I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

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is it possible to capture 10 seconds of the live performance vs 10 seconds of the record performance and compare the measurements?

That wouldn't tell you much.

One thing that I have found is that the "I am there" illusion, i.e. mostly concert hall, is always lacking. I mean my mind KNOWS that I am not in a big room when the reflection pattern of the recording is so much longer than the room. BUT, I do find the illusion of "they are here" as quite impressive. I can create the illusion that the players are in my room with me quite effectively.

Now if all you want to create is the "concert hall" quality of "you are there" then I fear you will always be disappointed. And, in fact, since so little of the current reperatore of recordings seek to do that, there is not much emphasis in either research or the market on such a thing. I'm not saying this is right oir wrong, persee, its just the way it is, and happilly, I am on the side that works well - "they are here".

The concert hall effect requires a very dead room with surround. Not my preference thats for sure.
 
I don't know where to start with this one. That would be fine if you were only talking about signal level. The environment the sound is being reproduced in has a much greater impact on the locality of bass and the diffuse nature of the field than even the best recording. Even if you were to record bass across every channel, if you have a high degree of directionality caused by poor speaker placement or improper dampening of early reflections you'll get locality at almost any frequency. I really don't understand how you'd claim this has anything to do with the recording process, it's no where near as influential as the acoustics.

You're right, it's much less accurate and prone to malfunction. I would also note that a skate board is different then a motorcycle, but you can still get to your destination. Again, simply because you don't no how to measure or read the results doesn't mean that it cannot be analyzed.

It doesn't matter if you consider it a bass note. It has enough of the characteristics that in a sufficiently diffuse environment you'll have difficulty telling the origin of the source.

Too many posts, can't type fast enough, lol.

You seem to be a little theory weary. I listen on a regular basis to a system that has a very well-damped room. Not an over-damped room, but one that was done professionally and very well indeed. No one would have any trouble being able to pinpoint the source of a note emanating from a bass down to at least 60 Hz, much less voice frequencies from 150Hz to 1000 Hz. This is true for many recordings. Now there are some recordings where the bass line IS diffuse, which leads me to my statement that it is due to anomalies in the recording process. This is a fine system that has qualities of realism that correspond to practical experience. Obviously the live venues where I listen to music aren't diffuse enough.

John
 
I'll ask once again for you to define warmth and distortion and explain to me how they are mutually exclusive.

Mostly the problem is that one is a subjective term and the other is objective. There "could be" a correlation and then again there might not be either. The fact is that there are very few correlations between objective and subjective and as far as distortion goes there is no correaltion between it any any subjective terms that I know of. Unless you are using the term "distortion" subjectively, in whcih case it has no deffinition and can mean anything anyone wants it to mean. In this context, I mean it to be "nonlinear distortion".
 
No one would have any trouble being able to pinpoint the source of a note emanating from a bass down to at least 60 Hz, much less voice frequencies from 150Hz to 1000 Hz.
Yes, i'd happily go along with that though i'd say 80Hz from where i'm listening. This is one reason i'll always make a stereo pair of speakers that will reproduce well below this.


I find it fascinating that one or two posts & the whole thread explodes into action again :rofl: It does get kind of entertaining at times though...


Just agree to disagree & we'll all live happily ever after 😀
 
Mostly the problem is that one is a subjective term and the other is objective. There "could be" a correlation and then again there might not be either. The fact is that there are very few correlations between objective and subjective and as far as distortion goes there is no correaltion between it any any subjective terms that I know of. Unless you are using the term "distortion" subjectively, in whcih case it has no deffinition and can mean anything anyone wants it to mean. In this context, I mean it to be "nonlinear distortion".
Inter-modulation or harmonic? Warmth has regularly been described as (on the signal end) a distortion of the signal through amplification or the same emphasis on the frequency range through distortion created by the driver, hell I've seen it used to describe something that wasn't anything like that either. I hate the terms like warmth, sharp, vibrant, just about any term who's definition isn't universally agreed upon.

Man this keeps getting further off topic. The original point was, can someone point out some aspect of reproduction that isn't measurable?
 
Inter-modulation or harmonic? Warmth has regularly been described as (on the signal end) a distortion of the signal through amplification or the same emphasis on the frequency range through distortion created by the driver, hell I've seen it used to describe something that wasn't anything like that either.

IM and HD are not different issues, they are different manifistations of the same problem, just using different signals. The issue is "distortion" which can be either linear of nonlinear. If it's nonlinear distortion then HD and IMD are not telling us different things, just different ways of measuring the same thing.

Many thing "have been described as", thats not much of a scientific foundation for anything.
 
Man this keeps getting further off topic. The original point was, can someone point out some aspect of reproduction that isn't measurable?

Yep, I asked that twice today already.

We will never get an answer. Someone will post that they can hear something that isnt shown in measurements but will not describe it or list what sound can not be measured.

Its obviously they won't answer because they can not answer, they have idea what they are talking about when they post "...can not be measured".
 
IM and HD are not different issues, they are different manifistations of the same problem, just using different signals. The issue is "distortion" which can be either linear of nonlinear. If it's nonlinear distortion then HD and IMD are not telling us different things, just different ways of measuring the same thing.

