What determines "believability of the reproduction illusion"

[jkeny]

No it does not happen. However some aspects fundamental to believably keep stable in a large part of the room and most of all the variation is continuous - if moving you do not feel uncomfortable.

I have found that once a system is playing with believability you find that you are much less exigent with the classical pint point type imaging. The proper size of objects is created by their dynamics and richness, not only by the localization cues.

Yes, Micro, we are in agreement!!
And I believe this is explained by ASA - the creation of auditory objects by grouping (processing) of certain parts of the signal into a cogent physical object & the ability to follow this auditory object through space & time in the soundstage. The "believability" factor happens when the cues used by our auditory processing for this grouping, remain consistent & unvarying through the duration of the playback. Any variation by the reproduction system of these cues kill the believability or realness of the illusion.

I believe from my study of ASA that these cues are complex, probably low-level & span time i.e. they are built up from the signals through processing & analysis over a time-frame & not instantaneous so the behaviour of the reproduction system from moment to moment & it's ability to reproduce these cues with stability is what makes for believability. This ability (or lack of) mainly resides in the electronics of the reproduction system - at one end of the spectrum, we have lifeless music where all the notes are in the right place but no emotion - at the other end we have fully engaging music with a window into the performance & a believability in the illusion

 

[fas42]

Frank, could you address the question in bold? I am curious, because every system which I have heard that includes some of these more expensive, well designed electronics still benefitted from judicious placement of speakers and listening seat in the room to sound believable or convincing. The quality of the electronics was not enough to provide a realistic illusion. During demonstrations it is obvious because of the many seats in the room. There is almost always one seat which is better than the others for sound quality.

Have you ever tried to modify some of the gear that I mention? If so, how did it improve?

Peter, the quality of the electronics of the specific component most likely was adequate, but the quality of the system overall was not - there's a very big difference between those two aspects. The maddening thing about an audio system is that there may be very high competence of all the individual parts, but when assembled into the required setup the overall competence is not in place. Again, a chain is as strong as the weakest link - and often it's not obvious where that point of greatest weakness is; it may be as simple as the fact that there is too interference on the mains being fed to one component, and the distortion resulting from that is too audible.

This is why I have always hesitated about simple modding of gear, because it is nowhere near a guarantee that when used in a particular system that the end sound will deliver the goods - the only thing that matters is whether the entire system, in situ, is sufficiently free of problems to produce believable sound.

As regards higher end components that you mention I would be loathe to touch them, because part of their value is the fact that they are a product of a manufacturer of high repute - if altered, no matter how beneficial it was, their value as a resale item would be suspect, would reduce the audience who would be interested in purchasing them.

 

[fas42]

No it does not happen. However some aspects fundamental to believably keep stable in a large part of the room and most of all the variation is continuous - if moving you do not feel uncomfortable.

I have found that once a system is playing with believability you find that you are much less exigent with the classical pint point type imaging. The proper size of objects is created by their dynamics and richness, not only by the localization cues.

With regard to imaging I'm sure that people have different standards for such - but there are certain key markers that snap into place when the believability is at a level that is my goal; one of them is the behaviour of a recording that is true mono in nature, identical feeds to left and right speaker: this causes the image of the performance to always be directly in front of you, irrespective of where you are situated relative to the speakers; as one moves around in the room it "follows you", or more correctly, it sits in a space beyond the plane of the speakers, which is always aligned to where you happen to be - yes, this means that if you are well left of the left hand speaker that the soundspace of the recording is also to the left of that speaker!

Has anyone here experienced this?

 

[fas42]

What I want from my music listening is a window into the performance (when there is a performance actually recorded) - i.e. an appreciation of the recording as an event with the interplay between musicians evident - often this becomes more evident & better portrayed when the noise floor (modulation?) drops below a critical level where the nuances of the performances become more evident & where the timing seems to snap into place. I find that 3D soundstage & solidity of the soundstage naturally result from this & maybe this is what Frank is talking about? I don't just want detail, I want low-level detail that brings believability to the performance & has some relevance. Of course not all recordings are recordings of live performances but even those that aren't are enhanced by this. It's really the difference between what people often report as "lifeless" reproduction Vs reproduction that grabs & retains your interest - the same notes are being portrayed but there is something else that is also being portrayed in the reproduction that has emotion.

John, when the system gets to a sufficient level of competence all of these things fall into place - so, you get the window into a performance, you get timing which is razor sharp, you get the 3D soundstage with solidity, you get low level detail which adds nuances to the performance, you get reproduction that grabs and retains interest. My term for this is convincing, meaning the same as believable, and it's magic stuff to experience - the downside is that this is not trivial to achieve, just combining nominally high performance components is no guarantee of success, whatsoever.

