Is audiophile sound, natural sound?

[orgel]

Was thinking about that, as well - you'd have to direct all your cues for both violins and violas to a very generalized area at the front of the orchestra. Wouldn't work at all for my style of conducting, but some are much more general, I suppose, which would allow them this flexibility.

 

I wonder if he mixes the violas in with the violins at rehearsals as well as performances. The former, to my way of thinking, would create the larger "problem."

 

It's possible that he's just changing the seating at performances because he wants a certain sound in the hall. (IMO, orchestra members — even violists — aren't really depending on the conductor for their cues at a performance. All the conductor really needs to do, if that, is cue the section principal.)

 

Mixing up the sections is pretty unusual, I think, but note that Stokowski was known for experimenting with seating arrangements, so conductors playing around with this is nothing new.

[jabbr]

Was thinking about that, as well - you'd have to direct all your cues for both violins and violas to a very generalized area at the front of the orchestra. Wouldn't work at all for my style of conducting, but some are much more general, I suppose, which would allow them this flexibility.

 

There are many many many jokes about mixing violin and viola players, most not appropriate for public

[AlainGr]

There seems to be a few here ? Rhiannon's Writings: The Viola

It is getting worse here: Viola Jokes (part 1)

[orgel]

This one's a classic:

 

 

--David

[AlainGr]

This one's a classic:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17835[/ATTACH]

 

--David

 

[semente]

...The reason for the peaky treble measured up close, is so the group or orchestra can be distantly mic’ed and sound more like an ensemble as the microphones being further back the resulting treble will be flat...

 

Hi Teresa,

 

I do not believe this is the case - though it may *seem* to be.

What I find with mics that have treble peaks is that the results have treble peaks, regardless of the distance to the source.

With a treble peak in the mic, the results take from said mic will never be flat, even at a distance. What you'll get is diminished energy in the treble, as happens with distance, but the overall shape will still reveal that peak, clear as day. And the overall sound will too, perhaps diminished with distance but nonetheless clear as day.

 

Some like omni mics with treble peaks, on the assumption that the off-axis sound will not exhibit the peak. Here again, the off-axis sound will display diminished level but it will not, at least in my experience, roll the way sound does naturally. Instead, it will roll with that peak. And depending on the shape of the peak, it might smear the time response too.

 

Everyone has their own perspective, I know. Mine is that I wouldn't want to deliberately introduce an error in the assumption that it will somehow compensate (and sum algebraically) for something else. As I often say, my experience has been that 90-95% or more of a recordings ultimate potential quality *ceiling* has already been determined by the time the signals are leaving the mics. (They have not gotten to the mic cables or anything else in the chain yet, much less recording device or format.) As such, I want that signal to be as clean and error-free as I can possibly get. So I want mics that are wideband, peak-free, rolloff-free, flat, and fast-settling. To my ears, anything else will immediately drop that ceiling before the game is even under way.

 

Hi Barry and Teresa,

 

If a mic has peaky treble, it seems logical that this "colouration" or exaggeration of the high frequencies should be a constant whatever the distance but since distance attenuates high frequencies (0.327dB/m @ 15kHz and 0.524 @ 20kHz in a room with 20ºC and 50% humidity, according to Sengpiel Berlin) shouldn't the response grow "flatter" at more adequate distances from the sound source?

This is something that I would to experiment with.

 

Unfortunatelly I have no experience in recording, only on listening to recordings (and moderate) but my impressions are that close-mic'ing exaggerates treble whether the mic is flat or peaky in the highs.

Besides, close-mic'ing "dries" out the natural reverb of the room and since the radiation pattern on many acoustic instruments varies tremendously depending on the frequency, close-mic'ing sounds unnatural to my ears...

Here are a few examples of instrument radiation and response at different mic locations; the author asks: "Which axis should we choose to achive a plausible timbre, an image with good colours?"

 

 

Tony Faulkner mentioned in an interview that although he prefers a minimalist approach to mic'ing he will use a spot mic if he feels the need for it.

From a theoretical point of view I don't I find this totally objectionable as long as that mic is sensibly mixed in a way that doesn't stand out, but again it's something that I would need to experiment with.

 

 

Unlike Teresa, sound quality is not a requirement when I buy classical music and I often end up with "bright-" and/or "cold-"sounding recordings...I do complain a lot but it's something that I have grown used to.

I am not giving up on Rostropovich or Michelangeli or Kleiber or Chung just because their recordings were botched by DG.

 

Best,

Ricardo

[accwai]

This one's a classic:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17835[/ATTACH]

 

--David

 

I feel totally dense... Is that some kind of coded message? CDAG GBCD FDCA?

[esldude]

I feel totally dense... Is that some kind of coded message? CDAG GBCD FDCA?

