Smearing

[Ron Resnick]

I am reading Chuck and MikeL & sbnx post about "smearing."

What is "smearing" in audio?

J. Gordon Holt's glossary provides: "smearing: Severe lack of detail and focus."

Okay, but then smearing is a pretty egregious problem -- like a connector isn't making full electrical contact, or a phono cartridge stylus is covered by goop.

Is "smearing" -- other than due to some major malfunction -- a real thing?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

smearing is not an obvious malfunction to gear or a bad pressing, bad connection or bad power. at least as i consider it.

smearing (in higher end sorted systems) only is really evident in compare. almost impossible to know it's there until you hear it gone. smearing is when the media (or source gear ) misses the full event on the recording. it blunts it, or glosses over the info. might still be smooth and not obvious, until you hear it complete.

sure; in mediocre/modest systems there can be examples of obvious smear. for all sorts of reasons. does not mean the music is not enjoyable. what is interesting is how many long term track references in our auditory memory include smearing. it's startling to hear a long term known reference, 'right'.

it can be as innocuous as when you compare a digital transfer to an analog source. on peaks many times on my amps it shows less peak watts from the transfer. yes, you hear it too, but the amps are only reporting the signal they receive. the digital blunts the peaks. that is smearing. the commonly used phrase......."smears the peaks".......it's missing the full information.

certainly there are a myriad of reasons for lower peak watts, could be a improper transfer or any number of things (level matching?). but none the less it's not news when it happens. it's typical. in my Wadax/MSB compare there were similar things, you only hear in direct compare.

i suppose some speakers and amps smear peaks compared to other speakers and amps. it's logical that might happen. i've not personally heard that myself.

 

[pjwd]

I am reading Chuck and MikeL & sbnx post about "smearing."

What is "smearing" in audio?

J. Gordon Holt's glossary provides: "smearing: Severe lack of detail and focus."

Okay, but then smearing is a pretty egregious problem -- like a connector isn't making full electrical contact, or a phono cartridge stylus is covered by goop.

Is "smearing" -- other than due to some major malfunction -- a real thing?

I imagine smearing can happen anywhere in the chain but I would have thought it is most apparent in room acoustics as in a reflected sound arriving shortly after the direct sound causing a loss of clariry ... it also could be a reverbarent field that does not correlate in phase and or frequency response with the direct sound. It also could be inherent in speaker design from either driver alignment , crossover implementation, edge diffraction etc. The latter 2 would be much less in magnitude. It seems it's in the acoustic domain where smearing would be the most literal use of the word.

 

[tima]

Is "smearing" -- other than due to some major malfunction -- a real thing?

It's a word attached to audible phenomena, sometimes associated with timing.

"Audibility of temporal smearing and time misalignment of acoustic signals"

Misalignment in timing between drivers in a speaker system and temporal smearing of signals in
components and cables have long been alleged to cause degradation of fidelity in audio reproduction.

edit:
In a sound-reproduction system also, complexities in the
response (such as due to dielectric relaxation, mechanical
vibrations in cables, reverberation within speaker
cabinets, and other mechanisms that store and slowly
release energy) invalidate its categorization as a perfect
linear system, which in turn negates a simple connection
between ? and 1/?max. Because of this, an adequate
frequency response need not ensure that a component
will be sonically transparent (i.e., not produce an audible
degradation of the signal). It is recognized in the
audio community that smearing in the time-domain is
a key factor in degrading transparency [1, 2] and that
temporal misalignment can produce audible errors in the
spectral response [3].

 

[Tangram]

smearing is not an obvious malfunction to gear or a bad pressing, bad connection or bad power. at least as i consider it.

smearing (in higher end sorted systems) only is really evident in compare. almost impossible to know it's there until you hear it gone. smearing is when the media (or source gear ) misses the full event on the recording. it blunts it, or glosses over the info. might still be smooth and not obvious, until you hear it complete.

sure; in mediocre/modest systems there can be examples of obvious smear. for all sorts of reasons. does not mean the music is not enjoyable. what is interesting is how many long term track references in our auditory memory include smearing. it's startling to hear a long term known reference, 'right'.

it can be as innocuous as when you compare a digital transfer to an analog source. on peaks many times on my amps it shows less peak watts from the transfer. yes, you hear it too, but the amps are only reporting the signal they receive. the digital blunts the peaks. that is smearing. the commonly used phrase......."smears the peaks".......it's missing the full information.

certainly there are a myriad of reasons for lower peak watts, could be a improper transfer or any number of things (level matching?). but none the less it's not news when it happens. it's typical. in my Wadax/MSB compare there were similar things, you only hear in direct compare.

i suppose some speakers and amps smear peaks compared to other speakers and amps. it's logical that might happen. i've not personally heard that myself.

