still there is the eternal and burning question of comrade Lenin - What is to be done??
if not science and objectivity then we need at least some intersubjectivity to have anything to talk about and some rational method to communicate reasonably and to make any rational progres
without it there is only the endless blah blah, talking past each other in endles circles...
still there is the eternal and burning question of comrade Lenin - What is to be done??
if not science and objectivity then we need at least some intersubjectivity to have anything to talk about and some rational method to communicate reasonably and to make any rational progres
without it there is only the endless blah blah, talking past each other in endles circles...
Well, I'm not saying "no" to science / objectivity / charts ... I very much agree that they're important...I just mean to say we can't always insist that there's a chart or scope measurement that we could reach for at all for a good bit of the reason one person might prefer one setup versus another.
I've been following this discussion for a long time..and it's one of those discussions where there really will never be a resolution because we can't ever get to the point where we can say "here, listen to this!"
Good follow up ... after all, it might only be me!! However, we have Pano, and the people who have heard what he's produced, and the people at those Paris audio shows, etc, ... and, I have bumped into a couple of others on another forum who "got it". So, I'm not unique in the way I register the impact of sound when at a certain level ...
What of course is needed is to be able to set up, or specify precisely how to bring a system to this high level, and just count the number of people who perceive the effect. It's obviously psychoacoustic, a form of masking is taking place, where the source of the sound is effectively disguised. And why would you want that? Well, for me, the impact then is the same as for live music, there is an intensity, a dynamism, an engrossing and totally emotional connection with what happened when the recording was made -- it may not be "real" - but I don't care ...
Edit: Sorry, I haven't the resources to do an impulse test, plus, I'm certain it wouldn't tell you anything ..
What of course is needed is to be able to set up, or specify precisely how to bring a system to this high level, and just count the number of people who perceive the effect. It's obviously psychoacoustic, a form of masking is taking place, where the source of the sound is effectively disguised. And why would you want that? Well, for me, the impact then is the same as for live music, there is an intensity, a dynamism, an engrossing and totally emotional connection with what happened when the recording was made -- it may not be "real" - but I don't care ...
Edit: Sorry, I haven't the resources to do an impulse test, plus, I'm certain it wouldn't tell you anything ..
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And so would I, so would I ...
This "phantom" I've been chasing over the years has been alternately very frustrating, and exhilarating, depending upon the successes I'm having, or not, at any particular time. It's proven very hard to get a decent handle on how to achieve good results - and it has always been very fragile.
First job is to be able to guarantee always achieving this performance on cue, and the second is then to fully understand all the parameters contributing to it happening -- I'm still working on the first ...
Funny that the very same people that so eloquently describe how a good system sounds like fail so miserably in presenting anything objective.
And so would I, so would I ...
Then get your measuring gear out or do you perform all those "distortion optimizations" without it?
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The two speaker systems illuminate the room much differently.
Detailed polar plots will reveal certain aspects of this.
Likewise, spectrogram for each speaker from impulse response measured at listening position, coupled with physical knowledge of room boundaries allows mapping of reflections, their direction, and spectral content.
Cupping ears and slowly turning around while listening to bird song recording with the two different speaker systems could also be quite informative, albeit in less formal fashion.
And what exactly do you want? An impulse response at a single point in space with one microphone? That will tell you something, but doubt it will illuminate what's going on with a system like this. Maybe a dual mic dummy head thru 200 degrees in front of the speaker pair would be a better way to do it.
FWIW, my present system does not fully do the constant phantom trick. Close, but not quite. I think it's the room size (too small) but don't really know. What it can do is allow you to walk right up to one speaker with your chest about 6" (15 cm) away from it and hear the origin of the sound is quite distinctly behind the speaker. I don't know how it does that. Move closer than ~6" and the sound collapses into the drivers.
Maybe, maybe not. At least it would something. Currently there's nothing, just endless talking. Someone once said, "More data, less wank" and I wholeheartedly agree.
Why would that be the case, that IM products would be on and near the axis of a distorting loudspeaker? With HD, I can imagine this to be the case (because the harmonics are higher than the fundamental, so they get beamed more narrowly), but IM shows up as sidebands.
That's very hard to do when a good percentage of what we hear and are talking about is wankage.
I really don't think audio technology is at a point where we can scream data! data! data!, as if the data we are capable of producing can explain everything. It has it's uses. It can sometimes be used to help us understand something, but we're still relying on imperfect tech to give us imperfect information about an imperfect system, which was designed to imperfectly reproduce something that was imperfectly captured in an imperfect setting under imperfect circumstances.
I love looking at polar responses, impulse responses, frequency charts and distortion figures as much as the next guy - and people are right in thinking that there is lots of information there, but we make our error when we rely on those things to the point where anything that isn't exhaustively scrutinized using those measurements becomes garbage and no talking points or ideas can be shared without them.
