Blue or red pill?

[gmgraves]

9 minutes ago, STC said:

Our differences boils down to only one issue. The description of 3D sound heard by stereo loudspeakers setup. It is my contention that no matter how well a stereo recording made the hidden cues cannot be retrieved with stereo setup. 

Well, you just need to listen to some more real 2-channel  stereo recordings. If you actually heard what's possible with proper stereo microphone technique, then you too would hear what got people like Alan Blumlein, Harry Olsen (of RCA Labs), Bert Whyte, and others so excited about the promise of stereophonic sound. 

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, STC said:

 

I believe the same Bruce Leek made the recording in the video below. Now, if he shares your sense of aesthetics, then he must be using just one pair of stereo microphones placed like where you suggested in your previous post. In this video , I see many microphones. Some look like mono recording only to me. And obviously, he will be mixing them which you don't do. So how sure are you those above recorded by Bruce Leek adhered to your principal? Multi miking can give you good soundstage too. He could have panpotted too.

 

 

you do understand that the video producer calls the shots?  I can't believe you'd bring up something as ridiculous as this!

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, STC said:

 

Ok. One last try  because it seems I am unable to put across the point clearly.

 

Your recordings, among others, are perfect. It can be better when the information already contained there retrieved correctly. That will be another level of experience which sadly you the maker never got a chance yet to appreciate the true potential of your very own recordings. I am just showing the true potential of your recordings which is much more than what you are hearing now.

But my recordings are NOT perfect. None are. I am a soundstage freak. I got into recording because I got tired of buying commercial recordings where the symphony orchestra is lined-up in a straight line across the "stage" between the right and the left speaker and popped in and out of existance as their levels were raised and lowered according to when they played. I don't like that, and I make the recordings the way I make them to please me, so that *I* have something that *I* want to listen to. My way of recording gives me the realistic soundstage that I am looking for, and  that's what interests ME! If I satisfy my customers along the way, that's icing on the cake!

 

You want to highlight different aspects of a performance, then make your own goddamn recordings, but I'm through with arguing endlessly with you about minutiae about which I care nothing. So please, go pester somebody else about this crap!

[gmgraves]

2 minutes ago, STC said:

 

Finally....

Now, will you just go away and leave me in peace? If that's all you wanted from me, why didn't you accept it the last time I stated it, some 45 pages ago?

Now I know how Jean Valjean felt. 

[gmgraves]

9 hours ago, mansr said:

Is this the right one? https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/united-states-air-force-band-evolution-gustav-holst-peter-mennin-howard-hanson/0019688116125

 

That's the one.

[gmgraves]

22 hours ago, fas42 said:

Depends what you call modern - my favourites are from decades ago. Yes, the recent "Top 40" stuff is severely overcooked, but I listen for the musical ideas which the makers can't help but put in - I'm tuning into everything that the young crowd ignores; because the creativity is always there, if you listen for it.

Easy enough. Any pop recording made after they started making pop/rock albums using multi-track techniques and releasing them as "stereo" records. No, Chubby Checker's "The Twist" doesn't qualify! 

[gmgraves]

8 hours ago, semente said:

You are probably right in suggesting that the main reason for placing the mics not further than half a dozen metres away from the maestro is to favour direct sound; I would add that this may be due to the fact that a recording is to be reproduced in domestic environments where the listening room will in most cases add an extra amount of reverb and reflections.

 

Yes, of course. A recording pretty much has to favor the direct sound. One reason why is that in the listening environment of one's stereo system, the listener is deprived of their sight. This, as Mansr brought-up in another post, has a lot to do with our ability to concentrate on something to which we are listening. In a concert hall, we can be seated in the balcony and still enjoy the sound of the performance because our eyes can help to concentrate our hearing. OTOH if someone put a pair of regular cardioid microphones in the balcony and tried to record the performance from that point in the hall just as they would were the mikes on stage, it would result in a very unsatisfying sonic performance. The hall's sound would literally swamp the direct performance sound to point where, on playback, it wouldn't be very listenable. 

On the other hand, I don't think that most people's listening rooms are live enough or large enough for the room's reflections to add any extra reverb. It probably will set up standing waves at some frequencies, altering the perceived frequency response of one's loudspeakers. 

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, mansr said:

So depth and height can be heard in this recording?

Yes.

