[Whitigir]

So, with DCA announcing the ground breaking technologies. Would some scientists please enlighten me ? Wouldn’t absorbing and reflecting , delaying a frequency would be making it “altered” ? Like a drum doesn’t sound like a drum if it travel through water before it reaches your ears ? Isn’t being high end or audiophile idea is to stay as original as possible ?

 

[sander99]

Example: Standing waves can cause unwanted resonances and affect the frequency response in a negative way. So you could consider absorbing standing waves as avoiding alterations rather than causing them.

 

[bigshot]

And if it was desirable to have no absorption or reflection of sound, the ideal listening room would be an anechoic chamber. But that is a lousy place to listen to music. With speaker systems, sound is intended to inhabit space and interact in a positive way with the room. As sander99 says, some resonances are bad, you want to absorb them. And some are good. They provide spatial cues to give the sound placement, size and space.

In the electronic domain, you want to maintain fidelity to the signal. But when you enter the acoustic domain, a different set of rules apply.

 

[Whitigir]

What about an infinite open space and just a speaker toward you ?
Isn’t the recorded music are already the reflecting of it own environment such as a concert within a concert halls and it related factors …etc ? So, if you want to recreate it as close as the original signal, then all you need is a device that is capable of the human hearing ranges of 20-20Khz and no additional factors that can further alternate it ?
But we all know that there is no perfections, so a speaker driver can not by itself recreate the whole dynamic range together with frequencies range accurately, so we cheated a little bit by enclosing it and somewhat trying to mimic the acoustic effects from the concert halls for example. But then, we have to do it as minimal as possible. Then that means open back headphones rather than closed back, and minimal usage of acoustic chamber designs rather than using Meta acoustic materials that look like a beehive as it would alternate the original wave form too much ?
Hmmm…. One thing for sure is that I wouldn’t want to listen to music while submerging myself in the bathtub

 

[bigshot]

Albums aren't mixed in a vacuum. When an album is mixed, it's monitored in an acoustically favorable room, not an anechoic chamber. The acoustics of your listening room are 100% real, so it gets the sound started in a natural space. If the creators intend for it to sound like a hall, they wrap that envelope of delay around the sound. But your listening room is the starting point. If you want it to sound the way the artists and engineers heard it, you set up an acoustically favorable room in your home.

If something is specifically mixed for headphones (which is pretty rare) it might not assume the effect of the room. But then you would want to create a realistic ambience artificially, which is a lot harder to do when the transducers are strapped to your ears. Sound needs space to inhabit. The room makes it feel dimensional and helps the sound to bloom.

 

[gregorio]

[1] Isn’t the recorded music are already the reflecting of it own environment such as a concert within a concert halls and it related factors …etc ? [2] So, if you want to recreate it as close as the original signal, then all you need is a device that is capable of the human hearing ranges of 20-20Khz and no additional factors that can further alternate it ?

1. Not entirely no. The recording has to be mixed and mastered, which means reproducing it on speakers in a room and that means all the subjective decisions are taken in the presence of that room's acoustics.

2. No, you don't want to recreate the original signal on the recording, you want to recreate the original signal that arrived at the listening position after it was reproduced by speakers (in a room), which means that you too need speakers in a room. In other words, you want a speaker system in a room to alter the signal on the recordings so that it sounds like speakers in a room. It's no coincidence that mixing and mastering studios are roughly sitting room sized.

What about an infinite open space and just a speaker toward you ?

Of course an infinite open space does not have a floor or any noise isolation and so is not possible in practical, which is why anechoic chambers were invented. A perfect anechoic chamber would absorb all sound reflections and effectively be an infinite open space. Going back to point 2 above, you would want a system like that if the majority of consumers all listened to music recordings in their own anechoic chambers because music would be mixed and mastered in anechoic chambers to cater to the majority of listeners.

Wouldn’t absorbing and reflecting , delaying a frequency would be making it “altered” ?

Yes but we can't avoid that if we're mixing, mastering or listening at home on speakers. The reason we want to control reflections, is because they are always all over the place. There are reflections from all the walls, floor and ceiling as well as from furniture that interact with the direct signal and alter it, so we want to absorb the most problematic ones but we don't want to turn the room into an anechoic chamber so we need to "diffuse" many of the others. This hopefully results in a decay time roughly equivalent to a sitting room but with a reasonably flat response, EG. No huge spikes and dips (which will always occur in an untreated room).

G

 

[lantian]

These things are meant for real life room treatment. Headphones are designed with perfect room in front of your ear. While speakers are mostly designed and tested in anechoic chamber. Which means that our rooms ar etotaly destroying their sonics with all the reflections and obsorbsions, resonances etc. Speakers alone would be perfect Ina anechoing chamber or free field outside. Otherwise you are actually listening to your room more than speakers themselves.
Room treatment is a very well acknowledged and works actual miracles with our speakers.
That's is the reason a lot of audiophiles prefer headphones, me included, like any totl headphone is more in line with a totl set of speakers in anechoing chambre/perfect room. No living room or bedroom can offer that.

