A Broad Discussion of Speakers with Major Audio Luminaries

[Jack B]

When I go to listen to a symphony in an auditorium, the music comes from the front. The soundstage is very distinct and focused in front of me; no sound comes from behind or above.

Absolutely not my experience! At a symphony performance I prefer to sit a number of rows back so as to be able to enjoy the "hall sound" along with the direct sound from the instruments.

 

[olieb]

Absolutely not my experience! At a symphony performance I prefer to sit a number of rows back so as to be able to enjoy the "hall sound" along with the direct sound from the instruments.

Not only that, but everyone in the hall (even in first row or the musicians themselves) experience the reverb from all around.
In some sense the musicians play "the hall" by means of their "instrument" (which becomes the interface and the "motor"). The hall with its reverb is an essential part of the musical apparatus.

This video [link to the most relevant passage for this (about 2min)] has some quite instructive sound examples.

It is from this thread

I'm developing a new kind of reverb technology

Hey everyone, I thought this might be a good place to share this because you guys very much know the issues with a speaker's directivity and how it interacts with the room. This phenomenon is extremely important for convolution reverbs, which has been the most realistic reverb technique yet, but...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Arindal]

At a symphony performance I prefer to sit a number of rows back so as to be able to enjoy the "hall sound" along with the direct sound from the instruments.

Balance between direct sound and reverb in a concert hall, with the position of its equality known as critical listening distance, is vastly different from venue to venue, as well as placement of instruments and singers. And of course it's also a matter of personal preference and taste, as well as the intension of the composer. There are some composers who have explicitly advocated a more direct, dry experience (L. Bernstein, S. Prokofiev and C.Orff are often names as examples), while others called for a more diffuse sound of the orchestra (C. Debussy and R. Wagner come to mind).

All this will also lead to aesthetic goals differing from mixing engineer to mixing engineer. Rightly so.

 

[livinon2wheels]

As I recall Tekton's threat was over Amir's measurements. I don't recall him threatening to sue Amir for his opinions. Just FYI.

understood, thanks for clarifying...hard to find fault with legitimate honest measurements. It colors the whole thing in an even more negative light.

 

[livinon2wheels]

Absolutely not my experience! At a symphony performance I prefer to sit a number of rows back so as to be able to enjoy the "hall sound" along with the direct sound from the instruments.

My experience is different yet. When I am playing with the orchestra, (trombone), I hear the clarinets in front of me occasionally, but mostly the freaking trumpets sitting behind me almost to the exclusion of anything else, including the other trombones. Seldom do I get a balanced orchestral listening experience. The best way for me is at home via a good recording.

 

[olieb]

My experience is different yet. When I am playing with the orchestra, (trombone), I hear the clarinets in front of me occasionally, but mostly the freaking trumpets sitting behind me almost to the exclusion of anything else, including the other trombones. Seldom do I get a balanced orchestral listening experience. The best way for me is at home via a good recording.

Yeah. Even though there is reverb from all directions, the sound is not balanced in the same way at every position in the hall, of course. The percussionists in the pic (Mahler 6th) do know that. Sitting in front of brass often is not so funny either.
Hearing health is a serious issue for musicians in an orchestra.

 

[Arindal]

When I am playing with the orchestra, (trombone), I hear the clarinets in front of me occasionally, but mostly the freaking trumpets sitting behind me almost to the exclusion of anything else, including the other trombones.

That is to be expected. Trombones and trumpets are the orchestra instruments with the highest directivity index due to their horn shape. If you have ever walked around a trumpeter or trombonist under free-field conditions on non-reflective ground (such as a meadow) while the instrument is played, you get an idea of the frequency-dependent directivity.

BTW i have been for a certain period of times sitting in the orchestra in front of the trombones. Don't blame them, you're the same, man! ;-) Acrylic glass shielding is your friend.

 

[Jack B]

My experience is different yet. When I am playing with the orchestra, (trombone), I hear the clarinets in front of me occasionally, but mostly the freaking trumpets sitting behind me almost to the exclusion of anything else, including the other trombones. Seldom do I get a balanced orchestral listening experience. The best way for me is at home via a good recording.

Yes, but listening from within the orchestra is a totally different experience from listening from the hall. Reminds me of the old argument, "Do you really want a symphony orchestra in your listening room?" Of course not. I want the acoustic experience in my ears/brain, of being in the hall, listening to the orchestra. Agreed, it is a totally different thing.

 

[livinon2wheels]

I love live music but at my age and with my mobility challenges, I wont be going to any live performances anymore. That is off the table. What I can do though is appreciate good recordings and savor that experience. And most days I do.

