Dead implies very little energy and resembles an anechoic chamber. Accuracy combined with liveliness and energy is far better psycho acoustically. But again, few know what this is really is. People tend to either end up with either inaccurate and lively or quite dead. Neither of those work well.
Seriously, hire me! It's too much work to share in details. Besides, "the how" will depend on the room and other aspect. In other words; there isn't one recipe.Dear Omholt
Would you enlighten us then by saying how to combine, rather than saying we all fail?
cheers
Josh
I'm not expensive FIY. It still amazes me how much money audiophiles are willing to spend on electronics, cables, speakers, new speaker drivers, etc and how little they pay attention to what's more important then anything: The room. People are wasting both years and money.
A 'live' acoustic is an inherent requirement for stereo (please see my earlier posts). In a 'live' acoustic environment, the reflected energy essentially blurs the signals at the ears and compensates for the otherwise obvious comb filtering evident in conventional stereo reproduction - for which there is then no "accurate", anechoic solution.
Quite possibly he has arrived at the same conclusions.
Removing high gain specular reflections gives better imaging, clarity, intelligibility, localization, etc. Too much of it, and you end up with a messy and blurry sound stage. Something I highly doubt people prefer if they heard an accurate sound stage combined with liveliness and spaciousness.
A live acoustic environment seldom has early arriving specular energy.
Omholt, maybe you do not need to start from big bang. Just indicate where youre heading to. As it seems you can spend some minutes on a few lines, so... 
Investigating on your profiles homepage... I would assume youre more a supporter of wide-dispersion speaker in combination with serious room treatment of absorbtion, but not too much, with high diffusion too (not to get overly dry). Is that what you mean?
I also have experience with wide and narrow in wet rooms. And then yes, its either blured or tunnel-sound. And dry-room plus narrow is the worst.
So I currently run wide-dispersion in a well (not over) treated room, and I am amazed with the result. In my opinion, phantoms cant be more realistic (almost able to touch them) than I have now. No evening i dont listen with open mouth for the 4th week in row
What you say in regards of waste. I support you. Especially on cables. While the room is still T60 of 1000ms
Dont be angry, not everyone can know everything. Hints are enough, knowledge is accessible to everyone, once inspired.
As long as one makes conclusions, nothing is wasted but "educational-fee".
cheers
Josh
Investigating on your profiles homepage... I would assume youre more a supporter of wide-dispersion speaker in combination with serious room treatment of absorbtion, but not too much, with high diffusion too (not to get overly dry). Is that what you mean?
I also have experience with wide and narrow in wet rooms. And then yes, its either blured or tunnel-sound. And dry-room plus narrow is the worst.
So I currently run wide-dispersion in a well (not over) treated room, and I am amazed with the result. In my opinion, phantoms cant be more realistic (almost able to touch them) than I have now. No evening i dont listen with open mouth for the 4th week in row
What you say in regards of waste. I support you. Especially on cables. While the room is still T60 of 1000ms
Dont be angry, not everyone can know everything. Hints are enough, knowledge is accessible to everyone, once inspired.
As long as one makes conclusions, nothing is wasted but "educational-fee".
cheers
Josh
No. I believe in a speaker dispersion pattern that suits the need. I'm working on both wide and narrow horizontal directivity speaker designs. Both have their place IMO.
No "tunnel-sound" if things are done correctly.I also have experience with wide and narrow in wet rooms. And then yes, its either blured or tunnel-sound. And dry-room plus narrow is the worst.
So I currently run wide-dispersion in a well (not over) treated room, and I am amazed with the result. In my opinion, phantoms cant be more realistic (almost able to touch them) than I have now. No evening i dont listen with open mouth for the 4th week in row
If you are referring to RT60, that's not valid in small rooms at all. It required a diffuse sound field, something no small rooms have.What you say in regards of waste. I support you. Especially on cables. While the room is still T60 of 1000ms
Dont be angry, not everyone can know everything. Hints are enough, knowledge is accessible to everyone, once inspired.
As long as one makes conclusions, nothing is wasted but "educational-fee".
cheers
Josh
I'm not angry
Just annoying
Yes i was talking about RT, the R fell under the table.
Well I prefer talking about RT60 as it gives a common understanding of what quantity we are talking. I assume my 40sqm room rather qualifies for RT20?
Not sure "done right" applies to all rooms. I ran a true dipole-line-source with extraordinary good result in an 1000msec room. The RT60 dropped 30% below 700 and it was quiet listanable- in opposite to any other topology. Still it was not excellent. I guess important to split reverberation into sub-units as intensity, duration, etc etc...
I personally (not having much professional background there) focus on having:
- no reflection earlier than 3msec in the ETC
- linear power response within 30msec gate
- stay above 300msec RT60 to avoid "too dry" (i like 400)
- diffuse the "main-mirror" spots on walls
- do the snap check in all corners to hunt flutter echoes
- religiously avoid RT raise in the lows (e.g. notching)
cheers
Josh
edit: I pick the speaker rather on my personal liking. The room is where i happen to live. So i first build the speaker. Then put enough foam into the room to create my favorite RT60 time while measuring. Diffusion as last optimization for best stage experience. That's a linear process leading quickly to success. I think avoiding the men-cave-lookalike is far more challenging.
