Thanks, dr. Geddes. Those are very useful and illuminating comments. They jibe very much with my own inutitive experiences. I'm an amateur musician and singer who goes to acoustic concerts all the time, so for me that is my subjective reference for "hifi". I have always felt acoustic puristic recordings to be much more natural on dipole and omni style speakers. On the other hand, I also enjoy my fair share of modern studio music in different genres, from electronica to hard rock. Those recordings feel more correct on highly directional speakers.
...which makes me realize that the only way of enjoying both types of recordings to a maximal degree is having two different setups in my home!
EDIT: These words of yours seem to me very important for people when choosing speaker/room systems:
"My playback system is ideally targeted at recreating the studio image and so are my designs. Mono-poles may work very well for orchestral work in a large room, but I neither have a large room nor care to recreate orchestral work. You need to know where you tastes lie as this is critical to the design of the system that you should choose."
Why are those kinds of dilemmas in sound reproduction for the home not more widely known and appreciated?
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I have two different sets like oivavoi, but the high-DI system is actually more a low-RT with semi-nearfield and 5.1 ready. The sound I get is very different and I like both, but for different music/recordings.
"Swings both ways"
Cool. Just to clarify, I don't have two setups yet. But I might aim for it in the future.
I, myself, have only recently come to those conclusions. I used to believe that sound system ideal for one type of music would be ideal for all. I don;'t believe that anymore because the more I look at the issues the more I see that they are counter opposed.
The real dilemmas, and perhaps the reason that this issue is not brought up more, is what is a manufacturer supposed to do. Admit to one side or the other!? No marketing person is going to do that.
One of the key breakthroughs in my thinking stemmed from a discussion with Floyd Toole about the issue of the ideal DI. I could see that he harbored similar feelings and that his inclination was to "field recordings" as that's how he expressed all his ideas. I, on the other hand expressed all my ideas in terms that reflected "studio work". Floyd said that he often tells people to have rooms that have changeable acoustics for just this dilemma. But the loudspeakers cannot be changed (so easily) and so, to me, this dilemma has no true solution.
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It's one of the reasons my main system went to a single mono speaker - trying to reproduce the ambiance of the original recording is a hard slog. You have to tame the listening room and allow the recording venue to dominate what you hear. That places a lot of constraints and I'm not interested in making such an investment. So rather than fight the room I allow the room to be the ambiance. However, In such a situation you are now fighting the recording, which your stereo system tries to impress onto the room. With a single mono speaker (open back box at that) you are saying 'to hell with the recorded ambiance', throw away the confusion and instead you embrace your listening room. Sure, there are cues in the recording, but your own listening room is given the upper hand.
I will build another pair of stereo speakers because it allows me to evaluate my stereo amplifiers that I've enjoyed building so I will end up with two set-ups in my home. One will be single speaker mono (I may try something even more 'omni' than my open-back-box in this regard as a future project) and the other will be a 'traditional' stereo set up for the sake of tradition - I also enjoy tradition, why else would I also build with both SS and with tubes
I will build another pair of stereo speakers because it allows me to evaluate my stereo amplifiers that I've enjoyed building so I will end up with two set-ups in my home. One will be single speaker mono (I may try something even more 'omni' than my open-back-box in this regard as a future project) and the other will be a 'traditional' stereo set up for the sake of tradition - I also enjoy tradition, why else would I also build with both SS and with tubes
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Very interesting. A large company such as Harman could certainly be capable of developing and marketing different lines of speakers for different kinds of listeners. But smaller companies... not so much.
It's one of the reasons my main system went to a single mono speaker - trying to reproduce the ambiance of the original recording is a hard slog. You have to tame the listening room and allow the recording venue to dominate what you hear. That places a lot of constraints and I'm not interested in making such an investment. So rather than fight the room I allow the room to be the ambiance. However, In such a situation you are now fighting the recording, which your stereo system tries to impress onto the room. With a single mono speaker (open back box at that) you are saying 'to hell with the recorded ambiance', throw away the confusion and instead you embrace your listening room. Sure, there are cues in the recording, but your own listening room is given the upper hand.
