Fall back question--
SY --
As long as music replayed in the home does not sound like real musicial instruements being played in the home, my position is that we aren't there yet. And, I want to know why.
It isnt just the speakers or the room. Nor headphones. I have owned a lot of speakers -- the newest Quads, too. Best headphones. Both with much lower distortion than typical reproducers. Etc etc. It doesnt sound like real music. very nice, yes. Real, no. Low distortion equipment -- tube and solid state. my piano still sounds better than any repo music. There is no contest here... repo music by any means we know of and by any test system we know of.... it doesnt sound real as in 'live' in your room.
DBT do not tell us how to make music sound real. All the normal tests we do doesnt make music sound real. So where are we blocked?
Years ago, I was invited to the Skywalker Ranch with a classical violin player (H.Munday) and heard him live for hours being recorded. Then I heard him on Long Island in the home of a friend play in the living room a short piece before his public playing that evening. There is Nothing like a real live performance in your own space to calibrate your ears.
That's when you want to just burn your sound system. No matter how good we are at testing hardware, we dont have real sounding systems for any realistic amount of money. It isnt the fault of FFT or any measurement of the hardware. What will make it all better
-RNM
SY --
As long as music replayed in the home does not sound like real musicial instruements being played in the home, my position is that we aren't there yet. And, I want to know why.
It isnt just the speakers or the room. Nor headphones. I have owned a lot of speakers -- the newest Quads, too. Best headphones. Both with much lower distortion than typical reproducers. Etc etc. It doesnt sound like real music. very nice, yes. Real, no. Low distortion equipment -- tube and solid state. my piano still sounds better than any repo music. There is no contest here... repo music by any means we know of and by any test system we know of.... it doesnt sound real as in 'live' in your room.
DBT do not tell us how to make music sound real. All the normal tests we do doesnt make music sound real. So where are we blocked?
Years ago, I was invited to the Skywalker Ranch with a classical violin player (H.Munday) and heard him live for hours being recorded. Then I heard him on Long Island in the home of a friend play in the living room a short piece before his public playing that evening. There is Nothing like a real live performance in your own space to calibrate your ears.
That's when you want to just burn your sound system. No matter how good we are at testing hardware, we dont have real sounding systems for any realistic amount of money. It isnt the fault of FFT or any measurement of the hardware. What will make it all better
-RNM
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As a postmodernist I have no trouble answering that question - each person's perception is 'the real view'. Those who cling to the notion of 'objective truth' will have to rationalize on this one
The difference is testing hardware with hardware I/O. As soon as you put people inplace of the Output... all goes to H**l, it seems.
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100% agreed.
100% agreed.
They aren't supposed to. What are are supposed to do, and in fact do very well, is answer questions like, "Can I distinguish between A and B by ear alone? Can anyone? If I can distinguish between A and B, which do I prefer if I just use my ears? Which do most people prefer?" I've written often about where I personally believe we're blocked- and that is the stereo paradigm. I noticed in Floyd Toole's postings on LinkedIn that he has been saying very much the same thing.
Again, 100% agreed. Until I left Austin a couple months ago, that was something we did regularly at my house. Now I have to rely on my own playing and that of friends until I start getting connected into the Chicago music scene.
In my experience it's quite straightforward: first of all, music replay in the home is never loud enough, and secondly treble is usually mangled to some degree.SY --
As long as music replayed in the home does not sound like real musicial instruements being played in the home, my position is that we aren't there yet. And, I want to know why.
It isnt just the speakers or the room. Nor headphones. I have owned a lot of speakers -- the newest Quads, too. Best headphones. Both with much lower distortion than typical reproducers. Etc etc. It doesnt sound like real music. very nice, yes. Real, no. Low distortion equipment -- tube and solid state. my piano still sounds better than any repo music. There is no contest here... repo music by any means we know of and by any test system we know of.... it doesnt sound real as in 'live' in your room.
DBT do not tell us how to make music sound real. All the normal tests we do doesnt make music sound real. So where are we blocked?
Years ago, I was invited to the Skywalker Ranch with a classical violin player (H.Munday) and heard him live for hours being recorded. Then I heard him on Long Island in the home of a friend play in the living room a short piece before his public playing that evening. There is Nothing like a real live performance in your own space to calibrate your ears.
That's when you want to just burn your sound system. No matter how good we are at testing hardware, we dont have real sounding systems for any realistic amount of money. It isnt the fault of FFT or any measurement of the hardware. What will make it all better
-RNM
Why isn't it loud enough? Because when you turn up a normal system it becomes raucously LOUD, as in unpleasant, in your face irritating. Otherwise known as distortion
. Makes you want to run to the volume control, so it becomes "nice" again. And one thing real music is, is not "nice": intense, dynamic, gut wrenching, powerful, high SPL's, is the name of the game there ...Unless a system can do high SPL's totally cleanly you haven't a hope ...
And the other thing is treble: typically it's made baby food smooth, or it's got the bite to slice slivers of skin off your ear canal. The real thing is neither of those, but very few systems get it right, because it's the hardest thing to do. Unless a recording of a solo saxophone, or violin punches with the impact of the real thing in the listening room then it will never happen. And this is the area where all the really irky, devil's in the details, fiddly bits and pieces in the system as a unified entity make or break the sound ...
Frank
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Fairly close-miked harpsichord is the torture material for me. How long can you listen to that on your system, with volume at a realistic level? The harpsichord is quite a quiet instrument, it doesn't produce SPLs anywhere near that of a piano. But boy, if your top end is at all ragged you probably won't be able to listen to a whole CD of this material without at least turning it down, or off or finding blood dripping from your ears.
