"Good speaker designers consider the frequency response as like an artist palate" 🎨. I love that speaker design philosophy. Thanks Paul for sharing that. I am taking it.

Musicality is the point where the listener is happy to sit and listen, or stand and dance (whatever you prefer to do). The speakers can help because they all have their own sounds. Therefore speakers can be musical, but it's always subjective to the individual. If the speakers kill the original music's feel, then it can't be musical, in my opinion. If you don't like the term 'musical', you're not wrong. You just have a different interpretation.

thank sooo much for this video!! i have been fighting with my diy loudspeakers for months with too much high end and i just now realized how i need to set up the crossovers so the bass keeps up with the mids and tweets! thank you!!

What a wonderful explanation of the dark arts of speaker building. My respect for Paul builds with every video in this series.

Well said Paul. Fascinating subject matter. I learned something new, but intuitively analogy of the artist palette makes total sense. To a great extent, beauty is quite objective. It's preference within a certain threshold that muddies the water. Thanks for a great video.

Very enlightening video, because Paul knows and he learnt from the best. I got a very good memory of my first serious loudspeakers, Infinity Infinitesimal sub plus sats, oh yeah! Paul does acknowledge that every maker has his recipe and that is true but unfortunately some loudspeakers are better at the trick of vanishing from the room leaving only the scenario. I recall having read somewhere that to make the entire hi-fi chain is not a wise move because every one else in the industry will treat you as a competitor. But if Paul needs to undertake a crusade for musically gifted speakers... I'd like to see a video with those speakers in action very soon and some explanation of the design. At first glance there resemble the standmount Monitor Audio reference from 2004 or so...

I had Focal 1028be’s in the past now Im a proud owner of KEF Reference 3’s

@josephkool8411

3 жыл бұрын

Lucky you

Paul I can't wait to hear your speakers !

Great question and response. Thanks

It's the coherence, phase linearity (timing) and microdynamics (very light paper membrane).

@keithmoriyama5421

5 жыл бұрын

No Pro studio monitors do that and that does not necessarily mean they are musical.

@ShellstaTube

5 жыл бұрын

I agree with this ... and bundle it up as 'timing'. That the drivers (woofers, midrange and tweeters) work in 'harmony' across the full spectrum (to create undertones/overtones that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up). Check ot Vienna Acoustics speakers. 🎼🎵🎶

@thunderpooch

3 жыл бұрын

@@ShellstaTube I'd like to! Some hifi speakers are all about tone and emotion. While other hifi speakers are all about specs, measurements, a targeted frequency response, and purity. I like both approaches a lot. And studio monitors do the specs, measurements, and purity well. But their flat frequency response target is quite boring and lifeless.

@selfelements8037

3 жыл бұрын

How does the cone material of the speakers affect audio quality I may ask?

the quote of the day, "an artists pallet " thanks Paul

@jamesplotkin4674

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks Arnie.

Love this question!

I koved Heil AMT 1bs with air air motion transformers. They are no longer made, but when I heard them decades ago, I could walk around the room with my eyes closed and pick out where each instrument was meant to be, even with curtains and turning directions. They had a 12" woofer and a 12" passive radiator plus a large air motion transformer, and up to that point I had never heard better. There are a lot of good speakers out there, but that is my 2 cents worth.

I' ve listened to speakers that were linear and phase-linear from 25 to 20000 Hz and it was one of greatest and musical sound I've ever heard. To listen every frequency without dips and ups is best of the best. And everything was in balance.

Great video Paul.

A really interesting question; very hard to answer as a lot of it is down to subjectivity.

It is an exercise, loudspeakers, environment, technique, it's ...well, I fully agree with your view Paul.

This seems equivalent to having your speaker designer permanently preset your EQ versus the old days where you had a nice multi band EQ and you could tweak the frequency response to your liking at will. Seems like the old way was better.

@Crokto

5 жыл бұрын

DSP ftw

@zulumax1

5 жыл бұрын

Remember in the old days, as you call it, you had treble and midrange knobs or switches on the rear of the speaker. Had a setting for 0, flat or normal, then + or - You could custom set the speakers for your taste or room, as well as the equalizer.

@ArthaxtaDaVince777

Жыл бұрын

Back when you could get the sound you wanted without having to pay for a $50000 cable

You're so right Paul! My Focal aria 948 and 926 are great!!!

Good question. In his book "Get better sound" Jim Smith suggests a slightly elevated response from 192 to 384hz acchieved in room by speaker position, a component or cable...

Mr. You mentiond the word snob early in your broadcast earlly on.I was talking to a person who was considering getting a bicycle. I was a keen cyclist and have always have had a love of music and how the production etc. comes togetether.. I D. Jayed i n N.Y.C. for many a year and for any person to accuse you of being a "snob". You bring great wealth and knowledge to me and a lot of my pals. Please don't let some Shmuck calling you a snob upset you.

I have become your fan. I wish i could become that talented and have personalty and passion like you.

@Paulmcgowanpsaudio

2 жыл бұрын

You are very kind. I am sure you will get what you want if you work at it.

