Bits is bits?

[Summit]

19 hours ago, JanRSmit said:

Basically our hearing system had little if any capability to hear in vertical direction. It is therefore indeed mostly perception. Imagine airplane sound from bellen of underground metro from above. 

 

It is no problem to hear if a sound is coming in front, below or above us. It’s not as prices as horizontal, but I would not say it’s lacking.

[Blackmorec]

11 minutes ago, Summit said:

The ability to reproduce a realistic sound stage and all other SQ aspect associated with the sound of a live concert depends of the fulfillment of tree general conditions. All need to be really good for us to get the sensation that we are hearing music that sounds like it’s been played on a stage in front of us. The reproduction is never 100% like IRL though, but if all tree conditions are accomplished we can get pretty close.   

 

1. The record. If the sound stage is small, the ambient over damped or any other limitations the recorded will sound like that. That includes the height. A good and accurate recording of the event therefore paramount.
2. The listening room. A big room with high ceiling and good acoustic there you can set up the speakers further away (everything else held equal) will present a better sound with bigger sound stage and with more air between the musicians.  
3. The audio system. Well matched gear of good SQ will reproduce a more realistic sound stage, deep bas and all other aspect related with the sound of a live concert better and more lifelike than a stereo setup with not as good and matching gear. The audio gear should of course also match the size and the acoustics of the room.

 

So yes the height of the sound-stage and the ability to reproduce that and many other sound aspect realistic depends on record, listening room and your audio system. If OTOH one of the above is not fulfilled the sound will not sound even close to a realistic sound-stage.

I don’t necessarily agree with point 2. I used to think that a large room was desirable but then I learned that a large room has challenges, just like a small room. The major advantage of a big room is that you can position speakers in free space and there’s a lot of flexibility to find the ideal listening position. The disadvantage is that it can be slightly echoey, with its own acoustic that gets superimposed on the recording’s acoustic. Big rooms also require much larger speakers to fully energise.  Large rooms can support deeper bass but that can also be problematic if dimensions cause some major bass resonances (standing waves). Finally large rooms can typically accommodate more people sitting in a reasonable position. In a large room its also easier to integrate (hide) acoustic treatments, but correspondingly more expensive to treat

 

A small room has its many challenges too. It needs a good source of diffusion so you don’t get a lot of energetic sound waves bouncing in the same direction. . It needs to have an optimum RT (reverb time) and it needs well matched speakers that don’t cause bass problems. Also the need to position speakers in free space doesn’t go away so there are far more limitations on speaker positioning and listening position, which often in a small room is a one man affair. Finally its very difficult to employ acoustic treatments in anything other than a superficial manner, so the room has to be reasonably good acoustically from the get go. 

[fas42]

3 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

I think that mainly the reason people ignore your advice to solder everything is that it would totally destroy the resale value and integrity of their electronics and cables.  This technique of soldering cables or doing without cables altogether is implemented throughout my system by the manufacturers.....(Innuos, Devialet, Magico, Sean Jacobs).  But I’d never dream of opening up their  boxes and destroying several expensive cables in order to solder everything together.  I guess that’s why kit needs to be old and cheap....that way you squeeze out its maximum value for money; no question. 

 

There is an alternative - silver paste treatments work just as well if very carefully applied ... the key point is that every point of weakness means that all the strengths elsewhere are wasted - and that's the main reason that well made, usually expensive gear does well overall - the cost saving, implementation shortcuts are normally at a minimum.

[Summit]

9 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

I don’t necessarily agree with point 2. I used to think that a large room was desirable but then I learned that a large room has challenges, just like a small room. The major advantage of a big room is that you can position speakers in free space and there’s a lot of flexibility to find the ideal listening position. The disadvantage is that it can be slightly echoey, with its own acoustic that gets superimposed on the recording’s acoustic. Big rooms also require much larger speakers to fully energise.  Large rooms can support deeper bass but that can also be problematic if dimensions cause some major bass resonances (standing waves). Finally large rooms can typically accommodate more people sitting in a reasonable position. In a large room its also easier to integrate (hide) acoustic treatments, but correspondingly more expensive to treat

 

A small room has its many challenges too. It needs a good source of diffusion so you don’t get a lot of energetic sound waves bouncing in the same direction. . It needs to have an optimum RT (reverb time) and it needs well matched speakers that don’t cause bass problems. Also the need to position speakers in free space doesn’t go away so there are far more limitations on speaker positioning and listening position, which often in a small room is a one man affair. Finally its very difficult to employ acoustic treatments in anything other than a superficial manner, so the room has to be reasonably good acoustically from the get go. 

