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You mean this?
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Fletcher–Munson curve
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Another factor to consider is the imperfect ear. No, not just the Fletcher-Munson curves, and how an ideal human ear reacts to varying sound pressure levels. One also has to consider differences in hearing from individual to individual, sometimes subtle, and sometimes very significant.
After sixty years on this planet, my hearing is far different today than it was in my prime. When I separated from the Air Force, the final semi-annual audiologist's test revealed an overall hearing loss of about 15%, with 'islands' of significant loss in the high-frequency ranges, mainly above 12KHz. Interestingly, the loss is not linear -- I can hear very faint tones at 19Khz, but not at 16,500.
Years of exposure to the sound of jet engines, rock concerts, motorcycles, racing cars, pistol and rifle fire, as well as certain illnesses (e.g. mumps and scarlet fever) and plain old age have taken their toll. I enjoy music played through a 'purist' system, but there's plenty of times I'd enjoy the music even more if I could brighten up the treble a few dB, and boost the mid-bass just a tad.
Tone controls make perfect sense, whether for tailoring a system to a particular room, or to one individual's imperfect ears.
After sixty years on this planet, my hearing is far different today than it was in my prime. When I separated from the Air Force, the final semi-annual audiologist's test revealed an overall hearing loss of about 15%, with 'islands' of significant loss in the high-frequency ranges, mainly above 12KHz. Interestingly, the loss is not linear -- I can hear very faint tones at 19Khz, but not at 16,500.
Years of exposure to the sound of jet engines, rock concerts, motorcycles, racing cars, pistol and rifle fire, as well as certain illnesses (e.g. mumps and scarlet fever) and plain old age have taken their toll. I enjoy music played through a 'purist' system, but there's plenty of times I'd enjoy the music even more if I could brighten up the treble a few dB, and boost the mid-bass just a tad.
Tone controls make perfect sense, whether for tailoring a system to a particular room, or to one individual's imperfect ears.
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I've always considered "baffle step correction" in the speaker to be the rough equivelent of a loudness compensation (that can't be switched out). My point being, some forms of EQ may be lurking in components whether you like it or not. I'd rather have the ability to switch it on or off (or dial it in).
I had a conversation with a well respected and admired mastering engineer once. He said he wouldn't even use EQ to compensate for room issues. His quite thoughtful answer was "Fix the Room". He went on to recommend tube traps and other room fixing ideas.
We all play in different leagues and with slightly different rules. The room we are stuck with, the money we got to throw at the situation and how fine tuned our hearing and ability to listen are all key issues. Not to mention what type of music we prefer.
What a 30 year veteran mastering engineer would do might not be best or possible for the rest of us to do. While I am sure my jaw would drop if I were to hear his system, I dont intend or expect to ever reach his level. The equipment necessary alone, much less his 30 years of experience, are far beyond me.
What I feel people should give themselves is flexibility. Most EQ's have a bypass button. Even if you are a purist, you cant object when the EQ is out of the circuit. But if by merely pressing a button, you can tailor the sound as to make the listening experience better, then why not.
We all play in different leagues and with slightly different rules. The room we are stuck with, the money we got to throw at the situation and how fine tuned our hearing and ability to listen are all key issues. Not to mention what type of music we prefer.
What a 30 year veteran mastering engineer would do might not be best or possible for the rest of us to do. While I am sure my jaw would drop if I were to hear his system, I dont intend or expect to ever reach his level. The equipment necessary alone, much less his 30 years of experience, are far beyond me.
What I feel people should give themselves is flexibility. Most EQ's have a bypass button. Even if you are a purist, you cant object when the EQ is out of the circuit. But if by merely pressing a button, you can tailor the sound as to make the listening experience better, then why not.
Hey this is good stuff, so many variables to consider.
1/ MEDIA: CD,Record,Tape, (incl' the quality of the recording and what it's recorded onto).
2/ SOURCE: The quality of CD player, Record Player (+ stylus & whatnot), Cassette Player or whatever is used.
3/ PRE-AMP: Circuitry, tone controls & filters, Components and how they react ( and react with other components).
4/ POWER AMP: The class of amp ( A,B,AB, or whatever), design, SE or
PP,components again & how they react.
5/ SPEAKERS: Lots of different choices & specs.
6/ LISTENING ROOM: What is in the room that may interfere or
reflect/absorb the sound.
7/ EARS: Another major variable as this depends on how well tuned an individuals ears are ( another source of controversy as one does not need training to have listening pleasure) and the condition of their hearing.
8/EXPECTATIONS: What do we expect from our gear ? This is probably where some of us may trip up a bit including myself ! "Enter" tinkering & modifications for those of us who for what ever reasons have gained some knowledge in this field of electronics.( I started because I didn't want to pay for repairs to over-driven guitar amps when I could have done it myself ).Good move ! Still no expert, sometimes I get a bit stumped but persistence usually pays off.
