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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มี.ค. 2023
- We took five powered speakers, put them on a high powered turn table, hid them from view, and asked a bunch of friends which sounded best. Speakers in the blind listening test:
JBL 305p MkII: amzn.to/42Oo1Pl
Neumann KH 80: amzn.to/40r4DG3
Edifier R1280T: amzn.to/3ZfKmSU
RCF Arya 5 Pro: amzn.to/3ZeWjrH
Recommended Book: Sound Reproduction: amzn.to/3nnuh0b
Full write up of this blind listening test: www.audioscien...
First listening test write up: www.audioscien...
Good intro to loud speaker measurements: www.audioholic...
A much deeper dive: www.edn.com/lo...
Full CTA-2034 (spinorama) spec: www.audioscien...
Thank you to Amir at / @audiosciencereview for the speaker loan and Erin at / @erinsaudiocorner for the Klippel NFS footage.
I have the JBL LSR 305 Mk1 for maybe 10 years now and still am amazed by the sound they reproduce. I have since added the JBL sub to complete it. Thanks so much for doing this blind test and confirming how good the JBL's are.
I have the same set up love it
I had the JBL MKI for several years. It was my gateway to proper sound.
They are an amazing deal--the 305p MkII might be the best bang for the buck speaker on the market--full stop.
@@bitcubed what about the edifier s2000 which is much closer in price to the jbl
Brilliant. I'm sure the Golden Eared ones will come up with some asinine excuse to hate on this cause their favorite didn't win.
Great work. I can’t wait to see the next iteration. Suggest you use a sample size calculator to get a better sense of the number of participants/ measurements needed to find a significant difference. Might be a lot more than anticipated.
Good suggestion. I think in past studies numbers as low as 40 achieved significant results--ultimately we probably will have to settle for whatever we can get as this is just a hobby. I'd like to see 20+ participants in the next test we conduct.
Fantastic! We want more!
Definitely working on future testing and videos.
What a wonderful test set up! Would love a person who records music to listen to this test with a piece of music they recorded to give feedback on what sounds closest to original recording. That said I think your observation that the bookshelf with the most base won because of the deeper base is likely sound reasoning.
Great to see that expensive speakers doesn't really matter. It matters more what kind of sound each individual themselves prefer more.
I did similar test of various speakers (bw dm601, canton small satellites, elac 5", nht classic3, bose cubes, energy c50, maybe some others I forgot), but I ran the test with same subwoofer, and switched just the speakers. Because it was very apparent just the presence of lower bass skewed the perception of how good the speakers are.
I think this is important for smaller speakers that should be used with sub anyway.
Thanks a lot for putting so much effort into this! 👏
Tremendous work and good production for a first video about Audio. Subscribed. Wanna see more ! 🤘
Thank you! We have more tests in the planning stages.
Okay so this is completely kickass. Thank you thank you thank you!!
You're welcome!
Liked the video but just like to say that if the room shown in the last few seconds of the video was the listening room for the tests then it's not surprising that the results were so close.
That highly reflective and quite small room would have had a huge similar effect on the sound of all of those speakers.
I’m actually reading Toole’s book now. Brings me a step closer to understanding audio.
Impressed by the turntable and the slip ring set-up, but more impressed by the short video clip of the live tester in the room. You should post more of the different testers reacting in the room, that was entertaining.
I’ll keep that in mind for the next one. I’m not sure everyone would have wanted to me on camera :-)
Wait a minute. To his credit, this was an opinion survey of friends. Not surprisingly, they have different listener preferences than a professional, so these results are valid. That said, the best budget monitors IMO are the Adam's T7's. They far exceed the JBLs and are worth every cent of 250.00 each
Great work, this is what a real UN-biased comparison must look like, subscribed and waiting for more! Thanks for the hard work to put this together, cheers!
The Neumann KH120 probably would have been a more even competitor with the JBL. Phenomenal work!
