Natural Sound

[Rexp]

In case anyone cares to look. With regards to horns and dynamics being an important part of the music. I've just recorded a very loud and dynamic recording of an active system I've designed and put together. Check out the dynamics on this one. There is a case to be made for active driven dynamic speakers. Read the description for an explanation of what I've done with the system:

Sounds good! What source/source media are you using?

 

[Thundersnow]

Sounds good! What source/source media are you using?

The whole thing is a proof of concept more so than a “high end” system. For convenience sake I have a Bluesound Node shell integrated within the crossover. It plays Tidal over Wifi. So not the best of sources

 

[bonzo75]

Since I'm a drummer, I can tell you off the bat what I hear. Of course the dynamics are great no doubt and the range which is produced by the speakers produces the drum sounds in an (dare I say) accurate and believable way for vintage sounding drums. I do however miss some of the fundamental sound of the drums which you'd only miss once you hear them in your system and then they're gone (meaning the lowest octaves added by the sub usually).

That is because his is a one-woofer Altec. When extended to dual woofer that will not happen, as there will be two 15 inch woofers horn loaded, that move with very low grip However dual woofer requires much more room. A sub is not required for those, having heard other dual woofer FLHs with sub sound equally good, as well as dual 18 inch woofers FLH

 

[Thundersnow]

That is because his is a one-woofer Altec. When extended to dual woofer that will not happen, as there will be two 15 inch woofers horn loaded, that move with very low grip However dual woofer requires much more room. A sub is not required for those, having heard other dual woofer FLHs with sub sound equally good, as well as dual 18 inch woofers FLH

That makes sense.

 

[PeterA]

From another thread:

I personally thought that the greatest improvement in my analogue set up was when the "hi-fi" characteristics (clarity, tone, frequency extension, bass and impact) disappeared, leaving just music without the system drawing my attention to any particular Hi-Fi trait.

Well stated. An essential characteristic of a natural sounding system is one where the system does not highlight or emphasize hi-fi attributes to draw attention to the system away from the music. This is one of the main observations I made when listening to the four systems in Utah, and which I describe on the first page of this very thread.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

From another thread:


I personally thought that the greatest improvement in my analogue set up was when the "hi-fi" characteristics (clarity, tone, frequency extension, bass and impact) disappeared, leaving just music without the system drawing my attention to any particular Hi-Fi trait.

Well stated. An essential characteristic of a natural sounding system is one where the system does not highlight or emphasize hi-fi attributes to draw attention to the system away from the music. This is one of the main observations I made when listening to the four systems in Utah, and which I describe on the first page of this very thread.

no doubt one can rationalize/demonize anything. make it black and white. get everyone on their heals. sigh. as if system's that attain higher performance are somehow not legit.

and you wonder why this thinking get's under everyone's skin?

 

[PeterA]

no doubt one can rationalize/demonize anything. make it black and white. get everyone on their heals. sigh. as if system's that attain higher performance are somehow not legit.

and you wonder why this thinking get's under everyone's skin?

Mike, "under everyone's skin"? Really? Are you talking to both me and to Rensselaer (Mark)? You quote both of us but leave out his name.

Some listeners do indeed want their system to draw attention to itself and some listen for specific attributes. I am not criticising that. It is fun, and what some people are after. I AM saying that that is not a characteristic of a natural sounding system, to me, as I think about this stuff. This system thread is my open book exploration and discussion of my approach - one of many possible approaches - to system building and to set up, which I and others refer to as natural sound. You, yourself, have often written that you want to be left with only the music, saying something like: "leaving nothing between me and the music", or "musical message" or "musical intent". And you write at length how your latest upgrade gets you closer. Am I misunderstanding you? It sounds like we have similar goals, but for some reason, this seems personal to you and you seem intent to argue. So here goes:

I am not rationalizing/demonizing anything. It is also not black and white. There are degrees of natural sound. The more hifi attributes are diminished or banished from the presentation in the room, the more natural the system sounds, to me. You are so dramatic with your condescending sighs and your rolling eye emojis. Higher performance, in fact the highest performance, in my view, is a system that disappears and one in which the listener is left in his room with nothing but the music, and being reminded of the live music listening experience. That is my goal. You can talk about Warp 11, limitless headroom, all formats at the "tippy top", and the latest dongles, all you want. That is your game, and I leave you to it, not arguing with you or your world. I am happy with my system, and I am glad you are happy with yours. We have different approaches, but perhaps our goals are not that different. (No sighing or rolling eye emojis)

 

[DasguteOhr]

I would go modern active speakers, e.g geithain works as point source, cardioid bass and good class ab amps in there. The direct coupling speakers to amp have a lot avantage in my opion. When it a good conzept like geithain they made for over 50 years active speakers.
Exsample the rl 940 makes enough bass for rooms to 30 squaremeters.

