Which center? Luna, S2, or Horizon?

[pgd]

Keeping things civil here.. I have been engineering loudspeakers professionally for 37 years now. I remember well when we invested in the best test / measurement gear back then, basically a higher resolution third octave spectrum analyzer. Speakers made prior to this were often done by ear, but certainly those designed by using the spectrum analyzer measured better.

However, I don’t recall the enjoyment level from customers changing very much.

Then came swept sine wave measurement systems, a rather large advancement and still often used today. We were able to design speakers that “measured” even better – but again, no real change in customer enjoyment.

Then came maximum length sequence based testing gear – this was a real game changer, much higher resolution and the ability to “gate” out reflections from the measurement such that we now had quasi-anechoic measurements. I still remember learning how to use these types of systems and literally being in shock at all the “flaws” that were now revealed. I mean, how could anyone actually enjoy those other speakers?

Still, no real change in overall enjoyment from customers. However, a lot of the passion towards the hobby started to die out, speakers started to sound too similar to one another.

MLS based systems are still widely used today, but now we have yet the next advancement in loudspeaker testing, the Klippel NFS, with even higher resolution. Will consumers actually enjoy speakers more now? I doubt it, in fact – I suspect even more of that passion will die off..

Well as the owner of the speakers in this review I don't really agree. The reasons you don't hear bad feedback can be explained away.

I thought the speakers sounded good enough in my living room (some occasional irritating sounds but I am quite sensitive to noise), but always used them with a sub. Quarantine hits and I decide to use them on my desk. 30 minutes in my ears hurt and I keep getting distracted from work by things that sound wrong to me. This kicks off months of purchasing and researching audio equipment with me treating my speakers as the only constants since they're the only thing I have actual data for. I don't know audio that well but I am an engineer, so I set out to solve what's wrong with my audio system.

Long story short sending them in for review was my last resort after huge amounts of time and money wasted, and an angry wife. Even after sending them in I fully expected them to measure fine and this stuff to be in my head because I fell for a logical fallacy, argument from authority. But apparently the authority had decided his ways were good enough for everyone The only thing that's changed is now the public can point out flaws that would have been chalked up as subjective preference before.

Funny thing is I don't even care about audio quality that much, I just wanted it to not be irritating.

[pgd]

Oh and I fully intend to keep the Lunas in the HT setup now that I understand they are behaving as they should. I still think they sound good for that, and they look great.

[Mag_Neato]

Well as the owner of the speakers in this review I don't really agree. The reasons you don't hear bad feedback can be explained away.

I thought the speakers sounded good enough in my living room (some occasional irritating sounds but I am quite sensitive to noise), but always used them with a sub. Quarantine hits and I decide to use them on my desk. 30 minutes in my ears hurt and I keep getting distracted from work by things that sound wrong to me. This kicks off months of purchasing and researching audio equipment with me treating my speakers as the only constants since they're the only thing I have actual data for. I don't know audio that well but I am an engineer, so I set out to solve what's wrong with my audio system.

Long story short sending them in for review was my last resort after huge amounts of time and money wasted, and an angry wife. Even after sending them in I fully expected them to measure fine and this stuff to be in my head because I fell for a logical fallacy, argument from authority. But apparently the authority had decided his ways were good enough for everyone The only thing that's changed is now the public can point out flaws that would have been chalked up as subjective preference before.

Funny thing is I don't even care about audio quality that much, I just wanted it to not be irritating.

Shots fired.

And apparently, shots cancelled!

[djDANNY]

Oh and I fully intend to keep the Lunas in the HT setup now that I understand they are behaving as they should. I still think they sound good for that, and they look great.

Well I for one thank you for sending in your speakers to get tested. While others may not care for actual measures data, it was very helpful for me to see and helps me decide what kind of future upgrades to consider.

[pgd]

Are you trying to make me remember math and EE from 30 years ago?

Q factor is defined as width over center frequency (if I remember right). So a 10Hz wide bump at 100Hz, a 100Hz wide bump at 1kHz, and a 1kHz wide bump at 10kHz all have the same Q.

As to which one is more audible, that gets complicated fast.

The one at 100 Hz could be energized by a lot of musical content, but it could also be swamped by the standing-wave based room resonances that occur in just about all listening rooms. So it would probably be much more audible in an anechoic chamber than in a real room. It could be audible in real rooms if you quickly switched back and forth with a speaker that has it and one that doesn't.

