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From: greg@oliven.UUCP (Greg Paley)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: How to evaluate speakers
Message-ID: <810@oliven.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Feb-85 19:45:31 EST
Article-I.D.: oliven.810
Posted: Tue Feb 26 19:45:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 20:59:29 EST
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I find that what I listen for, when evaluating speakers, is the
degree to which the human element in the performance itself is
allowed to come through.  Good speakers get out of my way and
allow the performance to take place with no sense of pushing,
prodding, or hyping it up.  Many speakers produce a spectacular
effect, but do so my imposing their own obvious colorations onto
every recording, which becomes monotonous and fatiguing in
extended listening, even though they may seem to be far more
impressive on a quick A/B comparison.

This means that the records I choose to compare speakers are
of great performances rather than audiophile spectaculars.
In fact, poor recordings can sometimes be more revealing than
good ones since good equipment will reproduce accurately the
noise and flaws of a poor recording, but still allow as much
as possible of the music to emanate through these whereas poor
equipment will add its own colorations and distortions to those
on the poor recording itself, sometimes making the result
unlistenable.  Things like the Telarc "Time Warp" CD might
sound spectacular on many systems, but find one that can extract
the tremendous unanimity and fire the NBC Symphony orchestra
projects, under Toscanini's direction, on the 1941 recording
of the Immolation Scene from "Goetterdammerung", along with
the power and richness of Helen Traubel's voice, in spite
of what was poor recording even in its day, and you've made
a real find.

	- Greg Paley