What is it supposed to sound like?

[NSA_watch_my_toilet]

Why for god's sake do you want a speaker going from 20hz to 20khz flat in a +/- 1 dB ? Why ? Even studios don't use those kind of speakers for mixing their sound. A part of the studios will even cut the bass frequencies above that in the expectation your speakers will not be able to manage such low frequencies.

 

[ID.]

Why for god's sake do you want a speaker going from 20hz to 20khz flat in a +/- 1 dB ? Why ? Even studios don't use those kind of speakers for mixing their sound. A part of the studios will even cut the bass frequencies above that in the expectation your speakers will not be able to manage such low frequencies.

Does this bring the discussion back around to grotboxes? From what I've seen they usually use a number of different monitors ranging from massive ones that presumably measure pretty flat through to ones made to approximate the average dock or Bluetooth system that people use thee days.

 

[Frank Harvey]

I'm curious as to how many people on foumrs actually listen to music (or watch films), seeing as they spend so much time on forums arguing about frequency response, blind tests, expectation bias, and bitching about an industry they have no interest in.

Genuinely.

 

[ID.]

I'm curious as to how many people on foumrs actually listen to music (or watch films), seeing as they spend so much time on forums arguing about frequency response, blind tests, expectation bias, and bitching about an industry they have no interest in.

Genuinely.

So where do you find all this time for music and movies between posting on here?

I'm not saying you don't, but it's a tired trope that either the person one is addressing isn't a true music lover because they care/don't care about measurements. There's also the converse argument where one claims to be such a true music lover that one enjoys the music just as much through whatever POS system on chooses to use to illustrate one's assertion.

my personal view is that even the most coloured and distorted systems that are discussed on these boards are accurate enough to give one sufficient insight into what it sounds like or is meant to sound like, and if it were capable of being expressed as a percentage we are basically arguing over tiny percentages or even fractions thereof. It's just, as anal obsessives, us audiophiles feel these little differences are substantive and of utmost importance.

 

[abacus]

Vladimir, you can, of course provide links to unsmoothed frequency response charts for those speakers (JBL M2, K+H, old Dunlavy's) that have been made by reputable independent sources?

In my first post in this thread I described a number of important sonic differences that I've heard that were independent of frequncy response. So that it's entirely possible that I could prefer a system with a less flat frequency response if it sounded more realistic in important respects not related to the frequency response.

If you or anyone else thinks that a flat frequency response is more important than: bass clarity, vocal clarity and realism, dynamics, overall focus, pitch accuracy and stability, timbre, imaging etc etc then you are quite welcome to your viewpoint. It is not one that I will ever share as I value those aspects highly. Why? Take them away and you have a system that will always sound like a hi-fi system, even if the frequency response is flat. Leave them in, and as long as the frequency response doesn't excessively filter out any instruments, it has a chance of NOT sounding like a hi-fi system.

Whats more, for every example I gave, you don't even have to level match the systems to hear that the latter system is better. You can even have the worse sounding system playing louder and it will still sound worse for the examples I gave.

Your last paragraph renders all of your previous posts irrelevent, and that you also do not understand even the basics of music reproduction.

Always best to do some real research on the subject (Not just look on Wikipedia) before posting, as that way your post will be more relevant.

Bill

 

[pyrrhon]

A neutral amp and speakers with a flat curve with no bumps and a room that behaves

It's a good start but its hardly anything more then that. There are other things then frequency response curve. The problem is that most people don't have clue about anything else then how flat the volumes peaks measures across the frequency range. The essence lies beneath that louder contour line graphic so to speak. We know there are harmonics, we know there is attack, decay and more. Why is it that a trumpet don't sound the same as a clarinet? It's not a different balance of bass mid treble at all. You could equalize both instrument playing a sustained note to force the frequency response to be the same and one would still sound like a trumpet and the other a clarinet, frequency response is boring and overrated it never reach the topic of sound quality because spl is a quantity it's basically the volume. It's not to someone ear to assess volume balance across the range, tools beat us. So again I insist that we must ad quality notions to our knowledge of sound and it's time to dig in harmonics and other things otherwise it's sterile conversations repeating endlessly. If it's flat it's the same blah blah ...

 

[ID.]

