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

[goat76]

It bears mentioning that calibrating audio is harder than calibrating video/color because sound wavelengths are large and the output is quite powerful compared to the features of the things that reproduce (speakers) and receive (ears) said audio. Light wavelengths for video are extremely small and weak, relatively. You don't have to worry about diffraction or even room reflection very much when you talk about video monitors (even refraction never comes up for consumers) but those factors make our lives very hard in the audio world.

The standard is set in video production, and we can assume that most people working with video have their monitors calibrated to the conditions of their environment. So if we do the exact calibration at home, we will receive the colores as intended.

But I find it somewhat questionable how important it really is for most of us to see it exactly as the person who made the video production. Most of the time they use all kinds of filters to some scenes or the whole movie, like the greenish coloration of the film "The Road" as an example to make it sense more as an apocalyptical wasteland. Having our screen properly calibrated will probably not make our experience of the movie much better.

I see similarities with music productions, but the standard calibration is not fully in place and we can't be as certain that the monitors used had a flat response. Besides that, the person who mixed the music was also using all kinds of "filters" to make it sound as he subjectively preferred it to sound.
If we as music consumers just set up our sound system until we like how the majority of the music we choose to listen to sounds, no matter if this is set up after a standard calibration or not, we should be happy. Most of us "sound nerds" will most likely be the only ones who really care how our sound system sounds anyways, so why calibrate it to satisfy Mr. Average Joe?

 

[FrankW]

literally just shown you posts where I argue for the relevance of controlling variables (including matching volume) when we want reliable information on audio gear...but...yeah...I'm ignorant of the effects of volume, room/modes on perceived sound.

Show us where, in your original post and subsequent thread title with cause>effect speculation ignoring all.
You also "miss" something Amir has written about numerous times, that one can listen to the same song/system and notice "details" simply by focusing on a particular aspect.
Note none of above has anything to do with speaker "distortion".

On this forum we've gone over the concept of "accuracy" ad nauseam. "Accurate to what?" Well, you Matt have to state what you Matt mean to help clarify any particular use of the term.
A "recording" is the "record" of all sorts of sonic information encoded in that recording - timbre, dynamics, the balance of various frequencies representing any particular voice or instrument, etc.

.....all of which you, the imaginative subjectivist, has zero clue about without transduction. That's a running joke among Flat Earthers
So what transduction does Matt hear/compare his "accurate" transduction to for..."accuracy"?

I acknowledged my impressions could be due to sighted bias, raising the speaker drivers in height etc

Perfect. Now repeat your "experience" of Joseph vs Estelon unsighted, positioned, level matched, modal peaks within a sphere around head levelled out, now focusing on whatever particular aspect (drums?) one focuses on, then tell where all the "detail retrieval" aka "Resolution" aka....blah, blah, went to. Or did it completely disappear...
Oh my, what happened to that "distortion" speculation

 

[FrankW]

Likewise with audiophiles, where this forum of course tends to represent those who seek accuracy.

 

[FrankW]

What's the video equivalent of REW?

Danny's YouTube channel

 

[Blumlein 88]

Danny's YouTube channel

No it is not.

 

[olegtern]

When it comes to delivering the finest details of sound, in-ear headphones for little money provide accuracy that a lot of high-end systems for a million wouldn't dream of. Why?

I think of low distortion, absence of room and absence of acoustical crosstalk, which is an inherent defect in stereo and leads to comb-filtering effect right in the middle of the range in the most sensitive hearing area. (However, lack of crosstalk creates other problems with headphones - "sound in the head", but when it comes to details in sound, headphones do better here).

Reducing distortion, reducing interaction with the room (both through speaker directivity control and through the use of sophisticated DSP) is what most innovative manufacturers are working on.

"What's Left In Speaker Design" — fixing stereo problems. It's either multichannel or something in the direction of Ambiophonics or BACCH.

 

[gnarly]

Aesthetic requirements should be considered as fixed... the output of a WAF evaluation is typically binary... but a little grille can go a long way in these situations.

I hear ya.

The best 'grease' I've found for squeezing big non-aesthetic gear into the house, is ye ole 'audio costs me twice' whatever I paid.......
...the cost of the audio, and the matching $$$ for her whims/pursuits...

 

[gnarly]

Holy cow! Great contribution, thanks! I'd love to hear your system!

Thx! Glad it wasn't off-topic for you. Wish you could hear it too, would enjoy/value your opinion.

BTW did I see your system on display at burning amp last year? If so, it sounded great but I remember thinking maybe cinderblock classrooms aren't the most favorable place to demo high-end speakers

Nope. Never been to one. I'm in Virginia.
Looks like a fun DIY gathering.
Yikes...so they had to listen in cinderblock rooms

Looks a lot like some really well regarded Danley designs.

