Stereophile Class A and Frequency Response

Do you actually believe anything Sterophile says anymore. They promised a review of the Krell KCT years ago and when they didn't deliver they lost my subscription. And have you seen the latest issue, it bears no resemblance to this once fine journal; it is flimsy and thin, why even bother?

I don't believe what they say, but unfortuantely Smeyers is right, far too many do believe them.

FWIW, I find far better reviews and knowledge on threads here and at Audio Asylum. Sure, you will occasionally have the cloaked dealer, but overall there are far fewer hidden agendas here, IMHO.

Cheers,
John

Does anyone remember the old magazine "Audio". That was for real.

Eldartford

Ya, I used to read "Audio". I remember when they reviewed the old Snell Type A's...My speaker lust of that time.

I liked Stereophile a lot back then too, it was a smaller size (6"x 10", maybe smaller?)...easy to hold.

Dave

Let me explain the discrepancy between the Stereophile measurements and the Ultra Audio measurements.

John Atkinson uses a simulated anechoic technique, employing time-gating over most of the spectrum and close-miking the woofer and port in the bass region, then doing some calculating and splicing. So the deep bass response in Stereophile's measurement section is the expected anechoic response (no room contribution).

In his Ultra Audio review, Paul Messenger states that he used a "farfield in-room technique" - in other words, the room's contribution was included. This is the reason for the discrepancy.

Typical room gain for a monopolar speaker system in a home listening room is roughly 3 dB per octave below 100 Hz or so. At 20 Hz, this comes to 7 dB. Note that room gain varies from room to room. Apparently in Paul Messenger's room, and with his speaker and microphone positioning, he gets about 10 dB of room gain at 20 Hz.

Here's a link to a "typical" room-gain curve: http://www.speakerbuilding.com/content/1020/rge.gif

If we add the expected 7 dB of room gain to the -10 dB that Stereophile recorded at 20 Hz, we come up with -3 dB.

So in a real-world situation, the 802D meets Stereophile's criteria for classification as a "full-range" loudspeaker.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer