Dave and Allen, I have replied to your questions in here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/269864-caveman-speakers-troglodytes-5.html#post4518849
So as to not drag this thread OT. Thanks.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/269864-caveman-speakers-troglodytes-5.html#post4518849
So as to not drag this thread OT. Thanks.
Hypo-echoic, I'd call it.Sounds like you're practically in an ambechoic room.
To clear up my position a little, I misspoke when I said that there is only one way to solve a problem. One can never make this claim even if only one way is known and one is tempted to think of "the way" instead of "a way".
One must also be clear when identifying a solution what exactly the problem is, or in other words what is the "goal". I have always tried to be explicit in my goal and that it is clearly not the same as many, if not most others. I am not a big fan of orchestral music. I like it well enough when I go to a concert hall, but listening at home is so sadly lacking in realism that I just can't get into it. And its not just my system that lacks this realism, I have never heard a 2 channel system that gives me the "I am there" impression of a acoustics only orchestra. I have said this many times. In a small room I don't see how it is possible (HRTF solutions exempted.)
My passion is for studio work - that kind of recording that encompasses about 95% of all recordings. The standards in this world are a mess and I won't make excuses for this other than to say that exemplary recordings do exist.
One of my favorite examples is an artist call St. Vincent who I heard on The Colbert Report. Her performance was excellent and the recordings on TV and on the linked web page were excellent. I went right out and bought the CD. The CD was unlistenable, totally ruined by the recording engineer. How an artist can allow this to happen to their art is beyond me, but it happens all the time.
So my first priority is for "imaging" in two channel work. Some recordings are superb in this regard and I always take the recording as a given - I want to hear what the producer wanted me to hear - nothing added, nothing taken away. This is not at all what one might want for orchestral works where spaciousness is king because there really isn't much image in a concert hall (close your eyes and the instruments location are not that precise.) Good halls are ranked on how wide the apparent stage is, not how pinpoint it is.
We have already seen how image and spaciousness are tradeoffs that one has to make and these have to be made as a solution to the "goal". The goal of first priority to concert halls is NOT my goal and my pet peeve is how often the studio work priority is discounted as not important - it's not "quality" music or some such.
Some people who like imaging will dispense with the spaciousness as not necessary. I don't do that as I think that a local spaciousness clearly adds to the music, the illusion. So these goals will be different.
Toole has always put spaciousness above imaging as his book is clear evidence of this (but I also know Floyd very well personally and orchestral music is his passion.) Sean is more of a studio guy and has leaned things more in that direction in his work. We have both found Tracy Chapman to be a superb choice of source material for imaging and tonal characteristics.
I understand that Floyd believed that a High DI is not desirable (I just E-mailed him to see if this opinion has changed.) This is the one area where I disagree with Floyd and we have had many discussions about this in the past. His support for this opinion is not nearly as well founded as it is for other things.
I should also mention that the Premier JBL monitor the M2 has a fairly high DI (just below what I design to), so either they no longer listen to Floyd or his opinion has changed.
So when we talk about "a solution" we have to be clear on "what is the goal?" I have always tried to be clear on this point and I think that a lot of the disagreements leveled at me are because the other persons goal is different than mine, but yet that is not explicitly stated. Different goals will, of course, lead to different solutions.
As far as goals go, it is not really very useful to say that you goal is "A great sounding system!" That's a lot like the answer in a beauty contest from a contestant that their "goal in life" is "world peace"! Yea. OK, that's nice. Our goals need to be quantifiable in somewhat objective terms or they really don't mean much.
If I hear back from Floyd about his preference for first wall reflections, I will post it here.
One must also be clear when identifying a solution what exactly the problem is, or in other words what is the "goal". I have always tried to be explicit in my goal and that it is clearly not the same as many, if not most others. I am not a big fan of orchestral music. I like it well enough when I go to a concert hall, but listening at home is so sadly lacking in realism that I just can't get into it. And its not just my system that lacks this realism, I have never heard a 2 channel system that gives me the "I am there" impression of a acoustics only orchestra. I have said this many times. In a small room I don't see how it is possible (HRTF solutions exempted.)
My passion is for studio work - that kind of recording that encompasses about 95% of all recordings. The standards in this world are a mess and I won't make excuses for this other than to say that exemplary recordings do exist.
One of my favorite examples is an artist call St. Vincent who I heard on The Colbert Report. Her performance was excellent and the recordings on TV and on the linked web page were excellent. I went right out and bought the CD. The CD was unlistenable, totally ruined by the recording engineer. How an artist can allow this to happen to their art is beyond me, but it happens all the time.
So my first priority is for "imaging" in two channel work. Some recordings are superb in this regard and I always take the recording as a given - I want to hear what the producer wanted me to hear - nothing added, nothing taken away. This is not at all what one might want for orchestral works where spaciousness is king because there really isn't much image in a concert hall (close your eyes and the instruments location are not that precise.) Good halls are ranked on how wide the apparent stage is, not how pinpoint it is.
