The Devil is in the Detail

[dcathro]

Sorry you are again discussing system points. Dcathro’s post had one key point you are ignoring. There is a recording artefact that one system is hiding and another one isn’t. I do not see any parallels of this and your vdh analogy

This is not quite right.

Yes, the sibilance is in the recording and the two systems place different degrees of emphasis, but which one is most accurate is the whole point.

I just used sibilance as an example. It could be snares and hi hats, or the rasp of trumpets.

You must have heard systems that over emphasise these things - which doesn't mean that the system owner won't like it.

 

[bonzo75]

This is not quite right.

Yes, the sibilance is in the recording and the two systems place different degrees of emphasis, but which one is most accurate is the whole point.

I just used sibilance as an example. It could be snares and hi hats, or the rasp of trumpets.

You must have heard systems that over emphasise these things - which doesn't mean that the system owner won't like it.

yes the way you wrote your post was as if one was masking.

 

[dcathro]

yes the way you wrote your post was as if one was masking.

It wasn't meant to

The interesting thing is, this phenomena is often not measurable which frustrates the hell out of some engineers.

You can substitute two amplifiers to get this effect. Then we have the old musical vs accurate conundrum.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Hello Mike

OK point taken but if it's in the recording, distortion or not just because it may be a form of recording distortion doesn't undo it once there.

If you have a good pair of linear speakers how do you not reproduce it???

We are talking about systems somehow exaggerating detail no???

A speaker with a peak in that range would exaggerate it and could be voiced to do so.

But again how you tell if it is being exaggerated have not heard the original in real time???

Just seems to be very circular to me.

WRT different speakers I have Be drivers in my Array 1400's and I also own a pair of Revel Performa F-206's. As good as the Revels are the Be drivers obviously are the winner WRT high frequency detail.

I don't find the Be drivers to sound unnatural or to have excessive detail. They are both enjoyable systems in their own right.

Rob

the point is you don't try to fix it, you focus on the rest of the recording.

garbage in, garbage out. works both ways. if you want to have a system that is getting the truth, you get the sibilance too. the truth should be natural and real on most recordings. but never 100%. we have members here that simply reduce their exposure to uncomfortable recordings. it's one choice. to some degree everyone avoids the stinkers.

i'll cite a few recordings that personally i love, but they have issues.

Holly Cole's "I Can See Clearly Now" i just love; have it in multiple formats. there is sibilance in the first couple of lines, i ignore it and play it regularly.

Ben Webster's "Georgia" off 'Live at the Renaissance' has a tape drop out around a minute, always bothers me. but it might be in my top 10 all time cuts and play it often at warp 9.

of course, Dean Martin's 'Dreaming with Dean' has sibilance on 'Blue Moon"' but it's fantastic. lots of head bumps in Nat King Cole's, "The Very Thought of You", distorted (slight on the vinyl) mute horn in Count Basie's 'Bluesville' off '88 Basie Street'....same with Ellington's 'Sweet and Pungent' off Blues in Orbit.....

etc, etc.

these are just what popped into my head at the moment.

i refuse to not play these amazing recordings and would not give up one iota of information to eliminate these artifacts.

filters and tone controls are not mortal sins, but they are not for me. roll tubes to reduce it? seems like at least a venial sin.

 

[microstrip]

sibilance is a recording artifact to do with the mic and how it handles peaks and proximity. it's distortion. sometimes it's very slight and the recording/mastering process makes it worse. so it's in the media to a degree. it's not what you hear in real life from a voice. sure, a voice can make a sound like sibilance, but it's only like it, not really the same.

sometimes a mute trumpet will cause a recording to have distortion, or maybe the mastering makes it worse. similar to sibilance.

so ambient detail in a recording is not related to sibilance in my way of thinking. more like a head bump in the bass. just an artifact, and we have to listen around it.

Yes, sibilance can be due to recording or playback artifacts. However the human voice can have sibilants - opera singers sometimes use this technique to project their voices out of the music. Someone who is not used to listen to real vocal music risks confusing this sibilance with the artifact.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Yes, sibilance can be due to recording or playback artifacts. However the human voice can have sibilants - opera singers sometimes use this technique to project their voices out of the music. Someone who is not used to listen to real vocal music risks confusing this sibilance with the artifact.

fair enough. have to admit to not going to live Opera. the sibilance i cited were not that.

certainly we can all make 'SSSSSSS' sounds but at what point is it distortion and not real? and can we tell the difference in a recording? i have tons of Opera vinyl. or digital streaming. point one out where i can listen. thanks.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Dynamics have something to do with the recording and the electronics that process it. The loudspeaker plays a minor role. If your signal source and amplification don't have enough headroom, a large speaker won't work too.
You should listen to an audioplan kontrapunkt and what it is capable of when operated correctly. I bet you would be sitting there with your mouth open wondering how it works. Orchestral music has a dynamic range of 12-20dB, which doesn't pose any major problems for amps with small speakers. But with large speakers that are power-hungry or have poor impedance, this quickly becomes a problem.

