Do you think this is something bad? 😀
I don't but the limitations have to be known before pulling the trigger on that ( for the reason you gave). If the OP have a lot of true native source in this format that could make sense otherwise no need to spend money in this...
I wonder if that's true wrt to the OP's goal of a single listening position. What could you build that outperformed the 708Ps in a single listening position?
Well ok. 🙄
You are lucky as you'll probably going to be ( very) rich in a very short time touring all studio around the world explaining that to them! ( be careful as most of them will explain you a pair of headphones will be cheaper and more effective in removing the room).
For home users well yes you can favour a rendering over another, but thinking your liking are universal is... strange to me. 😀
Otherwise about your last post maybe some room treatments to make early reflections not blurring the image at listening point is not a bad idea... 😉
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The shape of your ear -- and head -- has a great deal to do with audio perception. You want to hit it from the correct angle. You also want to do it at the correct time if you're trying to reproduce the sound of a specific space. Those times can be much larger than what our rooms can accommodate.
A few music labs exist that can recreate the sound of any environment. They do it using a sphere of surround speakers. Harman just built one recently.
All speakers sound bad in an anechoic chamber because there aren't any reflections. Which means reflections are an important element of enjoyment. The right types of reflections improve the sound quality. All the different speaker designs we see are really trying to create the most pleasing types of reflections in a small room => when restricted to a two channel stereo source.
If you change the source it changes the types of reflections you can create.
Must say i think i've built more than one that outperforms it a single listening position...(and probably at multiple positions)
The 708P is a very nice speaker, but it's waay far from an end all, be all.
Bradleypnw,
Well i'm sure we could have an interesting discussion about what kind of reflection is needed or not in the reproduction of a message but this is not the place (and as i've bothered moderators some years ago to have a dedicated acoustic subforum in order not to pollute thread with this kind of discussion we could move there and not pollute this one).
😀
Well i'm sure we could have an interesting discussion about what kind of reflection is needed or not in the reproduction of a message but this is not the place (and as i've bothered moderators some years ago to have a dedicated acoustic subforum in order not to pollute thread with this kind of discussion we could move there and not pollute this one).
😀
This is very good idea and I would start here. The Linn speakers are not rubbish by any means and could be improved with the proper measurement and integration. Getting a multi channel interface and computer based DSP would be a really good way to learn. When you know what you like and have experimented with that and have done all the research needed to determine what you need to do better, that is the time to buy drivers and start designing 🙂
Then don't spending some money on an interface mic and software is money well spent in this hobby that will never be wasted. If you want to start building then build some sub boxes as they are much less critical and I think you would be surprised how much better your existing speakers sound when you get the bass right.
This is also not true. A speaker can always sound better in a really good room. Manufacturers are doing there best to make speakers that sound good in non treated rooms because most people don't want or know how to treat them. They in no way remove the room but some work better in not fighting it.
Not considering the room and speaker as a combination means you have accepted a compromise already. A manufacture cannot do this because there speaker has to work as well as it can anywhere it might be used so they take their best guess.
Everyone does not like the same level and pattern of reflections, some of that can come down to preferred genres some of down to what you get used to. Neither is right or wrong just personal choice.
Here is the spin of the 708P, it is good but not the best that can be done. It is very reminiscent of the entire LSR line. Rising on axis and listening window, which combined with a fairly flat DI means it will sound bright. This will not sound neutral out of the box. Beyond that a lot more information needs to be considered and 'better' is too vague a term to decide what to prioritize.
I've said this to you before, you make a lot of bold statement's which appear to be your interpretation of things you have read. I've read a lot of the same things but have come to a different conclusion.
Attachments
+1.
You nailed it Fluid.
In a much more diplomatic way i could ever dream of ( even in my own native language!)
You nailed it Fluid.
In a much more diplomatic way i could ever dream of ( even in my own native language!)
The directivity and frequency response are designed to work with the onboard processing. It's a feature not a bug.
