Why is there so much hostility on this board lately?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

What little effect the acoustics of a live performance in a concert hall gets into any recording is hardly reproduced in anything like the way you experience it live..

I hope this is not a global statement, and one specific to a particular recording or this statement is not sound. We hear binaurally. If you record binaurally you will experience the acoustics of the concert hall with a great deal of accuracy. If you record in 5.1, then it depends highly on how many microphones are used, there placement, and how well the mix is done.

Because reverberation falls off more rapidly at high frequencies the tone of musical instruments is mellower but still retains the sharp transient attack that gives it clarity. Clearer and mellower at the same time is a seeming contradicton to someone whose experience is limited to the reproduction of sound with today's technology but that is the enhancement to tonality you get from a concert hall...

The first part of you paragraph is true and false. HIgh frequencies are effected by reverberation. The farther you are from the source, the more reverberation is heard, the more the high frequencies are rolled off. However, the more the high frequencies are rolled off, the more blunted the transient attack is, and the less clarity is heard. Clearer and mellower is a contradiction, and therefore is NOT what is heard. Since reverberation is a series of reflections that are heard after the original signal, the longer the reverberation time, the less clear the source will sound. That is why engineers do not place their primary pickup systems in the audience, but right on stage with the musicians.

Because the reverberant components are associated in your brain with the direct wave, and because the total energy of the sound of each musical note by each instrument is the area under a curve, not the initial amplitude of the sound, the perceived power of musical instruments as opposed to their loudness is very different. A pipe organ playing softly filling the acoustical space of a large church seems much more powerful to our brain than a recording of the same organ minus the reverberation played through a speaker at the same loudness or even at greater loudness at home.

Much of what you are saying here is jibberish, and the second part is totally incorrect. A organ recording minus its location reverberation entails placing the microphones CLOSER to the source. This will indeed make the source LOUDER and more POWERFUL to the ears. A organ playing softly with all of its location reverberation recorded will sound distant, and less powerful because much of the high frequency component will be rolled off, which alters the freuqncy response of the organ. If you replay the recording minus the reverberation through a speaker it will sound more powerful than the on location with the reverberation because the source is now in the near field(the speaker), closer, and the ear perceives it as louder(Haas precedent effect)

The ability of a great tenor to fill up the acoustical space of an opera house without amplification really separates the men from the boys when it comes to the quality of the human voice.

Not really sure where you are going with this, or how it relates to what you have typed before it. ???

The power of a symphony orchestra is totally lost in a recording where there is little or none of the reverberaton you'd hear at a live performance..

[b]This is not true at all(where do these people get this stuff???) The frequency response and timbre will be different, but the amplitude will be percieved as louder because the microphones would have to be closer to the source to elimate the venue's reverberation. Reverberation does not add amplitude, nor is it equated to greater power. Reverberation becomes dominate the further you move from the source. As you travel farther from the source, the reverberation increases, but the amplitude of the direct signal decreases(which denotes a loss of power). When combined with the roll off of high frequencies, the source is percieve as losing MORE power.[\b]

Perhaps this is why audiophiles tend to play their sound systems so loud. It compensates for the relatively feeble power of the sound these instruments make at normal listening levels given the acoustics of home listening rooms...

I am really scratching my bald head on this one. I think most audiophiles play their systems loud so they can hear inner detail over the background noises that are found in the typical house. If what you assert is true, then what they say about the mighty Klipschorn speakers is a lie. Since I have three of the speakers myself, I can attest that NOTHING that comes out of that speaker is feeble.

The arrival of late reflections of one note at a live performance at the same time as the direct sound or early reflections of subsequent musical notes at the listener's ear creates harmonies and dissonances missing in recordings where the reverberation is minimal or absent. .

All of this is wrong. Reflections do not create harmonies(harmonics?) or dissonances. These come from the instruments directly as a result of individual notes, or mulitple notes being played simultaneously. Reflections alter the timbre and frequency response of the direct signal.

Composer use reverberation and musicians adjust for acoustics of different spaces in the way they perform. One technique common in much serious music is the buildup to a crecendo often by a 100 piece orchestra, or a 300 voice chorus, or a pipe organ and then a sudden pause while the reverberation dies out. This period of time creates the tension and excitement of the next note which follows. .

