Rough pop/rock vocals

[tengiz]

yes, the new graph you posted is nowhere near my suggested scale though.

20-20,000hz
45-105dB
...
"Should I laugh or should I cry" has heavily processed vocals, that doesn't sound all that great. But they're not harsh or very forward in the mix either. But it's always hard to know what a person on the internet hears when they describe sound, so it's hard to know if it sounds right or wrong on your setup (aka, is it the speakers or the recording).

Below are some tracks I use to test this, the vocals on these often trip over into harsh or unpleasant on unbalanced systems. How do these sound to you?

I don't have any recent measurements —it might take me a few days to find time to run them again. The measurement I shared was part of a series I took while tuning the bass response during the integration of my new subs. It was also used to evaluate distortion in the bass and midrange frequencies after applying room correction—hence the 8 kHz limit. That measurement is about two years old.

I didn’t do any full-band correction manually—I let Audyssey handle it. I find manual tuning too tedious, unstable, and unpredictable. I figured I’d rather remain blissfully unaware than stress over every little imperfection . But alas, it still came back to bite me—this whole thread is about a performance issue I initially chose to know nothing about!

Thanks for sharing the tracks—I’ll give them a listen and report back here.

 

[tengiz]

Our experiences are virtually identical where Abba is concerned. I absolutely relate to everything that you wrote. I'm well into my 50s so perhaps our ages are also similar.

I am a bit older, but yes, we are from the same generation and we have been blessed with the chance to experience ABBA in real time

 

[SigbergAudio]

I don't have any recent measurements —it might take me a few days to find time to run them again. The measurement I shared was part of a series I took while tuning the bass response during the integration of my new subs. It was also used to evaluate distortion in the bass and midrange frequencies after applying room correction—hence the 8 kHz limit. That measurement is about two years old.

I didn’t do any full-band correction manually—I let Audyssey handle it. I find manual tuning too tedious, unstable, and unpredictable. I figured I’d rather remain blissfully unaware than stress over every little imperfection . But alas, it still came back to bite me—this whole thread is about a performance issue I initially chose to know nothing about!

Thanks for sharing the tracks—I’ll give them a listen and report back here.

You can still change the graph scale on your existing measurements. That the measurements stop at 8khz isn't important.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

Thank you very much for taking the time to troubleshoot this. Your insight is invaluable!

My room is 14' x 16' with a 9' high ceiling. It was built as a proper media room, with staggered studs so that the drywall inside and outside the room does not share the same framing—helping reduce sound transmission.

The panels are positioned approximately 2.5' away from the back wall and about 3.5' from the side walls. Behind the panels—right in the middle of the back radiation zones—I have Vicoustic absorbers/deflectors covering a 4' x 4' section of the wall. The same treatment is applied to the side wall areas adjacent to the panels.

Additionally, a 4' x 8' section of the ceiling is treated at the first reflection point using the same Vicoustic panels. Behind the listening position, an 8' x 6' section of the wall is also covered with them. The first side reflection points are treated with 4' x 4' diffusers.

The listening position is ~5' away from the back wall.

These particular panels claim to have the NRC 0.9+ for the frequencies over 0.3kHz. I haver no way of measuring it properly, but my experience is that the room sounds pretty "dead".

The swings in the FR over 1k may be explained by the shape of the panel with a cross section ~25cm wide. I think it's more or less in the ballparks of the peaks and dips ~1.3kHz apart (wavelength is 26cm) when averaged over the area covering ~5' x ~2' of the listening space for three - which is what I have and what Audussey optimized for.

Hmmmmmmm. That's generally what I would advise to do, although I don't claim to be an acoustician. I would definitely try to re-do the Audussey to see if you can get a flatter response. I would also, as someone else suggested, try listening without it. It seems that you just have the 1.5Khz and up out of balance from the 500-1Khz region. That's gonna make things sound weird. Plus, there is no downward tilt over all, which might be fine if the rest of the response was flatter.

 

[tengiz]

Hmmmmmmm. That's generally what I would advise to do, although I don't claim to be an acoustician. I would definitely try to re-do the Audussey to see if you can get a flatter response. I would also, as someone else suggested, try listening without it. It seems that you just have the 1.5Khz and up out of balance from the 500-1Khz region. That's gonna make things sound weird. Plus, there is no downward tilt over all, which might be fine if the rest of the response was flatter.

