[Dark_wizzie]

   
The thing about high end equipment is that it is MUCH more likely to be deliberately hobbled to create a "house sound" than midrange equipment is. The market for midrange equipment is very competitive, and the manufacturers are all vying to make the most accurate and perfect design possible. They manufacture in mass quantities, and they don't want to be stuck with a bunch of unsalable inventory if tastes fluctuate..
 
High end audio is an entirely different market. They vie to make *unique* sound. They actually WANT to sound different. They manufacture in small batches at very high markups, so they can cater to specific requests for imbalances. A lot of audiophiles refuse to use equalizers and try to create combinations of colored equipment that cancel out the imbalances in their listening room. It is a very costly, imprecise and ineffective way of addressing the problem, but that is what they choose to do. So boutique manufacturers create different response curves, so people can mix and match to find the combo that works for them.

How much would a great neutral speaker cost then?

 

[bigshot]

There are no neutral speakers. Even if there were, the second you put one in your living room, it wouldn't be neutral any more. The neutrality is calibrated in EQ. A good speaker is one that can produce a wide range of frequencies loud without distortion. The size of the room also affects that, because a large room requires much more volume than a small one. If they can do loud clean, then you can EQ them into doing whatever you want.
 
Generally, you can spend a lot on a set of low distortion ribbon or planar magnetic speakers, like the Magnepans and then supplement them with a high end subwoofer; or at the other end of the spectrum, you can haunt thrift stores until a nice old 70s 12 inch cabinet monitor turns up and do it on the cheap.
 
I kind of split the difference. My mains are super sweet hand me down 12 inch 6 way studio monitors from the 70s that my brother had built custom for his McIntosh rig, and my subwoofer is a very pricey Sunfire by Bob Carver.

 

[bigshot]

  Oh, i own a "Big Block Yamaha" (Z11), but the DSP processing is only real fun for some big Blockbusters.

 
The most useful Yamaha DSPs are the "Stereo to 7.1", which perfectly re-channels stereo to take advantage of a true center and sub, and the Vienna Hall ambience, which can make notoriously dry Toscanini recordings and make them sound perfectly listenable.

 

[Golden Ears]

I happen to go against the audio grain of no EQ. I have had amazing results with parametric EQ with the digital programmable settings of analog filters used in McIntosh car audio. 
 
I do wonder why there is not more parametric eq for  the homes. It is extremely rare to wander into anyones listening room at a house and see it optimized at all for sound. 
 
The rooms transfer function layers sonically atop the original recorded venue... and can cause weird effects. sometimes more mid and near field listening can stop some of this but the RT60 of your room gets tossed out.
 
There are times when I wish you could have a separate speaker for each instrument. And each speaker somewhat optimized for each instrument .. this is entirely unrealistic.   So the best you can do is try to set up to minimize the need for EQ and EQ as needed as little as possible like a sort of micro surgery.  
 
One issue with multiple sound sources like stereo is that there are double the number of reflections which are slightly out of time as there is a gap between the stereo speakers that introduces some time smear. It isn't like the sound was emanating from a  tightly clustered single point a large  room like musicians in a  band. Stereo introduces some smear..mono does not ---particularly for a soloist. When you start doing multi channel all the primary arrival times are correct but he reflected arrival times are all askew. the more channels you have the worse it is ...unless each channel had one dedicated musician.
 
Higher sample rates can hold full resolution 24/48  for multiple channels... 
 
In regards to neutral... the correct speaker in the appropriate space, can sound fairly neutral. But put a huge speaker in a tiny room or vice versa.. OR a bright speaker in a  bright room... and the output is not neutral. It is a good thing that not all speakers are neutral or every one with a non neutral room would never have a chance  for balanced sound. You can not take  a huge speaker in a a tiny room and EQ it into a good fit. nor can you do the reverse.
 
all of this talk is nice in theory... 
 
In practical applications where we have imperfect transducers and associated  imperfect electronics and imperfect listening rooms the only place truly neutral components find a completely useful home is in the homes of audio reviewers where they can put a non neutral component into their seemingly neutral system of neutral components and tell you how it deviates from neutral. A lot of the reviewers systems are not as musical as one might expect them to be. For them their system has to serve two purposes..as a reviewing tool and hopefully for them to enjoy the music. Certainly having say apogee grands in your system might sound extremely nice, but you would not be able to review many amplifiers. so a lot of great gear that shines best when paired with only a few components can't work well in a reviewers system. So many reviewers are delighted when they get a new neutral component that sounds even slightly better than another older neutral component  because that is one of the few times they can upgrade that system.
 
