did a search, and only one post came up.
was browsing romys site the other night, yeah am a sucker for punishment, and a dude called thorsten (loesch??spelling?)had made an interesting post about eq, think it was the model before the deq.
anyway, his 'take' on the blauert bands caught my imagination, will take the liberty of pasting the relevant section here
(from) http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=792#792
Having fun with an Equaliser and "Blauert Bands".... In the 1970's a Major Dude in Germany called Jens Blauert wrote about the effect of boosting/cutting narrow on the spatial localisation of sound sources. This is a piece of work on psycho Acoustics that is still not well known even in Germany, never mind anywhere else (Jens Blauert "Raeumliches Hoeren" S. Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart, 1974). Anyway, the upshot of Mr. Blauerts work is that five critical bands exists that effect the localisation as front/back and high. In the context of Stereo controlling these narrow bands by a few db will give more "presence” or a more diffuse, distant sound perception. As most if not all modern and even many early recordings are clearly miked way too close and give a way to "present" sound for my liking I choose to investigate my "psycho acoustic" target curve for my digital EQ. A more present perception can be attained by boosting the 270...550Hz range and the 2.7...5.5KHz range (note the difference of a whole decade and identical bandwidth of these two bands), or indeed, reducing the level in those bands can reduce the "presence". I choose originally to boost the range below 125Hz uniformly by around 2.5db with a gentle roll off towards flat that reaches 0db at 315Hz, thus effectively reducing the output in the 300...500Hz, so already one layer of de-presencing has been completed. In the upper midrange I choose to put a fairly deep (-3db) notch around 2.5KHz, which I felt left a good vocal intelligibility while making the sound much less "in yer face". Whenever I went higher with the center frequency I found that the sound lost too much "clarity", very much in line with Mr. Blauerts ascertains. Both these changes where arrived at purely by listening, without knowledge of Mr. Blauerts work. They have been longstanding in my system in addition to a gentle HF roll off (1db/Octave) above 2.5KHz. Based on Mr. Blauerts points about the "height" band 7...9KHz I boosted this by about 3db and indeed got a bigger impression of Soundscape height by further boosting the range up to 20KHz in accordance I got more depth. Equally, a corresponding band is a decade lower between 700Hz and 1700Hz, which I also boosted by around 3db. The effect of those additions to my "standard" psycho acoustic correction curve dramatically increased the sense of spaciousness and the backwards reach of the soundscape. I now recommend a target curve for the presetting of room equalisers and room corrections as follows: Look at the capabilities of your speakers in terms of low and high frequency reproduction as detailed above. Add to the above curve a 1db/octave (on the Behringer UC EQ this means each slider is moved by the smallest possible step) above 2.5KHz (meaning 2.5KHz is FLAT). Now OVERLAY a secondary curve that boosts the range below 125Hz by 2 - 3db (more boost - warmer sound) with a gentle roll off towards higher frequencies, reaching back to flat at 315 Hz. Boost the range between 800Hz and 1.6KHz uniformly by around 2db with a 1db boost in the two adjacent bands (630Hz and 2KHz). Place a -3db dip at 2.5KHz with a 3db/octave slope. Boost the range between 8KHz and 16KHz uniformly by 2db with 1db in the adjacent bands (6.3KHz and 20KHz). The addition of the above fairly complex described here frequency function will give a much more "pleasant" sound while it fits within the TRUE capabilities of the speaker into the tolerance field recommended by the IRT (German Industry body lead by the federal radio stations, similar to the BBC's now defunked research center) for domestic/studio monitoring. If your speaker system genuinely is capable of covering the 20Hz - 20KHz range your speaker system will still be 100% compliant with the IRT recommendations for Monitors, while having a subjective tonality and spatiality that is much improved over a fully linear frequency response.
Have since found an identical post on (what I presume to be) thorstens own site.
A google search on blauert bands does not turn up too much, mainly extracts and 'convention paper' extracts etc.
anyone have more data on these five bands, and what the effect is?
My drivers are out of the box right now as I near the end of my build, but it will be something I will check out a bit when I can.
Does anyone here know more about this stuff? Has anyone tried it for themselves, if so what did you find?
was browsing romys site the other night, yeah am a sucker for punishment, and a dude called thorsten (loesch??spelling?)had made an interesting post about eq, think it was the model before the deq.
