$3K Speaker Eval Event Planning and Preparation

The stage will not be an issue going forward, as I have cut out a section so that it is level with the floor. I cut out a section that is 30 inches deep (stage sticks out 18 inches from wall in that spot) and it is 42" wide from as close to the equipment cabinet as I could get (less than 6 inches on each side of the cabinet now) and cut out from there 42 inches... basically all the way over to the big subwoofer cabinets. Cardas recommends .618% of room height (from front and side walls) for panel speakers, which is about 5 feet and that puts my Prodigy's just about center of the cutout side to side and nearly center of the front of the stage plane.

I have also added corner traps in the rear corners and QRD diffusors to the back of each sub. Just a few changes. :bigsmile:

I like the idea of having less songs myself. It will also be easier to remember each and compare from speaker to speaker. It makes sense that it will be easier when there is less to remember. I actually felt more rushed when we had so many songs.

I think we need to take a little time and experiment with A/B'ing a couple of speakers that share very close to the same placement... taking measurements with the speaker by itself and one next to it to see if there is significant interference from that speaker being placed next to it. I have experimented a good bit with the Paradigms and Arx with the OSD speaker switch and remote control... pretty interesting to say the least.

AudiocRaver said:

A few early thoughts...

• Per Sonnie's suggestion, I am leaning toward changing from 12th-oct to 6th-oct smoothing on published curves in review/summary posts. I fussed & whined a little, then remembered that Sonnie has about 5,000x the business sense that I do (more like approaching infinity since mine is practically zero and falling), so if he thinks it is a good idea, it probably is. Thoughts?

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• 
  
  I would also lean to 6th octave smoothing - seems like that tends to hide certain room modes which would somewhat take the room out of the equation - is that right?
  
  

  AudiocRaver said:

  [*]Word on the web (where everything is true) is that playing a FLAC file on a device can sound different from playing a WAV file on that device because the FLAC decompression loads the device more. Assuming a quality playback device that is not on the verge of crashing, I believe this is a fairy tale. HOWEVER - sticking with WAVs is easy - free - so why not simply eliminate the question altogether? I suggest our standard for test tracks going forward be
  

  • all WAV format
  • all ripped using DBPowerAmp or EAC, "traceable," where possible, to a CD or known-pristine source
  • where we shorten tracks or create a medley, always use zero gain and no dithering (pretty sure I did this before, will check)

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  Agreed.
  
  

  AudiocRaver said:

  [*]I think it is good that we shortened some tracks to essentials, and I will probably do so further with some of mine - not Ode T.A.B., though - but Sonnie has suggested we might have gone in the wrong direction by adding so many, and maybe need to reduce again. I have mixed feelings, have been surprised some times by hearing something noteworthy where I least expected to, and like the variety... But then that Sonnie is a pretty smart cookie... Thoughts?

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  I would be fine with having that many tracks again as long as we understand that each of us may not listen to every track. Also, we should try to have the track list set to go before we get together to remove that first 3am night...
  
  

  AudiocRaver said:

  [*]For future "on the stage" measurements (there is value in doing it, but it needs to be kept brief, so...):
  

  • have a standard close-to-the-wall location for all such measurements
  • set there with a quick pointed-at-the-ear (on-axis) toe-in angle check
  • run two REW plots for speaker matching check (if Sonnie has not already)
  • quickly determine optimum toe-in without changing location
  • have 3 tracks chosen for that eval spot, each of us gets 3 to 5 minutes tops for eval

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  Agreed - the only purpose is to give a small idea of what they may sound like pinned to a wall - which most two channel listeners will likely not do anyway.
  
  

  AudiocRaver said:

  [*]Where volume & power handling capability is the main goal...
  

  • have a decided-upon sequence of tracks
  • set to a standard volume with pink noise & SPL meter
  • just for those tracks, evaluators rotate through the LP without changing the level so we all hear the same thing

  Click to expand...

AudiocRaver said:

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Agreed.