The place to find good systems.... in "reviewers homes", are not in gear reviewers homes... they are  in the homes of the "record reviewers"... who are not bound by only having neutral components. Their systems stay optimized and are not constantly disrupted. 
 
Te worst thing for music isn't sample rates that are too high..it is sample rates that are too low. MP3 decimated the music industry.... it's impact was worse than MTV and Hometheater put together. 

 

[bigshot]

Above a certain bitrate, AAC doesn't truncate the high frequencies. At 256, it gets up to 19kHz or so from what I've been told. At 320 it is all the way up to the edge of hearing. It saves space by eliminating masked high frequencies (i.e.: ones you can't hear).
 
My theory is that it is a LOT easier to make a big speaker sound good in a small room than it is to make a small speaker sound good in a big room. You can always rein it in, but if the oomph ain't there, no amount of EQing will put it back. (naturally, I'm not talking about PA systems in a closet here).

 

[Dark_wizzie]

So... Do speakers have relatively higher distortion relative to headphones? Also... what if somebody had the budget to pick how large they want a music room to be? Would the sound quality be better in a large room (with the right speaker setup of course)?
And finally, I know EQ can do great things but I find it hard to do. Like, if I google "How to use EQ" I get basically nothing for the home user. Do I tune by ear, then how will I know the sound is truly flat? And do I use a parametric EQ instead of a normal EQ with sliders? (Parametric is like a line you tweak right, so it's like having a million sliders?) I'd say most people don't use EQ, all people know to do is to buy more expensive gear to get better sound. That's kind of tragic but I can see why it happens. I sit down with the Foobar EQ and I'm thinking... "Great. Now what?" I learned not to drag the sliders above 0dB to prevent clipping though. 

 Somebody suggested that 24bit makes sense for people who do a lot of EQ and other postprocessing. Just how much post-processing, EQ, etc must be done to a 16bit file to allow the noise floor to raise high enough for me to hear it? It sounds kindda loony to me.
 
I don't think MP3 is what killed sound quality. MP3 is lossy compression but you can always opt to get a lossless version to bypass any questions of whether the MP3 version is any good. It's the loudness wars and DR getting squashed. I don't see how that's directly related to people beginning to use iPods loaded with MP3 files.

 

[Golden Ears]

I don't think a lot of the goo high end gear is far from neutral at all. Over the past few years both high end tube pre-amps and solid state pre-amps are moving towards a more neutral middle ground.
 
I will say this... and I am sure it won't go down well. When I take an entire system of neutral components where each component has no signature sound . and put them all together  I tend to get "nothing".  a rather lifeless boring studio sound that does not sound live at all.
 
In a studio things seem to be  are chosen for :
 
1. Reliability and serviceability
2. As a tool to process sound
3. As a tool to inspect sound
 
and they really aren't choosen for listening enjoyment.
 
 
Studio gear will try to make mixing mistakes sound a bit more obvious so it is easier to catch them before the final mix down. There are very few studio speakers that make their way into peoples homes as reference high end gear. It certainly isn't because studio gear isn't expensive enough....as something that looks like the same speaker as a consumer model might cost 2-3 times as much and hopefully has better crossover components inside and better magnets, spiders etc. ONE WOULD HOPE....err..
 
And..
If studio speakers were so good at making music enjoyable and life like- you might expect to see more reviewed in consumer audio journals.
 
My first speaker was a studio monitor, I changed to a high end audio speaker The Pyramid Met -3 by Dick Sequerra, and a few pairs of speakers later I got some 3/5 BBC monitors..and found them involving and not terribly accurate to making music sound more alive.
 