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Sorry Josh, but you are way out there. So much misunderstanding on basic stuff.
Yes i was talking about RT, the R fell under the table.
Well I prefer talking about RT60 as it gives a common understanding of what quantity we are talking. I assume my 40sqm room rather qualifies for RT20?
Not sure "done right" applies to all rooms. I ran a true dipole-line-source with extraordinary good result in an 1000msec room. The RT60 dropped 30% below 700 and it was quiet listanable- in opposite to any other topology. Still it was not excellent. I guess important to split reverberation into sub-units as intensity, duration, etc etc...
I personally (not having much professional background there) focus on having:
- no reflection earlier than 3msec in the ETC
- linear power response within 30msec gate
- stay above 300msec RT60 to avoid "too dry" (i like 400)
- diffuse the "main-mirror" spots on walls
- do the snap check in all corners to hunt flutter echoes
- religiously avoid RT raise in the lows (e.g. notching)
cheers
Josh
edit: I pick the speaker rather on my personal liking. The room is where i happen to live. So i first build the speaker. Then put enough foam into the room to create my favorite RT60 time while measuring. Diffusion as last optimization for best stage experience. That's a linear process leading quickly to success. I think avoiding the men-cave-lookalike is far more challenging.
Sorry but it has to with the time it takes. Teaching basics and building upon that, which your former post illustrates well is highly needed. And one has to fight wrong arguments and misconceptions in between. Sorry, but it's way too time consuming. That's exactly why people should hire someone. Lecturing information one has acquired over years at a forum is not easy thing. Especially with all the subjective nonsense being said by so many.
However, I given the generals guidelines of how to achieve a combination of both accuracy and spaciousness/liveliness. Something I believe most will prefer if they actually get to hear it.
Ex recording mixing engineer here. Spent +10,000 hours in the chair in a variety of studios and control rooms. Some much nicer than others, a couple of certified LEDE control rooms, Tom Hidley design, etc.
For my part, I can say that I tried my best to get the best possible sound quality given the constraints of time and dollars. Back when I was in the biz, recording budgets were much bigger and before everyone had a studio in a box (think Garage Band or any DAW for $100). Now everyone is an artist, producer, engineer, using presets in the DAW for instant loudness war. (Sorry being cynical).
Re; what the artist intended... Well, for the most part, it was the Producer and/or engineers that painted the sound on the canvas (other than live to 2 track recordings). Every band has "their" sound. The idea of a Producer and audio engineers is to maximise the bands "unique" sound (in addition to producing the music). Further, we have control over if the band was to sound like at an intimate club setting or big delay/reverb sound of a concert hall of stadium.
And there are industry guidelines and standards, plus a ton of reference material on how to record and mix good sound, including schools and collages. Here is one example of an industry guideline: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3276.pdf It is old, but I have worked in many a control room and with speakers that meet the spec.
If you look through the guideline, there is a section on speakers, that also has a spec for Directivity Index and other attributes on smooth on and off axis response. I believe these still apply today. However, with the advent of Toole's and Olive's work, there is a better frequency response target to shoot for: NAD VISO HP50 with Roomfeel Headphone Review - Reviews - Audiophile Style
With respect to monitoring, most of us at that time used Urei "time aligns" or JBL's with a variety of "on top of the mixing bridge" near field monitors/speakers. We took our mixes and listened to them on everything imaginable, car stereos, home stereos, boom boxes, audiophile systems, etc., before we sent the mixes to the mastering house with everyone's input. The engineers job is to ensure that it sounds as good as possible across all of these systems. The industry term is translation.
As to one's home system, I try and follow industry guidelines as I am interested to hear how it was recorded and mixed as much as I like to listen to the music. It is not too hard to get fairly close in one's living room with some glaring issues, like really low ambient noise or size of room and room ratio. I know I can get close, as I know what some artists intended as I mixed it
In the end, it ultimately comes down to ones preference as the deciding factor is how much room sound is mixed in with the direct sound, which speaker direcitivity has a huge impact on. You can hear it for yourselves in the binaural recordings I made comparing wide versus narrow directivity speakers: KEF LS50 (David) Versus JBL 4722 Cinema (Goliath) Speaker Comparison with Binaural Recordings - Reviews - Audiophile Style
Unless your room is overly absorbent or overly live or is a bad room ratio, or the speakers don't have smooth on and off axis frequency response, you are likely listening to the essence of what the artist intended, so... enjoy the music!
For my part, I can say that I tried my best to get the best possible sound quality given the constraints of time and dollars. Back when I was in the biz, recording budgets were much bigger and before everyone had a studio in a box (think Garage Band or any DAW for $100). Now everyone is an artist, producer, engineer, using presets in the DAW for instant loudness war. (Sorry being cynical).
