Our perception of audio

[Cosmik]

Well, it depends
What do you mean with "compensate for them"?
And which differences are you considering?

If the target is to decode which words your friends are telling to you, I agree. But for the same analogy, even a speaker of 10€ can serve the purpose, you don't need a 10k setup.
If the target is also to decode the mode/tone on how he tell you the words, probably you won't get if the room are bigger and you are far away. And for the same analogy you need a proper setup, again, better than the previous one.
Go higher in details you want to decode, and you need some pro and quality playback setups.

The fact is: if what you are looking for is deeper (i.e. you decoding target are particularly thin), you reach a point where listening to different setups is always different, so a change in sound make differences for you.
If instead your listening capacity is "limited", you will reach a stable listening at some point.
But in that case, I think you don't need more than a pair of 200€ speakers.

Now, since all of you are expert: if you listen to a track on a pair of speakers and you start to notice that the bass is a bit higher, you are at some capacity level where you will ALWAYS discriminate differences on the bass between different setups, even between 30k ones (because your listening ability is good). Than, it seems you will never got stability in listening to music... it will be ALWAYS different.

Are you saying you don't care about the higher bass differences between setups? Well, you don' need such a setup so, whichever can be ok

I refer you back to where I suggested:

There is a minimum level of engineering required to do such a miraculous thing as summon the world's finest musicians to your living room on demand, and to do it well i.e. close to neutral. It costs in the region of, say, $1000 up to $5000 - but would be cheaper if millions of people were interested in buying it.

That's the only area I'm interested in. An audio system that costs the same as a car is clearly ridiculous. But 200 euros is too low, I think. My own system uses budget and second hand components and would probably come in at about 600 euros. I don't think it could be made from scratch with new components for that unless made in large quantities. It would be more than powerful enough for most living rooms.

Software is 'free'; electronic circuit boards are cheap; speaker drivers use metal, lots of copper, big magnets, plastic and glue and are heavy; boxes are bulky. There's a lot of parts to put together, and packaging and transporting the finished items won't be cheap. I don't believe there's any magic in exotic materials - it can be done with ordinary materials. It's all in the design and, as I say, a minimum level of engineering.

Would you begrudge spending $1000-$5000 on something as magical as a hi-fi system?

 

[Cosmik]

...if you listen to a track on a pair of speakers and you start to notice that the bass is a bit higher, you are at some capacity level where you will ALWAYS discriminate differences on the bass between different setups, even between 30k ones (because your listening ability is good). Than, it seems you will never got stability in listening to music... it will be ALWAYS different.

Are you saying you don't care about the higher bass differences between setups? Well, you don' need such a setup so, whichever can be ok

Just homing in on those statements, I think what you are saying is highly relevant to the idea that audiophiles perceive audio, not a reproduction of 'real life'.

In real life, nobody talks about "bass", "mid range" or "treble". They are not 'objects' in real life. The fact that audiophiles talk about them is a giveaway that they are more interested in the mechanical aspects of audio reproduction; of listening to the system and not through it.

As far as I am concerned, the aim of the stereo system is to make one end of the room into a virtual opening onto a musical happening. I don't merely want to "decode" what the musicians are doing, but to be able to perceive (depending on mood etc.) all the 'objects' e.g. a small voice in a large space, etc. Multi-channel enthusiasts may go one step further: to place themselves in the middle of the original venue.

I was listening to some female soprano classical recordings yesterday, and (to me) my system reaches the above goal, not because I built in a soprano classical module, or because it's got brilliant treble, but because it is reasonably neutral.

I suspect that if I were an ordinary audiophile, I would be obsessed with, say, how low the bass goes while staying flat. Only 30Hz? No! It must be 20Hz. I would then embark on a life's work to reach the magical 20Hz. Measurements, huge power amps, subwoofers, bass reflex, traps, eliminating the resulting rattles and vibrations. At every stage, deviating from the 'integrity' of a pair of simple boxes in a comfortable living room.

