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Wow, damning Klipsch review!

jimmytwos said:
To be honest, I have never turned up to a Hifi shop to demo speakers with test equipment! If only bought on specs, then we would all have 8k TVs and drive the latest Tesla and Hifi valve amplifiers wouldn’t exist.
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Who in here has suggested buying only on specs?
 
If a speaker has a wonky frequency response it will sound like it measures. You can chuck as many amps and cables, or whatever at them, but they will still have a wonky response. Some things can be fixed or improved with positioning or the problem may go away off-axis, but if there’s a huge peak in the wrong place (certain areas don't matter as much as others), nothing is going to fix that. Dips obviously aren't as noticeable but again, it depends on where it is and how wide/deep it is.
 
Absolutely to check that they work! I suppose my point was in regards to the original video. Customer buys brand new speakers (spending what would not be considered an insignificant amount of money)and then is dissatisfied so-apparently spends further time and money to have said speakers fixed to achieve a desirable measurement that the person selling the upgrades has deemed acceptable!
It’s an interesting video and their other videos are interesting and informative ,but it’s exactly what puts people off of Hifi and why most people just don’t care about Hifi anymore.
This forum collectively, probably has higher fidelity replay equipment than some of the artists and albums that we play, and that’s with no disrespect to those artists and people that make the music we listen to. I can imagine if music never existed and we just listened to test tones, some would still want to live to hear the day that a system or speaker could reproduce the same tone as generated through a signal generator.
 
Klipsch are about enjoying your music, not everyone needs to hear the lowest bass notes, for me it can sometimes seem the bass overshadows the music if not kept tight and controlled I enjoyed listening to the RP600m, the bass on these, for standmount speakers, is more than adequate for my ears
 
Fatmarley said:
If a speaker has a wonky frequency response it will sound like it measures.
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To clarify, do you mean a wonky on-axis response, or a wonky off-axis response? I agree with the former obviously but have yet to be convinced of the latter (when listening on-axis of course).
 
tuga said:
Maybe not you personally but a trial-and-error approach to audio is usually a waste of time and money, waiting for a fortunate accidental hit to happen.
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It's no more hit and miss than trying to pick things with measurements, it may measure perfect but that's no good if you hate how it sounds. Different approach, same result.
 
ToTo Man said:
To clarify, do you mean a wonky on-axis response, or a wonky off-axis response? I agree with the former obviously but have yet to be convinced of the latter (when listening on-axis of course).
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What reaches the listening spot is a combination of direct sound (on-axis) and early reflections (off-axis) - see precedence or Haas effect.

In a normal-sized untreated domestic environment speakers with an off-axis response that is not smooth or is significantly different from the on-axis response will produce a "combined" in-room response that is not flat.
 
matt j said:
It's no more hit and miss than trying to pick things with measurements, it may measure perfect but that's no good if you hate how it sounds. Different approach, same result.
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You can learn how to correlate measurements with listening. Then you will be able to roughly predict if you will enjoy a particular presentation.
For those of us who enjoy the sound of equipment which measures perfectly it's undoubtebly easier but you can look for a pattern of measured behaviour in the equipment which you enjoy and look for gear which produces identical measurements.

Measurements are basically the sound one hears represented graphically.
Just don't fall into the trap of believing that frequency response (in the case of speakers on-axis FR) is all that matters.
To characterise performance one needs measurements of as many different parameters as possible.
 
ToTo Man said:
To clarify, do you mean a wonky on-axis response, or a wonky off-axis response? I agree with the former obviously but have yet to be convinced of the latter (when listening on-axis of course).
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I purposely didn't say because it's complicated.

Off-axis really depends on if there are peaks or dips, and again, where they are. My current speakers had an off-axis peak at 2khz (horizontal) that was audible, and not great. It was only up a decibel or two, but it's a bad area to have a peak. I had to drop the on-axis response in that area, and that cleared up the problem. Most people probably wouldn't have even noticed the problem in the first place (gives some vocals a slight glassy quality).
A peak at 1khz for example, might sound nice, and give some vocals a bit more presence (Falcon Acoustics LS3/5a).

I don't point my speakers directly at my ears though, and my side walls are quite close to my speakers (lots of off-axis reflections). In a larger room with the speakers pointed at your ears or near-field listening, the results may be different.
 
tuga said:
You can learn how to correlate measurements with listening. Then you will be able to roughly predict if you will enjoy a particular presentation.
For those of us who enjoy the sound of equipment which measures perfectly it's undoubtebly easier but you can look for a pattern of measured behaviour in the equipment which you enjoy and look for gear which produces identical measurements.