 

I didn’t specify how big a big room and what room is small. I presented three conditions that will be of importance for reproducing an accurate sound and sound-stage.

 

IME, a big room with high ceiling and good acoustic there you can set up the speakers further away (everything else held equal) will present a better sound with bigger sound stage and with more air between the musicians.  In conditions three I stated that the audio gear should of course also match the size and the acoustics of the room.

[fas42]

As I've stated many times, the acoustics of the room I take not the slightest efforts with ... the system has to work with whatever room makes sense to have a music system in, and the speakers have to go where it's convenient to put them - I have no interest in ultra low bass, since 99.999% of the music occurs elsewhere in the spectrum, and hence all the problems people seem to have with bass simply don't exist for me.

[marce]

9 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

I don't need your ill prepared and biased tests.

 I already have verification by another 4 high profile qualified members in the last 4 months alone., and NOT just with .wav files either.

The same mechanism affects Digital Video as well, and BOTH A and V at the same time with Digital Video files.

 In other words, both your ears and eyes are telling you the files are different despite what the checksums may insist..

So what mechanism is a play?

[Blackmorec]

2 hours ago, Summit said:

 

I didn’t specify how big a big room and what room is small. I presented three conditions that will be of importance for reproducing an accurate sound and sound-stage.

 

IME, a big room with high ceiling and good acoustic there you can set up the speakers further away (everything else held equal) will present a better sound with bigger sound stage and with more air between the musicians.  In conditions three I stated that the audio gear should of course also match the size and the acoustics of the room.

I wouldn’t argue that its generally easier to set up a pair of speakers in a large room, thanks mainly to the freedom of placement and listening position it bestows...but there’s a big BUT coming up....

 

Are you familiar with the Haas effect, otherwise known as the precedence effect or law of the first wavefront?  In essence when a direct sound is followed by reflections of that first sound we hear the reflections as an echo, unless the reflections arrive within the first  20-30ms of the original wavefront (which equates to approximately 20 - 30 feet round trip for the reflection). When that criteria is met we perceive a single auditory event and all the reflections are added to the original signal. Essentially what this means is that in a smallish room, reflections are integrated into the original wavefront, giving the signal increased intensity and a more clearly identified and focussed spacial position. With the small room not imposing its reflections and acoustics onto the signal, the signal is free to communicate to the listener the original recording venue acoustics, with no interference from the room. This is not the case for large rooms, where reflections need to be dealt with otherwise the room acoustic will tend to mask or at least confuse  the recording’s acoustic. 

 

If a big room makes the music sound big and airy, that’s not what you want. You want big, airy recordings to make big airy sounds, and small intimate recordings to sound appropriately immediate.  You really don’t want the room to add anything, and that’s easier with a smallish room than a large one. 

 

So what does this mean? It means that in a smaller room you generally need much less acoustic treatment (a rear wall of diffusion is usually sufficient as you don’t want multiple reflections)  AND you can produce sounds with a huge acoustic, if that’s what’s on the recording. 

 

Also, when you listen to say a grand piano in a room, the power of the instrument will often bring the room alive....light it up with music and saturate all the air with its melodious tones until the room feels full of music, but without any ugly resonances or emphasis. That’s much easier to do in a small room, requiring altogether less power and loudspeaker area, so its also considerably cheaper. 

[Blackmorec]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

There is an alternative - silver paste treatments work just as well if very carefully applied ... the key point is that every point of weakness means that all the strengths elsewhere are wasted - and that's the main reason that well made, usually expensive gear does well overall - the cost saving, implementation shortcuts are normally at a minimum.

Yeah, thanks for the input. However I would whisper a little caution with silver paste. Its goal is to increase conductivity and reduce impedance caused by poorly made physical contacts. But in modern electronics, conductivity and insulation are very cosy bedfellows, often lying adjacent to one another. Any ‘creep’ from that silver paste (and it does migrate) and you could have a bit of a disaster on your hands. A friend on mine, who is a main-stream manufacturer once reported that the most common fault they rectified in their equipment was caused by contact enhancement products....so all i would say is “Caveat Emptor”  

[Blackmorec]

4 hours ago, Summit said:

 

It is no problem to hear if a sound is coming in front, below or above us. It’s not as prices as horizontal, but I would not say it’s lacking.

Its also far less common in recordings. You don’t hear the effect with every recording as you do with the horizontal plain.  Layering or stacking images seems to be a more recentish development as I don’t recall hearing elevated imagery in old jazz recordings. I’ll check that statement sometime, so its just my recollection. 

