frank manrique
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Sep 15, 1999
- Messages
- 798
Craig,
For what's worth...I always have zeroed-in on the MIDRANGE region of speakers (full range and otherwise) when auditioning/evaluating them (it works in any acoustical venue environment regardless, so long as we know what to look for); if rim shots of snare drums, for instance (am awfully sensitive to such sounds being that I played drums for many years) fail to be reproduced with believable sonics (transient attack), then there are huge intrinsic design flaws!
To illustrate, I once bought a pair of a highly hyped speaker model straight from a certain speaker engineer/designer who resided not too far from my stomping grounds back then, a manufacturer that ironically currently seems to be enjoying unprecedent success (or so it seems given the accolades owners of his new speaker designs heap upon the various models available from his current company), spite of the sonic thumbprint "problem" (at first I couldn't quite identify what aurally bothered me until I went back to listen to other loudspeakers; the differences were amazingly revealing to say the least!).
Anyway, the HF unit he utilized on that particular design(the ubiquitous D-21 tweeter from Dynaudio) was indeed "sweet" sounding, without inducing listener's fatigue, which is as it should be.
Bass performance was sort of cameleon-like...oh, well; better leave this area alone for the time being!
I could have forgiven everything else that pair of speakers did wrong had the midband frequency range performed accurately, but, no...their wet noodle-like performance (lack of ballsy transient attack) eventually drove me up the wall!
I knew the midrange drivers used (cones made out of some sort of carbon/fiberglass concoction) were not up to par and said so to the designer. He was sort of indignant hearing my pointed criticisms (as well as other owners of said speaker model!), and actually offered me to swap the speakers for something else (back then I was running the audio society, so he was careful not to arouse my anger, if you know what I mean). I politely declined for very specific, personal reasons and kept 'em a while longer.
I eventually sold them to a loyal follower of that speaker manufacturer (mean spirited from my part? Nope...the guy who bought them stopped short of begging me to sell them to him so I obliged, thus helping me to recoup part of my initial expenditure in the process).
My next pair of "full range" transducers "got" the midrange (among other important areas) right, so I bought them (a prototype model which I got straight from another local speaker manufacturer
)...three times cheaper then the ones I sold to boot! They're my "big" HT system's main L&R transducers.
Anyhow, the moral of this little tirade is: get the midrange correct (as well as the HF region!) and everything else will fall into place (sort of!)...
-THTS
"...hi, my name is Frank...and am an SVS bassaholic..."
For what's worth...I always have zeroed-in on the MIDRANGE region of speakers (full range and otherwise) when auditioning/evaluating them (it works in any acoustical venue environment regardless, so long as we know what to look for); if rim shots of snare drums, for instance (am awfully sensitive to such sounds being that I played drums for many years) fail to be reproduced with believable sonics (transient attack), then there are huge intrinsic design flaws!
To illustrate, I once bought a pair of a highly hyped speaker model straight from a certain speaker engineer/designer who resided not too far from my stomping grounds back then, a manufacturer that ironically currently seems to be enjoying unprecedent success (or so it seems given the accolades owners of his new speaker designs heap upon the various models available from his current company), spite of the sonic thumbprint "problem" (at first I couldn't quite identify what aurally bothered me until I went back to listen to other loudspeakers; the differences were amazingly revealing to say the least!).
Anyway, the HF unit he utilized on that particular design(the ubiquitous D-21 tweeter from Dynaudio) was indeed "sweet" sounding, without inducing listener's fatigue, which is as it should be.
Bass performance was sort of cameleon-like...oh, well; better leave this area alone for the time being!
I could have forgiven everything else that pair of speakers did wrong had the midband frequency range performed accurately, but, no...their wet noodle-like performance (lack of ballsy transient attack) eventually drove me up the wall!
I knew the midrange drivers used (cones made out of some sort of carbon/fiberglass concoction) were not up to par and said so to the designer. He was sort of indignant hearing my pointed criticisms (as well as other owners of said speaker model!), and actually offered me to swap the speakers for something else (back then I was running the audio society, so he was careful not to arouse my anger, if you know what I mean). I politely declined for very specific, personal reasons and kept 'em a while longer.
I eventually sold them to a loyal follower of that speaker manufacturer (mean spirited from my part? Nope...the guy who bought them stopped short of begging me to sell them to him so I obliged, thus helping me to recoup part of my initial expenditure in the process).
My next pair of "full range" transducers "got" the midrange (among other important areas) right, so I bought them (a prototype model which I got straight from another local speaker manufacturer
)...three times cheaper then the ones I sold to boot! They're my "big" HT system's main L&R transducers. Anyhow, the moral of this little tirade is: get the midrange correct (as well as the HF region!) and everything else will fall into place (sort of!)...
-THTS
"...hi, my name is Frank...and am an SVS bassaholic..."
