For me I have a hard time finding any authentic rigor in terms of audio tests that are published. If there are companies that have performed tests that are rigorous enough to be accepted as objective they are keeping them to themselves as far as I can tell. All I ever see are isolated tests. So I am trusting my intuition and anecdotal experimentation as usual but I do have some simple theories that make sense.
If you take a look at what wave synthesis involves and compare it to just a simple stereo signal recorded cardiod isolated from reflections like a lot of modern recordings are done. If you take away the generated reverb done by the mixer what is missing? Copies of the original sound hitting you at various angles. How come binaural seems to give a better illusion than stereo? Could it be that you basically have speakers 90 degrees out from center? It seems pretty simple to me that when I turn on my little reverb/wavesynth/reflection plugin that the phantom center will become more intelligible. When I turn it off it goes back to being that normal 2-D mono sound which seems comb filtered but actually isn't.
I can agree to an extent that you need to standardize if you want to end the circle of confusion. But the problem is we are most likely putting the cart before the horse. The truth is that if you are asking what is the most accurate way to reproduce what the mastering engineer or mixing engineer is using you are playing a guessing game and at the same time probably asking the wrong question to begin with. We should be asking "What should the listener, mastering, and mixing engineer be using to monitor?". My opinion is that the target is a little more liquid than concrete if you want to ensure the best possible experience for most all situations.
Indeed, to reproduce sound effects has nothing to do with music
Neither does it need to be very accurate to do so
If its not about reproducing music, we have different goals, and thus we need different tools
Im convinced that we first need understand music, to be able to judge whether its been reproduced accurately
Well, maybe I should rather say reproduced properly
You could easily have two different speakers reproduce accurately, or close
Its your understanding of music that determines which you choose as accurate
But sure, if its about "sound pressure", then its totaly different
Personally I prefer to focus on "finesse"
I dont like to be constantly "under pressure", or have the feeling of a "marathon"
I consider listening to music as a relaxed pleasure
One reason why I said that we may not even agree on how to define good sound
I listen to music
I NEVER think one bit about hifi when listening to music
Sure, I have been there too, and know how it is
If I hear something good, I think, "my she is good", or "what a nice bass, or "good drummer", etc
I never think "impressive amps" etc, or at least not very often
I really do my best to avoid focus on tech
So, to me its about music only, yes
Sound effects, I wouldnt waste a minute or 1 dollar on that
I know it's pointless to discuss any of this, but what the heck, I'm strangely addicted to it. Addiction to pointlessness is far to common as far as I can tell.
IAC, you should give it a shot some time. Reproducing the recording does matter and it doesn't seem reasonable to discount it for anything discussed thus far. It's a lot to give up so you can have a goal w/o definable characteristics. There are plenty of "sound effects" in music recorded or live.
Dan
I think none of us has ever heard a "true" omni, because none exists, only approximations from different directions. One is the radial. I made an experiment with reflector cones that lead to an enormously wide and very flat imaging, even further away from a realistic performance than a conventional speaker. I heard something very similar with the Duevel Sirius. The problem might be that such speakers have rather less ceiling reflections than conventional ones. I heard German Physiks speakers in a small and dead bin, so I can't say much about them. The MBLs are a bit diffuse, but have more three-dimensionality, speakers I could live with from this point of view. I hated their €300000 playback chain for other reasons (neutrality), but this was probably due to the "monkey coffin" power amps.I have heard many (true) omni's and they always hit me over the head with a frying pan, that is true, but not by how good they are...
Hi,
Okay, I bite. There where and are (especially in Germany) many pretty good approximations of the omni that came/close close enough to a "true omni", I probably over time heard most. Then there is of course the Wollcott Speaker which I also had the chance to hear.
Then there are multiway horn systems which are the polar opposite - I recently heard one that was hornloaded to below 100Hz, sure crazy stuff, but one has to hear them too.
You may (if you like) ask me which system(s) managed to sound more real...
Are you sure you are German? Your flair for understatement would put many an englishman to shame. And trust me, it's the speakers. They sound as bad with other chains...
Anyway, I still nail my colours to the "Controlled AND Narrow Directivity" as the solution that produces the most convincing illusion of listening to real music. Omni's or indeed semi-omni's are at the polar opposite, I have never heard them produce anything that startled me with realism, only ever with extreme artificiality.
