Which center? Luna, S2, or Horizon?

[richard12511]

FWIW, I'm still very interested in purchasing the Sierra 2EX. Would anyone here be willing to send one of those to Amir? My guess is it would measure really well(based on the Horizon review), but it would be good to see confirmation.

I'm very curious how it would compare to my Revel M105. I know at least 2 people who've owned both the M105 and 2EX at the same time, and both preferred the 2EX.

[curtis]

FWIW, I'm still very interested in purchasing the Sierra 2EX. Would anyone here be willing to send one of those to Amir? My guess is it would measure really well(based on the Horizon review), but it would be good to see confirmation.

I'm very curious how it would compare to my Revel M105. I know at least 2 people who've owned both the M105 and 2EX at the same time, and both preferred the 2EX.

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

[Beave]

Yes, Amir measured the M105 and the M106.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...-review.14745/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...-review.14363/

[Shazb0t]

As has been stated, Amir is using a Klippel Near Field Scanner (NFS). This is a state of the art measurement system designed specifically to perform these types of speaker measurements. His results have been correlated with other manufacturers and test methods enough times for it to be a fair assumption to take them at face value. Obviously though, if someone can show proof of an error then it will be investigated. Everyone is in this to get to the truth.

https://www.klippel.de/products/rd-s...d-scanner.html

[davef]

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..

This in combination with preference ratings based on a measurement standard created by a loudspeaker company, such that the further it veers from that standard – the “worse” that speaker is, is actually quite scary to me. Scary because of how boring this industry will become when every loudspeaker design attempts to adhere to this standard as closely as possible simply out of fear of not measuring as “good” as the other speaker. Everything will soon start sounding the same…

Take for example our CBM-170… Measured and reviewed by so many professionals and considered a reference, it was never designed to meet Harman’s directivity standards, thus it basically got thrashed at that site. Now – all of a sudden, that crowd says it’s no good. It was a great speaker before, but now it isn’t? It is still the same speaker and we still sell a ton of them.

With both our Luna and Duo speakers, they sounded terrific before and we have enjoyed tremendous customer satisfaction rates on these, but all of a sudden, now they are no good. Indeed, the NFS system has revealed port resonances which appear to be influencing the response measurements. These resonances are at a much lower level in our measurements and I will be examining this closely by using several methods. I have an idea as to what might be going on, but it will take me time.

Luna and Duo are very compact speakers with narrow and long front slot ports, I hate slot ports, but these designs required this option. Do not confuse this with Sierra-1/Sierra-2/EX or any of our designs that use a port tube, such an issue does not exist. And the Horizon was already measured by Amir and this issue did not show up (so odd that we are such a small company yet he has measured more of our speakers than any other company, I can’t make sense of this)

It really is like taking a magnifying glass to Halle Berry’s face, zoom in enough – and well, she just won’t be nearly as attractive (perhaps I am revealing my age too much as she was the first to come to mind) Will the NFS measurements lead to a better measuring Luna and Duo, certainly – will they actually sound better or will anyone actually hear a difference, I honestly cannot answer that.

At some point, perhaps in a decade or 2, new advancements in audio measurement gear will be out there and speakers that measured great with the NFS will now reveal a whole new set of flaws… At some point, it just becomes a bit ridiculous…

If you are considering the Luna’s or Duo’s and have concerns, please feel free to send me an email. I am not able to keep up on the various forums right now, nor do I plan to.

I am under tremendous stress these last few days with concerns about the election here in California, more specifically – proposition 15, the passage of which will even further devastate small businesses here in CA. It does looks like we beat this by only about 1%, but apparently there are still about a million uncounted mail-in ballots and this concerns me greatly, especially when our own Governor and Zuckerberg are so heavily backing this obvious massive money grab.

Please, let’s keep it civil and respectful and if you have actual questions or concerns, please email me.

[djDANNY]

The resonances are always unwanted, but in this case they are very narrow (high Q). Their audibility isn't clear, and will be program dependent if audible at all.

What’s the frequency band where “high Q” is audible? The spikes look narrow but because they’re higher up in the frequency spectrum, they cover several hundred hz as the x-axis is displayed logarithmically? So narrow spike at low frequencies might cover a 5hz range if it’s in the 0-100hz part of the graph, but what appears to be a narrow spike at 600hz would actually cover maybe a 100hz range.

My question is do we hear based on what it looks like on the logarithmic scale or on a linear scale?

