Sorry didn't mean to be pretentious just a genuine question as to why lateral reflections might be good and ceiling and floor reflections aren't.Kinda pretentious and condescending coming from someone who obviously has no grasp of any technical subject we've ever discussed.
Maybe you should think about why you have opinions on subjects you don't grasp?
Let's not get personal guys.
Don't be a party pooper. Nothing wrong with a few Jerry Springerish exchanges. It makes for real entertainment and redeems all the empty blathering going on....
Oi Frantz! You still want this back in your life?
GD
I have some excellent headphones Stax 009, Hifiman HE-6 and 560 and AUdeze LCD... I find the Stax stunning but seem to go to the HE-6 and these days more and more to the LCD... As I have woritten before . A good headphone is an excellent teacher. You learn to listen to the absence of the room, to lack of distortion and to purity in tonal reproduction ... Eminently enjoyable but kind of looking a t a football game with binoculars outside the stadium.. You see it all but lack the feel of it the tactile the sound of things coming from outside your head, of a real soundstage that would have believe even fro a few microsecond that people could well be in your listening room ... Speaking for me I always no I am listening to heapdhones. Oh Boy! They tell you everything that would go wrong in your reproduction chain... but .. something always amiss, at least for me. I can live with headphones for a long time butithe time has come to go back to speakers and multi-subs.
It is the opposite actually. In a concert hall unless you are sitting way close to the orchestra, *all* that you hear are reflections. Indeed it is a fully diffused sound field and hence the reason its bass performance doesn't have the wild swings we get in our smaller rooms.
...
Yeah, Dipoles can make a decent soundstage, but usually one that's confined to the room because of the backwave. If you want an expansive/immersive soundstage that doesn't sound like it's confined to your room you need to limit close reflections. Simple as that... and the unfortunate truth is, not everyone has experienced it. Once you do it's an like an epiphany.
GD
I have some excellent headphones Stax 009, Hifiman HE-6 and 560 and AUdeze LCD... I find the Stax stunning but seem to go to the HE-6 and these days more and more to the LCD... As I have woritten before . A good headphone is an excellent teacher. You learn to listen to the absence of the room, to lack of distortion and to purity in tonal reproduction ... Eminently enjoyable but kind of looking a t a football game with binoculars outside the stadium.. You see it all but lack the feel of it the tactile the sound of things coming from outside your head, of a real soundstage that would have believe even fro a few microsecond that people could well be in your listening room ... Speaking for me I always no I am listening to heapdhones. Oh Boy! They tell you everything that would go wrong in your reproduction chain... but .. something always amiss, at least for me. I can live with headphones for a long time butithe time has come to go back to speakers and multi-subs.
I would have liked a little more input on $30K systems but we don't seem to even want to navigate in those waters. Which reinforces my view that we have gotten too risk-adverse.
This thread has made me realize that, I also do not stray too far from the beaten path. I have not made much effort to audition some Salk speakers or Vapor Audio to name only those 2. I have remained in the safe side of Audio companies... Mosyt of the time, we seem to need some anointment by some Audio authority before venturing. I do understand we are talking about rather substantial sums but some of these out-of-the-beaten-path companies offer in-home audition some with free returns ... We need to shake ourselves a little bit more to have progress in our hobby ..
Getting back at the current turn of discussions... which I very much like being an ardent proponent of multi-subs in any Audio systems. Interestingly the thread has taken that turn and I do not mind one bit.
The recordings have already captured the hall sound with all its reflections, and the last thing one would want is to have the speakers reflect again. Hall set-up and speaker set-up are two different things.
It is the opposite actually. In a concert hall unless you are sitting way close to the orchestra, *all* that you hear are reflections. Indeed it is a fully diffused sound field and hence the reason its bass performance doesn't have the wild swings we get in our smaller rooms.
And which live music presentation has sound coming out of two points, i.e. two loudspeakers?
You will never get that diffused sound field in your small listening room. Your relationship to direct sound is far larger in a home listening space than in a performance hall. No way, no how can you emulate that in any way in your home.
No. Floor reflections are not good and should be absorbed above 500 Hz. They cause colorations. Ceiling reflections are debatable. You can use a diffuser to send them to the side wall to help with widening of the source image.
