Hey Salas - that curve is pretty darn flat! I guess it sounds right in the nearfield. How close are the monitors to the ears?
It looks like what so many studio engineers try to achieve when mixing live. Sounds bloody awful in a large space.
Which begs the question: Why do we like that curve up close, but it sounds too shrill farther away? How do our brains and ears "know" how far away the speakers are?
I assume it has to do with room acoustics. But - I think that if you were mixing an outdoor concert that flat curve would sound very bright a distance. Why?
It looks like what so many studio engineers try to achieve when mixing live. Sounds bloody awful in a large space.
Which begs the question: Why do we like that curve up close, but it sounds too shrill farther away? How do our brains and ears "know" how far away the speakers are?
I assume it has to do with room acoustics. But - I think that if you were mixing an outdoor concert that flat curve would sound very bright a distance. Why?
panomaniac said:
They are about 1.3m away and its an 1/6 octave graph. Same thing happened when I calibrated my desktop computer speakers.
When they try that live for big space its bad. They must pursue the 2dB per decade droop from 0.2k to 20k. I do that.
Its not about liking. We perceive more direct sound from both woofer and tweeter nearfield on axis especially in dead control room fronts. So the energy is balanced near as intended in anechoic on axis testing.
In farfield we get average energy from diffuse field. Lower frequencies develop around axis with bouncing delay, when higher frequencies beam and get to us more directly on axis and die around axis. So when we pink with infinite averaging we see a homogenized curve but we still perceive less direct sound down low. Our brain knows direct and reverberant. If we pink for flat, that means we tip up the direct high frequency energy. If we pink for droop, thats how wide band averaged energy develops far away in nature. and we perceive it naturally.
Salas
got beat to it by Pano, but nice flat graph. But as he says, if we had that in a 'normal' room at a 'normal' distance it would, in all likelihood sound bright. You then went into it a bit more which is great.
Could another possible difference be that (usually????) a graph flat like that, listened from a distance from 1.3 m in a control/mixing room serves a totally different and dedicated purpose than 'relaxed' music listening for pleasure at home??
In other words,flat on axis nearfield MONITORING is a tool, and is a totally different beast than home recreation.
Or maybe there are (for all I know) many people who listen recreationally at home with their speakers 1.3m away?
From your experience Salas, either with that install or another, would listening that close with that response be a long term acceptable way to listen 'at home' or is it more for a different purpose.
Hope those questions made sense.
got beat to it by Pano, but nice flat graph. But as he says, if we had that in a 'normal' room at a 'normal' distance it would, in all likelihood sound bright. You then went into it a bit more which is great.
Could another possible difference be that (usually????) a graph flat like that, listened from a distance from 1.3 m in a control/mixing room serves a totally different and dedicated purpose than 'relaxed' music listening for pleasure at home??
In other words,flat on axis nearfield MONITORING is a tool, and is a totally different beast than home recreation.
Or maybe there are (for all I know) many people who listen recreationally at home with their speakers 1.3m away?
From your experience Salas, either with that install or another, would listening that close with that response be a long term acceptable way to listen 'at home' or is it more for a different purpose.
Hope those questions made sense.
The 2 situations you talk about, are existing in the two cases I calibrated. Firstly the Tannoys that are located much more away from his head plus they drive the room for all to listen, I made them to show the droop to sound ok. Nice thing is they gave the same basic balance as the flat nearfield Dynaudios for the producer's working position. If we go 3 metres away from the Dynas and widen their angle to drive the room, we will automatically see the droop - no digital parametric module touched. Its the narrowing propagation angle with frequency in interplay with absorption that leads to the farfield droop. The popular error is that anechoic flat must be replicated far away. Well WRONG!
The purpose of nearfield monitoring is less room reflections from listening nearer and softer so we hear deeper, not tilted up to catch resolution. I assure you, although we talk 2 very different systems in different positions for different reasons in that studio, after the calibration, the perceived balance of the mix was identifiably the same for all intents and purposes. My mate was all grins.
