| sandyK |
zapnspark
I loathe and detest MP3,however, I must admit that when I played your binaural recording through my PC headphone amplifier, it did sound very 3 dimensional. I would have loved to have heard it before conversion to MP3.
BTW, why not join in a very recent thread about soundstages?
I don't think they believe that 3D sound stages are quite achieveable from many quality recordings.
SandyK |
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| sandyK |
zapnspark
The thread is "Holographic Sound ?" in "Everything Else"
SandyK |
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| zapnspark |
SandyK.
I also dislike MP3. I had no easy choice since the hosting service only accepts MP3 format and a file size less than 16 megabytes.
(lightningmp3.com)
The WAV file captures some of the subtle things that can create a very convincing "soundstage". I found that the MP3 format dulls these things -- but not enough to ruin the sense of space.
Unfortunately, I can't find a free host for a >230 megabyte WAV file.
Thanks for suggesting the "holographic" thread. I'll check it out. |
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| Netlist |
Interesting recording. Could you disclose a bit more on the editing process?
The sound looks like it has been compressed somewhere along the line. Peaks are clipped although I admit I took a rather crude snapshot. :)
/Hugo |
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| zapnspark |
The microphones I used are flat back electret omni LECTRET model 5200 lavaliers.
These are really quite remarkable microphones. Slightly lower noise than small Panasonic capsules, very low handling noise, and a reasonably flat frequency response. They also handle 145 db SPL at 1% distortion.
I found these as surplus closeouts many years ago. The list price was over $60 each. I got them for $5 each. Sadly, they are no longer available.
The method I used was a dummy head. The cheapest and most available dummy head was my own. No snide remarks please ;-)
As luck would have it, the LECTRET microphones nestle very comfortably in my ears with the microphone opening just directly over the entrance to the ear canal.
I recorded using a Sony MZ-R30 minidisc recorder. Power for electret capsules is provided by this model. The MZ-R30 has ALC engaged but I found none of the usual audible artifacts using this recorder. (Artifacts being the breathing and pumping associated with compressors and ALC circuits)
There does appear to be clipping at various spots although I used a minimum sensitivity setting on the recorder. I'll work on that problem the next time I try this.
I made a digital transfer of the minidisc recording to a TASCAM 2488 DAW. The only editing done on the TASCAM was to chop out 10 minutes of extraneous neighborhood noise from the beginning of the recording. I saved the recording in WAV and MP3 format. The WAV file is >230 megabytes.
I hope this answers some of the questions.
ZAP |
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| Netlist |
I think the ALC is to blame, not your creative way of doing the recording.
It would be nice to see the difference without ALC.
Funny thing is that I’m pretty sensitive to this kind of clipping in normal pieces of music but it doesn’t seem to be the case here with the explosions. I think the perceived distance of the firework in contrast with a mic close to e.g. a drum could explain it.
/Hugo |
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| zapnspark |
I finally found the manual for the Sony MZ-R30.
There is a convoluted way to turn off ALC and set levels manually.
Darn!
Next time I'll remember to use it.
Here are a couple of photos of the microphones and ear placement.
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| Netlist |
Nice. Do you actually hear what your are recording?
I guess not or not as well with those mics in your ears.
Pardon my ignorance but why don't they just make some kind of headphone-style like microphone that keep your ear entrance free?
/Hugo |
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| zapnspark |
Hugo,
That is a poorly shot picture.
That photo is taken at an odd angle and it makes it appear that my ear canal is obstructed.
If I used a lower angle for the shot, you could see the microphone opening and that there is still room around the sides of the microphone to hear clearly.
The Neumann dummy heads place the microphone right in the "ear canal" of the dummy ears. I'm pretty close to that with this arrangement.
I agree that a binaural headset could be designed that achieved proximity to the ear canal and still allowed close to normal hearing.
The LECTRET microphones were designed as lavalier or lapel microphones.
Only someone as crazy as myself would stick them in my ears.
Aside:
Wow! My Irish ears are really ugly and bloodshot ;-) |
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| zapnspark |
For those of you that are very patient, you can download the
complete unedited 314 megabyte WAV file at:
http://tinyurl.com/2p7tyq
Download speeds vary considerably with this service.
A rough estimate is 2 to 3 hours with a high speed connection.
ZAP |
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| sandyK |
Zapnspark
Afraid I will have to pass this time.Time ballooned out to >7 hours.
Using UseNext I can download a file of this size in as little as 10 minutes.
SandyK |
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| zapnspark |
SandyK,
Apologies.
That download service is just not reliable.
I'll look for another way to provide downloading.
