And if you are there, does the tree make a sound?

I’ve read all this and, aside from the metronome marking on a piece a music, I still don’t understand what is meant by ‘pace’ in the context of PRaT. Surely the pace is determined at the time of recording?

Eoink posted:

Filipe posted:

Eoink posted:

Beachcomber posted:

The whole thing is in our heads.  All that is in the room is variations in air pressure over time.

If a Spotify client remotely turns on a Muso by mistake and there is no one in the room to hear it, does it make a sound?

This sounds like the “Schroedinger’s Cat” thought experiment designed to pose philosophical questions in the formative days of Quantum Mechanics. Worth reading about - Wikipedia is as good as anywhere. Perhaps the Spotify client is in Quantum Supposition with a radioactive atom inside a logic gate!

Phil

It's a variant of an earlier philosophical question often attributed to the 18th century philosopher Bishop Berkeley, the usual phrasing being along the lines of "If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?". Although Berkeley didn't actually pose the question in those words, it's quite a good example of a question which can be used to argue for subjective idealism. which he propounded, largely as a way of "proving" the existence of God.

 

I wonder how Bishop Berkeley would have coped with the materialism that modern physics has discovered! The twist at the quantum level is that many different philosophical questions can be posed. 

I’m not sure if I’m bothered about exact the reconstruction of a performance which was created in a sound mixing system as long as I get an immersive experience that allows the various elements to be enjoyed as a whole. In my experience it takes a lot of work to get a system delivering that kind of experience. Enjoying Queen’s Greatest Hits disk 2 at the moment.

All these terms really do is enable a reviewer to compare different hi-fI systems. 

During the early nineties a logo was developed in the US 2C3D to describe a system comprising Spectral Electronics, Avalon speakers and MIT cables. The system was capable of building huge, well focused 3D ‘soundscapes’ (2 Channel, 3 Dimensions). One record by Roger Waters actually had a dog barking that came from behind the listening chair. Dealers loved demonstrating that little party trick.  I actually arranged a demo and took along a bunch of CDs. At the time I was listening to an active SBL, 135s, 52, CDS system, which didn’t image worth a damn but could certainly boogie. On one particular CD, Budapest by Deborah Henson Conant There are 2 tracks that always had me bouncing out of my chair. Except with the 2C3D system, they didn’t. The music sounded quite slow, like the CD was rotating slightly slower than usual, the music had very little impulse and drive and there was little sense of the interplay  between the various musicians. You would describe the 2C3D system as having very little PRaT while you would describe my Naim system as being extremely good at reproducing the music’s PRaT, but pretty poor at imaging. At the time, having both qualities was quite rare...PRAT made the music lively and fun, its absence made it slow and boring. Imaging on the other hand was an interesting novelty, great for showing off to friends but it did very little to make the music appealing and engaging. 

So would you (or any others) say that imaging and soundstage are completely or at least virtually unnecessary?

Are you advocating a return to monaural sound? At least one well known former frequenter of this form did exactly that. I guess this would save us all some money. One less power amp and speaker to buy, and a huge saving on expensive cables and interconnects, especially for those who have active speakers, or would you still want twin mono speakers placed apart to 'widen' the monaural soundstage? 

Try listening to Queen’s Greatest Hits disk 1 and see it you get it as it’s very pronounced on some tracks. Why not say which ones?

Phil

PRAT is often associated with the Naim sound, all I know about it is that it gets my foot tapping.  But can someone please explain to me what is the actual difference between Pace, Rhythm and Timing?  Is it possible for a piece of music have good pace but bad rhythm and timing?

Blackmorec posted:

PRAT made the music lively and fun, its absence made it slow and boring.

Reading this with talk of boogieing and  foot tapping, sometimes it seems to me that some people want to make all music to be energetic and 'fun', whereas in reality not all music is energetic, and as for 'fun', I don't generally think of listening to music as fitting what I mean by the word fun - and not being the slightest bit into dance music I don't desire that either. There was quite a bit of discussion of this in the thread What is the fixation with foot tapping? earlier this year, so perhaps that's enough here - instead a question: has the pursuit of PRaT by some become an end in itself as opposed to seeking a realistic live-like sound - and ditto the pursuit of 'soundstage'?

Hifi sound staging and imaging quality generally  improves the more you spend on a hifi system. So its presence justifies the enormous expenditure and absence leads to the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair of money poorly spent.

Romi posted:

PRAT is often associated with the Naim sound, all I know about it is that it gets my foot tapping.  But can someone please explain to me what is the actual difference between Pace, Rhythm and Timing?  Is it possible for a piece of music have good pace but bad rhythm and timing?