 

A viola is tuned rather differently than a violin and is based upon an alto clef (rather than the more common treble clef). So the joke is trying to transpose music a viola player isn't really sure what notes are what. Cello is tuned on the bass clef.

 

In any case, the viola is sort of the odd man out in many cases. Hence the jokes about the instrument, people who play it, and not getting along with all the other instruments. As it was the odd man out often so the old tales go, lesser musicians played the viola. Since there are fewer viola players such lesser musicians could get into good orchestras.

 

Example joke:

Make me a better musician

There once was a violist playing in the Winnipeg Symphony. He wasn't that wonderful a player, so he sat at the back of the section. One day, he was cleaning out his attic and discovered an old lamp. He gave it a rub and out popped a genie.

 

"For letting me out of my lamp, I'll grant you three wishes!" he said.

 

The violist thought for a moment and replied, "Make me a far better musician than I am now."

 

The genie told him that this would be done. He was to go to sleep and in the morning, he would be a much better musician. The next day, he woke up to find himself the principal violist of the symphony. Well, this was just great, he thought! But he knew he could do better. He rubbed the lamp again and out popped the genie.

 

"You have two more wishes!" he said.

 

"I want you to make me a better musician than I am even now!"

 

Once again, the genie told him to go to bed and when he woke up, it would be so. When the violist awoke, he found he was now the principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic. Well, the violist thought this was pretty grand, but knew he could do better yet. He rubbed on the lamp again and once more out came the genie.

 

"This is your last wish." the genie said.

 

"I want you to make me yet a better musician still!"

 

Yet again, he was told to go to sleep. The next morning, he woke up to find himself back in Winnipeg, sitting in the last desk of the second violin section.

[bdiament]

...If a mic has peaky treble, it seems logical that this "colouration" or exaggeration of the high frequencies should be a constant whatever the distance but since distance attenuates high frequencies (0.327dB/m @ 15kHz and 0.524 @ 20kHz in a room with 20ºC and 50% humidity, according to Sengpiel Berlin) shouldn't the response grow "flatter" at more adequate distances from the sound source?

This is something that I would to experiment with....

 

Hi Ricardo,

 

Experimentation is always a good thing. The direct experience can tell you a thousand times more than any theoretical analysis will.

 

In response to your question, what occurs with distance is attenuation of high frequencies. This is not the same as making the response flatter. The response just ends up at a lower level. In other words, it isn't only the frequency on which the peak is centered that is diminished, but the frequencies around it too. So you end up with the same peaked response but it is lower in level than the original peaked response.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

[phusis]

I regularly visits concerts, classical and jazz, and I must say that my hifi system gives instruments and voices a different character than the originals. I have never listened on a hifi system, regardless price, that have reproduced a natural sound. Has hifi sound its own character to be regarded as hifi.

 

/lg

/sorry for my language

 

The term "hifi" and how it is associated with audiophile pursuits I find has more or less taken on a life of its own, and as such cover many "natural" varieties of sonic signatures - i.e. often coined into "to each their own," "whatever makes you happy," etc. While I'm perfectly OK with a subjective approach, surely a partial practise of my own, it should not come to cloud the endeavour for a more natural imprinting with basis in unamplified instruments from classical or jazz concerts, sought for in a more singular manner.

 

While there is something to be said about the claim that we can't reproduce the real thing (i.e. live acoustic, unamplified instrumentation), I don't find it's a fruitless endeavour searching for, and actually achieving a progressively formed natural sonic imprinting; the claim to the contrary would only seem to fuel the constant and rather prevailing notion that subjectivity rules, and further make you wonder what justifies the ever-escalating monetary labels on products without any other heading than subjectified luxury (for which there is even more to be said).

 

Part of the problem in achieving a more natural sonic imprinting generally seems grounded in the lack of sheer size/air displacement area of speakers, their sensitity and the type of drive units used. Too big a compromise lies in the design conventions here, as well as the lack of reliance on ears-more-than-measurements and a reference formed through live acoustic, unamplified music and voices. Just my $0.02..

[semente]

Experimentation is always a good thing. The direct experience can tell you a thousand times more than any theoretical analysis will.

 

In response to your question, what occurs with distance is attenuation of high frequencies. This is not the same as making the response flatter. The response just ends up at a lower level. In other words, it isn't only the frequency on which the peak is centered that is diminished, but the frequencies around it too. So you end up with the same peaked response but it is lower in level than the original peaked response.

