Are some expensive speakers too "dynamic"?
David Matz -- Tue, 12/08/2009 - 20:23
I have had the pleasure to listen to many $20K plus speakers over the last year, including Wilson, Magico, Focal, YG, and others. Many of them have been reviewed in this magazine or in its sister publication. The question I have is: are some of these “state of the art” speakers too "dynamic"?
I go out to hear live music at least 3 times a month, so I have a good sense of what real dynamics are. It’s only my conjecture, but it seems to me that speaker designers may make the speakers extra dynamic to make them sound more exciting. However they don’t get it right to my ears. When I listen to a “standard” sound such as the spoken voice or a finger snap for an objective reference, the sound seems to “jump” on many of these speakers and doesn’t sound very natural. Using a car analogy, the car can only go 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, but has a hard time accelerating in traffic conditions. Are many of the expensive too dynamic? What are some other ways to tell if the speaker is too dynamic?
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In my view, loudspeakers fall short in their reproduction of music's dynamics. Listen to a drum kit from six feet away. I think what you find unnatural about a loudspeaker's dynamics is the lack of dynamic coherence; that is, the dynamics are different in different frequency bands. Another source of coloration is a hyped sound on leading-edge transients that gives some loudspeakers a more lively sound, but quickly becomes fatiguing.
I don't think a loudspeaker can be "too dynamic."
"It’s only my conjecture, but it seems to me that speaker designers may make the speakers extra dynamic to make them sound more exciting".
Could be also in the making of the recording itself whereby companies wanting to stand out (sound dynamically superior, exciting) above their competitors tend to 'overcook' their works--I found this to be quite a common problem with today's popular recordings--hyped up dynamic (amongst others). This I believe to 'compensate' for use in more common (real world) audio set-ups, including in-cars etc (where most lacking true dynamic capabilities) in mind. Hence a boost here and there may actually sound nicer, and/or even more natural on them. Being more resolute, the better speakers just show and express these manipulations more honestly, IMO.
Actually, many of today's recordings are dynamically compressed so that they sound louder. Compression reduces the peak-to-average ratio, allowing the signal level to be higher which makes it sound louder. Dynamic range is the difference between the softest and loudest sounds.
Thanks for the correction Robert, yes, 'dynamic' may not be the right term to use there. What I meant to say was that even with some recent hdcd / sacd releases (not dynamically compressed ones), many tend to be over equalized during the recording process. Boosting certain frequencies and put together in ways which make them sound (or at least being perceived as) 'sonically' superior--more impressive / spectacular (louder, punchier, nicer), yet exaggerated when compared to live.
Another component at least for acoustic instruments is the microphone choices during recording. As you listen frequently to live music, typically one would be at some distance from the musicians and instruments. Whether it's 6 to 10 feet away in an intimate jazz club or 200 feet in a large concert hall, there will be an associated "softening" of the dynamics and transients. If the recording engineer utilizes close mic techniques (frequent in jazz, blues, acoustic "pop") and quality microphones, the sound is very different than what you hear when listening to live music at some distance. A loudspeaker can only compress dynamic range. Some do it more than others. If a recording is done via close mic techniques, uses quality microphones, and is properly engineered, the dynamic range can be frightening. The ultimate playback should match that feeling, if that's how the recording was made, and many "reference" recordings are. Imagine the musicians in your listening room with their instruments. Then place your ear a couple of inches from the piano sound board, the f hole of the bass or God forbid the snare drum. That's dynamic range! Again, speakers can only mechanically compress the dynamic range. GIGO
Loudspeaker dynamics are one of the least quantified, most misunderstood, and unmeasured performance parameters. Yet, actually measuring them is not all that difficult.
First, however, let's put the 'overdynamic' myth to rest. Ain't no such thing. Not possible. If we put a 1 watt signal into a speaker and increase the gain by 10 dB, the speaker can't put out greater than a 10db increase. Unless you've discovered a previously overlooked basic law of physics.
Unfortunately what does happen in that same scenario is we get less than 10 db of change in output. Worse, it varies both with frequency and level within a given driver, and between the different drivers in multi-driver arrays. The technical term is dynamic linearity and loudspeakers, being magnetic devices, show an 'S' shaped hysteretical response to changes in input.
That's why some speakers need to be played at a certain level before they sound right. It also explains why others run out of steam at higher levels. Indeed the audio reviewer terms of 'macrodynamics' and 'microdynamics' are pretty much fully explained by dynamic linearity.
Horn speakers are famous for three things: High sensitivity, great dynamics, and colorations. In our efforts to reduce colorations, we have in large part discarded horns (Avant Garde Unos and a few others notwithsnading) except in pro-sound applications. Unfortunately we have at the same time walked away from dynamic linearity.
Blame Edgar Vilchur and the Acoustic Research AR-3. The so-called acoustic suspension used a most non-linear spring - air - to enable low bass in a small box in exchange for low sensitivity and poor dynamic linearity. His nemesis Paul Klipsch knew this, and spent the rest of his life countering this tradeoff.
I experimented with several horns, and high sensitivity designs back iin the 70s and found that speakers like the legendary Altec 604-8G offered not only >100db sensitivity, buwas extraordinarily dynamic over the 20dB range I used to measure output. Briefly, I had access to a calibrated attenuator (also an Altec component) and a calibrated Bruel and Kjaer sound level meter. Using .01 to 1 watt and .1 to 10 Watt steps, I was able on an octave by octave basis measure the output changes vs changes in input level. Then I compared those results to my beloved Magneplanar MG-IIs. The difference in sensitivity I was prepared for. The difference in linearity was a complete shock. Magneplanars reduced the output by almost 3 db (around 17db of output change for the 20dB input change).
