Are the B&W Nautilus speakers the flattest in the world?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ต.ค. 2018
- The B&W "snail" speakers are said to be the flattest in the world. Paul wonders if that's a good thing and explains why. Have a question you want to ask Paul? www.psaudio.com/ask-paul/
I am getting close to publishing my memoir! It's called 99% True and it is chock full of adventures, debauchery, struggles, heartwarming stories, triumphs and failures, great belly laughs, and a peek inside the high-end audio industry you've never known before.
I plan a few surprises for early adopters, so go to www.paulmcgowan.com and add your name to the list of interested readers. There's an entire gallery of never before seen photos too. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The pair in that guys house have the record. Cant get any flatter than unplugged. 👍🏼😎
CTHU
Like a clock twice a day lol
But unplugged they also sound the best 😂😂
Prime example of someone with too much money and too little brains
IMO a flat speaker would be a great starting point to add your own preferred EQ curve as it would give more predictable results. Obviously the room would impact this, but a flat speaker would increase your ability to deal with the rooms influence on the sound.
My guess is, most rooms will distort all speakers due to room geometry and furniture arrangement. So there isn't much point in looking for the flattest speaker, unless you treat your room or own an anechoic chamber. Probably best to get a speaker that sounds best in your listening space and most importantly wife approved.
You never want to listen in an anechoic chamber. Ideal speakers in an ideal room would have around a 1dB/oct slope down, meaning 20Hz is ~10dB louder than 20kHz (some say the midrange region should be flat).
thanks to DSP (or a graphic EQ) you can change the sound to whatever you want... this is why you want a well build speakers i live to use a loudness configuration for moderated volumes i really enjoy the deepness
Most recording studio monitors are very flat and to my ear don’t sound great for leisurely playback but are an essential tool for accurately mixing multitrack music.
but monitors are a tool as you said... not "high end" audio to enjoy music
Had a pair of602s'2 speakers with the "Nautilus" tweeter for 18 years,never changed them out, never heard better
@EP P was looking at some Dynaudio, finally went with 706s2's, go with what you know.
Can the human ear detect a flat response from a source filled with more than 1 instrument?
I see Paul made a lot of people upset by saying that electronics should be flat but not the speakers. I feel however that what Paul suggests is not necessarily crazy or inconsistent. Consider this:
1, You don't want your music to be flat. Either on subjective (taste) or even on scientific (BBC dip) basis. (I think that more "dips" will be identified by further research.)
2, You probably won't buy an active speaker so the amplifier is separate. A speaker designer couldn't consider your amp while designing.
3, Speakers are extremely hard to design to be flat, and even if it's doable, it would cost an insane amount of money. (And again: most people won't even like it.)
Conclusion: You want everything electronics to be as flat as possible and You choose a speaker (with design compromises) best fitting your budget and subjective taste.
If you know what it is their design is based on the Fibonacci sequence or the Golden section. This is found everywhere in nature. The primary designer was Laurence Dickie, the same acoustic engineering genius who went on to co-found Vivid Audio.
Put a pair of speaker into 1,000 different rooms and you'll get 1,000 different response curves .. FACT!!
Thanks
TransmissionLineDesigns _ have you done this? I would love to see your results . Please share your what you have found..
At the engineering level there are many things that are helpful, but near useless in a real world listening environment, take an Anechoic chamber for example. Problem is that no one lives in or listens in an anechoic chamber. sometimes manufacturers give the specs that are actually anechoic responses ... again totally useless in your average end-user listening environment.
As for your 1,000 room test, you really only need three listening environment that I'm sure you can do;
1) Your listening room
2) Kitchen or office room or small room
3) Stick your speakers outside
.. then come back and tell me how flat the response is in of any speaker in all three environments. So a manufacturer can control the environment they test in, but give the product to the end user and a lot of that will go out the window.
I equate it to a cars mpg figure. The manufacturers figures are an indication, not truth. Driving your car packed with passengers, their language, with a kayak on the roof-rack, towing a caravan, will not yield the same response as having you in the car on your own.
So why people think that with acoustics if you change the environment the results will be the same, I have no idea!
Good answer thanks
And... you can chuck ALL of your EQ junk and actually use acoustic treatment to tailor/EQ/sort the sound in a room and end up with -the best possible results- as in if done right way better sound than EQing your way to someplace you think you want to go...
TransmissionLineDesgns ... Actually, I believe that testing speakers in an Anechoic chamber is the very best way to determine the speaker's accuracy of reproduction. If the response is flat the speaker is accurate. The fact that no one listens in such an environment is irrelevant.
