Tell me the best measure of these two

[RiseFall123]

Hi,

 

I'm attaching two pictures that are two measurements that I took in my room, of two very different loudspeakers (same chain).

 

According to you, which is the best? I don't mean who "goes down" or "raise high" better, I mean, what is the best, what to prefer according to you.

[ecwl]

I’m confused by the question.
Moreover I don’t understand why in 1, both left right speakers have similar room peaks and troughs but in 2, they don’t. 
I guess most people can ignore the overloading of some bass peaks in 1 and would prefer that? But it’s possible people would prefer 2 because the bass doesn’t overwhelm the music as much and they are able to ignore the channel imbalance. 
frequency response is just one of many possible measurements so even though it affects what most people prefer, there can also be other factors that affect speaker preferences. 

[RiseFall123]

It's weird.

 

I switch the speakers on "2", leaving exactly the same position and toe-in, and now the channels imbalance is very reduced.

 

Then I switch again and then channel imbalance come back. And again, again and again. Same results. Weird! They maybe need warm-in (they're new)?

[ecwl]

51 minutes ago, RiseFall123 said:

Then I switch again and then channel imbalance come back. And again, again and again. Same results. Weird! They maybe need warm-in (they're new)?

You can figure out whether it’s an electronics issue or a speaker issue by switching the left and right channels. That way you don’t have to move the speakers. Just flip one set of stereo cables around and you’re good to move forward. 

[cjf]

Plot 1 looks significantly better IMO than Plot 2. Only you can say which one sounds better despite this.

 

The channel matching alone on Plot 1 is all I am going on here. That's an important factor. Removing the peaks isn't too difficult to make it even better

[RiseFall123]

19 hours ago, ecwl said:

You can figure out whether it’s an electronics issue or a speaker issue by switching the left and right channels.

 

I even did't think about the electronic issue because my older speakers on Plot 1 measured always very alligned, it's a great idea to switch the cables next time I have something weird like this.

 

12 hours ago, cjf said:

The channel matching alone on Plot 1 is all I am going on here.

 

After "switching" phisically the speakers on Plot 2 they measured more similar but not similar as in the Plot 1.

 

Now I am back to the speakers on the Plot 1, to understand what I like more, don't know If I will give another chance to the speakers of the Plot 2.

 

BTW, the Plot 1 is Indiana Line Diva 660 (maybe not famous in your country) and the Plot 2 is the new Elac DBR62.

[ecwl]

23 hours ago, RiseFall123 said:

After "switching" phisically the speakers on Plot 2 they measured more similar but not similar as in the Plot 1.

 

Now I am back to the speakers on the Plot 1, to understand what I like more, don't know If I will give another chance to the speakers of the Plot 2.

 

BTW, the Plot 1 is Indiana Line Diva 660 (maybe not famous in your country) and the Plot 2 is the new Elac DBR62.

Can I clarify something?

When you’re measuring Plot 2, did you remove your Indiana Line Diva 660 from their current position and then put the Elac where the Indiana Line are? Or did you just put the Elac beside the 660 and then compare them and measure?

 

Low bass frequency response is very speaker position dependent (because it’s very room dependent). If you want to really hear what the Elac sounds like compared to your Indiana Diva, you should really put them at the same spot (which is a hassle and prevents quick A/B testing).

 

Moreover, I can easily imagine scenarios where theoretically speaker A is better than speaker B but in a specific room and at specific placements, speaker B sounds better than speaker A simply because of the bass frequency response interactions.

[RiseFall123]

6 hours ago, ecwl said:

When you’re measuring Plot 2, did you remove your Indiana Line Diva 660 from their current position and then put the Elac where the Indiana Line are?

 

Yes, I even took a photograph to see exactly the position of the Diva and then put there exactly the Elac and their stands. Even respected the same toe-in.

 

Thank you for the advices.

[ecwl]

Assuming you have no DSP applied, my guess based on your original measurements of the Elac is that the the cyan line represent the true frequency response (with room effects) from the Elac and I really don't understand why the magenta line is so different from the cyan one unless the speakers are really different (unlikely unless there is a QC issue) or there is an electronics issue (also unlikely if you don't have this problem with the Indiana Line).