I did like the Kontrapunkts… heard them a few times back ages ago (last millennium) and from memory it was at different times with a 120 and a 60 watt watt Audio Research amps. Great speaker… but still not then for me completely convincing at larger scale music. Even the little P3 Harbeths can do seemingly amazing things and almost (not quite) defy physics but in terms of completely energising a space in comparison with something like a full range horn like a big Cessaro setup or Avantegarde trios and basshorns it’s not remotely the same thing. Even with big panels and large towers in box speakers while often their mid sized counterparts can come close to being at least partly convincing it’s not that same effortless and more complete (for lack of a better word) energising of the room.

I’m not even sure if it’s about what’s heard but also about subsonic fundamentals but certainly that feeling the sound through the body as well (even just in small ways) shifts the experience into a bit closer paradigm in terms of recalling the live music experience.

 

[the sound of Tao]

There was a time when I thought chamber is easily reproduced by small or simple systems (quads, martin logans, etc) and big tall speakers are required for full symphony to do large wide scale side to side, deep behind, with a lot of separation.

This is usually true with digital and meh records. Which the guys with full range drivers in OB often use in videos.

With good records, the best symphonies I heard were Mayer 46 - Pnoe, as was the chamber. Not that the Pnoe is a small speaker, it is quite tall and big, but it is a single driver. My videos from Bill on Beethoven 7th and Scheherazade depict some of that magic – many did tell me that was their favorite Scheherazade video (thus agreeing with in-room impressions).

Yes big dual FLHs can do both as well.

But so can small O96s and Audionec evo2s if run properly with good records, as can the Diesis with the all Kondo system. They allow very simple signal paths projecting the scale from the recording rather than imposing it due to speaker size. Therefore they rise and fall and ebb with the music rather than Yo girl, look how biiiig I am – the girl does not want a guy a who stays in competition pose throughout the date. And the speaker scale can never be better than the scale of, for example, a well recorded Decca. And it is not that the well recorded Decca plays bigger in a bigger system than a smaller system, it plays bigger in a better system, which could be small or big



I agree.

The other thing is the more you appreciate solo, partitas, duos, trios, quartets, X-tets, etc.. . the number of well recorded good performances is much higher than for full symphony, and they have their own challenges in reproduction.

From a system testing perspective, while I do not like the idea of being comfortable auditioning only small chamber and ignoring large orchestra, I do not like the idea that some people play a big symphony like Firebird Suite only to hear the loud tympani and some separation, and large size, then do not go about auditioning smaller scale music which also is an effective system test.

I’d go a Pnoe too if I could… it’s one of the most convincing arguments for the benefits of full range and one of the few that doesn’t seem to suffer the constraints. Not sure what the horn gain is on the Pnoe but the BD drivers in Bills and the Generals setups are clearly beyond exceptional… but this is an exception overall as well I’d figure and every time I go to sing the praises of two way first order crossovers as being my ideal compromise I always have the Pnoe in the back of my mind as an example of where then one way can be among the very best ways.

I nearly bought the Devore 0/96 and had it at home for some time setup with a 24 watt LM 219ia SET and it is a great example of a speaker that for me defies its relative mid size and treads the line of tipping point into reproducing moments of a greater full range. Looking back I still think that maybe I could have gone differently with trying an amp with a different character driving it but still while very convincing at larger scale orchestral it wasn’t quite in the same league at building the scaffolding for an orchestral full force majeur that some more full on setups have for me… and that comes back to tipping points and it’s probably more crucial for those of us who play a higher percentage of large orchestral. But still I think that some exceptional mid sized speakers are a bit of a trickster at being tantalisingly close to those kinds of larger music experiences and if I rarely played that kind of music it wouldn’t be a critical point for me. But still I’d guess that Tangs or MikeL’s or Bill’s or the General’s are good examples of the difference in the kinds of speakers that then just tip the experience and achieving a level of overall scale that is simply more convincing at the largest of orchestral forces of music.

 

[the sound of Tao]

For listening pleasure by all means listen to big orchestral pieces. I do as well...not saying one shouldn't listen to them. I am saying that there is NO system existent in the world of home audio, at least, that can properly support accurately large classical works...this is also a recording problem not just a system problem. But they all fail ultimately.

A properly recorded and played back violin sonata, string quartet, piano quintet etc. will stress any speaker system out there and only medium/large systems are likely to do them justice as heard live. Small speaker systems will fail here as well for realistic reproduction. That is not the same as saying they can't make pleasing or even tonally accurate playback...they for sure can but scale and dynamics of even small ensembles is far more powerful than most here appreciate.

