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Can't we all just get along?

krabapple

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Literally no one on this planet is doing blind listening comparisons and sharing these results publicly, so are you saying that not a single subjective opinion about speakers is relevant?

I would say that, yeah, pretty much. I'd reserve respect for those deeply knowing and aware of loudspeaker function, room acoustics, and psychoacoustics (including the myriad ways that sighted evaluations stink). They tend to know what to assert and not to assert as fact.

As regards most other audio gear (i.e., non transducers), it applies even more stringently: your subjective opinion of the sound , free of other supporting evidence, doesn't matter *at all* to me.

That many 'audiophiles' find such a stance unthinkable if not outrageous, amuses me. :)
 

ta240

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I think there's value to be had in sighted subjective impressions, particularly when the reviewer in question can correlate them to measurements. Of course, it's a sliding scale. From most valuable to least valuable subjective listening, IMHO:
<snip>
3) Subjective listening, followed by objective measurements, and then correlating the two (as Erin does)
4) Objective measurements, followed by subjective listening, and then correlating the two (as Amir does)
<snip>
Yeah sure it'd be just dandy if Amir were swept off to Harman's labs and blindfolded ahead of each speaker measurement, but I don't see it as an all or nothing prospect, <snip>
It sure seems like it would be easy to switch from 4 to 3....
Otherwise it is about the same as the PS Audio version of "let me tell you what to listen for here" comparison.
 

abdo123

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I would say that, yeah, pretty much. I'd reserve respect for those deeply knowing and aware of loudspeaker function, room acoustics, and psychoacoustics (including the myriad ways that sighted evaluations stink). They tend to know what to assert and not to assert as fact.

As regards most other audio gear (i.e., non transducers), it applies even more stringently: your subjective opinion of the sound , free of other supporting evidence, doesn't matter *at all* to me.

That many 'audiophiles' find such a stance unthinkable if not outrageous, amuses me. :)
Not trusting others' opinion is reasonable, not trusting your own opinion is a little crazy for me.
 

DonH56

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Not trusting others' opinion is reasonable, not trusting your own opinion is a little crazy for me.
I discovered decades ago that my listening impressions were heavily influenced by my own biases. Vast differences completely disappeared in DBT/ABX tests. I try to separate opinion from preference from fact, sometimes successfully. "Trust, but verify."
 

krabapple

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Disagree. Other people's (sighted) evaluations of loudspeakers have often had value for me, and have led me to some wonderful listening experiences and purchases. Likewise, over the years I've been told by plenty of people that my descriptions of loudspeakers were helpful in their own speaker search/purchases.

Anecdotal and statistically opaque* report noted!

But hey, here at Audio SCIENCE Review we still keep the tent big enough to allow all kinds of....stuff, in.


(*Might one tend to recall the 'wonderful' and 'helpful' experiences, more than the less-than? Rhetorical question, btw. )
 
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abdo123

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I discovered decades ago that my listening impressions were heavily influenced by my own biases. Vast differences completely disappeared in DBT/ABX tests. I try to separate opinion from preference from fact, sometimes successfully. "Trust, but verify."

Oh i completely agree, but when there is a measurable difference that is also audible in ABX tests (that's definitely the case with 99% of speakers) not trusting yourself with regards of which one sounds better to you until you look at a graph is a bit too much extremism for me. It's like sucking the fun right out of life.
 

krabapple

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Not trusting others' opinion is reasonable, not trusting your own opinion is a little crazy for me.


You must think scientists who study perception, decision making, and related topics are just plain nuts. They always insist on pesky controls when doing their research. They're concerned about getting it wrong.

And this guy is simply spreading madness. Don't read this book.


417SVyrjamL._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg



There's degrees of 'trusting' -- there's tempering your beliefs with appropriate doubt, and there's believing your opinions can't be wrong simply by virtue of them being *yours*.

Knowing that I might be wrong doesn't 'suck the fun right out of life' for me.
 

MattHooper

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I discovered decades ago that my listening impressions were heavily influenced by my own biases. Vast differences completely disappeared in DBT/ABX tests. I try to separate opinion from preference from fact, sometimes successfully. "Trust, but verify."

Yes, especially if we are doing science then skepticism is properly aimed at our own experiences just as it's aimed at others. That's the reason why the scientific method includes the checks and balances it does for those actually doing the science!
 

goat76

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No problem. You had given the proper caveat in your previous post.