The last pair of Studio monitors I still own are Genelec s30D which have their own 24/96 DAC built in as well as a couple of other neat features like automatic digital switching, individual dip switches for every driver gain, trip-amplified with class a/b amps, and a whole bunch of bass shelving controls so you can really fit the monitor to the room. They output 122 db...and have a Decca derived ribbon tweeter. Without stock cables they are lack luster ho hum.. but can really sing with better power cables (better harmonics, cleaner more powerful defined bass, clearer mids, more information, less listener fatigue etc) ... probably the most dramatic conversion I have heard with good power cables.  This studio monitor is one of the only studio monitors that The Absolute Sound reviewed and liked.  I don't care much for the onboard DAC and just feed them a nice signal from a  tube pre-amp to the analog inputs.. but it is nice to know there is a DAC there in case of an emergency..or if you just want to simply play them off a laptop with a optical to AES-EBU converter.
 
I at one time wished they had 24/192 DACs but recently I have come to like 24/96 more. I do think that some (not all) electronics can have trouble with higher sample rate artifacts.
 
I also wonder if 24/48 might sound better on them because at the time of manufacture a lot of studios were using 48kHz and that might be the most optimized codec in the speaker. I'll have to try that.
 
So that is my take on studio gear, I find of the systems that sound the most alive...they were not all sourced completely  from neutral components.. which are like cooking with salt and pepper only... instead of using a few interesting stronger  spices to get appropriate sonic accents which lend to the perception of live music.
 
I don't find that the better high end gear is very  far from neutral I do think it resolves significantly without distorting the sound stage.... and might have some zing somewhere which if used appropriately in the right circumstance can help a system. 
 
You can find high end speakers in mastering rooms. For instance I have seen Dunlavys in several mastering rooms.
 
It would be interesting to hear what people who have made excellent audiophile grade recordings think about higher sample rates. Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast records uses higher sample rates.. and people think she gets amazing results in her living room recording.

 

[bigshot]

  So... Do speakers have relatively higher distortion relative to headphones? Also... what if somebody had the budget to pick how large they want a music room to be? Would the sound quality be better in a large room (with the right speaker setup of course)?
And finally, I know EQ can do great things but I find it hard to do. Like, if I google "How to use EQ" I get basically nothing for the home user. Do I tune by ear, then how will I know the sound is truly flat? And do I use a parametric EQ instead of a normal EQ with sliders? (Parametric is like a line you tweak right, so it's like having a million sliders?)

 
Speakers generally have higher distortion than headphones, but they sound much better.
 
My room is about 22 wide by 30 long I would guess. It's a pretty good size. A little bit larger wouldn't be bad. Maybe 28 by 35. It would get me a little further from the walls all around. But a smaller room doesn't require as big speakers to fill it, so it's a trade off. I personally like enough room for the music to open up in and a soundstage scale that relates to the size of actual performers. My soundstage is about 20 feet wide and 8 feet tall. Here is a photo of my room....
 

 
I know what you are talking about with EQ. There is a long learning period where you figure out what the numbers mean in terms of sound and train yourself to think one frequency band at a time. The most accurate way to calibrate is with tone sweeps, but you can get really close by ear with music if you train yourself and analyze and take your time. It took me a few months of parallel parking to get mine right. I'm not sure which is best... parametric or graphic. It depends on the problems you are correcting. A parametric is great for overall curves, and a 31 band graphic equalizer is better if you have a lot of narrow spikes and dips. I wish I had both, but I just have a parametric right now.
 
Balancing 5.1 systems adds a whole new level of complexity, because the volume of each channel affects the EQ. And the EQ affects the relative volume. You have to keep bouncing back and forth between the gain and the tone until they are both balanced at the same time.
 
If you set up a good parametric or graphic equalizer, I would be happy to guru you through it here. I have a few inexpensive CDs that I use to EQ by ear. If you had those and an equalizer, I could let you know how to start. Then you could let me know the problems you run into and I could guide you to the right direction to solve them. It's kind of fun actually and it makes a HUGE improvement in your sound. Equalization and DSPs are the two secrets of my system. Properly applied, you can squeeze audiophile performance out of relatively humble equipment.

 

[bigshot]

  I will say this... and I am sure it won't go down well. When I take an entire system of neutral components where each component has no signature sound . and put them all together  I tend to get "nothing".  a rather lifeless boring studio sound that does not sound live at all.

 
Oh no! You haven't heard a calibrated flat response then!
 
