In Search Of Accurate Sound Reproduction: The Final Word!

[fas42]

Good thread ... yes, the industry lost its way totally for awhile - there are encouraging signs currently, some people are discovering how good reproduction can actually be, in terms of delivering the "live experience". Mostly, through hideously expensive rigs - which is one way - but it doesn't have be the only way: very conventional, good value for money components can deliver if suitably optimised and refined.

 

My own efforts have shown what's possible - 100% aurally invisible speakers, which deliver all the visceral and emotional "grunt" of the "real thing" - not possible to achieve by attaching components A, B and C together, using cables D; but by careful sorting out of the system in hand.

[fas42]

Ahhh, my favourite buddy boy AJ is onto it ...

[fas42]

17 minutes ago, esldude said:

I am assuming Frank's HTIB has multiple speakers or multiple speaker simulations.  So that is the way forward??

 

Nope. That is, that system was purely operating as a stereo - multi-channel is not necessary to conjure a realistic portrayal, a fullness in the experience is generated automatically when the quality is high enough; all the echos within the listening space are additive, not subtractive, to that sense of a musical event.

 

The description that most makes sense is an old one: chop off all the listening space past the plane that the speakers lie on, and have the remaining area you're listening in "transported to the venue" - what you experience is the equivalent to doing that.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, STC said:

 

But research suggests that side and rear wall reflection is essential for realistic sound reproduction. 

 

We are saying the same thing - the area "chopped off" is that behind the speakers; it's the front wall that "disappears".

[fas42]

1 hour ago, semente said:

And because loudspeakers produce sound in rooms, the acoustics of the listening room will interact with the spatial cues of the natural acoustic venue where the original musical event took place (excluding studio recordings, which don't have those natural cues).

The less your listening room interferes with the reproduction, the more of the original event you'll be able to listen to.

 

Furthermore, if you want your system to reproduce an instrument as if it were playing in there with you this instrument would have to be recorded in free-space (anechoic).

 

In most studio recordings the various instrument are recorded in semi-anechoic conditions, sometimes in different studios, often in mono; EQ, panning, reverb and adjustements in level are made during mixing and this will create an artificial ambience which may benefit from some room contribution and even the extra low even order harmonic boost...

 

What happens with playback is that you have the ambience of the room you're in, "in conflict" with the ambience encoded in the recording, whether natural or studio engineered. In lesser quality reproduction the combination of room and recording determines the overall sense conveyed in the listening; if the playback is lifted to a very high standard then the ambience expressed by the recording will completely dominate; your listening room "disappears", to be replaced by those spaces encoded in the recording.

 

Highly manipulated studio recordings become quite fascinating to "observe"; each sound element has its own space, independent of the others, and can be seen as an isolated participant: subjectively, it's as if one had control of the 24 or whatever track master, and can mentally slide the faders down on everything except the track of interest.

[fas42]

8 hours ago, STC said:

Ok. This is my third attempt since my last two posts have gone missing. 

 

Yes, please do show your unique setup. I am curios to know how you could that with 2 speakers. We all can learn something new. 

 

Audio samples would be great even made from cheap microphone as it could reveal room coloration easily. 

 

Thanx. 

 

A busy day today, can't engage here - but I have a YouTube channel with some very poor quality captures of what that HT rig did, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzkx85ez3DVxRAnpkbQEA2w/videos

[fas42]

1 hour ago, STC said:

 

Thanx for the link. I noticed that you recorded the sound from less about one meter away measured perpendicular to the two speakers. Do you listen that close?

 

 

No, it was purely because the speakers were positioned in the room such that there was only so much area where I could put up the single microphone - this is in my "work room", mess everywhere, where it's convenient to fiddle with things.

 

Note that this is not the HT machine that AJ mentioned, the recordings of that are clearly noted as such, and with those the recordings were done halfway down the house, because the gain control of the recorder overloaded, badly, if done any closer.