I did listen with Audyssey turned off, and it definitely sounds worse—not just the issue with specific vocals, but overall, the system just doesn’t sound good regardless of the material.

I took some time to address the specific imbalance between the 0.3–1 kHz and 1–3 kHz ranges. A quick fix that happens to be readily available in the standard Audyssey toolkit is what they call "Midrange Compensation." As I understand it, this feature is meant to mask the effects of crossovers that can cause issues around the 2 kHz transition point in some speakers.

It seems to sound a bit better now, but I’ll need more time to evaluate it. The perception of rough pop female vocals—and many other hearing quirks—seems to depend on the time of day, the phase of the moon, and who knows what else. At least for me . So, we’ll see how it goes.

Thank you.

 

[tengiz]

You can still change the graph scale on your existing measurements. That the measurements stop at 8khz isn't important.

Here you go - this time with Audyssey Midrange Correction on.

 

[Todd68]

I have tinnitus in my left ear and it’s sensitive to certain frequencies in the upper midrange and lower treble. Certain vocals can irritate it and actually it’s my ear that’s causing some of the distorted sound. Some of the hot miked vocals on ABBA songs can cause it and some speakers I owned made the affect worse than the speakers I own now.

 

[tengiz]

I have tinnitus in my left ear and it’s sensitive to certain frequencies in the upper midrange and lower treble. Certain vocals can irritate it and actually it’s my ear that’s causing some of the distorted sound. Some of the hot miked vocals on ABBA songs can cause it and some speakers I owned made the affect worse than the speakers I own now.

I too have tinnitus in my left year, which I "obtained" when I was in the military service 40+ years ago . Yes, I remember that suddenly some vocals started sounding unpleasant, but after a few years it stopped being so apparent. But yes, your experience is aligned with how I describe it. So, I am sure it (tinnitus) is a part of it.

 

[A Surfer]

Too bad the military doesn't compensate people for hearing damage. Or perhaps they do?

 

[SigbergAudio]

Here you go - this time with Audyssey Midrange Correction on.

OK. So still very lean, but I guess the dynamic EQ or whatever you usually have turned on isn't turned on here, so we don't really know how it looks when you listen. Also, the 1-3khz range looks weird / unusual. That could certainly affect harshness of the vocals, even though it looks more like a dip that would sound recessed. Not sure why it looks like that. If you disable the Audyssey correction, does it still sound problematic?

EDIT: Is the midrange compensation so strong that it creates a dip as severe as that? Doesn't look great.

 

[tengiz]

Too bad the military doesn't compensate people for hearing damage. Or perhaps they do?

Back then in that country it was unheard of

 

[tengiz]

OK. So still very lean, but I guess the dynamic EQ or whatever you usually have turned on isn't turned on here, so we don't really know how it looks when you listen. Also, the 1-3khz range looks weird / unusual. That could certainly affect harshness of the vocals, even though it looks more like a dip that would sound recessed. Not sure why it looks like that. If you disable the Audyssey correction, does it still sound problematic?

EDIT: Is the midrange compensation so strong that it creates a dip as severe as that? Doesn't look great.

Yes, without Audyssey the sound is a total mess. Very unpleasant and out of balance. The harsh occasional vocals are not even remotely close to being the most annoying thing.

The midrange compensation is a switch - you either turn it on or off. There is no parametrization at all. -3db at the center of it at 2k.

 

[tengiz]

This is what I get when I "fool" Audyssey — I didn’t move the microphone at all but pretended that multiple positions were sampled. I also added a slight slope. Note: the microphone position may have shifted slightly after I switched from Audyssey’s standard calibration mic to the UMIK for REW measurements:

Despite being “flatter” at one exact point in space — somewhere between the ears — it doesn’t sound much better to me. There is a difference, but I wouldn’t say one is clearly better than the other.

Given the dimensions of the electrostatic transducers (44" × 9.2" for the Ethos), and the nature of their radiation pattern, it seems logical that for this kind of speaker the spatial averaging that Audyssey performs becomes even more critical.

 

[MarkS]

The ABBA track sample - pretty much anything prior to 1979. But here is one particular track from the Visitors with Frida singing solo much of the time, I hear somewhat unpleasant metallic tone to the voice and it gets exaggerated on electrostats, but is tolerable otherwise:

I'm not an ABBA fan, and not a fan of female vocals in general, so maybe I have no clue, but that sounds very bad to me. Harsh and grating. I'm listening over conventional speakers in an untreated room. Dialing in a 3dB cut at 3kHz helped a fair bit, but still ...

