Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[PeterSt]

I'll be damned. This is from a Bill Evans YouTube from 1979.

 

 

A mild one, but one.

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

I am experimenting a bit with (^2) Interlinks, and if that wasn't causing it, the cymbals sounded too much "China".

 

But it can well be that this was used for real.

 

On topic, here you can actually see how I go about with system improvement (which, mind you, is thus not for myself only).

 

You see it happening that I am a kind of disturbed by the China cymbal observation, knowing from experience that it can easily be an exhibit of coloring. And if anything, I hate that. I can only work with neutral or else whatever it is, is rejected. For that, one must obviously know to some extent how instruments (in rooms etc.) should sound.

 

The interesting thing with the China cymbal sound, is that these cymbals thus really exist. Same of course with the tiny small cymbals. They too exist. But if you hear them, where those the ones in use ?

I take nothing for granted.

 

In this case I was testing / observing a new configuration of my Blaxius^2 (only new since last Saturday) and it occurred to me that - apart from the great piano sound - the cymbal I heard could show a too much coloring setup (as a whole). But was it the interlink configuration ?

Today, the next day I thus (?) sort out whether it can be true I heard such a cymbal. And well, the result we see above. Probably it was true (in the older YouTubes (like end 60's) sure not, but that is to be expected. '77 I really wondered as per my earlier post today).

With this kind of proof, it can thus be my judgment that the cable configuration is OK. Which is a kind of relief because possibly I never experienced such a good 3-4 hours of listening like last night. Would that be in a coloring venue than this would NOT be nice. It would tell me that I like coloring better than neutral and the kind of death penalty is put to that for myself, by myself.

 

Btw, the double bass from Frank's last YouTube sounds like a (disconnected) cello. But it is a double bass right in the middle of the play in reality so something is slightly off with my PC headphone sh*tty system.

Anyway, this is how I work and it is a continuous process. Day in day out.

[PeterSt]

One last more about cymbals; Remember this one ?

 

On 10/14/2018 at 5:22 AM, PeterSt said:

What you've got there is a most lousy representation. What do you actually think that high frequency rattle in the background is ?

 

Well, look / listen here :

 

 

(and in my earlier today's post I called it "shizzle")

 

So this is a sizzle cymbal and the "nails" in there have a sound and life of their own. Observing the YouTubes of the Bill Evans Trio from the 60's you can see that they use just this. So now you know what the high frequency rattle is on the Last Waltz YouTube (and then implied by brushes which fairly inaudibly hit the cymbal but waking the nails ).

Not that you could hear that on the Last Waltz YouTube ... (so bad it is).

 

More "news" could be that a DAC like some dCS would show all cymbals like this. So with that experience we know that when cymbals sound too long but like sizzle cymbals always, something is amiss again. When you don't know you may like it for the length of the cymbal, but when you do you will also know that it can't be right that suddenly all drummers have a sizzle in their kit. They are just not common enough to be everywhere. Same with the intended ugly sound of the China cymbal. You hear it in everything ? then something really is wrong. Well, not the best.

[fas42]

Actually, what one is looking for in the sound of recorded cymbals is "shimmer" - a lovely, very fine mist of metallic sweetness, which fades away into delicate nothingness. On competent playback this can heard in every sort of recording, including driving rock - one of the easy markers to watch for.

 

Decades ago, this was what I was using to check progress on upgrading the Perreaux amp, with classic Status Quo tracks as test material - its weakness was losing the shimmer at a certain volume level; a power supply issue.

 

[davide256]

On 10/13/2018 at 6:19 AM, PeterSt said:

 

Nah. Maybe it is remarkable that someone is as stupid as me doing such a thing. Btw, only few audio manufacturers would have the analyzer for this to begin with. And let's be honest, I too only did this in 2014 while I had the gear for 3 years by then. But why did I actually start with that ? ...

 

I was tuning the low frequency of the back then new Orelo MKII speaker. This was close miking (sorry) to the woofers while I in parallel wanted to know how low music normally goes, in-room. It is there where I learned (empirically) how most of the CD's are high passed for LP and that, for example, the MFSL recordings usually do not do that. So for fun : often the master is nothing better or different, but still this high-pass is omitted. Compare the two versions regarding this of The Wall and the very first track. Now you know ...

But of course first have a speaker which can render this "ambient" because it is all about that. A kick drum doesn't do 20Hz. But it's ambient roll (especially in the larger space) does.

A kettle drum is quite OK for most systems. Unless it is used in a church. Now you suddenly miss out.

 

One learns this by observing the FFT in real time for a couple of months. Only idiots do this.

