Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo A cross-reference of recommendations with score

The Wirecutter released their annual bookshelf speaker recommendations, at price points accessible to the average consumer disinterested in wading through the high end.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-bookshelf-speakers/#other-good-bookshelf-speakers

They’re more credible than your typical golden ear audiophile source in that they’re picked by calibrated double blind listening tests by a panel of informal volunteers. The content is free, but you should probably clear your cookies and cache or use a VPN if you see a paywall.

To save you the trouble, I cross-referenced the citied models (where available) with Pierre Aubert’s database repository of crowdsourced measurements and Olive score: https://www.spinorama.org

Recommended
Q Acoustics 3020i: 4.0 (6.5 with perfect subwoofer)
Triangle Borea BR03: 4.4 (6.6)

Other good bookshelves
Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2: 5.1 (7.2)
KEF Q150: 4.9 (7.0)

The competition
Dayton Audio B652 Air: 1.7 (4.7)
Dayton Audio MK402X: 3.9 (6.3)
Elac Debut 2.0 B5.2: 4.5 (6.7)
Monoprice Monolith Encore B6: 4.7 (6.9)
Monoprice K-BAS: 4.9 (7.9)
Polk Audio XT20: 4.5 (6.8)
Polk Audio Monitor 40 Series II: 2.4 (5.1)
SVS Ultra: 5.7 (8.1)
Wharfdale Diamond 12.1: 5.4 (7.7)
Wharfdale Diamond 220: 3.7 (6.9)

It seems like the listening panels tended to prefer a lifted treble (with correspondingly more treble air) than what the NRC and Harman research would predict. From my own experience with my Angstrom speakers, that might not be an accident. It might not be something in the original recording, but it’s a pleasing effect.

My (biased) commentary
- The recommendations are good ones for their target audience, but probably not for someone reading this forum.
- The Olive score is a predictor of which speakers would win double blind listening tests. The number and severity of colorations that deviate from neutrality decreases as the score moves up. Differences < 1.0 are statistically insignificant. The Olive score is a flawed metric that will be tweaked and improved upon in the future, but if you consider it a proxy for speaker neutrality, the average person will be happy with anything scoring above 4.0.
- Lack of bass is a major coloration because it’s a deviation from neutrality, so add a subwoofer. Everything sounds better with a subwoofer, with correspondingly better Olive scores.
- Between an algorithm and an actual double blind listening panel, I’m picking the latter.
- Small speakers reach their physical limits early, causing audible compression artifacts. You might still need tower speakers or big bookshelves for room filling sound.
- Some people are maximizers rather than satisficers. https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/maximizers-satisficers-decision-making Maximizers will second guess their decisions and won’t sleep until they found the best of the best. These people looking for their endgame state-of-the-art bookshelf loudspeaker probably should look for a speaker that scores above 8.1 with perfect subwoofer. That puts you in the range of statistical parity with the best of the best (9.0).

Does anyone own any of the cited loudspeakers? It would be interesting to see if your opinions collaborate with the panel's.

BTW, 60 speakers on Pierre's site meet that 8.1 threshold with perfect subwoofer. The Sonos Roam doesn't make the cutoff though, the software won't allow pairing with a sub!