When I had the opportunity to visit Axiom I had an opportunity to compare a number of products. One of the biggest surprises was how different the M80 and M22 sounded, particularly in the midrange. After all, here were two speakers with a very flat frequency response, shouldn't the sound almost the same?
I have seen both the Rocket 850 and M80s compared to the Paradigm Studio 100, with lots of folks saying they both sound very close to the 100. Yet, the few direct comparisons of the 850 and the M80 describe them as having very different sounds.
Fast forward to the sub conversations and the same issue pops up. It was amazing how similar the frequency response of the PB13 and EP600 were from 20-100+Hz, yet they sound different.
So, what accounts for those differences?
I have a list of suspects:
1. Distortion. At lower levels, can it have a more subtle affect on the overall sound?
2. We are more sensative than commonly aknowledged to small differences in spls. 1 or 2 db up here and down there and you have different sounding speakers?
The pedant in me wants to know.
I think there are three things to consider:
1) The idiosyncratic, and mysterious intricacies of the human mind. I see it all the time in my medical work. Why should two drugs, working ostensibly through the same mechanism of action, have different effects on the same person - or for that matter opposite effects from one person to the other? We may all be of the same species - but no two individuals in a population are identical.
2) The cables.
3) The power conditioner.