9/ SATISFACTION: Are we satisfied with what we have and how it performs. Probably the biggest trip-up of all is not being happy because we believe there is room for improvement some way or another,(AKA Diy'er/Enthusiast/Hobbyist).
Has anything been left out ?
Cheers,
Andrew.
1/ MEDIA: CD,Record,Tape, (incl' the quality of the recording and what it's recorded onto).
2/ SOURCE: The quality of CD player, Record Player (+ stylus & whatnot), Cassette Player or whatever is used.
3/ PRE-AMP: Circuitry, tone controls & filters, Components and how they react ( and react with other components).
4/ POWER AMP: The class of amp ( A,B,AB, or whatever), design, SE or
PP,components again & how they react.
5/ SPEAKERS: Lots of different choices & specs.
6/ LISTENING ROOM: What is in the room that may interfere or
reflect/absorb the sound.
7/ EARS: Another major variable as this depends on how well tuned an individuals ears are ( another source of controversy as one does not need training to have listening pleasure) and the condition of their hearing.
8/EXPECTATIONS: What do we expect from our gear ? This is probably where some of us may trip up a bit including myself ! "Enter" tinkering & modifications for those of us who for what ever reasons have gained some knowledge in this field of electronics.( I started because I didn't want to pay for repairs to over-driven guitar amps when I could have done it myself ).Good move !
Still no expert, sometimes I get a bit stumped but persistence usually pays off.9/ SATISFACTION: Are we satisfied with what we have and how it performs. Probably the biggest trip-up of all is not being happy because we believe there is room for improvement some way or another,(AKA Diy'er/Enthusiast/Hobbyist).
Has anything been left out ?
Cheers,
Andrew.
I am a bit perplexed with some of the replies that I see here. As far as I'm concerned, even very expensive loudspeakers have peaks and dips of +/-6 dB's. Sometimes more. These stem from mechanical resonances that are just impossible to kill, and they mean that some frequencies may play like 2 or four times louder than others. This is likely to result in a huge coloration.
A preamplifier with tone controls may have a distortion of 0.005 %. There is no reasonable way in which this distortion can sound any worse that the peaks and dips of the loudspeaker, unless the listener is so familiar with those peaks and dips that they just sound right to them. If you have a DIY system and have experimented with it until it sounds right to you, probably you just like the coloration that it produces, i.e. it is your favorite equalizer preset. If you add another preset on top of it it is not going to sound well because you are duplicating your frequency response adjustments. This does not mean that the equalizer preset was wrong in the first place, it is just wrong if you multiply it by two.
I see that people also are confused between nonlinearity and non-uniform frequency response. A loudspeaker may be linear (this means that a pure sine wave in the input will result in a pure sine wave in the output) and still have a very uneven frequency response. It is also possible to have a nonlinear system with high THD and a flat frequency response.
I honestly think that people are enjoying sub optimal sound quality because of the stigma that comes with equalization, and I think that in this sense digital is the way to go. Rounding errors at 64 bit precision are just negligible and adjustments can be made with enough precision so as to correct well for sharp peaks in the loudspeaker and room.
A preamplifier with tone controls may have a distortion of 0.005 %. There is no reasonable way in which this distortion can sound any worse that the peaks and dips of the loudspeaker, unless the listener is so familiar with those peaks and dips that they just sound right to them. If you have a DIY system and have experimented with it until it sounds right to you, probably you just like the coloration that it produces, i.e. it is your favorite equalizer preset. If you add another preset on top of it it is not going to sound well because you are duplicating your frequency response adjustments. This does not mean that the equalizer preset was wrong in the first place, it is just wrong if you multiply it by two.
I see that people also are confused between nonlinearity and non-uniform frequency response. A loudspeaker may be linear (this means that a pure sine wave in the input will result in a pure sine wave in the output) and still have a very uneven frequency response. It is also possible to have a nonlinear system with high THD and a flat frequency response.
I honestly think that people are enjoying sub optimal sound quality because of the stigma that comes with equalization, and I think that in this sense digital is the way to go. Rounding errors at 64 bit precision are just negligible and adjustments can be made with enough precision so as to correct well for sharp peaks in the loudspeaker and room.
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It's from the early '80s that I read the same phrase ;now with the complication that to correct the deficiencies you 'll have to modify the content of the record
Sometimes and many times the listening experience can be improved with a little tweak of Bass/Treble or as Jim says, pressing a button, ie: High/Low bandpass filters, Loudness, Tone Defeat or Bypass or whatever jargon is used to describe a particular function.
Thanks also for the graphs Jim.
