What's Left In Speaker Design To Reduce Distortion/Increase Detail Retrieval?

[IPunchCholla]

As your alias clearly refers to the 70s movie "Yaws", which for sure is plain genius.

What I'm after is that
a) nobody expects a movie to be 'virtual reality', everybody accepts some effort to understand what is depicted
b) some movies are worth to be seen more often
c) only later one is able to identify the making of the movie, all those details, cues, hints whatever word is appropriate

My point is, the 'detail retrieval' is not in the technology of either the recording or the replay, it is in the listeners imagination. His/her effort to identify unexpected properties. What else is a 'detail'? It'll better be defined (by you as the o/p) before a discussion goes peculiar ways.

Theory shall allow to make provable predictions (hypothesis)! Prediction: Once an audiophile is believably told that a 'system' is quite expensive, he will in short time be able to identify 'details' in a recording, because he is willing, due to the expenses, to put some effort in´to mindful listening.

Some amount of detail has to be in the recording for the viewer to be able reconstruct (or construct) that detail. Try resampling your favorite piece of music to 8Hz 2 bit.

 

[teashea]

Anthesis? You mean antithesis, don't you...

yes thanks

 

[MattHooper]

"Details" in this context means zeroing in on particular parts, or individual elements, of a whole.

In sonic terms, the various individual details one can pay attention to when playing back a recording can be something large and pronounced, such as the location of the singer in the stereo image, or paying attention to the drums, down to ever more finely graded details, like the particular timbre of individual drum cymbals, weather something is revealed to be brushed snare vs patches of white noise, the audible breaths of the singer, fine details in recorded acoustic or added subtle reverbs, individual voices in a choral, etc.

Adjusting the prominence/audibility of all these details is a function of mixing sound (and mastering) sound. That means that the ratio of detail is objectively laid down in the tracks - some sounds are objectively louder or softer than others, and therefore more likely to be perceived as prominent or less audible. EQ is used all the time to make detail less audible (or even inaudible) or more audible/prominant. E.g. with EQ and volume, you can dig out the drum cymbals so they become more easily heard and prominant in the mix. Likewise, a speaker with an exaggerated upper frequency response (and certain dips) will make individual sonic details, like the drum cymbals, more prominent.

My point is, the 'detail retrieval' is not in the technology of either the recording or the replay, it is in the listeners imagination. His/her effort to identify unexpected properties. What else is a 'detail'? It'll better be defined (by you as the o/p) before a discussion goes peculiar ways.

Theory shall allow to make provable predictions (hypothesis)! Prediction: Once an audiophile is believably told that a 'system' is quite expensive, he will in short time be able to identify 'details' in a recording, because he is willing, due to the expenses, to put some effort in´to mindful listening.

Yes of course audiophiles can imagine they are hearing new details (when they engage in "mindful listening"). The error you are making is moving from "people can imagine hearing new detail" to "therefore hearing detail is imaginary."

That's just a fallacy. It's like saying "because someone can imagine a dog barking outside at night" therefore: "Dog barking is entirely about people's imagination." Of course it isn't. Dogs really bark, and people can hear that. Same with the fact that, while people can imagine differences in sound characteristics that aren't there - e.g. between AC cables in a system - that doesn't mean "differences in sound characteristics are imaginary." Speakers do have audibly different sound characteristics. Which isn't just due to "people's imagination" but which are there due to objective features of the loudspeaker performance.

If you want to talk "predictions," objective features in loudspeaker performance has been well established in controlled testing to predict people hearing differences between loudspeakers (and preferring some over others in blind listening tests). And just as "someone talking over someone else talking" can obscure the details of a conversation, so high level resonances can obscure or muddy certain details in the affected frequency range. Likewise, just as using EQ during production can obscure or enhance audible details in selected frequency ranges, for just the same reason, variations in frequency response can do the same for recordings played through different loudspeakers.

It's strange has heck to even have to write any of that...frankly....

 

[fineMen]

That's just a fallacy. ... It's strange has heck to even have to write any of that...frankly....

In your argumentation you obviously don't acknowledge my idea, that listening to something is some kind of a mental activity in contrast to automatic signal detection.

In consequence you don't reflect my argumentation correctly. Followed by dismissing it as fallacy and explicating on that verdict further.

I tried often enough, and doing so further would make me feel like a robot. Not saying that robots have feelings ...

 

[krabapple]

As your alias clearly refers to the 70s movie "Yaws", which for sure is plain genius.

What are you smoking, may I ask?

What I'm after is that
a) nobody expects a movie to be 'virtual reality', everybody accepts some effort to understand what is depicted
b) some movies are worth to be seen more often
c) only later one is able to identify the making of the movie, all those details, cues, hints whatever word is appropriate

b) is an entirely subjective claim

My point is, the 'detail retrieval' is not in the technology of either the recording or the replay, it is in the listeners imagination. His/her effort to identify unexpected properties. What else is a 'detail'? It'll better be defined (by you as the o/p) before a discussion goes peculiar ways.

You are referring to attention.

There is revelation of existing detail that was due to improved attention, and there is revelation of 'new' detail that is due to improved signal/noise of the presentation . The former is purely psychological, the latter is 'real'.

Theory shall allow to make provable predictions (hypothesis)! Prediction: Once an audiophile is believably told that a 'system' is quite expensive, he will in short time be able to identify 'details' in a recording, because he is willing, due to the expenses, to put some effort in´to mindful listening.

Indeed often so. But it is also possible to, e.g. by altering EQ or eliminating confounding/distorting signals, reveal 'real' details.

