David
I am quite surprised that you believe this. I simply cannot see how it could be true. I would expect the two situations to sound completely different (one quite spacious, the other quite dead). I suppose this belief is where we fundamentally differ on the importance of the polar response.
Now that we're talking about it, the direct/reverberant ratio can be an important cue in distance perception, but I believe it has not really been considered in this thread yet (as opposed to discrete, early reflections). I'm interested in the opinion that others here have on the relevance of this measure.
I think that you have to consider the time aspect as well. A low direct to reverb ratio is good as long as the direct field dominates in the first 10 ms. A low value would be undesirable if it was true in the first 10 ms. The problem with a lot of these measures is the lack of a temporal aspect. Our hearing is very temporal and this aspect cannot be ignored.
Hmm. Now that I'm thinking about it, results may be similar, but they will probably not be the same. First, there's a difference in level of early reflections and secondly, we are able to a certain extent to separate room acoustics from the source characteristics if we are given some time to adapt to the situation.
That's a good way of putting things Earl. I've read your white paper once, one could consider this the core of your philosophy, correct? Eliminate early reflections for imaging, preserve later reflections for spaciousness.
That's a good way of putting things Earl. I've read your white paper once, one could consider this the core of your philosophy, correct? Eliminate early reflections for imaging, preserve later reflections for spaciousness.
Last edited:
Clearly in general terms the direct to reflected ratios can be the same in both cases. This is obvious in the potential tradeoff between increasing speaker Q and decreasing room R in the Hopkins/Stryker equations.
Does this mean that two room speaker combinations with the same reverberent field level sound the same? Clearly there is no guarantee of it. The specific profile of incoming early reflections are crucial and are not determined by the broader measure of reverberent level or direct to reflected ratio.
Still, we are always aware in a room of the general level of reflected energy. It determines the amount of focus or diffuseness (the end points of that particular continuum). You like to constantly point to the higher than average directivity of your speakers yet you ignore that the higher direct to reflected ratio that they promote is just as clearly achieved by the room's acoustics and by listening distance. If it is particular reflections that we are concerned with then the deader room can be made to achieve this deadness with absorbtion at spots meant to kill these particular reflections.
The point that I've continuously tried to make is that we can prefer a certain direct to reflected ratio and, once that is found, we can achieve it via the variables of listener distance, room reverberation, and speaker directivity. This is a much more justifiable argument than the marketing orriented statement that speaker directivity alone is the "crucial" variable.
I find overly reverberent rooms fatiguing to live in. They are noisy. Conversations are difficult due to poor inteligibility. In a way it makes more sense to live in a deader acoustic and use broader directivity speakers to achieve the right balance, rather than the other way around.
Regards,
David
David, how important would you consider the direct/reverberant ratio to be (for subjective preference) compared to other measures that have been discussed here (like incidence, timing and level of early reflections)? It's not a property of the speaker, but it is a measure that makes sense from a perceptual view.
I thought that we were talking about listening rooms not living rooms. If we are throwing in the requirement that the listening room be both then this is a compromised situation and not what I am refering to. The thread topic mentions "ideal", not "compromise".
I guess there is some sense in both approaches.
My listening room is pretty much like what Earl advocates: relatively live, but early reflections are damped. In my experience (when using high directivity speakers) this makes a pretty good acoustic environment when it comes to listening, but while talking you'll experience some flutters - although if someone were to speak at the location of the speakers, these flutters would not be audible at the listening position.
In this same environment a wider dispersion speaker might be too much. But what if I applied just a bit more damping material in the room? The room might then become pleasurable for both listening to music, as well as conversation.
My listening room is pretty much like what Earl advocates: relatively live, but early reflections are damped. In my experience (when using high directivity speakers) this makes a pretty good acoustic environment when it comes to listening, but while talking you'll experience some flutters - although if someone were to speak at the location of the speakers, these flutters would not be audible at the listening position.
In this same environment a wider dispersion speaker might be too much. But what if I applied just a bit more damping material in the room? The room might then become pleasurable for both listening to music, as well as conversation.
Hi Guys
Recall that even when outdoors where there are no room effects, that there is still a large variation in a hifi loudspeakers ability to project a strong stereo image.
