The Path to Paradise . . . or the Road to Ruin?

[amirm]

I disagree: it is a question of intermodulation distortion which can come through a variety of mechanisms. Literally the more audio sources you have in your recording, the greater the proportion of objectionable intermodulation distortion present. And no: "even order" or "low order" harmonic distortion won't help here.

Doesn't matter what is present. What matters is what is audible. If that single guitar created low level IMD, then adding a Piano to it could mask those components.

An example of intermodulation distortion is doppler distortion which cannot be eliminated even with the most perfect zero distortion driver. You really don't want your mid-range riding on top of the bass cone displacements. Splitting the signal into several 'ways' will help to reduce this and other forms of IMD.

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/1104red/#4UvsqZx3uXiiXORl.97

Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/...rtion-loudspeakers-page-3#rYBuAWexhYefkTjz.99

And you would know to detect doppler distortion in auditioning one loudspeaker to another? I don't think so. I have written on this topic before on another forum. I will just quote one piece and leave it at that: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15291

"Using the equation given in Beers and Belar [2] , the
distortion of a 1kHz sine tone played simultaneously
from the same drive unit as the 60Hz, 90dB sine tone
calculated above would be 1.30 × 1000 Hz × 0.012 m =
15%. This is above the 2% threshold of audibility for a
pure tone that is stated in their paper, and also above
that anecdotally stated by Klipsch [3].

However, two sine tones is a very critical signal for
Doppler distortion, and one which is rarely encountered
in normal listening circumstances. The audibility of
distortion is highly dependent of the kind, as well as the
amount, of distortion introduced. Informal listening tests
revealed that the effect of Doppler distortion was
unnoticeable on simulated systems with six-inch drive
units, when the low-frequency roll-off of these systems
was considered. This was true even when its in?uence
was arti?cially doubled. We therefore left it out of the
?nal run-time simulation [of speakers with headphones]. "

My advice remains: focus on timbre of loudspeaker, not these secondary products. The former you can easily hear and take to the bank. The latter, not so much.

 

[Groucho]

Doesn't matter what is present. What matters is what is audible. If that single guitar created low level IMD, then adding a Piano to it could mask those components.

But of course the IMD produced by the guitar would be low - and would vary depending on how many notes were playing. Add the piano and we have more notes and an even higher percentage of IMD. An orchestra and the IMD can become a "wall of distortion" - that used to show up in the old days even if an old 78 player sounded almost reasonable on a vocal or small ensemble.

And you would know to detect doppler distortion in auditioning one loudspeaker to another? I don't think so.

Well, I quoted the guy from Stereophile who carried out the experiment and found that it differed from the 'received wisdom'. Reducing the bass displacement reduced the level (and therefore audibility) of Doppler distortion. As he said, going three-way would have been an audible improvement over a two way.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . It seems Ron is not interested in a speaker with limitations, so he is auditioning many large speaker examples, but he does want one that excels at reproducing female vocals and midrange magic. . . .

Yes; I want to see if I can find a four tower speaker system which is every bit as good as the best small speakers at reproducing female vocals and midrange magic, but which can also re-create the scale of a symphony orchestra. If I cannot find such a speaker I will be perfectly happy to retrench to a one column speaker which excels at reproducing female vocals and midrange magic.

 

[Purite Audio]

This aspect of being able to correctly reproduce a sense of scale is one of the things I specifically listen for when evaluating speakers. I like small scale acoustic music, but if a large speaker makes a cello or voice seem much too large, it fails in my view to sound convincing. If I want to hear a female singer sound huge, I go to a live performance at a Boston jazz club where invariably, the singer is singing into a mic and the monitor is hanging from the ceiling. I see the singer in front of me playing the piano but the voice is huge and coming from above my head. And it is often way too loud. I've heard large speakers do this also and if the recording is supposed to sound natural and was engineered to sound natural, but I hear it as huge from large speakers, I loose interest pretty quickly. They may be great at reproducing large scale symphonies, but if they also make a string quartet sound huge with giant instruments, something is very wrong.

That is really down to the recording rather than the loudspeaker close micing and the instrument can appear huge.

 

[Purite Audio]

Absolutely agree with you Ron! The size of the room is so fundamentally important for me. I love enormous scale in a reference system and that can only be ever achieved in a large room with big speakers. I would love a bigger room at home! Mine is decent enough but wish I could get a lot more space from my speakers to the rear wall. I also really wish I did not have to sit against the back wall. Compromises.

As a general statement, I think one has to generally work hard to get large speakers to work well unless you have a really nice big room. Monitors are always easier to integrate into a room ime.

Really large rooms produce their own problems,to long a delay time and you have an echo.
Every room has to be treated to some extent to provide really first rate SQ.
Keith.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Really large rooms produce their own problems,to long a delay time and you have an echo.
Every room has to be treated to some extent to provide really first rate SQ.
Keith.