I heard the KH120 II at 70dB SPL. They have a slightly more mids and slightly less treble than the 305P, and that's about all I can tell. I was expecting a lot more out of them considering they are 10x the price I paid for the JBLs.
well done… I am happy to see more and more blind testing… I guess it is hard to get enough data to have meaningful results… perhaps setting something like this up at an audio show with lots of attendees might be a good idea… just to get more data… keep up the good work!
Pretty amazing engineering feat. Thanks!
I honestly want to buy another pair of jbls just to make sure that if these go out I have a back lol. They sound soooo good!
Testing questions:
What was the experience of the listeners?
What was the gear used to evaluate the speakers with?
The MAIN measurement that tells a speakers musicality was apparently not conducted. This is the step response or impulse step response test.
When ALL of the speakers tested fail miserably at the Step Response test, is it surprising they scored so closely?
A pair of JBL's 305 and some DT770 PRO beyerdynamic headphones, and you can't go wrong for mixing music!!!
You serious? Dt770 pro has some weird treable boost, also compared to the bass it never sounds right... It could be usable but with heavy eq, simply stick to some hd600, 58x and call it a day
At the end of the video, you can hear just how reverberant the lsitening space is. No wonder they couldn't pick the difference between the speakers.
Congratulacion from CHILE happy
Fabulous work, well done to all concerned.
How about a follow up with some more sonically ambitious models?
Or do you feel that's not necessary?
Can you give some examples?
great test, please do more speakers ( passive vs active is rarely done, would to love to see the results of jbl 305 vs sony sscs5+aiyima a07 at the same total price of $230-$260)
I also tried a pair of the ayra 80s and while they appear to offer bang for buck, I never really thought much about them. Save your money.
Nice. In my opinion i really think that monitor speakers brands try so hard to make the engineering behind the speaker sound like rocket science just to justify the prices.. I'm not saying that the quality isn't there, but the law of diminishing returns is real. I recently build my own pair of studio monitor from scratch, based on a EVE audio SC3070, but with a vintage look like jbl L100, and it just sounds awesome!!
How much do you think is the markup of these EVE's?
I have Edifier R1280DBs it's great speakers for price !
Me too, I just love them!
Also, ideal positioning for one speaker is not the same as ideal positioning for another speaker. The test would give advantages to whichever speaker came closest to ideal positioning.
That room was not suitable for a proper listening room. Big glass surfaces, hard wall behind the listening position... You could hear the hard echo in his voice too.
not only that the speakers are being blocked by a cloth. Kh80 are much smaller and would have to be adjusted to ear level. This is really a bad test. They also try to make a big deal of the turntable but its a waste time if your not going to properly level the speakers, they could have just create pits to place the monitors in the same exact position and randomly move the monitors in and out
Great work!
Thanks!
Of course the difference in the image between two JBLs and Neumann's is night and day. I think you were correct that the JBLs extra bass helped it win out over the Neumann.
Great experiment! I've a pair of JBL 305p MKii paired with IFI Zen V2 and can attest that they are definitely fantastic monitors considering their price.
I agree.
You did a single speaker comparison? Monauralized tracks? Great effort. Keep on undressing the emperor!
Shocking--I know!
I love the idea and execution but miss something that I hope you address in the future.
You can't judge a speaker individually imho. You need to listen to a pair of them.
Somehow I find hard to believe that the Jbl are "better" than the Neumann having listened to them myself.
The Neumann sounds more "boring" at first but is somehow still a pretty flawless speaker for the price and a very serious
monitoring tool.
The Jbl sounds "clearer" at first , but in the long run this can often become fatiguing.
Very smart! But does listening to only one speaker at a time not impact perceived soundstage/imaging? An important point for many people I would think.
You don't have the effects you get from stereo listening, but listening in mono makes it much easier to identify any flaws in the speaker. The author of the book I mentioned, Dr. Toole, weighed in on this topic in the discussion thread: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/blind-listening-test-2-neumann-kh-80-vs-jbl-305p-mkii-vs-edifier-r1280t-vs-rcf-arya-pro5.43343/post-1536236
Nice work with the turntable! Would love to see you testing it in stereo, to also evaluate image quality. For me, it's an essential quality feature in speaker quality. Poor and lifeless staging can make music reproduction emotionless.
