Videos of Acoustically-Coupled Audio Recordings

[morricab]

Small differences in a DAC's output level or even perhaps impedance differences could also explain this ?

Entirely possible.

 

[morricab]

A number of interesting comments in the latest videos of my systems. I’ve been busy but want to address some of them as they are very good comments and assessments:



Brad the LampizatOr is a custom upgraded version of the DSD-Only dac that LampizatOr put out a number of years ago, not a recent dac but it was updated and upgraded in 2021 by Lukazs and his team in Poland. The ValveDac is a custom DIY dac based on Marcel Van De Gevel’s white paper on Linear Audio. What makes the ValveDac technically interesting and special is that it is the only dac design in the world that uses the tubes as part of the conversion process. My ValveDac is the Raw-DSD only variant.

I agree with you that the LampizatOr sounds more exciting, dramatic, and colorful. It is the “matter of fact” neutrality, and organic sound that draws me to the ValveDac.


The Fertin 20EX silver-voicecoil fieldcoil drivers are exceptional and clearly the best of the three sets of fullrange field coil drivers that I own, the other two being Supravox and Atelier-Rullit.

I purposely handicapped the Fertin based system to prove a point to Al (Al M.). The other systems demonstrate greater inner and low level detail because they are using DSD512 from HQPLAYER as their source material, same Tidal file being streamed to all three 3 dacs in these videos. The Fertin’s would pull away with HQPLAYER.







This is a topic that I have addressed previously in PeterA’ Natural Sound thread: I think that the key to what Peter refers to as ”Natural Sound” is rooted in the high-frequency contour. I agree with Peter that the high frequencies spectral content and high frequency energy produced by most High-End Audio systems is not accurate and representative of what we hear in real life. The real world offers way more absorption and many of those high frequencies captured by closed up microphones don’t have much chance of reaching our ears in nature. Consider this, the higher the frequency the more directional it becomes, how can our ears capture all the sound from a wide stage with the level of precision that a well recorded, with close microphones, can render? Stereo systems often sound bigger and greater than what we hear in real life. Peter’s goal, as I understand it, is not to reproduce the recordings but to reproduce real life. My Ferin 20EX fieldcoil drivers is so far the only fullrange driver that I have own or listen to that can go as high as it is needed by me and which does not require the assistance of a super tweeter!

I would only add that when a recording is made up close then you don't have that environmental absorption. Having attended many many many live classical concerts and practice sessions for those concerts I can say that what is heard on the recording is often, not always but often, the equivalent of sitting up very close to the performers. it is not a mid hall or back hall sound. If one desires a consistent mid or back hall sound then one is manipulating the recording to their taste to get that sound in many cases.

I was lucky to know a few jazz clubs where one could sit almost within touching distance of the performers and as such got a very direct, raw and present sound at those shows. With most jazz recordings this is the kind of sound one finds on most recordings. So, I strive not to alter that perspective, which is usually the "They are there" in the room with you as that is what I would also hear live if I am sitting very close to the performers. If the sound is too distant then i suspect something is off in the reproduction.

I don't know if you have ever been to a chamber music concert in an actual home before or not. I went to a concert in London once as part of a Schubert festival in the home of a doctor. There were about 20 people in attendance and the concert was performed in the entry room (maybe 40-50 sqm). They performed Schubert quartets and finished with the famous quintet that uses double cellos (not the piano quintet "Trout"). I sat in the 2nd row maybe 3 meters from the performers. The power and presence of that performance is burned into my memory and just reinforced what live and natural really means. Of course over the many years of my ex playing violin in the apartment I got lots of exposure to world class playing on unique instruments and the power and presence always impressed me.

If a system dampens this with muting the natural high content on the recording to create a different version of "natural" then i am not really in favor of that. It probably makes many recordings sound more pleasant and with greater ease but I would not get behind that manipulation.

 

[morricab]

Very good. My Supravox fieldcoil full range drivers have a similar response curve but do not sound as extended.

You are focusing in my comments to much a full-range drivers. My comments here and on Peter’s thread were general comments.

If you want to hear an example of ear-piercing high-frequencies reproduction that is passed off as HIgh-End Audio today please visit Jay’s Audio Lab and you will hear what I mean instantly.

I use the Supravox Alnico driver in my 2-way design. It is the 215-2000 without whizzer. I tried it full-range but it is just not realistically extended enough to be true full range. So, I use a 1.4 inch compression driver (Beyma CP755Ti) in a round Tractirx horn crossed at 1800Hz to pick up the upper range (the Beyma is very smooth to at least 15khz). My problem with fullrange drivers that use a whizzer...is the whizzer. I find the highs to be both a bit dry and splashy, which is probably do to the fact that this is really an uncontrolled breakup of the whizzer. Even the heroic efforts of Cube Audio, where they have multiple whizzers, doesn't solve it to my ears.

 

[morricab]

Off-axis would be more interesting...

