Verity Parsifal or Magico V3 or Wilson Benesch ACT

Dhaan,

Speakers sound different - in tonal balance - in different environments and at different spls. A speaker that is absolutely perfect at high spl in a small volume room will be imperfect at either lower spls or in a larger room. Sorry, but this is true.

Room gain below 150hz will typically range from a few db to 15db, with larger rooms tending to provide less as the speakers are moved further from the boundaries. Response anomalies from reflective surfaces above 1khz are utterly impossible to predict. A speaker like the Wilson - which to many people (including, evidently, you and me) - sounds overblown in the bass area, will sound less overblown when moved further from room boundaries. Ironically, this will make the anechoic measurements more useful, though - to me - still of very limited value. I am not suggesting that this will "cure" the Wilsons. I was merely wondering how they sound in a very large space and speculating that they will likely sound better than in the smaller spaces I've previously heard them.

My point is that 2 wrongs ABSOLUTELY make a right. If every room was identical - and had the identical single anomaly (let's say a 10db rise at 100hz) - then a speaker that is 10db down at 100hz WILL sound more natural tonally! I am not suggesting that you should design for this only because every room is not identical. My point in the first place!

Sorry, but it is impossible to judge the tonal balance of a speaker in anything but the context of a specific room.

BTW, this discussion is strictly limited to tonal balance as it grew from your contention that the Verity has an obviously skewed tonal balance. It has nothing to do with THD. Or many, many other performance parameters which may make or break a speaker in the opinion of any given listener.

Marty

But Marty, it is all related. The suck out in the Verity FR is due to a very poor integration between the drivers. It has nothing to do with “voicing” or room integration issues. It is simply very poor XO design.

Once again,

Indeed, the Verity may have a thousand problems due to its poor design (or it may not). I have not commented either way. You heard an obvious tonal balance problem with the Parsifal. I know of no-one else who has. I merely suggested that tonal balance is not a function of a speaker, but of a speaker in a specific room and that, in the vast majority of rooms, the Verity's anechoic suck-out is either barely audible or completely inaudible. I made the statement based on my own 10 years of experience, the experience of many, many hobbyist listeners who have heard the speaker in my home(s), a survey of print reviews, and a survey of on-line reviews (including the one you linked to).

I noted that this qualifies you as an outlier in this regard and that there are many possible explanations for this - including the possibilty that your judgement has been colored by your knowledge of the speaker's design and anechoic performance. I do not believe that I have made any other claim and, if I have, it was certainly unintentional.

With that, I think I've said what I have to say.
Best luck with your on-going efforts.

Marty

And to clarify my comment re: Wilson, I was merely speculating and I believe I made that quite clear in the post.

So if we are concluding, I take it you see no correlation between your listening experience and objective assessments like measurements. Not only that, but you are suggesting, that since I do actually hear the speakers the way they actually sound, I am the ‘outlier’. Very interesting but totally irrational. BTW, I know quite a few that do not care for the Verity and share my opinion on them. And you know quite a few that do. So what? That does not change the fact that these are ‘objectively’ poorly design speakers.

I have no exp w/ WB but did audition a variety of models from Verity and Magico. Plus I am no tech guru so I'll leave that to others. One thing that they really differ I found was speaker positioning. For the Verity's you really need them out further in the room due to their rear firing bass. One can turn these speakers around so to speak so its front facing bass but then probably not as effective as the original design concept I would suspect. I also thought the Verity's had a more precise sound stage re location of instruments but overall size of sound stage was smaller than the magicos. Personally I also came with an impression that the Magico's are better letting a nautral beauty of tonality to come through. Having said it was via different amps and different rooms so that could explain a lot of things. Happy hunting