[Beave]

Dr. Toole's books discuss audibility of resonances or at least refer to papers published by others that discuss the audibility of resonances. It's probably best if you look into that instead of what I'd say.

I haven't read the book or the original source, but I've read a summary from Dr. Toole - and my personal experience doesn't quite match what the published papers say.

Basically, they concluded that broad, low Q resonances are audible even when they're low in amplitude, but narrow, high Q resonances need to have high amplitude in order to be audible.

My beef with that conclusion is that resonance audibility is also program dependent. I used to own a set of speakers with a narrow, high Q resonance (from an insufficiently lowpass filtered metal woofer). The resonance wasn't audible at all on a lot of material. But when certain material energized it, it was very audible.

[Beave]

As to why ASR has measured so many Ascend speakers, much of what he measures is not his selection but what people are requesting and even sending in to him for measurement. So I think it speaks to an interest from his readers in Ascend speakers, maybe because they're popular in online discussions, maybe because several of his readers own them, or maybe because Ascend is one of the few companies to post any measurements at all, so people want to see how the measurements compare with each other.

[Shazb0t]

preference ratings based on a measurement standard created by a loudspeaker company, such that the further it veers from that standard – the “worse” that speaker is, is actually quite scary to me. Scary because of how boring this industry will become when every loudspeaker design attempts to adhere to this standard as closely as possible simply out of fear of not measuring as “good” as the other speaker. Everything will soon start sounding the same…

The Olive preference score is not an official part of the measurement suite being performed at ASR. It is an experiment being run by forum members independently as a means to test the theory with a larger sample size. It shouldn't be conflated with the effort to encourage more manufacturers to share and care about speaker measurements and audio science.

Indeed, the NFS system has revealed port resonances which appear to be influencing the response measurements. These resonances are at a much lower level in our measurements and I will be examining this closely by using several methods. I have an idea as to what might be going on, but it will take me time.

I'm glad that you're using this as an opportunity to investigate the issue as opposed to outright denial. I believe that many of your customers (myself included) do consider Ascend due to the fact that you do seem to support audio science and post the measurements for your speakers. I hope that you continue to support this effort moving forward. I do get a little leery when I see the parts of your posts that are suggesting doubt in audio science citing customer testimonials or years of experience in the industry. It can be a slippery slope.

Luna and Duo are very compact speakers with narrow and long front slot ports, I hate slot ports, but these designs required this option. Do not confuse this with Sierra-1/Sierra-2/EX or any of our designs that use a port tube, such an issue does not exist. And the Horizon was already measured by Amir and this issue did not show up (so odd that we are such a small company yet he has measured more of our speakers than any other company, I can’t make sense of this)

ASR reviews the speakers that forum members send to Amir and/or request reviews of. The fact that Ascend has quite a few speakers reviewed should lend even more credence to the theory that your customer base does care about the measurements and trusts the peer-reviewed science which correlates these measurements to listening preferences.

Please, let’s keep it civil and respectful and if you have actual questions or concerns, please email me.

This is a great attitude and example to continue these discussions. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond on the forums!

[djDANNY]

Dr. Toole's books discuss audibility of resonances or at least refer to papers published by others that discuss the audibility of resonances. It's probably best if you look into that instead of what I'd say.

I haven't read the book or the original source, but I've read a summary from Dr. Toole - and my personal experience doesn't quite match what the published papers say.

Basically, they concluded that broad, low Q resonances are audible even when they're low in amplitude, but narrow, high Q resonances need to have high amplitude in order to be audible.

My beef with that conclusion is that resonance audibility is also program dependent. I used to own a set of speakers with a narrow, high Q resonance (from an insufficiently lowpass filtered metal woofer). The resonance wasn't audible at all on a lot of material. But when certain material energized it, it was very audible.

I guess my question was more what is considered a high Q peak (or dip)? Using a logarithmic scaling of the frequency (as is in most frequency response graphs including the one at ASR), two spikes that visually look identical in shape (Q) would actually cover a vastly different range of frequencies depending on where it is located.

As an example, a high Q peak at 100hz may cover 95-105hz (a 10hz range). A similar looking high Q peak at 1,000 hz may cover 900-1100 hz (a 200hz range). And a similar looking high Q peak at 10,000hz May cover 9,500-10,500hz (a 1000hz range). So even though the Q looks the same visually on the logarithmic frequency scale graph, would the high Q at 100hz be less offensive than a similar looking high Q at 10,000hz? I know we hear different frequencies differently but those numbers were meant just to be examples.