Right so - as a warning - I'm fairly new at this, and my only experience with Full Range and HiFi has basically been with my own DIY stuff. No one around here is into this stuff so I've only experienced what my ears have heard.
My setup is - an Elekit TU8600 300b tube amp, a JDS Labs ElDac, a Uturn Orbit Plus turntable, and my Dallas IIs with Fostex FE206eN2 (planet10).
Essentially what I like about the full range or hifi experience is immersion. If I play jazz, or acoustic, or bluegrass, or even classic rock, I feel like the speakers do a great job of creating the space in the music. In some recordings I can hear where the instruments are, and the voices feel front and center. Whereas typical modern Bose or Klipsch setups feel condensed - like the music is coming from a very small area far away.
When I play rock music - modern rock, say something like the Killers, or even older stuff like the Smashing Pumpkins, no matter the quality - the music tends to condense back up, and it isn't enjoyable for me.
Using this setup, or making modifications to this setup, is there a way to mitigate this? A ton of my music comes from iTunes and through my DAC, and I can appreciate that this isn't the best quality - but even there, good recordings do sound good - and more modern rock falls to pieces.
Will a good CD transport help with this - or is that type of rock really just too produced to provide a good soundstage?
My setup is - an Elekit TU8600 300b tube amp, a JDS Labs ElDac, a Uturn Orbit Plus turntable, and my Dallas IIs with Fostex FE206eN2 (planet10).
Essentially what I like about the full range or hifi experience is immersion. If I play jazz, or acoustic, or bluegrass, or even classic rock, I feel like the speakers do a great job of creating the space in the music. In some recordings I can hear where the instruments are, and the voices feel front and center. Whereas typical modern Bose or Klipsch setups feel condensed - like the music is coming from a very small area far away.
When I play rock music - modern rock, say something like the Killers, or even older stuff like the Smashing Pumpkins, no matter the quality - the music tends to condense back up, and it isn't enjoyable for me.
Using this setup, or making modifications to this setup, is there a way to mitigate this? A ton of my music comes from iTunes and through my DAC, and I can appreciate that this isn't the best quality - but even there, good recordings do sound good - and more modern rock falls to pieces.
Will a good CD transport help with this - or is that type of rock really just too produced to provide a good soundstage?
It's probably compressed during the recording, mainly so you can hear it on the radio playing in your car or over the machinery in the factory. You could try an expander
Most such recordings are actually multitrack mono, so there is no spatial information present,
unless artificially added later.
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So dynamic range is a problem? Almost everything is compressed now, and the compression algorithms are unknown, so using a de-compressor usually doesn't work very well.
Unless you change your whole speaker system, you are not going to be modifying that full range folded horn.
I have both the dynamic range and the giant sound stage with a line array, using analog electrical crossovers at Linkwitz-Riley 24db/octave, and 4 separate amps.
But this would require a huge change---everything.
So, you could fool around with decompressors...
There is a discussion here: What does "Soundstage" & Imaging exactly mean?
That you might find interesting.
Unless you change your whole speaker system, you are not going to be modifying that full range folded horn.
I have both the dynamic range and the giant sound stage with a line array, using analog electrical crossovers at Linkwitz-Riley 24db/octave, and 4 separate amps.
But this would require a huge change---everything.
So, you could fool around with decompressors...
There is a discussion here: What does "Soundstage" & Imaging exactly mean?
That you might find interesting.
Also listen to some binaural recordings with headphones, to see that realistic perspective
is possible in recordings.The Best Albums Recorded in Binaural Audio - Hooke Audio
FM Top 40 ''music'', POP and even Pop-Rock music are severely compressed to be listened in the CAR, as they want target this car audience why the musicians and producers believe are a bigger audience than the audiophile with a hi-fi system in home.
Also silly musicians naively believe a very compressed recording sound better than a uncompressed why the comporessed recording sound higher...
I suggest you dont buy this kind of ''music'' it prejudice the ears, instead favor Jazz, Classical, Ambient or Prog-Rock.
Also silly musicians naively believe a very compressed recording sound better than a uncompressed why the comporessed recording sound higher...
I suggest you dont buy this kind of ''music'' it prejudice the ears, instead favor Jazz, Classical, Ambient or Prog-Rock.
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Indeed. Most modern pop/rock is overly compressed, with mono microphones on every instruments, panned right and left, according to the mood of the mixing engineer and producer.
Add to that the extra compressing from mp3 files, or Youtube, and you end up with all the sound in the middle, between the 2 speakers, nothing beyond that.
The binaural recordings are cool, but they are meant for headphones.
Check out this website that scouted the net for free hi-res files available to download. Use that to play with your DAC and hear very nice and lifelike recordings.
Free High-Res | H i F i D U I N O
Add to that the extra compressing from mp3 files, or Youtube, and you end up with all the sound in the middle, between the 2 speakers, nothing beyond that.
The binaural recordings are cool, but they are meant for headphones.
Check out this website that scouted the net for free hi-res files available to download. Use that to play with your DAC and hear very nice and lifelike recordings.
Free High-Res | H i F i D U I N O
Well, soundstage is always something produced by the mixing engineer, so the fact that a recording consists of mono tracks has nothing to do with it. But as mentioned, a lot of producers go to great lengths to ensure mono compatibility, since the vast majority of listeners either don't have good stereo setups, won't be listening in front of their speakers or don't really care.
I always thought soundstage was a function of the location of microphones when the recording took place (assuming everyone was playing in the same room at the same time) - and that was why jazz sounds so good, because it's both clean and live.
I believed that soundstage could be simulated through mixing, but never matched to a good live or studio recording.
Shows how much I know!
I believed that soundstage could be simulated through mixing, but never matched to a good live or studio recording.
Shows how much I know!
No matter your microphone placement, the recording coming in is a mono one. Recreating the believable soundstage from those individual mono recordings from each microphone used is the work of the mixing engineer. Of course, when recording a band playing live you often also catch other things in the recording process, including the interplay between musicians that can be hard to define, and which you will not get the same way if you record one instrument at a time.
Depends on your setup. Give a try, especially if you have a near field system.
See post #5 for some samples.
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