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Great stuff, Russell. Thanks for the insight. Looks like the NS-10 has some redeeming values after all. I remember Danny Ritchie came up a modified crossover for the NS-10, and said that the results were pretty noteworthy. Lots of good and interesting feedback so far. There certainly are a lot of approaches to speaker designs. The single driver approach has its ardent supporters. Haven't heard one yet that I would consider owning, but remain open to the concept. There certainly are advantages to having no crossover. Realistically, using subs with single drivers has some appeal. This is one speaker that I am keen to audition:http://www.sourcespeaker.com/Coherentpulse61a.htmlAny thoughts?
Actually, there is some indication that Alan Loft is actually out of touch with the recording world in this article.The Yamaha NS10 phenomenon was in no way confined to the 80s. It is still seen in most of the bigger studios, and not just because it has become a familiar standard. None of the brands he mentions as commonly seen in European/British recording studios are in fact commonly seen or spoken of except for Tannoy, and those in a very limited way. More common now are ATC, PMC, Neumann/K+H, PSI, Geithain, Quested and, in Britain, Harbeth. Dynaudio is fairly common and, for a while, B&W 801s were seen—but almost never Spendor, Rogers and KEF which were named.Recently, Amphion has surged in popularity as a mixing and even mastering tool.I understand why they were not mentioned, but PSB really does deserve a mention in my opinion as a potentially reference grade speaker, dollar for dollar. Paul S Barton has been making speakers since the early 70s, all of which have been notable for their tonal veracity.Reference speakers generally need to be able to play quite loud with low distortion even if they are not used that way - many good engineers mix and master at surprisingly low spl levels. This can be accomplished either with high power handling (and low thermal compression) or high-ish sensitivity. The need to play loud and clear is to do with the requirement for dynamic freedom, so that judgements can be made with regard to dynamic effects, like compression and limiting. Very sensitive (say, 95 dB/W and above) and simultaneously accurate speakers are very rare these days. The speaker needs to have low self noise, that is, a brief impulse should result in an output which quickly and cleanly returns to zero. This enables subtle sounds, such as the tail end of reverbs and the recording room or hall to be heard.Finally, a reference grade speaker needs to possess very flat amplitude response, ideally slightly downward tilting, both on axis and across a reasonably wide arc horizontally and, ideally again, vertically, along with good phase accuracy. This is performance to which most consumer grade speakers in the world aspire but miss in various ways and to varying degrees. The point is, though, that a reference, by performing in an accurate way in all these areas will provide a window into the mean of all of the world's lesser speakers and a recording mixed and mastered on a reference grade speaker will sound as intended on more consumer grade speakers than if the reference speaker had some characteristic anomaly of its own.This eliminates most of the Wilsons which really do not measure well...................but the above points to> JBL M2
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Ahh... now I see it. Wallacefl added "...................but the above points to> JBL M2" to the end of my post.
Have been looking at the Princeton study and am having a hard time figuring out what conclusion is supposed to be drawn. I've read Geddes and Duke's stuff and follow most of what they're saying, but the Princeton link is just data (numbers that I can't correlate to the graphs and some of high scoring speakers that really seem to beam - which I thought was bad). What also confuses me is that one of speakers tested, the $340/pair Ascend Acoustics CBM-170SE are well regarded (I own and love the original) tested poorly.BTW Russell I see that the JansZen zA1.1 you like scores quite well. The JBL LSR 705i/708i are passive/external bi-wireable (what a bother).
JLM,See my answer here: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=137079.0Best,Anand.
BTW Russell I see that the JansZen zA1.1 you like scores quite well. The JBL LSR 705i/708i are passive/external bi-wireable (what a bother).
It would be beneficial to all to proofread posts to make sure that any reply text appears separately outside of the quoted block. You see this way too often.THAT'S TRUE!
Over the years, it seems that the majority of the speakers considered as "reference" are of low to moderately low efficiency? .... So, wanted to start a discussion as to the factors that drive this issue.
It does seem pretty challenging to make a high efficiency speaker that performs as well as many of the better low efficiency models.
Are we discussing sensitivity or efficiency ....
Speaking only for myself here, I used efficiency because that's what the original post referred to. Given the context, it didn't seem to me like there was a need to explicitly bring voltage sensitivity into the discussion. But I could be wrong. Am I'm missing something?
Since most low efficiency designs use multiple drivers they tend to have lower distortion and better transient attack , with increased sensitivity, hence why most pursue.
BTW the magico speaker you mentioned is an hybrid of sorts with a mix of both high and low sensitivity units ...
High powered amplfiers are not that scarce ..
