Yes, they can solve the audible problem to some degree, which I acknowledged in my previous post - I have heard systems which use severe room treatments, and which perform very nicely in a relatively small sweet spot. But, the acoustic treatments I have found to be quite unsettling, and my desire is to not have to worry about sitting in a particular position to get the "right" effect.
The big problem in this whole discussion is that only a small number really know what the impact of getting the sound clearly resolved in a room is like - if they did, a lot of this back and forth wouldn't be necessary. There are so many benefits in getting good sound by the reduction of distortion method, such as being able to play and enjoy really "bad" recordings, and to experience the quality just as well from other rooms, that for me there is no comparison ...
To add some more meat to the "theory", what is possibly happening is that the ear/brain can successfully, automatically recreate an illusion of the recorded acoustic if all the low level ambience clues from the recording environment are sufficiently accurately reproduced - they correlate with the direct sound in ways which are meaningful to one's learnt, instinctive understanding of what the components of information in heard sound mean. However, if those subtle clues are too disrupted, corrupted by the distortion artifacts in playback then the mind can't unravel the connection between recorded direct and ambient sound, and the illusion fails.
The big problem in this whole discussion is that only a small number really know what the impact of getting the sound clearly resolved in a room is like - if they did, a lot of this back and forth wouldn't be necessary. There are so many benefits in getting good sound by the reduction of distortion method, such as being able to play and enjoy really "bad" recordings, and to experience the quality just as well from other rooms, that for me there is no comparison ...
To add some more meat to the "theory", what is possibly happening is that the ear/brain can successfully, automatically recreate an illusion of the recorded acoustic if all the low level ambience clues from the recording environment are sufficiently accurately reproduced - they correlate with the direct sound in ways which are meaningful to one's learnt, instinctive understanding of what the components of information in heard sound mean. However, if those subtle clues are too disrupted, corrupted by the distortion artifacts in playback then the mind can't unravel the connection between recorded direct and ambient sound, and the illusion fails.
yes, I understand You perfectly well but what I propose here actually requires NO room treatments and NO particular listening position - very wide sweet spot
yes perhaps but still I can't see any connection between any measurable distortion and the method that You propose:
Is there any identified physics behind this method?
Anyway, You seem to deny the basic idea of this thread which was defined in the original title I mean that loudspeakers and room should work as a system.
You seem to say that the loudspeaker-room interface is in fact completely immaterial. Once the distortions are effectively reduced the room effectively disappears anyway.
Is this what You say?
With regard to the speakers, lower cost drivers have suspensions which are not ideal, warming them up appears to improve their suppleness, and reduce distortion; capacitors in crossovers are a long way from being perfect devices, being exercised is generally accepted as being beneficial.
Power supplies and general electronics in audio components have poor resistance to interference - if you can't stop it getting in, then minimise the created interference.
To a very large degree, yes. That has been my experience, using conventional, front firing speakers; of course if the speakers are specifically designed to operate by interacting with the room, like corner located horns, or the upward firing speakers of this thread then the drivers in the carcase, and the room, combine to become the speaker ...
We want to keep the auditory scene at a position between the speakers - albeit pushed back some inches - even when we move outside the stereo triangle. This can be achieved if the loudspeaker directivity pattern follows the time/intensity curves we talked about in an earlier thread (and following posts). My dipoles leave that pattern if I move too much sideway from the central sweet spot. But they regain that pattern if I sit in front of the left or right speaker. I can clearly hear how the center phantom moves back to the middle between the speakers when I move to that position.
Polar response data of your speakers would show, how much your listening experience can be explained by time/intensity trading.
I don't think so. Sounds involved in stereo listening have not the faintest "polarity" built into them afaik.
Rudolf
I must not have made my point very well, because you've either missed it, or taken it too literally. Yes, I know that sounds aren't polarized. I also know that sounds don't come from a single screen, like the image. And I know that we don't wear filters over our ears like the 3D polarized glasses.
However, the effect is much the same. How well does the 3D scene remain intact as you shift off axis? A good silver screen can keep a reasonable 3D image pretty far off axis - a bad screen does not. Same with speakers. Does the 3D image collapse if you move off axis of the speakers? How far off axis can you go and retain the 3D effect? The result is very similar to the extinction of a 3D cinema screen. The causes are different, of course.
That's true. But it's given a separate term because it's the crosstalk that happens (and is variable) off axis. There is already crosstalk from the screen and glasses on axis. It's a way of separating them by terminology."Extinction" in this instance is just another word for cross-talk.
I find this perspective rendering to be a more appropriate comparison. Compare the on-axis and off-axis pictures of the Bramante choir.
When I walk to the right of the right speaker, I rapidly move into its dipole null (heavy toe-in!) and loose the right half of the scene. But there is still a bit of resolution from the left speaker.
Rudolf
The interesting behaviour when using a true mono track to assess this effect is that the quality of the image does not vary one iota, IME. Another way of describing it is that if you had a person blindfolded on a chair at normal listening distance, mounted on a sideways moving footway which ran from the left of the left speaker to the right of the right, which moved smoothly enough that the sitting person couldn't feel what was happening; and then asked him to point to the centre of the sound image while moving him surreptiously from the complete right to the complete left, etc, he would always point to directly in front of him. Also, if you asked him if he detected any change in the the quality and perspective of what he heard during this time, he would say no.
The following I came across on the Linkwitz site - Frontiers - and I shall be so bold to quote a relevant paragraph here -- it encapsulates very nicely where I'm coming from:
That's essentially why I believe I'm going in the right direction ...
Linkwitz has his own take on this, but my experience is that the situation that the 'sound carried a comet like trail of newly created sounds with it, that formed a continuum of background sounds' is the low-level distortion that I constantly work on, to quell. When I succeed, that disappears, and I get the 'Live instruments had a space between tones, like a black background, and even en mass always remained articulate'.
That's essentially why I believe I'm going in the right direction ...
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That is a good example of exactly what I am NOT talking about.
The perspective does not change, just as it does not change in a 3D movie. However it does remain in the same space and will keep its stereo image, if stereo material is being played. I can get a little skewed if far off axis, but does not collapse or attach to a speaker.
then what to do? Wide range ribbons or electrostats with separate subs? Line arrays of small drivers?
yes, something like an RD75 or at least Newform Research R45
any lens unnecessary as it was needed in Beveridge speakers to transform a planar ESL source into a quasi-line source
or perhaps a loooong line array of really small and nice wide range, like Visaton BF32? a la Russell's IDS-25
and separate bass (midbass with the R45)
this should help with IMDs and stored energy decay
optimized positioning according to the Beveridge method or the Hughes method or a kind of combined Hughes-Beveridge method should solve the remaining problems
as a matter of fact FCUFS was exclusively meant to be a sort of cheap available and unobtrusive alternative to such a line source as Beveridge or long ribbons, or magnetostats
yes, perhaps, some kind of a lens
OTOH I think that beaming that starts to be significant above 5 kHz does not present any serious problem, at least as far as realistic imaging and soundstaging is concerned
Exlusive = Only, Only advantage of FCUFS is that it is cheap alternative to completely forward firing array of speakers.
Really ought just stop this thread right here.
You'll never get past this statement.
