Incompetent Internet Reviewers - Beware!

[Alan March]

Part 1 - Overview

Hi

Im going to put this post in "Technical" as it fundamentally will cover the technical competence of online reviewers.

Its been an interesting week. One of the fantastic benefits of the internet is that everyone can express an opinion. Unfortunately this often leads to a situation where people become convinced their opinion is of more worth or validity than anyone elses, regardless of their actual level of expertise in the subject.

The reason I am mentioning this is because we have just had a speaker reviewed by a South Korean reviewer, Nuyes, and he has published totally misleading information. His lack of technical competence has led him to draw erroneous conclusions, perform frankly incompetent tests, and make claims that dont stand up to scrutiny. He has then followed this up with incompetent modifications to the speaker. I feel for the poor owner who has had his speakers damaged.

He owns a Klippel analyser, but note it is *NOT* a Klippel Near Field Scanner (NFS). It is a low level Klipppel system which cannot compensate for the effects of the room he is performing measurements in. As such his measurements will not be accurate.
Unfortunately we have a situation where he "has all the gear and no idea".

The reviewer discovered a problem with one of the pair of speakers. Hands up, we made a manufacturing error and failed to seal a hole in the speaker binding posts which allowed air to leak from the speaker cabinet. We didnt pick it up on production test as we use very tight fitting banana plugs which sealed the hole. We have subsequently changed the process to stop it happening again.

To be clear the problem this would cause is not something you would hear playing music, but it was picked up by the reviewer as he applied a very high level low frequency sine tone. Something that would never happen in real world use.

We compensated the owner of the speakers for his time to fix the issue himself. It didnt make sense for the speakers to be shipped back here as it was something the owner could easily and quickly remedy. The owner accepted and was happy with this solution and meant he wouldnt be without the speakers for several weeks while they were in transit. We screwed up, we owned it, we fixed it, we apologised.

We take quality control very seriously. My background is in aerospace where quality is for obvious reasons, absolutely critical. I carry this background into March Audio.

Now, it turns out the reviewer had dismantled and actually modified one of the speakers. In doing so he created a problem. He screwed up the specific torque settings on the woofer mounting bolts. These have a specific setting and compliant mounts to minimise a driver resonance. He then reported this as a fault with the speaker, which shows up as a small distortion blip at approximately 380Hz.



It should be noted that the problem was only apparent on one of the speakers in the pair, the one he had dismantled and modified.

The level of the distortion should be half the level he measured, and indeed was in the speaker he had not dismantled and modified.

A recent production test here, the blip is below 0.4%. 14dB lower than Nuyes measurement. 14dB is a massive difference by the way.
Excellent performance:



For information the fluctuations in the frequency response are actually caused by it being an indoors measurement, where reflections cause cancellations and additions. The speaker anechoic response is much flatter. Its a measurement artifact.

• Nuyes first claimed this distortion blip was due to a fault with one of the speakers passive radiators (wrong).
• He then said it was due to the air leak in the binding posts (wrong).
• He then claimed it was due to an air leak around the tweeter motor and waveguide joint (wrong).
• He then claimed this was due to a lack of fill material (wrong).

A 3rd party from S. Korea reported this information back to me. The reviewer did not contact me for comment or advice.

I explained the real reason to the 3rd party; that it was a driver resonance and its vibration coupling into the cabinet due to over-tightened woofer mounting bolts. The information was fed back to the reviewer but he ignored it. In fact he refused to believe it. I also fed back that he had measured the speaker on the wrong axis. He measured with the microphone in between the woofer and tweeter, when it should be on the centre line of the tweeter. Again he ignored this and published data with an incorrect frequency response. A dip in the mid range where there is none. A clear case of measurement error.

The reviewer claimed that the driver resonance does not exist and the blip in distortion is due to the air leaks and is fixed by stuffing the speaker tightly full of damping material. This is completely wrong.

The reviewer subsequently posts his erroneous data in Audio Science Review Forum. Whilst doing so he also cast aspersions on the integrity of another reviewer (the very competent and honourable Erin Hardison) who had previously reviewed the speakers and found no problems.