Maybe some classical and audiophile recordings, but the overwhelming majority of studio recordings, since around the mid 60s, have gotten their "room sound" from effects. Reverb and delay. And most of them, to my ears anyway, benefit from a bit of live listening room. Take it to the extreme - listen to speakers in an acoustically dead room and you'll hear the end game of what you're accomplishing by eliminating the room. You're just doing it incrementally.
Tim
Actually, my seats in Boston Symphony Hall are row G, center aisle. I hear the direct sound of the front instruments in the orchestra long before I hear side reflections. And the distances are not at all comparable to what we have in domestic settings. Yes, one hears reflections in a symphony hall. But from my seat, it is hardly "ALL" that I hear. I have heard fully diffused systems in domestic listening rooms, and the sound is not for me, thank you. And that sound does not resemble what I have heard from live solo instruments in chamber settings.
For a similar perspective, you can read Al M.'s comments about his recent listening session in my house:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?12853-Sublime-Sound/page10
Al has a very nice way of putting his thoughts down in writing. He and I have heard live solo cello performances together a few times and understand what it sounds like. I have heard few systems even begin to portray the sheer level of energy or timbral information that the cello, or piano, or violin present when heard live and fairly close. I do tend to prefer smaller scale performances in moderate sized halls or large domestic rooms. Chamber style.
Symphony scale is also nice, and I agree that a live performance can not be emulated in my home listening space, nor in anyone else's. I think most of us agree on that one.
We also agree that floor reflections are bad. If you put the speaker near the side walls of the room so that the midrange and tweeter are a similar distance from the side wall as they are from the floor, do you think those side wall reflections are beneficial? Could you explain exactly why you think floor reflections are bad, but side wall reflections which are not absorbed or diffused, and are close to the speakers, are good? That has not been my experience.
There is one direct sound, but countless indirect reflections. The energy of reflections overall is far higher than the one direct beam coming at you. The "Critical Distance" or Dc of Boston Symphony Hall is just 21 feet. That is the distance at which the power of the direct sound is equal to indirect. So even if you sat at 21 feet, fully half of the contributions you hear is from reverberations in the hall.Actually, my seats in Boston Symphony Hall are row G, center aisle. I hear the direct sound of the front instruments in the orchestra long before I hear side reflections.
It is impossible to have fully diffused sound in home listening spaces. I think you are confusing a live room with a diffused room. They are very different things. A diffused room has no room modes. You are just not going to get there as the physical dimensions of the room won't allow it no matter how live it is.And the distances are not at all comparable to what we have in domestic settings. Yes, one hears reflections in a symphony hall. But from my seat, it is hardly "ALL" that I hear. I have heard fully diffused systems in domestic listening rooms, and the sound is not for me, thank you. And that sound does not resemble what I have heard from live solo instruments in chamber settings.
Again that is SIBR, it is not side reflections. Side reflection is a triangle between you, the speaker and the wall where the reflection would happen. It is not just any surface next to the speaker.We also agree that floor reflections are bad. If you put the speaker near the side walls of the room so that the midrange and tweeter are a similar distance from the side wall as they are from the floor, do you think those side wall reflections are beneficial?
It is based on research and listening tests. We have two ears and a brain that analyzes these things and arrives at different conclusions than simple visual model we have in our mind of how sound travels.Could you explain exactly why you think floor reflections are bad, but side wall reflections which are not absorbed or diffused, and are close to the speakers, are good? That has not been my experience.
Sorry didn't mean to be pretentious just a genuine question as to why lateral reflections might be good and ceiling and floor reflections aren't.
Keith.
There is one direct sound, but countless indirect reflections. The energy of reflections overall is far higher than the one direct beam coming at you. The "Critical Distance" or Dc of Boston Symphony Hall is just 21 feet. That is the distance at which the power of the direct sound is equal to indirect. So even if you sat at 21 feet, fully half of the contributions you hear is from reverberations in the hall.
???A key point though, is that the brain locks onto the direct sound and mostly disregards the reflected sound if the delay is long enough, which is the case in a hall. Big difference from a home environment when that usually isn't the case.
The key lesson again is not to use intuition. The perceptual system we have does not in any form or fashion yield itself to such analysis. Reflections are not distortions to annihilate a priori.