My theory is that the magnetic 'push' of the single-ended Magneplanar diaphragm tends to follow the inverse square law (a 6db reduction in output for each doubling of distance) whereas the low-excursion voice motor of the 604 woofer and horn simply didn't have that issue. It was quite sensitive
in 1976 it took nearly $10,000 in 1976 Dollars to even do basic measurements, but I'm sure you could do the same and better measurements today for a tenth that cost.
If you'll pardon the self-promotion, I published an article on this very topic entitled "Real or Surreal?" It appeared earlier this year in Stereo Times.
Best regards,
Larry Borden
Editor, Stereo Times.
"Digital finishes what the transistor began" James Boyk
What you are perceiving as "too dynamic" is probably ringing in one or more of the drivers at a certain frequency in their passband. Ringing may be defined as a tendency of a driver to fail to stop producing sound at a given frequency after the signal has stopped. Writers of magazines like TAS will often describe a loudspeaker as having a resonance or a coloration what they describe as that "coloration" is atttibutable to this ringing phenomenon. Thus, you will often read, for example that electrostatics have a plastic or credit card sound because their drivers ring or resonate at a certain characteristic frequency. Likewise you might read that drivers having metal drivers have a metallic coloration for the same reason. This also has the effect of making a speaker sound livlier or more dynamic than life because this added increment of sound (the ringing) is there in addition to the reproduced signal.
Obviously, this is not such a good thing, and suprisingly, many super expensive designs employ drivers which have such colorations. Why? Well, sometimes the customer is a guy who knows little other than he wants the best, and thinks paying thousands for a package which looks impressive and seems to reproduce a lot of detail (another characteristic or ringing, the etched quality it imparts to the sound may for a time make the speaker sound "more detailed"), he'll willingly fork out 20k or more.
One good way to avoid this trap is to look at the waterfall plot of the speaker. Resonances show up very clealy on such plots and you might want to select something that avoids such obvious colorations. You may save both your ears and your wallet in the long run.
Dear curious mind
I also go to live music events, mostly "classical" music. Seated "realistically" far from the musicians, the often quoted 100 dB+ output of a full blown orchestra probably goes down to less than 80dB on peaks. Try to lower the volume when listening to music on your system in your living room with whatever kind of loudspeakers. Close your eyes, because this helps, and I think you will find the right volume for realistic reproduction of reality (including dynamics)... lowering the volume!
My loudspeakers are Quads ELS 2905 known for not playing loud and not the most dynamic loudspeakers. However, exactly 1 week ago I was seated in the last row of Alice Tully Hall in the Lincoln Center listening to some Barroque music. I closed my eyes and discovered that...I was was listening to loud at home. Since than, 2 or 3 dB lower on my Mcintosh preamp, treble is even more sweet, bass more clear and detailed, and the global result more real. That is HiFi.
Best regras
Jose Freire
I tend to think of dynamics as the ability to go from very quiet to very loud while being able to hear each equally well and without strain - in either direction. Under that standard, I have often thought my system falls short (I tend to have to turn it up to hear the soft, but then the loud can turn toward harsh). Then again, nothing's perfect.
Since the topic of drum dynamics is mentioned, I give this example. I went to Lyric several years ago for one of their "special album" listening events -- this one was "Their Satanic Majesties Request" by . . . some rock and roll band. The highlighted component was the four towered, six feet + speakers by Nola's Carl Marchisotto. Putting aside the fact that a record like that isn't "live" and could never sound truly "live," we could obviously hear everything with tremendous detail. But what stuck in my mind were Charlie's strikes of the bass/foot drum. They sounded like a tympany, literally rolling off in waves. My system can't do that, I thought.
Well, I live in NYC, and I won't bore you with the pretty substantial amount of live music I attend, but I never never never hear any bass/foot drum that sounds like it did at that presentation. Is that dynamics? More likely designed intended speaker distortion -- probably attractive to some or many, but surely not any more live than anything else on that album.
By the way, for five minutes after the Stones was finished, Lyric Bob put on the fourth movement of Symphonie fantastique. In all my listening experience, that was the first time that I actually thought/felt like I was truly in a concert hall, and it was amazing. Moreover, at some point there is a major dynamic event in the movement -- and it literally knocked me out of my seat -- surprised the hell out of me. Getting knocked out of yor seat, I think, is dynamics.
So, it seems there are dynamics, and there are dynamics.
As mentioned above, there is no such thing as 'over dynamic'. A speaker either tracks the input signal or it doesn't. Some, like the Maggie mentioned above, can and thus compress the signal.
Others, like most high sensitivity speakers, have various FR peaks which give the impressionof a more dynamic sound in the same that that louder component will usually sound better.
Flat power response with sufficient power handling is the basic requirement.
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Cant remember who now, but someone observed that there was a loudness level that was "right " for each recording. That certainly has been my experience. Beginning at a very moderate sound level turn up the volume until suddenly the whole sound spectrum comes into focus and the soundstage and instruments sound right. This may be too loud for some people (Wife), but it sure is enjoyable.
Jack D II
"someone observed that there was a loudness level that was "right " for each recording."
The man who said that is Peter Walker, founder of Quad ...