Floyd Toole video presentation, redux

[TLEDDY]

I am certain that Dr. Tooles’ video is already on site; I did search, to no avail. I think it need’s repeating:

A great introduction and/or refresher on speaker design and measurement…

 

[Mal]

So should we be listening to one speaker? Once we stereo-heads get used to it, would the aesthetic experience be just as good, or better? We'd lose our ability to hear violins on the left and cellos on the right. Would that be a big loss?

He says "the room doesn't matter!" So can I stop worrying about room equalisation? He also says "we can listen through the room", so (again) why bother with equalisation, just get used to listening through the room.

He says measuring with one microphone is a waste of time, we need Spinorama. So is REW a waste of time?

He points to an older high end KEF speaker as being flat on axis but not good off - leading to a moderate result in listening tests - the first reflections acting badly (not great for something meant to be high end!) How do the current crop of KEFs compare to Harbeth speakers in this repect?

So he's saying the source is all important and the room does not matter. He's saying that a symphony in a concert hall that musicians agree sounds great should provide a great source, as long as the microphone placers & knob twidlers have great ears. This makes sense to me and perhaps explains my CD collection (the good and the bad!) It isn't my room that's bad, it isn't my speakers that are bad, it's that my bad sounding CDs are bad sources. Otherwise wouldn't all my CDs sound bad?

So why are so many recordings so bad? He says too many recording engineers are using bad speakers! So how do we get out of this "circle of confusion"?

He says active loudspeakers are the way to go, to flatten the curve and stop resonances. Is this correct? Amir uses DSP to flatten the curve - isn't that enough?

Anyone have a link to tomorrows lecture on dealing with bass? More details on this lecture here: https://www.cirmmt.org/en/events/distinguished-lectures/toole

 

[amirm]

So should we be listening to one speaker?

If you are evaluating a speaker, yes. If you are listening to music for enjoyment, obviously no.

 

[amirm]

He says "the room doesn't matter!" So can I stop worrying about room equalisation? He also says "we can listen through the room", so (again) why bother with equalisation, just get used to listening through the room.

The room absolutely matters in low frequencies as that dominates the frequency response so for sure Dr. Toole did not say that. On higher frequencies, we do have the ability to "hear through the room" but this is not absolute and Dr. Toole goes through great lengths to explain the effect of room reflections. And why off-axis response is important.

 

[amirm]

He says measuring with one microphone is a waste of time, we need Spinorama. So is REW a waste of time?

Again, not for bass optimization. 90% of what you do with REW measurements should be focused on this area. The last bit is determining the overall slope of the response which includes higher frequencies.

REW with one mic is indeed incapable of telling you much above transition frequencies. Selection of speaker and room design is the best tools there.

 

[amirm]

So why are so many recordings so bad? He says too many recording engineers are using bad speakers! So how do we get out of this "circle of confusion"?

There is not even a trace of an effort to fix circle of confusion in Pro space. No standards. Nothing. So content is going to remain whatever it is.

Something that partially helps is well designed Pro monitors becoming more and more common.

 

[amirm]

He says active loudspeakers are the way to go, to flatten the curve and stop resonances. Is this correct? Amir uses DSP to flatten the curve - isn't that enough?

Active speakers with DSP included is the ultimate approach to best response and efficiency. Using DSP with speakers helps and can get close or match active ones but is really the hard/wrong way to do things these days.

 

[Mal]

The room absolutely matters in low frequencies as that dominates the frequency response so for sure Dr. Toole did not say that. On higher frequencies, we do have the ability to "hear through the room" but this is not absolute and Dr. Toole goes through great lengths to explain the effect of room reflections. And why off-axis response is important.

I think he said the room did not matter, or implied it, in at least one specific context.

From 17 minutes onwards he shows several very different rooms in which he said people made the same choice of speakers. So at least he was saying the room doesn't matter for speaker evaluation. This is a very interesting result, if correct, it means you can evaluate speakers well in any hifi shop - the best sounding speaker in the hifi shop shoud be the best sounding speaker in your, or anyone else's, home.

 

[Buckchester]

I think he said the room did not matter, or implied it, in at least one specific context.

From 17 minutes onwards he shows several very different rooms in which he said people made the same choice of speakers. So at least he was saying the room doesn't matter for speaker evaluation. This is a very interesting result, if correct, it means you can evaluate speakers well in any hifi shop - the best sounding speaker in the hifi shop shoud be the best sounding speaker in your, or anyone else's, home.

The answers are more nuanced than that.

The room and location of a speaker will affect how it sounds, but the room isn't a factor in determining which speaker is better.

Speaker A and Speaker B might each sound better in room 1. They might each sound worse in room 2. But speaker A sounds better than speaker B in both rooms.

If you are going to compare speakers, they need to be in the same room, in as close to the same location as possible and the comparison between each has to occur quickly.

They also need to be level-matched. If one speaker plays louder it may sound better because of it. But that doesn't mean it's better. It simply means the volume on the other speaker needs to be turned up a little to get a fair comparison.

If you compare different speakers in different rooms with more than a few seconds im between, well then you won't have accomplished anything.

 

[akamatsu]

"The scientific process requires both subjective and technical measurements."