First of all, in order to bring the sub bass up to neutral, it takes a LOT of power. Most single cabinet speakers plunked down in a living room don't get down anywhere near where my Carver sub goes. It can be made to produce flat all the way down to 16Hz. If I put on an organ CD, the walls shake. I actually have to dip the resonant frequency of my room using EQ to prevent that, It isn't totally critical to have a flat response very far below 30Hz, because you are getting below the range where we discern pitch, but it does help to have a balanced relative volume down there so it fills in properly. A lot of times you will hear systems where the pluck of an acoustic bass doesn't connect to the low end of the note... as if there is a gap between the pluck and the thump. You'll also hear descending bass lines (in Beatles songs particularly) where each bass note is supposed to be the same volume, but as it goes down you can hear the volume going up and down. These are clear indications that your bass isn't flat.
 
With the upper mids, balanced response is absolutely critical. A sound engineer friend of mine demonstrated auditory masking to me on his reference system once. He asked me to close my eyes and listen for a difference. I did and all of a sudden the treble disappeared completely. Then it came back again. He asked me to estimate what frequency band he had changed. I guessed somewhere around 6-7kHz. He said, "Watch what I'm doing this time." and he reached for 2kHz and dialed it up just a few dB. I couldn't detect any difference in the mids but the treble completely disappeared. He explained that a frequency response imbalance can affect the octave divisions above it by masking out the harmonic frequencies. When he dialed up 2kHz, it killed 4kHz and 8kHz, essentially neutering the treble.
 
Narrow spikes sprinkled through the core mids can wreak havoc with high frequencies and upper mids. That's why a balanced response through the core frequencies is so important. Especially in the octaves around 4kHz where the ear is most sensitive. (More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_masking) When you have a balanced response, your bass is full and defined, the treble is clear and sparkling, and your midrange doesn't jump out at you. Best of all, the sound is clearer, because the subtle details of the mix are revealed, instead of being masked. We normally thing of clarity as being related to distortion. It is, but it is just as related to response.
 
High sampling rates are totally unnecessary because 44.1 is capable of perfectly recreating up to and just beyond the range of human hearing- 22kHz. Frequencies beyond that can't be heard, much less be heard as an element of music. Carefully conducted double blind listening tests have proven that super audible frequencies add nothing to the quality of recorded music. However it can be possible to discern the difference between high sampling rate material and redbook. A lot of audio equipment isn't designed to reproduce super audible frequencies and end up distorting down an octave or two in the audible range. In these cases, high sampling rates are worse, not better. That is the only difference a human can discern. Recording studios occasionally need super audible frequencies for harmonic effects. But most studios rarely go above 96. Some I have worked with use 48, which is a standard for DVD release and they have no problem producing first class sound.
 
For a home hifi listener, high bit rates and high sampling rates are just packing peanuts to pad out file sizes. They do absolutely nothing for human ears. That is a proven fact. And I've verified it myself with careful testing of my own.
 
By the way, 48 doesn't sound better than 44.1. It's just that redbook standard is 44.1 and DVD standard is 48. You use whatever your end product is going to be released on. I believe 48 was chosen to do brick wall filtering without oversampling. It has nothing to do with the sound of the extra couple of notes worth of super audible frequencies.

 

[Dark_wizzie]

   
Speakers generally have higher distortion than headphones, but they sound much better.
 
My room is about 22 wide by 30 long I would guess. It's a pretty good size. A little bit larger wouldn't be bad. Maybe 28 by 35. It would get me a little further from the walls all around. But a smaller room doesn't require as big speakers to fill it, so it's a trade off. I personally like enough room for the music to open up in and a soundstage scale that relates to the size of actual performers. My soundstage is about 20 feet wide and 8 feet tall. Here is a photo of my room....
 

 
I know what you are talking about with EQ. There is a long learning period where you figure out what the numbers mean in terms of sound and train yourself to think one frequency band at a time. The most accurate way to calibrate is with tone sweeps, but you can get really close by ear with music if you train yourself and analyze and take your time. It took me a few months of parallel parking to get mine right. I'm not sure which is best... parametric or graphic. It depends on the problems you are correcting. A parametric is great for overall curves, and a 31 band graphic equalizer is better if you have a lot of narrow spikes and dips. I wish I had both, but I just have a parametric right now.
 
Balancing 5.1 systems adds a whole new level of complexity, because the volume of each channel affects the EQ. And the EQ affects the relative volume. You have to keep bouncing back and forth between the gain and the tone until they are both balanced at the same time.
 
