What determines "believability of the reproduction illusion"

[PeterA]

Not always Peter, some rooms and speaker types eliminate the need for some or even any [/FONT]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.

Thanks David for adding some clarity to the discussion about these different approaches. It seems that a natural sound is your goal and Frank's goal. It is my goal too, but it has been my experience that it is hard to achieve unless the speakers and listener are well positioned in the room. I don't have much experience with speakers that don't require careful set up. In my experience, "The believability of the reproduction illusion" seems to depend on careful placement. I have heard many examples of the same very capable systems sound natural, or not, depending on nothing more than careful speaker and listener positioning. And when it is all working well, then the emotional connection to the music is much greater.

I am finding it difficult to image the sound of your and Frank's systems based on this notion of full effect. I assume "full effect" means everything the system is capable of producing, or conveying from the recording. And if one "can easily move around and still get the full effect", then this implies that it sounds the same everywhere in the room. I have never heard a system where this is the case. I think my system sounds natural outside of the sweet spot, but the effect, illusion, and believability, that sense of Presence is more complete if sitting in the location for which the system is optimized.

I'm sure I would understand better if I actually heard your or Frank's system. Unfortunately, you are both too far away.

 

[fas42]

I am finding it difficult to image the sound of your and Frank's systems based on this notion of full effect. I assume "full effect" means everything the system is capable of producing, or conveying from the recording. And if one "can easily move around and still get the full effect", then this implies that it sounds the same everywhere in the room. I have never heard a system where this is the case. I think my system sounds natural outside of the sweet spot, but the effect, illusion, and believability, that sense of Presence is more complete if sitting in the location for which the system is optimized.

I'm sure I would understand better if I actually heard your or Frank's system. Unfortunately, you are both too far away.

The key thing is that the subjective effect is the same everywhere - at the moment I'm warming up my system, and I'm sitting at the laptop about 6 feet behind the speakers! All I'm hearing is the reflected sound, from glass and walls in front of the speakers, etc, plus some bass port, facing rearwards, direct sound. And this all makes sense to my hearing, I can "hear" the treble very coherently in the sound - it doesn't sound 'wrong', at all.

This is where the ideas of ASA seem to come in; my mind is interpreting what I'm hearing as making sense, and builds a coherent musical soundscape in my mind ...

 

[PeterA]

The key thing is that the subjective effect is the same everywhere - at the moment I'm warming up my system, and I'm sitting at the laptop about 6 feet behind the speakers! All I'm hearing is the reflected sound, from glass and walls in front of the speakers, etc, plus some bass port, facing rearwards, direct sound. And this all makes sense to my hearing, I can "hear" the treble very coherently in the sound - it doesn't sound 'wrong', at all.

This is where the ideas of ASA seem to come in; my mind is interpreting what I'm hearing as making sense, and builds a coherent musical soundscape in my mind ...

Frank, my system does not sound wrong either even when sitting way off to a side. However, the full effect of Presence and believability is not as great as when I sit in the sweet spot. So, I think I now understand where you are coming from.

I can make sense of the sound coming from my car radio and my mother's voice on the telephone, too, and I suppose that is due to ASA. And when fully engrossed in a film, nothing sounds wrong with my TV audio either. I get completely lost in what I am watching and don't even think about the sound, consciously.

 

[thedudeabides]

If I were a budding audiophile and read all the posts in this thread (and others like it on this forum), I'd decide to stay very basic and simply enjoy listening to music.

 

[NorthStar]

Yes, but this is the twilight zone of the audio world...in depth penetration. :b ...Plus all the good humor.

 

[fas42]

Frank, my system does not sound wrong either even when sitting way off to a side. However, the full effect of Presence and believability is not as great as when I sit in the sweet spot. So, I think I now understand where you are coming from. I can make sense of the sound coming from my car radio and my mother's voice on the telephone, too, and I suppose that is due to ASA. And when fully engrossed in a film, nothing sounds wrong with my TV audio either. I get completely lost in what I am watching and don't even think about the sound, consciously.

The difference for me, which I guess is because I haven't worked on any room treatments, or speaker placement, is that there is no sweet spot. If I go to where it theoretically is, there is no change in my perception of the sound, it doesn't "get better" at any special place.

Another side of the approach I use is that one can put on very "poor quality" recordings and engage with the musical message, without effort - and perceive the acoustic that corresponds to the recording. My experience with most more ambitious systems is that they fail badly here, the defects of the recording, etc, are screaming at me, making it impossible to enjoy the experience.