If you want to equalize your system to make the room disappear, that is on you. There is no way to design a speaker that will be neutral in all rooms, so it is best to start with the most accurate reproduction possible.
When you say flat does that mean every frequency has the same measured decibel level at a certain volume level?
I have heard these speakers and I liked them. That said, I did a little experiment. I have a pair of Sound Lab A-2 electrostatic speakers. They have a tweeter attenuator so you can adjust the treble. Using an online white noise generator and a spectrum analyzer on my phone, I adjusted it to flat response. I found the result too bright and unpleasant. I am an old guy and my hearing stops at 14khz now, so you would think I would prefer a boosted treble to compensate. Not true. Apparently as your high end goes, the remaining hearing becomes more sensitive. So, while your system might be flat, your ears are not. Maybe that's why there is more than one kind of speaker. I now wonder if a symphony orchestra could make white noise if it would be flat. I suspect not.
Interesting to know. Thanks for sharing
Good point
I was forced to leave high-end audio when home theater came out so I stopped listening and comparing for close to 15 years but then I went to a Nordost demonstration and was surprised to find I could hear just fine and could hear just as well if not better than I used to. I own Acoustat X electrostatic speakers which sound almost the same to me as the Sound Lab A3's and these also have a high frequency adjustment but I left them where they were.
Who said you phone is flat?, you actually ended up tuning them to be the inverse on your phones response.
You need to start with a calibrated measuring microphone... but first, lose the phone.
It's simple really, do you want your speakers to play back exactly what the microphone hears, or do you want a massaged, colored version of that. I can see that you might wish to change how a studio produced album sounds, but if you're looking for as close a representation of what a live act sounds like, then it seems to me you want the entire chain--microphone to recorder to media to playback to amplification to speakers to be as close to dead flat at the listener's position as possible, so that you are hearing exactly what was recorded.
A way to achieve smooth power response is to have smooth directivity. You will need a wave guide to match the dispersion pattern around the crossover point. B&W not merely removed wave guide, but also the baffle. The extreme opposite of seeking smoother directivity.
Paul's comments are bang on target ! I totally agree with him. I
own a pair of 800 Diamonds .. I've heard them in several locations and each one sounds different.
Speakers, like those Harbeth models Paul likes are an example of crossover over complication ( typical British philosophy ! ) in order to achieve a " mill pond" flat SPL response . This type of XO is a classic example of why bi or tri amping is better. These complex XO designs cause nasty levels of phase delay and obviously group delay... these artifices destroy imaging . With active XO designs we are only dealing with low signal dividing circuits .... with this setup you can achieve a perfect transform characteristic such as Linkwitz-Riley for perfect crossovers with no dips or bumps and zero phase delay ...
I agree, the simpler the crossover the better.
Paul I Don't really know why but I would love lo pass a few hours talking about everything in music with you, you're answers and stories are so interesting!
I feel like im the only one that enjoys listening to a totally flat frequency response system.
For recording and watching movies, sure! But most audiophiles love the sensation and art form of the medium.
I really doubt you have a totally flat freq response system... ;P
I agree.
Get studio monitors then!
Paul
Love your videos and comments... but ..you really contradict yourself here😳I had to play it over to believe it myself! You first say you never heard the B&W Nautilus Speakers and then you say you heard them but they are not your taste 🤔.. which is it?
1) Are we talking about flatness in a passive crossover design or flatness in final measurements.
2) I think Paul is talking about how you need to design the crossover to accommodate the diffraction in the sensitive area that arnie nudell talked about. In those key areas as the sound goes from full space to half space you have to account for this or the speaker will sound like ka ka.
3) If you design a flat crossover in the lower frequencies without allowing for the changeover from full space to half space you will lose a tremendous amount of base and therefore the speaker will sound like ka ka.
4)Finally, if you have to use a tremendous amount of crossover components to get it to measure flat you might be taking the life out of the original signal with too many components to travel through that reduces timing and db's.
5) Back to conjecture.
Ken ishiwata (Marantz) told me he did work on the Nautilus active crossover with B&W. At that time he was using them at home. He would not tell me which power amplifiers used with them though.
What does that mean for Room correction Systems then? They also aim for a mostly flat response...
I find they work quite well. If you have speakers that are flat, your EQ only has to adjust for room acoustics. Not for both.
3:10 Of course I want it to be flat, or to follow the Harman target curve. Then I use DSP to correct for my room. I don't want to work with something that is inconsistent in an inconsistent room. I want as many of the pieces to be as consistent or as perfect as possible.
