Audio Blind Testing

[pkane2001]

23 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Sorry, you didn't read my post right - I said, "The equivalent with speakers is that the sound is trapped in the cabinets, the imaging doesn't lift out and lay beyond them" - speakers only create a weird, in-your-head sound when connected out of phase with each other, and you're dead centre between then.

 

And, it's all about effective quality of the reproduction chain - the audio friend I visted a couple of days ago uses a rig that most here would look at with scorn - but he using my methodologies, and I would take listening to the sound he gets over almost anything you hear at a high end audio show.

 

 

Ah yes, I should’ve read your post a bit more carefully, sorry about that. But that doesn’t change the fact that the same system has spectacular imaging ability through speakers, and yet, produces sounds dead center in my head on some of the best recordings when played through headphones.

[fas42]

What people who have never heard how powerful the illusion is, as constructed by the brain, from the clues presented from playback, don't appreciate is how rock solid such can be. Movements of the head, movements of the body, walking around the room, to every part of it, does not do the slightest "damage" to the presentation - it's rigidly in place, exactly as if you were listening to a live performance.

[esldude]

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

What people who have never heard how powerful the illusion is, as constructed by the brain, from the clues presented from playback, don't appreciate is how rock solid such can be. Movements of the head, movements of the body, walking around the room, to every part of it, does not do the slightest "damage" to the presentation - it's rigidly in place, exactly as if you were listening to a live performance.

Well I don't think anyone believes you for a multitude of reasons. 

 

To change someone's mind you could tell us how we can manage the same trick, what methodology would get us there.  Yet whenever I have asked for this in the end it is a Frank thing only Frank can do with Frank's years of experience. 

 

 

[fas42]

24 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

 

Ah yes, I should’ve read your post a bit more carefully, sorry about that. But that doesn’t change the fact that the same system has spectacular imaging ability through speakers, and yet, produces sounds dead center in my head on some of the best recordings when played through headphones.

 

Of course, if the images from the speakers are dead centre, and have almost no depth to them, because of how they were recorded, then I would expect them to be "dead centre" in my skull, via headphones. How imaging presents to me is either precisely in line with the transducers, say sounds from a synthesizer with zero echo added; or, typically, some distance beyond them, "in front of me" - this distance could almost literally be a mile away, in an extreme case.

[fas42]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

Well I don't think anyone believes you for a multitude of reasons. 

 

To change someone's mind you could tell us how we can manage the same trick, what methodology would get us there.  Yet whenever I have asked for this in the end it is a Frank thing only Frank can do with Frank's years of experience. 

 

 

 

Tsk, tsk ... I've told you multiple times of how I go about this - by tracking down issues in the playback chain and sorting them; and I determine that it has issues by using "stressful" recordings - ones that don't sound very good, on the particular rig.

 

I can't tell you what any shortcomings on your system might be, because I can't hear it in person - that's how I operate. Only if you were to tell me where it "could be better", can I can be of any value ... note that GUTB mentioned what "ailed" his system, and that immediately gave me leads on what he could try ...

[mansr]

17 minutes ago, esldude said:

Well I don't think anyone believes you for a multitude of reasons. 

 

To change someone's mind you could tell us how we can manage the same trick, what methodology would get us there.  Yet whenever I have asked for this in the end it is a Frank thing only Frank can do with Frank's years of experience. 

That's Frank the rabbit from Donnie Darko, right? Or Frank from the Talk to Frank anti-drug campaign. I always get the two confused.

[sandyk]

30 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

But that doesn’t change the fact that the same system has spectacular imaging ability through speakers, and yet, produces sounds dead center in my head on some of the best recordings when played through headphones.

 

 Are you using the same equipment when playing through headphones ?

For example, does your Power Amplifier have a headphone jack ?

Headphone implementation with power amplifiers is often sub standard, just breaking the connection to the speakers and connecting the amplifier's outputs to the headphone jack using series output resistors.

 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

 Not necessarily. It also depends on the actual recording.

 

I don't think that's true at all except for Binaural recordings made with an artificial head and embedded microphones in the sides of the head where the ears would be. X-Y, A-B, ORTF, M-S and multi-miked/multi-channel recordings all present the headphone image lined-up from left-to-right through the listener's head to a greater or lesser degree. Binaural recordings will place images outside of the head when listened to on headphones, but even they cannot properly place sound sources behind the head. Try a binaural recording with a artificial head by recording someone walking around the head jingling a set of keys. When the keys pass behind the recording "head" you will notice that on headphones they don't seem to pass behind the listener, but rather they seem to pass in front of the listener! I once did an entire season of binaural recordings of a chamber group and a few well known musicians, including a world renown lute scholar/player for a local radio station. I tried everything I could think of to get the hall ambience to come from behind the listener, I even consulted with Sennheiser's engineers (Sennheiser made the binaural microphone and dummy head), to no avail. Since then I've come to the conclusion that it's the artificial head's lack of an external ear that causes the system to not present binaural images behind the listener. I also think that in order for the trick to work perfectly, the ears on the dummy head have to be replicas of the individual listeners' ears, rather than a generic "ear", and that's simply not feasible. 