anyway, his 'take' on the blauert bands caught my imagination, will take the liberty of pasting the relevant section here
(from) http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=792#792
Having fun with an Equaliser and "Blauert Bands".... In the 1970's a Major Dude in Germany called Jens Blauert wrote about the effect of boosting/cutting narrow on the spatial localisation of sound sources. This is a piece of work on psycho Acoustics that is still not well known even in Germany, never mind anywhere else (Jens Blauert "Raeumliches Hoeren" S. Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart, 1974). Anyway, the upshot of Mr. Blauerts work is that five critical bands exists that effect the localisation as front/back and high. In the context of Stereo controlling these narrow bands by a few db will give more "presence” or a more diffuse, distant sound perception. As most if not all modern and even many early recordings are clearly miked way too close and give a way to "present" sound for my liking I choose to investigate my "psycho acoustic" target curve for my digital EQ. A more present perception can be attained by boosting the 270...550Hz range and the 2.7...5.5KHz range (note the difference of a whole decade and identical bandwidth of these two bands), or indeed, reducing the level in those bands can reduce the "presence". I choose originally to boost the range below 125Hz uniformly by around 2.5db with a gentle roll off towards flat that reaches 0db at 315Hz, thus effectively reducing the output in the 300...500Hz, so already one layer of de-presencing has been completed. In the upper midrange I choose to put a fairly deep (-3db) notch around 2.5KHz, which I felt left a good vocal intelligibility while making the sound much less "in yer face". Whenever I went higher with the center frequency I found that the sound lost too much "clarity", very much in line with Mr. Blauerts ascertains. Both these changes where arrived at purely by listening, without knowledge of Mr. Blauerts work. They have been longstanding in my system in addition to a gentle HF roll off (1db/Octave) above 2.5KHz. Based on Mr. Blauerts points about the "height" band 7...9KHz I boosted this by about 3db and indeed got a bigger impression of Soundscape height by further boosting the range up to 20KHz in accordance I got more depth. Equally, a corresponding band is a decade lower between 700Hz and 1700Hz, which I also boosted by around 3db. The effect of those additions to my "standard" psycho acoustic correction curve dramatically increased the sense of spaciousness and the backwards reach of the soundscape. I now recommend a target curve for the presetting of room equalisers and room corrections as follows: Look at the capabilities of your speakers in terms of low and high frequency reproduction as detailed above. Add to the above curve a 1db/octave (on the Behringer UC EQ this means each slider is moved by the smallest possible step) above 2.5KHz (meaning 2.5KHz is FLAT). Now OVERLAY a secondary curve that boosts the range below 125Hz by 2 - 3db (more boost - warmer sound) with a gentle roll off towards higher frequencies, reaching back to flat at 315 Hz. Boost the range between 800Hz and 1.6KHz uniformly by around 2db with a 1db boost in the two adjacent bands (630Hz and 2KHz). Place a -3db dip at 2.5KHz with a 3db/octave slope. Boost the range between 8KHz and 16KHz uniformly by 2db with 1db in the adjacent bands (6.3KHz and 20KHz). The addition of the above fairly complex described here frequency function will give a much more "pleasant" sound while it fits within the TRUE capabilities of the speaker into the tolerance field recommended by the IRT (German Industry body lead by the federal radio stations, similar to the BBC's now defunked research center) for domestic/studio monitoring. If your speaker system genuinely is capable of covering the 20Hz - 20KHz range your speaker system will still be 100% compliant with the IRT recommendations for Monitors, while having a subjective tonality and spatiality that is much improved over a fully linear frequency response.
Have since found an identical post on (what I presume to be) thorstens own site.
A google search on blauert bands does not turn up too much, mainly extracts and 'convention paper' extracts etc.
anyone have more data on these five bands, and what the effect is?
My drivers are out of the box right now as I near the end of my build, but it will be something I will check out a bit when I can.
Does anyone here know more about this stuff? Has anyone tried it for themselves, if so what did you find?
Thorsten Loesch did sum it up pretty well. If you want Blauerts own write-ups:
One of Blauerts explanations.
You may also try to translate this.
Or search at google books for 'spatial hearing'.
One of Blauerts explanations.
You may also try to translate this.
Or search at google books for 'spatial hearing'.
thanks rudolf, will check them out,,,tho a google translation of german might not get me far!!
have you ever tried it out?
If thorsten did a good job of translating it for us then it does sound interesting. Will have to pick it apart a bit more when the system is back up and running, but I don't really recall an explicit outlining of the 'five' bands and their effects, just what he did at the time.
does thorsten post on diy at all? If I find I need more data, I should track down his website again, found it once sure I can do it again. I found the exact same 'article' on his website, but he may be kind enough to respond to communication.
EDIT
wow, never even knew google books existed!! I first thought it might be like 'amazon books' you know a place to buy books and just a little summary, but no, the books are there themselves!!
Anyway, spatial hearing turned up a book (in english fortunately) by jens blauert and john allen.
thanks rudolf, have a bit of reading to sink my teeth into
have you ever tried it out?
If thorsten did a good job of translating it for us then it does sound interesting. Will have to pick it apart a bit more when the system is back up and running, but I don't really recall an explicit outlining of the 'five' bands and their effects, just what he did at the time.
does thorsten post on diy at all? If I find I need more data, I should track down his website again, found it once sure I can do it again. I found the exact same 'article' on his website, but he may be kind enough to respond to communication.
EDIT
wow, never even knew google books existed!! I first thought it might be like 'amazon books' you know a place to buy books and just a little summary, but no, the books are there themselves!!
Anyway, spatial hearing turned up a book (in english fortunately) by jens blauert and john allen.
thanks rudolf, have a bit of reading to sink my teeth into
Thorsten Loesch used to post as 'Kuei Yang Wang' on DIY. One of his threads was Are you (open) baffled yet? - long time ago.
I never tried to shape my loudspeaker response according to Blauert. If ever, I believe, it has to be done during the mastering process of a CD production. I have CDs which already are 'in my face' and others, which are quite 'distant'. But I'm not going to adjust the response curve for every single CD 'to taste'.
I never tried to shape my loudspeaker response according to Blauert. If ever, I believe, it has to be done during the mastering process of a CD production. I have CDs which already are 'in my face' and others, which are quite 'distant'. But I'm not going to adjust the response curve for every single CD 'to taste'.
Rudolf said:
I can understand that Rudolf..what appeals to me about it is that I use the deqx, so it is a trivial matter to load four different profiles that can be recalled at will as the need arises.
Of course it all depends on the results I hear, but (if these 'things' can change the perceived soundstage as suggested) it could, be a very useful thing indeed.
'Specifics' I'm finding a little hard to pin down! To date tHORSTENS LITTLE ACCOUNT IS THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE YET (ouch, caps lock)
will check out that thread later, thanks for your help
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