[Sonnova]

On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:09:12 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

wrote in message ...
On Apr 22, 10:45 am, wrote:

If one had a way, electronics and speakers etc. to fill a hall with
sound, and the played any stereo recording of any orchestral work, it
still wouldn't in any significant way sound like the original
performance, so how and why would it do so in any listening room using
any speaker system (under the sun)?

This is another misunderstanding of the system. We aren't always and only
trying to transport the listener to the concert hall. With binaural we are,
yes, but not with field-type systems. It's a sort of continuum in which we
might try for that effect (like with classical sometimes) and we might just
sometimes want to transport the performance to our listening room.

That is exactly what Edgar Vilchur was doing with his live vs recorded demos
at A.R. If you close-mike an instrument and play it back next to the real
instrument, you can fool the listener quite easily, because both sounds take
on the acoustics of the playback space. If you do that with several
instruments, then arrange the speakers in similar geometric positions, you
can have a little "player orchestra," something like a player piano -
perhaps the ultimate in electronic realism!

I had an opportunity - twice, actually, to hear the live vs. recorded demos
at A.R.'s downtown Manhattan showrooms in the early 'sixties. I was not
convinced either time. I never thought the recorded sections (which were on
analog (naturally) tape and were given away to my 17/18-year-old ears by the
hiss) sounded very much like the live playing. Older patrons couldn't tell
which was which, I guess, because they couldn't hear the hiss like I could,
And even though the live music sounded different from the recorded, if one
didn't know which of those one was hearing, one would be unable to tell which
was which - that's what made the demos successful, not that the live and
recorded performances sounded alike, the way A.R.'s advertising led readers
to believe. If they had conducted the tests by letting everyone hear the
string quartet play live first, so that the audience could get a handle on
what the real thing sounded like in that venue, I doubt if the demo would
have fooled anybody. As you might recall, both the speakers (AR3ax when I
heard the demo) and the musicians were behind a gauze scrim so that you
couldn't really see anything but shadows and thus couldn't tell when the
musicians were actually playing or faking it.

[Doug McDonald[_3_]]

Sonnova wrote:


I had an opportunity - twice, actually, to hear the live vs. recorded demos
at A.R.'s downtown Manhattan showrooms in the early 'sixties. I was not
convinced either time. I never thought the recorded sections (which were on
analog (naturally) tape and were given away to my 17/18-year-old ears by the
hiss) sounded very much like the live playing.

I was at one of the demos in Cambridge. (I ran past the AR
factory every day.) I found it very hard to tell the difference
between live and recorded. However ... at the demo I attended,
the tape ran the whole time, so there was no hiss clue.
It was loud hiss, so without it there would have been a dead giveaway.

Doug McDonald

[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message

On Apr 23, 8:11 pm, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote:
wrote in message

...

On Apr 21, 7:20 am, "Gary Eickmeier"
wrote: How does it manage to
seperate the ambient information from everything else?

The precedence effect.

I'll bite, what's that?

http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/~litovsky/papers/1999-3.pdf

"In a reverberant environment, sounds reach the ears through several
paths. Although the direct sound is followed by multiple reflections,
which would be audible in isolation, the first-arriving wavefront
dominates many aspects of perception. The "precedence effect" refers
to a group of phenomena that are thought to be involved in resolving
competition for perception and localization between a direct sound
and a reflection. "

[Harry Lavo]

wrote in message ...
On Apr 24, 1:09 am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:
wrote in
...
On Apr 22, 10:45 am, wrote:
If one had a way, electronics and speakers etc. to fill a hall with
sound, and the played any stereo recording of any orchestral work, it
still wouldn't in any significant way sound like the original
performance, so how and why would it do so in any listening room using
any speaker system (under the sun)?

This is another misunderstanding of the system. We aren't always and only
trying to transport the listener to the concert hall. With binaural we
are,
yes, but not with field-type systems. It's a sort of continuum in which
we
might try for that effect (like with classical sometimes) and we might
just
sometimes want to transport the performance to our listening room.

That is exactly what Edgar Vilchur was doing with his live vs recorded
demos
at A.R. If you close-mike an instrument and play it back next to the real
instrument, you can fool the listener quite easily, because both sounds
take
on the acoustics of the playback space. If you do that with several
instruments, then arrange the speakers in similar geometric positions,
you
can have a little "player orchestra," something like a player piano -
perhaps the ultimate in electronic realism!

Not quite sure if this is for my benefit or for general information,
if the former, you are preaching to the choir. Since I'm totally
convinced that no recording can ever transport me into my seat at the
Met, it might as well do something yet better and which it's even more
capable of doing. Use multi-miking, compression, 'spot-lighting' and/
or I really coudn't care less whatever trick it requires, but allow me
the chance of better listening to the musically significant part of
any performance. This requires clever and intelligent engineering, and
thankfully in more recent times, (and BTW no thanks to MCH) I'm
hearing more of this.

I am not sure why you feel you have to diss MCH. Frankly, as many of us
know through actual experience, a well recorded MCH performance is much more
"realistic" in presenting acoustic cues than virtually any stereo
recordings. Moreover, using ambience decoding can make stereo sources sound
much more realistic than they ever do in stereo. At this point I listen to
my LP's, my CD's, my Stereo FM....all with ambience retrieval. It is
interesting to watch an NPR broadcast of voices activate only the front
three channels, and then hear their musical interludes come on and have all
five channels snap to life, reproducing the musical ambience from what are
very ordinary musical sound sources.

[Sonnova]

On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:18:28 -0700, Doug McDonald wrote
(in article ):

Sonnova wrote:


I had an opportunity - twice, actually, to hear the live vs. recorded demos
at A.R.'s downtown Manhattan showrooms in the early 'sixties. I was not
convinced either time. I never thought the recorded sections (which were on
analog (naturally) tape and were given away to my 17/18-year-old ears by
the
hiss) sounded very much like the live playing.

I was at one of the demos in Cambridge. (I ran past the AR
factory every day.) I found it very hard to tell the difference
between live and recorded. However ... at the demo I attended,
the tape ran the whole time, so there was no hiss clue.
It was loud hiss, so without it there would have been a dead giveaway.

Doug McDonald

I wonder why they didn't do that at the Manhattan showroom? Maybe it was
something they figured out later, that if they didn't run the tape
continuously (even when it was blank) that people could hear the difference
between live and recorded by the lack of hiss, the way I could.

[[email protected][_2_]]

On Apr 25, 2:34*pm, "Harry Lavo" wrote:
wrote in ...
On Apr 24, 1:09 am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:
wrote in
...
On Apr 22, 10:45 am, wrote:
If one had a way, electronics and speakers etc. to fill a hall with
sound, and the played any stereo recording of any orchestral work, it
still wouldn't in any significant way sound like the original
performance, so how and why would it do so in any listening room using
any speaker system (under the sun)?

This is another misunderstanding of the system. We aren't always and only
trying to transport the listener to the concert hall. With binaural we
are,
yes, but not with field-type systems. It's a sort of continuum in which
we
might try for that effect (like with classical sometimes) and we might
just
sometimes want to transport the performance to our listening room.

That is exactly what Edgar Vilchur was doing with his live vs recorded
demos
at A.R. If you close-mike an instrument and play it back next to the real
instrument, you can fool the listener quite easily, because both sounds
take
on the acoustics of the playback space. If you do that with several
instruments, then arrange the speakers in similar geometric positions,
you
can have a little "player orchestra," something like a player piano -
perhaps the ultimate in electronic realism!

Not quite sure if this is for my benefit or for general information,
if the former, you are preaching to the choir. Since I'm totally
convinced that no recording can ever transport me into my seat at the
Met, it might as well do something yet better and which it's even more
capable of doing. Use multi-miking, compression, 'spot-lighting' and/
or I really coudn't care less whatever trick it requires, but allow me
the chance of *better listening to the musically significant part of
any performance. This requires clever and intelligent engineering, and
thankfully in more recent times, (and BTW no thanks to MCH) I'm
hearing more of this.

I am not sure why you feel you have to diss MCH. *Frankly, as many of us
know through actual experience, a well recorded MCH performance is much more
"realistic" in presenting acoustic cues than virtually any stereo
recordings. *Moreover, using ambience decoding can make stereo sources sound
much more realistic than they ever do in stereo. *At this point I listen to
my LP's, my CD's, my Stereo FM....all with ambience retrieval. *It is
interesting to watch an NPR broadcast of voices activate only the front
three channels, and then hear their musical interludes come on and have all
five channels snap to life, reproducing the musical ambience from what are
very ordinary musical sound sources


Perhaps as (I indicated) it's because I don't look for recordings or
broadasts, etc. to reproduce "musical ambience" or an experience from
a hall seat. I prefer not to hear air, ambience or anything else which
would result in diluting the sound as it occurs close to points where
it leaves its source. I most certainly don't want to hear sound from
my back-side(s)! :-( With knowledgable and sensitive engineering
(multi-miking, compression, spotlighting, and all those other nasties)
I can acquire a better appreciation of the details of an artist's
performance than I ever possibly could by adding empty air or even
from a great hall seating location. I listen to dipoles in a room
which contribtes its own and sufficient ambience. Often times I find
myself going almost near field to minimize even that ambience.

[Harry Lavo]

wrote in message ...
On Apr 25, 2:34 pm, "Harry Lavo" wrote:
wrote in
...
On Apr 24, 1:09 am, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:
wrote in
...
On Apr 22, 10:45 am, wrote:
If one had a way, electronics and speakers etc. to fill a hall with
sound, and the played any stereo recording of any orchestral work,
it
still wouldn't in any significant way sound like the original
performance, so how and why would it do so in any listening room
using
any speaker system (under the sun)?

