Thanks very much Art.
AND, as it is often ME with the reputation for long boring posts, it's good to see a long post from someone else and NOT boring!
You want stories? I got STORIES haha.
terryj and crew,
I began to study other recognized golden ears while they were listening intently and they too sowly but with intent, moved their heads. It seemed that they were grooving conservatively grooving with the music. And so, then I tried it. After all, what do I know? Monkey see, monkey do.
(not ignoring the blind fellas, just making the quotes a manageable size).
Whaddya know, I too have wondered whether or not gentle movements of the head helps us as a species to locate objects! TBH I don't expressly recall trying to knowingly move my head to test the theory...I think I talked myself into believing that it might not apply to an artificial construct like stereo. Hmm, maybe I should have followed my instincts?
You seemed to be asking a survey type question? Well, I always listen with my eyes close. Well, when
listening if you follow. And yes!, for whatever reason at times it seems that the eyes just don't want to shut comfortably. That is an odd one, so I can fully understand the use of a blind fold or ping pong balls.
Haha, sometimes I have a different but related phenomenon..after a few beers it is dangerous to close the eyes cause the room starts to spin!!
Now that I hardly drink anymore (we all gotta grow up and mature some day eh?) that effect comes more easily, and after way less beers. It's a problem I tells ya.
So at night, by far the best compromise for me is a darkened room at least. If you want to close your eyes you are not trying to shut out light as in daytime say.
Just for completeness, here is what I took to be a 'survey'
So, how do we listen? Everybody will be different. We can try each other’s styles on too. I told my story, and now it’s your turns. I'm all ears..........
While I'm waiting, lets go on. Just what does happen when we manage to move our head and pan an image a few inches? Also, what do recording engineers do do pan an image a few inches? And then, do these two versions of panning an image have anything to do with each other? There are two image pan systems that work on our ear-brain. We have amplitude panning and phase panning. Phase panning is another way to say time delay panning. Both are inside the image part of the Haas effect.
Interesting...I have been led to believe that time (or phase) panning is not normally done??? It seems to be jneutrons area of interest. Of course, I could have
completely misunderstood the argument!
Time delay panning is how the image shifts towards the speaker that delivers an earlier signal. Its range is 0 to maybe 2 ms. The other is amplitude panning where the image shifts towards the louder speaker. The dB range is maybe 0 to 20 dB sound level difference, one ear compared to the other. And naturally you could delay pan to the right 6” and amplitude pan it th the left back 6” and have a spot on center image.
Yes, hence it is an
essential part of the speaker setup process. Not only equal amplitude from each speaker, but the impulse arriving at the same time left and right. Either will skew the image as you have just stated.
Now you know why when you are setup on the sweet spot and then move to the right, you get a louder right signal and an earlier arriving right signal. The image is double panned to the right. No wonder the image position falls off center so easily.
Ok, you wanted a story? Well, yours don't make you look like an idiot where mine does, but it is still a story right?
BTW, this will prob address a few later points of yours, so I won't specifically go and quote them ok?
Man, this is so embaressing, but boy I am STILL getting hearty belly chuckles at my stupidity!
I have been chasing this image phenomenon for not some little time now, so much so that unfortunately I have been obsessed with it and any and all flaws I think I see. (chasing down a bug in the system..oh it is active four way DIY, so plenty of room for ME to make silly mistakes, so all of this hardly applies to anyone else I suspect).
I have recently rebuilt the baffle, hence a re-wire of all the amps blah blah. It sounded TERRIBLE, for the life of me I could not work out why that should be. After a month or so I suddenly got this heretical thought...'maybe it is (a particular) amp?'
Sure enough, the amp was faulty. Horrible horrible distortion, and strangely enough that distortion somehow went thru the entire system and was also distorting the tweeters. Replaced it, all was good again (for that stage of the setup process)
WHY is that an interesting story?? Because I am NOT an amp guy, personally if the amp works, does not clip etc in use, then I am happy.
So, the reason it took me so long was my own preconceived 'absolutes and certainties' in audio. We are at times our own worst enemy eh? It just reinforced my already held thoughts on life..."
always check
your own assumptions". That is where you get whomped, every time. Your OWN assumptions.
Well sorry, that was NOT the story I started to tell! I just get on forums and like to gab. Apologies. Here is the story that addresses your later points.
So I have rebuilt the speakers, fixed the amp issue, now on to the later refinements. The imaging is driving me INSANE. It shifts at different times, sometimes to the left, other times to the right. Arrggh
Aware of my own theory, I start double guessing myself, 'maybe at night I am tired and the right ear relaxes' tada yada...all an attempt to understand this happening.
It is off to one side, so I play a test track..little girl with guitar on centre stage type thing...
image dead centre!
Ok, pink noise thru the system...
image dead centre. (if I'd played the MATT test..apart from your latest point it would have been ..
image dead centre.
Go back to music...image off to one side!
Ok, I'm prob getting boring so move to the end of the story...somehow I had hooked up the left ten to the right speaker, and the right ten to the left speaker.
No WONDER every test track I payed to test the centre image position showed the image at dead centre!! The speakers were playing the exact same signal!!
AND, I had tried to shift the image during listening to centre by adjusting the relative volumes. So, by making the left louder (say) to shift it to the left, it made the ten
in the right louder hence weakening the effect! I was pulling my hair out, I was putting in 'insane' level differences in, yet the image hardly shifted!
And every test showed a correct centre image.
Remember what I said about checking your own assumptions eh? So there ya go, a funny story of one persons stupidity yet related to the topic of the thread.
Back to the different center position theme. I will look that up in a Psychoacoustics manual. I’m just sure plenty of people have been tested for this effect. Let’s see what statistical double blind testing has to say…if anything.... Zwicker/Faustl (reference manual on psychoacoustics) says that the just audible side to side position shift corresponds to a shift in inter ear sound level by 1 to 2 dB.
Please do.
But what is the point of minimizing sonic image alignment because somebody might hear something different than we do?
I’m not so concerned that someone else can hear exactly what I hear. I’m first interested in that I can hear what I think I’m supposed to hear. I’m not worried about what someone else thinks, I’m worried about what I think.
Oh, I agree completely. I obviously gave you the wrong idea of where I am coming from. My mention of others was to show how I got to the idea. If people hear differently than we do ( and this image example was appropriate to the thread and reinforced the point) then I went one step further. WHY do I assume my right ear is
exactly the same as my left?
Two different people have different hearing, why not our own two ears also have two different 'hearings'?
In your 'example speak' that is amplitude panning (total vol rise or fall across the spectrum) to centre the image.
But what if I (me, personally, for my OWN enjoyment no-one elses) only need to 'level shift' the range of 200-1600 to the right by two db??? (made up example) . That might be the range that overrides all the rest to shift the image, but surely then the image is still not as precise as it could be because I have ALSO changed all the frequencies which did not need to go right, to the right by two db?
You are attributing a shift at 400 hz (say) to the room interaction. I wonder if
it could be that my ears have that innate imbalance.
So what you might turn up in the research is very much looked forward to.
Sorry for the long post! You got me gabbing first thing in the morning!!