Ciao T
Okay, I bite. There where and are (especially in Germany) many pretty good approximations of the omni that came/close close enough to a "true omni", I probably over time heard most. Then there is of course the Wollcott Speaker which I also had the chance to hear.
Then there are multiway horn systems which are the polar opposite - I recently heard one that was hornloaded to below 100Hz, sure crazy stuff, but one has to hear them too.
You may (if you like) ask me which system(s) managed to sound more real...
Are you sure you are German? Your flair for understatement would put many an englishman to shame. And trust me, it's the speakers. They sound as bad with other chains...
Anyway, I still nail my colours to the "Controlled AND Narrow Directivity" as the solution that produces the most convincing illusion of listening to real music. Omni's or indeed semi-omni's are at the polar opposite, I have never heard them produce anything that startled me with realism, only ever with extreme artificiality.
Ciao T
and what are the prospects of standardization?
and even if it is theoretically possible it would bring solution only for future standardized recordings
and what about recordings we have now? I see no way out from this circle of confusion
For a moment I accept this argument (based on false analogy) just for the sake of discussion - and I ask - how do You think You can break the "Audio's Circle of Confusion"? How without standardization? To what original would You "adjust the lighting"?
BTW - how can You possibly know what exactly Picasso saw? how can You tell what exactly a poet had in his mind? etc.
hey Markus, the analogy You have put forth is just out of place
can't You see it?
ART and it's perception is one thing and physiology of human senses is of something completely different
yes of course, the exact point is that for me, for Linkwitz (see quotation above) and for many others various unorthodox designs discussed in this thread are better exactly at this - at "delivering a wide range of auditory spaces" - than front-firing speakers
in high fidelity? what are we talking about?
is high fidelity not about realism of reproduction??
listening to the news? what are we talking about?
is high fidelity about listening (with perfect accuracy?) to the news?
no, I am talking about "delivering a wide range of auditory spaces", let me quote Linkwitz:
exactly!
rather "it doesn't get more audiophile than that" because it is "mother nature's anechoic chamber"
once again a question with exclamation mark - listening to music on "a field covered in snow"?!
what a strange idea! has it anything in common with high fidelity?
BTW it was H.A. Hartley who "invented the phrase "high fidelity" in 1927 to denote a type of sound reproduction that might be taken rather seriously by a music lover"
and what we have now?
Walter E. Sear cries "What have they done to my art?!" with sound production in His mind.
state of the art of sound reproduction is equally questionable in my opinion
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You may (if you like) ask me which system(s) managed to sound more real...
I'm curious.
About the MBLs I have to say that I heard them in a very large room, with the distance from me to the speakers about as large as that from the speakers to the rear wall, similar the distance from the tweeters to the ceiling, the distance to the side walls even larger.
I only visit that show in Munich once a year, where I don't get the opportunity to listen to much else than the usual stuff. I know Cessaro, I don't know how far they get to your ideal. I heard old purist recordings, hard to describe what I heard. A large room with the instruments/vocalists pinned to the walls. I heard something similar with my purist recordings in combination with 6.5" Loth-X fullrangers.
Not the topic here, but I have to say I hate dipoles most.
Hi,
The horn system was spookily real. It completely eliminated the walls of the fairly small room completely and spread a real and apropriate image of a large hall and orchestra. BTW, this system was so seriously non-commercial and off the wall, I'd better not mention who's system it was.
Dipoles do have major challenges, especially "full range" ones. Luckily enough the kind of Dipoles I build are not really true full range dipoles. Only the low frequencies are dipolar, higher up the rear radition from the driver gets pretty much killed off by the basket/magnet lowpass.
So in this case we start with a DI of 3.7dB (Dipole according to SL) with a rise to 6dB at around 500Hz and then staying at 6dB into the middle single KHz, then rising smoothly to around 10dB at 10KHz. I like to add a "supertweeter" to both broaden dispersion (and reduce DI) at the upper passband and to extend the HF.
So again we have a system that is much closer to "controlled and even directivity" than more conventional speaker. And funnily enough it sounds a lot like hornloaded systems, but with a little more relaxed requirement on getting into the focus Spot "just so".
On the other hand I dislike true full range dipoles almost as much as i dislike omni's...
