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

[fas42]

From http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...rence-speakers&p=113432&viewfull=1#post113432 ...

I have no reference speakers because I haven't heard a pair of speakers that perform a reproduction such as that of a live concert, showing or performance. Until then? I am still searching. Until then? I enjoy what I have.

And there will never, ever be such animals ... . The only mechanism that will achieve that goal will an optimised system, meaning every aspect that bears upon, affects the final sound will be carefully sorted, thoroughly debugged, resolved.

Which means that most people are very lucky, though they may not know it, because what they have currently will do the job, if and when the right sort of attention is brought to bear upon the various parts ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

From http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?6820-Mass-Loading!&p=113358&viewfull=1#post113358 ...

I've been forever wanting to mass-load my speakers and have finally found a place whereby I can get the material (sand) to do so. I hear a lot of good things about the effects of mass-loading, but have never experienced the results myself. I've heard the bass really tightens up and that the soundstage and imaging even improves.

If I were to do this, should I expect those improvements?

Yes, and no. The upside is that a "miserable" bookshelf starts to deliver real slam and impact, the downside is that any edginess, unpleasant "distortion" integral with the current sound will be more strongly emphasised, highlighted.

Best form of mass loading I've found is to couple the speaker to the structure of the room: think of "welding" the speaker carcase to the main beams or mass of the floor structure and you get the idea of what works, at least for me. A simple experiment that always worked for me, was to load as much weight as possible on top of the speaker, so long as non-metallic: think of placing a concrete block the size of the speaker on top, pushing down. The more weight I used, the better the sound -- one thing it fixes up remarkably is boominess, one problem I've never had to deal with ...

I've often found massively sized speakers in demos, showrooms to be ridiculously "wobbly", a slight push with the little finger and they start to move: this can only result in pretty dismal bass ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

One tends to get blase after a while ...

I was reasonably happy with the ability of the Philips HT system to resist power line induced interference, but that was in part because I had got things into a pattern, a configuration of how devices were plugged into the circuits in the house. But, because of an urgent need for my wife to sort something else out, an adjustable halogen uplight was plugged into the adjacent socket to the HT's plug. Boy, did that kill the sound!! In spite of all my efforts so far to reduce the interference effects, which have achieved a great deal already, this clobbered the SQ: all the usual reasons that people dislike digital were there in all their glory, making it instantly grey, edgy, a considerable loss of sound stage, the works ...

Which just emphasises, yet again, the fragility of digital sound: one seemingly tiny abberation, and the loss of quality can be quite dramatic ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

And a chance to recalibrate one's hearing ... to what typical high end gear sounds like with no tweaking or worrying about the little things ...

Just paid a visit to a well respected audio retailer, haven't done so for literally years, so it was a chance for a "reality check" .. perhaps ... . Went to the "good" room, easily a few million dollars worth of kit spread around the big area: first off, the big Steinway Lyngdorf with the monster digital dipole speakers. Bold, beefy bass you could carve ... but where was the treble? Away in a manger, sounding pretty scrawny and unconvincing; vocals were big, but screetchy, unrealistic; no soundstage, couldn't put up with this for long ...

OK, go to other side of room: full suite of Gryphon electronics, feeding a Antileon; Wilson Sashas or Alexandrias at the ready, a Mephisto on the side to pull into the fray if there still wasn't enough HP . The Sashas were ready to roll, same disk, a special demo CD burned by my host ... ah, this is better! The vocals were actually sounding quite decent now, bass under control, but then the dreaded digital disease slowly started to build -- the longer the CD ran the dirtier the sound got. Where's the vinyl, I imagined I could hear people calling for relief ...

Time to call it a day! Same old sound, same old problems: I didn't even need to try a single of my test CDs, the store demo disk gave the game away well enough ...

So, unfair test in one way; this was a dealer showroom after all, no fancy optimising that one can do at home. But, we are talking mighty expensive stuff here, and it should still have shown up better than it did: particularly notable was the flat and dreary quality of the treble, the lack of true sparkle and life in the sound ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

---High-End audio dealers should have their rooms acoustically treated & calibrated;
that is the least they can do, I think, in 2012 on our planet Earth. :b

 

[fas42]

The dealer apologised for the Steinway sound beforehand, saying it wasn't dialled in to the room for its current location. But that had nothing to do with the majority of the spectrum not working well. I suspect this is the sort of sound that a lot of people in your part of the world go for; big, big bass bellowing at the top of its voice, look at me, look at me! -- don't worry about that uninteresting treble stuff, it's just coming along for the ride!! The sort of thing Tim would complain about, sound made to "sound" big, with ginormous bass notes completely dominating the soundscape. And, completely unnatural, unrealistic of course.

