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Describe your decisive experience that completely changed your view of audiophilia with a comment.

My decisive experiences include blind testing myself in various situations, repeatedly amazed at my inability to distinguish sound differences between electronics when I couldn't see what I was listening to. Also, the powerful differences in sound quality from putting the same system in a different room. Are these really the same speakers??
 
It was the early 80s, when I had a buddy who worked in a studio and they paid me to remove everything down to the bare triple sheet rocked walls. . They had moved to a new mixing studio and the new place had all new treatment installed. I took about 1/2 of the material on the walls (that was used in sound proof booths) and installed that in 1/2 a wood workshop that I built cabinets in. About 75% of those cabinets were speaker cabinets.

Two things happened, I could work on Sundays or nights without the neighbors complaining about the noise, AND that system sounded as good if not better than the one in my main room and it cost me pennies comparatively. Infinity QLII vs VMPS QSO808s (160.00) kits for the shop. BTW I still have those speakers.

Man, did I learn what I thought I knew about the room/speaker relationship. I can't count the times I fell asleep at an analog mechanical drawing station listening to music in that room.

Regards
 
Yes, they were.



Off-axis response was naturally very different, but that should not have played a role in the anechoic chamber. Compression was tested in form of FR measurements at different levels. Of course both designs were not identical, there are multiple explanations possible why they sounded so overly different: longer sustain in the resonance area of the CB driver, reflections in the cabinet coming out through the diaphragm, slight deviations over different angles within the listening window and many more. The point is the experiment showed how limited our standard models of measuring loudspeakers are, and it was partly shaking worldviews of some lab engineers who had previously thought that no tonal differences are possible if FR is identical.
We may see some data as FR, IMP or that stuff?
 
DSP
 
DSP and OKTO DAC8PRO
- The latest system setup of my DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier fully active audio rig, including updated startup/ignition sequences and shutdown sequences: as of June 26, 2024: #931

- The latest Fq-SPL (re-confirmation) of multiple amplifiers SP high-level output signals and that of room air sound at listening position: all measured by “FFT averaging of recorded cumulative DSP-processed flat white noise” (as of June 8, 2025): #1,009
 
I have a Sound Devices USBPre 2 that I take on trips when I'm recording to by Macbook ... I also used to use it as a DAC when editing. I was using an old "Hackintosh" workstation and my screen died and I "upgraded" needing a new videocard and Displayport cable and heard a loud buzzing ... I initially thought that I had blown my USBPre2 (which was only $650 at the time I got it but nonetheless) ... lo and behold it was the new GPU and Displayport cable ... solved that by editing on my Macbook! and network enabling my playback ... this was circa 2013 ... audiophilia? I've always been practical
 
Decisive experience? I would say "FIR filter" ... especially after learning how to design my own FIR filter.
So much to learn ... so little time.
 
First big moment was driving license and my own car. I had a pair of focal K2 speakers installed on dampened and braced door panels and a good sub in the trunk and it sounded amazing. Being able to listen as loud as I ever wanted was a huge change.

It took around 10 years from getting my first car to even try home audio, and oh boy, how that escalated. Our living room setup is far from ideal for music listening and I was kind of forced to learn and interpret measurements to have any chance of fixing the issues. Since then the mic has been irreplaceable tool to test and learn new things.

Then another eye opener was taking a pair of speakers I liked to our summer cabin. Damn that was depressing. They sounded so much better in that log cabin than in our house. Much better even than the 10 times more expensive setup I had in our living room. I think you have to experience it yourself to fully understand how big difference can a room make.
 
The following were most impactful for me, given my musical preferences:
1. Proliferation of digital audio recordings
2. The Linkwitz Orion/LX521 speakers
 
It's all about whether you are listening to music as such or focusing on a specific audio system. One hears with the ears, not with the eyes, and the ears are neither a microphone nor a speaker driver. And this is primarily a man's problem, rarely a woman's.
 
buying an overpriced "audiophile" dac that sounded like trash. followed by loads of research
 
Around 2010 I made a 15"+4" CD two-ways with a digital crossover.
The next 30% addition to the complete change was DBA bass.
by 6 dB 3 dB (oops, thanks @Blumlein 88!) per doubling of distance for a line source (which the panel approximates), and by 3 dB 6 dB per doubling of distance from a point source
And 0 dB for plain wave :cool:. This is a some problem for the integration of a plain wave of sub system and more or less point sourse mains. I would like to try line array mains, but I don't have the resources (all of them)) to do so.
 
Around 2010 I made a 15"+4" CD two-ways with a digital crossover.
The next 30% addition to the complete change was DBA bass.

And 0 dB for plain wave :cool:. This is a some problem for the integration of a plain wave of sub system and more or less point sourse mains. I would like to try line array mains, but I don't have the resources (all of them)) to do so.

Yes!

Those big SoundLab panels behave like a plane wave source over short distances. You can move towards them and put your ear up against the grille cloth, and over the last foot or two of distance, there is no change in loudness as your ear gets closer. Try this with conventional speakers and you might need a new ear!
 
