Essential AES reading for high fidelity home reproduction

[Wombat]

Any one that concentrates on practical application for stereo systems in various real-world rooms, including wide-range large box speakers(no subwoofers to move around)?

 

[amirm]

I agree.

It already is (sticky that is).

 

[Head_Unit]

That article PDF can be downloaded for free here.

That goes to https://www.mkloudspeakers.uk but I'm not seeing any PDF - ???

 

[Head_Unit]

I'll nominate an oldie but goodie
http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=5147
Subwoofer Performance for Accurate Reproduction of Music
Fielder, Louis D.; Benjamin, Eric M
First as a Convention preprint IIRC, then JAES Volume 36 Issue 6 pp. 443-456; June 1988
The basic and very very interesting point is that if a subwoofer cannot reproduce some serious SPLs at the lowest frequencies, you cannot hear it, because it is not loud enough versus Fletcher-Munson. This somewhat implies that small subs are useless for really low bass.

 

[Speedskater]

I just posted this in another thread:
Tons of stuff on the "Audio Engineering Society" 'Pacific Northwest Section' page:
http://www.aes.org/sections/pnw/jj.htm
http://www.aes-media.org/sections/pnw/ppt/
http://www.aes-media.org/sections/pnw/pnwrecaps/

 

[Speedskater]

and this:
The one Audio Engineering Society Journal everyone interested in audio engineering should have, it's about 84 pages and it's only $15:
June 1995, Volume 43 Number 6 "Shields and Grounds"
https://customer258769455.portal.me...tegoryID=dfb59c4a-0066-cfc7-defb-0b3b8d837468
with papers and reports by: Bill Whitlock, Charles Atkinson, Philip Gliddings, Stephen Macatee, Cal Perkins, Kenneth Fause
and the complete Neil Muncy (RIP) pin1 problem paper
and the John Windt "Hummer Tester" paper

 

[kevinh]

Well not AES papers but Earl Geddes looked into the subwoofer issue. His approach was not exactly the same as Welti, but is effective. THere are a number of white papers at his site.

http://www.gedlee.com/Papers/papers.aspx

Two articles commneting on Geddes appraoch to subs one covers seting up multiple subs in a room.

http://seriousaudioblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/two-great-articles-on-multiple.html

https://mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/

 

[BradleyPNW]

If this does not belong as a reference please remove it.

Here is a blog post that describes how Floyd Toole set up his personal listening room. Toole explains practical reasons why he did the things he did. With regard to low frequency room modes, Todd Welti personally set up Toole's sub woofers.

1) Four woofers located in the corners.
2) Harman Sound Field Management.
3) A high pass filter applied to his inverted Salon 2s (i.e. their low frequency reproduction interfered with Welti's sub set up.)

https://www.thescreeningroomav.com/...te-Real-World-Home-Theater-and-Listening-Room

 

[Wombat]

and this:
The one Audio Engineering Society Journal everyone interested in audio engineering should have, it's about 84 pages and it's only $15:
June 1995, Volume 43 Number 6 "Shields and Grounds"
https://customer258769455.portal.me...tegoryID=dfb59c4a-0066-cfc7-defb-0b3b8d837468
with papers and reports by: Bill Whitlock, Charles Atkinson, Philip Gliddings, Stephen Macatee, Cal Perkins, Kenneth Fause
and the complete Neil Muncy (RIP) pin1 problem paper
and the John Windt "Hummer Tester" paper

Here is the Whitlock paper on the Jensen website: https://www.jensen-transformers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/generic-seminar.pdf

 

[detlev24]

Group delay in low frequencies- any good AES papers on this?

Audibility of loudspeaker group-delay characteristics [see free "Access to Document"]

 

[Frgirard]

Listening conditions for the assessment of sound programme material: monophonic and two–channel stereophonic

https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3276.pdf


Listening conditions for the assessment of Multichannel sound programme material

https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3276s1.pdf


BBC Guide to Acoustic Practice 1990
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/...tural-acoustics/bbc_guideacousticpractice.pdf

 

[Wes]

This summarizes a lot of his book:

Toole, F. E. 2006. Loudspeakers and Rooms for Sound Reproduction—A Scientific Review J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 54, No. 6 June

And, below, I summarize a lot of his article:

Living rooms are in the transitional region, where the direct and early reflected sounds dominate, and late reflected sounds are subdued, and progressively attenuated with distance. The sound field is not diffuse, and there is no critical distance, as classically defined. SPL declines ~~ 3dB as distance doubles - p. 455

The late reflected sound field is greatly diminished with distance from the source. These are not “Sabine” spaces, and it is not appropriate to employ calculations and measurements that rely on assumptions of diffusivity. - p. 456

• Localization (direction)—the precedence effect; cognitive effect of direct sound setting location in the brain