[fas42]

Interesting we have veered into a solid "speaker and placement is everything" discussion ... what I learned over the years is that a competent system can be plunked down into any location, as shambolic as you like, and it will always "sound right". "Accurate Sound Reproduction", which is what this thread is nominally about, has the implication that it always is convincing in the illusion that it presents, and if you have to play around with the fine tuning of how it is projected into the listening place "to work" then that says to me that it is defective sound, that has to use crutches of the room involvement, to get the job done.

 

Competent sound ticks the boxes when your ears are inches away from the drivers, down the other end of the house, or listening from outside through a window. Getting "magic" to happen in what you hear is not easy, but once heard becomes the goal from then on.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

In Search Of Accurate Sound Reproduction: The Final Word!

 

It's difficult to chase "the real thing" as a goal in music reproduction when the music that the vast majority listen to on their systems never existed in real time or real space. Electric guitars, Fender-Rhodes pianos, synthesizers, horns with contact microphones feeding directly into a recording console, all of these constitute the bulk of what comprises modern pop music. People who say that "reality" as a goal is irrelevant are correct as far the majority of the music reproduced in the home is concerned. How can there be accurate reproduction of music that never has existed, on its own in real space? What it really sounds like is not what one might hear in the performance studio, but rather it is what one hears in the control room, emanating from the monitor speakers when the mix is finalized. So, in actuality, the only way to reproduce accurately, what the original performance sounds like, is to have the same brand and model of speakers in one's listening room as the studio had in the room where the recording was mixed. That is wildly impractical, and almost impossible, since that information is rarely provided with the release's liner notes and nobody could own enough speakers to cover all the possible combinations of monitors used by all the studios in the world recording pop. JGH and I spoke of this paradox often. One would think that owning a pair of speakers that, themselves, would be as neutral as possible would take care of that, but it doesn't. A neutral pair of speakers might let you hear what left the recording console on it's way to the monitor speakers, but the final sound of the recording is judged by what came out of the monitor speakers, not what went into them.

 

 

In practice this is not a problem - I have yet to find a recording that doesn't interest me, that doesn't make me want to soak up what it has to offer ... wait a minute! There is an exception, and that's "audiophile recordings" - these are the most boring, contrived productions; they are the least played of any disks I have, most were acquired as cheapies, so, I'm not fussed ... .

 

An extremely unpromising set was some pure meditation music, the stuff you buy in a crystal shop; the single synthesizer note held on for 30 secs or so - nominally, boring to the max. But, it was produced by musicians who hate not adding their little touches - so, it's full of Easter eggs! Extremely faint sound effects, musical mutterings at very, very low levels, encoded with echo so they sound as if miles away; these are fascinating to watch out for, to enjoy, and make each track a treat to peruse, every time.

[fas42]

11 minutes ago, STC said:

 

Not in my case. I am unable to see how a competent system can be any different from real instruments when dealing with room acoustics. 

 

Which is my point. The name of the game, for me, is that the behaviour mirrors how the live instrument would sound, in that environment. Personally, the buzz is that I feel I'm experiencing the "reality" of the instruments in action - if a string quartet, or rock group happened to knock on my door, and say that they wanted to play in my living place, full bore - should I reject that offer, because my acoustics weren't up to snuff?

[fas42]

12 minutes ago, jabbr said:

As someone who listens to all of unamplified classical, unamplified jazz and live electronic jazz / blues / rock it has always impressed me that live music even when amplified with less than perfect equipment still has a "live" sound -- not always, I've heard absolutely terrible amplified music yet often at a small club the sound is unmistakably "live"

 

Indeed that is my goal - I chase the "live" feel - the impact, the visceral intensity, the dynamic hit that can be overwhelming; a huge wave of sound that buries me totally, in the best possible way ...

 

[fas42]

13 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

To all who have responded thus far: you have all missed my point completely!

 

Well, you said,

 

Quote

So, in actuality, the only way to reproduce accurately, what the original performance sounds like, is to have the same brand and model of speakers in one's listening room as the studio had in the room where the recording was mixed.