 

[jkeny]

John, when the system gets to a sufficient level of competence all of these things fall into place - so, you get the window into a performance, you get timing which is razor sharp, you get the 3D soundstage with solidity, you get low level detail which adds nuances to the performance, you get reproduction that grabs and retains interest. My term for this is convincing, meaning the same as believable, and it's magic stuff to experience - the downside is that this is not trivial to achieve, just combining nominally high performance components is no guarantee of success, whatsoever.

Yes, Frank, I agree - particularly with the bolded section - in my experience too, it's not easy to achieve & the interaction between individually superb components can often be the crux of the matter

 

[fas42]

John, I don't know whether I've asked you this before - have you experienced the behaviour with mono material that I mentioned just earlier?

 

[jkeny]

John, I don't know whether I've asked you this before - have you experienced the behaviour with mono material that I mentioned just earlier?

I haven't tried it, Frank

 

[Rodney Gold]

Just light up a spliff and the system gains an order of magnitude more believability...

Frank , That phantom centre image and 3d soundstage that follows you around the room is something that I can identify with, my setup does that.
Amazingly if you walk toward the speakers , its only when you get behind them that the broad soundstage and holographic imagery collapse a bit...
But there is still a sweet spot..where its optimal

 

[PeterA]

you're not alone.. What I find amusing is how many legs are being pulled....

rolleyes, my two legs are not being pulled. Members have been trying to get Frank to be more specific about his claims, and by asking questions, sometimes repeatedly, we are learning just a bit more about his claims.

I am certain that speaker and listener position are critical for optimizing the sound of a system and to achieving some sense of believability.

 

[ddk]

Frank, could you address the question in bold? I am curious, because every system which I have heard that includes some of these more expensive, well designed electronics still benefitted from judicious placement of speakers and listening seat in the room to sound believable or convincing. The quality of the electronics was not enough to provide a realistic illusion. During demonstrations it is obvious because of the many seats in the room. There is almost always one seat which is better than the others for sound quality.

Have you ever tried to modify some of the gear that I mention? If so, how did it improve?

Peter,

From what I'm reading you & fas42 aren't talking about the same things. John's title "believability of the reproduction illusion" has little to do with squeezing the last iota of performance out of a system as in high end audio terms. It's a totally different approach to sound reproduction, my own tastes run alongside of Frank & John. Frank's room isn't irrelevant, its probably the key element here because he's lucky enough to have a room that works well for system playback and not intrude like most rooms. In this kind of space one can get fantastic results from decent but very average components, mostly because of the soundstage, as in Frank's description of it not yours or Al's, and the psycho acoustics of the room. In this type of space speaker positioning isn't critical and within reason the speakers can be placed casually and you'll have full sound everywhere in the room. Sure the sound will be different from middle of the room to the boundaries but the essence and presence remains the same.

... the acoustics of the recording dominate, and staging and imaging all fall into place irrespective of the location of speakers and listener.

Key phrase is "acoustics of the recording", IMO important when one is after "believability" and "natural" sound and this is what Steve heard, I think for the first time when he visited me. Very different from a system generated soundstage and acoustics that's achieved through setup, i.e., speaker positioning, footers, racks, power cords, electricity enhancing boxes and strips, networked wires like Transparent & MIT, stick on the wall type acoustic treatment or digital room eq. in fact you can go too far with this type of thing and choke the system to the point that a $400 Denon in a minimalist setup will kick the pants of a heavily tweaked out mega dollar one based on the brands you mentioned. My parents loved music, we had a typical console system from the early 60's with built in everything, not highend by any stretch of imagination but it filled the living room with sound naturally. No lasers used in setup, no sweet spot or pinpoint imaging, but it rocked. Of course a higher end system from the same era would have had much better resolution and sound quality but the approach was the same; a natural music filled space vs the beamed to a head approach of today. I'm sure that Frank & I still differ on some things but I think that we're closer in our type of sound than farther away. Frank, please correct me if I'm wrong in my assessment.


david

Edit-

I am certain that speaker and listener position are critical for optimizing the sound of a system and to achieving some sense of believability.

.

Not always Peter, some rooms and speaker types eliminate the need for some or even any optimization. Unfortunately my room isn't one of those, speaker positioning is still quite important but because of the speakers and setup listener's position isn't critical, you can easily move around and still get the full effect.

