Our perception of audio

[svart-hvitt]

Speaking of speakers, at what pricing do you believe the point of diminishing returns become large?
Without much (any) listening experience at this level but some knowledge in the market I would estimate this.
1. At the very top end about $20,000 looks to put you at the bleeding edge. Things from the Harman Revel's and JBL's statements are there, the current raves of Kii and D&D sit there, lots more. MHO is that the six digit products from companys like Wilson are much more of a fashion-wealth statement and their ability to deliver HiFi at a level much if any better than the formers is very debatable.
2. About 85% of the very best is obtainable for approx $500 a pair minus some type of bass enhancement (subwoofer/s). There are any number of stand mounted speakers out there that will fit this category thought their strengths and weaknesses will vary widely. Pick your poison here.

Just some food for thought to be kicked around.

You need to take into account size of room, low frequency capability and SPL needs. The bigger the room, the higher the price (as a general rule). Not surprising, is it?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Totally agree with the first statement, but I'd put the 85% point at more like $1k-2k for standmounts (e.g. Revel's Performa series, KEF's R series, some high quality active monitors, etc). $500 doesn't go quite far enough for passive standmounts IMHO, mostly because in this price range it's impossible IME to find speakers that don't suffer from having undersized ports and/or cabinet resonances.

85% is very subjective in this context of course though

I agree with you that 85% (or any number) is very subjective but, if you change it to something like "the clear preponderance of the advantages," I agree with your choosing the $1K-2K range over the $500 range.

 

[Cosmik]

I agree with you that 85% (or any number) is very subjective but, if you change it to something like "the clear preponderance of the advantages," I agree with your choosing the $1K-2K range over the $500 range.

I'm very sceptical if not cynical about the whole industry/hobby, but if thinking in terms of a complete system that incorporates the DACs and amplifiers and DSP, I, too, would be thinking along the lines of $1k-2k as the minimum sensible range for something that is not mass market. This will buy you chips soldered to circuit boards such as you can buy by the million in mobile phones and tablets, but also elements that handle rather more power than those devices, and also some real electromechanical hardware, plus the 'IP' for a specialised application - although it is unfathomable why it doesn't appeal to more people.

 

[Cosmik]

BTW, the 'object' idea is used literally in object-based surround sound. Here, the producer can specify where to place an audio 'object' anywhere in 3D space, and the receiver implements this request in real time, using the channels and speakers that it has available to render the 'object'.

Plain stereo could be thought of as 'pre-rendered' object-based audio, on the assumption that the listener will be using a particular channel/speaker configuration. (Q-Sound would be an explicitly obvious example of this). And this implies that if the playback system distorts the signal then those 'objects' will be rendered badly, blurred together, placed wrongly.

But as I have been going on about, I think that 'objects' can be more abstract than that, but still dependent on the system's accuracy in order to render them. If you listen on a poor system, you only get a subset of the possible 'objects' along with spurious objects that have nothing to do with the recording. This being because 'the signal' doesn't exist as a thing that can be altered meaningfully; it is a unique encoding of 'objects' and if you try to change the coded signal before decoding it, you will get gobbledygook. The more you change it, the more meaningless the result.

 

[pwjazz]

I set the bass and treble gain to 10 and started the Lo Vol Ref at what would be a quiet background listening level without the loudness engaged. Then just listened to some personal test tracks and adjust so that so that Lo Vol Ref and Lo Vol Ref + 10 don't seem overblown and Lo Vol Ref + 20 (where the boot drops back to zero) doesn't seem dull. Sometimes turn down the turn the treble gain down a few DB too.

I'm not going to claim it's perfect or anything though. The graphs in the manual show their curves don't match up with the real data as well as they could. Both filters are just shelf instead of parabolic (ish?) curves and the "treble" gain creeps way down into the midrange.

It's hardly 'reference' or something I'd recommend for mixing but I find it makes low volume listening much more enjoyable which is great for saving your ears.

I have no interest in spending that much money for yet another DAC and headphone amp, but if I did, this feature would be the reason I do it. If I ever write my own Android music player, this will be the first feature I include, since this should be perfectly achievable in software too.

 

[maverickronin]

I have no interest in spending that much money for yet another DAC and headphone amp, but if I did, this feature would be the reason I do it. If I ever write my own Android music player, this will be the first feature I include, since this should be perfectly achievable in software too.

I find it bizarre that more products don't include feature like this. You'd think it would be commonplace by now.

 

[Sal1950]

I agree with you that 85% (or any number) is very subjective but, if you change it to something like "the clear preponderance of the advantages," I agree with your choosing the $1K-2K range over the $500 range.

It was just a subjective number I threw out but in doing so I attempted to include such highly reviewed products as the JBL 30x series, the Jones Designed Elac B6, KEF 350s, etc, etc. There is a plethora of speakers in the 3 digit range that deserve serious consideration without breaking a limited bank.

