Focus, Focus!!!

I am always aware I'm listening to a hifi. What I hope for is the best reproduction of the recorded sound possible. When it works, i.e. when you are able to discern the "body and soul" of the performer in the original recording, then I feel my hifi is doing its job right.

While I think its nice to have a soundstage where you can tell where the performers are standing, and get a sense of what kind of space they're in, to me this is a fairly minor issue, far behind PRaT. But that's me.

And since I've not said so before, here goes:
LP12/Lingo/Ittok/Rega Exact/102/HiCap/250/Kabers

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While I think its nice to have a soundstage where you can tell where the performers are standing, and get a sense of what kind of space they're in, to me this is a fairly minor issue

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I don't want the soundstage so that I can know where they're standing. That would be mere data. For me, the purpose of the soundstage is to enhance the illusion that the musicians are there.

BTW, I don't want to be transported to the club. I want the musicians transported to my listening room.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

[This message was edited by Mike Hanson on WEDNESDAY 18 July 2001 at 19:58.]

Ever played a drum kit with your eyes closed? All of the localization that one would normally occur with your eyes open (16-inch floor tom next to right knee, etc.) is lost in a very fundamental way (this occurs, BTW, with the piano as well), leaving only the ol' pitch, tonality and rhythm. Clearly, spatial localization is the last thing on a musician's mind, as there are too many other things to be concerned with.

Headphones used for monitoring in the recording process can also confuse this further, as they provide too much fake localization, to the detriment of timing as well as the general vibe of the performance.

Dave Dever, NANA

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I don't want the soundstage so that I can know where they're standing. That would be mere data. For me, the purpose of the soundstage is to enhance the illusion that the musicians are there.

BTW, I don't want to be transported to the club. I want the musicians transported to my listening room.

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My own take on this is that I want to enhance the illusion that I'm hearing the musicians playing live - where they are playing is secondary. If we're going to talk about who is transported where, however, it seems more natural to me to think of my being transported to the musicians' environment - the idea of a large orchestra in my tiny room strikes me as rather implausible! Consequently, I have no objection when "acoustic" music sounds as if it's coming from behind the speakers: I'd hardly expect the dimensions of the concert hall to match those of my own room.

David:

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Ever played a drum kit with your eyes closed? All of the localization that one would normally occur with your eyes open (16-inch floor tom next to right knee, etc.) is lost in a very fundamental way (this occurs, BTW, with the piano as well).

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You're not the first person who has reported this but my experience is quite different: closing my eyes has no effect whatsoever on spatial localisation. Until my mid twenties I was able to get a fair idea of the size and shape of a room (with eyes closed) just by listening to the ambient noise in the room. As a by product of this I used to hate being in rooms with sloping ceilings because they gave me a claustrophobic feeling. My hearing is a lot worse now - I can't hear room characteristics in the same way - but my localisation ability has not changed. Consequently, I suspect that differences between individuals in this respect may be due more to the orientations of their ears than the accuity of their ears.

--Jeremy

PS I must add that my localisation ability depends a great deal on the type of sound I'm listening to. There are some high frequencies that completely confuse me, and the whistle from a TV set occurs at a frequency where I often get whistling in the ears - which doesn't help. Hmmm... I wonder if my ear whistles are caused by too much TV?

[This message was edited by Sproggle on THURSDAY 19 July 2001 at 02:53.]

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

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Soundstaging is still a function of the recording process

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Agreed. Some recordings will never produce a proper soundstage. However, the soundstage is only one means to an end. As with my mono recording from the fifties, you don't even need a stereo recording to create that magical sensation.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

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the idea of a large orchestra in my tiny room strikes me as rather implausible!

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Agreed. In that situation, I'm just looking for a coalescence of the sound. I realize that I'm never going to get that same effect on all recordings.

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Until my mid twenties I was able to get a fair idea of the size and shape of a room (with eyes closed) just by listening to the ambient noise in the room.

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You just reminded me of something that I used to be able to do. When I was a teenager, I could this same thing, except I could do it for an adjacent room that I had not seen. Not only could I tell you the basic shape, size and orientation, I could also tell you where a talking individual was standing in that room (within a few feet). My friends tested this a number of times, and they were always sure it was some kind of parlor trick. I don't know whether I could do the same thing now, but it probably explains my extreme need for a "realistic" soundstage. It also would explain why I can tell where musicians are positioned in a live orchestra, even if I'm quite far away.

I'm resolutely a middle-earther. I want it all, and I want it now!

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

How many people own a Garrard ?

Regards

Mick

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Notice how people with top-flight turntables don't have all these complaints?

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That is a curious thing. I've often noticed that your turntable does a much better job of knitting the two channels together than your CDX does. The coalescing of the sound is quite obvious and enjoyable. I wonder why this happens. Is it the smooth analog signal that causes it, or could it even be a bit of "crosstalk" between the channels bringing it all together?

