bigshot said:

Room acoustics aren't coloration or a distortion of the response in classical music. It's part of the music.

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lunatique said:

 
That is not even relevant to the main point being discussed.
 
Simply listening to lots of acoustic music will not magically allow a newbie to be able to make critical judgment regarding the accuracy of any audio gear, nor would listening to lots of live performances. Audio memory/impressions are simply too unreliable. You need to test and measure audio gear and do critical comparison listening in controlled circumstances in order to make critical judgment. That, is the main point.

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edoardo said:

A newbie in what?

So.. Can't a musician judge the accuracy of any audio gear because he is not familiar with miking techniques or hi-end gear? It's a nonsense...



 

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edoardo said:

I can't agree.

Graphs and specs are everywhere, but I don't see many people looking for the objective-sounding system though, audiophiles especially.

I see just people looking for enjoyment. You cannot blame anyone for this. 
Fact: it seems that people who happen to move towards the most objective rigs on the paper are the ones who listen to unplugged music, attend concerts, produce music or either have direct experience with it.

No one can't convince me that real live music is not the best training because of our allegedly relatively faulty auditory memory.
Of course you need experience, direct or indirect, of the most diverse musical instruments and acoustic environments. Of course you need a basic knowledge of the different playing techniques and of their heritages, of course you need to know there are several ways to record the thing, to create a valuable opinion.

Do you need the golden ear to make any judgement on what's neutral and what's not, or to recognize a crappy recording, or to distinguish a cello from a bassoon?
Or... Can an experienced listener be biased by a guitar of a brand which sound sig he hasn't heard or he does not remember of having heard? Come on. 

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Simply listening to lots of acoustic music will not magically allow a newbie to be able to make critical judgment regarding the accuracy of any audio gear

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edoardo said:

 
A newbie in what?
 
So.. Can't a musician judge the accuracy of any audio gear because he is not familiar with miking techniques or hi-end gear? It's a nonsense...
 
 

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bigshot said:

Room acoustics aren't coloration or a distortion of the response in classical music. It's part of the music.

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lunatique said:

Simply listening to lots of acoustic music will not magically allow a newbie to be able to make critical judgment regarding the accuracy of any audio gear, nor would listening to lots of live performances.

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rexaeterna said:

playing instruments in a dead room is weird. no where for the sound to reverb. that's why i never play anything in my listening area. i mostly use it for listening to music or relaxing cause sound of silence is very nice to me. people find it uncomfortable to speak in but i like it.

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lunatique said:

The comment about newbies comes from bigshot's original comment about how newbies to audio should just listen to lots of acoustic recordings and it'll somehow make them better at judging audio accuracy/neutrality. I was addressing that comment.
 
Plenty of musicians are clueless in the subject of audio--they only focus on practicing and performing their instruments. They might have a certain developed sensitivity regarding the sound of the instruments they play, but outside of that, they are not necessarily better learned on the subject of accuracy/neutrality. That is why musicians aren't automatically mixing/mastering engineers--they'd have to learn additional skills/knowledge in order to become mixing/mastering engineers. That is also why even though today's technology allows anyone with a computer setup to use high-end audio software, and anyone can theoretically do their own mixing/mastering at home, the really serious musicians still pay for the service of mixing/mastering engineers, because those guys have superior knowledge, gear, better trained ears, and vast experience in assessing audio, as well as surgically sculpt sound. 
 
You go and ask any typical musician in-depth questions about frequency ranges and how they correspond to specific instrument sounds, and how to sculpt sound by surgically tweaking specific frequencies responsible for individual elements of a single sound--for example, the snap of a snare drum, or the click of bass drum, or the breathy element of a flute note, or the nasal aspect of a voice, and they would have no idea. But this is something a mixing/mastering engineer knows like the back of his hands. So would anyone who actually studied this subject by educating themselves on audio. The only way for a typical musician to gain the ability to properly assess accuracy/neutrality is by educating themselves on the subject like everyone else--by learning about audio frequencies, how each instrument and articulation's fundamentals and harmonics relate to particular frequencies, what a neutral pink wave sounds like, how individual frequency ranges sounds like as pure test tones, how masking works, how equal loudness contour works, and so on. 
 
