Less noticed: yes. Inconsequential: no.
David S.
Less noticed, that is exactly what I mean. Do you think if you listened to those sound samples of yours long enough, you ultimately wouldn't notice the effect anymore?
to be fair, of course you'd have to listen to the mutilated version only, to not let your brain get the chance to reset every few seconds
RealTraps - Ultimate Small Mixing & Mastering Room
Realtraps demo of a room before and after absorbtion, diffusion, combos, different music types.
Realtraps demo of a room before and after absorbtion, diffusion, combos, different music types.
RealTraps - Ultimate Small Mixing & Mastering Room
Realtraps demo of a room before and after absorbtion, diffusion, combos, different music types.
In an anechoic chamber the frequency response would be much smoother 🙂 Seriously, why not just use headphones?
Earl Geddes wrote :
http://www.etfacoustic.com/software/RPlusD/SoftwareFeaturesAndFunctions.PDF : a fixed window for higher frequencies and a variable gating (corresponding to constant resolution) for lower frequencies. E. Geddes adds the 1/t weighting (with no frequency dependance ?).
Will we get one day a single curve representing our perception ?
This reminds me of the Psychological Response measured with R+D softwareI regard any reflection less than 10 ms as detrimental with a weighting of about 1/t(ms)
http://www.etfacoustic.com/software/RPlusD/SoftwareFeaturesAndFunctions.PDF : a fixed window for higher frequencies and a variable gating (corresponding to constant resolution) for lower frequencies. E. Geddes adds the 1/t weighting (with no frequency dependance ?).
Will we get one day a single curve representing our perception ?
Headphones can't go "whump". 🙂
What I meant is that this demonstration is a real trap for most people. It's highly misleading. They should have used a dummy head instead of a stereo mic.
In and AC, modal ringing would be reduced more too hehe! Not to mention that the various generations and placements would change even less. But who wants to listen in an AC?
Dan
Dan
Do you happen to remember what frequency was used for the test tone ?I heard a demo once with two speakers. The operator asked "which speaker is playing" and then you heard a steady sine wave tone turn on. We all pointed to the left speaker so he went over and disconnected the left speaker. Sound still came from that direction.
The trick was that the test tone started in the left speaker and then smoothly panned to the right. With sine wave in a live room you have a hard time telling direction but the turn on transient is easy to detect. Once your brain hears the turn on in the left speaker it ignores the smooth pan to the right.
I would have bet my house that the left speaker was always on.
So the delayed copy in the sound sample serves to demonstrate the effect of a back-wall reflection. Play this sound through your system and what do you hear? First you hear the direct sound. In the direct sound you'll find the original signal + the delayed copy. Alright, your brain might think 'here comes the direct sound, followed by a back-wall reflection' (assuming you brain gets no clues that it is actually a delayed copy of the original sound).
Then comes for example the first lateral reflection of the nearest sidewall. In this first reflection you'll first notice the original signal. This is what your brain expects. It's a normal first sidewall reflection. But then it is followed by an unnatural phenomenon: there is an extra delayed copy! Where does this delayed copy come from?
This same copy of the original will be in all reflections, not just in the direct sound.
Don't you think this is problem?
Not a problem at all. Rewind a bit and recall that the question was whether reflections similar to those caused by room boundaries would be audible. The links where of various events: real trains going by, a simulation of approaching a steam train, hand clapping in front of monument steps, and my simple pink noise with delayed addition.
If instead of hearing reflections and saying "yes, that's audible" you hear reflections on top of reflections (reflections in the simulation and in the playback system) and find it equally audible, then we've still proven the point that reflections have an audible effect. There is an argument that a multiplicity of reflections will let some of them hide others, so if you can still hear the simulated effects in a reverberant environment it makes it even more clear that reflections are audible.
The only counterargument that I'd give some credence to is that these are mostly mono examples and reflections from a lateral direction wouldn't necessarily give the same results. Hence the common observation that lateral reflections lead to spaciousness while same direction reflections lead to colorations.
David S.
Do you happen to remember what frequency was used for the test tone ?
Not exactly. I'd guess around 500 to 1000Hz. It was in that range where moving your head would give the continuous phasiness between your two ears. (Which is why its direction was otherwise difficult to define.)
Still working on that filtered noise test.
David
Not a problem at all. Rewind a bit and recall that the question was whether reflections similar to those caused by room boundaries would be audible. The links where of various events: real trains going by, a simulation of approaching a steam train, hand clapping in front of monument steps, and my simple pink noise with delayed addition.
If instead of hearing reflections and saying "yes, that's audible" you hear reflections on top of reflections (reflections in the simulation and in the playback system) and find it equally audible, then we've still proven the point that reflections have an audible effect. There is an argument that a multiplicity of reflections will let some of them hide others, so if you can still hear the simulated effects in a reverberant environment it makes it even more clear that reflections are audible.
The only counterargument that I'd give some credence to is that these are mostly mono examples and reflections from a lateral direction wouldn't necessarily give the same results. Hence the common observation that lateral reflections lead to spaciousness while same direction reflections lead to colorations.
David S.
I am not disputing the back-wall reflection (of say, a dipole) is audible, because I think it is. What I doubt is that the effect of the back-wall reflection is anything like what you can hear in your sound samples.
In my view, what the test proves is that an added delayed copy can be recognized in the presence of reflections - not that reflections can be recognized among other reflections. You seem to somehow assume external validity of this test (delayed copies are similar to reflection to a sufficient extent), but to me it is still not clear on what basis.
In an anechoic chamber the frequency response would be much smoother 🙂 Seriously, why not just use headphones?
Headphones for the whole human body?
Sound perception is not limited by holes in ears.
I don't know where the -10dB (more commonly -15dB/10ms) figure comes from. There's no scientific justification for it. Nevertheless it can be found in lots of recommendations.
One good paper on the subject is by Toole and Olive: The Detection of Reflections in Typical Rooms. They looked at a lot of different cases with different arrival angles and different sources (pink noise, clicks, music with reverberence, music without reverberence, speech, etc.). Thresholds of detection where all over the place. A reflection of a noise signal, for example, was audible when -23dB (or so), whether arriving from the side or from the front and with any delay from 1-2 msec all the way to 80 msec. The same test with pulses varied wildly from -10 for short delays to -40 (very detectable at a low level) for 20ms delay. A lot of the tests showed detectability at levels of -20dB or so. -10dB thresholds were about the least detectable (highest detection level) in the various tests so a goal of -20 seems more universal than -10.
David S.
I believe this is the master graph from the paper Dave is talking about:
simplified for speech:
Image spread etc..:
Detection Extremes:
Dan

simplified for speech:

Image spread etc..:

Detection Extremes:

Dan
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Headphones for the whole human body?
Sound perception is not limited by holes in ears.
Then add a bass shaker under the chair if the "whump" is of such particular importance to you.
Intresting thread. Is this debate valid to theoretically ideal radiation pattern or in practice ideal radiation pattern? Big difference there. 🙂
I believe this is the master graph from the paper Dave is talking about:
Yes, these are the graphs and they show that reflection suppression should be more like -25dB if a non-environment room design (see Philip Newell "Recording Studio Design") is the goal.
The effect of bass shaker and sub bass sound waves are different. I prefer the latter which is more natural to my body 😉
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