708P | JBL Professional Loudspeakers
Audio labs already know how to do it. They use multichannel. If they could use stereo they would but they can't.
New lab mimics the sound of any room
Why is this relevant? Because the OP stated they wanted to significantly improve their existing system over the long term. Multichannel will supply the significant improvement.
Alternatively, if the OP wants to stick with two channel then they should adjust their expectations to look for incremental improvement.
I mean look, some people here build really good speakers. Then they listen to them and say, "Ohhh, what's that...what's wrong...I hear a strange distortion." Then they go through all their equipment with a fine tooth comb only to figure out the problem and discover the recording was at fault at some discrete portion of a vocal. That's a sign of very minor improvement gains to be had. The gas tank is running on empty with two channel stereo.
That is the glass half full way of looking at it.
As it comes out of the box it does not meet Harman's version of neutral, but it has onboard EQ that can fix it, so it can be made to be neutral. Why they didn't use the processing to fix the response when they already have comprehensive anechoic data is a mystery.
The little LSR is the same, all boom and tizz as set from factory, flick a couple of switches and it sounds much better. Perhaps boom and tizz sells speakers in a showroom.
Anyway anyone can make their own mind up from looking at the spin.
I would agree that using multiple channels is a good way to open up the listening experience and offers greater potential for imaging options and presenting different acoustic spaces that is hard to do with 2 channels.
This doesn't mean that stereo is a dead format and so far multi channel recordings have been a real mixed bag. Upmixing stereo to multichannel is an option and with some of the algorithms quite controllable. Who knows what will happen in the future, with SACD and DVD Audio I thought we would all be listening to master quality recordings everywhere and instead middle bit rate mp3 is now the default consumer offering.
No need to wait for the future to arrive to make things sound awesome now.
Multichannel setups like 5.1, 7.1 or as many different numbers as you can think of are not for everybody due to space, cost, spousal acceptance etc.
There are great options anywhere in between.
Ok, i'm not diplomatic and english is not my native language so please keep this in mind if you find my tone harsh or a bit condescending.
I've heard the first Trinnov Control Room which was implemented in 'La maison ronde' ( Radio France facility, the national radio group, descendant of ORTF which was once equivalent of BBC about R&D in audio) and it was 12 years ago iirc.
This was implemented in an already 'good room' as defined by Fluid. The first reaction i had was that something was wrong in it. I talked to a collegue and close friend which worked in this place regularly and he had the same feelings... It was 12 years ago and digital treatments have made huge progress since but overall this kind of treatments to be trustable/ believable needs an already good acoustic treatments to sound realistic. In that case it can brings something to the table but otherwise it is just some 'trickery' used.
There is the same thing with microphones now... you can buy a generic chinese capsule loaded microphone and thanks to digital hope to have a Neumann U47 tube... if you have never heard one!
You talk about long term but about things you seems to have never heard. One thing i can garantee you from my former job as sound engineer is that this kind of things can do marvels for 5minutes but once used /accustomed to it IT WONT LAST LONG TERM as it is most of the time fatiguing AND not natural sounding.
About multichannel well, have you ever thoughts about HOW IT IS RECORDED? Do you think we have 'Multi channel' microphone availlable? This exist but not in the form you think of i bet. Do you know which kind of artifact a 'simple' couple of mic induce? Do you think that multiplying the number of source will minimize this artifacts?
Have you ever thinking about mixing some material for multichannel? It is obvious from your statement that it is not the case and you'll be surpised that most of these discrete channels you have are most of the time only used for effects or reverbs... in other words they brings almost nothing to the table versus 2 channel audio and confuse things even further relying on 'reflections' in room is just laughable to me.
You talk about reflections assuming this is a god send. Well maybe it's time to take a look at Haas effect and the needs to master early reflections to have a 'clear' picture of what is recorded and not confuse things by adding comb filtering and time smearing of direct sound.
