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#41
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On 4/12/2013 6:05 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
KH wrote: On 4/10/2013 8:04 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: THEORETICAL: Assuming that you are saying that you want to record a sort of sound "picture" of a live performance, as if the playback will then cast that picture back to your ears and let you hear "into" another acoustic space - how am I doing - you will then play it back on these really accurate speakers which have been placed at an angle that will complement the recorded angles, in a space that is deadened down to some practical extent so that it doesn't dilute the recorded acoustic too much with its own sound. OK? Somewhat the general gist, dismissive phrasing aside. You've got me curious - what dismissive phrasing? Ok, let's start with "...as if the playback will then cast that picture back to your ears...". You don't see that even while you are 'just' describing what *you* think is my position, you invariably use language such as this which both describes, and simultaneously dismisses, the position? Does this truly escape you? Uhmm, you don't. Have you not paid any attention to what I'm saying? That directional information is GONE. By taking speakers that have a *specific*, not as you would claim, "highly", directional radiation pattern, and placing them in locations, at angles, to provide an illusion of the acoustic in the live event, one can achieve a pretty fair recreation. Curiouser and curiouser - I think I know what you are getting at Keith, but saying that directional information is lost in a stereo recording hits me the wrong way. How it "hits you" is irrelevant to the fact that it is, indeed, lost. It would be idiotic to state that a single microphone gives no directional information, so I'm sure that is not what you mean. OK, let's end with this statement in our discussion of your "dismissive" tone. You can restate this sentence more concisely as "If you believe this you're an idiot". Given that I do, and have, stated this belief (fact actually, but...) your statement reduces further to a simple "You're an idiot". You don't see this? snip No - and this is where you are simply, and demonstrably WRONG. You are *constructing* a reverberant field, you are NOT REconstructing any 3-d field from a 2-d recording. Please explain the physics that would allow that. Any ideas at all? Tell me how the 3-d spatial information is encoded into a 2-d signal? Yes, with 2 or more channels, you can simulate 3-d to an extent, but it isn't accurate. Doesn't mean it isn't good, or realistic - it most definitely can be both. Let's talk about that for a moment. Just indulge me. As you have so bravely - and courteously - up to this point. The three dimensions of which you speak are height, width, and depth. The width dimension I think we all agree is encoded in the stereo information from the summing localization from the multiple microphones used. Well, no, I don't think we all agree on that. There is no "width" information in either channels data. We agree that on playback of the two channels, the differential between channels will be perceived as spacial information. You can pan-pot instruments during mixing to achieve the same thing, where "width" never existed, so physical "width" is clearly not a parameter that is encoded in the recording. snip Oh, there he goes again, fakey fakey fakey! He wants to build a little model of the live soundscape by placing speakers like a pop-up book. Sorry, but ya, that's pretty much the way it is. Yes, here we agree. That is simply impossible. The reverberant field in the recording has no directional information, and although you can bounce, or reflect, signals from all over the room, you are, for example, bouncing input that originally came from rear left in all directions - not from "the appropriate directions". All directions. NO - if the recording properly contains sound that was bouncing off the left side wall of the concert hall from those instruments on the left side of the orchestra, and if those sounds are played on a left channel speaker They are. They are played from the right speaker as well. As are all of the sounds captured from all directions. Please explain how you play that information only from the left speaker. that has some output that bounces off the left wall of your room, Please explain how you direct only the reflected sound (from the recording) that bounced off the Left wall of the venue, to bounce off only the Left wall of your room. you get that sound coming from the appropreate direction - from points in space that are different from the primary sound, whch is coming from the speaker first. Please explain how the how the information is encoded in the electrical signal to allow for the sound reflected off of the Left wall, in the venue, to be removed from the "primary" sound coming directly from the speaker. If you can provide these explanations, please do so. Please refrain from embellishment, as these three basics comprise the basis for my disagreement with your theory. The electrical signals from the microphone, or microphones, do not contain the requisite information to "direct" the acoustic signals as you imply. What you describe above does happen, but you fail to address the concomitant constraints - ALL the reflected sound and ALL of the direct sound will be reflected off of that left wall of the room as well (not just the desired reverberant information), so that reflection will contain far more acoustic information than it did in the venue. The ratio of direct to reflected sound will be completely different as well. Precedence effect, but that is getting too involved for now. Right. Right now just imagine a light bulb on the left side of the room. It shines (bounces) more of its output from the left side wall than any others. NOT everywhere. Footnote, there is a lot more to speaker positioning than I can relate in this short essay. And when sound waves travel at the speed of light, this is a very different discussion indeed. The analogy, however, is irrelevant to the discussion. The answers to my questions above are quite relevant. snip Fair enough. Results and perception are what is important. We keep on truckin and make changes here and there as we go and try to figure out what causes either the improvements or unimprovements. One thing is certain: the Big Three, as I call them, of radiation pattern, speaker positioning, and room acoustics that Siegfried Linkwitz asked about in the Challenge to the AES, are difinitely audible, and are the main variables in the making of the sound that we both - all - percieve in our playback. It is those variables that must be studied to find out which ideas sound better than others in the playback of the field-type system called stereophonic sound. And no one is arguing that those properties are not important. But there are an infinite number of configurations of those variables. And precisely zero of them will provide accurate reproduction of vector information from a scalar signal. Keith |
#42
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:01:30 PM UTC-7, Dick Pierce wrote:
Gary Eickmeier wrote: Okay, so Mr. Pierce, Keith Howard, and Scott W are surprised that a single microphone can't record directional information, Pierce thinks that recordings need to carry HRTF, and microphones can make great speakers. I never said any such thing, Mr. Eickmeier. I think I am done here. You are done if you insist in putting your fanatstic misconceptions into someone else's mouth. You gotta admit that the way you asserted reciprocity, it COULD be easily construed as an assertion that microphones could be used as speakers and that those speakers would have the exact same properties as the microphones would have when capturing the sound. I know that you were talking about the diaphragm displacement when a microphone is fed an audio signal. Ideally that diaphragm's characteristics should mimic, exactly, the characteristics it demonstrates when intercepting a sound field and converting that sound field into an electrical signal. I knew what you must have been trying to say, but your wording even threw me, at first. |
#43
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Audio_Empire wrote:
On Saturday, April 13, 2013 12:01:30 PM UTC-7, Dick Pierce wrote: Gary Eickmeier wrote: I think I am done here. You are done if you insist in putting your fanatstic misconceptions into someone else's mouth. You gotta admit that the way you asserted reciprocity, it COULD be easily construed as an assertion that microphones could be used as speakers and that those speakers would have the exact same properties as the microphones would have when capturing the sound. I know that you were talking about the diaphragm displacement when a microphone is fed an audio signal. Ideally that diaphragm's characteristics should mimic, exactly, the characteristics it demonstrates when intercepting a sound field and converting that sound field into an electrical signal. I knew what you must have been trying to say, but your wording even threw me, at first. You mean, like the part where I said: "Within linear limits of the device, the reciprocity principle states quite clearly that an acoustical transducer will make just as good a speaker as it does a microphone." And you said: "No, because within the limits of physics, a microphone diaphragm cannot move enough air to make even a poor speaker and the reciprocity principle never says that it should." And, you seemed to have COMPLETELY ignored that I said: "Within linear limits of the device..." So, I guess what your saying is that when I said "within the linear limits of the device," I must have REALLY said "within the limits of physics" instead. I can see now when I said "within the linear limits of the device" and you substituted "within the limits of physics", how my wording threw you. I think. Now both you AND Mr. Eickmeier seemed to have fatasized that I claimed that a microphone is capable of producing high sound pressure levels. I can see now that since I never, ever said that, how one could be confused into thinking that I did. One of us is missing somethiong here. Maybe it's me, missing the words I NEVER said. I can now see that the wording I never used could confuse anyone! -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#44
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Dick Pierce wrote:
Now both you AND Mr. Eickmeier seemed to have fatasized that I claimed that a microphone is capable of producing high sound pressure levels. I can see now that since I never, ever said that, how one could be confused into thinking that I did. One of us is missing somethiong here. Maybe it's me, missing the words I NEVER said. I can now see that the wording I never used could confuse anyone! It's not just the sound pressure level difference that threw us, and that is not the only factor that makes microphones and speakers different, and not reciprocal. The acceptance patterns of microphones and their use and positioning in recording a stereo performance have nothing to do with the radiation patterns of speakers and their postiioning and use on playback of those signals. If you think otherwise, perhaps you could explain how a coincident pair or single point stereo mike could be used as a stereo speaker, if only it were loud enough. Gary Eickmeier |
#45
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
KH wrote:
On 4/12/2013 6:05 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: KH wrote: On 4/10/2013 8:04 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: Keith - This is getting a little out of control. You are taking an attitude about me that puts a negative whammy on every syllable I say. I did not mean anything dismissive or ugly toward you. Sometimes I speak more conversationally than engineeringly, but I am thinking my audience is regular folk like me who are interested in a subject. THEORETICAL: Assuming that you are saying that you want to record a sort of sound "picture" of a live performance, as if the playback will then cast that picture back to your ears and let you hear "into" another acoustic space - how am I doing - you will then play it back on these really accurate speakers which have been placed at an angle that will complement the recorded angles, in a space that is deadened down to some practical extent so that it doesn't dilute the recorded acoustic too much with its own sound. OK? Somewhat the general gist, dismissive phrasing aside. You've got me curious - what dismissive phrasing? Ok, let's start with "...as if the playback will then cast that picture back to your ears...". You don't see that even while you are 'just' describing what you think is my position, you invariably use language such as this which both describes, and simultaneously dismisses, the position? Does this truly escape you? Yes. I didn't read it, or intend it, as any kind of dismissive or critical. How would you state it? What hits you wrong about "casts that picture back to your ears"? Curiouser and curiouser - I think I know what you are getting at Keith, but saying that directional information is lost in a stereo recording hits me the wrong way. How it "hits you" is irrelevant to the fact that it is, indeed, lost. It would be idiotic to state that a single microphone gives no directional information, so I'm sure that is not what you mean. OK, let's end with this statement in our discussion of your "dismissive" tone. You can restate this sentence more concisely as "If you believe this you're an idiot". Given that I do, and have, stated this belief (fact actually, but...) your statement reduces further to a simple "You're an idiot". You don't see this? No. Permit me to interpret a paragraph that has been a major embarrassment to me. Everyone knows that the earth is round. It would be idiotic to state that the earth is not flat to an audience of peers, so if you said that I would have to assume you were getting at something deeper. AE and I have already said that we wonder why you and Pierce keep going on about how a single microphone can't record direction. we tell you that everyone knows that, so what's your point. It takes two microphones to record stereo, no? So when I say it would be idiotic to bring up that a single microphone can't record stereo, I mean that everyone knows that, so why say it? I do not mean that I think that it does record direction. Is that clear enough? Now let me help both of you with this direction dilemma. Pierce says that even with the stereo pair, we cannot decipher whether the sounds are coming from 90 degrees up, straight behind, or 90 degrees down, or in front of us - this information is all lost from the recording. I point out that we solve this mystery by physical reconstruction of the recorded sound fields. WE PLACE THE SOURCES straight ahead in front of us, in positions which are geometrically similar to those of the instruments. We have all the information we NEED to reconstruct a realistic image of the performance as it existed. Can you see that my way just a little? Let's talk about that for a moment. Just indulge me. As you have so bravely - and courteously - up to this point. The three dimensions of which you speak are height, width, and depth. The width dimension I think we all agree is encoded in the stereo information from the summing localization from the multiple microphones used. Well, no, I don't think we all agree on that. There is no "width" information in either channels data. We agree that on playback of the two channels, the differential between channels will be perceived as spacial information. You can pan-pot instruments during mixing to achieve the same thing, where "width" never existed, so physical "width" is clearly not a parameter that is encoded in the recording. This is getting silly again. Width means the lateral positioning of the instruments. Width of the soundstage. That is what stereo is all about. Now what are you talking about, there is no width in stereo? That is simply impossible. The reverberant field in the recording has no directional information, and although you can bounce, or reflect, signals from all over the room, you are, for example, bouncing input that originally came from rear left in all directions - not from "the appropriate directions". All directions. NO - if the recording properly contains sound that was bouncing off the left side wall of the concert hall from those instruments on the left side of the orchestra, and if those sounds are played on a left channel speaker They are. They are played from the right speaker as well. As are all of the sounds captured from all directions. Please explain how you play that information only from the left speaker. Again, this is really simple. Left sidewall sounds are recorded more strongly in the left microphone, and are therefore stronger from the left speaker than the right. Similar to the instruments on the left side of the band, in intensity stereo. We do indeed play the left channel information only from the left speaker. that has some output that bounces off the left wall of your room, Please explain how you direct only the reflected sound (from the recording) that bounced off the Left wall of the venue, to bounce off only the Left wall of your room. Stronger from the left wall, due to the stronger recorded signal from that side. you get that sound coming from the appropreate direction - from points in space that are different