It is possible I mixed it up with speech intelligibility.
However, I still hold my point that it is important to control dispersion under real living room conditions, depending of reflectivity, reverberation and listening distance.
Baseballbat
not necessarily - mono is flat from a forward radiating directional loudspeaker
but check this:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/121385-loudspeakers-room-system-108.html#post2133755
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well, but we do not want a listening room to have it's own "sound" like a performance space
a listening room should rather become a part of the system reproducing the sound, where the speakers are sort of projector and the room is a sort of a screen
as to "the absolute SPL of some reflections" - research done by Toole and Olive suggests that this may be not a problem in practice at all as normal reflections in a typical listening room are not loud enough to be detrimental
as to "the spectra of living room reflections" - these can be made effectively - if not completely - the same as the direct sound
neither these are inevitable in a listening room, VERs seem to be more of a problem of loudspeakers than of a listening room
yes, but we can get the IACC lower with just two speakers - we just need wider angles and "right" reflections, this is discussed in Toole's book
yes, probably, but this particular issue goes beyond the scope of discussing "controlled vs wide dispersion"
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this room looks like a real mess with all those asymmetries in 3D
but the only possible real problem is the ceiling sloping asymmetrically with regard to the axis of the stereo triangle - a flooder would work even in such a room for a listener on the big couch but this ceiling slope could be problematic, I am not sure though as I never tested such peculiar room geometry
perhaps a ceiling deflector(s) -a suspended ceiling in some area(s) - would be needed, a lighting could integrated into it to make it prettier and dual-purpose
I assume that all furniture and the axis of stereo triangle remains unchaged
ps. the above is just my first thought - some sort of a dipole speaker could also work, a line source or a planar, certainly some highly directional speakers like Geddes' or Danley's would make their sort of sound too in such a room albeit I am not certain whether this kind of LEDE-like arrangement with absorptive rear wall is best for them, Dr Geddes has it the other way round and with good reasons IIRC
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The listening room's acoustics are typically moved beyond the perceptual horizon to a high degree automatically because it is a known sourrounding.
Other physical properties of the room may be used for the speaker/room system but it is quite obvious that speaker/room/listener are always a system that cannot be separated anyway.
Quite correct. The question is if a high degrees of room contribution helps in creating believable acoustics from another auditory space (the recording) or if it prevents this from happening. There might be different answers for different (re-)production techniques?
while in another thread Markus has already given the answer:
and the answer is right
in fact a certain amount of right reflections can be seen as the measure of a speaker appropriateness for the room and of the rest
I would like to stress that this kind of realism is not just pleasant naturalness - it is also a kind of accuracy. Do You experience in Your omni based system any homogenization of spatial presentation? I mean like "everything sounds great and big picture but fundamentally the same"?
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It is certainly an important part of the speaker/listener/room interface and as such of the listening experience, yes.
Minor point: Pleasantness and naturalness are two attributes.
hmm, not sure I understand your question correctly but the two omni versions that I have right now (posted in this thread) are quite different. This little extra directivity of the tweeter makes quite a different spatial representation and perceived distance. It also has quite some influence on the phantom image.
i dont agree. 'accuracy' implies by its meaning, that reproduction is close to the original source. The degree of accuracy is the level to which source and output conform. Adding anything, THD, reverb, or noise and accuracy is compromised. I can see that some reflections can increase the naturalness, spaciousness, or ambience that is PERCEIVED, but its a jedi mind trick. Its just another distortion that should not be present, the fact that it may be pleasant is secondary, it isnt 'high fidelity'
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I mean do You experience something like this:
in other words - do all recordings sound more or less the same as if room acoustics is superimposed on the recorded spatial cues and masks them?
but what is the source? bits of information recorded on a cd? then who knows how bits sound? then this accuracy, this high fidelity is fidelity to what exactly?
the original "source" - the original real experience against which a "reproduction", an "illusion" can be judged - is a real instrument playing, a singer singing
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I see.
No that is not true. As I said, the listening room is "removed" to a high degree. I can easily distinguish between wet and dry recordings in a split second of an unknown recording. I even have recordings where I can tell what reverb is real from the recording environment (on one recording) and what has been synthetically been added (on another recording).
