Seriously?
What, do most of you not finish a design and build by 'voicing' your speakers? Which is what? Tweaking the xo so that it sounds right to you and that includes whatever personal variation and/or losses in hearing you may have. Re-measure it and it may not be flat, but somehow it sounds better to your ears.
dangwei, seems like what you are proposing is also no different in theory than the old loudness button: making EQ adjustments to the frequency response to compensate for human hearing perception. In the case of the loudness button, the compensation adjusts for the FR differences perceived at different SPL whereas what you are proposing adjusts for human hearing variation across people and across time. Once you've had a hearing test done and seen that your hearing is far from flat, compensating for it certainly doesn't seem like audio heresy to me.
The only problem I can see is that it's unlikely that your hearing loss is likely to be the same in both ears. So, do you adjust the left speaker for your left ear and the same for the right when in fact each ear hears the sound of both speakers? And I guess having multiple people's ear inaccuracies listening at the same time would create even more problems.
Still, I can't see any reason why it's not worth experimenting with. If you find something that sounds better to your ears then it sounds better to your ears.
Just my opinion of course........
What, do most of you not finish a design and build by 'voicing' your speakers? Which is what? Tweaking the xo so that it sounds right to you and that includes whatever personal variation and/or losses in hearing you may have. Re-measure it and it may not be flat, but somehow it sounds better to your ears.
dangwei, seems like what you are proposing is also no different in theory than the old loudness button: making EQ adjustments to the frequency response to compensate for human hearing perception. In the case of the loudness button, the compensation adjusts for the FR differences perceived at different SPL whereas what you are proposing adjusts for human hearing variation across people and across time. Once you've had a hearing test done and seen that your hearing is far from flat, compensating for it certainly doesn't seem like audio heresy to me.
The only problem I can see is that it's unlikely that your hearing loss is likely to be the same in both ears. So, do you adjust the left speaker for your left ear and the same for the right when in fact each ear hears the sound of both speakers? And I guess having multiple people's ear inaccuracies listening at the same time would create even more problems.
Still, I can't see any reason why it's not worth experimenting with. If you find something that sounds better to your ears then it sounds better to your ears.
Just my opinion of course........
Dear all,
The brain compensated for hearing loss a lot. I suspect it also compensates for poor reproduced sound in the ear. This is known by all ear doctors.
When my hearing was fixed (excessive wax in my ears) it was explained to me that my brain would return the high frequencies to a normal level with approximately 1 day for every 4-5 years I had suffered from my high frequencies being blocked.
How you measure and what you measure are important questions, and what you compensate for may or may not help the sound of the speaker. Personally I think Electrostatic speakers sound much better than moving could speakers, even if moving coil loudspeakers may have flatter frequency response, as presented by manufacturers, but maybe they are measuring things in "selective" ways, and don't want to talk about resonance etc...
Best regards
Owen
The brain compensated for hearing loss a lot. I suspect it also compensates for poor reproduced sound in the ear. This is known by all ear doctors.
When my hearing was fixed (excessive wax in my ears) it was explained to me that my brain would return the high frequencies to a normal level with approximately 1 day for every 4-5 years I had suffered from my high frequencies being blocked.
How you measure and what you measure are important questions, and what you compensate for may or may not help the sound of the speaker. Personally I think Electrostatic speakers sound much better than moving could speakers, even if moving coil loudspeakers may have flatter frequency response, as presented by manufacturers, but maybe they are measuring things in "selective" ways, and don't want to talk about resonance etc...
Best regards
Owen
Well, that was my point. You voice your speaker so that it sounds right to your ears. And that seems to me to be exactly what the OP was suggesting be done: voice your speakers to compensate for any defects in your hearing.
I think a lot of people misunderstand my point.
My proposal is to create a catalyst for defining what accuracy and precision means in sound reproduction. I am not talking about what sounds "better" or "wrong." That is a case of personal preference which this post is not addressing. Personally I like a pair of old tube amps and my main listening speakers are a pair of Infinity Kappa 8.2s(far from measured precision or accuracy). To me this sounds "right" but this post isn't about what sounds right to me.