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

I have no interest at all in the head in a vice, sweet spot way of listening - terribly artificial, and very unsatisfying ... I need to be able to go about other activities while listening, and still get the full hit of the music while doing so.

I agree. A number of years ago, I reviewed a pair of electrostatic speakers by Innersound. They were really, really good. I had a chance to buy them at an accommodation price and was seriously contemplating doing so. What, ultimately, got me to box 'em up and send 'em back was the fact that they were a flat panel design and if the one listener moved his/her head one soupçon from the tiny "sweet spot" the image collapsed and the high frequencies went away. I decided that if I was going to keep those speakers, I would have had to scour the antique stores looking for one of those 19th century "Matthew Brady" photographic head braces. A kind of stand that used hold portrait sitters' head still for the long exposures that early photographic emulsions required to make an image. With that behind my listening chair to hold my head still, I could have enjoyed those Innersound speakers. Without it, I don't see how. Since then, I look for ESLs that have a wide dispersion, and that, of course, led me to Martin-Logan. The Innersound's great performance with a wide listening area.  

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Speaking of which, Checker's "(Do) the Hucklebuck" is a favourite of mine! Fabulous driving drumming in this track, it's high energy impact of the first order - replay of this at a high SQ gets me every time, a huge adrenalin rush ...

The joke was that Checker's "The Twist" album was not recorded in stereo.

[gmgraves]

Just now, mansr said:

Sorry, not hearing it. Left/right positioning is great, but I'm not getting a sense of depth or height. Maybe if I had a pre-conceived idea of where things should be, I could will myself into hearing them that way.

Sorry, I can't help you there, Mansr. I can easily tell that the brass is in the back, for instance, and up on risers and that they are "speaking" above the oboes and bassoons in front of them. If you can't hear that, I don't know what to tell you except that this is exactly what I expected you to say. So, I'm not really surprised. 

[gmgraves]

10 hours ago, mansr said:

Could this be because you know that's how the instruments are usually arranged?

 

I've never seen even a picture of that ensemble, but generally, there is a standard classic arrangement of orchestra and symphonic bands, so, yes, I suspect I have a vision in my mind's eye of how a wind ensemble is arranged, but I suspect that most classical music aficionados have a similar mental image. I would be denying the obvious if I said that this mental image doesn't take the place of my sight when listening to a symphony orchestra or a wind ensemble (symphonic band). How much this affects my placing of instruments in the sound field, I have no idea. All I can say is they certainly sound to me that they are coming from where I hear them.

10 hours ago, mansr said:

 

What, you're not going to say I need a more expensive audio system?

I'm neither GUTB nor STC. I think anyone with a half-way decent stereo system where the speakers have been placed to sound at their best advantage, rather than to fit some decor, should get decent imaging from a real stereophonic recording.  Like I said before, I strongly suspect that you don't hear any depth or height for the very reason that you have decided beforehand that you're not going to hear it. That's the reason I didn't send you a sample of my work. I get challenged enough on this point by you and several others without feeding the fire. 

[gmgraves]

20 minutes ago, STC said:

 

What's wrong with you? You have been without failing pestering me but when I responded to your posts you accused me of pestering you. Show me one post that I advocate expensive system? Just one post. Except for my speakers and the Mytek DAC which also is a preamp, all others are just few hundred dollar speakers. Even the additional ten DACs cost about $10 each. Except for two which costs about $30. And the additionals amps costs about $60 each. You really imagine things a lot. It is not my fault if all of your recordings sounded bad except for the soundstage.

 

The additional speakers (all used micro speakers), DAC and Amps cost me about $600.

Forgive me. I conflated you with FAS42. IT was he that I meant when I wrote your name. 

[gmgraves]

6 hours ago, mansr said:

If the effect can be heard or not depending on whether one wants to, can it really be said to exist? It certainly must be rather weak. Left/right positioning, on the other hand, is impossible not to hear no matter how hard you try.

That's a good question. If the effect is, indeed, wishful thinking, then the answer is obviously, no, but human preconceptions and biases are pretty strong, so perhaps the question should be: If the effect is real, how come some listener's hear it instantly while those who insist that it doesn't exist before listening to a sample supposedly illustrating the effect say they can't hear it? Wouldn't that constitute an example of confirmation bias?

[gmgraves]

9 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

 

If the effect is real, then a valid test to determine if it is audible would be an ABX listening test.  That is what an ABX is for, determining if a difference can be identified.  It is NOT a tool that can be used to prove that no difference exists.   The ABX test would remove confirmation bias if administered correctly which is not always a simple endeavor.