No one is talking about unchallenging and whispy audiophile music (whatever that is). No compressed pop girl with a guitar. Try to reproduce a proper Flamenco recording at live levels with a small system.

I am saying that when you evaluate a system, rather than try to judge it with works where it will fail, again also due to the compromises in the recordings to get them within the limits of the recording tech, judge it with works where it should stand a chance of giving a realistic presentation...and then see if it actually does.

Absolutely full and completely accurate (beyond even the suspended disbeliefish kind) concert level portrayals of the New York Phil or London Philharmonic or Berlin or Boston Orchestras is right up there with an order for a unicorn… but definitely there are simply some speakers that are clearly more convincing at the task and that’s here it comes down to it for me.

The reason to try and evaluate with all kinds of music that test the range of parameters and in this intimate scale music is just as important. But it isn’t then to also set the fail bench mark at the impossible. To build an assessment that identifies the degrees of convincingness that speakers can manage with different instruments and performance size becomes the reason we have to try all scales and the full spectrum of music.

Perhaps where the tipping points are for a level of fail in building to the greatest scale is variable. It likely correlates to the types and amounts of live music experiences we each have but for me that fail is a summative thing where the performance of the sound produced actually gets in the way of me engaging fully with that music. One of the most obvious deal breakers for me is not getting into a believable ball park with moments of essential (not absolute) kind of believable near realism with a concert grand piano… but then also the same for violin as well as cello, then there’s a drum kit in full flight, tympani, lead singers and a large choir, a chamber orchestra, a woodwind and brass section of the kind you get in Philadelphia or Berlin… and yet most if not all of these things to be completely accurate are not just beyond true reproduction but sounds at a concert level in a home environment are going to leave us deaf or stuck with tinnitus.

So for me it comes back to things being essentially convincing so the context and the spirit of the music is in place and my mind is free to wander within the music and not niggling at me with an underlying sense of dissatisfaction or constant doubt. So that for me comes back to a tipping point of essential kind of rightness rather than an impossible exactness… and there are simply big differences in various systems ability to be convincing at all this but the fact the ability for a setup to be more or clearly less convincing does play into the overall quality of the music experience… even if it’s never going to be exact and mirror perfect of live music in itself.

 

[Ron Resnick]

t still I’d guess that Tangs or MikeL’s or Bill’s or the General’s are good examples of the difference in the kinds of speakers that then just tip the experience and achieving a level of overall scale that is simply more convincing at the largest of orchestral forces of music.

Do you agree with Kedar or not?

 

[the sound of Tao]

Do you agree with Kedar or not?

In parts yes. Just that there are degrees of success in achieving big things out of smaller packages and everyone’s pass levels are different. With regards to both Brad’s and Ked’s point about the importance of also assessing with smaller scale works absolutely. Always part of what I do. I don’t tend to make quick decisions on what’s possible nor quickly come to the feeling that I’ve completely found the limits of gear’s potential nor am I am absolute generally… I’m always open to being wrong as much as sometimes I hope/think/feel I am right.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

while i agree that the full all around experience of large orchestral, or even rock concert are not in the realm of home audio, subjectively when you add in the comfort and peace of mind of an ideal home set up we can connect emotionally on that level. we can fully lose ourselves in the moment and solve the reproduction compression and headroom challenges. we can solve the room limitations of sufficient coherence so we are not distracted by the limitations of reproduction. it can seem all the way there. we can get far enough that we don't think about what is not happening.

it will never be the same. but it does not need to be. it needs to get over the hump of the headwind in our way. and there are of course degrees and flavors of it.

still, the stars to need to align right; we have to be in the right mental state, and the media has to be up to it. and if a system can do the big music to a high degree, it can also do more intimate stuff too when things are right. not all recordings find that magic. but many do. i have some tapes which seem to break all the rules on what might be possible. i keep getting surprised.

 

[bonzo75]

I nearly bought the Devore 0/96 and had it at home for some time setup with a 24 watt LM 219ia SET and it is a great example of a speaker that for me defies its relative mid size and treads the line of tipping point into reproducing moments of a greater full range. Looking back I still think that maybe I could have gone differently with trying an amp with a different character driving it but still while very convincing at larger scale orchestral it wasn’t quite in the same league at building the scaffolding for an orchestral full force majeur that some more full on setups have for me…

You run with digital, not good LPs. The strategy for that is different. With LPs, to make it drive orchestral I would have gone with much lesser power than the LM - the NAF 2a3. This isn't to do with more push but with more transparency to the recording, given sufficient power. The scale is on the recording. After having tried many amps I found the NAF 2a3 and Airtight 300b to suit it the best. There might be others in that range.