I watch your videos with the feeling of drinking a delicious nectar, but it is also a little bit science fiction. I love music and I make music as a hobby - I'm a one man band/studio. I would love to have speakers done with this much knowledge and care. I'd love to at least listen to them. But I'm a mail office worker in the third world, so it's just a dream hahaha Hope you guys get the results you want with those speakers and that they make a lot of success. If I win the lottery, I'll certainly get some :)

A large part of the answer is: A speaker that is revealing while connecting you emotionally to the music and .......your ears. Everybody has different taste in speakers just as they do in music. Speakers sound different to each of us. I think as long as best guidelines are adhered to in design and build and a concern of balance and timing and tuning are maintained you will have a musical speaker. If you just slap together some drivers, a crossover and a cabinet then it is guaranteed that it will never be musical.There is no such thing as "the perfect speaker", no such thing as a completely non-colored speaker. Some speakers get close to being almost completely neutral and some have a slightly more pronounced tuning. At the end of the day, it is our tastes that determine if a speaker sounds musical or not.

Am I correct in assuming that you're tweaking the efficiency to make more power available, overall, to the speaker so that it will produce more bass, (as low bass requires more power than treble) and then reducing the treble to match the bass level? I think this makes sense to me. It's very interesting though..

Axpona is in mid-April, safe to say we will the see the Sprout speakers then?

Still very happy with my monitor audio gx200 gold speakers:) playing around with placement atm, but regardless these things will play everything:)

Dear Paul, I became a little bit of an addict to your vids although I regularly find things that I wouldn't agree with. But in the meantime I understand that you are not striving to cover every aspect and that good. Because nobody can and if you would try to you never can make a point (in the way of essence). However, today I just have to mention the frequency response in my opinion is one of the lesser aspects to consider when building speakers (because that is easy to fix if you have to). In my opinion the time domain in which frequencies are reproduced is of high impact too because it decides on how much work your brain has to do to realign what the sound intended to be. Also, a good as possible transient response is what makes a speaker sound musical because our brain is trained by nature to discriminate sound impulse and likes if it does not have to reconstruct transients. Last not least distortion - this is why I only go with high efficient chassis wherever I can... I will soon pose a question on your opinion on dirac-live though. Thanks on any of your effort!!!!!

Its not really about a flat measured response but its more about do all the frequencies sound like they are about the same loudness. My Acoustats do measure pretty flat but they also sound like all frequencies are the same loudness but the sound can be stunningly real and that's what its all about for me. While I own a lot of dynamic speakers I find all dynamic speakers sound colored next to good electrostatics. I once compared a pair of old original Advents to a new pair of $10,000 high-end speakers and was kinda shocked at how thin and bright the high-end speakers were. The Advents to me were much more musical but they lacked the sparkly on top that the high-end speakers had.

Those speakers are beautiful. The surely sound good as well.

'Flat speakers sound shite...' Amps set to 'Flat' make any speaker sound shite... That's why tones controls are a must! Compensate for rooms.. position.. recordings.. Basically what DSP does.. E.Q!!

@longmuskox4194

5 жыл бұрын

Eureka, finally the correct answer from the comment section. Paul seems to think that those who want a 'flat' speaker, want a dead flat speaker with no tone adjustments. A relatively flat speaker can reasonably be adjusted. But, an excessively bright and boomy speaker often sounds empty when you try to compensate with tone controls accordingly. All our ears are different though. Some people prefer Beats Electronics and Bose, but I do not. To each their own!

@cp070476

5 жыл бұрын

@@longmuskox4194 The failing with 'Flat' or 'Direct' is that is mostly sounds bad. I have 4 different EQ setting i use ranging from 'Dull' which neutralizes bright sounding recording up to 'Bright' for very dull fuffled recordings.. Works perfectly! Its called recording compensation! That's why when Paul goes to these shows and the systems costing thousands if dollars sound bad is because the recording is bad! The system will only play the source as it was recorded..

@longmuskox4194

5 жыл бұрын

@@cp070476 I adjust the tone for different recordings and music types as well as for different volume levels for each.

@MrRoberacer

5 жыл бұрын

@@cp070476"The system will only play the source as it was recorded.." Wrong, it can't because there is no reference point. What is it supposed to sound like? While it is true that the brain undoes some of our tweaks and just messes with us in general if one is mixing a record on dull sounding speakers the tendency is to brighten up the mix. Conversely if one mixes in a bass heavy environment you are going to want to bleed that off. Most good control rooms (recording studios) have very balanced sounding environments on purpose and specifically so they are not telling us lies. We need to know what it actually sounds in order to determine how much bottom is enough but not too much etc. Everyone is different in how they work but most of us at some point in the process need to hear our work true to life. Of course that is impossible so we have to settle for as close as we can get. "That's why when Paul goes to these shows and the systems costing thousands if dollars sound bad is because the recording is bad!" If the recording was done in a good sounding environment with good gear and good people then what? You are in fact listening on sonically skewed equipment flavoring it to sound your way which may or may not compliment the artists rendition. If your skew doesn't compliment their work then what? They are incompetent? The recording is garbage now because it doesn't match with your sonic ideal. Wait though here is the problem your ideal is not Paul's ideal nor is it Joe Schmoe's up the street either. In fact ever person has their own. The recording sounds dramatically different everywhere because everyone has their own reference ideal.

