[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:59:41 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

On Wed Jun 13 23:47:10 2012 Sebastian Kaliszewski wrote:

If someone came with good theory allowing us convicing audio scene
recreation
without sacrificing other audio aspects some standard like -- place mikes
always
12ft above flooor, pointed such as such, etc.

Hi Sebastian -

Welcome to the dogfight!

I was just trying to relate a subject that has been near and dear to
my heart for a long time, and it has turned into a Hatfields and
McCoys pitched battle for some reason. I think audio people have a lot
of dug in ideas that are hard to change. There is also a lot of
miscommunication here, sometimes because we don't try very hard to
understand the other's point. In any case I didn't intend it to turn
out this way - just wanted to run a few ideas up the flagpole in a
friendly manner and use the simple to complex method to do that. Start
with a few things that we would all agree on, then ratchet it up to
some things that I have discovered.

It's not a "pitched battle" Gary, it's just that you offered up a "theory"
that has no basis in the physics of acoustics or even in the realm of
psychoacoustics. Add to that the fact that your theory assumes that everyone
is listening in the same way to the same characteristics in various speakers,
and of, course, you're going to get people who disagree with you. An analogy
would be someone going on a food newsgroup and stating: "I've been eating
different foods lately, and I've come to the conclusion that broccoli is the
best food there is." Then, after making that statement, expecting everyone
to agree with them and becoming upset when they find that many people
disagree.

The fact is that there are many different aspects of reproduced music that
people are drawn to according to their individual tastes. There is no
"Unified Speaker Theory" nor can there be until somebody manages to design a
speaker that is perfect in every way. Then that technology will be the way to
design speakers and everything else can be relegated to history. Of course,
such a design, were it even remotely possible, would. likely, of necessity,
be very expensive, and other companies (from the one that came up with the
perfect speaker) would try to make perfect speakers cheaper. So then they
would start to diverge from the "true path". Basically, even if a perfect
speaker were invented, designers with other ideas would introduce their own
vision of perfection and the whole thing would start anew.


In order to do your convincing audio scene recreation we first study
What Can We Hear, by means of describing all of the MAJOR categories,
or aspects, of sound that are audible and relate them to the repro
problem.

Even after you identify all of the things that humans can hear (which has
been done), physics prevents us from building any contrivances that will get
even half of them right. That's why there are so many different approaches to
these problems: cone speakers, planar speakers, dipoles, omnidirectional
speakers like the German MBLs, Air Motion Transformers, ribbons, the list
goes on and on.


We got down to the spatial characteristics as being the main
stumbling block, and the new paradigm that I attempted to relate as a
way of looking at the problem is the well-known technique of image
modeling. It is just a more visual way of studying the direct and
early reflected parts of the sound fields. If you take a look at the
image model of reproduced sound from speakers, you can compare that to
the live model and see the differences. There are obvious physical
differences in the "shape" of these fields that we can make a little
better with what I call The Big Three - speaker positioning, radiation
pattern, and room acoustics. This is possible because the two rooms,
although different sizes, are geometrically similar.

Again, room acoustics for most listening rooms are a tertiary effect at best,
and really can't be part of the equation because it is something that the
equipment manufacturers have no control over just as they (and the listener)
have no control over how the recording that they are playing was made.

Maybe I should quit while I am behind - and you can read thru the
thread - but that is basically the theory that you are asking for.
Specifically, it says that the reproduction will sound closest to the
live sound when the image model of the reproduction sound field is as
close to that of the live field as possible.

There is no argument there. But since that's impossible for a dozen or more
reasons that are beyond the control of anyone trying to quantize that theory,
it's pretty futile. Not only that, but your notion is nothing new. Audio
engineers, acousticians, etc, have known these things for decades, but have
realized that without complete control of all parameters, from the source
musicians to the listening venue, it's a useless pursuit.

I refer to all audible
characteristics of both fields, which is why I started with the What
Can We Hear thread. To me, this theory is a tautology - an
indisputable fact that is so obvious that it requires no proof. To
others, it is a challenge to long held beliefs.

No it isn't. It's YOUR conclusions that are the challenge, not the basic
questions. Nobody here (that I have read) challenge your premise:
"...reproduction will sound closest to the live sound when the image model of
the reproduction sound field is as close to that of the live field as
possible."

But everybody challenges your singular vision of how to accomplish this and
even the fact that any one solution can possibly even begin to address this
issue.

I don't think that you purposely twist people's words. but it looks like that
sometimes, the way you phrase what you believe to be other people's reactions
to your posts.