Re; what the artist intended... Well, for the most part, it was the Producer and/or engineers that painted the sound on the canvas (other than live to 2 track recordings). Every band has "their" sound. The idea of a Producer and audio engineers is to maximise the bands "unique" sound (in addition to producing the music). Further, we have control over if the band was to sound like at an intimate club setting or big delay/reverb sound of a concert hall of stadium.
And there are industry guidelines and standards, plus a ton of reference material on how to record and mix good sound, including schools and collages. Here is one example of an industry guideline: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3276.pdf It is old, but I have worked in many a control room and with speakers that meet the spec.
If you look through the guideline, there is a section on speakers, that also has a spec for Directivity Index and other attributes on smooth on and off axis response. I believe these still apply today. However, with the advent of Toole's and Olive's work, there is a better frequency response target to shoot for: NAD VISO HP50 with Roomfeel Headphone Review - Reviews - Audiophile Style
With respect to monitoring, most of us at that time used Urei "time aligns" or JBL's with a variety of "on top of the mixing bridge" near field monitors/speakers. We took our mixes and listened to them on everything imaginable, car stereos, home stereos, boom boxes, audiophile systems, etc., before we sent the mixes to the mastering house with everyone's input. The engineers job is to ensure that it sounds as good as possible across all of these systems. The industry term is translation.
As to one's home system, I try and follow industry guidelines as I am interested to hear how it was recorded and mixed as much as I like to listen to the music. It is not too hard to get fairly close in one's living room with some glaring issues, like really low ambient noise or size of room and room ratio. I know I can get close, as I know what some artists intended as I mixed it
In the end, it ultimately comes down to ones preference as the deciding factor is how much room sound is mixed in with the direct sound, which speaker direcitivity has a huge impact on. You can hear it for yourselves in the binaural recordings I made comparing wide versus narrow directivity speakers: KEF LS50 (David) Versus JBL 4722 Cinema (Goliath) Speaker Comparison with Binaural Recordings - Reviews - Audiophile Style
Unless your room is overly absorbent or overly live or is a bad room ratio, or the speakers don't have smooth on and off axis frequency response, you are likely listening to the essence of what the artist intended, so... enjoy the music!
I thought your positions came from testing other people not from personal preferences? You know, like scientists.
Ex recording mixing engineer here. Spent +10,000 hours in the chair in a variety of studios and control rooms. Some much nicer than others, a couple of certified LEDE control rooms, Tom Hidley design, etc.
For my part, I can say that I tried my best to get the best possible sound quality given the constraints of time and dollars. Back when I was in the biz, recording budgets were much bigger and before everyone had a studio in a box (think Garage Band or any DAW for $100). Now everyone is an artist, producer, engineer, using presets in the DAW for instant loudness war. (Sorry being cynical).
Re; what the artist intended... Well, for the most part, it was the Producer and/or engineers that painted the sound on the canvas (other than live to 2 track recordings). Every band has "their" sound. The idea of a Producer and audio engineers is to maximise the bands "unique" sound (in addition to producing the music). Further, we have control over if the band was to sound like at an intimate club setting or big delay/reverb sound of a concert hall of stadium.
And there are industry guidelines and standards, plus a ton of reference material on how to record and mix good sound, including schools and collages. Here is one example of an industry guideline: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3276.pdf It is old, but I have worked in many a control room and with speakers that meet the spec.
If you look through the guideline, there is a section on speakers, that also has a spec for Directivity Index and other attributes on smooth on and off axis response. I believe these still apply today. However, with the advent of Toole's and Olive's work, there is a better frequency response target to shoot for: NAD VISO HP50 with Roomfeel Headphone Review - Reviews - Audiophile Style
With respect to monitoring, most of us at that time used Urei "time aligns" or JBL's with a variety of "on top of the mixing bridge" near field monitors/speakers. We took our mixes and listened to them on everything imaginable, car stereos, home stereos, boom boxes, audiophile systems, etc., before we sent the mixes to the mastering house with everyone's input. The engineers job is to ensure that it sounds as good as possible across all of these systems. The industry term is translation.
As to one's home system, I try and follow industry guidelines as I am interested to hear how it was recorded and mixed as much as I like to listen to the music. It is not too hard to get fairly close in one's living room with some glaring issues, like really low ambient noise or size of room and room ratio. I know I can get close, as I know what some artists intended as I mixed it
In the end, it ultimately comes down to ones preference as the deciding factor is how much room sound is mixed in with the direct sound, which speaker direcitivity has a huge impact on. You can hear it for yourselves in the binaural recordings I made comparing wide versus narrow directivity speakers: KEF LS50 (David) Versus JBL 4722 Cinema (Goliath) Speaker Comparison with Binaural Recordings - Reviews - Audiophile Style
Unless your room is overly absorbent or overly live or is a bad room ratio, or the speakers don't have smooth on and off axis frequency response, you are likely listening to the essence of what the artist intended, so... enjoy the music!
So at what point should a speaker become more directional? Also if you listen to a lot of bad recordings with midrange glare then is it better to have wide directivity? I know there is a trade off with less dynamics and imaging.
I'm not buying anyones books either
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