Thread: A Search for Truth and Tonality, Part 2 ...

[Phelonious Ponk]

Still plenty of time and energy left for swatting the loudest and most erratic fly, it seems. But I' bored with it. Same old buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Tim

 

[fas42]

Is this a private war or can anyone jump in?

...

That was the easy part. The hard part is duplicating the timbre as it would be heard at the live venue. To do that, the acoustics of the venue must be duplicated because the spectral content of each note changes as the sound dies out by a ratio of around 2:1 when the sound heard at 8 Khz is compared to the sound at 1 Khz. This is explained as the RT for a typical hall being around 2 seconds at 1 khz, 1 second at 8 khz. This affects the tonality by preserving the initial transient attack while mellowing the decaying sound. In short, if you don't reproduce all of the reverberation you cannot reproduce the tonality, they are different subjective aspects of the same phenomenon. The only type of sound recording/playback system that can do that is a binaural recording made with a dummy head placed where the listener would be sitting. Unfortunatlely that system is well known to be fatally flawed for different reasons but it will capture and reproduce the timbre of acoustic instruments as they are heard live.

Welcome aboard! I will disagree, because you sell the ear/brain mechanism well short: psychoacoustics is the study of how the mind can jump many, many hurdles when listening to sound, enabling it to come to correct conclusions about what it's listening to. How many times do you read comments about how easy it is to pick whether sound is coming from the real thing or not when you can't actually see the source of the music -- the sound of a piano coming from a window, or the brass band down the street scenario? There are qualities to the sound that the brain has learned to interpret as being markers to it being sourced from real instruments, even when it has reached you through a very torturous path: the aim of the game in hifi is, or should be, to make sure those markers are reproduced well, because then the rest of your biological system does its job of telling you that what you're hearing is the real deal ...

I have just done a day or so listening to decent studio monitors, in music shops, and, lucky me, I had the sound of real instruments being fiddled with just before and after listening to these little boxes -- an excellent reference. Of course, the pro sound was only so so, but there is some excellent promise: the biggest failing of the reproduced sound is how tiny it sounds, not matter how loud it goes it just doesn't have any authority. And this is nothing to do with bass, the best sound I heard came from the unit with the nominally poorest bass capability -- my take is that the addition of massive bass many times is a substitute for failings elsewhere in the performance spectrum ...

Tom, non-linear means that frequencies - sine waves, yes -- that did not exist in the source were added to the output; linear means that the amplitudes of particular frequencies in the source change relative to each other -- dropping a blanket over the speaker is a nice example of linear distortion.

EDIT: Everyone agrees that distortion, non-linear, and FR should be as good as possible: my "argument" is the relative importance of those two parameters. Most people jump up and down about FR, in part probably because it's so easy to measure; distortion is a messy one to get a handle on in comparison, so we'll just sweep it under the carpet and hope no-one looks there :b ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

And it's always good to know I'm just a little bit less alone in the audio world than I think at times: Glenn Phoenix, the man behind Westlake monitors, which some people actually rate as being of reasonable quality , is a man after my own heart -- he has written a couple of pieces that could have emerged from my own pen: 1) P.E. DISTORTION: THE LAST BARRIER TO HIGH FIDELITY?[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif], http://www.westlakeaudio.com/NEWPHOENIXEFFECT.pdf, and [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]2) LOW P.E. DISTORTION: [/FONT]THE NEW IMPROVED SOUND OF WESTLAKE AUDIO SPEAKER SYSTEMS,
http://www.westlakeaudio.com/LowDistortion.pdf[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]

I think I should let him know that we have a caring chap on this forum who will help straighten out his crazy ideas ... . Tim, care to offer a hand?

