What's wrong with Redbook, really?

[microstrip]

My view is somewhat different from FrantzM. Science has established that in order to improve audio significantly and systematically for low cost there is only one way - multichannel.sound reproduction. But the recording industry did not adopt it.

Stereo is too variable and vague to be analyzed and implemented exclusively by pure scientific perspective because the number of parameters is too large and is too individualistic, both at the recording and reproduction chains. Using technology based in science, audio could register real systematic improvements during the last years, but at a price. Soon or later we can expect that this improvements will leak in lower cost products. The great increase in prices of extreme quality was due to the existence of people prepared to spend this type money, that allowed manufacturers to introduce products that otherwise would not have seen the light so fast. Surely not all of these products are worth the price, but it is the price we pay for living in a free world with a free market.


If you are really interested in these matters I suggest you read the Floyd Toole paper I have quoted several times, available at the Harman site:

Loudspeakers and Rooms - Working Together

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=%22Stereophonic+and+multichannel+surround+sound+systems%22&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harmanaudio.com%2Fall_about_audio%2Floudspeakers_rooms.pdf&ei=tDMsT72vGsmC8gOh9cH4Dg&usg=AFQjCNHcI42_hAxbEhMUK5lmsUEgsHbYXw&cad=rja

I quote a few sentences as a teaser (and because I like them). But please remember that taken out of the full text they can be misinterpreted

Normally, we strive for some semblance of “realism”, whatever that may be.

As a result, strict realism is an impossible objective, so we try to approach it as closely as possible, within the limitations of our hardware.

Conventional two-channel stereo is another real dilemma. Here loudspeakers range from highly unidirectional through multidirectional to omnidirectional.

Listener preferences cannot be ignored. Some like a large spacious illusion (a relatively live room), others like pinpoint imaging (a relatively dead room).

It will be interesting to see how multichannel music develops.

 

[rbbert]

That not true at all. You can buy pair matched speakers to within a db or so. When you DIY you can also pair match drivers and get very good results

Rob

Exactly my point. Sound matched to "within 1 dB" is nowhere near a close enough match to be indistinguishable; many psychoacoustic experiments have shown it needs to be matched to within 0.1 dB at most, and I've never heard of 2 different models of speakers that come anywhere near that close. Even for the same model that's really tough, perhaps impossible.

 

[MylesBAstor]

You obviously have never done any to come up with a blanket statement like that. They are most certainly cause and effect, If they were not they would not be repeatable.



Rob

Hey Genius you're wrong again. And I'll put my academic achievements and peer reviewed scientific publications up against yours anytime. You obviously don't crap about research-not to mention the behavior of complex systems. If you think any effect can be attributed to one cause, you're sadly mistaken.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Hey Genius you're wrong again. And I'll put my academic achievements and peer reviewed scientific publications up against yours anytime. You obviously don't crap about research-not to mention the behavior of complex systems. If you think any effect can be attributed to one cause, you're sadly mistaken.

Now that's interesting. A scientist/subjectivist reviewer! What's your scientific field, Myles?

Tim

 

[Soundproof]

Exactly my point. Sound matched to "within 1 dB" is nowhere near a close enough match to be indistinguishable; many psychoacoustic experiments have shown it needs to be matched to within 0.1 dB at most, and I've never heard of 2 different models of speakers that come anywhere near that close. Even for the same model that's really tough, perhaps impossible.

BeoLab 5 speakers are manufactured as twins, and matched to within 0.25dB across their entire range.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Now that's interesting. A scientist/subjectivist reviewer! What's your scientific field, Myles?

Tim

20 years of Biophysics and Cancer Research at Columbia College of P&S and NY Medical College. Also spent some time at Institute Gustav-Roussy in Paris.

To quote the great John Wooden, "it's what you learn after you know it all that matters the most." Lot's of wisdom there.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

20 years of Biophysics and Cancer Research at Columbia College of P&S and NY Medical College. Also spent some time at Institute Gustav-Roussy in Paris.

To quote the great John Wooden, "it's what you learn after you know it all that matters the most." Lot's of wisdom there.

Reminds me of my wife's favorite current quote, very topical around our house: "Hire a teenager while they still know everything."

Tim

 

[Robh3606]

Hey Genius you're wrong again. And I'll put my academic achievements and peer reviewed scientific publications up against yours anytime. You obviously don't crap about research-not to mention the behavior of complex systems. If you think any effect can be attributed to one cause, you're sadly mistaken.