A friend of mine, an older guy has a pair that he bought over 20 years ago. He mentioned the price he paid was on par with what he did for a Porsche he bought around the same time and when looking at the things all I could think was how much better it would've been had he parked the car in the room instead. Giant, black, anime-like snails they were weird. Hooked up to a pair of Audio Research monoblocks he treated me to a BSO recording of Beethoven's 9th from the late 50's (that I also have) on CD. As such, I see your point: the impression was that there was a massive array of high quality, tv speakers set up in front of me. There was imaging. But, in the sense that you were listening to a wall of instruments with a white noise machine in the room. Dim and dull somehow while loud. I know you're not a fan of horn speakers. But, the comparatively lowly pair of Klipsch Cornwalls that I have here take that same recording and when attached to the rebuilt McIntosh MC275 I have it's like basking in the sound. They went for just over three grand being second hand. I suppose the lesson here is that a trombone is not just a trombone anymore than a person is just a person and even a really high end device can have all the personality of an airport delay announcement.
Couldn't agree more. I'm building some 2 way bookshelf speakers, and with the software I'm using I got the FR flat. When I built the crossover it sounded like crap. Almost AM radio-y. I changed a few inductors and caps until it sounded musical. Check it in the software and it had the Arnie dip (lol) so flat isn't always good.
What about Magnaplanar?
what does flat mean in this sense? Same as in music? like, slightly lower frequencies? Im guessing thats not right
Doesn't market research from Harmon kardon indicate that most people prefer a flat sounding speaker?
I have a great test for my stereo systems. One of my cds is very hard to tune in bass and treble plus the mid. So when I put together my bedroom setup I found it comes in near perfect. In fact its the best it's ever sounded. So I would think I'm not to far off from 100% perfection. And now far better than my HK AVR 65. And wow when I play ELP it sounds just like it did when I saw them live. I love my HK but I'm just amazed how clean my 220 dollar stereo sounds the amp so flat and clear powers my speakers just perfect.
Have you ever listen to Cizek Model ONE speaker? It has 9 patents in Crossover and it is/was flat response speaker; BUT it was pretty much Alive sounding one.
If speakers have a flat response you would be forever adjusting their output via a good equalizer. My two way mains have a system Q of about .8. A Q of .707 is normally considered desirable and .5 and change are considered totally flat. Mine have a nice, tight, punchy bottom end that responds well to most kinds of music. The high end is also a little hotter than the midrange and with that I don't have to run an EQ like I did with my old speakers.
It would seem to me that if a perfectly flat pair of speakers does not sound "musical' that something else must be going on, because to me, for the same reason an amplifier should be perfectly flat, the speakers should also be flat. You dont wan't to "add" or "subtract" anything that was not in the original recording, which is what you are doing by adding peaks or dips in the speaker response curve. The whole reason a graphic equalizer is used in some PA systems etc, is surely to correct and non-flat response...? what am I missing?
If you are using them for studio monitors, then yes, try to get the flattest, most accurate speakers available. Studio monitors are there to show what exactly is on the recording. Do you want that for home use? Maybe not.
Not enough thump&tizz when it's flat. If you really crank it, flat sounds ok (when you get to band volume level). But when we scale it down so much in volume level (in a room) flat won't sound musical. Add thump&tizz and it does. And bluetooth speakers scale thing down even more (to only a few watts). No problem making them sound musical, just ADD more thump&tizz. lol
The electronics are relatively easy to design to have flat frequency response. Speakers are not, especially the ones with voice coil and magnets. No speaker will have a flat impedance curve. The same is true for microphones. Dynamic microphones also use a coil and magnets. These devices are by nature nonlinear. If microphones and recordings were truly flat, I would think that a "flat" speaker would be ideal. The problem seems to be that such devices are like unobtainium. Maybe on Pandora?
Electrostatic and planar speakers are "flat".
Clap, Clap. (Hat tip!)
Um, at the start you stated you hadn't heard nautilus speakers, but then at 5:30 you claimed you had?!? So which is it?
MrJules39 - That is what the question asker stated. That is how I understood it.
@@Enemji hmm, I'm not sure you understand. First, paul said he HADN'T heard them so couldn't comment.... But then he said he HAD heard them. I'm just curious as to which it is.
@@MrJules39 he never said he has not heard them. He was reading the question off a paper someone sent in.
