Damn. a spin that good, with 127db output, 50Hz extension and all for $400? What's the catch?@watchnerd
Have you decided yet? Why don't you get a JBL EON615 and send it to @amirm for testing. Guitar Center has a 180 day return policy and even though this is NOT a high-end speaker, it will give you a taste of horns.
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Yeah, many.
First of all, my guitar amp, which is not even a reproducer...it's an 'instrument' with tone and timbre unto itself.
For the actual PA speakers I have (Electro Voice):
- They trade frequency response for loudness -- they go down to 55 Hz, but have 127 dB max output with a 15" speaker
- They're designed to be used in multiples via a mixing board to balance out a whole room. Up close, they often don't sound very good. Bad driver integration at close range.
- Audiophile criteria like imaging and depth aren't really part of the design criteria, which can result in pre-recorded music sounding a little odd or flat, more 'canned'
- Super lame sounding at low volumes
- Big, burly, durable, and butt ugly
But with measurements that good, it would seem that most of the negatives you listed wouldn't apply here.
Yeah, many.
For the actual PA speakers I have (Electro Voice):
- They trade frequency response for loudness -- they go down to 55 Hz, but have 127 dB max output with a 15" speaker
- They're designed to be used in multiples via a mixing board to balance out a whole room. Up close, they often don't sound very good. Bad driver integration at close range.
- Audiophile criteria like imaging and depth aren't really part of the design criteria, which can result in pre-recorded music sounding a little odd or flat, more 'canned'
- Super lame sounding at low volumes
- Big, burly, durable, and butt ugly
This a very entry level all-in-PA, with 2 mic/line inputs and some knobs for settings. They're made to the cheapest possible standards, just good and durable enough to get the message accross to the public, literally, with a good degree of intelligibility.Damn. a spin that good, with 127db output, 50Hz extension and all for $400? What's the catch?
I would like to see ASR test some of the top PA speakers .. they generally do what is listed above, don't sound lame, do cost >$5000 per box. Providing quality sound at near or mid-field is one thing; the ability to cover +2000 people with the same quality has advanced immensely in the last 10 years and is huge credit to smart people and advances in DSP.
Damn. a spin that good, with 127db output, 50Hz extension and all for $400? What's the catch?
But with measurements that good, it would seem that most of the negatives you listed wouldn't apply here.
The good radiation pattern is something to note though, achieved by the horn and a huge diffraction lens in front of the midwoofer...
This a very entry level all-in-PA, with 2 mic/line inputs and some knobs for settings. They're made to the cheapest possible standards, just good and durable enough to get the message accross to the public, literally, with a good degree of intelligibility.
You'll find them with DJs and keyboarders hired to entertain a wedding or company party, and shops use this to praise their goods in presentations in front of their doors, all that kind of stuff.
The good radiation pattern is something to note though, achieved by the horn and a huge diffraction lens in front of the midwoofer, and JBL choose wisely to keep that innovative aspect of the design a much as possible in the actual product whereas they cheaped out on construction costs, given the extremely low retail price. With the huge quantities involved, the molded enclosuse makes sense, it helps to cut build and assembly cost. But it is not overly rigid nor well-damped. The drivers are cheap, the electronics are cheap. There is zero love involved in making those speakers and thats how they sound like in the end.
I am not aware of any such [diffraction]horns being tested by Harman, presumably because their focus was on evaluating competitors, and such horns are numerically insignificant in the home audio marketplace.
Go for it.
I already own a PA speaker.
And still too ugly for my living room and doesn't integrate with my current gear easily.
And except for the loudness, I'm not sure what the EON would be better at compared to my current monitors.
If you already own a PA speaker that you don't like the sound of, then it necessarily must measure badly. This speaker measures excellently, so it will sound excellent(ie nothing like the PA speakers you've heard). That's the point of these spinoramara style measurements, is it not?
Huh?
When I was referring to my "current monitors", I was not speaking of my Electro Voice PA speakers, but my living room monitors (Dynaudio Contour 20).
If you're convinced that Spinorama tells you everything you need to know about speaker quality, perhaps you can buy the EONs.
I wasn't talking about your current monitors. I was talking about your outdoor PA speakers you use. You said they don't sound very good, that means they also must not measure very good. Given that these do measure very good, they won't sound like your PA speakers.
Spinorama doesn't tell you everything, but the main thing it doesn't tell you - max output - these speakers also have in spades.
It will certainly not sound bad and JBL will sure have tried to make "best possible compromises" within that budget, it's just that one should *not* expect to have a very refined speaker here but you might indeed get a thrill from the dynamics and effortlessness these speakers will still have in spades.I am somewhat afraid that the EON615 will measure well and sound great at normal SPLs, because it will have meant that all my audiophile speaker purchases have been audiofoolery and I am paying for appearances only.
My personal preference is for horns which do not rely on deliberately diffractive features to achieve constant directivity. I am not aware of any such horns being tested by Harman...
There is one exception: as I understand it the Sprinkle waveguide (JBL M2/7/3/SCL/HDI) is a sophisticated diffraction horn.
It will certainly not sound bad and JBL will sure have tried to make "best possible compromises" within that budget, it's just that one should *not* expect to have a very refined speaker here but you might indeed get a thrill from the dynamics and effortlessness these speakers will still have in spades.
Floyd Toole himself has said (what the science shows thread on AVS) that spinorama data combined with max output data is sufficient to characterize the sound of loudspeaker, so you're also disagreeing with Toole and the best audio science we have.
The spinorama may be the single most powerful predictive tool in existence today, but imo the science of psychoacoustics is still an open canon. I don't think either Toole or Olive claim that it tells the whole story.
From Sean Olive's landmark papers, A Multiple Regression Model for Predicting Loudspeaker Preference Using Objective Measurements: Part II – Development of the Model:
"LIMITATIONS OF MODEL
"The conclusions of this study may only be safely generalized to the conditions in which the tests were performed. Some of the possible limitations are listed below.
"1. Up to this point, the model has been tested in one listening room.
"2. The model doesn't include variables that account for nonlinear distortion (and to a lesser extent, perceived spatial attributes).
"3. The model is limited to the specific types of loudspeakers in our sample of 70."
After all, small dB differences (low Q) over multiple octaves can affect the perceived voicing of a speaker, even if it looks basically flat on a graph. This is easy to simulate with EQ, and subjectively obvious if one plays with wide spectrum tilt EQ.
Even @amirm listens to speakers after he measures them....