Thanks Keith - I am aware. You can't get SCALE in a small room. Ron and myself both want to recreate scale.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Absolutely agree with you Ron! The size of the room is so fundamentally important for me. I love enormous scale in a reference system and that can only be ever achieved in a large room with big speakers. I would love a bigger room at home! Mine is decent enough but wish I could get a lot more space from my speakers to the rear wall. I also really wish I did not have to sit against the back wall. Compromises.

As a general statement, I think one has to generally work hard to get large speakers to work well unless you have a really nice big room. Monitors are always easier to integrate into a room ime.

Also in complete agreement with both you and Ron, the size of the room is (I would have thought) almost fundamental in optimising for any speaker's performance and then even more critical for some speaker types than others.

Even larger panels IME can work well in a reasonable but modest sized room as long as depth is sufficient even if the width is not so great. In the smaller volume room even a near field set-up with panels can make for a very engaging type of musical experience, a bit like headphones only with also feeling in the body... but then large panels can also work equally beautifully in a larger space where the increased distance makes for a bigger but different type of experience when there is greater incidence of reflected sound in the mix making things less like a wrap around sound field but more like a grand mid hall theatre perspective.

Horns on the other hand for me only really come to complete life in a larger room and are indeed far more compromised in a smaller room than in comparison to panels. The feeling of room filling dynamics feels hampered, a bit like like a caged animal completely unable to breathe or move freely and strut their true potential and grand scale. Sure they still can sound kind of intense but just not as filled with full dimension and magic. Even smaller horns can do amazing things in large spaces. Great big horns in a great big space are on a plane of their own for theatre like presence with tonality and dynamics.

 

[Purite Audio]

Thanks Keith - I am aware. You can't get SCALE in a small room. Ron and myself both want to recreate scale.

Well yes the further apart the loudspeakers the larger the 'image' but the room will play an even larger part,
Keith.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Well yes the further apart the loudspeakers the larger the 'image' but the room will play an even larger part,
Keith.

Keith - I think you are making a different point. I am saying that a large room is required for large scale. I am not talking about whether that big room is difficult to treat.

If you want massive scale, there is no substitute for a big room.

 

[PeterA]

That is really down to the recording rather than the loudspeaker close micing and the instrument can appear huge.

With a variety of recordings of small scale music, I have heard a superb small pair of speakers produce both a large and small scale sound. And yes, much depended on the mic position during the recording process. This same group of recordings sounded more similar to each other on larger speakers, in part because some of the larger speakers were either not set up properly in the room or they tended to make everything sound large. That is not good, in my opinion. I heard both the Magico Q7 and Wilson XLF make every recording sound huge in two very expensive systems and highly treated rooms. I'm sure something was wrong because these two speakers should be able to reproduce a solo cello of the proper size on the right recording, should they not?

Do you really want to hear Johnny Hartman or Shirley Horn's head sound five feet wide in your living room? It kills the sense that he or she is there performing in the room with you. I know how these recordings can sound, and when I take them to other systems and the scale is wrong, I know it is not the recording but something in the system that is corrupting the correct sense of scale.

 

[Purite Audio]

Keith - I think you are making a different point. I am saying that a large room is required for large scale. I am not talking about whether that big room is difficult to treat.

If you want massive scale, there is no substitute for a big room.

I am not quite sure what you mean by scale, If you sit relatively close to a large pair of loudspeakers you will be engulfed in the sound ,a pair of loudspeakers in a really large room can sound quite lost and small.
The important thing is that ,whatever size the room and speakers are considered as one.
Keith.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I am not quite sure what you mean by scale, If you sit relatively close to a large pair of loudspeakers you will be engulfed in the sound ,a pair of loudspeakers in a really large room can sound quite lost and small.
The important thing is that ,whatever size the room and speakers are considered as one.
Keith.

Being engulfed in sound is not scale. Scale as I am using the definition is very wide and deep soundstage but also fully extended frequency response. Agree that a room can be too big for a speaker - it is just that most audiophiles don't have this particular issue at home (some do granted but rarely).

I have 2 systems at home. One with the Focal Maestros and one with Kef LS50s. The Focal room is 24" x 17" and the Kef room is 17" x 11" - I hope you can guess that the scale of the Focal room is much larger than the Kef room. The Focal room because of the larger dimensions affords me the luxury of a large equilateral triangle for my setup. The Kef room is much smaller. Even adding a sub to the Kef room does not help scale because the soundstage is physically too narrow in that room to be convincing on orchestral. I tend to listen to jazz and vocals or small scale in there.

Again the point about room and speakers as one is true but a different point again.

 

[DaveyF]

I am not quite sure what you mean by scale, If you sit relatively close to a large pair of loudspeakers you will be engulfed in the sound ,a pair of loudspeakers in a really large room can sound quite lost and small.
The important thing is that ,whatever size the room and speakers are considered as one.
Keith.

