Just for the sake of clarity, even I believe in, and experience "height perception." Vertical imaging, where you hear different sound sources placed in different positions, vertically, much in the way we experience lateral imaging, is what I believe is an illusion, a result of expectations and the artifacts of driver incoherence. Of course we can call that perception as well, but if someone wants to argue that it is in any way the tangible result of stereo recording and playback, I'm still waiting for them to show some evidence, based in something other than their own misunderstanding, of any mechanism or technology that would make that possible.
A former member used this tactic. It did not work for him and it will not work for you. Let's list your disbleifs. Your skepticism includes, almost any aspect of audio terminolgy, vinyl, tubes, any specifically described imaging attributes, PRaT, etc. You rarely provide any proof of any of these beleifs. I don't doubt the ability of audiophiles to delude themselves. I just wonder how so many are the collective victims of the same delusion ?
While some recording techniques may lead to either the absence or artificial creation of ambient clues they are those who do it right.
Let's list your disbleifs. Your skepticism includes, almost any aspect of audio terminolgy, vinyl, tubes, any specifically described imaging attributes, PRaT, etc. You rarely provide any proof of any of these beleifs.
You want proof that I believe that many of the words in the audiophile vocabulary are meaningful and consistent enough to be useful? Ok, I believe it. There's your proof. You want proof that I'm skeptical of the alleged superiority of vinyl and tubes? I'm skeptical.
(...) Vertical imaging, where you hear different sound sources placed in different positions, vertically, much in the way we experience lateral imaging, is what I believe is an illusion, a result of expectations and the artifacts of driver incoherence(...)
Tim,
What do you call "artifacts of driver incoherence" ? Do you consider that the existing vertical imaging does not depend on recording (I am excluding the obvious and already referred demo recordings with intentional phase manipulations) ?
What existing vertical information? All music resides in the same horizontal plane and the width of the plane is defined by the separation of your drivers in the cabinet or by the length of your ribbons, stats, or planars don’t ya know.
Micro-Haven’t you noticed by now that kick drum, acoustic bass, snares, tom-toms and cymbals all appear to be coming from the same vertical height in the soundstage?
The next thread in this yawn fest might be that live recordings can’t capture the sound of the venue because the stupid microphones don’t know whether they are in a studio or a club. Therefore, live and studio recordings all sound the same and if it wasn’t for the audience applause that the engineers dumped in there via jigger-pookey on the live recording, you couldn’t tell the difference between a live recording and a studio recording.
Just wondering how many of you sit on your speakers designed listening axis. Typically it is the tweeter so you would want to have the tweeter at ear level when seated. Just for fun here is what the crossover type and slope do to an MTM array. As you can plainly see if you speakers have L/R All pass crossover the front lobe is pronounced and very directional in the vertical axis.
Micro-Haven’t you noticed by now that kick drum, acoustic bass, snares, tom-toms and cymbals all appear to be coming from the same vertical height in the soundstage?
I mentioned it before; in some recordings I can 'perceive' the height of a drum kit.
The cymbals sound higher, and the big kick drum is closer to the floor.
But then, it's just my imagination as there is no such thing in real stereo recordings. :b
My loudspeakers they only go down to 24 Hz (-6 dB); so they ain't full range.
And who knows what's truly goin' on inside them;
perhaps the crossovers are designed to create an out of phase transition between tweeters and mid-woofs, and I never noticed it for the last 25 years!
I ain't an expert that's for sure; I just believe what my ears hear... :b
...And enjoy the music for what it is, and not for what it isn't.
* I don't know two people having the exact same soundstage; anyone does?
P.S. It's snowing right now outside my windows; it's beautiful.
- Listening to Jazz Tango music, from the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra ... :b
I meant a single driver fullrange speaker as in no crossover so it really is a point source. I have more than one speaker system and although the imaging and sound stage are not identicle it transfers real well from system to system.
What existing vertical information? All music resides in the same horizontal plane and the width of the plane is defined by the separation of your drivers in the cabinet or by the length of your ribbons, stats, or planars don’t ya know.
Micro-Haven’t you noticed by now that kick drum, acoustic bass, snares, tom-toms and cymbals all appear to be coming from the same vertical height in the soundstage?
The next thread in this yawn fest might be that live recordings can’t capture the sound of the venue because the stupid microphones don’t know whether they are in a studio or a club. Therefore, live and studio recordings all sound the same and if it wasn’t for the audience applause that the engineers dumped in there via jigger-pookey on the live recording, you couldn’t tell the difference between a live recording and a studio recording.