from the primary sound, whch is coming from the speaker first. Please explain how the how the information is encoded in the electrical signal to allow for the sound reflected off of the Left wall, in the venue, to be removed from the "primary" sound coming directly from the speaker. It is not removed. But if we permit some of the output of the left speaker to bounce off the left wall, there is what they call a "spatial broadening" effect from recorded sounds that have some reverberance in them (from the venue). This is easily audible if you have heard directional systems vs omni speaker systems. Have you not ever noticed that? If you can provide these explanations, please do so. Please refrain from embellishment, as these three basics comprise the basis for my disagreement with your theory. The electrical signals from the microphone, or microphones, do not contain the requisite information to "direct" the acoustic signals as you imply. Well, in a way they do. The recording is in stereo, and by the time we are finished placing the channel sounds where they belong in playback, directing those acoustic signals where they belong - i.e. from locations similar to the live model - then we have a very realistic playback. What you describe above does happen, but you fail to address the concomitant constraints - ALL the reflected sound and ALL of the direct sound will be reflected off of that left wall of the room as well (not just the desired reverberant information), so that reflection will contain far more acoustic information than it did in the venue. The ratio of direct to reflected sound will be completely different as well. No, there is a difference between channels. That is part of what stereo is all about. If playback has been properly reconstructed the range of ratios of direct to reflected will also be similar to the live sound. I think you may be on the verge of discovering Image Model Theory. Just keep thinking about all this stuff and try to stay with me, rather than resisting all the time. Right now just imagine a light bulb on the left side of the room. It shines (bounces) more of its output from the left side wall than any others. NOT everywhere. Footnote, there is a lot more to speaker positioning than I can relate in this short essay. And when sound waves travel at the speed of light, this is a very different discussion indeed. The analogy, however, is irrelevant to the discussion. The answers to my questions above are quite relevant. And I sincerely hope I have answered most of it! Fair enough. Results and perception are what is important. We keep on truckin and make changes here and there as we go and try to figure out what causes either the improvements or unimprovements. One thing is certain: the Big Three, as I call them, of radiation pattern, speaker positioning, and room acoustics that Siegfried Linkwitz asked about in the Challenge to the AES, are difinitely audible, and are the main variables in the making of the sound that we both - all - percieve in our playback. It is those variables that must be studied to find out which ideas sound better than others in the playback of the field-type system called stereophonic sound. And no one is arguing that those properties are not important. But there are an infinite number of configurations of those variables. And precisely zero of them will provide accurate reproduction of vector information from a scalar signal. OK, this is where you have to formulate a theory of reproduction that explains just how this SHOULD be done. How does stereo work? There are many ideas in the literature, such as the Blumlein patent, in which direction is encoded by means of intensity, and the angles are retrieved on playback by positioning the speakers at approx 60 degree angles such that the image will form at the head of the listener. There is the Bell Labs Curtain of Sound in which two or three speakers are just simulating the ideal system, which would be an infinite number of speakers and microphones positioned along an imaginary curtain in front of the performance. There is Sonic Holography, in which crosstalk must be cancelled to separate the channels from each other at the ears. There is Ambisonics, recorded with a single point Soundfield microphone so that sounds from all directions might be encoded to come from the correct direction at the head of the listener. Nowadays these guys (in Europe I think) are trying for "Wave Field Synthesis," which is a complex attempt to encode precise directionality from the soundstage. Maybe you would be attracted to that. I wouldn't because it says nothing about the reverberant field. No matter which of these you tend toward, all engineers and theorists who wish to tell us how to set up a playback system need to use something for a model of what is happening with the recorded signals and their relationship to the playback. Otherwise we are just flailing about, poking around with The Big Three variables in a haphazard hope that we will stumble upon something that works. That sure seems to be a good description of the industry today, if you go to a CES or and sudio show and take a look at all of the completely different designs and try to find a common thread. So OK, if my description of how you believe it works was all wrong, I beg you to tell me now. Gary Eickmeier |
#46
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On 4/15/2013 4:52 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
KH wrote: On 4/12/2013 6:05 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: KH wrote: On 4/10/2013 8:04 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: Keith - This is getting a little out of control. You are taking an attitude about me that puts a negative whammy on every syllable I say. I am reading what you write. To clarify the point: I did not mean anything dismissive or ugly toward you. Sometimes I speak more conversationally than engineeringly, but I am thinking my audience is regular folk like me who are interested in a subject. As if you could talk in engineering terms. Now, was that conversational, or dismissive? See the point? snip You don't see this? No. Permit me to interpret a paragraph that has been a major embarrassment to me. Everyone knows that the earth is round. It would be idiotic to state that the earth is not flat to an audience of peers, so if you said that I would have to assume you were getting at something deeper. AE and I have already said that we wonder why you and Pierce keep going on about how a single microphone can't record direction. we tell you that everyone knows that, so what's your point. It takes two microphones to record stereo, no? So when I say it would be idiotic to bring up that a single microphone can't record stereo, I mean that everyone knows that, so why say it? I do not mean that I think that it does record direction. Is that clear enough? Frankly, it seems a rather facile attempt at rationalizing a clearly inaccurate statement. It may be pedantic to state a single microphone doesn't record directional information, but to describe a true statement as "idiotic" is, shall we say, unusual. Now, to deal with the "stereo" reference, neither microphone records *any* directional information. Zero. Now let me help both of you with this direction dilemma. Pierce says that even with the stereo pair, we cannot decipher whether the sounds are coming from 90 degrees up, straight behind, or 90 degrees down, or in front of us - this information is all lost from the recording. A clearly accurate statement you refuse to deal with directly. I point out that we solve this mystery by physical reconstruction of the recorded sound fields And you *never*, *ever*, even attempt to explain how this happens. You dodge *every* attempt at eliciting a clear explanation. . WE PLACE THE SOURCES straight ahead in front of us, in positions which are geometrically similar to those of the instruments. We have all the information we NEED to reconstruct a realistic image of the performance as it existed. Can you see that my way just a little? IF, and ONLY If, you do not add an attempt to create "another" performance by reflecting sound all over the place. snip Well, no, I don't think we all agree on that. There is no "width" information in either channels data. We agree that on playback of the two channels, the differential between channels will be perceived as spacial information. You can pan-pot instruments during mixing to achieve the same thing, where "width" never existed, so physical "width" is clearly not a parameter that is encoded in the recording. This is getting silly again. Width means the lateral positioning of the instruments. Width of the soundstage. That is what stereo is all about. Now what are you talking about, there is no width in stereo? No, you are getting evasive, yet again. I clearly said that in the case of pan-potting of instruments into a recording *there is* NO PHYSICAL width. It simply has no existence in the real world. Hence, the "width" that exists in a stereophonic recording is not indicative of any physical reality. If that "width" cannot be unambiguously associated with physical reality, then it is not encoded in the signal as such. It is an artifact of differential recording levels (which still excludes front, rear, top, etc.). snip Please explain how you play that information only from the left speaker. Again, this is really simple. Left sidewall sounds are recorded more strongly in the left microphone, and are therefore stronger from the left speaker than the right. Similar to the instruments on the left side of the band, in intensity stereo. We do indeed play the left channel information only from the left speaker. That is simply nonsense. So only the left microphone picks up reverberant information from the left half of the hall? Really. How does that happen? Is it higher level on the left, yes. That is not the same thing. that has some output that bounces off the left wall of your room, Please explain how you direct only the reflected sound (from the recording) that bounced off the Left wall of the venue, to bounce off only the Left wall of your room. Stronger from the left wall, due to the stronger recorded signal from that side. But also from the back wall, and the ceiling, and the right wall, and from direct radiation. These are *all equal* - that is the point. ALL of the sound originally bouncing off the left wall will be radiated equally throughout the entire radiation cone of the speaker. In the case of omni's or dipoles, that is basically all over the place. you get that sound coming from the appropreate direction - from points in space that are different from the primary sound, whch is coming from the speaker first. Please explain how the how the information is encoded in the electrical signal to allow for the sound reflected off of the Left wall, in the venue, to be removed from the "primary" sound coming directly from the speaker. It is not removed. But if we permit some of the output of the left speaker to bounce off the left wall, there is what they call a "spatial broadening" effect from recorded sounds that have some reverberance in them (from the venue). This is easily audible if you have heard directional systems vs omni speaker systems. Have you not ever noticed that? Yes. This is also what "they" call smearing. Once again, it is not just the reverberant information that you "bounce" off the wall, it is ALL of the information. This is completely different than the live performance, in every directional respect. If you can provide these explanations, please do so. Please refrain from embellishment, as these three basics comprise the basis for my disagreement with your theory. The electrical signals from the microphone, or microphones, do not contain the requisite information to "direct" the acoustic signals as you imply. Well, in a way they do. The recording is in stereo, Uhmm, sometimes. and by the time we are finished placing the channel sounds where they belong in playback, directing those acoustic signals where they belong - i.e. from locations similar to the live model - then we have a very realistic playback. Ok so now you're saying your model only "works" when a studio recoding is designed to be replayed according to your model? OK, I'll buy that. So how many recordings are going to be recorded and mastered to be tailor made for your model? What you describe above does happen, but you fail to address the concomitant constraints - ALL the reflected sound and ALL of the direct sound will be reflected off of that left wall of the room as well (not just the desired reverberant information), so that reflection will contain far more acoustic information than it did in the venue. The ratio of direct to reflected sound will be completely different as well. No, there is a difference between channels. The statement has nothing to do with "channels". Each channel has reverberant + direct information reflecting off the walls, and also has reverberant + direct information coming directly at the listener. This in no way mimics the live performance, where direct and reverberant do not commingle. Once recorded, they are inextricably commingled, and cannot be separated during replay. Additional reflection of this commingled signal can only result in more smearing. That is part of what stereo is all about. If playback has been properly reconstructed the range of ratios of direct to reflected will also be similar to the live sound. Only if acoustic ratios were linear, which they are not. Once you take the original ratio, record it, and then play it back, even with the same ratio of direct to reverberant (e.g. same venue), the resulting ratio of direct *information* versus reverberant *information* will be changed. You will obviously hear the same ratio, in the same venue, but you have to understand that on replay, both the direct and the reverberant fields contain *both* direct and reverberant information when they initially did not, and thus the effective ratio is altered. I think you may be on the verge of discovering Image Model Theory. Just keep thinking about all this stuff and try to stay with me, rather than resisting all the time. How about you trying to stay with me? How about answering some direct questions once in a while? Right now just imagine a light bulb on the left side of the room. It shines (bounces) more of its output from the left side wall than any others. NOT everywhere. Footnote, there is a lot more to speaker positioning than I can relate in this short essay. And when sound waves travel at the speed of light, this is a very different discussion indeed. The analogy, however, is irrelevant to the discussion. The answers to my questions above are quite relevant. And I sincerely hope I have answered most of it! Well, no. You've repeated the same, IMO flawed, understanding. You continue to ignore the question of how adding both direct and reverberant information to the "new" reverberant field, and adding both direct and reverberant information to the direct sonic field bears any resemblance to the original acoustic. snip OK, this is where you have to formulate a theory of reproduction that explains just how this SHOULD be done. No, it isn't. Once again, you revert to the assumption that there is only ONE way that "works" and either you are right, or not. You assume a binary where none does, nor can, exist. How does stereo work? There are many ideas in the literature, such as the Blumlein patent, in which direction is encoded by means of intensity, and the angles are retrieved on playback by positioning the speakers at approx 60 degree angles such that the image will form at the head of the listener. There is the Bell Labs Curtain of Sound in which two or three speakers are just simulating the ideal system, which would be an infinite number of speakers and microphones positioned along an imaginary curtain in front of the performance. There is Sonic Holography, in which crosstalk must be cancelled to separate the channels from each other at the ears. There is Ambisonics, recorded with a single point Soundfield microphone so that sounds from all directions might be encoded to come from the correct direction at the head of the listener. Yep. None of these are accurate. None work for everyone, or every equipment type. Your theory is no different. Nowadays these guys (in Europe I think) are trying for "Wave Field Synthesis," which is a complex attempt to encode precise directionality from the soundstage. Maybe you would be attracted to that. I wouldn't because it says nothing about the reverberant field. No matter which of these you tend toward, all engineers and theorists who wish to tell us how to set up a playback system need to use something for a model of what is happening with the recorded signals and their relationship to the playback. Otherwise we are just flailing about, poking around with The Big Three variables in a haphazard hope that we will stumble upon something that works. I seriously doubt any of the names you dropped consider themselves to be "flailing about" as you routinely describe it. People do not perceive things in a uniform fashion. That is obvious. Why then do you expect that there is a single "unified theory" of stereo that everyone will agree is the best? Is there a single painting style that is "correct"? Or a "correct" musical genera, or style? It also makes no sense to assume, especially within the context of your "new acoustical event" paradigm, that any one method or theory is "correct". This makes no more sense that to state a particular performance is more or less "accurate". It's a false distinction. That sure seems to be a good description of the industry today, if you go to a CES or and sudio show and take a look at all of the completely different designs and try to find a common thread. So OK, if my description of how you believe it works was all wrong, I beg you to tell me now. Well, let's start with your assumption that I like "a window into a performance", I don't. Your assumption that I like "boxy sound" - zippo again. How about your assumption that I like a soundfield that "collapses" into two boxes - again, no cigar. These are all flaws that you take for granted, and so you assume, a priori, that they exist equally for all and sundry. But these are simply your opinions about how certain things sound, and you project them, as truth, upon others as a fait accompli. I think we can tailor our playback systems to sound, within the limitations of the commercial recordings available, as much like real life as possible. For some that's dipoles, for some conventional mini-monitors, for some it's the Bose 901 approach, for some - like me- the Wilson approach to controlling reflections to create a realistic sweet spot. That sweet spot, in my case, is relatively small. You consider that a flaw, I don't care as it suits my listening style. Hence the resistance to your "listening" test with the Orions, among others, where one criterion is how stable the image is when moving around the room. Who cares? Apparently you do, but many, like me, couldn't care less. And it goes without saying that the more diffuse the image you create, the more stable it will be as you move around the room. In that case, stable image equates to pitiful imaging, as I define it. Clearly you believe that you are right, and the world is wrong. You like what you like, I don't. Let's just leave it at that. Keith |
