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recording method vs sound reproduction


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Thanks, Willhelm, for the quotes. Yes, I remember you well from sa-cd.net forums and some private emails.

 

Was another forum ago... :)

 

Here's another something for you to continue with :

Recently' date=' « Ken Ishiwata, a man and his listening room » prompted me to re-read an earlier HFC interview pdf

Well, if we're serious about music reproduction, should we start by considering our own listening room ?

And there's also this :

1383585_10152677216491075_6839449279970465433_n.jpg?oh=e3f2f4847bb3ab2460da7e6e94674477&oe=566CA095

 

Such a 5-speaker arrangement might be fine for 5.1 Hollywood movies and for 5.0 surround titles, but it's totally wrong for REAL 2-channel stereo recordings. I'm sure it sounds spectacular with the right program material, recorded specifically for that speaker arrangement, but it's of limited use for the wide variety of recordings out there in the real world. On the other hand, what a dream come true such a listening room would be, I daresay for just about any one of us even if our choice of equipment differs significantly (My speaker choice, for instance would be a pair of Martin-Logan Neoliths or perhaps a pair of Martin-Logan CLXs with matching subwoofers).

 

«

an accurate picture

Sono pessimista con l'intelligenza,

 

ma ottimista per la volontà.

severe loudspeaker alignment »

 

 

 

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Was another forum ago... :)

 

Here's another something for you to continue with :

Such a 5-speaker arrangement might be fine for 5.1 Hollywood movies and for 5.0 surround titles' date=' but it's totally wrong for REAL 2-channel stereo recordings.[/i']

 

If the center and surrounds were disabled I don't see what's so "totally wrong" with that systems arrangement. Every stereo speaker has slightly different requirements but with the L & R speakers positioned out from the rear and side walls and angled slightly towards the listener, that setup looks good to me, maybe move the listening chairs a little closer to more of a equilateral triangle position, but still,, looks like it should sound pretty good to me.

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

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If the center and surrounds were disabled I don't see what's so "totally wrong" with that systems arrangement. Every stereo speaker has slightly different requirements but with the L & R speakers positioned out from the rear and side walls and angled slightly towards the listener, that setup looks good to me, maybe move the listening chairs a little closer to more of a equilateral triangle position, but still,, looks like it should sound pretty good to me.

 

If the center channels were disabled, then it would no longer be 5.1, now would it? And if it was a 5.1 recording that the center channel was disabled for then it would be doubly wrong because one would then have a huge hole-in-the-middle!

George

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"but it's totally wrong for REAL 2-channel stereo recordings."

I guess I mis-understood what the point was that writer was trying to make.?

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

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I don't have a centre speaker, never felt the need for one, I've got surrounds (ATC 20 ASL Pro) for TV and film, but with 2 subs in stereo I guess I've got 4.0 cinema setup (which is as decoupled as possible from the 2ch music playback, using HT bypass on Jeff Rowland Capri S2 Pre).

 

The soft dome mids of ATC's L/R (50 ASL) seem to completely fill the centre space, without the need for a dedicated centre speaker, I've always like their 'spread in this respect', but maybe if I had one (centre) I would realise what I was missing (but don't expect so)?

 

Anyway George, as a fellow, recordist / producer (sorry, I'm predominantly electronic / synth, but really do care a great deal about SQ) I have much empathy with your musings.

 

;-)

 

 

If the center channels were disabled, then it would no longer be 5.1, now would it? And if it was a 5.1 recording that the center channel was disabled for then it would be doubly wrong because one would then have a huge hole-in-the-middle!

Source:

*Aurender N100 (no internal disk : LAN optically isolated via FMC with *LPS) > DIY 5cm USB link (5v rail removed / ground lift switch - split for *LPS) > Intona Industrial (injected *LPS / internally shielded with copper tape) > DIY 5cm USB link (5v rail removed / ground lift switch) > W4S Recovery (*LPS) > DIY 2cm USB adaptor (5v rail removed / ground lift switch) > *Auralic VEGA (EXACT : balanced)

 

Control:

*Jeff Rowland CAPRI S2 (balanced)

 

Playback:

2 x Revel B15a subs (balanced) > ATC SCM 50 ASL (balanced - 80Hz HPF from subs)

 

Misc:

*Via Power Inspired AG1500 AC Regenerator

LPS: 3 x Swagman Lab Audiophile Signature Edition (W4S, Intona & FMC)

Storage: QNAP TS-253Pro 2x 3Tb, 8Gb RAM

Cables: DIY heavy gauge solid silver (balanced)

Mains: dedicated distribution board with 5 x 2 socket ring mains, all mains cables: Mark Grant Black Series DSP 2.5 Dual Screen

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If the center channels were disabled, then it would no longer be 5.1, now would it? And if it was a 5.1 recording that the center channel was disabled for then it would be doubly wrong because one would then have a huge hole-in-the-middle!

