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Playback Listening
Topic: Audio Boiling Point

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 10-05-2010
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Last night a friend of my visited me and we spend an evening listing Wagner. He played Wagner himself a lot and he begin to make comments about sound of different sections and instilments in my room. I stopped him as Macondo in the new is no where even remotely near a state what I would demonstrate it comfortably as some kind accomplishment. In old room it was, in the new room it is just speakers in the room, not the playback that I might be pound or comfortable.

Sure, there are many things that need to be done. Macondo need to be cleaned, installed at the final location, aligned, and calibrated. Melquiades need to be serviced and fine-tined foe the operation in new environment. The rooms need to be treated and then perhaps some operation condition of Macondo and Melquiades need to be re-adjusted. Hat all will be done but in this post I would like to talk not about what need to be doe not what I am looking to have after it is done.

I do not care about tonal quality of presentation in my room. The core of Macondo/ Melquiades has all tonal attributes intact and if room will not crap with HF then I will have the same tonal character as I had in my old room. Imaging is also I think will not be a problem – the new room is 1000000 time more able in this perspective then the old room, so it I was successful in the old room then why she I have problem in a better room? There are many other aspects of sound reproduction the might characterize sound redaction and I do not too concern about them. What I am concerned is the frequency micro response.

Do not look in the audio encyclopedia – you won’t find Frequency Micro Response and the Micro Response is not as intuitive as you might thing. The Micro Response is a purely invented by me phenomena that do NOT mean literally fine grade of playback amplitude response. Frequency Micro Response is a state of Sound (not state of playback) when sound begin to demonstrates boiling effect. What water is boiling in pot then microscopic bubbles of air comes from the bottom of pot and run to surface. What playback enters into the Frequency Micro Response mode then minute graded of sonic colors bursts on the surface of musical presentation. The entire surface of Sound feels like it a large vivid field where each particle of the field in a constant move and in competition constant for bursting own tone with the most  violently exploding bubble.

The boiling effect of Frequency Micro Response is NOT the subject of playback frequency response but rather a subject super microscopic degree of playback frequency response. I wish I might say that the response needs to be flat but it is not the case. Furthermore each channel has own view on the “linearism” of own response. However, I know that by very fine adjustments of individual channels the playback might enter the boiling Frequency Micro Response mode and the attractiveness and interest that sound has in it’s boiling state is way beyond of what is normally has during sound reproduction.

I do not know if people who read my site might relate to it as I NEVER heard the Micro Response affect in other then my own playback. I do not say it does not exist I never heard it. Even my own inhalation in my old room did not hit the Micro Response mode all time but there were only moment week long during  the last 2 years what it was there and it was absolutely spectacular. I presume that the Boiling Micro Response mode happen when a multi –channel installation hit some very specific harmonic balance between the channel. It happens in very narrow harmonic window and if other conditions are met then it activate some kind of hyper-sensitivity of hearing that makes to perceive sound differently.

Some of the characteristics a playback in Micro Response mode are following:

1) Channels go suddenly super-integrated and standing directly in front of one of the channels do affect tonal balance of entire presentation but does not bother as much.

2) Individuals notes are not just “sound” but compete with each other for the “rights to sound”

3) In the notes competition the “better” notes win. The prominent keystone notes become more prominent, the notes that fill up countermelody become less demonstrable

4) The balance between tone saturation and tone constant become self-regulated.

5)  Playback dymick changes. It becomes sort of more compressed but colorful. However what music calls ups higher dynamic capacity then it is served.   In a way it reminds a compression but without limiting…

6)  Even notes are more chromatically distinctive but they are very connected and sound more like a whole continue fabric then juts a sequence of notes

I do not claim that I know how to enroll a playback to Frequency Micro Response mode.  I feel that to get there is necessary to setup a playback to sound properly and then to perfume very-very minor, within 0.1-0.25dB adjustment of individual channels until the playback suddenly “wake up”. I did it with my playback a few times using my “Sit Down” test. The first feeling is that the playback suddenly got compressed. It is in away like a tsunami – when I approached the Frequency Micro Response state the sounds like hide behind each other. This is usually was for me an indication that I was a fraction of dB from the Boiling Micro Response. The sad part is that it might be the “fraction of dB” at ANY channel. Anyhow, if I hit the right channel and got those last fraction of dB that the feeling of compression is still there but the notes stop to hide and deign to jump like burning popcorn….

