Concert Hall sound

[gmgraves]

21 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Subjectively, it's a mantra which is very useful for getting the best from your rig ... objectively?? As has been said, an Edison roll, versus a 24 bit digital ... ?

In other words, Frank, you've been caught with your pants down AGAIN!

[gmgraves]

18 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

A digital audio player can be a very good starting point for getting the SQ one's after - the friend who has investigated these for years just doesn't plug them in, and play - he has developed a whole suite of little tweaks which all add up - to give the best result. I have heard these units of his playing, often, and when they're not in the "zone" they sound like, well, shit too ...

 

Driving headphones directly, alone may be enough to disturb the quality you want - he has gone to great lengths experimenting with buffering the output, to optimise performance.

 

Until one has investigated every aspect of some part of an audio rig, one can't really say where the weaknesses are - every situation is different.

Is it getting deep, very brown, and quite smelly in here, or, is it just me? (said he, knowing that he was leaving himself wide open for the usual juvenile ridicule!)

[gmgraves]

17 hours ago, STC said:

There are also research suggesting that when you are engrossed  listening to complex music, the brain actually simplify and only processes relevant portion and ignores the rest.  I think the research was related with Mozart pieces.  So far, we only have an admission of hearing sound inside the head and one ear is having 3000hz band hearing loss. The next question to ask is whether an active intervention by tweaks triggers certain region of his brain to perceive impossible to exist auditory event. Relevant reference starts here  . 

 

I think that's the psychoacoustic research that gave rise to the idea (notion?) of MP3 lossy compression. You can throw more than 90% of a musical performance away, and the brain won't notice it. Guess what? EHHHHH! Thanks for playing!

[STC]

1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

I think that's the psychoacoustic research that gave rise to the idea (notion?) of MP3 lossy compression. You can throw more than 90% of a musical performance away, and the brain won't notice it. Guess what? EHHHHH! Thanks for playing!

 

Nothing to do with compression. Will look for the relevant papers when I have the time. 

[gmgraves]

9 minutes ago, STC said:

 

Nothing to do with compression. Will look for the relevant papers when I have the time. 

Not sure that I understand what you are saying. Are you saying that you'll have nothing to do with lossy audio compression (if so, I'm with you pal)? Or are you saying that the (fairly recently) discovered  psychoacoustic finding of the brain's ability "To fill in the blanks" as it were, has nothing to do with compression. If it's the latter, you're right. Psychoacoustic research has nothing to do with lossy audio compression, but lossy audio compression compression has everything to do with psychoacoustic research. 

[pkane2001]

2 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I want so badly to see the sun in my own listening room, to follow on your mystical journey, to achieve the very heights of audio you have described, redescribed, and re-re...  But, you are there and I am here.

 

I so wanted to hear what Frank hears! Like you, I kept asking him to share his wisdom. After many questions and a detailed description of my system, Frank finally diagnosed the main problem!!! My speakers binding posts may not have been soldered on the inside of the speaker (mind you, I’d have to flip over and take apart a 107lbs speaker just to look inside to see if there is or isn’t a soldered connection).

 

Needless to say, my system is still mediocre, since I didn’t follow through on Frank’s suggestion. But I’m sure if and when I do, my system will sound incredible!

[Ralf11]

"incredible" as in not credible?

[STC]

32 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Not sure that I understand what you are saying. Are you saying that you'll have nothing to do with lossy audio compression (if so, I'm with you pal)? Or are you saying that the (fairly recently) discovered  psychoacoustic finding of the brain's ability "To fill in the blanks" as it were, has nothing to do with compression. If it's the latter, you're right. Psychoacoustic research has nothing to do with lossy audio compression, but lossy audio compression compression has everything to do with psychoacoustic research. 

 

I am not sure on what context I referred to the research. Will go through the thread again. For now, the relevant research is:-

 

What makes music beautiful? The best compositions transcend culture and time -- but what is the commonality which underscores their appeal? New research suggests that the brain simplifies complex patterns, much in the same way that "lossless" music compression formats reduce audio files, by removing redundant data and identifying patterns.

 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120073507.htm

[pkane2001]

39 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

"incredible" as in not credible?

 

Still trying to figure out how to blind test this change.. quickly flipping a heavy speaker and de/resoldering a couple of connections is hard enough when not blindfolded...

[STC]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Still trying to figure out how to blind test this change.. quickly flipping a heavy speaker and de/resoldering a couple of connections is hard enough when not blindfolded...

 

 That’s so easy. All is inside your head. Concentrate hard and you will hear the improvement.  Don’t worry about AB. That’s not important. Sounds familiar?

[fas42]

6 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

 

ALL of flaws I mentioned are in recording.

 

In answer to your question, the music sounds better with my speakers because my speaker system is LESS "sorted" than my DAP and the flaws in the recording are less noticeable, allowing me to better enjoy the music.

 

Using the DAP I mentioned and high quality IEMs, the track is almost unlistenable as every flaw in the recording sticks out like a sore thumb. 