 

[PeterA]

The difference for me, which I guess is because I haven't worked on any room treatments, or speaker placement, is that there is no sweet spot. If I go to where it theoretically is, there is no change in my perception of the sound, it doesn't "get better" at any special place.

Another side of the approach I use is that one can put on very "poor quality" recordings and engage with the musical message, without effort - and perceive the acoustic that corresponds to the recording. My experience with most more ambitious systems is that they fail badly here, the defects of the recording, etc, are screaming at me, making it impossible to enjoy the experience.

If more ambitious systems allow one to hear more of what is on the recording, but some people don't enjoy that because the recording is poor, I can see why there are different approaches to the hobby. Some, as thedudeabides, suggest, just want to enjoy the music. This is possible on many different kinds of systems, including a Bose Wave radio and car stereo. Others want to hear what is on the recording. I don't think there is anything wrong with either approach.

My 14 year old daughter enjoys listening to her pop music on the ride to school in the morning. The other night I played Lorde's Royals via LP for her on my stereo. She said "WOW" and wanted to listen to the rest of the album. Unlike in the car, she was too engaged to be texting her friends while listening to music.

I suppose the difference for me is that while I can appreciate and enjoy the musical message, even on my worst recordings, I enjoy listening to my better recordings even more. I get the same message and intent from the musicians, but the involvement is more complete when the sense of presence and believability are happening.

I think I'm taking the discussion off topic and toward personal priorities and approaches to listening. Sorry about that. I do think ASA is important and I'm glad we are learning more about how the ear/brain work and the perception of sound.

 

[microstrip]

For me?

Timbre

Everything else is a bonus

Timbre is due to frequency response and decays - although in sound reproduction we can not ignore the effect of distortions. Perhaps one key question is also how our perception of timbre in music affected by aspects such as imaging and bass reproduction.

 

[fas42]

If more ambitious systems allow one to hear more of what is on the recording, but some people don't enjoy that because the recording is poor, I can see why there are different approaches to the hobby. Some, as thedudeabides, suggest, just want to enjoy the music. This is possible on many different kinds of systems, including a Bose Wave radio and car stereo. Others want to hear what is on the recording. I don't think there is anything wrong with either approach.

The interesting thing is that there is a way to navigate through those "waters", which gives one the best of all worlds. Most people believe that if they hear more of the recording, then "poor" recordings sound worse - yes, that is often the case, because the level of distortion being added by the playback is still too great; it combines with the lesser qualities of the recording to create too many anomalies in the sound, and ASA can't compensate - it just sounds bad, full stop.

But if one perseveres with trying to reduce these unwanted artifacts, then a miracle occurs - or so it seemed to me when first experiencing it - I'm hearing more detail of the recorded event, with less subjectively contributed by the qualities of the recording; one is now hearing "past" the flaws of the media and how the sound was recorded - and the musical event emerges, remarkably unscathed. An excellent example in the vinyl world is how pops and crackles seem to matter less and less, the better the TT setup is - those noises are still there, but the mind finds it easier to filter them out - this is ASA in action, again.

 

[DaveC]

The difference for me, which I guess is because I haven't worked on any room treatments, or speaker placement, is that there is no sweet spot. If I go to where it theoretically is, there is no change in my perception of the sound, it doesn't "get better" at any special place.

Another side of the approach I use is that one can put on very "poor quality" recordings and engage with the musical message, without effort - and perceive the acoustic that corresponds to the recording. My experience with most more ambitious systems is that they fail badly here, the defects of the recording, etc, are screaming at me, making it impossible to enjoy the experience.

The laws of physics apply to you too... every stereo system in the entire world has a sweet spot, even omnis like MBL. Even if you can't perceive it, it's there. Unless you have a magickal system.

 

[DaveC]

Timbre is due to frequency response and decays - although in sound reproduction we can not ignore the effect of distortions. Perhaps one key question is also how our perception of timbre in music affected by aspects such as imaging and bass reproduction.