But, and this is again a bit you, Frank, now I know this I have it in mind and it has become my reference. If something goes odd, I can hear where to be while what's there to hear for real (directly) probably isn't even audible. But mind you, 20 Hz may not be audible, but it may influence the remainder (up to ~200Hz in my case) severely. Too much LF (because of something being wrong) and all else goes wrong.

Or don't buy these speakers. Haha.

 

Edit : I meant these for comparison :

 

@fas42 also

 

sub audible bass has always been an issue with analog turntables. I recall a Linn demo where they demoed the LP12 table and same piece of piece of music on a light weight wood end table and then on a heavy wood audio stand... you could hear loss of sound stage and dynamics when played on the heavy piece of furniture. I would suspect that the culprit for digital performance in this case is not the digital circuit board components but rather the power transformer as they have mass sufficient to interact with low bass

 

[Blackmorec]

On 10/12/2018 at 8:41 PM, Ralf11 said:

Frank is genuinely onto something that many thousands of others know about, havedone, and has been stated explicitly and concisely long ago.

 

And NO - you are completely wrong that sound emanates from a single point in nature.  That is so common sense and obvious that I did not continue to read your OP

Just for the record and the sake of clarity and comprehension let me reiterate what I stated in a slightly more refined manner; 

There are no stereo sound sources in nature.  From any given position in space all sound sources are monophonic. 

 

As a consequence, our ears treat every signal reaching them as monophonic

 

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Just for the record and the sake of clarity and comprehension let me reiterate what I stated in a slightly more refined manner; 

There are no stereo sound sources in nature.  From any given position in space all sound sources are monophonic. 

 

As a consequence, our ears treat every signal reaching them as monophonic

 

If you mean by that our ears interpret each sound source as coming fro a single point in space, you are correct. Our two ears use their range-finding and direction finding qualities to pinpoint that sound in space, decide how big that source is, which direction from the ears' fixed point in space the sound source is located, and how far away it is. But our ears could not do any of those things if we did not have TWO ears for stereophonic hearing. Our hearing acumen allows us to locate sounds within the sound field we inhabit at that moment. If we are sitting in a concert hall listening to a concert, then that sound field is stretched before us, and as always we can discern direction, intensity, and size. At home, in front of our stereo systems, we rely on the recording to provide our speakers, and thus us with the cues our hearing needs to discern these things to the point that we are able to provide a willing suspension of disbelief. 

[Blackmorec]

6 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

If you mean by that our ears interpret each sound source as coming fro a single point in space, you are correct. Our two ears use their range-finding and direction finding qualities to pinpoint that sound in space, decide how big that source is, which direction from the ears' fixed point in space the sound source is located, and how far away it is. But our ears could not do any of those things if we did not have TWO ears for stereophonic hearing. Our hearing acumen allows us to locate sounds within the sound field we inhabit at that moment. If we are sitting in a concert hall listening to a concert, then that sound field is stretched before us, and as always we can discern direction, intensity, and size. At home, in front of our stereo systems, we rely on the recording to provide our speakers, and thus us with the cues our hearing needs to discern these things to the point that we are able to provide a willing suspension of disbelief. 

Nor quite sure why you’re telling me this given that its pretty much exactly what I said.  In nature all sound sources are monophonic. When a monophonic sound reaches our ears, each ear receives a slightly different version, with a differential time delay, altered phase and slightly different amplitude. The brain uses those attributes to locate the sound source.  In hi-if, we use speakers to produce those same differentiated signals so the ears receive the same signal artificially as they would receive from a monophonic source.  The brain uses the stereo signals it receives to assign the  apparent location contained in the recording 

[PeterSt]

4 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

with a differential time delay, altered phase and slightly different amplitude

 

The emphasis would be beyond math.

Theoretically your "slightly" would be correct, of course. But I don't think it can be utilized. Altered phase (= time delay) Yes.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Nor quite sure why you’re telling me this given that its pretty much exactly what I said.  In nature all sound sources are monophonic. When a monophonic sound reaches our ears, each ear receives a slightly different version, with a differential time delay, altered phase and slightly different amplitude. The brain uses those attributes to locate the sound source.  In hi-if, we use speakers to produce those same differentiated signals so the ears receive the same signal artificially as they would receive from a monophonic source.  The brain uses the stereo signals it receives to assign the  apparent location contained in the recording 

I mention this because calling a sound source "monophonic" is the wrong way to look at it. No sound source is monophonic when you hear it stereophonically. Even a table radio, while it itself is playing monophonically, you are hearing it stereophonically and you can pinpoint, with you eyes closed, where it is in space, in relation to you.

