[gregorio]

He's making stuff up now Pinnahertz.

I dispute that he's making stuff up now ... he's been making stuff up all along!

G

 

[pinnahertz]

Read the first post in this thread. Buck the trend of most of the people posting in it!

He's making stuff up now Pinnahertz.

Or perhaps deluded? Believing the stuff he's making up? And yes, G, it's been going on quite a while.

 

[james444]

On a short-hike with @slankoe I mentioned the recent discussion of the topic of 'binaural' on this thread with regarding the discussion surrounding binaural.

I think both of us were a bit amused/perplexed. When binaural is done properly it is so incredibly "obvious, life-like and amazing "! ? No? Maybe for some perhaps not or less so.

What I've been gathering from this discussion is that recording pros seem to have entirely different priorities from me as an individual consumer. Maybe it's because I mainly use IEMs and listen predominantly to live albums, but the spatiality of binaural recordings I've heard felt amazingly lifelike to me. Like I mentioned earlier, there are also some multi-miked recordings that convey a good sense of spatial realism in my book, however those examples are rare. The vast majority of "traditionally" recorded stuff, when listend to with IEMs, conveys no "realistic" kind of soundstage to me.

Of course, multi-miked recordings tend to have a clearer and more separated sound than, for example, the binaural recordings I got from @analogsurviver. But here's where different priorities come in, because from my pov, that doesn't necessarily make them more realistic. Let me explain... as a (former) regular concertgoer, I love the room acoustics of venues like Vienna's Musikverein, or even a church. Personally I'm absolutely not averse to the reflected/reverberant/blended sound there. To the contrary, it still let's me focus on individual instruments if I want to, but most of the time, I can just relax and indulge in the blended/holistic concert experience.

So, to get back to the topic of priorities, for example an extremely clear and separated sound isn't that high on my personal list. To the contrary, it may even sound distracting/fatiguing to me, when overdone.

Bottom line, I've been following the discussion with interest and I got where the recording pros are coming from.But as an individual consumer with specific listening habits and preferences, I don't necessarily share their views on binaural.

 

[bfreedma]

Or perhaps deluded? Believing the stuff he's making up? And yes, G, it's been going on quite a while.

I just hope locating and posting the pictures he’s promised don’t once again hold up posting the result “proving” CD mats improve audio reproduction. We’ve been promised those for years....

 

[pinnahertz]

CD mats have been conclusively proven ineffective as a contraceptive.

 

[youngarthur]

CD mats have been conclusively proven ineffective as a contraceptive.

By who?. I demand to see their data!. Was their a full moon at the time?. Was Mars in line with Venus, if not the data is useless.

 

[analogsurviver]

I just hope locating and posting the pictures he’s promised don’t once again hold up posting the result “proving” CD mats improve audio reproduction. We’ve been promised those for years....

"Enjoying" finding the most suitable photo sharing service at the moment ... one that will be ok for me and various forums. It may not be today, but soon.

I would sure prefer to make some more recordings using various other hardware and software to find more ways to "arrive" at other ways PCM can develop interchannel delay ...

 

[goodvibes]

What I've been gathering from this discussion is that recording pros seem to have entirely different priorities from me as an individual consumer. Maybe it's because I mainly use IEMs and listen predominantly to live albums, but the spatiality of binaural recordings I've heard felt amazingly lifelike to me. Like I mentioned earlier, there are also some multi-miked recordings that convey a good sense of spatial realism in my book, however those examples are rare. The vast majority of "traditionally" recorded stuff, when listend to with IEMs, conveys no "realistic" kind of soundstage to me.

Of course, multi-miked recordings tend to have a clearer and more separated sound than, for example, the binaural recordings I got from @analogsurviver. But here's where different priorities come in, because from my pov, that doesn't necessarily make them more realistic. Let me explain... as a (former) regular concertgoer, I love the room acoustics of venues like Vienna's Musikverein, or even a church. Personally I'm absolutely not averse to the reflected/reverberant/blended sound there. To the contrary, it still let's me focus on individual instruments if I want to, but most of the time, I can just relax and indulge in the blended/holistic concert experience.

So, to get back to the topic of priorities, for example an extremely clear and separated sound isn't that high on my personal list. To the contrary, it may even sound distracting/fatiguing to me, when overdone.

Bottom line, I've been following the discussion with interest and I got where the recording pros are coming from.But as an individual consumer with specific listening habits and preferences, I don't necessarily share their views on binaural.

Artificial is a my take but that's obviously only a concern if you're not looking for that live acoustic experience. Using ORTF mics on even something like a vocal sounds more natural than single mic-ing. That's in no way to imply that studio technics are wrong. They simply serve a different need. One that natural space recording also can't accomplish.