@@campercraftandtravel and then next we need some type of placement revolver to be used.
Harman does this.
Guys this was great and I would assume fun. I am an audio nut.... note, not an audiophile. So allow me to present a potential deeper dive. I have several sets of speakers and several amps.
My findings over the years, although not a blind test such as the one you did. I have a set of speakers, one set that is low-cost. As I stated I have a few amps, and this set sounded harsh, ear-piercing on one of those amps. Just not good.
NOT naming the brand of amp or speaker. Now play that same set of speakers on the same source and wire and a different amp. The sound was remarkable almost high-end, just by a different amplifier. I know this is not new... But based on your testing subjects, a couple low-cost amps might be a fun way to proceed.
I think the test is biased by the room acoustics.
If, for example, I choose the JBL from this test and after installation doesn’t work well with my room acoustics, then the proof is not useful.
This is why we look at frequency response curves, spinoramas, harmonic distorsion, etc.
And even with all those measurements nobody ensure that the room will match the speaker.
Doesn't the screen/curtain disguising which speaker is playing cause a significant loss of treble to the listener?
No, we're using speaker grill fabric, it is very thin. Also, all the speakers are equally impacted by what is probably a very small difference.
@@bitcubed😂slam
I appreciate your dedication, but it seems kinda wrong to test near field monitors in an untreated room with a blanket in front potentially altering the sound. I've listened to most of these speakers and while I would agree that the JBL and the Neumanns are the best out of them, your experiment seems wrong.
I'd suggest redoing the experiment with vision blocking glasses instead of a blanket and of course in a well treated room.
There definitely are sound differences that only become clear under these circumstances.
hi and thank you for the very interesting test usually powered speakers have decent amplifiers inside
the weak parts being the cabinet and the drivers My poor guy approach is to buy a speaker with decent amp and cabinet and replace the drivers with better ones Woofers in particular The results can be impressive indeed just replacing the usually cheap woofers
Cheap but good tweeters are not difficult to find especially if crossed close to 3kHz
Probably shouldn’t do inferential statistics with a small sample size
I don't disagree. We're looking to significantly expand the participants next time around.
Why did you choose the smaller Neumann with 4" driver to compare to the JBL 305p mk2 with a 5" woofer? It would have been interesting to see the results comparing the similarly sized Neumann KH120 compared to the JBL.
It’s what we had access to borrow from someone.
I’m enjoying my JBL 306p MkII. Need a subwoofer tho.
Audiophile and objectivity is like snake oil and water.
Wow and this is only the 305... I was considering the 306
306 is great too
Cool.
I was shopping on Amazon to find the cheapest powered monitor speaker to use as a stage monitor.
The winner was the JBL 305 mkII: used, like new for $70.
I was hoping to find something with a parametric EQ so I could try to avoid feedback but that seems to start at $250 and that's more than I wanted to spend. My fallback was the cheapest with XLR inputs and I decided that JBL was a safer bet than Pyle or some other private label China speaker.
The thing that sealed the deal was that JBL's 65 watts produces higher SPLs than the 300 watt peak to peak rated Pyles and similar.
The only things I don't like is it doesn't have a grill and it's not a floor wedge style speaker.
Hopefully it won't get kicked by a drunk karaoke singer and it can tolerate a drink getting spilled on it (my two major fears).
It seems like the thing I really don't have to fear is sound quality.
How come Genelecs weren't in the line -up?
No particular reason beyond not having any handy. They could easily be included in future tests.
Did you level the SPL also in the second test with the rotating table? If so, how? Without it, the test isn't worth anything. Also it doesn't look like a double blind test.
Main issues here: you tested studio monitor loudspeakers or alike ones 1.) MONO, in an obviously 2.) ACOUSTICALLY UNTREATED ROOM, with listeners 3.) SITTING FAR MORE AWAY as the use of this kind of speakers intends to.