The purpose of nearfield monitoring is less room reflections from listening nearer and softer so we hear deeper, not tilted up to catch resolution. I assure you, although we talk 2 very different systems in different positions for different reasons in that studio, after the calibration, the perceived balance of the mix was identifiably the same for all intents and purposes. My mate was all grins.
thanks Salas
please bear with me, think I'm getting it. And if what I think you're saying is true, then I find it VERY interesting indeed.
So we have two situations. Unfortunately the two speakers are different so it's not a complete comparison, but close enough to draw conclusions.
Situation one: close to what the most of us would have, speakers '''far''' away from us in a normal room, which sounds nice and natural. And in passing we note the 'drooping' FR towards the top end (and we have an assumption that they are good speakers and so have an intrinsic flat anechoic response).
Situation two: probably less encountered than the first in the home, speakers '''close''' to the listener, which sounds nice and natural (and per the quotation, well damped room to remove the room even further) and we note in passing the flat FR, which we know is very close to the anechoic response of the speaker.
And lo and behold, both sound nice and natural ie both '''''sound the same'''''!!
I find that fascinating, spose it's old hat to most of you guys but it's new to me.
Funnily enough, we can 'reverse' both of these (put a 'flat response' to the speakers in the room, drooping response to the speakers in the near field) and it doesn't work. Confuse the two and you have a disaster on your hands.
It's like all tools I suppose, you need to know what they do , how to use them and when to use them.
If there is more info here I'd love to see it, but in the meantime thanks to all, I feel I've learnt something from all this and that is the important thing.
please bear with me, think I'm getting it. And if what I think you're saying is true, then I find it VERY interesting indeed.
So we have two situations. Unfortunately the two speakers are different so it's not a complete comparison, but close enough to draw conclusions.
Situation one: close to what the most of us would have, speakers '''far''' away from us in a normal room, which sounds nice and natural. And in passing we note the 'drooping' FR towards the top end (and we have an assumption that they are good speakers and so have an intrinsic flat anechoic response).
Situation two: probably less encountered than the first in the home, speakers '''close''' to the listener, which sounds nice and natural (and per the quotation, well damped room to remove the room even further) and we note in passing the flat FR, which we know is very close to the anechoic response of the speaker.
And lo and behold, both sound nice and natural ie both '''''sound the same'''''!!
I find that fascinating, spose it's old hat to most of you guys but it's new to me.
Funnily enough, we can 'reverse' both of these (put a 'flat response' to the speakers in the room, drooping response to the speakers in the near field) and it doesn't work. Confuse the two and you have a disaster on your hands.
It's like all tools I suppose, you need to know what they do , how to use them and when to use them.
If there is more info here I'd love to see it, but in the meantime thanks to all, I feel I've learnt something from all this and that is the important thing.
Bingo!
Exactly Terry. To put it in a nutshell, when in nearfield, flat is valid. When in farfield, drooping is valid, and occurs naturally. (For an originally flat measured speaker at 1m in anechoic conditions). Just don't compensate for the droop.
Transition from nearfield to farfield is different for various sizes and propagation profiles of speakers.
salas said:
RobWells said:
Exactly Terry. To put it in a nutshell, when in nearfield, flat is valid. When in farfield, drooping is valid, and occurs naturally. (For an originally flat measured speaker at 1m in anechoic conditions). Just don't compensate for the droop.
Transition from nearfield to farfield is different for various sizes and propagation profiles of speakers.
panomaniac said:
Sound decays exponentially, so in the near field the on-axis response significantly outweighs the off-axis response from reflections. Whereas at higher distances the reflections play much larger part because:
1) the relative distance travelled by indirect sound is only slightly higher than that of the direct sound,
2) listeners are extremely unlikely to be in the middle of a sweet spot (if there is one).
The thing is that if speakers are equalized for a good on-axis response they'll tend to produce rubbish off-axis, with peaks and troughs caused by all the usual suspects like:
-diffraction effects from the boxes and horn lips,
-"self interference" from large drivers operating in the break-up region,
-and multi-way speakers with different directional characteristics in the bass, mid, and treble regions.
have finally gotten the computer into the listening room, so am now keen to try the suggested dip put forward (waaay back in the first post!) and given a go by sqlkev.
