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Probably why I find Jambi by Tool to be such a good speaker test. You need density (and production quality).
Why is female pop rock also 5th, and male pop rock 4th and 6th? Different test sessions?It is the other way around. We are not talking about music enjoyment. We are talking about what makes good content for testing speakers. Such content needs to be broadband and have constant spectrum. These then enable you to make changes and notice their effect immediately. With music that varies a lot, you have to rewind to the same point which is not as practical. And lack of full spectrum reduces the effectiveness of such content.
All of this has been researched. Read this article of mine: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...sic-tracks-for-speaker-and-room-eq-testing.6/
And pay attention to this graph:
Notice how piano is forth from the bottom. The top music track is Female Pop Rock and hence the reason I start all of my testing with female tracks.
Piano can be great in hearing speed variations but we are past that in digital domain.
No, just different tracks in the same category:Why is female pop rock also 5th, and male pop rock 4th and 6th? Different test sessions?
Have all of those tracks and listen to them as well. Nothing really special or breakthrough with them when it comes to listening and/or testing imo. Of course vocal are important because humans are most familiar with the human voice. But imo there is much more. I never found replaying tracks an issue for personal evaluation. We are not performing group studies when we evaluate our systems.It is the other way around. We are not talking about music enjoyment. We are talking about what makes good content for testing speakers. Such content needs to be broadband and have constant spectrum. These then enable you to make changes and notice their effect immediately. With music that varies a lot, you have to rewind to the same point which is not as practical. And lack of full spectrum reduces the effectiveness of such content.
All of this has been researched. Read this article of mine: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...sic-tracks-for-speaker-and-room-eq-testing.6/
And pay attention to this graph:
Notice how piano is forth from the bottom. The top music track is Female Pop Rock and hence the reason I start all of my testing with female tracks.
Piano can be great in hearing speed variations but we are past that in digital domain.
Apparently you are interested in confusing yourself than relying on proper research in audio. I suggest keeping these opinions to yourself. Last thing we need is random Joe operating from point of authority here.....Have all of those tracks and listen to them as well. Nothing really special or breakthrough with them when it comes to listening and/or testing imo. Of course vocal are important because humans are most familiar with the human voice. But imo there is much more. I never found replaying tracks an issue for personal evaluation. We are not performing group studies when we evaluate our systems.
Sorry I did not know that Western Electric and Olson were random joes.Apparently you are interested in confusing yourself than relying on proper research in audio. I suggest keeping these opinions to yourself. Last thing we need is random Joe operating from point of authority here.....
The link is broken BTW.There is obviously much truth to this. The most recent research that I've seen, however, does not indicate that adaptation is "complete": Some quality differences between loudspeakers and rooms seem to remain, even after adaptation. There is just no way that a small and tinny mono speaker will sound as good as a SOTA multichannel rig in an acoustically pleasant room, no matter how long we adapt to the small mono speaker. So it does make sense to get good loudspeakers, and to work towards room acoustics that are not horrible. But our brain luckily makes it much easier for us to live with whatever imperfections which remain!
Oh? They published controlled testing of different music tracks with statistical analysis of which produced best speaker differentiation? I think not.Sorry I did not know that Western Electric and Olson were random joes.
I believe not also. I guess they were kind of busy pioneering the engineering that modern engineers have built upon and taken further. Forgive me for my appreciation of the past and the world before computers. We are very lucky today but we tend take it for granted.Oh? They published controlled testing of different music tracks with statistical analysis of which produced best speaker differentiation? I think not.
??? It’s when you turn the volume down that everything sounds better, I think because both distortion and compression decrease. Turn anything low enough, and it will sound better. When things get louder, if the system starts to unravel, I want to turn it off.Referring to an interview that @hardisj had with Earl Geddes where he concluded that playing music above a certain SPL masks distortion/resonances that would be more apparent in low volume listening. In other words listening to music above 80db may be a problem in and of itself if you hope to capture the audible nuances of these measurements. On the one hand, one needs to play loud enough to observe SPL related distortion but on the other hand one must also play at a low enough volume for subtle resonances to be apparent. Or, in practical terms, play something loud enough and all speakers sound better.
That's a relief. Lots of real music.
Thanks, updatedThe link is broken BTW.
Well that was painful.A review with some good observations regarding cone material, speaker positioning and how horn imaging differs from non-horn systems.
Thanks for the prompt answer. Well, of course, a personal test track should be of what you know best (and don't dislike, for sure). I try to 'calibrate' my trusted subjective reviewers, often to their breaking point. I really was just interested to know if YOU use solo piano source* test track material, and you answered my question to my satisfaction. A piano is revealing only because the listener might find it so.I have some but not in my standard playlist. I could never get into the "piano is revealing" thing. It may be me, or maybe it is not revealing.
....
*As I'm sure readers know, many recording engineers consider the solo piano to be a terribly difficult instrument to record and reproduce. Frequency range (especially harmonics), dynamic range, and nuance of transients make it hard. And importantly, a piano always 'plays' the room. A solo grand piano can create sound levels of 100+ dB (fortissimo) at 3 feet and as low as about 35 dB (pianissimo), a dynamic range of over 65 dB. And the transients generated are a vital part of the piano's timbre. As to frequencies, and without any enhancement, a grand piano can produce fundamentals of (A0) 28 Hz to ~4200 Hz (C8). With important 2nd and 3rd harmonics, there's going to be 16 kHz bandwidth content that's important to piano timbre. (And that's just steady-state -- the piano is also a percussive instrument, with all that implicates.) But I digress.
Attached is one good example of well-recorded solo piano from 1989.
A review with some good observations regarding cone material, speaker positioning and how horn imaging differs from non-horn systems.
Interesting review. Spinorama looks not so good(especially for $2,000), but directivity is great, and subjectively it does well, even without EQ. Wouldn't have expected a 5/5 tbh(especially without EQ), but it seems JBL has found a way to make the most of things here.