How to listen to speakers?

[HIFI]

Frank, 

 

Reference has nothing to do with cost.

 

You use your two speakers hardwired with solder as your reference and you constantly reference the “Frank” performance you have achieved with all your constant tweaks.  You refer to your setup over and over.  Frank...that is a/your reference you have self adopted.   And once again, and again, and again, and again you state that the manufacturers have got it all wrong.  It’s Frank or the entire industry that “got it wrong “.

 

You are lost in your own world Frank.... Lost.

[fas42]

It's not the "once", nor the 35 years ... it's being able to do it over and over and over again, through the decades, with all sorts of gear, and different listening environments.

 

You should check out some live music making, now and again - just for a change - to see what the fuss is about ...

[STC]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

It's not the "once", nor the 35 years ... it's being able to do it over and over and over again, through the decades, with all sorts of gear, and different listening environments.

 

You should check out some live music making, now and again - just for a change - to see what the fuss is about ...

 

On further reflection, I think the illusion you are describing is not related to the stereophonic illusion of creating phantom image. 

 

It is possible that we may come across surreal experience when listening to music. This is just the sound itself without any positional information. A monophonic sound or sound that fills the entire venue.

 

In a stereo system, you may experience rich sound irrespective of the position for mostly centred sound, and the illusion you refer to describe such an experience is entirely subjective. It is as good as enjoying a good single speaker. 

 

I am am referring to sweet spot of stereo where the phantom images emerge. The whole purpose of stereo sound is to create this experience by giving a “stage” where different source is located laterally. 

 

 

[HIFI]

11 minutes ago, fas42 said:

It's not the "once", nor the 35 years ... it's being able to do it over and over and over again, through the decades, with all sorts of gear, and different listening environments.

 

You should check out some live music making, now and again - just for a change - to see what the fuss is about ...

Frank....stop correcting me.  I am tiring of your rants and self servitude.

 

You would serve us both best if you would never quote me or my entries in this forum....ever.

[fas42]

 

20 minutes ago, HIFI said:

Frank....stop correcting me.  I am tiring of your rants and self servitude.

 

You would serve us both best if you would never quote me or my entries in this forum....ever.

 

Apologies if you thought my response was to yourself; I was actually replying to STC's post - we just happened to post at almost the same time, so the order was lost.

[fas42]

47 minutes ago, STC said:

 

On further reflection, I think the illusion you are describing is not related to the stereophonic illusion of creating phantom image. 

 

It is possible that we may come across surreal experience when listening to music. This is just the sound itself without any positional information. A monophonic sound or sound that fills the entire venue.

 

In a stereo system, you may experience rich sound irrespective of the position for mostly centred sound, and the illusion you refer to describe such an experience is entirely subjective. It is as good as enjoying a good single speaker. 

 

I am am referring to sweet spot of stereo where the phantom images emerge. The whole purpose of stereo sound is to create this experience by giving a “stage” where different source is located laterally. 

 

 

 

The ears certainly need two speakers, with different content, for perceiving lateral positioning - how true mono material comes across, identical signal to each speaker, is that the soundstage "follows you"; the ear is adjusting for the phase information, and translates that into an illusion which is always "in front of you". Any sense of lateral positioning of sound within that image is quite weak; and would correspond to how the ear/brain interprets echo cues.

 

The phantom images from normal stereo recordings in the illusion I speak of are very strong - it is trivially easy to point to exactly where the peformer is, both laterally and in the depth dimension; you can "see" that sound element as a distinct entity in the whole.

 

I was both fortunate, and unfortunate, in that the first rig that delivered such a strong illusion ran hot and cold. Meaning, the optimum tune needed for the illusion to manifest was very fragile - and rapidly dissolved over a short time frame. Extremely frustrating, but it demonstrated in an endlessly repeatable fashion, that it was all about the state of tune - nothing altered but the distortion components in the sound; showing me that this was the critical factor.

[STC]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The ears certainly need two speakers, with different content, for perceiving lateral positioning - how true mono material comes across, identical signal to each speaker, is that the soundstage "follows you"; the ear is adjusting for the phase information, and translates that into an illusion which is always "in front of you". Any sense of lateral positioning of sound within that image is quite weak; and would correspond to how the ear/brain interprets echo cues.

 

I do not know what you are saying. You can feed identical content to both speakers and by adjusting the level you can move the image. 

