Audio Science: Does it explain everything about how something sounds?

[stehno]

My dear man, you simply take my breath away. I know there are folks with exceptional hearing, you certainly must be one. In a way, I am glad my hearing is not so acute as yours! Electrical currents in interconnects are usually in the single digit milliamp range, if not less than a single digit, depending on of course input and output impedance. Where do you get your science to describe the mechanical effects at less than a milliampere of current on a three foot long wire, and then yet you can hear this. That is incredible for this good old boy to fathom!

Sorry, tomelex, no exceptional hearing here. Nor is it required. Like having eyes to see, it's really just a matter of having ears to hear. Not ears to see nor eyes to hear.

Tomelex, if I didn't know better, I'd almost swear you're trying to create a straw man argument here. Nowhere have I uttered a word specifically about any mechanical effects of current on a 1M long wire. The closest I came to that was my saying wire (assuming all wire) will vibrate with current passing through it. You wanna' try proving me wrong there, have at it. But there is a little experiment I intend try with the IC's with their potential to mechanically vibrate to see if I hear a difference. My suspicion is that I will, but I'll never know until I try, right?

In low amperage applications, could the vibrations not be seen with the naked eye? Sure. Does any vibrating wire, no matter how minute, have the potential to audibly affect the sound? Having very little experience with vibrating wire and their sonic affects but knowing much about the severe harm induced by under controlled vibrations in general, I would never want to leave any stone unturned, so I'd assume a big yes.

You ever play around with a tuning fork? You tap one of the tines lightly and put it up to your ear and for perhaps 2 minutes you'll hear an audible ring. But surely you don't think it stops after 2 minutes just because you can no longer hear it ringing, do you? No, the tines will continue to vibrate for at least another minute or 2 without at least my hearing a ringing sound. Shoot, for all I know maybe the tines might well go on vibrating for another 10 or 20 minutes. Don't you think if these tines continue vibrating at a microscopic level for say 5 minutes after the initial tap could induce sonic harm against a transistor or maybe an op-amp?

But your question leads me to believe that you probably think deep sub-terrainean bass frequencies are the only vibrations that can induce sonic harm into our playback systems. When IMO all vibrations across the frequency spectrum induce sonic harm. Therefore, IMO, all unwanted vibrations should be dealt with equally. Besides, once an unwanted vibration attaches itself to an object, it's source, frequency, and intensity ceases to matter.

You wanna' knit picking trying to discern which vibrations that potentially induce sonic harm are worth dealing with? Go right ahead, if you enjoy chasing your tail. But in my book all unwanted vibrations are potentially harmful, including any found in IC's regardless of how minute they may be. BTW, my only experience with attempting to deal with vibrations in wire were with my speaker cables last fall when I was surprised by some rather impressive improvements auditioning the Shunyata Dark Field v2 cable lifters that replaced my ceramic NoNameHiFi cable lifters. At that point, I made my own cable lifters out of some spare material with the intention to better control the speaker cables' ability to vibrate freely. As impressive as the Dark Field v2's were (I highly recommend them), my own DIY version was about double the Dark Field v2's performance.

But if you happen to know the threshold where unwanted vibrations cease inducing their distortive harm on wire or other objects, I'm all ears.

 

[Mosin]

That is interesting, ...I have read that a turntable that is slightly off perfect speed sounds less bad than one that slightly fluctuates in speed. These are different kinds of inaccuracies, ie. speed consistency versus speed accuracy...

Of note here is that many records were not recorded at exactly 33.3333. I would submit to you that most were/are not, and that recent advances in turntable speed control may, if not probably, exceed cutting lathe speed accuracy. I am confident that is true when a good modern turntable is compared with lathes from days gone by. Unlike mainstream turntables, cutting lathes do tend to maintain consistency, though.

Abrupt speed changes, no matter how small, are much more easily heard than speed that slightly deviates from the perceived standard in a consistent manner. Even so, maintaining both speed accuracy and consistency is always desired.

 

[treitz3]

My dear man, you simply take my breath away. I know there are folks with exceptional hearing, you certainly must be one. In a way, I am glad my hearing is not so acute as yours! Electrical currents in interconnects are usually in the single digit milliamp range, if not less than a single digit, depending on of course input and output impedance. Where do you get your science to describe the mechanical effects at less than a milliampere of current on a three foot long wire, and then yet you can hear this. That is incredible for this good old boy to fathom!

