Might it be more related towhat the ear receives in form of direct sound vs early-diffracted sound? Even though a speaker might not be transmitting linear-phase soundwaves over the audible spectrum, what might still confuses the ear, is what the ear receives just after the initial radiated sound. I have no idea.
Who said it would be barely listenable? Griesinger only mentions: not as engaging. Something the volume control might correct up to some level
.Did you try to have the phase line up at the ears (non headphones as we feel as much as we hear)?
Of course it was with loudspeakers, I tried it both ways - to correct and also to make it even more phase-distorted. It was many years back and the only thing I remember is that to become subjectively significant, it had to be a really extreme phase distortion added, never present -or even possible- in practice. That formed my opinion on this matter since and I take all these claims with a grain of salt.
But of course you may have far better ears than me I'd stay at that...
- Reflections, that's a different matter.
OK, so let's phrase it so that even with a highly phase-distorting loudspeaker it's barely noticeable.
But of course you may have far better ears than me
I'd stay at that...- Reflections, that's a different matter.
^try find the transition if at all possible, I'd say its noticeable with anyone's hearing. Play pink or white noise, same mono signal to both speaker, or spoken word. Listen phantom center "clarity" and size. It should be very precise small blob of sound when you are close enough, and it gets bigger and hazy when you are too far. Try to find transition between the two, note the distance from ear to speaker. Set your speakers like 2m apart and walk on the center normal to hear where the transition happens. Play with toe-in and distance between speakers if necessary. If you do find it, listen with music if you still notice the transition.
Point of the whole excercise is to hear the two sounds and difference between them, which one do you prefer?
ps. there might be a lot of stuff at play, like modal response of the room that affect the transition. Toe-in certainly does.
Point of the whole excercise is to hear the two sounds and difference between them, which one do you prefer?
ps. there might be a lot of stuff at play, like modal response of the room that affect the transition. Toe-in certainly does.
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Steep passive xovers? Funny. Revel's marketing run amuck, i think.
Certainly don't know, but my guess is they're probably calling 4th order acoustic LRs 'steep' (or perhaps even lower order)
I don't enjoy the "close" sound as much, but how should I know for sure what are you talking about...
Frankly, I don't experiment as much these days as I used to in the past. I'm glad if I can just play me some music in quiet - I've spent so much time on all this nonsense that I'm almost ashamed looking back...
Problem is that one need to test this close/far with different type DI speakers also to really get at grip of all possibilities - an omni and a beamer don't behave the same going far -> close... or thats your experience there?
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Exactly, this is why I'm repeatedly saying the transition as important thing!... but how should I know for sure what are you talking about...
Hearing the transition defines the close and far sound for you, then you'd know what I hear and we could relate each to each other, shared experience
The on/off nature of the transition makes it so. It's not a sliding concept but either there is the close sound or far sound, and that's it. Take a step forward and you are listening the recording (close sound), step backward and you are listening your room (far sound). At least that is how it feels to me.
I think this has been very key moment in my hobby to recognize the transition and the two different sounds. Now I'm able to reason about stuff and make sense of conflicting ideas, like is early reflections good or bad thing. Its clear to me now that when one listens at the far field early reflections are a good thing as they make "stage" sound bigger. But if one likes the close sound then early reflections has to be suppressed and delayed to get the transition behind practical listening position/distance. The transition and the two very different presentations of stereo really is the missing link to me how to relate perceived sound to text and vice versa.
It is very hard to know what others are talking about, what all the theories are all about, what they actually sound like, unless we can be sure we've shared common audio perception. Like you, how can I be sure what it is supposed to sound like, do I hear same as you?
This might be due to too much early reflections, all the room sound seems to come from front of you, too dry and just left for spatial cues in the recording.
I can understand why people would not like the close sound, it might be "too accurate", or something. This is though what they listened in the studio mixing it. Perhaps if there is problem with speakers it could be awkward sound. Or, perhaps you are taken out of your room and it feels awkward. Perhaps its just preference for what ever reason, perhaps you are just so accustomed to the far sound
And there is nothing wrong with that, I just think its very important to really identify these different presentations that can both happen, that both could benefit different speaker / room interaction for their "optimal" sound. Knowing them both one can now relate better to studies, other people situations, as well as give advice, like which DI to target for and why. Or what kind of acoustic treatment would work.
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Well, I'm still not sure we describe or mean the same thing, so it's hard to try to make any "conclusions"...
I probably have the "close" sound you mean, only much further away from the speakers... What I mean as "close" could well mean "too close" to you..
- Some day I can try to find the "transition" you talk about, as I'm not aware of any exact distance at the moment. It sounds different when listening close to speakers and when at the other end of the room, of course, but I've never given this a lot of attention - it never seemed as so interesting to me. Maybe it is
I probably have the "close" sound you mean, only much further away from the speakers...
