Ah yes. My apologies for not scrolling down far enough and appreciating the lesser measured characteristics of speakers. I suppose this highlights the folly in relying solely on frequency response charts for the evaluation of a speaker system.
sent from my mobile look-at device
being evil, trying to pass off a strawman? or are you just ignorant?
the methods and goals of Audiology are different from the Psychoacousitics of ultimate human hearing limits
Audiology is more about minimum function/classifying pathologies
the methods and goals of Audiology are different from the Psychoacousitics of ultimate human hearing limits
Audiology is more about minimum function/classifying pathologies
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Thanks very much for the file - very interesting stuff!
The Alesis M1 Active was the other speaker model I referred to. Surprisingly good sounding (and measuring) overall, especially when you compared the price tag with the Mackie HR-824's.
It looks as though both the Mackies and the Alesis' used some sort of internal bass boost, paired up with a very steep high-pass filter at the low end of the frequency response. I remember hearing rather woofy bass from the Alesis, probably because of poor transient response to go with that super-steep bass rolloff.
Oddly enough, I don't remember hearing the same problem with the Mackie HR-824's, though they too have a steep and sharp bass rolloff.
Perhaps that was the original intent. But the original intent has a way of getting watered down as the news travels.
By the time the average non-technical home studio owner heard it, it came down to "really rich and famous guys like Bob Clearmountain use ns10's!"
Which, in turn, translated to the thought "ns10's must be really good, I better get a pair too!"
-Gnobuddy
I don't consider Chris Lord-Alge or his brother as good engineers.
Heard some of their work and since then I will not touch anything they were involved with. I like natural dynamics but the Lord-Alges seem to loath any kind of level changes in music and they own banks and banks of vintage tube compressors to prove it.
Other than that nobody uses NS10s because they are neutral, they use them because they translate well to other speakers. Personally I hate the things since they are turning an easy mix into a hard slog for me.
I always liked to mix on mains and Auratones. ;-)
Perhaps so, however......................
I mostly listen to classical music and a bit of jazz. As it happens, this afternoon I listened to a jazz disc, high quality Chesky sacd, at a low volume level. I heard everything just fine with no bass drop off whatsoever.
Sorry but I'm not following this at all. What does this have to do with hearing everything at low volume levels?
A speaker with higher distortion will be perceived as louder at low SPL than a clean one.
EDIT: I'm not sure how you appear immune to the fletcher-munson curves tho. Might be your 'quiet' is not as quiet as mine.
EDIT: I'm not sure how you appear immune to the fletcher-munson curves tho. Might be your 'quiet' is not as quiet as mine.
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That´s the point that surprises me in the discussion, as DF96 states that there exists a clear distinction between "i like it more" and "it is hi-fi" but in fact argues that "it is hi-fi" reflects just a majority of preference decisions.
Larger samples provide more statistical certainty (wrt the underlying population) and a more objective conclusion about the preferences it nevertheless is still a matter of preference.
And whenever a distribution is given, that means that of course some individuals will differ by large margins and therefore their diverging "preference" might mean exactly more "hi-fi" for these listeners.
The latter is a bit funny remark, as what you described (mainly in the snipped part) reflects my point (i was not going into detail, as i´ve written a lot about it in the past).
The conclusion seems to be, that you already know that (in most cases) a true high fidelity reproduction is impossible, but nevertheless you prefer to call it "hi-fi" . 😉
But otoh you are of coure right, the information distributed is all we have, but that wasn´t imo the point in our discussion as the topic was the stated clear distinction between personal preference and "hi-fi" which is obviously not true as the definition for "hi-fi" is quite arbitrarily chosen (wrt reproduction in most cases).
Just for the reason that the data on a cd don´t carry enough information.
If nobody tells us that the data on a cd are meant to be reproduced by headphones (because it is a binaural recording) we could reproduce it with perfect gear and perfect loudspeakers in a perfect listening environment, but it would not be "hi-fi". I hope this crude example helps a bit. 🙂
" One man's high fidelity is another man's awful."
You have interpreted my statement in a way that was not intended. I meant that simply to show that high fidelity varies with the listener's ears and brain, not that one sound is preferred over another.
There has been a lot of picking posts apart, word by word, and ignoring the overall meaning. Not seeing the wood for the trees.
I found when I went from an active pre-amp to a passive TVC, that I could listen at a much lower level. I've always put that down to the lower noisefloor.
That seems like an odd statement, as though you are defining "good" as what you like and not what the record buying public prefers to spend their money on.
CLA appears to be running a very successful business doing what record companies want, and are willing to pay good money for. Many less successful mix engineers wish they were capable producing hit records they way he does. Those engineers seem to think he is exceptionally good at what he does.
We do agree about NS-10s though, they translate well, at least for mix engineers experienced with using them. But they don't sound especially good, and the bass is very weak. As I keep trying to point out though, a Bryston 4B helps a lot to smooth out the highs, and keeps what little bass there is very tight.
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I understand but think that mostly it isn´t possible to seperate preference from the impression of "hi-fi". In your example i thought that your peak did only influence your impression under the restrictions of a two channel sound reproduction due to the imbalance between direct and reflected sound compared to original acoustical events.
Otherwise i´d suppose that you just dislike the same things in reproduction that you already dislike in reality as the peak takes place all the time?!
