What about the physiological effects of listening? How is this topic governed in these experiments?.... The ears mechanics can be related to a series of wide and multiband compressors....dynamic eq with a neutral target, even.... Once signal crosses the threshold the release factor slowly lengthens as a result of duration.....After only a few minutes of listening to a significant amount of pressure, one may have to allow a set amount of silence, for the ears to be fresh again....eventually the release mechanism of the compression is fatigued and the length of time for reset becomes hours of silence or low level pressure. 86db is high enough to start this chain of events..... For Mastering, I created a routine of listening for a short amount of seconds, with an equal or longer amount of reset silence, in order to EQ with great efficacy.....Basically retaining the Fresh Ear state, as long as possible.
I think the ability of the ear/mind to try and nuetralize distortion could possibly be over looked and that all of these listening test, if this aspect is not approached objectively, we've unwittingly, blurred the results, by the end of the experiment, and the results at the beginning of the experiment are of most consistency and most accurate, all based on duration of pressure exposure and its affects on the Ear.
I also wrote about getting involved with Mastering engineers, the Real, trained listeners. While the Electrical and Loudspeaker engineer is doing math and construction, the master engineer is still, listening...
Yes, but I don`t own the Pro version, which is the only one having that feature (halfway the page, Parameter Measurement/GedLee Metric at:
https://virtins.com/multi-instrument.shtml
https://virtins.com/multi-instrument.shtml
The producers were in on this as well, pushing for a louder mix to get attention. The mastering engineer has a large amount of influence too.
Engineers are far from experts depending on their background, experience, preferred genre of music, etc. They usually just do what the producer wants and use the most readily available and familiar process to get those results. You usually can tell who mixed and produced an album based on their specific flavor of sound. Nowadays, most of the time it ends up in a distorted, cluttered and super compressed unrefined sound, which will come across as unlistenable on a system with decent resolution capabilities. Of course this type of mix sounds somewhat acceptable as streamed background music, meant to be an attention getter very quickly to the ear when walking through a store or hearing a quick sound clip online through nasty cheap earbuds.
Even a basic set of NS10Ms can reveal more than enough issues in a mix. You don't need big mid field monitors to hear this unless the music contains alot of low frequency extension. In that case, using such LF restricted monitors will result in a very bass heavy, bloated mix.
Engineers are far from experts depending on their background, experience, preferred genre of music, etc. They usually just do what the producer wants and use the most readily available and familiar process to get those results. You usually can tell who mixed and produced an album based on their specific flavor of sound. Nowadays, most of the time it ends up in a distorted, cluttered and super compressed unrefined sound, which will come across as unlistenable on a system with decent resolution capabilities. Of course this type of mix sounds somewhat acceptable as streamed background music, meant to be an attention getter very quickly to the ear when walking through a store or hearing a quick sound clip online through nasty cheap earbuds.
Even a basic set of NS10Ms can reveal more than enough issues in a mix. You don't need big mid field monitors to hear this unless the music contains alot of low frequency extension. In that case, using such LF restricted monitors will result in a very bass heavy, bloated mix.
Couldn't agree more. Of course, they sound best when powered from a few select amps, Bryston 4B being one old example.
Sure, by trying to satisfy clients, that is. Clients wanted louder and Mastering Engineers wanted clients.
I agree and disagree. I still see directivity as the bread winner. Anything that increases direct sound, to be full circle. I think larger speakers and baffles increase direct sound. Directivity is more effective than room treatment, in order to move directivity lower, horns/waveguides/woofers/baffles need to be big.
I'm not seeing anything special about the ns10's as I once believed. If I were to say, I think the decay performance and FR are what makes for the ns10 success...The FR is actually pretty smooth but has a unique trend. It is my personal opinion that the happy face FR is a form of "compression", figuratively speaking. I think the ear canal can be dominated by spl from any part of the register, causing masking. Thus with the smiley face, highs and lows mask midrange. The ns10 is the opposite, so the midrange dominates the ear. Midrange is where the meat of all music lives. I think the frown face FR curve is whats revealing about the ns10.... so just take that into consideration, create your own custom frown FR and enjoy the same benefit.
Just my opinion though...
"Engineers are far from experts depending on their background, experience, preferred genre of music, etc." - our abilities on average are a result of time spent.... who ever spends the most time listening and judging what they are listening to in a critical way, will generally have the best ears..., that would be a sound engineer in most cases. Could a sound engineer spend 8 hours a day for years, critically listening and adjusting sound... yes? The rest of us don't stand a chance.
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Time to blow your mind (FLAC/PDF) : https://tech.ebu.ch/publications/sqamcd
https://tech.ebu.ch/publications/PEQS_FLAC
You are lagging 14 years behind!
Life can be cruel sometimes
https://tech.ebu.ch/publications/PEQS_FLAC
You are lagging 14 years behind!
Life can be cruel sometimes
Some more info ... included with this CD is a special track for setting the playback level to the original level of the instruments and voices , also no individual further playback level correction is necessary , it's already done on the digital domain during mastering the CD .
It is a rare CD by STAX (as a byproduct of the Stax Lambda Pro Reference Earspeakers) but not copy protected so everyone is free for making a copy for his audio hobby friends :
https://www.discogs.com/de/release/2213877-Unknown-Artist-The-Test-CD
I remember having paid 70 Deutsche Mark at that time , around 3 times of a LP!
Included is a booklet of over 70 pages with much more informations .
All recordings are totally uncompressed and not altered/processed in any way!
Distance to microphone is 2m in all cases. Check booklet for more info etc ...
And yes it is the same stuff as on the SQAM CD but better prepared for easier use!
have fun
It is a rare CD by STAX (as a byproduct of the Stax Lambda Pro Reference Earspeakers) but not copy protected so everyone is free for making a copy for his audio hobby friends :
https://www.discogs.com/de/release/2213877-Unknown-Artist-The-Test-CD
I remember having paid 70 Deutsche Mark at that time , around 3 times of a LP!
Included is a booklet of over 70 pages with much more informations .
All recordings are totally uncompressed and not altered/processed in any way!
Distance to microphone is 2m in all cases. Check booklet for more info etc ...
And yes it is the same stuff as on the SQAM CD but better prepared for easier use!
have fun
How important a good cabinet is can be guessed here , checkout the knocking sound of the KEF Q150 vs expensive Bowers & Wilkins speakers , at 03:52 exactly :
The combination of thin side walls , no damping on the walls , nearly null acoustic damping stuff in the cab plus an acoustically open reflex port is a terrible result for such a nice coaxial transducer!
The combination of thin side walls , no damping on the walls , nearly null acoustic damping stuff in the cab plus an acoustically open reflex port is a terrible result for such a nice coaxial transducer!