How to Find Great Speakers

(from MAXIM Magazine - November 1998)

With a little Green and a little Pink, you can really crank up your stereo experience.

Face It: You're not the know-it-all audiophile geek you once were. Never fear, Maxim's here to pick out the quality speakers you can finally afford. Experts reveal the criteria to look for; Maxim provides the Pink Floyd songs that help you zero in on each one.

Criterion: Wave Form Fidelity Floyd You'll Need: The Gunner's Dream, The Final Cut

According to John Strohbeen, president and chief designer of Ohm Acoustics (http://www.ohmspeakers.com), wave-form fidelity is a measure of how well speakers reproduce sound in all its nuances and prevent a gunshot and car's backfire from sounding like the same damned thing. Just before the bridge in "The Gunner's Dream," Roger Waters' cry morphs into the wail of a saxophone. The sounds are designed to blend seamlessly, but if you've got good wave-form fidelity, the transition should be loud and clear.

Criterion: Balance Floyd You'll Need: Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, The Wall

If you don't eat your meat (i.e., check for good right-left balance), you can't have any pudding (i.e., great sound). Stand midway between the speakers and close your eyes. When that helicopter comes down, it should seem directly above you, Vic Morrow style.

Criterion: Frequency Ranges Floyd You'll Need: Careful with that Axe, Eugene, Ummugumma

Speakers typically come in two flavors, Two-ways use woofers and tweeters to handle low and high frequencies, respectively; three-ways add a separate midrange. Your speakers need to prove they can handle the whole range. Listen for the part about halfway through when the menacing, low-down bass riff turns into the high-pitched screaming of the crazy freak and see how the speakers make the transition. It should be terrifying.

Criterion: 3-D Stereo Imaging Floyd You'll Need: Us and Them, The Dark Side of the Moon

This is how a speaker acoustically reproduces the layout of the place where the music was recorded so you feel like you're there. Test using a softer track with background singers. The echoes of these lyrics - "Us (us, us, us) and them (them, them, them) / And after all we're only ordinary men" - should proceed in a circle from the right speaker, to who's behind Roger (who's sonically between your speakers) and around to the left.

Check out the magazine, MAXIM I've had a subscription for a while and have seen Floyd mentioned several times here and there. Very cool magazine.

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