A neutral amp and speakers with a flat curve with no bumps and a room that behaves

It's a good start but its hardly anything more then that. There are other things then frequency response curve. The problem is that most people don't have clue about anything else then how flat the volumes peaks measures across the frequency range. The essence lies beneath that louder contour line graphic so to speak. We know there are harmonics, we know there is attack, decay and more. Why is it that a trumpet don't sound the same as a clarinet? It's not a different balance of bass mid treble at all. You could equalize both instrument playing a sustained note to force the frequency response to be the same and one would still sound like a trumpet and the other a clarinet, frequency response is boring and overrated it never reach the topic of sound quality because spl is a quantity it's basically the volume. It's not to someone ear to assess volume balance across the range, tools beat us. So again I insist that we must ad quality notions to our knowledge of sound and it's time to dig in harmonics and other things otherwise it's sterile conversations repeating endlessly. If it's flat it's the same blah blah ...

Fair enough, but I'm presuming these should also be measurable, so the same arguments as to having the flattest or least distorted response should apply. I'm still not buying the argument that there's some magic involved and that it can only be judged by the human ear, although I'm always open to the possibility that we need to be able to measure better or there are other elements that need to be included in measurements.

 

[Frank Harvey]

So where do you find all this time for music and movies between posting on here?

God knows! I watched almost 600 films last year, and that's aside from the music I listen to, which I can't put a figure on (I log the films I watch, so it tells me how many).

my personal view is that even the most coloured and distorted systems that are discussed on these boards are accurate enough to give one sufficient insight into what it sounds like or is meant to sound like, and if it were capable of being expressed as a percentage we are basically arguing over tiny percentages or even fractions thereof. It's just, as anal obsessives, us audiophiles feel these little differences are substantive and of utmost importance.

I totally agree.

 

[Tibor]

Go to sound studio, concert or music conservatory and you will hear the original

 

[Covenanter]

I am bemused by some of the comments. It was shown in the 19th century by Fourier that any waveform is simply the sum of a series of sine waves. The whole of our digital music world is based on this as it underlies how you get a piece of music back from a sampled digital signal - if it wasn't true it wouldn't work! (Google "Fourier Transform" if you want the details.)

So a perfect amplifier and a perfect speaker, ie those with a completely flat frequency response, in a perfect room will perfectly reproduce the recording. There is nothing else guys! If you believe there is something else you might as well believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, which maybe you do.

Chris

 

[Jeff]

I suppose a very subjective question. You might say the sound should please you. But, if you wanted to reproduce the sound that was intended by the artist, how would you know how close you were? How, for example, would you know if you have too little or too much bass compared to what the artist recorded? Is there a way to measure what you are playing and compare it against a known standard?

A neutral amp and speakers with a flat curve with no bumps and a room that behaves

Does that basically mean that you don't enable any feature on your amp or receiver that would shape the sound and you have all equalization settings for each frequency range set to zero?

In these case of my receiver, I would zero out all settings, or I could select Direct or Pure Direct.

Is that what you mean?

 

[Andrew17321]

Covenanter

Like all 'theorems', Fourier's Theorem is only valid if all its conditions are met. Two of these are a steady state signal and exact measurements. The first of these does not hold true for any recognisable music, and the second is not true for any digital system. So, as far as music is concerned Fourier holds only approximately. The higher the rate of sampling and the more bits involved, the better the approximation is. Also, no analogue system perfectly maintains the relative phases of the sinewaves at at different frequencies.

Furthermore the ear is not simply a frequency analyser: it is a little bit more complicated than that. One particular aspect is how it deals with, even the quietest, transient signals. Humans and many other creatures would probably have died out without that capability.

 

[Vladimir]

Vladimir, you can, of course provide links to unsmoothed frequency response charts for those speakers (JBL M2, K+H, old Dunlavy's) that have been made by reputable independent sources?

In my first post in this thread I described a number of important sonic differences that I've heard that were independent of frequncy response. So that it's entirely possible that I could prefer a system with a less flat frequency response if it sounded more realistic in important respects not related to the frequency response.

If you or anyone else thinks that a flat frequency response is more important than: bass clarity, vocal clarity and realism, dynamics, overall focus, pitch accuracy and stability, timbre, imaging etc etc then you are quite welcome to your viewpoint. It is not one that I will ever share as I value those aspects highly. Why? Take them away and you have a system that will always sound like a hi-fi system, even if the frequency response is flat. Leave them in, and as long as the frequency response doesn't excessively filter out any instruments, it has a chance of NOT sounding like a hi-fi system.

Whats more, for every example I gave, you don't even have to level match the systems to hear that the latter system is better. You can even have the worse sounding system playing louder and it will still sound worse for the examples I gave.

LT, please look up the two long threads Ajani started few weeks ago. I posted graphs, videos, explained my opinions, repeated myself multiple times.

Clarity? You mean lack of distortion. So it's OK for a speaker to screw up the tonal balance (timbre, balance) completely as long as the bass has lower THD? And imaging and realism is matter of dispersion, also part of FR. There is very little that isn't encompased as part of a FR set of measurements.

