The mix is not done in a car - I know that. But you will take the mix to your car, to have an idea how it works (And the car speaker are not front firing)
What I don't like is that you choose the frontfiring speaker type because the majority of users have it in their homes, and not the best types available. Why should I limit myself to only try what everyone else have. The majority do not care about the quality as long as it's sufficient.
So all your posts are based on assumed polar performance with disproportionate amount of high frequencies directed at ceiling?
Recommendations are evasive answer. Five years on and still don't do your own work?
So, let us assume quasi omnidirectional speaker aimed vertically. Frequency response in horizontal plane at any given height above floor of direct sound is uniform. Reflections from walls then likewise has uniform frequency response. This completely fulfills main tenants of Linkwitz's philosophy for promoting relaxed listening state of brain allowing rejection of reflections as possible new sources requiring further mental attention.
Boundary coupling: For frequencies that speaker is less than quarter wavelength from boundary, speaker and boundary resolve as single source.
1) Imaging specificity increases with frequency and distance.
2) Processing time of localization cues is inversely proportional to frequency and bandwidth.
3) Head shadowing becomes important for localization of close sound sources that are small, such as combat with biting/stinging insects.
Above points lead to Linkwitz's general preference that speakers should be located at least one meter from vertical reflective boundaries. Simple analysis of this indicates less than first 4ms of onset transient is required for lateral localization of broadband sources, and that what happens in this time is most important in rendering detail.
As vertical boundary distance decreases localization cues of direct sound become increasingly obscured by specular reflection. Example: speaker is placed such that acoustic center is 15cm from wall. For listener a virtual source appears 30cm from speaker on opposite side of wall. Result is complex change to waveform received by listener that is program dependent leading to continuous differences in tonality and temporal presentation. This is loss of detail and smearing.
Recommendations are evasive answer. Five years on and still don't do your own work?
So, let us assume quasi omnidirectional speaker aimed vertically. Frequency response in horizontal plane at any given height above floor of direct sound is uniform. Reflections from walls then likewise has uniform frequency response. This completely fulfills main tenants of Linkwitz's philosophy for promoting relaxed listening state of brain allowing rejection of reflections as possible new sources requiring further mental attention.
Boundary coupling: For frequencies that speaker is less than quarter wavelength from boundary, speaker and boundary resolve as single source.
1) Imaging specificity increases with frequency and distance.
2) Processing time of localization cues is inversely proportional to frequency and bandwidth.
3) Head shadowing becomes important for localization of close sound sources that are small, such as combat with biting/stinging insects.
Above points lead to Linkwitz's general preference that speakers should be located at least one meter from vertical reflective boundaries. Simple analysis of this indicates less than first 4ms of onset transient is required for lateral localization of broadband sources, and that what happens in this time is most important in rendering detail.
As vertical boundary distance decreases localization cues of direct sound become increasingly obscured by specular reflection. Example: speaker is placed such that acoustic center is 15cm from wall. For listener a virtual source appears 30cm from speaker on opposite side of wall. Result is complex change to waveform received by listener that is program dependent leading to continuous differences in tonality and temporal presentation. This is loss of detail and smearing.
No, I don't need to take my mixes to the car. We have speakers in the studio that we use to similate car listening. The speaker we use is front firing.
What you don't seem to get here is something called translation. If I use some "specialty" speaker to do my mixes, then they would never translate well to those using "traditional" front firing speakers(which is the majority). It would not sound the same, and the end user would have no idea what the right sound was.
You don't have to limit yourself to what speakers other people choose, you can choose your own design. But don't be surprised is the mix sounds nothing like it was intended.
You don't know what the majority cares about. Have you really asked everyone with a audio system if they cared about quality? Blanket overreaching statements like this weaken whatever point you are trying to make.
not really
yes, You´re right, the solution is absorption (used in Carlsson's FCUFS) or sloped "convergence" baffle along the adjacent wall like the "floor convergence baffle" used in Snell Type One
I read Toole's book. I never read anything in it where is says a flooder has any advantage over a conventional front firing speakers.
All this can be done with a Bose speaker as well. You are failing to make your point here.
Who exactly are you talking to? Please quote posts you're responding to.
Please define "detail" in this context.
what about Don Keele's CBTs? ... And they are even a bit flooder-like
The flooder has its main lobe directed to the ceiling, the CBT where you design it. I don't see any similarities between the two.
