[bigshot]

I tried to get away with 2-3 grand in my living room. It would have been fine for TV, but not for music. You could probably do that if speaker size wasn't an issue and you were willing to buy used though. The hardest speaker to get cheap and good is the sub. You pretty much have to get one that costs more than $800 or $900 if you want it to sound decent with music. The cheaper ones are fine for bass rumble for movies, but they aren't flat and they sound really woofy. The center channel is really important too. I tried to cheap out there with a $150 Woot special and it just couldn't keep up with the volume from the mains. Dialogue in movies wasn't coming through over the music and if I boosted it to ride over the hump, it would flatten out. If you have money, it's always well spent on mains too. Rears are the ones that you can go cheap on, but not so much if you listen to a lot of multichannel music where the rears are just as active as the fronts. In that case, you need equally good speakers all around.

The biggest trick is volume in a good sized room. If you want to get it up to over 80dB, you need pretty darn good speakers to avoid distorting or flattening out, and you need a pretty powerful amp to push all those channels, especially with modern speakers that aren't terribly efficient. Cheap speakers can sound OK if you keep the volume down and you have a smaller space to fill, but finding really good loudspeakers for cheap is almost impossible unless you buy used stuff from the 70s. Price actually does have meaning with speakers. Cheap speakers are generally those little satellite jobs. It's impossible to get a reasonably flat response without huge frequency firebreaks in the sound. Bookshelves are better, but it's hard to fill a good sized space with them. Tower speakers are generally the best, but you're talking a lot more money when you have multiple drivers.

 

[SilverEars]

You know what is interesting I've run into? There was a crappy video recording with high ambient noise, and couldn't articulate well out of my nearfield JBL speakers, but my headphones did. The artulation were much better through headphones and of course detailing heard better, minute ambiant noise detailing even, but it did have that environmental containment sound from the recording that the speakers didn't have. Don't know which is more real, but headphones was better in articulation sense.

 

[bigshot]

Probably a response difference in just the right place to cut down the noise.

 

[Strangelove424]

I tried to get away with 2-3 grand in my living room. It would have been fine for TV, but not for music. You could probably do that if speaker size wasn't an issue and you were willing to buy used though. The hardest speaker to get cheap and good is the sub. You pretty much have to get one that costs more than $800 or $900 if you want it to sound decent with music. The cheaper ones are fine for bass rumble for movies, but they aren't flat and they sound really woofy. The center channel is really important too. I tried to cheap out there with a $150 Woot special and it just couldn't keep up with the volume from the mains. Dialogue in movies wasn't coming through over the music and if I boosted it to ride over the hump, it would flatten out. If you have money, it's always well spent on mains too. Rears are the ones that you can go cheap on, but not so much if you listen to a lot of multichannel music where the rears are just as active as the fronts. In that case, you need equally good speakers all around.

The biggest trick is volume in a good sized room. If you want to get it up to over 80dB, you need pretty darn good speakers to avoid distorting or flattening out, and you need a pretty powerful amp to push all those channels, especially with modern speakers that aren't terribly efficient. Cheap speakers can sound OK if you keep the volume down and you have a smaller space to fill, but finding really good loudspeakers for cheap is almost impossible unless you buy used stuff from the 70s. Price actually does have meaning with speakers. Cheap speakers are generally those little satellite jobs. It's impossible to get a reasonably flat response without huge frequency firebreaks in the sound. Bookshelves are better, but it's hard to fill a good sized space with them. Tower speakers are generally the best, but you're talking a lot more money when you have multiple drivers.

Again, I think it comes down to the space you need to fill. I live close by Hsu subwoofers and went in there for an audition before I purchased. They seated me in a small listening room with a $1500 concrete subwoofer and their horn bookshelf speakers. The sub weighed about as much as I do, and the performance was insane. Way overkill, but the quality of the bass was superb. A sumptuous, melodic bass that captures all the gentle strumming of an upright bass. Did I purchase that $1500 subwoofer? No way in hell. I went with Hsu’s budget subwoofer for $400. Inside of my own room, which is bigger than Hsu’s demo room, did I notice a startling difference in performance between their mega sub and their budget one? Not really, same tightness, same richness, same detailed strumming of a bass. The bass quality was there, I just couldn’t get the SPL the concrete giant could. Which in my space is completely, utterly unnecessary, and I would even argue that it was unnecessary in Hsu’s own listening room. I asked them why they used such a huge sub. “Can never have too much sub” I was told. Sure. But my wallet would beg to differ. Hsu had a chart for comparing room size, SPL, and the sub that would do the job. I purchased the one they recommended for my space, and have been well served by it.

