[purrin]

Quote:

Right, energy in lower midrange and the "cloud", forgot the "cloud".

Refer to the chart CEETEE posted and properly educate yourself.
 

 

[Silent One]

Quote:

Which part of the frequency range does not concern you?
 

First off, we need to be able to refer to the same things when we say "midrange".  And that takes some care and study.  If we aren't all speaking of the same "midrange" we should just speak about the numerical frequency region.
 


 
Secondly, how can you be sure you don't need the frequencies that you think that you don't need?
 
 
When my engineer friend and I talk about treble, he once told me to think of transients as having "infinite high frequencies" and that capturing live drums in a room is about the hardest thing to do and and so very disappointing to not be able to fully reproduce...then he hit a cymbal in front of me.
 
Another thing he thought about and shared with me recently (said he did the math a long time ago):  he wonders if the very high frequencies might affect "soundstage/headstage/imaging".  He said that experiments show we have the ability to locate/sense changes in sound location (in the horizontal plane) by about 1 degree.  He thought the math would require a sensitivity of about 28kHz to do that.  He doesn't hear that high either but still wonders if we can sense it...
 
So, it's all kind of important to me these days.

Enjoyed the exhibit and commentary in this post!

 

 

[thune]

Purrin,
 
Well, looking deeper just makes my point. The ranges that you specified, and the ranges that you affirmed by LFF so fundamentally different as to be different languages.
These terms are essentially meaningless. And just because a person comes from one school as opposed to another regarding these definitions does not make them uneducated. (There is NO agreed standard). Your certitude of your personal definitions reveals more than my reasonable disagreement.
Quote:

 
For audio engineers, it's matter of breaking down the bands into something that can usefully communicated. Saying the treble is 1.2k upward. That's five entire octaves!
 

 30 60 bass 125 250 500 midrange 1000 2000 4000 treble 8000 16000

 

Quote:

Within the mastering industry, this is what is used for EQ points:
 
Sub Bass: 20 Hz and below
Low Bass: 40 Hz
Mid Bass: 80 Hz
Lower Cloud: 150 Hz
Upper Cloud: 250 Hz
 
Lower Mid: 1,000 Hz
Mid: 3,400 Hz
Upper Mid: 6,000 Hz
 
Lower Treble: 8,000 Hz
Top: 10,000 Hz
Air: 14,000 Hz
 
This is what I have been using for over 11 years now and I know of other famous engineers who use the same definitions who have been using it for 30 years or more. I am sure many of you have their work in your collection.
 
Now, if Robert Harley wants to come out and change those definitions for the sake of selling books and magazines, then that is fine. It doesn't make him right. It's up to you who you want to believe and/or trust. Then again...do you really want to believe a man who argues against objective tests/listening/results?

 

 

[purrin]

 
Quote:

Purrin,
 
Well, looking deeper just makes my point. The ranges that you specified, and the ranges that you affirmed by LFF so fundamentally different as to be different languages.
These terms are essentially meaningless. And just because a person comes from one school as opposed to another regarding these definitions does not make them uneducated. (There is NO agreed standard). Your certitude of your personal definitions reveals more than my reasonable disagreement.
 

 
The thing I slapped on there was for illustrative purposes showing octave ranges. Where I differ most from LFF is with with the midrange, which he considers about an octave higher than I do. Still we have no problem communicating. He actually comes over to my place (we are friends) and I measure headphones for him. We regularly say things like "upper mids too much" or "not enough air". Basically we understand each other. As I had indicated, there are always personal variances, but the Bob Katz stuff generally stands as the guide to those in the audio profession. Stereophile for some odd reason says the treble starts at 1300Hz (which is a good two to three octaves from LFF or my definitions.) This is obviously an incompatible and unbridgeable gap to either me or LFF.
 
You are free to myopically examine and deconstruct my position by selectively taking portions of what I have said that suit your argument, but then you missed the entire point of what CEETEE, LFF, and I have been trying to make.
 
Finally you still haven't educated yourself: your claim that most "musical energy" resided in the "low-midrange" and possibly "cloud" region is completely erroneous. Again take a look at what CEETEE posted. You will realize that the fundamentals (and we are not even talking about the critical harmonics) of voice and instruments covers an extremely wide range.
 

 

[LFF]

I could simply say to stop spewing bs out of your @sses but I will address each point individually.....
Quote:

 
 
I don't think it's misinforming either. It is very common in a lot of fields that the consumer's end and professionals do not share same standard or terminology, and in audio field the consumer's end includes musicians as well. I guess from the engineer's prospective, it is more about how materials make sound when defining the frequency range, where in audiophiles and musicians' end, it its more about how we hear and how sound is produced by instruments and vocal.

