Beethoven situation

[YesChickenNuggets]

This is keeping me up at night.

If for example, an older speaker designer has a hearing range of 9-10k, 60-65 years old. How can this person design a speaker by ear, or know that his product is good/bad up to 22khz ?, A 30yr old can only hear up to 16K, how does he validate speakers that go up to 22K. Are designers relying on their memory of what 9K+ 16K+ is supposed to sound like along with measurements? Do they bring in another guy who can hear high frequency to sonically check the work? In the interview videos, they all say, they're doing the final tuning by ear.

How is the consumers supposed to trust a speaker designer when they say, this product sounds great?

This is not to be age-ist, but alot of the purportedly high end products are in fact made by these really greyed haired engineers, surely they're good people, but there's a bio-mechanical disconnect here isn't there?

Is it possible that the high frequency squiggles we're seeing so commonly in measurements is the mess that it is because NO ONE making speakers can hear them? If that was true, why put any critical emphasis on it in reviews at all?

 

[Rednaxela]

Suppose your speakers were indeed designed and tuned by ear by someone who should have had hearing aids a long time ago.

What is the worst thing that can happen and whose problem is it?

 

[YesChickenNuggets]

That's part of the conundrum. the entire production line of music, down to the designer of the speakers. It seems like they fall way out of the range relative to the metrics we're discussing on the forum. So, either we're discussing the wrong things, OR, we're being sold hair cuts by a blind guy who ends his flourish by telling us, you look great, trust me, I'm an expert designer stylist.

 

[Digby]

What about if your recordings are mastered by such a guy, what then?

 

[fineMen]

This is keeping me up at night.

No reason for that. Beethoven became deaf with age abruptly. But that was for the complete spectrum in total. Thing is, the base tone and harmonics of musical instruments focus around the musical mid of 440Hz something. There is a long mile to go up to even 10k. Only percussion reaches that high. But that sound is not harmonic (as it is not connected to vibrating strings or air columns, rather plates and such). Back in the day the pseudo-mathematical explanation of music based on the harmonics all and alone, though.

As you argue that the 'tone' was not alright, it only affects the smallest part of the musical spectrum in terms of a western 'classical' artist's expression. In other words, without any provocation, Beethoven's art is conveyed using a telefone line ... perfectly.

And so it came, that in the natural history of the audiophile as a new species of mankind, the treble was at the same time the holy grail and also absent, as the holy grail is, but this time without notice, and the folks still commited to the heavenly quest. Vinyl records wore off in an instant, the inner grooves never had something ... and still the always burning desire for 30k, 50k, 100k! Even plasma tweeters were advertized with some minor degree of success., mega Hertz will come handy. The difference is there!

Regarding Beethoven as an artist, you may want to lookup Wolfgang Rihm, Nature Morte. Same drama, less deafness (198ies). Composer attended recording alive: good sound.

 

[Putter]

While this seems like one of the less important threads, actually silly, a few things need pointing out. The 60 year old who can't hear past 10 Khz is selling his speakers to a similar audience of older audiophiles. NO ONE actually hears above 20 Khz and the people who can hear that high are under 20 and typically can't afford expensive speakers. Finally if I want to design a speaker that is flat to 20 Khz and my hearing drops out at 12 Khz, there is plenty of instrumentation to measure that high and above that.

 

[AdamG]

In reality there is precious little in the higher end of the spectrum. Majority of audible content is between 30 and 10k hz. Add to that, what age you are and what hearing do you have left? That is the range that matters most. In my case. I can’t hear much anything above 12k. So the squiggly lines up there have little interest to me. I never understood why a speaker manufacturer would spec a speaker of capabilities beyond the human hearing range, like 22k or higher. Why? Maybe the Marketing Department got involved. JMHO.

 

[sarumbear]

This is keeping me up at night.

If for example, an older speaker designer has a hearing range of 9-10k, 60-65 years old. How can this person design a speaker by ear, or know that his product is good/bad up to 22khz ?, A 30yr old can only hear up to 16K, how does he validate speakers that go up to 22K. Are designers relying on their memory of what 9K+ 16K+ is supposed to sound like along with measurements? Do they bring in another guy who can hear high frequency to sonically check the work? In the interview videos, they all say, they're doing the final tuning by ear.

How is the consumers supposed to trust a speaker designer when they say, this product sounds great?

This is not to be age-ist, but alot of the purportedly high end products are in fact made by these really greyed haired engineers, surely they're good people, but there's a bio-mechanical disconnect here isn't there?

Is it possible that the high frequency squiggles we're seeing so commonly in measurements is the mess that it is because NO ONE making speakers can hear them? If that was true, why put any critical emphasis on it in reviews at all?

You don’t design a speaker by hearing. You design with know how, test it using equipment and finally you listen to it. The differences between two speakers that test the same are very small.

At no point subjectivity should be involved within the design process.

 

[-Matt-]

In reality there is precious little in the higher end of the spectrum. Majority of audible content is between 30 and 10k hz...

View attachment 246543

I really like this chart but what is the source of the data?

