Bias is very likely, so I could be wrong.
But you could try the reverb experiment.
I have done this many times with different people, localisation is pretty easy.
Try to add reverb to a recording. If you are right localisation should suffer even with a relatively small amount of reverb. But it doesn't, you can add quite large amounts of reverb.
It is the direct sound that determines the location of a sound source.
Of cause sometimes the omnidirectional sound can have leading edges inside the critical bandwidth (loosely citing page 25) But that does not happen al the time.
Indeed... I was at a performance of the Dutch Chamber Orchestra yesterday. My seat was at < 10 meters, the venue was small and I could very well pinpoint individual instruments, also with my eyes closed. But that was very different from my experience in large halls. The Concertgebouw in particular is noted for its acoustic signature with a wealth of reflected sound.
Hi graff
I am not sure you understand what I am suggesting, it is the close reflections which are most harmful and of them, ones from close sidewalls are most harmful.
Also, there is the issue of making something sound realistic or making it sound real. By that I mean in an extreme case, if one takes omni loudspeakers and places them in a room, you get a big spacious sound which sounds realistic…..until you realize that all the recordings you play sound that way. If the goal is to preserve the original acoustic environment, you do not want to add things which are listening room specific because you can’t turn them off.
The LEDE rooms used in mixing are a good example of how they deal with this, they absorb reflections that arise close to the loudspeakers and break up reflections from the rear into diffuse and not coherent reflected sound.
Yes “virtually all” commercial loudspeakers produce a lot of reflections, directivity is the only thing which can prevent that and “size” is required to have that and that may make a speaker that won’t fly in the home market. That is partly why I have harped on setting up a stereo outdoors because in that condition, one can hear the speakers without the most of the rooms additions. YES we don’t listen outside and can’t leave the stereo outside BUT it does illustrate the point about reflections being generally harmful so far as preserving the sense of acoustic space in the recording. One hears the largest difference between dry and process recordings when all you hear is the recording and not the room.
Our hearing process is very complicated; it seeks and filters the information out of the noise so we can hear under adverse conditions without being aware of it. This process was not developed recently with the advent of flat walls and boundaries; we are simply accustomed to them and hear past them. We become aware of how they affect what we hear only when we remove the effects they cause. I am unaware of loudspeaker testing using speakers with a high degree of pattern control for this as VERY few exist, even fewer exist in the hifi market and so the next best thing is trying loudspeakers outdoors where there aren’t any walls. Sure there are other things that effect this too like “how” the speaker radiates which even outdoors affect how “real” a stereo image one can create but the room part is one that is easy to experiment with, many find an immediate improvement when they add absorption on the side walls where one would see the loudspeaker if the wall was a mirror.
Best,
Tom
I am not sure you understand what I am suggesting, it is the close reflections which are most harmful and of them, ones from close sidewalls are most harmful.
Also, there is the issue of making something sound realistic or making it sound real. By that I mean in an extreme case, if one takes omni loudspeakers and places them in a room, you get a big spacious sound which sounds realistic…..until you realize that all the recordings you play sound that way. If the goal is to preserve the original acoustic environment, you do not want to add things which are listening room specific because you can’t turn them off.
The LEDE rooms used in mixing are a good example of how they deal with this, they absorb reflections that arise close to the loudspeakers and break up reflections from the rear into diffuse and not coherent reflected sound.
Yes “virtually all” commercial loudspeakers produce a lot of reflections, directivity is the only thing which can prevent that and “size” is required to have that and that may make a speaker that won’t fly in the home market. That is partly why I have harped on setting up a stereo outdoors because in that condition, one can hear the speakers without the most of the rooms additions. YES we don’t listen outside and can’t leave the stereo outside BUT it does illustrate the point about reflections being generally harmful so far as preserving the sense of acoustic space in the recording. One hears the largest difference between dry and process recordings when all you hear is the recording and not the room.
Our hearing process is very complicated; it seeks and filters the information out of the noise so we can hear under adverse conditions without being aware of it. This process was not developed recently with the advent of flat walls and boundaries; we are simply accustomed to them and hear past them. We become aware of how they affect what we hear only when we remove the effects they cause. I am unaware of loudspeaker testing using speakers with a high degree of pattern control for this as VERY few exist, even fewer exist in the hifi market and so the next best thing is trying loudspeakers outdoors where there aren’t any walls. Sure there are other things that effect this too like “how” the speaker radiates which even outdoors affect how “real” a stereo image one can create but the room part is one that is easy to experiment with, many find an immediate improvement when they add absorption on the side walls where one would see the loudspeaker if the wall was a mirror.