 

[LL21]

Peter,

From what I'm reading you & fas42 aren't talking about the same things. John's title "believability of the reproduction illusion" has little to do with squeezing the last iota of performance out of a system as in high end audio terms. It's a totally different approach to sound reproduction, my own tastes run alongside of Frank & John. Frank's room isn't irrelevant, its probably the key element here because he's lucky enough to have a room that works well for system playback and not intrude like most rooms. In this kind of space one can get fantastic results from decent but very average components, mostly because of the soundstage, as in Frank's description of it not yours or Al's, and the psycho acoustics of the room. In this type of space speaker positioning isn't critical and within reason the speakers can be placed casually and you'll have full sound everywhere in the room. Sure the sound will be different from middle of the room to the boundaries but the essence and presence remains the same. ...

I [think] i see where you are coming from DDK.

I am not sure if what you are saying is the same as my goal...but here is what i seek.

- while i enjoy soundstaging as 'supposedly instrument placement from the original recording'...i often suspect there is no real soundstage because of the variety of mixed tracks

- what i DO seek is a life-size scale/depth and power of note and sense of ease that approaches a lifelike presence in the room.
- ideally, we seek this at both low volumes and high volumes where even at low volumes, the weight and scale of the note (particularly the bass) as well as the low noise floor contributes to an overall detail level, depth, scale, 'weight' of sound that fills the 3D space of the room with 'music' that feels as lifelike as we can get it in terms of the sense of size of the instruments/band/ensemble. As if everybody in the band started playing softly but the drummer was still doing his kick-drum thing, etc
- and of course at 'normal listening levels for some live music', we aim to have a scale of music/depth of note/effortlessness that (while obviously not live) lets me feel like 'its far closer than most systems i get to hear' and plenty good to really enjoy.

 

[fas42]

Key phrase is "acoustics of the recording", IMO important when one is after "believability" and "natural" sound and this is what Steve heard, I think for the first time when he visited me. Very different from a system generated soundstage and acoustics that's achieved through setup, i.e., speaker positioning, footers, racks, power cords, electricity enhancing boxes and strips, networked wires like Transparent & MIT, stick on the wall type acoustic treatment or digital room eq. in fact you can go too far with this type of thing and choke the system to the point that a $400 Denon in a minimalist setup will kick the pants of a heavily tweaked out mega dollar one based on the brands you mentioned. My parents loved music, we had a typical console system from the early 60's with built in everything, not highend by any stretch of imagination but it filled the living room with sound naturally. No lasers used in setup, no sweet spot or pinpoint imaging, but it rocked. Of course a higher end system from the same era would have had much better resolution and sound quality but the approach was the same; a natural music filled space vs the beamed to a head approach of today. I'm sure that Frank & I still differ on some things but I think that we're closer in our type of sound than farther away. Frank, please correct me if I'm wrong in my assessment.


david

Edit- .

Not always Peter, some rooms and speaker types eliminate the need for some or even any optimization. Unfortunately my room isn't one of those, speaker positioning is still quite important but because of the speakers and setup listener's position isn't critical, you can easily move around and still get the full effect.

Yes, david, we're on the same wavelength with regard to the type of music reproduction desired. I got a bit of a shock when a key guy at the audio club, after listening to two systems on demo, preferred the very hifi sounding unit, drivers clearly audible, over the one that projected a good sense of the space of a music event - goals are different!

I have had good sound in a number of rooms and situations, totally different each time - about the only common theme is that they were a bit messy, I'm miles from being a neatness and symmetry freak . With regard to getting the last drop of quality needed for the illusion to fully form, I will listen and if it's not quite there, then from my experience over the years I will make an educated guess as to where the bottleneck is, and experiment until the gap is closed - not do anything with the speakers unless they specifically have a problem.

The point is, that both a natural, room filling sound and that all the elements of the musical mix are clearly imaged is the end result. As an example, a highly complex pop production becomes a walk through experience - you can listen to each musical sound maker in the whole, turn your attention to it, and just "watch" it - just like focusing on what the trombone player, say, is doing in a brass item, there's a space there that you can focus on and "see" what the person is doing ...

BTW, do you get the mono effect I mentioned before?

