The ideal speaker?

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bernardl

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What components/technology/architecture... would your dream speaker combine?

I start:
- full range active smart towers
- Lansche plasma tweeter
- Tekton architecture (array of - plasma - tweeters for mids)
- JBL bass
- Wilson Benech Carbon enclosure
- Shunyata internal wiring
- Magico quality
- Devialet Integrated amplification (active speaker) with individual SAM profile
- Dirac based room correction capability dynamically tuned for room occupancy
- listener’s hearing profiles taken into account

Cheers,
Bernard
 
Way too technical in my opinion. My ideal speaker should:
- have a good efficiency,
- have the dynamics of a horn loaded speaker,
- have the transparency of an electrostatic speaker,
- has the high-end extension of a B&W diamond tweeter but the liveliness of the good-old inverter Focal titanium dome,
- have a nice low end (not boomy),but I will use a sub no matter what and since I saw Alon Wolf having two in his Ultimate set-up in Munich I feel in good company
- are forgiving to less perfect recordings,
- have the looks of a Sonos Faber.

Most high-end combinations (including my own rigs) are failing in the forgiving part. Soundwise the Blumenhofer Classic 1743 probably comes closest of all the speakers I have tested. But miserably fail on the looks .....
 
I wonder if it’s possible to both be forgiving and to offer top notch performance.

I wonder whether it’s not better to manage the bad records with sound profiles ran on the DSP of the amp or music player.

Btw, the reason why I proposed some concrete components is that I know how well they perform and think they are the best in each category.

Cheers,
Bernard
 
bernardl said:
I wonder whether it’s not better to manage the bad records with sound profiles ran on the DSP of the amp or music player.
Click to expand...
It's no better/worse to do, what is effectively, sound power EQ at the front end or at speaker. Net result is you can certainly improve tonally (and somewhat, timbre) of recording, good or bad, to suit ones taste. However, with DSP at the speaker, you can do things impossible at the front end/DAC stage, like manipulate the actual polar radiation characteristics of the speaker and how it interacts with room, affecting just about everything, most importantly, the spatial rendering one is trying to achieve.
A great laymans explanation is here Acoustics vs Hearing the whole read is critical, to understand pg 36.
The net result is onhifi.com -- Features Archives
"Where's the Real Magazine?" As We See It, February 2001 | Stereophile.com
But as Atkinson points out
There was no doubt that I had experienced audio playback of considerably higher fidelity than I had ever experienced from a two-channel system. But did I want that experience in my own listening room? As always, it comes down to what you want a recording to do: reproduce the music you love in whatever fidelity is appropriate; or reproduce a very small amount of other people's music in as high a fidelity as possible.
Click to expand...
Very few, if any, actually desire anything such.
Btw, as Joe I points out in another thread, there are already DACs on the market that offer some of what you mention, ability to tonally fix recordings made by literally near deaf engineers (actually tested by Dr Toole et al).

cheers,

AJ
 
Thankfully no such thing as the ideal speaker, otherwise we'd all have them and every other brand would be out of business..

In any event, the "ideal" speaker in your room may be quite different from the ones in my room. DSP or not, speakers need matching with the room and some types of speaker may perform very disappointly. In my own room, the very costly electrostatics I bought to replace old horns sounded worse than the old horns despite a small improvement following DSP adjustment - so they are for sale.

DSP in many respects should be considered as a last resort to resolve problems with a pooly chosen speaker. If you can find a good speaker that matches your room's accoustics without room correction, you'll be better off than a costlier speaker that isn't happy until its diet is changed. Peter
 
Which costly electrostatics are you selling?


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Mike said:
Which costly electrostatics are you selling?
Click to expand...

Martin Logan Expression 13A in high gloss black - pristine condition as effectively unused. All accessories inc PBK kit and original packaging. UK only

PS - Almst impossible to type posts on the forumusing Ineret Explorer. Lots o character go missing as his sentavce ilusrate.

Peter
 
Hear Here said:
Martin Logan Expression 13A in high gloss black - pristine condition as effectively unused. All accessories inc PBK kit and original packaging. UK only

PS - Almst impossible to type posts on the forumusing Ineret Explorer. Lots o character go missing as his sentavce ilusrate.

Peter
Click to expand...

Ok. Not sure I would consider those “pricey”. They sell them at Best Buy here in America, along with toasters and refrigerators. Maybe in Europe, they jack up the price. Good speakers, but like all hybrid panels, even the MurAudio’s I had on long term loan, a compromise due to its hybrid nature.

I’d still take a pair of Quad 2912’s any day and live with their limitations. At least they’re pure sounding.

But glad you went with the AG XD’s. Great move, great speaker.