Anyone who is serious about audio as a hobby or as a professional ought to educate themselves on this subject. I highly recommend this book (includes audio CD to demonstrate the lessons):
 
http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Listening-Skills-Audio-Professionals/dp/1598630237/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323839959&sr=8-1
 
As for your other comments, rroseperry already answered for me. He has the right idea of what I was talking about. 
 
 

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gregorio said:

Some interesting and generally very accurate information. I certainly agree with the proposition of aiming for transparency in a system.
I think though the use of EQ for room correction has been given undue weight. I'm reasonably knowledgeable about acoustics (having built two recording studios and a dubbing theatre) but not an expert, although I have a couple of friends who are leading experts. The general rule in professional recording studios should be used to solve 90% of the acoustic problems using construction/acoustic treatment, with EQ accounting for no more than 10%. The problem of course is with room modes and and reflections, phase cancellations are a particular problem, which no amount of EQ'ing can fix. Think of a 100Hz sine wave, the peak is say 60dB, which means the trough is -60dB, when 180deg out of phase (due a room reflection) 60dB + (-60dB) = 0dB. Let's say we raise the level of that 100Hz frequency and boost the EQ by 30dB, we now have 90dB + (-90dB) = 0dB. Now it's extremely unusual to to find a room with total phase cancellation but you get the basic idea, that EQ is of only limited benefit. Just to be clear, all rooms have room modes and in more than one plane (tangential room modes).
Room acoustics are hugely important to speakers. Once you get into the roughly $2,000+ range for speakers, room acoustics are the most important factor in determining performance. I've seen $5,000 monitors in a room with no treatment. That's like buying a F1 racing car and driving it round a dirt track, you just aren't going to get a fraction of the performance out of it in the wrong environment, you'd get better performance from a Ford Explorer! Better to buy $1,500 monitors and spend $1,500 on treating the room, you'll get better overall performance and save yourself $2,000.
Lunatique, I found your claim that your room is completely flat to within 1-2dB from 30Hz to 20kHz very difficult to believe. This puts your studio up there with the very finest studios in the world and I just can't see how you could achieve that using your construction techniques and the fact that you have reflective surfaces all over the place. Even using double shell construction, perfect ratios, no parallel surfaces, helmholtz resonators, the latest in quadratic diffusers and absorption materials, etc., etc., it would still be difficult to achieve your quoted figures. Are you sure you are measuring accurately? Here's an example of a state of the art mastering studio which might just about match the figures you have quoted for your studio:

I don't want to scare people off, the studio above is extreme and acoustics is like anything in the audio world, the law of diminishing returns and you can spend virtually unlimited amounts of money if you really want the best. But you can get amazing improvements to an untreated room for a bit of effort and relatively little money.
Hi Bigshot, long time no speak. I agree with you generally but I think you're underestimating the importance of room treatment. Of all the top studios I've ever been to or worked in, they have all, without exception, spent huge effort (and sums of money) on acoustic design. Also, I agree that 5.1 creates even more acoustical problems but the method of increasing the size of the sweet spot and reduce some problems is by using diffuser systems, IE., Splitting the load of speakers amongst several smaller speakers. This is what they do in cinemas. Have a look round next time you're in one, there won't just be two big speakers in the rear left and right of the cinema, instead there will be quite a number (depending on the size of the cinema) of smaller speakers evenly spaced around the back and sides.
Just as a by the way, here's a picture of my current studio (dubbing theatre):

G

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eyedrop said:

From the Bose website: "People enjoyed music thousands of years before speakers, amplifiers and recorded music were ever conceived. Humans have inherited a natural appreciation for live sound. You've proven this yourself if you've ever walked down the street, heard music and thought, "That sounds live."
 

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