How NOT to set up speakers and room treatment ( Goldensound)

[fineMen]

You all may want to read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedence_effect

Carefully, critically. (Very much like your daily critical listening training reveals everything you need to know about the universe.)

What the wiki entry doesn't tell is what mechanism might be at work when the two single real stereo sources (speakers) for a virtual center signal undergo the precedence effect individually, maybe with, as they put it, "attenuated top end reflections"***. Ja, it is left out deliberately, and further on the article only refers to established "stereo" technology aka application as kind of a prove of concept. Reiterated, despite strongly stating that precedence is crucial for stereo, an explanation is left out entirely.

I've even found a site on which students in sound engineering are asked to exploit the precedence effect to alter the width of a centered signal--on headphones, hence without further manipulatons by a room. It depends on a fine adjustment of parameters to say the least. Alas, the site is in another language.

Precedence, not preference. Humble studio tech, not wacky high-end idealism.

Please get a grip on yourselves and, at least, propose some setup to test the case! That is what 'science' is about, not rehashing 'papers'.

ps: please consider to calculate (sorry for the man wrecking math) how much of a delay a first reflection might have in your environment

*** speaker directivity?

 

[theREALdotnet]

please consider to calculate (sorry for the man wrecking math) how much of a delay a first reflection might have in your environment

Ah, that’s easy. I can’t point at any of the major spikes in my ETC curve and tell you which wall or surface it’s coming from

 

[tuga]

I've even found a site on which students in sound engineering are asked to exploit the precedence effect to alter the width of a centered signal

You like maths but reading not that much... Posted earlier #482:

Auditory source width and image precision
As we listen to sounds, the apparent width of the auditory event, often called the auditory source width (ASW), will depend on many issues. To those listening to stereo or multichannel recordings of sound, it is quite clear that the width of the array of phantom sources treated by the recording or playback is determined by not only the layout of the loudspeaker setup in the listening room and the directional properties of the loudspeakers but also on the listening room itself. The more reflections arriving from the sides of the listening room, the wider will the ASW be. However, the ASW will be frequency dependent above 0.5 kHz and a 2 kHz sound arriving at ±45° relative the frontal direction will produce maximum ASW [38,39]. This is to be expected since the masking by direct sound is the smallest for this angle of incidence of early arriving reflections [16]. The ASW also depends on the low-frequency content of the signal, more low-frequency energy increases ASW [38,40,41]. Psychoacoustic testing shows that the spatial aspects of the early reflections are primarily determined by the reflection spectrum above 2 kHz [33].

Also #679

 

[tuga]

Un-treated lateral early-reflections?

 

[youngho]

Too bad people "listening" in echo chambers have been referencing Toole for more than 30 pages. I even have read about comparisons to the diffuse field of concert halls, why untreated listening rooms were preferable and not one Toole follower advocated for acoustic treatment to bring RT60 down and now you have the chutzpah to criticize me, because there were some chapters about acoustic treatment in his book?
Why don't you enlighten those, who made the outrageous claims?

Hi, I did include a few quotes regarding suggested room treatment from Toole here (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...atment-goldensound.45104/page-26#post-1611128) and linked to a Gearspace post here (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...atment-goldensound.45104/page-15#post-1609331), in which he does state "People who say I dismiss room reflections as unimportant - and there are a few, it seems - simply have not read or understood my book. It is patently obvious that room treatment is necessary, if only to establish conditions suitable for comfortable conversation. This requires reverberation times under 0.5 second"

I have an informal interest in concert hall acoustics, and I do note some interesting areas of confluence with listening room acoustics. Some of the lessons from concert halls, like with respect to IACC and ASW, have trickled down, but there are number of instances in which there are some significant advances in understanding since the papers referred to by Toole in his book. It's common for threads like this to have a number of digressions, but unfortunately, I find that oversimplifications and overstatements can lead to distorted claims, and I do sometimes try to make an attempt to correct but also, I hope, promote meaningful discussion or at least provide references for future learning.