@cp070476

5 жыл бұрын

@@MrRoberacer I was referring to older vs new recordings.. Some of the old Black Sabbath recordings are very dull 'Paranoid' especially now compare that to 'High Hopes' by Pink Floyd there is a vast difference in clarity.. On any system you would hear this some of the NOW albums have ridiculous low end bass 40Hz really ramped up i have to reduce the low end by at least 4dB that's where E.Q comes in you try and make each track sound as 'live' as you can make it.

Frequency response is only a part of the puzzle. Yes it is probably the most important factor determining how a speaker will sound but it is certainly not the only one. If it were we could simply always pick the cheapest speaker with the frequency response graph that we desire and be done. We all know it is not that simple.

@WeeWeeJumbo

11 ай бұрын

These explainers are never any good

Paul, what is/was your opinion of the INFINITY KAPPA 8 Reference speakers?? Thanks.

7:20 Thank you!

There are two types of speaker really... ones that are used for reference (as in our studio monitors) and ones for entertainment...The reference monitors , by definition, ought to be as flat as possible but the others which are used for home entertainment or PA work can be tinkered with in all sorts of ways in order to give purchasers some interesting range of choice to wade through ... By the way that mic setup as seen in Paul's video would only be used for impulse or gated measurements and would not go down to low frequencies.... the better way to measure the entire frequency range and not use gating is the well known 'ground plane ' method. You turn the speaker enclosure upside down and tilt the top slightly forward and lay it on a large open area ( like a parking lot or the flat roof) and then you place the microphone 1 metre away from the speaker and on axis. This method provides extremely accurate results ( as long as there are no extraneous noises !!) Best do it on a Sunday in PS car park

@SJMessinwithBoats

5 жыл бұрын

I always enjoy your writings, maybe we are on the same wave?

@janinapalmer8368

5 жыл бұрын

Stereo Junky ~ yeah maybe we're in phase but on different voltages lol 😂

6:22 The trick! I think this is what the "loudness" buttons did on old audio receivers.

I have seen Elac in some of PSs older videos. At least I can recommend Elac :-)

When will the Sprouts speakers be released? I'd love to upgrade from my entry level Klipsch and there's not much else I can afford and am in the market for from PS Audio. I want to put them on my short list and potentially support your business.

@paulgolub6823

5 жыл бұрын

Best guess, between April and September.

Paul is saying the : "Trick" in loudspeaker design is reduce 500Hz to 2K and this makes them musical. No. Music is created in the studio on flat response reference monitors. If you want to hear the MUSIC as intended your system needs to be flat. By all means, purchase an expensive equaliser and introduce your 500-2k dip. Big shout @Gurra Tell : You are correct.

@curtchase3730

5 жыл бұрын

I was looking for a comment like this. I used to think, back in the 80's, recordings of standard rock, pop music was purposely boosted in midrange thinking most playback would be in cars, boom boxes, compact stereos and the like, all that had poor high and low end. I had a "decent" home stereo at the time, 2 pairs of 120watt/ch power amps, pre-amp driving 4 Altec 19's. I had to attenuate that exact bandpass you mentioned to get rid of some of the shrill! LOL>

@Cosmograf

2 жыл бұрын

Nope. Probably the biggest misconception that audiophiles have about the studio is that we are listening to the music how it should be represented. It's simply not true. We are using flat reference monitors with the express purpose of creating a great mix not so we can enjoy the sound. Trust me if you are mixing on industry standard NS10s that's going to sound pretty awful. But the game here is to make it sound fantastic on a typical hifi speaker where the dip between 500Hz and 2kHz is very evident.

Mister Nudell was right, when he compared it to a color palette. It's how our brains are processing the information. For example, look at photography. When we are in a room with incandescent light bulbs, there's more red light in the spectrum than in natural daylight. Do we notice that when we are there? No, we don't. But when you take a picture in that room and take a look to it later, when it is printed (or developed), it looks reddish. That's because our brains are compensating for it in the real situation, but they don't compensate when we look to the the reproduction. Our eyes are more sensitive to green (mids) than to red (lows) or blue (highs). And that's exactly what's going on with audio. Our ears are more perceptible to mids than to lows or highs. When you reproduce it, you have to take that effect out of the reproduction, otherwise it will not sound natural. Or musical. But that's the same. So it's not cheating, it is part of the goal to perfect reproduction! The big question remains... Why is our brain compensating the real stuff, and not the reproduction? I Don't know.