 

[obsessive9119]

I'm not an ABBA fan, and not a fan of female vocals in general, so maybe I have no clue, but that sounds very bad to me. Harsh and grating. I'm listening over conventional speakers in an untreated room. Dialing in a 3dB cut at 3kHz helped a fair bit, but still ...

You piqued my interest.

That track sounds terrible. It’s not like I’m allergic to harsh vocals; I mostly listen to metal and just finished listening to Converge’s Jane Doe. But yeah, that ABBA track is hard to listen to.

 

[Mart68]

I'm not an ABBA fan, and not a fan of female vocals in general, so maybe I have no clue, but that sounds very bad to me. Harsh and grating. I'm listening over conventional speakers in an untreated room. Dialing in a 3dB cut at 3kHz helped a fair bit, but still ...

There's a lot of processing on the vocal and initially its very upfront, seems to get better as the song progresses.

I can see that as being challenging to reproduce cleanly.

Yes, without Audyssey the sound is a total mess. Very unpleasant and out of balance. The harsh occasional vocals are not even remotely close to being the most annoying thing.

This really shouldn't be the case, you say there is a lot of treatment in the room. People have been getting a good sound for decades before DRC came along. I don't use it and have no problems. I think there might be some more fundamental issues at play here, most likely it is the loudspeakers.

 

[tengiz]

There's a lot of processing on the vocal and initially its very upfront, seems to get better as the song progresses.

I can see that as being challenging to reproduce cleanly.

This really shouldn't be the case, you say there is a lot of treatment in the room. People have been getting a good sound for decades before DRC came along. I don't use it and have no problems. I think there might be some more fundamental issues at play here, most likely it is the loudspeakers.

In my relatively small room—and given the fixed positions of the speakers and the listener, over which I don’t have much choice—the main issue with DRC turned off is the terrible bass. The room treatment I’ve installed doesn’t address bass at all. I avoided using bass traps or anything bulky because I wanted to maintain a clean aesthetic.

With DRC enabled, the bass is corrected nicely using two subwoofers placed out of sight behind the listening position. When the bass is uncorrected, its wild and broad frequency swings make it sound awful. In comparison, any issues with processed vocals—even when they sound worse than they should—are completely overshadowed by how bad the bass is without correction.

 

[Mart68]

In my relatively small room—and given the fixed positions of the speakers and the listener, over which I don’t have much choice—the main issue with DRC turned off is the terrible bass. The room treatment I’ve installed doesn’t address bass at all. I avoided using bass traps or anything bulky because I wanted to maintain a clean aesthetic.

With DRC enabled, the bass is corrected nicely using two subwoofers placed out of sight behind the listening position. When the bass is uncorrected, its wild and broad frequency swings make it sound awful. In comparison, any issues with processed vocals—even when they sound worse than they should—are completely overshadowed by how bad the bass is without correction.

Oh right. I assumed you must have quite a large room. Not sure why.

 

[tengiz]

Below are some tracks I use to test this, the vocals on these often trip over into harsh or unpleasant on unbalanced systems. How do these sound to you?

I listened to these—they all sound harsh to me regardless of the speakers. Sometimes the harshness reminds me of the sound of a torn midrange baffle or something like that. But with these genres, it's easy to "tune out" and still enjoy the music. The vocal harshness in ABBA recordings, though, has oddly become an obsession for me. With speakers outside of my main setup, it's much easier to ignore—but in my main system, it's harder to overlook.

Thank you.

 

[SigbergAudio]

I listened to these—they all sound harsh to me regardless of the speakers. Sometimes the harshness reminds me of the sound of a torn midrange baffle or something like that. But with these genres, it's easy to "tune out" and still enjoy the music. The vocal harshness in ABBA recordings, though, has oddly become an obsession for me. With speakers outside of my main setup, it's much easier to ignore—but in my main system, it's harder to overlook.

Thank you.

Your tinnitus might be contributing as well here then. To me all these tracks or close to harshness but not becoming harsh on a balanced system. You would probably benefit from a low Q reduction of the 1-4khz area, if you have access to some manual EQ, try putting a 0.7Q -2dB EQ at 2.5 or 3khz and see how you perceive the difference.