Timbre is greatly affected by distortion, not only harmonic distortion but all kinds.... this is one area where the materials the passive parts are made of makes a huge difference. Cables can change the perception of timbre by quite a lot, as can choices of resistors and capacitors, etc. Choice of amplification devices and circuits also make a big difference and imo this is where timbre can be adjusted a bit without doing too much damage. With passive parts anything that isn't neutral detracts from resolution, so if your idea of correct timbre is on the warm side, which it is for many, then you're best served by choosing amplification that fits your tastes rather than trying to tune your system using cables... which is certainly possible and a disturbing number of people choose to go this route, which will only lead to a system that comes up short on resolution.

For me getting timbre right in my system and the gear I make is one of the most important priorities, if the timbre is not right it kills believability as much as a system that can't reproduce spatial cues and fine detail in the recording.

And IMO this includes full bass extension, or at least down to 35 Hz or so for most music...

And proper dynamics, which requires a lot of driver surface area or a horn. Excursion can't make up for it. If the instrument produces startling dynamics, it should be felt. Large drums are good tests for this.

This is where I feel Frank's claims are far off from reality... small/average speakers just can't do this. At all. No matter how good the electronics. Otherwise, why bother with the expense and size of a large speaker? Simply massaging the electronics to be more resolving and accurate is not going to cut it imo. There's far more to it....

 

[PeterA]

But if one perseveres with trying to reduce these unwanted artifacts, then a miracle occurs - or so it seemed to me when first experiencing it - I'm hearing more detail of the recorded event, with less subjectively contributed by the qualities of the recording; one is now hearing "past" the flaws of the media and how the sound was recorded - and the musical event emerges, remarkably unscathed. An excellent example in the vinyl world is how pops and crackles seem to matter less and less, the better the TT setup is - those noises are still there, but the mind finds it easier to filter them out - this is ASA in action, again.

I only listen to LPs in my system. And I try to mostly listen to LPs in other people's systems. I have learned that the better the TT setup, the less intrusive is the vinyl noise, including ticks, pops, and crackles. It is not that they seem to matter less and less the better the vinyl front end is. The better the front end is, the less noticeable those artifacts are because these components are better able to deal with these artifacts than are the lesser quality components. The artifacts matter just as much, they are just not as intrusive as the equipment improves. Some one serious about LPs also usually takes the time to thoroughly clean his LPs. This makes a huge difference also.

But, I do understand your point about being able to hear past this noise because the rest of the sound is so engaging. I think most vinyl lovers experience this. Some listeners, like Amir, though, have written that they can not listen past these vinyl noises and that ticks, pops, and crackles drive them crazy and they can't enjoy the music. So, ASA is in effect, yes, but for some listeners, the artifacts still get in the way.

 

[jkeny]

I only listen to LPs in my system. And I try to mostly listen to LPs in other people's systems. I have learned that the better the TT setup, the less intrusive is the vinyl noise, including ticks, pops, and crackles. It is not that they seem to matter less and less the better the vinyl front end is. The better the front end is, the less noticeable those artifacts are because these components are better able to deal with these artifacts than are the lesser quality components. The artifacts matter just as much, they are just not as intrusive as the equipment improves. Some one serious about LPs also usually takes the time to thoroughly clean his LPs. This makes a huge difference also.

Yes, this is what I & others are suggesting - when the quality of reproduction is of a sufficient standard a number of things become unimportant - things which might have distracted before. The reproduction holds enough "believability" to retain one's attention. Remember that we only really "hear" a small number of the elements of the music at any one time although we are aware of the rest of the "auditory scene". We can quickly shift our focus from one aspect of the auditory scene to another & hence it might appear that we are able to "hear" everything at the same time but we can't. It's just like "seeing" - we can only focus on a limited number of objects at the same time although we are aware of the background scene.

What we focus on at any point in time is what we perceive so we can listen to a piece of music & get a different experience of it depending on what aspect we focus on & follow. There's a well known perceptual idea called "attention blindness" where we only are aware of the objects we focus on & mostly oblivious to all else - the well known gorilla video is a good example of this in the visual domain where we are focussed on counting the number of passes that occur between moving basketball players & a large percentage of people aren't aware of the man in gorilla uniform passing across the video. There's an equivalent audio version of this too.

The point being that if the quality of reproduction is sufficient to retain our attention, the background noise is "invisible" to most of us.

In the same way, I believe that there are room issues that are "invisible" once the reproduction is "believable"

But, I do understand your point about being able to hear past this noise because the rest of the sound is so engaging. I think most vinyl lovers experience this. Some listeners, like Amir, though, have written that they can not listen past these vinyl noises and that ticks, pops, and crackles drive them crazy and they can't enjoy the music. So, ASA is in effect, yes, but for some listeners, the artifacts still get in the way.

