Anyone use equalizers?

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I happen to be so wealthy that I can pay for an orchestra, or jazz band, to sit down in a room, and entertain me while I wander around doing the other necessities - that's the "illusion" I want.

 

And a Harbourside mansion in Vaucluse too ?

[fas42]

Just now, sandyk said:

 

And a Harbourside mansion in Vaucluse too ?

 

Ohhh ... that's a Trumble illusion, I'm afraid ...

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Don't change topics.

 

Topic?? "How to Succeed in Audio Without Really Trying", methinks ...

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Topic?? "How to Succeed in Audio Without Really Trying", methinks ...

 

You emphasize trying to get the playback system as right as you can. So do I. I also try with the other stuff too - that's really where we differ.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

14 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

And a Harbourside mansion in Vaucluse too ?

 

Dennis' Revels 'disappeared' once for me at his place. I think Vivids do a much better job 

Given that I was involved in both sets of purchases I don't consider myself biased as such. As good as the Revels are you can still hear the box and the relatively long line of drivers.

[fas42]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

You emphasize trying to get the playback system as right as you can. So do I. I also try with the other stuff too - that's really where we differ.

 

Don't think we differ too much ... and you still haven't clarified your "invisible speaker" experience, .

[fas42]

Just now, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Dennis' Revels 'disappeared' once for me at his place. I think Vivids do a much better job 

Given that I was involved in both sets of purchases I don't consider myself biased as such. As good as the Revels are you can still hear the box and the relatively long line of drivers.

 

The disappearing has to be a complete ghosting phenomenon - the difference between it happening, and not happening, is huge.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The disappearing has to be a complete ghosting phenomenon - the difference between it happening, and not happening, is huge.

 

Vivids do it better than any other I have heard in a conventional driver. Not as ethereal as others, for better or worse depending on taste.

[fas42]

Just now, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Vivids do it better than any other I have heard in a conventional driver. Not as ethereal as others, for better or worse depending on taste.

 

Which is where I come in - the disappearing is a function of system competence; the actual speakers used are just one factor - the brand "can help" in the same way as adjusting the room acoustics "can help".

 

Cheap as chips speakers can do the trick if driven and set up, conditioned properly - why this occurs is that the remaining audio anomalies are so low in volume that the location of the drivers is not betrayed to the ear/brain; the mind has nothing to "grab onto" which makes it easy to mentally point to the speaker making the sounds.

 

IOW, the 'correct' nature of sound reproduction is for the speakers to be invisible - if they are not, then the drivers are providing too many clues, via distortion from multiple causes, that the illusion of the music reproduction is a 'fake'.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Cheap as chips speakers can do the trick if driven and set up, conditioned properly

 

There are two ways "cheap as chips" speakers can disappear - close your eyes ...or ....chuck them out the window. The latter is audiophile speak for *speaker placement* facilitates speakers disappearing ;-)

Hint..........speaker design and your "icing", room acoustics, is also involved.

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

There are two ways "cheap as chips" speakers can disappear - close your eyes ...or ....chuck them out the window. The latter is audiophile speak for *speaker placement* facilitates speakers disappearing ;-)

Hint..........speaker design and your "icing", room acoustics, is also involved.

 

As wise man once say, "Lets agree to disagree" ...

 

I kicked off my audio journey by getting bottom of the line B&W bookshelfs, second hand, to, err, vanish ... this was a bit of a shock to me at the time, and stopped me acquiring hangups about "only the best will do!!"

 

The failings of cheap drivers are far less problematic than many, many other playback chain issues - I have heard oodles of extremely expensive speakers in ambitious rigs produce junk sound over the years; guess the makers must have lied about their design and parts costs then ...

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

17 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I kicked off my audio journey by getting bottom of the line B&W bookshelfs, second hand, to, err, vanish ...

 

B & W are hardly "cheap as chips" speakers you buy at K-Mart.

 

 

17 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The failings of cheap drivers are far less problematic than many, many other playback chain issues - I have heard oodles of extremely expensive speakers in ambitious rigs produce junk sound over the years; guess the makers must have lied about their design and parts costs then ...

 

I have heard extremely expensive systems that sound phenomenal over the decades. Frank, you must be listening to the wrong systems, or maybe it was in a lousy room ;-) ?

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

B & W are hardly "cheap as chips" speakers you buy at K-Mart.

 

 

 

I have heard extremely expensive systems that sound phenomenal over the decades. Frank, you must be listening to the wrong systems, or maybe it was in a lousy room ;-) ?

