[Gary Eickmeier]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
A lot more work needs to be done, but it looks like the British measurement
company, Acuity Products (http://www.acuityproducts.co.uk/) has developed
a
waveform analysis test for the effects of cables on sound(!).

Listen fellers - this stuff is really incredibly simple.

The only way to tell if a SOUND is AUDIBLE is with a LISTENING test. All the
king's meters and all the king's scopes do not mean anything unless
correlated with LISTENING tests.

All together now: How can you tell if two cables sound different from each
other?

______________ ___________

Gary Eickmeier

[Audio Empire]

On Sun, 1 May 2011 16:00:25 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
A lot more work needs to be done, but it looks like the British measurement
company, Acuity Products (http://www.acuityproducts.co.uk/) has developed
a
waveform analysis test for the effects of cables on sound(!).

Listen fellers - this stuff is really incredibly simple.

The only way to tell if a SOUND is AUDIBLE is with a LISTENING test. All the
king's meters and all the king's scopes do not mean anything unless
correlated with LISTENING tests.

All together now: How can you tell if two cables sound different from each
other?

______________ ___________

Gary Eickmeier

Easy. They don't because they can't. speaking of effects that are below the
threshold of hearing!

[Gary Eickmeier]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 1 May 2011 16:00:25 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
A lot more work needs to be done, but it looks like the British
measurement
company, Acuity Products (http://www.acuityproducts.co.uk/) has
developed
a
waveform analysis test for the effects of cables on sound(!).

Listen fellers - this stuff is really incredibly simple.

The only way to tell if a SOUND is AUDIBLE is with a LISTENING test. All
the
king's meters and all the king's scopes do not mean anything unless
correlated with LISTENING tests.

All together now: How can you tell if two cables sound different from
each
other?

______________ ___________

Gary Eickmeier

Easy. They don't because they can't. speaking of effects that are below
the
threshold of hearing!


Probably correct! But they are going on and on about all of these technical
details without correlating anything to a listening test. And a lot of
responders are getting sucked in by it.

I'm just sayin'.

Gary Eickmeier

[Edmund[_2_]]

On Mon, 02 May 2011 11:09:19 +0000, Gary Eickmeier wrote:

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 1 May 2011 16:00:25 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote (in article
):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
A lot more work needs to be done, but it looks like the British
measurement
company, Acuity Products (http://www.acuityproducts.co.uk/) has
developed
a
waveform analysis test for the effects of cables on sound(!).

Listen fellers - this stuff is really incredibly simple.

The only way to tell if a SOUND is AUDIBLE is with a LISTENING test.
All the
king's meters and all the king's scopes do not mean anything unless
correlated with LISTENING tests.

All together now: How can you tell if two cables sound different from
each
other?

______________ ___________

Gary Eickmeier

Easy. They don't because they can't. speaking of effects that are belo=
w
the
threshold of hearing!


Probably correct! But they are going on and on about all of these
technical details without correlating anything to a listening test. And
a lot of responders are getting sucked in by it.

Probably wrong! They claim to have heard differences in the first place a=
nd
they claim to have found a way to measure it in such way that it shows=20
these differences in hard data.
What is true of these claims I cannot judge from here but it seems like a=
=20
valid point of view. And since we not have a perfect sound system yet, cl=
aims
like " we cannot hear that..." are less valid because that depends mostly=
of the
sound system used but as said even the best sound system isn't perfect...=
.. yet.
AS long we don't have a perfect sound system, it is OK to improve every l=
ink
in the audio chain. Having said this, I have a hard time believing a spea=
ker
cable or a interlink could ever improve reproduced sound.

Edmund

=20
I'm just sayin'.
=20
Gary Eickmeier

[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 2 May 2011 04:09:19 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 1 May 2011 16:00:25 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
A lot more work needs to be done, but it looks like the British
measurement
company, Acuity Products (http://www.acuityproducts.co.uk/) has
developed
a
waveform analysis test for the effects of cables on sound(!).

Listen fellers - this stuff is really incredibly simple.

The only way to tell if a SOUND is AUDIBLE is with a LISTENING test. All
the
king's meters and all the king's scopes do not mean anything unless
correlated with LISTENING tests.

All together now: How can you tell if two cables sound different from
each
other?

______________ ___________

Gary Eickmeier

Easy. They don't because they can't. speaking of effects that are below
the
threshold of hearing!


Probably correct! But they are going on and on about all of these technical
details without correlating anything to a listening test. And a lot of
responders are getting sucked in by it.

I'm just sayin'.

Gary Eickmeier



That's why I brought it up. OK, they have developed software based on sonar
correlation algorithms. Sounds reasonable that some navy has developed
sophisticated programs that can "listen" through the background clutter of
undersea spunds and find intelligence such as prop noise, engine signatures,
and can even tell hull reflections from temperature inversion layers or
whales. It is also reasonable that these programs can be modified to look for
other things within an audio signal. Things such as minute differences in the
way that two different cables conduct an audio signal, or how two different
amplifiers do their job.

I might even buy that such software could tell the difference between a
component powered through a mains conditioner, and one that wasn't (although
that's really stretching my willing suspension of disbelief),

But, given all that, there remain two points about this test that I cannot
get around.

1) If such military auto-correlation software were designed to pick up sounds
in the water that trained human sonar operators cannot hear, and thus miss
when doing strategic listening, what does that say about the audibility of
the differences picked-up by the modified software? Nobody has ever said, for
instance, that cables and interconnects have NO effect on the signals they
pass. We all realize that any conductor will have resistance, capacitance,
and inductance. What is important is that over the audio spectrum (and quite
a bit beyond) and in the lengths commonly used for a home audio system (a
couple of meters maximum for interconnects, and probably ten meters maximum
for speaker cable) that the effects of these three parameters are so far
below the threshold of human hearing as to be inconsequential. The fact that
a computer algorithm can detect these minute differences between these
characteristics in different cables (if indeed it can), is completely
irrelevant to music reproduction except in, perhaps, the most academic
manner.

2) If the people who developed this test methodology are technically
competent enough to conduct these tests and to compile the data shown in the
paper, then why is it that they don't seem to understand that results with as
many variables as these tests seem to exhibit don't MEAN ANYTHING?

Instead of saying that their tests reveal that the Vertex mains cables BY
ITSELF showed a significant difference in the cleanliness of the component's
sound, for instance, or that the Nordost mains conditioner BY ITSELF effected
a marked improvement in noise, these people lumped them both together. This
is ludicrous! Was the "improvement" in noise a result of the mains cable or
the mains conditioner, or the sum of both? And is the difference with and
without these two components in the tests setup something that one is likely
to hear? Nowhere in the entire paper are we told the scale of the shown
oscillographs except to say that the noise difference scale was 10X that of
the actual mains noise seen on the raw AC. The entire paper is riddled with
fundamental testing "errors" of this sort.

Frankly, I have looked at the raw AC feeding lots of amplifiers, pre-amps and
CD players on a dual-trace oscilloscope and then looked, simultaneously, at
the DC on the other side of that same power supply, and even at as much as
100X the gain of the AC trace, I have NEVER seen the AC line noise, even
severely attenuated, show up on a component's power supply DC. It just isn't
there. The reason? Power transformers designed for 50-60 Hz simply haven't
the bandwidth to pass the high-frequency grunge that can be riding on our
house current. Add to that the time constant of the filters on the output of
the rectifiers (and the frequency response of the rectifier diodes
themselves) and again, they act as low-pass filters. High-frequency noise and
transient spikes haven't a chance of getting through. So, while using power
line conditioners sounds, on the surface, like a good idea, the reality is
that they are totally redundant. That's why I say that if your components
NEED such power conditioning, then you bought very poorly designed
components. Expensive IEC line cords? Don't be ridiculous! That the last 2
meters of WIRE from the wall plate to your component could do ANYTHING to
improve the quality of an AC current that has probably travelled hundreds of
miles over all types of terrain and through countless transformers and
switching yards, is at the very least, the height of electrical naivete.

[Gary Eickmeier]

Edmund wrote:

What is true of these claims I cannot judge from here but it seems
like a
valid point of view. And since we not have a perfect sound system
yet, claims like " we cannot hear that..." are less valid because
that depends mostly of the sound system used but as said even the
best sound system isn't perfect.... yet. AS long we don't have a
perfect sound system, it is OK to improve every link
in the audio chain. Having said this, I have a hard time believing a
speaker cable or a interlink could ever improve reproduced sound.

Edmund

This last statement is much more interesting than the topic under
discussion. What do you mean, Edmund, that we don't have a perfect audio
system yet? What part are we missing? What can't we do with sound
reproduction?

Gary Eickmeier

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 3, 5:54=A0am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:
Edmund wrote:
What is true of these claims I cannot judge from here but it seems
like a
valid point of view. And since we not have a perfect sound system
yet, claims like " we cannot hear that..." are less valid because
that depends mostly of the sound system used but as said even the
best sound system isn't perfect.... yet. AS long we don't have a
perfect sound system, it is OK to improve every link
in the audio chain. Having said this, I have a hard time believing a
speaker cable or a interlink could ever improve reproduced sound.

Edmund

This last statement is much more interesting than the topic under
discussion. What do you mean, Edmund, that we don't have a perfect audio
system yet?


I don't know what Edmund meant but if you are using original acoustic
events as your reference then we do not have any perfect audio systems
of recording and playback. The most common system used, two channel
stereo, clearly is anything but perfect in this regard. Muyltichannel
just fixes certain inherent problems while piling onto other inherent
problems.


What part are we missing? What can't we do with sound
reproduction?

We certainly can't recreate the original three dimensional wave form
of an original acoustic event. No one even tries.

[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 3 May 2011 05:54:34 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

Edmund wrote:

What is true of these claims I cannot judge from here but it seems
like a
valid point of view. And since we not have a perfect sound system
yet, claims like " we cannot hear that..." are less valid because
that depends mostly of the sound system used but as said even the
best sound system isn't perfect.... yet. AS long we don't have a
perfect sound system, it is OK to improve every link
in the audio chain. Having said this, I have a hard time believing a
speaker cable or a interlink could ever improve reproduced sound.

Edmund

This last statement is much more interesting than the topic under
discussion. What do you mean, Edmund, that we don't have a perfect audio
system yet? What part are we missing? What can't we do with sound
reproduction?

