"Dry" in speaker description - what does this mean?

I've seen the term "dry" in several speaker reviews recently (I'm thinking of buying some Harbeths)...what does this mean? Does it mean that the speaker de-emphasises ambience and reverb?

It's So Mystifyin',
Bruce

 

Lol jerry.

I would think either the speakers don't perform well and thus reverb and ambiance suffers, OR, they are so good at reproduction that even with reverb it sounds awesome and it is still clear and thus it sounds dry too. I get the latter effect with my AR3as, even with tons of reverb things sound clear and the whole soundsscape sounds "dry" which is typically attributed to easy to reproduce content... dry content... hah.

So, it means its really good, or really bad LOL go figure.

 

Not to sound stupid, but I read a lot of audio magazines and I believe that the adjectives that some reviewers use are purposely cryptic so that latter on a dissatisfied customer can not accuse them of misrepresentation.

 

when i read "dry" in terms of speakers i think of a pure and uncolored exact "plop" vs a boom or wham / blam.

 

For me it means flat, not dynamic.

 

In J. Gordon Holt's 1990 book, The Audio Glossary, "dry" is defined as:

1) Describing the texture of reproduced sound: Very-fine grained, chalky.

2) Describing an acoustical space: Deficient in reverberation

3) Describing bass quality: Over-damped

You may find Stereophile's 1993 version (available online) useful:

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/50/index.html

You could say Holt, arguably being the first subjective reviewer literally wrote the book on audio reviewer terminology.

 

For me, very accurate/uncolored speakers sound dry & usually a bit on the bright side too. Most studio monitors I've heard have this personality.

A non-dry speaker to me would be something like an Advent (slightly veiled highs with a "rich" low end i.e. a warm personality overall*) or Definitive Technology (punchy bass and a bit tinkly on the top end).

* unfortunately it's become very difficult to find modern speakers that sound like this at the Advent's original price point and their size i.e. a 10" woofer or dual eights. While high accuracy in a speaker is needed for studio work, for whatever psychoacoustical reason personally I think hearing it at home makes for an unpleasant experience (though a music delivery format definitely should be as "hi fi" as possible).

 

Studio monitors generally are anything but accurate. Informative, yes; horns and compression tweeters all pumped up to give you mix detail...[shudder.]

According to Alan Shaw (Harbeth chief designer, who incidentally supplies many of the monitors to the BBC) that shouldn't be the case; a monitor (i.e. a loudspeaker used by professionals in radio/TV/film dubbing/recording studios) should be unfatiguing because you've got some poor engineer/producer logging 8-12 hrs./day in the control room. You are basically correct though - as someone who spent several decades working in recording studios, I can tell you it's criminal how fatiguing most studio monitors are - bright, shouty, scale all out of proportion, etc. - when that needn't be the situation.

 

as opposed to not wet.

 

I think Jeff is on the right track. When in doubt go to the source, Mr. Holt.

 

BTW thanks Jeff, for posting the Holt glossary.

 

I would, in my own reviews or descriptions, think of "dry" as a sound being in general treble enphasised but with badly controlled treble, the sound having an unpleasant etch to it, a slight grating to the ear, like the sound having, underpinning it, a characteristic similar to that of a not properly tuned FM reception which has an underlying hiss. Dry sound doesnt actually hiss, but there is a lack of clarity exaccerbated by the presence of what at first listening or on what short session, might be identified as extra clarity or resoltion because of the highler levels of high frequency energy. I would also associate with all this a lack of weight in the low end and/or any region of suckout in part of the midrange, a frequency hole.

Dryness is, to me, very highly undesireable. If you'd like to hear it in a benchmark capacity, try out the Beyerdynamic DT990 headphone. Thats a dry headphone.

 

Dry...2-dimensional-ish. Lack of life and smoothness, brittle. My take on it.

 

"dry" means a more forward sound, not as much ambience, and tends to put the musicians in the room with you. More of a front row perspective. I personally like this type of sound.

 

I was wondering if it might be comparing to some speakers that sound like one is listening to them in a tin shed as they have so much added "ambience" in their sound.

Judging from some of the above, this could be a very mistaken thought.

 

1. As for "ambience", in my opinion, it can mean this only in cases of substantially LOW QUALITY units, having bad dips in "ambience-sensible" areas of FR curves. But in many cases reparable with good multi-band graphic equalizers.
2. As for "reverb", I think no.

 

So it seems like a conflicting situation is going on: an engineer needs to hear everything to make sure what's going on a CD/LP is correct but hearing all that "everything" during the typical workday can wear out his ears, reducing his ability to his job well.

Sounds like when signing a contract, engineers should include the requirement that several "ear breaks" at the local bar are required for maximum return on the label's investment.

 

Well, let me put it this way: anyone who mixes late at night, after already putting in a hard ear's day at the studio, is certainly on a fools' errand. It's my humble opinion that mixing sessions should be limited to 3-4 hours, maximum. If a longer day than that is required, then a longish dinner break is essential.

And, that studios should only have truly neutral and unfatiguing monitors (like Harbeths) for the job - not the appallingly excremental self-powered monitors you get from Musician's Friend or whatever.

 

I think my speakers sound dry, and I like it. It may be an acoustic suspension characteristic. It may be a characteristic of contemporary super-light cone materials that are quick. It may be very minimal electronics in the crossovers. I don't know, but I just don't have much bass energy overhang, even in a bad room, and midbass and lower feels like someone is playing my chair like a xylophone.

 

LOL yes had 3a's and 5's. Managed to blow them out using AR's own amp that became notorious for failure. Then got a Phase 400 to run the 3a's and sure enough fried them a few times. AR just kept shipping new drivers and taking the crispy critters back.

 

My current theory is that these use one driver in a sealed box with an inductor so they focus on that mid bass, and another (same size with a different magnet configuation) with a little venting that drives a front-firing transmission line and also runs free (full range). One would be a fool to boast on this forum, but I’ve weathered and amp/speaker reboot and am happily back to buying music. No complaints.

 

My Cousin researches psycho acoustics (psychology of hearing not crazy audiophiles). He constantly educates me on the science of hearing and we both share a great love of music. The thing about reviewers and their descriptions that falls short for me is that they usually audition a speaker, maybe compare it (AB) to a (beloved?) pair at the test location then go off to write a review. By the time they put finger to keyboard to write they are reporting an acoustical memory (the reliance on memory to compare is one of the major drawbacks to the AB audition test we all have used). These types of memory have been shown to be inaccurate to what the person heard at the time of audition. So when a speaker is called "dry", the reviewer may or not mean what is "defined" in a standard text. Only what he remembers which often is not what heard in real time. Using words to describe an audio event is a tricky thing as we all know. For myself I have found some reviewers that I sort of agree with (this goes for movies, music, food, whatever). I use them as a starting point to narrow the field. If you are thinking about Harbeths go listen to them. In the end when it comes to what I like and purchase there is only one review that matters (my wife...lol). There is a lot of very good audio hardware available. Take your time and trust yourself. Just my opinion here.