Can we hear anything, allowed to hear anything, or are you deaf/stupid?

[tuga]

Interesting article tuga. Thanks.

Quote:
"Back to frequency-dependent delay…
The subjective effect of excessive group delay is a “loosening” of the bass or a “less dry” bass quality. Currently there is insufficient psychoacoustic research on the threshold of group delay at low frequencies. One value is known: 2.5 ms at 100 Hz. This happens to be the same as that seen in the KH 310 A and O 410."

I wonder where they got their "known" figure from? It's convenient for them

I can choose the LF rolloff of my speakers and find that lower is always better. (They have a 1st order rolloff characteristic, which has inherently low GD).

I also have a predilection for sealed cabinets.

Here's another illustration of group delay:

 

[tuga]

over analytical equipment not only separates things too much, so the whole suffers from a kind of fragmentation, but also is very unkind to poor recordings

Perhaps what you are referring to is the penultimate step in chain optimisation just before the images materialise in a realistic way, and the recording sounds like instruments being played in front of you (more obvious with real stereo recordings of classical music).

I think that the last step if really very difficult to achieve and people prefer to go back one or two steps, particularly because of the bit that you've mentioned about high resolution being unkind to poor recordings. Interestingly once you go over the threshold that aspect becomes relative, a bit like a very high performance turntable makes the clicks and pop so obvious that they're no longer part of the recreation, of the illusion of listening to instruments playing music.

 

[tuga]

Yes - that seems exactly how I see things. My test for success for a system: does the reproduction remind me of being there (and for emphasis it's not replicate being there).

The BBC does a great job from all of the halls I know. BBC Wigmore hall broadcasts are generally superb system tests. And broadcasts from the Royal Albert Hall are better than any seat I have had in the stalls - possibly more like the experience in mid-arena).

I have evolved a shortlist of defects in equipment (mostly loudspeakers) that, for me, create dissatisfaction by detracting too much from achieving my objective. Now having a system that clears that list, I find very few reasons to be dissatisfied. The system isn't perfect, I am sure, but for me anyway, searching for "better" is not high on my list of priorities.

This is from an old EMI document (they're referring to classical music recordings):


High Fidelity - A Definition

Let us say, then, that High Fidelity implies the creation, in the listener's normal surroundings, of the ILLUSION of the actual performance as it would have been heard under the most favourable conditions.

This definition postulates several important considerations. There are bound to be wide variations in listeners' normal surroundings: in the size and shape of their rooms, the acoustic conditions and so on. The scale of the reproduction is also important, in the same sense as the perspective of a photograph. A picture taken with a tele-photo lens tends to look foreshortened when viewed at normal distances, but if it were viewed at a distance comparable with the scale of the photograph, the perspective would appear in its proper proportions.

The analogy is not, perhaps, quite exact, but it may serve to illustrate the point that there is an optimum level of reproduction if the scale and perspective of the original performance are to be preserved in their true proportions.

Again, consider the case of a listener in the auditorium of a concert hall sitting, let us say, at one end of the front row, only a few feet away from the bass section of the orchestra. His subjective impression of the tonal balance and perspective of the orchestral sound might be quite different from that of another listener at the opposite end of the same row, while neither would receive the same impression as a listener in the back row. The divergences would be even more marked in an acoustically bad hall.

Therefore we say that the purpose of High Fidelity is to create the ILLUSION of the actual performance as it would be heard under the most favourable conditions.

It will now be obvious that its attainment must encompass a sequence of operations in which these and many other variables must be taken into account at some stage from the recording of the performance to its reproduction by the listener in his home. Part of this task falls to the recording engineers, but at the reproducing end the responsibility falls entirely on the listener, his reproducing equipment and the way he uses it.
It is the paramount concern of the manufacturers of "His Master's Voice", Columbia and Parlophone records (Electric and Musical Industries Ltd.) to supply a product which, used in conjunction with suitable reproducing equipment, will bring into any home the complete illusion of the original performance, and it is hoped that the information in this booklet will materially help interested listeners to extract the full beauty of the reproduction of which these records are capable, to their greater satisfaction and enjoyment.

