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20 hours ago, audiobomber said:

The level of wind sound and ambient noise in the first video is ridiculous. In the second video it's clear that the speakers have poor time alignment, bass and highs don't reach the mike at the same time. The music in the third video is a muddled mess.

,,,

 

You miss the point of the videos. They show very clearly that you can get sound that is closer to the original with a PA outdoors, even at extreme distances,  than you get in a domestic room with presumably excellent speakers.

For both examples (the Devore speakers and the Danley speaker) the source tracks are on Youtube. Cue them up and compare directly. See which one sounds more like the original, especially the Danley second video. (The time alignment is fine, there's just a bit more bass than the original.)

"People hear what they see." - Doris Day

The forum would be a much better place if everyone were less convinced of how right they were.

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I made some recordings of music for FAS42 once.  I recorded speakers in my room using cross-pairs of mics with different pickup patterns at the listening position.  You get an echo filled distant sound.  The reason is early room reflections.  You also can get uneven bass if you pick a poor spot in the room.  The reason is our ears of course respond to those same reflections, but our brain filters them out for the first 10 milliseconds or so.  We "hear thru the room" in that sense to mainly the direct speaker sound.  Reflections picked up by microphones get reproduced as direct reproductions of those reflections and we hear them.  That is a problem with binaural or any other miking at the listening position.  

 

Now I also did one of the recordings with a mic 1.5 meters from each speaker. That one sounded very much like the speaker sounds at the listening position because the direct to reflected sound ratio was much more in favor of direct sound.  Due to our hearing filtering out reflections we hear a much more direct sound from speakers.  

 

And that is the point of Don's video links.  Outdoor recordings of decent PA speakers sound less colored and more like the music because there are no reflections compared to recording speakers in a normal listening room at the listening position.  That is also why the stadium sounded less good than the other two.  

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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1 hour ago, esldude said:

The reason is our ears of course respond to those same reflections, but our brain filters them out for the first 10 milliseconds or so.  We "hear thru the room" in that sense to mainly the direct speaker sound.  Reflections picked up by microphones get reproduced as direct reproductions of those reflections and we hear them.  That is a problem with binaural or any other miking at the listening position.  

 

Same question I asked Don: why doesn't the brain filter out reflections in a recording? What's different? Are reflections not recorded correctly? Or is it that your visual perception prevents it?

 

I believe you said before that binaural recordings don't sound good to you. They sound amazing to me, so there may be some differences in how we process sound or possibly differences in our ear/head anatomy that affect sound.

 

A while back, I decided to see if I can reproduce the effect of my room through headphones. I used REW to create an impulse response from the measurements collected at my normal listening position. I then used this to convolve with the music played back through headphones. It sounded great! The effect was an added dimension to the sound, with a bit more depth and sense of space and reverb but no unwelcome distortions. Obviously, this is adding something to the sound that wasn't in the recording, but perhaps this is a better way to reproduce a sound of a specific location/room than simply recording music playing there through a microphone.

 

Here's the IR plot from a vector average of 5 REW sweeps at my sweet spot:

ir.thumb.png.73e23ba2f245009037daec09114911b3.png

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Sorry, was catching with a local car race, and other things ... ^_^.

 

The section in the original starting at 11:36 appears to be the match with what has been recorded by Jana - what stands out is loss of string tone quality, and a sense of the recording space - the presentation is 'small'. There is an instrument that comes in at one point that sounds vaguely like a piano; referring to the original, it's a wind instrument.

 

Just prior to the start of the classical is a climax to a section of jazz - this is very messy. Note that the tonality of that piece matches that of the following classical.

 

Overall, there is a grinding, wearisome aspect to the sound; you can't wait for it to finish, because there's no enjoyment in the listening. This is a typical manifestation of much audio playback - it's drained of life ... and it's the sort of distortion that I work towards excising.

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23 hours ago, fas42 said:

As an example of what high quality sound reinforcement is capable of, compared with the usual rubbishy efforts, I present:

 

 

Home audio should be able to at least match this ...

 

I didn't realise that Don had posted this earlier - I had Javascript disabled while scanning the posts, and missed the duplication ... sorry 'bout that!