 

[Nowhk]

As usual, thanks for your time and patience, really appreciated

Just homing in on those statements, I think what you are saying is highly relevant to the idea that audiophiles perceive audio, not a reproduction of 'real life'.

In real life, nobody talks about "bass", "mid range" or "treble". They are not 'objects' in real life. The fact that audiophiles talk about them is a giveaway that they are more interested in the mechanical aspects of audio reproduction; of listening to the system and not through it.

It depends how do you choose them to be musical "objects" or not.

Isn't timbre an object?
Isn't dynamic range an object?

For both, any "audio" intervention will change them a bit. Since there are always an audio intervation on playback, they will always be different.
Now I'm sure you will say "there are differences and differences", and I agree. Thus, where is (if there is) the limit where audio edits should be considered? Which is the range in which timbre (or dynamic range), received through the system (different) won't move away?

I was listening to some female soprano classical recordings yesterday, and (to me) my system reaches the above goal, not because I built in a soprano classical module, or because it's got brilliant treble, but because it is reasonably neutral.

You will get the "female soprano" voice even with a pair of M-Audio BX5 D3 (which I've paid 120€ time ago): the frequency range will be kept for the audible human capacity. You will just got a different frequency balance across the whole using your setup of 5k. Or different dynamic range response. Same "contents", just balanced differently.
Some others lacks in mind? (give me your opinions about this, very curious ).

Thus, why the differences between those M-Audio speakers and your (100 to 5k) is significant, and not the one between 5k and 35k (or whatever setup you will pick)? It seems to me they are simply the same "objects" just shaped differently...

 

[Nowhk]

CosmikBump!!!!

 

[Cosmik]

You will get the "female soprano" voice even with a pair of M-Audio BX5 D3 (which I've paid 120€ time ago): the frequency range will be kept for the audible human capacity. You will just got a different frequency balance across the whole using your setup of 5k. Or different dynamic range response. Same "contents", just balanced differently.
Some others lacks in mind? (give me your opinions about this, very curious ).

Thus, why the differences between those M-Audio speakers and your (100 to 5k) is significant, and not the one between 5k and 35k (or whatever setup you will pick)? It seems to me they are simply the same "objects" just shaped differently...

Well, the smaller, lower cost speakers will have the following problems...

1. Various distortions that vary with volume and signal content (including Doppler).
2. Strange, wandering imaging dependent on signal content (because of the above issues and more).
3. Lack of bass response
4. Non-uniform dispersion = coloured sound in a real room (that would be helped by a wider baffle)
5. Dynamic compression -> clipping at very high volume

And many other small deviations from neutral.

All of those problems are musically and acoustically meaningless - and are not the same as, for example, placing speakers at a different height or fitting a carpet which would give a different acoustic presentation, but would be 'natural' and consistent with themselves.

The more ambitious speakers wouldn't draw attention to themselves in the same way as the smaller speakers. The less ambitious speakers would actually sound like two, small, strained boxes i.e. nothing whatsoever to do with real life, acoustics or music.

All speakers sound different; all changes to the room make a difference. But some differences are more offensive and meaningless than others.

 

[Nowhk]

All of those problems are musically and acoustically meaningless

So, since the "target" result is the Music, why we invest money, time and effort on different/pro speakers?
I mean, if the problems/differences are meaningless...

All of those problems are musically and acoustically meaningless
...
All speakers sound different; all changes to the room make a difference. But some differences are more offensive and meaningless than others.

Isn't this contradictory? If they are meaningless, they are meaningless, whatever differences they introduces.

 

[Cosmik]

So, since the "target" result is the Music, why we invest money, time and effort on different/pro speakers?
I mean, if the problems/differences are meaningless...


Isn't this contradictory? If they are meaningless, they are meaningless, whatever differences they introduces.

All I can do is to reiterate that even if we know nothing about Hertz and decibels, we can logically deduce that the closer we get to neutral, the more meaningful 'objects' in the recording we can reproduce, and the fewer spurious (i.e. meaningless) 'objects' we will generate.