Hey Paul, good afternoon. So, what do you lose choosing High Efficient Speakers? What is the trade off of it? You always mention the threshold of 90 dB between High and Low Sensitivity but your Sprout Bookshelf is 87 dB. I got a pair of KEF LS50 that is 85 dB and I understand that the sensitivity is low in order to have more dynamic and deep low frequency once it's a Bookshelf Speaker, is that right? I have a vaccum valve amp. of 40 W per channel and I have no problem with power at all for a small/medium room, in fact, the volume knob is always before halfway. High Efficient Speaker makes sense only in full range speakers? I got confused here... Thanks!

@homeboi808

5 жыл бұрын

High Efficiency • High SPL • High Impedance Pick 2

Hi Paul what's the name of the bass trap?

Not to forget,one's ears ,our *hearing curve of sensitivity* , is important,we are all different,and that is what i,in some cases, need to establish first; only then can i equalize things,amps and speakers,and that is why opinions vary.I am a high end amplifier repairer and installer and i try to establish that first,sometimes with the couple; and that is the easiest part of the whole process,it all goes from there; of course age plays a tremendous part in the whole process, (as does the physical size of the person),but even people in their 30s and 40s have different sensitivity to the frequencies.

Interesting. So a decrease (or increase) of sensitivity mostly affect the woofers and hence the bass output? I've always wondered how the sensitivity is "decided" upon in relation to the desired audio imaging and why you'd go with a lower sensitivity over a higher one, given its possible.

@thomasbotz7564

3 жыл бұрын

That's easy: Taking away sensitivity is the easiest thing to do. Put a resistor in front of the tweeter network and you'r done. In addition you may want to dampen the roll off of the woofer towards is upper end prematurely (or even put a notch into is response) . By doing so you bring forward the bass response. However at PS-Audio (with what was mentioned) they are nonetheless following the illusion to generate bass-response with a 6 inch woofer. Poor little thing has to push air like hell (air doesn't like that push anyway). How stressful it works you will hear ;) .

Why does a lower efficiency cause a speaker produce more bass? Are there simply resistors in the crossover path to the tweeter so that the woofer automatically plays louder than it usually would if both drivers had the same efficiency?

@homeboi808

5 жыл бұрын

High Efficiency • High Impedance • High SPL Pick 2

also passive crossovers built inside the cabinet have a VERY big role in musicality

Do you have any videos or can tell me what a good eq graph looks like? I am planning on building my own diy towers and crossovers using a free program. Should I go for a (smiley face) type of eq band or more flat and use a eq? I do agree bass is needed and almost every speaker seriously lacks bass.

@homeboi808

5 жыл бұрын

Look up Equal Loudness Contours. If you listen loud, then relatively flat (on and off axis) is preferred. If you listen at speech levels, add more bass and a bit more treble. Don’t forget about BSC and baffle diffraction when designing the crossover. Salk audio has articles on them if you need info.

When I purchased my speakers 20 years ago. The amp tone and loudness set flat. Speakers approx 1 foot from wall(bookshelf speakers).listened to each speaker with same amp(side by side comparison).and I brought my own familiar cds. Bought paradigm mini monitor still listening with the amp tones set flat(I feel its cheating)if speakers dont sound good.move them/change song/or just get rid of them..the numbers just made it more confusing to buy.if a speaker too dull remove the grill. These speakers go to 57hz.i get the sub to pick up from 65 to 75. I would be happy with an amp with no tone controls. I want to test listen these .elac ub5 .heard a lot of good reviews.

Really mixed bag today... 1. You cannot listen to speakers in a vacuum because they would make no sound :) 2. You don't want frequencies that are standing out - sounds like Kef to me and yet you recommend them. 3. You don't want speakers bereft of bottom end - sounds like Focal to me and yet you recommend them. 4. 86-87dB sensitivity for good bass I agree. 5. Gentle V curve I agree

@ryanray6215

5 жыл бұрын

" You don't want frequencies that are standing out " You are confused with BOSE my friend . LOL

Harbeth and Vandersteen also very musical.

All speakers need to be at least 1metre away from the wall. Also , there are great speakers out there and ATC have the best top end in the business.

@williamlau7179

4 жыл бұрын

Ideally yes but practically no in most domestic room (not with those luxury of dedicated Hugh space sound engineereing treated "musical" rooms.) I tried, but later for safety reason, the back of the speakers are kept about 2 feet away from the back wall. Mind you, proper sufficient distance (space) from both side of the walls are as well important.

Very happy with my PMC s

But everyone's ears has different frequency response profile and that needs to be taken into account too. So the best speakers are those that sounds best to your ears and yours alone. One pair of speakers might sound great to you but not necessarily for the person next to you.

All just personal taste, whatever connects you emotionally to the music in your system within the limitations of your room acoustics.

I have heard this before from speaker designers"the mid range is a problem' I think 2 reasons our ears as humans dont have a flat frequency response at all !They are most sensitive in the mid range area because this is our speech range so is very critical when listening to music being reproduced is the most difficult area this is why 2 and 3 way speakers always sound completely different 2nd reason mid range subjectively has more room effects as in reason 1

just a thought: is it not better to make a speaker with least amount of crossover components and use dsp to correct for the room at the end user with their own ears?