Rgs, Romy the Cat

Posted by Jorge on 10-17-2010
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There is a very scarce effect in nature I will try to explain, a sort of sense explosion.  One of this happens sometimes in food tasting.

When you have a very tasty, very good cheese and you take a couple of bites and it grabs your tongue and its good, and you sort of get numb of all the strong taste, after that you take just a tip of a spoon of say orange marmalade and all of a sudden there is this taste explosion in your mouth, the cheese combines in a wonderful way with the sweet of the marmalade and maybe the acid of the orange and your taste buds vibrate.  This happened to me just the other day for the first time with wine and food at a good friends house,  we were having some good wine, very nice but not really special, when we sat for dinner,  very good ravioli pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil with a wonderful simple salad, when I tasted the wine again this explosion of the spices combining with the wine flavor and alcohol was there, everyone at the table experienced the same thing. 

It just happened to me with audio, I had hooked up a wonderful JBL 2490 driver to a 120 hz horn and was playing around with all the channels volumes and Xover points trying to make a cone speaker in a horn sound like the JBL driver, I kept getting up from my chair and rearranging the volume here and there and going back to listen until I noticed, it sounds good here, then all of the instruments sort of receded into one midrange sound, the extension sort of disappeared the highs were not present, they were there, but not evident, not shouting in your face, the bass seemed to be gone, it was not dragging around like a lot of systems I have heard, what is left is an Extended Midrange sound, I imagine it like Spherical, when the midrange is the center and the highs and lows are the poles, they are still there but part of a whole and only jump at you when they are called in,  what is left is instruments resonating on all their chords and harmonics, vivid instruments just jumping out of the speakers.  If we use the same Spherical analogy, you can visualize looking thruogh a lens and seeing evrything more clearly, but not bloated.

I got this just on one side of my playback, where the cone driver is, the side with the JBL driver  is not explosive, it is not boiling,  It does sound very nice, dynamic extended transparent any reviewers mumbo jumbo apply, but it is not explosive. I am pretty sure it is mainly because it is not time aligned,  the JBL driver was and add on to an existing system and in order to make the throat of the horn smaller, some inches were added to the length and thus it is not aligned with the other drivers…. Such a ptiy!  The components are there, the Nitroglycerin, the Gun powder  the TNT, are mixed in waiting for the spark, but not aligned properly for the explosion sequence. 

 I was lucky enough to listen to Romys old system before the move, the  system was in continual explosion, like a nuclear power plant just waiting to be excited by the music.   It was the first time I ever heard such effect in audio,  the boiling micro response, he describes it perfectly, I am just relating it to other senses, food, so it can  be comprehended, it is so rare and it has such a force that I do believe it transcends the barrier of the senses…

I will take very careful measurements and notes of the set up in order to be able to keep it sounding,  try to get the other channel to do it, and hopefully someday reproduce it again if it is lost!

Posted by Romy the Cat on 10-17-2010
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 Jorge wrote:
I will take very careful measurements and notes of the set up in order to be able to keep it sounding,  try to get the other channel to do it, and hopefully someday reproduce it again if it is lost!
  
Jorge. I absolutely assure you that regardless any measurements you’d make you WILL lose the effect. I can also assure you that it is absolutely normal. The subject that I always call “Lost Realizations” is complex and incredibly interesting. I have well developed and seasoned “theory” about it and the theory is one of my fundamental believes in audio. I do not have time or now but sometimes I will make a write up about it. In accordance with the “theory” you shall loose that effect, whatever you have. I know you are not happy to hear it but I can also assure you that in time you stop to feel apologetic about audio Realizations that at time lost tangibility…
 
Rgs, the Cat
 

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