Greg Timbers Interview

[Ando]

Interesting thoughts from a man with a few runs on the board :

http://positive-feedback.com/interviews/greg-timbers-jbl/

Cheers Mike

[tubularbells]

Interesting read, Thanks. 

[davewantsmoore]

Pretty much nail -> head.   No surprise.

[Boris Karlof]

Cheers Mike for sharing

Continually while reading that Iink I kept saying YES YES and YES! That's exactly what I think! Great stuff, he tells it like it is. Refreshingly honest and down to earth audio veteran. Refreshing compared to the hyped up garbage spouted by lesser wannabe purveyors of inferior plastic toys disguised as "high end audio"

 

[Rob Poort]

Great read, thanks for posting. 

[Newman]

"I don't think it is possible to make a truly High Fidelity loudspeaker using a single driver or panel. Same thing is true with series crossovers. It is a given that multiple transducers will be required..."

 

Ahh, but how can I believe a thing he says when he reveals that he doesn't do blind testing. Quite a blunder there, doesn't seem to have grasped what is happening, almost certainly the origin of his beliefs about capacitor materials for instance... but he does recover rather nicely by making extensive use of measurements, for which the targets would almost certainly be consistent with research that used blind testing.

[Ando]

33 minutes ago, Newman said:

 

 

Ahh, but how can I believe a thing he says when he reveals that he doesn't do blind testing. 

 

Actually what he said was "I have no use for blind or double blind listening tests the way Harman does them "

My emphasis added. 

[Peter_F]

Dang!  It’s as if I'd read the Greg Timbers playbook when I set out to build my current system....  I am a dynamics guy and very few loudspeakers take that into consideration, in my opinion. 

 

 

Like everybody else, I look (listen) for what makes me forget that I am listening to sound reproduction. In my opinion, it is necessary to have an acceptable degree of frequency and power response accuracy. I do not feel that these measurements need to be perfect.

 

 

And this…. For me, Dynamics will make or break the loudspeaker system.  Speakers have generally become smoother, more 3-dimensional and much smaller. This means that they are less dynamic on the whole and rather toy like compared to good stuff from the 60s and 70s.

 

 

This pearl sums it up nicely for me….I believe that solid Dynamic behavior is most important to get lifelike sound. 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2017 by Peter_F

[Newman]

@Ando Meaning.... properly? I saw that but cannot attribute a sensible interpretation to it. The rest of the paragraph is too vague but the most sensible interpretation is that he thinks they are too impractical. To read it as "I have a superior method that I use rigorously" would be extremely generous. And his proclamations about "I hear things that measurements don't show" and capacitor material are totally consistent with what happens in sighted listening. I think its his big blind spot. Pun!

[Ando]

I agree it would be generous to interpret his comment to definitely mean he has a better way of doing blind testing but his objections to Harman methodology might include :

Harman testing is done at too low a sound level 

The music excerpts used are too short 

There is over emphasis on spectral balance

Loudspeakers are listened to singly and he doesnt believe this correlates as well to stereo listening as Harman does

The music Harman believes most easily distinguishes between speakers is a type that emphasises some speaker attributes over the ones he thinks are more important

Testing between 3 speakers at once with rapid switching isnt the best way of doing things.

Maybe he doesnt like the way levels are matched which is tricky for loudspeakers and a particular way may favour a particular spectral balance

Or he could just be wrong.

Cheers Mike

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2017 by Ando

[almikel]

 

"I have no use for blind and double blind listening tests the way Harman implements them. Sound systems and their environments are very complicated. No speaker is even close to sounding "real" so personal opinion is always a major consideration. Most blind tests are based on a series of assumptions that enable the test to be easy or practical to implement. Unfortunately, these assumptions often invalidate or color the results because they cover up or accentuate aspects of the loudspeaker design. "

 

My understanding of the way Harman does their blind testing of speakers is that they go to extraordinary lengths to avoid assumptions that would invalidate or colour the results.

And surely some of his designs were tested and tuned by the same approach?

 

I agree with his comments on the dynamic ability of speakers being important, and my current setup attempts to achieve this (PSE144 horn for tweeter and mid + 18" mid bass + sub).

 

Interesting that he's headed down the DEQX path (as I have) - it's a hardware solution that ticks a lot of boxes for me.

 

cheers

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

[davewantsmoore]

7 hours ago, Newman said:

Ahh, but how can I believe a thing he says when he reveals that he doesn't do blind testing.

 

He should do them .... but the reasons he doesn't are quite valid criticisms of controlled testing.

 

It is extremely difficult to satisfactorily answer complex question through controlled testing .....   I find it is best used for simple questions  (like can you tell the difference between X and Y).

[LHC]

On 3/5/2017 at 0:33 PM, Ando said:

 

Or he could just be wrong.

Cheers Mike

 

 

I doubt that he could be wrong and still be employed by JBL for 43 years designing speakers. He said listening test is used extensively in speaker design and prototyping, selecting material, and the ear is the instrument of choice. Therefore one could only conclude they were sighted listening; or if they were done blind at Harmon, he had a systematic method to compensate for what he perceived as biased results. 

[skies2clear]

Funny reading a couple of comments by keyboard jockeys here who think they know better than Greg Timbers.

Edited March 13, 2017 by skies2clear
Edit

[Powerglide]

On 13/03/2017 at 10:19 PM, skies2clear said:

Funny reading a couple of comments by keyboard jockeys here who think they know better than Greg Timbers.

 

Also a lot of assumptions made reading between the lines on what he may be eluding to!

 

I thank him as I'm listening to a pair of 4313b monitors