I'll attempt to explain in my case. Comparing the sound before and after, the effect was similar to turning down the high frequencies; in fact, I dragged out the mic and made response measurements, but didn't find much difference. Since more high frequency is "bright", this effect is like "darkness". I'm not entirely satisfied with the term either, but sometimes it's difficult to describe sonic changes with common descriptors.
I'm not questioning your use of the term, just trying to get a better sense of what such terms are trying to capture or convey (see my edited remarks about negative space).
I think you're heading in the right direction with negative space. Once I got used to the new sound, it became obvious that some kind of low-level "hash", which I hadn't realized was present, was now gone; and as I said, low-level details became far more audible. In fact, I listen at lower levels than I used to, yet hear everything as well.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about, where the silence in between notes serves as a kind of negative space or 'darkness' that, in this case, seems to have been an essential and integral element of the music being played. If this makes sense (and I see no reason to doubt that some people may compose music with these things in view), then it would be as important for a loudspeaker to convey this silence or negative space as it would the other musical notes that make up the rest of the piece.
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on what George and Philosophil said:
Yes of course hearing is a psycho-acoustic field, brain +the actual sound pressure levels. that's why in a party one can pick out from across the room a certain person talking amidst a whole group talking at the same time. isn't that amazing?
however, I started with quoting Siegfried and Troels only because: a.) they have a lot of experience with different speakers, and b.) I do not believe they are very impressionable people to be merely repeating each other's statements. we are all on a quest to that ultimate sound reproduction and each one of us brings to the table their subjective differences, experiences, expectations. but when you see people reaching for the same words when struggling to describe the sound qualities, there must be something to it. the question is only how to capture that by real measurements.
and yes: "darkness" "quiet" "silent" all seem to refer to the same background that provide good contrast for the music or vocals to show at their best, with fine detail like singer's breath taking and a crisp image of each instrument.
Yes of course hearing is a psycho-acoustic field, brain +the actual sound pressure levels. that's why in a party one can pick out from across the room a certain person talking amidst a whole group talking at the same time. isn't that amazing?
however, I started with quoting Siegfried and Troels only because: a.) they have a lot of experience with different speakers, and b.) I do not believe they are very impressionable people to be merely repeating each other's statements. we are all on a quest to that ultimate sound reproduction and each one of us brings to the table their subjective differences, experiences, expectations. but when you see people reaching for the same words when struggling to describe the sound qualities, there must be something to it. the question is only how to capture that by real measurements.
and yes: "darkness" "quiet" "silent" all seem to refer to the same background that provide good contrast for the music or vocals to show at their best, with fine detail like singer's breath taking and a crisp image of each instrument.
I would attribute this "darkness" to a few factors.
1. Lack of noise in the system. I have a very high efficiency system (~98db/watt/M), every little thing induces noise which prevents having an absolutely silent background. Inefficient speakers do not have this problem unless there is a large amount of noise from one of the other pieces in the system.
2. settling time of driver / lack of ringing of driver. Take a look at the waterfall plot of your speaker. Unless it perfectly matches the input you are getting audible output after a note ends. One way this is perceived is a smearing of sound, another is a "darkness" after a note/sound stops.
3. The last obvious thing that affects this is the room and ambient noise. When a speaker is playing in a room it has interactions that can reverberate for quite some time after a note has finished. A room that has a good acoustical design (lots of absorbtion and some diffraction) will make any audio system sound an order of magnitude better. You can hear the "blackness" just walking into a well designed room. CD systems greatly reduce how the room affects the performance of your sound system, which is why it has become so popular. They help mitigate one of the largest problems in speaker design, and I have yet to find a drawback.
Luckily all of these things can be measured, "darkness" is a subjective term used describe an objective measurement or group of measurements.
1. Lack of noise in the system. I have a very high efficiency system (~98db/watt/M), every little thing induces noise which prevents having an absolutely silent background. Inefficient speakers do not have this problem unless there is a large amount of noise from one of the other pieces in the system.
2. settling time of driver / lack of ringing of driver. Take a look at the waterfall plot of your speaker. Unless it perfectly matches the input you are getting audible output after a note ends. One way this is perceived is a smearing of sound, another is a "darkness" after a note/sound stops.
3. The last obvious thing that affects this is the room and ambient noise. When a speaker is playing in a room it has interactions that can reverberate for quite some time after a note has finished. A room that has a good acoustical design (lots of absorbtion and some diffraction) will make any audio system sound an order of magnitude better. You can hear the "blackness" just walking into a well designed room. CD systems greatly reduce how the room affects the performance of your sound system, which is why it has become so popular. They help mitigate one of the largest problems in speaker design, and I have yet to find a drawback.
Luckily all of these things can be measured, "darkness" is a subjective term used describe an objective measurement or group of measurements.
There is not much in the way of measurements anywhere. For manufacturers in general, they supply only what they have to to get by. Trying to honestly show ones flaws is not something that marketing relishes in. As Toole says: There is more useful information on your tires than there is for most loudspeakers.
