More talk about cross cancellation ... and the physics that guarantee that such is how it works, .

Which once again takes me back to that moment, getting close to 40 years ago, when speakers of the rig completely disappeared - the sense of that moment I can still feel as if it were yesterday. My amazement that such an illusion could form, and that it was rock solid, I can easily taste, right now. And my chagrin when it slowly evaporated, as the peak accuracy required to pull it off steadily faded - like watching a bright bulb dimming to nothing, as a battery asked to do too much rapidly discharges.

The listening brain don't care a damn about physics ... get it good enough, and the mind "fills in the gaps" ... remarkable stuff ...

for ''disappearing speakers'' these one mic recordings are the ones that does it for me; and Joe Whip says

 Sound Liaison One Mic, "These guys and this recording just rocks. Pace, rhythm, tone and soundstage are just off the charts...I think we would all agree that this recording sounds sensational..."

from the website; 

Quote

When the Josephson C700S microphone is used to its fullest, the result is a completely phase coherent recording with placement depth and superior realism.
"One microphone straight to DXD recording – and it’s totally enchanting"....Hifi Critic
"Fabulous....challenging the possibilities of current recording technology."...Inner-magazines

Just had a listen to the Carmen Gomes Up Jumped the Devil track samples ... yes, plenty sense of place vibes to it. Which gives an idea of what it sounds like when an 'ordinary' recording is replayed well ... phase coherency sounds like a nice thing to have, but is quite unnecessary. "Placement depth and superior realism" occurs with just about anything that has ever been recorded - but requires top notch retrieval of detail, and 'cleanness' to project correctly ... unfortunately, most rigs are not at the necessary standard; and so one is never aware of what the listening experience can be like ...

25 minutes ago, fas42 said:

unfortunately, most rigs are not at the necessary standard

Something tells me you have no idea about most rigs. 

Audiophiles and the audio industry in general very much misunderstand what is required to create a realistic presentation - the focus is so strong on various technical areas, which are only peripheral to what the ear/brain thinks is important. Which is why 99% of playback is obviously 'fake', especially to the most casual and disinterested of listeners .

The Crosstalk Cancellation thread exemplifies that - playing with technical workarounds might help in some instances, but will never replace achieving sufficient integrity of the playback chain.

A quote from there,

Quote

You can't reproduce the original soundfield with speakers accurately so stereo is an effect, a trick to fool our brains, which is accessory to the musical experience.

Yes, a "trick to fool our brains" ... unless one has been exposed many times, or had it happen in a revelatory manner, then one might find it hard to believe how totally convincing this can be - the infamous holodeck in StarTrek is a decent fictional exposition of how one can "be fooled" ... because, the mind wants to believe!

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Something tells me you have no idea about most rigs. 

Unless something dramatic has happened in the last 10 years, then I can't see it otherwise. All recent visits to hifi shops tell me the staff haven't got a clue; the recent audio show visit showed a very decent uplift in average performance, but genuine accuracy still escaped most setups.

What I find interesting is that most audio enthusiasts don't recognise, or appreciate accuracy - while the chase for 'character' continues, I don't see this changing much ...

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Unless something dramatic has happened in the last 10 years, then I can't see it otherwise. All recent visits to hifi shops tell me the staff haven't got a clue; the recent audio show visit showed a very decent uplift in average performance, but genuine accuracy still escaped most setups.

 

What I find interesting is that most audio enthusiasts don't recognise, or appreciate accuracy - while the chase for 'character' continues, I don't see this changing much ...

I stand by my statement. 

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

It’s amazing that you’re pretty much the only guy on Earth who understands audio. It’s also amazing that the products you use are made by the very same people who misunderstand audio. Hmmm

There have been plenty of people on the way - I see Paul Klipsch as a classic example of one, who pushed out product specifically designed to make it easier to achieve competent SQ. The fact that his aim is largely missed by most, and his products are used in setups which are not optimised enough to reach the goal - and only make it "sound worse" when used poorly - is an example of how the industry doesn't grok the situation.