Lets look at it another way. Say you've got an album that is maybe something along the lines of " Top 20 Hits of 1973" (for arguments sake). These will be recordings of differents bands at different times of said year, at different recording studios and all using different equipment (right down to the brand of strings used) etc etc... and lets face it, not all mix-downs are worth writing home about.
Thanks also for the graphs Jim.
Lets look at it another way. Say you've got an album that is maybe something along the lines of " Top 20 Hits of 1973" (for arguments sake). These will be recordings of differents bands at different times of said year, at different recording studios and all using different equipment (right down to the brand of strings used) etc etc... and lets face it, not all mix-downs are worth writing home about.
Having just bass and treble controls is a very crude way of trying to compensate for all the various frequency response aberrations in the recording, equipment, speakers, room and listener. A relatively simple solution (but not AS simple as bass and treble) is an equalizer with a mike at the listening position. This will compensate for everything but the recording and the listener.
I think it depends on whether we are talking about "consumer electronics" or "hifi", if we can actually draw a line between them.
On the former category, IMO, they evolved to EQ and the various DSP. Most (all?) HT receivers, or "mini hifi" systems from major consumer electronic manufacturers, have some sort of EQ or effects for users to select, and so does music playback software and portable media players.
On the later category, as mentioned earlier, manufacturers/consumers want as little in the signal path as possible. Although there is probably some degree of snobbishness involved. So now instead of turning knobs, we now swap tubes, or even the whole amp, to get the sound we like. I like to think it as a sign of social progress, like we now use shampoo instead of bar soap to wash our hair.
On the former category, IMO, they evolved to EQ and the various DSP. Most (all?) HT receivers, or "mini hifi" systems from major consumer electronic manufacturers, have some sort of EQ or effects for users to select, and so does music playback software and portable media players.
On the later category, as mentioned earlier, manufacturers/consumers want as little in the signal path as possible. Although there is probably some degree of snobbishness involved. So now instead of turning knobs, we now swap tubes, or even the whole amp, to get the sound we like. I like to think it as a sign of social progress, like we now use shampoo instead of bar soap to wash our hair.
I have a stereo equaliser (9 band p/ch), that I don't use for playing back music as IMO it creates an even broader set of possibilities or rather an almost unlimited set of possibilities as to confound me. In use I would not be able to leave it alone (tragic in a car), but thats me.
I use it to eq my drum machine (DR880) only, before it enters the input.
I use it to eq my drum machine (DR880) only, before it enters the input.
Interesting..
It was not so long ago that people said,"I prefer the sound of analogue and hate digital..Prefer record to CD Mp3 bass is limited..flac is better"..
Now its interesting see the distortion on digital Eq is better than analogue...or perhaps better than a straight "simple" signal path...there are many variables in this.. Modern compression is now better than analogue?
Loudness control..great in the car?
Bass and treble controls...switchable..interesting you mean a double pole switch that completely removes any connection to the circuit or are we talking a simple short out switch with paths to Gnd through the connected circuits?
We use tubes because they sound better? or different? or not "sand" or related "problems".. This is exactly the reason that a few years back I stopped using HiFi and bought a top end all in one..yes sounded realy good..for a while then I built a tube pre again just because something was missing..and now its all tube again..
Here is a thought..wait for the
..If we are substituting signal caps to get better sound then how many components are in the tone control...I know people are saying, " Huh I don't use HiFi components"...but I would be surprised if people would just use anything without a second thought (which means your a sort of audiophile)...of course the O/P transformer is not a HiFi component is it? we will just buy the cheapest guitar grade we can find because we are not fussy about components or signal are we? Anything will do...or perhaps not... any PSU cap will do or perhaps a lower ESR would be better even if its a cheap (non audiophile) component...I remember years ago when I build schoolboy audio with bass and treble controls..the sound had a distinct "warmth" detail was low and some missing...one track that comes to mind is Dark side of the Moon...the talking at the start that was just a mumble in the mix..that now is clear as a bell...Of course this is the same recording I used to listen to..I still have it..My ears are older but its way clearer now than then...
Having said all this its interesting that High end is now a small niche market...most people are happy with computer speakers..
Regards
M. Gregg
It was not so long ago that people said,"I prefer the sound of analogue and hate digital..Prefer record to CD Mp3 bass is limited..flac is better"..
Now its interesting see the distortion on digital Eq is better than analogue...or perhaps better than a straight "simple" signal path...there are many variables in this.. Modern compression is now better than analogue?
Loudness control..great in the car?
Bass and treble controls...switchable..interesting you mean a double pole switch that completely removes any connection to the circuit or are we talking a simple short out switch with paths to Gnd through the connected circuits?
We use tubes because they sound better? or different? or not "sand" or related "problems".. This is exactly the reason that a few years back I stopped using HiFi and bought a top end all in one..yes sounded realy good..for a while then I built a tube pre again just because something was missing..and now its all tube again..