 

[MattHooper]

In your argumentation you obviously don't acknowledge my idea, that listening to something is some kind of a mental activity in contrast to automatic signal detection.

Me: "Yes of course audiophiles can imagine they are hearing new details (when they engage in "mindful listening").

What do you think that means, if not an acknowledgement of the role our mental activity plays in listening to music?

Someone can listen to the same reproduction and notice details, due to changes in their attention, that they did not notice before, and attribute that to the reproduction, not to their role in listening! This difference in attention can explain how people "hear differences" between things like AC cables, as I referenced.

The point you keep missing is that, though that phenomenon exists, SO does the phenomenon of hearing ACTUAL differences in detail, which are functions of the obective features in recordings and playback.

BOTH are true: the problem is you are ignoring one of those facts.

 

[fineMen]

What are you smoking, may I ask?

The figure named Matt Hooper is the zoologist in that very feature ("Yaws", 1975), depicted by Richard Dreyfuss ( the avatar of alias MattHooper).. No offense, the film is phantastic, a good choice for an alias, no irony. The film is very meticously made, full of details to be discovered at a second, third view..

You are referring to attention.

Not at all, that would be over-simplification.

There is revelation of existing detail that was due to improved attention, and there is revelation of 'new' detail that is due to improved signal/noise of the presentation . The former is purely psychological, the latter is 'real'.

Signal to noise is trivial, acoustic masking is not.

Indeed often so. But it is also possible to, e.g. by altering EQ ...

Exactly, and I mentioned the recording techniques, including the mix before,

I detach from this thread. I leave it to you to lay out all the details

 

[krabapple]

The figure named Matt Hooper is the zoologist in that very feature ("Yaws", 1975),

You mean 'Jaws', yet you goofily persist in calling it 'Yaws'.

Not at all, that would be over-simplification.

Claiming it so, isn't evidence.

Signal to noise is trivial, acoustic masking is not.

Both can be quite nontrivial. Masking can in fact be benign...which is why psychoacoustic models used in lossy compression work. Or even beneficial, as when adding more channels to audio delivery masks distortions that could be audible in two-channel (cf. work cited in Floyd Toole, Sound Reproduction)

 

[teashea]

sounds a lot like the revelation of spiritual sonic details from the use of $1000 pure virgin cobalt infused Palladium-Silver interconnects. This forum is called Audio Science Review - emphasis on Science. .... unless I am mistaken and the name has been changed to Astrology Spirits Revealed.

 

[teashea]

Much of this sounds like the assertion that there are unmeasurable spiritual details revealed by Cobalt infused Silver-Palladium interconnects.

 

[teashea]

Okay - but I thought this forum is called Audio Science Review. Has the name been changed to Astrology and Spiritual Sounds?

 

[krabapple]

Well we do like to repeat ourselves.

 

[MattHooper]

What has triggered this recent influx of incoherence in this thread?

 

[Ron Texas]

What has triggered this recent influx of incoherence in this thread?

There's been a lot of nonsense going around lately. I've noticed the mods are working harder than usual.

 

[krabapple]

repetition, verbosity, incoherence, and repetition

the 4 horsemen of the ASR apocalypse.

 

[IPunchCholla]

To get back on topic, a bit, perhaps... I picked up a pair of Presonus E66s on sale for $240 US each. I measured them at the listening position using a UMIC 1 and REW. The results were kinda amazing. with 1/24th smoothing, they were about +-6 in room. Psychoacoustic smoothing showed them as within +-3 dB from 65 HZ to 20 kHZ. The distortion was below 1% down to 150 HZ, and below 5% to about 40 HZ except a narrow peak at 60 HZ. I don't know about their directivity but it sounds fine to me. The distortion isn't as good as Purifi's drivers, but it isn't far off either. So I am not sure how much more can be squeezed out of the current technology given the price/quality we are at now. I'm thinking more and more that improvements will come in the form of multichannel and computation to create controlled masking, a new kind of transducer, or direct neural implants, if they are going to come at all.

 

[Travis]

There is another thread that posted Dr. Olive’s interview about “Fast Car” as a demo track at the NRC and having almost the same results as pink noise in detecting speaker differences.

Here is a clip of the interview where Dr. Olive talks about the track being very revealing of distortion.

 

[teashea]

There is another thread that posted Dr. Olive’s interview about “Fast Car” as a demo track at the NRC and having almost the same results as pink noise in detecting speaker differences.

Here is a clip of the interview where Dr. Olive talks about the track being very revealing of distortion.View attachment 311609

That is interesting. However Amir's actual measurements of frequency response and distortion are more valuable. Listeners perceptions can vary quite a bit and are subject to a host of psychological and physical issues.

 

[Travis]

That is interesting. However Amir's actual measurements of frequency response and distortion are more valuable. Listeners perceptions can vary quite a bit and are subject to a host of psychological and physical issues.

Olive references Klipple and that he uses the song to demonstrate distortion with his measurements. Both of them know the differences between accurate and objective speaker evaluation and psychological and physical issues.

They are both all about the science and controlled listening tests. Olive lays it out pretty carefully, even giving the example of book shelf speakers and maxing out the woofer excursion. That’s simple physics.

That song is unforgiving and is a practical way for people to listen for themselves how distortion measurements can be important and how that song can translate to actual listening.

 

[Axo1989]

You mean 'Jaws', yet you goofily persist in calling it 'Yaws'.

Probably just different spelling conventions in different languages. But I also have trouble sometimes parsing @fineMen's text.