 
It is misinformation because it is plain wrong. Any person who has taken a pro audio class or a physics class about sound will confirm that the frequency ranges (ie, 3.5kHz) and their common terminology (midrange) I posted are correct. Harley is wrong....no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's totally not about how materials make sound....it's science. The reasons audiophiles and musicians use other terminology is 1) they are not educated enough and/or 2) they refuse to be educated. 

 
Quote:

 It is IMO only make sense to use different standard in this case, since a big part of the frequency ranges in professional's terminology do not hardly concern us.

As professional engineers we know every part of the frequency range concerns you. That's a lot more than any other profession in the audio industry. I have seen many a mastering engineer obsess over how a leather skin drum sounds as opposed to a plastic drum and making every effort to convey the particulars of that sound to a listener. I have spent many hours tweaking the treble and air frequencies to match edits so that they sound exactly the same so that the listener will not be able to detect a single edit. Our goal is to make sure that what you hear will be as transparent as possible so that all that exists in the end is you and the music. The less our role is perceived by you, the better. 
 
What do certain people/companies do? Severely roll off treble past 10kHz to make it sound more pleasing....add in distortion to fool you into thinking their gear is more musical...provide doctored graphs to help sell equipment....invent new definitions for selling books/magazines/gear.....hmmm....who has better intentions?
 

 
Quote:

Lumping the whole range where most musical energy exists into "lower midrange" makes the description fairly useless. I prefer the Harley/Stereophile definitions for dividing the range into more useful chunks. But for clarity, actual frequency ranges should always be specified, at least until such definitions are actually standardized.

Hmmm....how about we lump all diseases into one big category. They all make us sick so why bother with descriptions? Sick is sick....right?
 
The reasons the frequency range was divided in such a way by audio engineers was to make it useful! The point a lot of you are missing is that such definitions have already been standardized. Just because the general audiophile population isn't intimately familiar with these standardized categories doesn't make them obsolete or useless. 

Perhaps what you people need is to cancel your subscription to Stereophile, suspend your subjective beliefs and pick up an actual book on audio and properly inform yourselves before posting such ridiculous nonsense. Here is a great list of books I highly recommend you all read.
 
Go ahead and get pissed off at me now....in the end, when you read these books and understand the objective and scientific aspects of audio...you'll thank me and the scientific community who helped provide such useful and trustworthy information.

 

[purrin]

Next time I see Robert Harley, I'm ripping his nuts off.

 

[CEE TEE]

Wow, the more I read into the Bob Katz book, the more I wonder why it isn't the cheapest way to upgrade ourselves (and then our systems)...in fact, I'm gonna go read some more.
 
Then, when I do have a chance to hear the LCD-3 I will be able to discuss it further.  I liked one pair of LCD-2 r2 that I have heard, I'm trying to set-up a small meet in a few weeks to compare this pair with some LCD-3.
 
Quote:

I could simply say to stop spewing bs out of your @sses but I will address each point individually.....
 
It is misinformation because it is plain wrong. Any person who has taken a pro audio class or a physics class about sound will confirm that the frequency ranges (ie, 3.5kHz) and their common terminology (midrange) I posted are correct. Harley is wrong....no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's totally not about how materials make sound....it's science. The reasons audiophiles and musicians use other terminology is 1) they are not educated enough and/or 2) they refuse to be educated. 

As professional engineers we know every part of the frequency range concerns you. That's a lot more than any other profession in the audio industry. I have seen many a mastering engineer obsess over how a leather skin drum sounds as opposed to a plastic drum and making every effort to convey the particulars of that sound to a listener. I have spent many hours tweaking the treble and air frequencies to match edits so that they sound exactly the same so that the listener will not be able to detect a single edit. Our goal is to make sure that what you hear will be as transparent as possible so that all that exists in the end is you and the music. The less our role is perceived by you, the better. 
 
What do certain people/companies do? Severely roll off treble past 10kHz to make it sound more pleasing....add in distortion to fool you into thinking their gear is more musical...provide doctored graphs to help sell equipment....invent new definitions for selling books/magazines/gear.....hmmm....who has better intentions?
 

 

Hmmm....how about we lump all diseases into one big category. They all make us sick so why bother with descriptions? Sick is sick....right?
 
The reasons the frequency range was divided in such a way by audio engineers was to make it useful! The point a lot of you are missing is that such definitions have already been standardized. Just because the general audiophile population isn't intimately familiar with these standardized categories doesn't make them obsolete or useless. 

Perhaps what you people need is to cancel your subscription to Stereophile, suspend your subjective beliefs and pick up an actual book on audio and properly inform yourselves before posting such ridiculous nonsense. Here is a great list of books I highly recommend you all read.
 
