Seas Kits

[petercom]

Haven't you noticed the prog rock comeback (see Times magazine two weeks ago)? Not before time too.

Hi Peter,
I completely agree with your points about what constitutes a "flawed speaker", and also about the nature of over-compressed recordings. When I ask for equipment to be demonstrated I always take at least one poor recording to see how much life can be sucked out of, not added to, it!
I had read some of your comments about Richard's room/system to imply that it was more suited to those recordings than the room/system you had at the show, and they concerned me as I agree with the "speaker which sounds good on rock but not on classical is a flawed speaker" principle and extend it to the whole system. I now understand that the room may have been the contributing factor here.

I don't think that anyone is getting too bothered about each of our musical preferences, but I am perceiving a lack of musical variety at the show (from all exhibitors) and wondering what that says about the present and future numbers of people who are and will be 'into hi-fi'.

[Scottmoose]

I have two rock idols. Polly Jean Harvey is one of them. But Rick Wakeman is the other (I put Robert Fripp fractionally below Rick, but not by much). Perhaps I should see a doctor.

[petercom]

The lack of variety at shows has long been the case. There have always been favourite discs of the moment that everyone plays. Can't say I've noticed much difference over the years.

[steve s]

Originally Posted by petercom

As for Richard's comments he and I did discuss the characteristics of his room which is fairly lively compared to the overdamped hotel rooms we have to put up with at shows. He also wanted to sit further away from the speakers (it's difficult to get a 'live' sound in a hotel room - simple, less energetic, musical arrangements tend to sound best).

I have probably a daft question.. the hotel room looks similar to a lounge/ home situation..but probably quite a few more people in the room.. does that mean an' overdamped hotel room' is close to a home situation / my own home situation..ie carpet & (opened) curtains?...... most hotel rooms are about the size of my lounge too ..

[petercom]

Two things you have to understand about hotel rooms and shop dem rooms. They are overstuffed with soft furnishings, wall-to-wall carpets with underlay, thick wallpaper, chairs, sofas etc, all of which suck power out of the reverberant field and they are constructed with partition walls and flimsy ceilings and floors. This type of construction leaks low bass (which is why you can hear the subwoofer that's in the AV dem room down the corridor but can't hear it in the room it's housed in) and resonates in the upper bass. Add to that the fact that the rooms are rectangular without anything to break up reflections from side walls and the room is usually full of people (AKA sound absorbers) and you can see/hear why it's so difficult to do a good dem! Relatively close miked simple recordings tend to sound best as the volume can be set to a realistic level for, say, a solo human voice and acoustic instruments and can sound stunning. Complex, DI'ed, mixes tend to sound compressed and hard because the room doesn't add any reverb so the tendency is to pump up the volume to compensate and then the equipment gets overstressed, amps go into clipping and so forth.

[steve s]

Originally Posted by petercom

Two things you have to understand about hotel rooms and shop dem rooms. They are overstuffed with soft furnishings, wall-to-wall carpets with underlay, thick wallpaper, chairs, sofas etc, all of which suck power out of the reverberant field and they are constructed with partition walls and flimsy ceilings and floors. This type of construction leaks low bass (which is why you can hear the subwoofer that's in the AV dem room down the corridor but can't hear it in the room it's housed in) and resonates in the upper bass. Add to that the fact that the rooms are rectangular without anything to break up reflections from side walls and the room is usually full of people (AKA sound absorbers) and you can see/hear why it's so difficult to do a good dem! Relatively close miked simple recordings tend to sound best as the volume can be set to a realistic level for, say, a solo human voice and acoustic instruments and can sound stunning. Complex, DI'ed, mixes tend to sound compressed and hard because the room doesn't add any reverb so the tendency is to pump up the volume to compensate and then the equipment gets overstressed, amps go into clipping and so forth.

peter thanks for the reply.. i know we all tailor our systems to suit our listening rooms.. i would hate to have, say a laminate floor for example, the echos around the room would be something else with my system.

but what you seem to be saying is that the echos or reverberations, on some recordings, add to the depth or quality of the music,

i would also suspect that the reverberations would thicken the sound somewhat.. giving it more depth.. but that's not on the source ?

again i would say that most of us have preconceptions to how the music should sound and tailor their system accordingly, rather than the view to reproduce the source as accurately as possible.
we all probably think we do the latter as well??