 

The original performance of sounds which were not created acoustically is the output from the programs and circuits which generated the digital, or analogue data. The control room playback system is just an effects unit, which presents one version of that data; why should I be interested in that version, versus another? I always have access to the "original performance', via the data; it means that I have endless capacity to spice it to taste, if I so want.

[fas42]

On 10/06/2017 at 10:32 PM, AJ Soundfield said:

Then demos a real audio science system (rather amusingly) to folks from the audiophile sphere here:

http://www.onhifi.com/features/20010615.htm

I'm not sure if it could hold a candle to Franks 2ch HTIB conjurer (graded A+ by Frank), but it seemed to have a profound impact on folks who presumably, may have heard some of the finest "audiophile" 2ch rigs in their time.

 

cheers,

 

AJ

 

Yes, AJ is right about that link - it describes the sensation that immersive sound generates very nicely. Note the setup used multiple speakers, and multiple powerful amplifiers - the "load" that each of the system parts had to bear was relatively light, and this is part of the Big Answer: as soon as typical audio electricals move beyond a loafing pace the way is open for disturbing anomalies to start to intrude, which is why people grit their teeth when the "difficult bits" come along.

 

What can be done is to minimise the system's penchant for producing "teeth gritting" moments, which is what I did for the HT setup - this gives one intense, subjectively immersive sound; the type where if someone in the room speaks what they say is completely lost unless you pay very close attention - their contribution to the room sound field is masked by the content of the musical presentation.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

 

How can you reproduce music with a high degree of faithfulness? Faithful to what? If all one listens to is studio music which doesn't exist outside of a studio environment, to what can one be faithful except the sound of the monitor speakers in that studio? That's my only point.

 

Guess we all just have to accept that being unfaithful is part of the package if you want to listen to audio ...

[fas42]

54 minutes ago, semente said:

I also have trouble understanding this obsession with "space"...music is sound, not space.

 

There's a reason for this - recordings do capture the sense of the space that the music has been recorded in; and mixing desk productions has very large additions of artificial space. This enhances the presentation greatly - a simple analogy is conventional film presentation on a flat screen, versus a sophisticated 3D visual projection technique which creates a world you look into. Recordings which some may consider "congested" are no longer that, because the elements within occupy different parts of the auditory sound field; and it's quite easy to switch one's focus to each one of those "spaces" in turn, to just "watch" what's going on in a particular space.

[fas42]

... typo post, again ...

[fas42]

2 hours ago, semente said:

 

I bet that focusing on those spaces will increase the number of "processes" in your brain (creating electric noise) and shift the activity to another area.

In other words it's distracting; fun but distracting.

 

As Wagner once told Nietzsche "take off your spectacles, music is meant to be listened" 

 

But I understand that effect of "de cluttering" when moving from mono to stereo...

 

Possibly for some - what counts is the ease with which one can shift focus; if concentration is required to do this, then it's not working well enough. I tend to do this automatically when listening to live recitals, marching bands, that type of thing; I enjoy the texture of the sound of a particular instrument in the ensemble, getting a sense of what it's contributing to the whole - which doesn't stop me from appreciating the gestalt at any moment, it's just switching from one mode of listening to another

[fas42]

3 hours ago, gmgraves said:

 

At last somebody understands what I've been saying: Accuracy in one's playback gear is ONLY important if one listens to a lot of acoustic, unamplified music such as classical and live jazz, which has been recorded in a real venue such as a concert hall, or a nightclub (Jazz at the Pawn Shop) etc. Otherwise if one listens almost exclusively to what I call studio music consisting of almost exclusively electronic instruments (electric guitars, electronic keyboards, contact miked acoustical instruments; in other words almost recording where the only two things microphoned are the vocalists and the drum set, then what makes that music sound good to the listener is what they should buy. Attempts at "accuracy" being thus futile and irrelevant. 

