what does it add up to?
the one note phenom is associated/tied to bass reflex...
and if an open back is bad don't tell the OB fans!
Open back Radiograms were famous for one note bass, I can remember as kid thinking of what great bass ours produced.
Ekco ARG134 radiogram. - Page 2 - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum
top post
Actually, most of the definitions of engineering I have been able to find don't say that. Not to discount measurement, of course. But engineers don't always have practical ways to measure as much as they might like. Sometimes it may be possible to rig up an experiment and sometimes not.
As far as audio engineering goes, most things are measurable, at least in a well equipped lab.
The Eagles Farewll Tour dvd sounds great through my TV speakers/amp.
But then again, I do not need to sit in a sweet spot with my head in vice to enjoy music.
I haven't listened to AM radio since I got my '55' Cheve in 1970 and installed an FM stereo.
AM is Lo-Fi.
Speaking of TV sound quality degradation due to speaker space, I agree.
I look back at TVs in the late 60s and the premium consoles had speaker enclosures which were probably 1-1/2 cu ft volume each.
Once TVs went to plastic enclosures there was a big shift to small speakers without enclosures.
Flat panel is "thinner, thinner, thinner...." no room for good speakers.
Last edited:
We can make this a statistical observation. Have a "statistically large" number of people listen, and the percentage who are unable to tell the difference is then a figure of merit. The higher the percentage, the more it approaches "perfect" hi-fi.
Admittedly, such tests are costly, taking time and money to get people (especially a good "statistical sample" of people) to listen and ask them what they heard.
Then there is the question of are we talking about listening in a symphony hall from the front of the first balcony, or under what conditions? Distance from source, any room reflections, etc.?
About TV speakers - when hearing an older TV in another room I cannot distinguish between the voices from the TV and actual human voices from that room, I have to listen for a few seconds. So the sound from those TV's was quite close to real life.
With modern flat screens, one has to buy a sound bar (ironic name, to be sure I mean does it bar the sound?).🙄 They could have easily put a large subwoofer in the back or at the base.
Last edited:
Two aspects of Hi-Fi discussed here in passing are sound levels and stereo effect.
There is the fidelity of the sound itself at the centre listening position and also the 'solidity' of the stereo effect, which is often described as an illusion.
Maybe in the search for Perfect Hi-Fi, one would have to be willing to sacrifice some for the stereo illusion? I'm not sure how this works.
I listen at low levels : 70-80 dB at 1 metre because I don't live alone in the desert. I was going to say forest but then the sound levels would probably result in the extinction of some rare endemic species.
With regard to the earlier definitions of Hi-Fi, I would think that sound levels need to be also included in the specification, apparently if you were inside a live concert you would damage your hearing. People in pubs need to be careful as well. See the following:
Sound Advice Note 11 – Amplified music in pubs and clubs
The text contains an example of bureaucratic humor at its best:
Also:
Turn it Up? Musicians Run Far Higher Risk of Hearing Loss - NBC News
Which says:
There is the fidelity of the sound itself at the centre listening position and also the 'solidity' of the stereo effect, which is often described as an illusion.
Maybe in the search for Perfect Hi-Fi, one would have to be willing to sacrifice some for the stereo illusion? I'm not sure how this works.
I listen at low levels : 70-80 dB at 1 metre because I don't live alone in the desert. I was going to say forest but then the sound levels would probably result in the extinction of some rare endemic species.
With regard to the earlier definitions of Hi-Fi, I would think that sound levels need to be also included in the specification, apparently if you were inside a live concert you would damage your hearing. People in pubs need to be careful as well. See the following:
Sound Advice Note 11 – Amplified music in pubs and clubs
The text contains an example of bureaucratic humor at its best:
Also:
Turn it Up? Musicians Run Far Higher Risk of Hearing Loss - NBC News
Which says:
(my emphasis)
Last edited:
One of several issues with these "sound bars" is that the ones I've seen are essentially a small line array - laid on its side.
That means exactly the wrong acoustic dispersion pattern: tight beaming in the left-right horizontal plane, narrowing the "sweet spot", and wide dispersion in the vertical plane, where it isn't required, and causes unwanted floor and ceiling reflections.
-Gnobuddy
I have to admit that it really is a bit of a pity that there are no real standards. So, everything gets called hi fi no matter what it is as long as it spits out some music reproduction.
Even here on this thread about hi fi there is some discussion about television set sound quality. But apart from that I find this a pretty good discussion.