That's the point I was making - well, sort of. As I understand it, 'timing' is used in the HiFi context to refer to the rate of attack and decay of each note. A plucked  string, for example, has a very rapid rise, but a long, slow decay unless it is stopped by muting. If this isn't reproduced properly, then there's a slight slurring of the note, which might have an overall effect of appearing to mess with the rhythm (and pace?) of the music.

Then again, perhaps I've misunderstood that too!

If only JV was around still to put some more acronyms in the canon.

Kiwi cat posted:

Hifi sound staging and imaging quality generally  improves the more you spend on a hifi system. So its presence justifies the enormous expenditure and absence leads to the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair of money poorly spent.

It’s presence testifies to the fact that your more expensive hi-fi system is loosing less information, which in turn allows your brain to use that information to ‘position’ all the musicians And create the illusion of a soundscape’ or soundstage. But even  expensive systems, if poorly designed or poorly installed can loose information critical to ‘hearing’ a soundstage.  

Installing speakers near walls or large pieces of furniture, especially things like large TVs between speakers will generally disturb sound waves sufficiently to destroy or minimise the illusion.

A soundstage is generally speaking the result of doing a lot of things right, so is good and entirely desirable

Few of us can have optimal installations. I have a tv between my SBLs, and other furniture which simply has to be there. My LP12 is also far too close to a ‘speaker. I do get good left to right imaging and some height. There is very little depth but then that is what I expect from boundary designs anyway.

My personal view is that imaging allows me to follow different strands in the music more easily. I did hear an amazing dem years ago that did the whole 3D thing. It was Impressive, but ultimately less involving to my choice of future system. No regrets, and what I have has passed the test of time.

Stu

Filipe posted:

Try listening to Queen’s Greatest Hits disk 1 and see it you get it as it’s very pronounced on some tracks. Why not say which ones?

Phil

“Now I’m hear” is quite good for testing out your soundstage and imaging. The words come from all the around at different times. A bit of fun.

Phil

Filipe posted:

Filipe posted:

Try listening to Queen’s Greatest Hits disk 1 and see it you get it as it’s very pronounced on some tracks. Why not say which ones?

Phil

“Now I’m hear” is quite good for testing out your soundstage and imaging. The words come from all the around at different times. A bit of fun.

Phil

I’ll try it later. Vinyl and CD. 

I particularly enjoy the soundstage experience. I believe most musical pieces are written and played with this in mind to varying degrees. If all instruments were played at the same volume and with the same attack things would be a mess with little expression and emotion.

Positioning of instruments or sounds is very difficult to achieve in a live situation but I think most musicians would ultimately prefer to be able to do this but there are factors (venue, acoustics, volume) that make this difficult.

I use a closed back speaker cab to give some degree of directionality and I think this helps a little in small venues. I would love to have a stereo rig but this is difficult to get right and requires doubling up on amplifiers and speakers (as if I haven't got enough gear)!! Most modern Modulation pedals have stereo outputs and effects like delay, tremolo, chorus sound tremendous when panned from right to left which sometimes occurs in live concerts. 

I think recording allows musicians to achieve the things they can't attain in a live situation and end up with a song or piece recorded the way it was perceived. I think it also promotes progression of ideas, sounds, effects and innovation which can only be a good thing.

That's the way I see it anyway. 

I once borrowed for a good while a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 Guitar amp.   Just spend ages strumming away and little noodling with my head close to the baffle, relishing that reverb stereo chorus between the two large drivers.

I think "soundstage" can be achieved with good speaker placement. The "size" of a vocalist's voice and bass response in relation to the other instruments can be "tuned in" with proper speaker placement. If the recording has vocalist and different musicians "located" in different places on the "stage," then this will be revealed with proper speaker placement. As for "PRaT," it seems like a marketing catchphrase and to me, does not resonate. 

It looks like I am in the clear minority here, not caring much for any emphasis on soundstage and imaging in music reproduction which I personally find distracting and more fatiguing to listen to. In my case ( small ensembles of classical and jazz music played at moderate volume) hearing more does not automatically translates into enjoying more (the music, not the sound). At times I find my old faithful mono recordings better flowing and more pleasing than the modern stuff.

In terms of true acoustic, the mic technology is hugely important. 

Are you capturing velocity of air (crossed fog eight mics) or pressure (spaced omnis)?

when I do recordings I have a pair of omnis for a pressure/time delay between capsule recording. And a coincident fig eight ribbons for velocity. And a soundfield mic

id post urls of the same performance recorded three different ways and you would be blown sideways. Which is why the best Hifi upgrade you can do is to get out there and record things then play them back

Unfortunately most venues prohibit recording by punters, and it is not always easy to get in a good spot...

Allante93 posted:

joerand posted:

Haim Ronen posted: Why such an emphasis on Hi Fi sound stage and imaging?

When they are mostly absent in live music.

