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  »  New  Romy The Cat's new Listening Room..  Won't be the last time he makes that trip!...  Audio Discussions  Forum     478  2933770  03-28-2010
  »  New  Midbass Horns and Real Estate...  Just a youtube video......  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     247  2149379  07-26-2009
12-02-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 261
Post ID: 24585
Reply to: 24566
A picture…
I was looking for a wile how to cover the slanted wall between my speakers. I hate while walls and I did not want to put in there any acoustic treatment. The room is treated enough end there is no need to put anthem more acoustically active. I wanted something that I feel is pleasurable to watch. I did eventually found it, it took 6 hours to put in in there….

Room_Picture.jpg



"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-02-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
clarkjohnsen
Boston, MA, US
Posts 298
Joined on 06-02-2004
Post #: 262
Post ID: 24586
Reply to: 24585
What a beautiful set-up!
I'd only try to move the computer screen out of the way of the tapestry.
12-03-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
ArmAlex
Iran
Posts 106
Joined on 02-15-2009
Post #: 263
Post ID: 24587
Reply to: 24585
Dream place
I'll willingly give away a bottle of 25 years Armeninan cognac and a box of Cohibas to spend an hour in this enviroment.Dear Romy enjoy this "fruit" which you got by spending a lot of time and most importantly a lot of knowledge.

Armen
12-04-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 264
Post ID: 24590
Reply to: 24585
Headphones sound from playback
I have a local audio guy coming to my room recently and he hive me an interesting feedback. He said that my playback sounds like a headphone. I had years back, when I lived in Boston apartment somebody told the same things. There is a point to comparing the sound of my playback with headphones. One of the objective that I always had is that listening a playback installation at the listening position with and without good headphones should not make any difference. For sure it will be a difference in term of space, imaging and a few other aspects of presentation but overall balance, the unity of sound, proportion dynamics across octaves, tonal aspects should be generally the same or even better. Headphones do allow mentally focus   of this of that aspect sound of music, a playback sound do the same. It is important to note that association of sound of playback with sound of headphone has absolutely no indication of musicality of playback. But is does serve a good technical listening starting point.

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-05-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
kodomo
Posts 69
Joined on 06-20-2015
Post #: 265
Post ID: 24591
Reply to: 24590
The headphone analogy
I heard the same not just from one but from a few guys for my playback as well! I think it is because of the all encompassing effect and the strength of the stereo image. Most people have never heard that strong of a phantom centre, or an orchestra actually laid out in front of them in 3d sound like that. However the visceral feeling you get (not talking about the bass thump) not just from your ears but from your whole body is something I really miss with headphones. You can not feel the dynamics, which means you miss a lot of feeling as that is one of the most important ways one conveys feelings through their instruments. They have incredible clarity, good balance. Great to spot little things and I used them for checking my mixes and after tracking instruments for any problems back when I was recording. They can be like a microscope. I have some stax, and had some other good headphones (akg etc) from studio days but I can never get into them for listening pleasure. 
12-05-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 266
Post ID: 24592
Reply to: 24591
Sound in a head vs sound in space
 kodomo wrote:
I heard the same not just from one but from a few guys for my playback as well! I think it is because of the all encompassing effect and the strength of the stereo image. Most people have never heard that strong of a phantom centre, or an orchestra actually laid out in front of them in 3d sound like that. However the visceral feeling you get (not talking about the bass thump) not just from your ears but from your whole body is something I really miss with headphones. You can not feel the dynamics, which means you miss a lot of feeling as that is one of the most important ways one conveys feelings through their instruments. They have incredible clarity, good balance. Great to spot little things and I used them for checking my mixes and after tracking instruments for any problems back when I was recording. They can be like a microscope. I have some stax, and had some other good headphones (akg etc) from studio days but I can never get into them for listening pleasure. 
Kodomo, I do not think that “all-encompassing effect and the strength of the stereo image” is something that make people to associate your playback with headphone. The strength of the stereo image is something that headphones do not have it in my view. There are headphones-focus community in audio who might feel that I am a fool and they would violently disagree with me and they spent a lot of efforts to get the imaging via headphones.  I would not argue. I am not so advanced in the headphones world but my experience with headphones, whatever it is, advises me that there is no imaging with headphones. A properly set playback should be way more advanced in term of strong of a phantom center or orchestra laid out. If somebody feel that a playback images like a headphone then it would be in my view a great insult. The headphone do “sound in a head” and this is very different from normal playback that should do “sound in space”

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-05-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
kodomo
Posts 69
Joined on 06-20-2015
Post #: 267
Post ID: 24593
Reply to: 24592
Wrong way
Romy you take it from the wrong end. Of course the image is vastly different as the sound is in your head with the headphones and not laid out in front of you. But a centre image is exactly at centre (not in front but centre, a phantom inside your head), everything is separated precisely from centre to sides and have their own 3d locations. The difference is one is in your head in 3d, the other is in front of you in 3d.