I'm not sure if it's that it's a case that some people may not be able to engage fully with the "illusion" or don't allow themselves to do so? I can listen in two ways - critically where I'm analysing what I hear & not engaged with the "illusion" as such or "normal listening" where I'm not analysing (in the same way) what I'm hearing. I can switch between the two at will.

I have used an analogy before about this - to be able to draw you need to be able to deconstruct/analyse what you are seeing into lines & shadows & be able to switch between this view & the more normal view of the "scene". If you are not able to analyse, you will not be able to draw & will draw the concept rather than the actual visual scene - you see this with children - they draw the concept of a house with a chimney sticking up a strange angle rather than how a house looks from their viewpoint.

 

[morricab]

So, this is now a busy and lengthy thread but this is something I have thought long and hard about so I feel compelled to contribute my 2 cents worth.

With regard to the room: While it is no doubt that a room can negative influence the sound (not sure about a room that positively influences the sound) and can significantly degrade the sound to the point of unintelillgibility, the room degrades ALL sound more or less equally. A room that is bad for audio is also likely a room that is bad for conversation or if you had live musicians in that room it would also be a mess. The point of this is that it does not impact the REALISM of the production (in the case of speech or live performance) or reproduction. A person that sounds boomy and echoy in a room STILL sounds like a real person and is fully believable as a real person despite sounding muffled or unclear from echoes and resonanances in the room. There is still no mistaking that person as a recording or "synthetic" in some manner. So, with all due respect to the people who are determined to elevate the room, it is clear that it does not destroy realism per se. It might make a hash of the recorded acoustic space and this could affect the believeability of some recordings. I don't want to downplay it but I don't think it is the fundamental issue in believability.

So, what about the loudspeakers? For sure they define a lot of the fundamental character of the sound but the sounds they produce, and by sounds I mean not only the intended sounds but all the other UNintended sounds. Unintended sounds include (not exhaustively): Cabinet vibrations and resonance modes on panels, port resonanances. Material specific re-radiation of sound, driver breakup and bending modes, crossover distortion, thermal distortion, thermal and dynamic compression etc. All of these are distortions that will color the timbre, timing and dispersion of the sound. However, with the exception of the crossover elements distortions and phase shifts (this can be very significant and destroy beliveabilty) the distortions from speakers are largely mechanical distortions that are generally low order harmonics and not unknown in the natural world. Break up modes though can damage believablility because they are not excited all the time and can affect certain passages of music and leave others untouched. It is lack of consistency that stands out to the human mind as "not right" or "synthetic". If something is consistently and constantly colored in a particular way, it doesn't take very long until ear/brain (yes it is an inextricably linked system) doesn't hear it as a coloration anymore. Phase shifts at crossover points can play havoc with believeability as well as the transistion between drivers of different materials covering the same voice or instrument...particularly if a large phase shift is right in the middle. Sadly, most speakers have this kind of flaw, including some of the most highly touted and expensive ones. That being said, I don't think that the speaker is the number one culprit in destroying playback realism. I would also lump other electromechanical transducers in this category (i.e. turntable/arm/cartridge).

From my experience and from a lot of reading on psychoacoustics I have come to the conclusion that the electronics (I include here all digital sources as they are mostly electronic in nature) are the number one destroyer of realism. Why? Because distortions caused by electronics and digital are wholly and completely synthetic and unnatural with no precendent in the natural world. Our ear/brain did not evolve to make sense of them and consider them as "real" sounds. This overlay of something totally alien to our evolutionary development makes it standout like a sore thumb at ridiculously low levels. It immediately stamps the playback as "artificial" in the majority of systems.

in nature, most overtones and harmonics are of relatively low order. The ear/brain's own distortion is low order until extremely high SPL. The Ear/brain is a very advanced computer with regard to pattern recognition, which allows us to organize and make sense of our world quickly and efficiently. If the pattern does not fit the natural expected pattern of, let's say an Oboe, then it will scream out ot us "synthetic"!! Even worse, is that this pattern of distortion overlay that ALL electronics produce is both frequency and level dependent in some potentially mind bogglingly complex ways. Intermodulation distortion, where the harmonics interact with each other and with the distortion made by the power supply (very few are clean from this) even further complicates matters. Now, you add in the fact that a humans sensitivity for high order harmonics INCREASES as the order incresases (at least until the sensitivity of the hearing itself falls off at high frequencies that is) as was demonstrated by D.E.L. Shorter of the BBC and more recently by Daniel Cheever.

