Yes, i was wrong, i should have not said ’a perfect sound system’
A bad speaker could be a 8” full ranger with a poor freq response, a bad room could be an empty garage, or a closet. Set up your speakers and you near the middle of the room and listen in the near field, make adjustments to your eq/dsp to your liking. Then tell me how this system sounds to you
A bad speaker could be a 8” full ranger with a poor freq response, a bad room could be an empty garage, or a closet. Set up your speakers and you near the middle of the room and listen in the near field, make adjustments to your eq/dsp to your liking. Then tell me how this system sounds to you
Yes, i was wrong, i should have not said ’a perfect sound system’
A bad speaker could be a 8” full ranger with a poor freq response, a bad room could be an empty garage, or a closet. Set up your speakers and you near the middle of the room and listen in the near field, make adjustments to your eq/dsp to your liking. Then tell me how this system sounds to you
You can't EQ polar responses.
Yes, i was wrong, i should have not said ’a perfect sound system’
A bad speaker could be a 8” full ranger with a poor freq response, a bad room could be an empty garage, or a closet. Set up your speakers and you near the middle of the room and listen in the near field, make adjustments to your eq/dsp to your liking. Then tell me how this system sounds to you
I've factually tested this, on axis and in the nearfied there is no polar issues at very low levels, a bad loudspeaker driver sound bad and a good sound good...
Are you expecting to some HF and LF accuracy from a 8" FR ?... you should try LSD instead of DSP.
In this case you've largely taken the room out of the equation, so it's off topicYes, i was wrong, i should have not said ’a perfect sound system’
A bad speaker could be a 8” full ranger with a poor freq response, a bad room could be an empty garage, or a closet. Set up your speakers and you near the middle of the room and listen in the near field, make adjustments to your eq/dsp to your liking. Then tell me how this system sounds to you
In my case, I suffer from bad room positioning. My speakers are in my 5x6m kitchen, in the corners of the room - because I can't have speakers 2m out from the walls as that's where we walk and sit
So for my case, I did RTA moving-mic measurements *around* the spot where I usually sit. Moving mic tries to negate comb filtering effects, so the result of my measurements hopefully remove the extra bass response added by their corner positioning.
I'm happy with the end result in my listening position.
But yes, if I move to certain other spots in my kitchen I do get extra / less bass because of comb filtering.
So for my case, I did RTA moving-mic measurements *around* the spot where I usually sit. Moving mic tries to negate comb filtering effects, so the result of my measurements hopefully remove the extra bass response added by their corner positioning.
I'm happy with the end result in my listening position.
But yes, if I move to certain other spots in my kitchen I do get extra / less bass because of comb filtering.
In my case, I suffer from bad room positioning. My speakers are in my 5x6m kitchen, in the corners of the room - because I can't have speakers 2m out from the walls as that's where we walk and sit
So for my case, I did RTA moving-mic measurements *around* the spot where I usually sit. Moving mic tries to negate comb filtering effects, so the result of my measurements hopefully remove the extra bass response added by their corner positioning.
I'm happy with the end result in my listening position.
But yes, if I move to certain other spots in my kitchen I do get extra / less bass because of comb filtering.
Your system - your preference. In most cases, it works if you dont use a dsp aggressively - meaning - that it is the users own responsibillity to find the right amount of "tweak" to get the best out of the given situation, that you laid out to begin with.
The rules of audio and acoustics are slightly "curvy" - which also means the you can get way out of line with some tweaks, that you would not give you any trouble in other situations.
Things are complex - which means that a dsp i mostly best used, by not going deeper with it's possibillities - then strickly needed.
So you can get good results by using a dsp - as long as you do not exeed limitations of any chain in the system link.
So lets say that you have a 10dB bump at around 50hz in the room. This should be dealt with via huge damping, speaker placement and seat position and the like - really not an option in your situation. But if you can measure it precisely, understand the measurement and it's limitations/issues - then you can get a long way, by lowering this frequency, with a dsp.
If you have suckout - it's better to not do much about it - since you very quickly run out of excursion on your drivers, or go into clipping in your dsp/amp.
3 things to do with a suckout.
1. move the speakers and measure again, to see if a better basic acoustic startingpoint can be found, before using dsp.
2. Lots of damping, to reduce reflections, that caused the suckout to beging with.
3. Multiple subwooferes, that even out the frequency response, so that there are only peaks left - which you can smooth out with the dsp. These will not reduce ringing though - since ringing is still an acoustical problem, which has to be solved in the room. But multiple subs smooth out the response and do reduce the ringing at the specific
frequencies that are now smoothed out.
So if you have ringing at the 50hz - you lower the volume at the this specific frequency and by this, you also lower the ringing. Simply put - you reduce the amount of energy in that area, when smoothing out the response.