I did not take it as an insult as it was not. If I could actually figure out a reproduction system to sound exactly like headphones and somebody told me that, that would still not be an insult, that would be an incredible breakthrough and would mean I have found a new way of reproducing sound Smile
12-05-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
martinshorn
Germany
Posts 114
Joined on 04-14-2017
Post #: 268
Post ID: 24594
Reply to: 24592
Sounds like an insult to me
hi Romy
Confusing description this headphone alikeliness. I heard couple of strong beaming horns and noticed despite the good resolution (equivalent to dampened room) also a very narrow stage. Especially the center usually being like a meter or two closer to me. I was describing it joking as „spitting to my face , like a headphone „. I want distance, like in the philharmony, realistically far away. Its of course not all in head like a real headphone (which i don’t like either) but still, wide dispersion speakers or dipoles especially electrostatics have the air and space i want. So, in your system, u refer to the resolution only, or the stage is also very narrow?
Cheers Josh 
12-05-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 269
Post ID: 24595
Reply to: 24594
Imaging.
Well, probably too much looking into to the word “insult” made the focus of it a bit off the target.  I do not know what makes the headphones to have bad imaging devise.  There are zillion papers written about it, whoever care about it might look among the headphone people.  I never care about it, even though I use headphones a LOT, being a software engineer I do work in headphones in office. 
 
Horns are usually are bad for imaging. Different topologies can throw much better imaging then horns. Still, there are reasons why horns do not image as good as some other topologies and is to take care about the reasons (time alignment, horizontal surface, back reflections etc…) then it is possible to get a spectacular imaging from horns. Not a lot of peoples know how to get there. 
 
I still feel that direct radiators conceptually have advantage over the horn’s imaging.

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-11-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 270
Post ID: 24597
Reply to: 24585
Some odd pleasure with no memory.
Last Friday I have some time free from work and kids and I sat in my listening chair, put some music in spend nice few hour to listen music. The playback sounded very nice. Not nice in audiophile sense but rather very none-conflicting and musical all together.  It was very pleasurable and I had very nice time. 
 
In two nights I woke up during the night for some reasons and the memory of the pleasure I had listening my music come to me. They the strange things happened: I did not remember what music I played. A few days past and each day I am trying to refresh in my mind what music I played that day and I just do not remember what was it. I have had it before…

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-12-2017 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 367
Joined on 05-23-2009
Post #: 271
Post ID: 24598
Reply to: 24597
Learn to forget
 Romy the Cat wrote:
Last Friday I have some time free from work and kids and I sat in my listening chair, put some music in spend nice few hour to listen music. The playback sounded very nice. Not nice in audiophile sense but rather very none-conflicting and musical all together.  It was very pleasurable and I had very nice time. 
 
In two nights I woke up during the night for some reasons and the memory of the pleasure I had listening my music come to me. They the strange things happened: I did not remember what music I played. A few days past and each day I am trying to refresh in my mind what music I played that day and I just do not remember what was it. I have had it before…


Do we really need to explain this to you?

Anyway your set-up looks relaxing and pleasing (apart from that monitor stuck up there) and I hope you enjoy your time spent with it. I think the surrounding decor is an important adjunct to enjoyment of a nice audio system. Enjoy the holiday season. Best wishes. Steverino
04-01-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 272
Post ID: 24776
Reply to: 22459
The infrabass injection.
I was listening a few days ago the first crescendo of the Bruckner 9 by Vienna and Giuliani. I was listening probably 20 times in row and was always feeling that I was missing something. The Bruckner crescendo are different then most of the crescendos in classical music. Bruckner always lives some space in “there”, it was goes laud, large and with his typical “gravitas” but it has some very interesting “loudness space”.

I do not care how many ‘f’ in the Bruckner score. The celebrated 5f in famous music or even the Ligeti‘s 8f cannot be projected to Bruckner in my view. The morons like Mahler is trying to get gravitas by dynamic range but Bruckner does not do it by pure loudness and by many other things. In my former listening room I was able to get some Bruckner crescendos in the way how I like it but in my current listening room something in missing in my view. The sound-wise it is fine but it has in my view it has slightly shallow philosophical meaning. 
 