I'm no musician, so I'm probably wrong, but my impression has always been that cymbals went a lot higher (900Hz in the chart). I'm thinking especially of the "sh" part of the "splash" sound. Or is that the harmonics?

If some part of a recording is going to give me listener fatigue, it is likely to be excessive cymbals (probably due to the voicing of my speakers).

 

[sarumbear]

I really like this chart but what is the source of the data?

The source is general audio knowledge.

 

[-Matt-]

In case anyone else actually wants a useful answer, I found the link to (an interactive frequency chart).

When you click on cymbals it tells you that, as I suspected, the "shimmer" sound is between 7.5 kHz and 12 kHz. (Far, far above the 900Hz shown on the chart as the upper limit of the fundamental).

 

[sarumbear]

In case anyone else actually wants a useful answer, I found the link to (an interactive frequency chart).

Which is the same as @AdamG247 posted.

 

[Inner Space]

In reality there is precious little in the higher end of the spectrum. Majority of audible content is between 30 and 10k hz.

Well said, and very important. And generous - as a recording engineer, I earned my living from 100Hz to about 5000Hz. That was the money zone. Over the years the zone dropped down, especially with EDM and trance and so on, and went up an octave to 10k, but there's precious little encoded above that. It really isn't worth worrying about. I think people misconceive frequency numbers - what they think of as "10k" is probably 4k in reality. 4k sounds like a very high frequency.

 

[YesChickenNuggets]

Well said, and very important. And generous - as a recording engineer, I earned my living from 100Hz to about 5000Hz. That was the money zone. Over the years the zone dropped down, especially with EDM and trance and so on, and went up an octave to 10k, but there's precious little encoded above that. It really isn't worth worrying about. I think people misconceive frequency numbers - what they think of as "10k" is probably 4k in reality. 4k sounds like a very high frequency.

Now we're at the point, when they're trying to sell me something, they stress, look how flat it is, hey check out my user preference score, 6.7, that's close to perfection, buy it..

Then when we ask, so what the heck does this flat ness do, how can I enjoy it, can the designer even hear it, and they say, oh yea don't worry about it, nothing, precious LITTLE content is encoded that high.

It's like having that $3000 amp that's flat at 22k, when the $20 amp is down 3 db at 22k, and you know, but that's a terrible amp, gotta have the $3000 amp or it's not even music you're listening to. Sinad scores bro !

But on a more pertinent matter, instruments do have sibilence or harmonics into the high frequencies. How can the hypothetical aged speaker designer judge the quality of that reproduction if they can't hear it from their speakers. Do they fall back to measurements for that ? How does that compete with creeds such as good measurements doesn't mean it sounds good, or if it sounds good, the measurements don't matter.

 

[Jim Shaw]

Well said, and very important. And generous - as a recording engineer, I earned my living from 100Hz to about 5000Hz. That was the money zone. Over the years the zone dropped down, especially with EDM and trance and so on, and went up an octave to 10k, but there's precious little encoded above that. It really isn't worth worrying about. I think people misconceive frequency numbers - what they think of as "10k" is probably 4k in reality. 4k sounds like a very high frequency.

Completely agree for most pop recordings. This may be where pop and 'classical' recordings diverge. Classical recordings try to be true to the performance. Pop recordings deliberately massage (mangle?) the sound to sell to a different buyer.

 

[Rednaxela]

That's part of the conundrum. the entire production line of music, down to the designer of the speakers. It seems like they fall way out of the range relative to the metrics we're discussing on the forum. So, either we're discussing the wrong things, OR, we're being sold hair cuts by a blind guy who ends his flourish by telling us, you look great, trust me, I'm an expert designer stylist.

To answer my own questions - the worst thing that in my view can happen is that you as a customer don’t like the end result. Both in the case of the blind barber and the deaf speaker manufacturer. Whose problem is that ultimately? Theirs.

 

[YSC]

Now we're at the point, when they're trying to sell me something, they stress, look how flat it is, hey check out my user preference score, 6.7, that's close to perfection, buy it..

Then when we ask, so what the heck does this flat ness do, how can I enjoy it, can the designer even hear it, and they say, oh yea don't worry about it, nothing, precious LITTLE content is encoded that high.

It's like having that $3000 amp that's flat at 22k, when the $20 amp is down 3 db at 22k, and you know, but that's a terrible amp, gotta have the $3000 amp or it's not even music you're listening to. Sinad scores bro !

But on a more pertinent matter, instruments do have sibilence or harmonics into the high frequencies. How can the hypothetical aged speaker designer judge the quality of that reproduction if they can't hear it from their speakers. Do they fall back to measurements for that ? How does that compete with creeds such as good measurements doesn't mean it sounds good, or if it sounds good, the measurements don't matter.

well not really, few contents are at those frequencies but IIRC, when lower tones generating harmonics that excite that breakup or so, is affecting the main audile range, and if it's a broad slope up/downwards it do affects about percieved harshness.

and I don't think it really doesn't matter that high, it don't really matter much by ear tuning, but with aid of measurement tools it can be done properly, though it's also true that few content is that high, so that most music especially vocal pop music, don't sound that bad in consumer speakers behaving really crappy in the top and bottom end, it does make sense for hifi