Young-Ho

[edit] ****ing responses like that by @fineMen below are a large part of the reason I usually don't try to contribute. Literally, how was "concert is not stereo" helpful in any way??!? Like I needed to have that pointed out, when I had already drawn a contrast in the part of the quoted sentence that he conveniently left out. Give me a break. I'm done here, thanks to @fineMen

 

[fineMen]

Un-treated lateral early-reflections?

Audio is not vision. So, where is the stereo?!

I have an informal interest in concert hall acoustics, ...

Same here, concert is not stereo.

You like maths but reading not that much... Posted earlier #482:

Auditory source width and image precision
...
Also #679

More power to you! But in the referring post you only say: "But my point is that a music recording has either real or fabricated spatial cues, and once you start reflecting these things get messy. I am not saying that room reflections are suffiently delayed to create a spatial effect ..."

(a) becoming messy as you put it, may be, but by what mechanism actually; if not answered, your contribution is again a bold speculation and nothing else
(b) being sufficiently delayed, as you put it, means what numerically, by numbers for all scientific paper's sake; if not answered, your contribution is again a bold speculation and nothing else

You guys really struggle to calc a reflection's delay? Please confirm, can't believe!

You need to evaluate the Taylor series like 1−x^2 / 2!+x^4 / 4!−x^6 / 6!+… ad infinitum for highest score, you get the point ... better you start -> now! We'll keep in touch.

 

[Pudik]

To expand your point, Chopin died at 39 years old, below are his compositions. He was born on 1810, so just subtract 10 from the dates below and we can check how old he was when they were published.

List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin by opus number - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(not that I think that Golden Sound is likewise a genius, only that age is not a factor here at all)

Surely, and Prokofyev wrote his first piano concerto at 19 and was almost unanimously declared by his professors as 'too brazen', as he certainly must've been bc the music seems to be deriding his academic seniors.

 

[Pudik]

In an age where Greta Thunberg can lecture the UN as a teenager barely out of childhood, anything goes.

I agree here with u completely. I only touching on creative work and not on political gibberish. P.

 

[Keith_W]

I agree here with u completely. I only touching on creative work and not on political gibberish. P.

My intention was not to dismiss Thunberg (I agree with her message) but to see how many people here who dismiss Goldensound because of his age and inexperience would be consistent when it came to another example.

 

[tuga]

Audio is not vision. So, where is the stereo?!


Same here, concert is not stereo.


More power to you! But in the referring post you only say: "But my point is that a music recording has either real or fabricated spatial cues, and once you start reflecting these things get messy. I am not saying that room reflections are suffiently delayed to create a spatial effect ..."

(a) becoming messy as you put it, may be, but by what mechanism actually; if not answered, your contribution is again a bold speculation and nothing else
(b) being sufficiently delayed, as you put it, means what numerically, by numbers for all scientific paper's sake; if not answered, your contribution is again a bold speculation and nothing else

You guys really struggle to calc a reflection's delay? Please confirm, can't believe!

You need to evaluate the Taylor series like 1−x^2 / 2!+x^4 / 4!−x^6 / 6!+… ad infinitum for highest score, you get the point ... better you start -> now! We'll keep in touch.

You missed the smile in my post. As for the "messiness", play some orchestral music and maybe you will understand what I mean.
Try placing sofa seat cushions on the early reflection areas and see what happens to perceived imaging focus, to the sense of envelopment and to the 'recreation' of the recorded space.

Locating areas of first reflections

 

[tuga]

Here the benefits of treating a small room are, to me, very obvious. Some may not like it and that's fine.
(the effects may not be as pronounced when listening in situ as they are when picke up by a microphone)

 

[hemiutut]

Hi, what is the first plot there?

The monitors without any subwoofers I guess?