Sonnie said:

The stage will not be an issue going forward, as I have cut out a section so that it is level with the floor. I cut out a section that is 30 inches deep (stage sticks out 18 inches from wall in that spot) and it is 42" wide from as close to the equipment cabinet as I could get (less than 6 inches on each side of the cabinet now) and cut out from there 42 inches... basically all the way over to the big subwoofer cabinets. Cardas recommends .618% of room height (from front and side walls) for panel speakers, which is about 5 feet and that puts my Prodigy's just about center of the cutout side to side and nearly center of the front of the stage plane.

I have also added corner traps in the rear corners and QRD diffusors to the back of each sub. Just a few changes. :bigsmile:

I like the idea of having less songs myself. It will also be easier to remember each and compare from speaker to speaker. It makes sense that it will be easier when there is less to remember. I actually felt more rushed when we had so many songs.

I think we need to take a little time and experiment with A/B'ing a couple of speakers that share very close to the same placement... taking measurements with the speaker by itself and one next to it to see if there is significant interference from that speaker being placed next to it. I have experimented a good bit with the Paradigms and Arx with the OSD speaker switch and remote control... pretty interesting to say the least.

Click to expand...

My goodness - we have been the busy bee, haven't we?! I think if we can have the track list in place before we get together and just have the six speakers, we should definitely be able to swing this.

Is there actually any singing in those? I hear some screaming, but no singing.

We had 12 songs the first go around and I think that worked out a lot better than the last round.

I think when we get into so many songs, it gets hard to remember from one speaker to the next because we heard so many songs. I just don't see the necessity of having to listen to so many songs to be able to evaluate differences between speakers.

Maybe we should have 4 of the same songs we all listen too... each of us pick one song... or we just all come to a mutual agreement on those four. Like we know OTAB would definitely be one. That way we at least have a few songs we can mutually compare or discuss if needed. We have four folders on the USB drive titled with our names. In those four folders will be those 4 songs plus 6 more songs that we pick for ourselves. That is 10 songs we each get to listen to. We probably average 2-3 minutes per song, that is 20-30 minutes each and about 1.5-2 hours per speaker... or about 2-2.5 hours per speaker if we decide to have a guest... time we get up, sit down, play merry-go-round, blab a few words, etc. AND THAT does NOT include the up close to the front wall listening session, which we could limit strictly to the four songs.

Getting more precise on time ...

20 minutes for front wall setup... (includes measurements* and pictures).
40 minutes for listening... (10 minutes for each to listen to 4 songs each).
30 minutes for finding the best placement out in the room... (includes measurements* and pictures)
120 minutes for listening... (30 minutes for each to listen to 10 songs each).

3.5 hours total for each speaker. Again, this doe not include a guest, which I am thinking we may need to just not do the guest thing. While it would be nice and fun, it is going to limit our ability to get things done the right way and in a timely fashion. I was seriously rushed last time on several of the speakers simply because I know we had to hurry.

* I will have measured for speaker to speaker response. I will do this as they come in, so that hopefully we have time to get replacements in if we have a bad match. The only measurements we will be doing is to show the measurements for the locations for which we were listening.

We can do one speaker in the morning time... break and each lunch. We can do one speaker after lunch.. break and eat a snack. Then do one speaker after snack... then break and eat dinner. Then after dinner we can watch a movie the first night... and the second night we might want to do some A/B'ing between a few speakers just for some fun.


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After further consideration, scratch my Slayer suggestion. I don't think I could listen to that or any of the above songs more than once.

We need to pick something more mainstream by a group that is more well known... especially since we are only listening to one song. Let's try to steer away from the headbanging/screaming noise, because that is really all it is ... noise. I suspect there are VERY few that listen to that on a regular basis... and when they do, they ain't caring about how good the speakers are.

On the first round we had Lynyrd Skynryd Simple Man... but that is more like southern rock, not metal. We had Pink Floyd Dogs of War. While Pink Floyd has a lot of metal in their music, it usually involves long intros before singing. It is also more of a mellow type metal... not quite as dynamic as what we probably need.

Metal song: I am extremely flexible. I thought you meant METAL, which to me is the really dense sound. The tracks I suggested all had some singing, although I will admit even that is open to interpretation in some cases.

