The above are either straw man or excluded-middle arguments depending on how you take them.

Quote

In my own limited experience however, it is the speaker/room interaction that causes me the most problems. To my ears, different rooms (+ speaker placements in those rooms) sound more different than different speakers...

I completely agree with that. However, I don't see this fact as working against mono comparisons. Instead I count the variables this creates and find that listening in mono simplifies the comparison. Try it, you may like it!  I do.

yet you introduce a completely artificial environment and method for perceiving one channel of what is clearly a stereo speaker system, even though your own research (and basic common sense) indicates that our perception of the multi source (stereo) soundfield is not the same as a single source (mono) - which is an utterly abstract way of perceiving the ML's performance. No end user is going to listen to the ML that way, any more than the codec user.

Toole shows that the stereo ratings for the Quad strongly depend on the stereo information in the recordings (not a good attribute for a loudspeaker unless you only purchase recording made with spaced stereo microphones).  For recordings that had less decorrelated signals (e.g. +90% of all pop, jazz recordings that typically use pan potted stereo signals, and  some classical recordings that use coincident stereo microphone techniques), the Quad quality ratings dropped in the stereo evaluations, and the less directional speaker's ratings increased.

Quote from: solive on 2010-06-23 07:07:52

Odigg,
I was writing my response as you were writing this response. We clearly think along the same lines. I like you

Thanks for the compliment!  I'm sure *most* everybody likes you too as the work you do is very valuable to us.  A number of us are garage audio scientists and we don't have the resources (or even degrees in the right field) to perform the type of research you are conducting.  Your findings are very helpful of cutting through the BS and helping us understand what is really going on in the world of audio and listening.


analog scott - I began to respond in a comprehensive manner to your post, but realized I've already said most of what I want to say.  I also would prefer to leave this thread on topic.  I will add that I think you are making certain assumptions about the buyers of electrostatic speakers (ML in particular), and the dealers of such speakers, that are not accurate.  I say this based on my experience at multiple dealers and having known people who own electrostatic speakers.  I don't know if ML has made the same assumptions you have.  Some speaker manufacturers do make these assumptions and they very plainly say so when they designate a speaker a "near field" monitor.

Dr. Olive (or somebody at Harmon) probably has better data on the buyers of such speakers.  If such data exists and Dr. Olive is able to share it, perhaps another thread can be started to discuss this.

Look, if you don't accept the rationale and published scientific evidence for doing mono loudspeaker evaluations that is your prerogative. I've already proven this to myself and a group of scientists who peer-reviewed my work, as has Floyd Toole in his landmark papers on loudspeaker evaluation back in the 1980s.  Besides Infinity, JBL, and Revel, many others companies like Axiom, Paradigm, PSB, B&O,etc also do mono loudspeaker comparisons because they understand  and accept the science, and have probably confirmed the science works in practice.

Many companies conduct their listening tests in mono, claiming if a speaker wins in mono it will almost always win in stereo.  While this may be a good approach for listening tests that host multiple listeners NOT sitting near the sweet spot, I don’t believe you get the whole picture on how a speaker system interacts as a pair listening in mono.  Ian Colquhoun and I are on the same page here, which is why all of Axiom’s testing is done in stereo.

The published science tells us that mono comparisons are more revealing of problems with the loudspeakers

...and therefore produce a more sensitive test, which is one of the cornerstones of a good subjective measurement.  If a  loudspeaker wins the test in mono with the highest overall ratings, it also will win the test in stereo: The spectral and spatial ratings also track across mono and stereo tests.

The scientific proof is there.

If you choose not to accept it - that is your choice. If you want to challenge it, then i suggest you do your own double-blind controlled listening experiments on dipole speakers in both mono and stereo, and report back the results.

Are you sure about that? Perhaps you can scratch Axiom off that list Audioholics Axiom Blind Testing

So where are the stereo ratings test results of the ML vs to 362 so we can confirm this asserted correlation? This may very well be the case, but I don't see the data.

it would have been interesting to see if they had less noise in the data if the tests were conducted in mono to confirm what we know from 25 years of running these tests.

I don't need to test every product in mono and stereo to confirm what has already been well established.  In a similar fashion, we don't routinely test other known listening test nuisance variable (e.g. blind vs sighted, level matched versus non level matched) just to satisfy the doubts of misguided audiophiles who might think they are immune to sighted and loudness-related biases in listening evaluations. With that said, you may see the  mono versus stereo results in due course. Right now, it is not my the top priority.

