Who's to blame? People are simply trying to achieve satisfying reproduction. Something they like. Preference not reference.
I'd love to be able to calibrate my audio equipment just like I calibrate my video equipment. This is simply impossible because there are no meaningful standards in audio reproduction to do so. How can we achieve accuracy if the transmission path changes arbitrarily?
There are some areas in audio reproduction where the concept of accuracy can be applied, e.g. driver distortion. But then a speaker is put in a room and there's no meaningful way of defining accuracy anymore. There would need to be a standard for the room/speaker interface which would make it possible to get exactly the same spatial presentation at home as in mixing/mastering environments. Such standards don't exist and I don't see that changing any time soon.
Last edited:
I don't blame anyone. It is perfectly natural to want "preference". But "preference" has gotten out of control to the point where "high fidelity" is no longer the goal. I jump in when I think that "preference" in the discussion has been taken to the point where it is in contradiction to what we know is wrong.
"I prefer hamburger to tenderloin, hence tenderloin is an inferior cut of meat."
You can like hamburger, that's fine, but you cannot conclude that tenderloin is no good as a result.
We need to move towards the goal that that you and I would both like to see, not give up and just go with the flow.
As to the width of the baffle for a corner mount, I have not given it much thought. I do not buy the claim that a corner is a "horn extension", at least not above a few hundred Hz. The waveguide not being smoothly continued by the walls could create some serious mouth reflection issues. Mouth reflections are one of the most insidious problems with waveguides - you don't want to do anything that makes them worse.
"I prefer hamburger to tenderloin, hence tenderloin is an inferior cut of meat."
You can like hamburger, that's fine, but you cannot conclude that tenderloin is no good as a result.
We need to move towards the goal that that you and I would both like to see, not give up and just go with the flow.
As to the width of the baffle for a corner mount, I have not given it much thought. I do not buy the claim that a corner is a "horn extension", at least not above a few hundred Hz. The waveguide not being smoothly continued by the walls could create some serious mouth reflection issues. Mouth reflections are one of the most insidious problems with waveguides - you don't want to do anything that makes them worse.
But while checking if tenderloin is superior or not some people forget to enjoy the burger 
They can't appreciate it and they just gorge it down and wonder why they suffer from constipation. That is no progress either also in a different sense.
Such standards are not likely to come. They are probably not even important enough because the vast majority of people just doesn't care what the freak in the studio heard or not. So there is no market.
And again, it is an illusion that needs to work. If it does, then people will come and buy.
They can't appreciate it and they just gorge it down and wonder why they suffer from constipation. That is no progress either also in a different sense.
Such standards are not likely to come. They are probably not even important enough because the vast majority of people just doesn't care what the freak in the studio heard or not. So there is no market.
And again, it is an illusion that needs to work. If it does, then people will come and buy.
I recall you mentioning ears as unreliable source for recognizing reference sound. Olive's work referred by Toole shows the opposite in blind tests - almost any individual can correctly judge the overall quality of sound. The preference given by unexperienced was strongly corellated with trained listeners latter showing just better consistency in their answers for preference. So if majority of preferences are corellated that leads to the highly believable ability of referrence recognition, at least within blind test conditions.
Exceptions are ears that have suffered hearing loss, brain that has strongly memorized attachment (adaptation) of non-referece sound, brain that has developed fatique (overlistened), eyes plus visual brain that are showing exceptional build quality hence masking the probably defective sonar performance, etc. You're totally right if you meant some of these situations.
Lets not separate the food from environment and we'll be back on track
I guess most people would prefer to eat hamburger in the car (if its worth eating at all) and tenderloin to be best enjoyed in the quiet restaurant with fine drapes and silver cutlery. You may eat hamburger in restaurant, too, but it just doesn't fit. Same goes for sound in different rooms.From what I've heard in different places (unfortunantely in non-blind test conditions) I conclude that preference for directivity or radiation pattern is tied to the particular room qualities much more than we probably think it is. If we would have stereo sets of different speakers in the same room then the set that has dispersion parameters that complements the room the best way combined with optimal placement for its particular dispersion type and probably involving EQing of sound power in respect for the listener position will be preferred by most of the listeners. This effect will be increased proportionally to room reflectiveness and the room getting towards too small (side reflections are early and timbrally too harsh) or too large (reflections become timbrally lean echoes).
Yes, we all are doing our best, thanks for all the contributions to the thread so far!
Right. Add the perceptual dependency on loudness of reproduction (which may also excite room reflected response at different volume differently also on mid and high frequencies, btw) and ground for standartizing "accurately perceived reproduction" gets really slippery. And even more desireable at the same time.
By the way, does your perception of colour balance produced by video set change when it you dim or light the room slightly? Does calibration take it into account? Just curious.
I think this is true, that directivity and room qualities are linked.
In fact you can't really have a preference for directivity alone. Sure you can think you like a certain directivity, but in blind tests I think you would only have a preference for a particular direct to reflected ratio.
Some like a close up sound and vivid stereo effect. Others like a diffuse sound. Directivty is one factor for these, room reverberation and listening distance are the other two. The combination of the 3 sets a direct to reflected balance. A person that likes higher directivity should be equally satisfied with closer listening or a deader room.