 

[morricab]

Understood. Just wanted to be clear. I have quite a collection of full-range drivers here at home and collection of back-horn loaded and JE Labs style Open Baffles. What I have found is that the better full-range drivers like the Stefan Stamm Loth-X, original version, the Atelier-Rullit Alnico permanent magnets, the PHY’s, the SEAS full range drivers along with the Fertin and Supravox, both modern and vintage, do not exhibit the midrange shout that the Lowther’s are known for, at least to to an appreciable extend.

Have you tried any TQWT loaded designs? I am finding my Supravox likes that loading very much.

 

[Ron Resnick]

please stop generalising vintage loudspeakers.

I am not generalizing. In each instance I wrote "some."

 

[Ron Resnick]

there are very few modern speakers like Sigma MAAT series today that, similar to older speakers, allow use of quality low watt amps by keeping sensitivity high and impedance flat.

This is one reason I like the Gobel Divin Majestic.

 

[PeterA]

I think the problem of some vintage loudspeakers is subjectively a lack of a sense of "air." I think this sense of "air" is what I sometimes feel is "missing" from some vintage loudspeakers.



Each of us has to choose which set of loudspeaker compromises we prefer.

Ron, can you describe what you mean by “air“? Is it produced by speakers or something else in the system and do you hear this live at Disney concert hall?

You seem to think that every speaker has a set of compromises. What would you say are the compromises in David’s Bionor speakers and in your Gryphon Pendragon’s?

I would argue that some speakers are much less compromised than others. The challenge is to find which speakers those are within the context of a given system and room set up.

 

[Ron Resnick]

As I was editing the video clips on my iMac last night of the videos I recorded at AXPONA 2023, listening to many of the video recordings of show audio system playbacks over and over, I was struck by how misleading was the sound of some (but by no means all) of the video clips versus the sound I heard in person, in real life, just hours earlier.

One system which garnered rave reviews in person sounded weirdly boomy on the videos in each of five different recordings with five different tracks. Conversely, a large and elaborate and expensive system which most people I discussed it with reported that it sounded inexplicably underwhelming in person actually sounded quite good on the videos.

For me, personally, this is more evidence of the folly of believing that you can understand from a video recording of the audio playback of a system you have never heard in person in an unfamiliar room and especially with an unfamiliar recording the sound of that system.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, can you describe what you mean by “air“? Is it produced by speakers or something else in the system and do you hear this live at Disney concert hall?

"Air" is an interesting sonic concept and please let me reserve the right to think more fully in the future on a proposed definition than I have time for right now. There is not going to be a satisfying one to one identity between a sense of "air" I hear from stereo systems versus the sense of openness and wideband audio frequency transmission capability I here at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

At Walt Disney Concert Hall, I don't hear "air" per se, but I hear a wide and broad conduit, a sonic gateway, through which any frequency may be transmitted and received (heard by listeners in the hall). If there is a high frequency sound, or an overtone of a high frequency sound, or a high frequency harmonic of a lower frequency sound, generated by an instrument the hall allows the listener to hear it.

In stereo systems I perceive a sense of "air" to be kind of a proxy for this sense of wideband sonic conduit or gateway I hear live. In stereo systems the "air" manifests as a sense of openness and unrestricted treble frequency reproduction capability.

(Is it possible this sense of "air" concept is more related to phase information than to audio frequency information? I think Flemming thought so, because he added to the Pendragons four AMTs per side that start at 18kHz!)

You seem to think that every speaker has a set of compromises. What would you say are the compromises in David’s Bionor speakers and in your Gryphon Pendragon’s?

I would argue that some speakers are much less compromised than others. The challenge is to find which speakers those are within the context of a given system and room set up.

I think David's Bionors are missing some of this sense of higher frequency "air" and openness.

Whatever is this sonic concept of "air" I am discussing here, I believe it is why some people add supertweeters to their loudspeaker systems. As usual in this hobby, totally subjective preference.

I think the Pendragons are in the contemporary sound/extended frequency response category, and the sonic center of gravity is higher, presently, than I would like it to be. In my system I hear the "air" I am talking about (despite the measured, objective frequency response rolling off significantly at around 8kHz (very puzzling!)).

As I mentioned in my system thread I am trying to nudge downward the sonic center of gravity of my system. I would like to rein in some of the upper midrange and treble range energy, without losing the sense of "air" and "openness."

 

[Ron Resnick]

I would argue that some speakers are much less compromised than others. The challenge is to find which speakers those are within the context of a given system and room set up.

I agree that some speakers are less compromised than other speakers, but the compromises one perceives and the compromises one accepts are wholly subjective in my opinion. This point goes back to my essay several months ago that even though we hear substantially the same thing in the concert hall if we are in the same location our resulting home audio systems sound very different because we focus on different elements, or cues, of realism to re-create imperfectly what we hear in the concert hall.

In order for a system to reproduce that sense of "air" it must be an extended frequency response type system, but that system will tend not to have a sonic center of gravity in the upper bass/lower midrange which I think is critical to the believability of instruments in terms of "weight" and tonal density. There's no free lunch!