Clearly, part of the issue for imaging IS the source itself separate from the room.
A speaker that radiates as a simple source like Earl’s horns would present a very similar input to both the right and left ear if you stood facing one.
A speaker that radiates more of an interference pattern will have much larger differences and also (I appears to me) is usually less able to produce a mono phantom without the side image radiated by the sources.
I have suggested several times earlier here that when possible, set up your system outside in the same geometry you use indoors and listen to your favorite recordings.
From that, it would be hard to conclude that reflected sound is required or even desirable at least so far as the image the speakers project..
Once one goes indoors, one is containing all the energy the speaker radiates from all directions in a space which may or may not rapidly absorb the energy and may or may not produce strong short reflections. At best the reflected energy might “sound like” filling in the image outside the window and behind you, at worst, it GREATLY reduces the palpability of the stereo image if the speakers could produce that outdoors.
The only way, other than big time room treatment, to reach a similar level of imaging as one can get out doors, is directivity.
While too large for most living rooms, consider the measurements for a high directivity speaker in a live room.
Post 1959 has the Impulse and magnitude for the in and out conditions.
This was at the LP which is about 14 feet from the speakers, in an untreated live room with obstructions within a foot of the horn mouth.
Lastly, in search of the better speaker we began doing generation loss recordings of our and our competitors loudspeakers.
This was a good way to hear improvements as the “perfect” device can undergo many generations without loss.
It is funny though, because we hear from two places and our brain constructs one image, that a microphone “hears” flaws better than both of our ears.
Take a measurement mic and good sound card and make a recording in your home. Play back your mono recording (try headphones) and you will be surprised how real it sounds.
Now, play some music through a speaker, record it and play it back through the speaker and record it again.
Most speakers sound bad at only one or two generations, even our best passive xover boxes like the SH-50 is sounding funny at four.
Anyway, while we did all this recording up on a tower outdoors to suppress any reflected sound, one could do this in a room and get the same caricature of the room effects added to the speaker.
Here too, the result is not an overt measurement but an audible and brutal caricature of everything speaker does.
Best,
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs
Recall that even when outdoors where there are no room effects, that there is still a large variation in a hifi loudspeakers ability to project a strong stereo image.
Clearly, part of the issue for imaging IS the source itself separate from the room.
A speaker that radiates as a simple source like Earl’s horns would present a very similar input to both the right and left ear if you stood facing one.
A speaker that radiates more of an interference pattern will have much larger differences and also (I appears to me) is usually less able to produce a mono phantom without the side image radiated by the sources.
I have suggested several times earlier here that when possible, set up your system outside in the same geometry you use indoors and listen to your favorite recordings.
From that, it would be hard to conclude that reflected sound is required or even desirable at least so far as the image the speakers project..
Once one goes indoors, one is containing all the energy the speaker radiates from all directions in a space which may or may not rapidly absorb the energy and may or may not produce strong short reflections. At best the reflected energy might “sound like” filling in the image outside the window and behind you, at worst, it GREATLY reduces the palpability of the stereo image if the speakers could produce that outdoors.
The only way, other than big time room treatment, to reach a similar level of imaging as one can get out doors, is directivity.
While too large for most living rooms, consider the measurements for a high directivity speaker in a live room.
Post 1959 has the Impulse and magnitude for the in and out conditions.
This was at the LP which is about 14 feet from the speakers, in an untreated live room with obstructions within a foot of the horn mouth.
Lastly, in search of the better speaker we began doing generation loss recordings of our and our competitors loudspeakers.
This was a good way to hear improvements as the “perfect” device can undergo many generations without loss.
It is funny though, because we hear from two places and our brain constructs one image, that a microphone “hears” flaws better than both of our ears.
Take a measurement mic and good sound card and make a recording in your home. Play back your mono recording (try headphones) and you will be surprised how real it sounds.
Now, play some music through a speaker, record it and play it back through the speaker and record it again.
Most speakers sound bad at only one or two generations, even our best passive xover boxes like the SH-50 is sounding funny at four.
Anyway, while we did all this recording up on a tower outdoors to suppress any reflected sound, one could do this in a room and get the same caricature of the room effects added to the speaker.