I mentioned it before; in some recordings I can 'perceive' the height of a drum kit.
The cymbals sound higher, and the big kick drum is closer to the floor.
But then, it's just my imagination as there is no such thing in real stereo recordings. :b
I have referred that I had this illusion using Soundlab panels, Quad ESL63 and line dipoles such as Magnepan 3.3R.
But the most curious case was the Dynaudio Consequence that had the tweeter at the bottom and the woofer at the top and portrayed a tall soundstage - if properly placed no one could tell that the tweeter was the floor level.
One know recording that most time sounds "taller" than the others, with marked differences, is the Jazz at the Pawnshop. And if you look at an spectrometer while listening you will find that sometimes it is not the instrument with more treble that seems more elevated. But you have to be at the proper distance and proper level to maximize the illusion.
Tim,
What do you call "artifacts of driver incoherence" ? Do you consider that the existing vertical imaging does not depend on recording (I am excluding the obvious and already referred demo recordings with intentional phase manipulations) ?
Sorry, Micro, "artifacts" is probably not the right word, but some folks in this long discussion have proposed the possibility that frequency response, manipulated or otherwise, may be creating the sense of a vertical image, because typical driver arrays have woofers on bottom, midrange in the middle and tweeters on top. That would, for example, put a kick drum on the bottom, toms in the center and cymbals on top (sort of; attack transients could really mess with this.). It makes sense that this could contribute greatly the the sense of height, but it's not necessarily a good thing. Ideally, the drivers in your speakers are supposed to merge into a single sound by the time they reach your ears. Being able to hear the individual drivers is not generally considered a good thing. The manipulation of eq to enhance the sense of height doesn't necessarily sound like a good thing to me either. All of the above is what I was referring to as "artifacts."
What existing vertical information? All music resides in the same horizontal plane and the width of the plane is defined by the separation of your drivers in the cabinet or by the length of your ribbons, stats, or planars don’t ya know.
Micro-Haven’t you noticed by now that kick drum, acoustic bass, snares, tom-toms and cymbals all appear to be coming from the same vertical height in the soundstage?
The next thread in this yawn fest might be that live recordings can’t capture the sound of the venue because the stupid microphones don’t know whether they are in a studio or a club. Therefore, live and studio recordings all sound the same and if it wasn’t for the audience applause that the engineers dumped in there via jigger-pookey on the live recording, you couldn’t tell the difference between a live recording and a studio recording.
Rather than continuing to enjoy the spectacle of many people seemingly frothing at the mouth, it would be relatively easy for somebody to make some recordings along the lines of what I suggested, and variations thereof. Then post them on the forum and allows peoples' systems and ears decode them and post their interpretations, "measurements": of course, this might possibly be getting too uncomfortably close to something you could call research, or even science, and that that would spoil the "fun" of this bunfight ...
Sorry, Micro, "artifacts" is probably not the right word, but some folks in this long discussion have proposed the possibility that frequency response, manipulated or otherwise, may be creating the sense of a vertical image, because typical driver arrays have woofers on bottom, midrange in the middle and tweeters on top. That would, for example, put a kick drum on the bottom, toms in the center and cymbals on top (sort of; attack transients could really mess with this.). It makes sense that this could contribute greatly the the sense of height, but it's not necessarily a good thing. Ideally, the drivers in your speakers are supposed to merge into a single sound by the time they reach your ears. Being able to hear the individual drivers is not generally considered a good thing. The manipulation of eq to enhance the sense of height doesn't necessarily sound like a good thing to me either. All of the above is what I was referring to as "artifacts."
Only if the speaker was improperly designed this would happen - can you imagine a speaker where a piano would be constantly changing in height according to the octave ? I have several recordings with high content in the highest keys and never listened to anything like this. Remember that most tweeters are crossed around 2kHz or bellow, covering a full octave of the piano.
Another aspect is that only some recordings show this height behavior - not all of them, suggesting that it is also a recording property.
Reading this thread gives me the impression that scale to some degree cannot to reproduced in a audio system. If you say not to the same degree as the actual event I agree. But on a properly engineered and mic'd recording you do not get a sense of what you are listening to, like a 30 person chorus and the power,space,energy,and shear volume isn't apparent,let's just say you have something to look forward to.
