What Really Matters?

[PeterA]

I was reading a thread this morning, and someone posted a link to a quote by fellow WBF member Eichenbaum. It was written on Jan. 31st, 2014. Eichenbaum wrote:

"What really matters? The signal that reaches the speaker or the sound that reaches your ears?"

I hope Eixhenbaum does not mind me referring to his quote and using it to start a new thread.

I think these are two great questions and they get at the heart of the discussion we had in the recent vinyl versus digital thread. There, we discussed people's goals with their systems. One argument was that digital presents a more accurate copy of the original mic feed while the other was that vinyl presents a sound from a system that more closely resembles live, acoustic music, at least for some listeners. The discussion was basically about the final system sound versus maintaining signal integrity.

This question of "what really matters" also just came up in Amir's Entreq thread in the measurement forum while discussion testing protocols. What should we test for, and do the tests tell us what we really want to know?

I would like to discuss these two questions because I think how one answers them describes much about the way he approaches this hobby and what his priorities and goals are.

I tend to care most about how a system sounds and whether or not it reproduces my music in a believable and convincing way. My goal is to have the music recorded on my records sound like live acoustic music and to attempt to recreate the recorded performance in my listening room. Does this mean that I don't care about the signal that reaches my speakers? I do not think so, because the integrity of that signal must matter to the final sound, but it does mean that I am more interested in the final sound than in what is happening to the signal between my stylus and my speakers.

What do others think? Do Eichenbaum's questions get to the essence of this hobby?

 

[still-one]

I purchase gear that makes music sound good when it reaches my ear. What comes before is moot.

 

[Rodney Gold]

the signal that hits your ears matters.. of course how the ear/brain processes that signal matters as much too..

 

[NorthStar]

...The signal that reaches your soul; that's what matters. :b

When you're sailing on the ocean; is it the wave under the boat or the wind in the sail?
It's all the ingredients contributing to the exhilaration of skating on the ocean's surface; you and the sailing boat becoming one happy movement.

Yes, the sound reaching your ears because it is determined by the grooves from the music record vinyl being tracked by the stylus and going through the cart, the tonearm, the phono preamp, the preamp, the amp and the loudspeaker. ...Audio signal recorded and pressed into vinyl, and audio signal extracted by the analog rig and travelling and amplified along the way to the speaker's crossover and drivers.
If the music recording quality is poor, it'll make you suffer a little. Your ears will not register the proper emotional value. That's where it all first starts.
If the music recording is good (album vinyl), that signal reaching the listener's ears will also reach his soul on a higher emotional level.

Everything matters. ...Including the music listener's predisposition in space and in time.
___________

Peter, I asked @ another forum on how best to integrate a subwoofer or two with a hi-end stereo analog rig using a pair of quality monitor speakers.
The main ingredient, from the subwoofer expert, was the use of a microphone...@ 80%.
What does it mean? ..Yes, indeed some measurements. And with measurements come experimentation on subwoofer's positioning, and possibly equalization, even from a simple parametric equalizer @ 3 or 5 points (4-6) across the lower audio spectrum region...20 to 200Hz. ...Depending, on the microphone's results.

Phase, delay, coherence.

 

[Joe Whip]

the signal that hits your ears matters.. of course how the ear/brain processes that signal matters as much too..

So true, explains it all. It is why people can take turns sitting in the sweet spot with the same music and gave very different opinions on the sound. It is that computer between our ears that is the key.

 

[NorthStar]

I like that; the listener's brain computer formula. ...The art of music processing power...the brain.

 

[Joe Whip]

We all have different processing software.

 

[fas42]

Very good theme for a thread ...

I would put it as, "The sound that leaves the surface of the speaker drivers". Why frame it in this fashion? Because, it takes the listening environment out of the equation, what happens once the acoustic waves are generated from some sort of moving surface, everything afterwards, is ignored. So, why do I not worry about what happens in the room? Because, IME the sound generated by the speakers is the only thing that really counts, is that which guarantees success or failure in conjuring up a convincing illusion, at all times. And it means that the whole system, right up to the mechanism that excites the air molecules play their part in making it happen, or not.

As a specific method for assessing whether this factor is sufficiently good enough, I go up those speaker driver surfaces and listen to them, literally with my ear inches away, at full normal volume of playback ... do I want to deafen myself? No, I'm doing no more than the equivalent to going right next to a violinist, standing only a foot away from a trumpeter, leaning over the soundboard of a piano in full cry - do these things sound hideous if I do that? No, but it's incredibly intense, the sound completely fills my perceptual universe when I do that ... and an audio system should do exactly the same thing if it's working correctly!

 

[Whatmore]

Very good theme for a thread ...

I would put it as, "The sound that leaves the surface of the speaker drivers". Why frame it in this fashion? Because, it takes the listening environment out of the equation, what happens once the acoustic waves are generated from some sort of moving surface, everything afterwards, is ignored. So, why do I not worry about what happens in the room? Because, IME the sound generated by the speakers is the only thing that really counts, is that which guarantees success or failure in conjuring up a convincing illusion, at all times. And it means that the whole system, right up to the mechanism that excites the air molecules play their part in making it happen, or not.