Not to this good ol' boy. All things measurable may or may not be audible. All things audible may or may not be measurable. It is what it is but if one is so inclined to believe things only measurable, why interest themselves in something that the pure enjoyment derives from listening?

Tom

 

[stehno]

It is the other way around. The more the first reflections are controlled and the better the room acoustics are, the more the lower noise floor of a system is audible. If your room acoustics are horrible, you will hear little improvement going from a system with higher noise floor to one with a lower one.

And bad room acoustics suppress the recorded acoustics of the hall because unwanted room reflections override that spatial information. The more a system inherently is capable of reproducing this low-level spatial information from recordings, the more you will hear improvement going from bad room acoustics to well controlled room acoustics. That is, the closer a playback system gets to live music aka the absolute sound, the more important the room acoustics, first reflections, etc. -- Precisely the opposite from your assertion.

There will not be that much difference between a boombox playing in a good room or in a bad room -- it will sound like a boombox either way.

IMO, nothing could be further from the truth.

If you had a live band playing music in your listening room, aside from perhaps desiring a bit more space to allow the music to expand and perhaps wishing for a bit more distance between the instruments and your ears, the last thing on your mind should be first reflections, suck outs, etc. Why? Because live music is live music and regardless of the venue and your listening perspective you are still hearing nearly 100% of the music info. Might the presentation sound more musical in your garage or the Stanford Church where the music can breathe and expand? Sure, but it's still no more live and certainly no more detailed than the band playing in your listening room.

In short, when distortions induce a much raised noise floor (which every last one of us have), so that only the more prominent info of a music note remain audible (with much of each note remaining inaudible), the audible portions of the note have a tendency to leap off the soundstage and make like a laser beam to your ear inducing ear fatigue almost as if your ear is 6-inches from the instrument (at least for the note's initial attack). This is especially notable with the sharp strikes of piano notes in the upper registers and this is precisely why many rightfully claim the piano is the single most difficult instrument to reproduce.

Most live instruments on stage will usually generate somewhat of a 360 degree radiance of sound much like a very wide-angled beam flood light where the notes from one instrument will expand and travel and intersect and merge and meld with notes from others instruments (other flood lights) to even create new notes as well as interact with the recording hall's acoustics and borders. However, with our playback systems' distortions resulting in a much raised noise floor, much of the music info falls beneath the noise floor remaining inaudible. That includes significant percentages of info missing from each and every individual note as well as the same large percentages remaining inaudible from the overall presentation. Now what you have remaining is essentially musical notes that radiate far more like a narrow beamed spot light and essentially numerous spot lights (other instruments) that barely travel, barely intersect with other spot lights, barely merge and meld with other spot lights and barely interact with the recording hall's boundaries and acoustics. BTW, like a blurred photograph, the music info is pretty much all there, it's just beneath the noise floor where it remains inaudible.

It is under this narrow-beamed spot light scenario where I suspect enthusiasts will find some relief by use of acoustic treatments to make the distorted presentation less beamy, less shouty, less boomy, more palatable, and as they always say, "more musical" (there's that phrase again). As such, acoustic treatments deal primarily with the effects and not the cause. BTW, this is also why audiophiles have trained and conditioned themselves years ago to listen at volume levels far lower than live music volume levels.

In addition to room acoustic treatments, most seem to understand that the closer the presentation is to elevator music volume levels, the less fatiguing and more musical (there that phrase is again) the reproduced music becomes. I suggest next time you audition a "musical" playback system, be sure to play some aggressive piano at live volume levels and count the seconds to see how soon before the ear fatigue and potential wincing sets in. Also be sure to listen to aggressive opera and choral music which is also generally known as the most torturous genre of music to reproduce for this very same reason.

 

[esldude]

Saw this video on another forum. Very interesting demo of how different things sound depending upon the space it is in.

[video=vimeo;132408379]https://vimeo.com/132408379[/video]

 

[Al M.]

IMO, nothing could be further from the truth.

