- Thread Starter
- #21
I agree - about time I got even more serious about this hobby/profession and dug deep. Thanks. Highly appreciated. Time to go beyond forums and Youtube and do some 1st hand study, from the books.
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Reference music tracks for subjective evaluation of speakers and headphones
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kemmler3D
Master Contributor
Indeed, actually the frequency response (phase and magnitude, i.e. amplitude) and the impulse response are two ways of showing the same data. Waterfall is just another visualization of the same thing, at least as far as the measurement mic is concerned.
The same characteristics that describe a good speaker (other than directivity, blessedly) describe a good IEM. The frequency response target is different, but that's about it.
Robin L
Master Contributor
I'll mention two Baroque/Classical recordings. Both feature exceptional capture of hall sound, instrumental color and imaging.
I suppose the first is really two recordings, as it's two CDs, but it's of one composition: Corelli's Concerto Grossi Opus 6, on Harmonia Mundi USA. Volume 1 was first issued in 1989, but reissued 2001. Volume 2 was first issued in 1990, also reissued as a budget disc in 2001. The first was recorded in Ralston Hall, in the second at the always reliable Skywalker Sound studio. Peter McGrath was the engineer at both sessions. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra of San Francisco is directed by Nicholas McGeghan, Harmonia Mundi Classical Express HCX 3957014 and 15. The sense of the acoustic surrounding the musicians is extraordinarily detailed.
Most of Lorin Maazel's recordings of Mahler with the Vienna Philharmonic from the 1980s for CBS were met with critical disapproval with the exception of the 4th symphony featuring Kathleen Battle as soloist. The sound is a dream. The engineering team of control engineer Bud Graham and remote technical supervisor Tony Faulkner took full advantage of the rich acoustic of Vienna's Musikvereinsaal. Again, the little trails of hall reverb and the sense of space are perfectly captured. CBS MK39072.
Both recordings will reproduce much better over speakers than headphones or IEMs.
I suppose the first is really two recordings, as it's two CDs, but it's of one composition: Corelli's Concerto Grossi Opus 6, on Harmonia Mundi USA. Volume 1 was first issued in 1989, but reissued 2001. Volume 2 was first issued in 1990, also reissued as a budget disc in 2001. The first was recorded in Ralston Hall, in the second at the always reliable Skywalker Sound studio. Peter McGrath was the engineer at both sessions. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra of San Francisco is directed by Nicholas McGeghan, Harmonia Mundi Classical Express HCX 3957014 and 15. The sense of the acoustic surrounding the musicians is extraordinarily detailed.
Most of Lorin Maazel's recordings of Mahler with the Vienna Philharmonic from the 1980s for CBS were met with critical disapproval with the exception of the 4th symphony featuring Kathleen Battle as soloist. The sound is a dream. The engineering team of control engineer Bud Graham and remote technical supervisor Tony Faulkner took full advantage of the rich acoustic of Vienna's Musikvereinsaal. Again, the little trails of hall reverb and the sense of space are perfectly captured. CBS MK39072.
Both recordings will reproduce much better over speakers than headphones or IEMs.
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- Thread Starter
- #24
Thank you.
I'm listening to what is available on free Spotify - the Mahler 4th Symphony - this was by the Berliner Philharmoniker - 2021 (pretty recent), soloist Christiane Karg. I should listen more to such uplifting music.
My current speaker system, is unlikely to provide anywhere near the kind of resolution for such music (assuming I have the an uncompressed source). So for now, my IEM - CCA CRA, will have to do. Yes typical stereo on headphones will sound not quite right. With a revision of my headphone crossfeed options, in software, I was able to dial in the most realistic rendition a more realistic rendition. This kind of music challenges every component of the audio path, and reveals weaknesses one had hitherto not noticed, in this case it was my crossfeed that needed tweaking.
Will check out the Corellis Concerto - soon enough and hopefully someday soon, have the CD copies of this and the Mahler 4th by both the Berliner and Vienna Orchestras.
Robin L
Master Contributor
Note that I'm pointing to a specific recording. There are lots of different recordings of Mahler's 4th. Right now, I've got Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic from 1960. Subpar performance and recording. Then Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1958, reissued as a SACD. Much better sound, better performance. The Maazel/VPO recording from 1984 has the best recorded sound of the three, I'd say it also has the best performance. It all boils down to specific recordings, specific performances. The Corelli Concerti Grossi Op 6 performances directed by Nicholas McGeghan are unusual onto themselves and the recorded sound quality is in a class by itself. I don't know if Spotify is data reduced/compressed, but this is the sort of engineering that can be compromised by data reduction such as MP3.