 

[Carlos269]

As I was editing the video clips on my iMac last night of the video I recorded at AXPONA 2023, listening to many of the video recordings of show audio system playbacks over and over, I was struck by how misleading was the sound of some (by no means all) of the video clips versus the sound I heard in person, in real life, just hours earlier.

One system which garnered rave reviews in person sounded weirdly boomy on the videos in each of five different recordings with five different tracks. Conversely, a large and elaborate and expensive system which most people I discussed it with reported that it sounded inexplicably underwhelming in person actually sounded quite good on the videos.

For me, personally, this is more evidence of the folly of believing that you can understand from a video recording of the audio playback of a system you have never heard in person in an unfamiliar room and especially with an unfamiliar recording the sound of that system.

Are you still using the spaced Omni microphones for your audio recording? If you are, then I’m not surprised by what you are hearing. I warned you of the issue with phase cancellation with using the spaced microphone arrangement. A properly set up X-Y microphones configuration is the best to capture live audio in a mobile, quickly deployed, set up.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Are you still using the spaced Omni microphones for your audio recording? If you are, then I’m not surprised by what you are hearing. I warned you of the issue with phase cancellation with using the spaced microphone arrangement. A properly set up X-Y microphones configuration is the best to capture live audio in a mobile, quickly deployed, set up.

No; I have never used the Earthworks QTC-40 matched pair of microphones for video recordings of audio systems. Both for the system videos I have posted of my system, and for the recordings at AXPONA, I have used only my iPhone handheld at the listening position.

 

[Carlos269]

No; I have never used the Earthworks QTC-40 matched pair of microphones for video recordings of audio systems. Both for the system videos I have posted of my system, and for the recordings at AXPONA, I have used only my iPhone handheld at the listening position.

Then please disregard my comment on phase cancellation.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Then please disregard my comment on phase cancellation.

If I ever embark on that project of a much more serious protocol for recording video of audio systems I will gratefully solicit your advice on the microphone positioning!

 

[Al M.]

I think the problem of some contemporary loudspeakers is subjectively excessive high frequency energy. I agree with Carlos and Peter and Tim on this. Solid-state amplification, to my ears, often makes this problem worse.

I think the problem of some vintage loudspeakers is subjectively a lack of a sense of "air." I think this sense of "air" is what I sometimes feel is "missing" from some vintage loudspeakers.

"Air" is important. In the concert hall I am often amazed at the sound having both lots of body and a good amount of "air", which is related to high frequency energy. It is very hard for a system to do both well, and I agree with you on those things.

Excellent follow-up posts, Ron, regarding a further explanation of the nature of "air" in the concert hall and other issues.

I should add that even in concert hall acoustics that are more subdued as to overall tonal balance, I am often struck by how much high frequency energy from high-pitched metallic percussion like triangles, cymbals etc . still comes through -- often much more actually than from lighter balanced systems (and that high-frequency tone has more weight as well). Someone once posted an article from TAS or Stereophile that explained why this is the case and why microphones as they are typically placed and how they typically work just do not capture this -- in other words, there is no stereo system that can reproduce this correctly, because the input from the recording does not allow for that. Maybe someone here knows the article that I mean and can re-post the link to it.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I should add that even in concert hall acoustics that are more subdued as to overall tonal balance, I am often struck by how much high frequency energy from high-pitched metallic percussion like triangles, cymbals etc . still comes through -- often much more actually than from lighter balanced systems (and that high-frequency tone has more weight as well). Someone once posted an article from TAS or Stereophile that explained why this is the case and why microphones as they are typically placed and how they typically work just do not capture this -- in other words, there is no stereo system that can reproduce this correctly, because the input from the recording does not allow for that. Maybe someone here knows the article that I mean and can re-post the link to it.

+1

I think the microphone capture point is a very good one!

 

[microstrip]

I have heard on Jeroen's Cessaro Zetas Momentums versus Alieno.

I have heard Momentums on YG Sonja.

On Wilson the only solid-state I like is darTZeel or Gryphon.

I, personally, would use big tube amps on Wilson.

So, simply you have not listened to Momentum's on Wilson. Nothing to add.

 

[microstrip]

I think the problem of some contemporary loudspeakers is subjectively excessive high frequency energy.

Surely, when we write something about "some" in this hobby it is true most of the time.

I agree with Carlos and Peter and Tim on this. Solid-state amplification, to my ears, often makes this problem worse.

Easily explained - solid state amplifier have low impedance output (high damping) , tubes typically have high output impedance (low damping). Coupled with speakers that sometimes have low impedance in the low or medium frequencies and higher impedance in the treble it rises the high frequency balance. Stereophile speaker reviews address this aspect with some extension.

But there is a lot more than frequency response that influence perception of high frequency energy. Distortion spectra and noise, for example.

 

[bonzo75]

Coupled with speakers that sometimes have low impedance in the low or medium frequencies and higher impedance in the treble it rises the high frequency balance.

And this is a key problem of many speakers especially cones today