@homeboi808

5 жыл бұрын

DSP has limitations: 1) You can’t fix large dips as that needs a lot of wattage and likely more than you have and more than the speaker can handle. 2) Fixing any dips require pushing more wattage, which also means increasing distortion, so you have to measure that as well and see how much you can correct without distorting. 3) Fixing high-Q dips or peaks in the treble causes ringing.

What about a loudspeaker system that has a flat impedance characteristic? Someone I knew in Australia designed the crossover network in one of the speakers he manufactured and sold so that its impedance was close to 8 ohms over its entire frequency range. The advantage of that, I presume, is that it would be a very easy load for an amplifier to drive. I have no idea what it sounded like as he never discussed that and for some reason I never asked him.

Showing us the elusive Sprout speakers again eh? I couldn't wait any longer and went with the Martin Logan Motion 35XT's. It looks, design-wise, very similar to those Sprouts. Be interested to see how they compare.

@mike_ratman

5 жыл бұрын

The speakers Paul and PS Audio are working on are "Arnie Nudell" based speakers. I think once I heard "Memorial" used in the name, but look back a few days until you see the AN Reference pair that looks like a guitar - sort of curvy. I suppose that we might finally see prototypes at AXPONA or later nearer home at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2019 in Denver, but AFAIK they have made no announcement. Maybe they will be announced at one or the other? I do recall at least one time months ago he mentioned that they were preliminarilly planning on three levels of around $6,000, $10k and $20k pairs but I don't know if that is still accurate or even if there are still three versions.

@mike_ratman

5 жыл бұрын

Paul is not one to introduce anything when it is half baked. That might suit many (most?) audio makers, but I know that when it is truly ready we will see them, and not before. I am already saving my coins, have been for a while. Now, let's remember that audio is a compromise on most levels and never more than when speakers are involved.

@stonefree1911

5 жыл бұрын

I have little doubt that Paul and gang will put out some very nice speakers indeed. I just needed a pair sooner than later and the Logan 35's are VERY similar to what the Sprouts appear to be. Love ML speakers, so I'm sure I'm good to go. Mayhap when I'm ready for a Stellar (BHK?) setup their mains will be ready and tested.

@mike_ratman

5 жыл бұрын

Certainly nothing wrong with an ML 35XT pair! I have a pair of ML 4i speakers for my surrounds. The Heil based "folded motion" tweeters are awesome and the 35XT has an even bigger AMT type midrange / tweeter.

Paul, have you heard any of the Triangle speakers? After auditioning some high quality and not inexpensive bookshelf speakers from various manufacturers, I was disappointed. Then I had the dealer connect a pair of the floorstanding Gaia EZ from the Esprit line, and was really impressed. They were very musical to me ears, and I was using my own amp selection of music. While they may lack some bass extension (the Antals, the next model up adds bass,) they were coherent and were *fast* - my body was moving because now I got PRaT along with great frequency balance. The Gaias retail for about $2K, which I think is a bargain. Other than liking my local Triangle dealer, I have no relationship with Triangle or the distributor. Well, my son lives in France, so there is that ... 😂

@cowboyhank456

Жыл бұрын

I found a pair of Zephyrs in a thrift shop recently, $20. I'd never heard of Triangle before but man do these sound good. Indeed lacking bass extension, but paired to a warm amp and a loudness switch or a sub these speakers can sing! They're very detailed and the highs are incredibly crisp but not overwhelming in the slightest. Compared to the coaxial Ascendo C6 (DIY; new they would cost ~6x what these Triangles retailed for) I have the mids aren't as coherent, but it has musicality in spades. There's no one truth in audio such as this, just many different sounds and experiences

@PanAmStyle

Жыл бұрын

@@cowboyhank456 Very cool! I waited quite a while to make a purchase and ended up getting the 40th Anniversary Comètes which are even better in terms of frequency balance, and maybe even bass and resolution. Down the road a bit I’m going to audition the small Triangle sub to fill out the bottom end and let the speakers breathe a bit more.

@cowboyhank456

Жыл бұрын

@@PanAmStyle Hard to believe those can be even better, but Triangle sure has some incredible engineers behind their tweeters! And indeed, I had the same idea; I think letting them do the thing they're best at and relegating the low-end to a good sub would work out perfectly. Currently designing a one with a friend with decades of experience building HiFi and PA audio solutions. Can't wait to hear what that'll sound like

Flat in a sound proof room would not be flat in a lounge room. I think this is what it's all about. Rooms are all different too. I experiment with different acoustics on my built speakers. Also an emphasis on acoustic source.

First thing to understand is we all hear differently so it was my job as a audio specialist to help my clients discover the speakers and electronics that create that desired sound in their own homes or listening rooms. Personally I think there are many great sounding speakers the challenge is to have the opportunity to hear the speakers properly setup and complemented with the right equipment. The equipment plays a major role both in how the complement the overall sound, so that must be taken into consideration. As to your main question specifications and measurements are only a tool to help guide designers in the right direction. You cannot use measurements as a determination of sound quality and musicality. You can measure a number of great sounding speakers and they would have vast differences in measurements. Most good designers use tools and measurements to get them in the ballpark and then final results will be done by ear.

