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Post by monkumonku on Oct 11, 2013 11:28:59 GMT -5
I wanted to make a comment regarding "soundstage." I read a lot of reviews in which a piece of audio equipment gets very favorable marks for having a very wide soundstage, and often the comment is made that the sound extends far outside the boundaries of the speakers.
As Keith said, how does one know what the original soundstage was like? Is the equipment altering the original or faithfully reproducing it? I have had soundcard software that had a setting to alter the sound to make it appear that the sound was coming from far beyond the speakers. I've heard recordings that do the same thing, and it is due to the way they are engineered, to give an aural illusion that the sound is coming from certain spots beyond the speaker, i.e., it plays tricks on the ear and brain.
At a concert, does the sound ever extend beyond the stage? When I go to the Hollywood Bowl, it never appears to me that the music is coming from beyond the boundaries of the dome in which the musicians are playing. It comes from the stage. Same with a concert hall - the music comes from the stage, not from beyond the stage except for whatever acoustic reflections may be bouncing off the walls of the venue. So then why should we be impressed if we have a setup in which it sounds like the soundstage extends way to the left and to the right of our speakers? To a certain extent something recorded exclusively to one side of a stereo image will sound like it is further left or further right of the speaker, depending on the speaker toe in and your room acoustics but that doesn't necessarily mean that a wide soundstage is an accurate soundstage. It might sound better and more preferable, but who is to say how accurate it is. Much of it depends on how a recording is engineered. That's like being wowed at how much a sub shakes the room, but that really says nothing as to what the original bass was like when recorded.
If one piece of gear results in a greatly widened soundstage over another and both are of high quality, having that much of a difference doesn't make sense to me.
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Post by pedrocols on Oct 11, 2013 11:44:05 GMT -5
I hate reviews....
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geebo
Emo VIPs
"Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are driving taxicabs and cutting hair"
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Post by geebo on Oct 11, 2013 12:04:32 GMT -5
I wanted to make a comment regarding "soundstage." I read a lot of reviews in which a piece of audio equipment gets very favorable marks for having a very wide soundstage, and often the comment is made that the sound extends far outside the boundaries of the speakers. As Keith said, how does one know what the original soundstage was like? Is the equipment altering the original or faithfully reproducing it? I have had soundcard software that had a setting to alter the sound to make it appear that the sound was coming from far beyond the speakers. I've heard recordings that do the same thing, and it is due to the way they are engineered, to give an aural illusion that the sound is coming from certain spots beyond the speaker, i.e., it plays tricks on the ear and brain. At a concert, does the sound ever extend beyond the stage? When I go to the Hollywood Bowl, it never appears to me that the music is coming from beyond the boundaries of the dome in which the musicians are playing. It comes from the stage. Same with a concert hall - the music comes from the stage, not from beyond the stage except for whatever acoustic reflections may be bouncing off the walls of the venue. So then why should we be impressed if we have a setup in which it sounds like the soundstage extends way to the left and to the right of our speakers? To a certain extent something recorded exclusively to one side of a stereo image will sound like it is further left or further right of the speaker, depending on the speaker toe in and your room acoustics but that doesn't necessarily mean that a wide soundstage is an accurate soundstage. It might sound better and more preferable, but who is to say how accurate it is. Much of it depends on how a recording is engineered. That's like being wowed at how much a sub shakes the room, but that really says nothing as to what the original bass was like when recorded. If one piece of gear results in a greatly widened soundstage over another and both are of high quality, having that much of a difference doesn't make sense to me. And unless your ears were in the same position as the mics, how do you know what they 9the mics) were picking up. I remember several years ago when binaural recording was popular. It used mics placed at the ear locations of a dummy head. The results, I hear, were a very lifelike reproduction although I think it required headphones for the best result. It was much like 3D video recording where two cameras are used but separated by only a few inches - like our eyes.
