I think Floyd Toole and his studies on what people prefer in a loudspeaker pretty much spot on. I myself prefer a flat frequency response at loud listening levels and mild boosting of bass and treble at low listening levels AKA Fletcher/Munson curve. Are all recordings going to sound "wonderful" all the time? Of course not, there are good and bad recording engineers, have been since the dawn of recording and will be way after I have passed on, but at least starting from "flat" I can tweak the bass and treble to my own liking. To be honest I find that at LOUD listening levels, most recordings do sound better with a "flat" response. Let's not try to reinvent the wheel here thinking we can do better. If that's fun to yourself then have at it.
I am curious to know just how many recording engineers you have actually met? I know hundreds of them, and they use to the gear as a means to an end not just for the sake of using it. We sometimes have to compress and EQ just to get a lot of information in a little pipeline(the stereo format), but I don't know an engineer that is in love with compressors, limiters, or EQ - they just need the tools.
I think Tom really did a good job of characterizing audio engineers
I think this about sums up most of the audio engineers I know including myself.
the Music
I kind of think we've drifted off the subject here.
I have some very good HiFi kit with which I listen to music with (when I get the time) and I do large sound for venues (Pro Audio).
My argument still stands in that we seem to have placed the equipment/cart before the music/horse here.
Suffice it to say that whether one has a speaker system with ruler-flat frequency response, an amplifier of a gazillion watts and a perfect source, the room acoustics, your ears and your brain are STILL the most important part of the audio chain.
You do NOT listen to music on an oscilloscope(well maybe some do)!
You do this for the enjoyment of music - however reproduced!
Regards.
The Sound Man
(Hornets placed in temporary stasis - for now).
I kind of think we've drifted off the subject here.
I have some very good HiFi kit with which I listen to music with (when I get the time) and I do large sound for venues (Pro Audio).
My argument still stands in that we seem to have placed the equipment/cart before the music/horse here.
Suffice it to say that whether one has a speaker system with ruler-flat frequency response, an amplifier of a gazillion watts and a perfect source, the room acoustics, your ears and your brain are STILL the most important part of the audio chain.
You do NOT listen to music on an oscilloscope(well maybe some do)!
You do this for the enjoyment of music - however reproduced!
Regards.
The Sound Man
(Hornets placed in temporary stasis - for now).
I think you need to distinguish between pro's and semi-pro's/enthusiasts. I would agree, the former fit better to your characterisation, the latter more like Ronion's. Obsessing over kit is much more common when you don't have that much of it. 🙂
Recordings are all over the place but I would also blame such things as poor mics and studio acoustics, not to mention apparently poor monitors.
I'd agree...but qualify this by saying that 'flat' doesn't necessarily mean flat. Being speaker and situation dependent let's just say 'flat' means 'something that works'. Here most recordings will have some hope with minor tweaking. I think that trying to make a recording flat straight off without considering where the speaker needs to be is less likely to produce a quality result.
Funny you should mention this. This is how I size an amp to build for a given set of speakers 😀
I know many. I would hate to try and count. They tend to love their compressors, microphones, mic pres, monitors, converters, analog summing, etc... In irrational ways. I was really shocked about one even loving a particular brand of plug ins--and he's done work with major movie studios like you.
Some of that stuff matters more than others, but it's not necessarily related to the amount of love. More seasoned engineers can learn that the gear is not as important as lesser experienced ones think, but not necessarily so just like every other profession. The ones I know have a ton of gear lust in general, but not all of them.
Accuracy should be an engineer's goal. That is one of the prime functions of the job. Delivering a product with a certain sound has nothing to do with accuracy. You can distort the sound as part of the art but it should be produced with accuracy in mind.
I disagree with your second statement. Have you ever purchased a microphone for testing? If it is not calibrated, then do you not calibrate it? What do you think this accomplishes? You are actually adjusting the "hearing" of the microphone so it is "flat"...
Also the second part of your statement is YOUR opinion and goal in designing a playback system. To YOU, designing a speaker should only be true in fidelity to the CD. To ME, I want to design a speaker true in fidelity to the original source AKA artist. This is not possible with the "absolutes" of current commercial design/process and hence the title and the "future of loudspeaker design." This doesn't mean it should not be discussed for those that want to explore the subject.
You do not need accurate NOR precise reproduction for music enjoyment.
You can even choose to ignore the music or the gear/reproduction/hifi aspect completely but most lay somewhere in the middle. For others, the hifi/gear aspect is a hobby like hotrodding. We aren't building our daily commuters but for a specific goal. In this thread: I am tackling adjusting the speakers to compensate for hearing differences and whether this increase or decrease fidelity as a whole.
That is self-contradictory. If it is distorted, it is not accurate. But as I said, accuracy may not be the engineer's goal (or the artist's, for that matter).
Yes. Don't follow your point there.
You can't, because you have no access to the original source, i.e., the performance recorded, other than the data on the CD (unless you have access to the master tapes). Hence you can have no idea whether your speaker is "true in fidelity to the original source."
That depends on how inaccurate it is and how demanding you are.
"Fidelity" means, "faithful to the source." The only source you have to work with is the CD, so that is the only thing to which you can design your speakers to be faithful. Tweaking them to compensate for the listener's hearing deficiencies makes them unfaithful to the source.
Interesting idea, tailoring the sound for your own ears. What happens when more than one person is in the room?
Loudspeakers should reproduce what is on the data source, whether that be digital or analogue, and that datasource should reproduce what was the original source.
If it done well we would recognise what we hear at home as being almost identical to what we hear at a concert.
Saying that you will never hear closely miked acoustic guitars the same when sat at home as compared with a venue.
What is correct; I suspect if you can listen to your system for hours with no listening fatigue you are as close to perfection as you can hope to be!
