The Audio Perfectionist disses ML's (and many others)

[sleepysurf]

Happened to stumble upon this "Watchdog" monograph (free d/l) written by Richard Hardesty, publisher of "The Audio Perfectionist" (which I don't subscribe to). In it, he disses ML's, Maggies, Sonus Faber, and Wilson Audio, amongst others, as time-incoherent designs that cannot faithfully reproduce music. I doubt any of us agree with his assessment, but he certainly raises some points worthy of further discussion. Waddya think?

http://www.audioperfectionist.com/PDF files/APJ_WD_24.pdf

 

[Rich]

Waddya think?

Blah-dee Blah-dee Blah! That's what I think. Some engineers are so caught up in the details of the science that they can't see the forest for the trees (or in this case, hear the music for the time/phase alignment issues).

Sure, no transducer is 100% accurate. That's why we always strive for the sound of live music but never completely attain it. This guy acts like he is some big whistle-blower on the industry. The simple fact of the matter is that all of the speaker brands he disses have legions of satisfied customers because they do reproduce music beautifully. If this guy can come up with something better, I would love to listen to it. But if all he wants to do is belittle these companies that are out there putting their engineering skills to work so that we can enjoy the music, then I could care less what he thinks. Making your living ragging on people who are making a great product because their product isn't "perfect" isn't much of a living in my book.

 

[Bernard]

Sounds like a marketing pitch for his journals.

He obviously does not use his ears to select speakers. He does not at any point state that he has listened to any of the speakers he so easily dismisses, and does not identify the ones he does like.

 

[sleepysurf]

Does anybody know more about this "step response test" that he advocates, or what else he wrote in Journals #12 and #13, that he is trying to sell. I'm not about to pay $25 a pop to read more Hardesty heresy!

 

[sebrof2000]

I was reading and waiting for the revalation. He basically said what comes out your speakers is not exactly the same as what went in. OK, and?
And like Bernard said, what speakers does he like. I was sure that after dissin' the others he would list something he liked.

 

[risabet]

Richard Hardesty, formerly co-owner of Havens & Hardesty in Newport? or maybe Laguna, CA has valid high-end credentials. I don't read that article as slamming any specific manufacturer just a statement of the fact that most can't reproduce a proper step response. I say so what? Some of the speakers he list still sound very good, some don't. Notice that he doesn't list Vandersteen or Quad, both speakers that can pass a proper step-response test and are both time and phase coherent. Relax guys, he didn't attack our mothers of sisters:music:

 

[sleepysurf]

For those so inclined, here's an in-depth Stereophile article about various speaker measurements, including the "step response". Frankly, the only measurements I'd like to see are my ML + Room frequency response.

http://www.stereophile.com/features/100/index.html

Here's the link for Part 3 of that article...
http://www.stereophile.com/features/103/index.html

 

[daniel]

Here's one loudspeaker that he likes.
Should we tell him this is not a loudspeaker?

 

[tonepub]

The only speaker Richard Hardesty likes is the Vandersteen line of speakers.
Not that Vandersteen is terrible stuff, but not the last word by any means.

Richard Hardesty also happens to be good friends with Richard Vandersteen and because of his magazines status of trying to "debunk" everything, he can't get gear from anyone for review, hence his surly nature.

He's not an engineer or a scientist and has no credentials....

What he fails to grasp is that by nature, the ML speakers (especially the CLS with no crossover) is one of the most coherent speakers made because there are no crossovers between a woofer and midrange, or midrange and tweeter. You can't get better time alignment than that!

Yes, every speaker is a compromise that's true. If one person figured it out, they would just license that perfect technology to everyone and there would only be that one design.

It's never any fun to see what you own get written about negatively in print, but that guy is so far out in the outfield, I certainly wouldn't have any buyers remorse about it....