 

[restorer-john]

One of my hands-on projects. Built from a schematic of the Soldano Atomic 15 guitar amplifier. Lots of mods including a fully active tube effects loop. As quiet as a mouse at idle(not bad for a very high gain build) and roars like a lion when it should.

Unfortunately, due to the presence and master lettering not lining up with the rest, I cannot recommend this amplifier.

Kidding, it's an awesome build. She must be very happy.

 

[Wombat]

Unfortunately, due to the presence and master lettering not lining up with the rest, I cannot recommend this amplifier.

View attachment 16514

Kidding, it's an awesome build. She must be very happy.

Hey, I never noticed.

The front and rear panels, until recent on-line services, were the hardest part of custom builds. A guy I met who worked out of a trophy shop and had a small-bed engraving machine offered to do the job from my dimensioned drawings. A first for him. I think he charged me $40 for the challenge. I guess I can't complain. He sold-off his equipment shortly after. Maybe he noticed the mistake. too.

 

[watchnerd]

2. About 85% of the very best is obtainable for approx $500 a pair minus some type of bass enhancement (subwoofer/s). There are any number of stand mounted speakers out there that will fit this category thought their strengths and weaknesses will vary widely. Pick your poison here.

Just some food for thought to be kicked around.

For bookshelves / standmounts, I think best $500 pairs gets you 'flawed in what it omits, rather than errors it commits', within modest ranges of frequency and volume.

And if you're willing to make some some serious compromises in the area of bass and loudness, $500 can get you amazing imaging and midrange, especially nearfield. I still miss my cheap-ass NHT Super Zeros....they had serious limitations, but they were very very good in the midrange and imaging.

In a smaller room, a bedroom or office, I can be very happy with a $500 set of bookshelves.

I think the 85% level for standmounts is at about $2k-ish, as others have said.

My Dynaudio Contour 20s in my living room run $5000 for the speakers, $500 for the stands, and $600 for the ridiculously overkill IsoAcoustics Gaia II isolation feet I put on them. They have that "separation of instruments" feature in spades, are very detailed, and have very 3D imaging. But they can only show what they're truly capable of on good recordings.

In contrast, when my wife wants to play some Katy Perry, K-POP or other compressed pop music....TBH, that stuff sounds better to me on her lower fidelity Monoprice AptX / bluetooth speaker.

 

[NorthSky]

In contrast, when my wife wants to play some Katy Perry, K-POP or other compressed pop music....TBH, that stuff sounds better to me on her lower fidelity Monoprice AptX / bluetooth speaker.

 

[Nowhk]

But say, for example, the difference between a sad voice and an angry voice is partly the way the voice goes from quiet to loud, and your system just can't help but compress the dynamic range (could be a Homepod type thing with clever DSP volume limiting) then you may not be able to perceive the angry 'object' as clearly. Similarly, a 'menace' 'object' might require adequate reproduction down to very low frequencies and if your speakers can't do it, you just can't perceive it in the same way. Not only will you not hear the 'menace' but the relationship between the other 'objects' is altered.

I'm not claiming that we always hear things the same way if the system remains constant or anything like that; merely that the recording contains a set of 'objects' that have a relationship to each other that means something.

Ok, nice.

Now let say we've found a setup that is able to extrapolate out those objects and theirs relationship, due to our experience on catch such of "tiny" (that's why I called them micro) details. So a good dynamics able to reproduce the angry voice, and a wide frequency range able to reproduce the menace objects low freqs.

What about the next time we hear it in different conditions (position, volume, mood, and so on)?
We are still able to catch those "objects" (angry and manace), but their dynamics will be different... the amount of low freq would be altered a bit, thus theirs relationship; plus, our whole perception change.

That's what I'm saying: there is nothing stable, and also when you think you can got some "stable", when you try to going on deep picking tiny details (well, we are researchers after all ), they will change again. i.e. The more you climb down, the more tuff become aleatory.
Of course "a guitar" will always be a guitar, but you are pro listeners: you won't stop yourself to the "concept" of guitar. Once I try to identify its minor properties, I'm realizing its simply an utopia.

I don't mean you aren't able to catch "main" aspects and characteristics, that's fancy and achievable. But for those, you also don't need 10k system in my "opinion" (yes, talking about opinions, not arguments; thats were a provocation to involve a further discussion, that has been failed).

A daily example I'm facing often: take a piece like Enter Sandman by Metallica:

I found that the drumkit mxing is quite "above" other instruments, and I mainly focus on its "hits" during the whole song (that's why I enjoy that piece).
Precisely, those kick+snares+hats played together at 0.57 is what lauch me into the song.