Do I expect it to have done better than Pnoe or the dual FLHs that I like? No. Do I think it does orchestral scale better than those coffins that I don't? Absolutely.

 

[DasguteOhr]

I did like the Kontrapunkts… heard them a few times back ages ago (last millennium) and from memory it was at different times with a 120 and a 60 watt watt Audio Research amps. Great speaker… but still not then for me completely convincing at larger scale music. Even the little P3 Harbeths can do seemingly amazing things and almost (not quite) defy physics but in terms of completely energising a space in comparison with something like a full range horn like a big Cessaro setup or Avantegarde trios and basshorns it’s not remotely the same thing. Even with big panels and large towers in box speakers while often their mid sized counterparts can come close to being at least partly convincing it’s not that same effortless and more complete (for lack of a better word) energising of the room.

I’m not even sure if it’s about what’s heard but also about subsonic fundamentals but certainly that feeling the sound through the body as well (even just in small ways) shifts the experience into a bit closer paradigm in terms of recalling the live music experience.

Of course you can't cheat physics, but the kontrapunkt produces 100 dB of sound pressure with 150 watts/8 ohms at a distance of 2.5 meters. If you fill the columns with sand (66cm height) the bass goes down to -3db 45hz. In small rooms up to 20 square meters an astonishing sound pressure. But the real strength of these loudspeakers is location accuracy and the image of the stage, which only very few loudspeakers in this world can do. This is an unfair comparison against a large horn. In a small room I would prefer the kontrapunkt to the horn.the best version is the kontrapunkt series III.
I also listen with large speakers in the bass range, which has the advantage of low deflection and therefore low distortion at high volumes . You can clearly hear what a good deep bass effect has on music. It is the foundation on which the music is built. It contributes significantly to the realism of the performance.

 

[bonzo75]

like a full range horn like a big Cessaro setup

Lots of integration issues, in its ambition to be 5-way. Not denying it has the elements of detail (musical detail) and frequency extensions, but coherence no, plus a mismatch of excellent midrange drivers and tweeter with mid bass woofers that don't match up.

 

[bonzo75]

t sure what the horn gain is on the Pnoe but the BD drivers in Bills and the Generals setups are clearly beyond exceptional… but this is an exception overall as well I’d figure and every time I go to sing the praises of two way first order crossovers as being my ideal compromise

I agree on the exception, and the exception does not help us extend that learning to other components.

Otherwise yes, bespoke 2-way crossovers dual FLH is more extendable from a general learning perspective.

 

[Argonaut]

Lots of integration issues, in its ambition to be 5-way. Not denying it has the elements of detail (musical detail) and frequency extensions, but coherence no, plus a mismatch of excellent midrange drivers and tweeter with mid bass woofers that don't match up.

Taking all your points into consideration , overall from what I have heard thus far via Audio Vid I still prefer his previous transducer array to his current setup, imho ymmv etc.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Of course you can't cheat physics, but the kontrapunkt produces 100 dB of sound pressure with 150 watts/8 ohms at a distance of 2.5 meters. If you fill the columns with sand (66cm height) the bass goes down to -3db 45hz. In small rooms up to 20 square meters an astonishing sound pressure. But the real strength of these loudspeakers is location accuracy and the image of the stage, which only very few loudspeakers in this world can do. This is an unfair comparison against a large horn. In a small room I would prefer the kontrapunkt to the horn.the best version is the kontrapunkt series III.
I also listen with large speakers in the bass range, which has the advantage of low deflection and therefore low distortion at high volumes . You can clearly hear what a good deep bass effect has on music. It is the foundation on which the music is built. It contributes significantly to the realism of the performance.

What amp are you using with your Kontrapunkts? To be honest I’m unlikely to ever go with anything other than high efficiency speakers again or anything other than a SET amp to drive them and I think I just have different preferences but to be honest I’d still have chosen every speaker I’ve bought since the 90’s over the Kontrapunkts but that’s just for me at any rate.

 

[bonzo75]

Taking all your points into consideration , overall from what I have heard thus far via Audio Vid I still prefer his previous transducer array to his current setup, imho ymmv etc.

I loved the videos of Tang's Cessaros too. They let through the music and recordings very well.

 

[DasguteOhr]

What amp are you using with your Kontrapunkts? To be honest I’m unlikely to ever go with anything other than high efficiency speakers again or anything other than a SET amp to drive them and I think I just have different preferences but to be honest I’d still have chosen every speaker I’ve bought since the 90’s over the Kontrapunkts but that’s just for me at any rate.

Vincent d 150 hybrid ecc 88-6h30 voltage gain 2x 1kVa maitransformer ultrastable 190 watt /8 ohm.
We have the same preferences openbaffle and set amps now see my media.