I always thought smearing was related to arrival time issues related to driver misalignment, speaker setup, and/or room acoustics.

 

[Argonaut]

I wouldn’t tend to go looking for the minuscule electrical interaction between the surface of the core material and dialectic as enough to be causing an audible timing misalignment (smearing ,as some have chosen to use this term) of the audio signals propagation through a interconnect or speaker cable!

 

[Tangram]

I wouldn’t tend to go looking for the minuscule electrical interaction between the surface of the core material and dialectic as enough to be causing an audible timing misalignment (smearing if you will) of the audio signals propagation through a interconnect or speaker cable!

Agreed. The speed of electricity is 186,000 miles per second.

 

[Robh3606]

I think smearing is an awful term to be used to describe issues that can occur when listening to audio. It's so ambiguous and does nothing to address what the real issues are. Just a catch all phrase.

Rob

 

[Al M.]

It's a word attached to audible phenomena, sometimes associated with timing.

"Audibility of temporal smearing and time misalignment of acoustic signals"

Misalignment in timing between drivers in a speaker system and temporal smearing of signals in
components and cables have long been alleged to cause degradation of fidelity in audio reproduction.

edit:
In a sound-reproduction system also, complexities in the
response (such as due to dielectric relaxation, mechanical
vibrations in cables, reverberation within speaker
cabinets, and other mechanisms that store and slowly
release energy) invalidate its categorization as a perfect
linear system, which in turn negates a simple connection
between ? and 1/?max. Because of this, an adequate
frequency response need not ensure that a component
will be sonically transparent (i.e., not produce an audible
degradation of the signal). It is recognized in the
audio community that smearing in the time-domain is
a key factor in degrading transparency [1, 2] and that
temporal misalignment can produce audible errors in the
spectral response [3].

Reverberation within speaker cabinets is a big issue. My previous speakers,, Reference 3A Reflector monitors, had essentially the same drivers as my speakers before that, Reference 3A MM DeCapo BE monitors, but much less smearing and higher resolution of micro-detail, e.g., the sounds from friction of the bow on strings of instruments in a string quartet, and the wooden resonances from those instruments. The difference was inertness of cabinet.

***

I also found that when I changed from stock power cables to great audiophile power cords (ZenWave) on my power amp and then on other components, that resolution of massed string texture (e.g., orchestral violins) was much improved. With the stock power cord there was smearing (and hardening) of the signal that was resolved with the competent audiophile power cord, letting through much more fine detail.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

another common manifestation of smearing, maybe the most prevalent, is acoustical smearing. where the room reflections arrive at the ear too many milliseconds late, and confuse the direct sound to corrupt the precise music timing and note coherence. again; until you solve it and hear the music without it you won't know what you are missing.

some driver types are more susceptible to it than others, based on how they interact with the room surfaces. probably one reason why Ron prefers panels/dipoles for his vocals. they have less issues with acoustical smearing. and vocals are where it might be most obvious with that. in my room tuning i had maybe 50 vocal tracks (among over 200 i used) that were part of my testing.

 

[treitz3]

There is also interaural crosstalk that will smear an image.

Tom

 

[mtemur]

Apart from what the smearing is, I noticed that @Ron Resnick you’re keeping the forum active with carefully selected topics. Good work and thanks…

 

[Tangram]

There is also interaural crosstalk that will smear an image.

Tom

That sounds like a tough one to fix.

 

[divertiti]

Smearing is when individual elements of the sound run into each other, either in the frequency domain or in the time domain, thus obscuring natural details inside the music or intrude upon silence between notes.

What makes it a hard problem to tackle is that some audiophiles actually prefer smeared sound, calling it "musical", "organic", or "analog". In less than well set up systems with digital sources and ethernet streaming, the tendency is towards brightness and edginess. With speakers that are not properly set up in a room, the bass bloat or mid bass "bloom" will overwhelm the music as well. Instead of getting to the root of the problem, people will elect to have equipment that mask it in the form of smearing. It can be pleasant to listen to, but it greatly sacrifices fidelity in turn.

It is very difficult to achieve a system that is very very precise and truthful to the source yet still musically engaging and satisfying.