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Post by garbulky on Oct 11, 2013 12:36:28 GMT -5
Well.....this may come off sounding a bit blunt/rude but that's not my intention. I just want to tell you guys my experiences and they don't match what's been said of "tubes" and unnaturally wide soundstages being some sort of weird distortions. I have actually done (amateur) stereo recordings of myself....in my room - with no alterations - and played back via the XDA-1 (with passive pre-amp) and UPA-2 which was in the same room, The speakers were equidistant from where the stereo mics were setup which was in the center of the speakers. The soundstage is really wide and extends well beyond the left and the right of the speakers. Like significantly far away. I had the piano in the far left rear corner of the room and then simply walked around playing the guitar (and the piano). I went to the far side of the plane of the mics, behind the mics even swung the guitar around the mics and also to the very far edges of the room. The recreation was startling and about 80% close to reality. I was very impressed at how it recreated the size of the room. It also felt significantly larger than life to be honest. It also had a bit more echo from undampened walls. Both are attributed the way I placed the microphones. The way mics are setup in recordings affect the width and size of the soundstage - and they don't have to be binaural can create really wide soundstages from a performance. Try putting stereo mics right near a guitar. The soundstage is HUGE. But my point is that if one thinks that the soundstage should be between or somewhat close to the speakers, their setup could likely use some improvement - likely in placement. I've found toe in helps immensely. If one isn't getting a wrap around 3d effect from a single set of stereo speakers there are placement and room obstacles to overcome. Not dissing anybody but it's been my experience. When I changed couches to an uneven loveseat quite a bit of the nice enveloping effect was lost. Something that needs to be dealt with - hopefully room treatments - in the future Here's an example of a wide soundstage not the widest I've heard but you get the idea. When I heard the Jolida's direct coupled to the crown's in B'zilla's room, the soundstage was very wide, had depth especially on the edges and felt right. We mustn't sell the ability of stereo reproduction short by pretending that accuracy is sacrificed when one hears good wide, front to back, 3 dimensional reproduction from just two sound sources! Stereo can be amazing! I have almost no desire for surround sound due to this. For me a proper soundstage is as close to wall to wall as you can get (very tough) with realistic sense of scale. Sort of like as wide as your eyes can see....almost like what you would hear in your room within your eye field. Moving the speakers far apart with really OCD levels of toe in experimentation help a lot but not all speakers are capable of this. It doesn't have to be unnaturally wide but the speakers need to be able to reproduce it when called for in the recording especially in recordings of a large scale nature. Monku: regarding the dome experience etc. The way the mics are placed and setup affect the actual recording. Like a movie camera. An up close angle projected onto a massive cinema screen (as it was intended to be in movies) will create larger than life pictures - as they were intended by the person recording. This is how my microphones were placed There's other ways I tried which didn't impress me as much for my purposes. They are all valid but provide different pro's and cons. Here's an example of a guitar with a huge soundstage. Note that due to the placement of the mics the sound doesn't jump out of the boundaries of the speakers. It's intended that way. But still it's large. It highlights how the microphone acts almost like a cinema camera depending on distance. This kind of stuff is really exciting to me to be able to create these large sounding recordings with very little money - and usually by a single person. How cool is that? I hope to have the DC-1 to try out in my room soon and I have high hopes for it! I will let you guys know! The XDA-1 is amazing so there's no reason the DC-1 which is two generations ahead shouldn't be good.
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Post by Golden Ear on Oct 11, 2013 12:59:18 GMT -5
I wanted to make a comment regarding "soundstage." I read a lot of reviews in which a piece of audio equipment gets very favorable marks for having a very wide soundstage, and often the comment is made that the sound extends far outside the boundaries of the speakers. As Keith said, how does one know what the original soundstage was like? Is the equipment altering the original or faithfully reproducing it? I have had soundcard software that had a setting to alter the sound to make it appear that the sound was coming from far beyond the speakers. I've heard recordings that do the same thing, and it is due to the way they are engineered, to give an aural illusion that the sound is coming from certain spots beyond the speaker, i.e., it plays tricks on the ear and brain. At a concert, does the sound ever extend beyond the stage? When I go to the Hollywood Bowl, it never appears to me that the music is coming from beyond the boundaries of the dome in which the musicians are playing. It comes from the stage. Same with a concert hall - the music comes from the stage, not from beyond the stage except for whatever acoustic reflections may be bouncing off the walls of the venue. So then why should we be impressed if we have a setup in which it sounds like the soundstage extends way to the left and to the right of our speakers? To a certain extent something recorded exclusively to one side of a stereo image will sound like it is further left or further right of the speaker, depending on the speaker toe in and your room acoustics but that doesn't necessarily mean that a wide soundstage is an accurate soundstage. It might sound better and more preferable, but who is to say how accurate it is. Much of it depends on how a recording is engineered. That's like being wowed at how much a sub shakes the room, but that really says nothing as to what the original bass was like when recorded. If one piece of gear results in a greatly widened soundstage over another and both are of high quality, having that much of a difference doesn't make sense to me. I agree with you and reviewer tend to use soundstage describing sound. I think if the treble became prominent it will become bright, beaming and narrow soundstage and will be called in your face, however if you delay the time domain on the treble or in the midband it will create a harmonics of layer of reverb/decay which our brain translate big soundstage much like an echo. Some people find this pleasing and long lasting listening pleasure. I like when the speaker has little treble that doesn't call attention itself. To my ear, if a music that comes out on the speakers has no depth it will be put at the back burner.