There some problems with this statement. Different venues have different reverberation decay times. These times will be perceived differently by each perfomer based on where they are located in relationship to the walls of the venue. You would also have to distinguish between high frequency decay, and low frequency decay(which is
always longer) Composers know that writing in decay times into the piece is a silly proposition at best. Too many variables to make it effective.

Without this reverberation and dying out, the time interval where there is little or no sound becomes a musical discontinuity completely destroying the effect the composer and musicians were looking for..

Can you name a specific song or composer who writes reverberation decay into their score? I have been recording music and film scores for about 20 years, and quite frankly I have never heard of such a thing.

There are many others but I think that this is sufficient to explain why IMO, the best state of the art sound systems today cannot even come close to reproducing what I consider the only music justifying the time, effort, and cost to develop the best technology to reproduce it. What you get instead is a pale facsimile which may explain why so few people like it. It also explains why IMO, the cost and effort to reproduce the last 5% of the 5% or 10% or 11% of the music that actually made it on to the recording is so rediculous. Meanwhile the other 90% or 95% of the music that is missing is ignored.

Skeptic, what are you saying here?? I am dazed and confused buddy

[skeptic]

I've given you a lot of new ideas to think about. You won't find any of it in a book. These are original concepts. As difficult as it was to understand how to reconstruct reverberant sound fields, it was much harder to understand why to reconstruct them. Your flip response shows that you have not given any of it any real thought. Mull over it and come back in a few months. Perhaps a light or two will flicker on.

[Tony_Montana]

Doc,

Just as sure as I am a brown skin, green eyed, bald headed, muscled jock rican from New York city, these guys are going to skip over these comments and continue to bicker amoungst themselves about a piece of wire.

Well, I didn't skip over your comment and it is worth repeating. You said:"These discussion IMO would have far more credibility especially amoung the yeasayers if I knew that 100% of the acoustical problems in their rooms were conquered before they made any claim to hearing the differences between cables. Without proof positive of this, then I cannot go along with the yeasayers.

Experience has taught me that the average listening room has room related resonances that are between 4-20db loud, do you really think that you can hear cable differences over that?"

That just show how unimportant wires are when considering other aspects of HT setup

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I've given you a lot of new ideas to think about. You won't find any of it in a book. These are original concepts. As difficult as it was to understand how to reconstruct reverberant sound fields, it was much harder to understand why to reconstruct them. Your flip response shows that you have not given any of it any real thought. Mull over it and come back in a few months. Perhaps a light or two will flicker on.

There are no new idea's here, just a bunch of senseless jibber that doesn't square with anything that has been researched or taught. If this was so cutting edge you wouldn't be sitting here typing about it, you would be out putting your ideas into action. Jack Renner, John Eargle, Shawn Murphy and every other great engineer would be out of business instantly.

Based on the fact that I was able to rebut all of this foolishness should show you that a no real thought is needed for this junk. You are just trying to sound well versed in a subject that apparently you have no knowledge of. The uneducated would probably be impressed at your long winded bunch of nonsense, but for those of us who have studied acoustics know hot air when we read it. Perhaps you should come back in a few months when the effects of the mushrooms you have consumed have worn off

[skeptic]

Then the one thing we can agree on is that we have nothing further to say to each other on this subject.

[E-Stat]

There are no new idea's here, just a bunch of senseless jibber that doesn't square with anything that has been researched or taught.

You just don't understand. You see, skep worked out all the physics and math thirty years ago.

Expensive Cables? I must resist!

If this was so cutting edge you wouldn't be sitting here typing about it, you would be out putting your ideas into action. Jack Renner, John Eargle, Shawn Murphy and every other great engineer would be out of business instantly.