Keith, I think you are absolutely correct that the room and speakers should be considered as one 'system'. The interaction between room and speaker is critical, IMHO.
How many times have I witnessed a'philes who have jammed way too big a speaker into their room...with the resulting loss in SQ. Same thing can be said, although less frequently, for placing too small a speaker into the very large room.

As to 'scale', i somewhat equate that with 'bloom'... in other words- the way the room can portray the swell of instruments as they get louder and as more instruments chime into the mix. In a small room, like mine,it is not possible to get this piece of the puzzle correctly...I don't think the physics will allow it. Seems to require a large speaker...that then requires a large room. ( large being about 20X30, or thereabouts).

 

[Ron Resnick]

I am saying that a large room is required for large scale. I am not talking about whether that big room is difficult to treat.

If you want massive scale, there is no substitute for a big room.

+1

 

[TitaniumTroy]

I just wish I was along for the ride in person with Ron, checking out all these Super Speakers, as well as the super rooms that they are in. Thanks to Ron for taking the time to post his journey, if I can't be their at least I can read about it.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I had a smallish room; 12' x 18' x 10.5'. I had some substantial 575 pound speakers in the room but they were only about 55 inches tall. the room sounded great but the music could not really breathe. dynamics and note decay was limited, large scale music could not develop. if the ambient clues defined a large cathedral; I would not get all of it. the room worked well and on many recordings the walls disappeared......but everything stayed 'compact'. OTOH it had this magical intimacy. I was connected to the music.

then I built my 'dream room'; 21' x 29' x 11'. a clean sheet of paper room purpose built. from the beginning everything opened up, no dynamic limitations, unlimited note decay, ambience could define a race track or large stadium. OTOH it took me 10 years to dial it in......and learn how to get it to work......and find and surpass that intimacy I had in the old small room. it was a daunting task I might never have attempted had I known how hard and painful it would be.

so yes; a large room has higher potential......but small has it's positives.

 

[DaveyF]

I had a smallish room; 12' x 18' x 10.5'. I had some substantial 575 pound speakers in the room but they were only about 55 inches tall. the room sounded great but the music could not really breathe. dynamics and note decay was limited, large scale music could not develop. if the ambient clues defined a large cathedral; I would not get all of it. the room worked well and on many recordings the walls disappeared......but everything stayed 'compact'. OTOH it had this magical intimacy. I was connected to the music.

then I built my 'dream room'; 21' x 29' x 11'. a clean sheet of paper room purpose built. from the beginning everything opened up, no dynamic limitations, unlimited note decay, ambience could define a race track or large stadium. OTOH it took me 10 years to dial it in......and learn how to get it to work......and find and surpass that intimacy I had in the old small room. it was a daunting task I might never have attempted had I known how hard and painful it would be.

so yes; a large room has higher potential......but small has it's positives.

I think you summed up the differences between small rooms and large rooms well. My room enjoys a very pleasant intimacy, one that I have noticed is lacking in many other systems in larger rooms. I do believe that this is a very important part of the creation of the sound of 'live'.
Mike, if you have managed to get both the intimacy of the smaller rooms and the 'scale' of the hall....well, you must have it all. However, I have yet to hear a system that occupies a large room that equals this intimacy.

 

[JackD201]

Intimacy is difficult in large rooms because intimacy in these rooms require a very low noise floor. We're looking at that fine line between quiet and uncomfortably quiet. So much more effort is needed because we have to not just deal with quiet electricals but also with mechanical and environmental noise. It really is where effort required is pretty much heroic.

 

[Purite Audio]

Intimacy is difficult in large rooms because intimacy in these rooms require a very low noise floor. We're looking at that fine line between quiet and uncomfortably quiet. So much more effort is needed because we have to not just deal with quiet electricals but also with mechanical and environmental noise. It really is where effort required is pretty much heroic.

What is the difference between the noise floor in a large room compared to a small room, the noise floor of the electronics will be the same,are you referring to the ambient noise of the room?
Sitting closer to the loudspeakers means you hear a greater proportion of direct sound,sitting further away there will be a greater proportion of reflected sound, it will be a different experience, just as sitting closer to the orchestra is a different experience from sitting further away.
Keith.

 

[FrantzM]

Intimacy is difficult in large rooms because intimacy in these rooms require a very low noise floor. We're looking at that fine line between quiet and uncomfortably quiet. So much more effort is needed because we have to not just deal with quiet electricals but also with mechanical and environmental noise. It really is where effort required is pretty much heroic.

Jack

I would have thought the contrary. This is to me less intuitive. I thought the notion of intimacy is more related to the proximity to the sound source. Wouldn't this be a matter of near vs far-field? I don't know, I just need to understand as I favor large rooms and large speakers because IME they can be set-up to be more chameleon-like than small(er) speakers.


Happy Holidays!