My understanding is that if you had a panel speaker of near infinite size, the volume would be the same whether stood right in front of it or stood a mile away from it.
 
My understanding is that if you had a panel speaker of near infinite size, the volume would be the same whether stood right in front of it or stood a mile away from it.
An infinite size panel will radiate out a plane wave, which, when in a non-dissipative (lossless) media, will propagate in the direction perpendicular to the panel without attenuation. However, since air is not perfectly non-dissipative, the sound wave will attenuate, and the amount of attenuation is frequency dependent (attenuates faster for higher frequencies).

For more detailed info on air absorptiom, see: https://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/Absorption/Absorption.html
 
My understanding is that if you had a panel speaker of near infinite size, the volume would be the same whether stood right in front of it or stood a mile away from it.
This might be true - but you would also need infinite power to drive it.

Imagine all the power from all the suns in all the galaxies of the universe simultaniously pouring all their energy into the infinite speaker - and they still wouldn't be able to create an audible SPL :p
 
panel speaker of near infinite size
For a finite room height and width, multiple subwoofers approximate a flat driver quite usefully at lower frequencies.
1763751874244.png

1763752110948.png

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a mile away from it
Even in a shorter room, one can get by without rear subwoofers, because dissipative losses exist.
 
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My understanding is that if you had a panel speaker of near infinite size, the volume would be the same whether stood right in front of it or stood a mile away from it.
The sound pressure amplitude of a sound radiating surface on an infinite baffle can be computed using the Rayleigh Integral method (see reference below). The picture in the reference showed a circular piston and used the spherical coordinate system. But it is equally applicable to a rectangular piston and the Cartesian coordinate system.

Here is the on-axis sound pressure computed for a 10 m X 10 m square "piston" for 440 Hz (normalized to 0 dB for the closest point, air absorption not considered). Beyond ~100 m we would be in the acoustic far field, and the sound pressure drop follows the -6 dB per double distance rule. Note that in the acoustic near field the particle velocity and pressure are not in-phase.
sound_press_plot_rayleigh_integral.png

Python:
import numpy as np
from scipy.integrate import dblquad
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

c = 343.0    # Speed of sound, SI unit
rho = 1.204    # Density of air, SI unit

def dB(x):
    """ dB(x) = 20 log10( abs(x) + 5 eps )
        The added small positive number is to prevent the nuisance error when `x` = 0
    """
    return 20.0*np.log10(np.abs(x) + 5.0*np.finfo(np.float64).eps)

def vfunc(v_in=1.0, f=1000.0):
    """ Function to give the surface velocity of the piston.
    """
    # Normalize the piston velocity to 1 kHz
    return v_in / (f / 1000.0)

def intg_func_cart(y, z, pt_meas, k, vp):
    """ The integrand function (the part inside the Rayleigh integral) when using
          Cartesian coordinates.
        Note that this function returns a complex number, and `scipy.integrate.dblquad`
          works only with real numbers. The real and imaginary parts of the integral
          need to be separately computed with `scipy.integrate.dblquad`.
    """
    d = np.linalg.norm(pt_meas - np.array([0.0, y, z]))
    return vp * np.exp(-1.0j*k*d) / d

def press_cart(pt_meas, f):
    """ Compute the Rayleigh integral when using Cartesian coordinates.
        Because the `scipy` `dblquad` double integral function works only with real numbers,
          to integrate a function which return complex values, the real and imaginary parts
          of the integral need to be computed separately, and the results combined back
          together to return the complex values.
        This function assumes a rigid piston, and thus the piston velocity `vp` is constant
          over its surface.
        `pt_meas` are the coordinates at which the complex pressure is returned.
        `f` is the piston surface oscillation frequency in Hz
    """
    w = 2.0*np.pi*f
    k = w/c
    # The piston (cone) velocity is obtained by calling vfunc()
    vp = vfunc(v_in, f)
    intgl_re = dblquad(lambda y, z : np.real(intg_func_cart(y, z, pt_meas, k, vp)),
                       -0.5*height, 0.5*height, -0.5*width, 0.5*width)
    intgl_im = dblquad(lambda y, z : np.imag(intg_func_cart(y, z, pt_meas, k, vp)),
                       -0.5*height, 0.5*height, -0.5*width, 0.5*width)
    return 1.0j*rho*f*(intgl_re[0] + 1.0j*intgl_im[0])

f = 440.0                  # signal frequency
v_in = np.sqrt(8.0)/100    # Piston velocity amplitude, m/s
width = 1.0                # Panel width, m
height = 1.0               # Panel height, m
xmeas = np.logspace(np.log10(0.01), np.log10(10.0), 151)  # X-coordinates of the measurement points, m

pmeas = np.array([press_cart(np.array([x, 0.0, 0.0]), f) for x in xmeas])

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(8, 5))
ax.semilogx(xmeas, dB(pmeas) - dB(pmeas[0]))
ax.grid(True, axis='both', which='both')
ax.set_title('On-Axis Sound Pressure Magnitude with Distance')
ax.set_xlabel('Distance (m)')
ax.set_ylabel('Normalized Sound Pressure, (dB)')
plt.show()
 
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