Ever heard of LEDE? No, well time to study the principle and to focus on the important goal behind it ( and not focus on the polarized room part of things but why it is implemented).
Same with the principle of R.F.Z.
Then take a look at D. Griesienger work ( founder of Lexicon which before being 'hihiend' was -and still is- the reference for reverb processors since 70's).
Then you could make me a course about how my ear behave regarding a room and the importance of 'reflections'.
You are in a place with people with a lot of real life experience here ( and i'm not counting myself in this as i am like most here for learning as i'm not a loudspeaker designer even if i know some things about it), somes are either references in the field other have documented their journey in an incredible way or have an incredible amount of knowledge and share it for free... so a bit of stepback and rather than make bold statement about knowledge you seems to acquired recently it may be interesting to have different way to interact with people.
You'll have much more reward from this.
I've heard the first Trinnov Control Room which was implemented in 'La maison ronde' ( Radio France facility, the national radio group, descendant of ORTF which was once equivalent of BBC about R&D in audio) and it was 12 years ago iirc.
This was implemented in an already 'good room' as defined by Fluid. The first reaction i had was that something was wrong in it. I talked to a collegue and close friend which worked in this place regularly and he had the same feelings... It was 12 years ago and digital treatments have made huge progress since but overall this kind of treatments to be trustable/ believable needs an already good acoustic treatments to sound realistic. In that case it can brings something to the table but otherwise it is just some 'trickery' used.
There is the same thing with microphones now... you can buy a generic chinese capsule loaded microphone and thanks to digital hope to have a Neumann U47 tube... if you have never heard one!
You talk about long term but about things you seems to have never heard. One thing i can garantee you from my former job as sound engineer is that this kind of things can do marvels for 5minutes but once used /accustomed to it IT WONT LAST LONG TERM as it is most of the time fatiguing AND not natural sounding.
About multichannel well, have you ever thoughts about HOW IT IS RECORDED? Do you think we have 'Multi channel' microphone availlable? This exist but not in the form you think of i bet. Do you know which kind of artifact a 'simple' couple of mic induce? Do you think that multiplying the number of source will minimize this artifacts?
Have you ever thinking about mixing some material for multichannel? It is obvious from your statement that it is not the case and you'll be surpised that most of these discrete channels you have are most of the time only used for effects or reverbs... in other words they brings almost nothing to the table versus 2 channel audio and confuse things even further relying on 'reflections' in room is just laughable to me.
You talk about reflections assuming this is a god send. Well maybe it's time to take a look at Haas effect and the needs to master early reflections to have a 'clear' picture of what is recorded and not confuse things by adding comb filtering and time smearing of direct sound.
Ever heard of LEDE? No, well time to study the principle and to focus on the important goal behind it ( and not focus on the polarized room part of things but why it is implemented).
Same with the principle of R.F.Z.
Then take a look at D. Griesienger work ( founder of Lexicon which before being 'hihiend' was -and still is- the reference for reverb processors since 70's).
Then you could make me a course about how my ear behave regarding a room and the importance of 'reflections'.
You are in a place with people with a lot of real life experience here ( and i'm not counting myself in this as i am like most here for learning as i'm not a loudspeaker designer even if i know some things about it), somes are either references in the field other have documented their journey in an incredible way or have an incredible amount of knowledge and share it for free... so a bit of stepback and rather than make bold statement about knowledge you seems to acquired recently it may be interesting to have different way to interact with people.
You'll have much more reward from this.
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Maybe not but I still give you a 7/10 for diplomacy 😀 (Shouting with CAPITALS is not diplomatic so I had to deduct a whole point right there 😉 )
For the sake of this thread, all this talk about DSP sure is interesting. One thing that should be made clear though. Without a sane concept that stands a chance of decent behavior in your room, all the DSP in the world cannot get you where you want to be.
What that concept should be is an entirely different discussion, one that seems missing from this thread. As a DIY speakerbuilder, it should be possible to pick a concept that fits your specific environment and needs/wants.
