Of course, I should have realised you were being humererous, It's either that or "I was being ironic". From now on, when you talk about the importance of transparency, I'll know you're not entirely serious and overstate things a bit, but in a funny kind of way.
Of course, I should have realised you were being humererous, It's either that or "I was being ironic". From now on, when you talk about the importance of transparency, I'll know you're not entirely serious and overstate things a bit, but in a funny kind of way.
The owner of one of the UK's larger Hifi emporiums once said to me "speakers always sound like the room they are in".
I think transparency is coloured and hidden by room acoustics even more than they are affected by the non linear nature of speaker eq. Using acoustic panels, bass traps etc improves both transparency and imaging and also makes it easier to align and place your speakers correctly because you are not fooled by reflections and corrupted room eq response and bass frequency boom and delay.
I feel sure that a high proportion of high quality speakers out there will also be firing 'out of phase' or non aligned, simply because most peoples floors are not level and many people can't be bothered to experiment or perhaps they can't tell the difference. There is a myriad of change in the sound that can come from leaning speakers inwards, outward, backwards forwards toed in toed straight etc and if one doesn't mirror the other then the sound is compromised. An easy way of checking phase setup btw is to walk across the front of your speakers about 3-4 feet away and notice the sound as you reach the middle of the two speakers, when left and right stereo sounds join. It helps if it's a more complicated broad spectrum piece of music. If your phase setup is out you will notice a phase distortion more easily this way. It is easy to fall into the trap of actually setting up your speakers 'out of phase' where bass problems are evident in your room because the less bass warmth allows for greater transparency. It's a bad fix. What you really need is warmth, punch and control and that bass and reflection problem can only be fixed with acoustic treatment in the room.
Top quality speaker companies rarely issue a product which isn't musical but it is very easy to set them up in a non optimum, non musical way. The sweet spot with some 2 way and particularly 3 way speakers is incredibly finely Tuned. In some cases we are talking just a 90 degree turn adjustment on a 64th inch threaded spike for absolute optimum firing. Over the last 30 months I have been adjusting, moving, realigning 3 sets of 3 way speakers on a daily basis just to understand the phenomenon of musicality in relation to placement and alignment further. On one set I wore the threads of the spikes so much, I needed to replace them!
I am still learning.......but the musical benefits of persevering with speaker alignment and placement are hugely rewarding musically and emotionally. A common theme is people saying "it makes me feel like crying" That's good!
The other thing to bear in mind with speaker setup in relation to your preference of sound is that you can set them up to roll off a perception of bass weight, (I say perception because the bass is there all along) for instance leaning the speakers inward will hide bass but whilst this may deliver more detail the leaner bass will distort the natural 'true' sounds of instruments. Acoustic guitar for instance has a level of bass that on balance will tell you the instrument was played with new smooth strings. The extra bass is not hiding anything more than a live instrument would. It's more like matching two pieces of a jigsaw. It completes the picture. You can roll off bass to a point that acoustic guitar sounds like it is strung with old strings. They are nolonger smooth at all and sound more like a Dobra Guitar which is made with a metal sound box and has a dry clangy string sound. It'll give you more detail this way but it is far from natural. It's one of my tests of hifi setups. - 'New strings or old?'
speakers are never designed for straight firing even if they are , they will never sound balanced straight firing due to the interaction with walls. slight toe in reduces the interaction with walls. toe in too much, the sound becomes less separated and depth perception reduces. so there is always a best toe in between these two extremes. that best toe in is independent of sweet spot ie theoretically sweet spot become infinite just like in a live event, where ever you sit , you get the depth and distance information as per your position. best toe in can't avoid room interactions all together but room interactions and sound interaction between the two speakers are least with the best toe in.
speakers are never designed for straight firing even if they are , they will never sound balanced straight firing due to the interaction with walls. slight toe in reduces the interaction with walls. toe in too much, the sound becomes less separated and depth perception reduces. so there is always a best toe in between these two extremes. that best toe in is independent of sweet spot ie theoretically sweet spot become infinite just like in a live event, where ever you sit , you get the depth and distance information as per your position. best toe in can't avoid room interactions all together but room interactions and sound interaction between the two speakers are least with the best toe in.
Kef speakers are designed for straight ahead firing and for the most part they work well that way provided the room is suitably free from wall and ceiling reflections but I understand your point rkt31. I have a pair of Kef Reference 205/2 speakers and they are very musical and very flat eq. Sonus Faber on the other hand are designed to fire straight at the listener because Fabers are never flat on the eq and therefore the eq imbalance is best minimised by firing at the listener or close to them. I have had 4 different models of SF and all were very musical indeed. On balance I think the design preference of the actual designer for toeing in or not can be trusted in my experience, provided the room is suitably controlled of course. Kef and SF usually have test charts to prove their point in this respect.
Headphones are very different to speakers so the response curves are very difference because (at least my understanding) the sound is coming at your ear in a very different manner than with speakers. IEMS are different still as they completely circumvent the outer ear.
I think that has to do more with measuring artifact. In practice, the treble on the Utopia is more than adequate. In fact, some think the Utopia is a bit treble heavy. I don't, but others have commented that way.
I think the Utopia is the king of resolution though. I've never heard a head phone resolve the way this one does--super detailed but very natural as well.
If you look at other headphones at Inner Fidelity, you'll notice that the treble roll-off is «normal», so to speak. Effectively it's the result of a crude «compensation» function, which actually should lead to a flatter response if designed more realistically.
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