Why i gloomed onto Allen Wright’s DDR right away. I wish someone would figure out how to measure that and put some quantitative data to those qualitive terms.
dace
Downward Dynamic Range.
The ability of kit to resolve & retain very small bits of information even when in th eprecence of full level signals.
dave
The ability of kit to resolve & retain very small bits of information even when in th eprecence of full level signals.
dave
I found the same to be true as a amateur bass guitarist. One guy even made me a tape and said "learn this". I asked why he did that for me. "You seem interested".
Thing is, digital formats come so close to being transparent that the human ear would not be able to detect improvement in S.Q. if transparency were somehow increased. If all you need is a tack hammer, then there's no point in ordering a drop forge.
I think that's indeed the key.
Subjectivists hear differences that cannot be measured and objectivists measure differences that cannot be heard.
Subjectivists hear differences that cannot be measured and objectivists measure differences that cannot be heard.
The formats have a lot of bits, and common figure of merit measurements look good. So what could be wrong? What could go wrong is that dacs that measure similarly well don't always sound very much the same. They are not transparent either. Its for technical reasons that either can practically be measured, or in principle could be measured, but ASR isn't doing it with their AP. BTW, we have discussed this kind of stuff earlier in the thread. Why start all over again from the beginning now?
On a forum where there are real examples of this sort of thing all over the place, why pick unlikely examples? why not chose something real?
swinging back round to imaging again, which in my mind is mainly affected by (in no real order)
-what was encoded on the source.
-speakers
-room interactions (reflection, diffraction, absorbtion etc)
-The wet squishy collection of neurons processing it all
Now I have mentioned many times that a CD I enjoy using for checking all is good with my system (confession it rarely is. Small children and ribbons do not go well together) is Redbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbird_(Redbird_album). This is 4 people, with stringed instruments sitting around a stereo mike with a DAT recorder and apparantly having way too much fun. I love it for the non-musical sounds. The hum of the DAT recorder motor, sound of cars and dogs outside. It's as pure a recording as you get outside bluegrass BUT what should the soundstage be? Should 2 singers be behind you, or one sitting on top of the other? That part I can't work out, despite you being almost able to guess where the window is in the living room they were recording in. What I do know is that if one of the singers is coming from outside the speakers something must be wrong as they weren't sitting that far apart! Not sure collectively we have enough recordings where we know what it should sound like as references so are left guessing, and possibly guessing wrong.
So to the question. If someone were to come up with a suitable recording where the captured soundstage were known and people could map out what they heard where then compare with what they should get for a figure of imaging merit, would that be an objective test... And no AudioPrecision equipment involved!
-what was encoded on the source.
-speakers
-room interactions (reflection, diffraction, absorbtion etc)
-The wet squishy collection of neurons processing it all
Now I have mentioned many times that a CD I enjoy using for checking all is good with my system (confession it rarely is. Small children and ribbons do not go well together) is Redbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbird_(Redbird_album). This is 4 people, with stringed instruments sitting around a stereo mike with a DAT recorder and apparantly having way too much fun. I love it for the non-musical sounds. The hum of the DAT recorder motor, sound of cars and dogs outside. It's as pure a recording as you get outside bluegrass BUT what should the soundstage be? Should 2 singers be behind you, or one sitting on top of the other? That part I can't work out, despite you being almost able to guess where the window is in the living room they were recording in. What I do know is that if one of the singers is coming from outside the speakers something must be wrong as they weren't sitting that far apart! Not sure collectively we have enough recordings where we know what it should sound like as references so are left guessing, and possibly guessing wrong.
So to the question. If someone were to come up with a suitable recording where the captured soundstage were known and people could map out what they heard where then compare with what they should get for a figure of imaging merit, would that be an objective test... And no AudioPrecision equipment involved!
I’ve been listening to cassettes the past few days on my trusty Sony Sport Walkman, no not the standard Walkman while playing the binaural beats Schumann frequency from YouTube on my iPad class by. I’ll be damned but the soundstage is much more three dimensional, and the sound is more dynamic and has greater presence, much more engaging. I’d like someone to explain what in the wide world of sports is a-goin’ on here.
The earths heartbeat aligns the shakras centering your energy and allowing the full expression of your true self. namaste brotha.
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The real, natural Schumann frequency is the 25,000 mile long wavelength EM wave produced in the zone between the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere by lightning storms. In other words, it’s an electromagnetic wave. Part of my puzzlement. What the ding dong?
Very nice recording! Interesting problem, and not easily solvable with regular recording techniques, because "conventional stereo recordings are limited to left and right and, at best, a sense of depth behind those speakers", as Neumann puts it in their KU-100 binaural stereo mic description. https://www.neumann.com/en-en/products/microphones/ku-100/
Here is a nice demo on video (from the same page) - does it work?
https://vimeo.com/502122479/f74d4c48c7?share=copy
Finally, I had to check the Redbird recording, and found this image 🙂.
https://redbirdsongs.bandcamp.com/album/redbird?t=4
Ordered a Redbird CD to try out. Does anyone recognize the mic in the picture posted above? Might be interesting to see a polar plot.
Nature recordists attempt this when experimenting with mic arrays, walking circumferences in regular intervals calling out degrees.
Re Redbird, good call: https://redbirdsongs.bandcamp.com/album/redbird
Some of the best sound I have heard has been outdoors on a cool, windless, dense-air late-summer/early-fall evening. ...e.g. UC Berkeley Greek Theater under ideal atmospheric conditions, and full of sound-absorbent people respectfully listening to an acoustic set. Don't know how to capture that exactly.
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We have the most powerful Signal processor between our ears unfortunately we have no way to calibrate it to a standard. So we try to come up with a measurement process to compare, however out technology has not reached a point that truly engulfs the listening experience. So we just have to make do with what we have and relize it shortcomings.
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