Great post
denverfred....
My deepest respect....
How do you know when a stereo sounds good?
When do you know your system is pleasing to listen to? How do you conclusively prove to yourself that your system sounds good to you? How do you determine that you enjoy listening to music through your stereo? Do you have a suite of measurements that removes all shadow of a doubt that you are getting good sound, sound that you enjoy? Please share.
Showing 26 responses by mahgister
Ted Denney sell "tweaks" that can help some and not so much others, it is relative to many factors i will not enter into...( not everyone here own a dedicated room where we can replicate acoustically many imaging and soudstage effect with Helmoltz method +passive treatment) He is probably a talented audio sellers thats all.... Why attacking him in audo thread? Some use DSP to be the pinnacle of audio... For sure it is a very useful tool.... I plan to use some DSP free tool this summer myself...But is it the ONLY universal solution for all?
I dont need myself none of these two different agenda solutions... I go along the road of no cost simple acoustic and mechanical solutions... Then why arguing for measurements or against it, that makes no sense at all save if you had an AGENDA including one factor and not the other factor for your own agenda .... I listen music/sound without agenda... In acoustic Ears and measurements go hand in hand....Only sellers of electronical solutions via tweaks or DSP argues like fools, one against the other... It is childish... But anyway they are sellers , some sell products the other sells other technology.... Basic acoustic is simpler and dont need a seller... It is not perfect but very economical....😊It could be almost perfect though if we invest big money.... i prefer to "sell" creativity openness including ears and measurements WITHOUT reducing one to the other... Anyway human sound experience begins in greek theater, and architectural Christian monasteries, and even before that in caves acoutical effect control, then human sound experience begins with ACOUSTIC not with DSP or electronical tweaks or ,cables etc.... All is useful for sure, but arguing with agendas is not.... It is better to go with history than against it....
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Why people want to reduce everything to a binary distinction? measurements are tools and necessary even for experiments... But in audio our sujective experience is also primary... The truth is simple: nothing is simplistic... especially in physical acoustic and in psycho acoustic and in engineering... subjectivist or objectivist are two blind road... Children wars...
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This is one of my most important realization.... But it is interesting NOW to listen even bad recording because so bad they are they acoustically reveal some information and anyway they sound better in my audio controlled system... And like you i am too much immersed in music now to bothered for costly improvement... We know when our system is good when we make it happened by EXPERIMENTS not only by upgrading or buying gear....
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Thanks for the occasion you give me to be clearer... All our past systems may sound good to us...At some time and for many people it is enough... And it is OK.... But if we enter in some listening experiments journey, like i had, you may discover some BASIC facts... The electrical noise floor of the house is too high... The vibrations affect greatly your gear.... The passive treatment of the room is very important, and even active mechanical control may be necessary in a dedicated room, i even add a mechanically controlled equalizer made from many Helmholtz resonators... It is not perfect by all means.... But now i know why my system is "good" because i had a comparison BEFORE and AFTER these embeddings controls installation WITH THE SAME GEAR... Then thinking that our sound is "good" is not enough now for me generally speaking ... We must know why....Thinking that good gear will do is not enough...Because of the huge impact of electrical noise floor problem, vibrations, and acoustic... My comment "feel free to contradict me" is only to underline my openness to discussion... There are 3 criterias FOR ME to know if your system is good: Is the playing microdynamical timbre of any voices and instrument are well defined like a human face ? Is the sound filling the room, fill the room with good imaging OUT of the speakers ? Are ALL your albums now revealing the acoustical choices of the recording engineer and his trade-off when recording the album? If all your albums even the less well recorded are interesting now? If yes you are there....Perhaps not with the best system but you begin to listen music without thinking about the sound or without picking an album only because it appear well recorded... is it clearer? My best and deepest respect....
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I dont need Ted products nor the DSP refine processing of our friend cindyment... Why? Because my audio system is embedded in ACOUSTIC passive materials treatment and more importantly mechanically controlled with Helmholtz method... Is my system better than the system of Ted or cindyment ? No But it is so good i dont give a dam about upgrade... My system is under 500 bucks... All my device are homemade... By the way we could create a soundstage out of the speakers and a good imaging WITHOUT great tonal timbre accuracy, but i cannot and i think nobody could create a natural great tonal timbre accuracy WITHOUT in addition gain a great soundstage...This is simply acoustic laws... In acoustic reproduction of timbre ask for an acoustically controlled room... But if i can create an impression and an image filling the room without great tonal accuracy...i cannot create a tonal accuracy without at the same time creating a good soundstage... Take my word for a personal experience, i am not a scientist like cindyment or a master in audio like Ted... Feel free to contradict me... A system does not sound good because we feel it is good.... A system sound good with minimal acoustical settings... If not it is an happy illusion... All my system were bad all my life and i always tought that they sounded good... i realized that after my listening experiments in acoustic for the last years mostly... i dont need my 7 headphones anymore nor any upgrade... My system is not the best in audiogon for sure.... For the ratio S.Q./price it is the better or one of the better... 500 bucks for my audio system...