I would agree with that, making high fidelity an ideal that can only be approached rather than achieved. But you still have the problem of choosing the people. Can we agree to exclude anyone who considers modern TV sound to be hi-fi? 😀
And what about the poor person who can still hear the deficiencies in the reproduction? 🙁
There is no need to do that, except perhaps to speed up the tests by excluding people who we assume will be in the group who think that any reproduction sounds like the real thing.awkwardbydesign said:
There will always be such people. They may require genuine high-end hi-fi i.e. equipment which is actually better than ordinary hi-fi, with the extra cost spent on electrical performance rather than snake oil and cosmetics.
There may be a greater number of people who firmly believe that they can hear the deficiencies of our candidate hi-fi, but it turns out that they cannot - because they turn out to be guessing, or perhaps get the decision mostly the wrong way round.
That´s fine, although i think to have written pretty much the same right from the beginning. 🙂
The reason why i differ from your position is based on the narrow perspective of your example in relation to the multidimensional perception/experience a listener is evaluating.
They are evaluatiing/comparing two reproduction systems by (mabybe) different multidimensional perceptions, just for the reason that (apart from experiments) reproduction systems differ not only in one technical parameter.
From the perception point of view, listener notice just that different effects were presented by the systems. If we take for example a difference in the spatial impression or in the stereo image; what if one system gives more apparent source width while the others offers less but instead a more precise localization?
I consider that as quite difficult to seperate wrt the phrase "high fidelity" althouht both are differing along the same dimension.
What about two systems where one excels (means is more like the real thing in that regard) in spatial impression and stereo image (convincing depth and soundstage) while the other offers less coloration (means is more like the real thing in that point), so both differing in different dimensions (perceptionwise).
Is there an easy way (if any) to decide which one delivers more "high fidelity"?
I hope my example clarifies a bit why i differ.
That´s of course true quite often, but....
could it be that you confused some of the participants? Just asking because i only commented one of Charles´s posts (up to now, this was my second attempt) and afair there was no undertone confrontation or unfriendly/heated conversation involved?!
Which is exactly the reason why i asked for some citations for the "standard" assertion. That is imo a different topic than the question which goal could be the more fruitful one.
Of course that is a unfortunate side effect in a lot of discussions, but (again 🙂 ) one of the reasons for my question was exactly the fact that no broad agreement did exist wrt to the underlying goal.
As i started with some interest in audio i thought that there is a clear definition of the goal(s) to reach but was surprised to learn that this definition does not seem to exist (but maybe i missed something therefore did ask). Of course one could find some brief sentences within books covering certain aspects of acoustical engineering (see for example Olson who wrote something similar to Hoeg ) but overall it were rarely clearly defined.
we fret and obsess over the ability of our sound systems to "reproduce" music faithfully maybe we should stop hiding in our listening rooms and gather together to hear the real thing!
or we can resign ourselves to the fact all attempts at "hi-fi" reproduction are hampered by the recording process to begin with(to my understanding there isn't any current recording medium that has the ability to record/encode all the information needed) and we're all trying to simply create the best illusion possible...
or we can resign ourselves to the fact all attempts at "hi-fi" reproduction are hampered by the recording process to begin with(to my understanding there isn't any current recording medium that has the ability to record/encode all the information needed) and we're all trying to simply create the best illusion possible...
I was tongue in cheek there, but with a serious point. And nowadays I think there are more and more people who never hear "the real thing". Apparently plenty don't like live music as it doesn't sound good enough!
My understanding is that to get helpful results it is important to vary only one parameter at a time, to the extent that this is reasonably possible. I believe this is what happened. People were not asked to compare two different systems, but one system with adjustable electrical parameters. In that sense the testing is narrow, but that is deliberate; a 'wider' test could easily deliver no useful information. No test will be perfect.Jakob2 said:
I wondered if your remark was not entirely serious, but online it is not always easy to tell!awkwardbydesign said:
Yes, there seems to be lots of audio enthusiasts who either don't know what the real thing sounds like, or prefer a modified version. This is one of the issues which muddy the waters of hi-fi discussions, as many of these people still want to claim that they like/desire hi-fi when in fact they do not. As I said, it is like people who like to claim that they follow a particular religion/politics/fashion but actually do not; why such people do this is a mystery to me.
as someone who's been in sound reinforcement and recording for the greater part of my life the one question i heard that made me realize just how wide the divide in perception and expectations was when someone at a live concert with a known "labelled" band said, " why can't they make it sound like the record?"
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.