[Kyhl]

On 10/14/2018 at 8:42 PM, fas42 said:

I was just pointed to this track, on another forum, by someone saying "I just listened to the Lemon Song on Tidal, Mqa and non, and I was struck how awful this recording sounds on my system. Robert Plant sounds like he's singing through a tin can. The Lampizator doesn't unfold mqa fully but I can't imagine it provides a significant improvement.

It sounded a lot better in the basement in '69. Maybe my memory is colored. Maybe the vinyl master is also better? But one thing I'm sure of is that recorded music needs good recording and mastering. Everything else is secondary."

 

 

Ummm, this is absolutely fabulous, fabulous stuff ... massive, heavy, grabbing you by the ...

 

This should take one on a tremendous roller coaster ride of power sound ... so if it isn't ...

That one  sounds like a more recent remaster where they cut the legs out of the bass.

My CD version is an early version pressed in Europe which still has all the bass.  However the bass is real muddy and distorted.  My guess is that version cut out the bass to try to tame some of the distortion.

 

You weren't wrong, these aren't stellar recordings.

[fas42]

Here's a recent clip of a purchasable(!!) setup that can perform remarkably,

 

 

In this clip it's showing many attributes of the type of sound I'm after; yet, at the moment it does have a clear problem, the treble is falling short, for some reason - particularly shown in the tonality of the piano.

 

Why it's hard in the audio game - no matter how much money you throw at solving things, it's never a guarantee of always securing the required SQ, in every situation, under all conditions.

[Blackmorec]

7 hours ago, gmgraves said:

I mention this because calling a sound source "monophonic" is the wrong way to look at it. No sound source is monophonic when you hear it stereophonically. Even a table radio, while it itself is playing monophonically, you are hearing it stereophonically and you can pinpoint, with you eyes closed, where it is in space, in relation to you.

Of course a sound source can be monophonic. When the sound waves leave the radio they are monophonic. A single sound source. Its your head and ears that take that monophonic signal and create a differential stereophonic signal from it.  And its that differential between the 2 ears that allows our brain to locate the radio. 

 

In stereophonic hi-fi we trick the brain by transmitting 2 sets of sound waves that duplicate the head/ears’ conversion of the signal in order to create an illusion of localisation.

 

Take a loudspeaker,  place it 20m away and replay the sound of a snapping twig. You’d hear the twig snap in the same location as the speaker

Now take a 2nd loudspeaker, place it 10m to the left of the first and play the same snapping twig at the same amplitude through both speakers. Your brain will hear the twig snap, assume the sound only came from a single source (as it always does in nature) so it would combine the 2 stereo signals into the naturally occurring mono signal and assign its location midway between the 2 speakers. 

 

In nature, all sound sources are monaural in that they each emanate from a single position. Our head/ears convert that signal into a differential stereo signal in order to assign a locate that position

 

In hi-fi we trick the brain by feeding the ears with a  pre-processed differential stereo signal 

[gmgraves]

6 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Of course a sound source can be monophonic. When the sound waves leave the radio they are monophonic. A single sound source. Its your head and ears that take that monophonic signal and create a differential stereophonic signal from it.  And its that differential between the 2 ears that allows our brain to locate the radio. 

Again, in my opinion, you are looking at it backwards. If we make a stereo recording of that room with the mono radio in it and play it back over a stereo system, and the radio emerges from somewhere between the right and left speaker, has it not been captured and played back stereophonically? Sound sources are properly "point sources" and we hear them stereophonically. Say you walk into an empty auditorium, and up on stage somebody is practicing the trumpet. You hear the trumpet as a point source of sound, and with your eyes closed you could point to where he's standing on the stage. But that's not all you hear. You hear all the reflections in the room of that trumpet's sound; meaning that you don't just hear a trumpet as in an anechoic chamber, you hear the stereophonic (I.E. three dimensional) sound field that gives that trumpet, width, depth, and height. Mono reproduction has none of those characteristics and is like listening to a musical performance through an open window.

[Blackmorec]

8 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Again, in my opinion, you are looking at it backwards. If we make a stereo recording of that room with the mono radio in it and play it back over a stereo system, and the radio emerges from somewhere between the right and left speaker, has it not been captured and played back stereophonically? Sound sources are properly "point sources" and we hear them stereophonically. Say you walk into an empty auditorium, and up on stage somebody is practicing the trumpet. You hear the trumpet as a point source of sound, and with your eyes closed you could point to where he's standing on the stage. But that's not all you hear. You hear all the reflections in the room of that trumpet's sound; meaning that you don't just hear a trumpet as in an anechoic chamber, you hear the stereophonic (I.E. three dimensional) sound field that gives that trumpet, width, depth, and height. Mono reproduction has none of those characteristics and is like listening to a musical performance through an open window.

