It is very difficult to talk about subjective experiences - all of these terms are just attempts to convey what something sounds like. It is hard enough for people listening to the exact same speakers in the exact same room to come up with the exact same terms. Trying to interpret what someone says and relate that to how the speakers may sound in your room is not very likely to be correct.
All three of the terms you asked about have a lot to do with room acoustics.
Depth and height are parts of "imaging" Stereo can not really make sounds with depth and height, but changes in volume and the amount of reverb can often simulate depth in a recording. Height is usually a room reflection or HRTF related thing that can fool you into thinking sounds are coming from places they are not Interestingly enough, sometimes tweeters run with the wrong polarity (causing a crossover notch) can make a speaker have really good depth..
Left-right imaging is best when speakers match each other in frequency response very tightly. The sense of "being there" is really dependent on the room and how the speakers energize it - but I don;t think there is a general quantitative way of explaining this...
Transparency I would equate with lack of distortion or compression and lack of early reflections which can cause a false sense of spaciousness..
All three of the terms you asked about have a lot to do with room acoustics.
Depth and height are parts of "imaging" Stereo can not really make sounds with depth and height, but changes in volume and the amount of reverb can often simulate depth in a recording. Height is usually a room reflection or HRTF related thing that can fool you into thinking sounds are coming from places they are not Interestingly enough, sometimes tweeters run with the wrong polarity (causing a crossover notch) can make a speaker have really good depth..
Left-right imaging is best when speakers match each other in frequency response very tightly. The sense of "being there" is really dependent on the room and how the speakers energize it - but I don;t think there is a general quantitative way of explaining this...
Transparency I would equate with lack of distortion or compression and lack of early reflections which can cause a false sense of spaciousness..
The devil makes me say...
Those are words that are used to sell speakers. They sound the same as ordinary words, but have quite different meanings.
In speaker-speak they mean " I don't think you can figure this stuff out, but it sounds really neat and abstract, so ....PLEASE... give me your money for my speakers...."
Those are words that are used to sell speakers. They sound the same as ordinary words, but have quite different meanings.
In speaker-speak they mean " I don't think you can figure this stuff out, but it sounds really neat and abstract, so ....PLEASE... give me your money for my speakers...."
kevinkuang said:
From "Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary" by J. Gordon Holt, July, 1993
depth: The illusion of acoustical distance receding behind the loudspeaker plane, giving the impression of listening through the loudspeakers into the original performing space, rather than to them.
imaging The measure of a system's ability to float stable and specific phantom images, reproducing the original sizes and locations of the instruments across the soundstage. See "stereo imaging."
transparency, transparent 1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal. A quality of crystalline clarity.
http://stereophile.com/reference/50/
Dan
leadbelly said:
Do you mean what alternative words can the salesmen use? Is that what your asking?
I think there's enough BS in the showrooms without adding to it. Best just to kick back and listen rather than worry about little things such as how can I describe the sound using words, since its a complete contradiction in terms and is doomed to failure.
Words can be conveyed by sound but sound cannot be conveyed by words - simple as.
But that doesn't mean that describing sounds with words is pointless. For example, it is impossible to describe what "red" is with words; without having seen a red thing before there is no way to comprehend what it means. However if you say to someone that something is red, they know what you mean.ShinOBIWAN said:
Mr Evil said:
Yes but what we are talking about here is different shades of red. No one persons system has the same shade of red as the other. Its a massive gross generalisation.
Same as depth etc. etc. mean different things to different people. Its a flawed convention from the beginning and arguing over better ways to describe it will only lead to more confusion.
So I fully stand by my 'Words can be conveyed by sound but sound cannot be conveyed by words' bit.
And yet English contains dozens of words describing as many different shades of red and these words are used on a regular basis to sucessfully convey information. It may not be accurate, but how else are you going to do it? As long as both parties have some idea of what the word means then it is useful.ShinOBIWAN said:
as for the words are using everywhere, especially now days they are useful since most of the research we can do before we decide which speaker is worthy to spending money is through the website, reading tons of the review, it's would be good if we can transfer the "words" into certain number. I know some might simply say that it's impossible to use figure to judge the quality of the speaker, but I do believe we can not do that is because we didn't have a good enough model(figure) to represent the sound quality, it has to be some relationship between the feeling and the figure. although it's impossible to represent all the information by any modeling, but it's still useful to represent some information.
Every one is using these subjective words to describ subjective feeling, which is really nonsense and useless.
maybe in the future, some one will build a model to describ the sonic.
However, the reason I like music is that it's so costum and subjective that you can really have your own space to build something YOU like it.
how about the bass, we know the frequency response can represent how deep the speaker can respond, but is there any technical meaning by saying the bass is "loose" or is "solid"?
Every one is using these subjective words to describ subjective feeling, which is really nonsense and useless.
maybe in the future, some one will build a model to describ the sonic.
However, the reason I like music is that it's so costum and subjective that you can really have your own space to build something YOU like it.
how about the bass, we know the frequency response can represent how deep the speaker can respond, but is there any technical meaning by saying the bass is "loose" or is "solid"?
Re: Re: what's depth, transparency, imaging?
I dont think its unreasonable to be annoyed by reviewer's and salesman's pretentious rhetoric, but this strikes me as the technical answer to the question. I didnt know this stuff and am glad to have the definitions in front of me. I will now apply this info as a framework to the subjectivity I read. Crimony.
audiobomber said:
I dont think its unreasonable to be annoyed by reviewer's and salesman's pretentious rhetoric, but this strikes me as the technical answer to the question. I didnt know this stuff and am glad to have the definitions in front of me. I will now apply this info as a framework to the subjectivity I read. Crimony.
Re: Re: Re: what's depth, transparency, imaging?
That's the beauty of the Holt's Audio Glossary, it's a standard for describing sound. Not an easy feat. If a reviewer says that the speakers under review are "chocolatey", for example, it means something definite to anyone who's read enough reviews.
Hi-Chi said:
That's the beauty of the Holt's Audio Glossary, it's a standard for describing sound. Not an easy feat. If a reviewer says that the speakers under review are "chocolatey", for example, it means something definite to anyone who's read enough reviews.
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