I brought the sub in to tighten the jacks recently and asked about their new models, having my eye on an upgrade. The helpful gentlemen who worked on my sub told me that the new models will go about 4-5Hz lower. I couldn’t justify spending another $500 for 5Hz into infrasonic territory. Then he mentioned higher SPL, but I didn’t think I needed any more of that either. He mentioned that while he was working on the sub, he saw I had my volume knob set at 9 o’clock. “Yeah”, I said “and even then it’s too loud for certain action movies.” “Probably don’t need the extra SPL then”. “Nah, probably not.”

Upgraditis avoided. Thanks to a damn good (enough) budget sub. I’ve decided I’m not getting a new one till mine craps out.

 

[Strangelove424]

You know what is interesting I've run into? There was a crappy video recording with high ambient noise, and couldn't articulate well out of my nearfield JBL speakers, but my headphones did. The artulation were much better through headphones and of course detailing heard better, minute ambiant noise detailing even, but it did have that environmental containment sound from the recording that the speakers didn't have. Don't know which is more real, but headphones was better in articulation sense.

Likely an effect of different high frequency response, same as true between different pairs of headphones. For instance, on HD600s I will get a far more speaker like presentation that on DT880s, which greatly emphasize high frequency detail and thus ambient noise. But this can be a boon when you need a microscope of sorts in order to reduce ambient noise in editing or do de-essing of vocals/dialogue. In that case, the DT880s provide a wonderfully magnified view of all the high frequency quirks that need to be addressed. But it's not a presentation I would use at the final mastering stage to decide balance. Headphones generally are bad for that stage.

 

[pinnahertz]

I am done with pinnahertz.... Why do I even bother?

I have online discussion board fatique. I am burned out.... I will be loser forever....Crossfeed is my life and I nearly distroyed one of my only sources of happiness on this board within a few weeks.

You should be a lawyer. I feel like being in court while debating with you. Everything I say you use against me.

Just a short sampling to help explain this post.

I'm sorry if I've caused you pain, suffering, burn-out, etc. My purpose is accuracy of information. We appear to be at cross purposes, but it is never my intent to hurt anyone. I'll keep my disagreements with your posts silent. Whatever value they may have to others, they'll be fine with or without my contributions. You will not, so with respect, I'll decline to respond.[/size]

 

[jgazal]

@71 dB and @pinnahertz, I enjoyed the discussion.

Only in the sound science forum we have the chance to talk about technical restrains and readily available tools or tools in the making to overcome them.

For instance, by reading and posting in the thread:

A) Accuracy is subjective, I realized the importance of how content is produced;
B) How do we hear height in a recording with earphones, I noticed the role of spectral cues;
C) here, I am now eager to test what results one would have by having acoustic crosstalk with 3rd order ambisonics and not adding electronic crosstalk with headphones when auralizing a 3rd order ambisonics.

Thanks to both of you and the head-fiers that started such threads for exposing such questions.

Edited to mention other very informative threads:
Are binaural recordings higher quality than normal ones?
About SQ

 

[71 dB]

Just a short sampling to help explain this post.

I'm sorry if I've caused you pain, suffering, burn-out, etc. My purpose is accuracy of information. We appear to be at cross purposes, but it is never my intent to hurt anyone. I'll keep my disagreements with your posts silent. Whatever value they may have to others, they'll be fine with or without my contributions. You will not, so with respect, I'll decline to respond.

You don't need to apologize anything pinnahertz. I came here thinking my opinions represented accurate information. I tried to defence myself, but it caused burn out it seems. I am confused now and I need to process what happened, do other things. That's why I will be less active here.

@71 dB and @pinnahertz, I enjoyed the discussion.

Only in the sound science forum we have the chance to talk about technical restrains and readily available tools or tools in the making to overcome them.

For instance, by reading and posting in the thread:

A) Accuracy is subjective, I realized the importance of how content is produced;
B) How do we hear height in a recording with earphones, I noticed the role of spectral cues;
C) here, I am now eager to test what results one would have by having acoustic crosstalk with 3rd order ambisonics and not adding electronics crosstalk with headphones when auralizing a 3rd order ambisonics.