[Summit]

2 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

I wouldn’t argue that its generally easier to set up a pair of speakers in a large room, thanks mainly to the freedom of placement and listening position it bestows...but there’s a big BUT coming up....

 

Are you familiar with the Haas effect, otherwise known as the precedence effect or law of the first wavefront?  In essence when a direct sound is followed by reflections of that first sound we hear the reflections as an echo, unless the reflections arrive within the first  20-30ms of the original wavefront (which equates to approximately 20 - 30 feet round trip for the reflection). When that criteria is met we perceive a single auditory event and all the reflections are added to the original signal. Essentially what this means is that in a smallish room, reflections are integrated into the original wavefront, giving the signal increased intensity and a more clearly identified and focussed spacial position. With the small room not imposing its reflections and acoustics onto the signal, the signal is free to communicate to the listener the original recording venue acoustics, with no interference from the room. This is not the case for large rooms, where reflections need to be dealt with otherwise the room acoustic will tend to mask or at least confuse  the recording’s acoustic. 

 

If a big room makes the music sound big and airy, that’s not what you want. You want big, airy recordings to make big airy sounds, and small intimate recordings to sound appropriately immediate.  You really don’t want the room to add anything, and that’s easier with a smallish room than a large one. 

 

So what does this mean? It means that in a smaller room you generally need much less acoustic treatment (a rear wall of diffusion is usually sufficient as you don’t want multiple reflections)  AND you can produce sounds with a huge acoustic, if that’s what’s on the recording. 

 

Also, when you listen to say a grand piano in a room, the power of the instrument will often bring the room alive....light it up with music and saturate all the air with its melodious tones until the room feels full of music, but without any ugly resonances or emphasis. That’s much easier to do in a small room, requiring altogether less power and loudspeaker area, so its also considerably cheaper. 

 

Yes I know what precedence effect is. Its real and you need to take it as well as and all other acoustic characteristics in to question then position the speakers and acoustically treat a room. I was very clear about the big room has to have good acoustic, see condition 1.

 

It’s not a big room that makes the music sound big and airy, see my first conditions about the recording. What a big room does is letting us place the speakers so that that they are further from back, side and back walls, at the same time as we can place the speakers further apart. To place the speakers further from back, side and back walls result in a less compressed sound than in a small room, everything else held equal.

 

I have never been to any concert, no matter if it has been a small intimate club or bigger show, there the stage is 2 meter wide. In a big room there the speakers can be positioned 4 meter apart and 1,5 meter from side walls the sound-stage is more like a live concert. With bigger room you will sit further away from the speakers and the sound from the different woofers will blend in better IMO.

 

Sub bass can be problematic in all room and the problem depends of size, form and material of the room. I would not say that bass is a larger problem in a big room, if anything it’s easier to treat many of the reflections, place tube traps and so on in a bigger room.

 

If you rather have a small room and think it sounds better that’s fine by me and congrats it’s normally both easier and cheaper to get a smaller room. I OTOH would like a big listening room because I know from experience that the best and most lifelike sound I have heard is when all three conditions I stated earlier are achieved in a big acoustic treated room.  

[Summit]

53 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

Its also far less common in recordings. You don’t hear the effect with every recording as you do with the horizontal plain.  Layering or stacking images seems to be a more recentish development as I don’t recall hearing elevated imagery in old jazz recordings. I’ll check that statement sometime, so its just my recollection. 

 

My remark was about human ability to hear sound in vertical directions and not from recordings.

[Blackmorec]

46 minutes ago, Summit said:

 

Yes I know what precedence effect is. Its real and you need to take it as well as and all other acoustic characteristics in to question then position the speakers and acoustically treat a room. I was very clear about the big room has to have good acoustic, see condition 1.

 

It’s not a big room that makes the music sound big and airy, see my first conditions about the recording. What a big room does is letting us place the speakers so that that they are further from back, side and back walls, at the same time as we can place the speakers further apart. To place the speakers further from back, side and back walls result in a less compressed sound than in a small room, everything else held equal.

 

I have never been to any concert, no matter if it has been a small intimate club or bigger show, there the stage is 2 meter wide. In a big room there the speakers can be positioned 4 meter apart and 1,5 meter from side walls the sound-stage is more like a live concert. With bigger room you will sit further away from the speakers and the sound from the different woofers will blend in better IMO.

 

Sub bass can be problematic in all room and the problem depends of size, form and material of the room. I would not say that bass is a larger problem in a big room, if anything it’s easier to treat many of the reflections, place tube traps and so on in a bigger room.