Frank
[/FONT]

 

[Soundminded]

Welcome aboard! I will disagree, because you sell the ear/brain mechanism well short: psychoacoustics is the study of how the mind can jump many, many hurdles when listening to sound, enabling it to come to correct conclusions about what it's listening to. How many times do you read comments about how easy it is to pick whether sound is coming from the real thing or not when you can't actually see the source of the music -- the sound of a piano coming from a window, or the brass band down the street scenario? There are qualities to the sound that the brain has learned to interpret as being markers to it being sourced from real instruments, even when it has reached you through a very torturous path: the aim of the game in hifi is, or should be, to make sure those markers are reproduced well, because then the rest of your biological system does its job of telling you that what you're hearing is the real deal ...

I have just done a day or so listening to decent studio monitors, in music shops, and, lucky me, I had the sound of real instruments being fiddled with just before and after listening to these little boxes -- an excellent reference. Of course, the pro sound was only so so, but there is some excellent promise: the biggest failing of the reproduced sound is how tiny it sounds, not matter how loud it goes it just doesn't have any authority. And this is nothing to do with bass, the best sound I heard came from the unit with the nominally poorest bass capability -- my take is that the addition of massive bass many times is a substitute for failings elsewhere in the performance spectrum ...

Tom, non-linear means that frequencies - sine waves, yes -- that did not exist in the source were added to the output; linear means that the amplitudes of particular frequencies in the source change relative to each other -- dropping a blanket over the speaker is a nice example of linear distortion.

EDIT: Everyone agrees that distortion, non-linear, and FR should be as good as possible: my "argument" is the relative importance of those two parameters. Most people jump up and down about FR, in part probably because it's so easy to measure; distortion is a messy one to get a handle on in comparison, so we'll just sweep it under the carpet and hope no-one looks there :b ...

Frank

I was not referring to spatial and temporal aspects of sound, just timbre, which is what I thought was the subject of this thread. There are other elements as well I did not address. The perception of the power of the source, what I think of as psychoacoustic impact is one aspect not directly related to timbre. I have found five factors that are, there may be others. Absolute loudness and bass content are only two of them. But to reproduce the timbre of musical instruments accurately, I'll stick to my opinion as stated in my previous posting. I'll add that to accurately reproduce the sound of acoustic instruments they must not only reproduce the spectral aspects, they must also be played at the correct loudness. This takes into account the perceived distance to the source, the nature of the instrument, and how it is being played. At the current state of the art, the only way to arrive at accuracy is to make adjustments for each individual recording based on memory gained from experience with comparable instruments. This is because there is no standardized way to make a recording and every one of them is unique.

 

[fas42]

I was not referring to spatial and temporal aspects of sound, just timbre, which is what I thought was the subject of this thread. There are other elements as well I did not address. The perception of the power of the source, what I think of as psychoacoustic impact is one aspect not directly related to timbre. I have found five factors that are, there may be others. Absolute loudness and bass content are only two of them. But to reproduce the timbre of musical instruments accurately, I'll stick to my opinion as stated in my previous posting. I'll add that to accurately reproduce the sound of acoustic instruments they must not only reproduce the spectral aspects, they must also be played at the correct loudness. This takes into account the perceived distance to the source, the nature of the instrument, and how it is being played. At the current state of the art, the only way to arrive at accuracy is to make adjustments for each individual recording based on memory gained from experience with comparable instruments. This is because there is no standardized way to make a recording and every one of them is unique.

What I have found is those aspects all tie together: timbre, spatial and temporal. The crucial importance of the psychoacoustic component is that it compensates, very effectively, for the real loudness of the reproduction, as measured by a sound meter, say. A real piano in a space sounds exactly that if you are 20 metres away, and remains sounding "real" as you walk up to it and lean over the strings. Subjectively, the sound will not really seem to get louder, the sensation is more that it becomes more intense and "bigger", it fills the acoustic space that your ears are registering. So it should be for reproduction, but nearly always isn't: your "current state of the art", as you say, is not up to the mark ..

My experience is that audible artifacts in the playback disrupt, are the key negative elements in the failure of most current playback to perform as it should. Why playing at the "correct loudness" is therefore needed is because increasing the volume only serves to make the playback deficiencies more obvious, further destroying the illusion of an musical event.

