What determines "believability of the reproduction illusion"

[Rodney Gold]

The room is the lens to the rest of the system.
All you have to do is look at a plot of what you hear at your listening position.. its a ride thru the himalayas .. compare that to the ruler flat of your electronics and the anechoic measurements of your speakers .. the room mangles things...
Regardless of the brains ability to compensate..you still listening to mangled sound..

 

[jkeny]

The room is the lens to the rest of the system.
All you have to do is look at a plot of what you hear at your listening position.. its a ride thru the himalayas .. compare that to the ruler flat of your electronics and the anechoic measurements of your speakers .. the room mangles things...
Regardless of the brains ability to compensate..you still listening to mangled sound..

Ah, that might be a "belief" in some measurements (which AFAIK, there isn't a consensus around) rather than how we actually perceive sound. Without that connection between squiggles on a plot & what we hear, the squiggles mean nothing

 

[fas42]

There's been quite a vigorous, and healthy discussion going on - good to see! Obviously what disturbs many people is that I play with low cost equipment currently to get my results, but this is just an extension of my curiosity, and a reticence to "mangle" more pricey gear. The big advantage of using higher quality components is that warm up, stabilisation time is greatly reduced, and if one puts on recordings with single instruments, played to extract maximum tonality from the instrument itself, then the qualities of that come through more impressively - I have heard the latter happen quite a few times.

My strong interest is getting very complex, intense mixes of music making to "work", and this is where the "debugging" of the system pays off big dividends - in spite of what Dave and others believe, the room itself doesn't hinder this happening if the system overall is of adequate competence; I just plunk the speakers down in a place that's convenient, and the illusion manifests, provided the standard of the rig at that moment is good enough!

 

[fas42]

I easily accept that someone with large experience, even with little theoretical knowledge can modify decent electronics to achieve exceptional performance in some specific aspects for his particular environment. It is mostly a tuning process, not a general development. I have seen people doing it, unfortunately just for a couple of recordings - as soon as you changed the recording it sounded miserable and lousy.

I can understand how this works - but to get the believability occurring for each and every recording one has, irrespective of 'quality', is a very specific process. One has to be able to hear where the system is deficient - and to do this I use very 'poor' recordings for testing, I'm deliberately "stressing" the setup, to show me where its problems are. When these recordings all come good, then everything works - it's pointless getting an audiophile recording to sound brilliant - this tells one, absolutely nothing ...

 

[fas42]

Your knee-jerk reaction to this is a bit startling given that no one (not even Frank) is suggesting that we replace our high quality systems with a laptop, youtube and earphones. Please tell me that you can hear the intrinsic quality of a system through a good youtube video?? If you can't, then I have to question your ability to analyze what you are hearing. I can do it, seems Frank and some other's here can too and we don't think he is crazy or trolling.

As an example of YouTube being able to convey how a system is able to get many things in the sound to jell, I would submit this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzO_zRP6FWg (suggest using 720p setting)

 

[PeterA]

As an example of YouTube being able to convey how a system is able to get many things in the sound to jell, I would submit this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzO_zRP6FWg (suggest using 720p setting)

I agree that the voice (Sinatra's?) sounds very good at 720. I did not like the sound of those violins or strings or other instruments near the end. They did not sound very natural to me.

 

[DaveC]

Ah, that might be a "belief" in some measurements (which AFAIK, there isn't a consensus around) rather than how we actually perceive sound. Without that connection between squiggles on a plot & what we hear, the squiggles mean nothing

C'mon now, that's a little pedantic. Large variations in frequency response caused by the room are obviously audible and this is not really debatable, except maybe for a select few who think their modding skills can perform magic and sidestep reality. Some of the comments recently make me think this is the twilight zone, and I'm usually the last person to insist on the value of measurements, but this is going way too far.

One has to be able to hear where the system is deficient - and to do this I use very 'poor' recordings for testing, I'm deliberately "stressing" the setup, to show me where its problems are.

This I actually agree with and do the same. I wouldn't call them poor recordings, but challenging ones such as "A Moment So Close" on the album Live At The Quick by Bela Fleck, or at least the last half of the track.... If a system can make this sound good and not a muddy mess it's doing something right. Not many systems do a great job at this, a couple standouts were the TAD Evolution floorstanders with all TAD electronics and the Vinnie Rossi LIO with Harbeth speakers.

 

[fas42]

I agree that the voice (Sinatra's?) sounds very good at 720. I did not like the sound of those violins or strings or other instruments near the end. They did not sound very natural to me.

Interestingly, that's exactly how they come across when my system is in good shape! That velvety quality is a function of the recording gear they used at the times, combination of tubes and tape - some recordings absolutely swim in that cosiness. Yes, it's an artifact of the recording process, but in the context of the recording and times it registers correctly to me.