Ciao T
The horn system was spookily real. It completely eliminated the walls of the fairly small room completely and spread a real and apropriate image of a large hall and orchestra. BTW, this system was so seriously non-commercial and off the wall, I'd better not mention who's system it was.
Dipoles do have major challenges, especially "full range" ones. Luckily enough the kind of Dipoles I build are not really true full range dipoles. Only the low frequencies are dipolar, higher up the rear radition from the driver gets pretty much killed off by the basket/magnet lowpass.
So in this case we start with a DI of 3.7dB (Dipole according to SL) with a rise to 6dB at around 500Hz and then staying at 6dB into the middle single KHz, then rising smoothly to around 10dB at 10KHz. I like to add a "supertweeter" to both broaden dispersion (and reduce DI) at the upper passband and to extend the HF.
So again we have a system that is much closer to "controlled and even directivity" than more conventional speaker. And funnily enough it sounds a lot like hornloaded systems, but with a little more relaxed requirement on getting into the focus Spot "just so".
On the other hand I dislike true full range dipoles almost as much as i dislike omni's...
Ciao T
Actually the approach you descripe is the least reasonable - the situation required by this approach has never happended in the history of stereo and it will never happen in the future either.
In theory it sounds easy - just copy the control room acoustics in your listening room and use the same loudspeakers as in the control room, and you are done with it! No further discussion needed!
The problem. Listener never has the required information about the control room. Nor the loudspeakers used.
One might copy the "average control room" into his listening room. That would mean yamaha minimonitors placed below your ear hight at about 1 meter distance on the top of the mixing console?? You copy this to your listening room, by placing 2-way bookshelf speakers on a tilted table located below your nose. Throw a bucket of Legos on the table to mimick the reflection pattern from the control room mixing console knobs. Be sited on a swivel chair, make sure you cannot stay still for a second.
Only then you are able to hear what the (average) mixing engineer was hearing.
Not going to happen in any domestic situations.
Strange thing is though, how you jump to conclusion that only constant directivity will suffice even you don't know what was the directivity of the control room speakers. If his speakers were not constant directivity, and if yours are, you are not hearing the same thing.
If control room speakers were flush mounted on your favourite recording, only option you have to hear what the mixing engineer was hearing is to break your living room walls, right?
The consumer does not care what the engineer intended. Consumer wants to hear the performance - i.e. the reason to buy the records.
- Elias
In theory it sounds easy - just copy the control room acoustics in your listening room and use the same loudspeakers as in the control room, and you are done with it! No further discussion needed!
The problem. Listener never has the required information about the control room. Nor the loudspeakers used.
One might copy the "average control room" into his listening room. That would mean yamaha minimonitors placed below your ear hight at about 1 meter distance on the top of the mixing console?? You copy this to your listening room, by placing 2-way bookshelf speakers on a tilted table located below your nose. Throw a bucket of Legos on the table to mimick the reflection pattern from the control room mixing console knobs. Be sited on a swivel chair, make sure you cannot stay still for a second.
Only then you are able to hear what the (average) mixing engineer was hearing.
Not going to happen in any domestic situations.
Strange thing is though, how you jump to conclusion that only constant directivity will suffice even you don't know what was the directivity of the control room speakers. If his speakers were not constant directivity, and if yours are, you are not hearing the same thing.
If control room speakers were flush mounted on your favourite recording, only option you have to hear what the mixing engineer was hearing is to break your living room walls, right?
The consumer does not care what the engineer intended. Consumer wants to hear the performance - i.e. the reason to buy the records.
- Elias
This is the musicians dillemma and why they are typically not good evaluators of sound reproduction. They only hear the performance. If the performance is good then the reproduction is good and vice-versa. Until you can learn to seperate those two very distinct things - the performance and the reproduction - you will never understand what I am talking about. One can be good and the other bad, they are distinctly seperate things.
Hello,
In the content of "Loudspeakers and room as a system" I make a statement according to which I estimate that about 100% of the psychoacoustic studies conducted withing a small room acoustics (or even large room, for that matter) are done using monopole loudspeakers.
The rest 0% of the studies consists of those done by semi pro aficionados, including many Diyaudio members, that tries to get the pieces to lock together for them. They may see the problem from different angle than those making the research for living. Clearly the DIY has the benefit for the loudspeaker point of view in that more options than just conventional monopoles are considered.
Then when considering the objectivity of the available small room psycho acoustic studies in the literature, one should not forget the built-in bias of the results because monopoles were used in the first place.
