[xnor]

Problem with speakers on the other hand is dispersion and the room. The person sitting next to you might not get that great fidelity.

 

[Cat Face]

Dispersion? The head related transfer function is one of the good points of speaker listening! That, and with a proper fullrange that extends all the way to the infrasonic range, even at modest listening levels the music has amazing presence and drive that is impossible to simulate with headphones. Headphones can neither simulate the multi-channel surround sensation as well as I'd like, and are equally lacking in the LFE impact in movies.

 

[bigshot]

That's stage two. Once you get things working in your main listening position, you start moving around the room and making adjustments to get things better overall. But basically, the goal is to create a natural soundstage in the front of the room. The room acoustics are part of that soundstage, not an impediment to be corrected. You want it to sound as close as possible to the way it would sound if the performers were sitting in front of you. If you are to the left of center, the soundstage will reflect that just as live performers would.

 

[bigshot]

   
So you didn't use measurement data at all?

 
I started by running a microphone sample, but the biggest problem with a 5:1 system isn't just the EQ... it's also the levels of the various channels to get everything to mesh properly in the middle. The automatic EQ turned the volume of the rear channels up WAY too far and dialed my subwoofer out entirely. The only thing it correctly identified was a hump around the 80Hz cross between my mains and my sub. I kept that and went back to balancing volume levels all around to create the proper sound field. That affected the EQ, so I went back and tweaked EQ, which affected the volume levels and sound field, and so on... It was a series of parallel parking back and forths for a few months, with progressively smaller and smaller corrections until I got it right.
 
When I got it to work properly with music, I put on a modern movie with low frequency info and it started to shake the walls. I found I had to completely rework the low end, fine tuning the hand off from mains to sub even more. Now, I finally have it completely balanced all around and everything I play through it sounds right. It was a LOT of work. Not at all just setting out a mike and pushing a button.
 
I have a friend who is a sound mixer for live concerts and I told him about my struggles and he laughed and said "now you know what my life is like!" He said he goes into venues where the theater or amphitheater owners tell him that they had a tech come in with a sampling microphone and flatten the response. But he starts running sound through and finds that it's still all over the map. He said his first job after setting up is correcting the corrections.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

   
I started by running a microphone sample, but the biggest problem with a 5:1 system isn't just the EQ... it's also the levels of the various channels to get everything to mesh properly in the middle. The automatic EQ turned the volume of the rear channels up WAY too far and dialed my subwoofer out entirely. The only thing it correctly identified was a hump around the 80Hz cross between my mains and my sub. I kept that and went back to balancing volume levels all around to create the proper sound field. That affected the EQ, so I went back and tweaked EQ, which affected the volume levels and sound field, and so on... It was a series of parallel parking back and forths for a few months, with progressively smaller and smaller corrections until I got it right.
 
When I got it to work properly with music, I put on a modern movie with low frequency info and it started to shake the walls. I found I had to completely rework the low end, fine tuning the hand off from mains to sub even more. Now, I finally have it completely balanced all around and everything I play through it sounds right. It was a LOT of work. Not at all just setting out a mike and pushing a button.
 
I have a friend who is a sound mixer for live concerts and I told him about my struggles and he laughed and said "now you know what my life is like!" He said he goes into venues where the theater or amphitheater owners tell him that they had a tech come in with a sampling microphone and flatten the response. But he starts running sound through and finds that it's still all over the map. He said his first job after setting up is correcting the corrections.

 
My guess is improper positioning of the measurement mic... do you post at avsforum.com?  There's a bunch of geniuses there who really know their stuff about measurement and calibration.  It's certainly not as simple as pushing a button, there are many things that can go wrong with the measurement and automatic corrections, but I believe the better way forward would have been trying to fix the measurement and correction process first rather than futz with the resultant EQ immediately.

 

[bigshot]

I have little confidence in automatic EQ, I'm afraid.

 

[anodyne]

  Problem with speakers on the other hand is dispersion and the room. The person sitting next to you might not get that great fidelity.

 
And that's why desktop monitors are great for personal stereo listening. Your sweet spot is close to the speakers, while the walls are far enough away that the inverse distance law takes care of much of the room problems.

 

[bigshot]

I ran into something unusual today. I was ripping the new Decca Sound Analogue Years box, and the Szell/Curzon Brahms 1 and Mozart 27 runs 83 minutes. I've never seen a CD with that much on it. Didn't know it was possible even.

 

[anodyne]

It's because some performances are so good they warp spacetime...
 
Actually, as far as I know it would be possible to make CDs even longer playing than that, but the number of players that are able to track the discs would drop of as the density increases.
 
The follow up question is how it affects playback quality. Even if the player can play the track, can it do so without dropping bits?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

How did the measurement with your engineer friend coming over go?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

It's because some performances are so good they warp spacetime...

Actually, as far as I know it would be possible to make CDs even longer playing than that, but the number of players that are able to track the discs would drop of as the density increases.

The follow up question is how it affects playback quality. Even if the player can play the track, can it do so without dropping bits?

I thought longer playtime is achieved by writing further and further out to the edge of the disc... The actual data density can be futzed with too?

 

[anodyne]

I remember reading something more technical, but here's some Wikipedia quoting: "Playing times beyond 74 minutes are achieved by decreasing track pitch beyond the original Red Book standard. Most players can accommodate the more closely spaced data."

 

[xnor]

800 MB (90 min) CD-Rs are not that uncommon. And I know at least one German company selling 900 MB (100 min) ones.
 
Red Book spec allows up to ~80 minutes but there are some Audio CDs longer than that. I guess current CD drives have no problem reading even 90 min ones.

 

[miceblue]

Gah, sometimes audiophool jargon confuses the heck out of me.
 
Amp A from company X sounds neutral. Then when company X releases a new amp, amp B, it sounds even more neutral. Wat?
 
Amp C has Y power and amp D has 2Y power. Headphone H sounds much better on amp D and the only conclusion is because headphone H "scales up" and can "benefit" from the 2Y power that amp D offers.
 
Portable media player P has DAC 1 and amp 1. Portable media player Q has DAC 2 and amp 2. Portable media player Q sounds much better because of amp 2. Wat? Didn't these people go to elementary school and learn about the scientific method's 3 fundamental variables (controlled, manipulated, responding)? You can't compare P and Q and draw a conclusion that Q sounds better because of amp 2 when they're both different players all together. Ugh....people.

 

[anodyne]

  Amp A from company X sounds neutral. Then when company X releases a new amp, amp B, it sounds even more neutral. Wat?
 

 
Neutrality is exponential.  So, if amp A has a neutrality of =1¹⁰  then amp B may have been improved to =1¹¹