Loudspeakers should reproduce what is on the data source, whether that be digital or analogue, and that datasource should reproduce what was the original source.
If it done well we would recognise what we hear at home as being almost identical to what we hear at a concert.
Saying that you will never hear closely miked acoustic guitars the same when sat at home as compared with a venue.
What is correct; I suspect if you can listen to your system for hours with no listening fatigue you are as close to perfection as you can hope to be!
Poor stylus & groove
I find that the turntable introduces a different
kind of sound. probably due to the riaa equalization 🙄
Making a loudspeaker suitable to cd sound may reveal some failures
when playing vinyls IMHO
Not grasped the way of quoting yet but.
The idea of reproducing what is on a datasource is good but who knows what it is supposed to sound like? It was mixed by an engineer listening with a certain set of speakers in a certain space, unless you are in the same environment with the same speakers it will always sound different.
I have records, CDs, SACDs and DVD Audio disks, the quality is different on all, good LPs, bad LPs etc. A great difference between the same albums on LP, CD and DVD Audio, which one is the most faithful?
The idea of reproducing what is on a datasource is good but who knows what it is supposed to sound like? It was mixed by an engineer listening with a certain set of speakers in a certain space, unless you are in the same environment with the same speakers it will always sound different.
I have records, CDs, SACDs and DVD Audio disks, the quality is different on all, good LPs, bad LPs etc. A great difference between the same albums on LP, CD and DVD Audio, which one is the most faithful?
It would seem this is partly an issue of semantics or goals. If you’re talking about “enjoyment”, that is not dependent on the accuracy of the loudspeaker. That is why we could once enjoy a scratchy Edison Gramephone or 6X9’s playing ones favorite song on an 8 track while driving with the window down, why we have subcompact / sub performing audio now.
These things are possible because our hearing system seeks out information while rejecting (as much as possible) distractions and noises, in the extreme case, we can automatically understand a conversation from across a noisy room by watching the mouth and the few words that arrive with intelligibility. Enjoyment is what we feel, it is not accuracy, unless you enjoy that too.
Also, since most people evaluate a loudspeaker playing a recording they were not present for at it’s conception, we are mostly forced into a single ended judgment with no reference other than what we imagine it should be like. Add to that the fact that how a microphone picks up pressure is entirely different than how our brain takes the signals from two ears and “creates” a 3 dimensional sonic “image” and one is now touching on why this is so interesting.
My own personal description of accuracy would be something like this;
If you were surrounded by a black curtain an accurate reproduction would cause you to believe you were outdoors or in a small room or any other acoustic environment of one’s choosing and not just being reminded of same.
This automatically requires a minimum of room contribution if one wants to preserve the information as intact as possible at the LP, the room isn’t in the recording.
An accurate loudspeaker can be captured with a measurement microphone (anechoically if you only want just the loudspeaker) and used in a generation loss recording and like any other part of the chain, go a number of passes before significant degradation.
Real loudspeakers typically can only go a single pass or two, maybe three before being pretty awful.
If you listen to a loudspeaker playing music through a measurement mic and good closed back headphones, you can hear what the speaker sounds like without your ears automatic and invisible to you spatial processing and “error fixing”. Make one that sounds good after just a few generations and you at least have the device part solved.
If the future of loudspeakers involves being more faithful to the signal, then the generation loss recording is a way to hear what direction your going (at least it was helpful for us in the beginning at work).
Best,
Tom
These things are possible because our hearing system seeks out information while rejecting (as much as possible) distractions and noises, in the extreme case, we can automatically understand a conversation from across a noisy room by watching the mouth and the few words that arrive with intelligibility. Enjoyment is what we feel, it is not accuracy, unless you enjoy that too.
Also, since most people evaluate a loudspeaker playing a recording they were not present for at it’s conception, we are mostly forced into a single ended judgment with no reference other than what we imagine it should be like. Add to that the fact that how a microphone picks up pressure is entirely different than how our brain takes the signals from two ears and “creates” a 3 dimensional sonic “image” and one is now touching on why this is so interesting.
My own personal description of accuracy would be something like this;
If you were surrounded by a black curtain an accurate reproduction would cause you to believe you were outdoors or in a small room or any other acoustic environment of one’s choosing and not just being reminded of same.
This automatically requires a minimum of room contribution if one wants to preserve the information as intact as possible at the LP, the room isn’t in the recording.
An accurate loudspeaker can be captured with a measurement microphone (anechoically if you only want just the loudspeaker) and used in a generation loss recording and like any other part of the chain, go a number of passes before significant degradation.
Real loudspeakers typically can only go a single pass or two, maybe three before being pretty awful.
If you listen to a loudspeaker playing music through a measurement mic and good closed back headphones, you can hear what the speaker sounds like without your ears automatic and invisible to you spatial processing and “error fixing”. Make one that sounds good after just a few generations and you at least have the device part solved.
If the future of loudspeakers involves being more faithful to the signal, then the generation loss recording is a way to hear what direction your going (at least it was helpful for us in the beginning at work).
Best,
Tom
If you're debating for the sake of debating, then I am not interested in participating. If you care about the issue, then please read all the posts in this thread. All of them have already been addressed.
I think you are correct! After all an accurate portrayal of a hearing experience may not be the same as an accurate portrayal of musical experience.
Like the painting allusion: a colorblind person can appreciate art (painting), but he is not appreciating the art that the artist is attempting to present. This is not a flaw, just a different way of appreciation.
I am going to say this. I love the fact that I have quality audio tools to work with, but I do not LOVE them. Quality compressors, microphones, microphone pre's, monitors, converters, and summing devices are nothing more than tools. One can love the fact they have these tools without being in LOVE with the tools themselves. I am not sure you can differentiate the difference from your side of the equation.
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