 

[sbo6]

The world mangles sound that's why our ears are the way they are...

The room is the lens to the rest of the system.
All you have to do is look at a plot of what you hear at your listening position.. its a ride thru the himalayas .. compare that to the ruler flat of your electronics and the anechoic measurements of your speakers .. the room mangles things...
Regardless of the brains ability to compensate..you still listening to mangled sound..

 

[fas42]

This I actually agree with and do the same. I wouldn't call them poor recordings, but challenging ones such as "A Moment So Close" on the album Live At The Quick by Bela Fleck, or at least the last half of the track.... If a system can make this sound good and not a muddy mess it's doing something right. Not many systems do a great job at this, a couple standouts were the TAD Evolution floorstanders with all TAD electronics and the Vinnie Rossi LIO with Harbeth speakers.

OK, just had a quick listen on YouTube, , and yes, this is a challenging, not a 'poor' recording. It's the ability of a system to allow all the layers of the mix to be clearly presented, perfectly positioned in the soundscape - and, most importantly, that the non processed vocal lead to come through as being fully "human".

One of CDs I used to use regularly in this vein was by Matt Bianco - most systems were incapable of getting this anywhere near right ...

Correction: I realised that Live At The Quick is a very different beast, and also listened - the acoustic is quite different, being a live situation, a challenge in the sense of the sound elements not being so clearly distinguishable, they are less distinct compared to the studio take.

 

[jkeny]

C'mon now, that's a little pedantic. Large variations in frequency response caused by the room are obviously audible and this is not really debatable, except maybe for a select few who think their modding skills can perform magic and sidestep reality. Some of the comments recently make me think this is the twilight zone, and I'm usually the last person to insist on the value of measurements, but this is going way too far.

Maybe but what I was replying to was this "the room mangles things...Regardless of the brains ability to compensate..you still listening to mangled sound.." To me "mangles things" means that it renders things unintelligble. Now if the many squiggles on a room measurement signify "mangling" then there is something wrong with the interpretation. Call me pedantic, if you will but.....

When you say "LARGE variations" - are these large variations in frequency the result of an aberrant room/speaker interaction? Are they the result of the fact that we seem wedded to using speakers which emit phase coherent waves which cause this problem with reflections. Are there other acoustic side effects to trying to correct such a large frequency variation?

This I actually agree with and do the same. I wouldn't call them poor recordings, but challenging ones such as "A Moment So Close" on the album Live At The Quick by Bela Fleck, or at least the last half of the track.... If a system can make this sound good and not a muddy mess it's doing something right. Not many systems do a great job at this, a couple standouts were the TAD Evolution floorstanders with all TAD electronics and the Vinnie Rossi LIO with Harbeth speakers.

I notice you mention only the electronics here & not the room treatment. Is this because you found that the electronics were the most important element to "doing something right"? Where do the Harbeth speakers/room factor into this?

 

[NorthStar]

 

[morricab]

The room is the lens to the rest of the system.
All you have to do is look at a plot of what you hear at your listening position.. its a ride thru the himalayas .. compare that to the ruler flat of your electronics and the anechoic measurements of your speakers .. the room mangles things...
Regardless of the brains ability to compensate..you still listening to mangled sound..

I think there is quite a lot for you to learn, Rodney, about the psychoacoustic effects of non-linear distortions.

 

[morricab]

I can understand how this works - but to get the believability occurring for each and every recording one has, irrespective of 'quality', is a very specific process. One has to be able to hear where the system is deficient - and to do this I use very 'poor' recordings for testing, I'm deliberately "stressing" the setup, to show me where its problems are. When these recordings all come good, then everything works - it's pointless getting an audiophile recording to sound brilliant - this tells one, absolutely nothing ...

Some recordings should never sound believable and if you somehow "simulate" a believable presentation then you are likely introducing some specific colorations to do so. You should be able to achieve maximum contrast between recordings if things are really firing on all cylinders. The best recordings will sound utterly believable and the worst will sound like they come out of a phone booth. Even with the best recordings there is believable and BELIEVABLE.

 

[morricab]

C'mon now, that's a little pedantic. Large variations in frequency response caused by the room are obviously audible and this is not really debatable, except maybe for a select few who think their modding skills can perform magic and sidestep reality. Some of the comments recently make me think this is the twilight zone, and I'm usually the last person to insist on the value of measurements, but this is going way too far.