If you set up a good parametric or graphic equalizer, I would be happy to guru you through it here. I have a few inexpensive CDs that I use to EQ by ear. If you had those and an equalizer, I could let you know how to start. Then you could let me know the problems you run into and I could guide you to the right direction to solve them. It's kind of fun actually and it makes a HUGE improvement in your sound. Equalization and DSPs are the two secrets of my system. Properly applied, you can squeeze audiophile performance out of relatively humble equipment.

Nice room. Unfortunately I cannot currently afford a good listening room with acoustic treatment and good speakers, so I went with a headphone instead. But in the future when I'm older and I have a REAL job I hope to have such a room. I want it to be treated and calibrated very well for computer use... I listen to music at my keyboard and mouse and I can use the speakers for none-music activities. I read that you live down in southern California... Too far for me to drive to. Bay Area here... Maybe on day I'll pop in to that room if your offer is still open by then.

 (Although I don't see myself being in Socal anytime soon.)

Today I only run two Rokits (my sub was from Logitecsh z2300 but the control pod might have died) in my kitchen... entire computer desk with speakers are in the corner of the room. Hard to fix these issues, so I put on my headphones instead.
 
Do the most distortion free speakers offer distortion the human ear cannot hear? And are headphones the same?
 
 
Anyways, about the whole studio monitors topic... Isn't the point of monitors to have accurate reproduction of sound so the artist knows what he's doing to his track? If the artist's track sounds boring and lifeless on that setup, then we need to blame the artist instead....

 

[bigshot]

The general threshold of audibility for distortion is around 1%. Speakers can get up to 4%, but the kind of distortion isn't objectionable. Some distortion only affects narrow bands in the response. These are less serous than broadband distortion. So I guess it depends whether higher levels of distortion in speakers are audible or not.

 

[stv014]

The distortion of dynamic speakers and headphones depends significantly on the frequency and level of the signal. Generally, the distortion is higher at lower frequency and/or higher SPL. Therefore, the woofer may easily have a few % of distortion while playing loud bass, but at the same time it is only tenths of a percent for the midrange speaker, and maybe even less for the tweeter. It also depends on the SPL, as already mentioned. Good headphones have lower distortion than speakers at the same SPL, although loudspeakers with multiple drivers have the advantage of reduced IMD (i.e. a distorting woofer will not "rattle" the upper midrange and treble, because the higher frequencies are played by separate drivers). On the other hand, bad passive crossovers add some distortion themselves.

 

[SunTanScanMan]

   

 
 

That's a great looking listening room - I do like that it's not super modern looking. It's homely and cozy, so I can imagine it's perfect for relaxing and listening to music.
 
Would the same principles apply for desktop speakers? That is, would it be worth using an equaliser to the effect you mentioned? I generally listen to headphones and speakers at low volumes. Once I got used to it, I found all the details there, plus it was relaxing to enjoy the music. With speakers I also have to be considerate to my neighbours.
 
---
 
I remember when I first heard samples of 24-bit music on music streaming services and being slightly disappointed. Perhaps I had unrealistic expectations, but that feeling has been repeated since. So I've never really explored them further. Not to mention the premium price that they demand. Ultimately, perusing these forums, I've come to belief that 'good enough' is enough for me. I've not the patience or the time to chase the last ounce of SQ.
 
I used to stream FLAC quality, which I enjoyed, but even then I could find very little, if any differentiation from 320kbps. So switched to streaming the latter. I'm content as I can save money to buy more CDs especially when they're so cheap. When I get the CDs, I rip to ALAC as I found it the most convenient way. Tried ripping Box sets using EAC and I mucked up the labelling, not to mention it took an absolute age to rip. So lesson learned - waste less time ripping, chasing SQ, find good music, enjoy more time listening. So that's good enough for me.
 
I do think it's quite easy to get caught up with 'chasing the dragon' - a mixture of gadgets, and wanting to exploit them 'to their potential' can get addictive fast. I know I went crazy for a period saving up and buying the headphones I have now. It's fun switching around, but I still feel it's excessive. I was interested in them, and had to satisfy my curiosity. Luckily I was satisfied after 4.

 

[RRod]

I just wanna know if the marlin has any effect on frequency response.

 

[MacacoDoSom]

no!