 

[sbnx]

Interesting. There are three active threads that, IMO, are at the heart of getting great music. "Smearing", "Detailed Speaker Setup, and ""Does Everything Make a Difference".

Everything does make a difference. It is revealed through "smearing". The "thing" either clears up the sound or smears it more. Detailed speaker setup addresses smearing caused by the room and speaker integration.

Many seem to be just listening for "differences". There are some things that make one thing better at the expense of something else. I am personally looking for things that make everything better. Less noise, less smear.

This is one of the main reasons the new Avantgarde iTron amp is so fantastic. Because it is a curren amp and there are no capacitors and inductors in the signal path like in a traditional crossover, It has much greater conrol over the drivers which dramatically lowers the rise time and stop time of each driver. The effect of this is a big redcution in time smearing.

I think if everyone listened for and heard time smearing the marketplace would clean up dramatically. A lot of products would simply cease to exist or they would have to redefine their product.

 

[NekoAudio]

When I hear the term smearing I mostly think of what divertiti described where individual sounds run into each other in the time domain. It's one of the most noticeable characteristics for me.

 

[sbnx]

Anything that has Hysteresis causes smearing. This is because it is absorbing energy at t=0 and then re-releases that energy at a later time. A very unfortunate, but common item that is in a lot of speakers (Even some high end) is an iron core indutor on the midrange. The inductor is a necessity as we need to roll of both ends of the midrange driver so the inductor rolls off the top end. However, the iron core is obviously magnetic and has strong hysteresis. This will smear the timing of the midrange. There are two reasons speaker manufacturers use iron core is 1. they are cheaper and 2. they are smaller. Fine for a budget level speaker but should be banned above some price point as the extra cost of the air core inductor becomes small compared to the overall price of the speaker.

Someone mentioned speaker cabinets. Poorly braced or designed cabinets have hysteresis. They absorb energy and then re-release it at a later time.

 

[twitch]

wow all this talk makes me want to make a 'PB&J' sandwich !!

 

[stehno]

I am reading Chuck and MikeL & sbnx post about "smearing."

What is "smearing" in audio?

J. Gordon Holt's glossary provides: "smearing: Severe lack of detail and focus."

Okay, but then smearing is a pretty egregious problem -- like a connector isn't making full electrical contact, or a phono cartridge stylus is covered by goop.

Smearing is little more than a lack delineated or lack of well-defined detail where seemingly the end of one music note almost runs into the next music note. Otherwise, smearing is just another broad brushed term to describe sound impacted by poorly-addressed distortions.

If you think about the proverbial photo of a beautiful Ferrari with a high-noise floor threshold, all of the fine detail is obscured or smeared- even to the point where much of the detail is no longer seen with the naked eye. For example. If distortions are severe, the smearing can be so profound that one can no longer tell where the front quarter panel ends and the door begins, the fine stitching in the seats, can’t read the license plate, etc.

Smearing is just one of a number of terms used when describing the ill-effects of distorted sound. One could also use other terms like exaggeration, congestion, blurring, lacking dynamics, unresolving, etc. since these and other terms all accurately describe the potential results of a sound resulting from poorly-addressed distortions.

Is "smearing" -- other than due to some major malfunction -- a real thing?

Absolutely. Smearing is not an on / off matter but a graduating presence. The more distortions, the more the smearing. IOW, smearing ought to be present even with the smallest of distortions - which are always present. And since we live in an imperfect world where the counterfeit is never quite equal with the original, we all experience distortions in our playback systems to one degree or another. Therefore, we’re all listening to a smearing effects to one degree or another. Whether we think we hear it or not.

 

[DDgtt]

When I hear the term smearing I mostly think of what divertiti described where individual sounds run into each other in the time domain. It's one of the most noticeable characteristics for me.

I completely agree with NekoAudio on this. I view smearing as a time and phase domain issue (which involves cabinet diffraction as well). Without proper time and phase correctness the leading edge of a dynamic (any sound) is blurred, smeared, or rounded off. Without properly intact leading edges the realities of dynamics, timbral accuracy, and inner detail are compromised. Time and phase correctness isn't just about imaging (which it certainly benefits) but about much more. Speakers are the last stand when it comes to maintaining proper time and phase. And speakers are really the biggest offenders of the important aspect of sound. To hear a speaker with proper relative phase between the drivers and proper time correct wave launch characteristics, is to get closer to the real thing. The king of this domain in the loudspeaker category are the Vivid Audio speakers. To experience this is enlightening and truly special.