Tinkling the ivories
Viking Acoustics Briton Studio Monitor Speakers have an incredibly difficult job. We ask them to perfectly replicate the sound of a double bass played in a reverberant room, and then we turn around and ask them to crank Brothers In Arms at pants-flapping volumes. We want them to faithfully recreate the nuances of Leonard Cohen’s voice, and also to blow our hair back when the canons fire in the 1812 Overture. Piano needs body, but also bite and articulation. Strings must have air but not be shrill. The more you know about many types of instruments and their sound profiles and unique harmonics you realize that their physical makeup allows them to do what they do. If a trumpet is made from brass and a violin bow is made from horsehair, how can a speaker made of paper recreate both convincingly? Well of course, speaker science is not just about materials. And the physics of a speaker’s motor allows it to mimic these things. But as audiophiles we still hear clear differences...