#47
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
KH wrote:
for some it's the Bose 901 approach, ... Clearly you believe that you are right, and the world is wrong. On the theory that context is everything, perhaps a revelation of context might be useful. Unless my memory is faulty, and that is certainly a possibility, I believe that Mr. Eickmeier has revealed in the past that he is an advocate of the Bose 901, and has further stated words to the effect that Bose doesn't know how to set them up, and (to possibly risk exaggeration to the point of possible hyperbole), it's Mr. Eickmeier's claim that has the "secret" of setting Bose 901s up "properly." Now, if my memory of these points is correct, people should now have more information they can accept or reject Mr. Eickmeier's claims, using a more complete knowledge of the context surrounding his, well, theory. If my memory is not correct, then I apologize for contributing to the indistinct and muddy picture already in place. -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#48
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On Tuesday, April 16, 2013 5:46:30 AM UTC-7, KH wrote:
On 4/15/2013 4:52 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: KH wrote: On 4/12/2013 6:05 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: KH wrote: On 4/10/2013 8:04 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: Keith - This is getting a little out of control. You are taking an attitude about me that puts a negative whammy on every syllable I say. I am reading what you write. To clarify the point: I did not mean anything dismissive or ugly toward you. Sometimes I speak more conversationally than engineeringly, but I am thinking my audience is regular folk like me who are interested in a subject. As if you could talk in engineering terms. Now, was that conversational, or dismissive? See the point? snip You don't see this? No. Permit me to interpret a paragraph that has been a major embarrassment to me. Everyone knows that the earth is round. It would be idiotic to state that the earth is not flat to an audience of peers, so if you said that I would have to assume you were getting at something deeper. AE and I have already said that we wonder why you and Pierce keep going on about how a single microphone can't record direction. we tell you that everyone knows that, so what's your point. It takes two microphones to record stereo, no? So when I say it would be idiotic to bring up that a single microphone can't record stereo, I mean that everyone knows that, so why say it? I do not mean that I think that it does record direction. Is that clear enough? Frankly, it seems a rather facile attempt at rationalizing a clearly inaccurate statement. It may be pedantic to state a single microphone doesn't record directional information, but to describe a true statement as "idiotic" is, shall we say, unusual. Now, to deal with the "stereo" reference, neither microphone records *any* directional information. Zero. I think that depends upon how you define "directional information". Hyper-cardioid, cardioid, and figure-of-eight microphones are more-or-less DEFINED by their directionality. I'd say that's "directional" information, by definition. OTOH, I understand what you are saying. A microphone picks up a sound-field. Within that sound field, the microphone has way of discriminating what sounds it picks up. nor the direction from which those sounds come. For instance, a pair of cardioid mikes on a 7-inch T-bar, placed in front of an orchestra or band and "aimed" 90 degrees apart from each other so that one mike faces 45 degrees to the left of canter and the other faces 45 degrees to the right of center both pick up the whole orchestra; right left center and behind the mike. It's just that their sensitivity to sounds that occur off of the microphone's axis is attenuated compared to the mike's sensitivity on-axis. This might manifest itself as a wide-band, deep attenuation off-axis, resulting in a hyper-cardioid or super-cardioid pattern, or it may be merely a few dB and be frequency dependent. When used as a stereo pair, the directionality occurs because the left microphone picks-up the left side of the band or orchestra better than the right side because it's aimed at the left side and right-side information, though "heard" by the left mike is attenuated by some amount. That amount of course depends upon how well the microphone manufacturer has designed the microphone to attenuate off-axis sounds. Because omni-directional mikes are designed to pick-up sounds with no attenuation at 360 degrees, two such mikes on the same T-bar should yield mono as 7-inches is too close together to be considered anything but the exact same location to an omnidirectional pickup. In other words there would be no discernible difference between the left track and the right track due to the close proximity of both microphones. For this example we're assuming that the two omnis used are a identical make and model. So, some microphones do pick-up directional information, it's just indiscriminate of source location. A cardioid might pick up a loud noise in the back of the hall where the mike, being pointed at the stage, is least sensitive, to be louder than the instrument or instruments the mike is pointing directly at. On playback, no one listening (who wasn't there at the time) will be able to tell from that noise, where it came from. Back stage? Up in the theater fly-area? on stage? No clue at all because the microphone is incapable of distinguishing location. Only a microphone's pick-up pattern determines whether a sound is on or off axis. and only a difference in intensity caused by the microphone's pick-up pattern and distance from the sound source be can discerned. If that's what you mean by microphones picking-up NO directional information, then I think that we should all be in agreement and can move on. Is that not so? |
#49
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On Sunday, April 14, 2013 8:45:06 AM UTC-7, ScottW wrote:
On Apr 13, 6:49am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote: Gary, It's more than a bit frustrating when after the following exchange : start quote "On Apr 12, 6:05 am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote: It would be idiotic to state that a single microphone gives no directional information, so I'm sure that is not what you mean. I've been wondering why this conversation seems so confused but I think I found the crux of the biscuit. You need to accept that this idiocy is in fact true....and start over. end quote Then you apparently want to exchange our positions with this statement. Okay, so Mr. Pierce, Keith Howard, and Scott W are surprised that a single microphone can't record directional information, I think I am done here. I can't tell if this is a few inadvertent typos or if you are really this inconsistent in your position (and I think that is a very generous and gentle way to put it). FWIW, I think that some recordings (close mic'd and pan potted of the kind AE deplores) create a superior illusion of instruments in the room with me. Recordings of live performances that capture a sound field complete with reverberant info etc. loose so much in replay from 2 speakers in a small room that the you are there illusion falls well short of convincing IME. ScottW Yeah, Scott, I do "deplore" them. They aren't real, as in they don't exist outside of the studio where they were made. They also aren't "stereo". Stereo means, literally, "solid" as in having three dimensions. Individually miked instruments have only ONE dimension, width. The individual instruments can be placed anywhere on a straight line, running between the extreme left of the soundstage to the extreme right by the use of the mixing engineer's pan-pots. That's it; there is no image depth, and no image height. Even any "ambience" is artificially provided by use of a digital reverb device. This is done for two reasons: First, studios go to great lengths not to have any, and secondly, even if such a recording were made in Carnegie Hall, The mikes used for multi-miking are so close to the individual instruments and the difference between volume of the instrument that they are capturing and the hall sound is so great, that any ambience will be so far down in the mud, that it is simply not "heard" by the recording device. Of course, one could put separate "ambience" mikes at strategic points in the hall, and yes, some notorious multi-miking producers have done this (notably J. David Saks who used to "produce" those awful sounding Philadelphia Orchestra recordings in the heyday or multi-miking, the late 1960's through much of the 1970's). Even then the great Philadelphians still sounded ridiculous, all standing in a "chorus line" stretched between the left and right speakers..... |
#50
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On Tuesday, April 16, 2013 5:28:55 PM UTC-7, ScottW wrote:
On Apr 16, 3:46*pm, Audio_Empire wrote: On Sunday, April 14, 2013 8:45:06 AM UTC-7, ScottW wrote: On Apr 13, 6:49am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote: Gary, *It's more than a bit frustrating when after the following exchange : start quote *"On Apr 12, 6:05 am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote: *It would be idiotic to state that a single microphone gives no directional information, so I'm sure that is not what you mean. I've been wondering why this conversation seems so confused but I think I found the crux of the biscuit. You need to accept that this idiocy is in fact true....and start over. end quote Then you apparently want to exchange our positions with this statement. Okay, so Mr. Pierce, Keith Howard, and Scott W are surprised that a single microphone can't record directional information, I think I am done here. *I can't tell if this is a few inadvertent typos or if you are really this inconsistent in your position (and I think that is a very generous and gentle way to put it). FWIW, I think that some recordings (close mic'd and pan potted of the kind AE deplores) create a superior illusion of instruments in the room with me. *Recordings of live performances that capture a sound field complete with reverberant info etc. loose so much in replay from 2 speakers in a small room that the you are there illusion falls well short of convincing IME. ScottW Yeah, Scott, I do "deplore" them. They aren't real, as in they don't exist outside of the studio where they were made. They also aren't "stereo". Stereo means, literally, "solid" as in having three dimensions. Individually miked instruments have only ONE dimension, width. The individual instruments can be placed anywhere on a straight line, running between the extreme left of the soundstage to the extreme right by the use of the mixing engineer's pan-pots. That's it; there is no image depth, and no image height. Even any "ambience" is artificially provided by use of a digital reverb device. There appears to be lots of literature available on how to add 3D to dry studio tracks with the use of reverb and delay. Don't even want to go there. The concept is ridiculous - from my point of view. Yes it's all artificial, but so is any reproduction...even if the origin was a live event. Some more so than others.... I've often wondered if a live event recording using mic's spaced ~10 ft. apart and 10 ft in front of the listeners position wouldn't yield a reasonable recreation. How many mikes? Three? It's been done. Mercury Living Presence from the 50's, 60's and Telarc in the late 70's - to about 2010. The Mercurys were more successful, IMNSHO. The concept being the mics/speakers acting as repeaters of the original event and therefore being similarly placed. Seems odd to use mics spaced only 7" apart to be replayed on speakers positioned quite further apart. Think of it like a pair of "surrogate ears" (or eyes) looking at the orchestra from there the mikes are hung. look down the axis of the left mike, what do you see? the left side of the orchestra and much of the middle. Now look down the axis of the right microphone (remember these must be preferably cardioid mikes, though it works with crossed figure-of-eights as well; but with the latter, you have to deal with the back side of the mike as well Great to pick up hall ambience in an empty hall, not at all acceptable id there's am audience), what do you see? The right side of the audience and much of the middle. The mikes "see" the same thing. left sees left stage orchestra, right sees right stage orchestra. both see the middle.. Essentially what you get is left mike = (L+M) right mike =(R+M). Now this looks to be self evident but it really isn't. because you have to factor into the "equation" the fact that as the pickup from both these mikes gets further and further off axis, their pickup sensitivity falls off as well starting with the high frequencies. The place in the middle where the two pickup patterns cross, they ADD one to the other and it turns out that this fills the center with full pickup where with one or the other mike only, the center would be attenuated and lacking in highs. You do have to watch the outside pickup lobes of the mike pattern though. Those can catch you out. This is learned by experience. I can tell you about it, but until you've experimented yourself you probably won't get it right. Since you can think of each mike's point of view as a cone, you can see that the closer to the mike, the smaller the on-axis pattern. The further, the larger that "sweet spot" will be. Eventually you will learn to look at how wide the ensemble seating will be and you will be able to judge the angle between the two mikes and how far back from the conductor that you must place the mikes in order to get the L and R edges of the ensemble "in the picture". Of course, we don't care how much the mikes roll-off beyond the sight-lines of the leftmost and right-most musicians. I hope that clears it up for you. An easier way to get just as good stereo as an XY. A-B, ORTF or other similar microphone schemes is to use MS miking. In this scheme, you mount two microphone heads in the same, exact horizontal space, with one mike atop the other (this works best with a multi-pattern stereo mike such as an Avantone CK-40). You set one mike to omnidirectional (like if you were making a monaural recording) and place it stage center behind the conductor. Just below (or above, it makes no difference) the first mike you mount a figure-of-eight mike with the two lobes pointing sideways (I.E., parallel to the stage) You feed the omni into one mike input on your mixer and set the pan-pot on that channel to center (mono). You then split the figure-of-eight mike feed into two feeds: one in-phase, and one out-of-phase (some mixers have switches for phase. Otherwise you have to hardwire one leg of the splitter out of phase, or use a phase swapping in-line transformer) Plug these two figure-of-eight feeds into the next two mike mixer inputs and set the left-most of the two channel's pan-pot all the way to the left and right most (the inverted phase feed) pan=pot all the way to the right. That means you need three mike inputs for this. With the level controls you can vary the pickup pattern of this MS mike from dead mono (only the omni being used) to full 120 degree stereo (full Figure-of-eight and full omni) or, by manipulating the amount of "S" in the mix, anything in between. If you're recording live, you can use a cardioid for the "M" mike. It will pick-up less audience. But the omni "M" mike is best. Hope this is all clear. A_E |
#51
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
ScottW wrote:
