Pro Gear vs Audiophile Gear

[Mike Lavigne]

Ken,

Even Sean has said that final testing on their products are done by a panel trained listeners. His works billion dollar company with perhaps the largest R&D for audio. I think this shows that the human ear and brain can do things a mic and a program can not.

The conclusion does not in any way follow from the premise.

help me to understand why the conclusion does not follow. what is it about the importance of a trained listening panel that does not indicate the unique contributions of human perceptions to speaker building?

 

[Gregadd]

I've heard good imaging and bad imaging outdoors.... there are no reflections in an outdoor open space.... it was solely up to the speakers.

Thank you Bruce

 

[RUR]

If Dr. Olive was participating in this thread, IMO he would agree that everyone is indeed making decisions based on personal preference BUT is there any doubt about which way his personal preferences lie? Is there any doubt about why he and his employer continue to engage in scientific research? Is there any doubt about whether he is ready to succumb to those compromises? These are, of course, rhetorical questions but, if there is any doubt, then for example ask him what he thinks about listening to music with only 2 channels.

Ron, no there is not, and I salute the very valuable research which he and Harman have done. My point isn't about Harman, but Toole's Circle of Confusion which Sean expounds upon in his blog, and it still stands.... Like it or not, as a consequence of variability in the mixing/mastering process, no one can claim absolute accuracy as regards frequency spectum, and all of us are exercising personal preference in this as we voice our systems. Some of us, armed with flexible RC, are occasionally doing it album by album. ;-)

Ken

help me to understand why the conclusion does not follow. what is it about the importance of a trained listening panel that does not indicate the unique contributions of human perceptions to speaker building?

Mike, I believe you're asking me for clarification of quotes from Jack and Ron.

 

[RUR]

No, I'm speaking about practical measuring and interpretation as well as theoretical. If the average consumer doesn't know how to read a polar plot of frequency response versus angle, or distortion versus SPL and frequency, that's not a fault of measuring proponents. Again, I agree that the amount of data needed to fully assess a loudspeaker's performance is more complicated than that for a preamp or power amp. But it can all be measured, known, and understood.

Forgive me, Ethan, but I remain skeptical that the measurements you list above represent, in toto, what's required in order to fully predict how a speaker will sound, particularly in a typical, less than fully treated room. Amir's suggestion for a separate instructional thread is an excellent one, however, and I look forward to learning better.

I also note that you did not address the fact that, too often, none or only some of these measurements are available, let alone from a reliable source. I'm sure we'd agree that they should be, but then we're discussing theory and not reality.

Ken

 

[Ron Party]

Ron, no there is not, and I salute the very valuable research which he and Harman have done. My point isn't about Harman, but Toole's Circle of Confusion which Sean expounds upon in his blog, and it still stands.... Like it or not, as a consequence of variability in the mixing/mastering process, no one can claim absolute accuracy as regards frequency spectum, and all of us are exercising personal preference in this as we voice our systems. Some of us, armed with flexible RC, are occasionally doing it album by album. ;-)

Completely agree. OTOH, we can strive for absolute accuracy. This is one of the preferences listed in that quote from Tom Mallin. I suspect I'm not going out on a limb in saying this is Ethan's personal preference. It also is mine. And it is Dr. Olive's, not only verified by the Circle Of Confusion discourse, but the following:

Audio Science in the service of art” is a philosophy in sound reproduction where the goal is to use science and technology to faithfully reproduce the art as the musical artist intended. The art is the music, its performance, and the process of capturing it on the recording. The audio system is not part of the art, and should neither add, remove or editorialize the artist’s message. Audio components should not sound like musical instruments: Beethoven never wrote parts for loudspeaker and amplifier, so you shouldn’t be hearing them when listening to recordings of his music. The perfect audio system has no sonic personality, no musical qualities, and is the system that you notice the least.

For an individual subscribing to this goal, and to try to keep the conversation closer to the OT, the question then becomes to what degree does pro gear and/or consumer gear take that individual closer to achieving that goal.

 

[RUR]

Completely agree. OTOH, we can strive for absolute accuracy. This is one of the preferences listed in that quote from Tom Mallin. I suspect I'm not going out on a limb in saying this is Ethan's personal preference. It also is mine. And it is Dr. Olive's, not only verified by the Circle Of Confusion discourse, but the following:

Audio Science in the service of art” is a philosophy in sound reproduction where the goal is to use science and technology to faithfully reproduce the art as the musical artist intended. The art is the music, its performance, and the process of capturing it on the recording. The audio system is not part of the art, and should neither add, remove or editorialize the artist’s message. Audio components should not sound like musical instruments: Beethoven never wrote parts for loudspeaker and amplifier, so you shouldn’t be hearing them when listening to recordings of his music. The perfect audio system has no sonic personality, no musical qualities, and is the system that you notice the least.