Here is a thought..wait for the
..If we are substituting signal caps to get better sound then how many components are in the tone control...I know people are saying, " Huh I don't use HiFi components"...but I would be surprised if people would just use anything without a second thought (which means your a sort of audiophile)...of course the O/P transformer is not a HiFi component is it? we will just buy the cheapest guitar grade we can find because we are not fussy about components or signal are we? Anything will do...or perhaps not... any PSU cap will do or perhaps a lower ESR would be better even if its a cheap (non audiophile) component...I remember years ago when I build schoolboy audio with bass and treble controls..the sound had a distinct "warmth" detail was low and some missing...one track that comes to mind is Dark side of the Moon...the talking at the start that was just a mumble in the mix..that now is clear as a bell...Of course this is the same recording I used to listen to..I still have it..My ears are older but its way clearer now than then... Having said all this its interesting that High end is now a small niche market...most people are happy with computer speakers..
Regards
M. Gregg
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HiFi components and snakeoil rubbish, most commercial LS crossovers use the worst and cheapest caps, and can anyone know the difference if the amp is a lousy operator or the crummy speakers ?
That pulsing thump on the "dark side of the moon" on a big system has the desired effect: it should clear the pictures off the wall and the neighbours start howlin'...The sad bit is mono bass; Some Jethro Tull tracks are much livelier with stereo bass.
I small soon post my Williamson amp approaches; and with it a sound track that illustrates the beautiful stereo bass.
richy
That pulsing thump on the "dark side of the moon" on a big system has the desired effect: it should clear the pictures off the wall and the neighbours start howlin'...The sad bit is mono bass; Some Jethro Tull tracks are much livelier with stereo bass.
I small soon post my Williamson amp approaches; and with it a sound track that illustrates the beautiful stereo bass.
richy
Jethro Tull ? Yeah ! Manfred Man Waiter theres a yawn in my ear, Butterfly Ball, I love these albums, they sound growse & very dynamic on my system. I bought a new COSMOS FACTORY album about 12 mnths ago, this was said to be an "audiophile" quality recording on a 180gm record. Not too keen on it at all as the Bass howls, wows and woofs. This cannot be corrected at all no matter how much the controls are tweaked. I think I got ripped off with that album. (Think I'll replace it with a normal quality album).
Depending on what you are trying to do, 1/3 band graphic eq's can be quite inadequate as well.
This graph is a room measurement at the listening position, one channel driven.
Red = 1/3rd octave, black = 1/24th octave. This is the exact same measurement but using different smoothing. See how much 1/3rd octave misses?
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
This graph is a room measurement at the listening position, one channel driven.
Red = 1/3rd octave, black = 1/24th octave. This is the exact same measurement but using different smoothing. See how much 1/3rd octave misses?
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Was it a half speed master..
Wasn't that the mastering machines with high wow..so they slowed them down to get it to normal levels and called them half speed masters at twice the price? Oups..
I'm with the manfred mann Nightingails and bombers..Oh blinded by the light
Sorry I digress..
Regards
M. Gregg
Spirits in the night ? About the Cosmos Factory Album, the only information is on the clear plastic cover ("AcousTech MASTERING" Mastered at Acoustech by Kevin Gray & Steve Hoffman) This is not a slur on anybody -it is just what's written.
I looked up the site where I bought it from "Vinyl Goldmine Europe" Rhino records also got a mention there.
Getting off the track a bit here, ee ee scrrretchh...oops
Cheers,
Andrew.
I looked up the site where I bought it from "Vinyl Goldmine Europe" Rhino records also got a mention there.
Getting off the track a bit here, ee ee scrrretchh...oops
Cheers,
Andrew.
Yes Blinded by the light on the Roaring Silence..Other interesting album tracks Crossfade/Spirits in the night....
sorry I digress again...Better as they are no twiddling of knobs piggin ell bass enhancement..LOL
Regards
M. Gregg
I used to have a NAD 3020 that I replaced with KENWOOD KA-701 because I could run 2 sets of spkrs. Both (solid state) performed well and as I remember I didn't fiddle with the tone much at all. The NAD (loaned to my uncle) got drowned in the floods in Queensland 2010 about the same time the Kenny started blowing fuses, DANG.
I had also just scored the SANSUI 1000A and restoring that suddenly became a priority, and well worth it. Even if I have to tweak the tone knobs. I've still got the Kenny. (for another rainy day) Can't throw things away !
Cheers,
Andrew.
I had also just scored the SANSUI 1000A and restoring that suddenly became a priority, and well worth it. Even if I have to tweak the tone knobs. I've still got the Kenny. (for another rainy day) Can't throw things away !
Cheers,
Andrew.
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