Gary Eickmeier




What can't we do with sound reproduction? The two avowed goals of
High-Fidelity ever since the concept was first described in the 1930's -
bring the real sound of live, unamplified music into the listening room,
and/or conversely, virtually transport the listener to the venue where a
performance of unamplified music is taking place. Neither of these has been
realized - nor is it likely to be for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, room
acoustics are always going to overlay the acoustics of the recording, and
while sound treatment and DSP can overcome SOME of that, it cannot eliminate
all of the room sound. One would need an anechoic chamber, or sort of an
audio "holodeck", to do that. Secondly, no speaker can move enough air to
simulate a full symphony orchestra, even in a smallish room. The closest I
ever heard was the Wilson Audio "Grand SLAMM" speaker system of the mid
1980's and while the amount of sound it produced and the visceral impact it
had on all present in the room was impressive, it had other problems which
kept it from completing the illusion. One problem that speakers have that
real instruments don't is that to move a great deal of air, they need to have
a great deal of surface area. That surface area has high mass because for a
true piston-like action, the moving mass must be stiff. But antithetically,
for proper and realistic propagation, the sound source must be infinitely
small, and should be designed like a totally modal and phase coherent
pulsating sphere. That's a tall order - an impossibly tall order. While some
of these characteristics can be imparted over certain parts of the audio
spectrum, what is needed is a solution that covers the entire audio gamut,
and that doesn't exist.

As far as amplification is concerned, I think we can do that, today. It is
apparently fairly trivial (according to some of the audio design specialists
who contribute to this forum) to design amplifiers that have aggregate noise
and distortion figures below the threshold of hearing. The expense would come
at building a transparent amp large enough to move enough air (in our
theoretical perfect speaker) to realistically load an anechoic chamber.
Certainly, high-resolution digital with 24 or 32-bits should be transparent
enough to hold a virtually perfect copy of a performance, so from that
standpoint a source shouldn't be a big technical problem - except for one
thing. On the other end of the chain is another transducer, the microphone.
They are at least as flawed as the speaker system and for many of the same
reasons, only in reverse. No microphone comes even close to perfection and
even if it were sonically perfect, microphones simply simply don't hear the
way humans hear and although we use them as surrogate ears, they really
aren't.

I record using DSD, and while I cannot speak to the accuracy of the
microphones except in the broadest sense; that is to say, they aren't
anywhere near as perfect as they need be to fulfill the goal of
high-fidelity, I can tell you that the recordings made with the DSD recorder
are EXACTLY like the microphone feed. There is NO difference. That tells me
that the recordings are perfect copies of what comes out of the mixer.
Whether what comes out of the mixer is a perfect copy of what the ensemble
being recorded sounds like is a different story.

So, as you can see, while we can do some of it right, there are many
obstacles to perfect reproduction, most of which are physically improbable to
be able to ever overcome.

[Gary Eickmeier]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...

What can't we do with sound reproduction? The two avowed goals of
High-Fidelity ever since the concept was first described in the 1930's -
bring the real sound of live, unamplified music into the listening room,
and/or conversely, virtually transport the listener to the venue where a
performance of unamplified music is taking place. Neither of these has
been
realized - nor is it likely to be for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, room
acoustics are always going to overlay the acoustics of the recording, and
while sound treatment and DSP can overcome SOME of that, it cannot
eliminate
all of the room sound. One would need an anechoic chamber, or sort of an
audio "holodeck", to do that. Secondly, no speaker can move enough air to
simulate a full symphony orchestra, even in a smallish room. The closest I
ever heard was the Wilson Audio "Grand SLAMM" speaker system of the mid
1980's and while the amount of sound it produced and the visceral impact
it
had on all present in the room was impressive, it had other problems which
kept it from completing the illusion. One problem that speakers have that
real instruments don't is that to move a great deal of air, they need to
have
a great deal of surface area. That surface area has high mass because for
a
true piston-like action, the moving mass must be stiff. But
antithetically,
for proper and realistic propagation, the sound source must be infinitely
small, and should be designed like a totally modal and phase coherent
pulsating sphere. That's a tall order - an impossibly tall order. While
some
of these characteristics can be imparted over certain parts of the audio
spectrum, what is needed is a solution that covers the entire audio gamut,
and that doesn't exist.

As far as amplification is concerned, I think we can do that, today. It is
apparently fairly trivial (according to some of the audio design
specialists
who contribute to this forum) to design amplifiers that have aggregate
noise
and distortion figures below the threshold of hearing. The expense would
come
at building a transparent amp large enough to move enough air (in our
theoretical perfect speaker) to realistically load an anechoic chamber.
Certainly, high-resolution digital with 24 or 32-bits should be
transparent
enough to hold a virtually perfect copy of a performance, so from that
standpoint a source shouldn't be a big technical problem - except for one
thing. On the other end of the chain is another transducer, the
microphone.
They are at least as flawed as the speaker system and for many of the same
reasons, only in reverse. No microphone comes even close to perfection and
even if it were sonically perfect, microphones simply simply don't hear
the
way humans hear and although we use them as surrogate ears, they really
aren't.

I record using DSD, and while I cannot speak to the accuracy of the
microphones except in the broadest sense; that is to say, they aren't
anywhere near as perfect as they need be to fulfill the goal of
high-fidelity, I can tell you that the recordings made with the DSD
recorder
are EXACTLY like the microphone feed. There is NO difference. That tells
me
that the recordings are perfect copies of what comes out of the mixer.
Whether what comes out of the mixer is a perfect copy of what the ensemble
being recorded sounds like is a different story.

So, as you can see, while we can do some of it right, there are many
obstacles to perfect reproduction, most of which are physically improbable
to
be able to ever overcome.

OK, sure, I agree with everything you said. But here is the thing: A lot of
audiophiles and even some engineers think that the path to the Holy Grail is
greater and greater accuracy. They think there must be something wrong with
something we are doing in the signal chain, and for example in this thread
they will look for an imperfect cable "sound" that might be the ultimate
answer to perfect fidelity. Audophiles and the high end magazine types will
spend hundreds and thousands of dollars in pointless searches for the
perfect amplifier or ointment for their connectors. But of course we already
have perfect enough "accuracy" in our signal sources and electronic paths,
and there is no big mystery to be solved there. As for speakers, we know
that what we hear about speakers is their frequency response and radiation
pattern, and we can do pretty much what we want with those as well. We may
not have a solid operating theory on just what we want to do with radiation
pattern yet, but Siegfried Linkwitz has posed the question to the AES.

Philosophically speaking, the idea that the goal is to transport you to the
concert hall is a little silly at the outset (as you have alluded). We are
confronted with two different acoustic environments, and it is not possible
to make one sound like the other. Physical size, for example, is one aspect
that you can't change in your listening room, except to just get a bigger
listening room. So the main area left to conquer is spatial characteristics,
which involves radiation pattern, positioning of the speakers, and room
acoustics. We can come closer to the spatial qualities of the real thing,
but we can never duplicate another acoustic in a normal home environment.

If you compare audio to the visual arts, you can see another good parallel.
We have some awesome digital cameras available now, both still and video. We
can project images as big as the walls in our rooms, quite bright and
perfect color. We have great "accuracy" in our cameras and projectors, but
we would never expect to be transported to another location, even in a 3D
IMAX movie. It is a lot more obvious that we are seeing the presentation in
front of us rather than the real thing.

But in audio for some reason we think why can't we get perfect facsimile
reproduction of an acoustic event? It's only sound! Why can't we just record
it and then play it back? The realization has to be that what we are hearing
is the presentation in front of us, two, three, or five speakers in a
listening room with certain acoustics, and not the real concert hall. No
amount of accuracy is going to change that.

Your statements about microphones and the DSD recorder are also very true.
We have great enough accuracy in the microphones, but the placement of them
is just as important as the placement of speakers on playback. And no, they
do not hear the same way humans do, nor is that the object.

The path out of this dilemma begins with the realization that stereo is a
field-type (acoustic) system and not a binaural (head-related) system, and
what is needed is a theory, or plan, that addresses the spatial and temporal
acoustical problems, not greater accuracy or any of the various attempts to
confuse stereophonic with binaural reproduction.

Gary Eickmeier

[Arny Krueger]

"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in
message


We have great enough accuracy in the
microphones, but the placement of them is just as
important as the placement of speakers on playback. And
no, they do not hear the same way humans do, nor is that
the object.


If we want to recreate a sound field we first have to know what it is at the
point where we are recording it.

A sound field is defined by both pressure and direction.

Mics do well with pressure and transduce it into a voltage, sometimes with
pretty good accuracy.

Other than some stuff from the Ambisonic camp that may kinda-sorta do it, I
see few if any microphones whose output is a vector direction in 3-space.

[Gary Eickmeier]

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in
message


We have great enough accuracy in the
microphones, but the placement of them is just as
important as the placement of speakers on playback. And
no, they do not hear the same way humans do, nor is that
the object.


If we want to recreate a sound field we first have to know what it is at
the
point where we are recording it.

A sound field is defined by both pressure and direction.

Mics do well with pressure and transduce it into a voltage, sometimes with
pretty good accuracy.

Other than some stuff from the Ambisonic camp that may kinda-sorta do it,
I
see few if any microphones whose output is a vector direction in 3-space.


Hi Arn -

No, you do not have to sample, or record, a concert from one point in space,
nor is that done much in practice. That would be a head-related system, or
theory of reproduction.

Permit me to back into the question, or proper approach, with this: There
are two fundamental ways to reproduce a sensory experience - reproduce the
sensory inputs, or reproduce the object itself and let your natural senses
experience it as with the live situation. In audio, the head-related sensory
input system would be binaural sound, in which we record with a dummy head
that simulates your head and ears, from the best seat in the house, and you
get the direct input of that with headphones (usually) or one of the methods
of loudspeaker binaural with crosstalk cancellation etc. In this system, we
might be concerned with sampling the sound at one point in space.

But that is not at all what we are doing with a field-type system such as
stereophonic (loudspeaker based auditory perspective) system. Note
immediately that "stereophonic" or field-type is not limited to two
speakers, and has nothing to do with two ears. There can be two or three up
front, more to the front/sides, and more to the rear of the room. In this
system we attempt to record and reproduce the object itself, the orchestra
in its original space, and then reproduce that in another space using
speakers placed all around. We then just listen to this sound field with our
natural hearing, and there is no attempt to pipe the sensory inputs of an
original single point in space to our ears. We can walk around, even.