Hello Myles

Wow you can be one rude son of a gun.

Move the measurement microphone. You know what happens if you do that?? The measured response changes. Now move it back, my goodness it's the same again!! What changed?? Oh that's right I moved the microphone. Now if that's the only thing I changed I only changed one thing!! Well what do you know!!

And by the way would you consider the loudspeaker and room interface as a complex system?? Gee I would.

While we are at it I changed the resistor value of the pad on my compression driver. It attenuated the output. It did not have any other effect in the complex interaction between the compression driver and the crossover. If I go back to the original value I get the original response.

Rob

 

[MylesBAstor]

Hello Myles

Wow you can be one rude son of a gun.

Move the measurement microphone. You know what happens if you do that?? The measured response changes. Now move it back, my goodness it's the same again!! What changed?? Oh that's right I moved the microphone. Now if that's the only thing I changed I only changed one thing!! Well what do you know!!

And by the way would you consider the loudspeaker and room interface as a complex system?? Gee I would.

While we are at it I changed the resistor value of the pad on my compression driver. It attenuated the output. It did not have any other effect in the complex interaction between the compression driver and the crossover. If I go back to the original value I get the original response.

Rob

Rude obviously is in the eyes of the beholder. GO and reread your post that lead to my response.

 

[fas42]

Normally, we strive for some semblance of “realism”, whatever that may be.

As a result, strict realism is an impossible objective, so we try to approach it as closely as possible, within the limitations of our hardware.

Conventional two-channel stereo is another real dilemma. Here loudspeakers range from highly unidirectional through multidirectional to omnidirectional.

Listener preferences cannot be ignored. Some like a large spacious illusion (a relatively live room), others like pinpoint imaging (a relatively dead room).

It will be interesting to see how multichannel music develops.[/I]

This attitude obviously pervades the industry, as well as the minds of most people on this forum. It's truly sad that it's so hard to get the message out there that there's a third option, the one that I've been offering up repeatedly, which virtually everyone ignores or ridicules, simply because they haven't experienced it.

But such are the ways of the world, it has been like that from the beginning of recorded history and I sure it will continue thus for some time yet ...

Frank

 

[rbbert]

BeoLab 5 speakers are manufactured as twins, and matched to within 0.25dB across their entire range.

Which is all very well and good, but it's still a lot more than 0.1 dB. And I am led to believe that many (most?) high-end speaker manufacturers do match speaker pairs to about that same tolerance, but that 0.1 dB is close to impossible with physically large mechanical transducers like loudspeakers ( at our current level of engineering). And we're only discussing on-axis frequency response, just one of many measurable qualities contributing to the sound of a given loudspeaker.

 

[Vincent Kars]

The Beo’s are DSP controlled so you can match the frequency more accurate than passives.
However I do think 0.25 an incredibly low value.
Most DSP controlled speakers have a tolerance of +/- 1 dB.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

The Beo’s are DSP controlled so you can match the frequency more accurate than passives.
However I do think 0.25 an incredibly low value.
Most DSP controlled speakers have a tolerance of +/- 1 dB.

Are any of these even audible?

 

[Vincent Kars]

dB is a logarithmic scale so even a small difference is substantial.
In general 0.1 is recommended for level matching.
This is probably our loudness threshold.
On the other hand our hearing is not very sensitive to fluctuations in the frequency range.
A normal passive has a tolerance of +/- 3 dB.
Now play a sine sweep.
Do you hear differences in loudness?
Probably not.

 

[MylesBAstor]

First, no we can't agree. It is far from a fact that we currently have all the measurements necessary to describe how we perceive sound and music or measure equipment. If you don't think so, look at the evolving work of the one Keith O. Johnson, who is far from happy with the current set of measurments used to evaluate audio gear.

Two, have you or haven't you read the book This is Our Brain on Music by Daniel Levitan? In fact, I feel this book is a MUST READ for any audiophile and engineer! Levitan, who is a musician, producer and neurophysiologist, has done new studies that disprove many accepted facts about how our brain perceives music, interprets it and processes it.

