Sanity Check

[STC]

34 minutes ago, STC said:

 

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting audiophiles to judge SQ on what’s they hear through Youtube. It was used to demonstrate the difference. Just like it is not possible to record your actual listening experience in concert hall using $75 binaural, it is impossible too with my system as the sound is meant to be listened with as many ambiance speakers and the ambiance should not be in the recording. It was a starting point but I guess it badly backfired as I never thought anyone would think that it will be the representation of true sound of my system playback. 

 

I understands your reservation. It depends whether you understand what is indirect sound, convolution, impulse response. I didn’t move to it and would not even tried if not the for free tool in JRiver DSP. Started with just 90 degrees speakers and was astonished with the results. Then got the proper DSP SIR2 and transformed from there onwards. 

 

Whether it degrades the sound or not can only be judged by you after listening. For the record, every visitors would double check the CD ( or more correctly the rip) to see why there were so much more details in the recordings. For some hearing two voices in Norah jones track was a first. Or probably the other musician singing along in Eric Bibb in Good stuff album also a first. It doesn’t degrade. An instrument sound doesn’t get degraded when played in a concert hall. 

 

And I have a Sony 5.1 SACD player and my speakers sound is reasonably good for stereo and I do demo for those requested. You have not implemented and experienced them in a proper setup and therefore your opinion is prejudicial. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I reply to the rest of the post could you clarify the heavy processing your referring to?

[Telstar2]

19 hours ago, mansr said:

Can you hear the delay caused by 1 m of signal cable? A modest oscilloscope can easily measure it.

In a multiamplification, yes, when the other cables are i.e. 2m long.

And an oscilloscope is not a microphone

[Spacehound]

15 minutes ago, Telstar2 said:

In a multiamplification, yes, when the other cables are i.e. 2m long.

And an oscilloscope is not a microphone

Do you know how long it takes for a signal to travel along  2 metres of cable?

 

Start with 300 million metres per second and go from there.. 

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, Telstar2 said:

In a multiamplification, yes, when the other cables are i.e. 2m long.

And an oscilloscope is not a microphone

Are you claiming you can hear time differences of 5 nanoseconds? That's how long it takes an electrical signal to travel through 1 m of typical cable.

[Telstar2]

12 minutes ago, mansr said:

Are you claiming you can hear time differences of 5 nanoseconds? That's how long it takes an electrical signal to travel through 1 m of typical cable.

Yes, in a context like I said.

We hear jitter to picosecond levels. Think about it.

[Spacehound]

Just now, Telstar2 said:

Yes, in a context like I said.

We hear jitter to picosecond levels. Think about it.

If you say so.

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, Telstar2 said:

Yes, in a context like I said.

Describe it in detail, please.

 

Quote

We hear jitter to picosecond levels. Think about it.

Is there a properly conducted study showing this? And are you saying this can't be measured?

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

Well, "really expensive, first rate systems" doesn't guarantee anything - as I've mentioned many times, the slightest weakness in the playback will be enough to disrupt the illusion; and the only certain method that I know of is that someone has gone to a great deal of time and attention to evolve the rig to a high enough standard.

 

Aw' Gimme a break, will ya! It's true that you can spend a lot of money and buy components that don't work well together, so yeah, spending a lot of money doesn't guarantee a great sounding system, but, on the other hand,  all great sounding systems cost a good deal of money. Even used, yesterday's top components still command high prices.

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

No, this is not "glimpses of reality" - this is, "grab you by the short and curlies and drag you along for a powerhouse ride" - this won't happen with a sedate, classical recital, but put on a driving, high energy rock production, say - and the adrenaline rush will be tremendous, . When the latter recordings 'work', then classical albums also fall into place - the dynamics of music are universal, and every style and genre comes to life, if the system gets it right.

Believe me, no "driving, high energy rock production" has ever grabbed me by the short and curlies or dragged me along for a powerhouse ride". My reaction to that kind of music is, mostly, "TURN THAT CRAP OFF!" I get no adrenaline rush from such primitive "music", and my reaction is likely to include something like a comment about the decline of Western Civilization and musical entropy.

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, STC said:

 

You didn’t and you couldn’t because you do not know. 

Believe what you will. It's a free Internet. You haven' read my blog have you? Of course not.

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, semente said:

It may come as a surprise to you but many audiophiles love this kind of hyperreality, the sound a pop-jazz singer makes when she breathed lightly on the mic or closes her lips, the sound of the fingers sliding down the strings of a guitar and other mechanical noises made by instruments that someone attending a live classical recital hopes will not be audible.

