Louder isn't the adjective normally used, but it does convey the sense of it - "more noticeable." In rooms with a lot of reflections the overall tonal balance is affected by the amount of those reflections. Meaning that the ratio of direct vs reflected sound has a significant influence on the tonal balance, let alone the other qualities mentioned in this thread.
Of course for cinema sound, killing early reflections is an important goal related to the clarity of the dialog. That's a quality less important in music.
Thank you, but I mentioned these issues not to fix them, but rather to highlight something the room is required to do if they are not fixed.
Doesn't it depend on what you are trying to achieve? I suspect I prefer more direct sound than reflections due to finding nearfield listening more realistic. I'm sure many here have experimented in the best ways they can and find at some point things seem to click into place and sound right. It's going to depend very much on the recording so I don't see how there can be a one size fits all solution. I would love speakers with adjustable directivity, next best solution is positioning and treatment, but this thread doesn't really allow for treatment, so positioning is all that's really left for many of us?
Of course there are variations. It depends on many factors. Some can do this better than others. For example, in the ten "expert" evaluators at Ford, only two were found to be reliable in a gauge capability study. And then there is the time that I made numerous changes to a system and the evaluators agreed that it improved each step even though I had gone in a circle.
I find that time is a good rule. Listen a lot and things can be revealed. But you have to balance that against the fact that we also get acclimated to problems and tend to not hear them anymore. All-in-all its a complex situation. One where somewhere along the line to have to have concrete objective measures to stabilize the evaluations.
I think that it does "depend very much on the recording" but I find that there are two basic classes and some grey areas in between. The extremes are the in-venue recording of acoustic instruments (orchestra) and the wholy studio work where there is no venue acoustic in the recording. Optimization of one will not mean optimization of the other.
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Of course they exist. Spaciousness has a clear and well accepted definition in acoustics. Imaging not so much, but we all know it exists.
Unfortunately there is up to now no standardized vocabulary that all parties agreed upon, but as a guide some of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) recommendations can be helpful, see for example the
EBU Technology & Innovation - Assessment Methods for the Quality of Sound Material - Music
for the assessment of the sound quality of music programm material.
Main paramters (sub parameters as well) and their meaning are listed/explained along with some adjectives commonly used for description on pages 14/15 .
There even exists a collection of sound samples to illustrate some of the parameters and the describing adjectives:
https://tech.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/tech/files/shared/testmaterial/PEQS_FLAC.zip
and the booklet:
https://tech.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/tech/files/shared/tech/tech3287.pdf
Overall the calibration/synchronization of the vocabulary for the description of sound/music perception is a very important point and helps a lot to get a useful discussion.
Human communication (especially forum communication) is a complex matter prone to misunderstandings.
Wrt to stereophonic reproduction (lets assume for the moment two channel reproduction) obviously "imaging" or "depth of image" can´t be isolated from/beyond listener´s perception as most of it does not exist outside of the interpreting brain.
See for example the virtual sound source located in the frontal median plane that most of us perceive if both channels reproduce the same signal. It does not exist in reality (but might have been there during the recording
) .
Speaking of which, it's interesting that there are the two mechanisms, time and level, that allow us to perceive direction, are there any studies that anyone knows of into the pros and cons of each?See for example the virtual sound source located in the frontal median plane that most of us perceive if both channels reproduce the same signal. It does not exist in reality (but might have been there during the recording
Agreed. Regards time, wouldn't it follow also that a sound presentation that is more realistic would be the least tiring?
Completely false. Spaciousness has been shown to be highly correlated with inter-ear cross-correlation and it is measured often in room acoustics.
Image is harder to measure but can be done.
They both exist quantitatively beyond simple perception.
The book "Spatial Hearing" by Blauert has many sections devoted to imaging, and the time-intensity tradeoff. He also talks about spaciousness. These ARE NOT simply subjective terms that are undefined and relatively unknown. They ARE highly complex and it requires a lot of reading and background to get one's head around them. But they have been well studied and documented (if one actually cares to understand, beyond just arguing about it.)
I don't see that this "follows" and I'm not sure that it's true. Listener fatigue is a complex topic, but clearly major "flaws" in playback will add to fatigue. But someone might consider such a "flaw" as more "realistic". Midrange boost or cut for instance, or enhanced treble for more "detail".
I would tend to think that "accuracy" would minimize fatigue, and we know that many people don't find accuracy realistic.
I've seen some in mix magazines and training literature, but would have a hard time finding it again. The conclusions I remember were that amplitude is enough, but a combo of time and amplitude is slightly better. I'm sure there is better info out there than my memory.
It's not difficult to experiment with in software.
Spaciousness exists for 'live' acoustic spaces, but I am not aware it has been defined for reproduction in a second (and likely smaller) space - or possibly even a first space for a 'dry' recording.
Image breadth and depth are indeed much harder to quantify, but again I would suggest different from imaging measures that are applicable to reproduction via loudspeakers.
As commented previously, I have been at several recording venues and heard a stereo recording of the same performance immediately afterwards (made by an exceptionally good engineer). I find it hard to imagine anyone hearing both renditions would not find the latter clearer, more engaging and a better presentation of the performance: Accuracy is not easy to define either.
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