@homeboi808

5 жыл бұрын

Not that true. A senior citizen hears less bass than a college kid, and experienced listeners like less bass and treble than non-experienced listeners; but the differences aren’t huge, and things we all agree on are things such as low distortion, constant directivity, fast and even decay, etc. Placebo and bias are the main reasons why one person likes speaker A over speaker B if both measure similarly.

Paul, do I see yellow cones on your speakers? Very B&W like!

@khoi83

3 жыл бұрын

Probably just Kevlar woofer. Many brands use it now

Paul, I know you’re developing your speaker product so you probably don’t care but my Tekton double impacts are very musical. My only beef is that some of my old record albums don’t sound so good when I can hear all the faults in them. These are old HiFi records from the 50s.

@Paulmcgowanpsaudio

5 жыл бұрын

That's one of the double edged swords of highly resolving speakers. Good recordings are breathtaking while not so good recordings can be irritating.

Judging from the comments we many have different definitions of what bass slam is. It is not how much bass, not about SPL, but the rapid attack and rapid decay of the sound. I have heard car stereos with enough bass to move your hair and rattle your eyballs in their sockets that had poor attack and decay of the impact of the transients, hence, no slam

+1 for Focal, KEF, Sonus Faber.

@tragicevans4157

4 жыл бұрын

Edifier sounds musical too.

Sprout speaker.......... that sounds promising!

Damn Paul, you didn't have to do Sandy Gross and Triton audio like that, leaving them out of the good sounding list

I've a pair of speaker with two 10" bass drivers... it makes the sound full and "complete" with a lot of body. Since I have these, I can't really listen to monitor speakers, even very good ones, without telling me that something is missing. It's like watching a film in RGB with just Red, Green and no Blue, or just half of the normal Blue channel... it's strange !

@20CycleMonger

5 жыл бұрын

Ditto with stereo subwoofers :-)

@jondoe6618

5 жыл бұрын

Yup. You can always turn the bass down but small speakers can never get the bass you need. I myself have 21 speakers in my bedroom (12x12) with 7 woofers ranging in size. It makes the world of difference even at really low volume. 98% of people would think its overkill until they listen to it. Music should not only be heard but felt as well.

@jondoe6618

5 жыл бұрын

Csab few different brands actually. Dayton audio. Fisher. Yamaha. Denon receivers. I even have a car audio 12 in subwoofer. Super cheap.

There are two things in my mind that make it musical Proper enclosure design. A subwoofer in a enclosure that is too small, or too big, won’t sound “musical”. The next part is amplifier design. I use tube amps so a good power supply is key to getting a musical sound, as you need a power supply that can instantaneously supply the power needed to amplify a bass drum kick, or snare drum. The more instantaneous the power supply, the more transient and speed the bass and snares will have and thus the rest of the sound will have. Just my two cents

Hello, what about Dali (Rubicon series) ?

confusing..Danny, from GR Research.......always says all speakers must have a flat freq response...any dips are bad ?

I say everything is mostly about the speaker. You can buy amps on specs. Speakers are completely subjective to me. I believe that a system should be built around the speakers and the room that they are going to be in. From a guy who was big in audio when dinosaurs roamed the earth - me.

@divertiti

4 жыл бұрын

Amp specs dont mean anything and don't really tell you how they sound either

Paul will be interested on hearing your opinion Wilson Audio speakers?

@TheAzdavay

5 жыл бұрын

You can have mine opinion if you wan t. There great speakers. Very musical

@longmuskox4194

5 жыл бұрын

Paul has said before that he and his wife Terri love the sound of Wilson speakers, but think they tend to look ugly. I suppose if you have a lot of strange looking furniture they may fit well into a room. If your goal was to make them stand out like a sore thumb, then they may be suitable. Wilson will even paint them bright pink if you want.

Music makes speakers sound musical, nothing else.

@gerritgovaerts8443

5 жыл бұрын

Absolutely correct ! A musical speaker is a philosphical category mistake : no such thing exists or can exist

@mrpositronia

5 жыл бұрын

it's just a turn of phrase. nothing to get upset about.

@flargosa

5 жыл бұрын

yup, get the cheapest flattest sounding speakers.

@salvadorrodenas3071

5 жыл бұрын

@@gerritgovaerts8443 flat-earth believers don't know yet our world is round but we can see the truth now. Five hundred years before was not that easy to prove. If I haven't experienced what some loudspeakers can do, I wouldn't believe they exist and they are rarer than we think. Those music makers can make some nasty records sound as master tapes drawing you into the performance. Keep searching my friend.

@detectiveinspekta

5 жыл бұрын

What makes a speaker happy....

So why not have flat response speakers and power amp and give me a full graphic EQ on the preamp to let me decide myself how to make it suit my ears?