Oh, I'm well aware of that. But a singer's breath getting picked-up by her microphone, or that "juicy, brassy"sound that accompanies, say, Stan Getz' saxophone playing is considered part of the performance and is not exactly the same thing as a fellow concert goer having a coughing spasm in the middle of a performance (usually at the quietest passages!). 

7 hours ago, semente said:

 

In the end it's all about our personal objectives and expectations.

I like my recordings done from a documental perspective from a (sonic) point of view that resembles that of a seat in the audience (no close- or multi-mic'ing).

And I want a system that can reproduce the recorded signal with a high degree of accuracy.

 

We are on the same page, there, Semente. Many years ago, I found that I was not hearing what I knew was possible and what I wanted from the commercial recordings I was buying. This was the age when the majors were recording classical music with a forest of microphones and up to 96 tracks on two or even three time-sync'd and linked 2" tape recorders! So, I decided to start rolling my own. If I couldn't buy the kind of recordings I wanted to hear, I figured that I would make them. Been doing it ever since.

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, semente said:

 

Nothing wrong with that description. But even I who have never recorded had reached the same conclusion just by using a bit of common sense and good judgement.

 

The problem I see with this multi-channel approach is that in my experience as a listener and concert goer the mixing process has a negative impact on sound quality and sonic realism which I rate higher than spatial reproduction.

 

And the immersive sound samples from that website you mentioned a while back affected sound quality and realism in way that I found unbearable, even though I do agree that it does produce a significant amount of three dimensional projection.

No, there's nothing wrong with that description, but it reminds me an awful lot of a scene in the movie "Dead Poets Society" when Robin Williams as 'Mr. Keating' stands before his English class for the first time and has his students rip out the pages containing "Pritchards Rules for Evaluating Poetry" and throw them away. The Keating character knew (about poetry) what I know about recording: that, in both cases, you have to have a feel for the subjects and you can't attain that feel from a book or a blog, you have to have the experience under your belt of actually writing and reading poetry, and making recordings and then think about what you have written, read or recorded and learn from that experience. 

[Ralf11]

What is the cheapest Ambiphonics setup that sounds significantly better than 2 ch. stereo?

 

DO I need Soundlabs?  Will DSP allow inexpensive systems in the future?

 

 

I am in the pro-George, 2 ch. is hard enough camp (so far)

[fas42]

11 hours ago, semente said:

 

The system I use as reference consists of a bespoke DAC, a highly modified/optimised CD player, bespoke dual-mono amplification and a pair of modified/optimised BnW F801 speakers. I've not listened to it playing rock recordings but it sounds simultaneously soft and bombastic with wide DR orchestral music and very "transparent".

I agree that this is in part the result of optimisation and top electronic design but the fact that the speakers have a 12" woofer in a large sealed bass-bin makes for a lot of that ability.

You can't achieve that with an 8" + tweeter standmount, even if you are using the same electronics...

 

Luckily, "It's not the size, but what you do with it that counts" ...

 

In audio, that's more relevant than ever - I have never had size envy , because it's never mattered. In fact, I have a pair of 12" Peerless woofers here, have had them for years, but never mounted into a cabinet because the urge to do so has never been great enough.

 

The " 8" + tweeter standmount" arrangement is what got me on this road in the first place, and it's a reliable setup, for me. Where the speaker style of the B&W works is that its far greater overall mass gives it a stability that's essential for good sound - I achieve the same, for smaller speakers, using various simple "tie down to heaviness" methods. This is good enough for "bombastic" pipe organ recordings to yield spectacular "bigness" - I have yet to hear another system achieve the "size" of sound that I can get here.

 

Regarding getting more than "mere recognition", this is one of the ways to assess quality aspects. There are old recordings, of strong vocal performances - when playback is below the goal level, the voice has a "reproduction" quality about it - it's obviously, 'fake'. Above that quality, the voice becomes 'real' - our senses register that it's a living, breathing person making the sounds - there's a whole extra dimension in the listening, just from this alone.

[semente]

14 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Luckily, "It's not the size, but what you do with it that counts" ...

 

I wasn't talking about kitchen spoons.

But I disagree: size limits maximum SPL and low frequency extension.

[STC]

18 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

What is the cheapest Ambiphonics setup that sounds significantly better than 2 ch. stereo?