• Localization (distance); reflections esp. earphones improve distance judgement; may be more driven by monaural cues p. 458

• Image size and position; delayed lateral sound caused a “pleasant broadening of the primary sound source” (Haas)

• Sense of space ----> get multichannels

• Timbre: comb filtering, repetition pitch; “Two ears and a brain have advantages over a microphone and an analyzer” p. 459

• Timbre: audibility of resonances; don’t record acoustic music outdoors

• Speech intelligibility; very important freq. range

 

[Wes]

Master Handbook of Acoustics, Sixth Edition
By F. Alton Everest and Ken Pohlmann

 

[McLenin]

Master Handbook of Acoustics, Seventh Edition 7th Edition
by F. Alton Everest (Author), Ken Pohlmann (Author)

Should be available on 2-Sep-2021

I have it on pre-order, looking forward to it.
Recently finished the Sound reproduction and psychoacoustics from Toole. Definately will need another go at it to better comprehend what I have read.

 

[Wes]

It'll be interesting to see what changes from 6th to 7th eds.

 

[Tom Danley]

I'll nominate an oldie but goodie
http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=5147
Subwoofer Performance for Accurate Reproduction of Music
Fielder, Louis D.; Benjamin, Eric M
First as a Convention preprint IIRC, then JAES Volume 36 Issue 6 pp. 443-456; June 1988
The basic and very very interesting point is that if a subwoofer cannot reproduce some serious SPLs at the lowest frequencies, you cannot hear it, because it is not loud enough versus Fletcher-Munson. This somewhat implies that small subs are useless for really low bass.

A classic paper and yes that is correct. If i recall that paper showed that a 20Hz fundimental at the threshold of audibilty would be subjectivly just as loud as a 7% 3rd harmonic at 60Hz because of the slope of the equal loudness curve.
Tom

 

[sarumbear]

I'm looking to compile a list of what people consider essential AES reading for high fidelity stereo reproduction in the home. The first I plan to start reading is the Welti subwoofer articles (thanks @dallasjustice ), but doing a search there are seven articles just on the first page of my search (with 129 total results).

This is why I'm emphasizing essential reading since my time is limited. Thanks all!

Edit: the Welti sub article that Nyal Mellor linked in one of his blog posts is this one. Nyal's site is a great resource for information. I'll continue to add links as I go through it.

AES papers are not free to non-members.

 

[Head_Unit]

A classic paper and yes that is correct. If i recall that paper showed that a 20Hz fundimental at the threshold of audibilty would be subjectivly just as loud as a 7% 3rd harmonic at 60Hz because of the slope of the equal loudness curve.
Tom

So we should buy amps that have poor shielding and let through a lot of 60 Hz from the power supply?!?

By the way, whatever happened to that 80-18k Hz speaker you made that looked like an Asian room divider screen? Line of magnets along one edge, "hinged" along the other?

 

[Tom Danley]

Oh my, your one of us old timers!
When i worked at Intersonics inc, after "fixing" my Boss's esl-63's, the rule was i could pursue loudspeakers on the side BUT I was not allowed to use conventional drivers.

As my job was building acoustic levitation transducers and other transducers for the NASA and research side and I was building electrostatic drivers for fun, having to make Audio transducers was not a big jump.

The Servodrive sub-woofers and the Focused Field speakers were two of those. Eventually we made a large sonic boom simulator for NASA research which could play music too so that was in both sides of the ball park, science and audio haha.
When the space shuttle disaster happened, the work on a levitation system for the space station ceased and the company slowly went under.

The company hired a business consultant who was enamored with the loudspeaker side and suggested that had the best likelihood of succeeding.

He took on some investors and then shortly after fled back to south Africa with the money after having set up the business to make it look like my former boss was responsible with the IRS. .

That was the end of that business.
That whole time in my life was heartbreaking and it took a long time before I felt like working on the rotary loudspeaker technology or doing any government work. The Servodrive and the Rotary motion variants like the phoenix Cyclone below (made under license) and the Focused Field were examples of rotary loudspeakers.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/289919294736491860/

My partner at DSL is keen for me to resurrect the Focused Field speaker you mentioned. I am going out of town with him later today and will bring that up.
Best,
Tom

 

[DonH56]

What about @j_j ? Many papers, a number available without joining... We also have a a number of other members who do audio for a living, and/or are considered experts in one or more aspects of audio -- the list would be long.

About JJ: https://www.aes.org/member/profile.cfm?ID=1800973364

A list of AES presentations (not just JJ's): https://www.aes-media.org/sections/pnw/ppt/

And a few he has mentioned:
https://www.aes.org/sections/pnw/ -- look for the FFT workshop
https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15846

AES PNW Meeting Report - Hearing 099