 

Try sitting close to one speaker and ask another person to pull the wires from the OTHER speaker. See if you can hear the difference. And if you do check at which volume, the difference in distance between the two speakers to you. 

 

The moment you move away from one speaker and approaches the other, one speaker is going to sound louder than the other. When the difference is more than 6dB, you need a very acute ears to differentiate the less than 1 dB difference. However, since the sound from the other speakers will arrive much later than 1milliseconds, you can sense the difference in the spaciousness. This is an old topic and can be repeated by anyone to confirm. 

[fas42]

2 hours ago, STC said:

 

I do not know what you are saying. You can feed identical content to both speakers and by adjusting the level you can move the image. 

 

The concept is, stand centre to the speakers - with a half decent replay you should see a soundstage in front of you, midway between the speakers and hopefully with a sense of distance. Then move sideways to a point 3/4 of the way between the speakers, either left or right - you're half way between one speaker and the centre of the stereo pair. Now, normally the soundstage will dive into the nearest speaker; you are aware of the drivers working of that nearby speaker - but what happens if the illusion is fully formed is that the sound doesn't do this, you still see the same soundstage in front of you as you did earlier, when in the "sweet spot".

 

2 hours ago, STC said:

 

Try sitting close to one speaker and ask another person to pull the wires from the OTHER speaker. See if you can hear the difference. And if you do check at which volume, the difference in distance between the two speakers to you. 

 

The moment you move away from one speaker and approaches the other, one speaker is going to sound louder than the other. When the difference is more than 6dB, you need a very acute ears to differentiate the less than 1 dB difference. However, since the sound from the other speakers will arrive much later than 1milliseconds, you can sense the difference in the spaciousness. This is an old topic and can be repeated by anyone to confirm. 

 

The sense of spaciousness remains constant, because the illusion doesn't vary as you get closer to the nearer, louder speaker; the ear/brain automatically compensates for the changes in level, and phase. This seems almost miraculous when working to a high order; but is a natural result of the speakers not drawing attention to themselves, by producing too much audible distortion of the wrong type. Of course, if the SQ is not good enough then no such illusion occurs; and the results will be as you describe.

[STC]

29 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The concept is, stand centre to the speakers - with a half decent replay you should see a soundstage in front of you, midway between the speakers and hopefully with a sense of distance. Then move sideways to a point 3/4 of the way between the speakers, either left or right - you're half way between one speaker and the centre of the stereo pair. Now, normally the soundstage will dive into the nearest speaker; you are aware of the drivers working of that nearby speaker - but what happens if the illusion is fully formed is that the sound doesn't do this, you still see the same soundstage in front of you as you did earlier, when in the "sweet spot".

 

 

The sense of spaciousness remains constant, because the illusion doesn't vary as you get closer to the nearer, louder speaker; the ear/brain automatically compensates for the changes in level, and phase. This seems almost miraculous when working to a high order; but is a natural result of the speakers not drawing attention to themselves, by producing too much audible distortion of the wrong type. Of course, if the SQ is not good enough then no such illusion occurs; and the results will be as you describe.

 

What is soundstage?

[fas42]

2 hours ago, STC said:

 

What is soundstage?

 

Holt's definition is as good as any,

 

soundstaging, soundstage presentation The accuracy with which a reproducing system conveys audible information about the size, shape, and acoustical characteristics of the original recording space and the placement of the performers within it.

[STC]

12 minutes ago, fas42 said:

original recording space and the placement of the performers within it.

 

How does the placement of the performers determined by us? Why mono sound couldn’t produce the placement?

[fas42]

11 hours ago, STC said:

 

How does the placement of the performers determined by us? Why mono sound couldn’t produce the placement?

 

It would obviously be hard to to confirm the accuracy as regards the actual situation at the time of the recording - but good soundstaging to me means that I get a very strong sense of where a particular sound element is situated, on the "stage" beyond the speakers. In the same way as if you had a real stage, with a fine curtain in front of it, and people behind that visual barrier played an instrument, talked or made some other noise - in that real world situation most listeners would be willing to judge that they knew where the person was on that stage; our ear/brains are highly attuned to picking up on all the aural cues ... and that's what I find happens with high quality reproduction.

 

Mono sound gives excellent depth placement, but for lateral positioning there are less clues available - there's a 'fullness' to the sound, but I wouldn't be confident about getting the placement sideways right.