Frank

 

[Soundminded]

What I have found is those aspects all tie together: timbre, spatial and temporal. The crucial importance of the psychoacoustic component is that it compensates, very effectively, for the real loudness of the reproduction, as measured by a sound meter, say. A real piano in a space sounds exactly that if you are 20 metres away, and remains sounding "real" as you walk up to it and lean over the strings. Subjectively, the sound will not really seem to get louder, the sensation is more that it becomes more intense and "bigger", it fills the acoustic space that your ears are registering. So it should be for reproduction, but nearly always isn't: your "current state of the art", as you say, is not up to the mark ..

My experience is that audible artifacts in the playback disrupt, are the key negative elements in the failure of most current playback to perform as it should. Why playing at the "correct loudness" is therefore needed is because increasing the volume only serves to make the playback deficiencies more obvious, further destroying the illusion of an musical event.

Frank

Again I think we disagree. Binaural recordings made with a dummy head and played back through headphones are accurate spectrally and temporally but are completely inaccurate spatially. Therefore the distortions can exist independently of each other. As you move further away from a source of sound the first arrival becomes softer. This is most apparent out of doors in an open space without a band shell. The falloff once you get beyond a certain distance is 6 db for every doubling of distance. For example, a sound source that appears to be twice as far away with the same loudness to the listener as another will be perceived as being four times as powerful, all other things being equal. Indoors, the total loudness will not decrease as quickly with distance because the reverberant field does not fall off at that rate, it usually remains fairly constant.

Playback of recordings of musical instruments at too soft a level relative to the perceived power at that distance in the live performance sound feeble. Too loud and they are a parody of the real instrument. Play a recording of a flute or violin at high volume and see if it isn't true. When a symphony orchestra sounds like its coming from 10 or 15 feet away in a small room it is perceived as a feeble source compared to the real thing even when played at ear shattering loudness. Same for a pipe organ or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with nearly 400 voices. When heard at considerable distance in a live venue, even when playing relatively softly they are perceived to be far more powerful sources. Therefore even if the spectral aspect of the reproduction is right, distortion of spatial perception would still remain plainly evident and inconsistent with subjectively accurate reproduction.

 

[fas42]

Indoors, the total loudness will not decrease as quickly with distance because the reverberant field does not fall off at that rate, it usually remains fairly constant.

Good point. The reverberant field is key indoors, if it has high integrity the ear/brain integrates it easily into the total sound picture, and that will mean that it doesn't follow the usual 6dB drop off per doubling of distance rule quite so well. This would be terribly dependent on the characteristics of the room, of course.

Playback of recordings of musical instruments at too soft a level relative to the perceived power at that distance in the live performance sound feeble. Too loud and they are a parody of the real instrument. Play a recording of a flute or violin at high volume and see if it isn't true. When a symphony orchestra sounds like its coming from 10 or 15 feet away in a small room it is perceived as a feeble source compared to the real thing even when played at ear shattering loudness. Same for a pipe organ or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with nearly 400 voices. When heard at considerable distance in a live venue, even when playing relatively softly they are perceived to be far more powerful sources. Therefore even if the spectral aspect of the reproduction is right, distortion of spatial perception would still remain plainly evident and inconsistent with subjectively accurate reproduction.

This I find very dependent on the quality of playback: I have no trouble playing flute and suchlike at high volumes, and there is minimal disparity between the apparent timbre and the "real thing". As regards a symphony orchestra, likewise the replay standard dictates the nature of the sound picture: for me at optimum quality level the "illusion" is of the orchestra performing in a separate space to which my listening room is attached -- imagine transporting that room to the recording hall, removing the end wall where the speakers are and merging that opening with a wall into the hall. If I turn down the volume, then it matches the "When heard at considerable distance in a live venue, even when playing relatively softly they are perceived to be far more powerful sources." scenario.

Now, if you're talking about conventional playback what you say is the situation. I've just done a round of appraising good quality studio monitors, and the results match your description of how normal reproduction manifests ...

