BBC Dip

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I am rather disquieted by posts which make assertions in a seemingly dogmatic way, the poster apparently not prepared to illustrate why he believes his assertions to be valid, and showing with supportive evidence and reasoning, why he holds his beliefs.
I had hoped that, and it has happened on many other threads on both this forum and others, for an amicable discussion in which two way interaction was not composed of just assertions, and a statement that the other members are wrong.
Surely in this way we help each other and nurture mutual gain in knowledge, perhaps even enlightening others, and helping them past obstacles in their understanding, or even discovering that we ourselves have had misconceptions.
I experience this on other audio forums, and also in my gym, in which there are many much stronger than I, and also not as strong, but where there prevails a sense of camaraderie and mutual support regardless of apparent status.
 
I am rather disquieted by posts which make assertions in a seemingly dogmatic way, the poster apparently not prepared to illustrate why he believes his assertions to be valid, and showing with supportive evidence and reasoning, why he holds his beliefs.
I had hoped that, and it has happened on many other threads on both this forum and others, for an amicable discussion in which two way interaction was not composed of just assertions, and a statement that the other members are wrong.
Surely in this way we help each other and nurture mutual gain in knowledge, perhaps even enlightening others, and helping them past obstacles in their understanding, or even discovering that we ourselves have had misconceptions.
I experience this on other audio forums, and also in my gym, in which there are many much stronger than I, and also not as strong, but where there prevails a sense of camaraderie and mutual support regardless of apparent status.

I trust that this comment is directed at the person who stated my comments were "not true"? My comments are not assertions or opinions but a statement of well-understood engineering principles. Where in other threads I have provided speculative thoughts, my comments are clearly presented as questions.

As for backing up my contributions in this thread, I direct the reader to every paper on stereo that has ever been written. I have earlier in this thread (I think) also made reference to the seminal paper by Bennet, Barker and Edeko ("A New Approach to the Assessment of Stereophonic Sound System Performance", JAES May 1985) that covers precisely the issue of confusion that has arisen in this thread.

I entirely agree that this should be an amicable forum, but bold statements of errant facts are out of place.
 
You have fundamentally misunderstood how stereo works and are confusing it with binaural methods.

I repeat that stereo works (at low frequencies) only because both channels are heard in both ears.

Am I now? That statement comes across as being a bit anti-social.. You can of course repeat all you want.

And I will repeat that in a binaural recording, both "channels" of the recorded sound ARE heard in both ears but encoded into seperate tracks at the recording stage (or artifically encoded via DSP at the mixing stage). They are kept isolated from each other at the replay stage.. I am not really sure where the difficulty lies in taking that onboard!

Binaural is stereo. Stereo is anything incorporating two-track for any sense of space.

If you're stuck in thinking that Blumlein stereo techniques ARE the definition of stereo, then that's an error in language in your part. Even Blumlein is described as a stereo technique - i.e. "stereo" is the broader term, Blumlein or Binaural are subsets of all stereo techniques.

You know, we're all human here - don't worry about a feeling of authority over a subject is being challenged by accepting a misunderstanding somewhere in this thread.
 
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Binaural is stereo. Stereo is anything incorporating two-track for any sense of space.

Binaural techniques employ two discrete channels recorded via a dummy head (or like object) and replayed specifically over headphones. When binaural recordings are replayed over two or more loudpeakers, they require additional "cross-cancellation" processing and the method is known as transaural stereo.

In stereophony, there are two non-discrete channels of information that are intended for reproduction specifically over two or more loudspeakers. No additional processing is required barring a shuffler that is seldom adopted and the possibility of the "BBC dip" that is the subject of this thread. Blumlein's techiques are a subset of stereophonic methods.

Binaural and stereo techniques are therefore fundamentally different: Binaural methods seek to reproduce signals at the listener's ears, whilst stereophonic methods attempt to recreate a soundfield around one or more listeners. Confusion evidently arises, however - not least since transaural techniques can be combined to good effect with stereophony when "crossed over" at a suitable frequency (as I have commented previously elsewhere in this forum).

And I will repeat that in a binaural recording, both "channels" of the recorded sound ARE heard in both ears but encoded into seperate tracks at the recording stage (or artifically encoded via DSP at the mixing stage). They are kept isolated from each other at the replay stage.. I am not really sure where the difficulty lies in taking that onboard!

The comb filtering from two or more loudspeakers evident in stereo is not apparent with binaural methods because there are no acoustic paths to generate the additional interference. Furthermore, the effect of head shadowing in stereo will manifest itself differently to a listener sat in the original recording environment or listening to a binaural recording over headphones, because the loudspeakers are necessarily in front of the listener. It is for this reason that the "BBC dip" is applicable only to stereophony.
 
As I say, the "in the head" sound from listening on headphones is because it has been mixed/mastered for the usual speaker setup... when music is mixed for headphones, you create what you want and intend with isolated ears. Granted, in the past, the practicalities of recording dictated that it was easier to mix for a stereo soundfield to be replayed on a hifi setup .. which then doesn't work on headphones in the same way. Not so much these days.

I disagree with this.

The reason why "in the head" sound from listening on headphones is because headphone does not track head movement. When your head moves even slightly, the sound source moves with it, that is the problem of the headphone, and it causes "in the head" sound. With speaker, the sound source never moves.

If headphone has a head tracking system like 3D VR headset, I'm pretty sure that headphone should sound much more natural, and sooner or later, someone will start this business, I guess, since head tracking technology is now matured and cheap.
 
I disagree with this.

The reason why "in the head" sound from listening on headphones is because headphone does not track head movement. When your head moves even slightly, the sound source moves with it, that is the problem of the headphone, and it causes "in the head" sound. With speaker, the sound source never moves.