Thanks to both of you and the head-fiers that started such threads for exposing the such questions.

You're welcome jgazal! This has not gone as smoothly as I hoped for, but I'm glad if got something out of it.

 

[71 dB]

Spatial deafness and the limits of real life ILD.

I think headphone listening without crossfeed causes people spatial deafness. Just like after driving fast for a while slower speeds may appear very slow, exposing your ears to excessive spatial information with headphones may cause spatial deafness. Because of this turning crossfeed on may cause a feeling of quite monophonic sounds which causes negative reactions on some people, but those people make their judgement too fast. Listening to crossfed sounds for a while causes the effect of spatial deafness to go away and the spatiality of the recording "emerges" from the monophony. Crossfeed tends to show it's benefits lowly. Hearing adjusts lowly tp the lack of excessive spatial information and the unnatural "special spatial effects". The lack of listening fatique happens after a longer listening session. However, after the benefits of crossfeed have become clear, one doesn't want to go back to the unnatural supersterophonic listening.

Our hearing is very sensitive for ILD and ITD -information. At low frequencies no more than about 3 dB of ILD is needed. That is almost monophonic, but our spatial hearing is that sensitive and of course combined with supportive and actually more important (under 800 Hz) ITD -information it is enough. Listening to loudspeakers doesn't produce ILD greater that this. Depending on the room modes and revereberation the ILD with loudspeakers vary between 0 and 3 dB at low frequences. This can be seen on HRTF-measurement, were the difference of +90° and -90° horizontal angles at low frequences is about 5 desibels for a sound 1 m (40") away and even less for sounds of greater distance [1]:

We also see that for sounds only 12 cm (5") away max ILD at low frequencies is almost 20 dB! That is why headphone without crossfeed sound so close and small and why the soundstage gets bigger with crossfeed, which to many may find counterintuitive. Narrowing stereo separation actually widens the sound to a certain point after which the sounds becomes so monophonic that the soundstage collapses again. Having the optimum amount of ILD is the key! For typical speaker angles HRTF-responses look like this [2]:

​

Here LL is left speaker for left ear and LR left speaker for right ear. Here ILD up to 200 Hz is 0 dB! However, this is misleading, because the room reverberation (modes) will produce some ILD so that the final ILD is between 0 and about 3 dB. Totally monophonic bass isn't best with headphones. In my opinion a few decibels of ILD create a natural sensation of low frequences behaving according to the laws of physics in an acoustic environment. The important point to undertand here is that with speakers it doesn't matter whether you have 0 dB or 100 dB channel separation at bass, because room acoustics + HRTF transforms it to 0-3 dB for the listener depending on the frequency anyway, but with headphones (without crossfeed) it means the difference of "life and death", so wouldn't it be rational to optimize ILD at bass for headphones? That means limiting it to about 3 dB.

​

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure...sponses-of-the-HRTF-filters-used-to-spatially
[2] https://www.dirac.com/dirac-blog/how-to-make-headphones-stereo-compatible
​

 

[pinnahertz]

Spatial deafness and the limits of real life ILD.

I think headphone listening without crossfeed causes people spatial deafness. Just like after driving fast for a while slower speeds may appear very slow, exposing your ears to excessive spatial information with headphones may cause spatial deafness. Because of this turning crossfeed on may cause a feeling of quite monophonic sounds which causes negative reactions on some people, but those people make their judgement too fast. Listening to crossfed sounds for a while causes the effect of spatial deafness to go away and the spatiality of the recording "emerges" from the monophony. Crossfeed tends to show it's benefits lowly. Hearing adjusts lowly tp the lack of excessive spatial information and the unnatural "special spatial effects". The lack of listening fatique happens after a longer listening session. However, after the benefits of crossfeed have become clear, one doesn't want to go back to the unnatural supersterophonic listening.

This is likely true, but a temporary condition. Making up a new term like "spatial deafness" is alarmist. It already has a name: Auditory Adaptation.

Personally, having tried listening with various types of crossfeed, and for extended periods, my personal experience is that only very few recordings sound better that way, and going back to no crossfeed on a recording that doesn't benefit from it is always an improvement, regardless of time spent listening, though eventually whatever I'm listening to becomes natural because of Auditory Adaptation.