We have already seen how image and spaciousness are tradeoffs that one has to make and these have to be made as a solution to the "goal". The goal of first priority to concert halls is NOT my goal and my pet peeve is how often the studio work priority is discounted as not important - it's not "quality" music or some such.
Some people who like imaging will dispense with the spaciousness as not necessary. I don't do that as I think that a local spaciousness clearly adds to the music, the illusion. So these goals will be different.
Toole has always put spaciousness above imaging as his book is clear evidence of this (but I also know Floyd very well personally and orchestral music is his passion.) Sean is more of a studio guy and has leaned things more in that direction in his work. We have both found Tracy Chapman to be a superb choice of source material for imaging and tonal characteristics.
I understand that Floyd believed that a High DI is not desirable (I just E-mailed him to see if this opinion has changed.) This is the one area where I disagree with Floyd and we have had many discussions about this in the past. His support for this opinion is not nearly as well founded as it is for other things.
I should also mention that the Premier JBL monitor the M2 has a fairly high DI (just below what I design to), so either they no longer listen to Floyd or his opinion has changed.
So when we talk about "a solution" we have to be clear on "what is the goal?" I have always tried to be clear on this point and I think that a lot of the disagreements leveled at me are because the other persons goal is different than mine, but yet that is not explicitly stated. Different goals will, of course, lead to different solutions.
As far as goals go, it is not really very useful to say that you goal is "A great sounding system!" That's a lot like the answer in a beauty contest from a contestant that their "goal in life" is "world peace"! Yea. OK, that's nice. Our goals need to be quantifiable in somewhat objective terms or they really don't mean much.
If I hear back from Floyd about his preference for first wall reflections, I will post it here.
This is very interesting and has made me rethink a few things. I always had the british fetish for minimonitors and pinpoint imaging although I've gone astray with panels at the moment, but I listen to more orchestral music than other on the main system. I'd always thought that good imaging gave good 'space' and my annoyance with classical recordings was my small living space, as it sounded much better when I had a den in chicago. But you have made me realise I need to go back to school on that and read up. Thank you.
I think that imaging and space are tradeoffs that depend on speaker and room choices. If the side walls are reflective and the speakers are wide then you will have lots of spaciousness, but with a degraded image. Narrower directivity and less image loss. So directivity becomes very important in this more reflective space. If the sidewalls are dead then directivity doesn't play nearly as big a role. But dead rooms never have any spaciousness. They will tend to have good imaging.
I would disagree. Reading this forum and others, talking to people at shows and so forth, I find many people who share your goals. I used to, very closely. But my goals are now different. I've been clear about my goals.
Quite understandable. Most systems and rooms simply don't do it justice. Lynn Olsen talks a lot about this. It's a real problem.
I read this often enough, from enough people, that it bothers me. I don't find that to be true. Maybe, way at the back of the hall, yes. But anywhere in the "good seats" and I have no problem eyes closed. Even when I'm in the wings working a show, the sources are not hard to locate. Pinpoint? No. But not hard in a general sense. There are times it's been so pinpoint I was shocked. But we'll leave that for another time.
To be honest, a lot of it IS junk. But there is a lot of superb work, too. My listening is a large percent studio work. But the better my room and system get, the more I prefer live concert recordings.
It's about as useful as saying you want to eat great tasting food. I'll decline judgement on that one.
I'm not sure many people here stop at "I want a great sounding system!" Be careful of the strawman.
Most orchestral venues I've found have little to no "imaging" in the audiophile sense (i.e., locating distinct orchestral voices). Only if you're locked up against the stage at the front with almost a 180 direct sound field does the imaging spread out, but hearing distinct voices at precise spherical coordinates in the listening space, I find is only possible if those sources are incredibly loud, like cymbals, trumpet, and, ahem, amplified instruments. I'll not talk about that kind in the same paragraph as orchestral instrumentation and imaging. Even pipe organ trumpets, etc. usually become diffuse in location/size, but not necessarily in general direction of arrival.
See this write up of a Dallas Symphony concert, third bullet in the list, written from notes written down on the day that I listened to the performance: https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/117181-the-pwk-no-bs-tribute-thread/?p=1584781
I believe the real problem with listening to orchestral music in stereo is the terrible EQ placed on virtually every stereo recording of orchestral performances (with the possible exception of certain RCA Victor stereo orchestral recordings).
Try surround sound recordings (5.1) that actually use the LFE channel (i.e., NOT 5.0 recordings). I think that you'll find the listening experience is dramatically different if that terrible attenuating EQ high pass filter isn't applied by the mastering guys below ~400-600 Hz turnover frequency. Often times, there is also a gentle low pass filter applied about the turnover high pass frequency, too. THe strings always sound "steely" and distant when you run into these recordings.
Chris
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So what did you "disagree with"? Or do you just always start your responses to me that way?
The thing is that more channels solves problems that only occur a small percentage of the time (based on sales volume of recordings, studio versus acoustic venue) that I never could see it catching on for main stream. 2 channel is the standard and I think that it will be around for a very long time.
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