But they are percussions... its all about punch+body+noise. As "enthusiast" percussion sound designer, I notice that its extremely hard to reproduce percussions, in general. Listening to music, I really focus on details of a single kicks, and I would say that its impact really change from system to system (or even on the same system).
If you can keep the exact melody (macro object) on the major of setups, keeping the exact kick's properties/elements (micro objects) seems to me... well... impossible.

That's also why I interrogate myself about what I'm doing, posting in threads like these.

 

[Nowhk]

@Cosmik waiting your feedback about the above ^^^^^

 

[Cosmik]

Now let say we've found a setup that is able to extrapolate out those objects and theirs relationship, due to our experience on catch such of "tiny" (that's why I called them micro) details. So a good dynamics able to reproduce the angry voice, and a wide frequency range able to reproduce the menace objects low freqs.

What about the next time we hear it in different conditions (position, volume, mood, and so on)?
We are still able to catch those "objects" (angry and manace), but their dynamics will be different... the amount of low freq would be altered a bit, thus theirs relationship; plus, our whole perception change.

That's what I'm saying: there is nothing stable,

Well I think that that's just life! But that "instability" is not arbitrary: if your mood changes, then that is a consistent change that applies to your perception of everything in a systematic way, from the sound of music to the taste of food. This is different from some electronic equipment creating a meaningless distortion that derives from a quirk of some electronic component and which affects only the sound of music listened to through it and not the taste of food.

I am happy if my audio system remains neutral so that the sound I perceive remains consistent with my mood, etc. even though my perception of the sound changes from day to day. I am not asking my audio system to make the music sound happy even if I am not.

As "enthusiast" percussion sound designer, I notice that its extremely hard to reproduce percussions, in general. Listening to music, I really focus on details of a single kicks, and I would say that its impact really change from system to system (or even on the same system).
If you can keep the exact melody (macro object) on the major of setups, keeping the exact kick's properties/elements (micro objects) seems to me... well... impossible.

I guess that to recreate a kick drum's exact sound from any arbitrary listening position, you could need a speaker that can move the same amount of air as the drum - which would be a pretty big, powerful speaker. But reproducing the sound as listened to from the audience wouldn't be too difficult.

I think that if an engineer (rather than an audio designer) were given the task of making a transducer capable of reproducing percussion convincingly, they would work out that an essential requirement is to reproduce the time domain waveform without smearing it. For reasons of tradition, audio designers take a different approach, and allow the characteristics of carpentry and coils to dictate what the speaker does.

As discussed elsewhere, audio recording generally involves a 'trick': recording the instruments with close microphones then mixing in a certain amount of ambience. Without this trick, a recording would sound more 'ambient' than in real life because the cues that allow a listener to 'hear through' the venue are lost. And then recording people seem to like to add dynamic compression and other effects. At the end of all this, maybe it's not surprising if it doesn't sound exactly like a kick drum.

N.B. That's not me 'admitting' that a neutral system doesn't work. The neutral system is the only logical general solution. If a listener has special circumstances such as never being allowed to play a system loudly, then maybe there's a justification for some sort of compensation to help enhance the sound, but it can only ever be a crude effect.

 

[Nowhk]

Well I think that that's just life! But that "instability" is not arbitrary: if your mood changes, then that is a consistent change that applies to your perception of everything in a systematic way, from the sound of music to the taste of food. This is different from some electronic equipment creating a meaningless distortion that derives from a quirk of some electronic component and which affects only the sound of music listened to through it and not the taste of food.

Of course, but it change as well using different "neutral" systems. The limit/bottleneck is that doesn't exist a total/neutral system, so whatever you will pick, it sounds different.

Let's try with a Flowchart and as bit of schematic analysis :

Whatever you choice your neutral system f1(x), f2(x) and f3(x) (i.e. Neutral System 1, 2 and 3), f1(moodX), f2(moodX) and f3(moodX) produce differents results (i.e. different perceptions).

I'll say there is dichotomy here:

A - if you notice differences on listening through different setups, than you got different perceptions, thus you are basically "shape" the art in your own way;
B - if you don't notice differences on listening through different setups, than there's no reasons at all to invest lots of money on changing somethings that you can't discriminate;

Both points are "dramatic" Because you are either controlling somethings bigger than you (the art of somethings other) or the human being is very stupid on trash million of dollars (or euro)

 

[Cosmik]

Of course, but it change as well using different "neutral" systems. The limit/bottleneck is that doesn't exist a total/neutral system, so whatever you will pick, it sounds different.

Let's try with a Flowchart and as bit of schematic analysis :

View attachment 17535

Whatever you choice your neutral system f1(x), f2(x) and f3(x) (i.e. Neutral System 1, 2 and 3), f1(moodX), f2(moodX) and f3(moodX) produce differents results (i.e. different perceptions).

