I now sometimes wonder why the old 'Bass & Treble' controls are so 'frowned upon' for minor tweaks to an albums sound 😕
The chords he plays on his Fender Rhodes arent bad either...the way Tom Scott fades in from one of the notes. The voices.
Does anyone know how much the skin of a kick drum moves when hit by the head, that would give some idea as to how much a speaker cone would have to move to replicate the punch.
It seems to be that percussion instruments (drums or cymbals) that test speakers realism.
It seems to be that percussion instruments (drums or cymbals) that test speakers realism.
It depends. Felt beater, or hard beater? How tight is head tensioned? What is the head diameter? Is there a pillow inside the drum resting against the inside of the head? Depends on the player too.
A kick head might move quite a bit; in some cases it could be 0.5" or so. That said, the surface area of the head might be able to couple into a lot of air so the center displacement may not be the only factor.
I would presume it would form a cone, with the head at the center, much like if you pressed your finger against cling film (Saran wrap), then a ripple would radiate outwards, as the head returned, so that .5" would only be a small area.
I think that's the difficulty on the reproduction of percussion instruments, a kick drum had the initial thump, then ripples, a cymbal has the initial strike, then complex ripples shimmering throughout the disc, with many overtones and undertones, rapidly developing and decaying; very hard for a speaker (that is designed to replicate continuous sine waves, at a single frequency) to replicate.
I think that's the difficulty on the reproduction of percussion instruments, a kick drum had the initial thump, then ripples, a cymbal has the initial strike, then complex ripples shimmering throughout the disc, with many overtones and undertones, rapidly developing and decaying; very hard for a speaker (that is designed to replicate continuous sine waves, at a single frequency) to replicate.
Also, some kick drums have two heads, and there is the shell resonating too.
Regarding the beater head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibration_of_a_circular_membrane (scroll down to the set of animated graphics)
Regarding the beater head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibration_of_a_circular_membrane (scroll down to the set of animated graphics)
I just recently installed HF10AK in JMLC-1000 horns after for years living without cymbals in my playback, which tricked me to increase the midrange too much to squeeze out any treble that could be heard beyond 12kHz.
Previously I used Raal tweeters, also horn loaded, but that setup was donated to a fellow horn enthusiast.
Cymbals now are quite a bit more lively. The HF10AK is not perfect, and I feel sensitive to any harshness they might bring, since I owned the Raal before. Raal is very smooth, and lovely, but timid and a bit pale and lifeless. It doesn't even bother playing music all the way to 20khz. But Raal is not clinical like the Beyma AMT tweeter. Raal is how you would speak exhausted after a weeks work on a Thursday afternoon, while working overtime. The Faitalpro HF10AK is more like how you would speak to friend in a crowded bar on a Saturday after many envigorating drinks. An AMT is like having a conversation with a beautiful lady, that looks a little too plastic fantastic, and is probably a man.
Cymbals with HF10AK:
Previously I used Raal tweeters, also horn loaded, but that setup was donated to a fellow horn enthusiast.
Cymbals now are quite a bit more lively. The HF10AK is not perfect, and I feel sensitive to any harshness they might bring, since I owned the Raal before. Raal is very smooth, and lovely, but timid and a bit pale and lifeless. It doesn't even bother playing music all the way to 20khz. But Raal is not clinical like the Beyma AMT tweeter. Raal is how you would speak exhausted after a weeks work on a Thursday afternoon, while working overtime. The Faitalpro HF10AK is more like how you would speak to friend in a crowded bar on a Saturday after many envigorating drinks. An AMT is like having a conversation with a beautiful lady, that looks a little too plastic fantastic, and is probably a man.
Cymbals with HF10AK:
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Good point there >
Reproducing a single spot frequency sine wave is a very easy thing for a speaker to do - much like a flute note. [ excluding reverb ]
I am actually a strong proponent of using high-quality measurement microphones and an oscilloscope to look at complex waveforms.
Even simple square waves can reveal much more information than a simple sine wave. 'Waterfall plots' also reveal great information.
IE. A sine wave sweep across the spectrum only reveals limited information. Transient 'attack time' is a very important parameter.
PS. Regarding kick drums >
I think that it is generally accepted that larger high quality woofers with decent Xmax reproduce kick drums better > SPL relevant.
- Whether it is true or not (?) I heard that in recording Nirvana's "Never Mind" album they used a rubbish bin with the bottom cut-out
- in front of the kick drum - to then mic. [ the kick sound on the album is quite delicious ]
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Do/did you have static noise or a signal modulated noise "tail"?
In any case - how did you remove it?