ZAPNSPARK |
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| sandyK |
zapnspark
Don't bother on my behalf. Im not the one that needs convincing
that Binaural and other decent recordings can have a
3 dimensional soundstage, particularly on good equipment
That MP3 of yours further illustrates this. BTW, I do have a Nimbus binaural recording from years ago. It just didn't sound as good back then, as it does now with higher quality equipoment.
Keep further refining those techniques. Perhaps you can do the same for recording special family events, they would be great reminders, particularly if merged with HD video ?
SandyK |
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| zapnspark |
Here is another binaural recording I made this afternoon.
It's an ambulatory recording of my weekly shopping excursion to a large wholesale warehouse (COSTCO).
The usual trip through this place takes 30 minutes.
I've edited it down to 16 minutes for your listening pleasure.
Unless you are a real fan of binaural stuff, this is about as exciting as listening to corn grow.
For the full effect, headphone listening is required for this masterpiece.
Here it is:
http://tinyurl.com/33khtz
Enjoy.
Zapnspark |
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| Cloth Ears |
| quote: | Originally posted by zapnspark
The WAV file captures some of the subtle things that can create a very convincing "soundstage". I found that the MP3 format dulls these things -- but not enough to ruin the sense of space. |
Zapnspark,
have you tried downloading to The Freesound Project? I've seen at least one .wav file of over 400MB on there. I'm not sure of the criteria, but I've grabbed some pretty interesting stuff from there. |
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| sandyK |
Originally posted by zapnspark
The WAV file captures some of the subtle things that can create a very convincing "soundstage". I found that the MP3 format dulls these things -- but not enough to ruin the sense of space
Yes, and so does converting to so called "Lossless" files such as .flac, and then reconversion to .wav.
Despite all the claims to the contrary about bit-perfect,checksums etc.
SandyK |
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| Cloth Ears |
| quote: | Originally posted by sandyK
Yes, and so does converting to so called "Lossless" files such as .flac, and then reconversion to .wav.
Despite all the claims to the contrary about bit-perfect,checksums etc. |
The only way to check if they are the same is to do a file comparison. If they're the same, then they're the same - whether they've been converted (however many times) or not. The first of the problems to do with so-called 'lossless' formats is that they aren't (lossless, that is). The second is that the output from the lossless player is not necessarily the same as the output from the original .wav file.
Someone in Sydney posted some displays (on the web somewhere...:() of the same music file that had been uploaded via the digital out of a 'reasonable' CD player (forget the name) compared to the output of the same music uploaded via EAC. Chalk and cheese!
I'll bet if you compared the 2 .wav files that you are talking about (in the quote), they would be shown to be quite different. |
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| sandyK |
Cloth Ears
2 days ago, , in an effort to find the reasons why most of our little group are able to hear less quality of flac files after going through Transporter and Squeezebox into a MF X-DAC V3, compared to a .wav file from a CD transport. I converted the files on the HDD for our test disc to flac, and then reconverted them to .wav. The resulting files were then burned on to the same type of CD-R as the original, and at the same speed.
Please note that all discs created from these files previously, have sounded identical.
The freshly burned copy was found to not only sound duller via the PC headphones, but appeared to have a small reduction in dynamics. I have kept the version created via FLAC for other members of our little group to come to their own conclusions.
On many occasions, I have also found downloaded flac musical files to sound of poorer quality than expected, and have then purchased the same CD and been completely happy. This is not imaginary, or a placebo type response.
SandyK |
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| Cloth Ears |
Not saying that you can't hear differences, Sandy.
But if you did a simple "FC /B c:\file1.wav c:\file2.wav" on a command prompt (there's probably other ways to compare files), it would show whether the actual files are different. And, for differences in sound to be apparent, they would have to be.
Therefore, the so-called lossless conversion that is taking place is not lossless. I don't use flac, only .wav - and for my partners' exercise class tracks, we store them as .mp3 (as that is now allowed in Australia by law...untested in the courts as yet).
I don't download either, as most of it (as you say) sounds like garbage, and they still can't say whether the stuff we've downloaded is legal or not (even if we pay for it). I'm a CD, DVD and SACD (very occasionally) person only. |
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| sandyK |
Cloth Ears
Re your last paragraph, throw into the mix a few DVD-A, and numerous downloaded 48KHZ LPCM PROMO Music Videos.Some of the PROMO Videos sound even better again when converted to 24 bits using SoundForge 9 and then remixed back with the Video component.
SandyK |
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| Cloth Ears |
Sigh, my current won't play DVD-A - "It's a Sony" :(
I used to (in my foolish younger days) record some live stuff using hi-fi VHS (which sounded great). But sadly those days are long gone. And, in spite of still having a turntable and some dearly loved LPs, I still haven't found a good 'analog' playback format (that's acceptable by the boss - 1" tape is not acceptable). |
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| zapnspark |
Cloth Ears,
Thank you! I was unaware of the Freesound Project.