I will build another pair of stereo speakers because it allows me to evaluate my stereo amplifiers that I've enjoyed building so I will end up with two set-ups in my home. One will be single speaker mono (I may try something even more 'omni' than my open-back-box in this regard as a future project) and the other will be a 'traditional' stereo set up for the sake of tradition - I also enjoy tradition, why else would I also build with both SS and with tubes
Cool approach. Seeing that you're in Ontario you could take a trip to Toronto and ask for an audition of the Morrison Audio omni speakers, if you haven't heard them already. You might be in for a surprise.
And now for something completely different - Gearslutz Pro Audio Community
what "imaging" is must be VERY subjective...
For comparison, from an audiophile:
REFERENCE COMPONENTS-SPEAKERS
from a pro (Bob Olhsson, posted by him at gearslutz forum):
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Or for the less rich, add surround speakers and some DSP to turn on when listening to orchestral music and off when listening to studio rock.
Interesting approach. I think it's a good idea to let the listening room impart its influence, to a degree, nice to hear that small jazz combo here in my room. However, trying to nullify the recordings imagery and ambiance is a losing game I think, far better in my view a wishy-washy, sitting on the fence, kind of compromise, more achievable and perhaps even sounds more realistic
The B90s only have constant directivity with frequency in narrow mode. In wide mode it's ok but not great, in omni mode it's an atrocity.
Lipshitz and Vanderkooy came to similar conclusions (soundfield reproduction choices and trade offs) 30 yrs ago, wrote a paper on it in aes. Mathematically showed you can get close to best of both worlds with 5 or more surround set up. Envelopment from stereo is like swimming with only a squirt gun.
When listening non-blind we tend to hear what we want to hear.
Real psychoacoustic work on "imaging" is very rare. That's why Lidia and I are doing a study as we speak - trying to put some science in front of the smoke screens.
Books like Blauerts would tend to indicate that, scientifically, image should degrade with more very early lateral reflections.
That would have been my question exactly - just how well can one do that? Seems tough to me unless huge compromises are made.
Hi Earl,
AES preprint 2554 (G-8) from 1987 New York 83rd convention. Haven't read it in 30 yrs, but it mathematically looks at ambisonics multichannel wavefront reconstruction vs stereo.
I knew John and Stan once (long story LOL)!
BTW, I'm a bit surprised you prefer to voice for top end roll off but don't listen to orchestral or large hall classical. Not many other venues have absorption make an impact (outdoors large festivals?). I tend to design for flatter (not flat as I think much mastering is blistering over speakers with any rise 3 to 8 kHz), listening to everything from Mahler sized orchestra works down to hard rock (which sounds terrible and "unrealistic" (if that even makes sense in this context) if too rolled off)
Dave
Dave
Its interesting that you should mention that because of an experience that I had just last night.
I went to see Saint Vincent. Initially I was not wearing ear protection and I found the sound unbearable, with distortion and god knows what else ringing in my ears. I put on a pair of Etymotic Musicians earplugs and low and behold, the sound was excellent. I have to say that this puzzled me a lot because that means that the distortion that I was hearing was in my own hearing and not in the sound system.
Not many know what recruitment is and how it works, but my suspicion for a long time is that older people (like me!!) might well have a much higher sensitivity to loud HF signals, because this is where they loose most of their hearing and where their recruitment is worst. We may actually generate distortion of high SPL HF signals. Lowering the HF gain may help this issue, so it may be a personal thing, but it actually is quite common.
Its interesting that you should mention that because of an experience that I had just last night.
I went to see Saint Vincent. Initially I was not wearing ear protection and I found the sound unbearable, with distortion and god knows what else ringing in my ears. I put on a pair of Etymotic Musicians earplugs and low and behold, the sound was excellent. I have to say that this puzzled me a lot because that means that the distortion that I was hearing was in my own hearing and not in the sound system.
Not many know what recruitment is and how it works, but my suspicion for a long time is that older people (like me!!) might well have a much higher sensitivity to loud HF signals, because this is where they loose most of their hearing and where their recruitment is worst. We may actually generate distortion of high SPL HF signals. Lowering the HF gain may help this issue, so it may be a personal thing, but it actually is quite common.
Thank you. This illuminates for me a rather dim awareness I had about differing and strongly held views on this site. I do not align myself with Dr Geddes' preferences, but can now completely understand that view.
And Big'un has put forward the view that I do align with.
And all on a thread with, for me, a very unpromising sounding title. Great stuff.
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