@@stevied8696 AAHH! Now it makes sense! I thought it was weird Paul had never heard nautilus speakers. Thanks for the clarification.
MrJules39 - skip to 1:00
If not flat , then what else ? If you know how that ideal response curve should be , why not integrate it in the amp ? Much easier to do there than in the speaker .Problem solved ,and all speaker manufacturers could concentrate on just churning out flat speakers . Hook up the PS Audio amp with the "magical" response built in and presto , perfect sound . I really wonder what that non-flat response looks like . The fact that no generic alternative to the flat response is given (besides some "magic") suggests to me 2 things : it does not exist and therefore 2) the problem lies elsewhere . Something is fishy here ...
My NuPro A20s (by a small German manufacturer called "Nubert") are active with a correction DSP to make them perfectly flat. With an equalizer to make them less flat (my reference where T+A TCD130s or something) they sound way better. Flat is boring.
Hifi is not about subjective stuff like "boring" , "my taste" , "sterile" etc... Hifi is about as acuurate reproducing as possible . I could not care less about what you do to your signal with that active DSP . If you are trying to correct for your room , I would advice treating your room as a better way to achieve that . If you like more and even excessive bass ,maybe more highs to make it less "boring" , fine , go ahead if you like that . But that's not Hifi . And those 80's speakers from a lot of manufacturers were exactly that : bathtub response curve with a big bump in the bass and in the highs . Anything but Hifi .
If you like the sound of a specific speaker, it's probably because of the tonal qualities (mixed with room acoustics). Not everyone likes 'flat' or 'V shaped' tones.
" If you know how that ideal response curve should be , why not integrate it in the amp ? " They do integrate it into the amp, Gerrit. It's called "Audyssey."
If a totally flat speaker is a bad thing for audio, then the worst place you can listen to a concert is in the concert hall!
If at least 50 to 70% what you hear is the room itself Because of its Acoustic behaviour why would you like to have those silly priced speakers? Recently i listened to a 60k system at a costumers house and i couldnt laugh, as it sounded so horrible because many people use the gear wrongly! My rather simple Genelec monitors and just one Genelec Sub with some room treatment (diffusing and Dampening) and proper placement sounds way way better and more like an reversed MiC and closer to what the producer intended. Please people its not the Gear thats most important, but its the room its in! Gear only starts to make a difference if you have a Proper sounding room! Ofcourse they use B&W in Mastering studios but those mostly treated likes it should be, they wont sound great in a Bathroom hahahahahaha. Cheers.
This makes sense because I heard that Ian Paisley (designer of Paisley Research speakers) once created a speaker that had a frequency response of +/- .5db and people didn't like the sound of them so people actually prefer some coloration
There are other things that would ruin the sound. Namely distortion. Or time coherence
But since they nautilus speakers each need four separate power amplifiers to power them, you can easily adjust the flatness by adjusting the gain on each element.
Well they have active crossovers so you can do more than just adjust the gain.
Human hearing is not linear and flat. It will also vary from person to person. On top of that, if you design a speaker to be flat in an anechoic chamber it will not behave in a linear fashion in every listener's room - there will be peaks and nulls. This is why it is imperative to audition a speaker yourself in your own room and decide if you like it or not.
That people do not hear the same is irrelevant. If they are seated next to you in front of a live orchestra or a jazz quartet, or string quartet, they will hear the way they hear. You will hear the way you hear. The speaker required for any of you to hear what you heard is identical. Of course the room will make a difference, but you can not design speakers for all rooms, so the accuracy should start with the speaker being as flat as possible.
At the end of the day, I suspect the issue has less to do with speakers with a flat response, and more to do with the stuff you put through them. Flat should be the ideal, the target, but if the people making the music weren't using or aiming for something flat when making it, it wont work well.
Great speakers are great by optimizing every detail. Blindly focusing on a single parameter like frequency response will not yield greatness. However, ignoring frequency response is much worse. There is simply no such thing as a neutral natural sounding speaker without a reasonably flat frequency response in the critical frequency range for what you listen to and at least between 100Hz and 10kHz. Jumps up/down >6dB in that range will easily be noticed when I listen to music and it’s NOT musical or natural no matter what any reviewer will say. Often you just need to find the music where such big deviation becomes very audible.
my lynwood vr-40s are a classic american speaker. amazing vocals, instruments. But I put on STYX and it sounds like MUSH. You would need at least TWO speakers to make you happy, or two full stereos I think. One would be my 300b single ended triode banging on my vr-40s. And another would probably be a huge torroidal amplifier (or multiples) banging on some klipsch horns or something similar for rock.