The simplest example would be to close-mike several instruments and then
play them back with as many speakers, placed geometrically similar to the
original instruments, and maybe even with radiation patterns similar to the
instruments. You are presenting a whole sound field to the listener, and he
can walk around and just listen with his natural hearing, and it should
sound just as real to everyone present, using their own hearing, because we
are reproducing the object itself, not ear input signals.

No pressure samples or vectors to worry about - just the study of sound
fields in rooms.

Gary Eickmeier

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 4, 5:50=A0am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:
"Audio Empire" wrote in message

...





What can't we do with sound reproduction? The two avowed goals of
High-Fidelity ever since the concept was first described in the 1930's =
-
bring the real sound of live, unamplified music into the listening room=
,
and/or conversely, virtually transport the listener to the venue where =
a
performance of unamplified music is taking place. Neither of these has
been
realized - nor is it likely to be for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, roo=
m
acoustics are always going to overlay the acoustics of the recording, a=
nd
while sound treatment and DSP can overcome SOME of that, it cannot
eliminate
all of the room sound. One would need an anechoic chamber, or sort of a=
n
audio "holodeck", to do that. Secondly, no speaker can move enough air =
to
simulate a full symphony orchestra, even in a smallish room. The closes=
t I
ever heard was the Wilson Audio "Grand SLAMM" speaker system of the mid
1980's and while the amount of sound it produced and the visceral impac=
t
it
had on all present in the room was impressive, it had other problems wh=
ich
kept it from completing the illusion. =A0One problem that speakers have=
that
real instruments don't is that to move a great deal of air, they need t=
o
have
a great deal of surface area. That surface area has high mass because f=
or
a
true piston-like action, the moving mass must be stiff. But
antithetically,
for proper and realistic propagation, the sound source must be infinite=
ly
small, and should be designed like a totally modal and phase coherent
pulsating sphere. That's a tall order - an impossibly tall order. While
some
of these characteristics can be imparted over certain parts of the audi=
o
spectrum, what is needed is a solution that covers the entire audio gam=
ut,
and that doesn't exist.

As far as amplification is concerned, I think we can do that, today. It=
is
apparently fairly trivial (according to some of the audio design
specialists
who contribute to this forum) to design amplifiers that have aggregate
noise
and distortion figures below the threshold of hearing. The expense woul=
d
come
at building a transparent amp large enough to move enough air (in our
theoretical perfect speaker) to realistically load an anechoic chamber.
Certainly, high-resolution digital with 24 or 32-bits should be
transparent
enough to hold a virtually perfect copy of a performance, so from that
standpoint a source shouldn't be a big technical problem - except for o=
ne
thing. On the other end of the chain is another transducer, the
microphone.
They are at least as flawed as the speaker system and for many of the s=
ame
reasons, only in reverse. No microphone comes even close to perfection =
and
even if it were sonically perfect, microphones simply simply don't hear
the
way humans hear and although we use them as surrogate ears, they really
aren't.

I record using DSD, and while I cannot speak to the accuracy of the
microphones except in the broadest sense; that is to say, they aren't
anywhere near as perfect as they need be to fulfill the goal of
high-fidelity, I can tell you that the recordings made with the DSD
recorder
are EXACTLY like the microphone feed. There is NO difference. That tell=
s
me
that the recordings are perfect copies of what comes out of the mixer.
Whether what comes out of the mixer is a perfect copy of what the ensem=
ble
being recorded sounds like is a different story.

So, as you can see, while we can do some of it right, there are many
obstacles to perfect reproduction, most of which are physically improba=
ble
to
be able to ever overcome.

OK, sure, I agree with everything you said. But here is the thing: A lot =
of
audiophiles and even some engineers think that the path to the Holy Grail=
is
greater and greater accuracy.

some of us don't think that.

They think there must be something wrong with
something we are doing in the signal chain, and for example in this threa=
d
they will look for an imperfect cable "sound" that might be the ultimate
answer to perfect fidelity.

I think you are over stating the case here. What many audiphiles do is
simply try something out. If it makes the system sound better then
they like it. If not they don't. I have seen reviewers do this, find a
euphonically colored component and then confuse the improvement they
get with the euphonic colorations for greater accuracy in the
component. While they may miss the mark on cause and effect. The
effect is still better percieved sound. Since this is the goal of
audiophilia it is hardly a waste of money in quest of a holy grail.
It's just a garden variety upgrade.

Audophiles and the high end magazine types will
spend hundreds and thousands of dollars in pointless searches for the
perfect amplifier or ointment for their connectors. But of course we alre=
ady
have perfect enough "accuracy" in our signal sources and electronic paths=
,
and there is no big mystery to be solved there.

If accuracy in individual components is what you seek sure. But if the
illusion of live music is what you seek it is neither pointless nor a
waste of money.


As for speakers, we know
that what we hear about speakers is their frequency response and radiatio=
n
pattern, and we can do pretty much what we want with those as well.

Whoa, you are leaving out distortion! Seriously, that's a huge part of
speaker sound.

We may
not have a solid operating theory on just what we want to do with radiati=
on
pattern yet, but Siegfried Linkwitz has posed the question to the AES.

Philosophically speaking, the idea that the goal is to transport you to t=
he
concert hall is a little silly at the outset (as you have alluded).

Why is it silly? It certianly is my goal with recordings of live
acoustic music. And while my results are not perfect they certainly
are quite good and I enjoy the results very much. How is that silly?


We are
confronted with two different acoustic environments, and it is not possib=
le
to make one sound like the other.

That is true. That is why you do your best to eliminate the acoustic
of the listening room and hope the recording engineer did his best to
capture the acoustic of the concert hall. The results can be pretty
astonishing.


Physical size, for example, is one aspect
that you can't change in your listening room, except to just get a bigger
listening room. So the main area left to conquer is spatial characteristi=
cs,
which involves radiation pattern, positioning of the speakers, and room
acoustics. We can come closer to the spatial qualities of the real thing,
but we can never duplicate another acoustic in a normal home environment.

You can come pretty close by doing as much to eliminate the effects of
the listening room. Of course this is where some good ole euphonic
colorations go a long way in enhancing the illusion. Well recorded
minimalist recordings sprinkled with the right euphonic colorations in
a playback room that doesn't impose it's own sonic signature can
create an extraordinary illusion of transportation.



If you compare audio to the visual arts, you can see another good paralle=
l.
We have some awesome digital cameras available now, both still and video.=
We
can project images as big as the walls in our rooms, quite bright and
perfect color. We have great "accuracy" in our cameras and projectors, bu=
t
we would never expect to be transported to another location, even in a 3D
IMAX movie. It is a lot more obvious that we are seeing the presentation =
in
front of us rather than the real thing.

That has everything to do with the stylization of film narative and
nothing to do with the illusion. With film an illusion of
transportation is not the goal. When you see a close up on the big
screen it is obviously a projection because no human being is 60 feet
from chin to hairline. There is no editing in real life either. The
analogy simply doesn't work because the goals and stylization of film
makers and their films.



But in audio for some reason we think why can't we get perfect facsimile
reproduction of an acoustic event?

No. No one I know has ever made any claims for perfection. It is the
goal. No one is saying they've done it. The fruits of persuing that
goal is getting closer to it.


It's only sound! Why can't we just record
it and then play it back?

Because the original sound in the original three dimensional
soundfield is unrecordable in it's entirety. And irreproducable in
playback.


The realization has to be that what we are hearing
is the presentation in front of us, two, three, or five speakers in a
listening room with certain acoustics, and not the real concert hall. No
amount of accuracy is going to change that.

Yeah. That is why the focus should be on the aural illusion not
accuracy for the sake of accuracy.


Your statements about microphones and the DSD recorder are also very true=
..
We have great enough accuracy in the microphones, but the placement of th=
em
is just as important as the placement of speakers on playback. And no, th=
ey
do not hear the same way humans do, nor is that the object.

The path out of this dilemma begins with the realization that stereo is a
field-type (acoustic) system and not a binaural (head-related) system, an=
d
what is needed is a theory, or plan, that addresses the spatial and tempo=
ral
acoustical problems, not greater accuracy or any of the various attempts =
to
confuse stereophonic with binaural reproduction.

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 4, 6:20=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in


We have great enough accuracy in the
microphones, but the placement of them is just as
important as the placement of speakers on playback. And
no, they do not hear the same way humans do, nor is that
the object.

If we want to recreate a sound field we first have to know what it is at =
the
point where we are recording it.

A sound field is defined by both pressure and direction.

And by the acoustic space. So you can't define it by any particular
point. That is the big problem.

[Audio Empire]

On Wed, 4 May 2011 05:50:23 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...

What can't we do with sound reproduction? The two avowed goals of
High-Fidelity ever since the concept was first described in the 1930's -
bring the real sound of live, unamplified music into the listening room,
and/or conversely, virtually transport the listener to the venue where a
performance of unamplified music is taking place. Neither of these has
been
realized - nor is it likely to be for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, room
acoustics are always going to overlay the acoustics of the recording, and
while sound treatment and DSP can overcome SOME of that, it cannot
eliminate
all of the room sound. One would need an anechoic chamber, or sort of an
audio "holodeck", to do that. Secondly, no speaker can move enough air to
simulate a full symphony orchestra, even in a smallish room. The closest I
ever heard was the Wilson Audio "Grand SLAMM" speaker system of the mid
1980's and while the amount of sound it produced and the visceral impact
it
had on all present in the room was impressive, it had other problems which
kept it from completing the illusion. One problem that speakers have that
real instruments don't is that to move a great deal of air, they need to
have
a great deal of surface area. That surface area has high mass because for
a
true piston-like action, the moving mass must be stiff. But
antithetically,
for proper and realistic propagation, the sound source must be infinitely
small, and should be designed like a totally modal and phase coherent
pulsating sphere. That's a tall order - an impossibly tall order. While
some
of these characteristics can be imparted over certain parts of the audio
spectrum, what is needed is a solution that covers the entire audio gamut,
and that doesn't exist.