This is another misunderstanding of the system. We aren't always and
only
trying to transport the listener to the concert hall. With binaural we
are,
yes, but not with field-type systems. It's a sort of continuum in
which
we
might try for that effect (like with classical sometimes) and we might
just
sometimes want to transport the performance to our listening room.

That is exactly what Edgar Vilchur was doing with his live vs recorded
demos
at A.R. If you close-mike an instrument and play it back next to the
real
instrument, you can fool the listener quite easily, because both
sounds
take
on the acoustics of the playback space. If you do that with several
instruments, then arrange the speakers in similar geometric positions,
you
can have a little "player orchestra," something like a player piano -
perhaps the ultimate in electronic realism!

Not quite sure if this is for my benefit or for general information,
if the former, you are preaching to the choir. Since I'm totally
convinced that no recording can ever transport me into my seat at the
Met, it might as well do something yet better and which it's even more
capable of doing. Use multi-miking, compression, 'spot-lighting' and/
or I really coudn't care less whatever trick it requires, but allow me
the chance of better listening to the musically significant part of
any performance. This requires clever and intelligent engineering, and
thankfully in more recent times, (and BTW no thanks to MCH) I'm
hearing more of this.

I am not sure why you feel you have to diss MCH. Frankly, as many of us
know through actual experience, a well recorded MCH performance is much
more
"realistic" in presenting acoustic cues than virtually any stereo
recordings. Moreover, using ambience decoding can make stereo sources
sound
much more realistic than they ever do in stereo. At this point I listen
to
my LP's, my CD's, my Stereo FM....all with ambience retrieval. It is
interesting to watch an NPR broadcast of voices activate only the front
three channels, and then hear their musical interludes come on and have
all
five channels snap to life, reproducing the musical ambience from what
are
very ordinary musical sound sources


Perhaps as (I indicated) it's because I don't look for recordings or
broadasts, etc. to reproduce "musical ambience" or an experience from
a hall seat. I prefer not to hear air, ambience or anything else which
would result in diluting the sound as it occurs close to points where
it leaves its source. I most certainly don't want to hear sound from
my back-side(s)! :-( With knowledgable and sensitive engineering
(multi-miking, compression, spotlighting, and all those other nasties)
I can acquire a better appreciation of the details of an artist's
performance than I ever possibly could by adding empty air or even
from a great hall seating location. I listen to dipoles in a room
which contribtes its own and sufficient ambience. Often times I find
myself going almost near field to minimize even that ambience.

I understand how ambience can muddy sound in a live room. But I don't
listen in live rooms (although I have). I listen in a normally well dampled
living room with rugs, upholstered furniture, and walls lined with bookcases
for diffusion. In other words, a well balanced listening room (in my
opinion, that is where anybody should start, although that wouldn't make the
room-treatment folks happy). But that said, MCH doesn't "dilute the sound
of vocalists, instruments, etc.....it actually enhances it. Voices take on
mory body and dimensionality, instruments likewise. Where studio effects
are added, they are more individiated, and engineers (on pop) stuff can use
them more effectively in the surround mis. On classical and jazz material,
one is immersed to some degree "IN" the hall or club. All of this clarifies
and heightens the listening experience, it doesn't muddy it.

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:

[ unattributed secondary quote removed -- dsr ]

Perhaps as (I indicated) it's because I don't look for recordings or
broadasts, etc. to reproduce "musical ambience" or an experience from
a hall seat. I prefer not to hear air, ambience or anything else which
would result in diluting the sound as it occurs close to points where
it leaves its source.

Is that how you listen to live music, really? How close do you get to the back row of
an orchestra?


I most certainly don't want to hear sound from
my back-side(s)!

Do your live music experineces take place in nonreflective spaces?


:-( With knowledgable and sensitive engineering
(multi-miking, compression, spotlighting, and all those other nasties)
I can acquire a better appreciation of the details of an artist's
performance than I ever possibly could by adding empty air or even
from a great hall seating location. I listen to dipoles in a room
which contribtes its own and sufficient ambience. Often times I find
myself going almost near field to minimize even that ambience.

You may do even better with a good set of headphoens, then.

Btw, with nearfield you are still hearing some of teh 'air' and reflections
in the recording (assuming it wasn't all direct to board or close miked)


--
-S
We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine

[Gary Eickmeier]

"ScottW2" wrote in message
...
On Apr 24, 1:28 pm, wrote:

IME, the sound field approach can create a more realistic rendition of
a live event when recorded as a live event. But it will lack pin
point imagery and soundstage localization, which while often
appealing, are not attributes of a typical live performance of other
than the most intimate small club venues.
On the other hand, studio creations which aren't a live event, but a
soundstage
created by the engineer more so than the artists or venue, are often
better represented by a system setup for dominate direct wave
listening as you
describe. It really comes down to 2 variables, room and recording.
I think you have to optimize for the room you have and obviously a
larger room offers more flexibility than a small one which clearly
dictates near field setups.

I'm thinking of writing a "starting from scratch" article or series of
articles on sound reproduction, but I don't think this would be the venue
for it. It would get into many side discussions and the main thread would be
lost.

It would be about forgetting all that we know about sound reproduction,
going back to before anything was ever recorded, and thinking through
exactly what it is we are doing with recorded sound. I stated that there
still is no theory for reproducing auditory perspective with loudspeakers,
in other words field-type systems, so I wish to back up and start all over
again. Kind of like we are on another planet, trying to teach them what
sound recording and reproduction is all about, how it works.

If we could go back far enough, then slowly move forward, perhaps it would
be possible to get agreement at some early stage so that we could press on
together. Then, at the end of the road, we would have a theoretical basis
for designing reproduction systems and tuning them for different rooms with
specific test signals, kind of like aligning a movie theater sound system or
a home theater surround sound system.

Would that be of any interest? I realize I am not a known authority or
famous audio biggie, but I'm just asking if the approach might be valid.

Gary Eickmeier

[[email protected][_2_]]

On Apr 26, 5:12*pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:

[ unattributed secondary quote removed -- dsr ]

Perhaps as (I indicated) it's because I don't look for recordings or
broadasts, etc. to reproduce "musical ambience" or an experience from
a hall seat. I prefer not to hear air, ambience or anything else which
would result in diluting the sound as it occurs close to points where
it leaves its source.

Is that how you listen to live music, really? How close do you get to the back row of
an orchestra?

Do ya think I would be willing to drive, park, eat out, etc. to a hall
in order to sit beneath an overhang?, tsk-tsk.
Back of the orchestra? One of my life's ambitions is to sit as close
as possible to an orchestra, along-side the conductor's podium would
suit me fine. I've had 'stage' seats to sold out chamber music
performances and just 'eat-up' that type of sound.

Do your live music experineces take place in nonreflective spaces?

I strive for seats where the ratio of direct to reflected sound is as
great as possible, purposefully to avoid hearing reflections which by
their nature muddy the sound.

*:-( * * With knowledgable and sensitive engineering

(multi-miking, compression, spotlighting, and all those other nasties)
I can acquire a better appreciation of the details of an artist's
performance than I ever possibly could by adding empty air or even
from a great hall seating location. I listen to dipoles in a room
which contribtes its own and sufficient ambience. Often times I find
myself going almost near field to minimize even that ambience.

You may do even better with a good set of headphoens, then.

I'm sure you know it's not better or worse; simply a different
experience, one not being a substitute for the other, unless a
listener needs to avoid disturbing or distracting other family
members. In fact should I want fine details, e.g., tape edits and the
like, I would take a headphone route. Like most other hobbyists, I do
enjoy headphones and have Creek OBH-11SE and Stax headphone amps, 2
different Stax 'Ear Speakers' and 3 Sennheisers. (In fact I have a
rather large collection of headphones; including Sony, AKG, Signet,
and even going back to an original Koss Pro 4AA.)

Btw, with nearfield you are still hearing some of teh 'air' and reflections
in the recording (assuming it wasn't all direct to board or close miked)

This is hardly news to me (nor would I guess, any of us).

-S

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:
On Apr 26, 5:12?pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:

[ unattributed secondary quote removed -- dsr ]

Perhaps as (I indicated) it's because I don't look for recordings or
broadasts, etc. to reproduce "musical ambience" or an experience from
a hall seat. I prefer not to hear air, ambience or anything else which
would result in diluting the sound as it occurs close to points where
it leaves its source.

Is that how you listen to live music, really? How close do you get to the back row of
an orchestra?

Do ya think I would be willing to drive, park, eat out, etc. to a hall
in order to sit beneath an overhang?, tsk-tsk.
Back of the orchestra? One of my life's ambitions is to sit as close
as possible to an orchestra, along-side the conductor's podium would
suit me fine. I've had 'stage' seats to sold out chamber music
performances and just 'eat-up' that type of sound.

So the answer is, not very close. Almost certainly less close than you
get to your loudspeakers.

The fact is, as was established pre-WWII, 2-channel reproduction is at best
a compromise over what can be done with more channels, to recreate the
'dimensionality' of an event.

Do your live music experineces take place in nonreflective spaces?

I strive for seats where the ratio of direct to reflected sound is as
great as possible, purposefully to avoid hearing reflections which by
their nature muddy the sound.

Reflections are important for 'realism'. I think you'd find listening in a
reflection-free chamber to be rather unpleasant.