I'm saying you get the flat FR right first, then everythig else. That is the only way to come closer to the original sound without having a reference of it. If a speaker isn't neutral there is no point bothering with it further, regardless what other qualities it has. If anything it is a good indication of foul play or sheer ignorance by the speaker designer. If the FR is daft, the sound is no longer faithfull to the original recording and that is the whole point of this high fidelity thing. If I want effects that will fool me into higher immersion or more pleasurable listen, anything goes. In such case if I subjectively like something, then it doesn't matter if it is a Cerwin-Vega!, Zu Audio or Revel they are all equal because there is someone out there who will prefer one over the other.

But if I do, I no longer can walk around and say this speaker is accurate. No, that is the objective aspect with measurements. Now I have to say "I was fooled by this speaker more than I was fooled by that speaker". Then we might change the deffinition of what audiophile is to "People who like to be fooled into believing they are hearing the original recording despite having no reference how it sounds".

Oh wait a minute. That may be the current deffinition actually.

"... way better than anything I have heard...Simply put these are very danceable cables. Music playing through them results in the proverbial foot-tapping scene with the need or desire to get up and move. Great swing and pace—these cables smack that right on the nose big time."

********. Total ********. Danceable? Dance, fool, dance.

Source

 

[tonky]

I'm curious as to how many people on forums actually listen to music (or watch films), seeing as they spend so much time on forums arguing about frequency response, blind tests, expectation bias, and bitching about an industry they have no interest in.

Genuinely.

a very big +1 from me tonky

 

[Vladimir]

I'm curious as to how many people on forums actually listen to music (or watch films), seeing as they spend so much time on forums arguing about frequency response, blind tests, expectation bias, and bitching about an industry they have no interest in.

Genuinely.

David, when was the last time you wrote a review about an album online? Or written a movie review?

This is my hobby, not my job, so I can argue all I want, all day. I don't have a hi-fi store in my nickname.

 

[Covenanter]

Covenanter

Like all 'theorems', Fourier's Theorem is only valid if all its conditions are met. Two of these are a steady state signal and exact measurements. The first of these does not hold true for any recognisable music, and the second is not true for any digital system. So, as far as music is concerned Fourier holds only approximately. The higher the rate of sampling and the more bits involved, the better the approximation is. Also, no analogue system perfectly maintains the relative phases of the sinewaves at at different frequencies.

Furthermore the ear is not simply a frequency analyser: it is a little bit more complicated than that. One particular aspect is how it deals with, even the quietest, transient signals. Humans and many other creatures would probably have died out without that capability.

No you misunderstand the physics! You can only do the calculations exactly with the conditions you state but the underlying idea is that everything is made up of sine waves.

You are also mixing up Fourier with Shannon. Fourier has nothing to do with sampling although Shannon's theory depends upon Fourier's idea.

As for phase, it is true that there will always be phase differences but at audio frequencies there is going to be little variation.

Chris

 

[Vladimir]

Zu products do the following or they don’t get released: voices will sound human, instruments genuine, impact and resolution of musical details will be consistent from deep bass through extended treble and dynamic scale will not be hindered. Zu is about tone, texture, stereophonic and dynamic realism. Performers will be located where intended in the recreated stereophonic event—so long as the detail is in the recording. Zu products will allow the color and fidelity of other components in the system to come through, especially amplification. Full-spectrum color and shading will be unmasked and music will sound alive and compelling.

If a manufacturer is ignorant to acoustics and psychoacoustics and has no access to expensive engneering talent and facilities, of course to them good FR is of no importance. Then things like "human", "musical" and other BS become vastly more significant.

Decades ago, Loudspeaker development had fractured into two basic camps: the “dynamics or bust” camp and the “measure flat or don’t bother me” camp. To realize that these camps are married to the overall dynamic behavior of a loudspeaker system is essential for the progress of loudspeakers. Further, to know that dynamic range is a fundamental characteristic, one that cannot be improved through signal manipulation will result in a loudspeaker that better serves music.

I had no idea hacked up off the shelf Eminence drivers were such a fu**ng breakthrough.

 

[Ajani]

my personal view is that even the most coloured and distorted systems that are discussed on these boards are accurate enough to give one sufficient insight into what it sounds like or is meant to sound like, and if it were capable of being expressed as a percentage we are basically arguing over tiny percentages or even fractions thereof. It's just, as anal obsessives, us audiophiles feel these little differences are substantive and of utmost importance.

I agree. In a recent discussion on the Stereophile Forum, John Atkinson described the differences in sound quality of the majority of components reviewed by the mag as rating between a 7 and an 8 on the sound scale. 10 being live music and 3 being old school telephone quality. The reality is that in absolute terms the differences we are debating are still fairly subtle.