Trouble is, I;m not exactly sure what the suggested eq curve is??!! I presume it is something approaching the inverse of the HTRF curve posted by DDF.
Anyway will try that tonight and see what sort of subjective impressions I get.
By the way, I measured the speakers on axis, (which are flat (deqx)) and at the listening position (3.7 m away) and they did indeed exhibit the top end roll off I expected. I have them toed out a bit, at a guess I'm 15 degrees off axis, and I use a 40 mm tweeter which should exhibit beaming earlier than others so maybe mine drops more than someone elses.
I was pleased that my off axis measurements (15, 30 and 45) were very smooth (well, the first two were, the 45 started to look a bit ragged). It was the first time I'd ever 'worried' about anything other than on-axis response, and that is only because I've only just become aware of what Floyd Toole says about power response.
From some of the graphs of off axis measurements he has published (which clearly show dips etc at the x-over points on the 'poorer' designs) I was worried about how mine would look, especially as I run my 18 inch bass unit up to 300 hz. I was expecting to see a huge dip, thankfully it wasn't there.
Given all our discussions earlier on this, does that mean we would get a totally different result if we used ribbons?? As I think their dispersion characteristics are different from domes-does that also mean they beam less and therefore don't foll off as much in room?
Trouble is, I;m not exactly sure what the suggested eq curve is??!! I presume it is something approaching the inverse of the HTRF curve posted by DDF.
Anyway will try that tonight and see what sort of subjective impressions I get.
By the way, I measured the speakers on axis, (which are flat (deqx)) and at the listening position (3.7 m away) and they did indeed exhibit the top end roll off I expected. I have them toed out a bit, at a guess I'm 15 degrees off axis, and I use a 40 mm tweeter which should exhibit beaming earlier than others so maybe mine drops more than someone elses.
I was pleased that my off axis measurements (15, 30 and 45) were very smooth (well, the first two were, the 45 started to look a bit ragged). It was the first time I'd ever 'worried' about anything other than on-axis response, and that is only because I've only just become aware of what Floyd Toole says about power response.
From some of the graphs of off axis measurements he has published (which clearly show dips etc at the x-over points on the 'poorer' designs) I was worried about how mine would look, especially as I run my 18 inch bass unit up to 300 hz. I was expecting to see a huge dip, thankfully it wasn't there.
Given all our discussions earlier on this, does that mean we would get a totally different result if we used ribbons?? As I think their dispersion characteristics are different from domes-does that also mean they beam less and therefore don't foll off as much in room?
Hi guys
Very interesting thread! Really enlighting !
I discovered it after I've done a few mods to my speakers (B&W 602+dipole bass units crossed at 100Hz) and was striken that your conclusions here seem to be in agreement to my subjective impressions.
The B&W's are known to sound bright. As I mounted phase plugs on the midwoofers and went to active filtering I also can tell why: with the original filters, I measured a treble uplift (possibly also due to the new phase plugs).
In my new setup, I got things a bit flatter and - bingo ! The sound is a whole lot more natural, treble does not mask everything anymoore, it is just where it should be ! I can also confirm that 2dB/dec droop when measuring at the listening position.
Another point: how about the dip atound 3kHz suggested by Linkwitz and others, as a furter direct vs. diffuse effect? It has been mentioned here, but not really commnted. Due to the filter configuration, I also have a (slighter than suggested, cca 1.5dB) broad dip arounf 3 hKz and I must say I am very pleased with the sound - I cannot make a comparison with/without dip, though.
Very interesting thread! Really enlighting !
I discovered it after I've done a few mods to my speakers (B&W 602+dipole bass units crossed at 100Hz) and was striken that your conclusions here seem to be in agreement to my subjective impressions.
The B&W's are known to sound bright. As I mounted phase plugs on the midwoofers and went to active filtering I also can tell why: with the original filters, I measured a treble uplift (possibly also due to the new phase plugs).
In my new setup, I got things a bit flatter and - bingo ! The sound is a whole lot more natural, treble does not mask everything anymoore, it is just where it should be ! I can also confirm that 2dB/dec droop when measuring at the listening position.