 

Yes, the recording has issues - I have numerous such items; the Errol Garner tracks sound somewhat worse than an Edison roll!

 

There is a path that occurs with optimising a rig, that happens nearly every time - the current NAD runs somewhat counter to this trend, at the moment. That is, a setup starts off sounding reasonably pleasant, then becomes nigh impossible with certain recordings at a certain point in the evolution; then, you're over the hurdle, it's all downhill from now on.

 

If "every flaw in the recording sticks out like a sore thumb" then the musical message still lacks the coherence and integrity to counter your awareness of the flaws ...

 

And I'll stop there ... I just realised you probably used a source other than the DAP to listen to this track, over the speakers. Is this correct?

[fas42]

7 hours ago, mansr said:

 

 

The FBI couldn't make out the lyrics despite trying for months.

 

And, I have used this track on occasion as a measure for progress - indeed, a toughy ...

[fas42]

6 hours ago, gmgraves said:

In other words, Frank, you've been caught with your pants down AGAIN!

 

Silly boy! ... it's a motto that I cheerfully use, because it stops me falling in the same trap as everyone else - if I have this as a goal then it prods me not to rest on my laurels; I have been caught out far too many times, over the years, in thinking that a particular recording was unrescuable - only to prove myself wrong in the end ...

 

There is recent effort by Amy Winehouse, where they have added badly constructed, fake vinyl noise. This could probably resist most efforts to undo the damage, because it is embedded as a meaningless, emphasised sound effect - this at the moment would probably top my list of truly "bad" recordings - because it's making a deliberately irritating, pseudo-random sound part of the musical message.

[fas42]

6 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I so wanted to hear what Frank hears! Like you, I kept asking him to share his wisdom. After many questions and a detailed description of my system, Frank finally diagnosed the main problem!!! My speakers binding posts may not have been soldered on the inside of the speaker (mind you, I’d have to flip over and take apart a 107lbs speaker just to look inside to see if there is or isn’t a soldered connection).

 

Needless to say, my system is still mediocre, since I didn’t follow through on Frank’s suggestion. But I’m sure if and when I do, my system will sound incredible!

 

Tsk! You gave up far too easily - I have had a setup of mine drop off the perch so often because a single connection wasn't up to scratch - constant experimenting and adjusting guarantees that the wrong things will be disturbed from time to time; leading to me wondering why the sound is not up the par, doing a major hunt, and discovering an uh-oh!!

 

Thought experiment: the technician for a space flight says, I only checked 99.99% of the seals for airtightness, but my gut feeling says the last bit is OK - you'll be happy to climb on board the capsule for Mars; if the air runs out on the way only dead you and me will know this ...

 

Yes, it's a pain, and probably it's not an issue for your speaker - but this is the type of thinking I need to use, to get the results.

[pkane2001]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

Yes, it's a pain, and probably it's not an issue for your speaker - but this is the type of thinking I need to use, to get the results.

 

You're starting from the wrong end, and your approach will lead to years of frustration before one finds any real issues. When troubleshooting, I highly recommend to try to address the major causes first, and not those that might have little or no effect at all.

 

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

Thought experiment: the technician for a space flight says, I only checked 99.99% of the seals for airtightness,

 

Thought experiment: would you start by checking every last one of the seals first if you had a huge hole open in the side of your space capsule?

[kumakuma]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

There is a path that occurs with optimising a rig, that happens nearly every time - the current NAD runs somewhat counter to this trend, at the moment. That is, a setup starts off sounding reasonably pleasant, then becomes nigh impossible with certain recordings at a certain point in the evolution; then, you're over the hurdle, it's all downhill from now on.

 

With all due respect, I don't believe this is possible.

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, STC said:

 

I am not sure on what context I referred to the research. Will go through the thread again. For now, the relevant research is:-

 

What makes music beautiful? The best compositions transcend culture and time -- but what is the commonality which underscores their appeal? New research suggests that the brain simplifies complex patterns, much in the same way that "lossless" music compression formats reduce audio files, by removing redundant data and identifying patterns.

 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120073507.htm

Well, you see that's what I mean. If the brain simplifies complex patterns like music,  then a compression algorithm should be able to use that information to simplify the the complexities of music by discarding most of the information in the sound field. And that is exactly what MP3 does. I had read somewhere that MP3 discards much of the sound in an audio file and that what it discards and what it keeps is based upon psychoacoustic research on how humans perceive music. I can listen to 192 kbps (WCRB Boston) and higher and better (BBC3 in GB which streams in ALC rather than MP3).

[gmgraves]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Silly boy! ... it's a motto that I cheerfully use, because it stops me falling in the same trap as everyone else - if I have this as a goal then it prods me not to rest on my laurels; I have been caught out far too many times, over the years, in thinking that a particular recording was unrescuable - only to prove myself wrong in the end ...

 

There is recent effort by Amy Winehouse, where they have added badly constructed, fake vinyl noise. This could probably resist most efforts to undo the damage, because it is embedded as a meaningless, emphasised sound effect - this at the moment would probably top my list of truly "bad" recordings - because it's making a deliberately irritating, pseudo-random sound part of the musical message.