The source...every source....is/are monophonic. Our detectors are stereophonic.  Stereophonic detectors detecting mono signals. The stereophic detectors are offset from one another so they detect that mono signal at slightly different locations and distances, allowing the brain to triangulate the position/source of the mono signal(s).  In a stereophonic recording the same mono signal impinges on 2 microphones placed some distance apart, so the mono signal is recorded stereophonically at 2 different positions/times allowing the uptimate production in the brain of a single musical signal with dimensional and locational information, produced by recombining and processing the 2 microphone signals  

 

As far as I can see, we’re saying the same thIng. Aren’t we?

 

[fas42]

The local audio friend has just organised for a get together this afternoon - the ultra-simple, ultra "low end" rig apparently hit a peak SQ, as a result of upgrading the capacitor arrangement used for PS smoothing, etc, in the cheap DAC. Interestingly, it tooks hours of conditioning to break through to this level - he's scared of touching a thing now in case he lets the 'magic' escape, .

 

His wife could hear it sounding special, came in, and said, "Gosh, this is the best I've ever heard it! - you've got to get Frank to come across right now, and hear this!!"; "What?! At this time of the night?! - ummm, next opportunity ..."

 

So, I'm looking forward to hearing how it shapes up ...

[gmgraves]

6 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

The source...every source....is/are monophonic. Our detectors are stereophonic.  Stereophonic detectors detecting mono signals. The stereophic detectors are offset from one another so they detect that mono signal at slightly different locations and distances, allowing the brain to triangulate the position/source of the mono signal(s).  In a stereophonic recording the same mono signal impinges on 2 microphones placed some distance apart, so the mono signal is recorded stereophonically at 2 different positions/times allowing the uptimate production in the brain of a single musical signal with dimensional and locational information, produced by recombining and processing the 2 microphone signals  

 

As far as I can see, we’re saying the same thIng. Aren’t we?

 

It's not worth arguing about. 

[Allan F]

9 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

The source...every source....is/are monophonic. Our detectors are stereophonic.  Stereophonic detectors detecting mono signals. The stereophic detectors are offset from one another so they detect that mono signal at slightly different locations and distances, allowing the brain to triangulate the position/source of the mono signal(s).  In a stereophonic recording the same mono signal impinges on 2 microphones placed some distance apart, so the mono signal is recorded stereophonically at 2 different positions/times allowing the uptimate production in the brain of a single musical signal with dimensional and locational information, produced by recombining and processing the 2 microphone signals  

 

As far as I can see, we’re saying the same thIng. Aren’t we?

 

A sound source is just that, a source of sound. It is neither monophonic nor stereophonic. Those terms refer to how we capture and reproduce the sound. Stereophonic sound creates the illusion of reproducing the spacial characteristics of the sound source.

[MrD]

Hi Frank,

How do you increase audio signal integrity to near 100pct? After that it's all uphill....

 

Roger

[fas42]

Constantly amazing that people can't latch on to a simple concept: most audio replay introduces disturbing, low level anomalies which prevent one's brain from accepting the presentation of stereo as manifesting as a convincing illusion; therefore, steadily work through those issues which are causing those anomalies, attenuate the audibility of those 'giveaways' until they no longer matter; and then the ear/brain does the rest.

 

The ultimate joke is that nearly all audiophiles at some stage, some moment in all the years of their being interested in this hobby have heard a rig working at, or close to this level of SQ - and have been quite blind, err, deaf to what was happening. The real "magic" is realising what one's witnessing, and then being determined to replicate the experience, by gaining complete, and appropriate control over the functioning of the playback system.

[MrD]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Constantly amazing that people can't latch on to a simple concept: most audio replay introduces disturbing, low level anomalies which prevent one's brain from accepting the presentation of stereo as manifesting as a convincing illusion; therefore, steadily work through those issues which are causing those anomalies, attenuate the audibility of those 'giveaways' until they no longer matter; and then the ear/brain does the rest.

 

The ultimate joke is that nearly all audiophiles at some stage, some moment in all the years of their being interested in this hobby have heard a rig working at, or close to this level of SQ - and have been quite blind, err, deaf to what was happening. The real "magic" is realising what one's witnessing, and then being determined to replicate the experience, by gaining complete, and appropriate control over the functioning of the playback system.

Hi Frank,

A fellow friend had this to say...