I've often wondered if a live event recording using mic's spaced ~10 ft. apart and 10 ft in front of the listeners position wouldn't yield a reasonable recreation. The concept being the mics/speakers acting as repeaters of the original event and therefore being similarly placed. Seems odd to use mics spaced only 7" apart to be replayed on speakers positioned quite further apart. ScottW Quite an innocent question from one so knowledgeable! No, the one has nothing to do with the other except maybe in the case of three spaced omnis. For example, you can record an amazing perspective with the coincident techniques of MS and XY microphones that have no spacing at all. You can do almost as well with ORT-F, fairly closely spaced cardioids angled at about 120°. One of my favorite techniques is 3 spaced omnis, positioned as you suggest geometrically similar (that is, similar, not identical spacing) to the positioning and spacing of the speakers at home. The main difference would be positioning the mikes at a certain distance in front of the orchestra so that their summing would image the instruments in between correctly and there would be no hole in the middle. Care must be taken that you are not so close to the front players that the rear of the orchestra sounds like they are a mile away. Some elevation of the mikes can help even out these loudnesses so that it sounds more natural when played back. In general there is no direct relationship between the spacing of microphones and speakers like you ask about. Recording is an art aimed at the final result as heard on most playback systems. Nothing is off limits, such as highlight mikes for the quieter instruments or the soloists, or accent mikes such as the outboard omnis used by John Eargle. Several of my friends get amazing results with Mid Side, including Audio Empire. I have been trying two spaced omnis on a high bar, but I am not satisfied with the separation at the distances that I am forced to record live performances, so I will change something next season. Gary Eickmeier |
#52
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Dick Pierce wrote:
KH wrote: for some it's the Bose 901 approach, ... Clearly you believe that you are right, and the world is wrong. On the theory that context is everything, perhaps a revelation of context might be useful. Unless my memory is faulty, and that is certainly a possibility, I believe that Mr. Eickmeier has revealed in the past that he is an advocate of the Bose 901, and has further stated words to the effect that Bose doesn't know how to set them up, and (to possibly risk exaggeration to the point of possible hyperbole), it's Mr. Eickmeier's claim that has the "secret" of setting Bose 901s up "properly." Now, if my memory of these points is correct, people should now have more information they can accept or reject Mr. Eickmeier's claims, using a more complete knowledge of the context surrounding his, well, theory. If my memory is not correct, then I apologize for contributing to the indistinct and muddy picture already in place. No apology necessary - your memory is correct sir! But no, as usual, you haven't explained anything about my theory, so let me give you the Readers Digest version. First, "the answer" is that I am using four 901s plus center channel of my own making and a Velodyne F1800 that I purchased from Howard Ferstler, all in my 21 x 31 foot dedicated home theater listening room. Howard came down and reviewed my system in The Sensible Sound a while back. The front 901s are positioned in an unusual way, 5 ft out from the front wall and 5 ft in from the side walls, in accordance with my positioning theory. Such positioning is more in line with audiophile practice than Bose owners manual suggestions. Do you remember my Big Three of speaker positioning, frequency response, and room acoustics? Siegfried Linkwitz asked a question of the AES about these factors, which factors are the main determinants of the sound of a speaker system in a room. The question was how to optimize them for the realistic reproduction of auditory perspective - realism. He called it the Auditory Scene, or AS. From my Image Model Theory, I already knew the answer to those questions, so I entered a home made speaker in the listening test series that my audio club volunteered to run to answer The Challenge, as it was called. I made some cheap speakers whose main design feature was a greater output to the rear than to the front of the box, and told them how to position them. After the first round of blind testing everyone was very surprised to learn that my design won over the Orions and the Behringers. My Damascus moment came one fine day when I was stationed overseas in England and I decided to experiment with my 901s and position them more like standard audiophile practice. I moved them out a lot farther from all walls and beheld a focusing of the imaging that stunned me to the extent that I wrote to Bose to ask them why they didn't tell us about this in the owners manual. My letter struck Dr. Bose to the extent that he phoned me and talked about acoustics, D/R ratios, and speaker design for an hour and a quarter. I visited the factory on redeployment as I passed through Boston and spoke with Dr. Bose and his chief engineer, Joe Veranth. Joe told me about a technique from architectural acoustics called image modeling, in which you can draw the effects of speaker radiation pattern and positioning by drawing the virtual images on the other side of the reflecting surfaces rather than ray tracing. This opened up a very visual way of looking at the problem and comparing the live model with the reproduction model, which insight led me to my paper to explain it all that I presented at the AES in 1989. It is called An Image Model Theory for Stereophonic Sound. I would be glad to send you a PDF of it in Email. Since that time I have continued to research all aspects of it, looking for anything that would disprove it, but everything I read and hear only confirms and supports it. The reason for my zeal, beyond my enthusiasm for the kind of sound I am getting at home, is that the interrelationships of the possible variations of The Big Three are complex enough that others are not likely to stumble upon the correct combination as I did except by chance, which chance is so low because it would never occur to anyone other than Bose to design a negative directivity index (more sound to the rear than the front) into a speaker. It goes against what most engineers are taught about what causes stereo perception - as you probably are familiar with! The concept is so different from what you would read in the textbooks that I am concerned that the industry is operating on an entirely wrong theory about how stereo works, one that is counter productive to the supposed goal of the listening experience, which is precisely what AE has asked about in the OP for this thread - why don't recordings sound more real, more like they are right there in front of us in our room? Curiously, upon doing some research into the history of stereo systems, I discovered that the pioneers knew the answer long before these questions resurfaced about what we are doing with the process (of recording and reproduction). Both Harry Olson and William B. Snow warned us that the terms stereophonic and binaural were continually confused with one another, and Snow defined the stereophonic as a field-type system in which speakers were placed in a playback room in positions that were geometrically similar to the positions of the microphones in order to produce a sound field in the room that is similar to that which was recorded. Binaural is a head-related system in which we record ear input signals for direct presentation to the ears. It is this system in which HRTF, head shadowing, and elimination of the playback environment are important. In all texts on how stereo imaging works you will see two speakers and a listener in an equilateral triangle, with nothing about The Big Three anywhere to be found. We started with the definition as a field type system, but as far as the explanation of it goes, the room might as well not exist. Enter Image Model Theory. We must study recording and reproducing sound fields in rooms, not ear input signals. That is my, well, theory, if you care to learn more about it. Gary Eickmeier. |
#53
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
Dick Pierce wrote: KH wrote: for some it's the Bose 901 approach, ... Clearly you believe that you are right, and the world is wrong. On the theory that context is everything, perhaps a revelation of context might be useful. Unless my memory is faulty, and that is certainly a possibility, I believe that Mr. Eickmeier has revealed in the past that he is an advocate of the Bose 901, and has further stated words to the effect that Bose doesn't know how to set them up, and (to possibly risk exaggeration to the point of possible hyperbole), it's Mr. Eickmeier's claim that has the "secret" of setting Bose 901s up "properly." Now, if my memory of these points is correct, people should now have more information they can accept or reject Mr. Eickmeier's claims, using a more complete knowledge of the context surrounding his, well, theory. If my memory is not correct, then I apologize for contributing to the indistinct and muddy picture already in place. No apology necessary - your memory is correct sir! But no, as usual, you haven't explained anything about my theory, And precisely why is it MY job to "explain" YOUR theory? You're done a miserable job of explaining it, it would seem, to anyone but yourself. And your theory is not a theory, not by any accepted scientific and technical usage of the term. It's your story, you're sticking to it. But it's not a theory. Where are the testable, falsifiable predictions of your theory, to just give one of many examples of the properties and attributes that might qualified it as a candidate for a theory? When I last pressed you on some of your assertions over a year ago, you defended your story, for example, by saying that you got a phone call from Amar Bose, like that means ANYTHING. so let me give you the Readers Digest version. And Readers Digest is the LAST place I would look for any coherent explanation of any technical topic. But, thus far, that's all you've provided. My take is that you like your Bose 901s. You really, REALLY like them. You drank the Bose kool-aid. Now you construct an entire world view whose puropose is to make that fact self-consistent. And you manage the cognitive dissonance created by the surrounding physical reality and its contradiction to the world you created by being dismissive of other views, by name dropping, by refusing to address technical challenges using reasoned technical, fact-based arguments, outright denial of physical contradictions in your story, fabrication of positions and viewpoints of others not sharing your kool- aid, and by blaming others for not "explaining anything about your theory." And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it until I am presented with compelling evidence that might suggest that story needs modification. -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#54
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
KH wrote:
Clearly you believe that you are right, and the world is wrong. You like what you like, I don't. Let's just leave it at that. Keith I wrote an Email to Keith to offer him a paper I wrote to explain all of this systemic theory in great detail, but he has not responded so I don't know if he got it or not. So I throw it open to all. The paper was written after my basic Image Model Theory paper was rejected by the people at the AES who do the peer reviewing for publication. I asked them for comments and it showed that they didn't understand a word I said about the difference between a field-type system and a head-related system. So I wrote a second, more basic paper that painstakingly shows the difference by using an imaginary trip to Mars a hundred years from now to explain the field-type system to the Martians, who knew only trinaural as their system for their 3 eared heads. They needed a recording and reproduction system that has nothing to do with the number of ears or the shape of the head for all of the beings who wanted to share music. The AES team introduces them to the field-type system known as stereophonic, and in the process goes over the entire process in great detail and shows how it works and how we can reduce the number of channels without losing too much information. The paper was never submitted because it was somewhat tongue in cheek and was written more like a magazine article than a technical paper. It was written before the Archimedes project was finished, and it assumed great hope that they would discover some of the answers to questions that I had about speakers and rooms. Alas, they never did much with that project and I couldn't contribute to it. I talked to Soren Bech one fine day at a convention, but no communication was established or attempted. The paper was published in the BAS Speaker, I forget which issue, but I would be glad to send the PDF to anyone interested in an unusual way of talking about stereo - analyzing it brick by brick and then putting it back together again in modern form. If you are curious at all about all this field-type system talk, this article will hit you over the head with it - so to speak. Gary Eickmeier |
#55
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
I would just add that I have a few of AE's most excellent recordings and he
knows what he is talking about. They stretch from wall to wall in my system, with terrific ambience and localization of individual images. His success in recording is one reason for this thread - he is asking why the commercial recordings can't seem to get it right if he can do it so easily. I agree. Also, I have experimented with MS by manually positioning my AT 2050s one atop the other and using them in figure of eight pattern. Then, when I get home with the two tracks, I can combine them in the correct matrix to turn them into stereo again and manipulate the degree of separation in Adobe Audition 2.0. This involves inverting one of the channels of the Side microphone and adding each side to the Mid mike to get R and L. This can be a very flexible system for adjusting apparent width of image in post, but is a lot harder than just using an XY pair and not worrying about converting to R and L. I'm just too anxious to hear the result when I get home! Gary Eickmeier |
#56
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
KH wrote: Clearly you believe that you are right, and the world is wrong. You like what you like, I don't. Let's just leave it at that. I wrote an Email to Keith to offer him a paper I wrote to explain all of this systemic theory in great detail, but he has not responded so I don't know if he got it or not. So I throw it open to all. The paper was written after my basic Image Model Theory paper was rejected by the people at the AES who do the peer reviewing for publication. Q.E.D. I asked them for comments and it showed that they didn't understand a word I said That's what YOU think it showed YOU. Since you have not shared ANY of your comments with us, we are presented with not factual content of the comments, but only your interpretation of those comments. Your once again dismissive, belittling tone suggests to this person that you didn't understand their comments. That their comments were not supportive of your position is plausible. That you took that lack of support as "proof" that they "didn't understand a word you said," given your history, is not only plausible, but expected. So pretend someone comes up with a "theory" that relates Euler's identity to the aggregated hyperfine structure constant of of the contact area between the landing pads of the Apollo 11 lander and then "demonstrates" that that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was undetectable aliens in miniature invisible asteroids that fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll under the orders of the Trilateral Commission, and the paper is rejected by the peer review comittee, who didn't understand a word that person said, therefore, it's the review comittee that's wrong? A hyperbole, to be sure, but I suspect someone will get the point. -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#57
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Dick Pierce wrote:
Gary Eickmeier wrote: And precisely why is it MY job to "explain" YOUR theory? You're done a miserable job of explaining it, it would seem, to anyone but yourself. And your theory is not a theory, not by any accepted scientific and technical usage of the term. It's your story, you're sticking to it. But it's not a theory. Where are the testable, falsifiable predictions of your theory, to just give one of many examples of the properties and attributes that might qualified it as a candidate for a theory? When I last pressed you on some of your assertions over a year ago, you defended your story, for example, by saying that you got a phone call from Amar Bose, like that means ANYTHING. so let me give you the Readers Digest version. And Readers Digest is the LAST place I would look for any coherent explanation of any technical topic. But, thus far, that's all you've provided. My take is that you like your Bose 901s. You really, REALLY like them. You drank the Bose kool-aid. Now you construct an entire world view whose puropose is to make that fact self-consistent. And you manage the cognitive dissonance created by the surrounding physical reality and its contradiction to the world you created by being dismissive of other views, by name dropping, by refusing to address technical challenges using reasoned technical, fact-based arguments, outright denial of physical contradictions in your story, fabrication of positions and viewpoints of others not sharing your kool- aid, and by blaming others for not "explaining anything about your theory." And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it until I am presented with compelling evidence that might suggest that story needs modification. As I said, I would be glad to send you the PDF of my basic paper, plus the Mars paper that goes a little deeper into the field-type vs the head-related type systems, as defined by Snow and Olson. Gary Eickmeier |