If you had a live band playing music in your listening room, aside from perhaps desiring a bit more space to allow the music to expand and perhaps wishing for a bit more distance between the instruments and your ears, the last thing on your mind should be first reflections, suck outs, etc. Why? Because live music is live music and regardless of the venue and your listening perspective you are still hearing nearly 100% of the music info. Might the presentation sound more musical in your garage or the Stanford Church where the music can breathe and expand? Sure, but it's still no more live and certainly no more detailed than the band playing in your listening room.

That is where you enter a fundamental conceptual mistake. If a band plays in my listening room, that IS the live space and the room reflections are an integral part of the live sound. Yet if a system is to reproduce a band playing in an another venue, it needs to portray the acoustics of that venue. It can only do that if the room that it plays in gets out of the way. That is why you need room treatment, to let your room disappear and the recorded space be reproduced.

Most live instruments on stage will usually generate somewhat of a 360 degree radiance of sound much like a very wide-angled beam flood light where the notes from one instrument will expand and travel and intersect and merge and meld with notes from others instruments (other flood lights) to even create new notes as well as interact with the recording hall's acoustics and borders. However, with our playback systems' distortions resulting in a much raised noise floor, much of the music info falls beneath the noise floor remaining inaudible. That includes significant percentages of info missing from each and every individual note as well as the same large percentages remaining inaudible from the overall presentation. Now what you have remaining is essentially musical notes that radiate far more like a narrow beamed spot light and essentially numerous spot lights (other instruments) that barely travel, barely intersect with other spot lights, barely merge and meld with other spot lights and barely interact with the recording hall's boundaries and acoustics. BTW, like a blurred photograph, the music info is pretty much all there, it's just beneath the noise floor where it remains inaudible.

It is under this narrow-beamed spot light scenario where I suspect enthusiasts will find some relief by use of acoustic treatments to make the distorted presentation less beamy, less shouty, less boomy, more palatable, and as they always say, "more musical" (there's that phrase again). As such, acoustic treatments deal primarily with the effects and not the cause. BTW, this is also why audiophiles have trained and conditioned themselves years ago to listen at volume levels far lower than live music volume levels.

The interesting thing in my listening situation is that while with the ASC room treatment strings and some woodwinds like flute became less sharp and hard sounding, brass became in a number of instances sharper and more 'shouty' -- all of it more like the real thing, that is. Good room treatment does not 'sweeten' things up, it makes reproduced timbres more real. More like they sound live, and less filtered through the distortions of your living room.

I do listen at quite high volume levels and I am happy that my system can reproduce natural hardness of instruments, such as brass. I don't want a 'smooth' sounding system like many audiophiles seem to prefer, and fortunately, I don't have one. I listened to the avantgarde jazz group Art Ensemble of Chicago, live in 1972, at loud volume yesterday and I just loved the often raucous and aggressive sound which showed good natural hardness as well when needed; that clangy sound of metallic percussion at the loudest point of the music is something to behold. And boy, the musicianship in that performance is through the roof.

***

It appears to me that you argue from a point of view that seems theoretically right to you -- it isn't, see my remarks at the beginning of this post -- but that you have little practical experience with what good room treatment can do to a system's performance.

I suggest you engage less in your theorizing (I do find your observations about radiation patterns interesting though) and more in serious experimentation with room treatment to see what it can do for your listening experience.

I do agree with you that unfortunately many audiophiles mistake smooth and 'clean' sound for 'musicality'. At classical live performances I like to sit close to the stage and I am often amazed at how brutally hard that brass really sounds (just close your eyes in order judge the sound as is and not let visual impressions bias your perception). It seems clear to me that, if these sounds would/could be faithfully reproduced through a system, most audiophiles would judge them to be 'distortion'. But hey, that's live sound, folks. That's as musical as it gets.

 

[microstrip]

(...) I do agree with you that unfortunately many audiophiles mistake smooth and 'clean' sound for 'musicality'. At classical live performances I like to sit close to the stage and I am often amazed at how brutally hard that brass really sounds (just close your eyes in order judge the sound as is and not let visual impressions bias your perception). It seems clear to me that, if these sounds would/could be faithfully reproduced through a system, most audiophiles would judge them to be 'distortion'. But hey, that's live sound, folks. That's as musical as it gets.