At least the Wilson was balanced ... but that made it even easier to hear the sound starting to distort, that stuff that Tim et al believe can't possibly exist. Room treatments are never going to "solve" that, the horse has already bolted ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Not just acoustic room treatments Frank, but also DSP calibration.
... FIR & IIR digital filters from the most sophisticated EQ systems, & with graphs & golden ears. :b

And of course start with well balanced sounding loudspeakers;
like Wilson Audio, Sonus Faber, Magico, Paradigm Reference Signature, Rockport Technologies, Revel Ultima, Aerial Acoustics, Avalon, B&W, KEF Reference, Dynaudio, JBL Synthesis, Focal, Thiel, Vienna Acoustics, Harbeth, Verity Audio, ... etc.

 

[fas42]

Bob, all speakers, all systems can sound sensational, lifelike, involving, all the "good" words. But if there's something "wrong" then it's all in vain, it will just be, boring ol' hifi. DSP then just serves as a bandaid, the inner "wound", or problems have to be fixed -- that's the only real solution. Hifi stores of course always have a major problem, too much electronics all running, the cross interference is terrible.

Also on the day there I heard a midrange music server, through a Classe amp, the chap was so enthusiastic about the 24/192 file being played ... well, sometimes best to just nod your head as if you agree .

It was a relief to get home to the cheapie HT, fire it up, and listen to music again ... :b

Frank

 

[Soundminded]

The dealer apologised for the Steinway sound beforehand, saying it wasn't dialled in to the room for its current location. But that had nothing to do with the majority of the spectrum not working well. I suspect this is the sort of sound that a lot of people in your part of the world go for; big, big bass bellowing at the top of its voice, look at me, look at me! -- don't worry about that uninteresting treble stuff, it's just coming along for the ride!! The sort of thing Tim would complain about, sound made to "sound" big, with ginormous bass notes completely dominating the soundscape. And, completely unnatural, unrealistic of course.

At least the Wilson was balanced ... but that made it even easier to hear the sound starting to distort, that stuff that Tim et al believe can't possibly exist. Room treatments are never going to "solve" that, the horse has already bolted ...

Frank

While no two Steinway pianos sound exactly alike and even the same Steinway piano can sound different depending on how it is tuned, what the room acoustics do to its sound, even the temperature and humidity, Steinway pianos have a characteristic tone, a sonic signiture my ears are becoming attuned to. Having had one in my house for the last ten years and a Baldwin to compare it to, I've come to appreciate why about 90% of concert pianists prefer to perform on a Steinway according to the Steinway Piano Company itself. But whether a piano is a Steinway or not, one thing you can be certain of, a grand piano of any manufacture whether heard in a small room fairly close up or at considerable distance in a concert hall does not sound like a point source. It isn't called "grand" for nothing. This is due in part to its large size, anywhere from about 5 1/2 feet to 9 1/2 feet and that most of the sound it produces is heard as reflections from many different directions. For this reason, it is impossible for a direct radiating speaker, especially a box speaker to reproduce the sound of a grand piano accurately even if it gets the timbre right. Atkinson says in his radio interview that he gave a live versus recorded demonstration of a piano recording he'd made but the audience said it "didn't sound big enough." He seemed rather puzzled by it. So much for his reviews, it's something he should have been the first to notice, not the last.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mEsuKqj5wA&feature=relmfu

It's about 29 minutes into the interview. IMO he didn't really get it. He didn't quite understand what was wrong. I'm hardly surprised.

 

[fas42]

While no two Steinway pianos sound exactly alike and even the same Steinway piano can sound different depending on how it is tuned, what the room acoustics do to its sound, even the temperature and humidity, Steinway pianos have a characteristic tone, a sonic signiture my ears are becoming attuned to

Only trouble, Soundminded, is that I was referring to the Steinway sound system, by Lyngdorf, rather than the true instrument by that company. I must say I was surprised that the company allowed its name to be associated with that sound system, since to my ears it fell way short of delivering decent sound on the occasion. Beautiful workmanship in the cabinetry, there would be plenty of pride of ownership of the setup from the look and feel of all its parts. But in the end it has to deliver the goods, that is, convincing tone: it sounded "big", but only because it overemphasised the bass.

Back to "good" reproduction of piano: I find, personally, that it does work even for box speakers, if the volume is there, for the very reasons you mention. That is, the "bigness" of the sound occurs because of the myriad of reflections in the listening room; on a good day I can go behind the speaker, a simple box speaker, and the tonality and "bigness" is still there -- because of the reflections from all the room surfaces.

Of course, the volume has to be realistic for this to work, and that is typically where conventional hifi falls down: distortion artifacts become too obvious, one can't push the volume high enough and still get "clean" sound ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Bob, all speakers, all systems can sound sensational, lifelike, involving, all the "good" words. But if there's something "wrong" then it's all in vain, it will just be, boring ol' hifi. DSP then just serves as a bandaid, the inner "wound", or problems have to be fixed -- that's the only real solution. Hifi stores of course always have a major problem, too much electronics all running, the cross interference is terrible.

Also on the day there I heard a midrange music server, through a Classe amp, the chap was so enthusiastic about the 24/192 file being played ... well, sometimes best to just nod your head as if you agree .