No, such a recording is not a problem for me. As you say, here it's not SPL's but that the harmonic structure of the notes of the instrument is such that the slightest problem with high frequency distortion is extremely obvious, and disturbing. All my experience over the years has demonstrated that you need to put maximum effort into eliminating all the distortion mechanisms that create that subjective impression of raggedness. The good news is that, at least for me, that there is a finite number of things, problems, that have be knocked on the head to get rid of that type of distortion ...
Frank
It is just impossible to re-create the original sound field. I assume you are smart enough to understand why. You will NEVER get the "real" sound, just the "reproduced" sound.
What we are supposd to do, apparently isnt what I want. I want to close the gap between real music sound and what we have now.
The stereo paradigm is a big blockage, no doubt. I read his comments. But a replacement needs to be demonstrated to know how much progress can be made there towards realism. It has been done in limited ways with 'surround' sound and the advance in realism IS in some ways better. And, there has been a concerted efford to get it into the homes... muliti-channel recivers are the defacto standard in stores. But, costs have limited that acceptance. I am not sure I have heard a convincing demo, yet. And, well made audio suround recordings for such are very limited. Mostly, used for movie sounds.
Go down on Holstead Street and listen to some blues for me or over behind the hotel - Buddy Guy's 'Legends' blues bar. Thx. Dick
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A thought experiment: you're in a soundproof room at a prime listening spot in a concert hall. Punch a round hole in the end facing the orchestra, and listen, blindfolded, to an orchestra playing. Then, insert a very high quality, perhaps coaxial speaker driver in the hole. And on the outside place a high quality mic facing the orchestra, with amplifier, etc. And repeat the listening exercise.
Will you be fooled, or not? And why?
Frank
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What do you do to improve the sound for greater realism in your system? The short version, first.
Frank and I have fairly similar approaches. Repeated removal of artifacts until we get a satisfying sound. Noise control is my main focus - power supplies and grounding need lots of attention, especially where digital circuits are involved.
Yes, exactly. Plus, digital seems to be very prone to static effects. Anything you can do to reduce the buildup of static, for any reason, in any area, is beneficial.
Frank
In my experience it's quite straightforward: first of all, music replay in the home is never loud enough, and secondly treble is usually mangled to some degree.
Why isn't it loud enough? Because when you turn up a normal system it becomes raucously LOUD, as in unpleasant, in your face irritating. Otherwise known as distortion
Unless a system can do high SPL's totally cleanly you haven't a hope ...
And the other thing is treble: typically it's made baby food smooth, or it's got the bite to slice slivers of skin off your ear canal. The real thing is neither of those, but very few systems get it right, because it's the hardest thing to do. Unless a recording of a solo saxophone, or violin punches with the impact of the real thing in the listening room then it will never happen. And this is the area where all the really irky, devil's in the details, fiddly bits and pieces in the system as a unified entity make or break the sound ...
Frank
I would generally agree with you. It goes in the right direction. I use very high power amps that never clip at realistic spl. When I made my own recordings of a group -- the cymbols amazed me in thier clarity. SO right there I knew something is amiss in the recording side of things. It never stayed clean and clear getting on/off LP or CD.
Digital downloads off the masters have that quality of being closer to live and real. It never sounds as good as it does in the studio or from the master recording.
What's That all about?
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Now are you talking about real music or a recording of music?
A fun question is does a horn sound the same in LA as in Boulder?
If you had the equipment to actually measure 20 seconds of music I think you would find energy in the .05 hz bin.
I can take a guess. Pros use balanced cables, so CM noise is much less of an issue than for audiophiles. Also perhaps the studio has some industrial grade power line conditioning and doesn't run its air-conditioning, refrigerator, PCs and flat panel displays etc. on the same spur as all the audio kit?
jneutron,
Thanks for the insight and design notes on the resistors. Cool picture of the coxial version... nice work.
If memory serves this is the paper you're looking for from NIST way back.
An earlier example of the design Fluke based thier shunts on is here. Could be described as coxial assembled array with seperate forward and return paths to each resistor in the array through the "ribs" around the sides. Field containment is inherent in the mirrored copper on both sides of the the ribs and end plates for these paths, not in the coaxial shape of the assembly. Still looks like a pain to build...
Cheers,
Dave
ps. apologies for those not IEEE I&M or digital library members... full text only available with login.
Thanks for the insight and design notes on the resistors. Cool picture of the coxial version... nice work.
If memory serves this is the paper you're looking for from NIST way back.
An earlier example of the design Fluke based thier shunts on is here. Could be described as coxial assembled array with seperate forward and return paths to each resistor in the array through the "ribs" around the sides. Field containment is inherent in the mirrored copper on both sides of the the ribs and end plates for these paths, not in the coaxial shape of the assembly. Still looks like a pain to build...
Cheers,
Dave
ps. apologies for those not IEEE I&M or digital library members... full text only available with login.
As abraxalito also pointed out, the studio will often have industrial strength methods for preventing interference mucking up the sound. And in my experience that is precisely what is required in the home environment as well. Or equivalent. A simple word that expresses it perfectly is 'fussy'. Be fussy, fussy, fussy, over and over again; any sloppiness, anywhere, will be penalised with sound well less than the best.
And the better the sound you get, the harder, the more precarious it is to achieve sustained, optimum replay. It does seem like balancing on a razor blade at times ...
Frank
I've got Audiotester, Soundeasy, HOLM, and IMP. These are not uncommon.
Same deal with LEAP, AP, LMS. Arta...
https://www.google.com/search?q=spe...Q&biw=1366&bih=622&sei=u64hUJW9D8jhqgH_9YDYDw
Can any of these do a 20 second transform so we can see what energy is present in real music?
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