#58
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Dick Pierce wrote:
So pretend someone comes up with a "theory" that relates Euler's identity to the aggregated hyperfine structure constant of of the contact area between the landing pads of the Apollo 11 lander and then "demonstrates" that that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was undetectable aliens in miniature invisible asteroids that fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll under the orders of the Trilateral Commission, and the paper is rejected by the peer review comittee, who didn't understand a word that person said, therefore, it's the review comittee that's wrong? A hyperbole, to be sure, but I suspect someone will get the point. Wow - congratulations! Unasailable! But I would rather imagine a lone scientist coming up with a theory that it is not the sun revolving around the earth, but the earth and all of the planets revolving around the sun. The church immediately labels him a kook and has him locked up in a tower and observed for sanity. Could never happen, but I am sure "someone" might get the point. Gary Eickmeier |
#59
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On Wednesday, April 17, 2013 7:56:34 AM UTC-7, ScottW wrote:
On Apr 17, 3:38=A0am, Audio_Empire wrote: On Tuesday, April 16, 2013 5:28:55 PM UTC-7, ScottW wrote: On Apr 16, 3:46=A0pm, Audio_Empire wrote: On Sunday, April 14, 2013 8:45:06 AM UTC-7, ScottW wrote: On Apr 13, 6:49am, "Gary Eickmeier" wr= ote: Gary, =A0It's more than a bit frustrating when after the following exch= ange : start quote =A0"On Apr 12, 6:05 am, "Gary Eickmeier" = m wrote: =A0It would be idiotic to state that a single microphone gives no directional information, so I'm sure that is not what you me= an. I've been wondering why this conversation seems so confused but I think I found the crux of the biscuit. You need to accept that this idiocy is in fact true....and start over. end quote Then you apparently want to exchange our positions with this statement. Okay, so Mr. Pierce, Keith Howard, and Scott W are surprised that a single microphone can't record directional information, I think I am done here. =A0I can't tell if this is a few inadvertent typos or if you are = really this inconsistent in your position (and I think that is a very generous and gentle way to put it). FWIW, I think that some recordings (close mic'd and pan potted of= the kind AE deplores) create a superior illusion of instruments in th= e room with me. =A0Recordings of live performances that capture a s= ound field complete with reverberant info etc. loose so much in replay= from 2 speakers in a small room that the you are there illusion falls = well short of convincing IME. ScottW Yeah, Scott, I do "deplore" them. They aren't real, as in they don'= t exist outside of the studio where they were made. They also aren't "stereo". Stereo means, literally, "solid" as in having three dimensions. Individually miked instruments have only ONE dimension, width. The individual instruments can be placed anywhere on a strai= ght line, running between the extreme left of the soundstage to the extreme right by the use of the mixing engineer's pan-pots. That's = it; there is no image depth, and no image height. Even any "ambience" i= s artificially provided by use of a digital reverb device. =A0There appears to be lots of literature available on how to add 3D = to dry studio tracks with the use of reverb and delay. Don't even want to go there. The concept is ridiculous - from my point of view. Yes it's all artificial, but so is any reproduction...even if the origin was a live event. Some more so than others.... I've often wondered if a live event recording using mic's spaced ~10 ft. apart and 10 ft in front of the listeners position wouldn't yield a reasonable recreation. How many mikes? Three? Two should suffice. It's been done. Mercury Living Presence from the 50's, 60's and Telarc i= n the late 70's - to about 2010. The Mercurys were more successful, IMNSHO= .. I am under the impression they were spaced quite a bit further =20 apart...needing a 3rd mic to capture center. Correct me if I'm wrong. Well, the right and left mike are indeed about 20 feet apart, but the cente= r mike was 10 ft from either. Actually, according to C.R. Fine, who I had a= =20 chance to talk to over lunch at a AES convention at the Waldorf-Astoria bac= k=20 in the 1970's, his rule-of-thumb was to place a microphone in the middle,= =20 equi-distant from the left and right boundaries or the ensemble being recor= ded. Then he would bisect the first microphone and the edge of the ensemble on t= he=20 left and right and with the two side mikes. He said that usually they ended= -up about 10 ft from mike to mike (give or take five). Robert Woods aped Fine f= or his Telarc miking technique (only he got his info from Robert Eberenz, who = was Fine's "assistant" (actually, Bob Fine, Bob Eberenz and Wilma Cozart Fine W= ERE Mercury records in the 50's and 60's)=20 =20 =20 The concept being the mics/speakers acting as repeaters of the original event and therefore being similarly placed. Seems odd to use mics spaced only 7" apart to be replayed on speakers positioned quite further apart. Think of it like =A0a pair of "surrogate ears" (or eyes) looking at the= orchestra from there the mikes are hung. look down the axis of the left mike, what do = you see? =20 I am thinking of the reciprocity principle discussed earlier where those ears are now speakers some 10' feet or so apart. The phase relationship between the two signals relative to the original event would be disturbed. Actually, so called "coincident" miking methods (A-B, X-Y, M-S, ORTF (to a = lesser extent because=20 it uses 110 degrees between capsules instead of 90 degrees) are the only st= ereo microphone arrangements that are phase coherent. You can take a stereo= recording from any of the above=20 and then sum the two channels together on playback and get perfect mono, wi= th absolutely no loss. You cannot do that with spaced omnis. They are NOT p= hase coherent and will not blend to mono without loss.=20 the left side of the orchestra and much of the middle. Now look down the= axis of the right microphone (remember these must be preferably cardioid m= ikes, though it works with crossed figure-of-eights as well; but with the l= atter, you have to deal with the back side of the mike as well Great to pick up hall ambie= nce in an empty hall, not at all acceptable id there's am audience), what do you see? The right side of = the audience and much of the middle. The mikes "see" the same thing. left s= ees left stage orchestra, right sees right stage orchestra. both see the mi= ddle. Essentially what you get is left mike =3D (L+M) right mike =3D(R+M). = Now this looks to be self evident but it really isn't. because you have to = factor into the "equation" the fact that as the pickup from both these mike= s gets further and further off axis, their pickup sensitivity falls off as = well starting with the high frequencies. The place in the middle where the = two pickup patterns cross, they ADD one to the other and it turns out that = this fills the center with full pickup where with one or the other mike onl= y, the center would be attenuated and lacking in highs. You do have to watc= h the outside pickup lobes of the mike pattern though. Those can catch you = out. This is learned by experience. I can tell you about it, but until you've experimented yourself you probably = won't get it right. Since you can think of each mike's point of view as a c= one, you can see that the closer to the mike, the smaller the on-axis patte= rn. The further, the larger that "sweet spot" will be. Eventually you will = learn to look at how wide the ensemble seating will be and you will be able= to judge the angle between the two mikes and how far back from the conductor that you must place the mikes in order = to get the L and R edges of the ensemble "in the picture". Of course, we don't care how much the mikes = roll-off beyond the sight-lines of the leftmost and right-most musicians. I hope that clears it up for you. An easier way to get just as good ste= reo as an XY. A-B, ORTF or other similar microphone schemes is to use MS miking. In this scheme, you mou= nt two microphone heads in the same, exact horizontal space, with one mike atop the other (this= works best with a multi-pattern stereo mike such as an Avantone CK-40). You set one mike to omnidirecti= onal (like if you were making a monaural recording) and place it stage cent= er behind the conductor. Just below (or above, it makes no difference) the = first mike you mount a figure-of-eight mike with the two lobes pointing sid= eways (I.E., parallel to the stage) You feed the omni into one mike input o= n your mixer and set the pan-pot on that channel to center (mono). You then= split the figure-of-eight mike feed into two feeds: one in-phase, and one = out-of-phase (some mixers have switches for phase. Otherwise you have to ha= rdwire one leg of the splitter out of phase, or use a phase swapping in-lin= e transformer) Plug these two figure-of-eight feeds into the next two mike = mixer inputs and set the left-most of the two channel's pan-pot all the way= to the left and right most (the inverted phase feed) pan=3Dpot all the way= to the right. That means you need three mike inputs for this. With the lev= el controls you can vary the pickup pattern of this MS mike from dead mono = (only the omni being used) to full 120 degree stereo (full Figure-of-eight = and full omni) or, by manipulating the amount of "S" in the mix, anything i= n between. If you're recording live, you can use a cardioid for the "M" mik= e. It will pick-up less audience. But the omni "M" mike is best. Hope this is all clear. =20 Yes, I appreciate the detail discussion of amplitude capture.....but =20 I still think keeping the spacing close to the speakers may help =20 maintain the phase relationships between the channels of the original =20 event and enhance the sense of the original space in recreation. Actually, just the opposite is true. While the fact that coincident miking = preserves=20 perfect phase coherence within the recording allowing one to get mono witho= ut loss is not really important from a practical point of view any more (we do= n't need to make both stereo and mono records anymore), It is still an important tes= t to=20 determine phase coherence of a system in order to insure stable imaging and= =20 soundstage. |
#60
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On 4/16/2013 12:59 PM, Audio_Empire wrote:
On Tuesday, April 16, 2013 5:46:30 AM UTC-7, KH wrote: On 4/15/2013 4:52 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: KH wrote: snip If that's what you mean by microphones picking-up NO directional information, then I think that we should all be in agreement and can move on. Is that not so? Yes, basically. The signal recorded by any microphone is, of course, dictated by the placement and response of the microphone. But, and it's a huge "but", there is no information on the recording that *identifies* how the microphone altered the signal, and thus no information available on playback that would allow a signal, from a cardioid for example, to be adjusted such that the levels would be equalized for the directionality and sensitivity of the microphone. So the signal is definitely affected, but the information to "undo" that effect simply isn't in the 2-d signal. Keith |
#61
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On 4/17/2013 6:36 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
KH wrote: Clearly you believe that you are right, and the world is wrong. You like what you like, I don't. Let's just leave it at that. Keith I wrote an Email to Keith to offer him a paper I wrote to explain all of this systemic theory in great detail, but he has not responded so snip Yes, he did get it, but he's been in the air more than on the ground this week, and rather busy. I would be happy to read your paper; however, if your response, should I disagree with your 'clarified' theory, is that I'm simply another one of the great unwashed incapable of your depth of understanding, then please save us both some time and refrain from responding. If you want to *DISCUSS* your theory, or suppositions, then fine. If, however, the likely outcome is that you will think me a fool for disagreeing with you, then I'm loathe to 'prove' you right by foolishly indulging you. To quote Michael Rennie, "the choice is yours". Keith |
#62
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
I am willing to deal with Mr. Eickmeier only if he is willing to
the specific objections I and others have brough forth. If he wants to answer the points I have brought up below and previously, fine, we can have a discussion. I have written several specific questions, and I would like Mr. Eickmeier to attempt to answer them with appropriate, relevant answers. I don't necessarily care what the answers are, just that he address them. KH wrote: On 4/19/2013 4:47 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: KH wrote: Yes, he did get it, but he's been in the air more than on the ground this week, and rather busy. I would be happy to read your paper; however, if your response, should I disagree with your 'clarified' theory, is that I'm simply another one of the great unwashed incapable of your depth of understanding, then please save us both some time and refrain from responding. If you want to *DISCUSS* your theory, or suppositions, then fine. If, however, the likely outcome is that you will think me a fool for disagreeing with you, then I'm loathe to 'prove' you right by foolishly indulging you. To quote Michael Rennie, "the choice is yours". Keith Lets handle it this way. I wrote a nice response to Dick Pierce last night, but it didn't get posted or responded to - must not have gone through. I will just re-post it here for you and whoever else is interested. I realize I may have seemed a little mysterious and combative because I think I have explained myself when I haven't. So here is a taste of it, which of course is not the full version but if you still think I am a nutcase then you probably wouldn't want to read the rest. Please let me know. I never said or intend to implied that you were a nutcase. Merely that you have consistently, and persistently, dismissed all dissenters of your theory as idiots, or "poor dumb *******s". You will find few people who are interested in discussions with such a person. One mans "mysterious and combative" is another mans "arrogant and condescending". I would at once provide both an explicit example as well as an opporutinty for Mr. Eickmeier to follow a different path. Take his statement: "The paper was written after my basic Image Model Theory paper was rejected by the people at the AES who do the peer reviewing for publication. I asked them for comments and it showed that they didn't understand a word I said." I would be willing to bet good hard cash that the comments did not say "we don't understand a word you said," or anything like that. Mr. Eickmeier, do you want to take the bet? Instead, why don't you actually publish their comments? Leave it to the collective to decide what they said and what they meant. Publish them right here. Specific question: Mr. Eickmeier: what EXACTLY were the objections raided by the AES review committee? You keep talking about your "theory" yet, no intent to insult, your approach is about as anithetical to the scientific process as one might imagine. Part of the scienctific process when you profer something that is new is that it has to withstand a rather brutal gauntlet of valid, skeptical examination and criticism. And real scientists have to be willing to realize that they might be wrong. I think it's clear, simply by the record in front of us, you have been anything but: you have dismissed any contrary view of your theory out of hand, in one case, stating that a group of acknowledged experts simply "didn't understand a word [you] said." Perhaps you've heard the aphorism "If the pupil hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught"? Precisely. FIrst. Mr. Eickmeier, how about explicitly adressing the objects. Instead, you have been evasive and diversionary. Now, let's look at what YOU need to do to have your hypothesis taken seriously. And that is, if you want to call it a theory, you have to follow the rules. A hypothesis, to be taken seriously, must make predictions that are testable. This is the principle of "falsifiability." The tests must be able to be performed by any reasonably competent party and generate clear outcomes which can then be interpeted by reasonable independent parties as to whether they