What I mean as "close" could well mean "too close" to you..- Some day I can try to find the "transition" you talk about, as I'm not aware of any exact distance at the moment. It sounds different when listening close to speakers and when at the other end of the room, of course, but I've never given this a lot of attention - it never seemed as so interesting to me. Maybe it is
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Yeah that's is the uphill of audio hobby, everyone have to listen and connect theories and perception them selves and even if one knows everything there would still be difficult time to communicate with others who don't. It could be possible if we were listening live together and discussed about various phenomena we hear live, a shared experience, but even then its possible misunderstand each other communicating about the phenomenon or concentrate listening wrong thing since our experience level is different, and so on.
The transition feels big deal to me, audible phenomenon that we all could share quite reliably if it really is on/off effect and achievable with any setup, like it seems to be. If I only could lure people try hear it and then publicly write what they did or did not hear
Important thing here is that, what ever it is, having shared the experience we could now relate each other about importance of things and magnitude of things and what we like and what we do not, and then discuss about various systems with proper context.
The transition feels big deal to me, audible phenomenon that we all could share quite reliably if it really is on/off effect and achievable with any setup, like it seems to be. If I only could lure people try hear it and then publicly write what they did or did not hear
Important thing here is that, what ever it is, having shared the experience we could now relate each other about importance of things and magnitude of things and what we like and what we do not, and then discuss about various systems with proper context.
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Yes, a LTI signal will yield complete auto-correlation (nearly 1.0) for a musical note. This does not mean that all the harmonics are in-phase, just that the phases are and remain the same throughout the auto-correlation integration time. If the phases vary then the correlation will drop down closer to 0.0, at 0.0, the phases would be random.
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Again correct. A batch of violins playing will not be a correlated signal since two/many violins are not likely to be correlated to each other. And yes, it sounds hazy as a result, but to me all large orchestra music is like that. I prefer music with fewer instruments and hence a less "hazy" sound. In some orchestra performances that I have heard live the haziness is so great that I don't enjoy it.
Yes, I have experimented with this a great deal. Yes there is a distance at which the perception changes quit dramatically, however I prefer to be beyond this distance not closer. Our different preferences may stem, from several things, expectations, different sound setups, musical passages, etc. And I agree that the direct field sounds like one is "stepping inside the recording", but I still prefer to be in the reverberant field.
Since my speakers are constant directivity, and hence symmetric, I put them on rotational bearings and listened to them toed-in versus toed-out. Completely different effect - toed-in had the strongest image while toed-out had more spaciousness. The critical distance changed significantly as well.
ATHEX 460-36, a petal model for casting (or 3D printing).
STL file: https://at-horns.eu/img/athex/ATHEX-460-36-CAST.stl
The nice thing about the polygonal shape are the joints that don't have to be perfect as in a round shape (where every imperfection is immediately obvious).
- This has a 1.4" throat, for drivers that are not suitable for a "reduced" throat (like Faital HF1440 etc.)
STL file: https://at-horns.eu/img/athex/ATHEX-460-36-CAST.stl
The nice thing about the polygonal shape are the joints that don't have to be perfect as in a round shape (where every imperfection is immediately obvious).
- This has a 1.4" throat, for drivers that are not suitable for a "reduced" throat (like Faital HF1440 etc.)
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Of course feel free to improve it, this is only the core of it (it's licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Could ATH4 be used to generate diffusers for omnidirectional speakers? I guess the answer is an obvious no, but it doesn't seem very far fetched. Just make a horn with a minimal throat float in front of the source I have no idea how well any of the standard profiles work for diffusing stuff but it would be cool to try.
I have no idea how well any of the standard profiles work for diffusing stuff but it would be cool to try.
Hi, this is most interesting. I did not have a glue how you have setup and thus no expectation but now thinking about it I'm surprised you like the far sound more. Well, yours probably sounds different than mine
A nice datapoint though, thanks for sharing!
I've got many questions and would be delighted if you have more to say on the subject. For example, have you considered /noticed difference with good and bad DI? I would think listening beyond critical distance power response of the speaker is very important, more so than direct sound, while listening closer the direct sound would be more important and lousier DI would do? this would be relevant while tuning a system and a comprimize needs to be made between the two.
In general, do you think it would be relevant to have listening distance as context in forum discussion or does sound quality on both listening distances depend more or less on same aspects off playback system?
So if you could get image AND space would that be nice ? what about...... toe them In, and add a second set of speakers behind/beside you with a delay of 10-20ms, like wesayso does, or if you don't like DSP, add a pair of rear firing drivers behind your mains, that bounce off the rear wall, ceiling and then to you. Duke calls these type speakers Space Generators, or "LORA" Late-Onset Reflection Assist
https://jamesromeyn.com/speakers/space-generators/bighorn-space-generator/