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Post by monkumonku on Oct 11, 2013 13:03:12 GMT -5
Well.....this may come off sounding a bit blunt/rude but that's not my intention. I just want to tell you guys my experiences and they don't match what's been said of "tubes" and unnaturally wide soundstages being some sort of weird distortions. I have actually done (amateur) stereo recordings of myself....in my room - with no alterations - and played back via the XDA-1 (with passive pre-amp) and UPA-2 which was in the same room, The speakers were equidistant from where the stereo mics were setup which was in the center of the speakers. The soundstage is really wide and extends well beyond the left and the right of the speakers. Like significantly far away. I had the piano in the far left rear corner of the room and then simply walked around playing the guitar (and the piano). I went to the far side of the plane of the mics, behind the mics even swung the guitar around the mics and also to the very far edges of the room. The recreation was startling and about 80% close to reality. I was very impressed at how it recreated the size of the room. It also felt significantly larger than life to be honest. It also had a bit more echo from undampened walls. Both are attributed the way I placed the microphones. The way mics are setup in recordings affect the width and size of the soundstage - and they don't have to be binaural can create really wide soundstages from a performance. Try putting stereo mics right near a guitar. The soundstage is HUGE. But my point is that if one thinks that the soundstage should be between or somewhat close to the speakers, their setup could likely use some improvement - likely in placement. I've found toe in helps immensely. If one isn't getting a wrap around 3d effect from a single set of stereo speakers there are placement and room obstacles to overcome. Not dissing anybody but it's been my experience. When I changed couches to an uneven loveseat quite a bit of the nice enveloping effect was lost. Something that needs to be dealt with - hopefully room treatments - in the future Here's an example of a wide soundstage not the widest I've heard but you get the idea. When I heard the Jolida's direct coupled to the crown's in B'zilla's room, the soundstage was very wide, had depth especially on the edges and felt right. We mustn't sell the ability of stereo reproduction short by pretending that accuracy is sacrificed when one hears good wide, front to back, 3 dimensional reproduction from just two sound sources! Stereo can be amazing! I have almost no desire for surround sound due to this. For me a proper soundstage is as close to wall to wall as you can get (very tough) with realistic sense of scale. Sort of like as wide as your eyes can see....almost like what you would hear in your room within your eye field. Moving the speakers far apart with really OCD levels of toe in experimentation help a lot but not all speakers are capable of this. It doesn't have to be unnaturally wide but the speakers need to be able to reproduce it when called for in the recording especially in recordings of a large scale nature. Monku: regarding the dome experience etc. The way the mics are placed and setup affect the actual recording. Like a movie camera. An up close angle projected onto a massive cinema screen (as it was intended to be in movies) will create larger than life pictures - as they were intended by the person recording. This is how my microphones were placed There's other ways I tried which didn't impress me as much for my purposes. They are all valid but provide different pro's and cons. I hope to have the DC-1 to try out in my room soon and I have high hopes for it! I will let you guys know! The XDA-1 is amazing so there's no reason the DC-1 which is two generations ahead shouldn't be good. I listened to the YouTube video - very lovely song and also lovely audio quality. It was through my Airmotiv 4's and using a Schiit Modi DAC. The effect to me was like listening to the live performance. I could picture the performers in front of me and it was also very clear as far as imaging and placement. It sounded real. But I also did not have a soundstage that extended to the far left or far right of my speakers. In other words, I didn't look over and marvel at people singing from a significant distance outside the boundaries of the speakers. To me the perspective sounded just right. For it to have extended way beyond would have seemed impressive to me but also would not have been congruent with the image on the screen. I agree with what you said - microphone placement makes a difference. Much of it is in the way something is engineered. But then that goes back to Keith's point about how do you know what the original soundstage was like? It all depends on how something was recorded but it says nothing as to the accuracy of the equipment in reproducing the signal, it only says something as to the listener's preference.
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Post by garbulky on Oct 11, 2013 13:15:56 GMT -5
I listened to the YouTube video - very lovely song and also lovely audio quality. It was through my Airmotiv 4's and using a Schiit Modi DAC. The effect to me was like listening to the live performance. I could picture the performers in front of me and it was also very clear as far as imaging and placement. It sounded real. But I also did not have a soundstage that extended to the far left or far right of my speakers. In other words, I didn't look over and marvel at people singing from a significant distance outside the boundaries of the speakers. To me the perspective sounded just right. For it to have extended way beyond would have seemed impressive to me but also would not have been congruent with the image on the screen. I agree with what you said - microphone placement makes a difference. Much of it is in the way something is engineered. But then that goes back to Keith's point about how do you know what the original soundstage was like? It all depends on how something was recorded but it says nothing as to the accuracy of the equipment in reproducing the signal, it only says something as to the listener's preference. Glad you enjoyed the song. It was an unepected find during my usual youtube browse! I guess what you mentioned about perspective is what I'm saying. There is no doubt it depends a lot on the user. But when I recorded my "test" recording with the guitar. I did it on purpose farther away from the plane of the mics and farther away from the width (sides) of the speakers. The microphones were at the phantom center of the speaker. So the idea was for the speakers to recreate the sound coming that distance AWAY from the speakers. Was that possible I wondered. It totally was! The sounds came at an approximate distance where I recorded them away from the speakers though not quite as far as I had it. They were also affected by how far apart the speakers were but they were neverthless outside the speakers similar to the position I stood played it in. It shocked me and broke down some perceptions I had. The piano at the rear corner of the room (once again off the sides of the speakers) was tougher to reproduce but once again it was uncanny how far away it sounded around the same distance (though not quite there) as where I recorded it and it was outside the plane of the speakers. A note though - my speakers are spread somewhat on the wide side. Here's the file - excuse the half-assing and bad singing- it was just a test. dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42087398/Mic%20test%20blimlein%2045%20deg%20and%2090%20deg%20and%20waving%20guitar%20around.wav
