"Breathing" of the air

Chris,

Great topic. I have wondered about the subject myself. A lot.

My all Zanden system for one. Driving my Dunlvay Vs is almost perfect match. Almost always from top to bottom I can hear 'Air' around instruments and voices. Just like you would if you were to listen, carefully, to live sounds. You can't 'pin' this to one equipment. Although Amps certainly is big factor. Prior to My Zanden 9600 amps, I was using MBL 9008As monos and there was air but not the right amount and or not from top to bottom. Now I think I have the perfect combination. Eerily life like. More so with Zanden digital source than my analog set ups. No etched sound at all. (I almost wish at times to get some etchiness;-))

It is interesting that Shadorne mentions Air around 7 to 12khz. Waht about the Air content below 7 khz. There certainly is lot of air moved at low freqs- low, mid and high bass and even lower to mid mids. To generate sound you have to have air at all freqs- air content varying depending on freqs. Just last night I was listening to this huge drum (avearge human size Taiko drum!) sound from Japanese artist 'KODO' . The sound was just mesmerizing. Air seemed to emnate at the drum and and propel surprisingly quickly at the listening positions with vibrations felt all over without boominess. Gotta be lot of air movement. I was going to start a new thread on this subject to clear the air (;-)) regarding : what is the freq of this associated air from top to bottom freq sounds. Characteristics, harmonics, etc. May be some one can throw more light on this...

"BTW - added "air" from manipulation of the recording by the playback system or harmonic resonance or reverb etc. can be pleasant too. So more "air" can also be used to describe equipment that adds its own signature to the recording."

Agree. I think you can easily be able to discern if this is indeed a manipulation or truer to recording sound, by listening to other cues- lIke fast and quick transients do have air but won't linger on too long vs slower and gentle notes meant to to vibrate will and in case of manipulated sound will not sound entirely in phase and coherent- something will be off.

"..which is so evident in live music and rather difficult to reproduce properly at home, even with the "right" recordings."

Absolutely agree with Detlof on this. This is one of the many key reasons Stereo systems will never sound like the real thing: recordings can't 'thoroughly' record air and systems can't 'thoroughly' reproduce 'air'. But if done right can come awfully close in creating believable illusion.

Bill, Have you thought about being a Pro writer? So much said in such little sentences.
You will make more money that way ;-)

Here is Sound 101.
http://library.thinkquest.org/5116/sound.htm
Sound is Energy. Energy In the Air: How Sound is Made.

Tom summarized is correctly. It is the medium displaced/excited in which sound is generated (vibrations generated by instruments)is what we hear. As a Kind of 'halo' around main notes- fundamentals and harmonics. Room acoustics is another entity that may impose its own signature on this 'halo' by allowing it to throughly develop or reduce it or make it dead. I am not sure but you would think you could measure the air disturbances as a change in air pressure- compression and decompression. I am no expert in this but an answer to this or confirmation to this would be to know how the anechoic (sp?) chamber is designed.

What exactly is anechoic chamber? a Room designed not impose sound signature due to room boundaries or and that would you still hear pure 'air' or 'halo' in this chamber?

"Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department"

It is not redundancy, just a bit more intricate details to explore and connecting dots further.

Thanks for clarifying anechoic definition..