As far as amplification is concerned, I think we can do that, today. It is
apparently fairly trivial (according to some of the audio design
specialists
who contribute to this forum) to design amplifiers that have aggregate
noise
and distortion figures below the threshold of hearing. The expense would
come
at building a transparent amp large enough to move enough air (in our
theoretical perfect speaker) to realistically load an anechoic chamber.
Certainly, high-resolution digital with 24 or 32-bits should be
transparent
enough to hold a virtually perfect copy of a performance, so from that
standpoint a source shouldn't be a big technical problem - except for one
thing. On the other end of the chain is another transducer, the
microphone.
They are at least as flawed as the speaker system and for many of the same
reasons, only in reverse. No microphone comes even close to perfection and
even if it were sonically perfect, microphones simply simply don't hear
the
way humans hear and although we use them as surrogate ears, they really
aren't.

I record using DSD, and while I cannot speak to the accuracy of the
microphones except in the broadest sense; that is to say, they aren't
anywhere near as perfect as they need be to fulfill the goal of
high-fidelity, I can tell you that the recordings made with the DSD
recorder
are EXACTLY like the microphone feed. There is NO difference. That tells
me
that the recordings are perfect copies of what comes out of the mixer.
Whether what comes out of the mixer is a perfect copy of what the ensemble
being recorded sounds like is a different story.

So, as you can see, while we can do some of it right, there are many
obstacles to perfect reproduction, most of which are physically improbable
to
be able to ever overcome.

OK, sure, I agree with everything you said. But here is the thing: A lot of
audiophiles and even some engineers think that the path to the Holy Grail is
greater and greater accuracy. They think there must be something wrong with
something we are doing in the signal chain, and for example in this thread
they will look for an imperfect cable "sound" that might be the ultimate
answer to perfect fidelity. Audophiles and the high end magazine types will
spend hundreds and thousands of dollars in pointless searches for the
perfect amplifier or ointment for their connectors. But of course we already
have perfect enough "accuracy" in our signal sources and electronic paths,
and there is no big mystery to be solved there. As for speakers, we know
that what we hear about speakers is their frequency response and radiation
pattern, and we can do pretty much what we want with those as well. We may
not have a solid operating theory on just what we want to do with radiation
pattern yet, but Siegfried Linkwitz has posed the question to the AES.

From a purist standpoint, the best amplifier and the best cable sound is no
sound at all. Luckily, with cables anyway, we've just described 95% of them,
at least. Like I said, unless they have been physically designed to act as
low-pass, band-pass, or high-pass filters (beware of cables with undefined
wooden or metal or plastic "boxes" or suspicious bulges in them. They just
might possibly have external components in them which make them act as
filters (non-adjustable "tone controls", if you will) rather than conductors.
Those are outside of the scope of this discussion, as far as I;m concerned,
and what they do can be better accomplished in other ways - and probably for
a lot less money) all cables and interconnects sound the same). Most modern
amps are close to totally transparent with differences in bass response with
different speakers and differences in performance near their rated power
outputs being probably the only thing keeping all modern SS amps from
performing totally transparently.

As for speakers, like I said, we've a long way to go and because so many
necessary speaker requirements are physically contradictory, I don't see us
ever getting there without some kind of materials and physics breakthrough
that hasn't even been thought-of yet.

BTW, I've heard Linkwitz' latest speakers at 2010's "Burning Amp" in SF last
November. Unusual design, but what I heard sounded excellent. I wouldn't put
them in the same league with a pair of Martin-Logan CLX's, but they were
among the best cone speakers I've heard lately.

Philosophically speaking, the idea that the goal is to transport you to the
concert hall is a little silly at the outset (as you have alluded). We are
confronted with two different acoustic environments, and it is not possible
to make one sound like the other. Physical size, for example, is one aspect
that you can't change in your listening room, except to just get a bigger
listening room. So the main area left to conquer is spatial characteristics,
which involves radiation pattern, positioning of the speakers, and room
acoustics. We can come closer to the spatial qualities of the real thing,
but we can never duplicate another acoustic in a normal home environment.

Like I said, that would require something akin to an audio "holodeck". And as
silly as the goal of transporting one to a concert hall might seem, it is
merely an unattainable ideal. Most goals of that type are unattainable, but
that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for them. Man's loftiest aspirations
have always exceeded his grasp. That's one of mankind's greatest strengths.

If you compare audio to the visual arts, you can see another good parallel.
We have some awesome digital cameras available now, both still and video. We
can project images as big as the walls in our rooms, quite bright and
perfect color. We have great "accuracy" in our cameras and projectors, but
we would never expect to be transported to another location, even in a 3D
IMAX movie. It is a lot more obvious that we are seeing the presentation in
front of us rather than the real thing.

Again, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to recreate a perfect
facsimile of the real thing. The moment we stop trying to improve; stop
"pushing the outside of the envelope" as test pilots say, then we become
complacent and stagnate. Just because a goal seems unattainable doesn't mean
it's not a worthwhile goal. That's what has pushed technological progress
throughout history.

But in audio for some reason we think why can't we get perfect facsimile
reproduction of an acoustic event? It's only sound! Why can't we just record
it and then play it back? The realization has to be that what we are hearing
is the presentation in front of us, two, three, or five speakers in a
listening room with certain acoustics, and not the real concert hall. No
amount of accuracy is going to change that.

Would you be willing to stop trying? Put another way, would you be satisfied
if the industry stopped trying?

Your statements about microphones and the DSD recorder are also very true.
We have great enough accuracy in the microphones, but the placement of them
is just as important as the placement of speakers on playback. And no, they
do not hear the same way humans do, nor is that the object.

Not on a project-by-project, day-by-day basis, perhaps, but it is the goal.

The path out of this dilemma begins with the realization that stereo is a
field-type (acoustic) system and not a binaural (head-related) system, and
what is needed is a theory, or plan, that addresses the spatial and temporal
acoustical problems, not greater accuracy or any of the various attempts to
confuse stereophonic with binaural reproduction.

The way I see it, binaural and stereo are two paths to the same goal. The
correct path will be the one that, ultimately, leads to the closest
realization to that goal.

[Gary Eickmeier]

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...

As for speakers, like I said, we've a long way to go and because so many
necessary speaker requirements are physically contradictory, I don't see
us
ever getting there without some kind of materials and physics breakthrough
that hasn't even been thought-of yet.

Now see - perfect example of trying for greater accuracy, thinking that
there is an accuracy problem preventing us from moving the air perfectly.
But as I said, what is audible about speakers is the radiation pattern and
frequency response. Doesn't matter if the drivers are made of frying pans or
butterfly wings, all that matters is frequency response and radiation
pattern - both of which are totally under our control. And Scott - yes,
there could possibly be distortion, but it has been shown to be inaudible in
most cases. So no, searching for better materials for speakers is a false
goal, leading nowhere useful.

The same is true for exchanging electronic parts in search of a set of
euphonious colorations that cancel each other or something. All of this
nonsense doesn't amount to a piffle.

BTW, I've heard Linkwitz' latest speakers at 2010's "Burning Amp" in SF
last
November. Unusual design, but what I heard sounded excellent. I wouldn't
put
them in the same league with a pair of Martin-Logan CLX's, but they were
among the best cone speakers I've heard lately.

You probably realize that you weren't hearing just speakers; you were
hearing the speakers plus their room positioning and treatment, both of
which could be screwed up or accidentally correct.

Like I said, that would require something akin to an audio "holodeck". And
as
silly as the goal of transporting one to a concert hall might seem, it is
merely an unattainable ideal. Most goals of that type are unattainable,
but
that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for them. Man's loftiest aspirations
have always exceeded his grasp. That's one of mankind's greatest
strengths.

I am after the goal too. But the goal has nothing to do with "accuracy;" it
is about realism.

Would you be willing to stop trying? Put another way, would you be
satisfied
if the industry stopped trying?

Realism, not accuracy. You can reproduce a very satisfying, plausible
Auditory Scene (AS), but the goal will not be met by fooling with
amplifiers, cables, or better loudspeaker materials.

The way I see it, binaural and stereo are two paths to the same goal. The
correct path will be the one that, ultimately, leads to the closest
realization to that goal.

Yes, as stated. But if you confuse the two, then you may be trying to use
binaural methods to improve stereo, which just does not work. Specific
example: The Wilson WAMM. Dave thinks that the idea of stereo is to pipe the
two channels of sound straight to the listener's ears. Toward that goal, he
has placed all of the drivers on the front of the box and aimed them at the
listener's head. Thinks that the more direct sound and the less room sound
is heard, the more "accurate" it will be. But what happens is rather than
sounding like a real concert hall with direct, early reflected, and
reverberant sound fields, it just sounds like... well, two WAMMS aimed at
your head.

He is operating on a wrong theory of how stereo works.

But rather than continuing to hijack this thread with a (very interesting)
side discussion, I might want to start another one. For this one, I just
wanted to say that pursuing greater "accuracy" with cable sound is a dead
end, because we have had sufficient accuracy in our sources, signal paths,
and yes, even loudspeakers, for a long time now. Continuing down this path
will produce no gains in the satisfaction or realism of the sound.

Gary Eickmeier

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 5, 6:15=A0am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But as I said, what is audible about speakers is the radiation pattern an=
d
frequency response. Doesn't matter if the drivers are made of frying pans=
or
butterfly wings, all that matters is frequency response and radiation
pattern - both of which are totally under our control. And Scott - yes,
there could possibly be distortion, but it has been shown to be inaudible=
in
most cases. So no, searching for better materials for speakers is a false
goal, leading nowhere useful.

Speaker distortion has been shown to be inaudible in most cases? By
whom and how? I think this is a pretty far fetched assertion Gary. A
lot of very successful speaker designers have spent most of their
careers working on the distortion aspect of their designs. I'd like to
see the support for this assertion given that you say it has been
shown.

[Arny Krueger]

"Scott" wrote in message

On May 5, 6:15 am, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:

Now see - perfect example of trying for greater accuracy, thinking that
there is an accuracy problem preventing us from moving the air perfectly.
But as I said, what is audible about speakers is the
radiation pattern and frequency response. Doesn't matter
if the drivers are made of frying pans or butterfly
wings, all that matters is frequency response and
radiation pattern - both of which are totally under our
control. And Scott - yes, there could possibly be
distortion, but it has been shown to be inaudible in
most cases. So no, searching for better materials for
speakers is a false goal, leading nowhere useful.

Speaker distortion has been shown to be inaudible in most cases?