 

[71 dB]

The best result is given by having good speakers places well in a room that has good treatment of acoustics, but this issue is nyanced and complex.

If the amount of audio channels approached infinity (meaning the listener was completely surrounded by speakers, anechoic chamber-like acoustics would be beneficial, but obviously near impossible. Stereo speakers "need" (controlled) room acoustics, because there are only two sound sources pretending sound to originate everywhere. In anechoic chamber it is possible to process the sound with HRTF and cross-talk canceling to make any kind of spatial impressions, but it requires that the listener's head is being kept still, which of course is very uncomfortable.

The most important role of room acoustics is to provide diffuse soundfield. Common problems are:

1) Room modes at low frequencies (below 200 Hz)
2) Bad early reflections ruining spatial cues of the recording.
3) Too long reverberation time
4) Less than optimal placement of speakers/listening point.

Speakers are designed and tested in anechoic chambers, but the engineers need to know to take this into account and know how listening room acoustics change sonic balance. For typical speaker designs this means: The free field response at the axis of the drivers should be raising a few decibels from the low frequencies to the high frequencies. The power response (all acoustic power radiated to all directions) should drop slowly and evenly from low frequencies to the high frequencies. To achieve this, crossover frequencies are crucial, especially the directivity of the driver elements should match as well as possible at crossover frequencies to ensure smooth transition of directivity making it possible to have smooth free field response and power responses. In a room these are combined acoustically resulting flat response in optimal situations. If the room reverberation is too long, the power response dominated giving darker, muddy sound. If the room reverberation isn't long enough, the free field response dominates giving bring and sharp sound. Adjusting the size of the listening triangle can be used to correct these issues, or the room acoustics can be modified. For near field monitoring in a "studio" with heavy acoustic treatment it is wise to select speakers with very flat free field response. In a living room with longer reverberation time it is better to have speakers with raising free field response. All of this is because with typical speaker designs the directivity increases with frequency. For other types of speaker designs it is a little different.

 

[Whitigir]

These things are meant for real life room treatment. Headphones are designed with perfect room in front of your ear. While speakers are mostly designed and tested in anechoic chamber. Which means that our rooms ar etotaly destroying their sonics with all the reflections and obsorbsions, resonances etc. Speakers alone would be perfect Ina anechoing chamber or free field outside. Otherwise you are actually listening to your room more than speakers themselves.
Room treatment is a very well acknowledged and works actual miracles with our speakers.
That's is the reason a lot of audiophiles prefer headphones, me included, like any totl headphone is more in line with a totl set of speakers in anechoing chambre/perfect room. No living room or bedroom can offer that.

That is very well said. Even if closed back headphones, a good one will always have a much more details and finesses than a typical speakers. The only thing speakers have is the vast soundscape and that punches feelings. However, a high end headphones will always offer more, the vibrations and dynamic won’t be felt with your body but with your earlobes.

 

[castleofargh]

These things are meant for real life room treatment. Headphones are designed with perfect room in front of your ear. While speakers are mostly designed and tested in anechoic chamber. Which means that our rooms ar etotaly destroying their sonics with all the reflections and obsorbsions, resonances etc. Speakers alone would be perfect Ina anechoing chamber or free field outside. Otherwise you are actually listening to your room more than speakers themselves.
Room treatment is a very well acknowledged and works actual miracles with our speakers.
That's is the reason a lot of audiophiles prefer headphones, me included, like any totl headphone is more in line with a totl set of speakers in anechoing chambre/perfect room. No living room or bedroom can offer that.

Your reasoning seems consistent with hating reverb and not caring much about imaging.
My reason to use headphones at home is other people not being happy when I use speakers. And my solution of choice is the Realiser A16 so I can still get the most of speaker sound while using headphones.

 

[bigshot]

These things are meant for real life room treatment. Headphones are designed with perfect room in front of your ear. While speakers are mostly designed and tested in anechoic chamber. Which means that our rooms ar etotaly destroying their sonics with all the reflections and obsorbsions, resonances etc.

Headphones don't have a "perfect room". They have no room at all. You are injecting sound directly into your ears.

Room reflections and timing effects are how we perceive depth in sound. Headphones sound clearer because the sound is flattened out into a straight line of sound through the center of your skull. Yes, you can hear it more clearly because it is flat and direct, but that isn't how the recording is meant to be heard, and it isn't how we hear sound in real life. Studio engineers monitor mixes in a room, not with headphones. When a friend picks up a guitar and plays a song for you, it sounds great *because* of the room. You can perceive the distance the sound of the guitar is from you. You can hear the bloom of the sound as it fills the room and reflects back at you. The room turns one dimensional headphone sound into a three dimensional sound field.