Many thing "have been described as", thats not much of a scientific foundation for anything.
This is exactly what the first post was about. This tangent has done more harm than good. The entire point of the post was that there isn't agreed upon definitions for words like 'warmth', and that it can be measured if you provide a definition. I was originally referring to people claiming speaker cables added warmth to a speaker which is clearly a signal level change and in that context distortion is the correct term. We are on this tangent because someone else defines warmth differently, which leads us back to the crux of the problem and the reason for the original post. The entire conversation has been about the identification of terminology. The only reason why HD and IMD came up was in reference to that fact that the term distortion can apply to signal and driver level. I'm not arguing in favor of the many definitions of warmth, I don't know why you think I would be.
 
On the other hand, a system may sound "cold" or "sterile" due to distortion characteristics.🙂

John

No kidding, which is why I don't intend to pursue all his 'arguments'. I've seen this throw it at the wall style too many times in 20 years to have the energy. When your argument requires blurring the distinctions between such basic mechanisms as level change and distortion, or that 500 Hz, the centre of the human voice, can't be localized, it's best to leave the accusations of magic in the drawer.
 
No kidding, which is why I don't intend to pursue all his 'arguments'. I've seen this throw it at the wall style too many times in 20 years to have the energy. When your argument requires blurring the distinctions between such basic mechanisms as level change and distortion, or that 500 Hz, the centre of the human voice, can't be localized, it's best to leave the accusations of magic in the drawer.
There is a lot to dissect here. I don't know if I care this much about a tangent. The long short, perceived locality, simply knowing the location of the driver provides a bias. Environmental influence, objects that reflect can hider or enhance the nature of the sound field. We also use an acoustic 'radar' where we hone in by turning our heads in the direction of the relative DB increase, which can be done with a single ear. Tactile, this really needs no explanation. I should also clarify, I'm talking about our ability to perceive locality in sound the same way we would at the higher frequencies. The way we perceive sound at that frequency gets a lot more complex, when the wave lengths start getting longer then the length of the human head. Once you get that low, having 2 ears doesn't offer much advantage over 1 unless reflections come into play. The problem isn't the possibility of localization, but the need for stereo reception in that frequency range, if you remember the original post...

Edit: I'll simply it even more. I said you don't need 2 hears below 500, it's because as long as there isn't a dramatic difference in volume or a time domain indicator (like a reflection outside of the haas window) having 2 ears offers very little advantage in localizing below that range, because most of are faculties for perceiving that low don't depend on stereoscopic information.
 
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Excuse me if Im ignorant, but is it possible to measure the whole room in one take

When listening, how much of the whole room do we actually hear

I know I have experienced room "amplified hum in a certain position
Very close to the amp causing it there was nothing much
And just one feet away from where the hum was severe it was gone again
btw, problem was solved by adjusting the trafo mounting screw(loosening)

When placing a mic in listening position, does it actually reflect what we really hear

Im genuinely intersted to know more about it
 
No kidding, which is why I don't intend to pursue all his 'arguments'. I've seen this throw it at the wall style too many times in 20 years to have the energy. When your argument requires blurring the distinctions between such basic mechanisms as level change and distortion, or that 500 Hz, the centre of the human voice, can't be localized, it's best to leave the accusations of magic in the drawer.


Warmth is distortion to argue that is to argue the definition of distortion.

Distortion is the altering of the signal. If someone is EQing for a warm sound they are distorting the original signal. Its really simple stuff.

I do not remember where HD stuff started in on this..two different distortion topics but both are valid distortion topics.

To argue all this to try and discredit him by twisting the facts is silly. You are just being pedantic on this stuff and tyring to stay off topic (classic debating redirection) because you refuse to answer the real questions about cables, your ears and what you think can not be measured.

Stop sidestepping the real discussion and answer the questions on what you think can not be measured.
 
What do you mean measure the whole room? The whole room for what?

When I say you hear the room, what you hear is the amplification or nullification of frequencies caused by the structure of the room and the absorption or transmission of frequencies caused by untuned sympathetic resonance or any surface that lacks isolation. So if you have a ceiling of 8', at that wave length and at every multiple of it there will be an amplification of energy at that frequency. Just like how reflections of sound off the walls will come back and nullify. Each frequency will have a pattern inside your room where specific points will be amplified and others will be deadened. This will be the most problematic with the fundamental room resonance and multiples of it.
 
You don't seem to understand the degree we are currently capable of measuring acoustics. Do you really think we have the capacity to digitally record and reproduce the sound but have no idea how to gauge what we're reproducing? I can't off the top of my head think of some aspect of acoustics that can't be measured. We can compare delay between channels, the drivers harmonic distortion, the room's decay, sounds that occur within the haas window, impulse response and a whole host of other great information. If you know what aspects of reproduction you're looking for you can extrapolate anything you want given the right data. The only thing there will always be no accounting for is taste. The problem is because people don't understand how to interpret the data or that each setup will require it's own measurements people think that there's some great mystery out there that's still left the whole of acoustical physics and engineering in the dark. Not to mention below 500hz it doesn't even matter if we have 2 ears.

Great, here is one that puzzles me for a while. On my system when listening to one of my test tracks of a guy playing an acoustic guitar you can clearly hear him touching the strings while playing, replacing only one set of IC's, the sound of his fingers touching the strings seems to move away from the location of where I hear the strings and are then perceived by me as some irritating incoherent noise. This effect of those cables were confirmed by a friend on his system without me saying anything. More strange, this cable were used with test equipment for measurements up to several Ghz.

I would like to hear an explanation as well as how to measure something like that.
 
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