"Bias" of some members towards headphone measurements?

[Basic Channel]

Honestly I don’t care at all about soundstage: mono recordings are excellent to me, less problematic when listening casual. I agree that stereo is more realistic and dolby (in good quality which I know just a few well made classical recordings) is also fun.

But after all, music is encoded mainly in time, intensity and frequency domain, placing instruments at different places is more like an accident.

Destructive critics welcome!

I'd say a good mono recording has soundstage as it has depth.

Maybe I misunderstand your 2nd point, but instruments in different places is a (real life) necessity - no two things can be in the same place in reality.

The width or placement left to right of instruments might be a bit random, but the placement of backing singers behind the lead singer seems intuitive.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

measuring reflections is useless.
What the Klippel does is measure (and calculate) the amplitude over the frequency range and directional.
Based on that info it can calculate the frequency response at a listening position assuming a 'normal' living room.

And that’s where all of this loses me. What is a “normal” room? And what about those with non “normal” rooms?

Rooms make a big difference and there are big differences between rooms

 

[solderdude]

A recording engineer can perfectly 'place' an instrument in a sound-stage.
Not only using panning but also with hall effects (moving it further backward in a mix) or bringing it more upfront (increasing 1-3kHz range a bit) and playing with phase (L opposite R) or delays etc.
So even a completely electronic generated recording can have a good sound-stage.
Not all sound engineers/mixers do this properly. Some even pan a drum kit from left to right making the sound stage 'weird'.
Normal instruments, singers etc. are easy to 'place' and with some experience you can almost point them out in the sound stage most of the time.

How 'stable' an instrument is in a sound stage (pinpoint accuracy) is what I call 'imaging'. Related to sound stage but not quite the same.
Mostly related to the speakers/headphones but also recording dependent.

 

[solderdude]

And that’s where all of this loses me. What is a “normal” room? And what about those with non “normal” rooms?

Rooms make a big difference and there are big differences between rooms

Those that really care about music reproduction and aspects like these are very careful with speaker placement.
Of course not always possible/desirable and sometimes people sharing the room may have something to say about placement.
When you have a 'normal' listening room and a decent setup a good stereo image and sound stage is easy to obtain.

Non 'normal' rooms may have lots of hard surfaces, little 'damping', weirdly shaped or non ideal listening spots. Quite likely the sound stage will not be great. You can blame the room. One can only do so much with DSP. The room, directivity of the speaker etc all are important too.

 

[Miguelón]

I'd say a good mono recording has soundstage as it has depth.

Maybe I misunderstand your 2nd point, but instruments in different places is a (real life) necessity - no two things can be in the same place in reality.

The width or placement left to right of instruments might be a bit random, but the placement of backing singers behind the lead singer seems intuitive.

I basically agree, I was talking about the essential nature of music: I play the piano and have played in some chamber ensembles when I was a student.

Each member of the ensemble (orchestra, group, etc.) has its own sound stage perception, the placement among the public changes also soundstage.

When I play the piano, lows tend to come a little bit (not much) from the left, mid-highs are more right placed as one can expect from better high frequencies location because of shorter wavelength.

None of this is encoded on music composition, is an “accident” of the mechanics of the instrument. In fact many piano recordings are “reversed”: offer opposite lows and highs distribution from right to left. I find lows-left recordings more engaging from my pianist perspective and lows-right more like a listener (not so true, piano is often placed perpendicular to the public to show the hands)

In my opinion stereo helps to instrument separation and enhance transparency but force you to align properly to perceive.

I find quite satisfactory mono reproduction from one speaker when I want to do tasks at home and rarely sit to listen.

My ideal soundstage (imaginary of course, but can be done) is to have a huge place in front of me and as many speakers as instruments and singers, organize them as I want supposing each speaker reproduce its own source of a synchronous recording. A rock band or an orchestra at home!

In attendance to that, well stereo is nice, dolby is fun but what matters to me is timing, dynamics and freq. response…

One can consider mono reproduction as the experience of a listener at the infinite, or the band collapsed into a musical singularity

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Those that really care about music reproduction and aspects like these are very careful with speaker placement.
Of course not always possible/desirable and sometimes people sharing the room may have something to say about placement.
When you have a 'normal' listening room and a decent setup a good stereo image and sound stage is easy to obtain.