Nuyes has also lied and stated in a Korean forum:
"to post this to ASR (Audio Science Review) to allow Alan to have a minimal defense".
Nuyes is aware that I cannot post in ASR to challenge his statements. So I think you can see this was just a contrived and dishonest review / attack.

 

[Alan March]

Part 2 - Reviewers Incompetent Vibration Test.

The driver designer, Lars Risbo acknowledges the resonance and our mitigation of it. We have discussed it and a driver modification that we are waiting to implemented in manufacture.

The reviewer Nuyes then tries to prove he is correct by trying to measure if the driver resonance exists. This is where he betrays his complete lack of knowledge about vibration in structures and how to measure it. (BTW vibration measurement is a large part of my professional engineering experience).

Nuyes test set-up.



The driver is sat on its magnet which will completely change the vibration characteristics. It should be mounted by its flange in the normal way in a baffle. You cannot measure the woofer vibration with a microphone at distance from the structure. You need to do this by using an accelerometer on the structure.

The driver designer, Lars Risbo, commented on this inept attempt in DIY Audio Forum:

frame-motor resonance: this is a generic thing for all electrodynamic drivers. there is a heavy motor hanging in the frame which is bolted to a box. The frame acts as a (very stiff) spring and the motor is a mass thus forming a mass spring oscillator. All the Newton forces of the driver goes through this mass-spring system. This makes it very critical how the frame is fixed to the box since the high forces can cause rattling (ie high distortion).

It would be a lot better to mount the driver by its motor which is the source of the Newton forces but this is not standard. The best would be to bolt the motor onto a heavy solid chunk of metal serving as inertial reference to absorb the Newton forces.

Anyway, this is as mentioned a generic problem for all drivers but with the X stroke PTT drivers we have high Mms and a very strong motor in order to get low F3 in a compact box and this means the driver produces more Newtons force for the same SPL compared to a lower Mms driver. This makes the mounting method more critical including how much torque and what materials used etc.

When measuring on the driver laying on its magnet the problem is gone since the Newton forces terminate into the 'ground'and the frame is unterminated so we do not have the mass-spring oscillator.

The reviewer then claims the resonance does not exist.

The reviewer also tried to amplify his points by criticising the quality of the speaker wiring. Now this is where he betrays hisxtrue colours.

He claimed the wiring was loose and prone to vibration. In reality he had pulled out all the speaker fill material and then pulled the wiring from its manufactured position, which is neatly and securely tucked in the cabinet corners under the damping material. This is an overt misrepresentation of how the speaker was manufactured and nothing more than a deliberate attempt to damage our reputation.

In simple and blunt terms, he lied. he also lied about a missing mounting nut. This is not feasible as the bolt would have just fallen out. I suspect he just lost the nut when dismantling the speaker.

Motivations

So what is Nuyes motivation for all this nonsense?

Well I think its simply him trying to save face. My feedback regarding his competence and inaccurate conclusions had got back to the South Korean Audio community. The guy has obviously set himself up as some kind of expert and this incident has exposed his total lack of expertise. He knows nothing about speaker design, test or vibration in structures. The best way to defend himself was to attack me.

The simplest of logic destroys his claims regarding the distortion blip being caused by air leaks and lack of speaker fill:

Both speakers in the pair had the air leak in the binding posts and had the same amount of internal fill. Yet only one suffered the distortion blip; The one he had dismantled and modified.

If the cause was the air leak or the fill, both speakers would show the same distortion. The only thing stuffing the speaker with additional fill did is to destroy the box tuning. Reduce bass and dynamic response.

So my point is basically to be very wary of what you read on the internet. You need to treat these self appointed "experts" with an abundance of caution. This particular reviewer is simply an amateur with no appropriate engineering knowledge or experience. A guy with a hobby and an expensive shiny measurement toy.

 

[Alan March]

Part 3 - Audio Science Review

A secondary concerning issue is the behaviour of Amir, the owner of Audio Science review. This is where the above reviewer was allowed to post.