Scott, how you surmised that from the above completely taxes my imagination.

If you don't know it, far and away the most audible form of speaker
distortion is linear distortion, AKA radiation pattern and frequency
response. The nonlinear distortion is non-trivial but generally not as
problematical.

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 5, 10:43=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



On May 5, 6:15 am, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:
Now see - perfect example of trying for greater accuracy, thinking tha=
t
there is an accuracy problem preventing us from moving the air perfect=
ly.
But as I said, what is audible about speakers is the
radiation pattern and frequency response. Doesn't matter
if the drivers are made of frying pans or butterfly
wings, all that matters is frequency response and
radiation pattern - both of which are totally under our
control. And Scott - yes, there could possibly be
distortion, but it has been shown to be inaudible in
most cases. So no, searching for better materials for
speakers is a false goal, leading nowhere useful.
Speaker distortion has been shown to be inaudible in most cases?

Scott, how you surmised that from the above completely taxes my imaginati=
on.

Really? I'll lay it out for you.

Gary: "And Scott - yes, there could possibly be distortion, but it has
been shown to be inaudible in most cases."

Scott:"Speaker distortion has been shown to be inaudible in most
cases?"

how I got from what Gary said to what I said really taxes your
imagination? OK................



If you don't know it, far and away the most audible form of speaker
distortion is linear distortion, AKA radiation pattern and frequency
response. The nonlinear distortion is non-trivial but generally not as
problematical.

If speaker distortion, as Gary clearly states, "has been shown to be
inaudible in most cases" it would be quite trivial and completely non-
problamatical. There is a difference between ranking issues and
dismissing them.

Clearly there is a lot more to speaker performance than frequency
response and radiation patterns. If that were all there was to it than
my Grado headphones which you dissed would be a near perfect
transducer.Check out the specs on their baby brother the SR 60.
Grado SR60i headphones Specifications
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Dynamic open-air headphones. Driver matching: within
=B10.1dB. Frequency range: 20Hz=9620kHz. Sensitivity: 98dB SPL for 1mV
input. Nominal impedance: 32 ohms.

Show me any speaker that has that little linear distortion. Any......

I gotta ask now. What did you find so wrong with the SR 80 headphones
given their lack of linear distortion?

[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 5 May 2011 06:15:08 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...

As for speakers, like I said, we've a long way to go and because so many
necessary speaker requirements are physically contradictory, I don't see
us
ever getting there without some kind of materials and physics breakthrough
that hasn't even been thought-of yet.

Now see - perfect example of trying for greater accuracy, thinking that
there is an accuracy problem preventing us from moving the air perfectly.
But as I said, what is audible about speakers is the radiation pattern and
frequency response. Doesn't matter if the drivers are made of frying pans or
butterfly wings, all that matters is frequency response and radiation
pattern - both of which are totally under our control. And Scott - yes,
there could possibly be distortion, but it has been shown to be inaudible in
most cases. So no, searching for better materials for speakers is a false
goal, leading nowhere useful.


The same is true for exchanging electronic parts in search of a set of
euphonious colorations that cancel each other or something. All of this
nonsense doesn't amount to a piffle.


BTW, I've heard Linkwitz' latest speakers at 2010's "Burning Amp" in SF
last
November. Unusual design, but what I heard sounded excellent. I wouldn't
put
them in the same league with a pair of Martin-Logan CLX's, but they were
among the best cone speakers I've heard lately.

You probably realize that you weren't hearing just speakers; you were
hearing the speakers plus their room positioning and treatment, both of
which could be screwed up or accidentally correct.

Like I said, that would require something akin to an audio "holodeck". And
as
silly as the goal of transporting one to a concert hall might seem, it is
merely an unattainable ideal. Most goals of that type are unattainable,
but
that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for them. Man's loftiest aspirations
have always exceeded his grasp. That's one of mankind's greatest
strengths.

I am after the goal too. But the goal has nothing to do with "accuracy;" it
is about realism.

ideally, they would be the same thing. If recordings were accurate to the
real thing and if stereo systems recreated that recording in a totally
accurate manner, then accuracy WOULD equal realism. Without accuracy (or
fidelity, if you will) "realism" is just a haphazard illusion made-up of
directionless stabs in the dark using someone's personal tastes to hope that
the sum of a combination of flawed colorations will somehow add up to a
"realistic" sound. While I agree that this is just about what we have now, I
disagree that it's the preferred way to approach the goal of realism.

Would you be willing to stop trying? Put another way, would you be
satisfied
if the industry stopped trying?

Realism, not accuracy. You can reproduce a very satisfying, plausible
Auditory Scene (AS), but the goal will not be met by fooling with
amplifiers, cables, or better loudspeaker materials.

Then what will produce it?

The way I see it, binaural and stereo are two paths to the same goal. The
correct path will be the one that, ultimately, leads to the closest
realization to that goal.

Yes, as stated. But if you confuse the two, then you may be trying to use
binaural methods to improve stereo, which just does not work. Specific
example: The Wilson WAMM. Dave thinks that the idea of stereo is to pipe the
two channels of sound straight to the listener's ears. Toward that goal, he
has placed all of the drivers on the front of the box and aimed them at the
listener's head. Thinks that the more direct sound and the less room sound
is heard, the more "accurate" it will be. But what happens is rather than
sounding like a real concert hall with direct, early reflected, and
reverberant sound fields, it just sounds like... well, two WAMMS aimed at
your head.

He is operating on a wrong theory of how stereo works.

Not really. He is operating on the theory of stereo as set forth in the
1930's by Bell labs as to what the minimum number of channels are to achieve
satisfying stereo. Then he applied that theory to a system that strives to
recreate the volume of air that a real ensemble, playing unamplified
instruments is capable of moving. It stops there. He, like Bud Fried before
him who took a similar approach, made no effort with the WAMM (or the Grand
SLAMM) to address phase coherence, room interaction, system transient
response, crossover seamlessness, or any other speaker characteristics.

But rather than continuing to hijack this thread with a (very interesting)
side discussion, I might want to start another one. For this one, I just
wanted to say that pursuing greater "accuracy" with cable sound is a dead
end, because we have had sufficient accuracy in our sources, signal paths,
and yes, even loudspeakers, for a long time now. Continuing down this path
will produce no gains in the satisfaction or realism of the sound.

I agree, but if sources, components, speakers, cables and interconnects have
been sufficiently accurate for "a long time now", then what is about audio
systems that make it impossible for them to recreate, even when cost is no
object, a convincing facsimile of real, live unamplified music playing in a
real space?

[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 5 May 2011 08:07:38 -0700, Scott wrote
(in article ):

On May 5, 6:15=A0am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But as I said, what is audible about speakers is the radiation pattern an=
d
frequency response. Doesn't matter if the drivers are made of frying pans=
or
butterfly wings, all that matters is frequency response and radiation
pattern - both of which are totally under our control. And Scott - yes,
there could possibly be distortion, but it has been shown to be inaudible=
in
most cases. So no, searching for better materials for speakers is a false
goal, leading nowhere useful.

Speaker distortion has been shown to be inaudible in most cases? By
whom and how? I think this is a pretty far fetched assertion Gary. A
lot of very successful speaker designers have spent most of their
careers working on the distortion aspect of their designs. I'd like to
see the support for this assertion given that you say it has been
shown.


Gary's assertion is impossible. There are so many engineering reasons as to
WHY it's impossible (I already mentioned a few in another post) that it isn't
even funny. Speakers are the most colored of all active components in an
audio chain.

[Arny Krueger]

"Scott" wrote in message


Clearly there is a lot more to speaker performance than
frequency response and radiation patterns. If that were
all there was to it than my Grado headphones which you
dissed would be a near perfect transducer.

You are taking what Gary and I say way out of context.

Of course tranducers vary in terms of their ability to produce acoustic
power.

And, conflating headphones, earphones and loudspeakers is a giant stretch.


Check out the
specs on their baby brother the SR 60.
Grado SR60i headphones Specifications
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Dynamic open-air headphones. Driver
matching: within ±0.1dB. Frequency range: 20Hz–20kHz.
Sensitivity: 98dB SPL for 1mV input. Nominal impedance:
32 ohms.

Show me any speaker that has that little linear
distortion. Any......

I can say with pretty fair authority that the Frequency Range spec is
patently false if you presume +/- 0.1 dB flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or
+/- 3 dB flatness and is iffy even if you allow a +/- 10 dB flatness.

By the way, driver matching is not nearly the same thing as frequency
response tolerance.


http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content...erformance.htm

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 5, 12:22=A0pm, Scott wrote:
On May 5, 10:43=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:





"Scott" wrote in message



On May 5, 6:15 am, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:
Now see - perfect example of trying for greater accuracy, thinking t=
hat
there is an accuracy problem preventing us from moving the air perfe=
ctly.
But as I said, what is audible about speakers is the
radiation pattern and frequency response. Doesn't matter
if the drivers are made of frying pans or butterfly
wings, all that matters is frequency response and
radiation pattern - both of which are totally under our
control. And Scott - yes, there could possibly be
distortion, but it has been shown to be inaudible in
most cases. So no, searching for better materials for
speakers is a false goal, leading nowhere useful.
Speaker distortion has been shown to be inaudible in most cases?

Scott, how you surmised that from the above completely taxes my imagina=
tion.

Really? I'll lay it out for you.

Gary: "And Scott - yes, there could possibly be distortion, but it has
been shown to be inaudible in most cases."

Scott:"Speaker distortion has been shown to be inaudible in most
cases?"

how I got from what Gary said to what I said really taxes your
imagination? OK................



If you don't know it, far and away the most audible form of speaker
distortion is linear distortion, AKA radiation pattern and frequency
response. The nonlinear distortion is non-trivial but generally not as
problematical.

If speaker distortion, as Gary clearly states, "has been shown to be
inaudible in most cases" it would be quite trivial and completely non-
problamatical. There is a difference between ranking issues and
dismissing them.

=A0Clearly there is a lot more to speaker performance than frequency
response and radiation patterns. If that were all there was to it than
my Grado headphones which you dissed would be a near perfect
transducer.Check out the specs on their baby brother the SR 60.
Grado SR60i headphones Specifications
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Dynamic open-air headphones. Driver matching: within
=B10.1dB. Frequency range: 20Hz=9620kHz. Sensitivity: 98dB SPL for 1mV
input. Nominal impedance: 32 ohms.

