Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[Teresa]

On 3/2/2020 at 2:57 PM, fas42 said:

...I will suggest this ... most audio people have at least once come across a "magic rig" - doesn't matter for how short a time it was, or how long ago, or whether it was ultra expensive, or not  - which pushed all the buttons ...

 

On 3/19/2020 at 10:09 PM, fas42 said:

 

Who here

 

(a) Has had this experience

(b) Thinks such a concept is BS

(c) Hasn't got a clue what I'm talking about

(d) Has no opinion about it

 

?

 

(a) Has had this experience

 

If by all the buttons you mean well recorded acoustic music sounding like I'm there listening to live music in the flesh, be it a concert hall, jazz club or other well chosen venue then yes I have. Many, many times. Including my current audio system who's sonic realism with high resolution correctly engineered recordings is magical indeed!

[Teresa]

19 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I’m sure that I have heard more live music than most people have ever thought of. Keep in mind that I have to be there to record it, so I have to “hear it“. And I have heard, and I own a high-end rig that makes my own recordings of music that I’ve heard live sound very much as it did at the live event!

 

Sorry, but my frustration is that you persist in asserting that you have done the impossible. You have taken mediocre (and worse) components and made them sound better than systems that are state-of-the-art while also imbuing your system with the ability to make the most horrible and inept recordings rise above their inherent awfulness to become not only listenable, but enjoyably so. These two abilities are diametrically opposed, and thus impossible to achieve.
 

The reality is that the more resolving the system, the WORSE poor recordings sound. The only way to make bad recordings listenable is to make the playback so poor that all recordings, good or bad sound more or less alike. That is to say, that everything will sound the same, but the listener (that’s you, Frank) has made his peace with the mediocrity that has rendered all recordings, good or bad, the same. This reminds of an old Japanese saying: “the nail (in this case, representing an excellent recording) that sticks up shall be hammered down (by your playback “system”)”. 

 

This must be the truth, because it is the only way to reconcile your poor assemblage of parts with what you say they will do. The rest, of course, is in your head. 

 

George I agree with everything you said. 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

 

Excuse me, but if a speaker is completely undetectable to the aural senses, that is what is commonly known as silence.

 

 

The illusion projected by the sound emerging from the speakers is most certainly not silent - however, you are not given any clues by what you hear as to the location of those speakers. Blindfold the listener, and allow him to walk around, without bumping into one of the cabinets - he will not be able to point precisely to either speaker; it will purely be a guess if he's close.

[gmgraves]

9 minutes ago, Teresa said:

 

George I agree with everything you said. 

Thank you, Teresa. It simply couldn’t be otherwise. What Frank asserts is simply impossible, and it doesn’t take an electronic or acoustics genius to see it either.

[Blackmorec]

9 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

Excuse me, but if a speaker is completely undetectable to the aural senses, that is what is commonly known as silence.

 

With the greatest respect, when you have a fully developed 3 dimensional soundscape, there is absolutely no way that you can detect the location of 2 loudspeakers as a source....they utterly disappear, replaced by whatever recording venue is on the recording, populated by musicians whose instruments and voices have their own 3 dimensional positions and individual acoustic.

If I lead you into my listening room blindfold, sat you down and started to play a track you’d have no aural clues whatsoever about the room you were in nor the position of the loudspeakers. You may think you do, but as soon as I play another track, you’d realise that what you’re hearing is a quality of the recording and not of the room and speaker placement. 

[Allan F]

29 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

With the greatest respect, when you have a fully developed 3 dimensional soundscape, there is absolutely no way that you can detect the location of 2 loudspeakers as a source...

 

Sorry, but regardless of whether you can detect the location of speakers, they are still "detectable to the aural senses", i.e. your ears can hear them. Determining their existence is not the same thing as identifying their location.

[Blackmorec]

21 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

Sorry, but regardless of whether you can detect the location of the speakers, they are still "detectable to the aural senses".

A loudspeaker is a point source, that always has a fixed location, based on the difference in amplitude and timing of its signal as it reaches your 2 ears. But take that same signal, split it between 2 loudspeakers and if done exceptionally well the location of the loudspeakers completely disappears, replaced by whatever soundscape is on the recording. When you look at the loudspeakers they ‘appear’ to be completely silent as you brain detects no source of sound coming from exactly theIr location. With such a soundscape it sounds like the air in the room is generating the sound. 