What do you mean by "true mid size/range", I don't follow.
Toole only gives nonlinear distortion a passing reference in his book, some 1% of its total information. That tells you what he thinks about the subjects importance. Sean has said the same thing to me before. Its not like either has published or ever done work in this area, they haven't. They don't feel it worthy of their time.
Then the gains in your system are wrong. These days this should never happen. It doesn't happen in my setup.
In this thread I think that darkness between notes is a good thing.
To me most rooms are too dead and hence lack any ambiance or spaciousness. Lots of absorption is the easy way to solve some problems that are better done with other means. High directivity CD speaker for example, or better noise control in the venue so that noise reverberation is not an issue. These things are seldom done and "just throw around a lot of absorption" becomes the easy fix. Although it is not the ideal fix.
Earl, re: the fact that there is 1% of the overall information in the industry dedicated to this topic: I really think that is because there has been lower hanging fruit to be addressed first, and this topic is complex and rather insignificant for the commercial market targeting average listeners. (they will not make money off of us looking for a lot in the way of their quality).
as a sidenote: on the "mid size" comment i made: you use large size cones to reproduce mid range (i understand the intent to get the directivity right), but others are adding even a 4incher to an 8incher to merge them with a tweet and those are meant for a true mid-range reproduction 😉. that's all. pls do not read too much into it.
as a sidenote: on the "mid size" comment i made: you use large size cones to reproduce mid range (i understand the intent to get the directivity right), but others are adding even a 4incher to an 8incher to merge them with a tweet and those are meant for a true mid-range reproduction 😉. that's all. pls do not read too much into it.
But that defeats the goal of narrow CD - I am not sure how "true mid-range reproduction" fits in. When we talk of CD I think that it is important to better delineate this and say that my speakers are highly directional (or High Q) CD as this is what differentiates them in small rooms. An Omni is CD (low Q), but highly interactive with the room.
The gains are fine. Just because it doesn't happen in your setup doesn't mean it I don't have a different setup with a different set of issues. I don't understand why you would compare the two in such a way. High efficiency speakers will output more noise when compared to inefficient speakers for a given amount of noise input.
Darkness is a good thing as long as the recording was recorded with it, all I was doing was pointing out objective sources for the subjective experience. A speakers temporal response is a huge factor here.
Ambiance and spaciousness are a factor of the recording, room treatment can either help or hurt this but does not dictate the experience. There is no way on earth you know most rooms are too dead. At best you could claim that a majority of the audio rooms you have been in have been over dampened. I have not had that as my own experience. I have found most of the audio rooms I have been in to have insufficient room treatment, if they had any at all. How many audio enthusiasts do you know that have even taken the time to measure their RT60 or other basic acoustical measurements of their room, let alone do something about it? The only thing I seem to see with regularity is node measurement and that can be of questionable importance when compared to the plethora of other issues in an audio system.
Since you write off everything that I say with little consideration, what difference could the answer to this question make?
RT60 is a small room? Really?
Back to the original question (or one of them): it's tough to know exactly what Linkwitz or Gravesen are hearing as darkness; the low intermodulation or the low energy storage. They are using exceptional drivers which feature both.
I prefer the term "Quiet", but can see how that can be confusing. It does seem that we are all talking about the same things, tho. It's noticeable.
I agree with Earl that a fast settling time and tidy impulse indicate good qualities in a speaker.
What is a tidy impulse? People keep talking about having 'good' or 'clean' impulse responses. Can someone show an example of a good impulse response and a bad impulse response? More importantly, can we distinguish between two 'good' impulse responses to say that one will sound better than the other?
I know that the frequency and phase is completely embedded in the impulse response, but beyond ringing, I don't know what to look for.
I know that the frequency and phase is completely embedded in the impulse response, but beyond ringing, I don't know what to look for.
I have used the "black" metaphor too because it represents the feeling of "there is nothing left to recognize/detect" to me. But I used "black" mainly as a nothingness in space - not in time. Less blurred imaging, better resolution and sense of depth. So far the only other reference to this aspect has been here (my accentuation):
So I believe it is not distortion and "energy storage" in the single stereo channel, which smear and dilute the sharpness of spatiotemporal information in the first place, but inconsistencies between both ear signals, resulting from unbalancies between left and rigt drivers and/or room influences.
As I experienced, this effect can - to a large degree - be switched on and off by applying (linear) phase and amplitude corrections by systems like Audioconvolver or Acourate.
So I believe it is not distortion and "energy storage" in the single stereo channel, which smear and dilute the sharpness of spatiotemporal information in the first place, but inconsistencies between both ear signals, resulting from unbalancies between left and rigt drivers and/or room influences.
Life is full of surprises. 🙂
Darn, wish I knew earlier, we were doing some measurements today at the shop and impulse was awful! I'll post tomorrow if possible.
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