 

Sigh. Wrong again ... .

 

In fact it is more important to have "extreme accuracy" in the system for playing "studio music" - the reproduced acoustic cues are more critical with this type of thing because our auditory memories have no data there to "fill the gaps" - these sort of recordings I find the most severe test, they are the last to "snap into place", long after all the standard live acoustic material has been conquered.

 

The big plus if one gets it right is that these turn out to be magic kingdoms, full of auditory wonder - the most rewarding to 'explore', because what one can achieve here is virtually limitless ...

 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

 

Extreme accuracy to WHAT? 

 

...

 

Accuracy is not necessary because there is no real sound to which to compare these performances. In playback, all one needs is a system that sounds good playing that type of music. An accurate system won't hurt, but unlike in the days of Hi-Fi when the goal was to bring a concert hall into one's living room and to sound as close to live, acoustic music playing in a real space as possible, that type of accuracy is simply not a goal and not necessary (or possible) with most of today's listeners.

 

Accuracy to what's encoded on your copy of the recording. That's "locked in concrete" and IME the better the playback the more positive the impact 'artificial' music has - in particular, the spatial enhancements added to sounds can be huge, and if this information is not "perfectly" reproduced then the overall tends to sound cluttered, messy, congested.

 

Yes, the system needs to "sound good" playing this sort of stuff - and I gave up using my test CDs of this type of music when trying out unknown rigs a long time ago  - they generally made a mess of them, delivering a tiny, unpleasant, "wall of sound" - "what on earth were the musicians trying to achieve?" is the thought one would have. It takes 'correct' playback to allow one to understand what's going on ... and sometimes  they become your most treasured recordings.

 

[fas42]

22 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

That's pretty ridiculous if you think about it. How do you, as a listener know what's encoded on your copy of the recording? You can't hear it until you play it back, and then it sorta is what it is. You have no way of knowing what's actually encoded on the recording; just your system's version of what's there.

 

...

 

Therefore the accuracy of your playback equipment is a moot point. You buy what sounds good to you when playing the music you like. If you don't ever listen to Beethoven or 'Dave Brubeck Live' why should you care that your systems sounds wrong when playing that kind of music? You listen to rock and/or Hip-hop, and your system sounds great playing those. What else would you be interested in?

 

What you develop, over a period of time, is a knowledge what's there, because it always sounds the same - different systems, times of listening, all the usual variables; the signature of that recording becomes more and more clear, you build up a full understanding of the content, to the lowest levels. So, a competent system that you have never heard before should sound like that; if it doesn't, and worse, discards a high percentage of the detail thereon - am I likely to think I'm getting "closer to the recording"?

 

I make a point of listening to every type of recording - absolutely everything; no matter how bizarre, how "awful". Because, it may tell me something about what my system can't handle, reproduce well.

 

Most "rock" systems are excrutiatingly bad ... they "enhance" the sound in ridiculous ways, and are miles away from what the recording actually has. Typically, they try and turn what is obviously a studio creation into the "Listening to a PA at a concert" thing - well, if that's what turns them on ...

[fas42]

1 hour ago, semente said:

You also need a database of listening experiences of both live and reproduced music so that you know what to listen for as well as what can and cannot be achieve in domestic playback.

 

Yes, I seize every opportunity to sidle up to buskers, street celebrations, marching bands and the like, where there is not a whisper of a sound reinforcement device to be heard - the "bite and jump" of raw instruments is the goal.

 

My belief is that there are no limits to domestic playback - given amplifiers of sufficient competence, and the whole chain sorted, any sane SPLs can be produced, with a full measure of the impact of the original performance.

 

[fas42]

4 hours ago, CuteStudio said:

 

In my view we already know how to build excellent amplifiers. Few actually seem to do so, but there are ways and some really good amps are possible, and some even built.