In a concert hall you are aswim in reflections; it wouldn't sound nearly
as good without it. The direct/refl;ected ratio is hugely important but the most realistic
sound is not necessarily the one where it is *maximized*.

--
-S
We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine

[[email protected]]

On Apr 28, 10:38*am, Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:
On Apr 26, 5:12?pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
wrote:


I strive for seats where the ratio of direct to reflected sound is as
great as possible, purposefully to avoid hearing reflections which by
their nature muddy the sound.

Reflections are important for 'realism'. I think you'd find listening in a
reflection-free chamber to be rather unpleasant.

What do you mean by 'realism?' If it is real it follows that it sounds
real. Listening to *certain* live music in a reflection free chamber
or envirement would certainly be less than ideal. I don't know I would
call it unpleasant. If it is played badly......


In a concert hall you are aswim in reflections; it wouldn't sound nearly
as good without it. *The direct/refl;ected ratio is hugely important but the most realistic
sound is not necessarily the one where it *is *maximized*.

It isn't about realism. If it is real it sounds real. Period. Sounds
better..... sounds worse....... That is certainly in play, but realism
isn't an issue with live acoustic music. It is real.

[Gary Eickmeier]

wrote in message ...

It isn't about realism. If it is real it sounds real. Period. Sounds
better..... sounds worse....... That is certainly in play, but realism
isn't an issue with live acoustic music. It is real.

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy." I know this is heretical, but we are not "doing" accuracy,
because the recorded signal is not what we are trying to reproduce. We are
trying to reproduce the original acoustic event, the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

Gary Eickmeier

[[email protected]]

On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy."

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.

Getting recordings to sound "real" on accurate speakers should be the
business of the recording engineer, not the loudspeaker system. If
the engineer creates a signal that will sound "real" on an accurate
system then all we need to know is how and where to find an accurate
system. If not then we are at sea because your "realistic" sounding
system may well sound realistic on on recording and completely unreal
on another recording or type of music.

And that's assuming the recording engineer wants the product so sound
"real". She might (and often does I believe) want it to sound
unrealistic in a particular way. In that even an "accurate" system
will reproduce her intention, whereas on your "realistic" system it
won't.

I know this is heretical, but we are not "doing" accuracy,
because the recorded signal is not what we are trying to reproduce.

What do you mean "we"? Speak for yourself! I want to hear what the
recording engineer recorded, to the extend I can afford to do so.

We are
trying to reproduce the original acoustic event,

Well, but the original acoustic even may be abysmal and it may be a
great mistake for the engineer to make it sound like it did in the
hall. What I actually want to hear is the composer's intention, but
that can only be done via performers and engineers.

the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

If the event was worth recording and the recording is done right, then
it should sound "real" on accurate speakers. If it wasn't, it
shouldn't.

[Sonnova]

On Sat, 2 May 2009 14:08:40 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

wrote in message ...

It isn't about realism. If it is real it sounds real. Period. Sounds
better..... sounds worse....... That is certainly in play, but realism
isn't an issue with live acoustic music. It is real.

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy." I know this is heretical, but we are not "doing" accuracy,
because the recorded signal is not what we are trying to reproduce. We are
trying to reproduce the original acoustic event, the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

Gary Eickmeier



I have to agree with you. If so-called "euphonic colorations" make a system
sound more like real music played in a real space than does a system designed
for absolute accuracy, then, I say that the euphonic system will, to any
music lover, probably sound more satisfying. Accuracy doesn't really beget
reality in audio so we must content ourselves with the illusion of reality.
Often this is at the expense of accuracy. So be it.

[[email protected]]

On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:
wrote in ...
It isn't about realism. If it is real it sounds real. Period. Sounds
better..... sounds worse....... That is certainly in play, but realism
isn't an issue with live acoustic music. It is real.

But it is an issue with reproduced music.

Indeed which one of many reasons one needs to be very aware of the
differences between a concert hall and a playback room.

The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy."

I suppose that depends on what one means by accuracy. Accuracy means
nothing without a reference. If one is using something like live music
as a reference then accuracy and realism are one in the same.

I know this is heretical, but we are not "doing" accuracy,
because the recorded signal is not what we are trying to reproduce.

Well, I agree with you there. Besides, if one reproduces a "signal"
accurately one gets a "signal." Not sound.

We are
trying to reproduce the original acoustic event, the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels.

There I disagree. Stereo recording and playback is an attempt to
create an illusion of an original acoustical event from a single
perspective. It is in no way an attemtp to capture and recreate the
original acoustic soundspace.

Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

If we are using stereo recording and playback it pretty much is the
answer because that is how stereo works.

[[email protected]]

On May 3, 8:09*am, ScottW2 wrote:
On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

wrote in ...
It isn't about realism. If it is real it sounds real. Period. Sounds
better..... sounds worse....... That is certainly in play, but realism
isn't an issue with live acoustic music. It is real.

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy." I know this is heretical, but we are not "doing" accuracy,
because the recorded signal is not what we are trying to reproduce. We are
trying to reproduce the original acoustic event, the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

I think that depends greatly on the nature of the recording.
If you're talking about an unamplified acoustic guitar floating in
space about 5 ft in front of you or a vocalist softly singing, then
the direct nearfield approach works very well.
But if you're trying to recreate a concert hall with full orchestra
then the
more indirect approach works well to create that hall ambience which
can
be diminished with excessive directional cues in near field or in the
small room where the visual and audio cues become too contradictory.

If the direct cues are excessive in the near field then they are
simply excessive in the recording. I can make a very long list of
orchestral recordings in which this is not the case. But I still don't
see nor have I experienced the phenomenon of using the listening
room's own reverb in any way helping the illusion of transportation to
the original venue.


Realism is a perception which is subjective. Therefore there is no
best solution,
only a preferred solution.
I agree with the idea that accurate sonic recreation of the original
event isn't always adequate to create a convincing deception of being
in the presence of a live event. *Some of the most convincing systems
I've heard of being in the presence of an instrument being played were
not technically accurate systems at all. *They also had some
limitations that did not lend themselves well to all types of music
etc., but in limited cases they provided the most "realism" I've
experienced.

I think one has to consider that there is no "accurate recreation"
going on whatsoever in audio. Stereo recording and playback does not
in any way attempt to document and recreate the original three
dimensional soundspace of the original acoustic event in real time and
then reconstruct that. It is an aural illusion much like 3D glasses in
the movies and it has at least two *conversions* of energy from one
type of signal to another. With this in mine we can ask the question
about accruacy in each step in the chain and it's effect on the
illusion that is trying to be achieved. IME there seems to be euphonic
colorations that are universally helpful, colorations that are helpful
sometimes and colorations that are universally unhelpful. IME early
reflections in the playback room fall into catagory number three.

[[email protected]]

On May 3, 8:09*am, wrote:
On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy."

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.


I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.



Getting recordings to sound "real" on accurate speakers should be the
business of the recording engineer, not the loudspeaker system.


What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.


*If
the engineer creates a signal that will sound "real" on an accurate
system then all we need to know is how and where to find an accurate
system.



That is one giant IF.


*If not then we are at sea because your "realistic" sounding
system may well sound realistic on on recording and completely unreal
on another recording or type of music.

That is the reality of the situation to a large degree.



And that's assuming the recording engineer wants the product so sound
"real". *She might (and often does I believe) want it to sound
unrealistic in a particular way. *In that even an "accurate" system
will reproduce her intention, whereas on your "realistic" system it
won't.

I know this is heretical, but we are not "doing" accuracy,
because the recorded signal is not what we are trying to reproduce.

What do you mean "we"? *Speak for yourself! *I want to hear what the
recording engineer recorded, to the extend I can afford to do so.


Good luck with that. *If* that is your goal you will need a seperate
system and room for each recording that is an exact duplicate of the
original equipment and control room used to monitor the recording. Oh
forget that. We also have the mastering room and equipment to boot.




We are
trying to reproduce the original acoustic event,

Well, but the original acoustic even may be abysmal and it may be a
great mistake for the engineer to make it sound like it did in the
hall. *What I actually want to hear is the composer's intention, but
that can only be done via performers and engineers.


The composer's intention? In the case of classical you will simply
have to go to the live show and hope the conductor is channeling the
composer.



the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

If the event was worth recording and the recording is done right, then
it should sound "real" on accurate speakers. *If it wasn't, it
shouldn't.

Do tell us what exactly goes into a recording that was "done right."
and give us an example of an "accurate" speaker.

[[email protected]]

On May 3, 5:11*pm, wrote:

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.

Because you can't hit the target if you don't know where it is.

What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

Actually there is lots of research on what constitutes "accuracy", but
very little on what "realism" is. If you aren't up on the research
there's plenty available on the web.

*If
the engineer creates a signal that will sound "real" on an accurate
system then all we need to know is how and where to find an accurate
system.

That is one giant IF.

But at least it's an "if". For "realism" there isn't even an "if".

*If not then we are at sea because your "realistic" sounding
system may well sound realistic on on recording and completely unreal
on another recording or type of music.

That is the reality of the situation to a large degree.

So you admit that you are on the wrong track with this "realism"
thing.


What do you mean "we"? *Speak for yourself! *I want to hear what the
recording engineer recorded, to the extend I can afford to do so.

Good luck with that. *If* that is your goal you will need a seperate
system and room for each recording that is an exact duplicate of the

Nonsense. If my system is accurate I will hear what the engineer
intended. It's the "realism" approach that will demand a separate
system and room for every recording.

The composer's intention? In the case of classical you will simply
have to go to the live show and hope the conductor is channeling the
composer.