Another point: how about the dip atound 3kHz suggested by Linkwitz and others, as a furter direct vs. diffuse effect? It has been mentioned here, but not really commnted. Due to the filter configuration, I also have a (slighter than suggested, cca 1.5dB) broad dip arounf 3 hKz and I must say I am very pleased with the sound - I cannot make a comparison with/without dip, though.
Well, have had a little play, and with what I feel are interesting results.
I've attached a shot of the eq settings I used, which I feel at least approaches what DDF was getting at (if I've misinterpreted it please let me know). Of course, in use I also have all the bass eq loaded but it is a bit clearer without that on the graph as well.
As I say early results yet, with very limited listening.
First off, I did not particularly notice any change in the centre image, which was always pretty good.
The overall perceived brightness was not particularly changed either.
On the few purely instrumental tracks I played, did not really see any difference good or bad, which either says I have very poor ears! or the change is at least benign.
The instrumental tracks I mentioned are on a 'test' disc I use, so am very familiar with it. Also on the disc are some vocal tracks (naturally) and this is when things got a bit interesting.
On the 'test' disc the vocals are pretty well recorded, but I felt they were quite noticably more real and enjoyable. On one particular track, which as I say I'm very familiar with, I suddenly was VERY aware of the fact of two vocals, one on top of the other. I have to conclude that I must have been aware of it previously, yet to be honest I would have to say that it was very clear and distinct this time around. I find it hard to believe that I could not have picked it any time previously, yet i don't ever recall being aware of it before...????
Now I know it's there I'm certain I could hear it w/out the eq, but I find it very interesting how very much aware of it I suddenly became.
Funny little digression. When this topic started it appealed to me to test it, but was unable to do so as one of my drivers was off for repair. In the meantime, I bought a couple of cd's and so when the sytsem was up and running again of course I put them on. I was very disappointed, and remember thinking 'was my system not as good as I remembered?' ha ha. The (both as it turned out) discs I bought happen to be very sibilant, and a 'reality check' with other cd's showed that the system WAS as good as I remembered, but was thrown a curve ball by these two cd's I bought.
SOoo,, to cut a boring story short I threw one of those sibilant discs on. It was gone!!!!! Sure, you can still hear the t's and the s's, but boy were they improved! From tttttt to tt, ssssss to ss.
At times the sibilance was really irksome before, now it is such a relief to be able to listen without being angry at the poor recording.
Have not done enough listening to disprove the opposite, ie most normal vocals still sounding good, but the vocals on my 'test' disc seemed to be improved as well so I have no real fear in that regard.
As I say, early days yet but right now am very happy with the results, so thanks to DDF and all who contributed here!!
not sure if I've done the picture upload correctly, it's not in the 'preview reply', maybe it will appear in the actual post??
I've attached a shot of the eq settings I used, which I feel at least approaches what DDF was getting at (if I've misinterpreted it please let me know). Of course, in use I also have all the bass eq loaded but it is a bit clearer without that on the graph as well.
As I say early results yet, with very limited listening.
First off, I did not particularly notice any change in the centre image, which was always pretty good.
The overall perceived brightness was not particularly changed either.
On the few purely instrumental tracks I played, did not really see any difference good or bad, which either says I have very poor ears! or the change is at least benign.
The instrumental tracks I mentioned are on a 'test' disc I use, so am very familiar with it. Also on the disc are some vocal tracks (naturally) and this is when things got a bit interesting.
On the 'test' disc the vocals are pretty well recorded, but I felt they were quite noticably more real and enjoyable. On one particular track, which as I say I'm very familiar with, I suddenly was VERY aware of the fact of two vocals, one on top of the other. I have to conclude that I must have been aware of it previously, yet to be honest I would have to say that it was very clear and distinct this time around. I find it hard to believe that I could not have picked it any time previously, yet i don't ever recall being aware of it before...????
Now I know it's there I'm certain I could hear it w/out the eq, but I find it very interesting how very much aware of it I suddenly became.
Funny little digression. When this topic started it appealed to me to test it, but was unable to do so as one of my drivers was off for repair. In the meantime, I bought a couple of cd's and so when the sytsem was up and running again of course I put them on. I was very disappointed, and remember thinking 'was my system not as good as I remembered?' ha ha. The (both as it turned out) discs I bought happen to be very sibilant, and a 'reality check' with other cd's showed that the system WAS as good as I remembered, but was thrown a curve ball by these two cd's I bought.