Whilst I managed to get some feedback into the thread through a 3rd party, Amir and his minion moderator BD Woody have proceeded to delete further commentary which exposes the reviewers incompetence and agenda. They only want a certain narrative presented.

Nuyes is aware of this situation and stated in a Korean forum:
"to post this to ASR (Audio Science Review) to allow Alan to have a minimal defense"

I have been banned from ASR because I previously criticised Amirs speaker testing methods. They are unscientific and break every rule which is intended to minimise individual bias.

Amir measures a speaker first and examines the data. Doing this primes him (biases him) to how a speaker might sound, based on his interpretation of the data. Reading a graph does not easily tell you how a speaker will sound. It's very complex to interpret the data and Amir has no experience of speaker design and the complex intricacies and factors that lead to the final subjective result.

He then listens (in his garage!) to the speaker sighted and guess what? He hears exactly what he expected to based on his interpretation of the previously seen data. He then "corrects" the speakers "deficiencies" with EQ and listens sighted again.

Guess what? The speaker suddenly sounds fantastic and problems are solved.

This result is as predictable as it is false.

This is incompetent science. Its a self fulfilling bias loop. It also shows utter hypocrisy on Amirs behalf. He is always the first to berate others for not following the science. It also contradicts the alleged rationale of the forum.

Anyone who tries to take these sorts of issues up with Amir gets banned, as I was. This is why Amir is only allowing a one sided narrative and hasnt taken this other reviewer to task regarding his proven flawed posts. There is an agenda.

So again, be very wary of these self appointed "experts".

Amirs other testing of electronics is equally flawed. His reviews and technical examinations are incredibly limited in scope.

SINAD appears to be practically the only considered factor in a review and is given most emphasis. This is extremely naive to think this one parameter tells you all you need to know.

Another example of his flawed methods is regarding amplifier testing. Amir measures the power output at a random point on the distortion curve. At whatever point he sees fit to choose that day, somewhere random up the "knee" where distortion starts to rapidly rise. This chosen point is different in EVERY single review.

This is again incompetent science. It should be measured at exactly the same distortion point in every review. All competent testing uses a fixed reference point. This is typically (almost universally) considered to be 1% THD.

Amir also doesn't measure and state the mains supply voltage during the test. In most cases (unregulated power amp supply) it will directly affect the output power capability.

This is all very basic stuff, yet Amir doesn't do it.

So you can basically ignore Amirs statements of power output, they are wrong and you cant compare one amp to another.

Second obvious issue with amp testing is that he only measures the amplifier with a single resistive 4 ohm load. Amplifier behaviour and performance can change significantly with real world speaker loads which are reactive and vary across the frequency range. Other reputable reviewers use simulated reactive speaker loads to assess amplifiers. They also test stability. Amir does none if this.

Another issue you will see is that most of his amp reviews have lots of mains pick up, 60Hz and harmonics of. I can assure you that whilst some of the time this is down to the amplifier under test, a great many times it is caused by the measurement set-up. I have seen amps that I know dont have a problem, show problems in Amirs tests. This is simply a test set-up problem. Again, having the shiny toys (an AP 555 analyser) doesnt infer competence or expertise.

These were issue I tackled Amir about, and I wasnt the only one to do so, but Amir just ignores it and bans dissenters.

He takes very little care and time with his reviews. Remember he is making money out of donations, so it's in his interest to keep a rapid flow of simplistic quick to produce reviews and censor criticism.

He also banned another speaker reviewer from the site, Erin Hardison. Erin was providing far more useful, accurate and scientifically oriented data and informed opinions. Erins site is a source of genuinely accurate and objective information. My recommendation is if you want to know what speakers are really like, go there and not to ASR. You will come out far better informed than from ASR. Erins methods actually follow the science and the tests are far more comprehensive

Erin's Audio Corner

The Sound of Science

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

Oh, IIRC Amir also banned Doug from Soundstage who voiced valid criticism of Amirs speaker test methods. It's pretty clear from these actions that Amir is not acting in the audio communities interest as he portrays. It's all about Amir .