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

There have been plenty of people on the way - I see Paul Klipsch as a classic example of one, who pushed out product specifically designed to make it easier to achieve competent SQ. The fact that his aim is largely missed by most, and his products are used in setups which are not optimised enough to reach the goal - and only make it "sound worse" when used poorly - is an example of how the industry doesn't grok the situation.

Ah Klipsch, the beacon of accuracy 😳

Yes, the company that produces the latest iteration of his thinking, gets it - as here,

Very close to invisible speakers - the walk behind maintains the sense of the piece, but it's still too different when directly in front - my Edifiers do this type of thing, right now.

37 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Yes, the company that produces the latest iteration of his thinking, gets it - as here,

 

 

Very close to invisible speakers - the walk behind maintains the sense of the piece, but it's still too different when directly in front - my Edifiers do this type of thing, right now.

Through a mono microphone resampled and compressed. Sure Frank. 

What you're looking for is a recreation of the musical event, that which is in the recording - and here is that track,

To my ears, that's a pretty good match ... "accuracy", to me, means that the gestalt is conveyed, without obvious errors - and lots of rig 'signature' is not such ...

I suspect I will be shaking my head at the strange rabbit holes that audiophiles dive into, until I "move on" ... . The search for 'magical, technical' solutions continues, as expressed in the Crosstalk Cancellation thread - and no matter how good the reproduction ends up becoming, in standard gear, without adding "special stuff", the pursuit will never end, most likely. Men love delving into weird and wonderful 'tricks', to "make things better" - and if it turns them on, who am I to get in the way of them enjoying their hobby ... .

However ... if you just want to enjoy reproduction of anything that interests you, and experience the "you are there" sensation, the answer is as I have always described it, ever since I first become active in the online world, nearly 20 years ago. The goal is to exploit the human ability to compensate for shortcomings in what our senses pick up, so that from then on what we perceive is realistic, 'natural'. In the visual world an excellent example is the "upside down glasses" - have lenses which invert the light rays hitting the retina - the mind has "a think about it", and suddenly everything turns right side up - we grok what has to be done, and compensate, beautifully.

This also occurs in the auditory world, but most audiophiles ferociously fight the concept - however, this doesn't change the fact that it occurs, . Get what reaches the ears in good enough shape, so that the level of contradictory anomalies are at a low enough level, and the mind "inverts the picture" - that is, the "My God, it's real!" switches on, and an illusion of a musical event materialises which is impossible to break. So, the smart thing to do is to exploit this human behaviour - it is the path of least resistance, if you want to experience the maximum degree of engagement with the great archive of captures of musical events ...

14 hours ago, fas42 said:

I suspect I will be shaking my head at the strange rabbit holes that audiophiles dive into, until I "move on" ... . The search for 'magical, technical' solutions continues, as expressed in the Crosstalk Cancellation thread - and no matter how good the reproduction ends up becoming, in standard gear, without adding "special stuff", the pursuit will never end, most likely. Men love delving into weird and wonderful 'tricks', to "make things better" - and if it turns them on, who am I to get in the way of ………

 

blah

 

…….act that it occurs, . Get what reaches the ears in good enough shape, so that the level of contradictory anomalies are at a low enough level, and the mind "inverts the picture" - that is, the "My God, it's real!" switches on, and an illusion of a musical event materialises which is impossible to break. So, the smart thing to do is to exploit this human behaviour - it is the path of least resistance, if you want to experience the maximum degree of engagement with the great archive of captures of musical events ...

 

with 12 ½ thousand posts of this sort of gibberish in just 6 years… how do you find time to actually listen to & enjoy music ? Quite astonishing……

Well, Frank has the penultimate cult attitude for audio. People like this think they are right even after people prove them wrong.

Nothing more to it.

