I never hear imaging in headphones the way it presents in loud speakers
I'd never compare headphones to speakers, they're just different. I prefer speakers much more too....hate clamping speakers to my head.
I never hear imaging in headphones the way it presents in loud speakers
Eh? The design doesn't change because you perceive the end result in a particular way. A passive radiator is just another way of "porting" a speaker. Bass response issues more likely due to your positioning/room/integration but depends on the design....
Again, I'm far from an expert but the passive radiator seems like it would act like a counter balance spring in controlling or effecting the bigger movement of the woofer. If you press on the passive radiator, it exerts a force that's detached from air pressure to resume is static position. So yes it acts similar to a port but with significant differences.
Passive radiator is essentially a port, but it acts differently bellow tuning. While the port acts like being "open" thus providing no damping to the active driver, passive radiator still dampens the driver by over excursion of itself.
So does this in theory mean that a passive radiator will produce a better transient response than ports, though not better a driver that is being directly driven by the amplifier?
Any disadvantages of using a passive radiator instead of a bass reflex port?
I would put my money on the accuracy of the match between the two units making up the stereo pair.One pair has a noticably deeper more 3 dimensional sound. It's like having the musicians in my house. Why? Same amp, same exact location, same source
Let's make that straight:I'm in no way an expert on this but there are many recordings that have this level of detailed imaging outside classical genre. Jazz recordings with layered studio mixing, often project this imaging too. Its hard to imagine it's by accident. The song I linked to above, has what I think of as an effect, not imaging exactly, that's startling when your paying attention. I can't imagine that's not on purpose either.
Let's make that straight:
1. It's impossible to make 3D from 2D (in our case stereophony), there's something missing. So it's all a matter of psychoacoustics.
2. Sound is recorded multimiked most of the time.
Mics are close to the musicians and the frequency spectrum is not the same compared to a musician farther away (highs are more absorbed by atmosphere than mids for example). For those who might think that recording with more distant microphones solves the 3D problem, it just mixes more reverberation from the room (Add soe flavour of the acoustics at the cost of clarity).
3. The recording engineer is key
Fom the recording engineer's perspective, point is to gel everything from a 3D sound into the 2 channel (2D remember ?) mix. Making something sound more distant is obtained by eq'ing down the highs of a track, eventually adding some delay. In other words, his job is to prepare the stereo signal, and make an illusion because the brain cannot do its job with recorded (2D) music.
Brain processes 3D sound, not 2D.
For those who doubt, compare a debate in real life and a debate on TV. In the former case, you understand everybody clearly, in the latter, it's just a big mess.
Remember also that the sound engineers listens either nearfield with small monitors or farfield with big soffit mounted speakers. In either case, there is little to no influence of speaker placement.
Mastering engineers have another point of view, closer to ours as to room environment influence.
From our perspective, room influence is key. Speakers far away from the walls make for an environment that resembles the recording engineers', where reflections don't mess the signal. For the others, DSP based cardioid directivity speakers (Dutch & Dutch,Kii Audio) aim at lowering room influence. For the vast majority of us, room reflections superimpose to 2D sound, and at best illusion is credible.
Speaker time coherence doesn't hurt of course, but incoherent spectrum between direct and reflected sound is a challenge for the brain to process those sometimes contradictory clues.
Stereo means 3D.
The videos starting hear give a good idea as to the clues that the brain needs for a 3D soundstage: Introduction to Room Acoustics: Part 1 - YouTube
Nope ...Stereo means 3D.
... and nope.But it's only 2D - azimuth (left/right) and depth
Nope ...
... and nope.
I said 2D for simplification purpose, but in reality, it's only 1D.
Let's introduce some similarity with geometry.
If you draw a line between 2 points, you have 1D (one axis), as in our case (2 point sources), so you can locate a sound from 100% left to 100% right. That is if you were in a 100% anechoic environment.
Depth (2D) needs a second axis to become real.
3D needs to introduce a third axis which is height.
Back to 2D and 3D: from lack of real additional sound source(s)(read axes), we have wall, floor and ceiling reflections, but they have nothing in common neither with real sources, nor with what the sound engineer did to give us some psychoacoutic clues for an illusion of depth.
Reflections are an altered image of our 2 primary sound sources. Think of it as 2 lights in a mirror box with black floor and ceiling. you could see multiple images of your light sources, but it is in fact the same source. We need additional information from behind, not an altered and delayed copy of the front (reflection from the wall behind the sound sources).
