What is Stereophile smoking? "Finest loudspeaker to ever grace my home"

Somewhere in the article he says the speakers were 5.5 feet from his listening seat. I can't imagine sitting that close to a speaker of this size and design and expect to hear its best performance. Reviewing this speaker under these conditions is just strange to me.

 

When listening to my big box Altec speakers late at night I will sometimes snuggle up to that distance. The imaging is fantastic. They work well at lower volume and it's all good.

And the next morning I will crank them up and enjoy lifelike sound while roaming the house. They work well at higher volume and it's all good.

I have a pair of monitor speakers that likely measure better or maybe much better than the Altec, but those need to be rather loud to come 'on song'. Even at that louder level they seem deficient (in some ways) by comparison to the big box Altec.

Without having heard the Volti I think it's difficult to make an audio judgment other than that they don't measure according to a flat frequency standard. In-room they may sound wonderful, as attested by the reviewer.

Cheers,

 

I thought your analysis was correct. But I read the review and these are designed to work well in a small room. Go figure.

 

Measurements will get you in the ballpark.

But, if you want an accurate assessment of how a speaker sounds, play it to a legitimate musician (a pianist, violin/cello player, etc, not Justin Bieber). Most of the jackasses on youtube reviewing gear are just advertisers who wouldn't hear jacksht on anything they hear. They do have list of memorized words they like to toss around when they try to look legitimate ("musical", "organic", etc).

 

Umm... so why is he regularly reviewing equipment for the main U.S. audio magazine? Is that the best that they can get any more?

 

There's no real money in reviewing. It's a thankless job of sorts because someone is always whining that you should have done this or compared it to that or you don't have a good enough room, source, cable or you use music the reader doesn't like ... whatever.

I used to follow Siskel and Ebert and as articulate as they were and their love of movies obvious - they both gave thumbs up to movies that were atrocities and thumbs down to classics. Ken likes a speaker that measures poor - he gave his honest opinion about it. Sounded great at an audio show to me as well. Now maybe over longer periods, it would be fatiguing but it all depends - room system and type of music play roles here. Ken is a jazz guy - and perhaps the horn instruments play better to him than a conventional speaker. I can't say because I'm not in the guy's room.

Plenty of their reviewers have liked speakers, and purchased speakers, over the years that didn't exactly measure well - Art Dudley and Herb Reichert off hand.

The mistake is treating reviews (any reviews) as some kind of gospel - that is on the reader.

When I began to end my reliance on reviews was when Stereophile touted the Arcam Delta 290 and B&W loudspeakers and UHF magazine was trumpeting the Castle Eden standmount.

I went and auditioned and the Eden and B&W were dynamic "turds" and I would go home and play my Wharfedale Vanguard (E70) and think - why would I pay double or triple for speakers that sounded so damn boring - maybe they measure flat but they're boring. AC/DC "Shook me all Night Long" should shake me all night long. B&W and Eden wouldn't even ruffle the sheets. Again for triple the money. WTF?

Dynamics, bass, drive --- FUN!! Where is the FUN spec sheet? I'm willing to give up some of this for tunefulness and eloquence which a lot of rocker speakers lack.

 

I am a wine measuring device, you can use me for free...

 

Yes. All of this is pretty subjective. I remember back when I still took all of this seriously-I would read Art Dudley’s rave about some 3 watt per channel single ended amp and then read John Atkinson’s abysmal measurements and his good natured query to AD-“what the heck were you thinking?”. In my own experience-when I first heard Klipsch Lascalas-love at first hear. There are plenty of measurement folks out there who think us LaScala fans are nuts. I say -who cares? I love those speakers and they have put paid to my prior never -ending search for the holy grail speaker. To paraphrase the bandito-“Measurements , measurements?-I don’t need no stinking measurements!”

 

I missed that in the article. It would've been nice if he had specified "small room." Reminds me of when we became empty nesters and I bought a pair of Vandersteen 2CEIIs for a small bedroom. Whoa, I was staring a pair of huge monoliths which were visually dominating the room. I don't see how those Rivals wouldn't visually dominate a 12x10 room.

Also, my experience in small rooms says playing music loud doesn't work well. The room begins to compress the sound at a certain level and it gets uncomfortable quickly.

 

The GR Research speakers i heard (NX-treme) measure flat...It also had copious loads of "dynamics, bass, drive --- FUN!!"
The JBL HDI series speakers i heard measure flat...they also had copious loads --- FUN!!"
etc etc etc
What makes you think a competently designed speaker that gets closer to a flat response can't be FUN?