You still haven’t defined what a “normal” room is

Non 'normal' rooms may have lots of hard surfaces, little 'damping', weirdly shaped or non ideal listening spots. Quite likely the sound stage will not be great. You can blame the room. One can only do so much with DSP. The room, directivity of the speaker etc all are important too.

I just spent $50K rebuilding my dedicated listening room. I even took out the ceiling and converted the entire attic into a massive wide band bass trap.

Would my room be a “normal” room or a “non normal” room?

Rooms make a big difference and there are big differences between rooms. “Normal” room strikes me as a vague and near meaningless reference. “Non normal” room even more so.

 

[Miguelón]

A recording engineer can perfectly 'place' an instrument in a sound-stage.
Not only using panning but also with hall effects (moving it further backward in a mix) or bringing it more upfront (increasing 1-3kHz range a bit) and playing with phase (L opposite R) or delays etc.
So even a completely electronic generated recording can have a good sound-stage.
Not all sound engineers/mixers do this properly. Some even pan a drum kit from left to right making the sound stage 'weird'.
Normal instruments, singers etc. are easy to 'place' and with some experience you can almost point them out in the sound stage most of the time.

How 'stable' an instrument is in a sound stage (pinpoint accuracy) is what I call 'imaging'. Related to sound stage but not quite the same.
Mostly related to the speakers/headphones but also recording dependent.

Interesting what you said about hall effect to place closer and farther the instruments.

I assume this effects to be independent of channel

You still haven’t defined what a “normal” room is

I just spent $50K rebuilding my dedicated listening room. I even took out the ceiling and converted the entire attic into a massive wide band bass trap.

Would my room be a “normal” room or a “non normal” room?

Rooms make a big difference and there are big differences between rooms. “Normal” room strikes me as a vague and near meaningless reference. “Non normal” room even more so.

Non normal as my economic standards…

 

[solderdude]

You still haven’t defined what a “normal” room is

I just spent $50K rebuilding my dedicated listening room. I even took out the ceiling and converted the entire attic into a massive wide band bass trap.

Would my room be a “normal” room or a “non normal” room?

Rooms make a big difference and there are big differences between rooms. “Normal” room strikes me as a vague and near meaningless reference. “Non normal” room even more so.

Ah... that's your beef.... you don't have a 'normal' room and feel left out

You clearly don't have a 'normal' room but a dedicated listening room. If that can't produce a good sound stage you must have done something wrong

With 'normal' room I mean your average living room with a stereo setup around a TV.
I guess you know perfectly well what I mean.

 

[solderdude]

I assume this effects to be independent of channel

A recording engineer can apply all sorts effects to each single channel and pan it where ever they want in the sound stage. At least in any even half decent studio this can be done. How well the mixing engineer knows his way around the console/DAW is another matter.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Ah... that's your beef.... you don't have a 'normal' room and feel left out

You clearly don't have a 'normal' room but a dedicated listening room. If that can't produce a good sound stage you must have done something wrong

With 'normal' room I mean your average living room with a stereo setup around a TV.
I guess you know perfectly well what I mean.

My beef isn’t about my room in particular. It’s about the fact that every room is unique and matters greatly. So a “normal” room has little meaning and yet it’s a reference.

“your average living room with a stereo setup around a TV.” while more elaborate of a description is no less useless.

 

[usern]

A recording engineer can perfectly 'place' an instrument in a sound-stage.
Not only using panning but also with hall effects (moving it further backward in a mix) or bringing it more upfront (increasing 1-3kHz range a bit) and playing with phase (L opposite R) or delays etc.
So even a completely electronic generated recording can have a good sound-stage.
Not all sound engineers/mixers do this properly.

You imply that "good" music has every sound in exact place. I don't think it matters in electronic music. Stereo effects are used as artistic tool, but I don't think any electronic music producer use DSP or mix techniques to place every sound in XYZ coordinates.

 

[Titurel]

You imply that "good" music has every sound in exact place. I don't think it matters in electronic music. Stereo effects are used as artistic tool, but I don't think any electronic music producer use DSP or mix techniques to place every sound in XYZ coordinates.