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Post by garbulky on Oct 11, 2013 13:24:35 GMT -5
Check out 5:20 onward on the dropbox file
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Post by monkumonku on Oct 11, 2013 14:09:03 GMT -5
I listened to the YouTube video - very lovely song and also lovely audio quality. It was through my Airmotiv 4's and using a Schiit Modi DAC. The effect to me was like listening to the live performance. I could picture the performers in front of me and it was also very clear as far as imaging and placement. It sounded real. But I also did not have a soundstage that extended to the far left or far right of my speakers. In other words, I didn't look over and marvel at people singing from a significant distance outside the boundaries of the speakers. To me the perspective sounded just right. For it to have extended way beyond would have seemed impressive to me but also would not have been congruent with the image on the screen. I agree with what you said - microphone placement makes a difference. Much of it is in the way something is engineered. But then that goes back to Keith's point about how do you know what the original soundstage was like? It all depends on how something was recorded but it says nothing as to the accuracy of the equipment in reproducing the signal, it only says something as to the listener's preference. Glad you enjoyed the song. It was an unepected find during my usual youtube browse! I guess what you mentioned about perspective is what I'm saying. There is no doubt it depends a lot on the user. But when I recorded my "test" recording with the guitar. I did it on purpose farther away from the plane of the mics and farther away from the width (sides) of the speakers. The microphones were at the phantom center of the speaker. So the idea was for the speakers to recreate the sound coming that distance AWAY from the speakers. Was that possible I wondered. It totally was! The sounds came at an approximate distance where I recorded them away from the speakers though not quite as far as I had it. They were also affected by how far apart the speakers were but they were neverthless outside the speakers similar to the position I stood played it in. It shocked me and broke down some perceptions I had. The piano at the rear corner of the room (once again off the sides of the speakers) was tougher to reproduce but once again it was uncanny how far away it sounded around the same distance (though not quite there) as where I recorded it and it was outside the plane of the speakers. A note though - my speakers are spread somewhat on the wide side. Here's the file - excuse the half-assing and bad singing- it was just a test. dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42087398/Mic%20test%20blimlein%2045%20deg%20and%2090%20deg%20and%20waving%20guitar%20around.wavI listened to the file - well, no offense but I didn't listen to all of it. I listened to enough to get the idea, though. For some reason I kept thinking about Monty Python as I was listening. As you were wandering around the room with the guitar, I got a nice impression of width and depth. Your height test did nothing, though. In fact as you sang you were lowering yourself, it sounded higher to me. But going back to the width and depth - I did have the illusion that you were moving around and went pretty far back. My Airmotiv 4's are closer to one wall than another. I got more of an illusion that you were somewhat to the left of the left speaker, which is closer to the wall, than for the right side whose wall is a lot farther away. But not way to the left, just a bit beyond the edge. You did appear to be beyond the back wall, though. The effective "room" of your recording to me was pretty much bound on the left and right by the speakers but it did appear to be deeper than the back wall. Anyway, so much of what we hear depends on how something is engineered, plus the acoustics of the room. My point is that what we are hearing is a representation of the original that is the product of an engineer being played through our audio system. It's an illusion and it's the way the signal has been put into the file that makes something sound the way it does. So I don't see how one quality piece of electronics, such as a DAC, is going to sound that much different from another quality piece when it comes to reproducing the signal. All the "air" in a room or around instruments is just part of the signal, it's not real air in your own room. If two components are high quality they should reproduce the detail equally as well.
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KeithL
Administrator
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Post by KeithL on Oct 11, 2013 14:36:31 GMT -5
Now I think you all see my point; the result of playing back a recording depends on lots of factors. Microphones don't function like our ears (not exactly); speakers do NOT (and cannot) reproduce the original experience; and your room is probably nothing like the original recording venue (with studio multi-track recordings, the "original venue" may not even exist at all.)
Let's assume that you record a performance, in a real room, with two microphones, then play it back with two speakers; is this anything like a "reproduction of the original sound stage" (physically)? No!
The original sound emanated from a wide area in front of you - and included the performers, reflections from the front wall and side walls, and all sorts of later bounces and room reflections. It did NOT emanate from two points. You now record that with two microphones, and play it back with two speakers. At BEST, what you've got is a good reproduction of what you would have heard if you and the performers were placed as they were, but there was a wall between you and them - with two holes in it at the position of the speakers and the microphones. The speakers do NOT reproduce any of the directionality of the original real sound source locations, and they add new directionality information of their own. Almost all of the "positioning" information you get is made up inside your head from the relative amplitudes and phases of the signals received by your left and right ears. And, considering how the whole process works, it's lucky the phase information takes a back seat, because it's surely pretty suspect at this point. (And we haven't even mentioned how the acoustics in the playback room compete with the acoustics in the original venue.)
My point was that it is totally unreasonable to expect to spatially reproduce the original experience.
The original room sound stage is gone, and there isn't enough information to recreate it accurately; the best you can do (even if you did hear the original) is to find a combination of equipment that produces an effect that, when added to the information in the recording, produces a result SIMILAR to the original. And this is "what I was getting at"; it is quite possible that a given device (say, a DAC) could add coloration and phase shifts to a recording such that the end result is closer to the original experience than the information contained in the recording itself. In this case, while not at all accurate to the recording, the result could arguably be accurate to the original. (In fact, that same coloration, when added to something multi-tracked in a studio, could make it "sound just like a live performance" - even though, in that particular instance, the "original live performance" never even existed.