[sandyk]

21 minutes ago, mansr said:

To change someone's mind you could tell us how we can manage the same trick, what methodology would get us there. 

 

 I feel sure that mansr could give you quite a few of those answers if he chose to, as he most likely already knows what he would implement in his own designs for highest SQ if he didn't have to cut corners to humour "Bean Counters" or he had the available time and inclination to do so.

In fact, there are several members who appear to have the knowledge and ability to create superior sounding gear if they really put their minds to it and didn't have day time jobs still.

[gmgraves]

31 minutes ago, esldude said:

Well I don't think anyone believes you for a multitude of reasons. 

 

To change someone's mind you could tell us how we can manage the same trick, what methodology would get us there.  Yet whenever I have asked for this in the end it is a Frank thing only Frank can do with Frank's years of experience. 

 

 

He only writes in vague generalities, never with anything specific. What equipment does he use in order to get this "perfect" recreation of the sound field? How does he manage to get this great imaging, even from multi-track, multi-miked recordings that don't have any real image, just a bunch of pan-potted instruments artificially lined up from right-to-left? What is this perfect amplifier he has that's so much better than the ones everyone else here is using? He never says. What are we to glean from this lack of disclosure? 

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

 

I don't think that's true at all except for Binaural recordings made with an artificial head and embedded microphones in the sides of the head where the ears would be. X-Y, A-B, ORTF, M-S and multi-miked/multi-channel recordings all present the headphone image lined-up from left-to-right through the listener's head to a greater or lesser degree. Binaural recordings will place images outside of the head when listened to on headphones, but even they cannot properly place sound sources behind the head. Try a binaural recording with a artificial head by recording someone walking around the head jingling a set of keys. When the keys pass behind the recording "head" you will notice that on headphones they don't seem to pass behind the listener, but rather they seem to pass in front of the listener! I once did an entire season of binaural recordings of a chamber group and a few well known musicians, including a world renown lute scholar/player for a local radio station. I tried everything I could think of to get the hall ambience to come from behind the listener, I even consulted with Sennheiser's engineers (Sennheiser made the binaural microphone and dummy head), to no avail. Since then I've come to the conclusion that it's the artificial head's lack of an external ear that causes the system to not present binaural images behind the listener. I also think that in order for the trick to work perfectly, the ears on the dummy head have to be replicas of the individual listeners' ears, rather than a generic "ear", and that's simply not feasible. 

 George

 I base what I have said on the DIY gear that I use here, where I have been able to optimise various areas of the designs, so that very low level ambience cues etc. aren't lost in the low level "digital haze" or in the Analogue stages S/N and channel separation.

For me, it's mainly about further improving the SQ of my gear in order to keep enjoying high quality music reproduction as my hearing further slowly degrades due to advancing age (79 soon) and existing Industrial type hearing damage from 43 years with Telstra which resulted in an Acoustic Neuroma pressing on my right ear canal, which is sensitive to my Blood Pressure at the time.

Alex

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

What are we to glean from this lack of disclosure? 

That he's best ignored.

[sandyk]

2 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

What are we to glean from this lack of disclosure? 

 

 Perhaps he hopes to use his knowledge one day for commercial reasons ?

[pkane2001]

13 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Are you using the same equipment when playing through headphones ?

For example, does your Power Amplifier have a headphone jack ?

Headphone implementation with power amplifiers is often sub standard, just breaking the connection to the speakers and connecting the amplifier's outputs to the headphone jack using series output resistors.

 

 

While my amps don't have an phone jack, I've made cables that connect HD650s to them in place of speakers. I've also made cables for connecting them to the balanced outputs of the DAC, which is mostly how I use them. I'm very happy with the quality of the sound (after DSP with crossfeed) and soundstage is very good with HPs, but not as deep. And with crossfeed, it's all outside of my head

 

[mansr]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

Perhaps he hopes to use his knowledge one day for commercial reasons ?

Maybe. Either way, there's nothing to be learned from him.

[gmgraves]

16 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Are you using the same equipment when playing through headphones ?

For example, does your Power Amplifier have a headphone jack ?

Headphone implementation with power amplifiers is often sub standard, just breaking the connection to the speakers and connecting the amplifier's outputs to the headphone jack using series output resistors.

 

Headphones should be driven with a dedicated headphone amplifier for best results in my estimation. I use a Schiit Asgard II and while it's only US$300, it is pure class A and it has an output stage that will swing 70 volts! It makes my HiFiMan HE-1000 v.2 headphones sound effortless and jaw-dropingly realistic (except for that image-in-the-head thing, and that's hardly the fault of the headphone amp).

[gmgraves]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Perhaps he hopes to use his knowledge one day for commercial reasons ?

 

I guess we'll have to give him the benefit of the doubt WRT that, won't we?