 

[Werner]

Here's another illustration of group delay:

Except that those waterfall plots are not an illustration of group delay, at all.

 

[tuga]

Since this is a topic about audibility, I would like to recommend a video where the speaker discusses measurements and audibility.

If you don't feel like watching the whole video you can jump to minute 23:05 to where the audience is tested for distortion audibility.


RMAF15: What The Specs Don’t Tell You… And Why

Better specifications mean better sounding products. Right? Wrong!
Audiophiles have known for decades this isn’t always the case.
Meanwhile, the scientific community likes to believe if the specs are the same, the products sound the same. Which side is right?

 

[tuga]

Except that those waterfall plots are not an illustration of group delay, at all.

Sorry. And why is that?

 

[vesuvian]

Any musician will plumb for the system that best highlights their own instrument, that's why bass players like atc50s, why lead guitarists like big jbls, who trumpeters like horn loaded wide banders and why drummers like thinking they're musicians...

Really?!

Do you honestly think that an experienced jazz or classical musician would base their response on how well their own instrument is represented, rather than how well the music as a whole is conveyed?

So I'd much rather have the opinion of a competent sound engineer than that of a musician. By a light-year.
They're the ones who setup the mics, who know what the feed from those mics sounds like, who work on the mixes, who produce the music.

I think this kind of attitude neatly sums up the difference between the two opposing camps in this discussion.

 

[tuga]

Except that those waterfall plots are not an illustration of group delay, at all.

The plots are from 3-way speakers, the top speaker uses first-order filters.
The sound from the midrange driver of the second speaker decays later than that of the tweeter's (there must be a better way to put this). Perhaps we can even see the woofer later still...
Isn't this group delay showing in a waterfall?

 

[tuga]

Really?!

Do you honestly think that an experienced jazz or classical musician would base their response on how well their own instrument is represented, rather than how well the music as a whole is conveyed?



I think this kind of attitude neatly sums up the difference between the two opposing camps in this discussion.

This is from a interview with violinist Jascha Heifetz published by LIFE magazine:


Reporter - I notice you don't have stereo in the studio.

Heifetz - Hystereo. I don't need it.

Reporter - Do you like high fidelity Mr. Heifetz?

Heifetz - High phooey? Why should I have anything against high phooey?


How is it possible that Heifetz didn't like the mythical RCA Living Stereo recordings?
Could it have been the use of mics with exaggerated treble, the whole-in-the-middle imaging of spaced arrays, the timbre-distorton of spot mic'ing, all of the above?


Anyway, if you are looking for a system which reproduces what was recorded or made up in the mixing desk you ask the person in the mixing suite (who actually listened to what the musicians were playing) not the musicians themselves.
I am sure that the large majority of orchestral musicians has never listened to the production of a recording. Soloists and maestros yes, but not preople from the orchestra.
Rock and pop is another matter because the music is created in the mixing desk. If the artists have any self-respect they'll be sitting right next to the engineer and the producer as the music is being fabricated.

 

[Fourlegs]

@tuga This was the starter post in the thread.

It's become very apparent to many PFM members that we cannot talk about the way a system sounds anymore without someone coming up with some pseudo measurement mantra.
Why is this.... are our ears good at listening to graphs, plots and specs?
Why is it the same 10-12 people who come to stomp on anything beyond their own comprehensions?
Why is it then they find the need to try and ridicule members with passive aggressive BS?

Unfortunately your glut of graphs, plots, figures, measurements etc, all in the name of 'educating' your audience begins to look an awful lot like the reason this thread was started . . . . . .

 

[ToTo Man]

Last year I put test tones through my speakers. I could hear the 20khz tone. I'm 56.

Was that with the Lockwoods, Paul? When I measured them with their stock crossovers, they were down by -20dB at 20kHz compared to 16kHz, so either you have exceptional hearing sensitivity at 20kHz, or those RFC crossovers are working wonders!