So finally, just be wary and careful of what and who you decide to believe

 

[Alan March]

Part 4 - Audio Science Review Speaker Test Errors

Just thought I would point out another example of Amirs curious speaker testing results that just happens to be very relevant to the case in hand. It's just one of many inconsistencies you will see if you look in detail at his tests. Often you will find a particular issue is heavily criticised in one review, and yet in another review a similar problem is ignored or played down. Bias? Lack of care and attention? Lack of knowledge and understanding? I will let you decide.

Amir tested another design based on the same Purifi woofer we use. It was a diy community effort assisted by Amir, the "ASR Directiva" speaker.

It's a different sized box, with different panel dimensions, made of different material with different passive radiator, internal bracing, damping and fill.

This is the result.



A massive 4% distortion spike at 380Hz.

Amir casually dismisses this as "could be gear on top".

It isn't. its the driver resonance. It is real, it's the same as we see, but in this case has not been dealt with. We have virtually eliminated it.

What is really concerning is that Amir just dismisses it. Why was he testing with "gear on top" of the speaker? That's just sloppy, well frankly it's incompetent.

Why did he not remove the "gear on top" and re test?

Or did he know it was a real problem with the design but didn't want to highlight it because he and ASR was involved?

Either way it just shows his reviews can't be trusted. How many other reviews were performed with "gear on top"? How many other reviews where significant issues are played down or ignored?

 

[Alan March]

Part 5 - Audio Science Review Censorship

I see that an ASR member has posted a link to this thread where I outline my response to the review by the incompetent and dishonest @nuyes member. Remember I cannot post in ASR so have no right to reply.

The link has been deactivated by Amir or BDWoody his minion moderator.

Proof positive that they dont want a balanced view presented and want to censor my valid criticisms of this Korean reviewer, and Amirs inept methods and limited scope of testing.

If I am wrong surely Amir could successfully argue his points? Seems not. Censorship is his strategy.

What a sorry state of affairs and how damaging for Amirs credibility and reputation.

 

[Alan March]

Part 6 - Another Pertinent Example

We have another pertinent example of Amirs misunderstanding of speaker data and design.

He tested the SPK5, another speaker using the Purifi woofer.

In the data we see the same driver resonance. Remember it's a different design, different size box etc.



He doesn't consider it a big issue.

Amir then completely misdiagnoses the issue and in the process betrays a lack of understanding of basic speaker design.

He labels the feature as a "port resonance".



It's no such thing. It's the driver resonance. Also ports are designed to invoke resonance. That's how they work!!!

You can see above that the port is tuned to resonate at a low frequency. Not 380Hz. This is how they augment the bass. See here.

Bass reflex - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

One of the disadvantages of ports is that below their tuned frequency they dont damp the movement of air. This means there is no control or damping of the woofer cones movement. This can lead to excessive cone excursions and damage to the driver.

In normal use with music this is rarely a problem. Music content below 40Hz starts to fall rapidly. However what Amir does is test them with very high level sine tones down to 20Hz.

This is a recipe for disaster. You can see in his tests how distortion increases massively as the drivers are pushed beyond their capabilities.

This isn't a speaker problem, it's just Amir in his ignorance driving the speaker beyond its design parameters.

Again, it's very rarely an issue with real music, but Amirs commentary indicates he thinks its relevant. He simply doesn't understand speaker design, or the relevance of his tests verses real world usage.

I dread to think about how he has potentially damaged the speakers of owners that sent them in for test.

 

[Alan March]

Part 7 - Is It Just Me?

You might be forgiven to thinking this is just me having a whinge about a bad review. Well Im afraid Im not the only one who suffers at the hands of these amateur and incompetent reviewers.

Another Amir failure was when he reviewed the Elac UniFi 2.0 speaker. Designed by the very talented Andrew Jones, who has decades of experience and has designed some fantastic speakers.

After testing the speaker and finding multiple alleged problems, Amir concluded:-

Conclusions
What a shock to discover what I did with this speaker. Usually resonances color the sound. They don't become instruments on their own. But that is what happened here. And in a design from the talented Andrew Jones. Given how easy it was to detect the issue in multiple measurements, it should have been caught and fixed.