I would like to remind people that this is a blog thread, so please think a touch more, before posting ...

If the general standard of audio reproduction, out there in the world, was much higher than it usually is, than I would have little interest in posting about stuff. But since it is quite often too badly flawed, or boring, or often outright obnoxious, I'll keep making a 'noise' about it. Alternatively, if when buying tickets for some event there is a disclaimer prominently brought to your attention, such as "Warning: crappy, overbearing, distorting sound system being used! Attend at your own 'risk' ..." - that would be handy ...

It is amusing that people think they have proven someone wrong, when all they do is to jump up and down more vigorously, wave their arms more wildly, and bellow more loudly ... interesting human trait, that one, .

The Crosstalk Cancellation thread is proving a rich source of inspiration,

So, a post says,

Quote

For documental-style classical music the original space acoustics has generally been embedded in the recording ...

Yes.

Quote

... but the spatial cues are all coming from the space between the speakers and have to compete with the cues generated by your room.

No. The spatial cues are coming from the transducers of your speakers, being, or should be, an accurate recreation of the fine detail of the recording. They don't have to compete with the cues generated by your room, because the latter are easily discarded by the listening mind, as being "in another place" - they are irrelevant to the "main event", which is the musical happening being presented to you, subjectively from behind the speakers.

12 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

You looked in the mirror lately?

My goal is to point out that there is "another way" - if the response is that highly intelligent, "Shut up!! You've have got a clue! ... Piisss oorff ..." then, well, I guess I will push my views forward a bit harder, .

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

My goal is to point out that there is "another way"

To me, it appears that your goal is to point out that all other ways a seriously flawed. That by logical extension means yours is the only correct way. 

21 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

To me, it appears that your goal is to point out that all other ways a seriously flawed. That by logical extension means yours is the only correct way. 

They're "seriously flawed" in that they are typically a very torturous path to being able to enjoy all recordings that you might want to listen to. Some setups are extremely capable of making a subset of recordings very engaging, because they have been carefully optimised, by the owner, to highlight all the positives of those recordings. But, for me, they fail, because they don't 'handle' recordings outside that group - something which I address by pointing out that further tweaking, and other adjustments, can lift them to a higher, necessary standard.

Other people have found "correct ways" ... they write about the SQ they get, which I recognise; and I have heard a number of rigs, live, not by me, which nail everything that matters, in the listening. I'm putting down, in my postings, my approach - which has the advantage of working with gear at all price levels, and can be applied to any decent audio chain, if the owner is interested in thinking with a different mindset.

45 minutes ago, fas42 said:

They're "seriously flawed" in that they are typically a very torturous path to being able to enjoy all recordings that you might want to listen to.

Based on your seemingly endless struggles with your equipment as detailed on this site, your path is the more torturous route to audio heaven.

It also appears to be a road that only those who place little value on their time would wish to travel. Most of us have better uses for the finite hours of the day.

27 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Based on your seemingly endless struggles with your equipment as posted on this site, your path is the more torturous route to audio heaven.

 

It also appears to be a road that only those who place little value on their time would wish to travel. Most of us have better uses for the finite hours of the day.

Every man travels his own road ... my 'pleasure' is to understand things, that are interesting to me; hence, "An Edifying Journey" - if I was only interested in "audio heaven", I would most certainly have stopped many years ago; by buying what from careful  testing required the least tweaking, which I would have then done ... end of the road!

"Better uses for the finite hours of the day" has an infinite number of, "ways" ... ask people who decide to climb Mt Everest, when they have a good chance of dying there, if there is a "better use" of their time then the strenuous training regime required, beforehand.

The funny thing is, these days, once the rig is firing nicely, I almost lose interest in listening to it - this is along the lines of, "How many grand symphony performances do you want to hear, one after the other, on some day?" ..."Umm, one will just be fine - having a luxurious meal, over and over again, is getting a bit much ..." .