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7 hours ago, esldude said:

If I play music over speakers you hear the direct sound first, the next several milliseconds of reflected sound is filtered away from our hearing.  This happens at least partly due to directional cues arriving later from a different direction detected by the shape of the outer ear, and from our ears constantly moving slightly (even if we think we are holding them still).  The brain can find reflections that have a similar signature though delayed and ignore those.  

 

If I record the sound at listening position, then the microphone picks up direct sound and reflections.  When I play that back over speakers the delayed and reflected sound comes from the same physical spot.  The effects of our outer ear have no way to separate that from recorded music.  Nor does movement of our head.  So it gets treated as a primary direct sound mixed in with the music and it is not filtered.  Those recorded reflections will create secondary reflections of those in the room, but our ears filter that away.

 

Also as a sidenote REW on IR plots ignores sound after a few milliseconds to clean up the result.  For the same reason our ears do, to filter out reflections in the room and come closer to getting the IR of the speaker as it would manage outdoors or in an anechoic chamber.  You can adjust that time in the settings.  Longer times give better frequency resolution with more chance of reflections being found, while shorter times are cleaner with less frequency resolution. 

 

That's true, Dennis. I'm getting to know pretty well the mechanism for determining direction of the sound. And indeed, our head/ear anatomy is configured to allow some sense of direction to be derived from the incident sound wave. I've been doing a deep dive into this subject since I started using headphones, for about a year now. But I question to what degree the brain/ear system uses directional cues when ignoring reflections (it would make sense that it does, but I've not come across this during my informal research). Do you have any references to studies that demonstrate this effect?

 

And thanks, yes, I'm aware of REW is ignoring later reflections. For my room, it's really not significant as the room is relatively small, and I'm not trying to reproduce every last reflection. After all, I don't hear these anyway when listening through speakers. But it is interesting to me that I can reproduce at least some sense of my speaker/room system through another transducer by applying a measured IR through convolution. Reminds me of optics and image processing using a PSF (point spread function). PSF is very similar to an audio IR function, but in two spatial dimensions.

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10 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

That's true, Dennis. I getting to know pretty well the mechanism for determining direction of the sound. And indeed, our head/ear anatomy is configured to allow some sense of direction to be derived from the incident sound wave. I've been doing a deep dive into this subject since I started using headphones, for about a year now. But I question to what degree the brain/ear system uses directional cues when ignoring reflections (it would make sense that it does, but I've not come across this during my informal research). Do you have any references to studies that demonstrate this effect?

 

And thanks, yes, I'm aware of REW is ignoring later reflections. For my room, it's really not significant as the room is relatively small, and I'm not trying to reproduce every last reflection. After all, I don't hear these anyway when listening through speakers. But it is interesting to me that I can reproduce at least some sense of my speaker/room system through another transducer by applying a measured IR and convolution. Reminds me of optics and image processing using a PSF (point spread function). PSF is very similar to an audio IR function, but in two spatial dimensions.

https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1024//1421-0185.58.3.170?journalCode=sjp

 

There are a few ways we hear direction.  Time and intensity differences as well as pinna filtering and head movement.  The brain appears to peg a location for initial direct sound, and as long as the various directional cues agree it blocks out delayed reflections.  As each of the known directional cues are removed, the accuracy of our perception of location is reduced.  I don't know that I can point to research showing directional cues from pinna specifically are used for filtering of reflections, but as pinna directionality is one of the factors in our hearing of location(especially height) it seems it will be involved. 

 

You won't get access to these papers, but here are several abstracts showing there is work in the area regarding the importance of the pinna directional cues

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/18781713_The_Role_of_the_Pinna_in_Human_Localization


Sorry, I wish I had something more definitive and in a paper available to read rather than just abstracts. 

 

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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4 hours ago, esldude said:

https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1024//1421-0185.58.3.170?journalCode=sjp

 

There are a few ways we hear direction.  Time and intensity differences as well as pinna filtering and head movement.  The brain appears to peg a location for initial direct sound, and as long as the various directional cues agree it blocks out delayed reflections.  As each of the known directional cues are removed, the accuracy of our perception of location is reduced.  I don't know that I can point to research showing directional cues from pinna specifically are used for filtering of reflections, but as pinna directionality is one of the factors in our hearing of location(especially height) it seems it will be involved. 