Ron, where I struggle is with the definition of "absolute accuracy". In my mind, that would be the recording as the engineer intended us to hear it. Unfortunately, since there are no standards in the mixing/mastering process and even after we've ensured that our playback chain meets all the criteria which you, Sean (and I and, I'm sure, many others) advocate, what we may actually get is a frequency plot which diverges significantly from that which the engineer heard and intended us to hear. Too much bass, too little bass, etc. etc.

Perhaps I'm being overly obsessive........

Whoops! Gotta go! Just got a parcel from some wacky attorney up in Oakland.....

 

[Gregadd]

Oh, you want data. Glad to oblige! Note that the terrible response shown in red changes with small head movements. So it's not only that the response with reflections is lousy, the peak and null frequencies also change if you move your head even half an inch. The response is also different for each speaker for any given head location when early reflections are present.

Hopefully this now makes it clear why untamed early reflections are the main cause of poor imaging, and why taming those reflections gives good imaging.

--Ethan

NOT only does it not tell me anything about imaging, the graph like just like the one you poste when you first csame on this site in support of anther theory.

Gregadd

 

[JackD201]

Hi Ron,

I think you mistake me for being in the purely subjectivist camp. My position is simply that in the real world we are all in one big gray area. Attacking the challenges we all face in producing the best possible music we can from purely black or white methods or philosophies, I strongly believe, hampers rather than assists our efforts. Personally I do not like systems that hide flaws in recordings. They may make bad recordings more listenable but rob the better ones of what make them great examples of how recordings should be made.

So Ethan and I apparently do agree on more than we initially thought we did. We only differ in that I actually believe there is much more that needs measuring and that until that capability becomes available all we have our our ears and trial and error. I also think that not only is there nothing wrong with that, we really have no choice because that's all we have to work with. Here are some concrete examples.

The graph provided by Ethan is a correct one. However it does not tell us what the specific contributions of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th....nth reflections have to both the blue and the red lines. Treatment of the first reflection can be done in three ways as you know. Absorb, diffract or a combination of both. Depending on frequency practically all treatments available actually do a little or a lot of both. This becomes very important because this now determines the subsequent composition of the other treatments. Ray tracing will only give the positions. Something Mike L actually hit on when he mentioned the dependency on the distance to the boundaries.

Another concrete example is that even the best test microphones have one serious draw back. They measure from only one point in space. We on the other hand measure from two points then triangulate. I know of no measurement device to date that can come out with reliable results when trying to determine the various amplitudes of intersect points of two sources with identical polar patterns at their midband frequencies simultaneously. If there is one please let me know, I want one. This measure would be able to quantify imaging characteristics. As it stands the best that I know of that we can do is measure one channel at a time and calibrate them so they are as close together in amplitude as possible. After that we cross our fingers. We know we'll get the +3dB at the center position but that's pretty much about all we can be certain about. The only other way is to take multiple measurements at prescribed intersect points however a truly omnipolar microphone has yet to be invented. Every measurement will have a phase angle error of some degree. No surprise then that there are so many speaker placement methods being touted. Again, there exists no standards for this.

As far as Dr. Sean goes, we've been through this before. If you remember I got to keep my left nut. This is also the same conclusion given the same premise. To get meaningful measurements we have to know what we're measuring and what we're measuring for, Ethan has said the same over and over. I think we can agree that the occasional eureka moment from unexpected results is more the exception than the rule.

Any scientific endeavor starts with a question. I'd venture to guess that that question was formulated based on a primary observation. I will submit that not all observations are accurate. I will submit that the placebo effect is so real it can cure. I will submit that many observations can, will and have been found to be erroneous. What I will not submit to is that all observations are invalid unless there is a metric that already exists to validate it. As Greg says absence of proof does not disprove. I also will not submit to the assertion that all metrics already exist and are at a level of accuracy so as to be infallible.