support or refute your hypothesis. Specific question: Do you understand the scientific model? Do you understand the principles of testability and falsifiability? Let's take a real example: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity makes very specific predictions that are testable. FOr example, it says that the sun's gravity causes a warping of space time, and that, as a result, the apparent positions of stars close to the sun should be changed by a certain amount. This is a testable prediction, and makes this particular element of the theory falsifiable: measure the positions of stars close to the sun: if they change by the predicted amount, that supports that aspect of the thoery. If they are not, that refutes that aspect of the theory. Specific question: What testable predictions does your model make that an independent party can test and then examine the outcomes, determining if that aspect of your theory making the prediction is supported or refuted by the outcomes? I see none. Therefore, based on the widely accepted usage of the term "theory" in the scientific realm, I assert you have no theory. Again, this is not meant as an insult, but a statement of fact as I interpret it. Let me provide a counterexample: a "theory" which states that a person can levitate themselves only when no one is looking. Tthat theory is not testable and therefore not falsifiable. There is no observation, no test that can be performed by an independent party that results in an outcome that either supports or refutes the theory. How does one, for example, observe the levitiaion when observation itsdelf prevents levitation? Specific question: Do you understand why this example does not qualify as a valid theory? Specific question: Under the principles of the scientific method, does your "model" qualify as a valid theory or not? And because you're claims do not have the foundations of a falsifiable theory, allowing others to independently and objectively test its predictions, statements YOU have made like: "But no, as usual, you haven't explained anything about my theory," incline me to simply dismiss your claims out of hand. You seem to be utterly unwilling to meet the burden of proof, the burden that is ENTIRELY yours and no one else's, necessary for your "thoery" to be taken seriously. And, I would expect, that is really the reason why the AES review committee rejected your paper.. Specific question: Is it POSSIBLE that the reason your paper was rejected is because it failed to meet the criteria of a valid theory, and NOT because "they didn't understand a word [you] said?" Specific question: Is it possible that if they really didn't understand a word you said, it might be because either what you said or how you said it? -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#63
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
In article ,
ScottW wrote: On Apr 17, 1:44*pm, Audio_Empire wrote: *Yes, I appreciate the detail discussion of amplitude capture.....but I still think keeping the spacing close to the speakers may help maintain the phase relationships between the channels of the original event and enhance the sense of the original space in recreation. Actually, just the opposite is true. While the fact that coincident miking preserves perfect phase coherence within the recording allowing one to get mono without loss is not really important from a practical point of view any more (we don't need to make both stereo and mono records anymore), It is still an important test to determine phase coherence of a system in order to insure stable imaging and soundstage. The objective is not being able to sum to mono without loss. Loss (phase cancellation) exists within the original venue and it would seem necessary to tolerate it if the objective is to recreate the original perspective of a seat in the venue. It would appear that recording engineers have long taken liberty to provide a better than the best seat in the house perspective. Perhaps it should not be so surprising that I find my home listening generally more satisfying than most live events. ScottW Well, it certainly can be. When I listen to the Boston Symphony live broadcasts on Saturday nights, I get a much better "seat" than do the patrons at Symphony Hall. Likewise, many recordings in my library offer the same advantage, and some image almost as well as "live" too. While it might be nice to "see" the performance as well (by way of a Blu-Ray disc), not the way PBS does concerts. I'd want a fixed camera, set in the hall so that the whole orchestra will fit nicely onto a 16 X 9 hi-def screen and then HANDS-OFF. I hate watching a video production of a symphony. The musical perspective is fixed while the cameras are constantly moving. makes me sick (not literally, you understand). I say make the combination of the microphones (two, only, thank you - oh and perhaps some accent or soloist mikes if needed) and the camera give the viewer the best seat in the house and then leave well enough alone. They can't, of course. They're "video artistes". A-E --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#64
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
KH wrote:
On 4/19/2013 4:47 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: I never said or intend to implied that you were a nutcase. Merely that you have consistently, and persistently, dismissed all dissenters of your theory as idiots, or "poor dumb *******s". You will find few people who are interested in discussions with such a person. One mans "mysterious and combative" is another mans "arrogant and condescending". I guess I'm not going to outlive that one, so let me 'splain. Have you ever seen "Patton" the movie? In it, George C. Scott makes a pep talk to the troops before going into battle. He says something like "the goal is not to die for your country - it is to make the other poor dumb ******* die for HIS country." I always thought that was funny, and my statement is nothing more than that - a joke. Perhaps you've heard the aphorism "If the pupil hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught"? I am an Air Force instructor, and I know how to teach. I hope I have made up for past losses. The answer to this, as I see it, is that Dick and I both know "what you've done" with your system, and the mental/visual model you have constructed that you feel explains how it works to create "realism". The crux is that there isn't a "theory" behind that visual model that describes how it can actually work. You've also said a number of times that you want others to get interested in your "model" so *they* can help delineate a mathematical/physical theoretical basis for what you've intuited. Well, that does not a "theory", in any classical sense, make. That's kind of the starting point, that leads to: I have been told that it is more of a hypothesis, but I disagree. I am doing it in my home and listening to the result every day. I would say that the main theoretical basis of the whole concept is to get the SPATIAL characteristic correct within your room by means of physically reconstructing the important aspects of the whole acoustical situation. And yet, you cannot, or will not, accept that you do not have, within the recorded signal, the information required to do that accurately. So you construct, not reconstruct, a reflected field that sounds to you like what you feel are the "important aspects" of the venue. OK I think this is the place where I can go into my next speech (lesson). You say there is a problem that the recording doesn't contain enough information to determine all of the spatial aspects of the recorded venue. So therefore we cannot reconstruct it at home. So my question to you would be, what are you doing about it? Do you just give up on the concept of stereo? No, you don't. You handle the problem in much the same say as I do. You place two (at least two) speakers in front of you in a room, so that the lateral localization might be brought out on playback. You decide where the speakers will go and now to treat the room and where to sit. This is an attempt to reconstruct the spatial characteristic contained in the recording. You cannot, for example, put one speaker on top of the other, or even on opposite sides of you, you must construct a soundstage in front of you with a reasonable resemblance to the geometry of the original, which is almost always a presentation in front of you with a certain lateral spread that we - and the Acoustical Society of America, and most band leaders and producers, have come to know and love. The main difference between us is that you don't take it as far as I do. Remember The Big Three that Linkwitz asked about? We both need to decide on those factors in our reproduction, and to do that we need some sort of paradigm, or model, of what it is that we are doing with the system in order for it to work. If you study the live model, you can see all of the spatial, spectral, and temporal aspects of it. No matter who you are or what your paradigm or ideas are, you must somehow account for a translation of those characteristics from the live model to the reproduction. If you don't, it will sound DIFFERENT. You simply cannot put this immense, complex sound field through two points in space in front of you and expect it to sound the same. OK, pause for now. The direct, early reflected, and reverberant sounds will be made to come from the appropriate directions if the playback model mimics a typical live model as closely as possible. No, they will not, because the information required to do so is not in the recorded signal. You state this over and over but never provide any mechanism how this can actually happen. The direct, early reflected, and reverberant sounds *on the recording* cannot be disambiguated from the time variant scalar signal, and thus all of these pieces of the original acoustic will be reflected equally from all directions, not just the appropriate directions. The effect may well sound "realistic" to you, fine, but what you claim happens simply defies physics. Yes, they can. I will only say this once, and hope that you latch onto it. The Image Model is a spatially arrayed, temporally delayed, spectrally shaped sound field synthesizer that attempts to decode the direct and early reflected sound contained in the recording in much the same way as a Dolby Pro Logic delay sytem can bring out the ambience contained in the recording without destroying the soundstage that belongs in front of the room. The recorded signal contains a stream, or train, of pulses from the first arrival transients to the recorded reverberation from spatially separate areas around the instruments. The Image Model features two real speakers that just happen to be closest to you of the 8 in the model. THEREFORE, first arrival transients will be heard from the actual speakers first, and this precedence effect is a very strong one, psychoacoustically speaking, and results in a separation between first arrival and later reverberation contained in the recording. There can be only one first arrival, and it has to come from the actual speakers and nowhere else. So the mechanism that you ask for is the precedence effect, and it works the same in the Model as it does in a delay based surround ambience extraction system. If the recording contains no ambience, all that happens is a harmless image shift toward the reflecting surfaces, resulting in localization of the auditory event a little behind the plane of the speakers. If there is ambience, there is a spatial broadening effect as per well known principles. And the primary question that you've refused, many times, to answer is: If I, and Dick Pierce, and AE all sat down in your listening room, with your IMT optimized system, and we all felt that it did indeed sound contrived, unrealistic, with sound "splashed all over the walls" as AE describes it, *are we wrong*? This is a simple binary that you never answer - and won't now unless I miss my guess - because to answer, either way, would be to recognize that "realism" is in the ear of the beholder. There are many avenues to get near that goal, but you seem to want your method to be recognized as the Grail, and thus never answer the simple question regarding preference. Keith That is one of the most fascinating aspects of this hobby. Seems like you can't sit two of us down and have us agree on which is the best system. Seems like we should have all gravitated to a system with certain common characteristics by this late stage, but it may never happen. Perceptual abilities and experience vary. I think that very few people pay that much attention to these spatial factors in listening to music. John Atkinson has a theory that some people can't hear stereo. I'm not sure. All I do know is that I liisten intently for these imaging factors every time I listen to any system. I wish you could hear my system so that this would not be so theoretical. Gary Eickmeier |
#65
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Dick Pierce wrote:
I am willing to deal with Mr. Eickmeier only if he is willing to the specific objections I and others have brough forth. If he wants to answer the points I have brought up below and previously, fine, we can have a discussion. I have written several specific questions, and I would like Mr. Eickmeier to attempt to answer them with appropriate, relevant answers. I don't necessarily care what the answers are, just that he address them. Take his statement: "The paper was written after my basic Image Model Theory paper was rejected by the people at the AES who do the peer reviewing for publication. I asked them for comments and it showed that they didn't understand a word I said." I would be willing to bet good hard cash that the comments did not say "we don't understand a word you said," or anything like that. Mr. Eickmeier, do you want to take the bet? No. Silly question. Instead, why don't you actually publish their comments? Leave it to the collective to decide what they said and what they meant. Publish them right here. If I can find them - and I think I can - I could extract from them. Would that be OK? But you would have to read my first paper before you could tell. Again, to be perfectly clear, what I said was that I wrote the second paper, the Mars paper, as a result of the comments I got from the reviewers. Specific question: Mr. Eickmeier: what EXACTLY were the objections raided by the AES review committee? I will take a look. So long ago! Might be fun. You keep talking about your "theory" yet, no intent to insult, your approach is about as anithetical to the scientific process as one might imagine. Part of the scienctific process when you profer something that is new is that it has to withstand a rather brutal gauntlet of valid, skeptical examination and criticism. And real scientists have to be willing to realize that they might be wrong. I think it's clear, simply by the record in front of us, you have been anything but: you have dismissed any contrary view of your theory out of hand, in one case, stating that a group of acknowledged experts simply "didn't understand a word [you] said." Didn't understand a word I said about the difference between a field-type system and a head-related system. FIrst. Mr. Eickmeier, how about explicitly adressing the objects. Instead, you have been evasive and diversionary. Now, let's look at what YOU need to do to have your hypothesis taken seriously. And that is, if you want to call it a theory, you have to follow the rules. A hypothesis, to be taken seriously, must make predictions that are testable. This is the principle of "falsifiability." The tests must be able to be performed by any reasonably competent party and generate clear outcomes which can then be interpeted by reasonable independent parties as to whether they support or refute your hypothesis. Specific question: Do you understand the scientific model? Do you understand the principles of testability and falsifiability? Yes. Let's take a real example: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity makes very specific predictions that are testable. FOr example, it says that the sun's gravity causes a warping of space time, and that, as a result, the apparent positions of stars close to the sun should be changed by a certain amount. This is a testable prediction, and makes this particular element of the theory falsifiable: measure the positions of stars close to the sun: if they change by the predicted amount, that supports that aspect of the thoery. If they are not, that refutes that aspect of the theory. Specific question: What testable predictions does your model make that an independent party can test and then examine the outcomes, determining if that aspect of your theory making the prediction is supported or refuted by the outcomes? Simply that my system sounds different from a direct firing speaker system, and the difference is an improvement. That was tested somewhat in The Challenge experiment. Most engineers and experimenters know that radiation pattern and room positioning are easily audible. Dr. Mark Davis has said that the frequency response and radiation pattern are the major determinants of the sound of a speaker. I have added room positioning. So the question is how to optimize those and why. I have proposed a comprehensive model and the rationale for it, and I listen to the result every day. This is not a pipedream or hypothesis on whether the idea might work and be an improvement. The 901s are a pretty good substitute for my ideal speaker until I can