Dont upgrade before embedding mechanically and electrically and acoustically all the gear...This is my only discovery in audio.... |
For sure you are right... I lack experience in car audio system installation... 😁😂😊
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OUps! it is not a good indication about your audio system... Mine is low cost but i cannot even imagine listening music in my car....Yes sometimes i am lost in music in my car... (rarely because i dont listen music in my car often and anyway i did not drive anymore being retired) But i cannot be lost in sound in my car for sure... My best to you....
But this remind me of a friend, the more wealthy of my friends by a large margin, very wealthy, his BMW was the costlier one, and in it his audio system cost 5 figures, and we can be lost in music each time....lost in sound? Yes and no, it is too long time for me to be sure... Then either you are very wealthy or either your audio house system is very bad....Or you are more wealthy than i imagine and the 2 are fantastic....
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I used acoustic devices instead because i dont have any other means ... I am satisfied....Acoustic is underestimated...But someone can use the two for sure.... Passive material treatment and DSP... I use also a homemade mechanical equalizer inspired by Helmholtz resonators and diffusers....I am satisfied with these 40 and more grid of resonators and diffusers.... Location is the crux and fine tuning....According Hass law i directed the wavefrontd asymmetrically modifying it with different pressure zones with some resonators located around each speakers...My S.Q. satisfy me ....Nothing very costly even better will convince me to upgrade because when we listened music with a smile we are there... For me the goal is to appreciate music and all acoustical cues coming from each recording.... When all albums are interesting acoustically even the less well recorded YOU ARE THERE... My system value is under 500 bucks and is not the best at all but is one of the best quality /price ratio... Controlling vibrations, decreasing the electrical noise floor and passive material treatment and especially mechanical acoustical equalization of the room in relatiuon to the speakers was my way... i would be very curious to listen to your systrem... my best to you....
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To be PRECISE...
I dont pretend that my actual audio system in my controlled room is BETTER than any audio system here on Agon... NOT AT ALL.... I pretend ONLY and I KNOW that there is no comparison between my audio room BEFORE AND AFTER this acoustically treated and controlled acoustic implementation , even not optimally designed, but with my own devices, instead of the costlier more efficient work of an acoustician; there is no comparison anyway between my audio system BEFORE and AFTER my acoustical embedded controls with Helmholtz method... NO comparison at all....
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Sorry but i dont put anything in the mouth of people and suppose nothing...Being polite is my policy.... Try to stick ONLY on argument...Anyway we are lucky to have an OP who knows some audio....I only make my experience known.... Thats all.... By the way my acoustic treatment an acoustic devices controls were made of discarded plumbers artefacts and other junk material.... Helmholtz was not bothered by price " tag" of his bottles being a scientist, me too, being not very loose with money..... Cost = peanuts... I am living proof that you could do your own job without buying ANYTHING... |
Good observation! thanks ... Great hall acoustic differ completely of small room acoustic...
Reflections and reverberation time for example are not used the same way... We can use POSITIVELY in a small room the reverberation time to improve the imaging... In a great Hall there exist general principles of design very well known by MILLENIA beginning with the geniuses Greek architect of theater... Small room acoustic is a very late and contemporary subject matter existing only for decades....Who was looking for a small audio room acoustically designed in 1950 ? How many? Even now people THINK that the S.Q. COMES from the speakers DIRECTLY....And from their amplifiers...they ignore that the final waves to reach their ears has crossed their room hundred of times in ONE SECOND...For my 13 feet room : 83 times... Each ear by Haas principle of first frontwave give to the brain a DIFFERENT time responses in MILLISECONDS...Anyway.... It is easy to study that...And what are the implication for the way the brain construct imaging for example and others acoustical cues....
Most audiophiles were CONDITIONNED like i was about electronic design orientation toward GEAR selling not toward ACOUSTIC of small room... I was deluded myself by this general ignorance LESS THAN A YEAR AGO...This is the reason behind my posts here...Acoustic may cost peanuts ....Or a small dedicated room can easily cost more than 100,000 bucks... My room is not perfect but BEAT my 7 headphones....