"Once current disturbances are directed away from signal ground & this reference is rendered as clean as possible, the results are outstanding as you demonstrate & attest to"

So we are on the same page....keeping the cart(system electronics) before the horse (listener or psycho acoustic processing).

Roger

[fas42]

Indeed, Roger ... the most apparently trivial of things can disrupt a clean rendition of the source - which are likely to be ameliorated with an excellent grounding strategy.

 

In a couple of posts up I mention visiting a local audio friend, N. ... this was a mixed bag of a visit: his main rig, using good Naim speakers, ended up in a good place when I suggested physically stabilising the run of speaker cable to the  right hand unit - this is very stiff, single core wire; and if allowed to vibrate too easily could cause static issues.

 

 

The other rig, in the back shed, which he mainly listens to, seemed to be unstable in its SQ - OK at one point, and then failing to measure up. We had great difficulty in locating the problem here - but it made sense in the end: he had reorganised the shelving for the amplifier, and it nominally matched with what he had had the previous times - but a mains cable was routed so that it made contact with the shelving, even though on a  casual visual check it appeared not to do so. Again, static would appear to be the culprit.

 

Excellent grounding may have resolved those static factors - I haven't explored enough to predict such things, but it could do the job, at least for some setups ...

[MrD]

Frank, I always look at the signal path and how that can be improved upon.  For deades studio engineers always rack mounted their equipment and bonded the equipment together and tied the rack to mains ground. Now the IC that carried audio signal is tied to the chassis ground along with the internals. So in this configuration all current interference is removed to chassis ground.

in a non commercial setting the rack mounting and bonding and tying into mains ground is not generally done. Relying on the internal ground scheme and the audio signal interconnects to remove all the current leakage and interference. This method is wholly lacking because it cannot remove what is necessary. Even if one spends a fortune on cables that separate interference from signal that will never address the the leakage created that the IC cannot remove. You need to create a parallel circuit tied to chassis ground and to mains ground. Only then can the audio signal be interference free.

[One and a half]

3 hours ago, MrD said:

Frank, I always look at the signal path and how that can be improved upon.  For deades studio engineers always rack mounted their equipment and bonded the equipment together and tied the rack to mains ground. Now the IC that carried audio signal is tied to the chassis ground along with the internals. So in this configuration all current interference is removed to chassis ground.

in a non commercial setting the rack mounting and bonding and tying into mains ground is not generally done. Relying on the internal ground scheme and the audio signal interconnects to remove all the current leakage and interference. This method is wholly lacking because it cannot remove what is necessary. Even if one spends a fortune on cables that separate interference from signal that will never address the the leakage created that the IC cannot remove. You need to create a parallel circuit tied to chassis ground and to mains ground. Only then can the audio signal be interference free.

I see what you describe as equipotential bonding. There are bonding straps that cater for higher frequencies and normal wires for LF that create a neutral voltage between the chassis of components. This can be measured with a decent DMM to confirm. 

The chassis frequency needs to be known to select the correct braid and then wire. 

 

The aim is to create a lower impedance path for unwanted currents to flow across the bonds, rather than the signal leads, I understand this very well, see the practice nearly everyday on industrial equipment. The difficulty is that consumer audio has hardly any bonding points (Lumin comes to mind that does) and adding them later is a challenge to keep the original finish intact for possible resale.

 

No current goes to ground, a small correction there, since the impedance of the ground is high to small but annoying noise, the noise travels back to the source; that’s how currents work regardless of frequency.

[fas42]

In this regard, William's book, EMC for Systems and Installations, has plenty of information that's relevant,

 

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=1tFm1nz5IigC&pg=PR5&lpg=PR5&dq=williams+emc+systems+"introduction+the+emc+needs"&source=bl&ots=u8rjEaGZ8V&sig=qYXAFU6q7QrM9wVtxj9UaUiK-gI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg1bvh8ajeAhWGrY8KHehfCkIQ6AEwA3oECAkQAQ

 

In particular, I liked this bit:

 

Quote

Cabling issues
System components are interconnected at their interfaces, and these interconnections are typically  made by electrical cables. The  effect of the cable engineering on EMC issues has historically often been neglected, but it should form an important part of the  overall EMC control plan. Good cabling  design can enhance the barrier between the system and external interference, while poor design can worsen it. All  aspects of cable design are relevant: routing, segregation, allocation of signal classes, choice of signals in each bundle, choice of conduit, not to mention the selection and termination  of the cable itself. The decision as to whether to use shielded or unshielded cable should be made at this stage, once the characteristics of each interface have  been detailed as already discussed.