Show me any speaker that has that little linear distortion. Any......

I gotta ask now. What did you find so wrong with the SR 80 headphones
given their lack of linear distortion?- Hide quoted text -

My cut and paste did not include the relevant frequency response
graph. here is a link to it.

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/grado-sr-60i.php

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 5, 5:35=A0pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



=A0Clearly there is a lot more to speaker performance than
frequency response and radiation patterns. If that were
all there was to it than my Grado headphones which you
dissed would be a near perfect transducer.

You are taking what Gary and I say way out of context.

What is the missing context? Nothing was snipped from either of your
posts by me.



Of course tranducers vary in terms of their ability to produce acoustic
power.

And, conflating headphones, earphones and loudspeakers is a giant stretch=
..


Not really, not if one concludes that all there is to speaker
performance is radiation patterns and linear distortion.


Check out the
specs on their baby brother the SR 60.
Grado SR60i headphones Specifications
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Dynamic open-air headphones. Driver
matching: within =B10.1dB. Frequency range: 20Hz=9620kHz.
Sensitivity: 98dB SPL for 1mV input. Nominal impedance:
32 ohms.
Show me any speaker that has that little linear
distortion. Any......

I can say with pretty fair authority that the Frequency Range spec is
patently false if you presume +/- 0.1 dB flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or
+/- 3 dB flatness and is iffy even if you allow a +/- 10 dB flatness.

No I think the frequency range is actually pretty spot on. There is no
need to make any false presumptions. While the Grados are pretty flat
compared to just about any loudspeaker and they are phase coherant
being single transducers they are not *that* flat. But they are
certainly well under +/- 10db within 20hz-20khz.



By the way, driver matching is not nearly the same thing as frequency
response tolerance.

Yeah I know. I failed to cut and paste the link to their frequency
response. I have added that in another post.



http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content...nes-Review-235...

[Arny Krueger]

"Scott" wrote in message

On May 5, 5:35 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:


I can say with pretty fair authority that the Frequency
Range spec is patently false if you presume +/- 0.1 dB
flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or +/- 3 dB flatness and
is iffy even if you allow a +/- 10 dB flatness.

No I think the frequency range is actually pretty spot
on. There is no need to make any false presumptions.
While the Grados are pretty flat compared to just about
any loudspeaker and they are phase coherant being single
transducers they are not *that* flat.

Given the reflective environment that headphones work in, any presumed phase
coherence is moot by the time the music hits the ear canal. And, if you are
up on your psychoacoustical readings, you know that ears have only a passing
relationship with phase coherence, and its all past by 1 KHz.

But they are
certainly well under +/- 10db within 20hz-20khz.

Authority:

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/grado-sr-60i.php

Which isn't that much diferent from what I cited in my first efforts to
correct Scott in a previous post:


http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content...nes-Review-235...


Fact is Scott, there are any number of speakers whose on-axis response is
far better within the far more critical 80 Hz-12 KHz range. Fixing the huge
roll-off below 50 Hz is what good subwoofers do. I'd like to see what a
subwoofer for a pair of headphones looks like! ;-)

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 6, 7:28=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



On May 5, 5:35 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
I can say with pretty fair authority that the Frequency
Range spec is patently false if you presume +/- 0.1 dB
flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or +/- 3 dB flatness and
is iffy even if you allow a +/- 10 dB flatness.
No I think the frequency range is actually pretty spot
on. There is no need to make any false presumptions.
While the Grados are pretty flat compared to just about
any loudspeaker and they are phase coherant being single
transducers they are not *that* flat.

Given the reflective environment that headphones work in, any presumed ph=
ase
coherence is moot by the time the music hits the ear canal.

Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The driver is
right next to the ear. What are you talking about? Room reflections???


=A0And, if you are
up on your psychoacoustical readings, you know that ears have only a pass=
ing
relationship with phase coherence, and its all past by 1 KHz.

Um, well we are talking loudspeakers here. So it's about the effects
of multiple drivers and crossovers. Phase coherence is an issue here.
But not for headphones.



=A0But they are
certainly well under +/- 10db within 20hz-20khz.

Authority:

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/grado-sr-60i.php

Yeah that's the same graph I posted. You have one dip that is barely
below -10db around 13kh. Otherwise it's well within =3D/-10 db from 20hz
to 20khz


Which isn't that much diferent from what I cited in my first efforts to
correct Scott in a previous post:

http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content...nes-Review-235...

Fact is Scott, there are any number of speakers whose on-axis response is
far better within the far more critical 80 Hz-12 KHz range.

That is conviently vague. After all any number could be *any* number.

=A0Fixing the huge
roll-off below 50 Hz is what good subwoofers do. I'd like to see what a
subwoofer for a pair of headphones looks like! ;-)

You would be hard pressed to get more accurate bass from any speaker
in your home Arny than the bass you get from those lowly Grado
headphones. Even with a subwoofer. I'd love to see what the actual
frequency response is in your room from the listener position with
your current system. That is to say I would love to see the actual
measurments, not your personal opinion.

[Arny Krueger]

"Scott" wrote in message

On May 6, 7:28 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



On May 5, 5:35 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
I can say with pretty fair authority that the Frequency
Range spec is patently false if you presume +/- 0.1 dB
flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or +/- 3 dB flatness and
is iffy even if you allow a +/- 10 dB flatness.
No I think the frequency range is actually pretty spot
on. There is no need to make any false presumptions.
While the Grados are pretty flat compared to just about
any loudspeaker and they are phase coherant being single
transducers they are not *that* flat.

Given the reflective environment that headphones work
in, any presumed phase coherence is moot by the time the
music hits the ear canal.

Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The
driver is right next to the ear. What are you talking
about? Room reflections???

Reflections inside the pinnae and up the ear canal.

And, if you are
up on your psychoacoustical readings, you know that ears
have only a passing relationship with phase coherence,
and its all past by 1 KHz.

Um, well we are talking loudspeakers here. So it's about
the effects of multiple drivers and crossovers. Phase
coherence is an issue here. But not for headphones.

But they are
certainly well under +/- 10db within 20hz-20khz.

Authority:

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/grado-sr-60i.php

Yeah that's the same graph I posted. You have one dip
that is barely below -10db around 13kh. Otherwise it's
well within =/-10 db from 20hz to 20khz

Which isn't that much diferent from what I cited in my
first efforts to correct Scott in a previous post:

http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content...nes-Review-235...

Fact is Scott, there are any number of speakers whose
on-axis response is far better within the far more
critical 80 Hz-12 KHz range.

That is conviently vague. After all any number could be
*any* number.

Of course, but as long as it is one or more, the argument is mine to lose.


Fixing the huge
roll-off below 50 Hz is what good subwoofers do. I'd
like to see what a subwoofer for a pair of headphones
looks like! ;-)

You would be hard pressed to get more accurate bass from
any speaker in your home Arny than the bass you get from
those lowly Grado headphones.

Only true for the kind of people who actually believe in "fast bass" ;-)

I don't hold my home system as a reference system. It is mostly used for
watching TV. But most of the headphones I use for serious listening are more
competent below 50 Hz.

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/...hd-280-pro.php

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/...ca-ath-m50.php

etc.

Even with a subwoofer. I'd
love to see what the actual frequency response is in your
room from the listener position with your current system.

Its not drooping off below 50 Hz like these SR 60s. I actually owned SR 60s
at one time and I thought they were trash. No bass.


That is to say I would love to see the actual
measurements, not your personal opinion.

Given that *all* that you have provided is personal opinions, Scott...

Regurgitating a FR plot that I initially provided obviously does not count,
even with the name change.

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 6, 10:17=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message







On May 6, 7:28 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



On May 5, 5:35 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
I can say with pretty fair authority that the Frequency
Range spec is patently false if you presume +/- 0.1 dB
flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or +/- 3 dB flatness and
is iffy even if you allow a +/- 10 dB flatness.
No I think the frequency range is actually pretty spot
on. There is no need to make any false presumptions.
While the Grados are pretty flat compared to just about
any loudspeaker and they are phase coherant being single
transducers they are not *that* flat.

Given the reflective environment that headphones work
in, any presumed phase coherence is moot by the time the
music hits the ear canal.

Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The
driver is right next to the ear. What are you talking
about? Room reflections???

Reflections inside the pinnae and up the ear canal.

That's the ear Arny, not the listening envirement. The ear is what it
is whether we are listening to conventional speakers, headphones or
live acoustic music. So in a discussion about the assertion stating
that linear distortions are all that really matter with speakers, the
inner workings of the ear are not a variable and are not a part of the
conversation when we are talking "envirements." Certianly how the ear/
brain picks up and processes the soundwaves that get to it is part of
the conversation but again, that is not a variable when discussing the
topic of linear distortion v. nonlinear distortion of transducers and
their given envirements.





And, if you are
up on your psychoacoustical readings, you know that ears
have only a passing relationship with phase coherence,
and its all past by 1 KHz.
Um, well we are talking loudspeakers here. So it's about
the effects of multiple drivers and crossovers. Phase
coherence is an issue here. But not for headphones.
But they are
certainly well under +/- 10db within 20hz-20khz.

Authority:

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/grado-sr-60i.php
Yeah that's the same graph I posted. You have one dip
that is barely below -10db around 13kh. Otherwise it's
well within =3D/-10 db from 20hz to 20khz
Which isn't that much diferent from what I cited in my
first efforts to correct Scott in a previous post:

http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content...-Review-235..=
..

Fact is Scott, there are any number of speakers whose
on-axis response is far better within the far more
critical 80 Hz-12 KHz range.
That is conviently vague. After all any number could be
*any* number.

Of course, but as long as it is one or more, the argument is mine to lose=
..

If you want to argue with yourself that is true. If you want to argue
with my assertions then not so true. Fact is we have a simple single
driver transducer with the Grados that are not subject to the same
problems that conventional speakers are subject to with the issues of
the effects of crossovers, comb filtering, crosstalk or room
reflections. All you have are basic frequency response distortions
that should be easy enough to correct with some simple digital EQ. So
the bottom line is *if you assert that the only real issues with
speaker performance is linear distortions and power capacity then the
lowly Grado SR 60s with some digital EQ should be a near perfect
transducer in a way that no conventional speaker ever ever can be do
to the inherent limitations of speaker/room performance.