Hi,
I leave the link where SteveGTR comments on what he did so you can understand everything better.
If there is a problem with posting a link from another forum,let me know and I will remove it.
It is simply for better understanding when reading the comments of what they did in the room.

https://gearspace.com/board/studio-...ng-even-out-freq-response-9.html#post12491247

Written with translator

Greetings

 

[hemiutut]

great vid and interviews... the discussion of acoustic edge effects was hilarious, as well as informative...

Hi,
Mr. Ron Sauro's way of explaining things makes this video very entertaining and fun,
but the good thing is the data provided by John Brandt.
For example,the data they provide about the Sabine formula,etc,etc.

I also recommend the other video where measurements can be seen.
And this is from a person who does not know english and who has seen it several times with subtitles.

Written with translator

Greetings

 

[Pudik]

Nope. I don't perceive them as echoes at all. I see what we are discussing as simply later reflections that fall within well studied masking and integration time windows.
But they still definitely detract from speech intelligibility ime. (and all pro install advice I've ever encountered)
I work on this alot, and rank speech/lyric/vocal intelligibility in music as a prime success factor, when it come to speaker design and tuning.




If our perspective is always from that of a listening room, we are missing a bigger picture in understanding audio, imho.




Yes !!! The speaker is the most important. Yes !! !
Why turn it into a multiple source, non minimum phase device, by mucking it up with reflections???

Room as important, therefore the combination of the two. In my life i've listened to an immense amount of music. First on mono long play, then stereo long play, and mostly CDs. I had decent rooms, bad rooms and now a 16^2 yd live room; terrible, waiting for treatment. Stereo recordings can sound good, but imho, they smell like obsolescence. Bach is extremely dense (many notes, close to each other). Vivaldi, Mozart and Haydn, and 18th century in general, being transparent, much easier to record and reproduce. The downfall begins with Beethoven. Extremely dense. Then the 19th century becomes the pits with Wagner and so on and so on. Creating a transparent recording with their work is almost an impossibility. Worse yet, of course, in the 20th century. But we then have Jazz, which is a category in itself. The downfall of speakers with this music is the tweeter. Must be extremely smooth. The variety of instruments that emit high order harmonics is staggering. The problem with the CD is that Nyquist frequency limit, which is double the highest harmonic that can be recorded. This means that no higher harmonic than 22.05 kHz of any instrument can fit onto a CD recorded at 44.1 K samples/sec. Because of that, some instruments simply cannot sound as naturally as in the concert hall, no matter the quality of one's EQ. Now, most if you will say, well, ppl can't tell the difference, no matter what. However, there IS a difference in tone color. When i was young i could tell. I even heard the high pitch crt based TV sets' deflection coil's whining. Maybe I am stating the obvious. But I'll never forget the sound freshly recorded on a Willy Studer console pro real to real tape recorder. It was breath taking. P.

 

[fineMen]

You missed the smile in my post. As for the "messiness", play some orchestral music and ...

No, no numbers (except from somewhere else, by experience: unrelated)

Here the benefits of treating a small room are, to me, very obvious. ...

No, no numbers (at all)

Hi,
Mr. Ron Sauro's way of explaining things makes this video very entertaining and fun,...

Being funny entertaining with and about "stereo" of course, but for sure in worst audio quality. Can't these magnificent gurus afford a correct mike? A daily tool of theirs?! It hurts every other time. What I have for my work, unrelated to audio, yo guys, a cardiod of Rhode operated--analog, by my Focusrite interface. And folks feel the difference, granted! Anyway, regarding content as far as intelligible, what actually is all the wisdom worth without numbers? So that one could adopt the methods or, if it wouldn't fit, not.

Room as important, therefore the combination of the two. ... Beethoven. Extremely dense. ... Wagner and so on and so on. Creating a transparent recording with their work is almost an impossibility. ... The problem with the CD is that Nyquist frequency limit, which is double the highest harmonic that can be recorded. This means that no higher harmonic than 22.05 kHz of any instrument can fit onto a CD recorded at 44.1 K samples/sec. Because of that, some instruments simply cannot sound as naturally as...