I have been thinking about that “philosophical meaning” in the Bruckner’s reproduced crescendo for some time. Sound-wise and texture-wise the crescendo fine. I think that the crescendo in my current listening room are lacking info-sound. The info-sound in reproduced music does not give only “weight” to bass but also alter “meaning’ of that weight. 
 
I am thinking how to inject the sub 20 Hz bass in my room. I do have space to do and means to do it but I am slowly contemplating for more elegant way to do it…

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
04-01-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 367
Joined on 05-23-2009
Post #: 273
Post ID: 24777
Reply to: 24776
The number 20
I am thinking how to inject the sub 20 Hz bass in my room. I do have space to do and means to do it but I am slowly contemplating for more elegant way to do it…

 Why are you trying to get sub 20Hz in your room in order to play Bruckner's symphonies or anyone else's? The orchestral bass goes down to the mid 30s Hz limit nearly an octave above 20Hz. The only exception would be large pipe organ where the lowest note is 16Hz. Bruckner's crescendos are weighty not only because of the massed forces but also the relatively low frequency range of the trumpets he used (in F not C) and the way he orchestrated the brass and strings. The lower range instruments have more overtones in the audible range and therefore fill up the soundfield. The slow tempos also help increase coherent reverberations. Mahler and Richard Strauss use the brass and horns in more varied fashion and are more contrapuntal in the scoring.
04-02-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,664
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 274
Post ID: 24778
Reply to: 24776
Undertones?
Yes, it seems like these "crescendos" should have something under them for "support" and "seriousness", and the something should be the size of Valhalla.  My ceiling is only 8' and it seems "too low for Bruckner".  Mark's higher ceiling works better for the "atmosphere", but I'm not sure a larger room alone is enough because no matter the size of the room it must be "fully charge-able" FR for a shot at "complete" Bruckner. Although most conductors do not try to blow the doors off with Bruckner, there must always be "portent".


Paul S
04-02-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 367
Joined on 05-23-2009
Post #: 275
Post ID: 24779
Reply to: 24778
Resonance distortion
Paul,

  You do raise an issue I was unclear about from Romy's post. If the aim is not to hear the music accurately but instead to be overwhelmed by it then some kind of sensory overload is the goal. This would be like putting an amplified band in a small club or letting the Velvet Underground turn up the amps in the recording studio while performing the songs on White Light White Heat. Listen to that record for how it sounds when you are not inside that room. But inside the room it sounds well uhh overwhelming.
04-02-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 276
Post ID: 24780
Reply to: 24777
There are many options
 steverino wrote:
Why are you trying to get sub 20Hz in your room in order to play Bruckner's symphonies or anyone else's? The orchestral bass goes down to the mid 30s Hz limit nearly an octave above 20Hz. The only exception would be large pipe organ where the lowest note is 16Hz. Bruckner's crescendos are weighty not only because of the massed forces but also the relatively low frequency range of the trumpets he used (in F not C) and the way he orchestrated the brass and strings. The lower range instruments have more overtones in the audible range and therefore fill up the soundfield. The slow tempos also help increase coherent reverberations. Mahler and Richard Strauss use the brass and horns in more varied fashion and are more contrapuntal in the scoring. 

Steverino, I feel that this rational that “orchestral bass goes down to the mid 30s Hz” is completely faulty. Indeed, if you sit with a microphone and measure sound is reasonably large whole then you might not see a lot of frequency response at -3dB in sub 20Hz. Let leave aside the fact that most of the microphones and sound possessing devised do not run or even cannot be calibrated under 20Hz. The question I ask: if you measure 10-15Hz at let say -40dB then what reasoning you have that it has no impact to listening experience? The ULF are very different rans and has own way to impact listening awareness and there is absolutely no reasoning to look for frequency evenness at infra sound. The fact that infra bass has a huge benefit to listening experience is not a subject of argument for me, I am converted long time ago. The question that I ask myself now is what kind infra bass should it be? There are many options available….

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
04-02-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 277
Post ID: 24781
Reply to: 24779
I want it...
 steverino wrote:
If the aim is not to hear the music accurately but instead to be overwhelmed by it then some kind of sensory overload is the goal.

Steverino, I think that your question contained the answers. If you get “overwhelmed” by sensory overload then it might not be a good thing, still it has absolutely nothing to do with what is being played. Live sound is played in concert halls that has reverberation time much longer then most of our listening rooms. The ULF response if large halls is quite high and to a great degree moderates many aspects of sound in halls including perception of tempos. If you bring a large olestra in a small room and play then you have understandably bad sound but with introduction of delay channels you can get fake longer reverberation time and to make the things feel good. The small room will help to build up higher ULF amplitude but it will not be natural ULF as it will be decaying differently then your auditable range. To fix the think you would need own fake ULF decay channels. It is understandable that to make all of it practically to work virtually impossible and I am bring it up purely for illustration point. 
 