As a specific method for assessing whether this factor is sufficiently good enough, I go up those speaker driver surfaces and listen to them, literally with my ear inches away, at full normal volume of playback ... do I want to deafen myself? No, I'm doing no more than the equivalent to going right next to a violinist, standing only a foot away from a trumpeter, leaning over the soundboard of a piano in full cry - do these things sound hideous if I do that? No, but it's incredibly intense, the sound completely fills my perceptual universe when I do that ... and an audio system should do exactly the same thing if it's working correctly!

How does your technique work if there is more than one driver (with your ear up close you only hear one driver at a time so you may not be hearing the instruments properly)

 

[Eichenbaum]

PeterA, be my guest.

Eichenbaum

 

[GaryProtein]

. . . .Everything matters. ...Including the music listener's predisposition in space and in time. . . .

No question about that!

. . . people can take turns sitting in the sweet spot with the same music and gave very different opinions on the sound. . . .

When speakers have a very defined sweet spot, that means there are LOTS of SOUR spots for the ears to contend with!

 

[ack]

"What really matters? The signal that reaches the speaker or the sound that reaches your ears?"

Hmmm, if what really matters is the signal that reaches the speaker, then any speaker would do. I don't think so...

 

[NorthStar]

Hmmm, if what really matters is the signal that reaches the speaker, then any speaker would do. I don't think so...

What you've just said confirms the prime importance of the music recording's sound quality.

 

[fas42]

How does your technique work if there is more than one driver (with your ear up close you only hear one driver at a time so you may not be hearing the instruments properly)

Yes, it does sound bizarre - and I was quite amazed when I first heard, experienced this behaviour myself. Seemingly, the ear/brain compensates, automatically, for the different intensities, and path lengths of the sound reaching the ear, from the other drivers - I'm totally unaware of the sound coming from different drivers while listening in this fashion, the sounds are all integrated into a coherent whole in the listening - this coincides, fairly obviously, with the invisible speaker thing.

It requires a very high standard of replay, difficult to achieve even with the best gear, when set up normally. What appears to be happening is one's hearing is getting enough, clean information so that the reproduced sound picture can dominate everything else - I've had the situation repeatedly where this level of quality was in play, but some aspect of the system started to deviate from non-optimal, as I was listening, and the illusion quite rapidly collapsed, and I was back to sound coming from speakers, like normal.

The brain appears to be fussy, picky about this - it literally is like a switch flicking over in one's head, going from good enough, to not good enough, at least for me. But I've had confirmation from other listeners that the "good enough" is indeed special ...

 

[Whatmore]

Yes, it does sound bizarre - and I was quite amazed when I first heard, experienced this behaviour myself. Seemingly, the ear/brain compensates, automatically, for the different intensities, and path lengths of the sound reaching the ear, from the other drivers - I'm totally unaware of the sound coming from different drivers while listening in this fashion, the sounds are all integrated into a coherent whole in the listening - this coincides, fairly obviously, with the invisible speaker thing.

It requires a very high standard of replay, difficult to achieve even with the best gear, when set up normally. What appears to be happening is one's hearing is getting enough, clean information so that the reproduced sound picture can dominate everything else - I've had the situation repeatedly where this level of quality was in play, but some aspect of the system started to deviate from non-optimal, as I was listening, and the illusion quite rapidly collapsed, and I was back to sound coming from speakers, like normal.

The brain appears to be fussy, picky about this - it literally is like a switch flicking over in one's head, going from good enough, to not good enough, at least for me. But I've had confirmation from other listeners that the "good enough" is indeed special ...

dunno, seems odd to me.
As an extreme example if you have your ear right up to the bass driver and you are listening to a flute or some other high frequency instrument... you expect that to sound real?

 

[GaryProtein]

dunno, seems odd to me.
As an extreme example if you have your ear right up to the bass driver and you are listening to a flute or some other high frequency instrument... you expect that to sound real?

Nobody does that when they listen to music.

People sit in a chair some distance from their speakers and the sound from all the drivers integrate.

 

[fas42]

dunno, seems odd to me.
As an extreme example if you have your ear right up to the bass driver and you are listening to a flute or some other high frequency instrument... you expect that to sound real?

Perhaps with an extreme situation of having a massive subwoofer driver in front of you, with the treble unit very distant, elevated above you it may not occur - I would acknowledge that in all the instances that I have experienced this that the drivers all covered a decent part of the spectrum in themselves, no purely low bass units.

Odd is an understatement of what it sounds like(!) - my belief is that the hearing system always tries to make sense of what it hears, and if there is too much confusion in the sound then the brain gives up; it sounds messy, "non-transparent", especially when not in the 'sweet spot' ... if one can get the quality over a hurdle of sufficient clarity then the soundscape of the recording falls into place, and always gells no matter where you listen to it.

 

[Rodney Gold]

You cannot take reality out the picture .. the reality is that we hear the sound from a distance and the environment (room) modifies it hugely and integrates the elements

I don't think the ear against the driver approach is like standing nearer a piano etc.. its more like leaning into the cover and placing your ear near a string on the soundboard ... the tone of the piano will never be heard correctly that way

Ive often gone to my speakers and put my ear inches from the drivers.. it has never sounded in any way real to me.