Got a chance to hear a couple of really outstanding speakers at CES that I have to admit revealed a bit bigger musical experience than my Summits, but they were all 3-15 times more money. (that being said, I'd still love a pair of Avalon ISIS's or the new Gamut G-9's...)

Having owned almost every other panel speaker there is over the last 28 years, I still think the panel sound is something you really love or hate and for me, ML is still my favorite. In my room with my system and budget, the Summits with the Descent i still put a huge smile on my face and for me, that's what it's all about!

Matter of fact after a week at CES, I can't wait to get home and fire my system up again....

 

[MiTT]

Got a chance to hear a couple of really outstanding speakers at CES that I have to admit revealed a bit bigger musical experience than my Summits, but they were all 3-15 times more money. (that being said, I'd still love a pair of Avalon ISIS's or the new Gamut G-9's...)

Jeff, I've had a chance to hear both of the above myself and agree that they are truely in the top notch. Tell me though, have you had a chance to hear the Avalon Indra yet? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. It's one speaker that I might SERIOUSLY consider (I'd probably still keep my ReQuests though).

 

[JonFo]

I wouldn’t get too worked up about it either.

In speakers more than anything in audio, taste is pretty variable.

One angle that influences things is the speaker/room interface that works well for one design could be terrible for another. So not only is basic design selection and anechoic measurements a large set of variables, the way it will interact with room is another huge variable.

While I disagree with some of the stuff he writes, I also know enough to see some of the points he makes. But one can’t generalize from metrics or personal preference.

If we want to debate specific points, we could go after those, but in general, we have plenty of threads analyzing the various aspects and challenges of managing our chosen speaker systems.

Defending them against accusations by people with a strong bias is not too high on my priority list.

 

[kmanusa]

Based on a quick perusal, the article appears to advocate long familiar arguments. While there are some manufactuers who are advocates of coherent time domain response in loudspeaker design (Vandersteen, Thiel, etc.), there are a slew of manufactuers who are not. The Quad ESL-63/988can reproduce a credible looking square wave-- does that by itself translate into superior sound for the listener?

My own personal opionion is that coherent time domain response should not be achieved at the expense of good on- and off-axis frequency response. There are other factors in loudspeaker design that are more important to me.

 

[kcl]

I don't know very much about the engineering involved in speaker design or construction, but I do about what I like to hear. I tend to take a pretty empirical approach to life, and I know that the sound my system produces pleases me more than anything else I've owned or, with very few exceptions, that I've ever heard (and those tend to run in the $100k range). I've learned to not pay attention to things like this.

P.S., I heard once that an engineer could prove that a bumblebee is incapable of flight. This sounds a bit like one of those folks to whom the fact that one does fly is immaterial.

 

[JonFo]

One aspect of any speaker design that I do agree is important is the time-domain alignment of not just the various intra-speaker elements but the entire inter-speaker and room interface elements.

That is, even if a speaker is fully self-referentially time-coherent, but placed asymmetrically to the listener and the room, then it hardly matters as the soundfield will not resolve correctly.

But a pair of time-incoherent speakers, placed symmetrically will also not resolve the soundfield right. You really need both.

This leads to one of my hobby-horses: Passive crossovers are sub-optimal (ok, they suck )

One of the huge advantages of actives is the ability to use high-order, phase coherent alignments andto actually manage the driver alignment. This is only possible with DSP speaker processors.

One would have to reengineer the Monolith to move the panel back 21” from the front of the woofer to align acoustically; Or, I can just tell the processor to use 1.75ms of delay on the panel. Voila – Time aligned panel and woofer, and much improved frequency response.

So don’t discount the impact of time / phase alignments on the ultimate frequency response. All of which leads to whether the soundfield is cohesive as well as the tonal balance even.

That’s what’s so hard about all this, everything is interrelated.

 

[edwinr]

This is only one guy. Who cares what he thinks...

P.S. If one of you guys can find out where he lives, let my know. I'll pay him a visit with some feathered friends and maybe deposit some bird do do's on his clean laundry...