(Imagine taking video of a mediaeval peasant's shack. The original shack was lit by candles and had a warm yellow glow to it. However, the video is slightly bluish because of the movie lights used and the white balance on the camera. Adding a yellow filter to the projector when you show the video is clearly a coloration added to the film; but it could also end up producing a viewing experience that is closer to the original.)
If you REALLY wanted to judge if the DAC (or any other recording medium) was accurate, the only real way to do it would be to create a good quality BINAURAL recording (with a dummy head with microphones in the ears), and then play THAT back through really good headphones, and compare THAT to the original experience - and then do so with the output of the two pieces of equipment you want to compare. t still wouldn't be a perfect comparison, but at least it would be as close as we can get.
At this point, the question becomes whether you want to accurately reproduce the information you have (the recording) or whether you want to try to accurately reproduce what you suspect (or even know from experience) the original performance actually sounded like.... I suspect that this is at the heart of the current discussion. To me, the "hazard" of adding coloration is always going to be that it is going to be a matter of luck how well it combines with your recording; you are trying to make a "right" from two "wrongs". The DAC that makes a recording that sounds "dead and narrow" sound good, if it's doing so by adding coloration, is going to make a recording that already sounds right sound "too spread out" or "too thin". At this point YOU get to decide whether your goal is "accuracy" or "finding something that sounds good with a certain type of music"... and that is the original SUBJECTIVE decision.
"Sound stage" is not a discrete "thing" that you can measure; rather it is a model that our brain constructs based on what it hears (using the relative amplitudes and phases of sounds it hears, in combination with what it knows of the acoustics of our current environment, and with our experience of past situations). Our brain takes all this data and "builds a model" of where it believes each sound or instrument originates. In the case of complex sounds, this will go badly wrong if the information is imprecise or in conflict (instruments will seem vague, or indistinct, if the various harmonics that make up their sound don't seem to come from the same location).
In the specific case we're discussing, I'm quite convinced that the DC-1 is "dead accurate" in terms of delivering to you what is in the actual recording (if you look at the AP reports, you'll see that its frequency response and phase accuracy are amazingly good); which strongly suggests to me that it will present the most accurate and "sharpest" or "most focused" image BASED ON THE INFORMATION YOU GIVE IT; the question now becomes whether that's what you really want or not (and even whether certain content sounds better with a little bit of soft focus.)
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Post by garbulky on Oct 11, 2013 14:38:15 GMT -5
Glad you enjoyed the song. It was an unepected find during my usual youtube browse! I guess what you mentioned about perspective is what I'm saying. There is no doubt it depends a lot on the user. But when I recorded my "test" recording with the guitar. I did it on purpose farther away from the plane of the mics and farther away from the width (sides) of the speakers. The microphones were at the phantom center of the speaker. So the idea was for the speakers to recreate the sound coming that distance AWAY from the speakers. Was that possible I wondered. It totally was! The sounds came at an approximate distance where I recorded them away from the speakers though not quite as far as I had it. They were also affected by how far apart the speakers were but they were neverthless outside the speakers similar to the position I stood played it in. It shocked me and broke down some perceptions I had. The piano at the rear corner of the room (once again off the sides of the speakers) was tougher to reproduce but once again it was uncanny how far away it sounded around the same distance (though not quite there) as where I recorded it and it was outside the plane of the speakers. A note though - my speakers are spread somewhat on the wide side. Here's the file - excuse the half-assing and bad singing- it was just a test. dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42087398/Mic%20test%20blimlein%2045%20deg%20and%2090%20deg%20and%20waving%20guitar%20around.wavI listened to the file - well, no offense but I didn't listen to all of it. I listened to enough to get the idea, though. For some reason I kept thinking about Monty Python as I was listening. As you were wandering around the room with the guitar, I got a nice impression of width and depth. Your height test did nothing, though. In fact as you sang you were lowering yourself, it sounded higher to me. But going back to the width and depth - I did have the illusion that you were moving around and went pretty far back. My Airmotiv 4's are closer to one wall than another. I got more of an illusion that you were somewhat to the left of the left speaker, which is closer to the wall, than for the right side whose wall is a lot farther away. But not way to the left, just a bit beyond the edge. You did appear to be beyond the back wall, though. The effective "room" of your recording to me was pretty much bound on the left and right by the speakers but it did appear to be deeper than the back wall. Anyway, so much of what we hear depends on how something is engineered, plus the acoustics of the room. My point is that what we are hearing is a representation of the original that is the product of an engineer being played through our audio system. It's an illusion and it's the way the signal has been put into the file that makes something sound the way it does. So I don't see how one quality piece of electronics, such as a DAC, is going to sound that much different from another quality piece when it comes to reproducing the signal. All the "air" in a room or around instruments is just part of the signal, it's not real air in your own room. If two components are high quality they should reproduce the detail equally as well. Yes you are 100% right. One sidewall is very close to one speaker. The height thing did nothing for me either. There was a change in sound but no real perception that I was kneeling. Also the waving the guitar in the air over the microphones produced a great "doppler" sound but didn't do what I wanted. "If two components are high quality they should reproduce the detail equally as well. " I think that's a point that have people taking opposite sides for years. (I'm obviously on the other end). The main thing for me is what is high quality and what exactly are you measuring and how does that translate in minute differences to what one perceives? The "perception" has been brushed aside by people by saying that is a brain/biological thing not a speaker thing. One can't acount for taste - impossible to answer. It's very hard to answer but it's not impossible. But it is so also a speaker/gear thing to me. The differences in speakers/gear/electrical signals and room all create minute differences. Look at the noise floor. It's a bunch of squiggles and the squiggles are all different between high quality gear. Or the harmonics, they are of different amplitudes on different well measuring gear. On measurements available to the consumer we have no idea how it reacts to different loads, impedances, or even what the exact difference in sound is from it. How exactly does a small difference reflect on the ear and perceptions. We don't know. We have general ideas, but general ideas isn't good enough for me. I think FR graphcs, SNR, THD and the general consumer measurements are good in telling how not bad a piece of gear is but not for telling me how good it is On stereophile (yes, I roll my eyes at them too) said "if a perfect speaker is to produce a signal uncolored and true to the source" then why do all the cost no object speakers all sound different? It's a tough question.
