This is something really interesting (have already seen mentionned lot of times), and that i have feeled to experience myself. So we want some "natural" distortion in low range (ie. from cone/motor unlinerarity), but not in mid and high. Where is the point were we don't want some ? Is it realitive to were sound become directionnal (>150hz) ?
I would be really interested in soundclip with/without added distortion only bellow 100hz, at different level of distortion, but normalized in level...
Do some of you have other links related to this ????
Not the point I was trying to make. I'm not willingly adding any distortion myself in the low end.
I'm merely suggesting when an instrument is played that contains harmonics, it will work better in replay if you don't have a lot of group delay at lower frequencies. The tones together will reproduce the instrument. In other words: timing.
Adding distortion to the low end has been discussed as a separate thread recently and I'm sure it's been a topic somewhere in the past.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/297308-waves-faked-fundamental-via-higher-harmonics-method.html
I guess it would fall into the 'euphoric' replay category. Making more of the original signal that goes in. High fidelity is supposed to be about staying truthful to that original signal.
I'm not claiming high fidelity as my main goal, just trying to learn and test some of these concepts myself. Adding distortion would be low on my agenda though. I'm sure there would be something to gain, I'm just not convinced it's what I want. I still believe in the original music source as my base material.
I'm merely suggesting when an instrument is played that contains harmonics, it will work better in replay if you don't have a lot of group delay at lower frequencies. The tones together will reproduce the instrument. In other words: timing.
Adding distortion to the low end has been discussed as a separate thread recently and I'm sure it's been a topic somewhere in the past.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/297308-waves-faked-fundamental-via-higher-harmonics-method.html
I guess it would fall into the 'euphoric' replay category. Making more of the original signal that goes in. High fidelity is supposed to be about staying truthful to that original signal.
I'm not claiming high fidelity as my main goal, just trying to learn and test some of these concepts myself. Adding distortion would be low on my agenda though. I'm sure there would be something to gain, I'm just not convinced it's what I want. I still believe in the original music source as my base material.
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I would be mainly agree with you if i were sure studio woofer don't have distortion that should make mastering biased. At least, for "modern" "home made" mastering studio i hear music from. And still, i presume good studio know that mean public got this big effect to take account for. Same kind of discussion somewhere else about damping factor in bass.
Does Hifi means High Fidelity to what sound engineer wanted to do with mastering, or does it mean High Fidelity to bits ?
^^
Does Hifi means High Fidelity to what sound engineer wanted to do with mastering, or does it mean High Fidelity to bits ?
^^
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I'm betting the sound engineer would at least try to produce a high fidelity recording. The sad thing is a lot of music doesn't get that royal treatment anymore.
Too many people think they can do it on their own. Even band members for that matter, has been that way (and growing) since at least the late 80's. A lot of bands or band members started building private studios etc. A lot got lost there if you ask me.
A trend of the digital era I guess. Quite often, I'm pleasantly surprised listening to songs from the 60's and 70's.
The beginning of the digital recordings in the 80's wasn't that great, but there's enough proof, even in 44.100 / 16 bit format the digital recordings can perform well if care is taken.
So many people tell us they have good sound, the downside of that is it really brings out the flaws in certain music. How can you be (so) sure about something like that?
Sure I (also) hear differences in quality. So far better measurements have brought me closer to enjoyable sound over a very broad (and growing) selection of music.
I'm not looking for my speakers to do "a specific selection of music" well. I'm continuing till everything sounds the best I can get it. Works out pretty good for me so far.
On another note, I'll skip the mid/side test tracks, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest for that one. Way too much work for me to try and do it right. Time I'll happily spend listening.
Too many people think they can do it on their own. Even band members for that matter, has been that way (and growing) since at least the late 80's. A lot of bands or band members started building private studios etc. A lot got lost there if you ask me.
A trend of the digital era I guess. Quite often, I'm pleasantly surprised listening to songs from the 60's and 70's.
The beginning of the digital recordings in the 80's wasn't that great, but there's enough proof, even in 44.100 / 16 bit format the digital recordings can perform well if care is taken.