For that, though, you need to have a minimum required ratio of reflected to direct sound. So the listening distance is imperative with omnis (and wide dispersion speakers). More than approx. twice the critical distance is no good. But the same is true for directional speakers. You have to sit farther away to avoid "headphone like" representations (but again not beyond twice the critical distance).
The example of the audio show or the "all sounds the same" is clearly an indicator that the listening distance is too great. I have experience this myself multiple times at shows. It all sounds the same because the room dominates clearly. That is what you hear, a room with a speaker placed in it. Not a speaker in a room.
This quote from Tom Danley is yet another example that omnis are widely misunderstood or not understood.
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agreed. Accepted that inaccuracies are created throughout the signal chain. Its debatable if the worst is created in recording or reproduction, but they should be minimised. CD ADC errors, slew issues in amps are all present, to name a few. I would propose that with the right equipment, ADC at the recording (say the digitised analogue 'music' could be compared to the amp output or speaker output in anechoic room. The 'start' and 'end' digital data could be compared in software. This would give the whole chain an accuracy metric, which would be interesting. At present, to my knowledge, the acceptable accuracy is not quantified. The ear forgives many sins, but 'listening with rose tinted spectacles' is not a quality i seek in reproduction. If there are flaws in the musician-studio-recording-reproduction chain, then i expect to hear them, or at least what my brain doesnt screen out.
Correct. The funny thing is that omnis are more readily accepted by and more consistently preferred in listening tests by "untrained" listeners, compared to "trained" listeners. The culprit is not the omni speakers themselves. It's the "trained" listener. As said by another person in this thread, the training we get in listening to loudspeakers is not that of true fidelity as that would require that we know what type of microphones and what the entire recording set-up is on every single recording we listen. It is instead an acquired personal bias toward one specific type of sounding speakers and a specific way to listen.
One example I see a lot is that there is less detail in omnis. That's naturally not true, there's obviously the same details. They may be masked slightly as they might be less obtrusive but they are there.
This brings back the fidelity issue again. Would you had you been at the studio when it was recorded noticed the singers breathing or other tiny details. Probably not, and if you were, you'd have focused too much on this aspect to enjoy the music.
That's what omni (or bipolars) does to me. It brings back the focus on realism and enjoyment.
EDIT: I could go on by telling a story about a friend of mine which is by no means an audiophile but he built a system on my recommendations. What he said one day really hit the nail. He said (paraphrased as I can't remember the exact wording): "You know it's funny but one day I noticed that I could enjoy the music in the kitchen almost as much. It's like with these speakers it doesn't matter where I am in the apartment, it still sounds ok. Not as good as in the living room but much better than before."
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lol YES i would notice the singers breaths, as would any good engineer. Also i would eq to mitigate 'pops' and other LF effects of being overly friendly with the vocal mic. Just as an engineer should know his mics, and PEQ to take out the peaks, eg cymbal using condensor mic. None of these mics is truely flat, and i shall reiterate that a good engineer will know their flaws, and try to minimise them. A bad engineer will not.
Not natural, but necessary. I certainly wouldnt regard it clever to accept a speaker that accentuated them again.
Recently, switching to ribbons, i noticed exactly that effect. Turns out the mid and tweeter summed giving a broad shallow hump in the range 500 to 2khz, and this brought out the 'breathy' nature. Once corrected it was far better, even if some recordings sounded less euphoric, the majority sound more accurate. Warts n all.
Not natural, but necessary. I certainly wouldnt regard it clever to accept a speaker that accentuated them again.
Recently, switching to ribbons, i noticed exactly that effect. Turns out the mid and tweeter summed giving a broad shallow hump in the range 500 to 2khz, and this brought out the 'breathy' nature. Once corrected it was far better, even if some recordings sounded less euphoric, the majority sound more accurate. Warts n all.
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To answer my own question. Would I notice? Yes, I would if I was engineering the recording. That'd be my job. But the fact remains. Music is made to be enjoyed, flaws and all. Giving unnatural bias to minute details is great if you're a sound engineer and required to correct them. Not good if you are to enjoy the music.
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