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Hear Here said:
Martin Logan Expression 13A
Click to expand...
That's not a DSP speaker. Thats a conventional speaker with an onboard DSP subwoofer. It has zero ability to change its polar pattern to highly forward direct radiation, like the horns you prefer, in your room.
That's a limitation of that type speaker. Agreed.

cheers,

AJ
 
Mike said:
Ok. Not sure I would consider those “pricey”. They sell them at Best Buy here in America, along with toasters and refrigerators. Maybe in Europe, they jack up the price. Good speakers, but like all hybrid panels, even the MurAudio’s I had on long term loan, a compromise due to its hybrid nature.

I’d still take a pair of Quad 2912’s any day and live with their limitations. At least they’re pure sounding.

But glad you went with the AG XD’s. Great move, great speaker.
Click to expand...

The ML 13A is priced here at £18000 plus a few hundred for the PBK kit - so about $23000 but that includes our 20% VAT. They are only sold here by a handful of authorised dealers and discounts are hotly discouraged by the distributor, although things may change since the distributor changed last year.

Yes, it's a ridiculous markup, but typical for US-made stuff imported here, and also reflects the (then) ML distributor that has a reputation for good products, but with a very generous markup for themselves!

Previously I had for a short time a pair of Quad 2905s, modified by Quad at Huntingdon with 2912 transformers, etc. I liked them and they performed well in my difficult listening room, although I couldn't live with these "barn doors" in the middle of my room. That's why I went for the near-transparent slim MLs.

Yes, the MLs are hybrid, but effectively so are the Avantgardes. Properly adjusted, I find no problem in having the self-powered subs detached from the horns or panels. Nevertheless, I'm pleased that you and others here think that the Duo XDs are a good replacement for my 2006-ish vintage Duos.

Typing this on Firefox, there are no character dropouts - only my spelling mistakes which for some obscure reason are not underlined in red as they are with IE. Curious.

Peter
 
Hear Here said:
The ML 13A is priced here at £18000 plus a few hundred for the PBK kit - so about $23000 but that includes our 20% VAT. They are only sold here by a handful of authorised dealers and discounts are hotly discouraged by the distributor, although things may change since the distributor changed last year.

Yes, it's a ridiculous markup, but typical for US-made stuff imported here, and also reflects the (then) ML distributor that has a reputation for good products, but with a very generous markup for themselves!

Previously I had for a short time a pair of Quad 2905s, modified by Quad at Huntingdon with 2912 transformers, etc. I liked them and they performed well in my difficult listening room, although I couldn't live with these "barn doors" in the middle of my room. That's why I went for the near-transparent slim MLs.

Yes, the MLs are hybrid, but effectively so are the Avantgardes. Properly adjusted, I find no problem in having the self-powered subs detached from the horns or panels. Nevertheless, I'm pleased that you and others here think that the Duo XDs are a good replacement for my 2006-ish vintage Duos.

Typing this on Firefox, there are no character dropouts - only my spelling mistakes which for some obscure reason are not underlined in red as they are with IE. Curious.

Peter
Click to expand...

I said, “hybrid panels”. Many speakers are hybrid’s in nature. Plasma tweeters with traditional cones. Ribbon tweeters with cones. My MBL’s. Etc. But hybrid panels have never been perfectly integrated. I like those “barn doors”. :).

My list of “speakers I would buy if I wasn’t in the business” is pretty short, but those barn doors are one of them. :). The others are M2, AG Duo XD’s, MBL 101e Mk2, Vivid G1 spirit.
 
AJ Soundfield said:
That's not a DSP speaker. Thats a conventional speaker with an onboard DSP subwoofer. It has zero ability to change its polar pattern to highly forward direct radiation, like the horns you prefer, in your room.
That's a limitation of that type speaker. Agreed.

cheers,

AJ
Click to expand...

Yes, my take on it is that neither the MLs nor the new Duo XDs have true DSP. They have the ability to more accurately adjust frequencies responses around the XO frequency, taking account of room acoustics, although how this is done on the AG without including a calibrated mic, I don't yet know!

Since the ML squirts half its energt backwards (panel and sub) and since I have no rear wall to rescue some of this but instead angled windows 12 and 15 ft behind the speakers, perhaps it's not fair to expect the MLs to perform well in my room - DSP or not. The AGs are better in that all energy is projected forward with the disadvantage that music is decidedly dull when listening in my dining area behind the speakers! C'est la vie.

I'm looking forward to their arrival.

Peter
 
Hear Here said:
The AGs are better in that all energy is projected forward with the disadvantage that music is decidedly dull when listening in my dining area behind the speakers!
Click to expand...
Understood. Yes, my guess just looking at the small cropped pic of your room, a high directionality speaker would do well. There are DSP speakers that can "Play backwards" so to speak. Or get a speaker turntable for your AGs :)
Btw, love that view. Harbor?

cheers,

AJ
 
AJ Soundfield said:
Understood. Yes, my guess just looking at the small cropped pic of your room, a high directionality speaker would do well. There are DSP speakers that can "Play backwards" so to speak. Or get a speaker turntable for your AGs :)
Btw, love that view. Harbor?

cheers,

AJ
Click to expand...