 

You won't get access to these papers, but here are several abstracts showing there is work in the area regarding the importance of the pinna directional cues

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/18781713_The_Role_of_the_Pinna_in_Human_Localization


Sorry, I wish I had something more definitive and in a paper available to read rather than just abstracts. 

 

 

Thanks for that! I did find a number of full papers specifically on early reflections and how they affect spatial perception of sound. Will need to go through these in detail.

 

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6 hours ago, esldude said:

https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1024//1421-0185.58.3.170?journalCode=sjp

 

There are a few ways we hear direction.  Time and intensity differences as well as pinna filtering and head movement.  The brain appears to peg a location for initial direct sound, and as long as the various directional cues agree it blocks out delayed reflections.  As each of the known directional cues are removed, the accuracy of our perception of location is reduced.  I don't know that I can point to research showing directional cues from pinna specifically are used for filtering of reflections, but as pinna directionality is one of the factors in our hearing of location(especially height) it seems it will be involved. 

...

 

also phase detection

 

there is an extensive literature on this topic - here's a starter:

https://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/The-Evolution-of-Mammalian-Sound-Localization.pdf

 

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Interesting chart from one of the papers on perception of sound and a delayed reflection:

 

image.thumb.png.4d03fcf0664753e63cbce35c9f0050e8.png

 

[Binaural Hearing, Sound Localization, and Spatial Hearing. G. C. Stecker and F. J. Gallun]

 

Reflections of up to about 1ms affect the perceived location of the source, causing it to move around the soundstage. Reflections at 1-5ms range are ignored, and only the primary signal is heard. Reflections above 5ms turn into two separate perceived sources of sound.

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All the research referenced always only deals with the most simplistic situations; where's the work that Investigates how hearing reacts when there are two conflicting acoustic environments being presented at the same time - which takes precedence? And why? 

 

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23 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

You can tell what he playback sounds like from a YOUTUBE recording? Are you for real? How do you know that it isn't the microphones used to capture that video's audio? The recording electronics? The room acoustics? You have no way of knowing. Just because the original recording you she was playing doesn't sound like the recording of her playback THROUGH ANOTHER ROUND TRIP of recording/playback MEANS NOTHING. I find it very telling that you can't see that without being told!

 

I say, Help! ... again ...

 

If you haven't the ability to pick up the classic, signature sound of a playback system being recorded I feel sorry for you. They even deliberately overcook these qualities in movies, say, just to make sure the audience knows it's meant to be a hifi, rather than live music ...

 

The closer the capture mimics all the key qualities in the sound of the actual recording, direct, the more likely that playback sound in the flesh will be an accurate copy of the recording itself. I find it very telling that you can't see that without being told!

 

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10 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

I say, Help! ... again ...

 

If you haven't the ability to pick up the classic, signature sound of a playback system being recorded I feel sorry for you. They even deliberately overcook these qualities in movies, say, just to make sure the audience knows it's meant to be a hifi, rather than live music ...

 

The closer the capture mimics all the key qualities in the sound of the actual recording, direct, the more likely that playback sound in the flesh will be an accurate copy of the recording itself. I find it very telling that you can't see that without being told!

 

That's right Frank. I can't 'see" the impossible; that which doesn't exist. A recording of speakers made with the microphone in a video camera? And you're surprised that the lousy recording doesn't sound like the original music???!!!! Frank, your grasp on reality is slipping further, every day!

George

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7 hours ago, gmgraves said:

That's right Frank. I can't 'see" the impossible; that which doesn't exist. A recording of speakers made with the microphone in a video camera? And you're surprised that the lousy recording doesn't sound like the original music???!!!! Frank, your grasp on reality is slipping further, every day!

 

I suggest you try a little experiment - find half a dozen YouTube clips made by ordinary people, using the "lousy microphone in a video camera" of real world, live acoustic events; and another half dozen similarly made by audio enthusiasts of their "brilliant hifis" in action - and play these at random, with video not seen, to people who have little interest in audio. The game is: name the type of source - speakers, or 'real' sound?