 

Regardless, it's very clear Elac has less bass than the Indiana Line. But that might end up being better for your room or you may prefer it more. Hard to know without listening in person.

[RiseFall123]

There where any DSP applied, that was the natural response of the room that Dirac measure to make its correction after.

 

As I said before, I took the Elac on the left (with less bass) and switch phisically to the Elac on the right (that has better bass) and re-measure: now the measure is better, there is more bass in the previous Elac on the left.

 

Switching again (phisically) and I obtain the same result of the first time: Elac on the left has very less bass.

 

The switch again (always phisically) and again the bass response is better.

 

I assume the Elacs, that are consecutive serial number, are different in response of the bass from each other.

 

Maybe it could be a burn-in issue, but I won't now, I give them back for now, maybe in the future I will buy another couple and I am very curious to test again.

[ecwl]

19 minutes ago, RiseFall123 said:

There where any DSP applied, that was the natural response of the room that Dirac measure to make its correction after.

Ah... That makes a lot more sense now.

 

Yeah, Dirac is a lie. It cannot just measure the “natural response of the room”

Whenever it does a correction, it is always doing a room AND speaker correction.

So if you really want to compare speakers and you’re running Dirac, you must create a new Dirac filter using the same target frequency response for the new Elac. Otherwise, you’re actually not comparing apples to apples. 

 

Let’s imagine the following scenario as a thought experiment. Let’s at your Left Indiana Line Diva 660 speaker does not match your right one and is actually 5dB softer in the bass than the right one. Your current Dirac filter might have corrected that so both speakers sound the same volume. But now let’s say your Elac only has a small 1dB mismatch in the bass, your Indiana Line Diva 660 Dirac filter applied to the Elac would totally create a much larger bass mismatch.

 

Bottomline is that if you’re running DSP filters, you have to create new ones when you switch speakers if you want to do a truly fair comparison. Any interpretation you’re making about the Elac right now is wrong.

 

Alternatively, you can just turn off the Dirac filters for both the Indiana Line DIva 660 & Elac and do the comparison. That would also be fair.

[RiseFall123]

I don't understand.

 

When I measure the "natural room response" in Dirac, Dirac will always turn off any previous correction because for it, it's the first time that it measure the room.

 

Why you think that Dirac measure the room with a correction enabled?

[ecwl]

Sorry we are just misunderstanding each other. Do you mean you have one Dirac filter for Indiana Line and another Dirac filter that you re-measured for Elac? If that’s the case that’s fine. 

[ecwl]

3 hours ago, RiseFall123 said:

I don't understand.

 

When I measure the "natural room response" in Dirac, Dirac will always turn off any previous correction because for it, it's the first time that it measure the room.

 

Why you think that Dirac measure the room with a correction enabled?

Or maybe what I’m trying to say is that:

When you first run Dirac with your Indiana Line Diva 660, even though Dirac says it is measuring “natural room response”, Dirac is not. Dirac is still measuring “natural room response” AND Indiana Line Diva 660. It is just how the physics of it works. Short of putting your speakers in an anechoic speakers and measuring it, it is impossible to just measure “natural room response” without measuring contributions from your Indiana Line Diva 660 speakers. Despite all the marketing/instructional materials from Dirac.

 

So now that you’ve created this “natural room response” filter with Indiana Line Diva 660, you can’t use it with other filters. This room correction filter is specific for Indiana Line Diva 660.

 

If you switch speakers, you need to re-run Dirac specifically for the new pair of speakers.

 

[RiseFall123]

4 hours ago, ecwl said:

Do you mean you have one Dirac filter for Indiana Line and another Dirac filter that you re-measured for Elac?

 

Sure, because everytime you "measure" with Dirac Live it will do without any dsp or correction enabled.

 

1 hour ago, ecwl said:

Dirac is still measuring “natural room response” AND Indiana Line Diva 660

 

Sure. But, to be less precise, with any good/normal speaker you should measure the main issues of the room. In fact, more or less, what I measure with different speakers is similar in drop and peaks. I am saying, leaving the same sweet spot, same speakers positions, same furnitures, etc.