Paul, more interested in hearing you raise your voice in the unfinished room before and after it’s finished (other then a random question about B&W speakers. And not to be negative! So many TH-cam audiophile getting bombarded with recurring questions regarding ‘how flat can I gat?”.
Any chance we can we get an audio sample of your room before & after?
No speaker is flat, but the Yamaha NS-10s and HS7s are pretty close! I would'nt recomment either though for casual listening!
What use is it to have flat loudspeakers if the microphones that recorded the original sounds aren't flat as well?...
I'm no audio expert, but I imagine synthesized digital music would probably sound much better on flat loudspeakers than recorded music exactly because of this.
So you basically want non-flat speakers because microphone pickup is too harsh (tiny membrane) so if you don't make the sounds wider and warmer it'll just sound shrill and grating?...
(and also keep in mind the above doesn't even address the fact that sound is mastered on non-flat speakers to begin with so the digital recording you're buying isn't mastered on the actual digital signal but on how that signal sounds when reproduced through non-flat non-perfect speakers).
Just theorycrafting on my part mind you, but I'd be interested to know if someone/anyone actually did a test comparing synthesized music with recorded music on super-flat loudspeakers.
I've noticed that EDM is mastered wierdly and tend to have the highs pushed up and the lows pushed up with the mids sunk back. EDM can be very fatiguing on peaky speakers and it's because of the mix and not speakers. I guess what I'm saying is EDM would sound like crap on flat speakers
I have a considerably flat system and I feel like synthesized digital music does indeed sound better a lot of the times.
Especially well mixed tracks from talented producers like "Overwerk".
But like danttheman said a lot of EDM has this odd smiley curve. Boosted lows, louder highs and a pushed back mid range. These sound a bit lackluster om my setup.
Recorded Orchestra oddly enough does sound just as good as digitally made orchestra tho (yup that exists).
Recorded Heavy Rock sounds the worst on my system in my opinion and well made EDM the best.
In general, most music types I enjoy sound great. Apart from maybe rock.
Obviously this is how I experience it. A friend of mine finds that my entire system sounds too "sharp" despite it being flat according to all my measuring devices.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience Ethernal Genesis!
My setup is by no means flat (hell, I haven't even bothered calibrating it properly) but I do understand the significance of how past experience colors a person's perception/experience. If you've primarily been exposed to music through a warm non-flat 'musical' speaker system obviously a flat, peakier speaker setup would sound too bright and sharp as that's simply not what your listening and taste has been calibrated to.
It's like how people may feel their new properly factory calibrated monitor looks wrong because they've been staring at a poorly calibrated monitor for years with over saturation of one or two of the colors and that's what they're accustomed to.
I remember back when I got my first properly calibrated monitor I was amazed at how different it looked compared to my old monitor (which I still had, so I could do side-by-side comparison)..
What I guess I'm trying to get at is that, for me, it seems likely that this is just one of those cases. Mobile phone screens and TV's alike are generally factory set to have over saturated colors because that's what people 'like' to see. It isn't color accurate but it's poppy and vibrant.. I feel like it's probable that the same rings true for speakers.
Maybe you could compare the sharpness of your speakers to an actual live orchestra and give us a comparison on how that compares to listening to a recorded orchestra or digital orchestra on your flat speakers? :)_
True. When my brother got his first color TV (19 inch portable), he cranked up the color to a ridiculous level.
(orange faces and brilliant greens and reds that were totally unnatural. I asked him if when he looked at the world and people if he saw those outrageously saturated colors, and he shrugged it off and said the he liked the picture the way he set it up. Same thing happens with sound, but it is harder to measure.
Sold the 802's in Audio Gallery back in the 90's and they didn't sound flat to me. They were too warm sounding.
I have a pair of 802's and they sound quite flat/neutral to me.
B&W Nautilus is based on practically zero colouration. Many people don't like a lack of colouration because they are so used to hearing it.
Watch collecting and hifi are the only pursuits I can think of where obscure brands are venerated and mainstream brands are dismissed with scornful disdain.
They are power hungry beasts, I love their design and I love how they sound... (not flat I must say)
They are inaccurate?
@@terryreese663 the Nautilus you mean? If so, they are one of the most realistic, transparent and accurate speakers ever made.
@@degou3438 I ask only because of the claim that they are not flat, therefor not accurate.
If anyone wants to listen flat no one wants to spend that much. Very good review. Thanks
Having experienced this myself, Flat speakers sound dead.
