Analytical or Musical Which way to go?


The debate rages on. What are we to do? Designing a spealer that measures wellin all areas shoulkd be the goal manufacturer.
As allways limtiations abound. Time and again I read designers yo say the design the speaker to measure as best they can. But it just does not sound like music.

The question is of course is: what happens when the speaker sounds dull and lifeless.

Then enters a second speaker that sounds like real music but does not have optimum mesurements?

Many of course would argue, stop right there. If it does not measure well it can't sound good.

I pose the question then how can a spekeer that sounds lifeless be acurrate?

Would that pose yhis question. Does live music sound dull and lifeless?
If not how can we ever be be satisified with such a spseker no matter how well it measures?
gregadd
"You want neutral speakers plus a tone or tilt control which compensates for the bad recordings so that better recordings are not compromised."
Ideally yes.
How do we know which componet is colored? Or if the source is colored? It has been suggested to me that EQ negatively alters the tonal balance of a speaker.
"If it measures well but sounds bad you measured the wrong thing."

The current trend is to replace that with, if it measures well but sounds bad you are are indulging your bias and need to listen again under blind test conditions.
"H. H. Scott was a manufacturer of tubed audio components back in the 1950s and 60s. The chief engineer was Mr. Donald von Recklinghausen. His most famous quotation goes something like this: "If a component measures good and sounds good, it is good. If a component sounds good but measures bad, you're measuring the wrong thing." To say that the wrong measurements have been made for decades would be to take the easy way out. It might be far more appropriate to say that in the absence of the "right" measurement, too much emphasis has been placed on the "wrong" measurement. While this "wrong" measurement is still an appropriate and valuable measurement to make, it is just not the most important measurement anymore."
To say that the wrong measurements have been made for decades would be to take the easy way out. It might be far more appropriate to say that in the absence of the "right" measurement, too much emphasis has been placed on the "wrong" measurement.

I can hang with that, but IMO the latter aspect, 'too much emphasis' has been going on for too many decades. This has been a problem in both amplifier and speaker design, in terms of jumping the gap from 'hifi' to 'real music'. The problem is that human hearing rules take a back seat in the generation of many specs and test procedures.