 

[bfreedma]

"Enjoying" finding the most suitable photo sharing service at the moment ... one that will be ok for me and various forums. It may not be today, but soon.

I would sure prefer to make some more recordings using various other hardware and software to find more ways to "arrive" at other ways PCM can develop interchannel delay ...

Based on your track record, I won't expect them any time soon (or ever).

Finding "the most suitable photo sharing service"? Seriously? There are dozens out there including hugely popular service like Dropbox and Box. Pick one and post.

 

[Arpiben]

@analogsurviver
Take your time also to familiarise again or not with phase,analogue phase measurements, oscilloscope settings and Lissajous' curves when dealing with two sinusoidal signals at same frequency.It should help.

 

[gregorio]

[1] What I've been gathering from this discussion is that recording pros seem to have entirely different priorities from me as an individual consumer.
[2] Maybe it's because I mainly use IEMs and listen predominantly to live albums, [2a] but the spatiality of binaural recordings I've heard felt amazingly lifelike to me.
[3] Let me explain... as a (former) regular concertgoer, I love the room acoustics of venues like Vienna's Musikverein, or even a church. Personally I'm absolutely not averse to the reflected/reverberant/blended sound there. To the contrary, it still let's me focus on individual instruments if I want to, but most of the time, I can just relax and indulge in the blended/holistic concert experience.
[4] But as an individual consumer with specific listening habits and preferences, I don't necessarily share their views on binaural.

1. I wouldn't say "entirely different" but maybe somewhat different.

2. Yes, that would put you in a small minority. Live albums represent a tiny percentage of commercial music recordings to start with and then you're in a smaller group still, who listen to those recordings only on IEMs.
2a. That's one of the problems, as engineers we do not know your personal HRTF or even that you'll be using IEMs and nor do we know what feels "amazingly life like" to you, so in practice it's somewhat of a guess and largely pot luck if a binaural recording sounds "amazingly life like" to any particular individual.

3. The Musikverein has a lovely acoustic, which I've been lucky enough to experience as both a musician who's performed there and then years later as a music engineer. I'm absolutely not averse to it's acoustics and I doubt any other sane engineer would be either! However, many of those listening to a recording made in Musikverein will not only be hearing the Musikvererein's acoustics, they'll also be hearing the additional acoustics imparted by their listening environment and the combination of both will reduce clarity and separation, hence why we typically have to enhance clarity and separation, which is not possible with a binaural or any stereo only recording. But, we absolutely would not want to loose the Musikverein acoustics, we'd want as much of it (or the essence of it) as practically possible. This highlights the essential conflict and compromise of pretty much all commercial music recording and why it's called "The Art of Recording" and not the science or technical task of recording. This is also true with binaural recording because, as already mentioned, there's the issue of even a perfectly accurate recording not being what we would actually experience anyway (so it may, or may not, be close enough to fool/satisfy some listeners).

4. This is the root of many disputes and audiophile assertions: Firstly, their "specific listening habits and preferences" put them in a group which is so small that it's not economically viable to commercially cater specifically for them and Secondly, because of the first point, they're not comparing apples to apples. As I've also mentioned previously, binaural can sound "amazingly life like" compared to multi-mic'ed productions made primarily for speakers but that's an apples to oranges comparison. Would you still have your view of binaural vs multi-mic'ing if there were multi-mic productions made specifically for HPs? This would be an apples to apples comparison and I strongly suspect that most would prefer the multi-mic'ing or at least, not consider binaural to be as superior as they previously believed. Ironically, just last week I was involved in a project which comes quite close to this. While speaker compatibility was required, HP playback was a much higher priority than is typically the case. If I can get agreement from the rights holders to post an except and find a way to post it which preserves my anonymity then I will but it's going to take some time, more than a few days.

I'm putting the following forward as benchmarks for attainable gear and a consistent way of recording and mastering binaural / stereo media.
1) Do you have a Focal Utopia or HD800*?

There's two issues here. Firstly, you can't really master binaural or rather, the mastering options are extremely limited. Secondly, effectively the point I made above, how many people own Focal Utopia or HD800s? How many of those would want to buy whatever particular music genre I recorded/produced and how many of those would actually buy my specific recording? The answer almost certainly is: Not enough to justify the cost of professionally/commercially creating, marketing and distributing it in the first place.

G

 

[Glmoneydawg]

I'm happy to explain it... The equipment I use isn't why my system sounds good. It sounds good because of the way I've implemented it. I've calibrated the EQ, dealt with room acoustics, experimented to find more effective placement of my speakers, combined different equipment to bring out the best in everything, etc. You could go out and buy the same equipment and it might sound awful because you haven't put it all together the way I have. You can ask me what I use and I'll tell you. But a better question is, "What have you done to make your equipment sound better?"