The totally avoided floor reflection of the widely known CBT sold by Parts Express is only one design decision, with the possible drawback that the sound might come from the floor. But one can build a CBT in many shapes, and the PE configuration is not mandatory.
My experience with musicians and people in general and beeing a sound engineer as well as hifi enthusiast and hifi salesperson for several years (today i work in finance but that's another story). This experience tells me that most people can live with a setup costing between 500$ and 1000$, and they don't care what the right sound was. But they do care if the like the sound they here.
Many mastering engineering probably hate what they are forced to create, but the majority of modern recordings sounds mediocre. In Jazz and classical it's quite easy to find some good recordings, but with pop, rock, rap etc. it's quite hard. It's more important that the mix sounds good in a car (and the small cubes in the studio do not sound like a car speaker in a car) or cheap headphones that in your home. It's also important that everything is loud, so street noise, and other noises don't drown the low sounds.
The different types of speakers don't actually sound that different, so they will not change the basics of the mix. The different types have different room interactions. I like a speaker that sounds the same no matter where I am in my living room. A flooder does that, but also some front firing speaker can do this. But even amongst front firing speakers there are huge differences in how they sound.
It was closed. I think it can be even as simple as a appropriately shaped baffle.
I read Toole's book. I never read anything in it where is says a flooder has any advantage over a conventional front firing speakers.
All this can be done with a Bose speaker as well. You are failing to make your point here.
All what can be done?? Read what Toole writes about different reflections in the listening room and their effect on sound.
certainly, but isn´t this most advertised HiFi consumer CBT quite flooder-like? Seriously can´t You see any similarities??
Your world is small compared to the whole world in general. Does your experience extend to the american consumer? I doubt it. Does it extend to all audiophiles and videophiles? I doubt that as well. Everyone I know has a movie or music system that costs way more than $1000. Does your experience cover these folks?
Here another example of blanket statements that do not stand up under scrutiny. So you have heard EVERY modern recording out there and honestly say that most of them sound mediocre. I don't think so. Secondly, it is no more important to make a mix sound good in a car as it is on a two channel stereo. We create separate mixes that translate well in both. What you hear on the radio is quite frankly a different mix than what you will hear on the CD. The mix for iTunes is different from the one you hear on the radio. It has been this way for years.
Lastly, I do not know a recording engineer, mixing engineer, or a mastering engineering that uses his car as a reference for anything. If they did, we would have mixes that sounded good in one car, and terrible in another. Not all cars have the same acoustical footprint, and it would be silly to use all the individual cars acoustical properties as a reference point. This is why we use the cubes - they have a similar frequency response to most car speakers and the sound is consistent because the room signature does not change.
So you are saying here that the Bose 901 sound pretty simular to the Klipschorn? Are you saying what I mix and master on a Dunlavy SCV will sound pretty much the same as a flooder does? Are you saying a speaker with a controlled dispersion pattern will sound pretty much the same as a omnidirectional one? You know this is nonsense right?
And you don't think this makes one speaker sound different from another?
This is great. Most people would rather optimize the best sound for where they sit, because they know NO speaker will sound the same no matter where you sit. If you sit near a wall in your living room, you are not going to hear the same sound in the center of the room. Imaging changes, and so does the frequency response.
I think this comment is also nonsense. The are huge differences in how ANY speaker design will sound in ANY room. No speaker is going to sound the same no matter what room they are put in. It is impossible with acoustical signatures of each room being unique.
A flooder is nothing more than a "effect" speaker just like a Ohm Walsh, A Bose, AR Magic speaker, MBL 101E Radialstrahler, and DBX's Soundfield one. You are just "washing" the room with reflections to create a sense of space. The effect is the same as what you get from a space generator processing box we use in the studio.
My question here is how does one separate the natural reflections in the recording from those generated by the speaker interacting with the room? How does the speaker create phantom images halfway between the center of the room and the left or right speakers? It is really tough to do that when the majority of your output is reflected.
The reflected sound effect is similar to what you get from a space generator processing box, with the exception that the digitally processed sound can be adjusted to work with the program material, while the flooder is "stuck" on one setting determined by the acoustic properties of the room and placement in the room.
Graaf seems to love that setting.