Furthermore as far as the human ear and brain, I wonder why you sell the race so short. You yourself undoubtedly have a better ear than the man on the street because of your continuing exposure and education. Sean trains panels and Ethan just gave concrete recommendations on how to train oneself to translate what a person hears in terms of frequency so as to communicate more accurately with the similarly trained. Measurement proponents both. Who is the one throwing the baby out with the bath water? Like I said shades of gray. I'm saying accept the fact that preference will never be eradicated nor should it. There is nothing wrong with it, pro or audiophile, if one is to look at it and apply it in the pursuit of specific utilities. Many of us here can hear the peaks and dips and do know where they are. Maybe some of us here are even pitch perfect. What a machine will never be able to do is qualify an experience and communicate it. This is the very anecdotal information I mentioned that can be just as important as quantitative measures. I'm not throwing out your baby but don't throw out mine.

Now just because I am not pitch perfect and can not tell you the exact frequency of a test tone with absolute reliability shouldn't mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion on how something sounds. Nor should I be disallowed to share that with anyone that asks. If heaven forbid you catch me saying PRAT, if the other guy knows what I mean don't be too hard on me. I'll be harder on myself than you could ever be.

 

[Ethan Winer]

i don't think anyone on this forum would be surprised by how harmful first reflections can be depending on the room size and speaker distance from walls and ceiling. the smaller the room the more significant the first reflections effects are.

Absolutely. In a large room, the walls - and maybe the ceiling - are farther away so the reflections are softer and also later. Of course, even a huge room has a floor that's in close proximity.

my question is how, with so many varibles, can actual measurement data be useful when determining what treatment to perscribe?

Well, how to best treat a room for a flat response and no reflections is different from proving that reflections skew the response in a way that harms imaging. Which is what I've been addressing here.

People often tell me they plan to measure their room, or run the dimensions through a mode calculator, to help them know how to treat the room. My usual response is that it's not necessary to measure anything in order to know how to treat a room. Assuming a typical "domestic size" room, if you put bass traps in the corners, and absorbers at the reflection points, you'll be 90 percent of the way there. Measuring is useful for verifying the improvement, and maybe assessing how much more bass trapping is warranted. But it's not really needed to know how to treat a space. Indeed, I first got into measuring and posting graphs just to show how bad typical rooms really are. Most people have no idea how skewed the LF response of their room is!

or do you observe (either pictures, floorplan, or in person), and perscribe thru experience?

Yes, exactly.

--Ethan

 

[Ron Party]

Jack, another great post by you. I'm not sure what you meant by this line, though:

What a machine will never be able to do is qualify an experience and communicate it.

If you're writing about the experience of soundstage, e.g., then your point is debateable and falsifiable.

If you're writing about the experience of the enjoyment of music, for lack of better words on my part to describe the emotional or spiritual impact of the system, then this is where you lose me and all other rationalists.

As you know, Dr. Olive's research has shown that when tested under conditions that remove all bias, people tend to prefer a speaker that has certain characteristics. Moreover, his research also has shown that under the same test conditions most people tend to prefer the same speaker. Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, though I seriously doubt it, but I'm inclined to believe that at this point, with the wealth of knowledge they have gained over at Harman, they believe they could design and sell a speaker without first even affording trained listeners (blind or sighted) an opportunity to comment.

 

[Ethan Winer]

If we go further, then IMO we have to ask if there are personal or professional goals in mind which, the attainment (or the attempt to attain) thereof, help to understand those personal preferences and, sometimes, help people to make more informed and intelligent decisions about their own systems ... Some of us are indeed optimists and are hopeful that at all levels, from recording to playback, we can move closer to the ideal. As such, for some of us, our understanding of things audio, our personal preferences, and our purchasing decisions are guided by that ideal and, yes, the scientific method.

I separate personal preference, such as selecting loudspeakers because they are bright or full sounding, from fidelity which has a very specific definition:

Fidelity is the quality of being faithful or loyal ... Fidelity also
denotes how accurate a copy is to its source. (LINK)​

This is why I almost always refer to "raw fidelity" in these discussions. Though I do sometimes explain why my opinion is that fidelity is something we should all strive for in our audio systems. The reason being to hear what the artist and mix engineers intended by making our playback similar to theirs.

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

I've heard good imaging and bad imaging outdoors.... there are no reflections in an outdoor open space.... it was solely up to the speakers.

Reflections off the ground can cause comb filtering. But without having been there to hear what you heard, I can't really comment. I will say that I'm sure whatever you heard can be measured and quantified. And I assume it relates to frequency response and loudspeaker directivity.

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

So how about you write a tutorial on all of the above in your section? That is why we created the department . I am a firm believer that arguments don't resolve things but data and information do.

Good idea. Though I've already touched on measurements and their interpretation in various articles and videos:

Front Wall Absorption
Surface Reflectivity
AES Audio Myths Workshop
Using ETF

--Ethan

 

[Ron Party]

Ethan, I completely understand your mindset with your reference to fidelity.