To the extend that he is, an accurate system will pass that on to me.

Do tell us what exactly goes into a recording that was "done
right."
and give us an example of an "accurate" speaker.

Accuracy is at least an ideal which may be defined and aimed at, and
there are many loudspeaker systems at various price levels that
approach it to varying degrees. Some lower cost speakers are pretty
accurate within their limits. Some so called "high end" ones aren't.

Instead, it seems to me, you want to give up the game and go for
something else entirely. Which is, of course, your perfect right.

[Sonnova]

On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 3, 8:09*am, wrote:
On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy."

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.


I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.



Getting recordings to sound "real" on accurate speakers should be the
business of the recording engineer, not the loudspeaker system.


What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.


*If
the engineer creates a signal that will sound "real" on an accurate
system then all we need to know is how and where to find an accurate
system.



That is one giant IF.


*If not then we are at sea because your "realistic" sounding
system may well sound realistic on on recording and completely unreal
on another recording or type of music.

That is the reality of the situation to a large degree.



And that's assuming the recording engineer wants the product so sound
"real". *She might (and often does I believe) want it to sound
unrealistic in a particular way. *In that even an "accurate" system
will reproduce her intention, whereas on your "realistic" system it
won't.

I know this is heretical, but we are not "doing" accuracy,
because the recorded signal is not what we are trying to reproduce.

What do you mean "we"? *Speak for yourself! *I want to hear what the
recording engineer recorded, to the extend I can afford to do so.

I would think that one would want to hear what the actual instrument(s) would
sound like were it (they) right there in the room with you. If a system can
do that consistently, then I would say that it's accurate. And how do you
know what the recording engineer actually recorded? Were you in the control
room when the engineer mixed it? Are you listening on the exact same make and
model of speakers that the recording studio used? If not, then you have no
idea what the artists/producers/engineers had in mind. That's why it is
important to audition equipment (especially speakers) using unamplified
acoustic instruments - so you can tell what the SYSTEM sounds like as opposed
to what recordings of a bunch of studio-bound electronics sounds like.


Good luck with that. *If* that is your goal you will need a seperate
system and room for each recording that is an exact duplicate of the
original equipment and control room used to monitor the recording. Oh
forget that. We also have the mastering room and equipment to boot.

Exactly!




We are
trying to reproduce the original acoustic event,

Well, but the original acoustic even may be abysmal and it may be a
great mistake for the engineer to make it sound like it did in the
hall. *What I actually want to hear is the composer's intention, but
that can only be done via performers and engineers.


The composer's intention? In the case of classical you will simply
have to go to the live show and hope the conductor is channeling the
composer.

Actually all we can hope for is that the reproduced performance will sound
the way that the performers intended their interpretation of that work to
sound. Conductors can, of course, read the notations that the composer wrote
upon the score as to dynamics, tempo, etc., but in the end, unless its the
composer conducting or the conductor knows (or knew) the composer, then its
merely that conductor's interpretation of a composer's work that we are
trying to replicate.



the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

If the event was worth recording and the recording is done right, then
it should sound "real" on accurate speakers. *If it wasn't, it
shouldn't.

Do tell us what exactly goes into a recording that was "done right."
and give us an example of an "accurate" speaker.



As to the former of the two questions, "done right" depends upon the
recording's intent. You would use a stereo mike technique on a symphony
orchestra, for instance, to make that "right" but you might multi-mike a jazz
band because stereo miking of jazz makes it sound too distant. Rock, of
course, is studio recorded, often with guitars and electronic pianos and
synthesizers plugged directly into the recording console, the drums might be
miked with 5 or 6 mikes (called a drum kit) and the vocals are likewise
close-miked. In many instances rock performances can't exist AT ALL outside
of a studio environment.

There's no such thing as a truly "accurate" speaker. Some speakers do some
things well and other speakers do other things well. Nothing gets it all
"right" and likely never will.

[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message


What do you mean by 'realism?'

As my ideal, I define realism as reproduced sound that is
ABX-indistinguishable from what I hear when I'm seated in my preferred seat
in the concert hall, with the same musicians, the same music, the same
performance.

Given that I'm a professional recording engineer who does hands-on live
recording, including on occasion having access to my preferred seating, I
think I'm very much more fortunate than the average audiophile when it comes
to experiencing and knowing what this is.

If it is real it follows that it sounds real.

That would be a truism. Not a lot of help in our quest for truth.

Listening to *certain* live music in
a reflection free chamber or environment would certainly
be less than ideal.

Right, but adding any kind of noise or distortion, tic, pop, rumble, echo,
bass boom, high frequency dulling, etc. would be very much less than ideal.

I don't know I would call it unpleasant.

I would not call it realism.

If it is played badly...

Played badly? Are you talking about musical artistry or sound reproduction?
There seems to be some confusion here...

[[email protected]]

On May 3, 8:40*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):





On May 3, 8:09*am, wrote:
On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy."

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.

Getting recordings to sound "real" on accurate speakers should be the
business of the recording engineer, not the loudspeaker system.

What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.


A loudspeaker is fed an electrical signal that has only one dimension
in time. You can define any electrical signal in audio by time and
amplitude. When a speaker converts that signal to a sound wave it does
so into a three dimensional sound space. so how does one determine
which speaker has the most "accurate four dimensional wavefrom when
using a two dimensional waveform as a reference? There simply is a
point at which one can't talk about transducer "accuracy" because of
this unavoidable basic difference in nature between sound waves and
electrical signals in audio.



the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

If the event was worth recording and the recording is done right, then
it should sound "real" on accurate speakers. *If it wasn't, it
shouldn't.

Do tell us what exactly goes into a recording that was "done right."
and give us an example of an "accurate" speaker.

As to the former of the two questions, "done right" depends upon the
recording's intent.


There in lies the rub. Since there ultimately are aesthetic value
judgements that are entirely subjective involved in making recordings
it is impossible to break down recordings into two catagories, done
right and done wrong. That and the fact that stereo recording and
playback always involves some sort of compramise makes the notion of
recordings either being right or wrong absurd.

[Gary Eickmeier]

"Sonnova" wrote in message
...

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.

Something for you all to chew on for a few minutes:

Suppose we want to reproduce a piano. Sonnova's "accurate" speaker measures
perfectly at 1 meter - frequency response, phase response, loudness,
dynamics, everything razor perfect.

Now, what is the radiation pattern of this "perfect" speaker? If you
recorded the piano with a "perfect" microphone (or microphones in stereo),
then played that back through a highly directional speaker or speakers,
would it sound the same as the live piano?

What is the most "accurate" radiation pattern?

Gary Eickmeier

[[email protected]]

On May 3, 7:00*pm, wrote:
On May 3, 5:11*pm, wrote:

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.

Because you can't hit the target if you don't know where it is.

That simply isn't a problem. I know what sounds good to me.


What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

Actually there is lots of research on what constitutes "accuracy", but
very little on what "realism" is. *If you aren't up on the research
there's plenty available on the web.

That is not an answer. It is a simple question. You refered to
"accurate" loud speakers. I say they are mythical creatures. If I am
wrong it should be no trouble proving that by simply citing
"accuracte" loudspeakers. You say there is very little on realism? You
can find it at any live acoustic performance.


*If
the engineer creates a signal that will sound "real" on an accurate
system then all we need to know is how and where to find an accurate
system.

That is one giant IF.

But at least it's an "if". *For "realism" there isn't even an "if".

You are in a way correct. Realism is actually a reality found anywhere
you can find live acoustic music. So there is no "if."


*If not then we are at sea because your "realistic" sounding
system may well sound realistic on on recording and completely unreal
on another recording or type of music.

That is the reality of the situation to a large degree.

So you admit that you are on the wrong track with this "realism"
thing.

No.


What do you mean "we"? *Speak for yourself! *I want to hear what the
recording engineer recorded, to the extend I can afford to do so.

Good luck with that. *If* that is your goal you will need a seperate
system and room for each recording that is an exact duplicate of the

Nonsense. *If my system is accurate I will hear what the engineer
intended.

Nonsense. 1. you have no idea if the engineer achieved what he or she
wanted to achieve 2. Whatever it was they did achieve was achieved
with a particular control room and the equipment that came with it. If
you think you are hearing the same thing the recording engineer heard
you are simply mistaken unless you duplicate that control room and
equipment. But.... as I pointed out, even that doesn't get you there
because of the mastering process. So unless you have that master tape
as well as the original control room and equipment you just aren't
getting the same sound that the recording engineer heard much less the
recording engineer's intention. It matters not tha you believe in
accurate speakers, whatever that may be.

*It's the "realism" approach that will demand a separate
system and room for every recording.

Not at all. I suspect you simply don't understand the "realism"
approach. That approach is based on the intrinsic superior aesthetic
value that can be found in live music.(that is with all the caveats
about excellence in musicianship, quality of instruments and qaulity
of venue.) That sets the bar for excellence in sound qaulity by which
we can measure recording and playback. The approach does not promise
results, it just offers a guage that points in a superior aesthetic
direction.


The composer's intention? In the case of classical you will simply
have to go to the live show and hope the conductor is channeling the
composer.

To the extend that he is, an accurate system will pass that on to me.

Please site such a system that does this.


* Do tell us what exactly goes into a recording that was "done
right."

and give us an example of an "accurate" speaker.

Accuracy is at least an ideal which may be defined and aimed at, and
there are many loudspeaker systems at various price levels that
approach it to varying degrees. * Some lower cost speakers are pretty
accurate within their limits. *Some so called "high end" ones aren't.