Even though the magic was put before these mortal fools, none could possibly understand the genius behind the work.

rw

[mtrycraft]

I look for every opportunity to correct your mistakes. I have great hopes that you will someday learn something from your exchanges here just as PCTower did. His views are very different now than they were when he first started posting on this BB and I expect you too will gain from reading opinions that don't agree with your preconceived notions too. I consider it missionary work. I'm sure others like Woodman, Mtrycraft, Monstrous Mike, Bruce and other with experience and advanced knowledge do too. I'm merely giving back to society in gratitude for having had the opportunity to learn so much.
While you may find this hard to understand, so did PCTower at first and for a long time. But with persistance, he has gained a lot and I think you eventually will too.

You are expecting the impossibility. PCTower wanted to expand his knowledge base, to lear. Estat knows it all already.

[Richard Greene]

Someone wrote, and I don't even remember who at this point:
"What little effect the acoustics of a live performance in a concert hall gets into any recording is hardly reproduced in anything like the way you experience it live."

RG
In the old days the seats I could afford for a live performance were so far back the sound was pure mono by the time it reached my ears ... but with today's ultra-high ticket prices, we're forced to sit so far away "in the bleachers" that the performance is just a rumor -- the sound never reaches us at all.

Heard Aretha Franklin live a few weeks ago with her excellent band -- TT would have fit in
perfectly on B3

Will hear Al Green live this Sunday night.

There's no doubt I can't reproduce the sound I hear in the Detroit Music Hall at home,
however I can reproduce Aretha and Al in their prime (1960's and 1970's, respectively)
at home simply by playing my Rhino and DCC Gold CD's ... and listening to whatever reverberation the recording engineer put in the recording + whatever my room adds.

So what if it doesn't exactly sound like the Music Hall on my two-channel system?

I'll still enjoy the music and the wife will be dancing in the living room ... however if the
wife starts "singing" I'll have to put her outside until the song is over.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Then the one thing we can agree on is that we have nothing further to say to each other on this subject.

My guess here is that you have nothing further to offer. I am surprised, with such pure genious at work, you would think you could fully explain these cutting edge ideas you have and enlighten us mere mortals. Most "pioneers" in their field would be eager to explain how they have arrived at their conclusions, why are you so reluctant? Come on Skeptic, share your info.

Doc,
I am green with envy. But do you have to keep sticking your thumb in my eye about all of these great concerts you attend? Geez!!!

[skeptic]

I will give you just one thought to dwell on. Since this is new to you, give it some time. I don't think you will find it in any book. This has to do with perceptions, not measurements.

When you hear an orchestra play a note at 100 db in a concert hall and it sounds like it is coming from 40 feet away, and that note takes 4 seconds to die out because the sound is filling a 400,000 cubic foot room, your brain concludes that it is a very powerful source of sound.

When you hear a recording of that same orchestra playing the same note at 100 db from speakers in your home and it sounds like it is 8 feet away, and that note takes about 1/2 second to die out when it is only filling a 4000 cubic foot room, your brain concludes that it is a far less powerful source of sound.

No speaker, no sound system, no cable, no matter how accurate in the sense we are accostomed to judging it by, can overcome that vast difference. The primitive technology we use to record and reproduce sound has omitted over 95% of what was heard in the live experience. And NO, binaural recordng is not a satisfactory means of recovering that difference for the reason I already explained.

Come back in six months and if you begin to see the validity of this conclusion, perhaps I will discuss some of the others I presented you with that you were so quick to dismiss as jibberish.

[E-Stat]

When you hear an orchestra play a note at 100 db in a concert hall and it sounds like it is coming from 40 feet away, and that note takes 4 seconds to die out because the sound is filling a 400,000 cubic foot room, your brain concludes that it is a very powerful source of sound.

I will certainly agree that I find nothing that approaches the sheer natural power of a full symphony with chorus playing a piece like Orff's Carmina Burana. The last time I heard it at the ASO, I was in the main orchestra section about row G. (I normally prefer the loge). The final parts of the "Empress of the World" movement are guaranteed to raise the hairs on your arm with such sudden and explosive level changes. Very emotional.

No speaker, no sound system, no cable, no matter how accurate in the sense we are accostomed to judging it by, can overcome that vast difference.

