 192kHz, Mastering AD/DA with rubidium clock".

The answer is whatever you want it to be. Often there is no such thing as truth, because the artist's intent never existed in the physical world. (Though there is the recording studio's mixing room where the artist listened to and signed off on the final master.)

My personal aim is to reproduce the artist's intent faithfully AND to satisfy our own preferences, without losing sight of where the former ends and the latter begins.

What these sort of tests always ignore is that placebo effect really works. I refer to a recent study by the University of Manchester in which people who believed that they had better hearing aids objectively scored better on hearing tests. If you spend time and money on a nice high-end system, the love that you put into your setup will be returned to you as better hearing experience.

What placebo? It's a bind test.

I think that was his point. The test doesn't consider any placebo effects, whereas placebo effects may have an actual effect in real life.

It would be interesting to see this group do a similar test on speakers. They have a nicely designed experimental setup.

A speaker test should show a clear cost/performance relationship.

I must confess, i am an audio tragic and worked out some time ago that for speakers , pro audio was the way to go. ATC and PMC are excellent examples of market leaders in this area and I have listened to systems from 2k to 500k in value, with nothing but disappointment filling me when I have been in the presence of the (100k+) mega dollar setups.

After speakers the biggest gain to be had as correctly stated easily in this thread is in room treatments and that's why I have a dedicated room that's heavily treated.

Each to their own.

I spose I could drive a 20k car as well but I prefer my 200k car because its just better all round, just like my 30k studio monitors :)

I used the Behringer A500 for a while because of this test. Good amplifier while it's working, but I've had some problems with signal disappearing. Now I'm using a NAD amp from the 80's that works just as good.

Behringer: 300W YBA: 70W ATC sensitivity: 85db

A rather unfair competition.

How is it unfair? The cheap products performed as well as the expensive products.

the ATC's need at least 150Watts to perform right. So it doesn't matter if an amp is in the "high end" category if it doesn't have the watts to actually move the speakers.

If what you said was true, this supposed lack of power would have shown up as a harmonic distortion artifact in the listening test. The fact that both systems were indistinguishable proves that neither system was suffering in any particular way.

Of course what you have said is nonsense, and shows a misunderstanding of the relationship between an amplifier and speaker. The watt rating of an amplifier simply indicates the operational range where it can perform with near-zero harmonic distortion.

The ATCs are moderately efficient 8 ohm speakers. They barely need 15 watts let alone 150 watts of power to "perform right" at tolerable listening levels. Both amps are capable of delivering ample power with plenty of reserve for transients.

This justifies my setup: $2000 speakers (noticeable upgrade from previous $500 speakers), $100 receiver amp from eBay, noname cables and accessories.

This is basically my set up too.

My advice to anyone looking to get started is to just buy the most expensive speakers you can afford (used market is good for this), pickup an older amp for peanuts on eBay that can power said speakers, and some bargain bin cables from RadioShack.

I'm actually in the market for a new pair of speakers, and the only objective advice I've seen is spending more gets you better speakers. While it must be true in some sense, price as an indicator of quality seems like a terrible idea because it's so easily gamed through marketing.

The landscape of local competition seems quite limited (Best Buy seems to dominate everything with B&W and ML), so it feels there's no way of knowing if they're actually worth those prices, or if it's just Best Buy's standard sucker pricing. Going up into that price range I also know there is a whole host of speaker manufacturers that are of course impossible to find locally (not that intense listening room tests are super enjoyable for long periods of time either). And going up in price also makes the price of "screwing up" that much larger.

So I've given up on that idea and figure I'll simply start with a Fry's special and see if I find them objectionable in any way. I'm not looking to make this a hobby, and higher end just seems so damn intractable otherwise.

I've already got the speaker cables from RadioShack (not much time left to obtain them)! Let's hope your exact advice canonizes and I can sell them for Monster cable prices in several years...

How will you be using your speakers and what's your price range?

If you really don't know where to start, I could probably suggest something.

I've gotten great recommendations from Don Lindich. I tipped him $20 via PayPal some years back because of all his great advice.

He is/was a newpaper columnist and has some Internet presence. He is honest, and focused on value for money, and has personally tried and reviewed thousands of products.

http://www.soundadviceblog.com

Better speakers do cost more -- there is fundamental physics there, which is NOT the case for amplifiers or cables. But still, you will find easily 5x variation in price for roughly equal "quality". So even though you should spend most of your money on speakers, it's NOT the case that simply spending more gets you better quality.