I'll say there is dichotomy here:

A - if you notice differences on listening through different setups, than you got different perceptions, thus you are basically "shape" the art in your own way;
B - if you don't notice differences on listening through different setups, than there's no reasons at all to invest lots of money on changing somethings that you can't discriminate;

Both points are "dramatic" Because you are either controlling somethings bigger than you (the art of somethings other) or the human being is very stupid on trash million of dollars (or euro)

If there really were a genuinely neutral system, as opposed to "neutral", then presumably three neutral systems would all give the same perception. So shouldn't your diagram say ' "Neutral" ' instead of ' Neutral '?

My main point is that the money side of it is incidental. There is a minimum level of engineering required to do such a miraculous thing as summon the world's finest musicians to your living room on demand, and to do it well i.e. close to neutral. It costs in the region of, say, $1000 up to $5000 - but would be cheaper if millions of people were interested in buying it.

And there is no point in doing anything else but create a neutral system. All of this can be worked out on logical grounds without needing to bring perception into it. How we then perceive what we have created is another matter.

 

[FrantzM]

Without delving into the mystical...Perfect Neutrality is not possible . Thus different “neutral” systems shall sound different.. they remain nonetheless neutral. No punctuation or modifier needed.

 

[Nowhk]

If there really were a genuinely neutral system, as opposed to "neutral", then presumably three neutral systems would all give the same perception. So shouldn't your diagram say ' "Neutral" ' instead of ' Neutral '?

Of course. But since "neutral" doesn't exist, I used that terminology to remark the fact that Neutral isn't 100% transparent

My main point is that the money side of it is incidental. There is a minimum level of engineering required to do such a miraculous thing as summon the world's finest musicians to your living room on demand

Even if you can recreate this, listening the same artist in different "points" would introduce different results (simply moving in the room).
Are you saying that the discriminated differences are below the noise floor of interest?

And there is no point in doing anything else but create a neutral system. All of this can be worked out on logical grounds without needing to bring perception into it. How we then perceive what we have created is another matter.

So you are aware that whatever systems you will now use from now up to 50 years (hope you can live longer) will impact the sound you perceive, thus the music? Its a neverending tweaking...

 

[Cosmik]

Even if you can recreate this, listening the same artist in different "points" would introduce different results (simply moving in the room).
Are you saying that the discriminated differences are below the noise floor of interest?

Again, I'm suggesting that all differences are not equal.

Some differences are arbitrary and meaningless, and not consistent with anything 'real' e.g. electronic distortion is just arbitrary and artificial and not connected with music or acoustics.

And some differences are not arbitrary, and are consistent with reality. Your ear receives a different set of pressure variations if you walk around, move your hand around in front of you, or move the furniture around, but you don't perceive any significant change because those variations are consistent with each other and your brain simply compensates for them. If you are talking to someone and move from outdoors to indoors while talking, the absolute sound changes hugely but you don't even notice any difference. If, on the other hand, your companion switched on an electronic fuzzbox and began talking through that, you would notice it as being something arbitrary and artificial.

Whatever acoustic changes occur while listening to a neutral audio system (e.g. placing it in different rooms or - to a reasonable extent - listening from different places in the room), they are consistent within themselves and so the listener doesn't notice them even though a dumb FFT measurement would show huge "differences".

 

[Nowhk]

And some differences are not arbitrary, and are consistent with reality. Your ear receives a different set of pressure variations if you walk around, move your hand around in front of you, or move the furniture around, but you don't perceive any significant change because those variations are consistent with each other and your brain simply compensates for them.

If you are talking to someone and move from outdoors to indoors while talking, the absolute sound changes hugely but you don't even notice any difference.

Well, it depends
What do you mean with "compensate for them"?
And which differences are you considering?

If the target is to decode which words your friends are telling to you, I agree. But for the same analogy, even a speaker of 10€ can serve the purpose, you don't need a 10k setup.
If the target is also to decode the mode/tone on how he tell you the words, probably you won't get if the room are bigger and you are far away. And for the same analogy you need a proper setup, again, better than the previous one.
Go higher in details you want to decode, and you need some pro and quality playback setups.

The fact is: if what you are looking for is deeper (i.e. you decoding target are particularly thin), you reach a point where listening to different setups is always different, so a change in sound make differences for you.
If instead your listening capacity is "limited", you will reach a stable listening at some point.
But in that case, I think you don't need more than a pair of 200€ speakers.

Now, since all of you are expert: if you listen to a track on a pair of speakers and you start to notice that the bass is a bit higher, you are at some capacity level where you will ALWAYS discriminate differences on the bass between different setups, even between 30k ones (because your listening ability is good). Than, it seems you will never got stability in listening to music... it will be ALWAYS different.

Are you saying you don't care about the higher bass differences between setups? Well, you don' need such a setup so, whichever can be ok