I'm signed up.
SandyK,
I have no in depth experience with comparisons of the "lossless"
compression techniques.
These sorts of comparisons can be very subjective and influenced by bias and suggestion. This is the stuff that generates heated debates. I'm not qualified to weigh in on this subject.
However, some folks may wish to investigate this free subtractive comparison evaluation tool from Liberty Instruments.
http://www.libinst.com/Audio%20DiffMaker.htm
Just a thought.
Zapnspark |
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| sandyK |
zapnspark
Thanks for the link, I will check it out later in the day.
In a few hours time my Class A gear wil be auditioned by a couple of friends into better speakers than mine, and in a much better room (acoustically) I will be taking along both versions of our own compilation test disc.
SandyK |
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| Cloth Ears |
| quote: | Originally posted by sandyK
zapnspark
Thanks for the link, I will check it out later in the day.
In a few hours time my Class A gear wil be auditioned by a couple of friends into better speakers than mine, and in a much better room (acoustically) I will be taking along both versions of our own compilation test disc.
SandyK |
I hope it went well. BTW, what speakers are you auditioning with?
For creating backups of CDs, I almost always use EAC. The result is often the same - and for some of my lovely partners' CDs, there is a definite improvement. Without EAC, some of the CDs she has used for running excercise classes are almost unreadable/unlistenable - afterwards (with reasonable use of "glitch removal") they are almost good as new. |
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| sandyK |
Cloth Ears
The FLAC difference wasn't so obvious when using VAF DCX speakers,as it is at home using old QED DCM speakers or headphones ,but it was there. The VAF DCX are a fairly bright speaker, and we found them critical as far as positioning and "toe in" , possibly because of twin tweeters, at slightly different angles to each other. We think that rear wall reflections may have degraded the soundstage too. Things sounded markedly better, but not as good as at home, when the Oppo DVD player was set to output LPCM, and then fed into a highly modded MF X-DAC V3, then direct into Class A amplifier , without the preamp in line.The Oppo DV981HD can digitally remote control the volume via SPDIF.
SandyK |
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| Cloth Ears |
| Well, we agree on FLAC. I've only ever heard it on a couple of demos at my local audio club. And I couldn't help thinking why you'd use it - then again, the meeting rooms aren't very good for demos, so I reserved judgement...:angel: |
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| sandyK |
zapnspark and cloth ears
I installed the Liberty program, and the results were quite interesting. I used tracks from the Papa Doo Run Run album.
"I just did another comparison between the Good Vibrations tracks.I then played back the "difference " file. As before, playback not sounding as good, and occasionaly a little unusual sounding. The "difference" file was not readily visible in SF9. BUT, when opened in SF9, the bargraphs of levels were playing back the difference file at levels peaking mostly at -75dB ! and occasionally peaking at -72dB.
Perhaps that explains whty the differencee between some .wav files derived from .flac files, and .wav files ,is more noticeable on higher resolution equipment ? "
SandyK |
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| eeka chu |
Great thread.
I found the fireworks recording when I first got my HD650s to see how good they were. With my eyes shut, it really did start getting pretty realistic.
I might have a go at this myself. |
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| zapnspark |
Here is my second attempt at a binaural fireworks recording.
No ALC or processing used this time.
Headphones are recommended for the best effect.
Be careful with the volume level.
http://tinyurl.com/6ntmyh
ZAP |
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| scott wurcer |
| quote: | Originally posted by zapnspark
Here is my second attempt at a binaural fireworks recording.
No ALC or processing used this time.
Headphones are recommended for the best effect.
Be careful with the volume level.
http://tinyurl.com/6ntmyh
ZAP |
I tried my headspaced pair of mics on the 4th but they were too sensitive and hard clipped even on the little "wistle and pop" things. I'll give your's a listen. |
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| panomaniac |
LOL! The sirens killed me. Kept having to turn down the recording to convince myself they were not outside my window. Ha!
Nice work. Thanks.
Years ago a buddy of mine had that fist portable DAC from Sony. The included stereo mic was pretty good. But one night we went out in the woods in rural France to record owls. We used a pair of little in-ear bud mics German made, IIRC.
Really terrific sounding recording. We took the tape to the studios at Radio France France and they were very impressed.
Those old ear bud mics were expensive, and had a somewhat "sour" top end (their only faults). Looks like you've done better for cheaper! |
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| Eva |
| Minidisc is not suitable for high quality recordings, it employs realtime perceptual encoding (ATRAC) to suppress signal components, like MP3 but a much worse implementation. According to some sources, the original signal becomes barely recognisable after a few enconding and decoding cycles. |
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