Thanks AJ. The harbour is Portsmouth Harbour on the South Coast. The sailing ships you may be able to see are HMS Warrior and HMS Victory, Nelson'r flagship at Trafalgar.

Room plan attached - I love the idea of turntables. Or perhaps I should keep my old Duos and place them facing backwards!

View attachment Plan - 112 Living Room PDF.pdf
 
Apparently the "ideal speaker" would not be an electrostatic design.

Unfortunately according to J. Gordon Holt in 1985 electrostatics come with an unenviable history of woes ranging from gross inefficiency, through "difficult" amplifier loading, to daunting unreliability.

It appears some research to create a speaker system that will produce great mids and highs without the inherent problems of an electrostatic is in order to create that "ideal speaker". Couple that with a specifically designed active crossover/subwoofer in a separate cabinet for low bass between 80-20Hz.

At audio shows I've heard only a handful of speakers that on admitted limited hearing are capable of producing really good full frequency range in one box. Too many compromises starting with amplifier demand, reflecting ports, and vibration smearing the mids and highs.
 
Hear Here said:
Thankfully no such thing as the ideal speaker, otherwise we'd all have them and every other brand would be out of business..

In any event, the "ideal" speaker in your room may be quite different from the ones in my room. DSP or not, speakers need matching with the room and some types of speaker may perform very disappointly. In my own room, the very costly electrostatics I bought to replace old horns sounded worse than the old horns despite a small improvement following DSP adjustment - so they are for sale.

DSP in many respects should be considered as a last resort to resolve problems with a pooly chosen speaker. If you can find a good speaker that matches your room's accoustics without room correction, you'll be better off than a costlier speaker that isn't happy until its diet is changed. Peter
Click to expand...

Yes, most probably. Starting to the distance to the walls a speaker was designed to work with.

One clear exception to this though is Devialet’s SAM technology. The usage of a smart DSP to compensate a speaker’s imperfect response is a no brainer. There is no reason no to want to do it. Whether Devialet’s implementation of the technology is ideal is a separate debate (I personally think it’s a game changer but that may be my owner’s subjectivity speaking).

Cheers,
Bernard
 
bernardl said:
Yes, most probably. Starting to the distance to the walls a speaker was designed to work with.

One clear exception to this though is Devialet’s SAM technology. The usage of a smart DSP to compensate a speaker’s imperfect response is a no brainer. There is no reason no to want to do it. Whether Devialet’s implementation of the technology is ideal is a separate debate (I personally think it’s a game changer but that may be my owner’s subjectivity speaking).

Cheers,
Bernard
Click to expand...

I agree with you in principle that "There is no reason no to want to do it." However, I'm still a bit undecided about the benefits of "room correction" having used 3 different technologies applied to my system. None has made significant improvement and one in particular sucked the life out of my music.

My Martin Logan speakers use an Anthem method and I was impressed by how is was applied. A calibrated microphone, together with its online calibration table is used by the software that generates a number of tones through the amplifier / speakers. The system measures the frequency response that is heard at the listening position and offers an adjustment such that the response is levelled out. This system certainly made a small improvement, though I was somewhat nonplussed by it.

I had a Micromega amplifier for a while that uses their MARS room correction method. Again this is done with a calibrated mic, but I used it with my Avantgarde speakers and again the method offered a small change in the music though not convincing as real improvement.

Lyngdorf offer their RoomPerfect method developed from the old TACT system. A mic is supplied but no calibration table is offered and I was suspicious that the mic would be no more accurate than the speakers in the absense of the calibration. Indeed the results were very poor with the life sucked out of the music.

In view of the characteristics of my difficult room, I must say I was expecting much more from these room correction systems. I'm looking forward to finding a method that genuinely and accurately measures the overall quality of sound at the listening position and offers an adjustment that makes one startled at the improvement. Or do I have to start off with poor quality speakers for any real improvement to be achieved? In principle, the better an audio system starts off in life, the less it should need to be adjusted to offer magical music.

The temptation for manufactures will be to knock up mediocre speakers and offer an adjustemt system that magically sorts out the problems the designer hasn't bothered to address in its design. Food for thought!

Peter
 
Ok, that’s easy. Magico M2. Bonus is it’s remarkably good looking too.
 
Grateful Dead’s wall of sound. It was powered by McIntosh as well. Can’t imagine how much that would cost in todays dollars.


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There never will be an ideal speaker, there will only be what we settle for, and that necessarily is not a bad thing.


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