So many people tell us they have good sound, the downside of that is it really brings out the flaws in certain music. How can you be (so) sure about something like that?
Sure I (also) hear differences in quality. So far better measurements have brought me closer to enjoyable sound over a very broad (and growing) selection of music.
I'm not looking for my speakers to do "a specific selection of music" well. I'm continuing till everything sounds the best I can get it. Works out pretty good for me so far.
On another note, I'll skip the mid/side test tracks, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest for that one. Way too much work for me to try and do it right. Time I'll happily spend listening.
In my opinion most "bad" recordings are the result of the so-called engineers not having learned how to mike an instrument properly. In addition, the trend to "fix it in the mix", that originated in the early 80s, made things even worse.
Even experienced mixers and producers have fallen for the louder is better, so, compressors and heavy on the EQ is acceptable now...
I just had a listen to a Genesis remix on SACD and it's not an experience I want to repeat.
Genesis was my band growing up, but they butchered those songs to sound as loud as a Katty Perry album. Heavy EQ in the telephone band, and even one song, Peter Gabriel sounds like Ozzy Osborne!
I swear, Ozzy's fans are going to listen to that and say: "hey, I didn't know Ozzy sang for Genesis..."
I just had a listen to a Genesis remix on SACD and it's not an experience I want to repeat.
Genesis was my band growing up, but they butchered those songs to sound as loud as a Katty Perry album. Heavy EQ in the telephone band, and even one song, Peter Gabriel sounds like Ozzy Osborne!
I swear, Ozzy's fans are going to listen to that and say: "hey, I didn't know Ozzy sang for Genesis..."
If you have the choice to "keep the client happy and get paid" or "keep yourself happy and don't get any paid job at all"....
Regrettably this is true. Makes me glad there are still people like "Steve Hoffmann" who can make a living out of it without butchering up the mix.
Quantity over quality seems to be today's culture. Everything has to be faster and louder.
Regrettably this is true. Makes me glad there are still people like "Steve Hoffmann" who can make a living out of it without butchering up the mix.
Quantity over quality seems to be today's culture. Everything has to be faster and louder.
More of a symptom of the times than technology in a cultural way........we travel and move and shake more than ever before where smaller portable listening devices bring us 'on the go' listening enjoyment with small driver and low power capabilities which benefit from the perceived 'louder', compressed recording. Background noise from cars, commuter transport, ambience while walking, running, workouts won't allow for dynamic range with soft passages being too soft and dynamic passages causing distortions of varying degree.
Record companies and engineers had no guiding light through this revolution......And piracy leaving us with the mess we have now.......too many formats and all removed from the quality of the original master in some lossy kinda way. Pricing CD's at $15 back in 1998 didn't help matters for them other than ******* off the music loving masses.
I just had a visit from a young aspiring musician. We had a lot of fun listening to a wide variety of tracks. I have asked him for a review, but I won't twist his arm to write it. He will think about it and I do hope he's willing to put into words what he heard in my humble living room.
The session was planned by me to inspire him and give him an opportunity to hear his own composition on a (relatively full scale) system that has a fairly wide frequency range. He also brought some of his own favourite music along. We ran out of time quickly and ended up with about 3 hours spend, listening and talking "music" in between.
I hope you guys get to read another review. As I said before, I value the opinion of others when presenting an (unedited) review. I may think I'm making the right choices, but I'm the one making those choices, out there to please myself. No doubt my opinion is coloured by my own ideas and background. That makes it interesting to hear from others (at least I think so) how they experience it.
The session was planned by me to inspire him and give him an opportunity to hear his own composition on a (relatively full scale) system that has a fairly wide frequency range. He also brought some of his own favourite music along. We ran out of time quickly and ended up with about 3 hours spend, listening and talking "music" in between.
I hope you guys get to read another review. As I said before, I value the opinion of others when presenting an (unedited) review. I may think I'm making the right choices, but I'm the one making those choices, out there to please myself. No doubt my opinion is coloured by my own ideas and background. That makes it interesting to hear from others (at least I think so) how they experience it.
I started experimenting with my ambient mix again.