[STC]

22 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

It would obviously be hard to to confirm the accuracy as regards the actual situation at the time of the recording - but good soundstaging to me means that I get a very strong sense of where a particular sound element is situated, on the "stage" beyond the speakers. In the same way as if you had a real stage, with a fine curtain in front of it, and people behind that visual barrier played an instrument, talked or made some other noise - in that real world situation most listeners would be willing to judge that they knew where the person was on that stage; our ear/brains are highly attuned to picking up on all the aural cues ... and that's what I find happens with high quality reproduction.

 

Mono sound gives excellent depth placement, but for lateral positioning there are less clues available - there's a 'fullness' to the sound, but I wouldn't be confident about getting the placement sideways right.

 

Why are you giving this?  

 

I am asking how placement which is one of the elements of soundstage is constructed by us based on the sound cues?

 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, STC said:

 

Why are you giving this?  

 

I am asking how placement which is one of the elements of soundstage is constructed by us based on the sound cues?

 

 

Are you asking me how the human hearing system is able to place heard sounds? That's a subject that books are written about, by researchers in the field - I bow to their in depth knowledge, .

 

All I'm doing is making sure that the sound cues captured or manufactured in the recording, that matter, are reproduced with very high fidelity; the mind does the rest ...

[STC]

7 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Are you asking me how the human hearing system is able to place heard sounds? That's a subject that books are written about, by researchers in the field - I bow to their in depth knowledge, .

 

All I'm doing is making sure that the sound cues captured or manufactured in the recording, that matter, are reproduced with very high fidelity; the mind does the rest ...

 

There are many ways how not to answer a question.

 

You talked about soundstage. You talked about sound following you. You quoted Holt for the definition of soundstage. So all I am asking how placement is recreated by stereo system? Do you know or not? 

 

 

[fas42]

37 minutes ago, STC said:

 

There are many ways how not to answer a question.

 

You talked about soundstage. You talked about sound following you. You quoted Holt for the definition of soundstage. So all I am asking how placement is recreated by stereo system? Do you know or not? 

 

 

 

Okay, we're going into silly mode ... again ... .

 

Bye for now ...

[davide256]

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

...

Mono sound gives excellent depth placement, but for lateral positioning there are less clues available - there's a 'fullness' to the sound, but I wouldn't be confident about getting the placement sideways right.

That very statement tells me you are  a con man. There are no "depth" cues with mono and I've heard one of the best mono setups possible. A good mono setup

can make you aware that the imaging and depth of stereo is sizzle, not the steak.

[Lone Mountain Audio]

On 6/9/2019 at 7:47 PM, HIFI said:

 

In your reply you said “If it the dispersion was perfect, covered out entire listing area, the reflections are the same as the on axis info and these (out of phase) reflections are pretty much the same as the on axis info”.  You still have reflected information reaching your listening spot(s) at different times as direct on axis info.  So I’m not sure if that is why a sweet spot has width.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like you understood it well.  Know that two different sounds added create a third sound which is not like the two it's made from.   The reality of off axis response is how the spectral (freq response) content of these reflections is different from the on axis (direct) sound.   The total, the sum of these two sources created by your speakers and room together is what you hear from your stereo.  So reflections (from your speakers in the room) added to the direct sound (from your speakers straight to your ears with no barriers) is what we perceive as "the sound of my speakers".  This is why off axis response is so important. 

 

SO the reflections are also delayed as they take a longer path to you as compared to the sound that goes straight from the speaker drivers to your ears.  Anything delayed by a longer path to you creates out of phase information that when added back to the original direct sound, will cancel part of the direct sound.  if the timing /phase is shifted out of phase exactly 180 degrees it will totally cancel the 0 degree in phase sound.  Since the reflections have all kinds of different paths to take to bounce around your room before the land at your ears, they are time shifted in many different ways ( arrive at lots of different times) and will not all be the same delay,  they will be lots of different delay times.  This means lot of different cancellations, some complete, some partial and some just a little.  So if this sounds like a sonic mess, it is!  

 

You can easily see that going somewhere where there are few reflections is the best way to evaluate your speaker for its true sound.  if not outside, a very large space where boundaries are far away.  That's what an anechoic chamber is, it absorbs MOST reflections and enables you to evaluate only the direct sound.  