I'm not really trying to say anything other than we all have a different view of what makes a good system.. or should i say what makes a system good..

and lets face it all our systems are good....

sorry for going off the subject..
steve

[Greg.]

Hi Steve,

Not OT at all. Thank-you for summarising so well why we all idividually believe our systems are right, even if they turn out to be different. I'm sure I'd approve of Richard's home system as I would hope he would of mine when used in it's natuaral environment.

Best wishes,

Greg

[petercom]

Originally Posted by steve s

peter thanks for the reply.. i know we all tailor our systems to suit our listening rooms.. i would hate to have, say a laminate floor for example, the echos around the room would be something else with my system.

but what you seem to be saying is that the echos or reverberations, on some recordings, add to the depth or quality of the music,

i would also suspect that the reverberations would thicken the sound somewhat.. giving it more depth.. but that's not on the source ?

again i would say that most of us have preconceptions to how the music should sound and tailor their system accordingly, rather than the view to reproduce the source as accurately as possible.
we all probably think we do the latter as well??

steve

In the '60s the majority of homes had wood floors, the better off had parquet, with partial heavy, natural fibre carpeting and randomly scattered soft furnishings and bookshelves, china cabinets, fireplaces, alcoves, heavy curtains, wallpaper and lath and plaster ceilings. This sort of room has a variety of reflective properties and tends to sound lively but tonally very natural.
The recording industry grew up making recordings in monitoring studios that were formed out of houses with rooms like these (Abbey Road etc). The whole system worked so that microphones were placed relatively close to instruments and voices but still captured a modicum of the 'studio sound'. The rest of the 'space' around the performers was produced by reverberation in the listener's room.
One of the reasons that it works best this way is that our ear-brain combination has adaptive filtering and gain which adjusts for the timbre of the room that you are in. The speakers are expected to take the place of the instruments and/or voices so that it sounds as though they are performing in the room.
The evidence for this is that if you play binaural recordings, or recordings made with single, distant, crossed mike technique, in normal living rooms they tend to sound very 'distant' and lacking in natural power and projection even though they sound 'correct' on headphones.
Don't worry too much about the characteristics of your room as you ear/brain adjusts to the room within 2 to 3 seconds of you walking into it. What is necessary is that the reflections from walls and floor should be scattered, to a certain extent, by furniture. Bookshelves full of books or magazines are ideal for this and they can be moved around to adjust any obvious acoustic problems.
If you are wondering how well this ear-brain adaptive mechanism works just listen to someone talking as they move from one room to another, even into a bathroom. Within 2-3 seconds of entering a room your brain will adjust to the new reverberant field so that their voice still 'sounds' the same. Interestingly if you make a mono recording and move from one room to another then when this recording is played back on headphones the voice changes dramatically from room to room. If the recording is made in stereo, however, then your brain is still able to make the filtering adjustment to a certain extent. I hate mono, pan potted, pop vocals for that one reason!

[Richard]

Very interesting, thank you Peter!

A similar thing happens with our vision. We adjust to the yellow light from tungsten filaments in the room or the green from flourescents or blue from murcury vapour etc within a few moments. Outside on a bright day we don't really notice the difference of the blue light in the shadows, green reflected from trees, or warm orange of early or late sun. Take a look at an uncorrected photo though and all is revealed!

Now the interesting bit might be about how our brains might "un-compensate" for this, after a long time of analysing, instead of relaxing and being fooled. After 30 years of taking photographs I notice the different colours of light for what they are. It's obvious to me which is a North window and which is a South facing one. You'll often hear photographers wanting "open light" meaning no shade or reflected light.

I think this also happens with audio. Think back to the first time we heard decent audio and it blew us away. We had to get some. Then, gradually we become more analytical and less easily fooled or satisfied. This is a shame and perhaps it's better to simply accept it's not real and just enjoy it for what it is

This comparison continues with intensity - the stimulation isn't linear. Colour vision changes at low light levels and sound frequencies are heard differently at low sound levels.

Rich