build one that suits me, but they are not precisely what I am talking about, and the Bose products have nothing to do with this discussion. I see none. Therefore, based on the widely accepted usage of the term "theory" in the scientific realm, I assert you have no theory. Again, this is not meant as an insult, but a statement of fact as I interpret it. Address the ideas, not the definition of a theory vs a hypothesis. I really don't care what you call it, just please begin talking to me about it. Let me provide a counterexample: a "theory" which states that a person can levitate themselves only when no one is looking. Tthat theory is not testable and therefore not falsifiable. There is no observation, no test that can be performed by an independent party that results in an outcome that either supports or refutes the theory. How does one, for example, observe the levitiaion when observation itsdelf prevents levitation? Specific question: Do you understand why this example does not qualify as a valid theory? Yes. Because it is silly. Specific question: Under the principles of the scientific method, does your "model" qualify as a valid theory or not? Yes. And because you're claims do not have the foundations of a falsifiable theory, allowing others to independently and objectively test its predictions, statements YOU have made like: "But no, as usual, you haven't explained anything about my theory," incline me to simply dismiss your claims out of hand. You seem to be utterly unwilling to meet the burden of proof, the burden that is ENTIRELY yours and no one else's, necessary for your "thoery" to be taken seriously. And, I would expect, that is really the reason why the AES review committee rejected your paper.. Again, and finally, a series of double blind listening tests could refute my claims. Specific question: Is it POSSIBLE that the reason your paper was rejected is because it failed to meet the criteria of a valid theory, and NOT because "they didn't understand a word [you] said?" Sure, it is possible. But I don't care about that. All I care about is putting the concept out there for others to ponder, possibly experiment with. There is a lot about it that I have not nailed down yet, and how "hard" or "soft" the actual precision of the radiation pattern needs to be is one of them. Seems to me from my brief experinece with prototypes that it isn't all that critical. I hope not. Again, I didn't really expect it to get published without a series of listening tests and a lot of experimentation to report. But what I did not expect was that they wouldn't even know the difference between binaural and stereophonic. I must go find those critiques. It was incredible enough that I had them run it past a second reader just to see if it ws a fluke. Specific question: Is it possible that if they really didn't understand a word you said, it might be because either what you said or how you said it? A word I said about the difference between.... never mind, I will go find them. Thanks for the response, sorry I have been so long in answering specifics - just a communication thing. Apologies also to AE for hijacking his thread. But we are still on topic, so hope he doesn't mind. Gary Eickmeier |
#66
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Dick Pierce wrote:
Specific question: Mr. Eickmeier: what EXACTLY were the objections raided by the AES review committee? Found it! The paragraph that showed that the first reviewer didn't understand the distinction and importance of binaural vs. stereophonic was this: "This manuscript is also marred by the use of comparisons that make no sense; for example, the author compares 'reproducing ear signals' with 'reproducing the orchestra itself,' etc." So the whole discussion of binaural vs stereophonic, which I put in there to emphasize the importance of understanding that stereo is a field-type system and not "two ears, two speakers" went right over his head. So the Mars paper illustrated the difference in a unique and clever way, by showing that a field-type system has nothing to do with the number of ears on your head, the spacing between them, or the HRTF. Well, I'm nodding off now, but you would have to read the basic paper to understand why this distinction is so important, then the Mars paper for my elaboration of same so that no one would ever again be confused by it. Gary Eickmeier |
#67
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
Dick Pierce wrote: Specific question: What testable predictions does your model make that an independent party can test and then examine the outcomes, determining if that aspect of your theory making the prediction is supported or refuted by the outcomes? Simply that my system sounds different from a direct firing speaker system, I think you will be granted that a priori. THat's not a prediction, that's a fact. and the difference is an improvement. Define "improvement." You can't, it's a personal preference. Are you saying that YOUR personal preference trumps the personal preference of those that do not agree with you? That was tested somewhat in The Challenge experiment. Most engineers and experimenters know that radiation pattern and room positioning are easily audible. Dr. Mark Davis has said that the frequency response and radiation pattern are the major determinants of the sound of a speaker. I have added room positioning. So the question is how to optimize those and why. I have proposed a comprehensive model and the rationale for it, and I listen to the result every day. This is not a pipedream or hypothesis on whether the idea might work and be an improvement. NONE of this is testable. These are personal opinions and preferences disguised as a "theory." I see none. Therefore, based on the widely accepted usage of the term "theory" in the scientific realm, I assert you have no theory. Again, this is not meant as an insult, but a statement of fact as I interpret it. Address the ideas, not the definition of a theory vs a hypothesis. I really don't care what you call it, just please begin talking to me about it. No, because you abjectily refuse to treat contrary views to your opinion as valid crticism, instead you degenerate to essentially ad hominem attacks. Specific question: Under the principles of the scientific method, does your "model" qualify as a valid theory or not? Yes. No. You have failed to provide any objective predictions that can unabiguously provide results that are independently testable. And because you're claims do not have the foundations of a falsifiable theory, allowing others to independently and objectively test its predictions, statements YOU have made like: "But no, as usual, you haven't explained anything about my theory," incline me to simply dismiss your claims out of hand. You seem to be utterly unwilling to meet the burden of proof, the burden that is ENTIRELY yours and no one else's, necessary for your "thoery" to be taken seriously. And, I would expect, that is really the reason why the AES review committee rejected your paper.. Again, and finally, a series of double blind listening tests could refute my claims. Refute how? What are you comparing your results to? How would you construct such a bouble-blind experiment? WHat is being tested? As you mentioned elsewhere, your "test" would be nothing more than a preference test, andthe way you have acted heretofore, anyone expressing a different preference is, in your book, "wrong," and someone "who doesn't understand a word you're saying." In short, Mr. Eickmeier, you've come up with an arrangement for, whatever personal reasons, you like a lot. That's fine. No one is objecting to that. Your opinion is that it works well for YOU. No disagreement from ANYONE is forthcoming on that. But that's YOUR opinion, YOUR preference. That's IT. That's as far as you get to go without meeting a MUCH higher standard of proof that you've been able to muster thus far. -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#68
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
Dick Pierce wrote: Let me provide a counterexample: a "theory" which states that a person can levitate themselves only when no one is looking. Tthat theory is not testable and therefore not falsifiable. There is no observation, no test that can be performed by an independent party that results in an outcome that either supports or refutes the theory. How does one, for example, observe the levitiaion when observation itsdelf prevents levitation? Specific question: Do you understand why this example does not qualify as a valid theory? Yes. Because it is silly. Wrong, 100% wrong. It is not a valid theory because it not falsifiable. There does not exist a test whose outcome can clearly demonstrate whether the the theory is supported or refuted. Whether it's "silly" or not is a subjective evaluation, not a testable predction. Sorry, Mr. Eickmeier, I don't have much faith that you really do understand the underlying principles. -- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+ |
#69
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On 4/19/2013 6:54 PM, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
KH wrote: On 4/19/2013 4:47 AM, Gary Eickmeier wrote: I never said or intend to implied that you were a nutcase. Merely that you have consistently, and persistently, dismissed all dissenters of your theory as idiots, or "poor dumb *******s". You will find few people who are interested in discussions with such a person. One mans "mysterious and combative" is another mans "arrogant and condescending". I guess I'm not going to outlive that one, so let me 'splain. Have you ever seen "Patton" the movie? In it, George C. Scott makes a pep talk to the troops before going into battle. He says something like "the goal is not to die for your country - it is to make the other poor dumb ******* die for HIS country." I always thought that was funny, and my statement is nothing more than that - a joke. Were this an isolated incident, your explanation would be far more believable. Perhaps you've heard the aphorism "If the pupil hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught"? I am an Air Force instructor, and I know how to teach. I hope I have made up for past losses. IMO, no. I'm quite sure I have, and have had, a pretty clear picture of what you've done, how you see your 'model', and why you believe it works. Your evidence is clear - it works for you. It's your understanding of the mechanism behind what you're doing, and the applicability of that method outside your own preference, that I question. snip I have been told that it is more of a hypothesis, but I disagree. I am doing it in my home and listening to the result every day. Which means nothing about your model other than it creates what you like. I would say that the main theoretical basis of the whole concept is to get the SPATIAL characteristic correct within your room by means of physically reconstructing the important aspects of the whole acoustical situation. I would agree with you. Unfortunately, reconstruction of the "whole acoustical situation" is not possible, for reasons provided many, many times. That you can create a soundfield in your room that sounds real *to you* doesn't make it a theory. Realism is a matter of preference. Pure and simple. And yet, you cannot, or will not, accept that you do not have, within the recorded signal, the information required to do that accurately. So you construct, not reconstruct, a reflected field that sounds to you like what you feel are the "important aspects" of the venue. OK I think this is the place where I can go into my next speech (lesson). As a means of, yet again, failing to answer simple questions, or address observations directly. You say there is a problem that the recording doesn't contain enough information to determine all of the spatial aspects of the recorded venue. I say that it contains NO directional information. Obviously it contains spatial clues in the form of delayed and attenuated information from the reverberant field. These effects clearly can be interpreted as a sense of spaciousness. Spaciousness is an attribute unrelated to direction, and directional information is what you need for your model to work the way you seem to think that it works. So therefore we cannot reconstruct it at home. So my question to you would be, what are you doing about it? Do you just give up on the concept of stereo? I'm quite happy with my 'concept' and implementation of stereo. Given the limits of commercially available recorded music, my stereo is not "broken", and is not in need of some novel replay concept to "fix" it. You are alone, as far as I can tell, in your perception that some "stereo crisis" exists. No, you don't. You handle the problem in much the same say as I do. You place two (at least two) speakers in front of you in a room, so that the lateral localization might be brought out on playback. You decide where the speakers will go and now to treat the room and where to sit. This is an attempt to reconstruct the spatial characteristic contained in the recording. So far, so good. You cannot, for example, put one speaker on top of the other, or even on opposite sides of you, you must construct a soundstage in front of you with a reasonable resemblance to the geometry of the original, which is almost always a presentation in front of you with a certain lateral spread that we - and the Acoustical Society of America, and most band leaders and producers, have come to know and love. OK. The main difference between us is that you don't take it as far as I do. No, you go in an altogether different direction; not further along the same continuum. Remember The Big Three that Linkwitz asked about? We both need to decide on those factors in our reproduction, and to do that we need some sort of paradigm, or model, of what it is that we are doing with the system in order for it to work. Throughout history most things have had models or theories generated to explain how things worked, not the other way around. That said, are you really implying that no one designs speakers against physical models of how acoustics and reproduction work? If you study the live model, you can see all of the spatial, spectral, and temporal aspects of it. No matter who you are or what your paradigm or ideas are, you must somehow account for a translation of those characteristics from the live model to the reproduction. If you don't, it will sound DIFFERENT. You simply cannot put this immense, complex sound field through two points in space in front of you and expect it to sound the same. No matter WHAT you do, it will sound different. That is a simple fact of physics. OK, pause for now. The direct, early reflected, and reverberant sounds will be made to come from the appropriate directions if the playback model mimics a typical live model as closely as possible. No, they will not, because the information required to do so is not in the recorded signal. snip Yes, they can. I will only say this once, and hope that you latch onto it. The Image Model is a spatially arrayed, temporally delayed, spectrally shaped sound field synthesizer that attempts to decode the direct and early reflected sound contained in the recording in much the same way as a Dolby Pro Logic delay sytem can bring out the ambience contained in the recording without destroying the soundstage that belongs in front of the room. Thank you. You're finally dealing with the electrical and acoustic reality. You are "synthesizing" something that YOU find to sound "real". You are absolutely not "decoding" anything, simply because no directional information was "encoded" in the signal to start with. The recorded signal contains a stream, or train, of pulses from the first arrival transients to the recorded reverberation from spatially separate areas around the instruments. The Image Model features two real speakers that just happen to be closest to you of the 8 in the model. THEREFORE, first arrival transients will be heard from the actual speakers first, and this precedence effect is a very strong one, psychoacoustically speaking, and results in a separation between first arrival and later reverberation contained in the recording. There can be only one first arrival, and it has to come from the actual speakers and nowhere else. So the mechanism that you ask for is the precedence effect, Nope, no cigar on that one. I'm quite certain I understand your "theory", and I'm also quite certain you don't understand my critique, so let me see if I can make it clearer: As discussed earlier, there clearly are spatial clues available in the recording, in the form of the delayed and attenuated reverberant field. OK so far? Ok, so now suppose we each sit down in front of our systems. Let's also suppose that you limit your system to the front two speakers, and further, that you eliminate the rear-firing drivers. Now, assuming we play the exact same (good) recording, we will be hearing basically the same sounds (for discussion, let's stipulate similar forward radiation patterns, and similar room interactions). Still with me? Now, in my room, I hear the direct sound, and the room effects, and I get a sense of spaciousness from the reverb in the recording, and the stereo effect, and to a small degree from the room interactions. I have a well defined soundstage, with a proper localization of instruments and vocals. Now, in *your* room, one of two situations obtain; you hear *basically* what I hear, or you hear something significantly different. From how you frequently describe box speakers, you'll