And what do you think you will get with this near perfect audio system
when playing back real world two channel recordings? It sure aint the
best aural illusion of live music.



Fixing the huge
roll-off below 50 Hz is what good subwoofers do. I'd
like to see what a subwoofer for a pair of headphones
looks like! ;-)
You would be hard pressed to get more accurate bass from
any speaker in your home Arny than the bass you get from
those lowly Grado headphones.

Only true for the kind of people who actually believe in "fast bass" =A0;=
-)

I can understand this assumption being made by those who don't
understand what is being described by "slow" bass. It's kind on like
not understanding what is meant by bright or warm sound. rest assured
that in neither case does the room tempurature nor the light levels
change.



I don't hold my home system as a reference system. It is mostly used for
watching TV.

But you have had some pretty negative things to say about the Grado
headphones here. If that is subjectively bad IYO what does that say of
your own home system given how it must surely compare in terms of
linear distortion?

But most of the headphones I use for serious listening are more
competent below 50 Hz.

Do you use digital EQ? If so then it's inconsequencial if you believe
it's just about linear distortions. If not then why not, if you
believe it's just about linear distortions.



http://www.headphone.com/headphones/...hd-280-pro.php

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/...ca-ath-m50.php

etc.

Even with a subwoofer. I'd
love to see what the actual frequency response is in your
room from the listener position with your current system.

Its not drooping off below 50 Hz like these SR 60s. I actually owned SR 6=
0s
at one time and I thought they were trash. No bass.

I thought you said you owned the SR 80s and thought they were bad? Did
you own both the SR 60s AND the SR 80s and think both were bad? If so
why!?!? ever heard the saying once bitten twice shy? How does one buy
both these models if one find them so bad?



That is to say I would love to see the actual
measurements, not your personal opinion.

Given that *all* that you have provided is personal opinions, Scott...

No Arny I have given a great deal of factual information much of which
was supported by cited references.


Regurgitating a FR plot that I initially provided obviously does not coun=
t,
even with the name change

I see so if between the time I post it and the time it shows up on
RAHE that you post the same graph then the graph somehow is negated? I
fail to see any logic here. it's a citation of actual measurments. How
does it not count becuase you cited the same information?

[Doug McDonald[_6_]]

On 5/6/2011 12:16 PM, Dick Pierce wrote:


As for radiation
pattern, all I mean is that we can certainly aim different drivers any direction we want, and
adjust gains for a desired radiation pattern at mid and high frequencies, as Bose did with the 901.

You're really kidding, please tell me. This is such an
incredibly ludicrous claim on a technical level that I
am left stunned and baffled by it.

You simply CANNOT achieve any arbitrayr radiation pattern
by taking multiple non-concident drivers, aim them as you
please, and equalize as you please. The fact that they are
non-coincident means that in space, there are different
path length between drivers, meaning their combined response
MUST be non-minimum phase, and your equalization notion
simply fails once the system is non-minimum phase.


But let's take a more concrete example. Let's say you have
two radiation sources that are operating at some frequency
whose wavelength is at least greater than their diameter,
but less than their separation. At all angles relative
to their common central axis that are NOT on that axis,
the response of the system is non minimum phase. The most
extreme case is where the effective path lebngth distance
between the two drivers is equal to 1/2 the wavelength being
radiated, and the result is cancellation. Please describe how
aiming and equalization complete negates a cancellation.


You are assuming minimum phase equalization.

What the OP proposed would have to be a driver array that is multi-equalized and
multi-amped. I.e. a full digital equalizer for each speaker, that
allows complete control over phase at each frequency (and hence,
of course, time delay) followed by a separate DAC and amplifier for each.
A "trivial" proof that this allows complete control requires
that each driver be smaller than a wavelength and that they be
close-packed. If they are far from close packed, the proof
that complete control over directionality at all frequencies is impossible
is also trivial. To quibble, "complete" also requires an infinite array,
to stop edge effects.


Without complete control of phase in the equalization (i.e. time delays)
of course non-minimum phase in the driver setup makes complete control
of directionality quite impossible.

Doug McDonald

[Ed Seedhouse[_2_]]

On May 6, 9:04=A0am, Scott wrote:
On May 6, 7:28=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

Given the reflective environment that headphones work in, any presumed =
phase
coherence is moot by the time the music hits the ear canal.

Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The driver is
right next to the ear. What are you talking about? Room reflections???

You think sound will not reflect of skin and bone? Even ignoring
reflections the ear canal is a resonant tube, or perhaps a horn.
Headphone designers have to take this into account as well as the
reflections from the outer ear unless it is an in-ear monitor type. I
believe that measurements show that everyone's ear canal has it's own
resonant frequency and of course the ear drum is a membrane that
reflects sound.

[Arny Krueger]

"Scott" wrote in message

On May 6, 10:17 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message







On May 6, 7:28 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



On May 5, 5:35 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

I can say with pretty fair authority that the
Frequency Range spec is patently false if you
presume +/- 0.1 dB flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or
+/- 3 dB flatness and is iffy even if you allow a
+/- 10 dB flatness.

No I think the frequency range is actually pretty spot
on. There is no need to make any false presumptions.
While the Grados are pretty flat compared to just
about any loudspeaker and they are phase coherant
being single transducers they are not *that* flat.

Given the reflective environment that headphones work
in, any presumed phase coherence is moot by the time
the music hits the ear canal.

Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The
driver is right next to the ear. What are you talking
about? Room reflections???

Reflections inside the pinnae and up the ear canal.

That's the ear Arny, not the listening envirement.

Again Scott, you put words into my mouth that I never ever said and then
waste all of our time contradicting them.

Arny says: "reflective environment". Scott adds his own erroneous thinking
and changes that into "listening environment" in an argumentative way.

I even clarify what I meant, and the argumentative responses go on and on.

[Gary Eickmeier]

"Dick Pierce" wrote in message
...
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
I stand corrected:

1. You can't equalize a speaker.

I didn't say that, did I?

You most certainly did.

(Eickmeier)
I would hope that all of you would agree that equalizing frequency
response in speakers to whatever we desire is a trivial matter.

(Pierce)
"No, we would not all agree. Tell me how well attempting
to correct a non-minimim-phase response of a system works
with equlaization. Again, if you do not understand, please
bone up on the relevant material."


2. You can't design a radiation pattern.

I didn't say that, did I?

You most certainly did.

(Pierce)
"You simply CANNOT achieve any arbitrayr radiation pattern
by taking multiple non-concident drivers, aim them as you
please, and equalize as you please. The fact that they are
non-coincident means that in space, there are different
path length between drivers, meaning their combined response
MUST be non-minimum phase, and your equalization notion
simply fails once the system is non-minimum phase."

The Soundfield One never happened.

You're right, it most assuredly did NOT happen:
not the way you're claiming.

By the way, did you even BOTHER to read what I wrote?

You didn't bother to read what I wrote, so why should I?

Do you understand what's meant by mininum phase and
non-minimum phase?

Do you understand why the response of a multiple-driver
speaker is non-minimum phase due to the delay differences
caused by path length differences between nonconincident
sources?

Or are you upset that I refused to reflexively genuflect
before the altar of your dieties?

If you have a technical response to may technical assertions,
then have at it. But I would hardly consider your comeback
to be among the more sterling examples of possible technical
rejoinders.

Mr. Pierce,

It seems to me that all you do is erect a smokescreen of impossibilities,
tell your respondents to go do their homework, and dismiss them without ever
responding to any of their points. What in the devil does minimum phase
systems have to do with this? The Soundfield One never happened? Did you
"bother" to read the Davis paper? You can't design a radiation pattern? He
is just talking about directivity? Here is the precis:

(Davis)
"Efforts to improve loudspeaker performance in two areas are discussed: (1)
the range of listener positions over which accurate, stable stereo imaging
is available, and (2) the uniformity of radiation pattern with frequency.
These problems are interdepeindent: solution of the former appears to
require solution of the latter. Described is the design of a loudspeaker
system that yields stabilized imaging over a wide range of listener
positions, a consistent radiation pattern across the audio band, flat
frequency and power response from 20Hz to 20kHz, high power-handling
capability and acoustic output, reasonable efficiency, comparatively
resistive input impedence, and low distortion. In part the design is based
on a listening experiment, also described, to determine the radiation
pattern of optimal image stability: an oval. Also described is a computer
optimization routine employed to design a phased array of 14 dynamic drivers
per cabinet to implement this radiation pattern from 200Hz to 20kHz, with a
compatible omnidirectional pattern from 20 Hz to 200Hz. There are associated
low- and high- level equalization and processing. Following commercial
realization, a second design, closely similar to the first but with 8
drivers per cabinet, has been realized, and the first design has undergone
revision as well. More recently, design with 4, 5, and 6 drivers per
cabinet, respectively, have been realized to procuce most of the forward
half of the oval radiation pattern only. Measurements, listening tests, and
independent reviews indicate that the design goals have been subsantially
met."

In the paper he shows the desired, predicted, and measured radiation pattern
of the Soundfield One. You would pretty much have to be an idiot to say that
it didn't happen, or that it is impossible. Maybe just as well that you were
not on his design team.

But the main point of the post that you didn't respond to was that the two
main characteristics of a speaker that are audible are the frequency
response and radiation pattern. I proposed that not many designers have
experimented with radiation pattern, beause they don't know which one would
be desirable. I put a link to my paper and told of Linkwitz's Challenge to
the AES to find out which radiation pattern, room positioning, and acoustic
properties lead to the greatest realism of the Auditory Scene.

Do you have anything to contribute to that discussion?

Gary Eickmeier

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 8, 12:06=A0pm, Ed Seedhouse wrote:
On May 6, 9:04=A0am, Scott wrote:

On May 6, 7:28=A0am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
Given the reflective environment that headphones work in, any presume=
d phase
coherence is moot by the time the music hits the ear canal.

Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The driver is
right next to the ear. What are you talking about? Room reflections???

You think sound will not reflect of skin and bone?

Sure it does. Whether oyu are using headphones or conventional
speakers.

=A0Even ignoring
reflections the ear canal is a resonant tube, or perhaps a horn.
Headphone designers have to take this into account as well as the
reflections from the outer ear unless it is an in-ear monitor type. =A0I
believe that measurements show that everyone's ear canal has it's own
resonant frequency and of course the ear drum is a membrane that
reflects sound.