Hard to seperate one from the other. It is worthwhile to calculate the variation in direct to reflected ratios that you can achieve with the usual range of speaker directivities. It isn't very much and can be easily swamped by the variation available in room reverberence or listening distance.
David
A rather massive caveat, let's be clear. Also, that's not just blind test conditions, it's (usually) consistent music/signals that are being heard, as opposed to a bunch of people with their own reference recordings.
Last edited:
Munich High-End: notes from the field
My dear kids just had grown-up to the age when they can be left with grandpas-mas and I decided to finally calibrate my inner hearing against the sound coming from "reference grade" systems. So I went to Munich High-End show this year. One and-a-half days at the show I was running through the halls but mostly stopping for awhile in dedicated listening rooms in so called "Atrium" zones and making notes of 107 short auditions in total.
- First day was mostly disappointing at the beginning, including nearly unbearable sound including some of renowned brands I won't mention here for ethical reasons. Munich MOC trade fair complex isn't providing probably the best environment for sound judgement, but even considering that only 1/10 of the rooms were as Jim Smith would probably say "carefully prepared for auditioning". Lack of dispersers and scatterers made lots of systems sound really unbalanced in a given room.
- While noting also subbass level (aka bottom end) I accounted that it is too much room-mode dependent and given the unequal conditions among vendors I didn't take it into account for final judgement.
- Subjective criteria I used for judgement were presence or lack of:
○ Airiness, openness of the sound (matched time coherence in mid- and HF range);
○ Clarity (low THD/IMD%, good micro-dynamics);
○ Extended frequency range (smooth response with good top HF and bottom LF);
○ Lack of artifacts (lack of audible resonances within whole spectrum except subbass);
○ Large, panoramic soundstage (good dispersion, pleasant interaction with the room);
○ Macro dynamics (clarity and balance at being loud).
- Now we see that three out of six criteria are very room and baffle-design dependent especially the last one. So my ratings are very approximate.
- Besides some important stuff that i missed for different reasons on 10 point scale I did gave 21 systems rating of 7 as sounding "great", 10 systems with 8 as "especially pleasant sounding" and only one system with 9 out of 10. The latter is MBL's flagship model 101 Extreme with loads of amp power, huge dedicated stereo subs, and guess what - auditioning room so densily stuffed with palm trees that it smelled like a tropical house in some Bothanic garden. Trees were all around the walls and also in lines in the middle of the room behind listening seats. Perhaps this is how renowned true omni- speaker manufacturer deals with the Zwicker's suggested diffusion EQ. The sound was a bit metallic so I couldn't really give 10, every other aspect was flawless.
- All the rest ratings below 7 had either one on more clearly audible flaws within the frequency range of lower midbass to highest heights and I didn't spend much of the time waiting for more "revealing" record to come.
- So here come 10 systems that scored at least 8/10 plus 1 pair of very pleasant sounding headphones:
Genelec 8260A
Kawero Vivace
Living Voice Vox Olympian
mbl 116F
Lansche Audio (model?)
Rockport Technologies Altair II
T+A Solitaire
TOTEM Acoustic Element
Tune Audio Anima
ULTRASONE Edition 8 (headphones)
Wilson Audio Alexia
- And also 21 of 7/10 (which is also a really good mark by all means with just one or too slightly audible flaws).
ADAM Artist 5
Amphion Either Helium 520Cs placed vertically or new MTM-type model
ASW Magadis
AUDIO PHYSIC Avantera
AURALiC DAC, preamp, amp, atskaņo uz Audeze
Ayon Audio Blackfire XS
Canton ???
Crystal Cable Arabesque
DLS New round baffle on-wall model w on-wall sub
Dynaudio ???
ELAC MicroMagic
Estelon ???
Göbel High End Epoque
Kaiser Akustik ??
Kharma Exquisite
Lawrence Audio Sonic Art
Magnat Quantum Signature
Mc Intosh Home Theater
Soundkaos Wave 40
TRIANGLE Magellan Cello II
Zingali Acoustics Client Name 1.5 Evo
- Some models weren't familiar for me, sorry about that.
- If you search for images of these speakers it is amazing to see so different baffles and drivers altogether having very pleasant sound in their own very special way. One thing that encourages me regarding our topic - those having the best dispersion were either using waveguided dome tweeters, like Amphions (being so outstanding in spatial aspects that I felt almost like home
- So whats so magic about 17cm baffle width? My guess is that it gives us pleasant 1kHz side-wise elevation through baffle step. 17cm = F3 of 680Hz so above that goes elevation up to 2-3kHz that gives it some dip in front and most probably increased 0.6-1.5kHz output to the sides just like on Zwicker's attenuation curve. Yet to be confirmed. Many of the best speakers in the show had baffles right this wide.
- By the way, what's the baffle width of upper midrange speaker of Linkwitz's LX521 and NaO Note RSII?
- I hope you found some of the information useful.
Jānis Irbe,
Riga, Latvia
Hi. LX521's baffle width at upper midrange driver is 11 cm. At the highest baffle point it measures 15 cm. Not 17 cm magical measurement in any case. LX 521.4 are my reference speakers for the moment. Haven't heard nothing better in believeable 3D phantom secene nor such similar low frequency response.
Cheers