[Gary Eickmeier]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message ...
William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message
...

Thanks Hank. But Earth to Alrich - that was Sommerwerck who
said he can't get a good recording.

I never said I can't get a good recording. I made lots of "good"
recordings. I just made only few recordings that sounded the way
I expected them to sound.

I don't doubt it William. I am just stunned by some of the attitudes
here toward a fellow enthusiast, if not full time recording engineer.
I never said or did anything to offend anyone.

But you do, Gary.

I just go up at 5AM. I often watch "Frasier" reruns on Hallmark, and
the ones shown this morning involved Martin's vulgar, loud-mouthed
girlfriend Sherry (Marsha Mason). Sherry has a knack for sticking her
nose in where it doesn't belong, and saying uncalled-for things that
hurt people's feeling and disrupt relationships. There is no exact
parallel, but I see Sherry in you.
It is not a question of whether one is afraid to ask questions. Nor
is it that your "perspective" on matters audio seems so different
from other people's in this group. It's rather that you ask
questions, then argue in an unproductive way about them, because
you're pretty certain you already know the answers.
My recent question about "What was I doing wrong?" was a sincere one.
I listened to what was suggested (some of which I was unfamiliar
with), discovered that no one had the "rational" answer I was hoping
for, and politely stepped aside. We all enjoyed the discussion, and
as I said, I realized I hadn't done enough recording to know the
"right" questions to ask. Perhaps someday I'll know what they are and
get a satisfactory answer.
I am a mild version of Monk (though you wouldn't know it looking at
my home). I am what some people would consider overly "rational", but
I consider that a good thing. To wit... I'm not interested in facts.
I want to understand principles.

I apply this to other people's viewpoints. If someone's theories seem
to have an underlying principle -- especially one connected with
other well-understood theories -- I will give them considerably more
weight than theories which seem to be flying without a tether.

This is the ahem principal reason I have disagreed with you so
much. It's because your theories don't seem to fit very well with
what I believe is correct. It's as if you're working on a different
jigsaw puzzle with a different picture and differently shaped pieces.

Gary, you have to start asking yourself "What is truth?", rather than
reflexively defending your personal beliefs. However stupid and
irrational it might sound, most human beings think that whatever they
believe is, per se, correct. I was that way many years ago; I don't
know when I outgrew it, but I did.

Give it some thought.

Oh, I have, as you know. I sent you my paper or papers but you haven't
commented extensively on them if I remember correctly. Yes, my attempt to
upend stereo theory is surprising and unfamiliar to most dyed in the wool
audio people, but it is carefully explained and does not contradict any
known facts or principles but rather synthesizes a lot of information that
most of us know. It also explains the audible differences among all of the
speakers on the market and why certain ones sound the way that they do and
why people prefer wide dispersion and even a lot of reflected sound in their
home listening, which seems contradictory to the textbook explanations of
two speaker and a listener in an equilateral triangle. This is not the place
to go into all that all over again, but I can just state that it is not
fanciful nonsense, it has to do with the differences between the sound
patterns made by an orchestra in the room in the live sound situation, and
the very different patterns made in the home listening room with a lot of
speakers that are designed around the direct sound only. These spatial
differences are audible and are the reason for the lack of realism in most
people's systems, and it is all caused by the fact that there is this LACK
of your fondest subject, the underlying principles behind the art and
science of recording and reproduction.

Simplified down even more - spatial nature of live not equal to spatial
nature of reproduction in a field type system.

This is important and relevant to the recording engineer as well, as an
underlying principle. Why you ask? I know you are on the edge of your seat
by now -

In order to get the spatial information into the recording we need to
capture it in our miking techniques. If we do not realize that we are
capturing not just the direct sound but also the early and some late
reflected sound, it will not be playable because it is not in the recording.
Best example a multi-miked disaster in which there is none of the space from
the original either captured or artificially introduced with signal
processing. This is the main difference among recordings. If you encounter a
bad recording that just doesn't sound very real it is usually because they
had no idea about acoustics and how sounds interact with rooms and are
captured and reproduced.

So I try to introduce my findings about how stereo works vis-a-vis sound
fields in rooms without being obnoxious, or at least am sensitive about
overdoing it with a new audience for these ideas. I am having some success
in some groups, one of which is collaborating with me on a speaker design.

I am not a craxy and I base all of my observations on listening and I have
heard them all and used my own system as a laboratory to prove out my
theories and it really does check out. I know and have heard good and bad
sound, mine is good and I am dismissed at the starting gate as soon as they
hear the word Bose, and all communication ceases. I thought I was going to
get some sorely needed street cred in the Linkwitz Challenge, but it was not
to be. Too many egos involved to admit I could be right about something that
they had ridiculed and tried to straighten me out on for so many years.

Too bad, and all I can ask you or this group (whom I respect) to do is what
you do all the time for a living - LISTEN.

Gary Eickmeier