I am pretty sure the OP of this thread KNOW very well this matter subject by the way.... And better than me, Ask him....I am not an acoustician nor a specialist in audio myself....Just a customer without money who was dreaming Hi-FI and knowing how to read books about acoustic or others, i created my own devices......
I dont need an upgrade now why? My audio system is not perfect at all being low cost and my room was created by me not by a pro at high cost... Because my sound quality make me able to listen the ORIGINAL acoustic cues from the original live recorded event ( It is not perfect, but Goddam good) so well i can forget audiophile expanse till my death....I never ask for perfection with a 500 bucks audio system...But i am not envious anymore of high cost system even if their potential are better than mine...i listen music with good S.Q. fore the FIRST time in my life then i am very satisfied... ALL my albums sound great not only the few audiophile recordings i own... Music through sounds and sound through musics....Not one without the other....
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For sure there exist 2 methods to fine tune the room acoustically: BY EARS or with a MIC and an electronical equalizer...
But ask any acoustician about electronical equalizer... They dont use it generally and if they do it is only a secondary tools... I use my ears with my timbre recognition BIAS for sure... But the fact that 2 people EARS and hearing bias are different CANNOT made acoustical principle in Helmholtz method VOID and useless...
Acoustic principles are not "tweaks" they are science.... The way you use them is according to your SPECIFIC EARS for sure... I use Helmholtz resonators and diffusers grid.... Nothing is a "tweak" here for 2 reason: it cost NOTHING to experiment with that, i used cheap bottles and plumbers tubes... And "tweaks" is about a particular READY MADE SOLD device, Helmholtz method in acoustic is not a "tweak"... Tweak are secondary addition to an audio system in the audiophile lingo... Acoustic is not a secondary addition to an audio system, it is ESSENTIAL and a dedicated room is the more important luxury in audio... |
First, someone who sell pieces of gear will say: your feeling about yourt system is not enough... You need this piece of gear to increase your experience...The measuruments AND your listening experience would say so...
Second, it is not false to speak like that, but ANY "TWEAKS" must be experimented in a good acoustic settings first... WHY ? Because many costly tweaks even good one COULD be useless or way less useful in a good acoustic settings... I sell creativity not products... Acoustic is the black matter in audio and the elephant in the room....NO TWEAKS in my system could replace my acoustic treatment and controls anyway... Even those i tried and which worked well... NONE.... |
There is not right or wrong in people attitudes...They are free and had the right to their own experience and justification... But in audio there is right or wrong about to manage the way to reach a good S.Q. For example basic acoustic installation active and passive is way more important than the choice between 2 good pieces of gear for an upgrade.... How do you know your gear qualitative peak without putting them in an optimal environment?
Who want to upgrade "blindly" or partially deaf because he does not know what his speakers/amplifier/dac are able to do in an ideal room, who want upgrading based on publicity and without any control on mechanical, electrical and acoustical working dimensions?
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Thanks great post!
But there is 2 part in acoustic management for a small dedicated room... 1) Balancing diffusion/reflection/ and absorption is conventional passive materials treatment.. 2) active mechanical control with Helmholtz resonators and diffusers are the missing part of your acoustic description... And you mix together many things that perhaps dont work with some which work... I own a grid of cheap Schuman generators i myself modified and it work...But the audible effect, at the same time subtle and powerful, could be hidden by a not so much refine room or a problematic system, for example with speakers not isolated mechanically from vibrations or in a house with a too high electrical noise floor .... In the race to reach a good S.Q. people rush to EASY solutions, and some begin to try Shuman generators but it is not this that we must begin with in the first place....It is way better to eliminate vibrations from the speakers for example....or like you justly said manage material acoustic passive treatment...
The problem is people are ready to pay for costlier "tweaks" BEFORE learning the basic acoustic... My best to you....
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This is called a circular reasoning... This is a publicity motto... Sorry.... This is even used for decades to sell new upgrading product... i always liked myself all my pieces of gear, one after the other all my life....But was never satisfied really... Guess why?
The only way to know if your system sound at his potential working peak, nevermind the gear, is by acoustic control... After that all your albums sound interesting, all of them reveal the acoustical choices made at the recording time... My worst album acoustically are now revealing and interesting... If you look ONLY for very good audiophile recording it is a sign that your system dont worked at his potential working peak YET...WHY? When your audio system is under control, all albums are suddenly musical in their own way, with specific acoustical choices and trade-off made by the recording engineer and even the bad one are interesting to know...