And that only happens with headphones?

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 8, 12:06=A0pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message







On May 6, 10:17 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



On May 6, 7:28 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Scott" wrote in message



On May 5, 5:35 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
I can say with pretty fair authority that the
Frequency Range spec is patently false if you
presume +/- 0.1 dB flatness or +/- 1 dB flatness or
+/- 3 dB flatness and is iffy even if you allow a
+/- 10 dB flatness.
No I think the frequency range is actually pretty spot
on. There is no need to make any false presumptions.
While the Grados are pretty flat compared to just
about any loudspeaker and they are phase coherant
being single transducers they are not *that* flat.
Given the reflective environment that headphones work
in, any presumed phase coherence is moot by the time
the music hits the ear canal.

Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The
driver is right next to the ear. What are you talking
about? Room reflections???

Reflections inside the pinnae and up the ear canal.
That's the ear Arny, not the listening envirement.

Again Scott, you put words into my mouth that I never ever said and then
waste all of our time contradicting them.

No Arny those were my words represented as such. Funny you would snip
the point. That being the "reflections inside the pinnae and up to the
ear canal" are a constant whether we are talking speakers which do
have to interact with a listening envirement, that being the room, and
headphones which don't have to interact with a listneing envirement
since they directly radiate into the ear. It looked to me like you
were claiming phase coherence was not an issue in sound reproduction
due to this so called "reflective envirement." (mods that is quoted
from the post to which I am responding) You make it sound as if it
were something unique to headphones. Clearly it is not. Bottom line is
you make a fairly nonsesnical argument against the obvious advantages
headphones have over conventional speakers in regards to phase
coherence based on the inference that the headphones are deaing with
some unique enivrement, the inner ear. Rest assured all sounds must
pass through this so called "reflective envirement" and therefore it
is not a variable when discussing the notion that the only thing that
really matters with speaker performance is linear distortion. Despite
the existance of the inner ear and all the reflections that take place
in the inner ear, we are not immuned to all effects of phase
distortions. Not by a long shot. Phase place a very big role in
imaging.



Arny says: "reflective environment". =A0Scott adds his own erroneous thin=
king
and changes that into "listening environment" in an argumentative way.

That does look bad when you smip context. Luckily it was preserved in
the older quotes.


I even clarify what I meant, and the argumentative responses go on and on=
..

As long as you continue to make bad arguments in our discussions I
will continue to call them out.

[Ed Seedhouse[_2_]]

On May 9, 9:17=A0am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:
"Dick Pierce" wrote in message
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
I stand corrected:
1. You can't equalize a speaker.

I didn't say that, did I?
You most certainly did.

(Eickmeier)

I would hope that all of you would agree that equalizing frequency
response in speakers to whatever we desire is a trivial matter.

(Pierce)
"No, we would not all agree. Tell me how well attempting
to correct a non-minimim-phase response of a system works
with equlaization. Again, if you do not understand, please
bone up on the relevant material."

This clearly means to me that Mr. Pierce did not say that equalizing
speakers was impossible. The statement he disagreed with was that
"equalizing frequency response in speakers to whatever we desire is a
trivial matter."

Disagreeing with that statement is not claiming that equalizing
loudspeakers is impossible, it is merely saying that it is not
trivial.

So I must conclude that Mr. Eickmeier's claim given above about what
Mr. Pierce said is clearly disproved by the evidence he gives.

[Gary Eickmeier]

Ed Seedhouse wrote:

This clearly means to me that Mr. Pierce did not say that equalizing
speakers was impossible. The statement he disagreed with was that
"equalizing frequency response in speakers to whatever we desire is a
trivial matter."

Disagreeing with that statement is not claiming that equalizing
loudspeakers is impossible, it is merely saying that it is not
trivial.

So I must conclude that Mr. Eickmeier's claim given above about what
Mr. Pierce said is clearly disproved by the evidence he gives.

Maybe I have just found myself in the wrong playground of technical
kibitzers, but I will press on with my main points and see if anyone is
paying attention.

EQing speakers is really easy. You can go to Radio Shack and buy equalizers.
There are parametric, graphic, some with scopes and meters, some built into
receivers or processors. They have them in computer programs like Audition
and Soundbooth and most all video editing programs. Those guys may not
realize that it can't be done, because speakers are not minimum phase
systems, but they are still forging ahead with their fantasies.

Davis's project to develop the Soundfield One was indeed not trivial, but I
swear Mr. Pierce said it was impossible, so I quoted a brief explanation of
what was done.

Now, at the expense of boring all you technos, let me ask again: Have you
ever thought much about radiation patterns of speakers, what should be the
correct one, and according to what theory of how stereo works? I thought
about it a lot, and it led me to the paper that I quoted a link to you, and
then Siegfried Linkwitz asked the question straight out to the entire AES.

To my simple mind, this is the most interesting and most important topic in
audio right now, and I am having a hard time just communicating the question
to you here.

So back at ya, and if I get more gobbledegook again, I will stop for now. I
already got myself kicked out of my audio club for bringing this up once too
often.

Gary Eickmeier

[Scott[_6_]]

On May 9, 6:13=A0pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

Now, at the expense of boring all you technos, let me ask again: Have you
ever thought much about radiation patterns of speakers, what should be th=
e
correct one, and according to what theory of how stereo works? I thought
about it a lot, and it led me to the paper that I quoted a link to you, a=
nd
then Siegfried Linkwitz asked the question straight out to the entire AES=
..


Yes I have given it some thought. I am of the school of near field
listening and minimal room interaction through use of room treatment.
I base that merely on personal experience. When you take this approach
radiation patterns become less of an issue. When you use full range
electrostatic speakers set up for nearfield listening with a great
deal of dampening of room reflections it becomes a relatively small
issue. I don't agree with what I believe to be your most fundamental
premise of how stereo works or should work. IMO it's an aural illusion
that includes some if not all of the original soundfield not a
reconstruction of an original acoustic event using a new soundfield
(the listening room)

[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 9 May 2011 18:13:53 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):
snip
Now, at the expense of boring all you technos, let me ask again: Have you
ever thought much about radiation patterns of speakers, what should be the
correct one, and according to what theory of how stereo works?

Radiation pattern? Sure. A pulsating sphere - infinitely small. The first
criterion, physically improbable, The second criterion, physically
impossible.

[Gary Eickmeier]

Scott wrote:
On May 9, 6:13 pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

Now, at the expense of boring all you technos, let me ask again:
Have you ever thought much about radiation patterns of speakers,
what should be the correct one, and according to what theory of how
stereo works? I thought about it a lot, and it led me to the paper
that I quoted a link to you, and then Siegfried Linkwitz asked the
question straight out to the entire AES.


Yes I have given it some thought. I am of the school of near field
listening and minimal room interaction through use of room treatment.
I base that merely on personal experience. When you take this approach
radiation patterns become less of an issue. When you use full range
electrostatic speakers set up for nearfield listening with a great
deal of dampening of room reflections it becomes a relatively small
issue. I don't agree with what I believe to be your most fundamental
premise of how stereo works or should work. IMO it's an aural illusion
that includes some if not all of the original soundfield not a
reconstruction of an original acoustic event using a new soundfield
(the listening room)

OK, thanks! I can respect that. But in my long career of listening to that
approach, I find that it just sounds too "speakery" and limits all
recordings to objects strung on a clothesline from one speaker to the other.
My technical argument is that as long as your ears are free to hear the
entire sound field presentation in front of you, they can easily detect that
the sound is coming from those two boxes. The spatial characteristic is
changed from the original to that of your speakers and dead room, and stereo
was never meant to work that way.

I believe that what Linkwitz has discovered, and I before him, is that if
you bounce the sound off the walls more, there is an image shift toward the
reflecting surfaces that causes the sound to go outside the speakers
themselves and form itself in a deeper, wider area all across the front of
your listening room. Aerial images of individual instruments form themselves
at points in space where there are no speakers, and it seems quite magical.
He calls it an Auditory Scene and I call it Image Model Theory. It is caused
by the reflected sound. It is the reason that some planars like the Maggies
and some omnis like the EBLs image so well.

The revolution in thinking that this causes is to consider specular
reflectivity around the speaker end of the room, with the room treatment
(diffusion along with some normal absorption) as you go further back. Then
you support the rear sound field with surround speakers.

You can screw up the magic by mis-positioning the speakers, especially
speakers with a highly reflective radiation pattern. Placing them too near
the walls causes a "clustering" of virtual images, leading to stretched
soloists and a hole in the middle. Ideal placement is 1/4 of the room width
from the side walls, and an equal amount out from the front wall. This
creates an image model (plan view of all real and reflected images) of 8
equally spaced sources for a lattice of perfectly even, smooth sound with
maximum width and depth of the soundstage.

The incredible realism of this approach has to be heard, and is worth
shouting about. THIS is the direction speaker development needs to progress,
not more exotic materials or better cables, which is the original topic of
this thread.

Gary Eickmeier

[Gary Eickmeier]

Correction, the "EBLs" should be "MBLs" (the expensive German
omnidirectional speaker).

Gary Eickmeier

[Sebastian Kaliszewski]

Scott wrote:
On May 8, 12:06 pm, Ed Seedhouse wrote:
On May 6, 9:04 am, Scott wrote:

On May 6, 7:28 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
Given the reflective environment that headphones work in, any presumed phase
coherence is moot by the time the music hits the ear canal.
Huh? what reflective envirement would that be Arny? The driver is
right next to the ear. What are you talking about? Room reflections???
You think sound will not reflect of skin and bone?

Sure it does. Whether oyu are using headphones or conventional
speakers.

But it's effect is significantly different in case of speakers. And earlobe-room
feedback is virtually nonexistant in case of conventional speakers while very
significant in case of headphones (except IEMs)


Even ignoring
reflections the ear canal is a resonant tube, or perhaps a horn.
Headphone designers have to take this into account as well as the
reflections from the outer ear unless it is an in-ear monitor type. I
believe that measurements show that everyone's ear canal has it's own
resonant frequency and of course the ear drum is a membrane that
reflects sound.

And that only happens with headphones?


Again, effect is very different.

rgds
\SK
--
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity" -- L. Lang
--
http://www.tajga.org -- (some photos from my travels)