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KeithL
Administrator
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Post by KeithL on Oct 11, 2013 14:54:35 GMT -5
From a technical perspective, don't necessarily assume that they are mutually exclusive... it is not at all impossible that an artifact generated by one component might end up successfully replacing something omitted at some other part of the process. (A simple case would be adding reverb in the edit to make a recording sound lively because the instruments were recorded with microphones placed too close to them - which failed to pick up a pleasant amount of room ambience. Imagine an amplifier that added reverb because of some quirk in its circuitry.) I would not at all discount that a lot of much loved (yet not especially accurate) equipment IS loved because the artifacts it adds just happen to make "dry" studio recordings sound more like live performances. (If you think about it, this is precisely the way some tube equipment is often characterized.) My problem with this process is that it lacks control. An engineer can add "Aphex" to a voice track, and it may well make the voice sound smoother and "punchier" - and altogether nicer. However, adding it to the whole mix, while it may improve the voice, WILL mess up the way other instruments sound. Once the tracks are mixed, it's too late to go back and add that effect without doing damage. I personally believe this is why more highly colored components are almost always "loved" in conjunction with specific types of music. The problem is that the coloration added by an "Aphex", or a SET amp, may sound good with vocals, or with some instruments - but not others. Likewise, a device that "spreads out" the sound stage would arguably benefit recordings where it was too narrow (for whatever reason), but hurt recordings where the opposite was true. (It is unfortunate that the vast majority of recordings aren't "so good" that this discussion is moot.) Hi Keith - Good questions. Actually, I do have answers. My only daughter earned her Bachelors (LSU) and Masters (University of Minnesota) in violin performance. I have recordings of her playing in numerous venues where I was present for the original performance. Additionally, I have numerous recordings by the LSU School of music, recorded in their auditorium. I've attended live performances in that venue since I was about 15 years old. Finally, I have numerous recordings of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra in the Centroplex auditorium. I have attended BRSO concerts intermittently (but certainly more than 100 and probably approaching 200) in that same venue. My seats have varied from front row to back of the balcony, so I'm familiar with that orchestra in that venue too. That said, I still can't discount your proposal that the tube distortion is adding some artifacts to the recordings. If the effect is "euphonic" rather than "accurate," then maybe I just prefer the euphonic sound of the Jolida DAC. I don't think that that's the case, but I can't categorically deny the possibility. This is one of the reasons that I want Garbulky to hear the Stealth DAC. He has made his own recordings of things like him walking around his living room, his wife's performances, and his wife's students' performances. Because Gar was not only present but also the "recording engineer" on those sessions, he should know (better than I) whether the things I'm hearing are an artifact of the recording or an artifact of the DAC itself. Thanks for asking - Boomzilla
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KeithL
Administrator
Posts: 10,154
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Post by KeithL on Oct 11, 2013 15:12:17 GMT -5
A lot of how our brains process information IS known, but it's way too complicated to calculate results in many specific cases. Left-to-right position can be gotten from relative amplitude and phase... mostly. Height is trickier because, if you think about it, two speakers do NOT convey ANY height information. Some of that probably comes from "local experience"; for example, when you spend time in your living room, your brain actually learns how sounds are affected by nearness to the ceiling and floor. If you take a metal pointer and tap on the ceiling and the floor, the taps sound different, and part of that is due to the texture and absorbency of each; your brain learns how to detect and recognize this information. My guess is that, if someone made a long recording of them walking around, saying "now I'm up at the ceiling", then "now I'm laying on the floor", you would soon learn to tell the difference - FOR THAT PERSON - IN THAT ROOM. (The simplest example of this is that most of us can tell if we're in a small room, a large room, or an open space, even with eyes shut.) For those of you who remember "Sonic Holography" - it was able to reproduce "surround sound" with only two speakers; you actually heard stuff BEHIND YOU with just two speakers in the front. It did this trick by taking advantage of all sorts of stuff (cues) your brain picks up on. In basic principle, you can't tell whether two stereo speakers are "left and right front" or "left and right back"; in reality that isn't true. Your brain can actually tell whether the signal reached your ear from the front or rear - based on things like which frequencies are absorbed by your hair, and how the shape of your ear alters the frequency response. Unfortunately, this sort of "sleight-of-ear" is very difficult to do; Sonic Holography literally required you to sit in one spot in the room - within an inch or two at most - in order to work. (I should also mention that, since the original signal was only stereo, all of this "surround" information was FAKE; it may have sounded nice, but it had no specific relationship to reality or where any instrument was originally located.) If you don't "get