Judging Speakers

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 23, 21 December 1928, Page 28

Judging Speakers

HE human ear is such a tricky piece of mechanism that one can be deceived into believing something that is actually not so. That is*why it is so hard to judge loudspeakers. After hearing a loudspeaker in a friend’s place or at the shop of a dealer, one may decide that it is not as good as his own when he turns on his radio receiver a little while later. Yet the speaker just heard may be the better.. The reason for this queer decision is that the ear has become adapted to listening to distorted music, and when the faithful reproduction is heard, it sounds as though the speaker is at fault. The ear hus becdme used to the omission of tones and overtones; and when they are introduced the effect is not always pleasing to the ear. It is for this reason that it is almost impossible to compare two spenkers unless they, are heard working alternately on the same receiver, with some arrangement that will enable’ the speakers to be changed over rapidly.