P.S
perverse mean impulses on it if that is not processed quickly that does not sound good.use headphones

 

[Rensselaer]

Mike, "under everyone's skin"? Really? Are you talking to both me and to Rensselaer (Mark)? You quote both of us but leave out his name.

Some listeners do indeed want their system to draw attention to itself and some listen for specific attributes. I am not criticising that. It is fun, and what some people are after. I AM saying that that is not a characteristic of a natural sounding system, to me, as I think about this stuff. This system thread is my open book exploration and discussion of my approach - one of many possible approaches - to system building and to set up, which I and others refer to as natural sound. You, yourself, have often written that you want to be left with only the music, saying something like: "leaving nothing between me and the music", or "musical message" or "musical intent". And you write at length how your latest upgrade gets you closer. Am I misunderstanding you? It sounds like we have similar goals, but for some reason, this seems personal to you and you seem intent to argue. So here goes:

I am not rationalizing/demonizing anything. It is also not black and white. There are degrees of natural sound. The more hifi attributes are diminished or banished from the presentation in the room, the more natural the system sounds, to me. You are so dramatic with your condescending sighs and your rolling eye emojis. Higher performance, in fact the highest performance, in my view, is a system that disappears and one in which the listener is left in his room with nothing but the music, and being reminded of the live music listening experience. That is my goal. You can talk about Warp 11, limitless headroom, all formats at the "tippy top", and the latest dongles, all you want. That is your game, and I leave you to it, not arguing with you or your world. I am happy with my system, and I am glad you are happy with yours. We have different approaches, but perhaps our goals are not that different. (No sighing or rolling eye emojis)

Well stated Peter.

 

[Atmasphere]

Ralph, I wrote that you are in charge of all decisions, recording and playback. You make recordings and design gear. I presume you would use your own recording and playback gear/system for most natural and accurate, but perhaps something else.

The point is that a voice does not go down to the bottom octave and you wrote a system could not be natural and accurate if it does not go down all the way. I think that a voice can be recorded and played back to sound natural on a system that is not fully extended. I suspect you agree, especially if you control all variables involved. If so, then a system can sound natural, as I suggest in this thread.

You might want to read this and watch the video... Humans are apparently capable of vocalizations that you may not have been previously aware?

Ralph
You designed class d amplifiers and otl tube amplifiers.

Is there any similarity (sound) between these two types of amplifiers?

Do you think both your otl tube amplifiers and class d amplifier are accurate and natural?

To the first question: Yes.

I think the class D sounds more accurate, more natural than our OTLs on most speakers. Certain ESLs are an exception; our class D does better than our OTLs on ESL57s but not on Sound Labs since Sound Labs need some power which is hard to make with solid state since Sound Labs have a 30Ohm impedance in the bass.

The class D sounds very similar to our OTLs; in casual listening without looking you'd not know which is playing as it has the same smoothness in the mids and highs as the OTLs (there are a number of reviews confirming this). The big tell between them is the class D is a bit more focused, so images in the rear of the sound stage are easier to make out. This happens because its lower distortion; distortion obscures detail.

The bass is usually the other area where the two sound different from each other. Since the class D is able to act as a Voltage source and our OTLs are meant to act as a power source, the way they play bass is different depending on the loudspeaker used.

 

[hopkins]

You might want to read this and watch the video... Humans are apparently capable of vocalizations that you may not have been previously aware?

That's more like purring than singing.

 

[Atmasphere]

In your opinion of course but somehow he's making those sounds. And doing it in tune.

Tuvan throat singing is another kind of vocalization humans can do. Obviously if you really want to play all that you need a system with some bandwidth. I think the Peter's query of a system only sounding natural/accurate with vocals to be a red herring though. I don't think I know of anyone that listens strictly to acapella material.

 

[hopkins]

In your opinion of course but somehow he's making those sounds. And doing it in tune.

Tuvan throat singing is another kind of vocalization humans can do. Obviously if you really want to play all that you need a system with some bandwidth. I think the Peter's query of a system only sounding natural/accurate with vocals to be a red herring though. I don't think I know of anyone that listens strictly to acapella material.

It was meant to be humorous, but I guess I failed!

