How do you perceive the Z-axis solely?
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Never mind, seems you posted a more lengthy comment before I was able to post my question.
Fake depth can be realised by phase distortion in the frequency range where humans can still perceive it I suppose.
I think it is related to Q-sound and stuff like that.
One album comes to mind, 'Dark Side of the Moon'. Try the quadraphonic record on a stereo system.
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I remember a story: In the oldies when first volume faders were made for recording mixing consoles, they worked in reverse what is the norm today, volume went up towards the engineer. The engineer could the bring a sound closer by pulling the faders and farther by pushing them out.
So maybe speaker dynamics has to do with the z-axis, less variance in volume = less variance in depth? Maybe yours are so easy on the ear, so spl levels is more than you might have used to and the amplifier or speaker is compressing?
Also, there is some very compressed music out there that is very much flat sounding.
Also, everyone must have noticed that a garden party heard from a distance has strong tilt in the frequency spectrum, treble is lost before bass with distance. Z axis has sounds from bright to dark, maybe the tweeter distorts and everything is too bright? Maybe the room is too bright? I don't know, just thinking out loud, wanted to subscribe
So maybe speaker dynamics has to do with the z-axis, less variance in volume = less variance in depth? Maybe yours are so easy on the ear, so spl levels is more than you might have used to and the amplifier or speaker is compressing?
Also, there is some very compressed music out there that is very much flat sounding.Also, everyone must have noticed that a garden party heard from a distance has strong tilt in the frequency spectrum, treble is lost before bass with distance. Z axis has sounds from bright to dark, maybe the tweeter distorts and everything is too bright? Maybe the room is too bright? I don't know, just thinking out loud, wanted to subscribe
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Many thanks to all.
Most seemed to think it was more a room issue, and GM's 'house' curves gave me ideas. Despite the system measuring almost ruler flat from 30-3k and then a slight rise of about 5dB to 20k at the listening position I decided to try bypassing the BSC part on the crossover and moved the speakers about 8in closer to the rear wall to compensate. Great result many thanks.
I'm now more than ever convinced speaker crossovers need to be specifically designed for the room they are going to be in
Mostly wrong.
However decreased pressure in that 100-400 Hz will increase depth, so removing BSC will do that.
However moving you loudspeaker closer to the wall perceptually decreases depth (..even if it does improve freq. balance to some extent.) In fact in this respect most loudspeaker positioning in rooms is wrong for generating the best depth perspective.
With a fairly typical loudspeaker design in a fairly typical rectangular room - this is (more often than not) the loudspeaker positioning that generates the best depth:
syst
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1st - (in relation to the midrange) try removing the lining on the walls. Generally the nearer the driver's are to flow-resistance material: the greater the decrease in depth. Bass reflex can also improve this.
Potential improvements from that point become more complicated - with not just a change in crossover, but also a change in tweeter (..and maybe even a change in baffle relative to driver depth offset in relation to the crossover).
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AFAIK the reason behind this is that air above is less dense, so it acts like a lens, a prism in this case. High frequency sound is still there, you just have to pisition yourself higher to be able to hear it.
On topic:
The Haas effect describes the unability of humans to differentiate between sound that have <40ms arrival time delta.
One of my friends translates this as: if the time-alignment is within a 40ms window, it's ok. You won't hear the difference anyway.
When he was photographing a sports event, he took rapid firing bursts of pictures at the start of the race. I told him: why don't you just set the shutter speed to 2 seconds? At least you will get it all in one shot!
He said: "Well, stupid... Then it'll smear all movement and render the picture worthless.."
I said: "You remember the Haas effect?"
Ever since, he knew the importance of time and phase alignment.
Room reflections are a bad thing too in my book. But at least you are able to conceive them consciously. Under the 40ms window, the picture will just be 'presented' to your conscious as rendered by the auditory system.
I think of it (and this is speculation) as an in-brain ADC conversion with 40ms sample time, a rate of 25hz.
I remember a story: In the oldies when first volume faders were made for recording mixing consoles, they worked in reverse what is the norm today, volume went up towards the engineer. The engineer could the bring a sound closer by pulling the faders and farther by pushing them out.
So maybe speaker dynamics has to do with the z-axis, less variance in volume = less variance in depth? Maybe yours are so easy on the ear, so spl levels is more than you might have used to and the amplifier or speaker is compressing?