It's like, we have this hobby where most of the things we enjoy are subjective in nature, but we cling to this "O-Scope or gtfo" mentality that really sometimes doesn't fit, or is even used as a strawman in an accusatory manner if the other person doesn't have 5 pages of charts and math to go along with a statement such as "I dunno, I like the way that sounds."
Yes it would, tho I'm not sure it would be something of value. See DrDyna's post above.
I love to build, to do, to measure and show the results - just look at any of my threads. But here I would not know what to measure, nothing I ever have measured indicated how this happens. I'm pretty sure it CAN be measured, I just don't know how.
It occurred to me - only today - that the phenomenon we are discussing is very similar to "extinction" in a stereoscopic (3D) projection screen. Extinction tells you how far off axis your can view the image and still retain the stereoscopic effect. It's a spec you will see when buying a 3D screen.
Because most 3D projection systems today use polarized filters on the lens and over the eyes, the screen needs to be able to keep the light polarized when it bounces off. A regular flat white screen won't do it, tho it may be great for normal projection, it kills the polarization. (this is very easy to see by eye). In the polarized cinemas you'll see a silver screen, not white. That silver screen retains the polarization of the L&R images. How far and how well it does that off axis is called "extinction."
I think that the effect is similar with some stereophonic systems. The stereo or 3D effect is retained much further off axis than with normal systems. As to why they do this, I don't know. But it may be a good place to start looking.
Number one, I'm not in the audio game, and never have been, in any professional way, this is pure hobby for me; I don't have the gear, nor the financial resources to do anything at the moment.
This has always been by ear, it's always been the perfect testing device, telling me whether I'm closer or further away from the goal -- and, as indicated by Pano, John Curl and others who have all the measuring resources you can throw at the problem, they do not help one iota, at the moment, to define the necessary conditions.
What I can say, is that it is all about the level of high frequency distortion generated by the totality of the system. Why? Because, when operating at optimum quality the tweeter becomes completely invisible: this means, for a simple 2-way playing at solid listening levels that I can walk up to the speaker, place my ear literally a couple of inches away from the tweeter driver working at full tilt, and I cannot perceive that sound is coming from the driver! Sounds bizarre, but that's exactly how it is, subjectively. Obviously the SPLs at that moment are very high, but you're only doing it for a quick grab.
For a normal system this obviously doesn't happen, you can always be aware that the tweeter is "working" when you get close enough to it - which means, that the SQ is not good enough to get the disappearing trick. So, if someone says that they can get the effect, the first thing I would do if I were there would be to walk up to the treble transducer ...
Most of the time my current system is sitting roughly in that region of quality too -- close, but no cigar. If I want to get a hit of the "good stuff" I have to hit the turbo boost button - this means warming up the system for hours beforehand, by driving the speakers hard with high energy rock so the suspensions and electricals are fully conditioned. Then, I have to shut down the whole house electrically, so no extraneous interference comes in, all phones are switched off, no RFI emitting devices to be on.
This, to put it mildly, is a trifle inconvenient, and irritating for others in the house. But, it does the job, and "proves", to me, what's required to get the results -- because, it works every time ...
You don't have any money to buy a mic/preamp and download software that is available for free?
Hobby or not, if you can't quantify something how will you ever be able to qualify it? Didn't you claim that you have an engineering degree?
Have You tried anything less inconvenient and irritating?
Like a different room layout or stereo triangle geometry - toeing in, toeing out, tilting back, the Jimmy Hughes method (turning the speakers back towards the front wall), the Beveridge method (sidewall positioning), the FCUFS method etc.??
if not - why not?
Markus - to qualify anything You also need a viable theory
You can have only data, because there is really no viable theory behind stereo, it's a trick, we know that it works somehow but we don't really know how it works
You can have all Your data and You can boast about measuring everything but data and measurements are meaningless and useless without a theory
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No, because that is not solving the fundamental problem as I see it, which is that if the speakers are producing audible distortion at the moving surface of the transducer, then from then on you're fighting against the odds - the horse has bolted from the stables. Once distortion that is not masked by other factors is in the listening space then you have to use other means to appease the human hearing system - like all the things you mention.
Having done this for years, to me the distortion typical systems generate is extremely obvious - it's all the little things that immediately identify that what you're listening to is a hifi setup, not the real thing. And if you walk right up to a typical speaker, working, it "sounds" like a hifi speaker -- that's the signature distortion one needs to get rid of ...
but perhaps it is solving the audible problem , that is of what You hear?
because what You say here:
is only Your hypothesis
the proof of the pudding is in the eating
You don't know until You try