Something the commercial speaker makers cannot cater for. As fluid already mentioned, they need to make speakers that (can) do well in a multitude of environments.
Before one can start building, you'd need to find out your own preferences. The current time is against us, but hearing lots of different concepts could help there. Once you figure out what you like, you can zoom in on a speaker design that can do what you like in your space. Probably with some help from room adjustments.
All this talk about multichannel taking over very soon on streaming services is all fine and dandy. However it will sure take a while before it will be on even the same level as what can be accomplished right now with two channels.
When the CD first was introduced it wasn't the immediate top runner/performer either. It sure took a while for it to mature. And if you ask me, when it did mature somewhat, we got the loudness wars hacking away of what was possible within that format.
I don't see the current 2 channel catalog making it to a better format anytime soon. Multichannel has been around for quite a while. How many recordings are offered in an undeniably better form/shape on multichannel vs the original stereo release?
Just my 2 cents...
What that concept should be is an entirely different discussion, one that seems missing from this thread. As a DIY speakerbuilder, it should be possible to pick a concept that fits your specific environment and needs/wants.
Something the commercial speaker makers cannot cater for. As fluid already mentioned, they need to make speakers that (can) do well in a multitude of environments.
Before one can start building, you'd need to find out your own preferences. The current time is against us, but hearing lots of different concepts could help there. Once you figure out what you like, you can zoom in on a speaker design that can do what you like in your space. Probably with some help from room adjustments.
All this talk about multichannel taking over very soon on streaming services is all fine and dandy. However it will sure take a while before it will be on even the same level as what can be accomplished right now with two channels.
When the CD first was introduced it wasn't the immediate top runner/performer either. It sure took a while for it to mature. And if you ask me, when it did mature somewhat, we got the loudness wars hacking away of what was possible within that format.
I don't see the current 2 channel catalog making it to a better format anytime soon. Multichannel has been around for quite a while. How many recordings are offered in an undeniably better form/shape on multichannel vs the original stereo release?
Just my 2 cents...
Off topic:
I'm floored Fluid, you make my note averaged close to zero! Such a relief: " look mum! I'm cured now..." 😀
I'm used to negative value regarding diplomacy. 😉
I always mix bold and capital about shouting when writing over www. Damn it, i've lost points in a fool way!
A chance i don't really care about it.
2 cents worth 1 million dollars!
It's more or less easy to get a grasp of the differents kind of loudspeakers and their specificity/behavior ( hence rendering ) not more so about what they implies about acoustic treatments of room (the 'concept' Wesayso is talking about).
I've been wondering for a longtime why there isn't a kind of 'survey' about it. Something like a guideline for those inclined to step into acoustic treatments for theyr liking/preference.
I suppose we will have to do it.
I feel relatively confident to give clues about the two 'main' schools about rendering ( 'they are there/you are there'), but there is more to it ( dipoles and their specific needs comes to mind, multichannel, how to enhance the enjoyment,etc,etc,...) and it could be nice to have a collective effort to bring and collect those infos for peoples to make educated choice about it in a dedicated place. It could help to clarify our own biasing and gives perspective to comments made as all point of view are valuable.
As i'm not allowed to practice my day job atm i've got a bit of spare time (while kids are still in school) so i may well start something in the room acoustic's subforum in the next few days.
Phobic,
Please apologize to make your thread derail and brings 'bad vibes' to it. The overall ambience of this troubled time makes me overreacting about 'attitude'.
This is reccurent to me and i try to work on it but difficult to change my own nature.
Once again please accept my excuse.
I'm floored Fluid, you make my note averaged close to zero! Such a relief: " look mum! I'm cured now..." 😀
I'm used to negative value regarding diplomacy. 😉
I always mix bold and capital about shouting when writing over www. Damn it, i've lost points in a fool way!
A chance i don't really care about it.
2 cents worth 1 million dollars!