Yep, I'm convinced unity/synergy designs are where it's at.
I've studied Tom's posts a lot, and had the pleasure of discussing my DIY efforts with him at a large trade show.

Glad you found my list of design objectives logical. They basically reflect what it takes what I've learned so far on how to build an excellent unity/synergy.

Btw, I had a pair of JTR3TX for a while, and still have a pair of OS subs. Jeff makes some great and value oriented gear, imo.
Sorry i can't recall which of his boxes you have...?

 

[Leif]

That is my point. Audiophiles - people who care about how recorded music is reproduced - are a minority of microscopic proportions. Most people, even committed/hardcore music lovers are happy with mp3 and a bluetooth tabletop thingy or their smartphone's speaker.
Standardisation makes sense for music production, we agree on that. For music reproduction only a few of us care and half would rather be able to have a choice. Personally I go with accuracy but I don't think it's wise or fair not to give others the possibility of putting together a system which 'presents' the recording in a way which they enjoy the most, I think it was @j_j who called it the 'Enhanced-Illusion' in the "Vinyl will always sound *different* than digital, right?" topic.

You said: "The visual 'artist' has no more control over the accuracy of that reproduction than an audio engineer.". I was replying to that statement. It is quite straightforward to create monitor, camera and printer profiles. I create a custom WB on site, and use monitor profiles.

I’ve heard it suggested that audiophiles prefer inaccuracy, and that companies pander to these people by voicing their products, thereby fooling the audiophile into thinking that their system is superior. That viewpoint would explain speakers, my PMCs were strongly voiced, and it seems that B&W and others do likewise.

 

[Pudik]

I disagree.

With some hopefully obvious caveats: It seems dubious that even the most extravagant current two channel systems could reproduce a symphony indistinguishable from the real thing. Much less loudspeakers "you and I" could afford.

But that having been said, I'd disagree that one can't find affordable stereo speakers that do justice to orchestral music. That's partially because "doing justice" to any music is a subjective call. What may be good enough for me may not be for you.

But since I'm a soundtrack nut (and I enjoy classical music) orchestral music is among my favorite to listen to. I was listening last night and just blown away the the timbral richness I was hearing, the sense of scale, of sonic "distance" to the various orchestral sections. With my eyes closed it really wasn't that hard to imagine I was listening through a hall to a real orchestra. That is definitely my mind, my "will to believe" making up the difference there between this home presentation and the real thing, but those mere two channel speakers were giving my imagination a hell of a lot to play with!

Would you, PLEASE, let me know what recording you were listening to? I'd more then appreciate it. Thx, P.

 

[tuga]

You said: "The visual 'artist' has no more control over the accuracy of that reproduction than an audio engineer.". I was replying to that statement. It is quite straightforward to create monitor, camera and printer profiles. I create a custom WB on site, and use monitor profiles.

I’ve heard it suggested that audiophiles prefer inaccuracy, and that companies pander to these people by voicing their products, thereby fooling the audiophile into thinking that their system is superior. That viewpoint would explain speakers, my PMCs were strongly voiced, and it seems that B&W and others do likewise.

Back in the ‘00s I bought a Monaco Optix colorimeter and also Velvia, Provia and several Ekta colour targets from a German guy, and used the lab’s printer profiles. I stopped calibrating the display when I bought my first MacBook Pro.

 

[MattHooper]

Show us where, in your original post and subsequent thread title with cause>effect speculation ignoring all.
You also "miss" something Amir has written about numerous times, that one can listen to the same song/system and notice "details" simply by focusing on a particular aspect.
Note none of above has anything to do with speaker "distortion".

You've pegged me again Frank. I'm just a naive subjectivist who had no inkling of any such variables until you came along.

From a link I gave you of me, 4 years ago, explaining the nature of sighted bias in the SteveHoffman audio forum:

"Again, it's a common misconception about listener bias that you need to "expect" something to sound better, or different, in order to perceive a difference. That's not the case at all, which is why I'd written: (You don't even have to expect to hear a difference...merely knowing that something physical has been changed in your system - e.g. if you know you've introduced a new cable - can be enough).

In fact you don't even have to be thinking at all of comparing anything. Our perception of sound can change depending on our mood, slight changes in where/how we are sitting relative to the speakers, to what we happen to be concentrating on at the time...whatever. But if we think "wow, that trumpet sure sounds brilliant" or anything like it, the audiophile mind will tend to go immediately to an attribution bias "Hmmm, did I change anything in the system recently? Hey! I changed my interconnects last week! That must be it!"