Best,
Tom
Amen to that! The proponents of "realism" don't care if a Picasso looks like a Picasso, they want it to look photorealistic, so why not add a little extra paint:
Because I made the claim that good reflections do not alter the sound stage, I have added 6 sec of reverb to a good recording. The reverb is mixed at 0dB, so just as loud as the original.
You can upload the files here: reverb.zip - 4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download - tattoo henkie
On my sound system and with my ears I can still perfectly locate the individual instruments.
You can upload the files here: reverb.zip - 4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download - tattoo henkie
On my sound system and with my ears I can still perfectly locate the individual instruments.
Now do the following: pan a mono track to the left speaker, delay the signal and play that through the right speaker. Vary level and delay. This is a much better test what reflections do.
they are certainly NOT the most harmful according to the existing body of research summarized by Floyd Toole in his book
early front-wall reflections are not good:
(Toole, page 120)
early rear-wall reflections may be bad because they increase IACC therefore
(Toole, page 120)
but early side-wall reflections are not bad IF the loudspeakers are good:
(Toole, page 324)
such is also my personal experience
on the contrary this subjective experience of many professionals in the audio industry:
is not AT ALL confirmed in scientific research
it is surprising indeed and therefore Toole tries to understand what is going on, below I post the relevant fragment of his book, I find it very convincing, in one sentence:
OTOH apparently not all professionals become abnormally sensitized and biased because of that, for example Mr Olhsson, quoted above in my previous posts, is an example of professional with quite normal hearing, Mr "Golden Ear" Moulton too and many others
this is not the case at all, there is no such spatial homogenization at all - not only in my experience, if You don't trust me then again ask Mr Olhsson or Mr Linkwitz, or AES Fellow Mr "the digital guru" Watkinson, just a few examples of professionals with credentials
not just "reflections" - INCOHERENT reflections
Mr Danley, I understand that You are more into Pro sound reinforcement than into home hifi?
I am afraid that You don't take into acount the fact that both fields are indeed completely different
I believe that You are 100% right as far as Pro sound reinforcement acoustical environment is concerned but home hifi is an entirely different thing
listening rooms are small, much smaller than live music spaces and much smaller than typical amplified live event venues
therefore Mr Olhsson can say that:
a good recording overcomes ordinary room acoustics pretty easily as ordinary listening rooms are small, much smaller than live music spaces and much smaller than typical amplified live event venues
but the speaker must be right and requirements for loudspeakers for sound reinforcement and home hifi are different because acoustic environments, difficulties and objectives are different
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Graaf,
Not to take your side or Tom's but there are as many counter articles by people who are just a noteworthy as the author you are using to state your case. I think that there is really a bit of both situations going on in most normal rooms. The majority of consumers have no sound deadening panels or reflective/diffuser panels dedicated to this use. But they have couches and drapes, carpet or hardwood or mix, and windows in all kinds of places and sometimes they are doing the same effects that we are talking about in a good way and sometimes in a destructive way. Perhaps I am wrong on this but I think that musicians would prefer a less reflective environment as they are really trying to hear their own instrument while playing and are using the sounds of the other members of the ensemble for timing cues. The bass beat or the drum helps to keep in time. This is why we have different monitor mixes for individuals on stage or in the studio. What gives the best subjective sound is just that subjective. You may like the diffuse sound of a direct radiator or Omani-directional speaker system while someone else just loves the directionality of a horn loaded system. To each their own, there really are no hard and fast rules when it comes to enjoying music playback.
Not to take your side or Tom's but there are as many counter articles by people who are just a noteworthy as the author you are using to state your case. I think that there is really a bit of both situations going on in most normal rooms. The majority of consumers have no sound deadening panels or reflective/diffuser panels dedicated to this use. But they have couches and drapes, carpet or hardwood or mix, and windows in all kinds of places and sometimes they are doing the same effects that we are talking about in a good way and sometimes in a destructive way. Perhaps I am wrong on this but I think that musicians would prefer a less reflective environment as they are really trying to hear their own instrument while playing and are using the sounds of the other members of the ensemble for timing cues. The bass beat or the drum helps to keep in time. This is why we have different monitor mixes for individuals on stage or in the studio. What gives the best subjective sound is just that subjective. You may like the diffuse sound of a direct radiator or Omani-directional speaker system while someone else just loves the directionality of a horn loaded system. To each their own, there really are no hard and fast rules when it comes to enjoying music playback.