Continuing Hook's thoughts, I'd say obviously because recorded music is a representation of the live performance and studio production techniques have the power to enhance the original on certain levels. Soundstaging has the ability to make a listener's room appear wider and taller than it is, and imaging sets depth and placement within that dimension.

{the whole reason stereo is generally used over mono - a fuller sound.}

Replay with an emphasis on soundstage and imaging is impressive and without is relatively bland. So why not use it if you've got it?

Fuller, Spacious, Depth of Field, etc....

But have you ever been to a Dealer and Demoed Speakers from the exact same seating position, and the Hi-Fi Sound Stage appeared larger.

Same Room, Same seating, Same Electronics, and the Room appeared Larger.

Just Saying!

Allante93!

PS. I listen to my System in Stereo.

 

Hmack posted:

So would you (or any others) say that imaging and soundstage are completely or at least virtually unnecessary?

Are you advocating a return to monaural sound? At least one well known former frequenter of this form did exactly that. I guess this would save us all some money. One less power amp and speaker to buy, and a huge saving on expensive cables and interconnects, especially for those who have active speakers, or would you still want twin mono speakers placed apart to 'widen' the monaural soundstage? 

Allante93 posted:

Allante93 posted:

Fuller, Spacious, Depth of Field, etc....

But have you ever been to a Dealer and Demoed Speakers from the exact same seating position, and the Hi-Fi Sound Stage appeared larger.

Same Room, Same seating, Same Electronics, and the Room appeared Larger.

Just Saying!

Allante93!

PS. I listen to my System in Stereo.

 

Of course I did, Allante, but I never chose my speakers or electronics based on the size or depth of the soundstage they were producing, regardless if the room appeared larger than the size of a football arena.

Clive B posted:

I’ve read all this and, aside from the metronome marking on a piece a music, I still don’t understand what is meant by ‘pace’ in the context of PRaT. Surely the pace is determined at the time of recording?

I’m not a musician but might pace have some thing to do with the way musicians interpret and give effect to the dynamic markings in musical notations, con brio, a capriccio, accelerato, etc?  Some systems will just be better able to accurately capture these changes of pace.

michael17 posted:

Clive B posted:

I’ve read all this and, aside from the metronome marking on a piece a music, I still don’t understand what is meant by ‘pace’ in the context of PRaT. Surely the pace is determined at the time of recording?

I’m not a musician but might pace have some thing to do with the way musicians interpret and give effect to the dynamic markings in musical notations, con brio, a capriccio, accelerato, etc?  Some systems will just be better able to accurately capture these changes of pace.

In terms of pace, whatever the musicians do is either captured in the recording or not, and so I think not the above in the context of PRaT as related to reproduction of the recorded music.

My understanding of pace is tempo. Tempo could be wrong or distorted if, say, a turntable played at the wrong speed, or uneven speed, the effect in an analog device like that being easy to picture. Except where error is abnormally large, wrong as opposed to distorted is rarely of significance (though in the above analog example it would also cause a shift in pitch, which is quite another matter): indeed the musicians might play at a marginally different tempo every time they play the piece, unless they use a metronome  or 'click track'. Summing this up, I do not understand or recognise the significance of 'pace' when PRaT is discussed in relation to music reproduction systems.

Rhythm, like pace, to me is set by the musicians and captured in the recording, or not, and replay considerations are exactly as with tempo. However, some parts of the music carry the rhythm to the listener more than others, so if, for example, the music were to either exaggerate the sound of  key percussion instruments carrying the rhythm information, or at least ensure that they carry cleanly through even if other parts of the music might be masked  - one way could be by emphasising the region of the spectrum where the harmonics of the kick drum and dominant sound of a snare drum are carried - then the sense of rhythm perceived by the listener would be enhanced. Some discussions of the 'Naim Sound' have given the impression that this may be a factor. (And  possibly might be a key factor in the so-called 'fun' factor ascribed to some speakers).

Timing is somewhat different, in that there are aspects of timing that could be affected by the electronics and mechanics of the sound reproduction. Taking speakers as a simple example, a big, heavy diaphragm of a large bass driver has more inertia and takes more to get it moving than the small, light diaphragm of a mid driver, the effect of which is that  a sound that originally might have had a range of tonal elements commence at exactly the same time (e.g. the initial impact of a percussion instrument) can become 'smeared' with fractionally different start times for different parts of the spectrum, which the ear may be able to detect. Exactly the same if the electronics take longer to supply the much higher current needed to move that same bass driver than the mid driver. So, emphasis on getting timing right is aimed at minimising innaccuracies such as these, and can be in both the design of electronics and mechanical components of a system, achieving which is certainly an aspect of the 'Naim Sound'. (Interestingly, inaccuracies can also be introduced in the listening room, by any factors that affect reflections and decay times - i.e. size, construction, content and layout...)