So, as as result, this is one of those good examples how to get results from a test without any value.
1. Studio monitors and loudspeakers in general have to be used as a pair for spatial sound and stage. Sweetspot, stereo image - LOL. How do you want to judge about this aspects (you mentioned by yourself btw) without it?
2. Set a pair of highend loudspeakers in an acoustically untreated room (like the one in the video with lots of blank walls and a huge window. Do you think, it will perform like the manufacturer has meant it to perform - after measuring and tuning it while standing in an unechoic or heavily treated room? What do you think will the differences between loudspeakers be, when all has heavy reflections, delay, phase cancellations, modes... Perhaps they will more or less sound alike, huh?
3. Testing studio monitors mean to sit about 2 - 6 feet in front of you with listeners sitting somewhere far from this...okay, so what's the point then, when this monitors have a narrow radiation pattern to avoid first reflections from the side walls? You should test them in a way they are meant for. They have also be levelled (each one separately as every model is different concerning the perfect height for chassis-ear-angle). And a different model also reacts differently when it comes to modes and reflections (measured with REW?). You can't just listen to 5 different monitors all positioned the same. That's ridiculous.
And additionally, some of them have far more features (Neumann with it's DSP) to set the sound performance perfectly via Mac/PC or iPad. The Neumann is also a far more professional product not trying to do something a loudspeaker this size cannot. For full range, there is a matching Sub from Neumann. Also a measuring mic for setting the DSP. All little and cheap monitors may produce bass, but far away from resolving and precise. And: features and build quality and support and and and are important to explain prices. JBL plastic beginner monitor is better then a professional product with far more features to dial in the sound in a Studio, yeah sure...
All in all, it's an entertaining video. Perhaps the purpose was to lead us astray right from the start? 😉
You write that you are a tech geek who likes to learn. Well, way to go, I think.
Great stuff
Can you please continue exploring the audio domain?
I would be interested to see how close you can get with a budget setup + EQ-ing to an expensive system( for example, 1000-5000$ competing with 50000$; you could go with digital filters and a 2.2 system, bookshelf pair + a closed subwoofer for each channel).
Maybe I will shoot a video of my listening room. I think it fits. Total build was under 2k and I’d put it up against far more expensive systems happily. You can read about it here: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/revel-in-wall-and-multi-sub-optimized-mso-listening-room-build.42185/
2000 system in a good room will beat a 5000 or even 50000 system in a bad room any day. The room is the most important component
in an audio chain, then comes the speakers , then everything else , in that order
Very cool! Just curious, though, why (and how) did you eq the Edifier and not the others?
We used the anechoic measurements of the speaker to create an EQ for the on-axis frequency response. We applied this to the audio interface channel it was running in. The Edifier had objectively bad frequency response but pretty good directivity which means it should take to EQ well. We just wanted to see how it would perform after correction. Much better than without but not as good as the speakers that had good frequency response to start. I’d you follow the link to the written write up in the description there are graphs of all the speakers.
great work
Thanks!
Interesting gig...how does JBL stack up to Kali?
Great video
yes, the mouth likes to speak on its own for all there is, be it sense or the world, just like children do.
It takes a significant measure of self-control and awareness development, to go beyond our instincts and against our fallacies, especially, when delving into subjective taste.
I love suggesting people try the home made 'pepsi challenge', in other words, a blind test, but rather than audio, anything with a smell in the house: garlic, oranges, poop, a rose, etc.
It's also less frustrating than listening to a "black cloth" hehe, although not entirely free either of a certain modicum of fatigue and annoyance as our visual language struggles to find the words for what we know without a doubt to recognise and have experienced since ever.
great video, and sorry for the 'essay'
Your conclusions about a flat frequency response sounding "neutral" are not accurate. What a flat on-axis response does is make all the imaging cues in the recording work. What you hear on axis is first-arrival. That is where you pick up all your imaging cues (other than "space"). Tonality which is where neutral comes into play, is not purely on-axis but heavily dominated by room response. Whether a flat on-axis speaker had a good room response is dependent on the speaker and room. This is where the regular off-axis comes into play. Further into this, tonality changes with listening volume due to Fletcher-Munson curves, so any given preference curve for room response is influenced by listening level.