On the test Equipment they look really good but they play a piano piece and it does not sound like a piano is in the room.
My Genesis 7.2Cs are not perfectly flat but sound incredible. Even with no sub they reproduce nuances that I usually only hear from live music. I have come to the conclusion that it has to do with the indirect sound and our ears are not flat. They don't perceive flat as live but steril.
I have not had the pleasure of checking out the PS Audio speakers but after listening to all the current Genesis Advanced Tech. speakers and loads of older HiFi systems, playing guitar for decades, and found my ears are very picky when it comes to music. I thought I wanted flat but soon realized, for lack of a better word, it was kinda dead or steril sounding.
Does a $60,000 dollar speaker give you $60,000 sound? I'm just curious because I believe you can get great sound for a lot less. This is a hobby that can suck you in and have you spending more money on your equipment than your house. It can become an obsession which in my opinion is not a good thing. Use good judgement and trust your own ears when investing in gear and get to the point that you are okay with what you have because that's what really matters.
Truth. You are mostly paying for looks and brand at most high end speakers too. The difference in sound quality is laughably little in most cases.
Yes absolutely, The sound of the nautilus is 100 times better than any $600 speaker.
It is also a thing of beauty , it is a work of Art to behold and admire.
I would trust my hearing, not my ears.
Of course they will sound better than a $600 speaker, that's pretty much a given. But is it that much better than say $5000 or $10,000 speakers? Or even some $3000 speakers? I bet you'll get a whole lot of different opinions about that.
True, but BMW make millions of cars per year by mass production . If they made you a unique hand made car in a run of a few hundred they would charge you an astronomical amount.
I would hazard a guess that like every other business in the world speaker makers look at what it costs them to design something, make something, market it, transport it, warranty it, repair it and pay for the design of new products and office staff and every other overhead and then put their standard markup on it and then sell it at that price. Products are products whether you sell chickens, cars, watches or speakers - if they charge 60 grand for speakers then it costs them at least 30 grand to make each pair is my guess - at some point they will have made so many that those speakers become pure profit but you can't start off your pricing at where it could be if you knew you were going to sell 10,000 of them.
George Blisson - do you really think that wood, drivers and wiring are the only costs attached to making speakers?
At first Paul said he has not heard the Nautilus then a bit later on he said he has heard them ....
I have heard the Nautilus ‘snail ‘speakers and I must admit they DO sound clinical .... there is no colorisation whatsoever.. no artifacts ( which people grow to accept and use as a form of comparative element between speakers )
First of all, flat response has a whole lot to do with driver design, as each individual driver will introduce variations in response irrespective of crossover design. But the main problem with this whole discussion is that flatness does not equate precisely to sound quality. I have built speakers that had very similar flat response yet sound completely different. Or said another way, I have swapped out tweeters (in an active system with external amps and electronic crossover) that each had a relatively flat response above 3 kHz, yet they each sounded radically different from one another. Suffice to say, there is a great deal more to the quality and character of a speaker system than flat response. The question reveals an over emphasis on specs that never tell the whole story.
Good discussion. There is still a bit of sorcery in all of this engineering.
That is correct.. because our ears are not flat.. microphone are near flat or zero db.. if more of a personality of flavors..
My dual NHT XDA had a flatter response and now with the latest DEQX are even flatter and i should add just disappear -you only hear the music -if it sounds like a shit recording i can just click in a tailored profile that makes it sound bearable -anyway a very clean speaker and proves flat can sound good - but no revealing speaker can make up for poorly done recordings
Good answer satisfied 1st time with u sir 🙏
If, by flat, you meaning 'boring', then I give a hearty thumbs up.
Flat in this instance means uniform frequency response over the entire listening range.
If all speakers were created flat, they would all sound alike (assuming all the speakers were demo'd in the same room and location). I like certain speakers because of their "sound signature".
Flat can be souless .... B&W sound is not perfect (flat) for a reason.
Great explanation John!
I would love to own an audiophile ears that can judge things for us mere mortals. Odd thing is that they are all 70years old ears. Usually those cant hear a shit anymore, but audiophiles ears only get better and better. It is like gold plating a snake oil, it just gets better.
I'd put a pair of Dunlavy SC-VI's against the B&W Nautilus any day with regards to flatness.
Good ole Dunlavy. Even the lower priced Dunlavys were pretty spectacular speakers.
Music room 4!!