Go ahead and get pissed off at me now....in the end, when you read these books and understand the objective and scientific aspects of audio...you'll thank me and the scientific community who helped provide such useful and trustworthy information.

 

 

[purrin]

 
Quote:

I could simply say to stop spewing bs out of your @sses but I will address each point individually.....
 
It is misinformation because it is plain wrong. Any person who has taken a pro audio class or a physics class about sound will confirm that the frequency ranges (ie, 3.5kHz) and their common terminology (midrange) I posted are correct. Harley is wrong....no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's totally not about how materials make sound....it's science. The reasons audiophiles and musicians use other terminology is 1) they are not educated enough and/or 2) they refuse to be educated. 

 

As professional engineers we know every part of the frequency range concerns you. That's a lot more than any other profession in the audio industry. I have seen many a mastering engineer obsess over how a leather skin drum sounds as opposed to a plastic drum and making every effort to convey the particulars of that sound to a listener. I have spent many hours tweaking the treble and air frequencies to match edits so that they sound exactly the same so that the listener will not be able to detect a single edit. Our goal is to make sure that what you hear will be as transparent as possible so that all that exists in the end is you and the music. The less our role is perceived by you, the better. 
 
What do certain people/companies do? Severely roll off treble past 10kHz to make it sound more pleasing....add in distortion to fool you into thinking their gear is more musical...provide doctored graphs to help sell equipment....invent new definitions for selling books/magazines/gear.....hmmm....who has better intentions?
 

 

Hmmm....how about we lump all diseases into one big category. They all make us sick so why bother with descriptions? Sick is sick....right?
 
The reasons the frequency range was divided in such a way by audio engineers was to make it useful! The point a lot of you are missing is that such definitions have already been standardized. Just because the general audiophile population isn't intimately familiar with these standardized categories doesn't make them obsolete or useless. 

Perhaps what you people need is to cancel your subscription to Stereophile, suspend your subjective beliefs and pick up an actual book on audio and properly inform yourselves before posting such ridiculous nonsense. Here is a great list of books I highly recommend you all read.
 
Go ahead and get pissed off at me now....in the end, when you read these books and understand the objective and scientific aspects of audio...you'll thank me and the scientific community who helped provide such useful and trustworthy information.

 
 
@LFF:
 
This is really effing disturbing man. I mean, I already knew what "midrange" meant in the early 80s when I was 16. I remember going with my buddies to Stereo shops and we would complain about speakers not have any midrange since speakers with the "U" FR response were very typical back then. (70's speakers were actually better in this regard.)
 
In the last 25 years, I've sat behind mixing consoles for live events, played bass for various bands in the studio, made about dozen speakers, approved mastering work, and this is the first time I've heard these terms being so wrongly used. I think the world is going to end soon.
 

P.S. G'nite everyone. I hope I provided y'all with some good entertainment today.

 

[thune]

LFF,
I simply cannot see how my statement you quoted is "ridiculous nonsense": It's one third-fact(according to your range chart), one-third reasonable opinion, and one-third an appeal for clarity. My training has me thinking in octaves and decades mostly, and I tend to avoid fuzzy terminology in favor of graphs, charts, and numbers.
 
I'm happy to understand the terminology that you or Purrin use, as I wish to understand the useful contributions that you make. I do however worry that some of these terms are more fuzzy, less precise, and less communicative than you imagine.
 
Purrin,
was my post about midrange energy and terminology even directed at you? i just remember receiving random, unproductive insults from you and then responding. Personally I prefer a more collegial manner such discussions, and I'm more than happy to 'elevate the tone'.

 

[CEE TEE]

^When it was stated, "some part of the frequency range does not concern us", I think it re-triggered the discussion.
 
I, too, have been guilty of speaking in terms that I wasn't using correctly...but it's fun to learn.
 
There are some other good charts and threads out there (Lunatique has one imploring us here on Head-Fi to "Standardize our Terminology").
 
Now that we have more graphs that can show us what we are are hearing (and where in the range), we should be able to start speaking the same language more accurately.
 
 
The point of this whole exercise is to learn what we like and then figure out if some gear delivers that by sharing/reading here on the forums.
 
Now if it ain't working, we will have to buy it (or listen at a meet) and then sell it/return it/keep it.
 
With all the choices out there, most people can't buy/try everything.  So we work to be able to share experience and enjoy stuff.  
 
 
 
 
 

 

[RexAeterna]

Next time I see Robert Harley, I'm ripping his nuts off.

you sound like a cool guy to hang out with. only if i lived locally i would join in this nut ripping of Robert Herley you speak of.