In spite of what audiophilia has condemned from the past, the Japanese/Cerwin Vega etc., had this figured out decades ago. At least with anything beyond audiophile grade recordings. The mass market offerings had some negative quality effects from obvious budget constraints, but distortion levels were just low enough, and they greatly buffered this with headroom and displacement. A mainstream, 100w system in most residential settings, was *nearly* twice as loud as what most listeners could even stand for any length of time, and right where most systems/speakers were still well below obvious, *audible* distortions. Still, the music actually sounded good and when referenced against live music and live studio work. Especially in the case of electrified music. Home theater, surround sound and movie effects, has greatly muddied this idea of music quality. High end speaker manufacturers for theater products, with the exorbitant prices they charge, have to convince the listeners that these expensive speakers can "do it all" and essentially hand off the faults to the recording industry, which is *just* true enough. Meanwhile, many video/music heads who live around at least the 50/50 range with music and movies, will have a separate 2 channel system for music.

I’ve found that you can make a crap speaker sound “ok” by applying a bit of munson fletcher curve to the eq curve.

There is a reason why a flat frequency response isn’t perceived musical. Our hearing performs differently at different sound levels. It’s called “loudness” and your audio gear might have a loudness function that enables a compensation for how our ears perform. Unfortunately, audiophile equipment most often is without such function pretending that this is not a real issue. Instead the blame goes on the speakers being too flat LOL. Either way, you need to compensate and in my opinion is much better to have a DSP doing it precisely to the actual sound level than by a static one profile tuning of the speaker itself. Unfortunately audiophiles often are religious about some opinions without actually understanding the substance, e.g. avoiding any sound processing. Check en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness

That was an excellent answer 👍 for the flat frequency number cchasers they just don’t have a clue and a base understanding of physics. If you took an orchestra and somehow are able to change the frequency of all the instruments so everyone matched to be flat it would sound horrible. And if you didn’t succeed with a flat speaker every time you took that flat speaker into different rooms it would sound different. If you gave the flat speaker seeker hey flat speaker with a flat room with an orchestra that played flat music then you have the c chemistry for overly compressed nowadays recording that sounds like CR¥ P

If the speaker sounds realistic (Voices, Strings and hats) i want nothing more. For that i need a very well set up and treated room.

@zumanju1356

4 жыл бұрын

and you need some good money to buy Joseph Audio Perspective2s:)

Brilliantly, and unexpectedly humerous , "We don't listen to speakers in a vacuum."

@josephkool8411

3 жыл бұрын

I liiston to my speakers when my ol;d lady vacuems the floor all the time. You people make no sense

Ye flat speakers are like food without salt n pepper. Just find speakers that YOU like the sound of. And then visit a friend with a different system and enjoy the way a song sounds differently, not better or worse.

TACT digital equalizers were another way to flatten speakers. The result was unpleasant. I suspect recordings are not produced for flat systems. I still have a pair of Triangle Comete 202. Colored, not much low end.. but still a very "happy" speaker, very musical and pleasing. (Funny thing, none of its siblings to the 202 series is!). We're funny creatures. :)

ATC ❤️❤️ Love em cause of very neutral tone

@josephkool8411

3 жыл бұрын

Whatever

@josephkool8411

3 жыл бұрын

Just say you like how they sound instead of being all scientific about it to sound smart

It seems that most folks agree that there needs to be a bump in the bottom end of most systems to sound right but how much and exactly where in that region is another debate. The thing is for the most part the rest is arguably closer to flat than not and here is the thing. I found that what makes an even bigger difference is that what we are hearing contains less distortion and is all very close to in phase. I think what a lot of people call overly bright or harsh is more often than not actually higher amounts of distortion and not actually a frequency amplitude issue at all. No, not all sound issues are solved with an eq. Sorry. A lot of people try to tame their bright distortion issue by eliminating high frequencies. Sure, the distortion that happens at 4 KHz is going to activate other frequencies like harmonics except as distortion is not usually rounded wave forms so they won't necessarily be musically harmonic which part of the problem. The other is that as you go higher in frequency there are more "Whole frequencies" in fact from a numerical perspective over half of the human hearing range is beyond 10Khz. With that if a wave form is developing added frequencies (they are called partials actually) because of the math there are going to be more of them as we go up in frequency rather than down. If you pull the volume of the root tone down they all decrease. The only other way to "fix" that distortion is to eliminate higher frequencies hence we often see speakers that can't output anything beyond 15Khz. "But they sound more musical like that".

@MrRoberacer

5 жыл бұрын

One step further. What kind of sound is a system like the one I just explained going to yield. Well the lack of openness and that added distortion in the upper mid range is going to add some really ugly tones making brass crash cymbals sound more like trash can lids smashing together so anything with a lot of cymbal work is going to be rather annoying meanwhile anything that has a more subdued upper mid harmonic content is going to seem more enlightening as you will hear the reeds of an oboe better for example. Hmm Rock music uses a lot of cymbals. I'll just leave that there. Food for thought.