 

In my view we have two problems:

 

1. Dodgy source material

2. Imperfect speakers

 

We should really be on 24 bit 96kHz by now, but we're not and that's a bit sad, especially given computing technology and storage improvements in the past 3 decades of the CD format.

 

We can fudge the 44.1kHz by upsampling so real filters have a chance, but the 16 bit is still too low, despite people's faith in 'dither', a technology not of much use on transient waveforms in my view, and it 16 bit is so good, what's wrong with 8 bits, or 4 bits if dither is so great?

 

Then there is the terrible mastering of most of todays music, which is simply wrong and a deliberate reduction of fidelity.

 

But it's speakers were the most distortion happens and where the most work needs to be done. It's tricky due to weights, resonances, dispersions, and then we compound it by sticking it into a cabinet - a sort of rectangular version of a guitar body, and put in crossovers, another obstacle in the way of our sound, often sticking them in the loudest place in the room: inside the speaker box. Doh!

 

 

 

I'm afraid I will have to disagree with quite a bit there - yes, excellent amplifiers are possible, Bryston is one that comes immediately to mind.

 

Dodgy source material? No, redbook is 100% OK; I realised this 30 years ago, and have looked with mild amusement at the enormous thrashing around that's occurred in the following decades, trying to 'improve' digital source.

 

Terrible mastering survives competent reproduction systems - but exposes shortcomings in the playback chain very aggressively. The loss of fidelity is not in the recording, but in the playback rig trying to reproduce it.

 

Speakers have got a bad rap, wholly unjustified! They can perform amazingly well, given some attention to smaller things. But I agree about crossovers being exposed to the full impact of the sound energy - should be handled in smarter ways.

[fas42]

16 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Yeah or upsampled PCM ... boy the quality of Redbook is so good upsampled either to DSD or PCM I think that's at least 90% of the problem with 16/44 ... I can hear differences with higher res files but it's really hard to know how much of that isn't mastering etc as opposed to something intrinsically better about high res files. For example, my favorite Led Zep files are 16/44 -- @bdiament -- now he hears improvements with high res ... but ... doesn't AFAIK, listen using the upsampling software that we do.

 

Agree about those Led Zep recordings - these blew my mind, back in the 1980's from CD; fabulous, fabulous stuff!

 

What upsampling does is allow the playback chain to have an easier time of getting the reproduction correct - particularly useful for "lower quality" gear - an analogy is using higher impedance speakers with ordinary amplifiers, so high drive currents are not required.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

I'm not sure what that means.  I thought that what upsampling does is allow the use of more gentle analog filter slopes, and that any interpolation errors are less of an issue for SQ than the ability to avoid 'brickwall' filters.

 

I also sometimes hear that integer value upsampling should be used, but it is not clear ot me why that is advocated, tho it makes the FFT math easier.

 

The why's and wherefore's will be highly variable, every situation will be different - some years back I was idly fooling around with the playing of music files on a desktop machine, just using the inbuilt, low cost DAC on the motherboard, and simple side monitors. Tried upsampling; hello!! - quality is better! The higher the rate the better the quality got; I ended up at ridiculous levels, MHz sampling rates - and I always gained. Of course, the source music file was now staggeringly huge, Gigabytes for a single track!

 

So, a curiosity. Totally unusable as a real world solution, but, proved a point. Why it worked on that machine could be a whole subtle combination of factors; which would be irrelevant for the next setup.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

I don't believe you. Cheap on-board audio invariably uses the Intel High Definition Audio (HDA) specification which supports only up to 192 kHz sample rate.

 

Of course it doesn't make sense if looked at conventionally - which is why I stated, "Why it worked on that machine could be a whole subtle combination of factors". For me at the time those were the results I got - and since it was of no value for ongoing use I didn't bother going anywhere with it.

 

There's all sorts of craziness with using PCs to compare things - foobar2000 is a case in point, used all the time for ABX stuff. Very few people probably realise that this test never actually compares what you think it does - it creates temporary copies of the files, at a sample rate that suits it, and compares those!