Once again you fail to answer the question. I stand by my assertion
that this alleged "accurate" loudspeaker is a mythical beast. I assert
the same for the recording that was "done right."


Instead, it seems to me, you want to give up the game and go for
something else entirely. *Which is, of course, your perfect right.

Give up the game? Not at all. I'm just not willing to lose sight of my
aesthetic values because some folks find them more difficult to
"define." Accuracy has no meaning without a reference. If one is using
something other than live acoustic music as a reference then one is
looking for accuracy to something that seems to me to be an arbitrary
reference for reasons that have no connection my goals as an
audiophile. Since audio is an aesthetic experience I personally see no
point to any approach that seeks accuracy to something other than the
sound of live acoustic music. (this is all in reference to recordings
of live acoustic music by the way.)

[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message


On May 3, 5:11 pm, wrote:

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is
easy to define and gives us something concrete to work
towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way
affect our aesthetic goals.

Because you can't hit the target if you don't know where
it is.

Well there you go.

Hold that thought!

In an earlier post I defined ideal realism as reproduced sound that is
ABX-indistinguishable from what I hear when I'm seated in my preferred seat
in the concert hall, with the same musicians, the same music, the same
performance.

IME, very few audiophiles have access to the resources that it takes to make
that kind of determination.

One of the most ludicrous examples of this showed up recently on the Gizmodo
site:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5213042/why-we-need-audiophiles

Billed as: "A Gizmodo Listening Test"

.....with the operative word being "test". In a triumph of high end
audiophile journalism over reason, we find that this isn't even a proper
test for lack of a reasonable reference standard.

In an example of one of the most poorly-thought-out examples of pro-analog,
anti-digital propaganda yet, the author demeans a good digital music player
in a bogus comparison involving two different pieces of music, two vastly
different recordings, one played on an iPod with presumably the standard
iPod earbuds; versus a high end audiophile system featuring $65,000 Wilson
MAXX3 speakers. No surprise that they found that the two systems sounded
different.

And that's the problem with so much audiophile posturing. How do these
people know what the recording they are listening to is supposed to sound
like? They can't, not in any reasonable sense. Their "reference standard"
is not "The Absolute Sound" but rather it is a figment of their imagination.

[[email protected]]

On May 4, 11:00*am, wrote:
On May 3, 8:40*pm, Sonnova wrote:

On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 3, 8:09*am, wrote:
On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy."

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.

Getting recordings to sound "real" on accurate speakers should be the
business of the recording engineer, not the loudspeaker system.

What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.

A loudspeaker is fed an electrical signal that has only one dimension
in time. You can define any electrical signal in audio by time and
amplitude. When a speaker converts that signal to a sound wave it does
so into a three dimensional sound space. so how does one determine
which speaker has the most "accurate four dimensional wavefrom when
using a two dimensional waveform as a reference?

Sonnova's definition of accuracy is woefully
incomplete, to be sure. That such simple
definitions are inadequate is something that's
been known to acousticians and phyiscists for
a very long time.

But, by the same token, your objections are
based on some misunderstandings of that physics.

First, to get one step closer to a reasonable
definiiton of "electrocacoustic accuracy," you
must specify that the transducer will reproduce
an instantaneous sound level pressure that is
a direct linear function of its instantaneous
electrical input to within the specified tolerances
in a specific region of space positioned relative to
a reference axis as defined by the manufacturer of
the transducer.

Oh, by the way, this is, in essence, the way
agreed upon standards such as IEC 60268-10
deal with the problem.

There's clearly more to specify, but it deals with
the major objections raised.

However, those objects, as I mentioned, are
flawed, in that the reference position, while it
is in three dimensional space, to me (correct
me if I am mistaken) seems to imply there's
more information in the signal than simply its
instantaneous voltage (or, once transduced)
pressure vs time, such as directional information.

And the problem is simply this: there is NO instrinsic
directional information of ANY kind in a stereo
recording. Microphones convert instantaneous sound
pressure into instantaneous voltage. And sound
pressure contains NO directional information: it
is simply the sound pressure ata point in time and
space. Period.

As a corollary, that point on the reference access,
where that sound pressure is supposed to be
reproduced to one degree of accuracy or another,
well, the sound pressure there is an equally vectorless
quantity.

Stereo does not make it much better: the very physics
of the process prevent any reasonably accurate encoding
of ANYTHING other than the instantaneous conversion
of vectorless sound pressure into vectorless voltage and,
eventually, back again.

The inability of stereo to capture any true directional
or spacial cues was demonstrated rather soundly
well over a half century ago at Bell Labs, and no
amount of protestation and vigorous claims from
the high-end audio community or from big manufacturers
living on mountaintops have demonstrated otherwise.

Stereo is one big friggin' auditory illusion, everybody
who has ANY experience in the field knows that.
It's an illusion: it's smoke and mirrors and requires
the suspension of objective sensory-driven skeptisim
to work. Get over it and move on.

So, I would suggest a different formulation of the
two questions in to one: How can objective
electroacoustic accuracy assist in serving up
and supporting the auditory illusion of stereo?

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 4 May 2009 08:00:07 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 3, 8:40*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):





On May 3, 8:09*am, wrote:
On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism, not
"accuracy."

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.

Getting recordings to sound "real" on accurate speakers should be the
business of the recording engineer, not the loudspeaker system.

What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.


A loudspeaker is fed an electrical signal that has only one dimension
in time. You can define any electrical signal in audio by time and
amplitude. When a speaker converts that signal to a sound wave it does
so into a three dimensional sound space. so how does one determine
which speaker has the most "accurate four dimensional wavefrom when
using a two dimensional waveform as a reference? There simply is a
point at which one can't talk about transducer "accuracy" because of
this unavoidable basic difference in nature between sound waves and
electrical signals in audio.

I didn't say it was do-able. I said that this would be the definition of an
accurate loudspeaker.



the "thing" that was
recorded and compressed down into two or more audio channels. Running
them
through two point sources and aiming them at your face is not the answer.

If the event was worth recording and the recording is done right, then
it should sound "real" on accurate speakers. *If it wasn't, it
shouldn't.

Do tell us what exactly goes into a recording that was "done right."
and give us an example of an "accurate" speaker.

As to the former of the two questions, "done right" depends upon the
recording's intent.


There in lies the rub. Since there ultimately are aesthetic value
judgements that are entirely subjective involved in making recordings
it is impossible to break down recordings into two catagories, done
right and done wrong. That and the fact that stereo recording and
playback always involves some sort of compramise makes the notion of
recordings either being right or wrong absurd.

I certainly disagree there. I have thousands of commercial recordings (mostly
classical, some jazz, no pop), LPs and CDs and SACDs. Some of them sound
glorious. Very convincing illusion of real music playing. Depending on the
scale of the recording, they either convey me to the concert hall, or put the
musicians right in the room with me. I have other recordings which sound
terrible. Distorted, multi-miked, with no soundstage, no imaging, and
sounding no more like a real instruments playing is a real space than a kazoo
does! Those recordings are simply WRONG from my perspective.

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 4 May 2009 09:57:13 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 4, 11:00*am, wrote:
On May 3, 8:40*pm, Sonnova wrote:

On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 3, 8:09*am, wrote:
On May 2, 2:08*pm, "Gary Eickmeier" wrote:

But it is an issue with reproduced music. The goal should be realism,
not
"accuracy."

But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is easy to define
and gives us something concrete to work towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way affect our
aesthetic goals.

Getting recordings to sound "real" on accurate speakers should be the
business of the recording engineer, not the loudspeaker system.

What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.

A loudspeaker is fed an electrical signal that has only one dimension
in time. You can define any electrical signal in audio by time and
amplitude. When a speaker converts that signal to a sound wave it does
so into a three dimensional sound space. so how does one determine
which speaker has the most "accurate four dimensional wavefrom when
using a two dimensional waveform as a reference?

Sonnova's definition of accuracy is woefully
incomplete, to be sure. That such simple
definitions are inadequate is something that's
been known to acousticians and phyiscists for
a very long time.

Woefully incomplete? You mean that a speaker that reproduces the waveform
that it is fed exactly, without either adding anything or taking anything
away, or changing anything in any way wouldn't be an accurate transducer?
That's like saying that an amplifier that exhibits infinite, absolutely flat
frequency response and zero distortion, IOW, Stewart Hegeman's mythical
"straight wire with gain", wouldn't be an accurate amplifier.

But, by the same token, your objections are
based on some misunderstandings of that physics.

First, to get one step closer to a reasonable
definiiton of "electrocacoustic accuracy," you
must specify that the transducer will reproduce
an instantaneous sound level pressure that is
a direct linear function of its instantaneous
electrical input to within the specified tolerances
in a specific region of space positioned relative to
a reference axis as defined by the manufacturer of
the transducer.

IOW, precisely reproduce what it is fed.

Oh, by the way, this is, in essence, the way
agreed upon standards such as IEC 60268-10
deal with the problem.

There's clearly more to specify, but it deals with
the major objections raised.

However, those objects, as I mentioned, are
flawed, in that the reference position, while it
is in three dimensional space, to me (correct
me if I am mistaken) seems to imply there's
more information in the signal than simply its
instantaneous voltage (or, once transduced)
pressure vs time, such as directional information.