 

[fas42]

Ive often gone to my speakers and put my ear inches from the drivers.. it has never sounded in any way real to me.

Which is normally the case for audio systems - and what makes it so special when the 'realness' snaps into place. First time it happened for me it was completely unexpected, and I spent quite some time trying to comprehend what had occurred. The behaviour switched off after a short time, and I was again scratching my head, wondering what the hell was going on now! However, by dint of continually fiddling with the setup, trying to get that characteristic to repeat, I realised what the key factor was - I had to keep the system working at an optimal level, if some key types of subtle distortion crept in then the battle was lost. The types of artifacts that matter are what people call noise modulation, or noise floor; the loss of micro-details is another way of describing it.

Put it this way: once you experience it, you never forget it - it's the gold elixir of audio; and the chase is on to be able to get it at all times.

 

[KostasP.]

Hello rom Melbourne,
This is my inaugural post ( after having recently discovered WBF ) and I would like to express some thoughts on this very fundamental topic: "What really matters?" At the outset, I will insist that the answer is not a dualistic, simplistic one, i.e.." the signal that reaches the speakers or the sound that reaches your ears". It is, in fact, a holistic evaluation, beginning with the signal that reaches the microphones, encompassing both technical and musical considerations\priorities by the people involved and implementing these priorities through the subsequent stages ( type and usage of ancillary equipment and processes ) until the creation of the final product, BEFORE even the signal begins to reach your playback system.
As listeners, we can ONLY control events after this point. And rest assured, PeterA’s stated goals can, to a very large extent, be attained in the re-representation of the recorded event, PROVIDED THAT we rid ouselves of certain illusions\delusions, often approaching levels of obsessiveness and pathological persistence in the belief that a live musical event can be reconstructed as a facsimile of the original in our listening rooms.
The distance between innocent ignorance and wishful thinking defines the level of unfulfilled musical satisfaction and sanity in all of us. Ignorance is just as blind as passion; And we all suffer from this syndrome.
I often wish that every passionate audiophile was also a recordist and, if possible, a player of a musical instrument in any level of competence. These attributes will prove to be the most effective and soothing antidote in diluting our illusions mentioned earlier, rendering us wiser and saner. I have subjected myself to strong doses of this antidote and do NOT expect my system to turn a CROW into a NIGHTINGALE!!!!
I live for sound and music and often my system gives me greater pleasure than the real, live thing. As for the recorded ‘’real thing’’.....well...unless you’ve done the recording.......no-one will really know. Given the level of quality of the production stages and armed with the above qualifications, a good, let alone excellent playback system ( and I include mine as such ) will fulfil PeterA’s and everyone else’s goals......just don’t insist on wanting to hear neither what was NEVER there in the first place nor to turn that proverbial crow into a nightingale.
At this point, a brief but pertinent digression: a comment in relation to the conclusive remarks emanating from the discussion about vinyl versus digital ( which I have not read ), as mentioned by PeterA. It is so oversimplistic to state that ‘’digital presents a more accurate copy of the original mic feed’’ whilst vinyl a copy ‘’closely resembling live acoustic music’’. With high quality equipment, a mic feed whether digital or analogue will be closer to the live instrument than the recorded signal, analogue or digital.
The greatest degree of deterioration\degradation occurs once the signal is RECORDED and what it passed through in the process. It is this recorded signal that is deviant. Ponder for a minute the number of perplexing stages that take place in the production of vinyl and digital and the resultant ‘’editorializing’’ with every involved stage. No wonder then that direct-to-disc recordings, done properly, impart an evident immediacy, naturalness and vividness because apparently the recording stage was eliminated.
Of course, it is a known fact that certain components can approach the mic feed more faithfully than others. Very few speakers, for example, have the natural, uninhibited and linear transparency \ resolution of the MARTIN LOGAN CLX electrostatics. And to slightly stretch the analogy, the CLXs in comparison to conventional speakers ( for the obvious reasons with varying degree: cabinet resonances \colourations, multiple driver cross-over \ phase issues, driver mass \ weight, etc.), are the equivalent of the direct-to disc vinyls!! ( See footnote 1 ).
Finally, acknowledging that I am not saying anything new ( who afterall is ), I postulate these views with the rather naive aim of reassuring ourselves that chasing the unattainable reproduction of the live musical event is an act of futility! I agree with PeterA that this a philosophical question pertaining to our hobby and how one answers it, reveals the way one approaches the hobby and his listening priorities.
I play, record, ( see footnote 2 ), attend live performances and, of course, listen extensively and intensively on a daily basis. There are innumerable times when the sound of my system gives me greater pleasure than the live event One does not need any transcendental powers to witness this. A good, let alone excellent system ( with high quality recordings ) can make the real more.......’’real’’.
Thank you for your patience and apologies for any ‘’edginess’’ in my comments.
Kostas Papazoglou, Melbourne (forum neophyte, not so re. our hobby).
Footnote 1: MAGICO owners will of course be in ......complete agreement!
Footnote2: I do not wish to give the impression that I am a professional recording engineer....far from it.