February 21, 2005

Thanks so much for doing your very important independent testing of loudspeakers. I have searched high and low for such tests. Speaker manufacturers make many claims, and reviews are vague and highly subjective. I want to see the proof. If you please, I have a few questions.

Q1: Are there any other sources of independent testing of loudspeakers, particularly sources available on the Internet? Q2: What other brands and models of speakers are you planning on testing? Specifically, I'd like to see the results for the Newform Research R630, Gallo Acoustics Reference 3, Eminent Technology LFT-VIII, and Vandersteen 3A Signature. Q3: It would be good to see a couple of tests added to your repertoire: step response, square-wave response, and phase response. Any plans for adding these other important measurements?

Odo Galli

A: As you’re probably aware, you can find all of our measurements by visiting www.speakermeasurements.com, or by clicking the Speaker Measurements tab on this site. We are not the only publication producing speaker measurements, but we are the only publication using an anechoic chamber and, of course, the properly calibrated equipment that the Canadian National Research Council has. We feel this is important, because anything less would not produce credible measurements.

We test all speakers that we can practically as part of our SoundStage! equipment reviews. In fact, we have more speakers in the lab for testing right now; however, none of the speakers you mention are part of that group. Maybe in the future.

Finally, as I mentioned up front, we are use an anechoic chamber and laboratory-grade test equipment, and we have hired experienced staff to conduct the tests. All of this costs a considerable amount of money per speaker, quite unlike someone simply measuring speakers his backyard with average test equipment and an improper setup in order to conduct tests at the lowest cost possible. Every loudspeaker we test costs us quite a bit of money, and the number of tests we do on each speaker affects the cost. Therefore, do we add those tests you mention -- some of them we’d like to -- but reduce the number of speakers we measure in order to balance the cost, or do we continue to use the same tests and then measure the high number of speakers that we do now? Right now we’re choosing the latter in order to do a good number of tests on quite a few loudspeakers and provide the kind of information readers like you want to see.

...Doug Schneider