This I actually agree with and do the same. I wouldn't call them poor recordings, but challenging ones such as "A Moment So Close" on the album Live At The Quick by Bela Fleck, or at least the last half of the track.... If a system can make this sound good and not a muddy mess it's doing something right. Not many systems do a great job at this, a couple standouts were the TAD Evolution floorstanders with all TAD electronics and the Vinnie Rossi LIO with Harbeth speakers.

Yes, but if those variations are consistent then your brain will quickly overlook them just like you were saying about horn coloration being overlooked after a short time listening. Where room variations are annoying is usually in the bass where they are caused by modes and are not consistent and only excited when a certain frequency comes along. I had this issue and tamed it with a digital parametric EQ but I left the rest alone in an untreated room.

I don't think a system should "sex up" poor recordings but they should at least still be mostly listenable. Poor recordings should sound inferior but not so dreadful that you have to take them out after 2 minutes. That said, I think very few recordings are really as bad as people think they are and it is overly analytical systems exaggerating the recordings tendencies.

 

[jkeny]

Yes, but if those variations are consistent then your brain will quickly overlook them just like you were saying about horn coloration being overlooked after a short time listening. Where room variations are annoying is usually in the bass where they are caused by modes and are not consistent and only excited when a certain frequency comes along. I had this issue and tamed it with a digital parametric EQ but I left the rest alone in an untreated room.

Yep

I don't think a system should "sex up" poor recordings but they should at least still be mostly listenable. Poor recordings should sound inferior but not so dreadful that you have to take them out after 2 minutes. That said, I think very few recordings are really as bad as people think they are and it is overly analytical systems exaggerating the recordings tendencies.

And yep, again.

 

[DaveC]

I notice you mention only the electronics here & not the room treatment. Is this because you found that the electronics were the most important element to "doing something right"? Where do the Harbeth speakers/room factor into this?

Yes, if the electronics and speakers suck then the room is just mangling garbage anyways. I definitely don't think the room is most important!

Yes, but if those variations are consistent then your brain will quickly overlook them just like you were saying about horn coloration being overlooked after a short time listening. Where room variations are annoying is usually in the bass where they are caused by modes and are not consistent and only excited when a certain frequency comes along. I had this issue and tamed it with a digital parametric EQ but I left the rest alone in an untreated room.

It depends... too much early reflections tend to flatten the soundstage and there are other things the brain doesn't filter out as easily. Some reflections are good though of course. With conventional speakers it usually takes some work to get the best results, a 3-D, immersive soundfield to me is a good indication things are working out, but this doesn't usually happen by chance. With more directive speakers it often does though.

 

[Audio_Karma]

I posted this on a thread about horn speakers after reading Frank's post about tweaking electronics being the most important area for the "believability of the reproduction illusion"

I AGREE !!....... I posted about my tweak awhile back BUT you all thought.. I was nuts !

 

[fas42]

Some recordings should never sound believable and if you somehow "simulate" a believable presentation then you are likely introducing some specific colorations to do so. You should be able to achieve maximum contrast between recordings if things are really firing on all cylinders. The best recordings will sound utterly believable and the worst will sound like they come out of a phone booth. Even with the best recordings there is believable and BELIEVABLE.

Out of a phone booth? Luckily, you're not correct, since no recordings were ever done in this fashion - unless as a gimmick! What you always get is the impression of musicians' output, or pure synthesised sounds, created or fashioned in a space which is as large as that at the time of the music making, or matching what the effects units were set to. And it's always believable, what varies is the level of noise that comes along for the ride - a very 'primitive' recording has a large quotient of accompanying non-musical sound, but this sits in a different space from that of the performance, subjectively.

A real life analogy is listening to a live classical performance in a hall, which is perfectly silent - that's the good recording; the worst recording is the same performance with a huge array of noise makers besides you, and rain falling heavily on the roof. In both cases the integrity of the music is there, the contrast is the amount of unrelated sound that's also in the picture.

 

[fas42]

I don't think a system should "sex up" poor recordings but they should at least still be mostly listenable. Poor recordings should sound inferior but not so dreadful that you have to take them out after 2 minutes. That said, I think very few recordings are really as bad as people think they are and it is overly analytical systems exaggerating the recordings tendencies.

People have different ideas on what a bad recording is; perhaps because it was done with primitive recording equipment, or it's taken from a worn out shellac, or it's an extremely heavily compressed current pop effort. I have an atrocious Gene Pitney 'bootleg' CD, where some idiot decided to apply noise reduction processing in the most clumsy way possible - on most pretty decent audio rigs this would unbearably impossible to listen to - the noise reduction comes in and out like a light switch throughout the track, it sounds ridiculous. But, amazingly, when the system works well enough the mind rides over the top of this nonsense, and the music making retains its consistency - this is about as good an example of the power of ASA to "fill the gaps" as I have.