Also, everyone must have noticed that a garden party heard from a distance has strong tilt in the frequency spectrum, treble is lost before bass with distance. Z axis has sounds from bright to dark, maybe the tweeter distorts and everything is too bright? Maybe the room is too bright? I don't know, just thinking out loud, wanted to subscribe
Thanks for taking my question seriously. I think you've made a good start with two cues recording producers can use.
1. familiar loudness: if an instrument in an orchestra sounds softer than you'd expect RELATIVE TO the familiar loudness of other instruments, it may be further away
2. timbre (actually, sort of like oil painting where mountains in the distance are tinted toward the blue as would be the case in real life .... or maybe I have that backwards)
But I can't see how either of those has to do with niceties of speaker set-up.
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Loudness may be indicative of size too, right?
I can't either.
I think trying to reproduce a recording is completely different than producing a new one.
Should be an interesting topic too.
Any interaction from the room is detrimental to the 3D soundscape if it causes the cues we rely on to create the image in our minds to be distorted.I'm now more than ever convinced speaker crossovers need to be specifically designed for the room they are going to be in
The same is true of headphone listening. There are all kinds of very important pinna cues that are trafficked anomalously with headphones. That may come as a surprise to some headphone enthusiasts.
Kind of strange for us to struggle with improving x, y, and z localization while in a concert hall, there is barely any kind of localization excepting imaginary.
B.
Spacing between microphones on the recording end, setting up your speakers accordingly on the reproduction end seems to be important. I think records like 'Jazz at the Pawnshop' anticipated speaker placement. I would like to know more of these.
I would think, that the better the dimensions are matched between recording and reproduction, the deeper the illusion of depth of field could possibly be.
Anyways, I'm off. Going to watch some birds with cross-eyed binoculars. I've been searching for the 'dissapearing blue tit' for years now.
I would think, that the better the dimensions are matched between recording and reproduction, the deeper the illusion of depth of field could possibly be.
Anyways, I'm off. Going to watch some birds with cross-eyed binoculars. I've been searching for the 'dissapearing blue tit' for years now.
-most of the detriment comes from the modal region.
At higher freq.s it just alters freq. balance in a broad-band manner depending on dispersion and boundaries (mostly walls). This is a reflective condition and as long as the reflections aren't to loud (at least a few db below the loudspeaker's direct sound), then it largely becomes a matter of channel spl-balance.
It can be more problematic with higher directivity/horn designs where the reflections are not as uniform relative to the surrounding near walls (front/rear/side): spl shifts "forward" into the room. (in other words it's reflecting more off of the near side wall closer/forward to the listener or the rear wall (behind the listener), or the far side wall - depending on loudspeaker toe-in.)
Toole has a section on this.
Doesn't the implicit Blumlein math describe a circle of equivalence* for the excitation arising from any any point such as the oboe and not a single point where the oboe sits during the recording? If so, your brain chooses to "hear" it in front of you.
B.
* for example, "all points such that the left ear is .2 ms later than the right ear" is a complicated surface kind of like a circle with a big hole in it, not a point
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I don't agree.
I think I can create a system in which reflections aren't needed.
Such system would sound even better in an open environment.
In my opinion, you only need the reflections if you want the recorded to sound like it was recorded in that room. Which, again to my opinion, shouldn't be nescessary if acoustic information already is in the record. If ignored, contradicting acoustic profiles will break the surface of illusion like a rock thrown at a pool of water breaks the reflection in it's surface. But that's just my idea.
I think I can create a system in which reflections aren't needed.
Such system would sound even better in an open environment.
In my opinion, you only need the reflections if you want the recorded to sound like it was recorded in that room. Which, again to my opinion, shouldn't be nescessary if acoustic information already is in the record. If ignored, contradicting acoustic profiles will break the surface of illusion like a rock thrown at a pool of water breaks the reflection in it's surface. But that's just my idea.
IMHO proper phase alignment of drivers does a lot to the depth perception.
While playing around with active and passive crossovers, I sometimes had nice and flat frequency response, but the drivers were not well phase aligned, and did not create deep 'nulls' with polarity switched. With phase alignment between drivers adjusted, the depth was there. I would even say that I find this a higher priority than a very flat frequency response.
Playing around with active filters is a really quick and easy way to test this.
While playing around with active and passive crossovers, I sometimes had nice and flat frequency response, but the drivers were not well phase aligned, and did not create deep 'nulls' with polarity switched. With phase alignment between drivers adjusted, the depth was there. I would even say that I find this a higher priority than a very flat frequency response.
Playing around with active filters is a really quick and easy way to test this.
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