I've auditioned systems that cost more than a house. Not all of them sounded great. There are lazy audiophiles who aren't interested in optimizing sound. They look at their system as a status symbol that they go out and put on display. They glow with the McIntosh aqua color and the equipment is smack dab in the middle of the front wall staring at you. If you walk into my listening room You won't notice any equipment other than the speakers. It's all in the back and the show is the music and movies up front. That's the way it should be. The whole point is music and movies.

I hired a guy to run wires for me, but I would never hire someone to put together my whole system for me. I've known people who have done that and the second the guy leaves, they pick up the remote control and tie the whole thing up in knots because they don't have the faintest idea how it all works together. I've built my system from the ground up for 40 years now. The learning and evolution is part of the process. You can't just hire someone else to jump you to the end game and think that you are going to be able to maintain it. The first problem you hit, you have to hire the guy to come out and fix it again.

There's very little correlation between sound quality and money in electronics. And in the proper sort of room, reasonably priced speakers work well too. If you're willing to EQ, you can save hundreds of dollars on headphones. That is the kind of smartness I admire... people who get the most out of their equipment and don't just throw money at it. If you spend a lot of money, I'll just hold you to a higher standard. I've been in screening rooms that cost a fortune. I would LOVE to live there! They do it right and they can play any format... film, video, audio. There is where I would spend more money if I was rich, not buying overpriced amps and DACs and sterling silver cables.

Is that clearer?

Thanks...but my point is when you come in here from the "outside"and read SS threads the first thing a lot of people do is check to see what equipment posters are using...for context.....when nothing is listed it's easy to assume posters are frugal or sour grapes ect.I think you might get more interest in here if "outsiders" could see thats not the case and perhaps even be familiar with reference equipment used by posters.

 

[pinnahertz]

"Enjoying" finding the most suitable photo sharing service at the moment ... one that will be ok for me and various forums. It may not be today, but soon.

Yeah, it's a tough thing to search for. Might take years. Or seconds. You pick.

I would sure prefer to make some more recordings using various other hardware and software to find more ways to "arrive" at other ways PCM can develop interchannel delay ...

What an odd pursuit. Searching for "more ways to "arrive" at other ways PCM can develop interchannel delay". It's like searching for more ways a disease can kill us, when the disease only kills one in 10 million.

 

[analogsurviver]

Whoa, big fella. So you've seen a "square wave" on an LP, but only when played without RIAA EQ? Well, then...you haven't seen a square wave on an LP. RIAA EQ, as you MUST know, is a two-ended, essentially encode/decode, pre-emphasis/de-emphasis system. If you take one away, the entire response of the system is altered. If you have to do that to see your square wave, then it's not actually recorded and reproduced in the system, and what you have done is a cheat!

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense unless we define, very carefully, what you mean by a "square wave". We already know we cannot use the actual definition (because it's impossible), so you have clearly re-defined what you're calling a "square wave". If you use a frequency low enough, but not too low, you can get something that sort of resembles some aspects of a square wave through an LP system, tape, and digital, but none of them actually can record and reproduce a real square wave. All are bandwidth limited, some on both extremes. But what you get out of any of those is not a real square wave. But it doesn't matter a wit, since there are no square waves in actual audio. Even the electronic instruments that actually generate them end up with a signal without much resemblance once it's been transduced--even once.
That's getting closer to what clearly is your own fictitious re-definition of a "square wave". Put one of them side by side on your dual-trace scope with a REAL square wave, and none of the above will resemble anything like a square wave either in appearance or spectral content. If your'e going to work with fictitious definitions, you will come to fictitious conclusions. And you have.
Stopping you right there...nope, you evidently don't understand the process nor the physical limitations of cutting a groove, and I'm starting to doubt you have a clear understanding of how the LP works at all. The underlined statement above cannot be correct without much more information. You can cut signals way above 27kHz (it was done with CD4), but you can't even cut 27kHz at any reasonable modulation level. And cutting square waves is physically impossible, though a rough approximation may be a semi-useful test signal in some way. However, the REAL problem here is the "almost square wave looking signal"...that's your ficticious re-definition. Almost? Sure, if you band-limit the top and bottom along with attendant slew limit, throw in some in-band resonances, distortions, and keep the level WAY down, but it's not a square wave!

What the heck means "waaaaay above 20kHz"? Oh don't bother. I've already checked the spectrum of LPs, that super ultrasonic crap you see in the spectrum are distortion products and just plain noise. Confirmed. All you have to do is check the spectrum of a high frequency, highest possible level sine wave, you'll see plenty of "ultrasonic content" up there, but it's not real, and not part of the original signal.
Yeah. Perhaps.

