Why do some people listen to a cello when evaluating a system? What can / could one learn?

caesar

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May 30, 2010
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Through the years I have heard a number of people bring up the cello when discussing quality systems. Is there anything to judging high-end systems by playing a cello? Thank you
 

Audiophile Bill

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Mar 23, 2015
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I always like to listen to a combination of classical strings including cello when reviewing gear. I spent a lot of my life playing in classical ochestras and have a pretty decent steer on the cello tone. When I am listening to strings including cello I am looking to hear a sound that is as authentic as possible so clearly hearing decent harmonic content and particularly body with the cello. Strings really can very quickly teach you whether a system is totally anywhere near it should be imho. I find it a great test for digital in particular as many DACs can make strings sound very wrong indeed. For me the best string authenticity is with Decca SXL vinyl.
 

PeterA

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Dec 6, 2011
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I try to bring cello recordings when evaluating gear. I find the cello, especially when it is close mic'd can tell one a lot about how coherent a speaker system is. It is also especially good for judging sub/monitor integration. I have also heard live cello many times, so I know the range of sounds that it can produce. Finally, I listen for the balance between string texture and tone and the weight and body of the instrument. I also just love the sound of a solo cello and the incredible energy that it can produce live.
 

Al M.

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Sep 10, 2013
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I always like to listen to a combination of classical strings including cello when reviewing gear. I spent a lot of my life playing in classical ochestras and have a pretty decent steer on the cello tone. When I am listening to strings including cello I am looking to hear a sound that is as authentic as possible so clearly hearing decent harmonic content and particularly body with the cello.

Especially on solo cello, the body is hard to reproduce. It should not be lacking, but there also should be no 'bloating' of the lower midrange, often coming from unwanted resonances (many speakers are deficient in either of these ways). There should also be lots of micro-detail in the tone.

Strings really can very quickly teach you whether a system is totally anywhere near it should be imho. I find it a great test for digital in particular as many DACs can make strings sound very wrong indeed. For me the best string authenticity is with Decca SXL vinyl.

In my experience, the tone of solo violin reveals especially digital artifacts more quickly than that of solo cello, and the reproduction of micro-detail is even more vulnerable to system deficiencies.

Same for the respective orchestral sections; massed violins tend to be more revealing of problems than the cello section, in my view. Yet particularly here it is not just about source artifacts, but also problems with acoustics, cables, speakers etc.
 

NorthStar

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Feb 8, 2011
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Solo cello is good; it has emotions, lower vibes, higher ones, it's like a voice enveloping the soul from a deeper palette of emotional range. It has emotional impact so pro audiophiles tend to use that instrument perhaps more in evaluating their audio gear and mechanical loudspeakers.

Solo piano is good, solo classical guitar is good, solo violin, solo acoustic bass guitar, solo clarinet, solo alto flute, solo horn, solo timpani, solo cymbal, solo tenor vocal opera, solo alto saxophone, solo trumpet, solo harpsichord, solo mandolin, solo harp, solo drum, solo organ, solo accordéon, ...solo all musical instruments and human voices are all good when evaluating classical/jazz/blues/... loudspeakers and audio cables and gear, quality music recordIngs from the best world studios and hall venues by the best music record labels and the best recording music engineers.
 

DaveC

Industry Expert
Nov 16, 2014
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Cello is good for testing driver integration and has complex timbre.
 

audioguy

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Apr 20, 2010
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I would add a plucked stand up bass also provides a good test of bass/mains integration or even the effectiveness of the bass/mid crossover in a single box/full range system..

I used to take a particular CD to CES's (that included stand up bass) and in virtually every room we played it, the system fell apart at one level or another.
 

Ken Newton

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Dec 11, 2012
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Cello is right in the "power range" of an orchestra. This range translates to the upper-bass through lower-midrange of an hifi music system. Many audiophiles perceive acoustic energy in that range as greatly contributing to the sense of music sounding live. Live cello in particular has a warm resonant character, combined with a difficult to describe acoustic 'presence'. Audiophiles often feel shortchanged by their hifi system with respect to it's ability to convey the warmth of an orchestra, or of an rock band.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Through the years I have heard a number of people bring up the cello when discussing quality systems. Is there anything to judging high-end systems by playing a cello? Thank you

The cello if I'm not mistaken is the closest in range and timbre to the human voice. Vocals are the usual first step. It is a logical next step in that regard before heading off to other instruments. It is also the logical substitute for vocals in assessing system performance for purely instrumental classical music.
 

jeromelang

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Dec 26, 2011
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It is well known that many speakers were designed with their mid range driver(s) and woofer(s) wired in opposite polarity to each other.

