Nice collection of graphs, thanks for that! All pretty flat from 300Hz up.
But those are measured how? At 1 meter? If they measure flat at 1 meter and the room response is fairly flat with even decay times across the spectrum, then it should not be too hard to get a balance similar to the mastering suite.
But so many listening room just are not flat and have funky reverb and decay times. And then there is the fact that most studio engineers mix way brighter than I like. 😉. Can't say for mastering engineers, I have not sat in on any of those sessions.
There is no doubt you are right there Pano. Taste is key. Some go too dull for me, some go too bright. Most go pretty close to right as far as spectral balance goes provided your room has a fairly flat RT20,30,60.
They are all 1 meter, gated appropriately and resolution is crap at 300 Hz. I really wouldn't consider them very good until about 800-1000 Hz. None the less, the measurements seem to hold up better than that in the room without gating.
Here's what I consider a flat decay:
I tried to get it well enough damped that even recorded classical music could be enjoyed.
Dan
They are all 1 meter, gated appropriately and resolution is crap at 300 Hz. I really wouldn't consider them very good until about 800-1000 Hz. None the less, the measurements seem to hold up better than that in the room without gating.
Here's what I consider a flat decay:
I tried to get it well enough damped that even recorded classical music could be enjoyed.
Dan
Certainly... but "live performance" doesn't have to mean memory of the original live event at the recording studio or even a particular live performance by an artist of a certain piece of music, rather good representation of a "live performance" may just be whether there is sense of realism in the reproduced sound. I.E. Does the reproduction of a singers voice sound like it could be real or does it sound eerie and artificial?
My experience is that in using the down shelving filter and DSS filter, many recordings simply sound more like what I imagine the real event must have sounded like. On "flat" speakers there were just too many reproductions of albums where I could not "believe" in the reproduction of the recording and I could also not believe that the artist and engineer would have accepted the sound I was hearing.
Last edited:
That's a well damped room! You don't find it too dry?
Interesting that we both started out with that big peak between 1K-2K. Similar room materials, perhaps? Mine looks like this
Would like to flatten it a bit more, still.
I believe that more rooms look like our starting points than most folks want to admit. Might have a little to do with why "flat is not correct."
Interesting that we both started out with that big peak between 1K-2K. Similar room materials, perhaps? Mine looks like this
Would like to flatten it a bit more, still.
I believe that more rooms look like our starting points than most folks want to admit. Might have a little to do with why "flat is not correct."
The statement "playing Carnegie Hall in your living room" is gibberish. I think sanedesign is close to saying that.
(At the best, the recording engineer twiddles the gain on the various mic channels in order to deliver something to your living room kind of like the way your attention focuses and refocuses as you listen to the salient instruments or instrument groups during a live performance and/or like Beethoven set out in the score when he gave the second statement of the theme to the violas. I wonder how that concept jives with all the present talk about sound waves being the same in one place as in another since the recording engineer is not trying to do that? If he/she was, they'd need only two mics or a kunstkopf. More to bringing good sound into your music room.)
Last edited:
Uh..... I don't have to have Carnegie Hall in my living room to know if the music sounds real or not. Is that your point? Not sure I understand.
I honestly don't want this to sound like just a semantic distinction. But if you can't make it sound like Carnegie Hall, then you can't make it sound "real."
You can make it awfully enjoyable, but, again, you can't make it sound like Carnegie Hall. Of course, it will always sound like something!
BTW, anybody ever walked down the hall from their music room and thought, "gosh, somebody must have moved a piano into my music room..."?
Not me, not remotely. Not even a flute.
That means whatever lovely stuff is playing in my music room, it just isn't real in the sense of reproducing something real.
There is another way of talking where you can correctly say, "the sound in my music room reminds me very much of the special sound qualities of the Amsterdam Concertgebau." Or maybe, "I bet that was recorded in Symphony Hall with the long reverb." Now and then, the special qualities of a special place where the recording was made is an "actor" in the recording - but not too often, not necessarily characteristic of the place live, and not always beneficially.
Last edited:
Pano, it's no where near too dead. Maybe a bit too live yet for my purpose. My walls are drywall with some textured drywall. I do think that's why things have a tendency to sound too bright--well, at least part of the reason.
Dan
Dan
Last edited:
Something *you* may not know . . . and if you listen exclusively to "studio produced" (or even "amplified") music, something that indeed dosen't even exist. For you.
But that's what sets "classical" music apart (in this discussion). There *is* a "real", there *is* a live performance that is being *reproduced*. There *is* the sound of an orchestra in performance. And some of us do have enough experience with that sound to know when someone's stereo in someone's living room doesn't sound much like it.
For those of us who do have that experience frequency response graphs of studio monitors do little . . . except maybe help explain why recording engineers sometimes "get it wrong". We're not comparing the sound of our "home systems" to the monitors in the recording studio, we're comparing them to the sound of the orchestra in the concert hall. The "reality" that you deny even exists. And the reason that people who actually work with live music just roll our eyes and shake our heads and hope (if we bother to hope) that you might, by accident, come up with something useful in these discussions . . . (which, to your credit, you occasionally do . . . most commonly when you find links and references to people who work with . . . live music).
