Speaker sound quality vs frequency response

gasolin

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Heres is something i was thinking about

Most people want a neutral sound and either a loud bass og very deep bass

But what will sound best if 2 speakers are from well know brands with lot's of experience

one with a very flat frequency response or the other speaker that doesn't have a flat frequency response?

dynfig3.jpg


1215P95Ffig04.jpg
 

wilro15

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Depends on your taste I suppose, whether you prefer more/less bass or a neutral sound. The room they are in plays a massive part too of course.
 
Those two graphs don't look comparable to me. The Dynaudio one actually says it's averaged, which handily makes it look smoother, and it also looks like a faster writing speed, having a similar effect.

The second looks more honest and is probably bang on axis. The 18khz peak suggests it might be a metal dome tweeter, and reminds me a bit of the old Celestion SL series, though I think the treble range was less prominent. The 1khz dip will give a false depth and may sound very pleasant, a bit like a BBC monitor.
 

gasolin

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I have just seen some measurements (stereophile) where even expensive speaker don't measure well and wondered if a speaker will sound better just because it has a flat frequency response

B&W 683 s2

915B683fig4.jpg


Dali Rubicon 8

315DAR8fig05.jpg


The last measurements with the dynbaudios is the Paradigm Prestige 95F

Another one with a flat frequency response Kef Blade Two

615KEF2fig04.jpg
 

lindsayt

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Frequency response charts give you a good idea of the overall tonal balance and bass extension.

Especially if you take into account the fact that the response measurements may have been made anechoically, which will differ to your in room response in the bass. And also that the measurements are usually made in the nearfield - so may include comb effects from multiple drivers at certain frequencies. And also bass tends to drop off more quickly than other frequencies as you sit further away from the speakers.

Plus there's Fletcher-Munson where it could be argued that for low level listening a smiley face shaped frequency response would be preferable.

Frequency response charts will tell you nothing about how good the speakers are at preserving dynamics and clarity.
 

MajorFubar

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People like speakers with a gentle smiley-face EQ curve, even if they don't know that's what they like. It makes the bass weighty and treble exciting. Our hearing is at its most sensitive between about 200Hz-5kHz with a noticeable bump around 2-3kHz, so anything above or below that benefits from a slight boost. Unfortunately, 2-3kHz is also the typical x-over frequency between woofer and tweeter, and is the frequency where people perceive forwardness or harshness if the x-over creates an unnatural peak. Truly flat speakers can sound a bit mid-range-heavy, bass-light and 'dark' to many people, until they get used to the sound.
 

gasolin

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MajorFubar said:
Truly flat speakers can sound a bit mid-range-heavy, bass-light and 'dark' to many people, until they get used to the sound.

Also depends on what music you're listening to, if the music is welll recorded i think it will sound good on any quality speakers with a flat frequency response. Personally i like to listen to music in alot of diffrent genre's where edm has alot energy in the bass and is what i like to hear, pop music may sound open and clear so i would like an open but neutral top,midrange and a deep bass or a punchy,dynamic bass without beeing loud
 

MajorFubar

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gasolin said:
Also depends on what music you're listening to, if the music is welll recorded i think it will sound good on any quality speakers with a flat frequency response.

It will sound natural, which means discounting the effects of your room and anything else in the audio chain, you'll hear a tonal balance similar to what the engineer intended you to hear.

Many high quality studio monitors are engineered to be flat, and it's not uncommon for your average joe's first impression to be that they are incredibly detailed but boring at normal listening levels. Same with neutral headphones, but to a lesser extent. With headphones, the proximity of the source to our eardrums partly counteracts our ears' natural mid-centric bias. Plus most people probably turn up headphones louder than they can turn up their speakers. There also isn't usually a 'nasty' crossover in headphones either.
 

gasolin

Well-known member
MajorFubar said:
gasolin said:
Also depends on what music you're listening to, if the music is welll recorded i think it will sound good on any quality speakers with a flat frequency response.

It will sound natural, which means discounting the effects of your room and anything else in the audio chain, you'll hear a tonal balance similar to what the engineer intended you to hear.

Many high quality studio monitors are engineered to be flat, and it's not uncommon for your average joe's first impression to be that they are incredibly detailed but boring at normal listening levels. Same with neutral headphones, but to a lesser extent. With headphones, the proximity of the source to our eardrums partly counteracts our ears' natural mid-centric bias. Plus most people probably turn up headphones louder than they can turn up their speakers. There also isn't usually a 'nasty' crossover in headphones either.

Except for bass that many like to be deep and loud and mabye treble,the top if you're old or just cant hear the high frequency so well, isn't it that we like to hear how the music is recorded,how the enginers what's us to hear the music, why we buy high end speaker, because they can reproduce the musi more the way it's recorded, more how it's surpose to sound

And this require a natural flat sounding speaker or else it might sound unnaturally ?

Also most music is NOT recorded with a flat,neutral sound
 

MajorFubar

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gasolin said:
Except for bass that many like to be deep and loud and mabye treble,the top if you're old or just cant hear the high frequency so well, isn't it that we like to hear how the music is recorded,how the enginers what's us to hear the music, why we buy high end speaker, because they can reproduce the musi more the way it's recorded, more how it's surpose to sound

And this require a natural flat sounding speaker or else it might sound unnaturally ?

Also most music is NOT recorded with a flat,neutral sound
It's a strange one really. Even our experience of what things sound like in real life is affected by the fact our ears have a mid-centric bias, and our perception of frequency extremes is worse with quieter sounds than louder sounds, hence the once omni-present Loudness or Contour buttons on amps.

When we play a concert on our hifi, most of us don't even nearly live in an environment where we can adequately replicate the feeling of being at a real concert, instead what we try to do is approximate the experience on a much smaller scale. We still want to feel the thump of the drum and hear the splash of the cymbals, even though we're playing the music at maybe a tenth of the volume in a comparatively-tiny room. At those levels and in that environment, some people can find really neutral speakers and electronics a bit 'meh' and unexciting.
 

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