Measurements are basically the sound one hears represented graphically.
Just don't fall into the trap of believing that frequency response (in the case of speakers on-axis FR) is all that matters.
To characterise performance one needs measurements of as many different parameters as possible.
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How do you realistically translate test measurements with how they will sound in your own room with your own kit?
 
Loudspeakers are largely responsible for what you hear, from the on and off axis frequency response you can gauge the character of the speaker.
Look at the measurements sections of John Atkinson’s reviews for Stereophile or Amir’s at ASR, or Erins audio corner.
All thre explain the correlation between measurement and the sound you hear.
Keith
 
matt j said:
How do you realistically translate test measurements with how they will sound in your own room with your own kit?
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Like I said, measurements are the graphic representation of specific parameters or qualities of sound.
Frequency response is the most significant parameter and it represents the tonal balance (how audible frequencies relate to each other in terms of amplitude). Reducing or increasing a particular range of the audible band will produce a specific perceived effect (a bit like white balance in photography only more complex/encompassing in scope); sound engineers use these effects all the time: https://www.teachmeaudio.com/mixing/techniques/audio-spectrum/

In the past 30 years I have listened to several different speakers, amplifiers, CD players and DACs, I've owned a few too. I've seen their measurements and I've been measuring my own speakers for over a dozen years now.
In this time I've not read a single review but instead dozens of tech notes and white papers and research documents.
 
matt j said:
How do you realistically translate test measurements with how they will sound in your own room with your own kit?
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I can antecipate with some certainty the sound of for example the Klipsch Forte using measurements (the more the merrier), the performance potential of the topology (3-way 2-horn boxes with a flat baffle) as well as prior listening experience of similar speakers. By cross-checking data from these three sources of information I can home-in on a reasonable portrait of the speaker's performance.

But for most audiophiles performance is only half of the picture because it only expresses how accurately an equipment will reproduce recordings, not if or how much the sound presentation will be pleasing.
This is where I believe the great divide between subjective-driven and objective-driven audiophiles lies. For the former technical and measurement data is incomprehensible and the latter struggle to accept that higher fidelity or accurate reproduction may and does not sound pleasing to many for a multitude of reasons.
 
matt j said:
How do you realistically translate test measurements with how they will sound in your own room with your own kit?
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A third aspect which in my view plays a critical role in upgrading or improving system performance is learning how to carry out an objective critical listening assessment of performance from an observationist perspective.
This means pinpointing audible performance issues through listening and then trying to identify potential causes.
Such an approach is very different from a taste-driven assessment and requires benchmarks or references as well as some listening training/experience.
And unlike the more traditional way of achieving synergy by compensating a problem in one link of the chain by adding the inverse problem in another link, one is actually getting rid of the problems and thus improving the sound of the system. In audio two wrongs don't make a right.
 
The 'rough' response he showed for the tweeter and the description was a bit misleading being as it was clearly the naked driver/ horn response without the crossover eq that is mandatory for all compression drivers.... so there was/ is an agenda.
I'm a bit of a cynic when it comes to some of these internet Crossover salesmen armed with SPICE and CLIO and their not exactly cheap miraculous cures....
 
As said above, but worded a little differently. How many HiFi retailers selling loudspeakers actually have any test equipment? Sad world if relying on test equipment figures/numbers to decide which loudspeakers to purchase. As many have found out over the years, you need to use yours ears to decide on a shortlist but importantly ensure you demo them in your listening location! Number of times people have gone on reviews they have read, then wondered why the items did not "live up to expectations".
 
tuga said:
A third aspect which in my view plays a critical role in upgrading or improving system performance is learning how to carry out an objective critical listening assessment of performance from an observationist perspective.
This means pinpointing audible performance issues through listening and then trying to identify potential causes.
Such an approach is very different from a taste-driven assessment and requires benchmarks or references as well as some listening training/experience.
And unlike the more traditional way of achieving synergy by compensating a problem in one link of the chain by adding the inverse problem in another link, one is actually getting rid of the problems and thus improving the sound of the system. In audio two wrongs don't make a right.
Click to expand...
Can you give us some examples of how you've applied this approach to your own loudspeakers and what improvements you've made?
 
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