Frank if you use things like Louie-Louie by the Kinsmen for a reference then you aren't, I'm afraid, doing that you think you're doing!

[gmgraves]

54 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

With all due respect, I don't believe this is possible.

 

55 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

  

With all due respect, I don't believe this is possible.

It's not. The reason why he never tells people much of significance, is because so much of what he does (whatever that is) is all in his head. Frank, I've concluded, is the ultimate victim of both expectational and confirmation bias. He move a cable away from a mains cable by a few centimeters and in his head, the sound quality of his system has just move forward by %100! He solders an interconnect connection to both the source component and the destination component, and the SQ of his collection of mundane components leaps ahead by %500! In reality, the difference before and after the modification may be minuscule or even non-existent, but in Franks mind it's an incredible improvement over what it was before!  

[kumakuma]

58 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

It's not. The reason why he never tells people much of significance, is because so much of what he does (whatever that is) is all in his head. Frank, I've concluded, is the ultimate victim of both expectational and confirmation bias. He move a cable away from a mains cable by a few centimeters and in his head, the sound quality of his system has just move forward by %100! He solders an interconnect connection to both the source component and the destination component, and the SQ of his collection of mundane components leaps ahead by %500! In reality, the difference before and after the modification may be minuscule or even non-existent, but in Franks mind it's an incredible improvement over what it was before!  

 

I've reached a similar conclusion. 

[Ralf11]

17 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Still trying to figure out how to blind test this change.. quickly flipping a heavy speaker and de/resoldering a couple of connections is hard enough when not blindfolded...

 

buy 40 identical speakers - eff up the solder on half, then have a relay box randomly switch them each time (it can record which is which) - you can economize by using mono with a speaker on each stereo channel

[Fitzcaraldo215]

 

9 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

buy 40 identical speakers - eff up the solder on half, then have a relay box randomly switch them each time (it can record which is which) - you can economize by using mono with a speaker on each stereo channel

Mono, stereo, it doesn't matter.  The mind compensates for stuff like that, according to Frank.  Or, at least his mind does.

[Ralf11]

Why doesn't the mind compensate for crummy solder?

 

or for mp3?

 

vinyl?

 

Where is the event boundary that sets the acquisition limit on the black hole of SQ for the mind to suck it all in and create the illusion of a space-time continuum?

 

And.. since brain power is energetically expensive, why do I want to burn neuronic energy fields to create this illusion?

 

What would Rudy Arnheim think of the Frankensteinian erection of high SQ from a "good enough" tweak of the wires?

[Fitzcaraldo215]

54 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Why doesn't the mind compensate for crummy solder?

 

or for mp3?

 

vinyl?

 

Where is the event boundary that sets the acquisition limit on the black hole of SQ for the mind to suck it all in and create the illusion of a space-time continuum?

 

And.. since brain power is energetically expensive, why do I want to burn neuronic energy fields to create this illusion?

 

What would Rudy Arnheim think of the Frankensteinian erection of high SQ from a "good enough" tweak of the wires?

Good questions all.  But, Frank just ain't revealing the supposed secrets.  He's the burlesque stripper, full of sensuous suggestion, but he doesn't even go down to pasties and g-string or even just bra and panties. He's just talk, just come-on with no delivery.  And, if we had paid to watch his dreadful, deceitful act, there would be a riot at the ticket booth demanding money back.

 

 He would rather spend his neuronic, or more likely neurotic, energy tantalizing us with non-credible, mystical sonic miracles that only happen in his mind somewhere in rural Australia, with no confirmation, no measurement and which happen nowhere else on the planet.

 

But, he loves messing with our minds and the attention he gets from the self-aggrandizing fiction he writes, not understanding the total, utter fool he makes of himself.

 

Ok, as I have done in many other forums, it is ignore list time for Frank.  Even the novelty of him making himself an even greater fool than ever before has run its course.  He's got absolutely nothing, and he never did, except he thrives neurotically on all the attention we all give him.  

 

Bye, bye, Frank, for the umpteenth time.

[fas42]

9 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

You're starting from the wrong end, and your approach will lead to years of frustration before one finds any real issues. When troubleshooting, I highly recommend to try to address the major causes first, and not those that might have little or no effect at all.

 

That approach is exactly what gave me convincing sound the first time round - completely unexpectedly. Once achieved in one situation, and able to to understand the conditions which enabled, and disabled that quality  - without understanding all the why's - I then repeated the exercise for various other combinations of gear. Unlike apparently some, , I tend to be logical - if something happens , and I can make it happen with the right efforts, then I start to believe that there might be something in it ... .

 

The 'learning' makes a difference - as said before, the current NAD gear on first test switch on was midfi mediocre - so I dived straight in, and did major surgery before trying to take it seriously. Immediately had huge gains, and knew I had something very promising to work with.

 

9 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Thought experiment: would you start by checking every last one of the seals first if you had a huge hole open in the side of your space capsule?

 

The "huge hole" being speakers and room? If so, completely wrong - competent sound doesn't require very much from here.