 

Detectable: Able to be perceived or noticed; discernible.  But these are not aural attributes when 2 loudspeakers are producing a fully fledged 3 dimensional soundscape. The loudspeakers cannot be detected....only the resulting soundscape is detectable

[Allan F]

27 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

Detectable: Able to be perceived or noticed; discernible.  But these are not aural attributes when 2 loudspeakers are producing a fully fledged 3 dimensional soundscape. The loudspeakers cannot be detected....only the resulting soundscape is detectable

 

Of course they are noticed and discernible - because they can be heard. No one is fooled into believing that live music is being played in their listening room. While I fully understand what you are trying to convey, don't confuse audiophile jargon with the English language. BTW, my original comment was intended as a joke.

[Blackmorec]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

 

Of course they are noticed and discernible - because they can be heard. No one is fooled into believing that live music is being played in their listening room. Don't confuse technical audiophile jargon with proper use of the English language.

Nothing to do with live music. What it is to do with are sounds that appear to originate from anywhere other than the loudspeakers. That’s what audiophiles mean when they say that the speakers disappear.....when their hearing tells them that no sounds are emanating from those 2 columns standing mute on either side of their listening room. 

[kumakuma]

31 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

Nothing to do with live music. What it is to do with are sounds that appear to originate from anywhere other than the loudspeakers. That’s what audiophiles mean when they say that the speakers disappear.....when their hearing tells them that no sounds are emanating from those 2 columns standing mute on either side of their listening room. 

 

Do you share Frank's belief that this illusion will persist regardless of where you are in the room if the system is operating correctly?

[Blackmorec]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

Do you share Frank's belief that this illusion will persist regardless of where you are in the room if the system is operating correctly?

No I don’t. The 3D soundscape we talk about is created when phase and amplitude relationships between the 2 channels are highly optimised. Change the relative position of speakers and ears and you change the amplitude and phase. That doesn’t mean that the illusion utterly collapses, but the level of finesse and detail retrieval are definitely impacted. Tonal balance will also change due to room reflections, driver integration and polar response of the drivers.

There’s no doubt that the illusion is best served by almost perfect channel symmetry. I’d also point out that achieving a 3 dimensional soundscape is not the end of the road and the illusion can be enhanced quite dramatically with increased care and optimisation. Removing shortcomings from the system definitely does improve the illusion. 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Blackmorec said:

No I don’t. The 3D soundscape we talk about is created when phase and amplitude relationships between the 2 channels are highly optimised. Change the relative position of speakers and ears and you change the amplitude and phase. That doesn’t mean that the illusion utterly collapses, but the level of finesse and detail retrieval are definitely impacted. Tonal balance will also change due to room reflections, driver integration and polar response of the drivers.

There’s no doubt that the illusion is best served by almost perfect channel symmetry. I’d also point out that achieving a 3 dimensional soundscape is not the end of the road and the illusion can be enhanced quite dramatically with increased care and optimisation. Removing shortcomings from the system definitely does improve the illusion. 

 

Why I have such a different attitude from nearly all of you is purely because of the history of how the illusion manifested for me - it didn't slowly creep up on me, one painful, in money terms, iteration at a time - bit by bit building up a sense of what a particular recording could sound like. Rather, I didn't notice any particular 3D aspect to the presentation - it just sounded like very pleasant stereo sound, but which now and again irritated me because I could hear distortion artifacts caused by the playback chain. They were most certainly not part of the recording, because if I did some tweaking which had only a temporary effect, the issues in the sound went away ... so I kept working on those areas ...

 

Until one day ... bang!! The full 3D thing was there, and it was working at maximum strength, immediately - there was absolutely nothing that was halfway house about it ... and then it slowly faded away ... ... and years of frustration, and excitement at making advancements followed, 😉.

 

Taking tremendous care with the speaker alignment, etc, will work - and I understand why: the brain needs enough of the clues in the sound to be clear, and for any sounds which contradict the message in the recording to be at a minimum. Get the balance of these two conflicting sound components in what the ears pick up to be beyond a certain point, and the listening mind flicks a switch - an "aural hologram" manifests ... which can only survive if the balance is maintained - as soon as it drops below the necessary standard, it all evaporates.