Perceptual biases aren't something we can will away or think around, which is why blind testing exists as a protocol in the first place. My son was recently involved in a study for a new allergy treatment and it was double-blinded: we didn't know if he was on the placebo or real treatment, and neither did the doctors conducting the study, until the end when the results were revealed. There are good reasons for this that don't simply contain themselves to medicine, but to human perception in general."

.....all of which you, the imaginative subjectivist, has zero clue about without transduction. That's a running joke among Flat Earthers
So what transduction does Matt hear/compare his "accurate" transduction to for..."accuracy"?

What point do you think you are possibly making there? Of course we need transduction to sound waves to hear the recorded content. That's the issue. And for accuracy sake (which many here are seeking) you'd want to do that with as little distortion as possible. And various forms of speaker distortion are well known - which speaker designers seek to mitigate.

What are you ACTUALLY disputing????? Have you really come to ASR to disavow the very goal of accuracy?

Tellingly you have ignored for a third time giving your own answer as to the goals of speaker design, including the nature of distortion. Again, if your point is that there is no way to determine what is on a recording, nor any way to have an inkling that we are accurately reproducing the information....why do you think Floyd Toole suggests it would be good to have common standards in music production/reproduction in the first place? (Where low coloration speakers would be favored).


Your posts here have been utterly bizarre and incoherent

Perfect. Now repeat your "experience" of Joseph vs Estelon unsighted, positioned, level matched, modal peaks within a sphere around head levelled out, now focusing on whatever particular aspect (drums?) one focuses on, then tell where all the "detail retrieval" aka "Resolution" aka....blah, blah, went to. Or did it completely disappear...
Oh my, what happened to that "distortion" speculation

There you go, telling me what I don't know again.

(Me to you, earlier: "If we want to be more sure of any such conclusions, the ideal way to evaluate would be blind listening, for instance similar to the type cited by Floyd Toole.")

Ok, I'm finished feeding you. You've had multiple opportunities to lift yourself out of Troll mode. It ain't happening.

Given your complete inability to let go of error, admit you are wrong, or update your view based on counter evidence, any brow-beating you want to perform on others for not being scientific will be greeted with an appropriate rolling of the eyes. Good day, sir.

 

[Blumlein 88]

When it comes to delivering the finest details of sound, in-ear headphones for little money provide accuracy that a lot of high-end systems for a million wouldn't dream of. Why?

I think of low distortion, absence of room and absence of acoustical crosstalk, which is an inherent defect in stereo and leads to comb-filtering effect right in the middle of the range in the most sensitive hearing area. (However, lack of crosstalk creates other problems with headphones - "sound in the head", but when it comes to details in sound, headphones do better here).

Reducing distortion, reducing interaction with the room (both through speaker directivity control and through the use of sophisticated DSP) is what most innovative manufacturers are working on.

"What's Left In Speaker Design" — fixing stereo problems. It's either multichannel or something in the direction of Ambiophonics or BACCH.

Yes, headphones let you get the room completely out of the problem. With Harman's FR targets things have gotten even better. OTOH, other than listening for tiny details I don't like headphones. You mention cross-talk and it is instructive. I record music sometimes. A simple mix technique that works pretty well for someone who is not a pro is what is known as LCR mixing. Every track is dead center (equal in both channels) or 100% right or 100% left. This sounds better than it reads and for a time in the early days of stereo pro mixing desks were setup with switches for each track being left, right or center.

Listen to a left, right, center mix on headphones and it is not good. Sounds exactly like what is on the recording. Left ear only, right ear only or a weird middle of the head position. Clearly headphones are more accurate showing you what is on the recording in this sense. It is a simple fix. I mix left 88%, right 88% and center. That amount of crosstalk is enough it fixes the issue and sounds fine on headphones. It sounds essentially identical on speakers with either 100% or 88% in each channel. Stereo is an illusion and one developed for use on speakers.

 

[MattHooper]

Would you, PLEASE, let me know what recording you were listening to? I'd more then appreciate it. Thx, P.

I believe that one was the Naxos (Marco Polo) re-recording of the King Kong soundtrack:

But I get the impressions I described often, from various recordings. Again, being a soundtrack fan, among them this 7th Voyage Of Sinbad Soundtrack:

Bernard Herrmann, John Debney - Royal Scottish National Orchestra - The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1998 CD release of "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad" on Discogs.

www.discogs.com

That recording has plenty of sense of "distance," hearing through a hall to the instruments (whether it's a captured acoustic or added). The recordings of the lower brass and woodwinds, for which Herrmann's scores were famous, is glorious. I was listening to that as well recently and when there would be moments where tinkling chimes and strings were creating ethereal, light layers, and suddenly around the center stage the low horns/woodwinds would swell and growl in the most dense, tangible way. Utterly thrilling.

