Yes and No. A 10 KHz boost will have the same subjective effect whether it takes place in a preamp or power amp or CD player. Lumping perception and fidelity together only confuses matters.
--Ethan
The Absurdity of Some Recent Audio Reviews in Stereophile.
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Yes and No. A 10 KHz boost will have the same subjective effect whether it takes place in a preamp or power amp or CD player. Lumping perception and fidelity together only confuses matters.
--Ethan
What speakers? What do you mean by "the image collapsed?" If near-field monitors could not image well, neither could your recordings.
P
Pleasant is subjective, but more revealing is unlikely. See my recent post in the Pro Gear thread about the Aphex Aural Exciter. Adding trebly grit can give the perception of more clarity, but it's an illusion and certainly not higher fidelity.
--Ethan
Edit, sorry, here's the correct link:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...Taste-or-.......&p=15162&viewfull=1#post15162
Last edited:
I divide imaging into two classes - the imaging already present in the recording, which is basically differences in the left and right channels. Those differences might be due to simple panning (electronic or natural), or left-right differences in the reverb and echo and ambience (either added artificially or natural).
The other type of imaging is created in the listening room itself. I suspect this is what Greg meant when he said above that the image collapsed when listening near-field. Yes, the sound of your own room is reduced when listening near-field. But to me that's a Good Thing. To others it may not be. I guess it depends a lot on how pleasing your own room's ambience sounds.
--Ethan
Yes and no. While I completely agree with you about the problems introduced by imperfect room acoustics, the presentation of both (or more) channels to both ears is essential to the recreation of the soundstage. Injection of the L/R signals into each ear independently works only for well made binaural recordings. I wish I could say more but I have written about this in extenso for an upcoming column and I do not want to scoop myself. Come over for a visit to hear what provoked this.
Come over for a visit to hear what provoked this.
That would be great. When is good for you? Are you around tonight or Saturday evening?
As it happens, I'm currently making another music video (not 30 Ethans!) using video footage I'm shooting around town. The other day I was on your street and noticed a perfect spot to capture a sunset. It's about half a mile past your house on the left. So I've been wanting to get up there some early evening soon anyway.
--Ethan
I will be away on Saturday but, hopefully, will be in New Milford by the afternoon. I will get in touch with you when I return and perhaps we can get together.
Kal
Kal
There's another thing that happens in near-field, one that is obvious, if you think about it: The image is smaller. When you set your speakers on the floor, or on stands, and sit back 10 feet, with the speakers 10 feet apart, you create a sound stage that is (at least) 10 feet wide. My monitors sit on my desk top, elevated a couple of inches on platforms and tilted back. They're about 3.5 feet apart, and I sit about 3.5 feet back. So they create a sound stage about 1/3 the size. Obvious. The net effect isn't much different except that it takes so much of the room out of the picture that with good monitors, the pinpoint imaging can be ungodly good.
P
Tim
I have never listened near field like you but your descriptions suggest it is worth evaluating. For me however part of trying to achieve the Absolute Sound is with a realistic sound stage with a "you are there" feeling. Does near field give you the same aural experience?
I have never listened near field like you but your descriptions suggest it is worth evaluating. For me however part of trying to achieve the Absolute Sound is with a realistic sound stage with a "you are there" feeling. Does near field give you the same aural experience?
Hi
I had Quad ESL 63 and did near field listening .. My experiences did not mirror P's.. Granted the Quad imaging would nver be mistaken for that of an IRS-V in term of size and scale but it remained good .. actually better, than in the far field and instruments size were very believable... I believe this depends on the imaging characteristics of the speaker itself..
In addition, not all speakers are suitable for near-field ...
I had Quad ESL 63 and did near field listening .. My experiences did not mirror P's.. Granted the Quad imaging would nver be mistaken for that of an IRS-V in term of size and scale but it remained good .. actually better, than in the far field and instruments size were very believable... I believe this depends on the imaging characteristics of the speaker itself..
In addition, not all speakers are suitable for near-field ...
Sure, to the extent that you can have that at all. Imagine you are sitting at a desk. Spread your arms out in front of you, angled forward just slightly. There's your sound stage. Near field listening doesn't shrink the instruments, it shrinks the room. You're just not using the whole thing, but you're sitting closer, so it all evens out. It's hard to describe, and I probably didn't do it well. With the right monitors, pinpoint imaging can be awesome. I still sit here sometimes and just grin like a fool when a solo begins and the trumpet is right....THERE!...and the sax is..there..and the ride cymbal..the high hat..the snare......the bass....it's, who was it that hated the word "palpable?" It's palpable!
I've gone to some trouble to isolate my monitors from the desktop and to prevent reflections, but it's even better on stands in open space with a chair placed in front of them. Frantz is right, though, not all speakers work in a near-field configuration. Big floor standers with lots of drivers need some travel room to bring those drivers together into a coherent whole, for example. I'm not sure your big Wilsons would work. I've heard the Sophias, though, and I suspect you could bring them close together, pull up a chair, and they'd be better for it. Do you have a small secondary system that might be appropriate?
When you get good actives in close, it's the closest you can get, IMO, to the clarity and detail of headphones with the imaging of speakers. That's my goal, anyway, and I think I'm almost there. If I had the rest of this room and a few grand to spare, when I turned this chair around it would face another near-field system consisting of full-range speakers, probably built around Jordans, maybe even powered by tubes.
But then I'd have to turn in my cranky heretic credentials and put my old audiophile badge, "scarlet A," back on...
P
maybe even powered by tubes. and my life would not be in vain.
And I would know the secret handshake.
P
If you think about it even further, that doesn't have to be the case.
Let's say you're led into a room blindfolded. You have no idea of the room's size, or where you are sitting in relation to the speakers. Let's further suppose that all early reflections are absorbed. As long as you and the speakers are in an equal triangle, it shouldn't matter where along the triangle's axes you're sitting. In all cases the sound will be as wide as the angle, rather than the actual distance between the speakers.
--Ethan
If you think about it even further, that doesn't have to be the case.
Let's say you're led into a room blindfolded. You have no idea of the room's size, or where you are sitting in relation to the speakers. Let's further suppose that all early reflections are absorbed. As long as you and the speakers are in an equal triangle, it shouldn't matter where along the triangle's axes you're sitting. In all cases the sound will be as wide as the angle, rather than the actual distance between the speakers.
--Ethan
Ethan is obviously correct. All that matters in terms of soundstage width is the subtended angle as viewed from the listening spot. In the near field, your listening room acoustics are less audible. In the far field, unless your speakers really beam (think flat panel electrostatic with the back wave killed somehow, or cardioid dispersion like the Gradient Revolution or Helsinki 1.5), most of the "space" you hear is the listening room's reverberation, rather than the recorded space actually on the recording.
Now, as you get closer to the speakers systems, the drivers of some or even most speakers will begin to be audible as separate sound sources. The distance at which this occurs varies widely from speaker to speaker. Some begin to lose inter-driver coherence when listened to closer than eight or even ten feet away. Others, like my Harbeth M40.1s, still sound like a single driver even from two feet away.
Certainly but most recordings are mastered with the expectation that they will not be listened to in the near field (even though many studios are set up for it) and loss of the added room effects (although spurious) makes for a less spacious presentation. Reflections from room boundaries can enhance "immersion" and apparent image size (as Toole and others point out). Thus, near field listening trades off one thing for another, as headphone listening.
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