"Things that cannot be measured"

[ahofer]

For instance "sound stage" is a vague term that can mean many things, but it is still useful. On different equipment (and even different volumes) the positioning of an instrument in my room can sound further to the side of a speaker or more forward. You can say its nonsense because you can't directly relate it to a frequency graph, but it is describing how the mind perceives the sound.

If you hear the MQA stuff it tends to really float around the room, I'm told there is some sort of phase shift due to non-linear filters. Using terms like it sounds like phase shift is meaningless, explaining how it impacts the sound you perceive is more useful to understanding what that sounds like. Q sound if I recall from a long time ago also played with time alignment stuff and had a similar sort of tripiness. Anyway terms like soundstage and positioning of instruments in the soundstage are not nonsense, in some sense they are talking more about the actual experience of the sound.

Honestly, I don't think you are helping your case here. You are asserting a lot of sound differences that are not readily identified or absent in electronics. I doubt, for instance, that you could identify MQA in a blind test (of music, not over-amplified residual noise). Not because I know anything about you, but because it is just very unlikely based on experience to-date. Soundstage is going to be dominated by room effects and speaker dispersion (presuming decent channel balance and flat FR, which is easily achieved in electronics).

At any rate, the usefulness of audiophile technology has been argued to a standstill in these pages. For the most part, when you can directly connect a measurable phenomenon with the term, it can be a useful shorthand with others who share that specific knowledge (as 'honky' and "shouty' typically describe specific frequency emphasis). Outside of that, as you say, they are "vague terms that can mean many things".

 

[shion_ca]

Honestly, I don't think you are helping your case here. You are asserting a lot of sound differences that are not readily identified or absent in electronics. I doubt, for instance, that you could identify MQA in a blind test (of music, not over-amplified residual noise). Not because I know anything about you, but because it is just very unlikely based on experience to-date. Soundstage is going to be dominated by room effects and speaker dispersion (presuming decent channel balance and flat FR, which is easily achieved in electronics).

At any rate, the usefulness of audiophile technology has been argued to a standstill in these pages. For the most part, when you can directly connect a measurable phenomenon with the term, it can be a useful shorthand with others who share that specific knowledge (as 'honky' and "shouty' typically describe specific frequency emphasis). Outside of that, as you say, they are "vague terms that can mean many things".

I posit that many things might contribute to sound stage. Phase shifts, Q sound encoding, volume, speaker position, room behaviour etc. In the end what matters with regards to it is my perception of how the individual instruments are delineated and where they appear to be emanating from in the room itself.

So if I am listening to something new, and the violin that plays off to the left side seems slightly further to the left and a little closer to the listening position relative to where the speaker sits.... then that is the best way to describe the effect. It is easier to explain and understand because it describes the net perceived effect of what all those other factors (each with their individual measurements) contribute to in terms of my perception of the music. And thus it is a perfectly useful way to describe my perceived change in sound or the characteristic of sound to another person. I'm describing what I perceive to be the difference in the location of the instruments in the recording.

I could also tell them I had measure a time alignment adjustment of blah, a phase shift of blah, my wall frequency absorption co-efficeint was blah, my speakers were at a 3 degree toe in and had an off angle attenuation characteristic across the audible frequency spectrum of this three dimensional chart.

Which one would better explain to someone how I felt the sound changed?

 

[shion_ca]

Do you guys honestly not hear sound stage? Do your systems all sound like the sound is coming from the speakers themselves when you close your eyes?

 

[ahofer]

So if I am listening to something new, and the violin that plays off to the left side seems slightly further to the left and a little closer to the listening position relative to where the speaker sits.... then that is the best way to describe the effect.

Well, that isn't "soundstage" per se, so it isn't one of the "audiophile" terms (like "fast" amplifiers) at issue. It's more precise, but it still isn't terribly useful as an equipment differentiator. Maybe a cause to check balance or sidewall reflections.

 

[ahofer]

Do you guys honestly not hear sound stage? Do your systems all sound like the sound is coming from the speakers themselves when you close your eyes?

Oh dear, you've gone from a complaint that the term is vague to something else entirely. Have a look around:

Search results for query: soundstage

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Salt]

Do you guys honestly not hear sound stage? Do your systems all sound like the sound is coming from the speakers themselves when you close your eyes?

Nobody hears the sound like coming from the speakers ... it all depends ...

 

[shion_ca]

Nobody hears the sound like coming from the speakers ... it all depends ...

Well yeah, in the simplest example, if I only have one speaker playing... and I close my eyes .. and you ask me to point to where the guitar is playing from... I point at the speaker. It sounds like its originating from where the speaker sits.

 

[quattro98]

Do you guys honestly not hear sound stage? Do your systems all sound like the sound is coming from the speakers themselves when you close your eyes?