Due to explaining what I did on another thread I got some new ideas of things to try.
The way I see it, the Haas kicker serves a double purpose. On one side it hides my room with the (L-R) and (R-L) content that contains the most ambient info. It's timed around 20 ms and has a reverberant tail. My room is too small to have any real reverberant results so I rob what it has with damping and fill in the fake results of a bigger room. Just barely I should add, you don't want to notice it.
Earlier on I tried real IR's of known spaces and I did notice them. I listened for queues like that when I visited a real concert and yes, if you listen for it you can hear similar results. Turn it down low enough and have generated by a good algorithm an you don't really notice it, except the walls/boundaries of my small room seem to disappear.
The other side of the Haas kicker is the factor it plays in the cross talk. For the phantom centre it fills in the cross talk dips. That's why I added a hint of centre into the Haas kicker. After explaining this bit I figured: if this task is merely to fill in those dips, it shouldn't have any reverberant tail. So I took that signal out of the Reverb path and listened again.
I got very mixed results, better intelligibility but worse imaging queues on some songs. Then it hit me. The way I build up the ambient signal I had the timing wrong of the phantom part. It was way sooner than before. Actually proving in a way that early reflections CAN help with intelligibility. They also mess with imaging, and made the phantom bits feel larger and closer.
I've rearranged the ambient signal and corrected the timing and will try again in a few minutes. If I don't report back it's working
.
Due to explaining what I did on another thread I got some new ideas of things to try.
The way I see it, the Haas kicker serves a double purpose. On one side it hides my room with the (L-R) and (R-L) content that contains the most ambient info. It's timed around 20 ms and has a reverberant tail. My room is too small to have any real reverberant results so I rob what it has with damping and fill in the fake results of a bigger room. Just barely I should add, you don't want to notice it.
Earlier on I tried real IR's of known spaces and I did notice them. I listened for queues like that when I visited a real concert and yes, if you listen for it you can hear similar results. Turn it down low enough and have generated by a good algorithm an you don't really notice it, except the walls/boundaries of my small room seem to disappear.
The other side of the Haas kicker is the factor it plays in the cross talk. For the phantom centre it fills in the cross talk dips. That's why I added a hint of centre into the Haas kicker. After explaining this bit I figured: if this task is merely to fill in those dips, it shouldn't have any reverberant tail. So I took that signal out of the Reverb path and listened again.
I got very mixed results, better intelligibility but worse imaging queues on some songs. Then it hit me. The way I build up the ambient signal I had the timing wrong of the phantom part. It was way sooner than before. Actually proving in a way that early reflections CAN help with intelligibility. They also mess with imaging, and made the phantom bits feel larger and closer.
I've rearranged the ambient signal and corrected the timing and will try again in a few minutes. If I don't report back it's working
.
I have been asked before and always politely denied to share that part of my project.
I've long thought I would have a key here for a future business endeavour.
But life changes, and I've done some thinking of just sharing all of it. I won't say yes right away, give me a couple of days to think it trough. It's not like I've kept secrets from you guys, I've been open about a lot of it and have been sharing most of my journey.
You've got to be a little crazy making something like this, even if you have access to CNC equipment.
One side of me still hopes for a partial career in Audio, as this is what I love to do. So sharing the templates would be a big step for me. Know what I'm saying?
On the other hand I do like the open source nature of some of these audio projects. Maybe it's time for me to throw it all out there...
I've long thought I would have a key here for a future business endeavour.
But life changes, and I've done some thinking of just sharing all of it. I won't say yes right away, give me a couple of days to think it trough. It's not like I've kept secrets from you guys, I've been open about a lot of it and have been sharing most of my journey.
You've got to be a little crazy making something like this, even if you have access to CNC equipment.
One side of me still hopes for a partial career in Audio, as this is what I love to do. So sharing the templates would be a big step for me. Know what I'm saying?
On the other hand I do like the open source nature of some of these audio projects. Maybe it's time for me to throw it all out there...
Hi Wesayso, I don't want to sound mean, but I say keep your templates and hold onto your dreams. I think you have posted enough here about your amazing journey using both words and pictures, that we readers should be able to work out some of the missing bits ourselves. However, you are so generous you may not feel that way.
