My reset must be much faster than that. 12 hours or less.
Although I do remember a time when I heard NO recorded music for 6 weeks but live acoustic music every day. Walking into a big Hi-Fi show after that was indeed an ear opening experience. Not many systems sounded like the "real thing." Many sounded great, but few, maybe only one, sounded real.
Ummm, a lot of "extreme" theorizing here.*
I believe the view that you "adapt" to "tonal coloration" (like visual color adaptation) is without basis and certainly not on the longish time-scale we are talking about. It really makes no sense when you think about it.
There may be a less-than-conscious shift of sorts at a different cognitive level, something that goes with the old joke line, "I like this soup, you burnt it like mother used to do."
There is a lot of learning that takes place of a different - but no less relevant - sort. The learning has to do with room reflections. With time, your brain gets better at interpreting the soundscape of the room and focusing on the signal from the reverberation. That sure improves your liking for your sound system. It goes far to clarifying the sound as when you put your familiar old system in a new room and it gets better over a few days of listening.
OK everybody, think back to the last time your moved house.... which theory seems right?
This is great fresh discussion. I have a sense that few people are coming out of the woodwork after being scared to speak up before.
But I will now offer an obvious implication that will miff a lot of people: pretty daft* to supply speaker systems without tone controls. Or as many of us have concluded, daft sell a speaker system without multi-amping.
*Golly gee, awfully hard to find a polite term sometimes.
I believe the view that you "adapt" to "tonal coloration" (like visual color adaptation) is without basis and certainly not on the longish time-scale we are talking about. It really makes no sense when you think about it.
There may be a less-than-conscious shift of sorts at a different cognitive level, something that goes with the old joke line, "I like this soup, you burnt it like mother used to do."
There is a lot of learning that takes place of a different - but no less relevant - sort. The learning has to do with room reflections. With time, your brain gets better at interpreting the soundscape of the room and focusing on the signal from the reverberation. That sure improves your liking for your sound system. It goes far to clarifying the sound as when you put your familiar old system in a new room and it gets better over a few days of listening.
OK everybody, think back to the last time your moved house.... which theory seems right?
This is great fresh discussion. I have a sense that few people are coming out of the woodwork after being scared to speak up before.
But I will now offer an obvious implication that will miff a lot of people: pretty daft* to supply speaker systems without tone controls. Or as many of us have concluded, daft sell a speaker system without multi-amping.
*Golly gee, awfully hard to find a polite term sometimes.
I think the point is that differences are most dramatic at switchover. I don't really believe that you get used to a horrible speaker over time to the point of having a hard time recognizing its faults. But when the faults are fairly minor you get used to them.
We used to talk about that when doing the final voicing of systems. Invariably it ended up in round-robin listening tests with 3 or 4 speakers. There would usually be a clear loser in the group. But we realized that if we took the loser home, opened up that beer and put on a record we would be perfectly happy with the result.
I thought adaptation was well known in psychology circles.
Perceptual adaptation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yes it is a great discussion.
David S.
That used to be the "standard" to which we aspired . . . but with the rise of amplified and "studio" music (where there is no "real") most users, and many designers, seem to have abandoned that goal . . .
I agree that long term adaptation is not a big factor. Short term is. (take off the colored glasses, put them back on).
But for me, the room does not get better sounding over time, it gets worse. Ditto speakers.
BTW, I used to be an active crossover snob, but I reformed. 😉 Still use 'em.
But for me, the room does not get better sounding over time, it gets worse. Ditto speakers.
BTW, I used to be an active crossover snob, but I reformed. 😉 Still use 'em.
I'm working to get over the snobbery, but it's still the right way to do crossovers . . .
Indeed. But I don't listen to much of that. I just don't like it. Had some thoughts on that yesterday, but that's OT.
Adapting to the particulars of one's auditory scene after prolonged exposure would seem to potentially convey significant benefits provided that the adaptation has the effect of rendering novel sounds in that scene more prominent or noticeable. Perhaps the adaptation is not directly to the perception we refer to as "tonal balance" but rather that it affects the focus of our auditory attention. That is, auditory inputs that are sustained over time (including the peculiar attributes of our audio hobby items) recede perceptually into the "background" so that we can focus our auditory attention on sounds with potential survival implications. What was that rustle in the bushes...over THERE!
Yes, adaptation (and the related "AC coupling" and negative after-images) are among the characteristics of senses most widely found.
But that is not the same as playing word magic, by taking any concept - say, tonal balance or harmonic distortion - and saying it shows adaptation. Or thinking visual perception translates in any necessary way to hearing.
Anybody here show adaptation to harmonic distortion whereby you listen to a 50-cent loudspeaker a whole lot and get used to it?
Yes, there are all kinds of cognitive, emotional, and maybe even magnetic influences on how we experience sound... long-term and short-term. But I think it is best if we are talking about phenomena at the perceptual level.
But that is not the same as playing word magic, by taking any concept - say, tonal balance or harmonic distortion - and saying it shows adaptation. Or thinking visual perception translates in any necessary way to hearing.
Anybody here show adaptation to harmonic distortion whereby you listen to a 50-cent loudspeaker a whole lot and get used to it?
Yes, there are all kinds of cognitive, emotional, and maybe even magnetic influences on how we experience sound... long-term and short-term. But I think it is best if we are talking about phenomena at the perceptual level.
So in your mind does burn-in operate largely at the perceptual level or does it represent real changes in device characteristics?
I think that puts it about right.