The problem isn't that people don't hear a soundstage. It's that perception of soundstage is very subjective and variable. It can vary without any system changes. If you change the system and know about the change, then your perception will almost unavoidably be changed.

 

[Salt]

Well yeah, in the simplest example, if I only have one speaker playing... and I close my eyes .. and you ask me to point to where the guitar is playing from... I point at the speaker. It sounds like its originating from where the speaker sits.

You did not 'reflect' what I said

 

[amper42]

Do you guys honestly not hear sound stage? Do your systems all sound like the sound is coming from the speakers themselves when you close your eyes?

When I see someone writing about "Sound Stage" I know they're not a musician and probably not someone who actually listens for musical counterpoint, style and chord structures. Instead, it's someone who wants to hear how a recording sounds on their gear rather than someone who is actually interested in musical structure of the piece.

In live acoustical performance, musicians don't panic over who is located where. The music is played from the group and reaches the ear of the listeners. Nobody is concerned about which ear hears what first. In a concert hall the width of seating could be 100 feet wide. When an Audiophool is distracted by where the sound is coming from it's an unnatural mental exercise that actually takes away from the music. They are focused on special effects not musical content. They could easily have one ear in need of cleaning and hear a different effect.

In the mixing booth, the engineer can pan instruments to try to paint a picture of how it might sound live or for special effect. But that's simply a matter of sound packaging and not really part of the music. The fact that "Sound Stage" is considered important in a recording is pretty funny to musicians. It has nothing to do with their musical writing or technical performance skills.

 

[Sokel]

When I see someone writing about "Sound Stage" I know they're not a musician and probably not someone who actually listens for musical counterpoint, style and chord structures. Instead, it's someone who wants to hear how a recording sounds on their gear rather than someone who is actually interested in musical structure of the piece.

In live acoustical performance, musicians don't panic over who is located where. The music is played from the group and reaches the ear of the listeners. Nobody is concerned about which ear hears what first. In a concert hall the width of seating could be 100 feet wide. When an Audiophool is distracted by where the sound is coming from it's an unnatural mental exercise that actually takes away from the music. They are focused on special effects not musical content. They could easily have one ear in need of cleaning and hear a different effect.

In the mixing booth, the engineer can pan instruments to try to paint a picture of how it might sound live or for special effect. But that's simply a matter of sound packaging and not really part of the music. The fact that "Sound Stage" is considered important in a recording is pretty funny to musicians. It has nothing to do with their musical writing or technical performance skills.

To tell the truth there has epic battles about who sits where and the classical musical scene is a product of a very long process and trial and error,both about egos and more practical stuff.
But to get to more popular genres and studio stories,there has been funny stories all around about who will in the "front" of the recording and big egos are the dominant reason.
Just remember Rainbow as an example,Blackmore and Dio where dragging people in the studio to change the mixes at the middle of the night.

So,no one is innocent (and it's a miracle that some of the above albums put some of today's in shame in terms of the recording when it comes to dimensions and depth,these studio people were heroes working with such egos)

 

[Salt]

When I see someone writing about "Sound Stage" I know they're not a musician and probably not someone who actually listens for musical counterpoint, style and chord structures. Instead, it's someone who wants to hear how a recording sounds on their gear rather than someone who is actually interested in musical structure of the piece.

In live acoustical performance, musicians don't panic over who is located where. The music is played from the group and reaches the ear of the listeners. Nobody is concerned about which ear hears what first. In a concert hall the width of seating could be 100 feet wide. When an Audiophool is distracted by where the sound is coming from it's an unnatural mental exercise that actually takes away from the music. They are focused on special effects not musical content. They could easily have one ear in need of cleaning and hear a different effect.

In the mixing booth, the engineer can pan instruments to try to paint a picture of how it might sound live or for special effect. But that's simply a matter of sound packaging and not really part of the music. The fact that "Sound Stage" is considered important in a recording is pretty funny to musicians. It has nothing to do with their musical writing or technical performance skills.

That's the difference: in live performance nobody analyzes left/right up/down front/rear (after setup by technicians) in the audience, and all that matters is the performance of the artists.
At home performance there are such many variations in source, equipment and room conditions that influence the subjective perception, whereas the speaker-room interaction and quality of source is predominant.

 

[shion_ca]

When I see someone writing about "Sound Stage" I know they're not a musician and probably not someone who actually listens for musical counterpoint, style and chord structures. Instead, it's someone who wants to hear how a recording sounds on their gear rather than someone who is actually interested in musical structure of the piece.