everything right" to that level of detail, then the results you get won't be precisely correct. Unfortunately, with the variations in microphones, studios, listening rooms, and most especially speakers, achieving true absolute accuracy is probably a losing battle. (Even with headphones, to get really close, the whole process would have to be calibrated to the individual's ears.) As you note, things like "air" in the room are an illusion (or almost a literary allusion ); it is all "derived" by our brains from frequency and phase response, noise spectra, and distortion in one way or another. The only place where your statement about "two high quality components reproducing a high quality signal equally well" falls down is that we don't measure and rate everything; even high quality DACs, for example, may introduce significant phase shift. (Phase shift is sort of a "secondary specification" for DACs; some measure it while others don't. It would be interesting to see the phase response on the Jolida tube DAC; you can see it for the DC-1 in the AP report - you'll find that on the website under "graphs".) Glad you enjoyed the song. It was an unepected find during my usual youtube browse! I guess what you mentioned about perspective is what I'm saying. There is no doubt it depends a lot on the user. But when I recorded my "test" recording with the guitar. I did it on purpose farther away from the plane of the mics and farther away from the width (sides) of the speakers. The microphones were at the phantom center of the speaker. So the idea was for the speakers to recreate the sound coming that distance AWAY from the speakers. Was that possible I wondered. It totally was! The sounds came at an approximate distance where I recorded them away from the speakers though not quite as far as I had it. They were also affected by how far apart the speakers were but they were neverthless outside the speakers similar to the position I stood played it in. It shocked me and broke down some perceptions I had. The piano at the rear corner of the room (once again off the sides of the speakers) was tougher to reproduce but once again it was uncanny how far away it sounded around the same distance (though not quite there) as where I recorded it and it was outside the plane of the speakers. A note though - my speakers are spread somewhat on the wide side. Here's the file - excuse the half-assing and bad singing- it was just a test. dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42087398/Mic%20test%20blimlein%2045%20deg%20and%2090%20deg%20and%20waving%20guitar%20around.wavI listened to the file - well, no offense but I didn't listen to all of it. I listened to enough to get the idea, though. For some reason I kept thinking about Monty Python as I was listening. As you were wandering around the room with the guitar, I got a nice impression of width and depth. Your height test did nothing, though. In fact as you sang you were lowering yourself, it sounded higher to me. But going back to the width and depth - I did have the illusion that you were moving around and went pretty far back. My Airmotiv 4's are closer to one wall than another. I got more of an illusion that you were somewhat to the left of the left speaker, which is closer to the wall, than for the right side whose wall is a lot farther away. But not way to the left, just a bit beyond the edge. You did appear to be beyond the back wall, though. The effective "room" of your recording to me was pretty much bound on the left and right by the speakers but it did appear to be deeper than the back wall. Anyway, so much of what we hear depends on how something is engineered, plus the acoustics of the room. My point is that what we are hearing is a representation of the original that is the product of an engineer being played through our audio system. It's an illusion and it's the way the signal has been put into the file that makes something sound the way it does. So I don't see how one quality piece of electronics, such as a DAC, is going to sound that much different from another quality piece when it comes to reproducing the signal. All the "air" in a room or around instruments is just part of the signal, it's not real air in your own room. If two components are high quality they should reproduce the detail equally as well.
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Post by Boomzilla on Oct 11, 2013 15:17:59 GMT -5
Yes, the majority of music that I listen to is NOT music whose original performance I was privy to. Is the soundstage I hear an artifact of the recording, the equipment, or the playback venue? I believe I can say with some certainty that the last (although it may be a contributor) is NOT the defining factor. Why? Because the same recording played back with different equipment provides notable differences in the soundstage. The question then becomes: Is the soundstage actually present on the source recording or is it being artificially generated by the equipment used? I lean toward the idea that the soundstage is on the recording, rather than an artifact of the equipment (although the equipment must contribute also). Why? Because if the soundstage was solely an artifact of the equipment, then EVERY recording would exhibit a similar soundstage - and they don't. The fact, though, that the soundstage can and does differ depending on the playback equipment used may indicate different synergies (or lack of) between the individual recordings and that specific equipment. I'm not saying that the Stealth DAC is inaccurate. I can say that, yes, I find reproduced music more involving and exciting when an "apparent soundstage" is present. To my ears, the Jolida DAC does a better job of reproducing (enhancing?) the soundstage that is on the recording. All the above prefaced, of course, by the disclaimers - in my room, with my equipment, and to my ears. Aren't we just lost in a thicket of relativity?!?