 

Are you saying that stereo speakers at +- 30 degrees from the sweet spot is always wrong, since that is what the diagram says, after subtracting all the other channels for Mch? It seems to me that it depends on the speakers and the room. Also, many hi fi guide books recommend the equilateral triangle setup, which is the same as this, as a starting point for stereo.

 

Hey, if it actually produces a hole in the middle in a specific setup, I would be all in favor of moving the front pair closer to one another. But, it ain't necessarily so in all rooms with all speakers.

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Hi,

 

I've generally found that the larger active ATCs (50s & above in a domestic listening situation) sound better when not toed in. I have never toed them in even 0.5cm... I know plenty of others who also have them set absolute straight.

 

Perhaps our theory is if you can paint a beautiful soundstage this way, it ought to sound better for others in the room, not just the (selfish) perfect place to sit.

 

Maybe it's the ATC mid that allows this, I'm not really sure.

 

;-)

 

Are you saying that stereo speakers at +- 30 degrees from the sweet spot is always wrong, since that is what the diagram says, after subtracting all the other channels for Mch? It seems to me that it depends on the speakers and the room. Also, many hi fi guide books recommend the equilateral triangle setup, which is the same as this, as a starting point for stereo.

 

Hey, if it actually produces a hole in the middle in a specific setup, I would be all in favor of moving the front pair closer to one another. But, it ain't necessarily so in all rooms with all speakers.

Source:

*Aurender N100 (no internal disk : LAN optically isolated via FMC with *LPS) > DIY 5cm USB link (5v rail removed / ground lift switch - split for *LPS) > Intona Industrial (injected *LPS / internally shielded with copper tape) > DIY 5cm USB link (5v rail removed / ground lift switch) > W4S Recovery (*LPS) > DIY 2cm USB adaptor (5v rail removed / ground lift switch) > *Auralic VEGA (EXACT : balanced)

 

Control:

*Jeff Rowland CAPRI S2 (balanced)

 

Playback:

2 x Revel B15a subs (balanced) > ATC SCM 50 ASL (balanced - 80Hz HPF from subs)

 

Misc:

*Via Power Inspired AG1500 AC Regenerator

LPS: 3 x Swagman Lab Audiophile Signature Edition (W4S, Intona & FMC)

Storage: QNAP TS-253Pro 2x 3Tb, 8Gb RAM

Cables: DIY heavy gauge solid silver (balanced)

Mains: dedicated distribution board with 5 x 2 socket ring mains, all mains cables: Mark Grant Black Series DSP 2.5 Dual Screen

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Hi,

 

I've generally found that the larger active ATCs (50s & above in a domestic listening situation) sound better when not toed in. I have never toed them in even 0.5cm... I know plenty of others who also have them set absolute straight.

 

Perhaps our theory is if you can paint a beautiful soundstage this way, it ought to sound better for others in the room, not just the (selfish) perfect place to sit.

 

Maybe it's the ATC mid that allows this, I'm not really sure.

 

;-)

 

Maybe so. Toe in is a completely different variable than speaker angular placement relative to the sweet spot. But, yes, it is also a factor in tweaking speaker placement that we have to decide on in set up. Personally, I prefer to optimize for sound at the sweet spot, which is how my system is listenened to 90% of the time. Even then, some speaker/room combinations and listener preferences might give different answers to the questions of angular placement and toe in.

 

But, speaker positioning is somewhat off topic relative to recording technique in this thread. Except, for Mch there are documented speaker angular placement standards assumed by recording/mixing/mastering engineers in making the recordings. And, for certain limited types of coincident pair stereo recordings, there is also an optimum speaker angular setup at +- 45 degrees, which is much too much for most common stereo recordings. But, mostly with stereo recordings, there is no standard or single definite answer to these questions, except listener preference.

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And in classical music multi-miking is anathema to me. I don't care how spectacular you think they are, they are not true stereo, and true stereo is all I'm interested in.