Our hearing is very sensitive for ILD and ITD -information. At low frequencies no more than about 3 dB of ILD is needed. That is almost monophonic, but our spatial hearing is that sensitive and of course combined with supportive and actually more important (under 800 Hz) ITD -information it is enough. Listening to loudspeakers doesn't produce ILD greater that this. Depending on the room modes and revereberation the ILD with loudspeakers vary between 0 and 3 dB at low frequences. This can be seen on HRTF-measurement, were the difference of +90° and -90° horizontal angles at low frequences is about 5 desibels for a sound 1 m (40") away and even less for sounds of greater distance [1]:

Kind of underestimating room modes here. If they combine to create a null, a very slight difference in position makes a very big difference, much bigger than 3dB. If you're sitting in a null, ear spacing can be enough to do this. Deep nulls occur in rooms all the time, relating to frequency and dimension.

We also see that for sounds only 12 cm (5") away max ILD at low frequencies is almost 20 dB! That is why headphone without crossfeed sound so close and small and why the soundstage gets bigger with crossfeed, which to many may find counterintuitive.

Except...you've ignored how recordings are made and mixed. A hard-panned, acoustically or electronically "dry" sound is indeed very rare, sort of an "effect" rather than a normal mix technique. As soon as you put ambience around the sound and in the opposite channel that close perspective is mitigated.

Narrowing stereo separation actually widens the sound to a certain point after which the sounds becomes so monophonic that the soundstage collapses again.

I strongly disagree, and anyone experimenting with this will readily see that narrowing separation by simply mixing both channels NEVER results in widening of the soundstage. If you want to widen by reducing separation something else must happen too!

Having the optimum amount of ILD is the key! For typical speaker angles HRTF-responses look like this [2]:

​

Here LL is left speaker for left ear and LR left speaker for right ear. Here ILD up to 200 Hz is 0 dB! However, this is misleading, because the room reverberation (modes) will produce some ILD so that the final ILD is between 0 and about 3 dB. 1. Totally monophonic bass isn't best with headphones. 2. In my opinion a few decibels of ILD create a natural sensation of low frequences behaving according to the laws of physics in an acoustic environment. 3. The important point to undertand here is that with speakers it doesn't matter whether you have 0 dB or 100 dB channel separation at bass, because room acoustics + HRTF transforms it to 0-3 dB for the listener depending on the frequency anyway, but with headphones (without crossfeed) it means the difference of "life and death", so wouldn't it be rational to optimize ILD at bass for headphones? That means limiting it to about 3 dB.

​

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure...sponses-of-the-HRTF-filters-used-to-spatially
[2] https://www.dirac.com/dirac-blog/how-to-make-headphones-stereo-compatible
​

1. Mono bass results in far stronger bass response, though. When bass arrives in both ears it becomes stronger, more solid, and more purposeful. Listen to a strong bass line then cut one ear, you'll easily see the effect.

2. The acoustic environmental effects are far stronger that 3dB, though. And frequency dependant. This cannot be simply simulated with 3dB of bass crossfeed.

3. Oh yes, it DOES matter! Bass in rooms is a result of what happens in ALL speakers and the resulting room mode stimulation. The best example of this is the theory of multiple subwoofers.

 

[bigshot]

I've had people tell me that it's impossible to fill a good sized room with bass with just one sub. But I'm doing just that in my room. The sub is a little to the right toed in a bit, but the bass fills the whole room evenly, and even bass solos on the left are clearly placed. It may be the power of my Sunfire sub, or some quirk of the shape of the room, I don't know enough about bass acoustics to figure out why. But I know enough about acoustics to not mess with a good thing!

 

[pinnahertz]

I've had people tell me that it's impossible to fill a good sized room with bass with just one sub. But I'm doing just that in my room. The sub is a little to the right toed in a bit, but the bass fills the whole room evenly, and even bass solos on the left are clearly placed. It may be the power of my Sunfire sub, or some quirk of the shape of the room, I don't know enough about bass acoustics to figure out why. But I know enough about acoustics to not mess with a good thing!

Bass filling the whole room with smooth response is impossible with one sub, but yours may work well in your LP. Measurements would serve you well here.

 

[castleofargh]

here is what I use in so called "true stereo" for the convolution. well I flatten the low end(because I like it like that and it doesn't really impact localization), and apply EQ for whatever headphone/IEM I use, but else that's it. based on 30° impulse of some HRTF I found online that worked best for my head. the subject had a massive difference between left and right in some part of the response that I could totally notice, so I just bounced the left ear values for both ears(well reversed).

the end result is no realiser A16, but it's by far the best Xfeed I've had and I've tested MANY. customization is unavoidable to get better results. at least it is for poor me with my non average head.