 

Hi Barry,

 

But according to the curves I have have seen and to Sengpiel Berlin's calculator, the audible range is not attenuated evenly:

 

0.524dB/m @ 20kHz

0.327dB/m @ 15kHz

0.159dB/m @ 10kHz

0.044dB/m @ 5kHz

0.005dB/m @ 1kHz

 

If I understand it correctly, when a mic is positioned some 8 metres away from the source you'll get 4dB attenuation at 15kHz and but only 0.4dB at 5kHz and 0.0dB at 1kHz; it appears that in reality only the peak will get attenuated.

 

Best,

Ricardo

[semente]

2) "air" around instruments is natural and is always heard with live acoustic music. Let’s say you go to see an acoustic jazz trio, with the piano in the center of the stage, the drums to the right and the bass to the left, you will not only hear the sounds from the instruments themselves but the sound of the room (ambiance) in-between and around the instruments. This ambiance (room noise) between and around the instruments is usually captured with omni directional microphones placed aways back. It is “black silence” between the instruments that is unnatural and is caused by close mic’ing of the major labels. Audiophile labels are more distantly and minimally mic’ed. The natural air around the instruments instead of the cold sounding black silence is why audiophile recordings made from the microphones to the finished format, up sound more like live acoustic music to me.

 

Hi Teresa,

 

I guess that we have attributed a different meaning to the word "air"...audiophilia would really benefit from a common language.

 

You seem to describe "air" as the natural reverb that instruments produce in space while for me it's an artificial exaggeration of the high frequencies that accentuates decay and detail.

Stereophile describes "airiness" as Pertaining to treble which sounds light, delicate, open, and seemingly unrestricted in upper extension. A quality of reproducing systems having very smooth and very extended HF response.

 

Best,

Ricardo

[bdiament]

Hi Barry,

 

But according to the curves I have have seen and to Sengpiel Berlin's calculator, the audible range is not attenuated evenly:

 

0.524dB/m @ 20kHz

0.327dB/m @ 15kHz

0.159dB/m @ 10kHz

0.044dB/m @ 5kHz

0.005dB/m @ 1kHz

 

If I understand it correctly, when a mic is positioned some 8 metres away from the source you'll get 4dB attenuation at 15kHz and but only 0.4dB at 5kHz and 0.0dB at 1kHz; it appears that in reality only the peak will get attenuated.

 

Best,

Ricardo

 

Hi Ricardo,

 

That can be true *only* if the peak has exactly the inverse shape of the curve you described. (And these numbers only go to 20 kHz.)

 

For example, if you have a mic with a peak at 8 kHz (a common place for the treble peak in many of the common, large diaphragm mics), after all the attenuation, the peak remains. The range in which the peak resides has been slightly diminished in amplitude but the peak still rises above the response at the surrounding frequencies.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

[jabbr]

I feel totally dense... Is that some kind of coded message? CDAG GBCD FDCA?

 

Its actually DNA sequence : How Do You Sweep The Ivy League? Practice

[InfernoSTi]

One thing that has not been discussed (or I missed it, sorry) is the artistic intention. This isn't an exercise in anything but art. Therefore, all the rules and definitions and preferences are not really relevant if the artist (or team of artists in an artistic conversation) produce the sound they wish to convey.

 

The visual equivalent of what I am trying to say is to have a bunch of art enthusiasts complaining that all paintings are not as realistic as they would like. Now I understand that when the artist is trying to be "realistic" but sometimes the artist wants to exaggerate or be artificial for artistic reasons.

 

It matters not if we prefer it or we don't, if that is the artistic intent, then it is correct. We are talking about art here, not scientific reproduction of test signals.

 

I would expect this will lead to the "our systems shouldn't add anything to the signal so we can be as close as possible to the source" conversation. I think it is a little bigger than that but perhaps that is must my perspective.

 

John

[accwai]

Its actually DNA sequence [...]

 

Seriously?

 

In any case, about the use of alto clef in viola, strictly speaking it isn't transposing because the pitches are played as written. Alto clef happens to to cover the whole range of the viola. Transposition is used to force instruments into a common clef that doesn't neatly cover their range. For example an F French Horn sounds a perfect 5th below what is written. That allows French Horn music to be written in treble clef. But then French Horn parts would appear in the dominant key of what everybody else is playing.

 

In fact, now that I think about it, if viola scores were transposed in the same way as French Horn, you'll be able to play it with the exact fingering of a violin. No need for alto clef then...

[orgel]

In any case, about the use of alto clef in viola, strictly speaking it isn't transposing because the pitches are played as written. Alto clef happens to to cover the whole range of the viola. Transposition is used to force instruments into a common clef that doesn't neatly cover their range. For example an F French Horn sounds a perfect 5th below what is written. That allows French Horn music to be written in treble clef. But then French Horn parts would appear in the dominant key of what everybody else is playing.