Another way of thinking about it is that our hearing physically needs 'all its boxes to be ticked' for musical nirvana; we may be looking for music with colour, body, contrasting textures, calm, excitement, continuity, abruptness, smoothness, dynamics and so on. A 1" phone speaker isn't going to cut it. An Apple Homepod is better, but still falls short. The good quality system can tick more boxes.

Beyond a certain level it isn't about money: the expensive-but-pretentious valve-based system only ticks a subset of the boxes that the well-engineered, powerful system can tick.

 

[Nowhk]

we may be looking for music with colour, body, contrasting textures, calm, excitement, continuity, abruptness, smoothness, dynamics and so on

But all of those "objects" are in function of sound (and many others aspects, as mood/time/and so on).
Its mapped 1-1. So for every experience/playback (since they are in function of sound), each "colour, body, contrasting textures, calm, excitement, continuity, abruptness, smoothness, dynamics and so on" will ALWAYS differs, by definition.

 

[Cosmik]

But all of those "objects" are in function of sound (and many others aspects, as mood/time/and so on).
Its mapped 1-1. So for every experience/playback (since they are in function of sound), each "colour, body, contrasting textures, calm, excitement, continuity, abruptness, smoothness, dynamics and so on" will ALWAYS differs, by definition.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Surely a phone speaker cannot convey, say, furious drum playing - instead producing something that sounds like a stream of white noise. The 'fury' object is not present.

But the huge, high quality system *can* reproduce the fury object - within reason; of course it can't be perfect. And sure, it may be slightly different the next time you play it, but 'fury' is conveyed nevertheless.

Can you live without the 'fury' object? If you can - or don't know it's there - a 2" speaker may do. But if you later hear it reproduced over a large speaker system, you may be pleasantly surprised. Isn't that the main reason for spending a few quid extra for decent hi-fi?

 

[Nowhk]

But the huge, high quality system *can* reproduce the fury object - within reason; of course it can't be perfect. And sure, it may be slightly different the next time you play it, but 'fury' is conveyed nevertheless.

Can you live without the 'fury' object? If you can - or don't know it's there - a 2" speaker may do. But if you later hear it reproduced over a large speaker system, you may be pleasantly surprised. Isn't that the main reason for spending a few quid extra for decent hi-fi?

Here you are discussing two differents stadiums: WHAT there is ('fury' itself) and HOW it is (how 'fury' will manifest).

I agree that if you are not able to discriminate 'fury' (and you know there is), that's a problem.
And as I said tons of time, I'm not discussing this; it becomes a "lacks" of the system, and we need to reproduce it, if we know it exist.
So we fix it getting a decent systems. The WHAT part.

BUT...

Once you are able to get it, isn't important as well to preserve it? The HOW part.
The problem is that there isn't (for the world where we are living) a unique/fixed 'fury'; it will be shaped, ever... nothing we can do about this.
Thus, the 'fury' will be perceived in many differents (when can be really discriminate) ways.
Whatever systems you are choosing, they will affect it.

If this is meaningfull (so the HOW doesn't matter), the only important thing seems to be the WHAT.
Else, if HOW matters, you are dealing with the piece of art itself, because its presented as function of your setup choice.

I guess that systems above 1000€ can reasonably reproduce all the WHAT a song contains.
And I would say that the amount of setups created by humans above 1000€ is very huge, right?

If only the WHAT part matter, the industry of audio gears looks stupid (which I believe it isn't).
If also the HOW part matter, we basically are dealing with (i.e. editing) the piece of music.

Because the same abstract 'fury' played by two 20k systems (namely called 'A' or 'B') is DIFFERENT!

 

[j_j]

I submit that one can provide the ARTISTIC expression from musicians with a very low-end system.

If you want concert-hall realism, not much at all will provide that, and 2 channels can't. Period.

 

[Cosmik]

I submit that one can provide the ARTISTIC expression from musicians with a very low-end system.

If you want concert-hall realism, not much at all will provide that, and 2 channels can't. Period.