To my understanding precision is highly emphasized in sound reproduction design:
Current mainstream sound reproduction: mechanical (voice, instrument etc)-> converted to electronic (recording)-> converted back to mechanical (amp+speaker)-> converted back to electronic via (the ear and brain or machine for measurement)
The emphasis is on precision. Same degree of measured differences focusing on narrowing the differences between various playback scenarios. Aka. What YOU hear is what YOU hear back but 5 people hearing the SAME reproduction hear 5 different things. E.g. You heard the live sound, you hear the recording and they sound the same to YOU. I heard the live sound, I hear the recording and they also sound the same. However, in my version, the 19Khz is lower in volume by 6db and the 20Khz is not even audible for me. This is precision.
But where is the accuracy? If it is sound re-production and not production, then the goal should be to focus on both precision AND accuracy. If people have differences in hearing (I am not talking about mental interpretation. Our brain will "equalize" most sounds to a degree), then that issue MUST be addressed for the purpose of accuracy. Again, our brain can only equalize, adapt, change what it actually receives. If it does not receive that 19Khz signal via the ear, it is synthesizing it and although the perceived difference may be none, it is not conductive to advancement.
Ignoring accuracy (in some people's opinions Completely) because the last .02 dbs of precision is EASIER to measure is just that: easier.
As DIY, our hobby is to address issues that economy and profit-driven models do not need to. Similar to academic but without "institutionalized recognition."
The world is flat when we did not have the mechanical expertise to sail around the world.
My proposal is to create a catalyst for defining what accuracy and precision means in sound reproduction. I am not talking about what sounds "better" or "wrong." That is a case of personal preference which this post is not addressing. Personally I like a pair of old tube amps and my main listening speakers are a pair of Infinity Kappa 8.2s(far from measured precision or accuracy). To me this sounds "right" but this post isn't about what sounds right to me.
To my understanding precision is highly emphasized in sound reproduction design:
Current mainstream sound reproduction: mechanical (voice, instrument etc)-> converted to electronic (recording)-> converted back to mechanical (amp+speaker)-> converted back to electronic via (the ear and brain or machine for measurement)
The emphasis is on precision. Same degree of measured differences focusing on narrowing the differences between various playback scenarios. Aka. What YOU hear is what YOU hear back but 5 people hearing the SAME reproduction hear 5 different things. E.g. You heard the live sound, you hear the recording and they sound the same to YOU. I heard the live sound, I hear the recording and they also sound the same. However, in my version, the 19Khz is lower in volume by 6db and the 20Khz is not even audible for me. This is precision.
But where is the accuracy? If it is sound re-production and not production, then the goal should be to focus on both precision AND accuracy. If people have differences in hearing (I am not talking about mental interpretation. Our brain will "equalize" most sounds to a degree), then that issue MUST be addressed for the purpose of accuracy. Again, our brain can only equalize, adapt, change what it actually receives. If it does not receive that 19Khz signal via the ear, it is synthesizing it and although the perceived difference may be none, it is not conductive to advancement.
Ignoring accuracy (in some people's opinions Completely) because the last .02 dbs of precision is EASIER to measure is just that: easier.
As DIY, our hobby is to address issues that economy and profit-driven models do not need to. Similar to academic but without "institutionalized recognition."
The world is flat when we did not have the mechanical expertise to sail around the world.
Interesting point! That is something that will go into the drawing board! I did not think of that at all!! 2 ears with varying accuracy. Such an obvious road bump once you point it out. This is why these forums are such good avenues to share ideas and discover solutions. I do know that some speaker designers already design for Left Right and individual driver placement and time distortion when using digital crossovers. Perhaps this is something I can test as well.
Thank you again!Ok, now that is interesting and adds some real experiential data to the discussion. Do you have the same sensitivity in both ears? If not I wouldn't doubt that something is going to sound out of wack if you change the EQ for both ears.
If both ears are the same then saying that it doesn't work for you doesn't necessarily mean that others with different hearing profiles would have the same subjective experience.
Somebody must have looked into this in the area of psycho-acoustics?
Are you sure you're talking about a proper hearing test and not equal-loudness contours?
Do you see the white triangle?
Although you know that there really is no white triangle, you still see it. Your conscious mind can't overrule subconscious processes.