People who don't have speaker systems have the idea that the purpose of room treatment is to eliminate all reflections. But that isn't the purpose of room treatment. We install traps and absorption panels to eliminate *BAD* reflections. Bad reflections interfere with the frequency response and create cancellation of sound. Yes, you want to eliminate that. But you don't want to eliminate the reflections that gives sound depth and dimension. Those are the things that create a realistic aural image... which is a different kind of detail than the flat directness of headphones.

When we hear sound in the real world, it isn't piped directly into our ears. It inhabits the space around us. Speakers can do that. Headphones can't without complex digital processing.

Headphone people get all worked up defending their right to use headphones. In many circumstances, headphones are a much better choice than speakers. Headphones have great isolation, so your music won't disturb people around you. They are much less expensive than speakers, and they don't require a dedicated listening room. Headphones are portable so your music can go with you wherever you go. All those things are great benefits. Speakers can't do any of those things. But speakers can create dimensional sound and bass you can feel in your body. Headphones can't do that. The reflections in the room are a big part of that. The room is just as important as the speakers to the sound.

 

[Whitigir]

So does speakers people ? Defending their own rights

Recorded music, especially orchestra, are all performed in the halls, everything related to the performances are captured. So, without the additional reverbs and echos, time delays and so on, that is the original performances. Sadly, speakers just can’t do that without being complex by itself, using multiple drivers, crossover, cabinets, dampening and room treatments.

Remember, the original recordings is meant to be heard without additional effects

It doesn’t matter how the engineers are mixing it. Unless you are saying that they mixed it in the A room, and in order for you to listen to what they listened while mixing, then you should also set up the very same A room, otherwise, your performances from the speakers are not the original as intended by either the artists nor the engineers

Therefore, headphones, without anything reflected and reverberated artificially to color up the result, is the real way to listen to music. I have speakers too, and no, I never get the imaginings the engaging presentations as the headphones. I do get stereos, large soundscape and staging with punching dynamic that I can feel, and that is about what speakers can do for me.

This is also the reason why closed back headphones can not compete to opened back

 

[bigshot]

I don't think you understand what I'm talking about. You can't record hall resonance in stereo and have it create a dimensional sound field. The room is just as important as the speakers in creating the image of the soundstage. With a real room, you have the primary depth cues that tell you that the source of the soundstage is a distance in front of you, because the speakers are ten feet in front of you physically. And you have enveloping reflective sound all around you creating a feeling of space because the sound is bouncing off the walls on either side and behind you. That is a three dimensional sound field. Headphones can't do that, even with recorded hall ambiences.

The original recording is intended to be heard IN A ROOM. Professional mixing stages aren't anechoic chambers. They are optimized to create a calibrated, consistent sound that uses reflected sound to create a dimensional sound field. When you play back a recording on your well designed speaker system in your living room, you are hearing what the people who created the album heard. They balanced the levels and created the mix to suit speakers, not headphones.

Yes, you should set up your room to match the parameters of a mixing stage as closely as possible. That means positioning your speakers and listening position in the standard triangle setup, calibrating your response to as close to a balanced curve as possible, and doing room treatment where necessary to eliminate major acoustic problems. It doesn't have to be the very same room. It just has to be a room with the same characteristics. That is an achievable goal, as anyone with a decent speaker setup will attest.

Even a humble speaker system has an enveloping, dimensional sound that headphones can't accomplish without a Smyth Realiser. And even cheap headphones will keep the neighbors from pounding on the walls telling you to turn down the volume better than a speaker system. There is no one kind of system. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

 

[redrol]

. You can't record hall resonance in stereo and have it create a dimensional sound field.

 

[lantian]

So does speakers people ? Defending their own rights

Recorded music, especially orchestra, are all performed in the halls, everything related to the performances are captured. So, without the additional reverbs and echos, time delays and so on, that is the original performances. Sadly, speakers just can’t do that without being complex by itself, using multiple drivers, crossover, cabinets, dampening and room treatments.

Remember, the original recordings is meant to be heard without additional effects

It doesn’t matter how the engineers are mixing it. Unless you are saying that they mixed it in the A room, and in order for you to listen to what they listened while mixing, then you should also set up the very same A room, otherwise, your performances from the speakers are not the original as intended by either the artists nor the engineers

Therefore, headphones, without anything reflected and reverberated artificially to color up the result, is the real way to listen to music. I have speakers too, and no, I never get the imaginings the engaging presentations as the headphones. I do get stereos, large soundscape and staging with punching dynamic that I can feel, and that is about what speakers can do for me.

This is also the reason why closed back headphones can not compete to opened back

Agreed, with my headphones imaging is far beyond my speakers, not even close. Never have heard any speakers come close to this super precise placement, layering and imaging or speed. While I'll agree speakers do have more punch, but they also sound heavier sound all across if that makes sense. I Use headphones all the time for their superior sound quality and only go to speakers if I have company.