What were the equalization settings used for the Edifier? I noticed they sound way better with eq too.
@@luca_rr4660 you can find it here: raw.githubusercontent.com/pierreaubert/spinorama/develop/datas/eq/Edifier%20R1280T/iir-autoeq.txt
You can browse around this site for more: www.spinorama.org
This is not just MASSIVELY overkill on one hand, but its actually flawed on the other hand. Who the hell puts blankets in front of speakers when doing critical comparisons like that??? :D Oh my god. You have never heard of killing the lights and/or pulling shades over the windows? Also, doing a test like that in a regular living room without any sound improvement to the room itself..anything below about 500hz youre basically getting random results where different speakers either match or dont match up well with the specific rooms and speakers placement acoustic response. No offence but this right here is why youtube can sometimes be very misleading when people try to educate themselves watching it. This is NOT how you compare speakers.
We will spin your chanell up
I'm interested in how you set up that "slip ring" and how it works. Can you provide some links or video?
There isn't a lot to it, you basically have a device with X wires in and X wires out, and you connect whatever you want. You can buy slip rings with anywhere from 2 to 12+ connectors. There are different types of slip rings for slightly different use cases. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_ring
Here is what we used:
12 wire (audio path): amzn.to/3IjdanQ
3 wire (ac power): amzn.to/41IlkNh
We routed the AC power down the center hole of the audio path.
HA - using Erin's footage for the Klippel. =) ..Does he know?
- 10 points to me for NOT reading the entire caption or watching the entire videos before posting... lol.. Typical online behaviour.. Disregard. =)
Also, this video is way too short for the depth of information.... the carousel itself is a video on its own...
@@pretol2730 probably true. We’ve been meaning to fix it and run another session but haven’t had time.
I have the JBL 305p MkIs, I like them... nothing compared to my actual HiFi system though.
What speakers are you using in your "actual HiFi system"?
@@histubeness Technics 1200mk5g with Nagaoka MP-200 running into a Darlington Labs MP-7 phono preamp into a Rega Brio into ELAC Debut Reference speakers.
@@ConnahJay Are your Elac Debut Reference pair the stand mount version, or towers?
@@histubeness I have them on stands
i think the ending of this video kind a says it all.
i give this an a for efford.
however the overall results of this very execution are not to be taken serious.
just to many assumptions
WoW!!!
You should mention the JBL's are pretty much unusable in nearfield due to hiss from the amplifier.
I used them nearfield and didn't have ot deal with hiss. use balanced cables and make sure you don't have a ground loop in your system. They were very quite for me.
Mines perfectly usable. Go ask for a refund.
Hate to be negative. This is so subjective. First, speakers need to be paired with what should be the best match equipment, including cables. (No equipment is listed). Second, listening to speakers behind a curtain? Did you notice no one is using grilles anymore? Third, every speaker need the proper installation. (Sitting on a couch at the end of the room?)
Some speakers were flat on a wood table, a big nono, some were on bases. For tweeter alignment? It is a great effort, a nerdy effort though.
Suggestions: Define the purpose: casual listening, monitoring... Set the room to minimize refractions. Forget the turntable. If you buy 1100$ speakers, you would put it on a piece of plywood in the middle of the room, with sliding connectors?
No wonder the Edifier sounded as good, it comes with equalizer! A little more sugar helps!
I like the suggestion of testing Genelec's. and why not, Yamaha NS10's. This what studios use.
So, test the same speakers your method, then test those in a more suitable environment. And save some money, buy blindfolds.
Do you know anything at all about science? Subjective? All the speakers were subjected to the exact same conditions and speaker selection was randomized. They were taken out of a box, played the same signal, and subjected to the same room conditions.
I don't think most avrage person listening to music perfer a flat sound most people perfer a slight v shape in my experience
JBL maybe sounds better, but the Neumann is of course the better speaker.
