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Hi, I just got my new Stereophile January 25.Up for review is the Estelon Diamond Mk2.Without even reading the article yet I went to John Atkinsons measurements and a graph caught my eye.There was a big saddle at between 40 and 200 hz as John A. noted.I couldn't understand John's explanation for this and why it occurred in a speaker system costing 89 thousand.Can anyone simplify this for me? I could not understand what his answer was and why it hadn't surfaced before in other reviews.Thanks alot.....Mark Korda
Follow Ups:
> I went to John Atkinsons measurements and a graph caught my eye. There
was a big saddle at between 40 and 200Hz as John A. noted.I couldn't
understand John's explanation for this... <
I explained in the review, as I always do when discussing my loudspeaker
measurements, that the peak between 40Hz and 200Hz in the complex sum
of the nearfield responses of the midrange unit, woofer, and port is due to
the nearfield measurement technique, which assumes the baffle extends to
infinity in both planes. This means that the loudspeaker is firing into
hemispherical space rather than a full sphere, which boosts the low
frequencies. See the explanation at the link below. The Estelon's low-
frequency alignment is actually maximally flat.
John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile
How did you move that heavy speaker around? The pictures don't show any wheels.
Bill
John Atkinson, It will take me a few readings to fully understand that info you sent me.Thanks for doing that ,I'm slow. I wonder if the same goes on all the other reviews I've been reading all these years or just the Estelon. Elsewhere in tha mag. you mentioed owning the small KEF's.I have that issue from a while back and was astonished at the almost perfect frequency line,sans low bass how important is that line?Why did you keep 'em?Mark Korda
> I wonder if the same goes on all the other reviews I've been reading all
> these years or just the Estelon.
I have been measuring loudspeakers this way since I acquired the MLSSA
system in 1989: farfield, quasi-anechoic behavior above 300Hz spliced to
the complex sum of the nearfield outputs below 300Hz. There are reviews
of several hundred loudspeakers that were measured this way in the
review archive at www.stereophile.com.
> Elsewhere in tha mag. you mentioed owning the small KEF's. I have
> that issue from a while back and was astonished at the almost perfect
> frequency line,sans low bass how important is that line? Why did you
> keep 'em?
I bought a pair of the little KEFs following the review in Stereophile
and as I write in the January issue, they deliver almost all of what I
need, other than maximum loudness and extended low frequencies.
John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile
. . . "normalized to the tweeter axis response, which is therefore shown as a straight line."
This makes sense only when the on-axis response is extremely linear. But when it is highly "abnormal," as it is with many speakers you have measured, it makes very little sense. Why normalize the abnormal? Why not just show the ACTUAL measured off-axis response? Or just show the on and off-axis responses on a standard F vs SPL graph, as several other publications do? This would be more comprehensible, and far more useful.
his set of test assumptions simply don't work for large planars and he has acknowledged that:"As I have written before in these pages, measuring physically large speakers with in-room quasi-anechoic techniques is in some ways a fruitless task. The usual assumption, that the measuring microphone is very much farther away than the largest dimension of the speaker being measured, is clearly wrong ."
In the end, what you hear is in-room response where measurements (using Stereophile test discs) assisted speaker and bass trap placement in the critical Schroeder frequencies.
Third octave results:
Edits: 12/03/24
I'd argue that while flat response is immensely desirable it isn't the most important factor in a speaker system sounding live(with good recordings of course).
I'm not sure what you mean by a "saddle." If it's what I think, there's a massive hump. If I'm wrong, then explain. But here's the thing -- his measurements of the Estelon Aura, which I should note were done in-room and not anechoically like our measurements, showed a massive peak below 100Hz:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/estelon-aura-loudspeaker-measurements
But when we measured the Aurea -- in an anechoic chamber -- it was simply not there:
https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2975:nrc-measurements-estelon-aura-loudspeaker&catid=77:loudspeaker-measurements&Itemid=153
This leads me to believe that there was something very wrong with his technique.
Doug Schneider
SoundStage!
Doug, I don't think there is anything wrong with JA's technique, it's just a different one. How do you accurately measure low frequency response when the actual response will be so dependent on the particular room? An anechoic response certainly is not what one will hear in their own room and I would imagine that the speaker designer would take into account reinforcement from the room in their low frequency design (hopefully). A flat anechoic response at low frequencies would likely give a bass-heavy response in room, depending on particular room characteristics. I'm not sure there is any absolute correct way to do this, what is important is consistency in order to make fair & useful comparisons.
I think the issue is that when part of the graph is "anechoic" and the other part isn't, it generates confusion insofar as what the character is really like.Doug
SoundStage!
Edits: 12/03/24
why not perform measurements in a really good controlled room?
Surely cheaper than buying time in an anechoic chamber and certainly more representative of a speaker's capabilities in the real world.
Because you'll get a different response in every room. When you're measuring in a room, it's the speaker and the room -- and rooms vary. In ideal anechoic conditions, it's the same every time -- and it's just the speaker.
Doug
SoundStage!
we get a uniformly useless response in terms of real world rooms.
Ummm, if that's what you think, then there's no use carrying this on. Suffice it to say there are valid reasons for trying to accurately measure the bass output of the speaker. If you don't believe that, so be it.
Doug
SoundStage!
in the real world as we experience it.
Theory is great until it isn't.
The theory in this case works, however.
Doug
SoundStage!
Tests in anechoic chambers don't work with dipoles as the back wave is part of the response.
Fails to represent real world scenarios like Harman's speaker "shuffler". I had a funny conversation with Sean Olive about that limitation. :)
Did anyone say they deal with dipoles properly? 99%+ of the speakers sold aren't dipoles.
Doug
SoundStage!
The theory in this case works, however.
No it doesn't with your unqualified boast.
Feel free to carrying on thinking that...
Doug
SoundStage!
You've already acknowledged the obvious limitation!
Have a good day.
Why measure low frequencies? Let the reviewer listen and tell us. Ah, that would be good only for his room. So let us assume that speakers of hundred thousand club have great musical low frequencies.
What about subwoofers?
Bill
Hi Bill, way back in Portland Maine,1970ish ,there were only 2 Hifi stores.One sold AR,Epicure'and Advent.As low as they would go bass wise the frequency line was flat in the lower register.They called it the New England sound because that's where they were manufactured.On the other side,or store were speakers like JBL and Cerwin Vega more popular with the rock and roll crowd because their lower range had a hump in the bass like I saw in the Estelon's frequency graph.Because of where they were made,California,they were in the West Coast sound.That's what I read. That popped into my mind when I opened up the Stereophile.That's why I wrote.I got a lesson in return. Thanks all...-.Mark Korda
Does there need to be an explanation? I'm not sure I'd pay $90,000 for any speaker, even if I were a billionaire, but does speaker price have to correlate with flat frequency response? The review seems to speak for itself as far as the way the speaker plays music. But even with all the gushing praise, the reviewer did seem to think the Diamond veered a bit towards the analytic. Could be the frequency response saddle in the bass would be partially responsible for that.
Edits: 12/02/24
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