Frank

 

[Soundminded]

Good point. The reverberant field is key indoors, if it has high integrity the ear/brain integrates it easily into the total sound picture, and that will mean that it doesn't follow the usual 6dB drop off per doubling of distance rule quite so well. This would be terribly dependent on the characteristics of the room, of course.


This I find very dependent on the quality of playback: I have no trouble playing flute and suchlike at high volumes, and there is minimal disparity between the apparent timbre and the "real thing". As regards a symphony orchestra, likewise the replay standard dictates the nature of the sound picture: for me at optimum quality level the "illusion" is of the orchestra performing in a separate space to which my listening room is attached -- imagine transporting that room to the recording hall, removing the end wall where the speakers are and merging that opening with a wall into the hall. If I turn down the volume, then it matches the "When heard at considerable distance in a live venue, even when playing relatively softly they are perceived to be far more powerful sources." scenario.

Now, if you're talking about conventional playback what you say is the situation. I've just done a round of appraising good quality studio monitors, and the results match your description of how normal reproduction manifests ...

Frank

The reverberant sound fields produced in a home listening environment by any electronic sound reproducing system and that produced in a concert venue have virtually nothing in common. The relative dimensions of the rooms alone should make that obvious. A supposedly carefully designed and tuned room of half a million to a million cubic feet built for a specific purpose and a room of one to a few thousand cubic feet. Why does it matter? Because the spatial, temporal, and spectral aspects of the reverberant field are not only highly apparent to the human brain even if we are not consciously aware of it, that field is the overwhelming preponderence of what you hear at a live performance. It usually constitutes well over 90% of what anyone sitting in the audience area will hear. Unless and until the technology exists to reproduce that field one way or another, sound reproduction of concert music accurate enough to provide the esthetic enhancements from recordings concert halls impart to live music will not be possible. People who really are interested in developing the technology for accurate sound reproduction would do far better to study how musical instruments propagate sound and how concert halls affect it than to study which circuit topology or speaker configuration sounds best to a market. If and when they gain an understanding of how the sounds of real music work in the real world, they will begin to be able to define the engineering criteria for machines that can duplicate it, and not before.

 

[terryj]

hi sound

look, you are new here....so you don't really know who or what you are trying to engage with....

I'd suggest a little research and then you can decide if it is worth any more of your effort here.

 

[Soundminded]

hi sound

look, you are new here....so you don't really know who or what you are trying to engage with....

I'd suggest a little research and then you can decide if it is worth any more of your effort here.

I don't normally respond to ad hominem attacks nor do I normally engage in a battle of credentials. I present points of view that are often radically different from what most people who are interested in this area are accostomed to hearing. IMO ideas should stand or fall on their own merit, not because of who said them. If you have something substantive to offer I'll read it and consider it. If you do not like conventional ideas being challenged, I recommend that whenever you see my moniker on a posting you skip past it, it may disturb you.

"you don't really know who....you are trying to engage with"

The reverse is equally true.

 

[terryj]

I don't normally respond to ad hominem attacks nor do I normally engage in a battle of credentials. I present points of view that are often radically different from what most people who are interested in this area are accostomed to hearing. IMO ideas should stand or fall on their own merit, not because of who said them. If you have something substantive to offer I'll read it and consider it. If you do not like conventional ideas being challenged, I recommend that whenever you see my moniker on a posting you skip past it, it may disturb you.

"you don't really know who....you are trying to engage with"

The reverse is equally true.

no worries, enjoy your trip down the rabbit hole with frank.

 

[fas42]

"you don't really know who....you are trying to engage with"

The reverse is equally true.

Terry's response stems from my "dangerous" ideas that you can achieve very high standards of audio playback if you approach the business of optimising a system by worrying about the micro, rather than macro, details of its implementation -- a version of "the devil's in the details". If your approach is that to improve an audio system then the most important steps to be taken are things like, you need to replace the $15,000 amplifier with the $20,000 one, then you are interacting with the wrong person ...