It's more or less easy to get a grasp of the differents kind of loudspeakers and their specificity/behavior ( hence rendering ) not more so about what they implies about acoustic treatments of room (the 'concept' Wesayso is talking about).
I've been wondering for a longtime why there isn't a kind of 'survey' about it. Something like a guideline for those inclined to step into acoustic treatments for theyr liking/preference.
I suppose we will have to do it.
I feel relatively confident to give clues about the two 'main' schools about rendering ( 'they are there/you are there'), but there is more to it ( dipoles and their specific needs comes to mind, multichannel, how to enhance the enjoyment,etc,etc,...) and it could be nice to have a collective effort to bring and collect those infos for peoples to make educated choice about it in a dedicated place. It could help to clarify our own biasing and gives perspective to comments made as all point of view are valuable.
As i'm not allowed to practice my day job atm i've got a bit of spare time (while kids are still in school) so i may well start something in the room acoustic's subforum in the next few days.
Phobic,
Please apologize to make your thread derail and brings 'bad vibes' to it. The overall ambience of this troubled time makes me overreacting about 'attitude'.
This is reccurent to me and i try to work on it but difficult to change my own nature.
Once again please accept my excuse.
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Wow lots of responses to get through since yesterday, thanks for all the input, it's a massive help.
I've trimmed things down a little in my response to try to make the post a bit more manageable.
ok audio interface makes sense in that case then, will check out the article thanks.
I've looked at Dirac before, don't think it's going to be powerful enough for what I want though the automation is very good.
Thanks for the links, Hilo could be something for the future
I don't really have a view on what sampling rate & number of taps I need, but unless I'm missing something the PC route seems more powerful and actually pretty cost effective when you compare it to high end DSP.
I've used Rephase quite a lot already, it takes far too long, I find it a bit painful!
I'll check out FirDesigner too thanks.
I'm 100% digital so PC only input is fine, I'm not phased by learning to use Acourate or Audiolense, suspect either will work for me but need to look into differences before deciding what to buy.
I think given what's been said about DSD it's not essential for me, not is using HQPlayer, I don't have any DSD content it's all PCM, I'd been advised elsewhere about the benefit of always converting to DSD to reduce the noise generating in the DAC. If PCM is going to sound better then I'm happy to stick with that, I'm simply just driven by the solution with the best quality.
I also don't have any preference on SD v R2R, think it's more a case of just picking a well measuring DAC with the right features I need and then figuring out what's the best way to drive it.
I've trimmed things down a little in my response to try to make the post a bit more manageable.
ok audio interface makes sense in that case then, will check out the article thanks.
I've looked at Dirac before, don't think it's going to be powerful enough for what I want though the automation is very good.
Thanks for the links, Hilo could be something for the future
I don't really have a view on what sampling rate & number of taps I need, but unless I'm missing something the PC route seems more powerful and actually pretty cost effective when you compare it to high end DSP.
I've used Rephase quite a lot already, it takes far too long, I find it a bit painful!
I'll check out FirDesigner too thanks.
I'm 100% digital so PC only input is fine, I'm not phased by learning to use Acourate or Audiolense, suspect either will work for me but need to look into differences before deciding what to buy.
I think given what's been said about DSD it's not essential for me, not is using HQPlayer, I don't have any DSD content it's all PCM, I'd been advised elsewhere about the benefit of always converting to DSD to reduce the noise generating in the DAC. If PCM is going to sound better then I'm happy to stick with that, I'm simply just driven by the solution with the best quality.
I also don't have any preference on SD v R2R, think it's more a case of just picking a well measuring DAC with the right features I need and then figuring out what's the best way to drive it.
I'm certainly not set on DIYing the mains so might have to look at the JBLs.
I guess I'm surprised that the ultimate main speakers are relatively affordable.
I'm really staggered by how nice and helpful everyone is, I'm humbled by all the great advice
not using HQplayer is definitely an option, will check out the articles thanks. Completely agree with the step by step approach, though I'd rather avoid going passive so I can bypass having to build crossovers.