I don't think anyone would argue that good deep bass isn't preferable, all other things being equal.

 

[Atmasphere]

It was meant to be humorous, but I guess I failed!

I don't think anyone would argue that good deep bass isn't preferable, all other things being equal.

You didn't fail hence the emoji.

 

[PeterA]

I don't think anyone would argue that good deep bass isn't preferable, all other things being equal.

Of course, but as far as I can tell, Ralph is the only one arguing that a system cannot sound natural to the listener unless it covers the bottom octave accurately.

 

[hopkins]

Of course, but as far as I can tell, Ralph is the only one arguing that a system cannot sound natural to the listener unless it covers the bottom octave accurately.

Sounding natural is a subjective description (just like "not congested"). It's hard to speculate on listening preferences.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, "under everyone's skin"? Really? Are you talking to both me and to Rensselaer (Mark)? You quote both of us but leave out his name.

Peter, i somewhat over-reacted. as i do agree with both of you mostly. we should hear music and not pieces in and of themselves. but those pieces do make up the whole, and are not trivial to achieve.

Some listeners do indeed want their system to draw attention to itself and some listen for specific attributes. I am not criticising that. It is fun, and what some people are after. I AM saying that that is not a characteristic of a natural sounding system, to me, as I think about this stuff. This system thread is my open book exploration and discussion of my approach - one of many possible approaches - to system building and to set up, which I and others refer to as natural sound. You, yourself, have often written that you want to be left with only the music, saying something like: "leaving nothing between me and the music", or "musical message" or "musical intent". And you write at length how your latest upgrade gets you closer. Am I misunderstanding you? It sounds like we have similar goals, but for some reason, this seems personal to you and you seem intent to argue. So here goes:

I am not rationalizing/demonizing anything. It is also not black and white. There are degrees of natural sound. The more hifi attributes are diminished or banished from the presentation in the room, the more natural the system sounds, to me. You are so dramatic with your condescending sighs and your rolling eye emojis. Higher performance, in fact the highest performance, in my view, is a system that disappears and one in which the listener is left in his room with nothing but the music, and being reminded of the live music listening experience. That is my goal.

sure, but the question is what range of musical choices do you want to sound real?

You can talk about Warp 11, limitless headroom, all formats at the "tippy top", and the latest dongles, all you want. That is your game, and I leave you to it, not arguing with you or your world. I am happy with my system, and I am glad you are happy with yours. We have different approaches, but perhaps our goals are not that different. (No sighing or rolling eye emojis)

the danger is not caring about 'all' the octaves up and down the frequency range. we can decide to settle for less, rationalizing that it's not important (to our personal needs).

 

[Argonaut]

Peter, i somewhat over-reacted.

For my part I didn’t interpret your post as an “over reaction” Mike , After all … Its not like we haven’t read the same old doctrine , the same old indoctrination , out of Utah ! And without doubt shall do so again …

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Peter

For my part I didn’t interpret your post as an “over reaction” Mike , After all … how many more times are we to read the same old doctrine , the same old indoctrination , out of Utah !

in some ways i agree, but my reaction to where Peter was coming from was more about what he did not say and what i read into that. which was not right and not fair. what he did say i agree with.

in the last couple of weeks i've listened to 60-70 pressings of Bach (all three, JS, JC, and JPE) and have another 20-25 to go. right now i'm listening to a JSB MAGNIFICATE in D Major; and deep bass, authority, impact, ease and scale matter to the experience. makes it more real. grabs you more. might a cross section of 'natural sound' SET/horn systems bring a separate palette of attributes to the table which would be a legit alternative to my big rig sound? likely it would. which one might prefer is a matter of taste. more than one way to skin the cat. can my approach, or other's like mine get closer to the SET/horn attributes, than they to mine? maybe. a matter of opinion.

we can all like our own approach, and we should avoid trying to denigrate other ways. stick to the positive.

 

[Al M.]

From another thread:


Well stated. An essential characteristic of a natural sounding system is one where the system does not highlight or emphasize hi-fi attributes to draw attention to the system away from the music. This is one of the main observations I made when listening to the four systems in Utah, and which I describe on the first page of this very thread.

If I don't want to think about hi-fi (high fidelity) attributes I can turn on my car radio. The concept of high fidelity never crosses my mind when I listen to the car radio -- too compromised for that -- but it's not the most Natural Sound either.
(Even though it may be quite engaging.)

The concept of pitting high fildelity attributes against Natural Sound is flawed. If reproduced sound has no high fidelity, then how can it be natural?