IMHO such close seat is not the preferred of most life listeners and it is not the perspective that is recorded in most classical recordings. We can easily consider that your system and room treatment may reflect your preference (it is what we call tuning the room...) and you are "manipulating" the original recording to create the sound you enjoy. I love the sound of brass - Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra is an excellent example of brass "bite" but I would hate to sit in the middle of their brass section.

If the room is large enough I have found that breaking the space with carpets, lots of old solid furniture, curtains, sofas and plants provides us with a much more natural acoustic than using acoustic panels in the walls. Surely YMMV.

 

[jkeny]

That is where you enter a fundamental conceptual mistake. If a band plays in my listening room, that IS the live space and the room reflections are an integral part of the live sound. Yet if a system is to reproduce a band playing in an another venue, it needs to portray the acoustics of that venue. It can only do that if the room that it plays in gets out of the way. That is why you need room treatment, to let your room disappear and the recorded space be reproduced.

But you can't make the room acoustic disappear, can you - that would be an anechoic chamber?

The interesting thing in my listening situation is that while with the ASC room treatment strings and some woodwinds like flute became less sharp and hard sounding, brass became in a number of instances sharper and more 'shouty' -- all of it more like the real thing, that is. Good room treatment does not 'sweeten' things up, it makes reproduced timbres more real. More like they sound live, and less filtered through the distortions of your living room.

I do listen at quite high volume levels and I am happy that my system can reproduce natural hardness of instruments, such as brass. I don't want a 'smooth' sounding system like many audiophiles seem to prefer, and fortunately, I don't have one. I listened to the avantgarde jazz group Art Ensemble of Chicago, live in 1972, at loud volume yesterday and I just loved the often raucous and aggressive sound which showed good natural hardness as well when needed; that clangy sound of metallic percussion at the loudest point of the music is something to behold. And boy, the musicianship in that performance is through the roof.

I don't doubt that your room sounds better to you & by all accounts is an improvement on what you had before.

***

It appears to me that you argue from a point of view that seems theoretically right to you -- it isn't, see my remarks at the beginning of this post -- but that you have little practical experience with what good room treatment can do to a system's performance.

I suggest you engage less in your theorizing (I do find your observations about radiation patterns interesting though) and more in serious experimentation with room treatment to see what it can do for your listening experience.

I do agree with you that unfortunately many audiophiles mistake smooth and 'clean' sound for 'musicality'. At classical live performances I like to sit close to the stage and I am often amazed at how brutally hard that brass really sounds (just close your eyes in order judge the sound as is and not let visual impressions bias your perception). It seems clear to me that, if these sounds would/could be faithfully reproduced through a system, most audiophiles would judge them to be 'distortion'. But hey, that's live sound, folks. That's as musical as it gets.

What you say is interesting, Al

 

[microstrip]

You should acoustically measure your Micro, you just need a preferably calibrated microphone and REW software is free to download, the results are always fascinating.
Keith

Yesterday I spent part of the day measuring the effectiveness of three types of felt underlay to be used under carpets using a calibrated microphone and REW. It was measured in the bath room as this a highly reflective zone that provided a good environment for this task. I found it boring and tedious, but it needed to be done. Can you present us with some fascinating results?

 

[Al M.]

IMHO such close seat is not the preferred of most life listeners and it is not the perspective that is recorded in most classical recordings.

Debatable. Often main mikes are close to the stage, and then there is also additional support from close-miking. And I have heard hard sounding brass also from further away, even though perhaps not in that intensity.

If the room is large enough I have found that breaking the space with carpets, lots of old solid furniture, curtains, sofas and plants provides us with a much more natural acoustic than using acoustic panels in the walls. Surely YMMV.

I agree that all the measures you cite can be effective, but how much experience do you have with tube traps, acoustic panels and the like? By the way, my space is also broken by some of the objects you mention.

 

[bonzo75]

That is where you enter a fundamental conceptual mistake. If a band plays in my listening room, that IS the live space and the room reflections are an integral part of the live sound. Yet if a system is to reproduce a band playing in an another venue, it needs to portray the acoustics of that venue. It can only do that if the room that it plays in gets out of the way. That is why you need room treatment, to let your room disappear and the recorded space be reproduced.



