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pierreaubert / spinorama

A library to display and compare spinorama (speakers measurements) graphs.
GNU General Public License v3.0
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asr audiosciencereview cea2034 erinsaudiocorner measurements pir speakers spinorama

readme

Spinorama : a library to display speaker frequency response and similar graphs

GPLv3 license Maintenance Website www.spinorama.org pre-commit DeepSource

This library provides an easy way to view, compare or analyse speakers data. This can help you take informed decision when buying a speaker instead of relying on commercial information or internet buzz. There are enough measurements now that you can do statistical analysis if you wanted too.

Jump to the gallery of all (1000+) speakers measurements.

What is a spinorama set of graphs?

It is a way to understand quickly a speaker properties, how it will sound.

Here is an example:

image

The speaker above is very good.

Please read:

Or if you prefer videos, there is a nice set from ErinsAudioCorner:

  1. What Is Frequency Response? || Understanding the Measurements Part 1
  2. Off-Axis vs On-Axis Response || Understanding the Measurements Part 2
  3. What the heck is SPINORAMA?! || Understanding the Measurements Part 3
  4. Predicting Loudspeaker Performance In YOUR Room || Understanding the Measurements Part 4
  5. Loudspeaker Compression || Understanding the Measurements Part 5

Features

Import capabilities

The library support four different formats of data:

  1. Klippel NFS format: a set of CSV files. Various variants of the data format are supported via scripts that allows to convert one format to another.
  2. Princeton 3D3A files: they are IR data in hdf5 format.
  3. Scanned data from a picture with WebPlotDigitizer.
  4. Export in text form from REW
  5. GLL data files are also (weakly) supported. If you want access to the automation, then please drop an email. GLL viewer is a Windows only application and the automation is based on Windows automation.

Computations

  1. Generate CEA2034 data from horizontal and vertical SPL data.
  2. Calculate contour plots, radar plots, isolines and isobands.
  3. Estimate basic data for a speaker (-3dB output, flatness over a range, etc)
  4. Compute various parameters defined in a paper from Olive (ref. below).
  5. It can generate an EQ to optimise the speaker (and get a better preference score also called Olive score) based on anechoic data. Note: this is not yet a room correction software. EQ can be PEQ based but it also can generate a solution for a hardware graphical EQ.
  6. It can compute the effect of an EQ (IIR) on the spinorama.

Website generation

  1. Webpages digestable on mobile but also on very large 4k screens.
  2. Graphs are interactive.
  3. Comparison between speakers is possible.
  4. Some statistics.
  5. All generated EQs are easily accessible.
  6. You can find similar speakers at a lower price point.

Other ways to look at the graphs in a more interactive way.

If you want to generate the graphs yourself or play with the data you need to install the software. Please see the dedicated INSTALL section.

How to add a speaker to the database.

Please see the dedicated tutorial.

How to use the software.

Please see the dedicated manual.

Source of data and citations

AudioScienceReview aka ASR

ASR is a fantastic source of speakers data thanks to amirm@. They also have a lot of data about DACs that you may found useful. There is little correlation between price and quality in the audio world and this data gives some objective criteria to decide what to buy. You can support ASR.

ErinsAudioCorner aka EAC

Erin is a motivated person reviewing speakers and doing an outstanging jobs. He also has a Youtube channel. You can also support him.

3D3A is a research organisation at Princeton.

Books and research papers

Some papers related to finding the optimal IIR filters: I used a different algorithm but that's interesting to read.

Speakers manufacturers.