The cello is smacked right in the middle of their transition point.



At any moment, 1 half of the cello sound is going this direction and the other half is going the opposite direction. How are the resultant 2 halves ever going to sound like the real thing...?

Yes, the cello is probably a very good test for drivers "integration", but not just in the frequency domain alone.
 
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marty

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Apr 20, 2010
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It is well known that many speakers were designed with their mid range driver(s) and woofer(s) wired in opposite polarity to each other.

The cello is smacked right in the middle of their transition point.



At any moment, 1 half of the cello sound is going this direction and the other half is going the opposite direction. How are the resultant 2 halves ever going to sound like the real thing...?

Jerome
This question has been asked almost since the beginning of modern speaker (and crossover) design and appears to have been mostly answered. In short, the ear does not appear to be as sensitive to this sort of timing error (hence phase error) as you might have guessed. Apparently our brain seems to be able to integrate musical signals arriving within a few milliseconds quite well. The following is from a seminal 1998 article by John Atkinson in Stereophile on measuring loudspeakers:

"Acoustic Phase Responses
Does a loudspeaker's time coherence matter? A "perfect" speaker, of course, would have both a perfect impulse response and a perfect frequency response (at one point in space). Another way of looking at a loudspeaker's time-domain performance is to examine its acoustic phase response, the phase angle between the pressure and velocity components of the sound plotted against frequency.

Again, this is an aspect of loudspeaker behavior that has proved controversial. One school of thought holds that it is very important to perceived quality; another, which includes almost all loudspeaker engineers, finds it unimportant. Floyd Toole, now with Harman International but then with Canada's National Research Council, in his summary of research at the NRC into loudspeaker performance that is described in two classic 1986 papers [32, 33], concluded thusly: "The advocates of accurate waveform reproduction, implying both accurate amplitude and phase responses, are in a particularly awkward situation. In spite of the considerable engineering appeal of this concept, practical tests have yielded little evidence of listener sensitivity to this factor...the limited results lend support for the popular view that the effects of phase are clearly subordinate to amplitude response."
 

DaveC

Industry Expert
Nov 16, 2014
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Jerome
This question has been asked almost since the beginning of modern speaker (and crossover) design and appears to have been mostly answered. In short, the ear does not appear to be as sensitive to this sort of timing error (hence phase error) as you might have guessed. Apparently our brain seems to be able to integrate musical signals arriving within a few milliseconds quite well. The following is from a seminal 1998 article by John Atkinson in Stereophile on measuring loudspeakers:

"Acoustic Phase Responses
Does a loudspeaker's time coherence matter? A "perfect" speaker, of course, would have both a perfect impulse response and a perfect frequency response (at one point in space). Another way of looking at a loudspeaker's time-domain performance is to examine its acoustic phase response, the phase angle between the pressure and velocity components of the sound plotted against frequency.

Again, this is an aspect of loudspeaker behavior that has proved controversial. One school of thought holds that it is very important to perceived quality; another, which includes almost all loudspeaker engineers, finds it unimportant. Floyd Toole, now with Harman International but then with Canada's National Research Council, in his summary of research at the NRC into loudspeaker performance that is described in two classic 1986 papers [32, 33], concluded thusly: "The advocates of accurate waveform reproduction, implying both accurate amplitude and phase responses, are in a particularly awkward situation. In spite of the considerable engineering appeal of this concept, practical tests have yielded little evidence of listener sensitivity to this factor...the limited results lend support for the popular view that the effects of phase are clearly subordinate to amplitude response."

But, but... what about all the marketing stating otherwise??? ;)

At some frequencies it's important, at others it just isn't audible. This also corresponds with measurements I've taken that show cancellation at these frequencies that goes away both above and below. For a typical speaker the woofer/mid phase match won't matter but mid/tweet can. This is part of the reason wide-band drivers that cover this entire frequency range often have desirable qualities and speakers that transition within this range often have audible problems due to the xo and drivers not matching well.
 

miniguy

Well-Known Member
Dec 18, 2013
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San Diego area
The best ever (IMHO) cello recording for evaluating systems is one I have used for decades - a several minutes excerpt from the Kodaly Op. 8 sonata. While most selections on this demo record were taken from other sources, this demo piece was engineered especially for the record by Ensayo with a minimum of room reverb, so the full range and all the nuances of the instrument spring forth in true-to-life fashion.

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