Actually there are several good reasons for this that are NOT contrary to the notion of improving sound with side-wall reflections.
1. Speaker placement relative to the "near" side-wall (and relative to frequency). Generally 5 feet or more away from the side wall and it's NOT an issue. Anything closer and lowering the intensity of that sidewall's reproduction can be a good thing.
2. Lowering contralateral ("far" side-wall) reflection effects - effects which increase cross-correlation.
3. in context with #2, substantially lowering contralateral reflection effects when listening at a significant distance from the loudspeakers relative to the loudspeakers and their contralateral wall.
4. Lowering room noise generally - which tends to increase apparent direct sound.
The notion of preference with respect to room reflections is an *ipsilateral* preference (or "near-wall" preference), so long as you don't create a bounding or near-bounding condition at higher freq.s..
This is (*cough*) nearly perfectly correlated with the well known perception of improved *spaciousness with lower IACC (or lower correlation of sound between right and left ears of a listener). Those ipsilateral reflections increase the difference in intensity and time between the left and right ear's reception.
*Note: "spaciousness" is used within it's general meaning and not as spaciousness within the context of concert hall acoustic terminology.
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Remember about dispersers. They will scatter reflected HF instead of damping them, so you get more delayed reflections and that "larger room" impression. In his book Toole strongly reccommends to put some on the walls and ceiling where first reflections occur. And to combine it with damping panels, making the room somewhat hybrid between damped and scattering-reflective. Perhaps that's the best possible compromise. And, yes, contralateral surfaces must be rather well damped as well as the floor.
I only know "spaciousness" in the context of "concert hall acoustic terminology". Audibly speaking that is its "general meaning". If there is another one then please provide some reliable source for it.
Doesn't this on-the-fly definition make all else that you said meaningless since your definition is not the standard one.
The only commercially available software I know of that has an IACC measure implemented is Dr. Uli Brueggemann’s Acourate. I posted my understanding of how it is used in small room acoustic measures, along with some objective results, several posts back.
If one wants to find out more about how IACC is used in acoustic measures, search IACC on the Acourate forum: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/acourate/info or PM Uli directly on this forum at: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/members/uli-brueggemann.html
If one wants to find out more about how IACC is used in acoustic measures, search IACC on the Acourate forum: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/acourate/info or PM Uli directly on this forum at: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/members/uli-brueggemann.html
Basic English word use (..nothing "on the fly" about it
):Utilizing the suffix "ness" to indicate the quality/nature/degree of the adjective: spacious.
"spacious" as an adjective is generally "having a large area or capacity".
The concert hall acoustic term of art Spaciousness is derived and has become increasingly *limited within its own definition over time. It's the proverbial "cart".. the general use and meaning of spaciousness is the proverbial "horse". (..where else would the term have been derived from?)
*for instance the terms of art Listener Envelopment and Apparent Source Width are two evolved terms that are both conditions under the term of art Spaciousness. And to display just how far the term of art of Spaciousness has been altered over time consider the use of "source width" within its general meaning - it would be a very strained argument to make that it has anything to do with spaciousness.
This does all point out something useful though (..for people not terribly concerned with terms of art in acoustics):
IACC is about (sound) differences between the Left and Right ears of the listener, not with how those differences are derived.
In out context we aren't creating a spacious condition.
Instead we are striving for a better condition for the re-creation of a spacious condition - the condition on the recording.
well, in Toole's book "spaciousness" appears 67 times
Toole writes about a "sense of spaciousness" or "spatial impression" in this context
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I'm afraid that's not impossible with just two speakers and no additional processing. While strong listening room reflections can create a sense of spaciousness, this is NOT the spaciousness of the recording space. One would need to extract spatial information from the recording and present it over additional loudspeakers from different direction than ±30°. Not a trivial task because important spatial information is lost in stereo recordings. For example no specific room response for let's say 90° can be extracted. There are processors that try that stunt though, e.g. Dolby PLII or NEO:X.
What is that based on? Your personal preference?
How does that relate to "are NOT contrary to the notion of improving sound with side-wall reflections".
Either I misinterpret or it looks like you contradict yourself.
Sounds doubtful. Two absorbents? Two bookshelves would probably be better since they also isolate more from outside noise.
What I can however see as one reason that contribute to why many prefer removing sidewall reflections is that their speakers aren't very constant in their response and sidewalls are close in most rooms.
No it's not. How can you say it is when every space differs in size, and the reflected energy and type of acoustic environment will differ in both time and coloration? And not to mention that your speakers disperses quite differently then the instruments.
If you are going to experience the exact same spaciousness as the recording space, your playback room needs to be identical at first. Plus you also need to copy more or less the dispersion pattern of the instruments.
There's a reason why we use the term illusion.
yes, but it's not what You think
quite the other way round actually - illusion is an impression of something REAL
illusion - definition of illusion by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
not at all:
Moulton's Takes
that's right
Do not dismiss this opinion to easily.
Moulton Laboratories :: Golden Ears
Moulton Laboratories :: Total Recording
Bob Katz on David Moulton:
"don't agree"
Bob Olhsson on Moulton's room concept in practice:
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Exactly. The notion that capturing the direct sound AND all room reflections regardless of direction in one or two channels, presenting them through one or two speakers and perceiving the spaciousness of the recorded space is absurd.
When listening to natural sounds the direct sound reaches our ears followed by reflections from DIFFERENT directions than the direct sound. With stereo the direct sound and ALL reflections from ALL directions reaches our ears from the SAME speaker locations. Then the reflections of the direct sound AND the reflections of the recorded reflections reach our ear. Two completely different auditory situations.
As I've said before, room reflections can create a sense of spaciousness (something 2-speaker stereo isn't good at) but it's certainly not the spaciousness of the recorded space.
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You clearly don't understand how stereo works.
Besides I sincerely can't believe that Your stereo setup is that bad!
Graaf:
I don't care what Moulton believes. What he says, and I'm well aware of his ideas, is a direct contraction to psycoacoustic studies. His ideas are stupid as long as we are talking about accuracy.
When it comes to how studios are designed it greatly varies because we have no standards. And we have wacko designers like Moulton...
However, those studios who follow well known psycoacoustics all have good control over both early high gain reflections and late ones. Which is also imperative in order to hear the recorded signal accurately.
I don't care what Moulton believes. What he says, and I'm well aware of his ideas, is a direct contraction to psycoacoustic studies. His ideas are stupid as long as we are talking about accuracy.
When it comes to how studios are designed it greatly varies because we have no standards. And we have wacko designers like Moulton...
However, those studios who follow well known psycoacoustics all have good control over both early high gain reflections and late ones. Which is also imperative in order to hear the recorded signal accurately.
I agree, I don't think that Moulton's ideas have stood the test of time. They have been pretty much forgotten. I met him at his studio several decades ago and listened to his "invention". I did not hear in it what he claimed to hear. Short of a few boutique installations his concepts have not made any significant impact on the art.
I think that's a very important observation. If you listen long enough then your hearing will adapt. The question is which reproduction technique requires the least amount of adaption.
Markus - I had a long conversation with Dave Clark about this before. We concluded that people will adapt to any errors in a sound system and come to expect them as "good". To me this means that one should adapt to what is the most objectively accurate. When you do this, you hear all the flaws in other systems quite clearly, even though others take these same flaws to be "good" things. It is an insidious circle.
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