Music Reproduction Systems - what are we trying to achieve?

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#261
Amplification of a live orchestra seems to be missing the point, but then they want you to compensate for room effects, maybe a DSP or two would help, or maybe headphones for each person in the audience, fed with live mixed sound.

But I would not be interested.
 
#262
Ironically, it could be because most people have learned to hear music by listening to reproductions and so live sound is alien to them. Even going for a walk and listening to natural (or unnatural to a degree for that matter, since it's a relatively reflection free 3D environment) sounds is beneficial
 
#263
Yes, I have started listening to other sounds like traffic, voices, etc. I don't know if you noticed or if it is real, but live sounds in real life sound so smooth, so fluid, in fact this is what amplified sound lacks.

For example I cannot imagine a sound system that can reproduce the sound of tapping on a desk or the sound of spoons being dropped on the hard floor - never tried but I just feel it is beyond. The human voice is reproduced ok.

Edit: and I am not even talking of stereo, direction, reverberations, forget it.
 
#264
armarra1 said:
Im sorry that I couldn't get my point across.
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But you were getting your point across only too well: that BBE and Dolby are somehow comparable. It is precisely because you got your point across that we were able to repeatedly tell you that you were seriously mistaken. They are not comparable. Then you wanted to drag stereo into the discussion too, as though stereo is some extra distortion of pure original mono sound.
 
#267
For me I find that getting the sound of hands clapping in a life space with echoes is the most difficult. Once you get this right everything else will sound correct. Many times these clapping sound comes out of the speakers over exaggerated.
 
#268
When DAB first started in the UK various people said:
- rock music sounds horrible, but I guess DAB must be good enough for classical otherwise they would not have adopted it
- classical music sounds horrible, but I guess DAB is good enough for pop music
- spoken voice sounds horrible, but I suppose DAB is good enough for music

Spoken voice is a good test for audio, provided that the test is realism and not merely intelligibility.
 
#269
billshurv said:
@Basic. Pop on your headphones and listen to some of the recordings here Sennheiser AMBEO SMART HEADSET - Mobile binaural recording headset . Would be interested in your feedback vs you spoons point.
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I have a basic (not hi fi) set of Atech headphones. I tried the trafffic scene and the jumping over bridges one, as well as the mountain track:

1. Vehicle horns, electronic noises, electric saw - excellent, spot on
2. Single human voices - V good
3. Motorcycle - OK
4. Vehicles 4x4s etc - strangely missing low end depth
5. Crowd voices - loading the 4x4 etc - this is the worst, sounds like elves in a box

The higher frequencies are good, maybe it is my headphones.

BTW it's 2018, haven't they found a way to get rid of wind rumble?

sumotan said:
For me I find that getting the sound of hands clapping in a life space with echoes is the most difficult. Once you get this right everything else will sound correct. Many times these clapping sound comes out of the speakers over exaggerated.
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Have you heard crowd noises in a concert? The very worst, just the delicate top end of the clapping and shouting - do they do that on purpose?

BasicHIFI1 said:
Casette tapes: as mentioned a few posts ago. I am about to connect a casette player to my existing micro-amp speaker setup and check.
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Just hooked it up : player is a CD boombox SONY CFD-6 from 1996, the tape is Stevie Winwood's 1986 or so "Back in the High Life".

Initially sounded good, more muffled as I play it: solid lower end, subdued higher end, but surprisingly steady, no wow and flutter that I hear, but seems to be running a little slow.

I have some old tapes that I must convert. Use and re-use.
 
#270
Wind noise is hard to deal with. Interesting comments. It's possible that you are sensitive to the soundfield. Certainly for me is one of the things were live (as in umamplified) music is different from stereo reproduction. I would love to experiment with surround at home as have a number of hybrid SACDs but have no way of getting 5 channels into the living room in the current house.

I keep hoping that research into headphone processing will give us more immersive recordings that we actually want to listen to. There are some fine binaural recordings from a quality perspective but the music is usually dire!
 
#271
Converting from Tape, test track

Hi guys

Just fired up the 20 year old boom box with a 25 year old tape, and it plays nicely, but I want to clean it up a little.

Attached is a short clip from Chick Corea's Elektric Band, Beneath the mask.

I applied Audacity eq by audaciously drawing some eq lines to boost the highs a bit.

Appreciate feedback on how it sounds to you and how best to convert it to FLAC format. I have quite a few old tapes.
 

Attachments

#275
Not if you are just doing things by ear... which is all you can do really.

If the technical shortcomings of an original machine used for recording are known, then equal and opposite corrections can be applied. This has actually been done in transferring old master tapes to CD in the past. Even tape transport issues can be corrected this way.
 
#277
I use this : Yonder Music

Comparable to iTunes, now is iTunes MP3 or CD quality? Well I would be happy to reach iTunes quality levels, which I can easily do by comparing the streaming version with the taped version and trying to bridge the difference. In the clip I posted, clarity was greatly improved. I just have to check tape speed against the original, play times should do it.
 
#279
Tape decks of high quality used to incorporate some features such 400 Hz note generator for setting Dolby right( maybe ?! it was bias adjust, I bet ) and also cassettes had ( have ) some tones reproduced at the start of the tape.
Still wondering what was ( is ) the purpose of that jingle 🙄😛😕

Wondering what/ why the brackets ?
Problems with allocation in space, no, I meant, time...
where's that box full of tapes ?
😱
 
#280
An Aiwa 3 head cassette I used to own had an automatic setup for any tape. Bias was set first followed by levels (for Dolby tracking) and then equalisation. Took only around 10 seconds or so as I recall and the results were outstanding.
 
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