The interesting thing in my listening situation is that while with the ASC room treatment strings and some woodwinds like flute became less sharp and hard sounding, brass became in a number of instances sharper and more 'shouty' -- all of it more like the real thing, that is. Good room treatment does not 'sweeten' things up, it makes reproduced timbres more real. More like they sound live, and less filtered through the distortions of your living room.

I do listen at quite high volume levels and I am happy that my system can reproduce natural hardness of instruments, such as brass. I don't want a 'smooth' sounding system like many audiophiles seem to prefer, and fortunately, I don't have one. I listened to the avantgarde jazz group Art Ensemble of Chicago, live in 1972, at loud volume yesterday and I just loved the often raucous and aggressive sound which showed good natural hardness as well when needed; that clangy sound of metallic percussion at the loudest point of the music is something to behold. And boy, the musicianship in that performance is through the roof.

***

It appears to me that you argue from a point of view that seems theoretically right to you -- it isn't, see my remarks at the beginning of this post -- but that you have little practical experience with what good room treatment can do to a system's performance.

I suggest you engage less in your theorizing (I do find your observations about radiation patterns interesting though) and more in serious experimentation with room treatment to see what it can do for your listening experience.

I do agree with you that unfortunately many audiophiles mistake smooth and 'clean' sound for 'musicality'. At classical live performances I like to sit close to the stage and I am often amazed at how brutally hard that brass really sounds (just close your eyes in order judge the sound as is and not let visual impressions bias your perception). It seems clear to me that, if these sounds would/could be faithfully reproduced through a system, most audiophiles would judge them to be 'distortion'. But hey, that's live sound, folks. That's as musical as it gets.

If you really like good brass, you need to get a good pair of horns. Horns are unparalleled in reproducing brass IMO. And good TTs, you need a very good digital recording to get good brass. Strings are great on panels, but for brass, one needs horns. That said, one of the reasons I don't like the kondo Vox Olympian system, at least in Munich, is that it's too smooth and creamy sounding, too hifi for me, not at all like the real thing. I just replied to this because your post resonated a lot with me.

 

[microstrip]

Debatable. Often main mikes are close to the stage, and then there is also additional support from close-miking. And I have heard hard sounding brass also from further away, even though perhaps not in that intensity.

I agree that all the measures you cite can be effective, but how much experience do you have with tube traps, acoustic panels and the like? By the way, my space is also broken by some of the objects you mention.

My room has RPG diffractals, RPG abbfusors and tuned bass traps. It is a particularly difficult room as it is very long and narrow (13 feet with a small area with 15 feet in the speaker zone) . I have used the tube traps in the past, but prefer treatments I can hide with curtains. My previous rooms (heavily furnished, wider and with higher ceilings) did not need any treatment and sounded better.

 

[bonzo75]

Hi Micro, with panels, are you finding a narrower room more challenging than a wider room? Is that what you are saying? Are the panels reflection of the first/second reflection points on the way down towards you?

It's 13 feet wide, how many feet long?

My current room is wide, and high ceilings, and did very well with Logans

 

[microstrip]

Can you screen shot the FR plot of your room and post it.
Keith.

No I can't. No one would learn anything from it.

 

[microstrip]

The absorbtion co -efficients of most materials are available online, I would have thought the task you were undertaking yesterday would be almost impossible in a reverberant sound field , you need an anechoic chamber.
Keith.

Please read Toole comments in "Sound Reproduction" about the online and similarly available coefficients. I do not need absolute values, just relative ones - you can get them easily from the decay curves in a reverberant space - all you need is some audio science.

 

[PeterA]

In short, when distortions induce a much raised noise floor (which every last one of us have), so that only the more prominent info of a music note remain audible (with much of each note remaining inaudible), the audible portions of the note have a tendency to leap off the soundstage and make like a laser beam to your ear inducing ear fatigue almost as if your ear is 6-inches from the instrument (at least for the note's initial attack). This is especially notable with the sharp strikes of piano notes in the upper registers and this is precisely why many rightfully claim the piano is the single most difficult instrument to reproduce.