- Elias
In the content of "Loudspeakers and room as a system" I make a statement according to which I estimate that about 100% of the psychoacoustic studies conducted withing a small room acoustics (or even large room, for that matter) are done using monopole loudspeakers.
The rest 0% of the studies consists of those done by semi pro aficionados, including many Diyaudio members, that tries to get the pieces to lock together for them. They may see the problem from different angle than those making the research for living. Clearly the DIY has the benefit for the loudspeaker point of view in that more options than just conventional monopoles are considered.
Then when considering the objectivity of the available small room psycho acoustic studies in the literature, one should not forget the built-in bias of the results because monopoles were used in the first place.
- Elias
Not every consumer is that ignorant to the art. Most recordings are multitracked and use instruments that don't exist in nature. How would anybody define "the performance" here? The artificial recording IS the performance. If you alter that, then you alter the art.
Standardization
Some people might think that standardization means less freedom. The opposite is true. A painter uses the color green in his paintings. He uses that color because he believes that everybody else will see green too, not blue or yellow nor anything else. That's what standards are for. They provide a framework that enables the art.
Only standardization can break audio's circle of confusion and provide such a framework (or multiple frameworks). The alternative is what we have now. A lot of different frameworks that don't translate optimally to typical domestic listening spaces.
Cinema sound is a good example for a working framework.
High and constant directivity
Control rooms differ but domestic listening spaces differ much more. Most control room designs try to "dim" the room, they attenuate and delay first reflections. That led to massive use of absorption, flush mounted loudspeakers and near field monitoring.
High and constant directivity loudpseakers in domestic listening spaces (that can't be freely altered) provide a sound field that is much more similar to that of the "typical" control room. No other loudspeaker concept is capable of that.
Best, Markus
Some people might think that standardization means less freedom. The opposite is true. A painter uses the color green in his paintings. He uses that color because he believes that everybody else will see green too, not blue or yellow nor anything else. That's what standards are for. They provide a framework that enables the art.
Only standardization can break audio's circle of confusion and provide such a framework (or multiple frameworks). The alternative is what we have now. A lot of different frameworks that don't translate optimally to typical domestic listening spaces.
Cinema sound is a good example for a working framework.
High and constant directivity
Control rooms differ but domestic listening spaces differ much more. Most control room designs try to "dim" the room, they attenuate and delay first reflections. That led to massive use of absorption, flush mounted loudspeakers and near field monitoring.
High and constant directivity loudpseakers in domestic listening spaces (that can't be freely altered) provide a sound field that is much more similar to that of the "typical" control room. No other loudspeaker concept is capable of that.
Best, Markus
This assumes that the engineer has 100% control over the virtual acoustics on the recording and his speaker layout and selection is the best possible combination to project back an accurate acoustic space.
The truth is that if the recording used matrix micing in anyway or even a reverb based on psychoacoustics that there is a much more accurate way to project that encoded image back than any form of conventional stereo system. Even if that is what the engineers used.
Maybe not for you. But the truth is that the engineer and artist do not have 100% control of the recording. There are always things that will be out of their hands and there are just inherent limitations of stereo psychoacoustics.
If you can objectively project back more of the sound scape which allows you to effectively see into the mix much clearer than the engineer and artist then why should you cripple your playback in a vain guessing game with the aim at accuracy?
If you can objectively project back more of the sound scape which allows you to effectively see into the mix much clearer than the engineer and artist then why should you cripple your playback in a vain guessing game with the aim at accuracy?
let me put it straight - so what?
if the "spatial" part of the "art" can be altered so that we have more fun with the rest of the "art" then the question is why not?
excuse me - what is the point (from perspective of a simple music lover, not a professional) of "learning to seperate those two very distinct things"?
is it becoming an audiophile? getting audiophilia as a goal in itself?
in high fidelity something is better when it brings the music closer to You so that You can have an experience that is fuller aesthetically or just more fun
high fidelity is for music lovers
BTW for everyone interested in learning to separate everything from everything in sound and music here is something interesting: Moulton Laboratories :: Golden Ears
Golde Ears - "An audio ear-training course for recording engineers, producers and musicians"
Do whatever you want. Take a pen and make your Picasso more "fun" but don't try to convince me that the painting will be more realistic afterwards.