However, If you go by the way many audiophiles carry on about the slightest of tweaks, then music played through your iPhone with earbuds should be completely unrecognisable. Every little tweak can't create the huge differences in the sound quality so many persons claim.

 

[Ajani]

A neutral amp and speakers with a flat curve with no bumps and a room that behaves

It's a good start but its hardly anything more then that. There are other things then frequency response curve. The problem is that most people don't have clue about anything else then how flat the volumes peaks measures across the frequency range. The essence lies beneath that louder contour line graphic so to speak. We know there are harmonics, we know there is attack, decay and more. Why is it that a trumpet don't sound the same as a clarinet? It's not a different balance of bass mid treble at all. You could equalize both instrument playing a sustained note to force the frequency response to be the same and one would still sound like a trumpet and the other a clarinet, frequency response is boring and overrated it never reach the topic of sound quality because spl is a quantity it's basically the volume. It's not to someone ear to assess volume balance across the range, tools beat us. So again I insist that we must ad quality notions to our knowledge of sound and it's time to dig in harmonics and other things otherwise it's sterile conversations repeating endlessly. If it's flat it's the same blah blah ...

Fair enough, but I'm presuming these should also be measurable, so the same arguments as to having the flattest or least distorted response should apply. I'm still not buying the argument that there's some magic involved and that it can only be judged by the human ear, although I'm always open to the possibility that we need to be able to measure better or there are other elements that need to be included in measurements.

Well said. While I have no issue with the idea that there maybe more variables that should be measured, I don't see why that means ignoring the ones we do know how to measure. As many persons seem to feel we should just ignore all the existing measurements and do everything by ear.

 

[tonky]

Some people (possibly just one or so) like to denigrate - put down - say it how you like - others who have a different opinion.

 

[Ajani]

Some people (possibly just one or so) like to denigrate - put down - say it how you like - others who have a different opinion.

The problem is that there always persons on both sides of these debates doing that. It tends to get ugly because persons take all these HiFi discussions far too seriously.

Plus both sides tend to go to extremes of either completely ignoring the science on one side or vastly over-reaching on the other side and turning science facts into science fiction.

 

[Native_bon]

No this again. Who are audiophiles kidding. You not even remotely close to the original sound.

1 Dynamics of sound

2 Bass weight & extension

3 Hearing ability of listener

4 In the real world, living rooms would not measure exactly as were initial sound was recorded.

5 Every audiophile believes their system is close to the original sound, but when you listen to each & everyone of those audiophile music systems sounds totally different to each other.

6 Flat sounding systems are for those who look for well recorded & mastered music as suppose to those who just enjoy any music.

So the question now is at what price point would you get a cd player, amp & speakers to measure flat. Can any of these items do flat on the cheap. If they can, then what would be the point of going expensive.

 

[Ajani]

No this again. Who are audiophiles kidding. You not even remotely close to the original sound.

If that was the case, the music would be unrecognisable.

6 Flat sounding systems are for those who look for well recorded & mastered music as suppose to those who just enjoy any music.

I enjoy most genres of music, but prefer systems that measure well. No idea why you would assume that you can't enjoy the music on a system that measures well.

So the question now is at what price point would you get a cd player, amp & speakers to measure flat. Can any of these items do flat on the cheap. If they can, then what would be the point of going expensive.

What's the point of buying any luxury item? Better fit and finish, pride of ownership, features, modest performance improvements etc.

 

[tonky]

http://www.ecoustics.com/articles/understanding-speaker-frequency-response/

I know it's a little basic - might be helpful to some (like me!)

tonky

 

[Native_bon]

No this again. Who are audiophiles kidding. You not even remotely close to the original sound.

If that was the case, the music would be unrecognisable.

6 Flat sounding systems are for those who look for well recorded & mastered music as suppose to those who just enjoy any music.

I enjoy most genres of music, but prefer systems that measure well. No idea why you would assume that you can't enjoy the music on a system that measures well.

So the question now is at what price point would you get a cd player, amp & speakers to measure flat. Can any of these items do flat on the cheap. If they can, then what would be the point of going expensive.

What's the point of buying any luxury item? Better fit and finish, pride of ownership, features, modest performance improvements etc.

Make measurement of the recorded sound in the studio then do the same at home then make a graph & compare. I think you going way out of what was my intended point.

If you enjoying all music on a flat system your basically saying all music is well recorded or in other words you enjoy not very well recorded as well. If everything thing sounds good on your system then it can not be flat sounding, that was my point.