If headphone has a head tracking system like 3D VR headset, I'm pretty sure that headphone should sound much more natural, and sooner or later, someone will start this business, I guess, since head tracking technology is now matured and cheap.

Doesn't that agree with what I said?

If the music is intentionally produced with this 3D tracking technology involved then the effect that you describe will be negated. And yet you will still be listening via headphones.

Listen to a binaural recording or synthesised surround sound conversion to binaural stereo on headphones and again the "in your head" sound disappears, even if the soundfield moves as your head moves.

So, yes it's a matter of choice at the production stage. However, it would be so outside of many listeners' comfort zones and expectation that it would cause a lot of complaint.. and play badly on conventional hifi, so people just produce to the expected, normal stereophonic scheme of replay.

But it *is* a choice.

The problem is one of acceptance and marketability.. but if you're making your own music, you can do what you want and instruct people how to best listen to it.
 
Binaural techniques employ two discrete channels recorded via a dummy head (or like object) and replayed specifically over headphones. When binaural recordings are replayed over two or more loudpeakers, they require additional "cross-cancellation" processing and the method is known as transaural stereo.

In stereophony, there are two non-discrete channels of information that are intended for reproduction specifically over two or more loudspeakers. No additional processing is required barring a shuffler that is seldom adopted and the possibility of the "BBC dip" that is the subject of this thread. Blumlein's techiques are a subset of stereophonic methods.

Binaural and stereo techniques are therefore fundamentally different: Binaural methods seek to reproduce signals at the listener's ears, whilst stereophonic methods attempt to recreate a soundfield around one or more listeners. Confusion evidently arises, however - not least since transaural techniques can be combined to good effect with stereophony when "crossed over" at a suitable frequency (as I have commented previously elsewhere in this forum).

Which agrees with my statement that you quoted. At last... to disagree was just to sow confusion because of insistance on a particular semantic.


The comb filtering from two or more loudspeakers evident in stereo is not apparent with binaural methods because there are no acoustic paths to generate the additional interference. Furthermore, the effect of head shadowing in stereo will manifest itself differently to a listener sat in the original recording environment or listening to a binaural recording over headphones, because the loudspeakers are necessarily in front of the listener. It is for this reason that the "BBC dip" is applicable only to stereophony.

Again, this is repeating what I had said earlier and that you implied as being false. Glad we can finally put it down to a misunderstanding.


When one works through the logic of a BBC dip during monitoring, it serves to pass through the audio to the next stage of production without having the stereo lift be accidentally EQ'd out. Great for live monitoring for broadcast / recording.

When mastering (the final stage before release to the consumer), it would need to be monitored using speakers close to that of your chosen consumer (so you can hear what they will hear) . It would be unlikely they will be using BBC-dip speakers so it will be unwise to master using some. Therefore if the consumer does use BBC-dip speakers, they will hear that dip as a distortion of frequency response.

Sounds like then it's a bad idea for the end consumer but good for monitoring live audio - for which BBC speakers were mostly designed (and then designed to replicate for consistancy across monitors).

Unless of course people have become accustomed to the colouration and like it... which is a whole different thing.
 
I just must be feeling a bit grumpy tonight. But AFAIK, the "BBC dip" was just a gentle rolloff of the frequency response toward the top end. :confused:

Troels Gravesen agrees with me:
Left: So here we have the measured response (red) from the speaker. System sensitivity is around 90 dB and the speakers has a minor BBC dip towards higher frequencies to gain a natural balance sound.

SEAS-3-Way-Classic

Monitors are designed to sound accurate. Domestic speakers are designed to sound NICE!
 
I agree with NATDBERG about the consistency between the speakers used for mastering, and those at home for listening.

According to Alan Shaw of Harbeth, the dip was specifically to alleviate the fatigue that BBC people in studios all day when monitoring O/P, and it effectively placed the image further away.

Where the dip was, does seem to have been described as around the 3k mark, and that surely is towards the higher frequencies.
 
I just must be feeling a bit grumpy tonight. But AFAIK, the "BBC dip" was just a gentle rolloff of the frequency response toward the top end. :confused:

Troels Gravesen agrees with me:


SEAS-3-Way-Classic

Monitors are designed to sound accurate. Domestic speakers are designed to sound NICE!

I have noted that you qoute or refere to troels gravesen in almost every post you make, are you in some way close friend to troels or maybe a business partner?
 
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If it was about wide curve shaping, why they called it a "dip" and not a "tilt" then? But I am not English to know better so a dip can also mean a down trend than just a local depression like putting one's finger in yogurt? Please enlighten us foreigners. :confused:
 
Yes, I'm sorry I had forgotten that the website has changed and no longer can non members get access.


In particular it shows several measurements of LS 5/8s and LS 5/9s having a failry severe dip of several dB, maybe 5, between about 1.5K and 4k.


Each is consistent with the other, and also across several samples, but the original design specimens from the Research Dept, apparently did not have this.


Rogers seem to have changed the FR.
 
Here I thought the "BBC Dip" was used to compensate for level differences that a recording mic would pick up and our own hearing in the 1-3khz range. According to Linkwitz, our hearing in that range tends to ignore diffuse fields whereas a mic does not. Hence on playback, this range is amplified. A "dip" here corrects for that.
 
Here I thought the "BBC Dip" was used to compensate for level differences that a recording mic would pick up and our own hearing in the 1-3khz range. According to Linkwitz, our hearing in that range tends to ignore diffuse fields whereas a mic does not. Hence on playback, this range is amplified. A "dip" here corrects for that.
If that's the reason, then not would be easier to compensate the elevated range at the mixing/mastering stage of the recording?

I thought that the dip is there to get a more linear power response instead of linear on-axis response because of mismatched directivity of the mid and tweeter. But may I wrong, of course.
 
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