I posted a new blog posting that summarizes some recent  experimental evidence  where I tested a group of teenagers' preferences in loudspeakers and  MP3 versus CD music formats. This is just the beginning of a more thorough study, so the results are very preliminary. Still I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback.

I could find no evidence that these high school students preferred the "sizzling sounds of MP3" over higher quality lossless formats, as reported by Jonathan Berger. I also found they preferred the most accurate, neutral loudspeakers when given the opportunity to hear and compare them with something less accurate and neutral.

These results are not too surprising to me, but the media seems to have been reporting a different story over the past year.


Cheers
Sean
Audio Musings

What audio "jewelry" are you refering to? The diamond stylus of my cartridge is an actual functional part, not jewelry. Can't think of anything else you might be refering to. Do I also need to cite the multiple logical fallacies contained in your so called "must" conclusion?

Quote from: analog scott on 2010-06-25 03:16:11

What audio "jewelry" are you refering to? The diamond stylus of my cartridge is an actual functional part, not jewelry. Can't think of anything else you might be refering to. Do I also need to cite the multiple logical fallacies contained in your so called "must" conclusion?

From your equipment list on AA:

Speaker Cables/Interconnects:  Audioquest Clear speaker cable, MIT Shotgun interconnects
Other (Power Conditioner, Racks etc.):  Equitech 1.5Q line conditioner and Bybee pro filter
Tweaks:  Aurios Pros under Subwoofer, Aurios 1.2 under 3/4 slab of acrylic under preamp, Aurios 1.0 under 2 one inch slabs of acrulic sandwiching seven home made discs of silicone elastomer with a shore hardness of 9, Tip Toes under power amp , VPI bricks over transformers on Martin Logans

I seriously doubt that any of this would test positive for audible differences in a DBT.

I don't want to hazard a guess in public as to how many $1,000s are involved.

To me this is the clear black-and-white part of the story of your collection of audio jewelry.

The following is a little more about shades of gray:

I actually see no components whatsover in your system that is anything like the minimum that would be reasonably required for the best possible sound.

IME much of it if not all of it would very likely found in a series of DBTs to be vastly infererior to far less expesnive equipment in terms of sound quality as judged by the criteria of sonic accuracy.

Of course, the single-minded devotion to an obsolete, inherently sonically flawed medium speaks for itself. You could be the most tin-eared person I've ever heard of. Even Fremer listens to an occasional digital recording, apparently on his primary system. You can't.

Way to stay on topic Arny. Maybe you have a few more tips on comedy for me as well? Arny you need to get over this personal vendetta. You are just embarrassing yourself. But hey, if you want to fantasize about how bad my system sounds in order to feel better about yours that's fine. I can't say that I enjoy my system any less as a result.

Way to stay on topic Arny.

Maybe you have a few more tips on comedy for me as well?

Arny you need to get over this personal vendetta.

You are just embarrassing yourself.

But hey, if you want to fantasize about how bad my system sounds in order to feel better about yours that's fine.

I can't say that I enjoy my system any less as a result.

The Bybee filter was something I tried on a whim since i was able to get one for very little money compared to it's retail price. Can't say that it made any difference whatsoever. I sold it for a little more than my purchase price. The VPI bricks (two of them) were given to me. I'm not sure if they make that much of a difference or not but they sit on my Vandersteen subwooofer. Without them my two Emmy's that also sit on the subwoofer tend to ring when the bass gets loud. With the VPI bricks the on top of the sub the sub's top seems to be damped enough to stop the ringing. I don't like hearing the Emmys ring so that does make an audible improvement. I suppose the Emmys could be seen as audio jewelry since they sit on the sub, and are gold plated and very shiny??? I never thought of them as an actual part of the system though.

My article was cited in a blog at Gramophone Magazine.. Interesting to see how classical music lovers respond to this or not. Of course most classical music lovers are past their prime listening years ;

Quote from: 2Bdecided link=msg=0 date=

Quote

In my own limited experience however, it is the speaker/room interaction that causes me the most problems. To my ears, different rooms (+ speaker placements in those rooms) sound more different than different speakers...

I completely agree with that. However, I don't see this fact as working against mono comparisons. Instead I count the variables this creates and find that listening in mono simplifies the comparison. Try it, you may like it!  I do.

Well, kind of, but it doesn't tell you how much the speaker's sound will fall apart as its pushed towards the corners of my living room.