Why wouldn't engineers/composers/producers use DSP etc. to place electronic sounds precisely within the xyz coordinates? The track below is, aside from the vocal, mostly electronic and, if the producers had not used mix techniques and DSP to place (and move) the "instruments," it would not be nearly as interesting or entertaining. You might also read up on the musical theories of composer Edgard Varése, a major influence on electronic music. It might surprise you.

 

[InfiniteJester]

My beef isn’t about my room in particular. It’s about the fact that every room is unique and matters greatly. So a “normal” room has little meaning and yet it’s a reference.

“your average living room with a stereo setup around a TV.” while more elaborate of a description is no less useless.

In statistics a norm may refer to an average derived from a representative sample or population, that may serve as a baseline or a target for sustaining a measure.

We can get as Socratic as we want, I studied Philosophy at college, among other things, but I think that the concept of "normal" is not as ill-defined as you may want it to be.

 

[DVDdoug]

You still haven’t defined what a “normal” room is

Maybe we should say "typical". A typical living room with carpet and furnishings has a mixture of random reflections and absorptions. Most rooms are fine except for the bass range. A good speaker will generally sound good in a living room or in a mixing/mastering studio (which usually has more absorption).

If you have an unusually reflective or unusually sound-absorbing room that would be an exception.

With typical rooms you get standing waves in the bass range that are dependent on room dimensions so the only thing typical or normal is that different rooms have different dips and peaks at different frequencies and at different places in the room.

 

[Sokel]

For everyone who wants to have fun with dimensions of recordings,localization,height,depth,etc this tests are the Disneyland and can help check if gear are set up decently too:

Spatial Hearing | Auditory Neuroscience

auditoryneuroscience.com

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

In statistics a norm may refer to an average derived from a representative sample or population, that may serve as a baseline or a target for sustaining a measure.

View attachment 380764

We can get as Socratic as we want, I studied Philosophy at college, among other things, but I think that the concept of "normal" is not as ill-defined as you may want it to be.

In its application to audio and sound quality I think it is pretty close to useless. I don’t think your bell curve does anything to rebut that.

 

[usern]

if the producers had not used mix techniques and DSP to place (and move) the "instruments," it would not be nearly as interesting or entertaining.

Honestly, I don't hear it. Location of sounds is not important to me, but it can be distracting if something is too much panned.

I'm listening to electronic music that is more focused on sound design.

Spoiler

 

[DVDdoug]

Why wouldn't engineers/composers/producers use DSP etc. to place every sound precisely within the xyz coordinates?

I had a link to an article on panning (for mixing engineers) but unfortunately the website is gone. The conclusion was that you can carefully position everything and then if you move your head, or listen in a different room with different speakers, everything changes. Their recommendation was to mix everything L-C-R, or maybe Center and 80 or 90% left & right and don't try to perfectly place everything.

Then I figured-out something else several years ago when Metallica's Death Magnetic was released - Everybody was complaining that it was over-compressed and that it "sounded like mono". Dynamic compression pushes everything toward the same loudness and that means that anything not hard-panned will be pushed toward the center. So the mixing engineer probably carefully positioned everything and the mastering engineer fouled all that up trying to win the loudness war. (I don't have that album. I just read about it.)

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Maybe we should say "typical". A typical living room with carpet and furnishings has a mixture of random reflections and absorptions. Most rooms are fine except for the bass range.

What exactly is the metric for “fine”? All this time and effort into detailed measurements of speakers and so little attention paid to the room.

The speakers and room are a system and have to be evaluated as such. Rooms are just as specific in their acoustics as speakers are in their performance and the interactions are complex.

A good speaker will generally sound good in a living room or in a mixing/mastering studio (which usually has more absorption).

Sorry but for a serious audiophile that is useless

If you have an unusually reflective or unusually sound-absorbing room that would be an exception.

It’s a lot more involved than that

With typical rooms you get standing waves in the bass range that are dependent on room dimensions so the only thing typical or normal is that different rooms have different dips and peaks at different frequencies and at different places in the room.

“Typical” “normal” whatever vague term you want to use. It’s still pretty much useless

But yes, room modes matter. But even that tends to be oversimplified both in their nature and in the solutions for dealing with them

 

[InfiniteJester]

In its application to audio and sound quality I think it is pretty close to useless. I don’t think your bell curve does anything to rebut that.

You don't think that the characteristics of the rooms can be plotted?

What do you think preference curves are?