As far as I am concerned, this is a show-stopper, broken design. Don't know how else to put it. FYI Eva Cassidy album is standard issue at all audio shows in multiple suites so it is not like it is some oddball track one never sees. I guess it is possible this one speaker sample has an issue in which case I encourage Elac to try to replicate this problem and let us know what is going on.

For now, I can not recommend the Elac Uni-Fi 2.0.


Andrew Jones retested the speaker to see if he could confirm the problems. He couldnt. He very politely said Amirs testing results were completely wrong. Any problems were due to Amir driving the speaker significantly beyond its power rating.

Andrews response:-

OK, it's taken a while, but here are my findings.
I sent them to Amir directly a week or so ago so he could take a look, and now I'm haring them with the group directly.
I had to wait to get the sample Amir had tested, since he had already returned it to the original owner. I contacted that owner to arrange to have it shipped to me , along with the other of the pair, once he received it. Since Amir had not noted the serial number I made sure the owner marked which one was the sample that was returned from Amir.
I also asked that he give it another listen to compare to the retained speaker, in light of Amir's findings
His response was that maybe, just maybe he heard something different, but wasn't totally sure that it wasn't just bias from knowing Amirs findings.

I have now studied the speaker samples; the one you tested, the other sample from the customer, and a number of samples I had in my lab.

These are my findings.

1/ The sample you tested has a trim ring that is slightly raised in a few places. This lifted it in such a way that it could potentially vibrate.
2/ It’s pair showed no such signs. The trim ring was properly seated.
3/ In my initial listening and testing sessions, I found no evidence of vibration (Rattling) during standard sweep testing or odd noises while listening to the test track you identified. These tests were done at normal test level and listening level.

In light of your comments about listening at high levels, and using an extremely powerful amplifier, I brought out an amplifier rated at 300W into the impedance of the speaker at the frequency in question.
I first listened with the test track and adjusted the level to just reach clipping point during that track segment. I could not hear the noise. I then raised the gain to push the amplifier into severe clipping, to the point that on the loudest vocals the voice was heavily modulated and distorted due to clipping. I could still not detect the noise you described. Nor could my colleague.

I then went to do sweep testing from an oscillator to try and zero in on that frequency range. At normal sweep testing levels I could not detect any odd noise.

However, if I increased the level to just below clipping on this test amplifier, in this case at 80W/5 ohms, I now heard a very noticeable rattle/vibration.
It was a little more obvious on the sample with the raised trim ring, but was still evident on the pair sample.

After a short while I went to push on the midrange cone to see if it might be rubbing on a potentially off-center tweeter, but was surprised that the midrange cone was very hot. The midrange driver has a voice coil wound on an aluminum former bonded to an aluminum cone. This gives quite a good heat transfer from coil to cone.
I let it cool down, and repeated the experiment. Same result. In just a matter of 10-15 seconds the cone became very hot.
This is a lot of power being dissipated in the driver. On music I have never noticed that cone getting warm, despite playing at loud levels even in show conditions.

Once I backed down the level a few dB, the vibration noise went away.

It seems that the vibration happens at high level. But this level is way beyond the rated power level of this speaker. Let me explain how we do our power testing and how it relates to the power contained in music rather than sine waves.

When we establish power rating on a speaker, we test with IEC noise (pink noise filtered to a limited bandwidth to represent a music spectrum, with a crest factor of 6dB) . Let’s say that we want to test for a Max power of 100W. We adjust the long term average power to 25W (6dB crest factor) equivalent to a 100W amplifier just at clipping. We then run the speaker for 96 hours at this level. This is severe. Over such a long period the speaker gets very hot, the drivers being much too hot to touch. After cooling down, we retest the speaker. It must pass the standard test limits we put on a production speaker.
We then increase the level to 33W and run for a further 24 hours. it must survive and shift its specs just moderately. After that we turn up the level to destruction point. The speaker must not catch fire.

This is a very severe overall test. Much more severe than regular music represents, and much more severe than the AES/IEC long term power handling test spec.