@MrRoberacer

5 жыл бұрын

I wasn't clear about one thing. The thing to realize is that distortion adds tones that didn't exist in the first place. Drummers are very picky about the sound of their cymbals. Actually they are rather expensive for good ones and they are breakables (yes, throwaways). Typically they don't sound ugly in real life. Electronics often makes them ugly though. Tube mics for example generate distortion as part of their characteristic sound (actually tube anything does that). Cymbals is one place that ever sought after sound can be ugly rather than prettier. There is a reason why tube tech was quickly replaced when we discovered transistors and it is not just financial.

@SJMessinwithBoats

5 жыл бұрын

👍

What price point on Sprouts speakers ?

@Paulmcgowanpsaudio

5 жыл бұрын

Hoping for $995 to $1195 the pair.

I have often suspected that a lot of this is in our heads. Are we really trying to recreate the original sound field? Or do we think of the stereo system and a musical instrument in its own right? I suspect it is the latter. Hence if you were buying say a violin - you would not ask it to have an even response at all frequencies. Instead you would perhaps prefer one that was 'bright' or perhaps 'mellow'. Perhaps it is the same with speakers. If that is true, amplifiers will be the same. Regardless of their tech specs, we will find ourselves with a subjective preference. Accepting this makes it impossible to choose equipment based on paper specs.

"Music doesn't sound bright and edgy." Amen, brother.

4:19, 7:19 "Good speaker designers consider the frequency response as like an artists palette."

The thing I find Paul the majority of the high end shows when showcasing speakers they seem to think customers automatically like classical or jazz but they never showcase any rock, reggae New wave or industrial so I think there's quite a one sided elitism

I've been told that the colour of each driver is what gives loudspeakers the beautiful sound. Now studio monitors try to be flat line, so you get the raw sound (you can't believe everyone colouring is at the same Hz)and then just use headphones to hear a final sound.

A speaker is a speaker is a speaker. Like pizza, but when you have the same source and amp and you switch from speaker to speaker and get so many different sounds, that’s so fascinating

@josephkool8411

3 жыл бұрын

What?

I can't understand what a flat response has to do with the interaction with the room . All monopole speakers (and dipoles to a lesser extent), regardless of their on-axis response ,interact with the room through standing waves . On axis response is only a part of the acoustic energy your ear experiences , indirect sound makes a big contribution and is far from flat in almost all (except for a small minority of constant directivity speakers )classic monopole box design speakers . Indirect sound from 2 different speakers with both flat on-axis response can differ very wildly and they will sound different. The importance of on-axis response (flat or not) is immensely over rated . The polar resonse (from all directions , not only on axis) is what counts in my experience ,with constant directivity preferred. You cannot characterize (or demonize because it's flat) a speaker's sound based on it's on-axis response only. What is also left out of this discussion is the optimal proportion of direct sound to indirect sound which also contributes greatly to a speaker's sonic signature beyond the on-axis response ,flat or not. Therefore I sincerely doubt the existence of a certain optimal non-flat on axis response that makes every speaker , by pure magic , sound musical , regardless of polar response , direct to indirect sound proportion , and the sensitivities of an individual's ear to the acoustic spectrum of frequencies . That makes no logical sense to me , nor does it have any scientific ground

Have you tried lsr305/306's? "Flat response" but they're so good...

@homeboi808

5 жыл бұрын

I think Paul forgets that flat on-axis means nothing if the off-axis is poor. The JBL uses its waveguide to try and make the off-axis perform well, and so it is a “flat speaker” that sounds good.

Try q acoustics

You are right about that Paul, flat sounds terrible

05:20 "we don't listen to speakers in a vacuum" I wonder if you really mean "outdoor in the dirt" or "in a forest" or whatever. If we did listen to them in a vacuum then yeah they would all sound exactly the same. Not really good though .. Less literal? =P

@TheFishFTW

5 жыл бұрын

sound does not travel in a vacuum

@williamlau7179

4 жыл бұрын

I guess Paul means you are not listening (excuse me). Actually the density of air has effect of sound speed, also water vapor can tune the sound. I enjoy music in an air cond cooling room with comfort and harmonics.

Is the cabinet ported on those speakers...? I don't like the design of the cabinet doesn't look right

JBL floats my boat.

I've never heard anyone characterize the sound the sound of a live performance in any of the well known audiophile's terms. Why, I think because it's considered to be "the reference" which it's really not. There are good and not so good places to play instruments and sing just like there good and not so good speakers and listening rooms. The only valid reference IMHO is the listener's ear, choice of music and personal sonic preferences as a complete package which is what makes speakers such a very personal choice, and yes, Paul, you are going to have some people who think your new speakers sound like donkey bits to put it mildly and that's not necessarily a hit against your speakers (Unless of coarse everybody agrees lol) You spoke kindly of Kef speakers but I've never heard a pair that sounded even remotely passable to me. Same with McIntosh speakers. Nothing against the speakers as long as there is someone out there who thinks they're the bee's knees.

@longmuskox4194

5 жыл бұрын

I agree with what you said. I especially agree with regards to the KEF and McIntosh speaker comment. I don't find their speakers to sound bad, I just find them to be much more comparable to many speakers 1/2 or more of their price.