[note: I don;t mean to dismiss Gene's well-intentioned efforts  at conducting proper controlled listening tests, which I support 100%. He should be applauded for attempting to do what many other review sites don't have the political courage, time/money or skill to do].

Quote from: analog scott on 2010-06-26 05:15:45

Way to stay on topic Arny. Maybe you have a few more tips on comedy for me as well? Arny you need to get over this personal vendetta. You are just embarrassing yourself. But hey, if you want to fantasize about how bad my system sounds in order to feel better about yours that's fine. I can't say that I enjoy my system any less as a result.

Name calling won't change the fact that he's caught you. 

This is the Hydrogen Audio site.  The folks here are nowhere near as gullible as you seem to think they are.

Note that many of the sound quality changes to speakers when they are pushed into a corner are actually the same no matter which speaker you use.

That's because they happen at low frequencies where virtually all home speakers are omnidirectional. All 5 1/2 inch direct radiators in typical boxes have basically the same radiation patterns at 50-100 Hz and probably running higher. Their bandpasses will vary, but this is all pretty simple and predictable.

Arny caught me using isolation for my turntable and protecting my system with a  power supply/purifier that would literally save my irreplaceble airbearings on my tutrntable, flywheel and pickup arm in the case of a power outage and that proves that my experience in regards to whether or not I was duly made aware of the sweet spot before buying  electrostatic speaker should be dismissed as unreliable experience? Really? Do I really need to explain just how dumb and desperate that is?

Arny really needs to get over this perosnal demon he has with me and move on.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2010-06-26 09:59:23

Note that many of the sound quality changes to speakers when they are pushed into a corner are actually the same no matter which speaker you use.

Absolutely false, given the context that the (speaker) discussion with Sean is a dipole (ML) vs a monopole (362). About the only thing similar will be their LF corner loading.

Note that I wasn't discussing with Sean, but rather I was discussing with 2Bdecided, and the context was whether doing this experiment with 2 speakers in 2 corners was the better idea than doing it with 1 speaker in 1 corner.

Dipoles are such a tiny, tiny  fraction of the market that I tend to totally forget that they exist. We could all agree to forget them and not much would change in the world of audio. They just make things more complex, and for what?

I suspect that if you push a true dipole into a corner the results are a lot like those from a monopole with similar directivity until the front lobe starts engaging the walls. The strong effect of dipoles at low frequencies is that the lobes become so large that they overlap and cancel, and that has its strongest effect on the overall bass bandpass.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2010-06-26 10:37:11

Note that I wasn't discussing with Sean, but rather I was discussing with 2Bdecided, and the context was whether doing this experiment with 2 speakers in 2 corners was the better idea than doing it with 1 speaker in 1 corner.

Well apparently you need to read the article that the thread is about.

Note that many of the sound quality changes to speakers when they are pushed into a corner are actually the same no matter which speaker you use.

That unfortunate fact is true, they are both monopoles (omnipolar) in that range..and the near corner placement will have significant impact, including gain at LF. So the "sounds thin" by looking at an anechoic snapshot ML, may sound anything but in the real room listener area, while the flat as a pancake anechoic 362 may sound bass heavy. Or not. Then we add a second channel, the soundfield becomes more complex...and real life stereo+.

I bet the silent majority of readers with no particular axe to grind are thinking that testing stereo speakers in mono is a strange thing to do.

I've read the justifications. I don't buy them. I can see how on-axis mono listening can give more repeatable results where differences are more easily audible - but maybe that's another way of saying that normal stereo listening depends far more on the interaction between the speakers and the room.

Like it or not, most of us are stuck with interaction between our speakers and our listening rooms. Obviously it would complicate things, but I think many people are interested in which speakers sound best in the locations where the speakers look+fit best in their living room. Other people are interested in which speakers sound best given the opportunity to place the speakers at the optimum location for that pair of speakers. Other people are interested in creating the best listening room, placing the speakers optimally, and getting the best sound.

These are harder questions to answer, and I don't want to make the best the enemy of the good, but the concerns are real.

I'm sure Sean can envisage a Mark II speaker switcher room with a speaker switcher in each corner to deliver stereo tests. How much space have you got Sean?

Cheers,
David.

Arny really needs to get over this perosnal demon he has with me and move on. it really is just a source of embarrassment for him.

Given what we know about the on and off-axis performance of the Primus 362 and the ML, how do you think these two speakers will fare in this newly designed room?

See slide 28 and compare Primus versus Loudspeaker C measurements.