There might be. But whatever else is there, its the result of the interaction
of various electrical signals which are analogous to the complex wavefront
converted by the microphone. That the microphone is also an imperfect
transducer is not important to this discussion, because irrespective of
equipment flaws up the pipeline, the ideally accurate loudspeaker would
precisely reproduce those flaws as well. IOW, the speaker would still be
reproducing the waveform with which it is fed. The room doesn't enter into
the equation, nor does the electronics ahead of this "perfect" and "accurate"
loudspeaker.

And the problem is simply this: there is NO instrinsic
directional information of ANY kind in a stereo
recording. Microphones convert instantaneous sound
pressure into instantaneous voltage. And sound
pressure contains NO directional information: it
is simply the sound pressure ata point in time and
space. Period.

As a person who spent many years recording a major symphony orchestra in
concert, I can attest that your above statement (as I understand it) is
simply wrong. Human hearing is designed to pick up on spatial and directional
cues as a survival tool. We are very good at it. Those cues ARE, indeed,
captured by microphones in the form of phase shifts, time delays and
intensity differences. As you say, these things are the result of the
conversion of instantaneous sound pressure into analogous instantaneous
voltages. But these voltages are the result of the sum of the pressure waves
hitting the microphone diaphragm and the voltage produced as a complex
waveform contains all of those spatial cues. When played back through two
speakers, some semblance of those phase, amplitude and temporal cues are
reproduced into the listening room. On a really well miked recording, one can
literally point to each instrument in the ensemble and say "The oboe is§
right there, and the chorus sounds like it's behind the orchestra on a
platform. Some recordings are literally THAT "holographic." I have several
recordings made in the Watford Town Hall in Watford England that actually
sound as if the room is "L" shaped! I got that sense just listening. When I
finally saw a photograph of a recording session in that hall in a magazine, I
was flabberglasted to find that it was, indeed, "L" shaped! So, there is most
assuredly directional information in a stereo recording. (of course, I might
be misunderstanding what you are trying to say here.)

As a corollary, that point on the reference access,
where that sound pressure is supposed to be
reproduced to one degree of accuracy or another,
well, the sound pressure there is an equally vectorless
quantity.

Stereo does not make it much better: the very physics
of the process prevent any reasonably accurate encoding
of ANYTHING other than the instantaneous conversion
of vectorless sound pressure into vectorless voltage and,
eventually, back again.

The inability of stereo to capture any true directional
or spacial cues was demonstrated rather soundly
well over a half century ago at Bell Labs, and no
amount of protestation and vigorous claims from
the high-end audio community or from big manufacturers
living on mountaintops have demonstrated otherwise.

Stereo is one big friggin' auditory illusion, everybody
who has ANY experience in the field knows that.
It's an illusion: it's smoke and mirrors and requires
the suspension of objective sensory-driven skeptisim
to work. Get over it and move on.

Seems to work fairly well, given it's limitations. And yes, as far as the it
goes, it is an illusion. But good stereo can and often does present the
illusion of a fairly accurate soundstage.

So, I would suggest a different formulation of the
two questions in to one: How can objective
electroacoustic accuracy assist in serving up
and supporting the auditory illusion of stereo?

I think the original question was much simpler than that: How would one
define a theoretically accurate speaker system?

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 4 May 2009 08:00:22 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Sonnova" wrote in message
...

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.

Something for you all to chew on for a few minutes:

Suppose we want to reproduce a piano. Sonnova's "accurate" speaker measures
perfectly at 1 meter - frequency response, phase response, loudness,
dynamics, everything razor perfect.

Now, what is the radiation pattern of this "perfect" speaker? If you
recorded the piano with a "perfect" microphone (or microphones in stereo),
then played that back through a highly directional speaker or speakers,
would it sound the same as the live piano?

What is the most "accurate" radiation pattern?

Gary Eickmeier



Of course, there is no way to keep room interaction out of the equation
(unless we measure the speaker in an anechoic chamber). But in my definition,
that would be irrelevant. The speaker would be perfectly accurate if it
reproduced the signal fed to it exactly; adding nothing, removing nothing and
changing nothing. As to the quality of the signal fed to such a speaker, or
what the room does to the sound produced by the speaker, these things are
beside the point.

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 4 May 2009 07:59:15 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

wrote in message


What do you mean by 'realism?'

As my ideal, I define realism as reproduced sound that is
ABX-indistinguishable from what I hear when I'm seated in my preferred seat
in the concert hall, with the same musicians, the same music, the same
performance.

Given that I'm a professional recording engineer who does hands-on live
recording, including on occasion having access to my preferred seating, I
think I'm very much more fortunate than the average audiophile when it comes
to experiencing and knowing what this is.

If it is real it follows that it sounds real.

That would be a truism. Not a lot of help in our quest for truth.

Listening to *certain* live music in
a reflection free chamber or environment would certainly
be less than ideal.

Right, but adding any kind of noise or distortion, tic, pop, rumble, echo,
bass boom, high frequency dulling, etc. would be very much less than ideal.

I don't know I would call it unpleasant.

I would not call it realism.

If it is played badly...

Played badly? Are you talking about musical artistry or sound reproduction?
There seems to be some confusion here...



If you've ever heard (or the gods forbid, tried to record) an orchestra
playing outdoors without benefit of a "band shell" or any technical
augmentation, It's pretty close to a reflection-free environment. The
orchestra simply does not sound very good. Mostly, its because a symphony
orchestra DEPENDS upon the long reverb/reflection times of a large hall in
order to blend the playing of 75+ musicians into a cohesive whole. Without
that reinforcement, its impossible for the ensemble to play together closely
enough that the audience doesn't notice it. I don't recommend it.

[[email protected]]

On May 4, 1:43*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 4 May 2009 08:00:07 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

[ extensive quoting snipped -- dsr ]

There in lies the rub. Since there ultimately are aesthetic value
judgements that are entirely subjective involved in making recordings
it is impossible to break down recordings into two catagories, done
right and done wrong. That and the fact that stereo recording and
playback always involves some sort of compramise makes the notion of
recordings either being right or wrong absurd.

I certainly disagree there. I have thousands of commercial recordings (mostly
classical, some jazz, no pop), LPs and CDs and SACDs. Some of them sound
glorious. Very convincing illusion of real music playing. Depending on the
scale of the recording, they either convey me to the concert hall, or put the
musicians right in the room with me.

But they are all to some degree *different* are they not? If so how
does one call them all "right?" What does that mean? would you say
that none of those recordings could have been done ever so slightly
better? my point is right and wrong imply a black and white world. IMO
with recordings it's all shades of gray. Degrees of excellence not
either right or wrong. there is simply no such hard line in the sand.


I have other recordings which sound
terrible. Distorted, multi-miked, with no soundstage, no imaging, and
sounding no more like a real instruments playing is a real space than a kazoo
does! Those recordings are simply WRONG from my perspective

I have yet to experience a recording with "no" soundstage or "no"
imaging. I have heard many recordings that offer a very poor illusion
of such things but none that are completely devoid of it. IMO it is
different degrees of bad.

[[email protected]]

On May 4, 2:50*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 4 May 2009 09:57:13 -0700, wrote
(in article ):


On May 4, 11:00*am, wrote:
On May 3, 8:40*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

[ extensive quoting snipped -- dsr ]


What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.

A loudspeaker is fed an electrical signal that has only one dimension
in time. You can define any electrical signal in audio by time and
amplitude. When a speaker converts that signal to a sound wave it does
so into a three dimensional sound space. so how does one determine
which speaker has the most "accurate four dimensional wavefrom when
using a two dimensional waveform as a reference?

Sonnova's definition of accuracy is woefully
incomplete, to be sure. That such simple
definitions are inadequate is something that's
been known to acousticians and phyiscists for
a very long time.

Woefully incomplete? You mean that a speaker that reproduces the waveform
that it is fed exactly, without either adding anything or taking anything
away, or changing anything in any way wouldn't be an accurate transducer?

I would assert that it is physically impossible to transcribe an
electrical signal that exists in only two dimensions (time and
amplitude) into an acoustic wave form that exists in the three
dimensional space. It is intrinsically a different wave form because
it has been converted to a totally different form of energy that
exists in an entirely different envirement.


That's like saying that an amplifier that exhibits infinite, absolutely flat
frequency response and zero distortion, IOW, Stewart Hegeman's mythical
"straight wire with gain", wouldn't be an accurate amplifier.

Not at all. the input and output of an amp are essentially the same
sort of thing in nature. They are both electrical signals that can be
described completely by time and amplitude.

[[email protected]]

On May 4, 8:09*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
wrote in message



On May 3, 5:11 pm, wrote:
But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is
easy to define and gives us something concrete to work
towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way
affect our aesthetic goals.
Because you can't hit the target if you don't know where
it is.

Well there you go.

Hold that thought!

In an earlier post I defined ideal realism as reproduced sound that is
ABX-indistinguishable from what I hear when I'm seated in my preferred seat
in the concert hall, with the same musicians, the same music, the same
performance.

IME, very few audiophiles have access to the resources that it takes to make
that kind of determination.

One of the most ludicrous examples of this showed up recently on the Gizmodo
site:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5213042/why-we-need-audiophiles

Billed as: *"A Gizmodo *Listening Test"

....with the operative word being "test". *In a triumph of high end
audiophile journalism over reason, we find that this isn't even a proper
test for lack of a reasonable reference standard.

In an example of one of the most poorly-thought-out examples of pro-analog,
anti-digital propaganda yet, the author demeans a good digital music player
in a bogus comparison involving two different pieces of music, two vastly
different recordings, one played on an iPod with presumably the standard
iPod earbuds; versus a high end audiophile system featuring $65,000 Wilson
MAXX3 speakers. No surprise that they found that the two systems sounded
different.