I said altered copies because:
- wall absorption properties alter the spectrum of the incoming sound from the speaker (same for front and ceiling)
- the spectrum sent by the speaker varies according to its directivity (except for some true omnidirectional speakers)
Oh,and did I mention comb filtering due to interference between 2 coherent sources ?
Nope ...
... and nope.
I said 2D for simplification purpose, but in reality, it's only 1D.
Let's introduce some similarity with geometry.
If you draw a line between 2 points, you have 1D (one axis), as in our case (2 point sources), so you can locate a sound from 100% left to 100% right. That is if you were in a 100% anechoic environment.
Depth (2D) needs a second axis to become real.
3D needs to introduce a third axis which is height.
Back to 2D and 3D: from lack of real additional sound source(s)(read axes), we have wall, floor and ceiling reflections, but they have nothing in common neither with real sources, nor with what the sound engineer did to give us some psychoacoutic clues for an illusion of depth.
Reflections are an altered image of our 2 primary sound sources. Think of it as 2 lights in a mirror box with black floor and ceiling. you could see multiple images of your light sources, but it is in fact the same source. We need additional information from behind, not an altered and delayed copy of the front (reflection from the wall behind the sound sources).
I said altered copies because:
- wall absorption properties alter the spectrum of the incoming sound from the speaker (same for front and ceiling)
- the spectrum sent by the speaker varies according to its directivity (except for some true omnidirectional speakers)
Oh,and did I mention comb filtering due to interference between 2 coherent sources ?
Nope ...
... and nope.
I said 2D for simplification purpose, but in reality, it's only 1D.
Let's introduce some similarity with geometry.
If you draw a line between 2 points, you have 1D (one axis), as in our case (2 point sources), so you can locate a sound from 100% left to 100% right. That is if you were in a 100% anechoic environment.
Depth (2D) needs a second axis to become real.
3D needs to introduce a third axis which is height.
Back to 2D and 3D: from lack of real additional sound source(s)(read axes), we have wall, floor and ceiling reflections, but they have nothing in common neither with real sources, nor with what the sound engineer did to give us some psychoacoutic clues for an illusion of depth.
Reflections are an altered image of our 2 primary sound sources. Think of it as 2 lights in a mirror box with black floor and ceiling. you could see multiple images of your light sources, but it is in fact the same source. We need additional information from behind, not an altered and delayed copy of the front (reflection from the wall behind the sound sources).
I said altered copies because:
- wall absorption properties alter the spectrum of the incoming sound from the speaker (same for front and ceiling)
- the spectrum sent by the speaker varies according to its directivity (except for some true omnidirectional speakers)
Oh,and did I mention comb filtering due to interference between 2 coherent sources ?
Let's face the truth: recorded music is a projection performed by the sound engineer of a 3D environment to a simple line (1D) in front of you.
Photography is a 2D projection of a 3D environment, where depth is also an illusion, depending on the skills of the photographer.
Ah the skills of the recording engineer ...
If I may, in my room, with my, mostly DIY system https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ht-our-current-setups.564/page-30#post-749312
I have achieved a very close resemblance of a true, holographic display (minus the rear envelopment, because I don't have any rear channels). I shamelessly used all the available options for having pscychoacoustically indistinguishable tonality of on axis, off axis and reflected sounds. Perceived tonality is the same anywhere in the room, not only at the listening position (apart from bass resolution which is best only at the listening position). So, It can be done, to augment the illusion and sound very convincing, but is it real? No, of course not. But do I have to care about it? Objectively, yes, but subjectively it's way to much of a gratifying experience to even give a damn
But nope It is just one of multiple examples of wrong naming. It is just 2 channel sound reproduction, contrary to mono which is a single channel reproduction and quadrophonia which is a four channel and certainly closer to stereophony. It should have been called biphoniastereo-
combining form meaning solid, hard, three-dimensional.
[Gr stereos solid]
Chambers Dictionary.
So yes.
If I may, in my room, with my, mostly DIY system https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ht-our-current-setups.564/page-30#post-749312
I have achieved a very close resemblance of a true, holographic display (minus the rear envelopment, because I don't have any rear channels). I shamelessly used all the available options for having pscychoacoustically indistinguishable tonality of on axis, off axis and reflected sounds. Perceived tonality is the same anywhere in the room, not only at the listening position (apart from bass resolution which is best only at the listening position). So, It can be done, to augment the illusion and sound very convincing, but is it real? No, of course not. But do I have to care about it? Objectively, yes, but subjectively it's way to much of a gratifying experience to even give a damn