- Thread Starter
- #26
There is now so much music accessible to us. So much. It dawns on me, a whole lifetime of listening to music, will only expose one to a tiny fraction of what is out there. i.e everyone of us will never hear most of the good music in the world, cos there is simply so much of it.
In a way it makes it futile to - collect or curate a lot of music, beyond a certain size, cos you'll most likely never get to hear all of it, so what's the point - except maybe the collection may appreciate in value, and you can sell it for a huge sum. But if the point of the music was the music itself, one would never sell anyway. This should cure my FOMO, since I will never have it all anyway, best to focus on a few things, small collection, that I can have the highest quality versions thereof - e.g physical CDs.
I'll say this. There was a time I became jaded about listening to music. The DAC dongles (which are superior to the on board DAC's on my computer), and the CCA CRA have revived my interest in recorded music. I can forget about limitations, in my gear - such as room acoustics, which is no longer relevant, and just enjoy the music. Nothing to tweak on the dongle, in my case. And nothing to tweak on the CCA CRA, cos I bypass EQ most of the time, and the only active customisation is some custom crossfeed. Nothing else. So now the gear is out of the way cos it is definitely good enough, and now it's all about the music/audio.
- Thread Starter
- #27
There is definitely some data reduction on Spotify, and that is still evident on the paid version of Spotify. To my ears, it does not sound anywhere near as bad as MP3s. I abhor the sound of MP3s. Definitely CD is better, cos I've done this comparison a few years ago, vs free Spotify.
privilege15
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In my opinion...well...not just mine 
the recording mastering, speakers and room acoustics are the most important factors to have the best enjoyment from the record. The resolution itself, be it compressed MP3, CD, SACD etc. doesn't make much of a difference. According to blind test studies, one can indeed tell a higher resolution sample from a lower res one (like an SACD vs a CD) but the difference is so negligient that you really need both lower and higher resolutions samples switched side by side to be able to spot any differences to be honest. And even then it would be very difficult still. One can't simply take a CD mastering and an SACD mastering and say SACD is better. It's different, yes, because the mastering is different but it's not necessarily better. A "better" is most likely in one's head because he knows at the back of his mind that SACDs have better resolution and so presupposedly should sound better....The mind is soooo playing tricks. If I take a low res recording and bump up highs and maybe lows ever so slightly then upscale it to 96kHz and notify you that it comes from SACD. You are most likely to confirm that it's MUCH better sounding than the original
the recording mastering, speakers and room acoustics are the most important factors to have the best enjoyment from the record. The resolution itself, be it compressed MP3, CD, SACD etc. doesn't make much of a difference. According to blind test studies, one can indeed tell a higher resolution sample from a lower res one (like an SACD vs a CD) but the difference is so negligient that you really need both lower and higher resolutions samples switched side by side to be able to spot any differences to be honest. And even then it would be very difficult still. One can't simply take a CD mastering and an SACD mastering and say SACD is better. It's different, yes, because the mastering is different but it's not necessarily better. A "better" is most likely in one's head because he knows at the back of his mind that SACDs have better resolution and so presupposedly should sound better....The mind is soooo playing tricks. If I take a low res recording and bump up highs and maybe lows ever so slightly then upscale it to 96kHz and notify you that it comes from SACD. You are most likely to confirm that it's MUCH better sounding than the original
Robin L
Master Contributor
I figure there's no real audible difference between the dsd and pcm layer of a hybrid SACD. SACDs tend to have better than average mastering, explaining the marginal sonic improvements they can offer.In my opinion...well...not just mine
- Thread Starter
- #30
I would not be able to comment on the audible differences between CD and SACD, cos I've never heard an SACD, or owned one. My Temptec Sonata BHD should be able to play back DSD files, somehow - maybe via foobar2k, but I have no DSD files yet to attempt this.In my opinion...well...not just mine
Permit me to share my experience. About 2012, I was a live sound engineer for an event - the launch of an album. The artist would be singing along with the CD of her music. during the rehearsal, I was provided MP3 versions of her album. I cannot recall what level of compression had been applied to the MP3's, but I had this discontent about what I was hearing. About 15 minutes before she would go on stage, I got a copy of the CD and extracted uncompressed WAV files for each track, and they sounded night and day better than the MP3 versions, and obviously that was what I used at that event. Maybe it was the speakers, who knows? I could easily hear the difference (of course it was not a blind test). But I think to an extent we should trust our hearing. It was NOT a slight negligible difference, but a very noticeable improvement.
In my work as a studio engineer, I deliver, for the convenience of clients who ask for them - the highest possible high quality MP3s - Constant Bit rate 320K, but I still hear a slight difference between these and the uncompressed WAV files.