At some level, though, this discussion is reduced to one of semantics. As Jack pointed out, the pursuit of a system with fidelity per literal definition still can be deemed one of preference. Some, many (most?) have other preferences driving their system choices. It sure would nice, however, to see these others acknowledge their own preferences rather than claim that their preference is, e.g., more representative of what they think they hear at a live show. IMO it is the existence of these other preferences that has prevented pro gear from gaining wider acceptance in the consumer market.

 

[Ethan Winer]

I remain skeptical that the measurements you list above represent, in toto, what's required in order to fully predict how a speaker will sound

LOL, I never claimed that one graph contains everything needed to assess loudspeakers. Indeed, the whole point of that graph is to show that imaging is mainly a function of the room rather than the speaker. If someone hears better imaging with one speaker versus another, it probably has more to do with how that speaker interacts with their room.

I also note that you did not address the fact that, too often, none or only some of these measurements are available, let alone from a reliable source. I'm sure we'd agree that they should be, but then we're discussing theory and not reality.

Right, I focus on theory mostly, because a lot of people don't understand the theory. This is why we so often see people claim that "science doesn't know how to measure what I'm certain I can hear." If they actually understood the theory, they would no longer have that opinion.

Here's a perfect example: I know a lot of audiophiles and I also know a lot of degreed engineers. Not one of my EE friends believes that speaker wires can affect the sound. Of course this assumes a competent design - no high capacitance parallel flat conductors or Bybee stuff inline - and an adequate gauge.

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

there are no standards in the mixing/mastering process and even after we've ensured that our playback chain meets all the criteria which you, Sean (and I and, I'm sure, many others) advocate, what we may actually get is a frequency plot which diverges significantly from that which the engineer heard and intended us to hear.

There are standards! The goal of mixing and mastering rooms is a flat response with minimal ringing. Many come close, others maybe not so close. But all competent audio engineers understand they should aim for a flat playback chain and why. The reason is obvious because, as you point out, end-user rooms vary all over the place. So the best audio engineers can aim for is a neutral room to make their decisions. Then whatever deviation the end-user hears is due to their own room, and they're probably used to that coloration anyway and may not even notice.

If a mix room has a 6 dB peak at 100 Hz, mixes made there will be 6 dB softer than intended at 100 Hz. So when the mix is played in a room with a 6 dB null at 100 Hz, what's heard is even worse than usual. This is a simplified example, but it explains why mix and mastering rooms need to aim for a flat response. So there actually is a standard, and that standard is flat.

Mastering engineers Bob Katz and Alan Silverman are my customers, and I've discussed this at length with both of them. Bruce Brown in this forum is a skilled mastering engineer, and maybe he can add his own perspective.

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

Personally I do not like systems that hide flaws in recordings. They may make bad recordings more listenable but rob the better ones of what make them great examples of how recordings should be made. So Ethan and I apparently do agree on more than we initially thought we did.

Excellent.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I hate to sound simplistic but if it can be reproduced repeatably doesn't that imply it has been measured? The very capture (recording) of a musical event implies measurements of some sort .. with instruments which is what a microphone is intrinsically, a measuring instrument.

So the goal should be to measure as well as we can. I am not in total agreement with Ethan as I don't think that the 4 parameters he mentioned are sufficient , else ... I am at ease with the notion of measuring and "measurability".

Great post Jack by the way...

 

[Ethan Winer]

If a mix room has a 6 dB peak at 100 Hz, mixes made there will be 6 dB softer than intended at 100 Hz.

Here's a better example, using one of the most common problems home recordists post about in forums: They'll complain mixes that sound fine in their bedroom studio sound very boomy in their car and in other rooms. In small rooms there's usually a deep null in the bass range somewhere between 60 and 200 Hz, depending on the distance between the listening position and the rear wall behind. There are also peaks, and nulls at other frequencies, but typically there's one really nasty null right in the fullness range. The frequency of this deep null is 1/4 or 3/4 (or both) wavelengths based on the distance:

Frequency-Distance Calculator

So if the wall behind you is 6 feet away, you'll likely have a big null at 141 Hz. When you can't hear that frequency well enough you tend to boost it when mixing. This sounds full in your small room but tubby everywhere else.

--Ethan

 

[Gregadd]

Because most of us purchase products and put them in the same room of our previous equipment how do we account for the improvements? Assuming that we hear the same thing we heard at the store. A very different room.I assume.