//
I don't know. As I'm used only to fullrange drivers having big cone travel and radiating surface (in comparison to standard tweeters) I can play cymbals on them putting lots of watts into the speaker at high frequencies without burning the voice coil of a tiny tweeter.
However I understand well what the thread starter means as I sometimes heard the live dynamics of a drum kit if played rough. And my first impression was - never heard that on a loudspeaker like this.
The steely dan album has an extraordinary sound @Audio>X
However I understand well what the thread starter means as I sometimes heard the live dynamics of a drum kit if played rough. And my first impression was - never heard that on a loudspeaker like this.
The steely dan album has an extraordinary sound @Audio>X
the other extreme are recordings where you can live nearly without a tweeter but they make fun listening to them.
Famous is Lady in black. I really like this group because of its mellow sound
yes, there are hi hats but they don't play the main role
Famous is Lady in black. I really like this group because of its mellow sound
yes, there are hi hats but they don't play the main role
When I see how many even expensive loudspeakers have bad frequency responses and people are lucky with them then sometimes I think high fidelity is the art of reproducing sound nicer than reality really is.
Whoever heard the dynamics and impulses of a hammer on an anvil doesn't forcibly desire to reproduce that on the home hifi system.
For testing loudspeakers already a blues harp C is a demanding test or a tambourine.
Whoever heard the dynamics and impulses of a hammer on an anvil doesn't forcibly desire to reproduce that on the home hifi system.
For testing loudspeakers already a blues harp C is a demanding test or a tambourine.
this works well with a paper cone fullrange screwed randomly into some box and dreaming within a wall of sound.
The live events of this group I would never visit as the sound is horribly clean and dynamic compared to how I learned and liked the group on their old LPs
The live events of this group I would never visit as the sound is horribly clean and dynamic compared to how I learned and liked the group on their old LPs
@Audio>X
for me the well chosen tone controls and the legendary bass EQ switch from the classic series of NAD are often missed !!!!
dreaming of an amplifier with a three band PEQ - does anyone know who produced something like that ?
(besides the newer Amps with integrated dsp)
for me the well chosen tone controls and the legendary bass EQ switch from the classic series of NAD are often missed !!!!
dreaming of an amplifier with a three band PEQ - does anyone know who produced something like that ?
(besides the newer Amps with integrated dsp)
Attachments
My age old Groundsound pre-amp has 4 presets, where you can program almost any PEQ you want, and then choose between the 4 on the remote, in a prefilter, before the actual filter for each driver unit.
Slowly I think some mainstream hifi products are getting a small version of this feature, but I think only minidsp has something like a remote pre-programmed selection feature... Which is a little dangerous, because the minidsp can alter outputs, level frequency slopes and everything in just one push of a button, essentially giving you the option to exchange the output of a tweeter with a woofer, and burn the tweeter. So be careful with this level of 'freedom' 🙂
Slowly I think some mainstream hifi products are getting a small version of this feature, but I think only minidsp has something like a remote pre-programmed selection feature... Which is a little dangerous, because the minidsp can alter outputs, level frequency slopes and everything in just one push of a button, essentially giving you the option to exchange the output of a tweeter with a woofer, and burn the tweeter. So be careful with this level of 'freedom' 🙂
So getting the sound you want into a recording has nothing to do with reality. Got it.
Let's reproduce what never would be there anyway, when seeing the musicians perform. Fall all over ourselves getting this 'n that detail just so, just so we can best hear what someone imagined might sound good on their original recording and pulled it off somehow. The words "get a life" seem to be coming into focus.
Then the cymbal should sound in the way that's most comfortable and familiar to the listener and that's all that matters. In live performance, I love my compression and after so many uncomfortable performances without it, I decided to "BYO" in order to present the sound I want, the sound I'm most comfortable with. A modified version of the reality coming out my mouth and guitar pickup.
Funny how two-faced I am as a singer guitarist / audiophile. One one hand, I want someone else's instrument to sound "real", like it's "there" in my listening space. On the other, that's the last thing I want to present to an audience, preferring a highly processed sound, as might come from someone's studio after they fiddled with it to their heart's content..
With freedom comes responsibility, not everyone is up to that 😉
There's also the Quad 33/34 preamp with clever tone controls, filters and "tilt" control -- a recognition that recordings are far from perfect, and tools to help ameliorate this (and room acoustics) are useful. Too bad the preamp's basic electronic performance was never that good.
We went through some 30+ years where tone controls were forbidden to be even mentioned, never mind featured or used in preamps & amps. Thankful those days are over.
I see Quad released new versions of the 33 and 303 amp. I know the audio press likes them... wonder how they sound.