If we are just looking for a "heavier" track, then there are tons of possibilities. I can see the value in hearing a track with a really dense, highly compressed, pretty heavy sound so we can hear how the speaker handles that kind of sound. But I may be the outlier with that opinion, and I am certainly not stuck on it. My only suggestions would end up being more extreme, so I will defer to you gents. One of the heavier tracks from our August list would be fine, or whatever.

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because that is really all it is ... noise. I suspect there are VERY few that listen to that on a regular basis...

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I am only slightly offended.:innocent:

and when they do, they ain't caring about how good the speakers are.

Click to expand...

:innocent:

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I like the idea of several tracks in common with each of us being able to have some individual tracks. Familiarity is a factor, and for a certain listening quality Joe might have a trusty track that he turns to, Leonard his own favorite, etc.

Sounds like you are suggesting that each listener stick to his set of tracks, though, no jumping around, so he hears the same thing on all 6 sets of speakers. There is wisdom in that idea.

It can still be accomplished with playlists. The nice thing about using playlists is a listener could have several of his own playlists with different order, even a few tracks with L/R channels flipped if he wanted it (are you OK with that idea, Sonnie????? just curious) if they want the variety. For me, a little variety like that helps keep my listening brain fresh and interested. It might not matter at all to some, but on about the third go-round in the same order with no variation, my brain starts saying this again? I will come up with my own way to organize my notes if needed.

I would be happy weighting the mix of common/individual tracks more 50/50 or even 60/40.

Power handling test tracks: we need to find a way for this to be done at the same SPL for all speakers and listeners.

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I think 5 or 6 minutes per listener with the speakers close the the wall is enough, 30 min total seems more than enough - we might do a fixed medley for that.

The other times you suggest look fine.

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Mixed feelings on the guest idea. Fun for the forum/members, maybe some fun/definitely some burden for us. Seating, listening time (would have to be limited, 10 min / spkr?) unknown personality factors..... But we might meet some cool people, too.

Whatever Sonnie says.....

Not sure how you listen to it... I tried listening to quite a bit of stuff on YouTube and it really creeped me out. Some of that stuff is satanic demonic phonic. As Jim (theJman) calls it... "death metal". Creepy.... CREEPY... CREEPY!

Here are a few Jim recommended:

Rush (Limelight, The Spirit Of Radio, Subdivisions and Tom Sawyer)
Stone Temple Pilots (Wicked Garden, Creep, Plush, Interstate Love Song or Vaseline)
Soundgarden (Spoonman, Outshined and Fell On Black Days)
Motley Crue (Kick Start My Heart)
Sevendust (Black)
Nickleback (Burn It To The Ground)
Testament (Electric Crown)
Disturbed (Land Of Confusion)
Sixx AM (Life Is Beautiful)

I did here a few Metallica songs that were not too bad. "One" (studio version) was pretty neat with the explosions and machine guns and helicopter in the beginning. It has some excellent guitar and the drums kick in later on and it sounds pretty dynamic... with singing I can actually understand. Seems like a lot of stuff going on in the song that could make it interesting... although it takes it a while to get going.

A song I haven't thought about until now is Ted Nugent Stranglehold... love that song. I might even use it as one of my own songs. The first 2:30 is pretty good for demo.

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I don't have any problem with how you want to listen to your songs or in what order of if you want to flip L and R channels. For me... I can listen to mine in the same order each time. It helps me remember from one listening session to the next. I know what to expect. Personally, I think jumbling them up might confuse me more. I prefer everything for me to be exactly the same from listening session to listening session. Listening to 10 songs critically on six occasions with several hours in between each is really not a big deal at all for me. I don't pay that much attention to all of the songs while others are listening... not enough for it to bother me. And if we swap up half of them then I am going to be hearing a lot of different stuff anyway.


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We can do 5 common songs and 5 of our own. I just figured 4 common since there were 4 of us, then that would gives us more to pick for ourselves.


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The more I think about it, the more I suggest we drop the guest idea. For one... we don't really have the room to put him up here at the house and it would make things even more cramped for you all if made room. Three of you sharing a bathroom is tough enough... four might get too burdensome.