Perhaps I took your comments about "finer details" and "actually hearing what they are reviewing" the wrong way. It sounded to me as if you were referring to some esoteric audio characteristics, the way some reviewers talk about "air" and "liquidity" and "P.R.A.T." and "leading edges". If you didn't mean it that way, then I was wrong and I apologize.

Reviewers (in any domain) only exist for one reason; to give advice to people who need it and help them make decisions. IOW, people who know more have an obligation to help those who know less. Otherwise, all we would have is a clique of elitists who go around patting each other on the back. The way I see it, audio is in danger of turning into that very thing.

We don't need a "worst-case scenario listening room", but we DO need to be mindful of keeping in touch with the average audio inquirer ..... and their average listening room.

Jim
The first thing that will be masked by a bad listening environment with lots of reflections is the three-dimensional clues of the recorded space (if that's included in the recording), that is the "finer details" I'm talking about.

We (humans) can't process the sound of two different rooms at the same time. When the reflections of the listening room are the dominating factor, and the ratio of the direct sound gets too low, we will hear our room instead of the recorded space, which in turn will only be heard as an "effect" on the overall sound.


A well-treated room is the best way for us to hear "into the recording" but was an exaggeration by me painting with a big brush. :)
A room that gives us enough direct sound for us to be able to hear the recorded room, is of course good enough. A fairly normal room with some rugs, things on the wall, some furniture, and a sofa can be good enough. But not optimal.
 
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markus

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The first thing that will be masked by a bad listening environment with lots of reflections is the three-dimensional clues of the recorded space (if that's included in the recording), that is the "finer details" I'm talking about.

We (humans) can't process the sound of two different rooms at the same time. When the reflections of the listening room are the dominating factor, and the ratio of the direct sound gets too low, we will hear our room instead of the recorded space, which in turn will only be heard as an "effect" on the overall sound.


A well-treated room is the best way for us to hear "into the recording" but was an exaggeration by me painting with a big brush. :)
A room that gives us enough direct sound for us to be able to hear the recorded room, is of course good enough. A fairly normal room with some rugs, things on the wall, some furniture, and a sofa can be good enough. But not optimal.
While what you say sounds intuitively right and is also a commonly held believe even amongst professionals I have experienced the opposite.

At one point I did build a setup that had only reflecting sound. No direct sound. At a certain level the reproduction became scarily realistic. But not only that, the size of the auditory space was the size of the recorded space, not the playback space. So the smaller and untreated (!) space enabled the perception of the recorded space.

The other example is ambisonics in an anechoic chamber. Per theory this should put the listener into the recorded space. The opposite happens, the whole recorded space is in your head, just like headphone playback.

Our brain is constantly trying to make sense of the sensory input and is capable of "deleting" unfitting sensory input from conscious perception (e.g. backwards masking). These mechanisms aren't understood good enough yet but they need to be understood at one point so we can make progress in sound recording and reproduction.
 

goat76

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While what you say sounds intuitively right and is also a commonly held believe even amongst professionals I have experienced the opposite.

At one point I did build a setup that had only reflecting sound. No direct sound. At a certain level the reproduction became scarily realistic. But not only that, the size of the auditory space was the size of the recorded space, not the playback space. So the smaller and untreated (!) space enabled the perception of the recorded space.

The other example is ambisonics in an anechoic chamber. Per theory this should put the listener into the recorded space. The opposite happens, the whole recorded space is in your head, just like headphone playback.

Our brain is constantly trying to make sense of the sensory input and is capable of "deleting" unfitting sensory input from conscious perception (e.g. backwards masking). These mechanisms aren't understood good enough yet but they need to be understood at one point so we can make progress in sound recording and reproduction.
Did you have a wall between you and the speakers?

I think you are mixing up direct sound with on-axis sound, even if no drivers were pointed directly at you, you still get a direct sound from the speakers because that's the sound that got the shortest distance to travel from the sound source to your ears.

I don't want to question the experience you had, it was probably a cool one. But what you most likely heard was a diffused sound/not a distinct direct sound, which was tricking you to believe you heard a much bigger space than your room.

It was most likely not a reproduction of the recorded space you heard because all the reflections in your room have been generated from just the positions of the speakers, and therefore, the distinction between the positions of the different sounds in the recorded space will be lost. The most and only true parameters we have of the original space can only be heard by maximizing the direct sound ratio vs the listening room reflections.