Third, you are really not understanding the concept of complex biological/systems or unpredictable synergies. These synergies are not in the equipment but in the sound and its perception. Nothing happens as they say in a vacuum. Take drugs for instance. There is no drug that specifically inhibits DNA synthesis. The drug always has a multitude of effects on other systems including RNA and protein synthesis and other cellular pathways too.

This is from the book Neurophysiological Basis of Movement by the Dr. Mark Latash, an outstanding neuroscientist from Russia who is now a Professor at PSU. From Chapter 1 of his book:

1. Function of a neural structure can be derived from properties of its elements (neural cells or neurons) and their connections. So, when researchers accumulate enough information about the structure of the central nervous system (the brain and the spinal cord), its function will become obvious. This approach is commonly called reductionism because it attempts to "reduce" the function of a complex system [my note: and certainly our hearing mechanism and audio system fit that bill] to the properties of its elements. Sometimes another fancy expression is used with respect to this approach: ascending determinism.
2. Function of a complex system cannot be understood on the basis of its structure and the properties of its elements. Understanding a complex system requires a special set of notions that cannot be derived from simply looking at the elements and their connections. So no matter how much information a scientist obtains about the elements of a complex system, he or she will not understand its function without forgetting about the elements, at least temporarily, and looking at the system as a whole. This approach is called the "complex system approach" and my heart belongs to it.

If one accepts the idea that complex systems should be studied in a different way than by accumulating information about their elements, first it is necessary to realize the general properties of a complex system and to introduce an appropriate, meaningful language (set of notions). Note that systems of seemingly different complexity may be described with the same sets of notions. For example, our planetary system consists of zillions of atoms. However, the Bohr planetary model for just one atom is qualitatively rather similar to the solar planetary system. Behavior of a motionless heavy rock may be much more simple and predictable than the behavior of an electron on one of the atomic orbits within the rock. This means that a complex system does not necessarily imply a complicated description of its behavior (emphasis author). Most of the objects surrounding us can be described with fewer parameters and simpler laws than an atomic nucleus. This simplicity of its description is in fact the most important advantage of the complex system approach (author emphasis).

So when I'm talking about unpredictable synergies, I'm referring to the reductionist approach where everything is broken down to its basic elements eg say like in the human genome project where the goal was mapping every gene in our DNA and then ID'ng their function would explain everything we needed to know about all disease. But again, this approach ignores that all these genes can interact to produce other unpredictable results.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

This attitude obviously pervades the industry, as well as the minds of most people on this forum. It's truly sad that it's so hard to get the message out there that there's a third option, the one that I've been offering up repeatedly, which virtually everyone ignores or ridicules, simply because they haven't experienced it.

But such are the ways of the world, it has been like that from the beginning of recorded history and I sure it will continue thus for some time yet ...

Frank

You're a misunderstood genius, frank. You've reinvented natural laws, and all you grt is ridicule. All the greats suffered similarly. History will, no doubt, redeem you.

Tim

 

[Robh3606]

Hello Myles

GO and reread your post that lead to my response.

I don't feel a pressing need to do that. When ever a post starts with:

Hey Genius you're wrong again.

That's usually not a good thing. I felt that was rude, what can I say. The point I was making is I could not see how you could have experience making Speaker/Audio measurements and say there was no direct cause and effect. I was hoping for a constructive response.

I just saw your last post and editted mine. I am talking about the "simple" act of taking measurements. What you just posted about in completely different topic. I will take a look at the book thanks for the reference.

Rob

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Seems like some of you are having a bad day or perhaps the anticipation of waiting for the Superbowl is raising everyone's testoserone levels around here.

 

[fas42]

You're a misunderstood genius, frank. You've reinvented natural laws, and all you grt is ridicule. All the greats suffered similarly. History will, no doubt, redeem you.

Tim

Tim, even you must have realised that more than a couple of the others here are reading from the same songbook as myself: they just prefer to keep their heads down for safety's sake most of the time, unlike me. It's nothing more than persistence that's got me to where I am today, and I just feel it would be a shame not to plant a few more seeds, as they say. It's good to see Myles pushing hard from another angle, and Tom Danley has thrown his bits in, pointing out that what actually occurs physically in the ear organ bears almost no relationship to the sound image that is contructed by the brain. You are quite "obsessed" with the body being a terribly mechanical device that can only deal with the sensory input in a very simplistic way, the truth is far more than that ...

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

You forgot MP3

Wasdat Myles? ...A new genial audio format? :b