 

No real disagreement here, but I just wanted to add that the alto clef is really a movable clef. You can put it anywhere on the staff you want, and wherever the clef points is middle C. (They tell me that all clefs used to be movable, but that was before my time.) The way I'd characterize the joke is that since no one other than violists plays from a chart that uses an alto clef, it makes viola charts pretty hard to read, and the implication is that violists have trouble with them, too. (It always makes jokes way more funny when you have to explain them.)

 

--David

[accwai]

No real disagreement here, but I just wanted to add that the alto clef is really a movable clef. You can put it anywhere on the staff you want, and wherever the clef points is middle C. (They tell me that all clefs used to be movable, but that was before my time.)

 

Yup. The middle of the "G" sign of the treble clef marks the G above middle C, and what's in between the two dots of the "F" sign of the bass clef marks the F below middle C. As for alto clef, I think it's called that only when the C in on the middle line. If the C is elsewhere, it's called something else.

 

The way I'd characterize the joke is that since no one other than violists plays from a chart that uses an alto clef, it makes viola charts pretty hard to read, and the implication is that violists have trouble with them, too. [...]

 

That's a rather big assumption Anyway, enough digression already...

[JonP]

At one time, I would have thought headphones would reveal more, not less. I'd probably still believe that if I hadn't heard better speakers and better placement. Too many instances of something being right there with the speakers and absent in the cans - many different speakers, many different cans.

 

No, I don't believe it has anything to do with comb filtering. That would involve missing information. I'm talking about increased resolution of low level transients. In other words, it isn't a frequency issue as much as it is a speed issue. I believe good speaker setups reveal more because they simply have more resolving power.

 

I agree. I think there is an overall misconception about the resolving power of headphones. There are obviously exceptions to the rule but in my experience they are very few and far between. I would only need half the fingers on my hand to count them. In my own experience, an extremely competent pair of headphones (say in the $1,000 range upwards) is subjectively about as good in terms of resolving power as a very high quality small monitor - I'll just give an example for argument's sake something like a Royd Merlin.

 

Merlin | Royd Audio Loudspeakers

 

I use this analogy because having had both extensive experience with those speakers as well as having had a lot of experience with premium quality headphones, that really is about as good as they get in terms of resolving power. Which means that whilst you can keep getting better and better as you go into esoteric speaker territory, the returns aren't really the same with headphones.

 

And yes, I agree about the "speed" issue as being a primary cause. This is also in my opinion why electrostatic headphones can potentially produce a better result though in my experience no headphones on the planet can come close to a premium pair of real speakers, as much as headphone users might want to take exception to that.

 

All that said, I use headphones exclusively for my analogue to digital transfers of vinyl. And I use them in such a way that they do actually pick up anything any high quality speaker would. In doing this, I actually use the headphones in two ways. One is the "normal" way, but another is by putting Dolby Headphone into the monitoring circuit with some EQ to compensate for the spectral changes caused by Dolby Headphone. Obviously this does not effect the source material as it is purely in the monitoring that I employ it. But I find that when I am actually doing an edit point for example (say restoring half a second of audio caused by a vinyl "fill" problem), I have to listen to it both using the headphones the "normal" way, then via Dolby Headphone with the EQ. If I don't do this then my editing can potentially lack the perfection for which I always strive. For example, with Barry's "click" example, such an artefact might not necessarily show up using the headphones the "normal" way but it will be instantly obvious when I put Dolby Headphone and the EQ into the circuit. And vice versa. Other things where a certain edit methodology may produce a sudden phase shift (such as interpolation) is also obvious with the headphones using them this way. By listening both ways, I can eliminate any artefacts better (in my opinion) than using anything but the most top flight monitors available in an extremely well sound-proofed mastering room.

 

Earlier this year I upgraded my headphones to the Fostex TH600. I also liked the TH900 (no real surprise there) but did not really perceive the value for monitoring purposes (the finish was not really "studio" rugged either). Perhaps the best headphone I have ever heard is the relatively new AKG K812. These are in my opinion and experience the only headphones that I would willingly substitute for a high quality pair of electrostatic loudspeakers if my listening circumstances precluded them (which they do!).

[JonP]

Unlike Teresa, sound quality is not a requirement when I buy classical music and I often end up with "bright-" and/or "cold-"sounding recordings...I do complain a lot but it's something that I have grown used to.

I am not giving up on Rostropovich or Michelangeli or Kleiber or Chung just because their recordings were botched by DG.

 

Speaking of Michelangeli on DG, I did this analogue to digital transfer a while back. The source was a vinyl reissue of Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 (2531 302). I actually think this is a rather good DG recording. The upload is just a 10 MB FLAC 16/44 derivative of my 24 bit transfer but I think even Teresa wouldn't find it objectionable.

 

https://www.sendspace.com/file/0ph9su