 

I got there by making sure that the clues in the recording were clear enough - not by "perfectly" setting up the speakers in the room ... different technique, but end results are the same. Where I gained, compared to the usual methods, is that those audible clues were still perfectly evident no matter where I was in the room - translation: the "sweet spot" was everywhere.

[fas42]

26 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

Sorry, but my frustration is that you persist in asserting that you have done the impossible. You have taken mediocre (and worse) components and made them sound better than systems that are state-of-the-art while also imbuing your system with the ability to make the most horrible and inept recordings rise above their inherent awfulness to become not only listenable, but enjoyably so. These two abilities are diametrically opposed, and thus impossible to achieve.

 

(sigh ...)

 

As I have recounted, over and over again, I started my journey with very high quality components, apart from the speakers being at the bottom end of the range. This told me "what was possible", and I have spent much of the time exploring whether the experience could be repeated with lower cost items - turns out, you can go down quite a long way before the inherent limitations are too great, and it becomes pointless trying to replicate the behaviour ... that's one side of the story.

 

It's your judgement that some recordings are "inherently awful" - others find the music captured to be highly entertaining, and it turns out that if enough of the detail that is typically blurred by less than fully capable replay is clearly audible, that the presentation comes across as highly satisfying, aided by our clever brains.

 

26 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

The reality is that the more resolving the system, the WORSE poor recordings sound. The only way to make bad recordings listenable is to make the playback so poor that all recordings, good or bad sound more or less alike. That is to say, that everything will sound the same, but the listener (that’s you, Frank) has made his peace with the mediocrity that has rendered all recordings, good or bad, the same. This reminds of an old Japanese saying: “the nail (in this case, representing an excellent recording) that sticks up shall be hammered down (by your playback “system”)”. 

 

This must be the truth, because it is the only way to reconcile your poor assemblage of parts with what you say they will do. The rest, of course, is in your head. 

 

It's your opinion that it's a "poor assemblage of parts" - the reality is that for decades the quality of audio gear has been good enough, in the capability of the electronic parts, and the speaker drivers - to save costs, and put out high value for money setups, all manufacturers compromise on various, usually mechanical and structural, parts of the design .. if one understands where this has been done, and can devise workarounds, and DIY solutions to 'fix' those weaknesses - then the gear will perform, subjectively, just as well as the most blingy offerings out there.

 

You, as an engineer, should fully understand this ...

 

[Allan F]

34 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Why I have such a different attitude from nearly all of you is purely because of the history of how the delusion manifested for me...

 

Once again, a necessary edit to accord with reality.

[fas42]

55 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

Once again, a necessary edit to accord with my reality.

 

Once again, a necessary edit ... 🙂

 

 

Just because a crowd all sings from the same hymnbook, doesn't guarantee that it's a good song.

[fas42]

Noting this thread,

 

This approach is doomed to failure, or will be tortuously long winded in its ability to achieve Wow! sound ...

 

Because, it tries to pretend that distortion behaviours are terribly well behaved- that they will just sit there, obediently being 100% consistent in how they operate, no matter what else is going on - or what other vectors are relevant ...everything in my experience says that anomalies are like the worst troublemakers in a classroom of kids - no matter what 'simple rules' you put in place to try and maintain peace; they will always cause a disturbance by some means - because of their very nature.

 

Some of the most impressive rigs use components that are over 50 years old; that have circuitry which is atrociously badly behaved in terms of measured distortion when pushed a bit - chasing fairies via numbers might appeal ... but it will a very, very slow process, 🤪.

[kumakuma]

28 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Just because a crowd all sings from the same hymnbook, doesn't guarantee that it's a good song.

 

And repeating the same crazy ideas 6719 6720 times doesn't make them true...  

 

[fas42]

Ahh, so the crazy idea is that a 3D soundscape is possible - or is it, that an extremely high percentage of recordings can be satisfying to listen to ... hmmm?

[fas42]

Just found this posting, by our friendly chap here,

 

Now, this is as good an example as any of where the "magic" can happen ... at a certain standard of playback, every aspect of the recording technology and media deficiencies will scream at you; this factor will be overwhelming in the listening ... but then when the playback goes to the next level of SQ, all these 'issues' will subjectively evaporate - and all you'll 'hear' are the musicians doing their thing.