If you do not believe or not familiar with in universal benefits of ULF presence during playback then make your experiments. Even in context of a regular string quartet it is well auditable. With proper training you should be able to detect ULF context with a recording of a flute, not to mention such as a spectacular ULF beneficiary as harpsichord or triangle. So not listen the sound itself but the space where the sound presented. Let me to give you an association: if any difference if you dive into your 15x40x8 pool vs you give into Atlantis ocean? 
 
Answering your question before: it has nothing to do with Bruckner, it was juts what I like to listen, what give me a lot of philosophical context and what I know how my inner me should response. Bruckner has in my view a “kink” - it hugely benefited from being plagued in a very large hall with very long reverberation time that might (or might not) has anything to do with ULF. The connection between ULF and reverberation time is a very complex subject, I can argue both sides and I have my believes but not convictions.    
Anyhow, I need my infra bass back to me room. I am not sure it is because I accustom to it or because it is a universal rule of a proper sound reproduction. I am not in business of writing a book about proper sound reproduction I am in business to satisfy myself. I do feel that I need to get more ULF into the room, would it be ULF heroin sir chemotherapy I do not know and frankly speaking do not care too much.


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
04-02-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,664
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 278
Post ID: 24784
Reply to: 24779
Music vs, Sound Effects
Steve, it certainly gets down to what one listens to/for, as well as system capabilities.  My own current experiments have to do with "presentation", broadly speaking, of big works including Bruckner, Brahms and "similar" music that - to my ears - relies  heavily on "space and time" to come across, the sorts of cues that go missing in smaller venues and from "reproduced music", generally speaking.  One of the "ambiance" cues seems to be "ULF".  Savvy composers and conductors are able to put such "effects" to good use, and - speaking for myself - I miss these effects in "reproduced music".



Best regards,
Paul S
04-02-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 367
Joined on 05-23-2009
Post #: 279
Post ID: 24785
Reply to: 24781
Clarity in the murk
Romy,

OK this is getting clearer I think. Any object that receives a force will vibrate. So even before the music starts but there are hundreds of people in the seats, their feet moving around are vibrating the floor slightly. Similarly the orchestra players just sitting in their seats and moving slightly are vibrating the stage. When the music starts the soundwaves in a well designed hall echo in accordance with the calibrated reflectivity of the hall. But larger heavier objects like the floor or ceiling or internal wall structures also vibrate but at very low frequencies. The difference is that the floor is vibrating much more to the contact pressure of tens of thousands of pounds of people moving in their seats than the very slight force of an airborne vibration from the music or people talking. So unlike the regular hall delay, these low frequency vibrations have a far higher proportion of non musical generation. Since their vibratory rate in the concert hall is so low and the Db level is also low  they have not been worried about. Similarly even the best recording studios can be vibrated by low frequency waves passing through the ground.

So OK when you are at a concert you can slightly sense some low frequency vibration specific to the venue.  For some reason your previous residence had a low frequency presence which pleased you more than your current room does. But this is no different than the changes that occur between concert venues. I think other than major construction, you have a tough problem if you have become sensitive to this low frequency venue vibration to the point that it bothers you if not to your taste.

Off hand I think you would have to set up a separate audio system with a CD containing low frequency sounds going to a subwoofer that can go very low and experiment with that.
04-02-2018 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,166
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 280
Post ID: 24786
Reply to: 24785
The gentle exit
Well, in my formers listening room I had music ran by horns and I had two line array with 12 driver driven by SS aps to pump room with 20Hz low pass filter. Do not forgets that the filter was sitting on transition slope and it was 0dB at 20Hz and + 6dB at 10Hz. I was able to run my ULF channels with plus/minus good 6-10db and it did not impact sound too much. It changed the softness of sound, warmth of sound, comfort of sound, along with a few other things but it did not change bass itself. Well, it did change bass but it was not the bass itself but rather some it made the very bottom of bass to become softer and larger, making it to dissipate more natural in space of my room. I think I have OK bass now but as bass notes are over there is nothing left in the room. I feel that ULF gives to bass more gentle exit, making it more meaningful, like in real life.

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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   Target    Threads for related reading   Most recent post in related threads   Forum  Replies   Views   Started 
  »  New  Romy The Cat's new Listening Room..  Won't be the last time he makes that trip!...  Audio Discussions  Forum     478  2933770  03-28-2010
  »  New  Midbass Horns and Real Estate...  Just a youtube video......  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     247  2149379  07-26-2009
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