Why?
Because bad recordings sounds bad and that is the truth.
If you don't want true sound (and easy listening) don't test Studio monitors but HiFi-Speakers instead.
What settings were used to equalise the edifers ?
www.spinorama.org/eqs.html?sort=date&reverse=false&search=R1280T
scientific af
If people wanted a ruler flat FR, Audiophile companies would not exist. Instruments use distortion to create sound. Mastering engineers add distortion for artistic reasons, and people add transistor tube amps that deliberately create distortion because of subjective reasons. All of these processes 'colour' how something sounds from one example to another.
You're making some typical audiophile confusion between sound production and sound REproduction...🙄
@@vintageflanker7096 he was talking about both. FR of a speaker effects the reproduction of music.
Seems we got some salty ASR cultists that think audio hobbies are anything more than subjective. 😂
You are confusing certain fundamental concepts. Harmonic distortion and a non-flat eq are seperate entities. With regards to listening preference, Olive's Harman work would indicate a consistent EQ with a subjective amount of HF/LF tilt is greatly favored by almost all listeners.
@@user-ge3xu4fv7m no actually you are confused. The FR of the speaker wouldn't change if the voltage supplied to it was identical. Harmonic distortion can effect the capacity of an amplifier, and this intern effects bass and treble frequencies that are being sent to the speakers. The harmonic distortion of the amplifier doesn't change FR, but the effect it has on the amplifier does, because it induces none linear voltage loads accross the frequency spectrum where otherwise it wouldn't.
Naturally. Edifiers were cheap computer speakers from Shenzhen.
You had them listen to music in mono? Ew. That is so far off what musicians, engineers and producers intended as to be near irrelevant. Might as well test bluetooth speakers that actually are mono. Could have added Adam Audio T5V or Sony SSCS5. I suppose it tells you something though. But what a horrible way to listen to music.
I agree. I would not go as far as calling it "horrible" cause they put a lot of effort in it but yes 2 speakers would be more reliable
@@saardean4481 We put so much time and effort into stereo effects even single bluetooth speakers piss us off. I religiously have a left and right guitar and vocals overdubbed. It adds depth to the song. Sometimes you throw something like bass a little off to one side to avoid masking. Listening in Mono defeats this. Might as well listen on a 1964 portable radio. Otherwise it's a good experiment
Status defenders are grinding their teeth.
I think it's laughable people think they are valid critical listeners... if this guy isn't a professional listener.. like a working sound engineer with some years under his belt... his subjective opinion is worth not as much and I could not take him seriously beyond some basic attributes that anyone with good hearing could easily discern... having trained ears and a good understanding of basic acoustics and loudspeaker design goes a long way...
There is a simple good enough reason for this - the upstream gear are not good enough to be transparent. Probably a computer using digital volume control and with a topping dac.
Its like using a performance car in the city.
Well, the ones doing the experiment probably don’t believe in proper upstream gear anyways as all dacs sound the same for them and bits are just bits.
Still, good effort!
You can make a video providing proof that two 'transparant' dacs actually sound different by doing a scientific experiment like this. Has much more value than just saying it does without ANY evidence to support your claim
Reason for what? We fed all the speakers from the same audio interfaces (Motu M2/M4). If you believe they imparted any audible distortions--it would have been applied equally to all speakers.
@@bitcubed Reason why they the speaker preference are not statistically significant.
Not distortions, just not enough fidelity. Once you get a better source, you will see what I mean. Or easier, get a turntable as a source then, do the test again. Easy enough as you built the awesome table already.
@@jalbrink I don’t have to make a video. Does it not occur to you why companies have different tier dacs they sell if they all sound the same? Shheeeeess.
@@papapapaw Ok as soon as you mentioned a Turntable as a "better" source with "higher fidelity" you lost me.
As a good friend and good engineer once said about the Vinyl fanatics "Yes the Vinyl is a Reference Quality Medium........In the 70`s"
A Turntable is vastly inferior to the setup here. What dynamic range did vinyl have again ? (cough cough)
clickbait