 

[tonepub]

Jeff, I've had a chance to hear both of the above myself and agree that they are truely in the top notch. Tell me though, have you had a chance to hear the Avalon Indra yet? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. It's one speaker that I might SERIOUSLY consider (I'd probably still keep my ReQuests though).

I just spent two days with the Indras. Our technical editor just replaced his Opus's with Indra's and they are very good. If you like the Avalon way of doing things, they are fantastic. Excellent tonality, especially on acoustic instruments and a huge soundstage, both left to right and front to back.

I have the Ascendants here for review (they will be in the Feb 6 issue) and both the Ascendant and the Indra use all of Avalon's latest driver and crossover technology.

The new crop of Avalon speakers are also a bit easier to drive than some of their older models. They are also definitely more dynamic, so if you like rock and jazz along with your classical music you will not be disappointed.

The only bad news about the Avalons is that they are very revealing, so just like a pair of ML's, they will show up the deficiencies in your system. However, they are not harsh at all. They posess a lot of detail and resolution but are not harsh to listen to. No user fatigue with these babies!!

I am a huge Avalon fan and highly suggest an audition of the Indras.....

If you don't have a dealer nearby, call Gary Muldaur at Avalon to find out where you can listen to some!

 

[David Matz]

The only speaker Richard Hardesty likes is the Vandersteen line of speakers.
Not that Vandersteen is terrible stuff, but not the last word by any means.

Richard Hardesty also happens to be good friends with Richard Vandersteen and because of his magazines status of trying to "debunk" everything, he can't get gear from anyone for review, hence his surly nature.

He's not an engineer or a scientist and has no credentials....

What he fails to grasp is that by nature, the ML speakers (especially the CLS with no crossover) is one of the most coherent speakers made because there are no crossovers between a woofer and midrange, or midrange and tweeter. You can't get better time alignment than that!

Yes, every speaker is a compromise that's true. If one person figured it out, they would just license that perfect technology to everyone and there would only be that one design.

It's never any fun to see what you own get written about negatively in print, but that guy is so far out in the outfield, I certainly wouldn't have any buyers remorse about it....

Got a chance to hear a couple of really outstanding speakers at CES that I have to admit revealed a bit bigger musical experience than my Summits, but they were all 3-15 times more money. (that being said, I'd still love a pair of Avalon ISIS's or the new Gamut G-9's...)

Having owned almost every other panel speaker there is over the last 28 years, I still think the panel sound is something you really love or hate and for me, ML is still my favorite. In my room with my system and budget, the Summits with the Descent i still put a huge smile on my face and for me, that's what it's all about!

Matter of fact after a week at CES, I can't wait to get home and fire my system up again....

In addition to Gamut and Avalon, have you heard Kharma, Peak Consult, or Eben? I have heard they are great, but the prices are in the stratosphere?

Thanks

 

[tonepub]

Ive heard Peak Consult and like those quite a bit also...

Lars Goller, the principal at Gamut, worked for PC for about ten years, so there is a very similar lineage....
Unfortunately, PC does not have distribution in the US at the moment, but I am hoping that is remedied soon!

As for the other two, I'm not fond of either, but that doesn't mean they are not worthy of investigation. Just not my cup of tea. The only times I have heard them were at shows, dealers or friends houses where I did not like the source components so it could very well be somewhat to blame.

Even after listening to the mega speakers though, I am still really impressed at just how much music the Summits and Descent i reveal for about 14k! I can't say I'm the least bit disappointed in my M-L's!!

 

[greg_slo]

quick question about this guy. does he try and pass himself off as a technical writer, or just a columnist writing about something he has a passion for (or i might say hatred)?

as a technical article, white paper this is not! i know he makes references to previous articles, but with statements like that allude to "obvious conclusions"...there is no amount pre-assumed knowledge that make any result [opinion] a valid point.

like i just mentioned, this is opinion, and right. to each his own...