In the case of the UNIFI, the max power rating is 140W. The testing we do allows for up to 25 or 33W of continuous power. In testing this sample I had to put in 2-3 times that continuous power level, centered at the frequency of the issue, to excite the noise, and on music I tested at 2 times the max power level and just below clipping level of the amplifier and heard nothing. Even when running into gross clipping I only heard the effect of gross clipping of the amplifier

It seems that the level you were testing at was far in excess of the max power rating of the speaker. This could account for the comments from other listeners that have not heard the sound.

I will put the speaker back together, and get it, or a fresh sample, returned to you to continue your evaluation. I will also track down the rattle that I did hear when the speaker was grossly overdriven and report back.

Regards

Andrew Jones
ELAC


So Amirs incompetence put Andrew to tremendous trouble, possibly damaged his reputation and the commercial success of that Elac speaker. All for no good reason.

In his arrogance Amir has not retracted the review.

Look elsewhere for professional reviews.

 

[Alan March]

Part 8 - Slander

I mentioned in part 1 that this reviewer, who goes by the name Nuyes on Audio Science review, had cast aspersions on the integrity of another speaker reviewer, Erin Hardison. Erins work is excellent. Honest, accurate and informed reviews of speakers. Check it out along with his youtube channel.

Erin's Audio Corner

The Sound of Science

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW_IqM21u0J-zsKtCq4Gj2w

Erin had previously tested the Sointuva and found no problems. Check out the review.

March Audio Sointuva Bookshelf Speaker Review

March Audio Sointuva Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

So it turns out Nuyes has been forced to apologise for his lies. He has buried the apology in the Audio Science Review thread. Here it is below:


@Nuyen
+ 01.07.2022

Regardless of the core problem of the Sointuva WG, I want to confess my mistakes and make things right.
It is true that I had strong suspicions about Erin at the time I was fixing issues with Sointuva WG.
And already one of my friends asked Erin about this question, and Erin gave him an appropriate answer... but I didn't believe it.
A cowardly excuse... I use templates for most of my measurements while using Klippel software.
This led to strong suspicions that only certain processes were missing from his measurements.
I doubted him without exact grounds, and he made no effort to believe it.
This is very wrong.
And this has resulted in many people being suspicious of Erin.
And also this totally ruined one man's happy weekend.
It's all my responsibility and my fault for people to doubt and slander him, at least on issues related to this thread.
I apologized to he timidly, and he asked me to post this apology on ASR for everyone to see.
Its contents are as follows:


Hello, Erin.
I am the person who posted that review on ASR.
I would like to sincerely apologize to you for this.
I should have asked and wrote about the missing 86dB SPL at 1m THD data in the first place, but I didn't.
And my stupid rashness totally ruined one man's pleasant weekend.
-----
Apart from this, you have always been a great help to me.
The data you've accumulated has given me the confidence of the public as well as cross-validation of my reviews by reviewing the same speakers.
I am fully aware of the difference between my measurement data and the anechoic chamber measurement data using Klippel NFS, and it's limitations.
But despite that, the THD of the Sointuva sample I received was higher than the 96dB data you measured, a symptom not found with other speakers I've run.
So, using the Klippel DIS module(as you know), I tested the harmonic distortion of that resonant band and found that it had a maximum value at about 85dB SPL at 1m.
Coincidentally, I also found that 86dB SPL data was missing from the Sointuva WG only in your review series.
That made me suspicious of you.
Explaining all of this may sound like an excuse for my atrocities, but I think all I can do is tell the truth.
Once again, I sincerely apologize.


So its clear that the character of this Nuyes individual is sorely lacking.

 

[Alan March]

Part 9 - Nuyes Other Lie

So apart from lying about the cabling, this reviewer Nuyes also lied about a missing driver mounting nut.

At no point we we informed about an allegedly missing nut. Not from the owner, not from Nuyes original data or reports. The claim only appears in Nuyes ASR forum post which is maybe 2 months after the event.

If no nut is inserted in the cabinet the driver bolt will just flop about loose. It will sit at an angle and just fall out with the slightest provocation.