 

[cooky1257]

As the Neumann article clearly explains, shifting group delay lower in frequency by tuning the system in the region of say 20 hz-25hz it becomes moot wether GD is audible but also as frequency increases to around 35hz you have GD figures as low as/or better than a sealed enclosure. The difference is that available output and bass extension is better from the ported enclosure, moreover as you are(usually!) below the Schroeder freq and LF is generated by pressurising the room, the room generated non linearities at VLF far exceed any GD. That's before we even get into the musical content with instruments with fundamentals in the 20-30hz range....

 

[tuga]

@tuga This was the starter post in the thread.

Unfortunately your glut of graphs, plots, figures, measurements etc, all in the name of 'educating' your audience begins to look an awful lot like the reason this thread was started . . . . . .

Actually I'm in the process of being educated in group delay.

 

[Fourlegs]

Actually I'm in the process of being educated in group delay.

I'm not saying we don't all learn a bit on the way.

 

[tuga]

@tuga This was the starter post in the thread.



Unfortunately your glut of graphs, plots, figures, measurements etc, all in the name of 'educating' your audience begins to look an awful lot like the reason this thread was started . . . . . .

You started a topic on your experience with the Inous gadget both here and in another forum (that I know of).
What is the purpose of these topics?
Are you expecting interaction/dialogue?
Do you expect your topic to be of any use to others and would you like it to?
Are you open to a technical discussion of the gadget's alleged capabilities?
Does it disturb you if current scientific knowledge questions your observational findings?
Will allowing a technical discussion increase or reduce the usefulness of your topic?

 

[vesuvian]

Anyway, if you are looking for a system which reproduces what was recorded or made up in the mixing desk you ask the person in the mixing suite (who actually listened to what the musicians were playing) not the musicians themselves.

Music is much, much more than an amalgam of disparate sounds, so why would I want to place my trust in the damn sound engineer?!

Continue to pore over your graphs if you must, but I'm outta here...

 

[Stunsworth]

How is it possible that Heifetz didn't like the mythical RCA Living Stereo recordings?
Could it have been the use of mics with exaggerated treble, the whole-in-the-middle imaging of spaced arrays, the timbre-distorton of spot mic'ing, all of the above?

Weren't Living Stereo largely three mic productions with a mike in the middle to prevent the hole that you mention?

 

[Cereal Killer]

You started a topic on your experience with the Inous gadget both here and in another forum (that I know of).
What is the purpose of these topics?
Are you expecting interaction/dialogue?
Do you expect your topic to be of any use to others and would you like it to?
Are you open to a technical discussion of the gadget's alleged capabilities?
Does it disturb you if current scientific knowledge questions your observational findings?
Will allowing a technical discussion increase or reduce the usefulness of your topic?

When a sound engineer is completing his/her mix and listening to the final master they'll set down via the standard 3 different perimeters, (near, mid and main field monitors) do you think the engineers stop at one point and say; actually, "i must get my tools (meter) our and measure the sound..." Or, do you think they listen (with ears) and decide to stop when the mix drops in place and they get that 'yes' (smiley) moment?

Even from the off of laying a recording down, would they use any form of measuring tool/graphs of the audio equipment as a reference point/datum to produce the mix from, or do they use their ears?

what exactly are we listening too, music or test generated signals?

 

[tuga]

When a sound engineer is completing his/her mix and listening to the final master they'll set down via the standard 3 different perimeters, (near, mid and main field monitors) do you think the engineers stop at one point and say; actually, "i must get my tools (meter) our and measure the sound..." Or, do you think they listen (with ears) and decide to stop when the mix drops in place and they get that 'yes' (smiley) moment?

Even from the off of laying a recording down, would they use any form of measuring tool/graphs of the audio equipment as a reference point/datum to produce the mix from, or do they use their ears?

what exactly are we listening too, music or test generated signals?

An engineer uses graphs to buy speakers and ears to produce music.

An engineer not buying accurate monitors would be akin to a performer playing an instrument out of tune.

 

[Cereal Killer]

An engineer uses graphs to buy speakers and ears to produce music.

An engineer not buying accurate monitors would be akin to a performer playing an instrument out of tune.

An engineer doesn't buy or own the speakers speakers (they use what the studio has) so your case is moot. The studio uses various speakers in various rooms, all with different acoustic properties.. the mix is done, performed and set down by ear.