Price range is undecided. The original plan was something simple off craigslist, but then I found myself looking at new stuff and thinking the $2k/pr B&W at Best Buy sounded pretty damn good, and wanting to hear more of the gamut between.

Use is music (electronic, rock, classical), mainly casual while doing other stuff. Some possible interest in home theatre down the line, but not immediately and not looking to make tradeoffs for it either (eg I want non-satellite full-response speakers, as I'm not a big fan of the dual-humped "subwoofer sound", at least outside of a car).

What specific fundamental physics are you talking about?

How do people generally shop for these things if they aren't available to listen to locally?

Yeah, it's definitely tough to try out speakers.

I try to be a little aware of speakers in friend's houses and stores to see what things sound like, but I don't purposely audition them. Although very few of my friends have decent speakers.

It sounds like you know a bit about what you want. My use case is also music. I used to have a surround setup, and it just wasn't worth it. And I agree with you on the subwoofer thing -- I had one and addition to the physical downsides, it felt unbalanced.

In my case I realized I like the imaging of Bose speakers, but they are cheaply made and seem a bit scammy and overpriced. Bose isn't worthless -- they do sound DIFFERENT, on purpose -- but they are flawed. There is real engineering there.

I asked Don Lindich about small speakers with good imaging that are not Bose, and he recommended Mirage Omnisats. It basically gives you a spacious sound like Bose, but they are higher quality in other respects, and I think cheaper.

I used to have Mirage Omnisats with a sub. Now I have Ohm Walsh 1000's:

http://ohmspeaker.com/speakers/mains/walsh-tall/

Admittedly this was a blind Internet buy, but they have a long (90 day) return policy, and I trusted Don's recommendation.

They sound fantastic, and people who have come to my apartment love them, and start spontaneously dancing when they hear them. Relatively speaking, they're not super expensive, but most people haven't heard speakers this good in a living room.

I also appreciate a small company that has been around for decades doing the SAME thing -- really refining it. They believe in what they're doing. You can't derive a speaker design from first principles, so you need to have a long history, with lots of trial and error.

Perhaps this doesn't really answer your question, but that's how I got to a set I'm very happy with.

As for the physical aspects, good speakers require fickle and custom manufacturing techniques. And, all things being equal, bigger speakers sound better, and bigger usually means more expensive.

Amplifiers and cables are mostly made of commodity parts as far as I can tell. There is also just more of a potential variance in quality of design with speakers, so I think they require more expertise to design than amplifiers. Bad speakers are really bad, but it's hard to buy an amp that's unlistenable.

So I guess if like me you are short on friends who like quality audio, I would visit stores, ask like-minded people on the Internet, and then make liberal use of return policies. There is also just a bunch of trial and error, and there's a reason why audiophiles tend to own many pairs of speakers that they don't need :)

I appreciate the pointer. Reading their website, they sound great. But a sales process where you're half committing without hearing many different competing products is so foreign to me. I'm the kind of person that wants to experience the many different "flavors" of something before I can make a decision. Clearly they would not like it if I were to buy a pair with the intent of definitely returning them before 60 days - hence why they try and work with you to make the sale. If I had to work with that system, I guess the way to do it would be to concurrently order from a few different manufacturers so that I could at least keep the pair I preferred, but that still seems abusive. Maybe I just need to do more Internet research, and then get over it?

Thanks for the advice!

> some bargain bin cables from RadioShack

Those cables tend to be really shitty. Especially cheap RCA cables are prone to intermittent contacts, after having been plugged/unplugged a few times.

Get decent cables from a reputable source, such as...

http://www.thomann.de/gb/cordial_cfu_15_cc.htm (€10, maybe $12 or so..)

...which are worth the money, compared to the overpriced junk normally sold in consumer outlets :-(.

[I do PA sound for a local non-profit part of the time, and bad cables are a constant annoyance, not because of sound quality, but for stability, good contact, flexibility...]

I wonder how much good spanish wine these guys have had before the test

It was probably a selection of both cheap and expensive stuff.

Joking aside though, your comment adds nothing here. Take the article on merit, and add something constructive here if you have it.

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