The one at 1kHz might be audible on some content but not all of the time. If it occurs at the right frequency and is narrow enough, it could fall 'between the cracks' of musical content and hardly ever get energized. But if it's wide enough, something will energize it some of the time at least.

The one at 10kHz might just add a touch of brilliance to some recordings and otherwise not be heard. But younger people with good hearing might notice an occasional high-pitched ringing going on with some content.

As I said, it gets complicated and is hard to generalize. There are probably references in Dr Toole's books that lead you to some papers on the subject if you want to read more scientific, controlled test results.

To correlate with my experience on these speakers, I'd hear things that sounded like brief hisses while people were talking maybe? And then the occasional kinda scratchy my ears kind kinda hurt on higher notes.

I just played a 10 khz note through my KH80s and it caused me physical pain in my ears and a head throb

My wife never heard any of this by the way.

[pgd]

Shots fired.

And apparently, shots cancelled!

Yeah I really don't bear ill will, so I'm sorry it came off so negative. I'm really just happy my speaker saga is over and I know exactly what to look out for in the future. So much real work to do now...

[richard12511]

Something that kinda got overlooked in that review(because of the port problems) was the horizontal dispersion. The horizontal dispersion shown is actually excellent. Compared to the Revel M105, it's both wider and more consistent(at least to my eye).

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...nts-png.90575/

^ That is excellent! And the super wide and even dispersion is something that really attracts me to Ascend speakers.

[richard12511]

I'll say it again. To not recommend a speaker based completely on just analytics is not only half cooked but just flat out wrong. I'll take my own opinion on how a speaker sounds, or someone with more experience than myself, than some analytic who may have an agenda here. Still waiting for any legitimate reviewer to back Amir's claim that these speakers are not to be recommended. What a joke.

Actually, Amir doesn't recommend based on analytics at all. That's actually one of the most common criticisms of his reviews over at ASR. He basically ignores the measurements all-together when making his recommendations, and his recommendations are based almost entirely based on whether or not he liked the way it sounded. The only exception is probably the Buchardt S400, and he only made that exception because of all the backlash(he didn't recommend it at first).

The reason he didn't recommend the Mini-Monitor or the Duo is because he thought they sounded bad, not because they measured bad. There have been several instances where he's recommended speakers that have measured poorly(because he liked the sound). Likewise, there have been several speakers that measured excellent that he didn't recommend(because he didn't like the sound).

So, your comment is misguided.

[richard12511]

Has Amir measured the M105? If not, why not send him yours?

He's already measured the M105, otherwise I definitely would. IMO, the M105s don't sound as good as they measure, which is part of the reason I'm considering the 2EX.

[MDinno]

[QUOTE=Shazb0t;64370]Again, you're doing a lot of hand waving and throwing a buch of stuff out there to see what sticks without any underlying merit.

The entire concept of acquiring anechoic measurements of a speaker is to know how a speaker performs without the room influence. From that starting point you can calculate the sound field and reflections from the room to determine the actual frequency repsonse at the listening position. You want a speaker that measures flat anechoically and which has good directivity (controlled dispersion) so that any EQ you perform on the speaker (to combat specific room anomalies, or to just change the frequency response to your preference) will have the same frequency response affect in the reflected sound. This is all published peer-reviewed science. It's not my or "my Amir's" opinion. That is what the Klippel NFS is designed to do! It is why speaker designers use anechoic measurements as the standard. I presume it is why Dave F. performs, posts, and utilizes measurements and dispersion characteristics in his design process of Ascend speakers.

Ancillary to that it has also been proven through controlled listening studies the frequency response (sound) that the majority of people prefer. But even if you don't believe in controlled scientific studies, you still want a speaker that has flat response and good directivity as a starting point so that you may EQ it to whatever desired response YOU do prefer. There is no magic to this!

Please do some reading on Dr. Floyd Toole's work and the controlled audio research performed by the NRC and Harman. It is very interesting and will give you a better understanding of what's actually going on with speakers than what you will be able to learn from "legitimate reviewers" impressions on YouTube.[/QUOTE

We'll just agree to disagree on how to assess a speaker. I'm not going to let one reviewers opinion sway me just based on analytics. One question I have is how is he basing not recommending a speaker on?? Is it for 2 channel music? Home theater? Do you realize how ridiculous it is to not recommend a speaker like the Ascend's or KEFS LS50. I'm still waiting to hear who else agrees with this that have heard the speaker. I'm out because it will be avoided. That Amir has zero credibility. Zero. Audioholics does an excellent job reviewing speakers. Unbiased and completely professional. Adios.