[esldude]

16 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

I don't think that's true at all except for Binaural recordings made with an artificial head and embedded microphones in the sides of the head where the ears would be. X-Y, A-B, ORTF, M-S and multi-miked/multi-channel recordings all present the headphone image lined-up from left-to-right through the listener's head to a greater or lesser degree. Binaural recordings will place images outside of the head when listened to on headphones, but even they cannot properly place sound sources behind the head. Try a binaural recording with a artificial head by recording someone walking around the head jingling a set of keys. When the keys pass behind the recording "head" you will notice that on headphones they don't seem to pass behind the listener, but rather they seem to pass in front of the listener! I once did an entire season of binaural recordings of a chamber group and a few well known musicians, including a world renown lute scholar/player for a local radio station. I tried everything I could think of to get the hall ambience to come from behind the listener, I even consulted with Sennheiser's engineers (Sennheiser made the binaural microphone and dummy head), to no avail. Since then I've come to the conclusion that it's the artificial head's lack of an external ear that causes the system to not present binaural images behind the listener. I also think that in order for the trick to work perfectly, the ears on the dummy head have to be replicas of the individual listeners' ears, rather than a generic "ear", and that's simply not feasible. 

One of the links I posted earlier tested binaural recordings.  One of the conclusions of their results is that listeners hear a more accurate recreation when a torso is included on the head.  They found their results didn't vary much with a generic head-sized sphere vs a more accurate one with a nose etc.  (I will note they didn't use outer ears).  The addition of a torso made a large difference in the accuracy of listeners correctly hearing where things were.  

[sandyk]

Just now, pkane2001 said:

While my amps don't have an phone jack, I've made cables that connect HD650s to them in place of speakers. I've also made cables for connecting them to the balanced outputs of the DAC, which is mostly how I use them

 

 In this case you are nowhere near optimising what is sent to the headphones.

Most headphones need to be driven from the output impedances they were designed for.

Many newer headphones are designed to be driven from lower impedances than earlier models,. which may have been designed to meet the old IEC61938 specification that states that all headphones should be driven from a 120 ohm source impedance irrespective of their own impedance.

When you drive headphones via series output resistors from a Power Amplifier you normally  also need to attenuate the output to help preserve the signal to noise ratio, as a Power Amplifier will have a much higher residual noise output than a dedicated headphone amplifier, which also normally has a much lower level of amplification. My own DIY Class A HA for example has a gain of only just over 3 times, whereas many power amplifiers may have something like 20 times gain.

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, sandyk said:

 

 In this case you are nowhere near optimising what is sent to the headphones.

Most headphones need to be driven from the output impedances they were designed for.

Many newer headphones are designed to be driven from lower impedances than earlier models,. which may have been designed to meet the old IEC61938 specification that states that all headphones should be driven from a 120 ohm source impedance irrespective of their own impedance.

When you drive headphones via series output resistors from a Power Amplifier you normally  also need to attenuate the output to help preserve the signal to noise ratio, as a Power Amplifier will have a much higher residual noise output than a dedicated headphone amplifier, which also normally has a much lower level of amplification. My own DIY Class A HA for example has a gain of only just over 3 times, whereas many power amplifiers may have something like 20 times gain.

 

That may be, but I've yet to find a headphone amp that makes my HP system sound better when it's added in. 

 

 

[sandyk]

11 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Headphones should be driven with a dedicated headphone amplifier for best results in my estimation. I use a Schiit Asgard II and while it's only US$300, it is pure class A and it has an output stage that will swing 70 volts! It makes my HiFiMan HE-1000 v.2 headphones sound effortless and jaw-dropingly realistic (except for that image-in-the-head thing, and that's hardly the fault of the headphone amp).

 

 I agree with that in general, but it's not just the H.A.  that matters, it's also about preserving low level ambience information, which may not be present in some recordings due to the way they were mastered. This is where the actual DAC implementation also plays a large part.

 If your own recordings sound like this too, and were properly miked, then you shouldn't have just an image between your ears with headphones.

 If you do, then something else in your system, is in need of further improvement.

[sandyk]

5 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

That may be, but I've yet to find a headphone amp that makes my HP system sound better when it's added in. 

 

 

 

Perhaps you may get some valuable suggestions from Dale in the Headphone area of this forum ?

 I don't always agree with him, but he does have an in-depth knowledge of many headphone amplifiers and headphones. 

[fas42]

21 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Perhaps he hopes to use his knowledge one day for commercial reasons ?

 

Well, that was the idea at one stage, !! I have bad burnout, energy reserves for getting anything done is extremely low, and has got significantly worse recently ... commercial? Ain't gonna happen, any time soon I'm afraid ... .

[sandyk]

Just now, fas42 said:

 

Well, that was the idea at one stage, !! I have bad burnout, energy reserves for getting anything done is extremely low, and has got significantly worse recently ... commercial? Ain't gonna happen, any time soon I'm afraid ... .

 

 Old age creeping up on you perhaps ?

[fas42]

5 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Old age creeping up on you perhaps ?

 

Nope. I used to do computing, and took getting it exactly right very seriously - the doc says that the constant focus for doing that can take its toll - and there has been a steady decline in my umphh over many, many years. Also, it's a family weakness - I have older relatives in the professional field who conked out in a similar way, as they got older.