 

[fas42]

I [think] - what i DO seek is a life-size scale/depth and power of note and sense of ease that approaches a lifelike presence in the room.
- ideally, we seek this at both low volumes and high volumes where even at low volumes, the weight and scale of the note (particularly the bass) as well as the low noise floor contributes to an overall detail level, depth, scale, 'weight' of sound that fills the 3D space of the room with 'music' that feels as lifelike as we can get it in terms of the sense of size of the instruments/band/ensemble. As if everybody in the band started playing softly but the drummer was still doing his kick-drum thing, etc
- and of course at 'normal listening levels for some live music', we aim to have a scale of music/depth of note/effortlessness that (while obviously not live) lets me feel like 'its far closer than most systems i get to hear' and plenty good to really enjoy.

This is also part of the package when the reproduction is good enough - the volume being listened at becomes irrelevant; the impact of the music as something that tickles the emotional buttons remains constant. I've had the amusing situation where my wife, who enjoys what I achieve immensely, needs to do something where full concentration is required, and asks me to turn it down so she is not distracted. Unfortunately , no matter how low the volume is, down to a whisper so to speak, it doesn't degenerate into background music - it still begs to be listened to - so, the stop button or mute has to be pushed ...

At the other end of the scale the sensation is of greater intensity, the sound washes over and around you - you "swim" in a sea of music; it becomes the whole universe for that period of time.

 

[LL21]

It does not happen that imaging etc is constant all over the room..

No it does not happen. However some aspects fundamental to believably keep stable in a large part of the room and most of all the variation is continuous - if moving you do not feel uncomfortable.

I have found that once a system is playing with believability you find that you are much less exigent with the classical pint point type imaging. The proper size of objects is created by their dynamics and richness, not only by the localization cues.

Agree with Micro's last 2 sentences here...though that is because imaging in the classic audiophile sense is less of a priority for me. Even in our new room, our partners desk is centered in the room so i am listening ever so slightly off-axis most of the time anyway. From where i sit, the imaging is comfortably behind the speakers into the next room which opens behind them but reasonably solid and big (around 15' wide and anywhere from 5'-15' behind them) which is more than enough 'stage' for me. The solidity of the notes, presence of music/musicians in the room, ability to discern individual musical lines is far, far more important to me than individual placement. Just a personal priority of sound.

Every once in a while, i'll sit in the sweetspot and see where musicians are, etc but it is exceedingly rare. But forget to turn on the sub, and lose that 'sense of spaciousness' anywhere in the room and it drives me absolutely crazy.

 

[JackD201]

For me?

Timbre

Everything else is a bonus

 

[Steve williams]

For me?

Timbre

Everything else is a bonus

I totally agree my friend

 

[fas42]

Timbre is a good "measure", and what I sometimes use is heavily processed pop with ordinary vocals riding over the top - this tests whether the system is working well enough so that the voices sound completely 'human', and ordinary, while riding along with the intensity and bite of the instrumentals. Just by coincidence I'm warming up my current system at the moment, it's been out of action for a while for a number of reasons, and it's going to need some playing in to get to a decent standard - and on at this second is ZZ Top, Afterburner: full blown 80's synth treatment, reverb, etc; but the vocals are very soft, and layback, relaxed and soothing in tone, almost meditative - does the cut and sharpness of the instrumentals' processing happily co-exist with the gentleness of the vocals?

 

[the sound of Tao]

For me?

Timbre

Everything else is a bonus

+1... Tonality and timbre are a deal breaker in terms of believability...without these it is all fairly synthetic. Sound staging helps make up for the lack of visual reinforcement of having players in the room but there are plenty of real life experiences of music where soundstage is not pinpoint simply because of acoustics of the venue.

Other deal breakers in the suspension of disbelief are (for me) a lack of presence or a poor balance of attack and decay.

Helpful in building a sense of believability are overall linearity and cohesion especially in dynamics and a realistic extension (this is music dependant) and portrayal of scale.

The closest to real in terms of speakers for me has been the big Magnepans and also full range horns when matched with SET though the Maggies can seem to achieve this over a greater range of musical genres and instrument types.

Being real is a Magnepan moment, they can do context as well as spirit of music and for me that is their greatest strength.

 

[Al M.]

For me?

Timbre

Everything else is a bonus

Timbre without liveliness and dynamics is acoustic wallpaper, not music.

For music you need all these things. Without life and dynamics of sound, believability is impossible.

Unfortunately there were some dark ages in high end audio -- the early Nineties come to mind -- where some manufacturers were obsessed with timbre and forgot about life and dynamics of the music. This was the time of super-complex crossovers and low sensitivity speakers that killed the music. Acoustic wallpaper, as I said, and of the very exspensive sort no less. A High End tragedy. An absolute perversion of what this hobby should be about, music.

 

[Al M.]

Oh, and don't forget rhythm.

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"

Without proper rhythm and timing, no music.