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4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I suggest you try a little experiment - find half a dozen YouTube clips made by ordinary people, using the "lousy microphone in a video camera" of real world, live acoustic events; and another half dozen similarly made by audio enthusiasts of their "brilliant hifis" in action - and play these at random, with video not seen, to people who have little interest in audio. The game is: name the type of source - speakers, or 'real' sound?

 

How would this experiment prove that you have the ability to "listen through" Jana's recording to evaluate what the rig actually sounds like?

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

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1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

How would this experiment prove that you have the ability to "listen through" Jana's recording to evaluate what the rig actually sounds like?

 

I'm not interested in what the rig "actually sounds like" - rather, whether the information is audible that the setup has some problems or not. That is, I'm not looking at the big picture, but if there are key, 'signature' giveaways in what I hear that signal some issue. This is particularly important, because it is exactly those sort of anomalies that prevent a full illusion occurring - if I can hear faults via a less than perfect capture, then those aspects will be extremely obvious in the flesh.

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37 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I'm not interested in what the rig "actually sounds like" - rather, whether the information is audible that the setup has some problems or not. That is, I'm not looking at the big picture, but if there are key, 'signature' giveaways in what I hear that signal some issue. This is particularly important, because it is exactly those sort of anomalies that prevent a full illusion occurring - if I can hear faults via a less than perfect capture, then those aspects will be extremely obvious in the flesh.

 

In this case, you have no way of knowing if the faults that you are hearing are faults in the rig itself or faults introduced by Jana's equipment or recording methodology.

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

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On 10/6/2018 at 7:25 PM, fas42 said:

As an example of what high quality sound reinforcement is capable of, compared with the usual rubbishy efforts, I present:

 

 

Home audio should be able to at least match this ...

 

The transient impact of the "snap" - and the seeming lack of room-like interference of the outdoor environment - are indeed impressive.

 

But you're out of your mind if you think that, for example, the acoustic bass on this recording sounds anything like it would or should sound when heard directly from those speakers, or when heard indoors in a room, played back by a high quality, well set-up audio system.

 

You're confusing some subjective characteristics that you find pleasant on the one hand, with fidelity on the other. Of course what each of us like is more important than an abstract standard of fidelity - but the problem with equating our likes with fidelity is that not everyone likes the same kind of sound, and not everyone prioritizes the same sonic aspects when assessing the pluses and minuses of any playback system.

 

Finally, the only thing in an audio playback and capture setup that's as inaccurate and colored as the speakers, is the other transducer in the equation, the microphone(s). So literally half of what we're hearing in these YT videos is the coloration introduced by the recording/capturing system itself. 

 

If all the YT videos used the same microphone in the same room, then we could make comparisons between the rigs being recorded. But they don't.

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9 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

In this case, you have no way of knowing if the faults that you are hearing are faults in the rig itself or faults introduced by Jana's equipment or recording methodology.

Frank is just practicing reference-less evaluation.

 

Current methods for automatically evaluating sound systems rely on gold-standard references. However, these methods suffer from penalizing sounds that are correct but not in the gold standard. We show that reference-less sound metrics correlate very strongly with human judgments and are competitive with the leading reference-based evaluation metrics. By interpolating both methods, we achieve state-of-the-art correlation with human judgments. Finally, we show that sound metrics are much more reliable when they are calculated at the system level instead of the component level.

 

https://aclweb.org/anthology/D16-1228

 

Some paraphrasing was incurred in the above statement.  

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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55 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I'm not interested in what the rig "actually sounds like" - rather, whether the information is audible that the setup has some problems or not. That is, I'm not looking at the big picture, but if there are key, 'signature' giveaways in what I hear that signal some issue. This is particularly important, because it is exactly those sort of anomalies that prevent a full illusion occurring - if I can hear faults via a less than perfect capture, then those aspects will be extremely obvious in the flesh.

 

The logic of your comment here presumes that the microphone capturing the playback is transparent and not introducing or contributing to any problems you might be hearing. In fact, a microphone (and the room) could potentially cancel out or mask problems too, preventing you from hearing problems with the rig as well.

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