And that's the problem with so much audiophile posturing. How do these
people know what the recording they are listening to is supposed to sound
like? *They can't, not in any reasonable sense. Their "reference standard"
is not "The Absolute Sound" but rather it is a figment of their imagination.

I think you are missing the point of using the "absolute sound" as
reference completely. Especially in so far as it applies to
audiophiles and their quest for "realism" with commercial
recordings.You have to always keep in mind why an audiophile seeks
realism. I can't speak for others but I seek it because IME there is
an intrinsic beauty that can be found in live acosutic music that sets
the standard aesthetic excellence in sound. Now that doesn't mean it
can be found in all live acoustic music just that the very best can be
found in some live acoustic music. So that is why I use live music as
a reference for my playback of live music. But the level of exactness
you are refering to in your standard simply can't be applied to
commercial recordings by most audiophiles. We weren't there. But it
matters not. Live sound gives us a standard of measure not a specific
goal. For example, I have two different masterings of a John Renbourn
album "The Lady and the Unicorn." The acoustic instruments on both
versions offer pretty amazing realism but one is distinctly better to
me than the other. For all I know the less prefered version is more
accurate to the master tape or even more accurate to the original
sound. It doesn't matter though. They both achieve an excellent
illusion of realism but one simply has a superior over all aesthetic.
So in your example of the "Gizmo listening test" it doesn't matter if
there is no reference. Preferences are inarguable. The only point I
see in using live acoustic music as a reference is because it sets the
bar for a personal preference.

[[email protected]]

On May 4, 7:59*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
wrote in message




If it is real it follows that it sounds real.

That would be a truism. Not a lot of help in our quest for truth.

It was meant to help Steve who seems to be asserting that even with
live music there are different degrees of "realism" depending on the
amount of reverb. So in this case it is a truism that may be of some
help in correcting that false notion.


Listening to *certain* live music in
a reflection free chamber or environment would certainly
be less than ideal.

Right, but adding any kind of noise or distortion, tic, pop, rumble, echo,
bass boom, high frequency dulling, etc. would be very much less than ideal.

Huh? Who adds tics or rumble to live acoustic music? Distortion? OTOH
one will find plenty of "echo" bass boom and high requency dulling
depending on the acoustic envirement of the live performance and in
many cases some of that will be found to be better.


I don't know I would call it unpleasant.

I would not call it realism.

Then perhaps you don't understand what we are talking about since you
already acknowledged that Live music is real, always. I really don;t
think one can talk about degrees of realism with "real" live acoustic
music.


If it is played badly...

Played badly? Are you talking about musical artistry or sound reproduction?

Artistry. If you reread my post you will find no discussion of
reproduction. It was all about the mistaken notion that there are
different degrees of realism with live acoustic music based on the
levels of reverb.

There seems to be some confusion here...

I think so.

[[email protected]]

On May 4, 9:57*am, wrote:
On May 4, 11:00*am, wrote:


On May 3, 8:40*pm, Sonnova wrote:

On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

[quoted text deleted -- deb]

What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.

A loudspeaker is fed an electrical signal that has only one dimension
in time. You can define any electrical signal in audio by time and
amplitude. When a speaker converts that signal to a sound wave it does
so into a three dimensional sound space. so how does one determine
which speaker has the most "accurate four dimensional wavefrom when
using a two dimensional waveform as a reference?

Sonnova's definition of accuracy is woefully
incomplete, to be sure. That such simple
definitions are inadequate is something that's
been known to acousticians and phyiscists for
a very long time.

But, by the same token, your objections are
based on some misunderstandings of that physics.

First, to get one step closer to a reasonable
definiiton of "electrocacoustic accuracy," you
must specify that the transducer will reproduce
an instantaneous sound level pressure that is
a direct linear function of its instantaneous
electrical input to within the specified tolerances
in a specific region of space positioned relative to
a reference axis as defined by the manufacturer of
the transducer.

* *Oh, by the way, this is, in essence, the way
* *agreed upon standards such as IEC 60268-10
* *deal with the problem.

There's clearly more to specify, but it deals with
the major objections raised.

However, those objects, as I mentioned, are
flawed, in that the reference position, while it
is in three dimensional space, to me (correct
me if I am mistaken) seems to imply there's
more information in the signal than simply its
instantaneous voltage (or, once transduced)
pressure vs time, such as directional information.

I was trying to say just the opposite. The signal is just a measure of
amplitude and time. It is essentially a two dimensional wave from. But
when the speaker transcribes that signal it does so into a three
dimensional space so that wave form has to have dimensions that simply
are not present in the electrical signal. So it makes it difficult to
use a waveform that exists in two dimensions to measure the accuracy
of a waveform that exists in four dimensions.


And the problem is simply this: there is NO instrinsic
directional information of ANY kind in a stereo
recording. Microphones convert instantaneous sound
pressure into instantaneous voltage. And sound
pressure contains NO directional information: it
is simply the sound pressure ata point in time and
space. Period.

As a corollary, that point on the reference access,
where that sound pressure is supposed to be
reproduced to one degree of accuracy or another,
well, the sound pressure there is an equally vectorless
quantity.

Stereo does not make it much better: the very physics
of the process prevent any reasonably accurate encoding
of ANYTHING other than the instantaneous conversion
of vectorless sound pressure into vectorless voltage and,
eventually, back again.

The inability of stereo to capture any true directional
or spacial cues was demonstrated rather soundly
well over a half century ago at Bell Labs, and no
amount of protestation and vigorous claims from
the high-end audio community or from big manufacturers
living on mountaintops have demonstrated otherwise.

Stereo is one big friggin' auditory illusion, everybody
who has ANY experience in the field knows that.
It's an illusion: it's smoke and mirrors and requires
the suspension of objective sensory-driven skeptisim
to work. Get over it and move on.

That is exactly what I have been saying. It's an aural illusion.
whatever makes for a better illusion is what I want. I don't care if
it happens to by greater accuracy or not in each link in the chain or
recording and playback.

[quoted text deleted -- deb]

[Steven Sullivan]

wrote:
On May 4, 7:59?am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
wrote in message




If it is real it follows that it sounds real.

That would be a truism. Not a lot of help in our quest for truth.

It was meant to help Steve who seems to be asserting that even with
live music there are different degrees of "realism" depending on the
amount of reverb. So in this case it is a truism that may be of some
help in correcting that false notion.

You're misstating what I wrote. I referred to 'realism' (in quotes)
via two loudspeakers at home as requiring some reflections --
certainly if there is any sense of 'live' recorded space to reproduce.
But even if you like 'dry' playback of close-miked or direct-to-board
studio recordings -- recordings that do not attempt to capture the way
instruments are typically heard 'live' -- you almost certainly would
not like it over loudspeakers in an anaechoic chamber.

Then I talked about how *good sound* in a *live* venue does not
necessarily mean *maximizing' the direct to reflected sound (the
ultimate 'maximization' would mean eliminating all reflections --
making it an anaechoic chamber). I didn't say there were 'different
degrees of realism' in live music. There is a lot of work on the role
of reflected sound and its relationship to 'good sound' in convert
halls, studios, and more recently home listening rooms, and if you are
really interested in it you could spend a few weeks with Floyd Toole's
'Sound Reproduction', which attempts a summary.

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 5 May 2009 03:57:19 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 4, 2:50*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 4 May 2009 09:57:13 -0700, wrote
(in article ):


On May 4, 11:00*am, wrote:
On May 3, 8:40*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 3 May 2009 17:11:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

[ extensive quoting snipped -- dsr ]


What exactly are "accurate" speakers? It seems you are building an
argument on a mythological creature that is probably not something
everyone would agree on.

I would think that an accurate loudspeaker would be one which faithfully
reproduces the waveform with which it is fed. The extent to which any
loudspeaker accomplishes that goal is a measure of its accuracy.

A loudspeaker is fed an electrical signal that has only one dimension
in time. You can define any electrical signal in audio by time and
amplitude. When a speaker converts that signal to a sound wave it does
so into a three dimensional sound space. so how does one determine
which speaker has the most "accurate four dimensional wavefrom when
using a two dimensional waveform as a reference?

Sonnova's definition of accuracy is woefully
incomplete, to be sure. That such simple
definitions are inadequate is something that's
been known to acousticians and phyiscists for
a very long time.

Woefully incomplete? You mean that a speaker that reproduces the waveform
that it is fed exactly, without either adding anything or taking anything
away, or changing anything in any way wouldn't be an accurate transducer?

I would assert that it is physically impossible to transcribe an
electrical signal that exists in only two dimensions (time and
amplitude) into an acoustic wave form that exists in the three
dimensional space. It is intrinsically a different wave form because
it has been converted to a totally different form of energy that
exists in an entirely different envirement.

I'll agree that my definition is almost absurdly hypothetical. Still, whether
or not it is possible to describe a three dimensional acoustic wave with a
two dimensional electrical waveform is beside the point because you are
trying to make the loudspeaker responsible for something that occurred at the
microphone during recording. Irrespective of the signal's origin, or its
content, my point is that if the speaker reproduces the waveform that it is
fed, and reproduces it exactly, then it is an accurate transducer. Whether or
not that reproduction is an accurate representation of the original, recorded
event, is irrelevant in my view. However, just between you and me, what do
you think your two ears do to that three dimensional acoustical wave front?


That's like saying that an amplifier that exhibits infinite, absolutely flat
frequency response and zero distortion, IOW, Stewart Hegeman's mythical
"straight wire with gain", wouldn't be an accurate amplifier.