Music through sound and sound through music....Not one without the other.... |
The sound waves travel my small room at a speed of sound, 343 meters per second or 1125 feet per second...... My room is 13 feet square... More than 80 crossing through my room each second...
This means my room atmosphere is like a tense violin cord....So sensible to any small change that is is easy to hear any new elements introduced in a room we already know... My brain#ears decipher sound waves differently each one of them and make decision in SOMETIMES ONE MILLISECOND... ( Hass effect) Then anything in the room, any acoustic material content, his geometry and the topology of the room, will deteriorate sound or improve its recognition in a way far greater than upgrading a good amplifier for a so called better one...
It is acoustic who dictate sound quality AT THE END...Not measurements of electronical piece of gear nor our own satisfaction after an upgrade... Not the branded name of speakers or amplifiers... Buy good gear FIRST and forget them after that , and read about acoustic.... And no acoustic tweaks will replace acoustic control...On the opposite we may replicate any tweak effect in a room by using acoustic treatment and acoustic Helmholtz mechanical control.... For example using angles in my speakers position and an acoustic screen i mimic an headphone effect ( the sound floating not in my head but around my head with some recording)... But it is more easy to buy ready made costlier product than making our own acoustic listening experiment for sure...I dont negate the usefulness and practicality of products at all.. Few people use an audio dedicated room like i did... I just want to make my point known....Acoustic reign supreme in audio... Objectivism or subjectivism about the gear is a deceptive marketing effect RESULTING from years of customers publicity conditioning...
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Most people fell in the pit of measurements as proof of the system S.Q. ( this is not even false for sure, measurements are NECESSARY tools in engineering) Or most others retreated in their subjective trench: if i like it, it must be good... ( this is not even false either) This is no argument but a watchword for common place statement....
My main point : Objectivist and subjectivist alike IDOLIZE the gear... Where is acoustic power in this insane logic?
I never know what my gear sound potential could be BEFORE acoustic treatment and control... |
Any system i ever listened to was sounding good to at least ONE person or listener, the owner with or without my favorable opinion... This is common place observation... But reading the answers it seems nobody had realized that almost all answers ONLY repeated an instance of this common place fact... Then these answers could never said anything valuable about an objective criterion which anyway CANNOT and could not be "gear with good measurements"...Or the pricier gear....All gear at any price or quality levels, NEED acoustic control and treatment at the end anyway....
The OBJECTIVE way to produce an answer is then by listening experiments in your own room with ACOUSTIC principles... Play with them.... COST=zero Upgrading, even if the "upgrade " affected really positively some aspects of the sound experience, upgrading COULD NEVER rival or compensate for the impact of a negative or positive acoustic room settings... |
I get your point thanks! My deepest reespect to you....
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When I spoke about "subjective experience being primary" like measurements are in acoustic and in engineering, i refered ALSO to the fundamental criteria in acoustic: the human perception of timbre.. If people were educated by ACOUSTICIAN they will not buy 10,000 bucks cable they will treat and CONTROL their room...It is evident for me that each cable is different BUT IT IS SECONDARY completely compared to other impactful necessary controls: mechanical, electrical and especially acoustical... I fine tuned MECHANICALLY my Helmholtz resonators grid guided by my timbre perception...Like some fine tune a piano,,,, It is not objective . It is not perfect. It is a relation between my particular room with his particular zone pressures grid distribution, modifiable at will, in relation to EACH of my ears, which are not only different from one another but different from all others ears... i dont bought audio tweaks... I created mine....Nobody sold my mechanical equalizer, i designed it with discarded junk...If some mouth laugh about that junks my own ears smile anyway.... Learning basic acoustic help me to spare my money...And spare me to enter into these stupid "objectivist" /subjectivist" childish and unscientific completely and this by the 2 sides which each one reject reason and acoustic or psycho-acoustic... If measurements are ONLY necessary tools,his perception of timbre is the essential tool of any acoustician...Then negating one or the other, without understanding their complementary relation is insane when people argue without listening the other sides... All these debates AGAINST or FOR cables or other tweaks are beside the point....There is subjective partiality to sell products on one side or there is people on the other side who vouch that we can know how a dac would sound just by reading a measurement chart...I am not interested by these 2 groups.... I am not a genius.... But i am not stupid either.... I am an audiophile and lover of music who designed his own audio controls: mechanical,electrical, and acoustical...It is not perfect at all... But it is spectacular and satisfying at NO COST... I am out of these debates where people sometimes defend an agenda more than truth in the two sides... There is debates more important now in the world....