Well if there are bass organ notes being played, for example, they may not even be audible at all when played over the low end system. Surely that means that the artistic expression (of that part at least) is not being provided..?

The low end system may also be generating spurious distortion artefacts that have nothing to do with the performance.

So I see it as a combination of loss of elements (artistic or otherwise), plus the generation of spurious, meaningless artefacts that will confuse or fatigue the listener. Apart from that, low end systems are great.

 

[SIY]

Even bass organ notes have overtones.

 

[Cosmik]

Even bass organ notes have overtones.

Possibly, but in this particular hypothetical case even they are being masked by the IMD products higher up.

There's only one way to get around the problem of missing and spurious 'objects', and that is to be neutral. Every deviation from this introduces unpredictable results that will vary from recording to recording. No system is really neutral, but some get closer than others.

 

[SIY]

Possibly, but in this particular hypothetical case even they are being masked by the IMD products higher up.

Really?

 

[svart-hvitt]

Well if there are bass organ notes being played, for example, they may not even be audible at all when played over the low end system. Surely that means that the artistic expression (of that part at least) is not being provided..?

The low end system may also be generating spurious distortion artefacts that have nothing to do with the performance.

So I see it as a combination of loss of elements (artistic or otherwise), plus the generation of spurious, meaningless artefacts that will confuse or fatigue the listener. Apart from that, low end systems are great.

I thought a low end system was a setup for playing the deepest frequencies. Did I miss something?

 

[Cosmik]

Really?

Seems you're not really getting the idea! The question here is: what are the problems with low end audio systems, versus better ones? Is it true that a low end system conveys the 'artistic' aspect of the performance even if it fails to render the concert hall acoustics accurately?

Well, we don't want to (or have to) list every single way in which it does because that's an infinite open-ended list. All we have to do is to find plausible examples where the low end system fails to do that. In this case, a lack of bass might mean we completely miss the bass performer's contribution i.e. no artistic rendition *at all*. As you point out, a source of bass notes may have audible overtones at some level - but I threw in the suggestion that even they might be being masked by IMD higher up - another drawback of low end systems. They might also not be distinguishable as separate notes against the other instruments at higher frequencies. That kind of thing. Get the idea?

 

[Cosmik]

I thought a low end system was a setup for playing the deepest frequencies. Did I miss something?

Ha ha.

 

[Nowhk]

Seems you're not really getting the idea! The question here is: what are the problems with low end audio systems, versus better ones? Is it true that a low end system conveys the 'artistic' aspect of the performance even if it fails to render the concert hall acoustics accurately?

Uhm, not really (or at least, it isn't properly my doubt).

I retry

Well, we don't want to (or have to) list every single way in which it does because that's an infinite open-ended list. All we have to do is to find plausible examples where the low end system fails to do that.

Define "fails"

If its down to "major lacks", ok: there are systems that will "major lacks" some elements of the song, compared to a pro system, as the example you have posted: low end audio systems will lacks bass performer.

But do you agree that these "fails" can concern also "minor lacks" compared between high quality systems?
I mean: take system A of 12.890€ (your) and system B of 13.900€ (mine). If I'll listen between the two, surely they won't be equal. They are differents. Mine can "lacks" a bit of bass compared to your (i.e. some db less around 400hz), but your have faster transients on some ranges.

So the questions: are those "minor lacks" irrelevants? Can be. If so, what's the meaning of having tons and tons of different setups that differs only by those (irrelevants) "minor lacks" once compared each other?

Probably, it seems that, after all, those "minor lacks" could be relevant.
And than, we are dealing with the piece itself (which "sounds" unfair).

 

[j_j]

Seems you're not really getting the idea! The question here is: what are the problems with low end audio systems, versus better ones? Is it true that a low end system conveys the 'artistic' aspect of the performance even if it fails to render the concert hall acoustics accurately?

So it's clear, my idea of "low end" is not a cell phone. Something better, say, than an old "large Advent", but not as good as a well-designed modern speaker in the 500$usd range.

The electronics at this level of performance are effectively free.