Not at all. the input and output of an amp are essentially the same
sort of thing in nature. They are both electrical signals that can be
described completely by time and amplitude.

For the purposes of THIS discussion, it doesn't matter.

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 5 May 2009 03:55:39 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 4, 1:43*pm, Sonnova wrote:
On Mon, 4 May 2009 08:00:07 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

[ extensive quoting snipped -- dsr ]

There in lies the rub. Since there ultimately are aesthetic value
judgements that are entirely subjective involved in making recordings
it is impossible to break down recordings into two catagories, done
right and done wrong. That and the fact that stereo recording and
playback always involves some sort of compramise makes the notion of
recordings either being right or wrong absurd.

I certainly disagree there. I have thousands of commercial recordings
(mostly
classical, some jazz, no pop), LPs and CDs and SACDs. Some of them sound
glorious. Very convincing illusion of real music playing. Depending on the
scale of the recording, they either convey me to the concert hall, or put
the
musicians right in the room with me.

But they are all to some degree *different* are they not? If so how
does one call them all "right?" What does that mean? would you say
that none of those recordings could have been done ever so slightly
better? my point is right and wrong imply a black and white world. IMO
with recordings it's all shades of gray. Degrees of excellence not
either right or wrong. there is simply no such hard line in the sand.


I have other recordings which sound
terrible. Distorted, multi-miked, with no soundstage, no imaging, and
sounding no more like a real instruments playing is a real space than a
kazoo
does! Those recordings are simply WRONG from my perspective

I have yet to experience a recording with "no" soundstage or "no"
imaging. I have heard many recordings that offer a very poor illusion
of such things but none that are completely devoid of it. IMO it is
different degrees of bad.




Go find an RCA recording of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Carlo Mutti
recorded in the 1970's by one J. David Saks. If you can find any soundstage
(other than approximately 75 musicians lined-up, electronically, across the
field between your speakers in a straight line - not my idea of a
soundstage), I'll eat my hat (if I had one). Also, these recordings don't
have a "string section" or a "woodwinds section" or a "brass section" they
just have a dozen or so separate, solo violins all playing at once. a
handfull of solo wind instruments, again all playing together, but not as a
section. etc. Sounds terrible. That mythical kazoo is looking better and
better. And Saks wasn't the only producer who recorded that way. I ran into
Saks once at an AES convention in New York City. WE almost came to fisticuffs
over the way he was ruining these P.O. recordings. Of course, he disagreed
with my assertion that orchestras should be recorded using some kind of true
stereophonic technique.

[Sonnova]

On Tue, 5 May 2009 07:41:54 -0700, wrote
(in article ):

On May 4, 8:09*am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
wrote in message



On May 3, 5:11 pm, wrote:
But "realism" isn't definable, whereas "accuracy" is
easy to define and gives us something concrete to work
towards.

I don't see why ease of definability should in any way
affect our aesthetic goals.
Because you can't hit the target if you don't know where
it is.

Well there you go.

Hold that thought!

In an earlier post I defined ideal realism as reproduced sound that is
ABX-indistinguishable from what I hear when I'm seated in my preferred seat
in the concert hall, with the same musicians, the same music, the same
performance.

IME, very few audiophiles have access to the resources that it takes to make
that kind of determination.

One of the most ludicrous examples of this showed up recently on the Gizmodo
site:

http://i.gizmodo.com/5213042/why-we-need-audiophiles

Billed as: *"A Gizmodo *Listening Test"

....with the operative word being "test". *In a triumph of high end
audiophile journalism over reason, we find that this isn't even a proper
test for lack of a reasonable reference standard.

In an example of one of the most poorly-thought-out examples of pro-analog,
anti-digital propaganda yet, the author demeans a good digital music player
in a bogus comparison involving two different pieces of music, two vastly
different recordings, one played on an iPod with presumably the standard
iPod earbuds; versus a high end audiophile system featuring $65,000 Wilson
MAXX3 speakers. No surprise that they found that the two systems sounded
different.

And that's the problem with so much audiophile posturing. How do these
people know what the recording they are listening to is supposed to sound
like? *They can't, not in any reasonable sense. Their "reference standard"
is not "The Absolute Sound" but rather it is a figment of their imagination.

I think you are missing the point of using the "absolute sound" as
reference completely. Especially in so far as it applies to
audiophiles and their quest for "realism" with commercial
recordings.You have to always keep in mind why an audiophile seeks
realism. I can't speak for others but I seek it because IME there is
an intrinsic beauty that can be found in live acosutic music that sets
the standard aesthetic excellence in sound. Now that doesn't mean it
can be found in all live acoustic music just that the very best can be
found in some live acoustic music. So that is why I use live music as
a reference for my playback of live music. But the level of exactness
you are refering to in your standard simply can't be applied to
commercial recordings by most audiophiles. We weren't there. But it
matters not. Live sound gives us a standard of measure not a specific
goal. For example, I have two different masterings of a John Renbourn
album "The Lady and the Unicorn." The acoustic instruments on both
versions offer pretty amazing realism but one is distinctly better to
me than the other. For all I know the less prefered version is more
accurate to the master tape or even more accurate to the original
sound. It doesn't matter though. They both achieve an excellent
illusion of realism but one simply has a superior over all aesthetic.
So in your example of the "Gizmo listening test" it doesn't matter if
there is no reference. Preferences are inarguable. The only point I
see in using live acoustic music as a reference is because it sets the
bar for a personal preference.

Exactly. We use live, unamplified music to "calibrate our ears" and by that,
I mean that we identify those characteristics of a live unamplified
performance that lights our respective pipes. We find out what it is that we
like about the sound of real music and we apply those criteria to our
reproduced music. It's not so much that we expect our recorded music to
actually sound like the real thing (although that IS a consummation devoutly
to be wished) but we inherently listen for those characteristics in our
playback of recorded music which gave us so much pleasure in the presence of
the "real thing". Of course, this methodology is fraught with pitfalls and
its all too easy to be thrown off course or to be beguiled by some flashy
audio pyrotechnics. That's why, IME, its important for audiophiles to listen
to as much live music as possible. Go to concerts, frequent bars and night
spots that feature live music. This way, you'll never lose sight of either
your listening goals, or the fact that those goals are, for the most part,
impossible to fully achieve.

[Gary Eickmeier]

wrote in message ...
On May 4, 9:57 am, wrote:

However, those objects, as I mentioned, are
flawed, in that the reference position, while it
is in three dimensional space, to me (correct
me if I am mistaken) seems to imply there's
more information in the signal than simply its
instantaneous voltage (or, once transduced)
pressure vs time, such as directional information.

I was trying to say just the opposite. The signal is just a measure of
amplitude and time. It is essentially a two dimensional wave from. But
when the speaker transcribes that signal it does so into a three
dimensional space so that wave form has to have dimensions that simply
are not present in the electrical signal. So it makes it difficult to
use a waveform that exists in two dimensions to measure the accuracy
of a waveform that exists in four dimensions.


And the problem is simply this: there is NO instrinsic
directional information of ANY kind in a stereo
recording. Microphones convert instantaneous sound
pressure into instantaneous voltage. And sound
pressure contains NO directional information: it
is simply the sound pressure ata point in time and
space. Period.

As a corollary, that point on the reference access,
where that sound pressure is supposed to be
reproduced to one degree of accuracy or another,
well, the sound pressure there is an equally vectorless
quantity.

Stereo does not make it much better: the very physics
of the process prevent any reasonably accurate encoding
of ANYTHING other than the instantaneous conversion
of vectorless sound pressure into vectorless voltage and,
eventually, back again.

The inability of stereo to capture any true directional
or spacial cues was demonstrated rather soundly
well over a half century ago at Bell Labs, and no
amount of protestation and vigorous claims from
the high-end audio community or from big manufacturers
living on mountaintops have demonstrated otherwise.

Stereo is one big friggin' auditory illusion, everybody
who has ANY experience in the field knows that.
It's an illusion: it's smoke and mirrors and requires
the suspension of objective sensory-driven skeptisim
to work. Get over it and move on.

That is exactly what I have been saying. It's an aural illusion.
whatever makes for a better illusion is what I want. I don't care if
it happens to by greater accuracy or not in each link in the chain or
recording and playback.

[quoted text deleted -- deb]

Please permit me to inject a thought here before we take it to a fresh
thread and explain more fully.

We are like the blind trying to describe an elephant here, if we have no
operative stereo theory to work from that is correct. The sound signal
entering your ears is just a single waveform with amplitude and frequency,
sound pressure that gives us the music as it occurs in time, but also
because of our having two ears and being able to move our heads also gives
us a lot of information about the positions of the sound sources in space.

I'll leave it to Jens Blauert to explain how that all works, but suffice it
to say that what we need here is a theory, or method, of recording those
sounds and then playing them back so that we might perceive those same
spacial qualities. And at this point I can just reiterate that it is NOT
done by recording two or more channels in the original complex soundfield
and then changing that sound field to two or three directional point sources
in front of you and expecting it to sound the same.

We have all been to live concerts that have been completely messed up by
amplifiers and speakers CHANGING the beautiful original set of sound sources
into a pair of P.A. speakers that sound like megaphones.

Is there anyone out there who has read my "AES Goes to Mars" parable in the
BAS Speaker? I may try and summarize it in a new thread. It is very good at
illustrating the problem. The problem of trying to mistakenly do stereo
using binaural theoriies.

You'll see what I mean.

Gary Eickmeier