I had another experience where using a sampled piano (a virtual instrument on a computer), was supplied with audio in FLAC format, which is supposed to be 100% reversible and equivalent to the uncompressed WAV, but there was something odd about the playback of some notes. I then uncompressed the FLAC files to WAV, and gone was the artefact I was hearing on the FLAC files, and believe me for whatever reason, the WAV files sounded better. In this case it could be that the decompression algorithm in the real time FLAC playback was dodgy. Who knows? So I propose that as much as possible, one should omit any kind of compression/decompression in audio, especially for critical listening.
Which is why I advocate the avoidance of MP3s. We no longer live in a world where data is expensive, or data networks have limited bandwidth, so in theory, there is no advantage in the effort to compress an uncompressed audio file to MP3. In the past the advantage was smaller files, an advantage which is no longer an issue, for most listening scenarios, not worth the bother.
- Thread Starter
- #31
I absolutely agree with this (but would not include MP3s cos depending on the music it is possible to go too far with compression and it becomes quite audible). I work as a restoration audio engineer, curating old speeches of a preacher/pastor who has passed away, and was provided with 128k compressed versions of his speeches, and the difference is audible to anyone, on average quality audio playback such as the on-board DAC of a Dell laptop.In my opinion...well...not just mine
Definitely on both ends - the recording end, and the playback end - i.e microphones and speaker drivers, from measurements alone, these components introduce the highest levels of distortion to the audio, and that is where most of the attention should be placed.
Nevertheless, going the extra mile to eliminate any minor, possibly imperceptible, aberrations by going above a certain threshold in the choice of DAC + Amplifiers, as well as any lossy compression or software implementation issues, is worth the trouble. Allows one to focus with the utmost attention to the worst offenders like headphones and speakers, in the comfort that we've done what we can - with the rest of the audio chain, and are starting with sources that exceed a certain minimum quality;
- Thread Starter
- #32
A few days ago, I had this experience, listening to uncompressed raw audio from me playing my Yamaha CP33 piano. No special equalisation, compression, mastering, and I remarked that the dynamic range was huge. Let me explain.
Classical music has a huge dynamic range on a macro level, i.e between the quietest segments and the loudest, but there is always a time gap between the segments. Even if its a few seconds. It typically does not go suddenly loud, then quiet and loud again, within a few seconds. The transients of classical music are blurred by the acoustics of the room, the reverb dulls any transients by smoothing out the attacks and the decays.
A close miked instrument like an uncompressed piano recording, especially one played by an amateur, unpolished, will have a huge dynamic range, both on a macro perspective, as well as from a micro perspective. Micro dynamics being huge transients, of very short duration, such as staccato piano or higher velocities with sharp bright attacks, i.e forte, drums and some synthesizer music, guitars and basses, which are likely to have the most significant microdynamics, in comparison to sources like the human voice or a string section, or a solo violin,
Then I ran into this video, which expresses these same thoughts. And as much as I think very good reference music with better dynamics, macro and micro, is a very good starting point when evaluating headphones, or speakers, I have become more convinced that there is not much to discover when comparing decent headphones using music that has already been mastered, cos the dynamic range - micro and macro, have been reduced, for our listening comfort - however imperceptibly, and we have become accustomed to listening to mastered music.
Going one step further to listen to raw recordings, whose dynamic range should be larger on both a macro and a micro perspective, such as a solo recording of an instrument, which has not been mixed, or the multitrack of a song which has NOT been mixed, should allow the difference in headphones to become more apparent. It's shocking when conventional wisdom is superseded by what seems to be foolishness.
There is a confirmation of this line of thinking, in live audio. Without compression and limiting, one would need incredibly powerful amplifiers, to produce the entire range of dynamics of a live performance, otherwise the amp would clip, and/or the quiet segments would be too quiet. In order to enable the quiet segments to be suitably amplified, the short louder transients if uncompressed/non limited audio, place massive demands on an amplifier, if it is expected to reproduce the entire transient without clipping.
There are a fair number of sources for multitrack recordings of uncompressed audio, which I'll need to search for, and as soon as I find them, will add links on this thread.
This rabbit role is deeeep.