 

There's just something about a great or even very good hornspeaker I remember sitting in my friend apartment listening to a single Shindo Lafon field coil speaker, it's mate wasn't working, and feeling like I could see Jerry playing guitar on 2/14/70. We switched back to his other speakers Devore 0/96's and that magic just vanished. Something tells me that speaker also didn't measure well and we were in a very small room. I get why the reviewer liked them so much.

 

Never said they could not. However, I have not heard those speakers. Speakers that measure well, flat, according to Stereophile that are banal sounding loudspeakers are B&W, Revel, KEF, Wilson Audio and Wilson Benesch, Magico, Paradigm, PSB, all meh. All with models touted as measuring well. All IMO are meh.

 

Not in so many words, but...

We like what we like, we don't like what we don't like, nothing to fret over.

 

I agree with Richard ....I have owned some decent speakers from KEF, Paradigm, PSB , Revel, B&W and while all were very good, none were great. Except my PSB M2 Platinum. It measured well and sounded great Some of the best sounding speakers I have owned did not measure that great but sounded like live music. None have sounded closer to live than my Forte IV, yet they do not measure that well apparently... but I don't care they sound great in my system

 

None have sounded closer to live than my Forte IV, yet they do not measure that well apparently... but I don't care they sound great in my system[/QUOTE]




And that's all that matters![/QUOTE]

 

I have always wanted to try heritage big box speaker over floorstanding speaker, how much I wish I have a bigger listening room.

 

Like most (or all) manufacturers, the ones you have named here have over the years produced a variety of products, most different and better or worse than others. No matter how you define the terms.

For this reason blanket condemnations on the basis of brand names are simplistic at best and I think you should avoid painting with such a broad brush.

 

Unless you're talking about Bose or Cerwin-Vega of course

 

You are correct in that at different price points one can only expect a certain level of sound quality - a $1500 standmount like the KEF LS-50 is a good deal - it is made for a smallish room and the person buying a smallish speaker can only expect so much - and the competing products are not exactly going to crush it.

My comments are a little more geared to the pricier end of the spectrum. For instance, the B&W N805 is $6,000 - it measures well but for that money I find it exceedingly poor value - when it was $2,000 it made more sense. It was the speaker I was once planning to buy.

Moreover my comments are more about the top or near top of the range models because I no longer have the time to spend with 4-5 models from a maker I try to audition one of their top 2 models. So With B&W it is the N801 and 802 (I have not heard the latest D4 series but it appears to be more of the same). I found these models to be rather uninvolving. With Magico it was the Q7 and S5, with Revel it was the Ultima Salon 2 (their flagship model), with Paradigm it was the former Signature S8 (their flagship model) - granted I did like their new flagship more but only heard them once and the price is eye-watering compared to the S8. With KEF it was the Blade etc. The point I suppose is that I try to make an effort to hear their flagship models or close to their flagship models in 3 locations with different gear. I am presuming that their flagship is their best speaker and thus lower models probably are not as good. I'm not really saying any of them are bad loudspeakers but that they don't involve me in the music. I don't find them fun - other people of course obviously do love them or they would not be selling them.

 

What similarities do you find between the Cerwin S1 and other models? Particularly of the same vintage. Also how do the 311p compare to later models? I have not done the extensive trials and testing that you seem to have.

 

Are you denying the effects of equal loudness or Fletcher-Munson curves? Can't you hear the difference in the balance of the sound when you change the volume? Don't you hear the obvious increase in perceived bass and treble as the volume increases?

 

ESL-989 is not what Quad built its reputation on. I don't know anyone that raves about modern Quads. I've only heard the 989 at shows and I can't say I liked the sound of them (YMMV with show conditions and all).

Here are measurements of the ESL57, midrange sounds exactly like that to my ears. I've only heard one other set of speakers that have that "in the room" presence that they have.

 

Speakers, of all components selection criteria measurements are the least significant factor imo.
But they ARE a factor. They should be flat/linear/accurate as a baseline because all ears and rooms a different. Once in place tone controls/EQ and room tuning/treatment should be used to suit taste.
imo

 

That's all fine, but the intent of my post, which I guess wasn't conveyed well, was just to show another Stereophile-reviewed speaker that somewhat perplexed John Atkinson with regard to the measured performance versus sound quality, not as any kind of indictment on Quad speakers in particular or general. Below his conclusion ...

You can find my 13-year-old measurements of the ESL-63 online. Though the measurements were performed with completely different hardware to those for the '989, those graphs are almost identical to and as enigmatic as are these measurements of the ESL-989. All I can say is that the reasons for this speaker's undoubtedly superb sound quality are not readily apparent from its measurements. I hope to explore this subject in more depth in a follow-up.—John Atkinson

 

While Stereophile allows hot links to graphs they also prefer that you include a link to the page so we know what we are viewing and they can get the clicks.

Those are a sweet looking graphs. I'd love to know what speaker that is.