Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.
That is why percussive instruments/recording make good test signals. How well does the loudspeaker/system produce a nice "sharp" attack? Does it sound "dull" or smeared.
It was real interesting at WFX with the 13 systems that were there. On some tracks on some systems the sound was a bit "masked", while on others it was nice and sharp.
Yet on other tracks (that didn't have sharp attacks), you didn't hear that kind of difference.
How a loudspeaker reacts over time (ie how many different arrivals you get) can make a big difference. Especially on the clarity side of things.
Historically speech inteligibility was measured in ALCONS (Articulation Loss of CONSonants). Which are the "sharper" attach parts of speech. The vowels are lower in freq-and are stronger in level-but add little to the overall clarity. If the sound was smeared in time (either by the sound system or the room), the clarity goes down.