apparently hear no soundstage, no spaciousness, a "window into another room", or a "hole in the middle", and/or a flat presentation that is lifeless. Alright, let's look at these two possible scenarios. In the first, we hear *basically* the same thing. We both hear the spacial cues in the recording in the direct sound from the speakers. We are, at this point, both hearing ALL of the spacial information available on the recording - we're hearing the entire unprocessed signal, within the limits of our equipment. Nothing is hiding, nothing awaiting "decoding", we have the whole tamale. Now, you then take all of this information and direct it rearward to create a second, wholly synthesized, delayed soundfield comprising all of the information - including the spacial cues - of the recording. Every reflection comprising this synthesized field will contain the entire signal, delayed (to a much lesser degree, and in different ratios, than in the venue), attenuated (including the already delayed and attenuated information in the recording), and coming from directions different than the original. To you, this creates realism. To me, this creates a sense of smearing that is incompatible with my sense of realism. In the case of the second scenario, there's no use for discussion, and any hypothesis, model, or theory you come up with won't work for me; we simply don't interpret audio signals in the same manner. snip That is one of the most fascinating aspects of this hobby. Seems like you can't sit two of us down and have us agree on which is the best system. Uhmm, yes. That is the point. Seems like we should have all gravitated to a system with certain common characteristics by this late stage, but it may never happen. While you really seem to believe this, I am baffled as to why. This seems the genesis of your mistaken belief that there is A paradigm, or some fundamental TRVTH that would be universally applicable. There is no realm of human perception, that I'm aware of, where such coalescing has taken place. Not in food, art, music, literature, sport, or even in the evaluation of human beauty. I fail to understand why you believe interpretation of sound should buck the evolutionary tide where no other class of perception has. Perceptual abilities and experience vary. Why not just admit that perceptions and preferences vary, instead of insinuating that dissenters are perceptually challenged, and thus *wrong*? I think that very few people pay that much attention to these spatial factors in listening to music. You're free to think that, but don't expect anyone here to agree that they are in that "group" however small or large it may be. Keith |
#70
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
In article , KH
wrote: snip I say that it contains NO directional information. Obviously it contains spatial clues in the form of delayed and attenuated information from the reverberant field. These effects clearly can be interpreted as a sense of spaciousness. Spaciousness is an attribute unrelated to direction, and directional information is what you need for your model to work the way you seem to think that it works. It's more than a "sense of spaciousness" as you so blithely put it. Done correctly, it can provide an accurate audio snapshot of the musical event. One which can show, with amazingly pin-point accuracy, the location of every instrument in the sound field. And I don't just mean right to left either. I mean front to back, and top to bottom. you can tell, for instance if certain instruments are in front of, or behind others, and whether or not some instruments (or voices) are on risers. That's a lot of information from "delayed and attenuated" information. Shows how remarkable the human ear/brain interface is as deciphering clues about directionality. So therefore we cannot reconstruct it at home. So my question to you would be, what are you doing about it? Do you just give up on the concept of stereo? I'm quite happy with my 'concept' and implementation of stereo. Given the limits of commercially available recorded music, my stereo is not "broken", and is not in need of some novel replay concept to "fix" it. You are alone, as far as I can tell, in your perception that some "stereo crisis" exists. The only "stereo crises" that exists as far as I can see is the fact that so few record company producers and engineers properly exploit the tools and techniques available to them and don't give music lovers enough proper "real" stereo product. Many seem to share the general public's misconception that "stereo" only means "two channels" and so that's all they care about. Make sure that release has a left and a right channel. No matter how that's done or what's in them. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#71
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
KH wrote:
I say that it contains NO directional information. Obviously it contains spatial clues in the form of delayed and attenuated information from the reverberant field. These effects clearly can be interpreted as a sense of spaciousness. Spaciousness is an attribute unrelated to direction, and directional information is what you need for your model to work the way you seem to think that it works. This is a most extraordinary statement. Spaciousness is unrelated to direction? Was that a typo? Let me relate an allegory that tries to show the difference between the spatial and the temporal. A novice goes to Best Buy and purchases a surround sound home theater in a box. It has the 5.1 speakers in it, but he loses the instruction sheet. So he places all of the speakers on top of the TV and the subwoofer underneath on the floor. His left and right and center speakers are placed OK, on the left and right side of the big TV, but his surround speakers have been placed on top of them. He calls you up and complains that he is not satisfied, just not hearing all of those fancy spatial effects that are supposed to be in the movie. So you go over and behold what he has done, and instruct him that he has gotten some of it right, with the left, center, and right speakers, but he has not got the spatial aspect correct. His perfectly accurate speakers are playing all of the sounds contained in the recording, he can hear the temporal effects of the reverberation and reverb time of the hall and discrete effects, but these spatial effects must come from different incident angles than the direct sound in order to work. In acoustics, many sources note that in order for the eary reflections to work they must come from a different set of incident angles than the direct sound, or else most of it will be masked. So you cannot simply "play" the stereo recording and have all of the recorded ambience come fron the same point sources as the direct sound, or it will not be heard as ambience - just smear, really. I have found that it is difficult for most hobbyists (at first) to distinguish in their minds between the spatial and the temporal. The temporal from the live venue is contained in the recording, but the spatial effects must come from a different set of incident angles than the direct sound. Some people incorporate side speakers with time delay for this reason. I use reflection in a way that mimics a typical live sound field. Throughout history most things have had models or theories generated to explain how things worked, not the other way around. Yes, the image model explains how it works to model the spatial aspects of the live sound. That said, are you really implying that no one designs speakers against physical models of how acoustics and reproduction work? YES! Most of them learned audio in the mono era, when the charge was just "let's make sound." When stereo came along, they just assumed that the same speakers could be used, just that you need two of them. As discussed earlier, there clearly are spatial clues available in the recording, in the form of the delayed and attenuated reverberant field. OK so far? Ok, so now suppose we each sit down in front of our systems. Let's also suppose that you limit your system to the front two speakers, and further, that you eliminate the rear-firing drivers. Now, assuming we play the exact same (good) recording, we will be hearing basically the same sounds (for discussion, let's stipulate similar forward radiation patterns, and similar room interactions). Still with me? Now, in my room, I hear the direct sound, and the room effects, and I get a sense of spaciousness from the reverb in the recording, and the stereo effect, and to a small degree from the room interactions. I have a well defined soundstage, with a proper localization of instruments and vocals. Not so fast. I hope from the discussion above you might be able to see that you don't just "hear" the reverb in the recording, like in the mono days. In order to be heard properly as reverberation (early reflections, actually), it must come from different incident angles than the direct sound. Now, in *your* room, one of two situations obtain; you hear *basically* what I hear, or you hear something significantly different. From how you frequently describe box speakers, you'll apparently hear no soundstage, no spaciousness, a "window into another room", or a "hole in the middle", and/or a flat presentation that is lifeless. Alright, let's look at these two possible scenarios. In the first, we hear *basically* the same thing. We both hear the spacial cues in the recording in the direct sound from the speakers. We are, at this point, both hearing ALL of the spacial information available on the recording - we're hearing the entire unprocessed signal, within the limits of our equipment. Nothing is hiding, nothing awaiting "decoding", we have the whole tamale. Now, you then take all of this information and direct it rearward to create a second, wholly synthesized, delayed soundfield comprising all of the information - including the spacial cues - of the recording. Every reflection comprising this synthesized field will contain the entire signal, delayed (to a much lesser degree, and in different ratios, than in the venue), attenuated (including the already delayed and attenuated information in the recording), and coming from directions different than the original. To you, this creates realism. To me, this creates a sense of smearing that is incompatible with my sense of realism. Not quite. Take a couple of examples from the real world of audio. The Wilson WAMM vs the MBL omni. The WAMM might provide your kind of sound, giant direct firing boxes that aim their output at your head. The MBLs, on the other hand, are totallly different in the spatial department, being omnis. Their sound has been described as huge, spacious, and deep, with a sense of floating a soundstage surrounded by the ambience in the recording. Two very different designs that sound different, because the radiaiton pattern is very audible. Neither speaker is more "accurate" than the other, but the MBL gets the spatial characteristic better arrayed on playback. In the case of the second scenario, there's no use for discussion, and any hypothesis, model, or theory you come up with won't work for me; we simply don't interpret audio signals in the same manner. I am sure that we do; it's just that you don't as yet understand why different systems sound the way they do, some better than others, some worse. I say that if ever and whenever you hear superior spaciousness and depth in a recording, it is not due to the accuracy in the direct sound, but rather to the different spatial characteristics of the speakers. I have started another thread I hope you wioll fnd interesting. It simplifies down the larger example of typical rooms and sources to a single instrument. Gary Eickmeier |
#72
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
On 4/21/2013 2:19 PM, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , KH wrote: snip I say that it contains NO directional information. Obviously it contains spatial clues in the form of delayed and attenuated information from the reverberant field. These effects clearly can be interpreted as a sense of spaciousness. Spaciousness is an attribute unrelated to direction, and directional information is what you need for your model to work the way you seem to think that it works. It's more than a "sense of spaciousness" as you so blithely put it. Done correctly, it can provide an accurate audio snapshot of the musical event. Really? How exactly is the directional information encoded in the recorded signal? One which can show, with amazingly pin-point accuracy, the location of every instrument in the sound field. And I don't just mean right to left either. I mean front to back, and top to bottom. you can tell, for instance if certain instruments are in front of, or behind others, and whether or not some instruments (or voices) are on risers. That's a lot of information from "delayed and attenuated" information. And that differs from what I said...how? Shows how remarkable the human ear/brain interface is as deciphering clues about directionality. So therefore we cannot reconstruct it at home. So my question to you would be, what are you doing about it? Do you just give up on the concept of stereo? I'm quite happy with my 'concept' and implementation of stereo. Given the limits of commercially available recorded music, my stereo is not "broken", and is not in need of some novel replay concept to "fix" it. You are alone, as far as I can tell, in your perception that some "stereo crisis" exists. The only "stereo crises" that exists as far as I can see is the fact that so few record company producers and engineers properly exploit the tools and techniques available to them and don't give music lovers enough proper "real" stereo product. I believe I've said that a number of times. And? Many seem to share the general public's misconception that "stereo" only means "two channels" and so that's all they care about. Make sure that release has a left and a right channel. No matter how that's done or what's in them. "Stereo" typically does mean 2-channel. The general public doesn't have a misconception in this regard. They need only look at the VAST majority of "stereo" recordings to see what "stereo" is typically construed to mean. *Can* it be different? Yes. Is it typically different? No. Keith |
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Why do most commercial recordings (talking Classical and Jazz,
In article , KH
wrote: On 4/21/2013 2:19 PM, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , KH wrote: snip I say that it contains NO directional information. Obviously it contains spatial clues in the form of delayed and attenuated information from the reverberant field. These effects clearly can be interpreted as a sense of spaciousness. Spaciousness is an attribute unrelated to direction, and directional information is what you need for your model to work the way you seem to think that it works. It's more than a "sense of spaciousness" as you so blithely put it. Done correctly, it can provide an accurate audio snapshot of the musical event. Really? How exactly is the directional information encoded in the recorded signal? One which can show, with amazingly pin-point accuracy, the location of every instrument in the sound field. And I don't just mean right to left either. I mean front to back, and top to bottom. you can tell, for instance if certain instruments are in front of, or behind others, and whether or not some instruments (or voices) are on risers. That's a lot of information from "delayed and attenuated" information. And that differs from what I said...how? Who said that I was disagreeing with you. I'm merely adding to your statement. Shows how remarkable the human ear/brain interface is as deciphering clues about directionality. So therefore we cannot reconstruct it at home. So my question to you would be, what are you doing about it? Do you just give up on the concept of stereo? I'm quite happy with my 'concept' and implementation of stereo. Given the limits of commercially available recorded music, my stereo is not "broken", and is not in need of some novel replay concept to "fix" it. You are alone, as far as I can tell, in your perception that some "stereo crisis" exists. The only "stereo crises" that exists as far as I can see is the fact that so few record company producers and engineers properly exploit the tools and techniques available to them and don't give music lovers enough proper "real" stereo product. I believe I've said that a number of times. And? Many seem to share the general public's misconception that "stereo" only means "two channels" and so that's all they care about. Make sure that release has a left and a right channel. No matter how that's done or what's in them. "Stereo" typically does mean 2-channel. No it doesn't. "Stereo" means solid, or three-dimensional. Most people's ignorance of the term's provenance doesn't change either the provenance or the meaning. The general public doesn't have a misconception in this regard. They need only look at the VAST majority of "stereo" recordings to see what "stereo" is typically construed to mean. *Can* it be different? Yes. Is it typically different? No. Again, ignorance does not change truth. If the vast hoi-poloi thinks that a recording only needs to be two channel to be stereo, that's their problem, not mine. Those who care, know. Those who don't care, by definition don't need to know what stereo's all about. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
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