Here too, the result is not an overt measurement but an audible and brutal caricature of everything speaker does.
Best,
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs
I don't have a conflict, my listening room is quite live and I find its fine to be in, albeit I am never in there unless something is playing. Dave is the one who implied that the room should not be too reverberant because it gets uncomfortable.
My living room is excessively reverberant - we have all hardwood floors, except where there is marble, almost no rugs at all, leather furniture on oak frames (not very absorptive), lots of glass, etc. With a lot of poeple it gets loud (especially kids) and speakers never sound nearly as good as they do in the listening room (but there can be other factors there) so I guess that its possible for a room to be too live. But this room is also quite large and so the RT is going to be much longer than the smaller listening room, even though they are finished the same.
Hi Tom
I find that there are effects from the cabinet diffractions etc. that will still be present outdoors that will affect the perception of image. Inside, there is the possibility of even more of these nearby diffractors, just beyond the speakers themselves. I went to an extreme in the front of my room removing anything that could diffract the sound that is nearby the speakers. This did a lot for the imaging.
I find that there are effects from the cabinet diffractions etc. that will still be present outdoors that will affect the perception of image. Inside, there is the possibility of even more of these nearby diffractors, just beyond the speakers themselves. I went to an extreme in the front of my room removing anything that could diffract the sound that is nearby the speakers. This did a lot for the imaging.
Thats it?
I point out that speaker directivity and room acoustics can counter balance each other, perhaps precluding the need for your high directivity speaker and you want to quible about the semantics of "living" rooms vs. "listening" rooms?
I listen in my living room. It has a piano, a book case full of books, a nice view of the garden and some real acoustic treatment. I assume that is the case for most people here. Or are your products only made for customers that have "proper listening rooms".
Plus, I thought we were discussing the ideal speaker, not the ideal room. I would guess that would have to mean "ideal for the typical liiving (or listening) room".
Come on Earl, address the real issue.
David
Really?
I simply made a fairly relevant and straightforward comment about the interplay between speaker directivity and room acoustics.
You appeared to disagree but when I pushed you to expand on your point of view you try to shift gears to what a proper listening room is.
When I state that overly reverberent rooms can be uncomfortable to be in you disagree and then turn around to describe your own living room as having a long RT and being too loud, especially with kids.
I'm the contrarian?
David
Which I disagreed with - it is clearly wrong. Then you got defensive and dragged in the "well I don't like reverberant rooms anyways." Which didn't have anything to do with the discussion.
No, Earl is a better contrarian than you can ever hope to be
.As he said: "My living room is excessively reverberant -... and speakers never sound nearly as good as they do in the listening room."
I find the whole thread rather silly, the "ideal directivity pattern for stereo speakers" depends on room acoustics, toe in angle desired, and the listener's desired ratio of direct to reflected sound.
That "ideal" will be different dependent on those (and other) factors.
Art
You where the one who wanted to exclude living rooms.
Forget the extranous. Explain why higher system directivity allied with greater room reverberation, wouldn't tend to come to the same direct to reflected ratio as a broader directivity system in a deader room. Explain how the two approaches couldn't have the same net sound quality. That is the statement you have disagreed with twice, but without explanation or justification.
I've suspected that you weren't comfortable with our foray into simple measurements of reverberent field level because it reveals the issue to be more complicated than simply "what is the ideal speaker". It shows that the room is equally important in setting the direct to reflected ratio and that no speaker with a particular d.i. has claim to being "the answer".
David
David,
A wide (horizontal) dispersion speaker will create more sidewall reflections, a narrow dispersion more back wall reflections.
Even if the overall direct to reflected ratio is the same using a wide dispersion speaker in a dead room compared to a narrow dispersion speaker in a room with greater room reverberation, the sound quality/character is quite different, simply because the echo directional cues are different.
Different rooms sound different, a dead room won’t sound like a live room regardless of the speaker's dispersion.
I do agree completely with you that the room is equally (or more) important in setting the direct to reflected ratio, and that no speaker with a particular d.i. has claim to being "the answer" to the ideal directivity question.
Tom's S-50s, my corner soffit speakers, Earl's OS, your wmtmw, etc. are all valid "answers".
Art
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.