So how would this go unnoticed during production, test and packing? Then go unnoticed by the owner, then unnoticed by Nuyes. Only to be allegedly found when he dismantled the speaker.......and nobody thought to mention it? A problem that only "appeared" for him to put in his ASR post. Really?

This claim goes completely beyond credibility. It's simply another lie.

Like with messing with the cabling, he removed the nut in attempt to criticise the product and our quality.

This is a simple "hatchet job". I wondered if Nuyes has some kind of association with a competing product, but I think this Nuyes guy is just a bit of a fruit loop to be honest. The only "nut" around here

Nuyes has already had to publicly apologise to Erin Hardison for lying about him. So I am also asking for a public apology for his lies about our product.
I know he is reading this.


A missing retaining nut would have been obvious. Obvious to us, the owner and Nuyes. It didnt happen

 

[Holmz]

In some cultures it’s important to save face... (but you’re not really leaving the fellow any way out.)

I agree it would be difficult to torque the bolt it to spec with out a nut, so someone must have removed it.
But the chain of custody seems is pretty short here… unless there was someone else between the owner and the Nuyes, then I do not think that anyone is going to be stepping forwards.


It would not be uncommon to try and reverse engineer a good sounding speaker, which would also require disassembly to measure things up.
hypothetically if one were to be doing that, then a discrediting job would just be an extra bonus along the way.
If that were the case then you, and likely Bruno, could have some competition on the horizon.
(I thought that I had read some side swipes at the Purifi driver resonance?)

Copying it to a cheaper price point, is a pretty old business practice.

I am not saying it is the case here, but it is not like it has never happened before.
(And it would unlikely for us to see that being done in Australia or NZ.)

Surely one would consider removing the passive radiators as that is a good place to save money, and there was testing at the rear of the speaker.

Have you considered that hypothesis My dear Watson?

 

[Alan March]

Part 10 - SB Acoustics Response

I have just had a very interesting conversation with an engineer from SB Acoustics.

He got in contact with us because someone had contacted him for comment about the alleged air leak in their tweeter.

Their engineers have looked into it and have dismissed the possibility of an air leak in the “butterfly” assembly between the tweeter motor and waveguide. To quote; “any potential leak would be so small and slow, it would be practically DC”

So again, categorically mis-diagnosis by Nuyes. His claim of an air leak on the tweeter is incorrect.

Basically, who do people want to believe, professional engineers in SB Acoustics and Purifi, or an internet reviewer with no relevant engineering qualifications or experience?

SB Acoustics gave me permission to share this information. They will be making a formal statement, potentially through the individual that contacted them.

SB Acoustics Statement

At SB Acoustics we will comment only on the tweeter related discussion points. There seem to be two air leak related claims.
1. Air leak between tweeter butterfly and waveguide:
There is no more leakage here than there is between the butterfly and the face plate on any of our other tweeters. We have never found this to be an issue, nor seen any complaints, though theoretically there may be a very low frequency (close to DC) leakage. However, this should not reflect on the response curve.

2. Air leak / seal between waveguide bolt holes and cabinet or insert nuts:
The waveguide tweeter in question comes with high quality pre-mounted EDPM sealing gasket on the outer flange. Like on all our other drivers, the gasket has holes for the bolts to go through (but there is gasket material all around the bolt holes). Some customers use wood screws, and some customers use bolts and insert nuts. We have no control of that – we have a solution that makes it easy to do both. The leakage you would find (if any) through the insert nut is VERY low frequency (like an intentional pin hole in a soft dome for pressure equalization) – i.e., very slow seeping. Even if there is a tiny leak through the insert nuts, the bolt head is pressed against the faceplate/waveguide when the bolt is fastened. If any leakage remains in this area, it will be completely insignificant. It will not show as any notch/dip/resonance on the response curve. If you have any doubts or somehow still find this to be a problem, you can always apply a drop of sealing glue on the tip of the bolt or inside the insert nut prior to mounting.

I have been in touch with Alan March of March Audio. He has expressed that he is completely confident in the SB Acoustics products and quality and has found no air leak issues on the products supplied by SB.