 

DO I need Soundlabs?  Will DSP allow inexpensive systems in the future?

 

 

I am in the pro-George, 2 ch. is hard enough camp (so far)

 

This thread got nothing to do with Ambiophonics. It is about reverbs. Stop confusing yourself. Btw, this question was asked and replied in another thread. You don’t need SoundLab. I was using Harbeth SHL5. Wanted a better speakers and the best guidance I could get was from the one who uses MBL Radial and SL. 

 

The recent product evaluation was done with cheap PC speakers known as Sonics. 

[STC]

4 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Believe what you will. It's a free Internet. You haven' read my blog have you? Of course not.

 

I came to the conclusion about your knowledge or lack of it  on reverberation after reading your blog. 

[fas42]

4 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Aw' Gimme a break, will ya! It's true that you can spend a lot of money and buy components that don't work well together, so yeah, spending a lot of money doesn't guarantee a great sounding system, but, on the other hand,  all great sounding systems cost a good deal of money. Even used, yesterday's top components still command high prices.

 

Okay ,

 

 

I don't agree that "all great sounding systems cost a good deal of money" - most people would be flabbergasted by how impressive ordinary, low cost components can come across if the right amount of attention is given to fixing silly weaknesses - yes, they won't have window rattling bass, nor produce huge SPLs; but in the key areas of presenting a convincing illusion they can do an excellent job.

 

Quote

Believe me, no "driving, high energy rock production" has ever grabbed me by the short and curlies or dragged me along for a powerhouse ride". My reaction to that kind of music is, mostly, "TURN THAT CRAP OFF!" I get no adrenaline rush from such primitive "music", and my reaction is likely to include something like a comment about the decline of Western Civilization and musical entropy.

 

I wonder whether you have ever been directly in the midst of musicians producing this, listening just to the raw sound of the instruments, which means the guitar amps only, etc - no PA nonsense!! I've always enjoyed the "hit" of this - to me, it's equivalent to standing next to a brass band going for it, there's a physicality about the experience which is what makes it special.

[fas42]

17 minutes ago, semente said:

 

I wasn't talking about kitchen spoons.

But I disagree: size limits maximum SPL and low frequency extension.

 

Only for the deep bass ... IME this aspect is almost irrelevant; all rigs which have the "big bass setup!" either still don't get it right, or the bass content is ludicrously exaggerated, sticking out like a sore thumb - the result is something nothing like live acoustic sound ...

[semente]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

 

Only for the deep bass ... IME this aspect is almost irrelevant; all rigs which have the "big bass setup!" either still don't get it right, or the bass content is ludicrously exaggerated, sticking out like a sore thumb - the result is something nothing like live acoustic sound ...

 

Maybe they should fix the bass. 

 

BTW, my comments refer to the playback of classical music.

[fas42]

18 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Maybe they should fix the bass. 

 

BTW, my comments refer to the playback of classical music.

 

Yes, classical music would be a good reference - I've mentioned once or twice about at one stage using a setup where the separate, and "essential" subwoofer would go offline at odd times - and I didn't realise this from the listening ... this was invariably when I was playing "big" orchestral, operatic recordings - the "bigness" of the experience wasn't lost because that bass content ceased to be there ...

[pkane2001]

20 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Well the head movements destroy the illusion. As someone who owns a flocked head (from JVC) and a pair of JVC Binaural microphones to go with it, I can tell you that I have made dozens of binaural recordings and have on CD and SACD many more. I have come to the conclusion that there is another problem at work here, other than just the fact that when the sound source (headphones) follows the head movement of the listener, it destroys that willing suspension of disbelief. That other problem is one that I think is being overlooked - at least I've never seen a discussion of it. That is that everyone has outer ear structural differences that affect the way we, as individuals, perceive sound. If that outer ear structure isn't reproduced by the artificial head containing the binaural microphones, then the binaural illusion is not complete. It is, in my opinion why most binaural recordings do such a lousy job of locating sound sources behind the listener. Seems to me that is part of the reason human's outer ears stick out and why the "funnel" opening on our ears is canted slightly forward. I believe that it's that mechanical part of the outer ear that gives us our sense of directionality. 

 

Opinions, personal experience?