It was a relief to get home to the cheapie HT, fire it up, and listen to music again ... :b

Frank

------Amazing! ...And good for you, too. :b ...No musical happiness like at home, right Frank! :b

 

[fas42]

Not really amazing, Bob -- really, it's just sad that the industry/hobby is not moving forward faster in developing understanding of what needs to be done to get the best sound. If those high end systems I just listened to were fine tuned, optimised, then they would put what I'm currently listening to way back in the correct pecking order: the expensive gear has beautifully done cabinets, very fine parts and engineering applied in many key areas that indeed help them achieve excellent results in certain aspects. But, the really big but, the work hasn't been done to make sure that there are no weaknesses, anywhere, that just kneecap the sound in critical areas. As an example, just one poor quality RCA connector -- and 99% of these components are hopeless -- will just topple, drag the audio quality way, way down the scale ...

Frank

 

[Soundminded]

Frank, go to a live concert and then you'll know it will take a lot more than a better connector to fix what's wrong. Why should anyone bother, most everyone seems perfectly happy with what's on the market already...except me There's nothing they make that I want, that's why I had to invent and build my own.

 

[NorthStar]

-----Search for the true troubadours instead Frank;
the ones who transmit through their soul the message that hits the right emotional strings. :b

 

[fas42]

Frank, go to a live concert and then you'll know it will take a lot more than a better connector to fix what's wrong. Why should anyone bother, most everyone seems perfectly happy with what's on the market already...except me There's nothing they make that I want, that's why I had to invent and build my own.

That is my reference, Soundminded, the real thing: always has been. I never miss a chance to experience what the true sound is, and interestingly enough, sometimes that falls short. Last public hearing of piano was a Yamaha Grand, and that had problems; the tuning was just OK, and there was a definite issue with its sound, the harmonics just weren't working for it, a relatively flat, lifeless tone.

And the exposure with typical expensive high end sound at a dealer did nothing to change my views: the very sort of audio you're probably referring to, wouldn't have a hope of doing piano correctly. Hell, they were struggling to do reasonable, probably "audiophile", jazz combo material ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

-----Search for the true troubadours instead Frank;
the ones who transmit through their soul the message that hits the right emotional strings. :b

Troubadors as in people, or equipment, Bob ...?

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

The artists, the poet-musicians, the songwriters, the minstrels (people);
translated through quality recordings by the best recording engineers Frank.

And 'troubadour' with a "u" before the last "r".

Eric Bibb for example. Keb' Mo', Bob Dylan, ....

 

[fas42]

The artists, the poet-musicians, the songwriters, the minstrels (people);
translated through quality recordings by the best recording engineers Frank.

And 'troubadour' with a "u" before the last "r".

Eric Bibb for example. Keb' Mo', Bob Dylan, ....

Awww, gee, I feel bad now, Bob ... you picked up on a spelling mistake! Is my thinking life over now, or do I, do I still have a chance - if I really, really try to be better :b?

Actually, when a system is singing, all recordings are "quality" ... and you hear the message of just about all creative people, what they've recorded does make sense ...

Of course, I do exclude rap: some things just can't be saved ... :b

And current recording techniques mean that you hear all the, relatively clumsy, fiddling and "enhancement" going on in the digital workstations: very irritating, unless the setup is truly 100% on the money.

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

---I probably make more typos than anyone else here and over there,
so don't sweat the small stuff Frank. :b

* By the way, I disagree with you regarding that "all" recordings are quality recordings.
No way Jose, some sound awful, and no matter what!

And most of the stuff out there (Rock, Pop, Heavy Metal, etc.) don't have any beneficial message with true emotional impact of the soul. :b

 

[fas42]

From http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...with-Alon-Wolf&p=113940&viewfull=1#post113940 ...

Alon. ( Now very peaked) That's a very easy question to answer, we are NOT even close to being able to reproduce this sound. NOT close.
Me: Why do you think that is?
Alon: Well, there are several reasons, but one has to remember that the sound that the speaker gets to reproduce is far along a chain of reproduction that has multiple levels of drop-off and error. Many links on the chain that are subtractive and reduce the possibility of accurate reproduction. Plus, real instruments are immensely dynamic and I don't think speakers can really get that aspect too well. Our Big Magico horn system ( he told me the name and I cannot remember) or Q7's come about as close as possible and they still aren't up to the task.

Well, I'm staggered to read this from someone who makes such highly regarded speakers. Though if what I heard at the dealer is still typical of the type of sound people are chasing, then his comments do make sense ...

All I can do is reiterate the simple message that until people REALLY "get" that everything matters then this tired old situation will continue: the perfectly tuned Ferrari, with a single tyre out of balance, will be a dog to drive, and passengers will hate it. The owner keeps insisting that such matters are trivial, of minor importance, and just keeps pointing out how powerful the engine is, and how brilliant the suspension is engineered, how beautiful the paint job has been done; a few others will just shake their heads, and drive off in their very ordinary, but comfortably riding vehicles ...

Frank