In live acoustical performance, musicians don't panic over who is located where. The music is played from the group and reaches the ear of the listeners. Nobody is concerned about which ear hears what first. In a concert hall the width of seating could be 100 feet wide. When an Audiophool is distracted by where the sound is coming from it's an unnatural mental exercise that actually takes away from the music. They are focused on special effects not musical content. They could easily have one ear in need of cleaning and hear a different effect.

In the mixing booth, the engineer can pan instruments to try to paint a picture of how it might sound live or for special effect. But that's simply a matter of sound packaging and not really part of the music. The fact that "Sound Stage" is considered important in a recording is pretty funny to musicians. It has nothing to do with their musical writing or technical performance skills.

I don't have any musical knowledge and I actually enjoy my ignorance of musical chord structure as I don't spend my time analysing it but rather simply enjoying the emotional experience of the music itself. I actually listen to music to avoid being overly analytical as I am in my day job and so purposefully foster this ignorance for the resulting bliss. Perhaps you'd consider it analogous to this... would you rather enjoy your sausage or have watched it been made and be thinking about all the individual components an attributes that make it up.

In any event I typically prefer listening to my system over going to a concert and seeing a band in a substandard accost venue, blared through a stack of speakers into a stadium. There have been times with a small number of instruments in a perfect seat and intimate setting that I've enjoyed the sound as much or more, but typically no. I listen to maximise my enjoyment of the music and my emotional involvement. I could care less if the real group sounds far worse in real life. Sound Garden sounds nice on my system and they sounded like complete crap when I heard them live at lollapalooza, I'd take my system any day on a pure music listening basis.

If you decide you want to mock this preference of enjoyment over the "right way" to listen to music by analysis of chord structure then I am not the least bit concerned. But I think the "phool" is the one who takes a subjective experience and decides their enjoyment of it is the correct way.

 

[Salt]

Ladies and Gentlemen (and Divertisewemen), this is running OT

 

[ahofer]

But I think the "phool" is the one who takes a subjective experience and decides their enjoyment of it is the correct way.

I agree that one can enjoy music with or without theory or playing experience. On the other hand, it is possible, in this hobby, to get caught up in blaming things incorrectly on the gear. Consider whether it makes sense to try to take a wholly subjective perception and attribute it to equipment, contra science. This is a variation of the Fundamental Attribution Error.

If you listen carefully, you'll find most people here aren't trying to define the correct way to enjoy the experience of listening to music but rather the correct way to analyze and improve the reproduction aspect of it.

 

[Julf]

I don't have any musical knowledge and I actually enjoy my ignorance of musical chord structure as I don't spend my time analysing it but rather simply enjoying the emotional experience of the music itself. I actually listen to music to avoid being overly analytical as I am in my day job and so purposefully foster this ignorance for the resulting bliss. Perhaps you'd consider it analogous to this... would you rather enjoy your sausage or have watched it been made and be thinking about all the individual components an attributes that make it up.

Nothing wrong with simply enjoying the emotional experience, but I do have to remind you that there is the word "Science" in the name of this forum.

 

[shion_ca]

Nothing wrong with simply enjoying the emotional experience, but I do have to remind you that there is the word "Science" in the name of this forum.

I explained that how we perceive sound, which in turn invokes such response, is science. You all took issue with terms like liveliness and soundstage and I explained that there are scientific ways to describe and test these perceptions. I explained that when someone tells you they want to perceive more liveliness to sound you might try experimenting and would likely find this perception is tied closely to high frequencies. That soundstage can be measured as the perceived placement of objects in the three dimensional sound field when we hear stereo music. You might measure how it is altered by looking at things like phase shift, time alignment and what not. That is literally science.

 

[Julf]

I explained that how we perceive sound, which in turn invokes such response, is science.

Indeed.

You all took issue with terms like liveliness and soundstage and I explained that there are scientific ways to describe and test these perceptions.

Yes, there are scientific ways to describe the perceptions, but "liveliness", "speed" or even soundstage are not the scientific way to describe them.

I explained that when someone tells you they want to perceive more liveliness to sound you might try experimenting and would likely find this perception is tied closely to high frequencies.

Again, yes, as I noted - uneven frequency response in the high frequency region, often combined with harmonic distortion. Why not talk about frequency response and distortion instead of rather inaccurate terms such as "liveliness" or "speed"?

 

[ahofer]

The optimal way to alter frequency response, both absolutely and on a cost-adjusted basis, is PEQ, not an amplifier. Stay linear around the PEQ. Even the speakers should be more neutral so you can achieve your desired house curve with testing and experimentation.

One of the problems with "liveliness" and "speed" is that some people may mean some kind of distortion when they say it. For that, you can use effects (calling @pkane ), but this product type is not nearly as well developed for audio consumers as is the rest of the chain.

 

[ahofer]

Can it be heard <?> is what I read from comments here and is the question that apparently remains unanswered.

As ever.