Another favorite of mine is the classic Goldsmith score for Star Trek The Motion Picture. It received a stellar re-release with tons of alternate takes, from La La Land.
Fabulous sound quality, the symphony sounds vast and powerful.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (2-CD SET)

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (2-CD SET)

lalalandrecords.com

If you want a hair-raising experience of closer-to-sonic-realism, listen to the track Main Title [First Raw Takes]. It has the symphony warming up with various production voices chatting, like you are in the studio, and then when the symphony belts out those first notes - be careful on your volume. You might get blasted out of your chair! (That's one of the tracks I use when experimenting with acoustics in my room. When I get the combination of direct and reflected sound 'right' the sound opens up without the sense of being contained in the speakers, melting the walls behind the speakers, so I've sort of entered the acoustic of the recording to hear the performance 'live.')

 

[Ron Texas]

Does less distortion increase detail retrieval? It took Toole and Olive decades to do their research which concludes flat on axis and even off axis is preferred with a 65% correlation. That's good science, but there is still a lot we don't know. There are various bits and pieces like narrow suck outs are usually not audible.

There's 35% out there which don't fit the mold. What about them?

Is detail real or is it an illusion? Are we supposed to be able to hear individual violins in the orchestra or individual voices in a chorus? Does the music provide a satisfying experience or do you sit there worrying if you have the right gear?

I see a lot of angst and arguing here. I don't make or enforce the rules, but somebody needs to chill. Have a Bud Lite and take a trip to Target, LOL.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Does less distortion increase detail retrieval? It took Toole and Olive decades to do their research which concludes flat on axis and even off axis is preferred with a 65% correlation. That's good science, but there is still a lot we don't know. There are various bits and pieces like narrow suck outs are usually not audible.

There's 35% out there which don't fit the mold. What about them?

Is detail real or is it an illusion? Are we supposed to be able to hear individual violins in the orchestra or individual voices in a chorus? Does the music provide a satisfying experience or do you sit there worrying if you have the right gear?

I see a lot of angst and arguing here. I don't make or enforce the rules, but somebody needs to chill. Have a Bud Lite and take a trip to Target, LOL.

I think with bookshelf or other speakers with little response below 100 hz it was like a 97% correlation. Bass response could account for 30% of preference in speakers that have good low end response, but likely room effects lowered the correlation somewhat in full range speakers. Also I think the correlation overall was 86%. So he found smooth flat on axis response and smooth declining off axis response and low resonances. They found resonances lowered preference.

I'm sure distortion can be high enough to effect detail retrieval, but it probably has to be pretty high. Pretty sure over 1% and maybe more. I took the OP to have in mind various types of loudspeaker distortion beyond just THD and IMD.

 

[Ron Texas]

@Blumlein 88 thank you for the clarification. Some problems, like a cabinet resonance will show up in frequency response. Meanwhile, we know very high levels of distortion are tolerable at very low frequencies. Still, is there a string connection between detail retrieval and distortion. How about timing? There's a lot which can go wrong. The telephone was invented in 1876. People have been working on sending sound to transducers for a long time and it's still very much an art as nice as it is to have some good science.

 

[Doodski]

The telephone was invented in 1876. People have been working on sending sound to transducers for a long time and it's still very much an art as nice as it is to have some good science.

Telecom is a entire subject that takes years to study. It's amazing the stuff worked at all in it's complexity. The frequency range sent along the telecom wires for voice transmission was of a very narrow bandwidth. Now we have fiber but the voice bandwidth is still pretty narrow. Maybe @RayDunzl can comment as he's a expert at telecom.

 

[Ron Texas]

Telecom is a entire subject that takes years to study. It's amazing the stuff worked at all in it's complexity. The frequency range sent along the telecom wires for voice transmission was of a very narrow bandwidth. Now we have fiber but the voice bandwidth is still pretty narrow. Maybe @RayDunzl can comment as he's a expert at telecom.

I'm thinking of the telephone as an early application of using electric energy to transmit sound energy to a transducer. Certainly, there is a lot more to it. Bell only sent the original telephone signal into a different room of the same building. I don't exactly know when music reproduction progressed from the victrola and its mechanical needle driven horn to an electrical signal amplified and sent to a speaker. My point is this game has been going on for a long time and has a long way to go.

 

[Doodski]

I'm thinking of the telephone as an early application of using electric energy to transmit sound energy to a transducer. Certainly, there is a lot more to it. Bell only sent the original telephone signal into a different room of the same building. I don't exactly know when music reproduction progressed from the victrola and it's needle driven horn to an electrical signal amplified and sent to a speaker. My point is this game has been going on for a long time and has a long way to go.

Yes, it has been going on for a significant time. I think the studio quality time and recordings need to improve. Good speakers sound good but bad recording sound bad and good speakers help with bad recordings but there's only so much that can be done.