I'd go along with that if we were talking about a simple, manually switched DBT, but not an ABX. I've never been convinced that the ABX comparator doesn't color the result.

OTOH, how would one go about such a test? The effect in question is the ability of a true stereophonic recording to render depth and height cues while a multitrack, multi-miked recording cannot. I don't see how any DBT can confirm or dispel this assertion. First of all, you'd have to have two samples of the same performance of the same work; one recorded stereophonically while the other was recorded using a forest of microphones captured to a multi-track recorder (16 or perhaps 24 tracks) and then mixed-down to a two-track final version. Then those setting-up the test would need to go through the true stereo recording and find those places where the characteristics being tested for showed themselves and then they would need to sync-up the same place in the multi-mike/track version so that the listeners knew what it was in the playback that they were listening for. Highly unlikely, if you ask me.  

[gmgraves]

6 hours ago, SoundAndMotion said:

 

Um, I'm not sure we are using the same terms. An ABX can be done double blind (DBT) or not. It can be done with the hardware "ABX Comparator" or with another method. ABX is a protocol, not a piece of hardware.

All ABX tests are generally done double-blind, but not all double blind tests are ABX. Simple double blind tests are done with some (hopefully) non-interested party simply switching randomly between two test units, where the listeners never know which DUT they are listening to and don't know when (or, indeed, if) the DUTs are being switched. ABX comparators are usually more complex than just someone turning a selector switch on some pre-amp or amp between two high-level inputs (for example). 

[gmgraves]

49 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

yeh but he tuned the hell out of it

Right!

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, sdolezalek said:

One of the things I think almost all of these tests get wrong is that they conflate difference and preference.  If we simply focused on finding situations where listeners could reliably distinguish between A and B (without expressing any preference), then we would have a starting point from which could can then ask (does my equipment show a measurable difference between A and B or is there a consistent preference among those who can separate A from B as to which they prefer.  We can also begin to test where does a difference that is clearly measurable in equipment begin to be clearly audible to most listeners.  

 

Quite often I find that when I can tell A from B and clearly prefer one at the moment that I have preferred something that moved away from accuracy.  Only when I then listen to the preferred, but inaccurate version over time does it become tiresome.  A second A/B test a month later will often cause me to then prefer B even though a month earlier I preferred A.  

Ostensibly, the only thing a DBT can do is show differences between two test units in an instantaneous and sharp relief. It is not its purpose to show which is better or preferred, although I suppose it could be used for that, although the results would be very personal and not statistically computable.  

[gmgraves]

12 hours ago, SoundAndMotion said:

We are definitely not using the same terms.

I use double blind as described here and elsewhere. ABX tests as DBT's, where both the subject and the experimenter both (= double) don't know whether A or B is playing, are common in the scientific literature, but IME rare in audio forums. Most that I see are single blind or performed alone (using software). There is no need for double blind when the subject has no interaction with an experimenter, either because there isn't one (e.g. using software to compare two files using foobar2k, for example) or because they are separated (different rooms) during the trials (that's how I do experiments). In these cases, there is no reason to hope that the experimenter is a "non-interested party".

I'm not sure what Mani had in mind when he said switching between A and B would take "5-10 seconds at least", but it doesn't seem to be foobar.

When you mentioned that 

Doesn't matter. An ABX hardware test uses a comparator, a piece of equipment which chooses X. 

 

12 hours ago, SoundAndMotion said:

I assumed you meant a hardware comparator, such as the one produced by the ABX company.

Yeah, that should be pretty obvious.

 

12 hours ago, SoundAndMotion said:

but it is not correct either way, although ABX is closer.

The standard ABX protocol is not used for preference testing. Auditory preference tests, such as MUSHRA (BS.1534) or  abc/hr (BS.1116), should be done without experimenter influence, either double blind (DBT) or by having the subject alone in the room.

OK. 

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Ahem, George, an ABX comparator can also exist as a piece of software, not hardware or equipment.  For example, Foobar has ABX capability useful for comparing different digital files from a PC through an identical playback system with near instantaneous switching.  

 

As as someone already said, ABX is a conceptual test protocol, not necessarily a piece of equipment.  You are somewhat out of date in your understanding, regrettably.

Yes, I'm aware of that. That's the reason I was careful to say "hardware".