 

This type of behaviour I've heard too often, on countless recordings, to have the slightest doubt that this track - which I don't own - would show the same characteristics.

[kumakuma]

16 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Just found this posting, by our friendly chap here,

 

Now, this is as good an example as any of where the "magic" can happen ... at a certain standard of playback, every aspect of the recording technology and media deficiencies will scream at you; this factor will be overwhelming in the listening ... but then when the playback goes to the next level of SQ, all these 'issues' will subjectively evaporate - and all you'll 'hear' are the musicians doing their thing.

 

This type of behaviour I've heard too often, on countless recordings, to have the slightest doubt that this track - which I don't own - would show the same characteristics.

 

Go back and read again the post that you referenced. I didn't say anything remotely close to what you think I said.

[Allan F]

54 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Go back and read again the post that you referenced. I didn't say anything remotely close to what you think I said.

 

As in: "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." 🙂

[gmgraves]

On 3/20/2020 at 8:43 PM, fas42 said:

Just came across this, http://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/2014/01/music-santana-abraxas.html

 

... the problem is, that one person's recording shite, the 5%'ers - is another person's bit o' magic ... somewhere, floating around in the clouds, is The Truth - mighty hard to grab hold of, as it wafts hither and thither ... 😝.

You are wrong, Frank. A good recording is one that sounds the closest to live, acoustic music played in a real venue. If it doesn’t sound like that, it’s shite. Anyone who would think that this was a bit “o’magic”, has no idea what real music sounds like. 

[gmgraves]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

(sigh ...)

 

As I have recounted, over and over again, I started my journey with very high quality components, apart from the speakers being at the bottom end of the range. This told me "what was possible", and I have spent much of the time exploring whether the experience could be repeated with lower cost items - turns out, you can go down quite a long way before the inherent limitations are too great, and it becomes pointless trying to replicate the behaviour ... that's one side of the story.

 

It's your judgement that some recordings are "inherently awful" - others find the music captured to be highly entertaining, and it turns out that if enough of the detail that is typically blurred by less than fully capable replay is clearly audible, that the presentation comes across as highly satisfying, aided by our clever brains.

 

 

It's your opinion that it's a "poor assemblage of parts" - the reality is that for decades the quality of audio gear has been good enough, in the capability of the electronic parts, and the speaker drivers - to save costs, and put out high value for money setups, all manufacturers compromise on various, usually mechanical and structural, parts of the design .. if one understands where this has been done, and can devise workarounds, and DIY solutions to 'fix' those weaknesses - then the gear will perform, subjectively, just as well as the most blingy offerings out there.

 

You, as an engineer, should fully understand this ...

 

What I fully understand, Frank, is that your “method” cannot engender the improvements to cheap speakers and mid-Fi electronics that you assert that it does. As an engineer, I am fully aware of what soldering interconnects, for instance, will do and it’s not much. In fact, it’s such a minuscule improvement (if any at all), that in most cases, it’s inaudible. And the other things that you say you do, are likewise subtle to non-existent audible improvements. You say it’s cumulative. Even giving you that, it’s impossible for these “tweaks” of yours to give the magnitude of fidelity improvement that you boast. It simply cannot be, and the least believable of all is What you say your boom-box speakers will do !

[fas42]

2 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

Go back and read again the post that you referenced. I didn't say anything remotely close to what you think I said.

 

You said "there is an inverse relationship between the sound quality and musical quality of his early recordings and his later recordings" 

 

So,

 

Is this an "early recording"?

 

What is your ranking of the sound quality?

 

What is your ranking of the musical quality?

[fas42]

27 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

You are wrong, Frank. A good recording is one that sounds the closest to live, acoustic music played in a real venue. If it doesn’t sound like that, it’s shite. Anyone who would think that this was a bit “o’magic”, has no idea what real music sounds like. 

 

IOW, any music that is produced by non-acoustic instruments to some degree, or done in a manner where the instruments were not actually all simultaneously playing, or not in a space where an audience couldn't listen in the conventional manner - is automatically disqualified, by definition 🙂. ... Sounds like a huge percentage of our recording history would be instantly junked, if you were in charge, George - and would the crowds be carrying you aloft in gratitude, after this heroic deed ... ?