This is a bit subjective/objective and semantic though. If I answer your question following the accepted scientific definition of shapes and color, then of course there is no white triangle and I do not see it! How can I see something that isn't there. What I see may be variations in color that resembles the definition of a white triangle aka an illusion. But does my brain know the difference between the 2 before logic processors are fired? I don't know.For those reading: How this applies to our topic is then: does our mind differentiate illusion from reality. This question is the reason why I am proposing to experiment with the speaker and for others to try as well!
perhaps I did, I thought Jreave misunderstood it, but maybe it was just the rest of us! Or just me..... Precision is hitting that 0.2 dB resolution of amplitude. (if 0.2dB is required)
Accuracy is repeating it again, and again...and again
Both are pre-requisites for near ideal reproduction.
Now you're talking the whole chain:
Sound>Recording>Mixing>Mastering>Reproduction>Enjoyment
That is a totally different matter.
I think there is more to be gained in just the Record>Mix>Master sequence than the Reproduction part of the larger chain.
Although I am of the school that believes the speakers are usually the weakpoint in the whole Repro chain, the manner in which a subject is recorded surely has the most prominent impact of all, being at the very start of the chain.
Markus/Baseballbat/Elias (have I forgotten anybody? Graaf???)
^^^^ These guys normally have a lot to say about recording matters (and they normally make sense)
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Not everything from the left speaker only goes into your left ear and not everything from the right speaker only goes into the right ear
I'm wondering now if owenhamburg and Charles Darwin aren't on to something about brain plasticity although they didn't call it that. If our brains slowly compensate or get use to our gradual hearing declines, then perhaps adjusting for them suddenly for audio only may sound a little strange. In which case, perhaps making only a small percentage adjustment may be perceived as more accurate.
I only have 1 good ear left now, so I have no personal experience to draw from here.
I only have 1 good ear left now, so I have no personal experience to draw from here.
Not everything from the left speaker only goes into your left ear and not everything from the right speaker only goes into the right ear
I am well aware of that (HRTF). I was just adding the left/right EQing to the discussion in response to the thought about each ear not hearing the same.
For me, that's the case, I simply compensate by cupping my hand to my left, weaker ear.
High Fidelity is a very lose term
I understand it as a term for accurate and precise transformation of mechanical and electrical energy. A "live" trombone has a whole array of different sounds. It has one sound on a theater stage, one sound in a closet, one sound in cave etc etc. The sound of it also differs depending on your location from the instrument.
Objectively speaking, unless the microphones used to record the instrument were right next to your ears at the actual recording location
you can't really objectively compare if the reproduction is true to the live. What you can do is compare the sound of the reproduction with a similar one heard in a different scenario. Again this addresses precision and the topic is on accuracy.I agree that our brain is a vastly powerful processor and I do not really know much about it. Perhaps it has a very powerful precision and accuracy correction processors.
Perhaps leaving more for the brain to process is better than using analog/digital methods - but if we truly believe that, why are we even messing with speaker design?
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Certianly not everything!
To address "sweet spot" which is really just dimensional and time distortions: Hmm, what if a speaker are designed with a digital XO and came with a "clip" that you wear and interact with the processing platform to addresses location issues?
One of my roomates during my university days studied location awareness and sound engineer. He developed one of those "headphone" simulations where distance, 3d aligmnent and time are all factored into an algorithm used in sound recording. This is much easier when done with headphones as you do not have the other factors you address: fixed cabs, radiation polars, room interaction. Also it is easier to address the distance of the drivers in a microphone. You can search for similar simulations on youtube. For those that don't believe in "soundstage" on headphones. It is just a different set of recording requirements.
I too am really interested in polar radiation, room interaction etc etc. However, to study something, you try to isolate the variables first and then incorporate a larger picture.
I don't see why DSP's can't solve every problem has anything to do with my post. Other than stating that water can't cure cancer on a post that is discussing whether water can re-hydrate an individual.
If you want to get to hear it as the artist or recoding engineer hear it, you need to also have their hearing frequency response. Then you would have to fist compensate it to your hearing to get "flat" response and then apply inverse adjustment of their freq response to hear it as they do. That would be quite interesting experiment.
If you just compensate it to flat, it makes no sense, because no one hears it like that.
To solve the problem with differences between left and right ears, it would be best to use headphones. But that brings its own problems with freq response.
If you just compensate it to flat, it makes no sense, because no one hears it like that.
To solve the problem with differences between left and right ears, it would be best to use headphones. But that brings its own problems with freq response.
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