 

I agree entirely.

In my opinion, "classical" music should be recorded from a documental perspective, in order to portray the music event from a listener's perpective.

And from my experience as a listener this is only possible when no multi-mic'ing and no close-mic'ing are used.

BIS and Dorian are good examples; Pentatone, Channel Classics and Reference sound a bit artificial (overly detailed sound and less realistic acoustic ambience).

 

R

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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Recalling some strong comments from 7 days ago by Erdo Groot (director, producer & balance engineer) of Polyhymnia International BV :

Then I advise you not to go to opera houses as many instruments are only heard via reflections (they are deep in the orchestra pit) and you often hear them from high up and/or behind. Same happens in many concert halls.

 

The idea with 5 channel speaker set up is to use the sound all speakers reproduce to recreate a soundfield. This is not perfect but for many important quality factors we apprecriate in sound reproduction, it works much better than using only 2 speakers to recreate this impression for the listener.

 

12003013_1639029193036054_7342153634159667771_n.jpg?oh=13fcb79fecabd7373b46e3d573a11c61&oe=56AA3B4B&__gda__=1449931004_799983c923527ec40090ffdfce5b83eb

 

But I know people who really only like to listen to old 78's gramophone horn reproduced musical sounds (definetely only music coming from the one side. The front if you face it) What you are used to is often what you like....

Earlier :
To look at rear speakers in a playback system simply as to add something (“subtle background ambience???”) to the front speakers is not doing justice to the potential the combination of 5 (in this case) speakers have to reproduce specifically designed recordings for such a system. You probably (hopefully?) would not regard the left speaker in a 2 channel set up to, only provide some subtle acoustic sounds from sources that are coming from the right loudspeaker? As that is exactly similar to what you are saying about the rears in a surround set up.

 

You have mentioned the demo you did not like before. I was not there and if that is your only experience to make up your opinion on the potential of 5 channel surround sound I feel you deny yourself some good experiences.

 

In most of my recordings you will notice that the recorded volume is almost the same over all channels. And that way you achieve more audio quality when played back over 5 ‘equal loud set up’ loudspeakers, compared to a stereo mix or a bad mixed “rear ambience added on stereo (lazy)” surround recording.

 

If at any time you are in the neighbourhood of Baarn in the Netherlands you are welcome to have a listen in our studio’s (appointment first please)

 

Polyhymnia-2web.jpg

 

I could play you various wonderful Caro Mitis recordings that sound so much nicer even in surround

And :
For you who do not know this one yet: From the primephonic website CM0092004 and

try out track 12 Improvisation and Fugue. with 5 channel surround and equal loudness from your speakers there is sound coming from all speakers, but the piano is in front of you. Yet a vast difference between surround and stereo.....

This track may bring out the limits of your system.

 

«

an accurate picture

Sono pessimista con l'intelligenza,

 

ma ottimista per la volontà.

severe loudspeaker alignment »

 

 

 

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try out track 12 Improvisation and Fugue. with 5 channel surround and equal loudness from your speakers there is sound coming from all speakers' date=' but the piano is in front of you. Yet a vast difference between surround and stereo.....

[/font']

 

Not all stereo recordings are equal.

 

Try out track 3 "Iberia. Book 1. 3 El corpus en Sevilla." Forget about how many channels/speakers and enjoy the Truthful Recording Technology.

 

Albéniz Iberia - PlayClassics, the art of true music

Mario Martínez

Recording Engineer and Music Producer

Play Classics, classical music at its best

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Not all stereo recordings are equal.

 

Try out track 3 "Iberia. Book 1. 3 El corpus en Sevilla." Forget about how many channels/speakers and enjoy the Truthful Recording Technology.

 

Albéniz Iberia - PlayClassics, the art of true music

I would happy to listen to those songs.

Is it actually possible to download them instead of streaming as my downloading pc is not my audio station? Are they only MP3 format? Thanks

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I would happy to listen to those songs.

Is it actually possible to download them instead of streaming as my downloading pc is not my audio station? Are they only MP3 format? Thanks

 

 

I sent you a private message with a link to download the file.

 

The file I sent you is a 320kbps 48kHz LAME MP3 file. (24 MB)

 

To maintain the best audio quality these files are mastered for PlayClassics directly from the 24bit 96kHz studio files. The original file is 346,2MB in size.

 

Happy listening!