(Discussions via internet are naturally prone to misinterpretations)
No, it excludes quite a lot of 'high end' systems, most SET amps and almost anything which has been 'voiced' or 'designed by ear'.stvnharr said:
So where is the up to date hi-fi specification? Why do so many modern items fail even the 1960s criteria? You only have to look at almost any 'hi-fi' magazine to find expensive equipment with appalling electrical performance praised to the sky. If anything, we have gone backwards.
I will repeat once again: hi-fi is what sounds like the real thing to most people. Is this so difficult to grasp? What I consider is irrelevant. Whether I like hi-fi or you like hi-fi is irrelevant. Whether the people doing the listening tests liked it is irrelevant. Now maybe you are asking what electrical criteria are needed for hi-fi - that is a matter of what comes out of careful listening tests, and I would expect modern tests to refine but not fundamentally contradict the results from the 1960s. What I don't know is whether anyone has actually done the tests in, say, the last 20 years. Most audio tests seem to be of the form 'do you like it?' (which is completely irrelevant to hi-fi) or 'can you tell the difference between this equipment and that equipment?' (which has some relevance to hi-fi) rather than 'can you tell the difference between this violin and this reproduction of the sound of this violin?'.
Does it sound like the real thing? Or, does it have sufficiently good electrical characteristics that, although never itself compared to the real thing, it can reasonably be expected to pass that test if it was tested because it is at least as good as other equipment which has been tested and passed the test.TheGimp said:
No. No preference involved in hi-fi; simply, "can you tell the difference between this violin and this reproduction of a violin?"; that is a factual question, not a preference question. Preference only comes in for lesser-fi: "how horrible does this non-hi-fi sound when we add distortion or skew/narrow the frequency response?"Jakob2 said:
When preferences were tested, the experimenters were slightly surprised to find that some people preferred some low order distortion over less distortion. To me that provides a simple explanation for the popularity of SET amps, 'tube buffers' and other items which add some low order distortion. I believe they also found a preference for some restriction in frequency response - again some people like the 'warm/smooth' sound of early HF rolloff. These tests were asking people what they liked, so nothing whatsoever to do with hi-fi.
There is a clear distinction between preference and hi-fi. I have explained this several times. I can only assume that some people have reasons not to grasp it; perhaps an unwillingness to admit that all these years they have not been pursuing hi-fi at all, but instead a pleasant/exciting/musical sound which for some strange reason they have chosen to call hi-fi? The definition of hi-fi is set by the English language, so it is the very opposite of arbitrary: it cannot be anything other than 'high fidelity to the original sound' as anything other would be a misuse of language.
The data on a CD is almost certainly adequate to allow hi-fi stereo sound reproduction. Tests have shown that diminishing returns and practical difficulties set in for more than two channels, so stereo is a workable compromise. People who find stereo unsatisfying will just have to go to lots of live concerts and get the real thing instead. Your example does not help, but seems to be another attempt to muddy the waters.
He is successful. That does not make him a good engineer. The two statements do not require equality. By any any normal quality measure his mixes are poor (low DR, very basic pan potting etc). But due to the way things work he had a few hits, so people asked him to mix the records they through would be hits and they were, so suddenly he has the midas touch. Good on him for that. Those of us who don't like this presentation are not going to worry the record companies.
This smacks of control room chinese whispers. Why is a Byston any better than any of 100 other well designed power amplifiers? It measures well, but so do a lot of other solid state 250W units.
Bryston 4B power amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com
Can't see anything there that stands out, unless the 0.1ohm output impedance at 20KHz reacts with the speaker to tilt things down at teeny tad.
It is a human bias to substitute an activity one may do with the type of person one is. Someone who mixes records in a way that record companies want is probably good at doing that particular task. That doesn't mean they aren't good at what you like, only that they have taken a job that pays more than you would be willing to pay them to do what you prefer.
Agree with your observation that whoever had the last hit is considered hot in the music business, but CLA's success over a long period of time strongly suggests something else in play. He is no "one hit wonder."
Regarding the Bryston issue, here we are again convinced that we can judge everything on the usual specs. People who look at specs believe any good amplifier should work fine with NS-10s. That's what they think until they try different amps with NS-10s and conclude that Bryston seems to sound best. Either lots of mix professionals are crazy or there is something going on that has not been well studied and carefully measured yet, so the default of people is to assume nothing unexpected can exist. Look, if you read all my posts on this subject, you would know I was just as skeptical as you ,maybe more so. But, I tried it, very skeptically of course, and found out my model of how it must work was apparently oversimplified or missing something. It works, and no doubt there is some physical reason why. Remember, people sometimes look at speaker frequency response and think that's all there is. Most people can understand waterfall plots and transient response when it it presented to them, but until then, they may stubbornly insist frequency response is all there is.
It could also be the very low output impedance you mention explains everything. We just don't know, but people who can hear dither in mastering labs can probably hear the difference in amplifiers and to them maybe it matters significantly for their purposes.
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A valid supposition, but it doesn't seem to work like that, at least for me. But then how can I tell unless I was at the actual event that was recorded? My wife, however, suffers from a resonance issue in her left ear that causes problems with live and recorded music. But of course, she is interested in the music, not hifi! 😀
As far as live amplified music is concerned, then I do have a problem with excessive HF, but that is mainly down to the mixing and piezo horn tweeters. But for acoustic music, no. Which leads me to my belief that high fidelity in reproduction must include the whole chain, including the listener. Maybe I am just lo-fi? 🙁
That does not equate to "good engineer". It might, but there is no requirement for that to map.
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