Simon
Simon
Hi Wesayso, I don't want to sound mean, but I say keep your templates and hold onto your dreams. I think you have posted enough here about your amazing journey using both words and pictures, that we readers should be able to work out some of the missing bits ourselves. However, you are so generous you may not feel that way.
Simon
I agree with Simon. Until you know for sure your desire to go pro is a done deal I would hold onto the rest of what you haven't already offered up, which I must say is more than most people can handle as it is.
Wes
I think you guys convinced me. Basically I've been sharing a lot and it should be quite possible to come up with something similar based on what I wrote already.
I'll hold on to my dream a while longer. So, to answer the question: I won't share the template drawings and other details at this time.
If you make an effort, and do what I did, with that I mean: Consider every single detail to be important, put trust in the findings of those that should know what they talk about. Don't pick out and follow a single Guru, Each one of them is likely to be right somewhere. Find out for yourself what works for you! And trust in the music, that's where the Art is. Make the speakers and the room they are in work together.
Try to make the right compromises but don't be scared for a bit (or a lot) of work, do the very best you can, and last but not least don't wimp out if it doesn't work out right away.
I'll hold on to my dream a while longer. So, to answer the question: I won't share the template drawings and other details at this time.
If you make an effort, and do what I did, with that I mean: Consider every single detail to be important, put trust in the findings of those that should know what they talk about. Don't pick out and follow a single Guru, Each one of them is likely to be right somewhere. Find out for yourself what works for you! And trust in the music, that's where the Art is. Make the speakers and the room they are in work together.
Try to make the right compromises but don't be scared for a bit (or a lot) of work, do the very best you can, and last but not least don't wimp out if it doesn't work out right away
.Wesayso,
I've been tooling around this site for about 6 years now and have watched your build since the very first post. I've been hooked on the line array concept since reading about the Murphy corner array, the IDS-25 and a few others from way back. How many have I built so far you might ask? Ha. ONE. One simple OB array to test some theory and see if I really would like them.
Having been in the car stereo, automotive performance hobbies for almost 30 years I can tell you, as you will probably agree and already are aware, that the journey one takes with their project is what it's all about. Sure the finished product can be great or you can look back and say I would have done this or that different but when I get to that point the biggest question in my mind is always "What's next?".
Thanks to you and the many, many others on this site that share their journey to give others the ability to enjoy their "thrill of the chase". If you shared everything down to the last nut and bolt then the journey would be short lived. That's the main reason you'll never hear me saying "I bought this speaker kit to build". Not that there's anything wrong with that but I prefer the trial and error, blood, sweat and tears, and thrill of the chase toward my dream.
It's similar to when I was a teen and met a girl who gave up all the goods on the first date. She was a lot less interesting on the second date if there even was one.
Kudos to you. Keep up the great work and I and many others will keep reading this thread to fuel our chase.
Best regards,
Wes
I've been tooling around this site for about 6 years now and have watched your build since the very first post. I've been hooked on the line array concept since reading about the Murphy corner array, the IDS-25 and a few others from way back. How many have I built so far you might ask? Ha. ONE. One simple OB array to test some theory and see if I really would like them.
Having been in the car stereo, automotive performance hobbies for almost 30 years I can tell you, as you will probably agree and already are aware, that the journey one takes with their project is what it's all about. Sure the finished product can be great or you can look back and say I would have done this or that different but when I get to that point the biggest question in my mind is always "What's next?".
Thanks to you and the many, many others on this site that share their journey to give others the ability to enjoy their "thrill of the chase". If you shared everything down to the last nut and bolt then the journey would be short lived. That's the main reason you'll never hear me saying "I bought this speaker kit to build". Not that there's anything wrong with that but I prefer the trial and error, blood, sweat and tears, and thrill of the chase toward my dream.
It's similar to when I was a teen and met a girl who gave up all the goods on the first date. She was a lot less interesting on the second date if there even was one.
Kudos to you. Keep up the great work and I and many others will keep reading this thread to fuel our chase.
Best regards,
Wes