Only those anal enough to care will get the best. 'The price of freedom (from crap sound) is eternal vigilance'.
Indeed very interesting stuff, but also stuff that has been researched ad infinitum. Seemingly unrelated issues like this 'filling in' of sound, expectation bias, changes in remembered events with circumstances, or, even more weird, phantom limb perceptions, all come back to one significant point: the brain is a prediction machine. Say a word and it completes the sentence, so to speak.
For 'us', there's a difference between, say, a 'real' chair in front of us and a chair remembered from yesterday. For the brain, it's all 'inside your head'. For the brain, there is no difference between reality and what is made up, remembered or imagined inside it.
But because we insist on this imaginary (pun intended) difference we get mad when someone suggests we imagined something. On the contrary, in a very real sense it's ALL imagined
jan
Jan - you're sounding more and more like Jeff Hawkins. Been reading his 'On Intelligence' by any chance?
I do all those things. It sounds better but not as real as live in my room. Any other ideas?
Jan, I don't disagree with your post, but I do find, "For the brain, there is no difference between reality and what is made up, remembered or imagined inside it" to be a bit overstated. In other words, the audio problem as it stands exists precisely because the brain can discern real vs reproduced.
That the brain "involuntarily" completes the missing puzzle pieces is IMO a good sign in regards to audio reproduction. It means progress is being made. And as a layman I tend to agree that the stereo paradigm needs further research. Leading to fewer missing pieces to fill in. Digital is capable of achieving that goal.
That the brain "involuntarily" completes the missing puzzle pieces is IMO a good sign in regards to audio reproduction. It means progress is being made. And as a layman I tend to agree that the stereo paradigm needs further research. Leading to fewer missing pieces to fill in. Digital is capable of achieving that goal.
Exactly. And then someone wonders that a horn sounds different in his living room
The question is how to get the repro sound in the home to be a lot closer to 'real' music played in the home with real musical instruments? Why is there such a big gap? Care to solve that mystery?
The other thing is that music in the home is generally much more homogenous and direct than in a concert hall. Someone once remarked (I think it was Floyd Toole) that a concert hall is one giant comb filter, what with its myriad reflections. With most of our efforts to control dispersion and reflections in our rooms we are in fact going away more and more from the life sound 'picture'.
jan
Richard, I think we should split the question in two issues:
1) we have read here several complaints on aggressive sounding home system at high volume. This is IMO completely resolvable and depends on circuit topology, parts used, EMI suppression, power supplies etc. - i.e. on skills of each of us.
2) re-creation of original sound field in home acoustic conditions. This is IMO completely impossible by mike-amp-recording-replay-amp-speaker systems, regardless number of sound channels used.
1) we have read here several complaints on aggressive sounding home system at high volume. This is IMO completely resolvable and depends on circuit topology, parts used, EMI suppression, power supplies etc. - i.e. on skills of each of us.
2) re-creation of original sound field in home acoustic conditions. This is IMO completely impossible by mike-amp-recording-replay-amp-speaker systems, regardless number of sound channels used.
Good point, yes. Of course not everything is immagined, I wouldn't say that, but it is almost impossible to really know what is and what isn't. Even the difference you hear between reproduced and live - how 'real' is that difference, and in how far is it 'imagined' because you KNOW you're in your home and not in the concert hall.
Take the stereo illusion - a grand self delusion if there ever was one. There are really only just two boxes with vibrating cones and we imagine a whole orchestra, sound stage, musician position etc etc.
So on the one hand accepting the delusion of stereo while on the other hand insisting that everything you hear is absolutely real and objective seems rather, ehhh, delusional
jan
Plenty yes. I'm assuming its a digital recording right? So are you using sigma-delta type DACs? If so, trade up to something multibit.
Have you checked your pre- and power-amp for their tolerance to CM noise? Given you say you use balanced cables you should check how pin1 has been wired on all the XLRs. You can then inject an audio signal (from a poweramp via an 8R resistor) between the chassis ground and pin1. Listen to the output. On a poweramp, do this between pin1 and the ground side speaker output (don't try this on a true bridged amp!). Do you hear any crosstalk of the probe signal? Also try this test on the DAC's digital input, between its ground side input and the pin1s at the output.
I wouldn't be one to insist. And acoustics is most definitely not my forte, so I really ought to stick my nose between the covers of Toole's book. He's appears to be a contemporary leader in this aspect of the field. In my view, stereo would be optimal for reproducing but two instruments. But it isn't even that easy - a trumpet's sound emanates from a single point (at least relatively speaking) whereas a harp or piano or trap set does not. The brain can work the other way also - while it can supply missing pieces, it can also be made acute to nuances and lack thereof. I think this is at least part of the mystery.
And acoustics is most definitely not my forte, so I really ought to stick my nose between the covers of Toole's book. He's appears to be a contemporary leader in this aspect of the field. In my view, stereo would be optimal for reproducing but two instruments. But it isn't even that easy - a trumpet's sound emanates from a single point (at least relatively speaking) whereas a harp or piano or trap set does not. The brain can work the other way also - while it can supply missing pieces, it can also be made acute to nuances and lack thereof. I think this is at least part of the mystery.
The difficulty we have is that a 'lay listener' asserts that a CR circuit produces distortion. The simplest way to show that he is wrong uses Fourier theory. He then asserts that Fourier does not relate to music signals. So he is confused about the tool which would solve his confusion. It may be that we should just give up and leave him, and his friends, to their confusion. Already some people think they are observing a contest between two different schools of thought, instead of what it actually is: an attempt to bring understanding to someone who currently does not understand. I and the others are simply trying to teach basic science/maths/engineering - this is first/second year stuff! Once people understand the maths, we can then argue about how useful it is. While they still don't understand it, we are still in teaching mode.RNMarsh said:
Possibly, maybe not. It would depend on the exact music waveform, such as its degree of asymmetry. If the 'music' consisted of a 100Hz tone for 20 seconds then there would be no 0.05Hz energy. If it was a 100.025Hz tone then there would be some 0.05Hz energy - the extra half-cycle of tone would introduce long-term imbalance between + and - so there would be a little 0.05Hz (and a little DC too).simon7000 said:
The difference between home and a hall is that a hall has more decorrelated sound.
Direct sound in a hall might even be lower SPL than home but the decorrelated sounds' SPLs may be greater.
Two channels won't do. Need a decorrelation filter for surround speakers.
see Usher: http://www.jar-lab.com/papers/PhD/Usher_PhD.pdf
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I don't know. Mathcad and even Excel can. So could the old Nicolet software that I used in those experiments back in the '80s (albeit slowly- it took us all night to process a 5 minute music selection to demonstrate our phase correction methods).
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