I think that if it sounded like the old Avery Fisher Hall, it would also sound "real"...real bad maybe, but "real" none the less.
Best Regards,
TerryO
Deward, are you ever planning on reading the links? You'll start to understand my point at some point after you read. Then you can make a good argument or understand the flaws in your current position. If you'd like to hold onto your belief that's fine, but please don't try to spread it. There are enough religions.
If you have the experience to know, I certainly can't tell from your post. I don't deny orchestras exist if that's what you're saying. Hard to imagine what you are really saying.
Dan
If you have the experience to know, I certainly can't tell from your post. I don't deny orchestras exist if that's what you're saying. Hard to imagine what you are really saying.
Dan
Quote:
Originally Posted by speaker dave
He realized that a speaker at +- 30 degrees was at an angle where HF hearing is stronger, and so a centrally placed phantom source (equal level both channels) would be too bright.
Originally Posted by speaker dave
He realized that a speaker at +- 30 degrees was at an angle where HF hearing is stronger, and so a centrally placed phantom source (equal level both channels) would be too bright.
Really?The phantom center usually sounds duller to me, not brighter.
You're both right Pano, duller at 1500-2000Hz, brighter at 3k-8k. That is a physically measured variation, not a perceptional phenomenon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gedlee
I also find that in a small room a flat LF response will sound lacking and a + 3 dB per decade rise below about 200 Hz is about right.
Originally Posted by gedlee
I also find that in a small room a flat LF response will sound lacking and a + 3 dB per decade rise below about 200 Hz is about right.
It is only 3dB higher at 20Hz than 200Hz, that's very little.
This I think is mostly backward logic. The "generally agreed rolloff" was arrived at by empirical testing with 'typical' type speakers and applies to them. (BTW I do not think the 2kHz knee is agreed at all). Trying to design atypical speakers to deliver this result by manipulating the directivity is wrong. If these machinations result in a speaker that is not close to flat on-axis above 200-300Hz (gated), then it will face a long uphill battle to compensated for this deficiency.
Dave, I suspect this is mostly misdirected theorising, because if it were true our perception of the sound tonality coming from a speaker would significantly change just by rotating one's head 30 degrees while listening. It doesn't. Even a 5 second test sitting in front of one's hifi shows there is nothing significant going on. This is due to adaptation; the same adaptation that keeps the phantom image front and centre while rotating the head, a neat trick in itself, preserves the perceived tonality.
Therefore the conclusions about the need for a treble shelf are also wrong. And lordy help us all if recording engineers try to correct for it, on top of their other sins!
Not much point on building an argument on the foundation of Dave's erroneous rationale relating to the need for a treble shelf.
Also it is beneficial to keep in mind that tests have repeatedly shown we have an almost uncanny ability outside of the bass frequencies to 'listen through' the room effects and detect the characteristics of the source of the sound. A flat-response direct sound is therefore a primary component of good sound. Not the only consideration, to be sure, but not one to be sacrificed while refining less primary factors.
It's wierd how your conclusion, "it argues for a constant/controlled directivity design where the directivity in the treble is deliberately restricted - but not too much, and a flat on-axis response", is a lot like your modern Behringer or JBL studio monitor with its tweeter waveguide and flat on-axis. Must be coincidence!
We all feel that way about our hifi, but strangely we cannot back it up in blind tests, where subjects become completely bamboozled in attempting to distinguish live from reproduced. Yet again the myth of the infinitely subtle ear (and the infinitely inadequate hifi) is put to the sword....
I do understand "your point" . . . and find it trivial when not simply wrong. It is based on your conclusion that there is no such thing as "what an orchestra sounds like" . . . which is your personal problem, about which I have no concern.
Indeed . . . which may be why I'm not buying yours . . .
I'm only quoting this so you can change it after you see how absurd it is. Deward, where do I say that? I already know what your going to quote, but it's not what I said, not what I am trying to say, and anyone with a brain knows it. You should be able to get it as well one day.
My point is--how do you know what ________ Hall sounds like when the performance was recorded with ______ as a soloist and all the once 'one time' occurrences of that evening? I've never heard 2 orchestras that sounded the same or 2 halls or 2 recordings. Then how do you undo the recording with your playback process to get the original sound? Fast forward 5 years: Eureka! You get it right once! Now you have to change it for the next recording or else it is automatically wrong..... Well I guess you could only buy recordings made in one place and in the same way that were mixed/mastered by the same guy who made all the same settings. How many recordings would that make in your collection?
Oh what am I saying? It's really HRTF. Just shelf the treble response and call it a day. It will fix it.
Good point Deward. I have seen the light.
Dan
BTW, 'mine' has studies to back it. 'Yours' does not. 😉
Carry on.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.