So, the amount is not nearly as important as the type. What Cheever has pointed out is that amps and other electronics will sound the least colored when the distortion can hide in the "blind spot" of human ear/brain perception. This is not a trivial thing to do because the way the ear/brain makes and masks distortion is fundamentally opposed by most electronics designs. What do I mean by this? It means that the ear/brain's self-distortion is monotonic and drops exponentially with increasing harmonic order (2nd higher than 3rd, higher than 4th etc)...but the absolute masking level is SPL dependent. There is virtually nothing above 5th or 6th harmonic unless high SPLs are used. MOST electronics designs generate something very different. They generate low 2nd and 3rd order and often have a "picket fence" of low level, but nearly equally intense, harmonics right out to the 20th and beyond. They do not match the ear brain pattern and even though at low level this still creates the sense of "synthetic" in terms of timbre, imaging and soundstaging etc. High frequency distortion affects perceived loudness and can make objects sound closer than they are supposed to thus giving a "flattened" image and soundstage.

This electronic overlay, that comes from the phono preamp, the DAC, the preamp and the amps all conspire to destroy believeability because of the utterly unnatural nature of electronic distortion in ways the electromechanical elements in a system and the room simply do not. Just pushing it as low as possible is not really a solution because of the hidden issues with the manner in which modern engineering goes about pushing down that distortion. This is talked about by Pass, Cheever and Crowhurst at length. I won't go into, at this time, what is probably the best solution but I think many of you can guess the direction it suggests.

I recommend reading the work of Geddes, Cheever, Nelson Pass (who seems to not always follow his own findings...i guess for marketing purposes) and Boyk and Sussmann as well as old articles from Norman Crowhurst.

 

[DaveC]

morricab, great post!

 

[LL21]

morricab, great post!

Yes, agree. For me, i first managed to find speakers that do the effortless scale thing reasonably well, and then second i found that true satisfaction came AFTER finetuning the electronics in terms of isolation, damping, grounding, emi/rfi wraps, etc. Once we did this latter piece, we've just settled in.

 

[morricab]

Yes, agree. For me, i first managed to find speakers that do the effortless scale thing reasonably well, and then second i found that true satisfaction came AFTER finetuning the electronics in terms of isolation, damping, grounding, emi/rfi wraps, etc. Once we did this latter piece, we've just settled in.

You should try your X1s with a KR...best I ever heard a Wilson sound was with KR. I brought KR to a friend who had X1 MkI and it was jaw dropping. A couple of years later we tried on a pair X1 MKIIIs with similar results even though the room was much bigger. The X1 has 95db sensitivity and a surprisingly easy load...it is great for SET!

 

[LL21]

You should try your X1s with a KR...best I ever heard a Wilson sound was with KR. I brought KR to a friend who had X1 MkI and it was jaw dropping. A couple of years later we tried on a pair X1 MKIIIs with similar results even though the room was much bigger. The X1 has 95db sensitivity and a surprisingly easy load...it is great for SET!

Thanks Morricab...always enjoy reading and learning from your posts. Yes, absolutely can believe that about SETs and the big Wilsons (certainly my generation of the earlier big Wilsons with their friendly impedance slopes, 95db efficiency, etc), particularly as further evidenced by the legendary magic between Lamm SETs and Wilsons.

I went with the Gryphon Class A amp because (i think its great)...and it gives me optionality. As i once said to Steve many years ago just as i was deciding between Lamm and Gryphon, if i absolutely positively knew i would stay with the big Wilsons, i would have been more tempted to run with Lamms...but the incredibly quality and all-out power of the Gryphon gives me great satisfaction...along with long-term optionality that is very valuable to me.

 

[bonzo75]

I agree, Kronzilla or NAT transmitters. Wilsons do need power and control despite the sensitivity.

 

[LL21]

I agree, Kronzilla or NAT transmitters. Wilsons do need power and control despite the sensitivity.

Yes, also agree. I dont think the big wilsons need watts per se...but those few few watts need to have a lot of current behind them and probably a fair amount of dynamic headroom, capacitance, whatever proper techno guys would say makes 18-36 watts a REAL 18-36 watts.