Kind regards

Mark Thomsen
SB Audience | SB Acoustics

 

[Alan March]

In some cultures it’s important to save face... (but you’re not really leaving the fellow any way out.)

I agree it would be difficult to torque the bolt it to spec with out a nut, so someone must have removed it.
But the chain of custody seems is pretty short here… unless there was someone else between the owner and the Nuyes, then I do not think that anyone is going to be stepping forwards.


It would not be uncommon to try and reverse engineer a good sounding speaker, which would also require disassembly to measure things up.
hypothetically if one were to be doing that, then a discrediting job would just be an extra bonus along the way.
If that were the case then you, and likely Bruno, could have some competition on the horizon.
(I thought that I had read some side swipes at the Purifi driver resonance?)

Copying it to a cheaper price point, is a pretty old business practice.

I am not saying it is the case here, but it is not like it has never happened before.
(And it would unlikely for us to see that being done in Australia or NZ.)

Surely one would consider removing the passive radiators as that is a good place to save money, and there was testing at the rear of the speaker.

Have you considered that hypothesis My dear Watson?

Absolutely understand that, but Nuyes has come out swinging punches. He has attacked the reputation of Erin Hardison, Purifi, SB Acoustics and of course myself. The only way out for him is to publicly apologise to ALL of these parties for his errors.

 

[Holmz]

Absolutely understand that, but Nuyes has come out swinging punches. He has attacked the reputation of Erin Hardison, Purifi, SB Acoustics and of course myself. The only way out for him is to publicly apologise to ALL of these parties for his errors.

Well like COVID advice, I would suggest not hold your breath.
He (Nuyes) has some mad skillz, good equipment, and a good writing style.

And if he believes that he is right and honest, then maybe there was a third person involved or it suffered some shipping drama?
It is basically the only scenario that makes sense where there is not a liar present. Right now it is Alan v Nuyes.

Erin has been a bit beat up lately… and he is a hard fellow not to like. He had some super mad skillz too.
I don’t know if he is super smart, but he works harder than an Alaskan sled dog. (I suspect probably it’s both.)

 

[Alan March]

Well like COVID advice, I would suggest not hold your breath.
He (Nuyes) has some mad skillz, good equipment, and a good writing style.

And if he believes that he is right and honest, then maybe there was a third person involved or it suffered some shipping drama?
It is basically the only scenario that makes sense where there is not a liar present. Right now it is Alan v Nuyes.

Erin has been a bit beat up lately… and he is a hard fellow not to like. He had some super mad skillz too.
I don’t know if he is super smart, but he works harder than an Alaskan sled dog. (I suspect probably it’s both.)

Nuyes doesn't have any relevant skills. He has been proven technically wrong at every juncture.

He just has a klippel machine. All the gear an no idea.

He is a liar. He tried to spread lies about Erin Hardison, for which he was forced to publicly apologise.

He lied about the wiring and the missing mounting bolt.

he certainly aint smart

 

[Holmz]

That maybe true, but saying it, is not helping in a marketing sense.
and… if it all not true and provable, then it is even more certain not to help towards the greater end.

 

[Alan March]

That maybe true, but saying it, is not helping in a marketing sense.
and… if it all not true and provable, then it is even more certain not to help towards the greater end.

Oh I think customers are intelligent enough to make their own minds up and see the wood for the trees.

When companies like SB Acoustics turn round and say the guy is wrong, and when the guy has already been forced to publicly apologise for his lies about Erin Hardison, and when he makes public statements such as:
"post this to ASR (Audio Science Review) to allow Alan to have a minimal defense"
I don't think it leaves him with much credibility. It's obviously a contrived attack.

There is a small hard core of ASR haters who make a lot of noise. It is the nature of social media. They grossly over estimate their impact. Their uninformed commentary and vitriol is pretty comic to be honest. Very "Dunning Kruger" .

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Our business isnt affected, but I do want the truth communicated

BTW a prefessional review is coming out soon in Sound And Vision, along with another in Australian Hi Fi.

Alan