Mario Martínez

Recording Engineer and Music Producer

Play Classics, classical music at its best

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I sent you a private message with a link to download the file.

 

The file I sent you is a 320kbps 48kHz LAME MP3 file. (24 MB)

 

To maintain the best audio quality these files are mastered for PlayClassics directly from the 24bit 96kHz studio files. The original file is 346,2MB in size.

 

Happy listening!

 

As a recording engineer who agrees with your methodology 100% and would LOVE to hear some of your stuff on 320 kbps Mp3, could you please send me a link to download at least the Albeniz Iberia​? Thank You.

George

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Are you saying that stereo speakers at +- 30 degrees from the sweet spot is always wrong, since that is what the diagram says, after subtracting all the other channels for Mch? It seems to me that it depends on the speakers and the room. Also, many hi fi guide books recommend the equilateral triangle setup, which is the same as this, as a starting point for stereo.

 

First of all, I said nothing in post you are quoting about +/- 30 degrees of anything! I have already said that the necessity (or even the advisability) of toe-in is speaker dependent. As I said in another post, the Magnepan Point Sevens that I'm auditioning now require a degree of toe-in for the imaging to "pop", but my Martin-Logans don't like that at all and image best when parallel to the wall behind them.

 

Hey, if it actually produces a hole in the middle in a specific setup, I would be all in favor of moving the front pair closer to one another. But, it ain't necessarily so in all rooms with all speakers.

 

I never said that it was. You seem to be selectively understanding what I'm writing. As I said above, in #53, if you are listening to a real five channel recording, with right, left and center front channels, derived from right, left and center mikes, and you disabled the center channel, then you are deleting the center fill of the 5-channel recording and are now getting only right and left with nothing from the center except what tends to spill over from the two side mikes. That will definitely give one a hole-in-the-middle where there simply ain't supposed to be one!

George

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I sent you a private message with a link to download the file.

 

The file I sent you is a 320kbps 48kHz LAME MP3 file. (24 MB)

 

To maintain the best audio quality these files are mastered for PlayClassics directly from the 24bit 96kHz studio files. The original file is 346,2MB in size.

 

Happy listening!

Thanks I enjoyed listening to it.

Just to put it in perspective with a few numbers:

the recording is very dynamic (Lissajouss diagrams do show a certain ambience);

crest factor ranges around 9.3;

absolute dynamic with windows at 100ms exceeds 66dB.

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As a recording engineer who agrees with your methodology 100% and would LOVE to hear some of your stuff on 320 kbps Mp3, could you please send me a link to download at least the Albeniz Iberia​? Thank You.

 

 

Yes, of course. I just sent you a private message with the link to download the file.

 

Enjoy!

Mario Martínez

Recording Engineer and Music Producer

Play Classics, classical music at its best

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Could I please have access to that sample?

I had a listen at the website link you posted and the tonal balance appears to be "just right" (for me).

 

Cheers,

Ric

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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P.S.: I've just realised that you have a music player in your website; it looks interesting as a concept, I'll have a listen trough my main system.

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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Dynamic and warm sounding, with no excessive highs; it sounds quite "natural".

 

1z5tbgz.png

Albéniz

 

2it3r5f.png

Chopin

 

 

The room sounds a bit "dry" (un-reverberant), though.

Could this be the mp3 conversion?

 

Saludos,

Ricardo

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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P.S.: I've just realised that you have a music player in your website; it looks interesting as a concept, I'll have a listen trough my main system.

 

 

Oh, I see you found the player :)

 

That little player is an interesting piece of software, it just needs to grow in content. I hope we can fill it with many great recordings in the years to come...

Mario Martínez

Recording Engineer and Music Producer

Play Classics, classical music at its best

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Yes, of course. I just sent you a private message with the link to download the file.

 

Enjoy!

 

Probably one of the best solo piano recordings I've ever heard! Perfectly centered piano that sounds like it's in the room with you and is the size of a real grand piano with lots of airy ambience on the sides, behind the piano and above it. Just delightful! Thanks.

George

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Probably one of the best solo piano recordings I've ever heard! Perfectly centered piano that sounds like it's in the room with you and is the size of a real grand piano with lots of airy ambience on the sides, behind the piano and above it. Just delightful! Thanks.

He has the mikes inside the piano. LOLOLOL

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

Peter Aczel - The Audio Critic

nomqa.webp.aa713f2bb9e304522011cdb2d2ca907d.webp  R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press.

 

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