It would be interesting if PS audio designed a speaker model for that room. There are lots of people with large budgets that have large rooms with large acoustic issues. They could call it the Refectory. :)
The reason why is it flat is that you have the authority to manipulate the sound the way you like, you are the master of your ears they just sell you the best speakers that is best in any range of sound the way you tweak it
Sounds more for the audeophile " FLAT " .
Need goose bumps man WOW !!!
Flat does not equal musicality, back in the day when mastering we used reference speakers ie Beverages, Auratones, even my ADS car system then we averaged the results .
I have listened to them many times. Their not flat but the case is totally dead. More so than a heavy metal construction like Magico. I personally feel that their more modern speakers are a step backwards. Their silver signature speakers from the late 80s were just magical and easily match the latest models in detail and musicality
Designers are working to satisfy people with not only musical bias, physical limitations of all sorts, but also levels of sophistication, indoctrinated distortions, and predilections towards certain types of sounds. In other words, besides the extreme variations of manufacturers' interpretations of electronic designs, the way the recorded music is mastered, the methods of pressings, compressions, and the list goes on -- as you said what suits one person's taste is not going to suit yours . . . and yet like so many other areas of opinions and tastes in art, in politics, etc. people will defend -- almost to the death, their right to crown a system as being the ultimate in sound reproduction, and even in some cases, defend their particular choices to an extreme. There is nothing so satisfying as having the most expensive whatever, that bears the symbol of allegiance . . . and proudly declare it to be the best in the world . . . but to whom . . . the individual that it most pleases.
Amass a panel of “experts” and they may agree to some extent, but not wholly, as to the quality and the general realness of the sound, but as to what they are exactly hearing -- no one can plug into their brain and ears and come up with the same experience . . . and until the world goes completely bonkers towards transhumanism and the singularity of humans versions 101 -- I doubt that any panel of experts will ever come to the same conclusions -- general, yes . . . but if that EVER did come about, think of all the fun and involvement that would be missing when only ONE manufacturer came up with the “ultimate answer” to the reproduction of sound. How disappointing to the DIY'ers, who so enthusiastically strive for the ultimate sound via their own creativity and “genius” -- all that would also be lost to the sterile hobby that once held so much joy and intrigue . . . plus the joy of agreeing to disagree . . . and making a sport out of the whole process.
Russmal well said
Thanks!
Speakers are designed on the principal that amps are flat. Therfore, we must use their speakers with flat amps. The amp needs to be a controll, so that when we listen to the speaker, it performs how it was engineered to. Mixing 2 nonlinear components (amps/speakers) from 2 engineers is simply a waste of intentional design. It would be near impossible to hear the speakers as they were meant to be heard. If amps were designed nonlinear from engineer to engineer, speaker manufacturers would have no controlled foundation for their designs. Furthermore, I believe a flat amp with a flat speaker would lose musical dynamics. If all speaker were flat too..... well that would suck
Speaker with flat FR, most certainly not. Every room/every speaker combo will need to be setup to provide the best sound that's unique to that combo. A House Curve, if you will. You never want ruler flat.
My ears aren’t flat.
In Stereophile measurements, B&Ws are are not very flat. (Nautilus was not measured by Stereophile.)
...and then there's the RIAA equalisation curve used for the recording and playback of every single LP recordl!.... oh never mind.
We want flat speakers because of all the new digital effects and cab simulations that are out are well beyond what you are talking about. It's not about plugging an amp in and jamming. It's plugging a multi effects simulator that has the tones of cabs, mics, amps, effects and the neighbors dog. That's why people are looking for the full response flattest speakers. 20-20k even Steven
Whether it's an amplifier, preamp or loudspeaker, measurable specifications rarely define the listening quality. Some vintage tube amps measure horribly as compared to modern solid state gear but have that magic which is transcendent and enduring. Just as in art, the measure of greatness isn't something that you can really ever touch or understand. When an audio design becomes legendary, usually there are elements that are intangible, mysterious and elusive, often even to the designers. Otherwise it would be clearly formulaic. Scientific design and reasoning rarely make good art.
Funny thing is, most people don't push them out into the range of "audible" distortion.
Of course , they are overpriced but
liked them so much that I bought a pair of them as well as a wonderful pair of 800D3 and a pair of 802D3's as well .
If you want to create a million dollar room , well then price can't be an object .
I have somewhat lost faith in Paul's 'taste' when he disclosed some time ago that he listens to old garage band hippie Deep Purple-like rattle-can, technician-on-LSD, recorded in a cement basement 'music'. How DARE he blaspheme that Nautilus or the B&W line. Tsk-Tsk - this is like going to Bose to get their opinion of Cerwin Vega.