 

So I've just spent some time listening to a number of Chesky's binaural demonstration tracks, and they really do sound great! There's definitely more 'presence' there than when using speakers. I can clearly hear the distance and location of the sound, and it never does sound 'in my head'. There are a few tracks that have sounds that are even a bit startling, where I had to check to make sure it wasn't someone talking outside my listening room  I didn't find any good test sounds coming from behind me, although it was possible to imagine that that's where they were, but it wasn't as clear as the sounds coming from the front. The reverberant venues were easy to identify and sounded realistic.

 

I had to turn off crossfeed when listening to binaural recordings -- it appears to just muddy up the sound for binaural,  where with regular stereo recordings it appears to help quite a bit.

 

[STC]

7 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

I had to turn off crossfeed when listening to binaural recordings -- it appears to just muddy up the sound for binaural,  where with regular stereo recordings it appears to help quite a bit.

 

+1. Often overlooked.

 

You should get the soundstage as heard at the dummy head's location.  In this one they needed 300 takes to get it right. 300 takes!!!

 

 

[STC]

On 2/10/2018 at 7:25 AM, gmgraves said:

Perhaps that explains why your head is so full of audio nonsense.

 

@gmgraves, I did not see this audacious remark, earlier. Anyway, since you are hearing a 12 foot piano in Mark Waldrep recordings, I listened to three of his tracks and I only hear a 6 foot piano. I reproduce your quote below since you are still thinking about brains and bout of cough when placing the microphones although you did mention about stage and direct/indirect ratio. I wasted some valuable time reading your blog where you never made any reference to reverberation except on two occasion about the built-in reverb in the preamps.   

 

 

On 2/6/2018 at 9:36 AM, gmgraves said:

For instance, there are the products of AIX records and Mark Waldrep. In any recording of a piano of his that I have heard, he puts microphones INSIDE of the grand piano, mounted on a bar that stretches across width of the piano inches above the strings. Now, when was the last time you listened to a grand piano with your head under the piano lid and your ears inches from the strings? I'll stick my neck out on a limb here and say that they answer is probably NEVER. I will admit that it sounds spectacular, with the treble strings all the way on the right side of the room, and the bass strings all the way over on the left side of the room and the mid strings in the center. You get incredible detail, not only from the strings, but from the piano's action. What's the problem? Well to begin with, 12-15 foot-wide pianos don't exist, and a piano, heard from the standpoint of a listener either sitting in a concert environment or scattered around the room of a bar or other night spot where live music is being played, simply doesn't sound like that.

 

 The bass is on the left but it also depends how hard the key is pressed. On soft touch it hung near the left speakers otherwise the bass spread between evenly. So too Mujaka and Berceuse. Nothing wrong with the recordings. No 12 foot piano.

 

The piano sound in Berceuse and Mujaka are remarkably different in their tonality which indicates Bercuese would probably made further away or added more reverberation for the large far away feel . I doubt he made all piano recordings as you described. Even if he did he was just doing what other professionals do for a better and commercially successful recordings .

 

See below, a good recording professional practice to place the microphone inside when necessary

 

"In rhythmic music and jazz, all of the musical instruments are more or less used to create a beat or percussion. This is also true of the grand piano, which makes it all the more important to capture the attack of the player. The beautiful sound of the mechanics and the hands against the keys are often preferred over a precise stereo perspective. (The "produced" sound is more sought after for instruments intended for the harmonies. The pace and rhythm of those instruments do not leave space for reverberation, which could cause the music to sound muddy and unclear if recorded in the same approach as rhythmic instruments.)

The goal with a percussive instrument is to create a recording that is tight and fast, which allows the instrument to sound incredibly good. To achieve this goal, the microphones need to be placed closer to the piano, maybe even inside the open lid, over the strings or the hammers. Only here is it possible to capture the attack and roughness of the versatile king of instruments. To distinguish the room reflections and the reverberation, the use of directional microphones is recommended."
From DPA Microphone.

 

p.s. I have DPA SACD of piano recordings made with different microphones and placement which will show which type of placements and microphones are suitable for the type of the music. None of them give 12  foot piano. But I have heard 10 foot guitar and 20 foot piano due to poor recording techniques.

 

.

[gmgraves]

22 hours ago, semente said:

 

I wasn't talking about kitchen spoons.

But I disagree: size limits maximum SPL and low frequency extension.

It's all about moving air. Small speakers move less of it, big speakers move more. But just sheer square inches isn't enough, you gotta have speaker "throw" as well. 

[gmgraves]

22 hours ago, STC said:

 

I came to the conclusion about your knowledge or lack of it  on reverberation after reading your blog. 

 

Then you realize that I know what I'm talking about. Good.