BTW, this is also why audiophiles have trained and conditioned themselves years ago to listen at volume levels far lower than live music volume levels.

In addition to room acoustic treatments, most seem to understand that the closer the presentation is to elevator music volume levels, the less fatiguing and more musical (there that phrase is again) the reproduced music becomes. I suggest next time you audition a "musical" playback system, be sure to play some aggressive piano at live volume levels and count the seconds to see how soon before the ear fatigue and potential wincing sets in. Also be sure to listen to aggressive opera and choral music which is also generally known as the most torturous genre of music to reproduce for this very same reason.

Stenho, my experience is different from yours. As my system has improved, I am able to play it louder and louder. I very rarely get fatigued, and this is usually when I play a particularly poor recording. My system also has fairly good resolution and detail, so it is not easy to listen to because it sounds soft, warm, rolled off, lacks resolution, etc.

I listen to lots of solo piano and some opera and do not get fatigued. Audiophile friends have commented that they can listen to my system for hours on end without fatigue. And we often listen at fairly loud levels. I have an upright piano in the room and get pretty close to those volume levels when listening to solo piano recordings and don't experience any fatigue. I have heard distortion in other systems, so I have experienced what you are describing, but it is far from evident is every system as you suggest.

I actually find that audiophiles listen more loudly than non audiophiles. Teenagers blasting rock is a different story. Listening at elevator music levels makes it sound less musical to me.

 

[Al M.]

My room has RPG diffractals, RPG abbfusors and tuned bass traps. It is a particularly difficult room as it is very long and narrow (13 feet with a small area with 15 feet in the speaker zone) . I have used the tube traps in the past, but prefer treatments I can hide with curtains. My previous rooms (heavily furnished, wider and with higher ceilings) did not need any treatment and sounded better.

Thanks for the info, Microstrip.

 

[microstrip]

Hi Micro, with panels, are you finding a narrower room more challenging than a wider room? Is that what you are saying? Are the panels reflection of the first/second reflection points on the way down towards you?

It's 13 feet wide, how many feet long?

My current room is wide, and high ceilings, and did very well with Logans

In a 13 feet wide room you can not use proper diffusers, that would take 1.5 feet of the room width. The panels are mostly in the front (speakers) wall. The reflection zone have wood sculptured window interior doors (left side) and a large painting. Lenght is 31 feet, and yes I would love to have an extra 4 feet width!

 

[Bobvin]

Seems like this thread has taken a tangent to room acoustics and treatments, a place where objective science generally serves us very well. IMHO, while there are some spaces that can sound pretty damn good untreated, once measured and appropriately treated they will sound better.

As Dr. Schnitta said upon initial measurements in my room... "Its not terrible as is, but as the volume goes up the destructive interference becomes greater with larger impact on the sonic presentation as a whole." Exactly what I hear—at higher volumes the sound just seems to get confused. In this arena I believe audio 'science' is reasonably well sorted out, though I am sure different professionals and engineers may interpret the results somewhat differently, as some will argue live-end/dead-end vs the opposite, or how much diffusion vs. absorbtion will create the most natural sounding space.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Seems like this thread has taken a tangent to room acoustics and treatments, a place where objective science generally serves us very well. IMHO, while there are some spaces that can sound pretty damn good untreated, once measured and appropriately treated they will sound better.

As Dr. Schnitta said upon initial measurements in my room... "Its not terrible as is, but as the volume goes up the destructive interference becomes greater with larger impact on the sonic presentation as a whole." Exactly what I hear—at higher volumes the sound just seems to get confused. In this arena I believe audio 'science' is reasonably well sorted out, though I am sure different professionals and engineers may interpret the results somewhat differently, as some will argue live-end/dead-end vs the opposite, or how much diffusion vs. absorbtion will create the most natural sounding space.

I agree. Room acoustics is an excellent example of applied science, and depending on how you look at it, it can be considered a part of multidisciplinary "audio science". In any case, audiophiles who are accepting of science in general are more open to the possibility of room correction via treatment and/or EQ. Those who, for whatever reason, are distrusting of or antagonistic to science tend to ignore room acoustics completely or are content to misapply it, avoiding measurements and using only vague "rules of thumb".