 

If you rather have a small room and think it sounds better that’s fine by me and congrats it’s normally both easier and cheaper to get a smaller room. I OTOH would like a big listening room because I know from experience that the best and most lifelike sound I have heard is when all three conditions I stated earlier are achieved in a big acoustic treated room.  

Hi Summit, 

The soundstage is created in the head. All the room does is support or hinder the process with its pesky reflections and resonances. There’s absolutely no reason why a system installed in a small room can’t create a huge recording venue in your head. It should create what's on the recording and if the recording is of a huge venue, with big distances between reflection points, that’s what you should hear, based on all the huge-venue acoustic clues that should be reaching your ears. In a small room what would prevent that is early reflections, but as I’ve already mentioned,  the Haas  effect and some judicious diffusion looks after them. Anyway you obviously prefer large rooms whereas I don’t see anything about a large room that can’t be had from a small one, sonically speaking. With the exception of very deep bass maybe. Anyway, I’ll leave it there and say that I enjoyed our discussion. 

 

 

[Blackmorec]

How about we finish our discussion with some music   Here’a An album that will create a realistic very large venue....you can here the space in the silences and the distance the audience is away. No gimmicks just natural acoustics and some `KICK-ASS’ music.  

Spyro Gyra.  Road Scholars  Heart of the night 

 

I have the CD but you should be able to stream it from somewhere like Qobuz. Guaranteed to sound good in large and small rooms alike 😉

[Teresa]

17 hours ago, STC said:

Can stereo encode height information? The answer is NO...

 

Have you listened to the LEDR tests? Especially UP Left and UP Right. 

[Ralf11]

The brain can localise a speaker even if its not getting a single speaker signal to both ears.

 

Not as well tho

[jabbr]

14 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

and if you did it would only think about oats and other horses

 

Bits for grits!

[Ralf11]

Naturally, audiophiles would want the best quality, organic heirloom grits!

 

I recommend Anson Mills despite it being in yankee territory... 

[mansr]

"It's got bits in it." — Mr Fussy

[daverich4]

23 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

if your USB cable allows noise infestation you will wind up having nibbles with quibbles

 

As long as it’s not Tribbles...

[fas42]

8 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Yeah, thanks for the input. However I would whisper a little caution with silver paste. Its goal is to increase conductivity and reduce impedance caused by poorly made physical contacts. But in modern electronics, conductivity and insulation are very cosy bedfellows, often lying adjacent to one another. Any ‘creep’ from that silver paste (and it does migrate) and you could have a bit of a disaster on your hands. A friend on mine, who is a main-stream manufacturer once reported that the most common fault they rectified in their equipment was caused by contact enhancement products....so all i would say is “Caveat Emptor”  

 

Hence, the use of the phrase "very carefully applied", . A good trick is to think while doing it, is that this stuff is hideously expensive, and every scrap of it not actually doing something is money down the drain ...

 

I think of it as eternally fluid solder, because it serves the main function of guaranteeing gas tightness - which counters the fundamental, underlying gremlin that one is attempting to eliminate: degradation of the contact surfaces over time.

 

Put it this way - these days I can't bear listening to almost any ambitious hifi rig belonging to someone else for any length of time, because I can always hear the signature of poor contact quality coming through - it's an "offness" that builds like a bad taste in the mouth, and one can only take so much of it.

[sandyk]

11 hours ago, marce said:

So what mechanism is a play?

 

 I do not claim to have the qualifications or the equipment needed to discover the cause. 

 You undoubtedly consider Mani's results a fluke too.

[jabbr]

On 8/15/2019 at 6:44 PM, Ralf11 said:

if your USB cable allows noise infestation you will wind up having nibbles with quibbles

 

Kibbles ‘n Bits?

[jabbr]

? Am I invading the offtopic discussion in this thread with paraphrasing the OP topic? Hmm...

[fas42]

5 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

How about we finish our discussion with some music   Here’a An album that will create a realistic very large venue....you can here the space in the silences and the distance the audience is away. No gimmicks just natural acoustics and some `KICK-ASS’ music.  

Spyro Gyra.  Road Scholars  Heart of the night 

 

 

Last toss of the dice ... don't know this mob, but was reminded of a favourite album that I often used to check handling of big, high energy music making, decades ago,

 

 

[STC]

5 hours ago, Teresa said:

 

Have you listened to the LEDR tests? Especially UP Left and UP Right. 

 

Yes. I have donated to Audiocheck and have WAV format of that. I also have the Sheffield or Chesky version of it.  Can you answer me now; is LEDR up movement got anything to do with stereo? Is it even stereo? Can the test work similarly to everyone? Is it speakers dependent or your pinna shape dependent?