SOoo,, to cut a boring story short I threw one of those sibilant discs on. It was gone!!!!! Sure, you can still hear the t's and the s's, but boy were they improved! From tttttt to tt, ssssss to ss.
At times the sibilance was really irksome before, now it is such a relief to be able to listen without being angry at the poor recording.
Have not done enough listening to disprove the opposite, ie most normal vocals still sounding good, but the vocals on my 'test' disc seemed to be improved as well so I have no real fear in that regard.
As I say, early days yet but right now am very happy with the results, so thanks to DDF and all who contributed here!!
not sure if I've done the picture upload correctly, it's not in the 'preview reply', maybe it will appear in the actual post??
Hi Pano
look, I know I'm an idiot but I did use the attach file window, located the file and clicked in the post. I then went to the IMG button which says 'insert an image into your message' so fine, clicked on it and it comes up 'enter text to be formatted'.
nothing happened when I previewed reply so had the 'brainwave' to cut and paste the location (from the browse window in attach file) but still nothing.
Was just hunting for a help file/FAQ section when i noticed you had replied.
Will look for some sort of tutorial on the site, I guess for most of you hardened 'forumites' this is second nature ha ha. Most other times I've done it on other forums there was some sort of paperclip symbol that inserts it, I've been vainly clicking on every conceivable button for half an hour!
look, I know I'm an idiot but I did use the attach file window, located the file and clicked in the post. I then went to the IMG button which says 'insert an image into your message' so fine, clicked on it and it comes up 'enter text to be formatted'.
nothing happened when I previewed reply so had the 'brainwave' to cut and paste the location (from the browse window in attach file) but still nothing.
Was just hunting for a help file/FAQ section when i noticed you had replied.
Will look for some sort of tutorial on the site, I guess for most of you hardened 'forumites' this is second nature ha ha. Most other times I've done it on other forums there was some sort of paperclip symbol that inserts it, I've been vainly clicking on every conceivable button for half an hour!
terry j,
If you're doing wrong what I think you might be doing wrong..
Try just clicking the 'Browse' button and locating the file, so that it's shown in the blank next to the browse button, just as you did previously.. Except this time, don't press the IMG button. Just press the 'Submit Reply' button, and it should show up.
..Then again, I might be misunderstanding you. It's now 10AM here, and I haven't gone to bed yet.
If you're doing wrong what I think you might be doing wrong..
Try just clicking the 'Browse' button and locating the file, so that it's shown in the blank next to the browse button, just as you did previously.. Except this time, don't press the IMG button. Just press the 'Submit Reply' button, and it should show up.
..Then again, I might be misunderstanding you. It's now 10AM here, and I haven't gone to bed yet.
ok testing, and in case it doesn't appear (after the 394'th try, but hey whos' counting?) the settings are
7000hz -4.5 db Q 1.15
2000 hz -1.2 db Q 0.66
I've made sure it's a gif., png etc etc, so that variable has been accounted for.
Here we go
well, once again it didn't come up on the preview post test, let's hope it comes up when I post it
Well, progress! At least this time when I tried to post it I was told the image was too big, so it attempted to put it up!
Sorry about the atrocious quality, tried re-doing it in gif, made sure the picture was no bigger than 1000 by 1000, kept checking attributes but always came up with the error of file bigger than 1000 by 1000.
Oh well, will leave it alone now.
7000hz -4.5 db Q 1.15
2000 hz -1.2 db Q 0.66
I've made sure it's a gif., png etc etc, so that variable has been accounted for.
Here we go
well, once again it didn't come up on the preview post test, let's hope it comes up when I post it
Well, progress! At least this time when I tried to post it I was told the image was too big, so it attempted to put it up!
Sorry about the atrocious quality, tried re-doing it in gif, made sure the picture was no bigger than 1000 by 1000, kept checking attributes but always came up with the error of file bigger than 1000 by 1000.
Oh well, will leave it alone now.
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