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From: ebh@hou4b.UUCP (Ed Horch)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: How to evaluate speakers
Message-ID: <1335@hou4b.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Feb-85 09:45:49 EST
Article-I.D.: hou4b.1335
Posted: Fri Feb 22 09:45:49 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Feb-85 01:38:04 EST
Organization: AT&T-ISL, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 41

>> [Walt Barnes]
>> having another set of speakers (just setting there not playing
>> anything) in the room makes it impossible to evaluate anything.

> [Dave Wagner]
> How convenient for the golden-ears crowd that this reasoning makes
> A/B speaker comparisons impossible!  I'll take my chances on the
> passive vibrations rather than on my long-term sonic memory when
> evaluating speakers!

This fact doesn't make A/B-ing speakers impossible, just more difficult.
What you do is take the one set of speakers out of the room while
listening to the other.  A good dealer will let you schedule a private
audition after normal store hours and will have extra employees present
to swap speakers out of the room for you.  When this is done smoothly,
the time it takes to swap out a pair of speakers is not significantly
longer than the time it takes to switch the speaker cables.  Thus,
you're not depending upon long-term sonic memory at all.  I once
compared four sets of speakers this way.

Of course, this becomes more difficult when the speakers in question are
the 8-foot tall Acoustats and the Infinity Reference System, in which
case you have two separate rooms with identical systems in them and you
move, not the speakers.

Of course, the biggest problem here is finding a dealer that is willing
to go to all that trouble for you.  Where I used to live, I knew such a
dealer, who also would let me do things like compare turntables (in this
case the Linn Sondek LP-12 and the Sonographe SG-1) by mounting, while I
watched, Linn Basik arms & cartridges on both tables.

The last thing I want to say is that I am posting this in the hopes that
the "Extra Speaker" debate does not fire up again.  If you don't think
extra speakers make a difference, that's fine.  If you do, then try what
I suggest, if you can.

-Ed Horch   {ihnp4,akgua,houxm}!hou4b!ebh

"A record played two years after the recording session has 1.3 trillion
degrees of phase shift at 20KHz."  -P.Greenspun, CMJ 8:4, p. 13.