 

All of this is a clear argument for why consistent good off axis response solves a lot of problems in advance and is the best way to design a pair of speakers for our imperfect rooms.  

 

Brad

 

 

[HIFI]

Brad . . . .

 

Thank you for your explanation. I think I have a pretty good understanding of this “science of sound”.

 

It’s a pleasurable discussion.  Thank you for your contribution. 

 

 

[STC]

10 hours ago, davide256 said:

There are no "depth" cues with mono

 

I think he is referring to the distance of different instruments in the recordings. It is possible to assign an arbitrary distance based on the level and difference in the high frequencies. This is reliably only for sound that you are familiar. 

[fas42]

10 hours ago, davide256 said:

That very statement tells me you are  a con man. There are no "depth" cues with mono and I've heard one of the best mono setups possible. A good mono setup

can make you aware that the imaging and depth of stereo is sizzle, not the steak.

 

Of course there are. The relative loudness, combined with the echos that occur in the recording space; and the loudness differential between the direct sound and the echos corresponding to a particular instrument, etc; the delay between the direct and the echo for a particular sound source all make sense to the listening brain - but all the lower level information has to be reproduced with a high degree of integrity for the mind not to discard what it's hearing as "a bit of a mess".

 

This is exactly what I look for when tuning up a setup - it starts with mono being as flat as a tack, and when the key distortion factors are decently addressed, out pops a sense of depth - I'm no longer listening to a fancy kitchen radio, with a bit of a caricature of "old fashioned" sound emerging; I can now focus on each instrument, or group of them having distinct identities. Swing orchestra recordings from the 30's are good candidates for exploring how this transition in the subjective perception occurs.

[STC]

7 hours ago, Lone Mountain Audio said:

Anything delayed by a longer path to you creates out of phase information that when added back to the original direct sound, will cancel part of the direct sound.  if the timing /phase is shifted out of phase exactly 180 degrees it will totally cancel the 0 degree in phase sound.  Since the reflections have all kinds of different paths to take to bounce around your room before the land at your ears, they are time shifted in many different ways ( arrive at lots of different times) and will not all be the same delay,  they will be lots of different delay times

 

 

If the reflected sound is already delayed then how is it possible for out of phase signal to cancel out the original direct sound which would have reached the ears at least 1ms earlier? 

 

A wide dispersion speakers benefits the users by creating lateral reflection which is important  for musical experience. It doesn't change imaging. The most accurate imaging is possible when you use spot light speakers which are highly directional. 

[fas42]

7 hours ago, Lone Mountain Audio said:

Seems like you understood it well.  Know that two different sounds added create a third sound which is not like the two it's made from.   The reality of off axis response is how the spectral (freq response) content of these reflections is different from the on axis (direct) sound.   The total, the sum of these two sources created by your speakers and room together is what you hear from your stereo.  So reflections (from your speakers in the room) added to the direct sound (from your speakers straight to your ears with no barriers) is what we perceive as "the sound of my speakers".  This is why off axis response is so important. 

 

 

That's how it works with conventional quality playback - the brain can't distinguish the room information from the information that is being conveyed about the spaces that the recordings captured, or has encoded.

 

To overcome this, the SQ has to be improved for the playback chain - at a certain point in the quality balance the mind is now able to separate these two contributions to one sensing sound happening in a space. This when taken to a high level allows the brain to completely discard the room contributions; the latter are fully 'masked' by the acoustics of the recording - and, "the room disappears!", "I'm taken back to where the musicians were playing!" sort of comments are made.

 

You no longer have "the sound of my speakers" - you have, instead, ""the sound of the recording". This is highly distinct, unique, and always sounds the same, wherever and whenever you play it.

[STC]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

That's how it works with conventional quality playback - the brain can't distinguish the room information from the information that is being conveyed about the spaces that the recordings captured, or has encoded.

 

Says who? ( I mean who besides you)

 

 

[HIFI]

28 minutes ago, STC said:

 

 

If the reflected sound is already delayed then how is it possible for out of phase signal to cancel out the original direct sound which would have reached the ears at least 1ms earlier? 

 

 

I am going to try and answer this....

 

Same signal, delayed from boundary distance cancelation or sums, is easy to hear and understand.  Most listening rooms suffer and bass cancelations/sums, to my ears, are the most noticeable   Midrange and high frequency information as well.