As Timothy Leary said, a good trip requires a good set and setting
.Did you not read my last post? I already told you I read the book. I am aware exactly what reflection in the listening room and their effect on sound. Can you point out to me in his book where he states reflections from the ceiling are any better than those coming from the floor? I know he has stated that lateral reflections are pleasing and add spaciousness to music, but I have not read anywhere in his book where he states ceiling reflection are superior to floor bounce.
But your answer to some of the problem like a floor bounce shows a throw baby and the bath water out mentality. A floor bounce is easily measured, and can be corrected with automatic digital room correction, digital parametric EQ, tilting the speaker backward a bit, or just by having a thick pad under high pile carpeting. There is no need to change the orientation of the dispersion pattern of the speakers.
Here are some facts about our hearing system that you don't seem to understand. We are extremely good at localizing sounds in the area covered by our field of view. As sound sources go up, down and behind we are less good at localization. Which means a flooder is less able to localize images within a well defined soundfield. Filtered reflections from above, below and behind seem to be more
disturbing to the localization mechanism than those from the sides. Laterally reflected energy increases the sense of envelopment from music playback - live or recorded. Now if you enjoy the "wash" of ill defined images in your soundfield, a flooder is your baby. This is not my personal choice, and why I think you are barking up the wrong tree with me and flooders.
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The reflected sound effect is similar to what you get from a space generator processing box, with the exception that the digitally processed sound can be adjusted to work with the program material, while the flooder is "stuck" on one setting determined by the acoustic properties of the room and placement in the room.
Graaf seems to love that setting.
As Timothy Leary said, a good trip requires a good set and setting
You are totally right about this....LOLOLOL
markus76;
Without salutation, I'm addressing OP. I'll work on formality.
In regards to "detail", in this instance I'm addressing both smoothness of frequency response and smoothness of phase response. Transition from wavelengths greater than quarter wave as distance between speaker and its virtual image on the other side of wall to wavelengths shorter than this distance results in ripple both in time domain view and frequency domain view. Tonality of instrument playing up or down a scale changes in manner that sounds specifically like and instrument being played, stuffed up against a wall. This is convolved onto all elements in the playback.
This is not unlike bad horn mouth reflections and diffraction.
But once you get over this easily avoided compromise, and accept the loss of spacial detail, a well separated contralateral reflection is produced. For some listeners this produces a complementary spaciousness effect that compensates in their minds for details lost to the smearing effect of speakers being too close to walls (or suffering from mouth reflections) to get correct rendering of all transients in source signal.
I wouldn't concentrate on the "transients" aspect as much as you do. But you have a point in the "undisturbed" quality of the first contralateral reflection - compared to the near-wall reflections.
Rudolf:
Intense comb filtering doesn't matter?
Why do so many listeners obsess about toe in of speakers? Especially speakers with wide baffles?
Impulse response doesn't matter?
Wall loaded speaker is like building 60cm wide speaker and running horizontally paired drivers down the edges.
Early on I owned a similar speaker; DCM time window. Toe in with these is crucial. Can't listen to them close up and get any image detail, and the further back one gets with them, the more finicky toe angle would get. For recording where imaging isn't key they worked great.
It's easy to get sucked into pseudo spaciousness of contralateral reflection. I often enjoy this, but know the difference between this room effect, and spaciousness rendered in recordings.
Yeah, this can and does lead to placement tweaking.
Speakers jammed up against walls is highly limiting.
Intense comb filtering doesn't matter?
Why do so many listeners obsess about toe in of speakers? Especially speakers with wide baffles?
Impulse response doesn't matter?
Wall loaded speaker is like building 60cm wide speaker and running horizontally paired drivers down the edges.
Early on I owned a similar speaker; DCM time window. Toe in with these is crucial. Can't listen to them close up and get any image detail, and the further back one gets with them, the more finicky toe angle would get. For recording where imaging isn't key they worked great.
It's easy to get sucked into pseudo spaciousness of contralateral reflection. I often enjoy this, but know the difference between this room effect, and spaciousness rendered in recordings.
Yeah, this can and does lead to placement tweaking.
Speakers jammed up against walls is highly limiting.
There is not much realistic spaciousness an equilateral stereo speaker triangle could transmit. Reflections in the recording are coming from only two ineffective locations (±30°). Binaural loudspeaker reproduction techniques could improve on that but there are virtually no recordings that would support such an approach. So in the end we need to add specific reflections from other angles than the mains, if a realistic rendering is desired.
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