Most importantly - if you are happy with the result..... then most other things do not matter that much.
I think the problem in most discussions, are mostly related to ultimate rules - that try to find a common ground for a universal sound perfection, that everyone has to agree on.
Tool's work come pretty close to this. I'm reading his book right now and have been building and adjusting my system accordingly to these rules for years now...... and they work really really well... and people tend to like what I do too. So to say, that there is some kind of red thread in audio..... we'll... that I can surely agree on
Well, he did more or less cop to that error, but I think he also missed scottjoplin’s point that by essentially removing the room from the equation - i.e. what reaches your ear - is OT to this thread.
Well.... you just very easily come into trouble, when you try to make the speaker play something that it cant do - meaning that you easily run into shortage in the physical world - even though it might look nice and dandy on the screenNo, I still think you can put a bad speaker in a bad room and with computer power get an almost perfect sound, but i have no desire to discuss it further
Yes, you will get even better result with a good speaker in a good room
And..... the polar response is locked down firmly by physics.... you'r never gonna change that with a computer.... unless you do something like Kii3 or Beolab 90 fx.
Let me filter that post through Toole's critique:
Toole would say you can play a great speaker in a lousy room and it sounds just like a great speaker playing a good recording well but in a lousy room. Or you can play a lousy speaker in a lousy room and it sounds like....
If you use a bit of DSP judiciously, as digitalthor outlined so nicely, Toole would say you have made a poorish speaker into a somewhat better speaker, but still playing in a lousy room.
I am not certain, but I'd say Toole's critique implies you can distinguish speaker sound from room sound. (Not clear if digitalthor shares that notion or not).
Toole's critique also implies you can be delighted by the sound from a good speaker just fine in a poor room, just as Uncle Harry sounds just fine in a poor room. In support of that notion, visiting friends, we may find the sound in their room horrible while they don't. And after a while as we learn their room, it sounds less horrible.
B.
An interesting point, because actively ignoring (or compensating) for issues seems to be the basis for listening fatigue. This can factor in to our judgements.
So perhaps the interaction between the speaker and room, the nature of the dispersion would also factor in. A speaker can be 'good' as wide or narrow dispersion as long as it's used wisely.
Let me try to re-write those good thoughts in the way psychologists talk. But not saying the thoughts are necessarily right.
Fatigue can arise when your brain has been working long and hard on deciphering a room. If the room is esp hard to learn you get more fatigued. And even after learning the room some, you get fatigued each time if the room requires continuing processing to hear sound in it correctly. Just like the mental effort that people with hearing disabilities experience trying to hear conversations in a crowded restaurant.
Making it harder for your brain to sort-out the sound would be infelicitous speaker placement (causing nuisance reflections) and too much reverberation generally (which makes deader rooms sound better).
All the senses require active processing always. It's not like there's a little man (or some may prefer, little woman) in your brain listening to your ear or watching a TV screen showing your eyeball image.
Last edited:
Actually thought about it yesterday, when I saw "The hunt for the red october" again. When he finds out how the russian submarine sound like - he now knows what to listen for and no longer confuses it with a magma displacement. And I think it's a bit like what we experience. We can both learn how to ignore but also optain a long lasting annoyance with a given sound signature. For me it's boomy base or "itchy" tweeter or breakup in upper midrange - cant really enjoy the rest of the speakers if these things are bad or present.
My complaint with most DSP's - which I think is Toole's critique too. Is that people are way to focused on steady state responses - way up in frequency - well - at all frequencies. So they "pump" the DSP to get at nice flat frequency response, but forget that at above around 100hz, they cant really seperate direct and reflected sound. They can to a certain point, but they quickly loose resolution in doing so.
One curve is simply not enough - even af mix of the same curve in many different positions.
It has to be a controlled set of measurements in a structured way, before data can be matched and compared properly. Or else you will simply never find out where the real issues are hiding - so that you can work with them - with respect to the powers and limitations of any DSP.
Like in the Harman test - I believe you need a rather controlled and precise test, to really find the difference, when giving a good judgement. We simply adapt to quickly and easily let ourself's delute with feelings and impressions from eyes, others and memory.
My view is that a speaker should have minimum sound - besides the original signal from the amplifier - everything else is distortion.
The room should be nice to be in, for everything from conversations, wathing tv and simply normal living. Then a good speaker and a good recording, should play nicely.
But yes - smart/conservative use of a DSP, can give many people much better sound, by simply glaze the total sound a bit - ecspecially in the base. And in general this will satisfy a big chunk of the people listening. But it can easily become a ditch for more low quality, because we settle for less. Which I sense that Toole is really focused on too, when it comes music production. Cause if they use bad soundsystems to make music - we cant expect good sound at home - cause the premise for good sound to begin with - has been compromised and therefore never able to be saved again.
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.