 

[livinon2wheels]

Yeah. Even though there is reverb from all directions, the sound is not balanced in the same way at every position in the hall, of course. The percussionists in the pic (Mahler 6th) do know that. Sitting in front of brass often is not so funny either.
Hearing health is a serious issue for musicians in an orchestra.
View attachment 483234

I love this photo, how totally funny it is to see the guy with the huge wooden hammer.....lmao.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

The blows of fate are something I’ve never heard done well. Live they always have been far too muted. So nice to see an attempt to get them right. Not to mention the silly question of exactly how many blows are made.

Orchestra musicians have a wretched time dependent on the piece and what they play. The skill set needed to be able to create a unified whole whist sitting in one corner of the orchestra unable to hear the results and well outside the precedence effect distance to most of their colleagues is not trivial.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

The whole question of the acoustics of live orchestral music is deserving of its own thread. But absent that, I think this article from Acoustics Today, from The Acoustical Society of America makes fascinating reading. It covers the history and most recent redevelopment of the David Geffen Hall. High points are the evolution of understanding of what makes a space good, and the question of what makes a space good for performers- something that seems to be at best an afterthought in many venues.

David Geffen Hall and the Evolution of Acoustics at Lincoln Center - Paul H. Scarbrough

acousticstoday.org

 

[Jflijohn]

I saw John Batiste at the DR Koncerthusen in Copenhagen in June. The conditions were perfect, great acoustics, 1 instrument (his piano) and 1 voice. Once you’ve heard music in this way, it’s hard to listen to anything else.
…conversely, when I got home, I worked the My Chemical Romance concert at Oracle Park (I’m an usher for the Giants), this was the polar opposite of John Batiste and, unfortunately, this seems to be the most common conditions, even small venues seem to be going for loud echoey rooms.
I don’t believe this has changed much, I’m 64 and spent a lot of time in the ‘80s at bad venues. Not until I got to this advanced age and could afford good sound at home did I realize how it’s supposed to sound but, even with my high end setup at home, my acoustics are by far, the weak link and not something that I can really correct.
Unfortunately, bad venue acoustics keep me at home more than I would like.
We saw Robert Cray last night at Yoshi’s in Oakland, a very small venue, Robert Cray understands that less (volume) is more…

 

[Jflijohn]

Yeah. Even though there is reverb from all directions, the sound is not balanced in the same way at every position in the hall, of course. The percussionists in the pic (Mahler 6th) do know that. Sitting in front of brass often is not so funny either.
Hearing health is a serious issue for musicians in an orchestra.
View attachment 483234

…talk about hearing loss, we sat right next to these guys at a basketball game, their only goal was to play as loud as humanly possible, it was excruciating, I don’t know how any of them will be able to hear anything when they get to be my age.

 

[Tom C]

The direct sound might come from the front, so your brain calculates instruments being localized as coming in from the front as well. ´No sound from behind or above´ is not true, though, as particularly concert halls, opera houses and churches have a pretty significant RT60, so actually a lot of sound is coming in from non-frontal angles. Particularly when you are sitting somewhere further from the musicians. It is just your brain being capable of recognizing the significant amounts of indirect sound patterns as reflections, so they are not directly affecting localization.



I have recently been attending an opera performance in a ´modern´ (constructed in 1874), some people say the most advanced worldwide, iteration of such a theatre, which offers both excellent singing intelligibility and orchestral ambience, at the same time:

View attachment 479233

Encourage everyone to witness one or two evenings there. It is a life-changing experience in terms of how you perceive music and sound in a closed venue. Avoid the rows 20+, though!

I’d love to go! What building is it, and where is it?

 

[MarkS]

Bayreuth Festspielhaus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[livinon2wheels]

"Faster" loudspeakers just play at a higher frequency

I think a lot of what people are talking about when they say 'faster' in reference to a loudspeaker is good transient response. The ability to respond instantaneously to changing input. The better a speaker does this the lower the distortion the speaker contributes to what a listener hears. Especially when we start talking about ported woofers and subwoofers does this become important. Not saying the overhang and phase shift that occurs in a ported enclosure is any more or less important than other types of distortion introduced by speakers, like ringing, cone break-up or resonances within the motor structure of the speaker in question, but distortions introduced by the speaker's interaction with its enclosure (including, but not limited to, the presence of a port) all contribute the inaccuracies we hear when listening.

Thank God speaker design has evolved and it is possible to get a modern designed speaker that has very low distortion in comparison to what was mainstream 50 years ago. Between advances in crossover design, improvements in cone and suspension materials, and improved magnet structures, the SOTA is leaps and bounds beyond what it used to be. I think it is fair to say that today its quite possible to find speakers that have well under 1% distortion from a number of different manufacturers, where 50 years ago, a speaker with 5% distortion was considered good or even excellent.