- Thread Starter
- #33
Went from a CCA CRA to a KZ ZVX (with the provided Spinfit tips - I'm using the large cos that's the best fit for me). Clearly an easily discernible increase in clarity. With a bit of manual EQ - 5 parametric bands, based on checking the frequency response on squig link, the Paul Wasabii one. Listening is definitely on another level, also upsampling to 96K added that extra bit of clarity subjectively in my opinion.song
I've had to add Celine Dion's - A New Day Has Come album. to my references. Very well made pop music, with some complex orchestration, and full frequency, with the exception of deep sub-bass. This will challenge any headphone or speaker. A very well produced album. But needs a highly resolving set of transducers to reproduce all the elements in the music. Lots of layers, and orchestration, across the entire audible spectrum. Lots of well recorded, mixed and mastered material, on this album. Great songs too. A better resolving listening system, shows the differences in the "texture" of the songs, different mixes, wide sound stages. Very clear on the EQ's ZVX.
I've had to add Celine Dion's - A New Day Has Come album. to my references. Very well made pop music, with some complex orchestration, and full frequency, with the exception of deep sub-bass. This will challenge any headphone or speaker. A very well produced album. But needs a highly resolving set of transducers to reproduce all the elements in the music. Lots of layers, and orchestration, across the entire audible spectrum. Lots of well recorded, mixed and mastered material, on this album. Great songs too. A better resolving listening system, shows the differences in the "texture" of the songs, different mixes, wide sound stages. Very clear on the EQ's ZVX.
I wonder at the utility of relying too heavily on studio recording for speaker or headphone evaluation. They certainly have their place, but for evaluation of the critical midrange, natural captures of voices and instruments known intimately with no amplification, have to be considered the gold standard. Ideally we should use minimally processed recordings of instruments we play ourselves or of singers we've heard in person at a distance of a meter or less, i.e., near the distance at which the recording was made.
- Thread Starter
- #35
I absolutely agree. This is the optimal approach. This is I think the basis for highly revered studio monitors like the Harbeth, which were tuned to reproduce the human voice as naturally as possible.
Earlier I had made a similar reference to the use of non processed audio, as a better source than mixed/mastered audio. But there is a small challenge. How does one share and discuss such examples, which may not be available publicly, for all manner of reasons including copyright or not yet copyrighted/rights attributed audio.
The early music of Joni Mitchell and Miles Davis - Kind of Blue, are nearer to this ideal, compared to the heavily processed audio, in more recent years, with the advantage that almost anyone has access to such music on Spotify, so we can "share" it.
- Thread Starter
- #36
Sadly my ZVX has likely to be a revision, that KZ silently introduced, and I no longer trust the product, cos it has no bearing to any reviews of the initially released KZ ZVX.
KZ ZVX - Possibly a revision - Opinions
Thought it good to start a thread, to discuss just one IEM the KZ ZVX. Single DD. I ordered and received mine 2 days ago. Not opened it to see the internals. Most likely will NOT. With some EQ, best most detailed IEM I have at this time. Very comfortable. One thing I'd like to know - is this an...
audiosciencereview.com
- Thread Starter
- #38
I'll have a lookout for these. Thanks
kemmler3D
Master Contributor
I don't know that the idea of using more dynamic content to evaluate dynamic range capability is apparent foolishness.
I generally think the difference in dynamic range explains almost all of what we perceive as the difference between live and recorded music. You can usually tell whether a piano is real or not through an open window while standing across the street. It certainly isn't directional cues or frequency response or stereo image that tells us what it is.
Compression is useful and necessary for making recordings sound good, but it works very quickly against the perception of verisimilitude.
I can't say I subscribe to that view. A performer with control of their instrument (or voice) could lay down track after track and have them all fit in the same dynamic envelope (range) and yet have the takes easily differentiated because of differences in the dynamic contours (cres. & dim.) and how they lay on the musical line, and many other controllable musical parameters - tuning, timbre, articulation, etc. A bigger clue is the spontaneity of the live performance, which seldom survives the recording process, unless the performer is a one-take only type like Frank Sinatra. (An amazing recording artist)I don't know that the idea of using more dynamic content to evaluate dynamic range capability is apparent foolishness.
I generally think the difference in dynamic range explains almost all of what we perceive as the difference between live and recorded music.
I'm not sure what you mean by real. Physically present or played back samples or played back actual performance? If the room in which the playback occurs does not impart a significant reverberant signature at odds with the recording's, I doubt most people could tell the difference. Though listeners capable of telling which brand and model the piano was are a different kettle of fish. I've play several hundred pianos over the years and I wouldn't take the bet if the playback system was capable and the room neutral to dead (and the street more than 4 lanes wide).
If betting, I wouldn't throw any clues away.
Compression has a number of uses. With a talented and savvy performer, it can become an extension of the instrument. (I have very tasty "optical" compressor in my rack.) With a raw, undisciplined performer, a good compressor is the engineer's and producer's insurance policy. So, yes a compressor can make recordings sound good when the players can't do it themselves, or it can make a recording more listenable in the real world, which is what I believe you meant.
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