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

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I think that it is more down to the fact that with an anologue signal, the upper registers determining soundstaging are much cleaner

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I agree. The crosstalk possibility was just a troll.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

The experiment entailed making a recording of a piano with very good equipment that could record and playback frequencies up to 100KHz. They replayed it with and without supersonic filtering, and the test subjects were asked to choose which performance was "live". 75% of the time they chose the one with the super-sonics.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

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I think that it is more down to the fact that with an analogue signal, the upper registers determining soundstaging are much cleaner.

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I think this point is debateable. A good test of any transmission system as to the quality of their high-frequency linearity (which is what we are talking about here) is an intermodulation test. If you check out this quality of any decent CD player at its band-limit (say 19/20 kHz) then it passes with flying colours. A turntable does not.

Are high frequencies more extended on vinyl? Personally I doubt it. Witness the quadraphonic spec - very fancy styli and a bespoke cutting system to put a FM carrier centred on 38k on the disc. None of these are used for stereo. If you play that on a 'normal' elliptical or whatever stylus it acts as a chisel removing it, ie no response at 38kHz. In addition, I believe most cutters roll-off treble above 15 kHz as much HF has a tendency to blow the cutter head.

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Actually, I recall reading from a guy that claims "scientificly" that part of the reason that Analogue sounds more natural is indeed because of the lesser separation in high frequencies.

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Personally I don't think so. Theoretically a component should act as open window to the recording it is reproducing. So if a recording has 90 dB of seperation so it should be reproduced. They typical stereo sepearion for a top analogue system is 35 dB, if you play a 90 dB seperation recording on this system you attain 35 dB of seperation at the end of the playback chain. That's called distortion.

However, 90 dB is a theoretical maximum crosstalk figure, which will not occur in practical recordings.

But the 90 dB seperation player will reproduce a recording with 30 dB of seperation, with 30 dB of seperation (or as near as dammit within a nth of a dB).

Play a practical recording as described as described above through the analogue system as described above and you will shave about 2 dB or so off the seperation. So to all intents and purposes the differences between the analgue and digital here nullify.

Leakage between left and right channels is the basis of stereo perception, and the diffence in perceived power at a given frequency between each ear is how we percieve direction (and is why bass sounds mono to us the wavelength of these frequencies is greater than the distance between our ears hence are percieved as being at the same level i.e mono). In a practical recording the 'stereo effect' is delived by recording with a stero pair of mics on two tracks of tape. Unless the effect is artificially done (i.e the argument doesn't stand up for Kraftwerk!) the distance betwen the mics determines the relative levels hitting each one. The inter-mic distance is going to pretty damn large to get much above 30 dB.

Same goes for the speakers.

So unless we have an artificial 'ping-pong' stereo recording over closed back headphones in an anechoic chamber you ain't hearing much difference in stereo sepeartion between analogue and digital playback.

Am I disparaging analogue? No, I like it very much. I happen to think the real differentiaters are less obvious that frequency extention, noise levels and crosstalk. Does analogue sound more 'real' to me? Sometimes. What do I mean by more real? I mean closer to the 'human spirit' inherent in music. How do you measure that? Bugger...

But with electronic and other 'artificial' recordings, what is your real reference for saying what is 'better' and what is 'worse'? And should this reference be false, could you be handicapping your system by contorting its performance toward an inherently flawed goal?

Right time for more coffee....

Makes SACD and DVD-A sound far less interesting though!

PS Sorry about the spelling....

[This message was edited by Martin M on THURSDAY 19 July 2001 at 19:35.]

Isn't about feeling the emotion of the music? When I listen to my hifi I get that thrill that goes through me. It's a sense of feeling the music as well as hearing it. I am assuming that a great number of us have an engineering background and so enjoy marvelling at the engineering that goes into reproducing the arts. The bottom line for me though is the emotional experience and the presence.

Nigel

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Isn't about feeling the emotion of the music?

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Emotions certainly play a large part in my music listening experience, but it's not the only thing. Let's use a food analogy, where the emotions represent the way the food tastes, and the "palpability" (as I call it) is the texture. The two go hand in hand. Don't give me pudding that tastes like steak, and then insist that I must be satisfied.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

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Don't give me pudding that tastes like steak, and then insist that I must be satisfied.

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Actually, I'd kill for some Steak and Kidney pudding at the moment!

As a matter of fact you'll find that your amplifiers will exhibit about 50 dB or so of seperation, so they already act as a 'partial monoer'!

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I would suspect areas where the two channels are in close electrical proximity. The 52's input sockets and volume control are examples.

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Yeah, you need two 52s, one for left and one for right.

Tony.