The biggest problem in stereo triangle is interaural cross talk. In comparison to that room reflections are like sugar and honey.
- Elias
- Elias
This is a test of what single reflections do.
Single reflections are never good because they cause comb filtering and therefore alter the sound in a quite dramatic way, your experiment shows this.
The main point I try to make is that you can have bad reflections and good reflections.
Bad reflections are not diffuse and/or frequency dependant. These cause crappy sound.
Good reflections are diffuse and frequency independent. These enhance loudness and detail.
I had hoped you would experiment a little bit more. Unfortunately it's not as simple as you suggest. Do you know this paper? http://www.aes.org/e-lib/download.cfm?ID=13686&name=harman
Again, that's the limitations of stereo. Why not add a center speaker? I've heard that some really mean guys trying to sell you even more speakers already proposed that - some 80 years ago 🙂
graaf, most of what you posted supports what Mr. Danley was saying.
It's as though you're arguing the benefits of catsup versus steak sauce, when the dish in front of you is ice cream. When Tom took his speakers outdoors to listen, I strongly suspect one of Mr. Olhsson's heavily reverbed mixes wasn't on the playlist.
It's as though you're arguing the benefits of catsup versus steak sauce, when the dish in front of you is ice cream. When Tom took his speakers outdoors to listen, I strongly suspect one of Mr. Olhsson's heavily reverbed mixes wasn't on the playlist.
Thanks for the link. I didn't know the paper. I have read his book on acoustics.
But reading the conclusions at page 472 and 473, they confirm what I've (and JW) been saying.
of course, after all it´s just an older paper from Toole - quotations in my posts are from his latest book
I would like to know them
there are where it comes to realistic sound reproduction
There are two issues there: realism and phantom images. And both due to floor reflection(s) ?
Now let's quote some references here ?
While coherece can be explicitly defined in a number of ways in science, how is this form of coherence defined ?
- Elias
I followed a link to Mr. Olhsson, who posted a link to David Moulton, which led me to this:
Moulton Laboratories :: We Want Really Accurate Recordings, Right? Or Do We?
Moulton Laboratories :: We Want Really Accurate Recordings, Right? Or Do We?
Keriwena,
This is a very relevant presentation to the subject here. Everyone wants to argue their point of what sounds correct, and they are all full of it in that sense. There are no perfect sound systems and nothing even close to it. They are all making an illusion of the sounds that each of us have determined that we find satisfactory. Each person can argue their point until they are blue in the face and doesn't make what they say true. Unless your hearing is tested and you have perfect pitch you really have nothing to even begin to stand on with your opinion. This is just the best science that we have at the time to describe and measure what we think we are looking for. The variables from the original sound producer to reproduction are just much to complex to say you have the perfect answer to reproducing the original sound exactly as it was created. Let's all get over ourselves and agree that we are all just trying to produce sound as accurately as is desirable for each listener, nothing less and nothing more. Go ahead an take this entire passage and break it into little pieces and analyze each word, still won't make you right! You have no absolute proof that you are correct, only someone else's opinion on the science that they have used to try and report the phenomena of sound. This is not E=McSquared
This is a very relevant presentation to the subject here. Everyone wants to argue their point of what sounds correct, and they are all full of it in that sense. There are no perfect sound systems and nothing even close to it. They are all making an illusion of the sounds that each of us have determined that we find satisfactory. Each person can argue their point until they are blue in the face and doesn't make what they say true. Unless your hearing is tested and you have perfect pitch you really have nothing to even begin to stand on with your opinion. This is just the best science that we have at the time to describe and measure what we think we are looking for. The variables from the original sound producer to reproduction are just much to complex to say you have the perfect answer to reproducing the original sound exactly as it was created. Let's all get over ourselves and agree that we are all just trying to produce sound as accurately as is desirable for each listener, nothing less and nothing more. Go ahead an take this entire passage and break it into little pieces and analyze each word, still won't make you right! You have no absolute proof that you are correct, only someone else's opinion on the science that they have used to try and report the phenomena of sound. This is not E=McSquared
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