Some other numbers, but is that an o/k statement in this or any other context?

****
Some don't know how to calculate the delay of reflections in their room, ok. What helps more, either to teach the calc (it's not 'math' actually) or ... what? List absorption coefficiants and RT60 magic?

 

[Geert]

The problem with the CD is that Nyquist frequency limit, which is double the highest harmonic that can be recorded. This means that no higher harmonic than 22.05 kHz of any instrument can fit onto a CD recorded at 44.1 K samples/sec. Because of that, some instruments simply cannot sound as naturally as in the concert hall, no matter the quality of one's EQ. Now, most if you will say, well, ppl can't tell the difference, no matter what. However, there IS a difference in tone color.

Personal opinion not supported by evidence or research. Lots of topics on this forum where this has been countered and where you can challenge it, or check http://archimago.blogspot.com/2023/05/results-internet-blind-test-of-24-bit.html. Of topic here, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Pudik]

Deflectors are used in large halls to direct sound to the rear of the audience. But that is for live sound, not recordings.
If I am not mistaken line arrays are used for the same purpose in PA'd live gigs.

An example of what not to do to a concert hall is Kennedy Center in DC. From its inception, it was well in deficit acoustically. So they reworked it and not much was improved. So what they did (probably in desperation) put two enormous multi frequency speakers on each front side of the stage to nake the orchestra more audible to the ppl seated in the back and the balcony of the hall. I was there a couple times and it sounded quite badly. Remedy has its limit and it pays to build something god from the get go. P.

 

[Pudik]

Personal opinion not supported by evidence or research. Lots of topics on this forum where this has been countered and where you can challenge it, or check http://archimago.blogspot.com/2023/05/results-internet-blind-test-of-24-bit.html. Of topic here, so I'll leave it with that.

You're right. Just personal opinion. I think that hearing out many instruments from a dense orchstral rendition on just two channels remains problematic and that's why I am a proponent of multichannel recordings for music. This is in a nutshell of what I wanted to say. I still am a practicing classical musician. Hearing though, and I fully agree with you, is a personal issue. P

 

[MattHooper]

I mentioned before that for a long time I've played with varying sidewall reflections with thick curtains, and the more I deaden the sidewalls the more prominent
the recorded (or added) acoustic becomes. (I don't find a big change in imaging per se, though).

I stumbled upon what for me has been the best combo I've experienced. I can deaden the side walls quite a bit so the ambience and timbral qualities are more precise.
But I've played with adding a small curved diffusor in between and just behind my stereo speakers (I place the diffusor actually on top or in front of my home theater center channel). The effect is wonderful: imaging is more dense and solid, and it livens up sound of instruments and voices, but not to the detriment of the recorded acoustic. So it's like taking the specific acoustics in the recording that just takes over the front 1/2 of the room, and within that instruments and voices sound more present and real, like the "recording comes to life."

I was listening to an old, gorgeously recorded, soundtrack by Roy Budd, early 70's, and it's just filled with pastiche-like changes in reverbs and acoustics - one moment drums sound gigantic and placed waaay off in the distance of a reverberant hall, the next a drum set "appears" utterly dry, like it's in the room. A zither-like instrument strikes up and ignites a totally new acoustic that expands in to one half of the room then dissappears, then bongos appear in the other side of the stage in their own little alcove of reverb. But it all had a you-are-there tonality. Tons o fun!

 

[thecheapseats]

...I'm sort of forming the opinion from this that there would be mileage in having reconfigurable acoustic treatments in dedicated rooms...

as your comment was speaking to recording spaces - this has been a solution for years, usually applied to older recording spaces and control rooms that had been constructed to minimize reflections (which was a popular approach decades ago) to enable more reflections...

common materials applied have been relective lacquered hardwood panels, cultured-stone affixed to lightweight substrates, as well as scrap-granite trimmings - all machined/assembled as removable hanging panels... I personally used the last approach to increase reflections in a control room, as and when needed... it was quick, dirty, cheap and not permanant...