What's probably happening in the anechoic chamber is that all the flaws of the very simplistic stereo system are revealed, we need to "hear" the space between us and the sound source, but for that to occur we need all the clues the reflections otherwise give us.

I do wonder how an acoustic instrument sound in an anechoic chamber? :)
 
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markus

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I do wonder how an acoustic instrument sound in an anechoic chamber? :)

Also search for "B&O Music for Archimedes" and "Denon Anechoic Orchestral Music Recording"
 

goat76

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Also search for "B&O Music for Archimedes" and "Denon Anechoic Orchestral Music Recording"
Thank you, I will check it out later today.
 

Tangband

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Did you have a wall between you and the speakers?

I think you are mixing up direct sound with on-axis sound, even if no drivers were pointed directly at you, you still get a direct sound from the speakers because that's the sound that got the shortest distance to travel from the sound source to your ears.

I don't want to question the experience you had, it was probably a cool one. But what you most likely heard was a diffused sound/not a distinct direct sound, which was tricking you to believe you heard a much bigger space than your room.

It was most likely not a reproduction of the recorded space you heard because all the reflections in your room have been generated from just the positions of the speakers, and therefore, the distinction between the positions of the different sounds in the recorded space will be lost. The most and only true parameters we have of the original space can only be heard by maximizing the direct sound ratio vs the listening room reflections.

What's probably happening in the anechoic chamber is that all the flaws of the very simplistic stereo system are revealed, we need to "hear" the space between us and the sound source, but for that to occur we need all the clues the reflections otherwise give us.

I do wonder how an acoustic instrument sound in an anechoic chamber? :)
They sound awful.
As you are doing your own recordings, you of course know that one can play around with reverb plugins on your own recordings to hear how much delay in the reverb is needed to ”fill up” the stereo system flaws.
20-25 ms is a number that often gives the sound a sence of space around the instruments, especially when listening to orchestra or chamber music.:)

In a normal big room, you can use the sidewalls for the same effect , so about a total of 8 meters delayed music reflections bouncing on the sidewalls , compared to the direct sound of the speaker.

When I do my own 2 channel recordings, without additional effect, I often place the musicians about 4 meters from a big stone-wall. The total reflection distance will be about 8 meters from the direct sound from the musicians. This gives a very nice sence of space in the recordings.

The direct sound from the speaker ( or the recorded musicians distance to the mics ) , and the limit were direct sound and ambient sound will be equal ( 50/50%- the critical distance ) is often LESS than 1 meter. So much shorter than most people believe.

Thats the reason you often measure the direct sound of a loudspeaker from less than 1 meter in a normal room.

(Of course you know all this already. )
 
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markus

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One can play around with reverb plugins on your own recordings to hear how much delay is needed to ”fill up” the stereo system flaws.
20-25 ms is a number that often gives the sound a sence of space around the instruments, especially of listening to orchestra or chamber music.

In a normal big room, you can use the sidewalls for the same effect .
The trick isn't necessarily to add reverb which is coming from the same direction as the speakers but to add reverb coming from other directions than the direct sound. Put two additional speakers at ±60 degrees and you will be surprised.
 

Tangband

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The trick isn't necessarily to add reverb which is coming from the same direction as the speakers but to add reverb coming from other directions than the direct sound. Put two additional speakers at ±60 degrees and you will be surprised.
True. :)
The sidewalls will reflect sound from the sides.
 

Mr. E. Guy

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While what you say sounds intuitively right and is also a commonly held believe even amongst professionals I have experienced the opposite.

At one point I did build a setup that had only reflecting sound. No direct sound. At a certain level the reproduction became scarily realistic. But not only that, the size of the auditory space was the size of the recorded space, not the playback space. So the smaller and untreated (!) space enabled the perception of the recorded space.

The other example is ambisonics in an anechoic chamber. Per theory this should put the listener into the recorded space. The opposite happens, the whole recorded space is in your head, just like headphone playback.

Our brain is constantly trying to make sense of the sensory input and is capable of "deleting" unfitting sensory input from conscious perception (e.g. backwards masking). These mechanisms aren't understood good enough yet but they need to be understood at one point so we can make progress in sound recording and reproduction.
901 alert! 901 alert! Paging Dr. Bose
 
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