Frank

 

[Soundminded]

Terry's response stems from my "dangerous" ideas that you can achieve very high standards of audio playback if you approach the business of optimising a system by worrying about the micro, rather than macro, details of its implementation -- a version of "the devil's in the details". If your approach is that to improve an audio system then the most important steps to be taken are things like, you need to replace the $15,000 amplifier with the $20,000 one, then you are interacting with the wrong person ...

Frank

There is no reason to apologize for or explain someone elses posting, it speaks for itself. If you PM me, I'll explain to you why his posting is so rediculous.

BTW, in my best system I replaced the $160 amplifier I built from a kit in 1970 when it blew up in 1993 with another amplifier I built from a kit that cost $200. I'm not a believer in throwing money at things that don't make a real difference.

 

[fas42]

The reverberant sound fields produced in a home listening environment by any electronic sound reproducing system and that produced in a concert venue have virtually nothing in common. The relative dimensions of the rooms alone should make that obvious. A supposedly carefully designed and tuned room of half a million to a million cubic feet built for a specific purpose and a room of one to a few thousand cubic feet. Why does it matter? Because the spatial, temporal, and spectral aspects of the reverberant field are not only highly apparent to the human brain even if we are not consciously aware of it, that field is the overwhelming preponderence of what you hear at a live performance. It usually constitutes well over 90% of what anyone sitting in the audience area will hear. Unless and until the technology exists to reproduce that field one way or another, sound reproduction of concert music accurate enough to provide the esthetic enhancements from recordings concert halls impart to live music will not be possible

It sounds as if your focus is on attempting to control precisely how the reverberance is manifested in the listening area, a variation of the room treatments philosophy. Personally, and this was "discovered" accidentally, I find that that one's hearing adapts to the reverberance in whatever space it occurs, provided and I mean provided, the quality of sound emerging from the speaker drivers is of sufficient quality: this means effectively inaudible distortion, and no detail being discarded.

Frank

 

[fas42]

From http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...Meridian-808.3&p=107842&viewfull=1#post107842 ...

I will say, my observation of the latest digital has not always been 'net net' favorable relative to my old Zanden. But where i HAVE acknowledged big improvements has been in separation of instrumentation, detailing...the ability to hold an entire orchestra separated and delineated rather than slightly blurred. The DCS Scarlatti does this, and so does the Stahl-Tek Vekian. That is what it seems the 808.3 is also adept at doing. That really makes a big difference on orchestral...and on 'hearing new details' you never heard before on recordings. That is truly enjoyable to have in the latest digital.

Sorry to do this, Lloyd, but this is a key point in achieving realistic sound, and where reverberance factors in the listening space are not an issue. There should be no blurring, none whatsoever: if it is apparent then it is due to distortion, and that must be eliminated; it is most certainly not part of the recording.

Frank

 

[fas42]

There is no reason to apologize for or explain someone elses posting, it speaks for itself. If you PM me, I'll explain to you why his posting is so rediculous.

BTW, in my best system I replaced the $160 amplifier I built from a kit in 1970 when it blew up in 1993 with another amplifier I built from a kit that cost $200. I'm not a believer in throwing money at things that don't make a real difference.

Sounds interesting! Unfortunately, there are complications: at the moment I'm limited to posting in the DIY forum, and I can't PM anyone; but you should be able to PM me ...

Frank

 

[Soundminded]

It sounds as if your focus is on attempting to control precisely how the reverberance is manifested in the listening area, a variation of the room treatments philosophy. Personally, and this was "discovered" accidentally, I find that that one's hearing adapts to the reverberance in whatever space it occurs, provided and I mean provided, the quality of sound emerging from the speaker drivers is of sufficient quality: this means effectively inaudible distortion, and no detail being discarded.