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Sorry but this phantom image between speakers is not even the beginning of acoustic control...The stereo sound must be out of the speakers and filling the room or around you and even coming from back of your head in some recording....All recording albums are different, but if the sound is ONLY between speakers, your stereo system is not optimized by acoustic at all.... Your room is probably under controlled...
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Subjectivist who think that it is their ears who decide and objectivist opposing foes who dictate that it is measurement tools , the 2 groups insist on the importance of the GEAR...Their common difference is about the way the GEAR must be evaluated at some point... By TOOLS or by EARS... Are all dacs equivalent which measure the same for example? Or are cables important matter or not in spite of the "fact" that they measured the same?
These 2 groups under-estimated completely not only the 2 embeddings controls impact on FINAL S.Q. the mechanical and the electrical CONTROLS, calling them SECONDARY TWEAKS, but more importantly TOSS aside the fundamental role of not only ACOUSTIC treatment but active mechanical control, by Helmholtz method for example, of the ROOM in S.Q. improvement...
If you want to understand the futility of their oppositions this is my argument...
Subjectivist at least trust their ears, but ALAS! they think that the sound come ESSENTIALLY "from" the GEAR... Ignoring that what they listen to is the image of the inital recorded room + the image of their room/speakers... And the 2 images, the recorded room and the play back room interfere...This is why our room must be controlled for our specific speakers first, and, second, to make possible a better reveletion of the initial chosen choices of the recording acoustical engineer in our own room acoustic settings.. There is no reproduction most of the times of the original recorded event only his TRANSLATION/ RECREATION by our room/speakers relation controlled or uncontrolled... A live mutiple recorded instruments timbre orchetra is recorded ONLY at the trade-off cost chosen by the recording engineer and these choices make ANY recording UNIQUE by the powerful impact of these choices and trade-off... In the same way all speakers/room relation are unique... No albums could sound the same ever save in the same room with the same speakers, and cannot REPRODUCE but ONLY TRANSLATE the experience in the language of your own room....or in the language of a complete different room....Ad infinitum... In one word: the sound quality is good ONLY when my ears can detect all recording acoustic choices for EACH albums...And this in my own room...Then my system is good...Before that, nevermind his price it is not good...
By the way feel free to correect me, i spoke ONLY by my personal experience and what i discover ONLY by myself....( i never upgraded for the years of my acoustic experiments nor bought any tweaks and created mine at no cost for my listening experiments) My evaluation of the importance of the UNDERESTIMATED power of acoustic is MINE....And also the knowledge of any acoustician...
Acoustic is the sleeping princess, all the pieces of gear are ONLY the 7 working dwarves....
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Subjectively: When you forget sound and discover NEW music because the acoustic is so good that you can hear old albums in a new way and new album at the limit of your musical frontiers at their optimal acoustic rendition...
Objectively: 1 step in my audio life: my audio system was not well embedded mechanically, electrically and acoustically, and my gear was average consumer gear (stereo furniture system of the 1960); then ALL my albums sound almost alike one another... 13 years old my first stereo system...All albums are so mediocer acoustically that even the notion of good and bad recordings is not important... Anyway at 13 years old i was listening music not sound...
Second step: Almost all my audio life for 50 years i bought very good gear but it was never well embedded mechanically, electrically and acoustically, then all my albums sounded different in 3 categories: badly recorded , very goodly recorded , AND between these 2 categories the " mediocre" category for the most majority of albums...The quantity of the "not so good recorded" or "mediocre" category exceed the few good one and the few very bad one...The diffference between first step and second step is the ability gained with a better systen to discriminate very bad recording from very good well recorded one....
last and third step : I only reach this FINAL step for the last year; BECAUSE i succeeded in using rightfully the CONTROLS for the 3 embeddings working dimensions , mechanical, electrical and acoustical with exactly the same basic gear i already owned in the last step.... And NOW well embedded and well controlled in all his working dimensions, mechanical, electrical and acoustical, all my albums are no more in ONLY three categories... They are ALL interesting now, even the bad recorded one are interesting WHY ? Because i could and will hear MOST acoustic cues worked by the engineer of each recording album , then ALL album are interesting now and because of that i listen music through them and i am no more tempted to discard them because they are not all so well recorded...
Dont upgrade anything BEFORE embedding it well in his 3 working dimensions to begin with... |