 

By the standards of most audiophiles they would be - probably couple of hundred dollars at the time; classic 2 way Brit box from the 80's.

 

Of course I have heard excellent performance from high priced gear - remember the chap who ran the Pymble high end audio shop? Went to his home, and listened to a Goldmund Reference TT, Audio Research, and Infinity setup in the mid 80's - one of the best vinyl playbacks ever.

[PeterSt]

My room has four sides of glass (in normal walls). On estimate the glass occupies 65% of the walls. Ceiling is just hard. Carpet on the floor (2mm or so). Dimensions of the room do not incur for room modes (but do almost) at ~12m of length, ~8m of width and 3m of height. Wall behind the listener is angled and scattered (doors "inlay", jumping out wall parts). Side walls are also scattered at various places (cabinets and such). Bar at 2/3rd is angled. Corners behind the speakers are round (1m or so of radius). People on the phone car hear hollowness when spoken to from this room. When paying attention, like clapping of hands, you hear a slight hollowness (not echo). Talking to each other never implies "can't hear you well !".

 

When I would treat/decorate etc. this room, I would lose my sheer measuring means for good sound; I would lose the ability to detect buzzing and lower frequency standing waves, which happen immediately already when using a wrong digital filter, let alone another DAC or different playback software all together. Or a Class D amp (yes, "just" saying). So if any whatever small square foot in this room reveals an audible anomaly for frequency (mind you, when playing music), then something is wrong. This has been proven to by now a countless number of people, just because it is a gag and the auditioner tells me "oh wait, I will find a spot !" ... which never happens. And indeed they can not understand (btw, this includes 6moons Henk (& Marja) who deliberately and right away finds positions against walls and in corners to check the response of the system (I did not ask him, he just began doing that as one of the first acts). It just *is* a measuring means.

 

I can also tell you that when I walk around with the measuring microphone and a whatever steady frequency through the speakers, the caught response goes all over the place. This of course does not tell that my room is so good, which is actually is quite bad. Such measurement proves that.

 

I have said it so often by now ... in this very same room, I started out with a pile of PEQ's  which back then were the solution to otherwise quite unbearable sound. But I used a TEAC P1 transport with Audio Note III sig whatever DAC, 2x Stereo Duson power amplifiers bi-amped into Infinity R90 speakers a (transformer) preamp ahead and a pair of SVS subwoofers at the end of all. It was OK at the listening position after it costed me 104 Sundays in two years of time to have it right and maintain it (change something on a sub and the feast would restart).

 

Yes, my speakers are also open baffle (but wave guide / horns) and they don't mind or care being close or not to any wall (no loading incurred). So go figure.

 

[PeterSt]

6 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

You and Peter appear to saying the room is not important ...but then again you wouldn't listen in a broom closet either.

 

Of course the room is important, but really wrong dimensions let aside (this includes a too short room for too low frequency), anomalies should not be solved by room treatment (or equalizing) because the anomalies are for real. They are real flaws and they lure from everywhere (dozens of them).

 

[PeterSt]

Think of the combined and consistent logic of :

a. I don't care where I am in the room and it sounds as good from every place, including a mathematical sweetspot;

b. Wherever you are you don't hear sound coming from a speaker, not even when you're against one of the side walls (but don't be too close to a speaker of course);

c. You can virtually walk around sounds - they stay where they are, no matter where you are in the room (which is quite large in my case).

 

vs

 

- Only when being in the sweetspot all works - outside of that all collapses, the fun has gone, no imaging in order

and

- When I close my eyes all works even more perfectly.

 

Not talking about lips movement interpretation - do I need to close my eyes to hear better what you say to me ? or, do several voices around me at a party get better in my head or so, when I close my eyes ? It is true, it would be better for concentration but if it requires that amount of concentration to perceive the music, then something must be strange. The music itself, when of sufficient quality, is enough to make you see it, behave to it, and to especially not be disturbed by any sounds in the room, like typing, stirring a pot, even people talking, or, you yourself doing things which take the concentration completely elsewhere (like cooking what I do myself).

BUT

Beware when something is wrong with the music reproduction. Then I suddenly can't stir that pot well. *Now* suddenly the music takes your explicit attention and you can't do something else at the same time (partly because of annoyance of course, but mostly because things keep jumping to you which shouldn't).

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

By the standards of most audiophiles they would be - probably couple of hundred dollars at the time; classic 2 way Brit box from the 80's.