Frank

I don't agree with that and I don't think concert goers by and large agree with it either. Evidence for that is suggested as the reason for a seemingly endless parade of acoustic architects and engineers who have been hired to tear apart and rebuild Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York a countless number of times at enormous expense during the last almost fifty years. They just don't seem to be able to get it right. The reverberant sound field has never been really acceptable there. By contrast, Boston Symphony Hall is and has been the best room for listening to music in the United States and one of the three best in the world. That's not my opinion, it's Leo Beranek's. Who would know better? After all he was the original acoustician who was responsible for Avery Fisher Hall (at the time called Philharmonic Hall) in the first place.

My ideas have little to do with room treatment. They have to do with mathematical modeling, measuring, and reconstructing reverberant sound fields electroacoustically. The sound systems I build for my own use don't sound like anyone elses. I'm far more interested in the sound of musical instruments and the acoustics of concert venues than I am in amplifiers, woofers, and tweeters. Those are merely among the means to an end I try to design my sound systems to.

 

[fas42]

My ideas have little to do with room treatment. They have to do with mathematical modeling, measuring, and reconstructing reverberant sound fields electroacoustically. The sound systems I build for my own use don't sound like anyone elses. I'm far more interested in the sound of musical instruments and the acoustics of concert venues than I am in amplifiers, woofers, and tweeters. Those are merely among the means to an end I try to design my sound systems to.

This is reminding of Linkwitz's experiments: have you perhaps read of what he's trialling, http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Watson/watson.htm. Does the thinking here overlap yours at all?

Frank

 

[Soundminded]

This is reminding of Linkwitz's experiments: have you perhaps read of what he's trialling, http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Watson/watson.htm. Does the thinking here overlap yours at all?

Frank

I think there are two types of people in this world, open box people and closed box people. Now I have an open mind about open boxes but fate has turned me strictly into a closed box person. Strictly acoustic suspension. I can't see paying thousands of dollars for audio equipment. If I thought it would produce better bass than say my Teledyne AR9s I might try my hand at buildig it but I really don't think so.

I've read the technical description of the Linkwitz-Riley crossover network concept and I think it's clever. It doesn't eliminate phase interference at the crossover frequencies, it just locates the worst of them in a part of the listening room you aren't likely to be in. It won't give as flat an overall frequency response as a butterworth filter though.

 

[fas42]

I think there are two types of people in this world, open box people and closed box people.

It's more than playing with dipoles: here's a quote from that page about Stereo Enhancement Loudspeakers:

When, as an experiment, the same program material is simultaneously reproduced by loudspeakers and headphones and I lift the headphones a few inches from my ears, so that I hear more of the loudspeakers, then the image moves out of the my head and assumes greater expansion in depth. But I also hear the headphones whispering. So a more full-range source than the headphones-at-a-distance seems to be needed. A pair of PLUTO loudspeakers came handy. I could confirm with them that a second pair of loudspeakers close-up, will expand the Auditory Scene, both in depth and width, created by the primary ORION loudspeakers provided that the volume from the PLUTO loudspeakers was set below the level where they become audibly dominant. Most significantly, localization accuracy of virtual sources is enhanced and intelligibility of speech and choral voices is improved. The AS is sharpened, not diffused. The expansion of the AS adds spatial separation between virtual sources. All this is, of course, very program material dependent. It works best with binaural, with sphere and with near-coincident microphone recordings. Coincident microphone recordings have clarity but are spatially less believable. Multi-microphone recordings tend to be spatial disasters, but there are exceptions. In general, I can tell a lot about the microphone placement and mix of a recording, especially when the volume level of a particular source is not consistent with its perceived location in the overall ensemble of sources. For the recording/mixing engineer such extra pair of loudspeakers might be a powerful tool to analyze and improve his stereo recording techniques. It could improve recordings for standard two loudspeaker stereo playback setup.

and

Thus I have come to call WATSON a "Stereo Enhancement Loudspeaker", SEL. An electronic time delay, an accessible volume control and a stereo power amplifier are needed for its application in a prescribed loudspeaker and listener setup.

Frank