Nutul
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2023
- Messages
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Hi all,
today I was listening again to Roger Waters "Amused To Death", specifically to the first track, "The Ballad Of Bill Hubbard".
As few already may know (am sure) this track at the beginning (but also throughout its entirety) has a couple of extremely well-positioned elements:
1. a dog barking in the distance, very far away, on the right channel at (these are not minutes into the song, but positions around the clock, us at its centre) about 4 o'clock
2 a man speaking on the radio, on the left channel, at about 8 o'clock
Not only they can be positioned on the horizontal plane, but also vertically: the dog being slightly below ear-height, and the man slightly above, and nearer.
Now, my system is fairly simple I believe:
- player: Raspberry Pi 4 with moOde, local FLAC library
- DAC: Eversolo Z8 (at -30dB)
- Speakers: Presonus Eris X5 on balanced cables (actually, there received a very bad review by @amirm, despite they still sound good to me at moderate sound levels)
Nevertheless, in my 1000+ albums library, very, very few recordings have this (extreme IMO, pleasant anyway) separation (another one that comes straight to mind being "The Downward Spiral", by NIN, particularly the track "Ruiner". The others simply presenting good rather frontal separation, from 9 o'clock-ish to 3 o'clock-ish, vertically covering - I'd say - 60/70 degrees, from knee-height to above the head... depth slightly behind the speaker-line, width sometimes well beyond the speaker; more often only slightly behind them.
Being many reviews out there (especially by the various charlatans of "richer / punchier / airier / crispier" cult...) talking about "greater separation" and "wider / deeper sound-stage" I was wondering whether, actually, the biggest role in determining the placement of the audio entities is the MIX.
I remember being able to notice these things (although not so sharply) even time back, when I used a Focusrite 2i2 as DAC.
So, is it me noticing just these (on my poorly resolving setup) because they are extremes, or is this common to many of you too?
Thank you for sharing your impressions and thoughts.
Cheers, Al.
P.S.
Hope I posted in the right place. If not, any admin please move where appropriate.
today I was listening again to Roger Waters "Amused To Death", specifically to the first track, "The Ballad Of Bill Hubbard".
As few already may know (am sure) this track at the beginning (but also throughout its entirety) has a couple of extremely well-positioned elements:
1. a dog barking in the distance, very far away, on the right channel at (these are not minutes into the song, but positions around the clock, us at its centre) about 4 o'clock
2 a man speaking on the radio, on the left channel, at about 8 o'clock
Not only they can be positioned on the horizontal plane, but also vertically: the dog being slightly below ear-height, and the man slightly above, and nearer.
Now, my system is fairly simple I believe:
- player: Raspberry Pi 4 with moOde, local FLAC library
- DAC: Eversolo Z8 (at -30dB)
- Speakers: Presonus Eris X5 on balanced cables (actually, there received a very bad review by @amirm, despite they still sound good to me at moderate sound levels)
Nevertheless, in my 1000+ albums library, very, very few recordings have this (extreme IMO, pleasant anyway) separation (another one that comes straight to mind being "The Downward Spiral", by NIN, particularly the track "Ruiner". The others simply presenting good rather frontal separation, from 9 o'clock-ish to 3 o'clock-ish, vertically covering - I'd say - 60/70 degrees, from knee-height to above the head... depth slightly behind the speaker-line, width sometimes well beyond the speaker; more often only slightly behind them.
Being many reviews out there (especially by the various charlatans of "richer / punchier / airier / crispier" cult...) talking about "greater separation" and "wider / deeper sound-stage" I was wondering whether, actually, the biggest role in determining the placement of the audio entities is the MIX.
I remember being able to notice these things (although not so sharply) even time back, when I used a Focusrite 2i2 as DAC.
So, is it me noticing just these (on my poorly resolving setup) because they are extremes, or is this common to many of you too?
Thank you for sharing your impressions and thoughts.
Cheers, Al.
P.S.
Hope I posted in the right place. If not, any admin please move where appropriate.