Floyd Toole or one of his posse did a paper on rank ordering speakers in a variety of rooms. They found that the room was not a factor, meaning that your view of the quality of a speaker didn't vary between one room and the next. The room was a stationary effect. Once you were in it you could switch beetween speakers and hear the differences between speakers without getting hung up on the considerable effect of the room.
They then switched to a test using binaural recordings of the different speakers in the different rooms. The subjects could hear different speakers in the same room as well as the same speaker in different rooms. The room was no longer a stationary factor and became a huge variable.
David S.
Although he may have suggested the room was a stationary effect, he also mentioned in those same white papers that he personally uses an equalizer in his own listening room to minimze a low-frequency standing wave (a room effect).
This discussion of "adaptation" is tricky since this is a term with a great deal research behind it (and not just vision research). So much is not captured in that wiki citation. Some of the guesses mentioned above are actually cases of habituation, contextual effects, etc (all with a history of experimental results behind them). I am not sure that "adaptation" in its true meaning really covers some of the effects you folks are bringing up.
This discussion of "adaptation" is tricky since this is a term with a great deal research behind it (and not just vision research). So much is not captured in that wiki citation. Some of the guesses mentioned above are actually cases of habituation, contextual effects, etc (all with a history of experimental results behind them). I am not sure that "adaptation" in its true meaning really covers some of the effects you folks are bringing up.
I believe Toole (was probably Olive) found that the room did affect the perception of quality, just that order ranking didn't change, for that test. Other caveats in this test:
- I don't believe their test was with different DI types, (ie omni vs tight cd vs line vs...), but was with speakers of typically the same design family (n-way cone/dome direct radiators).
- I also don't believe they looked at this influence over many cases. They usually test in an IEC room.
I think it would be hard to fathom that the room is so innocuous. Take to an asymptote: put a small sealed 2 way in small room near boundaries, and if it sounds balanced there, it will sound thin and bassless in the middle of a huge room. OTOH, a large, sensitive and flat 30Hz to 20 kHz on axis design that sounds good in a large room listened to at distance away from boundaries may be bloated/overloaded/sizzly in a small room near walls.
Lively, small rooms also make the off axis sound contribute more to the tonality, than free space (in a very large room). I think the study reached an interesting conclusion but is just a data point that can't be extrapolated to a generalization.
The thread was started because the theory that is proposed is for Stereo setup. If it was Orion-specific, there was no need for long discussions and experiments!
Here SL presented "What Are the On-axis and Off-axis Frequency Response Requirements for Stereo Loudspeakers?", and not
"What Are the On-axis and Off-axis Frequency Response Requirements for Orion Loudspeakers?"
http://linkwitzlab.com/Presentations/BAF-Freq-response-requirements.pdf
Have a look at slide 10 and 11 which are the most relevant for his arguments.
In the test Dave is talking about it was over 4 different rooms--no IEC ones. Drs. Toole and Olive (2006,1995) did an experiment where they played a loudspeaker in four rooms of various sizes and shapes to several listeners and made a binaural recording of it. In the room, the loudspeaker quality was the dominant factor of perceived SQ, in the binaural playback it was also the speaker. When the same speaker was rated against itself binaurally in the different rooms, the room was the dominant factor. P=0.05 for the first and p=0.001 for the second.
Dan
Dan
Some speaker are generally preferred over others and the speaker is more important than the room. Some rooms sound better than other rooms with those speakers..... Not much else as far as I can see.
Dan
Dan
If by "common sense" you mean "audio mythology 101", then I cannot argue. But if you mean what I mean by common sense, then I can only say that you have made a mistake. There is no evidence that this is true. OTOH there is plenty of evidence that a well engineered tone control set to zero is indistinguishable by ear from having it bypassed.
Well you must have only one recording, because there is far too much variation in recording tonalities to enjoy them all played through the same unadjusted system
The word resolution should not be too hard but I think in this case it has been taken straight out of popular audiophile magazines to mean an immeasurable and near-spiritual insight into the music. If you mean something a bit more technically definable, please explain it. As far as I am aware, a well engineered tone control correctly used will make a dramatic and obvious improvement in the tonal accuracy of the sound, with absolutely no detectable deleterious side effect. Which is something true audiophiles should not turn their back on.
Also take a look at the pictures of the room and speakers. Do you see anything but Orions and the Pluto? Do you see anything in the slides that indicated he has done any mods to anything but the Orion. The chain of events, as I understand them, that lead up to this is also of interest. First the Orion, then the Pluto, then some dissatisfaction with the Orion presentation compared to the Pluto, then the Orion ++ with rear tweeter, which just so happened to increase total radiated power at high frequency by 3dB. Then the Orion 3.2 which just happens to reduce total radiated power at high frequency by 3dB. Was it then that the HRT appeared as a justification of the 3dB cut??????
[edit] Also note that the figure on page 10 is labeled "Inverse of empirical EQ" which to me suggests that the EQ was not developed in reference to the HRT, but rather by trial and error based on subjective listening. [end edit]
Also, when the hands start waving about HRT, let's also remember that somewhere in some monitoring studio an engineer has mixed the source material on a stereo speakers. Unless his head was drastically different then your or mine, this rise in perceived response due to HRT has already been compensated for in the recording. Of course those speakers may have been direct radiator speakers without a rear tweeter......
Forget what the tittle of the presentation is and consider a little more closely the content and context. When SL discusses speakers when isn't it about the Orion or Pluto?
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