 

[RickS]

I saw John Batiste at the DR Koncerthusen in Copenhagen in June. The conditions were perfect, great acoustics, 1 instrument (his piano) and 1 voice. Once you’ve heard music in this way, it’s hard to listen to anything else.
…conversely, when I got home, I worked the My Chemical Romance concert at Oracle Park (I’m an usher for the Giants), this was the polar opposite of John Batiste and, unfortunately, this seems to be the most common conditions, even small venues seem to be going for loud echoey rooms.
I don’t believe this has changed much, I’m 64 and spent a lot of time in the ‘80s at bad venues. Not until I got to this advanced age and could afford good sound at home did I realize how it’s supposed to sound but, even with my high end setup at home, my acoustics are by far, the weak link and not something that I can really correct.
Unfortunately, bad venue acoustics keep me at home more than I would like.
We saw Robert Cray last night at Yoshi’s in Oakland, a very small venue, Robert Cray understands that less (volume) is more…View attachment 488123
View attachment 488120

Perhaps you meant Jon Batiste as John is a military general?

 

[livinon2wheels]

Since recorded/reproduced will never be like live music, in the end it's just a matter of creating an illusion, or something that reflects it as best as possible.

After all, the title of Dr. Toole's book is: Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms
It's about reproduction and not live music.

The most reasonable starting point should be to get it as close as possible, but really there is nothing that says you can do it any other way. Color the music heavily, for example, and this illusion of live music appears. Intuitively, I think it's a backwards approach, and besides, this coloring can appear to others (most?) as a bad approach to reflect live music.

From Wikipedia about HiFi:

High fidelity or hi-fi is a way of describing a very good home music system. "High fidelity" means that the sound is as close to the original as possible with no changes or added noise.

High fidelity - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

simple.wikipedia.org

As close as possible, no changes or added noise. Doesn't sound like coloring is preferable, quite the opposite.

But having said that, there is nothing that prevents colouring, seasoning as desired. I do that myself when I listen to old hard rock, heavy metal. I add bass because I think many of the old recordings are so bass thin.

Most of us, if not all, are probably frustrated recording engineers at heart and each of us 'doctors' the sound of our system to taste. Some do it via the equipment chosen, some by tweaking tone controls (or eq) and some by both. Any resemblance to what was heard in the room the recording was made in compared to what is heard in our listening room is probably coincidental. And at the age of 73 I am ok with that. Hi-Fi has advanced mightily since the time of tubes transitioning to transistors. Most of the changes I find applaudable. The plethora of good well recorded music available from many different sources gives us way more options than we had 50 years ago. Some of those options are actual improvements on those of the past. I have no desire to step back 50 years. Multiple re-mastered recordings of favorites abound each with their own flavor. Then we add our salt and pepper on playback. Life is good.

 

[rdenney]

I think a lot of what people are talking about when they say 'faster' in reference to a loudspeaker is good transient response. The ability to respond instantaneously to changing input. The better a speaker does this the lower the distortion the speaker contributes to what a listener hears. Especially when we start talking about ported woofers and subwoofers does this become important. Not saying the overhang and phase shift that occurs in a ported enclosure is any more or less important than other types of distortion introduced by speakers, like ringing, cone break-up or resonances within the motor structure of the speaker in question, but distortions introduced by the speaker's interaction with its enclosure (including, but not limited to, the presence of a port) all contribute the inaccuracies we hear when listening.

Thank God speaker design has evolved and it is possible to get a modern designed speaker that has very low distortion in comparison to what was mainstream 50 years ago. Between advances in crossover design, improvements in cone and suspension materials, and improved magnet structures, the SOTA is leaps and bounds beyond what it used to be. I think it is fair to say that today its quite possible to find speakers that have well under 1% distortion from a number of different manufacturers, where 50 years ago, a speaker with 5% distortion was considered good or even excellent.

Fast transient response is the same thing as high frequency response. The steep leading edge of the signal rise is the same either way.

So, the concept of a fast woofer makes no sense to me. If it’s top frequency is, say, 800 Hz, then a higher transient response to accommodate the steeper rise of a higher frequency will never be explored—the crossover will have filtered it out.

The sharp rise of a transient is shaped by the tweeters, and any subsequent ring or decay might be conveyed by all the drivers. There are correlations in the time domain, of course.

That’s how declicking works—it filters out transients that are unrealistically steep or that are clipped, which I think amounts to the same thing.

It seems to me that a speaker that muffles the thump of a kick bass drum that is close to the maximum signal amplitude doesn’t suffer from being “too slow.” It suffers from lack of dynamic range causing amplitude compression. That fault seems to me a lot more common than a lot of people realize if they use their systems at high listening levels.

Rick “small speakers seem to compress or ring bass signals more easily than large speakers, port notwithstanding” Denney