Sorry, should have said " approximation to the square wave" - with all the bandwidth limitation of ANY recording medium, there are better or worse approximations possible, never a mathematically perfect square wave, which in theory goes to infinite high frequency. Same as triangle wave, only the order of harmonics is different. And no nitpicking about the exact math formulas for either, please - anyone interested, please just use Google.

That said, for "approximation to the square wave" : good HR > analog >>> 44.1. You can twist and turn and spin as much as you'd like, the just written STANDS. Period. Google any square wave from a CBS STR 112 record ( but, FIRST you will have to learn just WHAT is really recorded on this test record ...) , played by any decent wide frequency response phono cartridge - and compare that to the pathetic 44.1 whatever. And, yes, CBS STR 112 does include 1 kHz square wave at the innermost grooves of the record, which, if played by high quality stylus and cartridge, will STILL be better approximation to the theorethically perfect square wave than 44.1 sampling of PCM.

And, please, do not try to teach me regarding analog record recording and frequencies that can be put on the analog disk master. READ what I wrote... - and you shoul find "recorded in real time ". That means recording to whatever the upper limit of the cutting head - and it is much the same as with the ultimate speed of the propeller driven aircraft - 800 and a few km/h, depending on temperature, air pressure, precision of measurement and willingness to listen to whatever lie you are more prone to believe - much more so than the actual aircraft itself. Once the propeller tips reach the speed of sound, its effectiveness plummets towards zero - and no amount of power would help a bit. If you stretch that "propeller driven" to turbo contrarotating props, you get the Tu-95 as the fastest propeller driven aircraft in regular service. It might be some prototype pips it in ultimate speed for a km or a mile or so, but that's it. Want go faster - jets and rockets.

With cutting heads, it is 27 kHz give or take a few Hz either way - which can be stretched by recording at lower speed than the one intended for playback. JVC did a special test record for developing the CD-4 phono cartridge - cut at 1/10 of the nominal 33 1/3 RPM, theorethically reaching flat response to 270 kHz. This test record has NEVER been available outside JVC walls - and is the reason why the very first generation of JVC CD-4 capable cartridges is so good and so much in demand - more than 40 years after their introduction. And JVC used this 1/10 speed recording to record a Dirac pulse or Delta function or whatever you want to call it - best approximation they could achieve - as seen in this link : https://www.vinylengine.com/library/jvc/x1.shtml

Be it as it may - the "approximations of the square wave in music" off the LP given in the link ARE far sharper/faster/call them whatever you like - than anything available on more normal records - not to mention the CD.
If the record is cut at half speed and master recording, either analog or digital ( DSD ) does contain high frequencies above 20 kHz, the flat response is about to 54 kHz. That and of course HR could still improve upon the direct to disk nachievement.

For "waaaay" above 20 kHz, please check Bruel & Kjaer measurement mics. I do not know specifically which model(s) have been used, but even if and when the least extended frequency response mics have been modified to interface with audio equipment, it is STILL very high. In 1982 or so , there was the very first Bruel & Kjaer mic specifically made for music recording first made available - the 4006, which remains in production, with relatively small modification to the electronics, to this very day as the DPA 4006 . And, there are other DPAs that sport considerably more extended response than the 4006.

 

[bigshot]

Maybe it's because I mainly use IEMs and listen predominantly to live albums, but the spatiality of binaural recordings I've heard felt amazingly lifelike to me.

Which binaural albums? I looked at Amazon and all I could find is one Pearl Jam album and a bunch of self hypnosis and sound effects records. Are there any binaural recordings of music with acoustic instruments you could recommend?

Thanks...but my point is when you come in here from the "outside"and read SS threads the first thing a lot of people do is check to see what equipment posters are using...for context.....when nothing is listed it's easy to assume posters are frugal or sour grapes ect.I think you might get more interest in here if "outsiders" could see thats not the case and perhaps even be familiar with reference equipment used by posters.

If someone is going to make assumptions based on equipment brands and model numbers instead of what the poster is actually saying, they will be making a huge mistake. Inside the box of the rest of head-fi, brand name fan clubs and cults built around specific models are common. But in here, it's different. I've never asked specifically what kind of system the various Sound Science regulars have. I learn more by hearing what they have to say.

I think analogue survivor is sharing his creative writing skills with us. I'm not here for that kind of bluff and fluff, so I skip over most of what he says. But this bit I found interesting...

And, please, do not try to teach me regarding analog record recording and frequencies that can be put on the analog disk master.

Have you ever been involved with a project from recording on 24 track tape all the way through mastering and pressing on LP? Some of us here have. You might learn something if you listen to those of us who have.

Then comes the totally irrelevant digression into propeller planes and rockets... I think he finds it difficult to keep his thought process going in a straight line. And he assumes all of our brains are making the loopdeloops right along with him.