While I certainly don't hold my system as any landmark, I have heard one particular system at length that bridges the gap more than 5%, IMHO. It can swing massive and instantaneous amounts of acoustic energy in an apparent space much larger than the boundaries of the room in which it is found. I think that is the key to why hearing it is so compelling. The walls of the room disappear into a much larger space. While most folks consider a 2 kw system (very nice watts at that) utter overkill, it is absolutely necessary to deal with demanding program material.

rw

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I will give you just one thought to dwell on. Since this is new to you, give it some time. I don't think you will find it in any book. This has to do with perceptions, not measurements.

When you hear an orchestra play a note at 100 db in a concert hall and it sounds like it is coming from 40 feet away, and that note takes 4 seconds to die out because the sound is filling a 400,000 cubic foot room, your brain concludes that it is a very powerful source of sound.

When you hear a recording of that same orchestra playing the same note at 100 db from speakers in your home and it sounds like it is 8 feet away, and that note takes about 1/2 second to die out when it is only filling a 4000 cubic foot room, your brain concludes that it is a far less powerful source of sound.

No speaker, no sound system, no cable, no matter how accurate in the sense we are accostomed to judging it by, can overcome that vast difference. The primitive technology we use to record and reproduce sound has omitted over 95% of what was heard in the live experience. And NO, binaural recordng is not a satisfactory means of recovering that difference for the reason I already explained.

Come back in six months and if you begin to see the validity of this conclusion, perhaps I will discuss some of the others I presented you with that you were so quick to dismiss as jibberish.

One problem Skeptic, there is no validity to this conclusion. None, 0, nada. This conclusion runs completely counter to what has been understood regarding acoustics for at least a decade.

hen you hear an orchestra play a note at 100 db in a concert hall and it sounds like it is coming from 40 feet away, and that note takes 4 seconds to die out because the sound is filling a 400,000 cubic foot room, your brain concludes that it is a very powerful source of sound..

This is a completely relative conclusion. Where is the 100db measurement taken? At what frequency? From directly on stage, 3rd row, back of the hall??? At exactly 40ft?? Secondly, you are once again equating reverberation with increased amplitude, and that does not square with what has been measured and studied over the years. After the sound has reflected throughout the space, it is down in amplitude by the time it reaches our ears. As the distance of the source is doubled, it loses approximately 6db of amplitude. It doesn't make a difference whether that sound is traveling from the front wall to your ears, side wall to your ears, back wall to your ears, or from the ceiling to your ears. That is a fact.

When you hear a recording of that same orchestra playing the same note at 100 db from speakers in your home and it sounds like it is 8 feet away, and that note takes about 1/2 second to die out when it is only filling a 4000 cubic foot room, your brain concludes that it is a far less powerful source of sound...

Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! The sound in the concert hall may be bigger sounding, but not louder. In this case because you are in the near field(in comparison to the far field in your concert hall example ) the sound will be louder to the ear, not less powerful. Do you understand the concept of far field vs near field listening? In your home you are closer to your speakers, and have very little reverberation versus sitting in a concert hall. If you were to take acutal measurement in both of your examples, you would find the home example with a flatter frequency response, with more extended high frequency information. That is because the air absorption in a smaller room is FAR less a factor than it is in a concert hall. You are also not considering the surface absorption, reflections, diffusion, abfusion and several other key equations in your conclusions

No speaker, no sound system, no cable, no matter how accurate in the sense we are accostomed to judging it by, can overcome that vast difference. The primitive technology we use to record and reproduce sound has omitted over 95% of what was heard in the live experience. And NO, binaural recordng is not a satisfactory means of recovering that difference for the reason I already explained.

Skeptic, part of you problem lies in the fact that you do not have a good footing in basic acoustics 101. Without a foudation based on known facts, every conclusion you make comes up with a false result. What factual measured basis did you come to achieve this 95% omitted claim?(which is just not true)

Binaural hearing + binaural recording= no spatial loss reproduction. Since binaural recording is based on our binaural hearing, if well done you have a VERY close simulation of exactly what is heard in the concert hall.

[skeptic]

The nice thing about hitting your head against a brick wall is that it feels so good when you stop.

That's it! I quit. You win.

[Tony_Montana]

Don't feel so bad Skep. At least you gave it a good try. The main thing is to learn from each other, and then move on