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Post by monkumonku on Oct 11, 2013 16:32:36 GMT -5
My guess is that, if someone made a long recording of them walking around, saying "now I'm up at the ceiling", then "now I'm laying on the floor", you would soon learn to tell the difference - FOR THAT PERSON - IN THAT ROOM. (The simplest example of this is that most of us can tell if we're in a small room, a large room, or an open space, even with eyes shut.) I think psychology enters into it, too. For example, my center channel is below the television yet when I watch something, the sound seems to be coming from the mouth of whoever is speaking on the screen. And also tends to follow where they are positioned on the screen, too. I think it is our brain in synch with the logical expectation that the sound is coming from the speaker's mouth on the screen. I realize that can only go so far as if you move the speaker too far away then you realize the sound is coming from the speaker.
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Post by pedrocols on Oct 11, 2013 16:36:47 GMT -5
I think if boom' would have said the Stealth DAC was his favorite between the two we would not be having this conversation....which I think is arbitrary ...
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Post by Boomzilla on Oct 11, 2013 18:26:12 GMT -5
I think if boom' would have said the Stealth DAC was his favorite between the two we would not be having this conversation....which I think is arbitrary ... Hmmm... Maybe and maybe not. I've grown to respect KeithL's impartiality and his technical knowledge. We disagree from time to time, but even when we do, I value his opinion. The discussion may and may not be of much value to others, though, so yes, it is "arbitrary," but not in the "Keith is obligated to defend Emotiva" sense. I believe that if I claimed that the Stealth DAC magically transported me to the original recording venue, that KeithL would have also stepped in. His arguments have never struck me as being unilateral. Now that I've finished defending KeithL, I still say that the Jolida DAC does some things better than the Stealth. Random chance? Maybe, but still better. Garbulky dropped by this afternoon to pick up the Stealth DAC & I look forward to reading about his experiences with same. Gar is stubborn enough that he'll tell it like he hears it without letting my opinion (or KeithL's) influence his impressions. We cut loose with some Fritz Reiner & Chicago Symphony at roof-raising volumes using the Jolida DAC. Using the XPA-2 and the DefTech SM65s, the sound never got congested or shrill with changes in volume. Also the sound-stage never changed with changes in volume. That piece (Totentanz by Franz Liszt from the CD "The Reiner Sound") is one of my favorites (and now one of Garbulky's). The recording has dynamics and presence that many (most?) modern recordings lack. The piano remains clean and centered while the orchestra swells around it. I'd consider this track a "see how good your stereo really is" test. Based on what I'm hearing, the Magnepan speakers are REALLY going to strain to match what the DefTechs do in my room (and the DefTechs at half the price or less of the Maggies). As to the DACs, the jury's still out. If Gar's impressions mirror mine, then the Jolida will be here for a long while. If Gar's impressions are different than mine, then what we're hearing probably isn't the DAC, but some other artifact in our respective systems. Garbulky, the DAC's in your court! Boomzilla
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Post by pedrocols on Oct 11, 2013 23:26:42 GMT -5
Well, I like the current preamp I am using over the UsP-1 I used to have. There is no technicality and/or science anybody can convey to me that will make me go back to the USP-1 over my current preamp...Just saying...
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Post by garbulky on Oct 12, 2013 3:18:11 GMT -5
I posted some initial impressions on my garbulky's journey thread. My initial are similar to yours - and I'm comparing it to the solidstate XDA-1. But I feel that there is something off here and so am giving it a chance and time to "warm up". I do very badly when I review initial impressions. So it's not a final verdict by any means. That'll take some time.
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Post by Boomzilla on Oct 12, 2013 11:57:03 GMT -5
Gar, Toss that puppy in the oven & get it HOT! Let's see what she'll do.
It's an amazing device and especially for the price. If it can be bettered for absolute sound quality, though, by a device that costs less than 65% as much, then one might or might not consider it a bargain.
To be fair, to get the functionality of the Stealth DC-1, you'd have to buy another DAC AND a preamp. Any preamp in that price range would probably add enough gradou (that's a highly technical term, ladies - Highly-Technical) to the sound that the Stealth would still sound better. So on an absolute value-for-the-dollar-spent basis, the Stealth wins, walking away.
The questions on the table are: Do you need a combined DAC/Preamp? If yes, is $700 your price limit? Two yes answers make the Stealth DC-1 the only game in town.
If, however, you don't need a combined DAC/Preamp, you might just consider the USP-1 and the DAC of your fancy. You could match the price and also get bass management. Would you get identical performance? That I can't say - I haven't heard every DAC in the price range. I can say that if you don't mind having a preamp in the mix, the USP-1 (and, for that matter, the XSP-1) are mind-blowing bargains. Getting anything like the performance of the USP-1, IMHO would cost about $1.5K. To get anything like the performance of the XSP-1, IMHO would cost about$2.5 to 3K.
Grab a used XDA-1 and USP-1 combo and you may just have a Stealth DC-1 rival for about the same moolah. Of course, now you have TWO large, ugly black boxes on your equipment shelves rather than one small one, but you pays your money, you makes your choice...
For me, the jury is still out on the Stealth DC-1. I want to hear it with some other equipment before I give it the final thumbs up or down. I'll be most interested in reading about what Garbulky hears.
Another by the bye - I picked up a pair of DCM bookshelf speakers this morning at a yard sale with subwoofer, center channel, and surround speakers. Entire package cost me $20. I'm eager to listen to the DCMs.
Cheers - Boomzilla
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