 

[71 dB]

[1] This is likely true, but a temporary condition. Making up a new term like "spatial deafness" is alarmist. It already has a name: Auditory Adaptation.

[2] Personally, having tried listening with various types of crossfeed, and for extended periods, my personal experience is that only very few recordings sound better that way, and going back to no crossfeed on a recording that doesn't benefit from it is always an improvement, regardless of time spent listening, though eventually whatever I'm listening to becomes natural because of Auditory Adaptation.

[3] Kind of underestimating room modes here. If they combine to create a null, a very slight difference in position makes a very big difference, much bigger than 3dB. If you're sitting in a null, ear spacing can be enough to do this. Deep nulls occur in rooms all the time, relating to frequency and dimension.

[4] Except...you've ignored how recordings are made and mixed. A hard-panned, acoustically or electronically "dry" sound is indeed very rare, sort of an "effect" rather than a normal mix technique. As soon as you put ambience around the sound and in the opposite channel that close perspective is mitigated.

[5]I strongly disagree, and anyone experimenting with this will readily see that narrowing separation by simply mixing both channels NEVER results in widening of the soundstage. If you want to widen by reducing separation something else must happen too!

[6] 1. Mono bass results in far stronger bass response, though. When bass arrives in both ears it becomes stronger, more solid, and more purposeful. Listen to a strong bass line then cut one ear, you'll easily see the effect.

2. The acoustic environmental effects are far stronger that 3dB, though. And frequency dependant. This cannot be simply simulated with 3dB of bass crossfeed.

3. Oh yes, it DOES matter! Bass in rooms is a result of what happens in ALL speakers and the resulting room mode stimulation. The best example of this is the theory of multiple subwoofers.

[1] Spatial deafness is simply a subgenre of Auditory Adaptation.

[2] I really don't get this. To me recordings that work best without crossfeed are few and far between.

[3] I don't underestimate room modes! I have done research work how to pre-filter signal before it's fed to the speakers to reduce room modes. In pathological cases I suppose it's possible to have ILD bigger than 3 dB, at a certain frequency and place in the room and at reduced SPL level masked by other frequencies.

[4] Wasn't rare at all in 1958! Even the newest compressed "headphone-friendly" pop has ILD > 3 dB bass.

[5] You are clearly a person, who knows a lot and has done a lot for decades, but for some reason you have these strange fights against me. The science is behind me. Larger ILD means the sound source is close to the other ear. It's not only self-evident, but measured HRTFs show it clearly. I really don't know what's wrong with you.

[6]
1. Yes. However, a few decibels of ILD sounds more lively imo so I don't always go for mono bass.

2. Room modes create typically 10-15 dB peaks and even deeper dimples. However, most of the time this doesn't affect much ILD and if it does, at low level, masked and possibly below the hearing threshold anyway. Usually the modes become dense enough to transform into reverberation below 200 Hz where the wavelength is about 2 m. You are splitting hairs. Yes, what I said doesn't work in every possible pathological situation, but in general it does and those pathological situations are called "very bad acoustics." People tend to fix them, at least those who care about fidelity. Often all it takes is to move your speakers or chair a feet to make a diffence.

3. Yes, when we talk about the quality of bass. I was talking about ILD only. The quality aspect does indeed support monophonic or near-monophonic bass. Reducing the ILD at bass in a recording say from 10 dB to 3 dB is a big step toward that.

---------------------------------------

Crossfeeders don't serve coffee. They don't fix everything in the sound. They fix things related to excessive stereo separation and that's it. Why do I even need to say this?

 

[71 dB]

I've had people tell me that it's impossible to fill a good sized room with bass with just one sub. But I'm doing just that in my room. The sub is a little to the right toed in a bit, but the bass fills the whole room evenly, and even bass solos on the left are clearly placed. It may be the power of my Sunfire sub, or some quirk of the shape of the room, I don't know enough about bass acoustics to figure out why. But I know enough about acoustics to not mess with a good thing!

Since subwoofers typically output only lowest bass, only in larger rooms we have problems with modes and small room behaves more like a pressure chamber and it's easier to find a good placement for the sub. In larger rooms more subs helps in having more flat response and od course more SPL to fill the room.