 

Of course I have heard excellent performance from high priced gear - remember the chap who ran the Pymble high end audio shop? Went to his home, and listened to a Goldmund Reference TT, Audio Research, and Infinity setup in the mid 80's - one of the best vinyl playbacks ever.

 

B&W's are audiophile speakers, obviously not all models are equal. They are accused of having a house sound and with measurements to match (uneven frequency response) but I am not stating so.

I never heard that Pymble guys setup.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

16 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Of course the room is important, but really wrong dimensions let aside (this includes a too short room for too low frequency), anomalies should not be solved by room treatment (or equalizing) because the anomalies are for real. They are real flaws and they lure from everywhere (dozens of them).

 

 

16 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Think of the combined and consistent logic of :

a. I don't care where I am in the room and it sounds as good from every place, including a mathematical sweetspot;

b. Wherever you are you don't hear sound coming from a speaker, not even when you're against one of the side walls (but don't be too close to a speaker of course);

c. You can virtually walk around sounds - they stay where they are, no matter where you are in the room (which is quite large in my case).

 

vs

 

- Only when being in the sweetspot all works - outside of that all collapses, the fun has gone, no imaging in order

and

- When I close my eyes all works even more perfectly.

 

Peter,

it just doesnt make sense to me that "of course the room is important" but don't treat the anomalies - nor whether you prefer the soundstage to be fixed or move with you, imaging (size and location) vs spaciousness etc. Much of this has to do with the omnidirectional vs directional nature of speaker and how you treat early reflections and so on - IOW the interaction of speaker with room.

[sandyk]

Hi David

 Perhaps Peter doesn't want to change his room to something more optimum, as he would lose his own reference as to whether his software or hardware have improved or not ?

 

Regards

Alex

[jventer]

I think this is going into the usual direction: What PeterSt is saying and what we are interpreting are different things.

Apart from the fact that he is Dutch and has a weird way of saying things he is also one of those intellectual people that say things on a level that us mere mortals need some time to understand.

I have heard his products and they are great. 

Before you crucify him, please flesh out what he is trying to say.

I think if we all do that we may learn something

[fas42]

Peter could possibly "improve" his room, but I suspect he would still have no trouble picking less than optimum reproduction - once one has learned to be sensitive to the critical anomalies then your ear is ready to pick up problems, no matter what.

 

From what he says, he has very, very close to invisible speakers - he implies the illusion only starts to fail when one is located very close to the drivers - this is something that can be improved, those B&Ws did a 100% invisible trick; which totally blew me away the first time it happened.

 

As Peter states, measurable FR becomes irrelevant at this level of performance; the ear/brain just keeps compensating for any irregularities, and what a meter says means nothing.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

51 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Hi David

 Perhaps Peter doesn't want to change his room to something more optimum, as he would lose his own reference as to whether his software or hardware have improved or not ?

 

Regards

Alex

 

Hi Alex,

if the room is treated ala art Noxon and Barry Diament etc to whatever balance you choose, then provide you dont change it, it is not a variable for testing your gear. I can only imagine it will facilitate testing other gear. We also know that amps do effect soundstaging and imaging and could be tested in a treated room as easily as untreated room with "anomalies.

 

40 minutes ago, jventer said:

I think this is going into the usual direction: What PeterSt is saying and what we are interpreting are different things.

Apart from the fact that he is Dutch and has a weird way of saying things he is also one of those intellectual people that say things on a level that us mere mortals need some time to understand.

I have heard his products and they are great. 

Before you crucify him, please flesh out what he is trying to say.

I think if we all do that we may learn something

Completely agree but dont worry Peter can hold more than his own (edit- er he can defend himself, thanks SandyK re the possible innuendo). It is that I respect his views (even if I struggle with the communication) that I pursue his views.

[sandyk]

11 minutes ago, jventer said:

Before you crucify him, please flesh out what he is trying to say.

I think if we all do that we may learn something

 

 Perhaps even Peter himself  ?

Perhaps all those extra HF reflections in his listening room are a part of why Peter doesn't much like Hi Res material ?

 

N.B.

 I am NOT knocking Peter's XXHE or his Phasure NOS DAC.

 They have a well earned reputation, partly also based on his Phasure Forum members' feedback on his various XXHE Engines etc. ?

[sandyk]

5 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Completely agree but dont worry Peter can hold more than his own.

 

 

 Did you REALLY mean to say that ?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

13 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 

 Did you REALLY mean to say that ?

 

No ! I hate it when I type faster than I can think! (and I'm a slow typer)