Hi Paul, I love your videos, but “thousandth people makes a thousand opinions” best regards from Holland.
So much for that pure audio stuff,huh?
I don't like b&w sound for me they sound distant and echo like
Yes... if they are only a sculptures.
I have never found the b&w hype to really be anything but hype.
The Brit fi bumped lower mids and midbass to add the bass colouration to vocals, the dipped upper mid to presence changeover.
The brittleness in the treble.
Then the other thing, every transient, every impact just seems soft. Kick drums have flab, vocals just feel really soft.
As someone from the UK, British audio just sounds like our weather, dreary. Like it's going to sound as if male vocalists are a BBC reporter from the 70s.
taief . I love the BBC sound and soft vocals but I don't like "He Brit fi bumped lower miss"
Sooooo what does a sea snail have to do with nautilus...? Can't you find a photo of a nautilus...?🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪
Chill Bill
True!
Have to say the Nautilus is a remarkable sounding speaker if it is flat, then it didn't sound that way to me.
how would you describe the sound of the Nautilus and with what amplification did you hear them?
"Last I checked they were 50k a pair.......a lot of people have them"
Who? 😂😂😂😂😂
More than you think.. Only in Ålesund (a small city in Norway) there where sold 4-5 pairs. If not more.. Some people have too much money ;P
@@Oystein87 jøss, en norsk kar:) akkurat kjøpt meg 603. Noen gang hørt 800 serien?
@@chriss881000 Hehe. Enda en altså.
603 er ikke dum👍 Hmm.. Tror ikke jeg har hørt 800 serien nei
I have owned 2 pairs of BWs, monitor and floor standers. Wasn’t impressed with either. The sound was very congested. I got a pair of Reference 3As and it was like a sonic veil had been lifted.
Esteban Nemo get the 800 D3 + 2k wtt McIntosh.... then tell us :)
Great segment, Paul. You accurately describe the dilemma of designing and marketing accurate HiFi loudspeakers! The warehouse looks good too.
The anti-B&W sentiment from the audio community comes off churlish to me. My best friend has a pair of Nautilus 805 and they sound pretty amazing. I doubt I'll ever own a pair of B&W speakers for the same taste reasons as Paul but suggesting the Nautilus line is anything short of fantastic is incorrect.
The UK made top line B&W are fine (though I don't care for the 801). The import CM and others made in Asia don't impress me. They don't integrate well.
@@scottlowell493 I don't disagree with what you are saying but the fact you are saying it. There is a lot of gear that doesn't suit my taste and I can't imagine owning but gentility requires me to not spew negativity about that gear whenever I see the brand, and yet audiophiles seem uniquely emboldened to criticize b&w where they wouldn't criticize other brands.
I'm gonna guess that Magico has about the flattest frequency response of anything out there.
It bugs the hell out of me when he says speakers are not suppose to be flat. Its not logical.
Isn’t this Amar Bose’s point. Psychoacoustics matter.
Yeah, but he just used it as a cover-up for highly inaccurate speakers.
#PANDORASBOX !!!
I’ve always thought Maggie’s were the flattest.
The main problem is not the musicality of the speaker. It's that everyone is accustomed to speakers that do not adhere to the HiFi standards of purist record reproduction.
1. Almost no one, besides the singer or band itself, listens to themselves in a living room-sized space. You have heard them on a record or live through a PA system. You have never heard this artist in a room without a microphone, a speaker, a record, a PC, a CD, a medium, your amplifier or a PA amplifier, and your speaker in between.
2. HiFi means you aim to reproduce exactly what the mastering engineer in the studio heard. You will never achieve the sound in a room or the real sound of any artist.
3. If you attempt to reproduce it with flat speakers that replicate 100% of what the mastering engineer listened to, and you find it lacks musicality, maybe it's your sense of musicality that is lacking.
4. It's like going into a museum and looking through colored glasses or glasses that bend light, trying to enjoy art as it was intended. Ridiculous...
5. Issue a challenge. Acquire some monitor speakers and listen to them for a month or two. Learn a bit about mastering sound in a room and meet some sound engineers in studios. Then go back to your "musical" speakers. Suddenly, they will sound terrible.
Cheers
Designed by Sorcerers.. like the sound of that
The notion of a flat speaker is ridiculous. To get an accurate measurement, you'd have to test in an anechoic chamber. As soon as you move them to your living room, the frequency response is altered and no longer flat.
six and a half mins to say you dont know ??