To be sincere I must say I prefer the XLFs by a considerable margin. All the good things of the electrostats and a lot more.
BTW, IMO the XLFs are a lot better than Alexandria X1 or X2.
Videos of Acoustically-Coupled Audio Recordings
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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To be sincere I must say I prefer the XLFs by a considerable margin. All the good things of the electrostats and a lot more.
BTW, IMO the XLFs are a lot better than Alexandria X1 or X2.
Also a very good solution if you exchange or compare devices. Of course you have to adjust the volume and record it. Is there any progress or is the sound worse? more accurate than the ear does not depend on the shape of the day
They are also making more complex recordings that sound much more realistic than previous recordings of the same kind when played in adequate systems. Surely if people reference for realism are some specific recordings they can live forever listening to the TAS lists of the past.
No idea what you mean by dogma and rare gear. I have more visitors who want to hear my new SET horn system then I had wanting to hear my much more conventional Pass Labs Magico system. And they seem to like it more.
I have written a very positive report on horns:
An AXPONA 2017 highlight: BorderPatrol/Triode Wire Labs/Volti Audio
A belated report, since right after the AXPONA show I went on vacation to Europe, but now I'm back. Among other great sounds at AXPONA 2017 (for a good part experienced together with WBF member Madfloyd [Ian] and his wife Linda), for me personally the highlight was the room with BorderPatrol...
www.whatsbestforum.com
It's just that this point my current speakers check almost all my boxes, and I am very happy with the system now. Changing speaker type, while introducing improvements in a few areas, would very likely set me back in other areas that are extremely important to me, yielding a compromise I could not live with. Purely personal priorities and preferences. Everyone is wired differently. But I stay open-minded. In a few days I will hear another horn system that I very much look forward to.
Exactly. The dogmatism and absolutism are extremely off-putting.
is it a casual normal thing to encounter your current speakers in proper condition and context to audition? or any bespoke horns spoken of fondly by Ked? how were you exposed to your particular speakers? did ddk recommend these particular ones?
seems like the very definition of rare and dogmatically pure products. not 'off the shelf' or containing an order number.
not meant as any criticism, but becoming a member of the club to hear them properly represented is an impediment to reasonable access. and then suggesting this is the true path to happiness is a bit off putting. can't you see that?
nothing wrong with any of this btw, just realize that it's not a simple thing to join you in your rare and dogmatically pure direction. a few walls to knock down first.
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I hear this concern has been addressed as recently as yesterday.
Their latest device even displays images of your ears when they are in use.
Mike, I think you are micro are specifically referring to debates on the Natural Sound thread. Anyone can go listen to the Bionor and choose to like it or not like it, and there are other such horns as well.
The statement I have quoted by you can be true of anything exclusive, for an exclusive price bracket or for a particular brand. The thing is, if the audiophile is willing to do the research by traveling, there is no exclusivity to the horn club. One is limited by travel time, not by price. You are welcome to hear anything from Seattle to Asia. The exclusivity is only for highly priced modern goods, as these are extremely difficult to hear in someone's room and most people will only get to rely on price and online reviews suggesting these are the paths to happiness. For horns, one can travel or simply listen to videos, or do both. And if one likes it, it can be available at a very good relative price as margin incentives will be very different.
Of course I hear that Peter’s in-room recording sounds far more live. But I think (based only on video) that a significant portion of that live sound is coming from the room itself, not from the studio recording. Stehno’s recording, I suspect, is more true the recording itself. I believe if both rooms were ideally set up for their respective systems, that Peter’s would certainly sound more like live music. Just using Horns will get you a long way toward that goal.
i agree with everything you wrote. i was commenting on whether horns like Peter's or the one's you tout are rare and a type of strict dogma......or not? are they easily acquired or mostly obscure and needing to push against headwind to experience? do you need special knowledge to understand what it takes?
not saying there is a problem to fix or a situation to defend. it is what it is. which is not write a check and plug and play. needs hand holding and some digging to be able to participate. and maybe a secret handshake or three. and without the right guidance lots of grief.
Just listening exposure. Setting up analog well requires more skill. But it does take special tenacity to keep looking and go listen. Just like moving speakers and chairs, this seems to be a personality trait that some will futz about and some won't. One does acquire some skills in listening (choosing right audition records and knowing what to listen for) as one gets more exposure and knows what's possible. This you already know. You apply it in other contexts.
There is no skill different from tastes and design, and keeping patience through the bad apples. if some digital person started exploring analog he will take a longer time making sense of the landscape
I would say it depends, as everything in this hobby. We can get a top simple turntable with a parallel tracking tonearm, a Graham or a SME tonearm, a flat side cartridge, set it in a few minutes according to M Fremer 92 degree recipe, use the manufacturer quoted recommended tracking force and listen to excellent music forever without any extra fuss - except changing the cartridge occasionally.
But some audiophiles need something else. They love fancy shapes, unique designs and hard to set up systems. They hate instruments, scales or any form of convenience. They want to use just their ears and a few chosen recordings to set up their systems during long times to their own preference. No problem, their way of living this subjective hobby.
Many seem to grapple with and often times argue against in-room videos due to what we’re able to hear / not hear in these in-room videos.
IMO, we do similar grappling with our main systems - just not to the same degree which makes sense since in-room videos give us less to work with than an actual in-room presentation. There’s no denying that.
Nevertheless, as these two video may show, it’s not so easy to always discern sonic differences with in-room videos – unless perhaps some of us possess a keen sense of hearing and/or listening skills.
For example. Above are two videos of the…
- same artist, song, and recording,
- same room,
- same room furnishings, (I replaced a leather club chair and ottoman)
- same equipment, (though this week I’m playing with a new product)
- same iPhone/Shure mic,
- roughly same iPhone/Shure mic location,
- same system and speaker locations,
- roughly same playback volume
- roughly same recording mic gain db levels,
- even the same lighting
- system is always on so warm up times are generally never an issue.
- speakers warmws up can vary depending on times between listening sessions, etc
Anyway, I think these two videos recorded about 17 months apart offer a pretty good idea what at least I might expect to hear when attempting to hear distinctions between potential sonic differences.
But this is probably as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as one could hope for and there are sonic differences. And yes, there may be a few hot spots in the new video due to the new product.
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Cool, will listen later.
I have made what I consider to be a noticeable change in my room's acoustics, adding two corner "panels" and slightly changing the speaker placement. For the time being, they are an ugly assembly of what I had on hand, but will soon have a nicer looking model. I took measurements before and after (but only once I found that I enjoyed the results).
Attached pdf shows differences in measurements.
Video without corner panels
Video with corner panels & slight change in speaker placement (there may be a slight channel imbalance due to the way I was holding the mic)
The two recordings are taken from the same location (my listening position, which has not changed).
Sorry it's that tune again...
If you are curious to compare, it is best to focus on specific segments of the track.
EDIT: someone commented that the second track has too much emphasis on the left channel (I use ortf-stylr mics, handheld, and may have tilted them slightly) and this affects the stereo image. So maybe there are different pluses and minuses between the two recordings . I feel I am not very objective when it comes to listening to my own recordings, it's much easier to be critical with others'
I have made what I consider to be a noticeable change in my room's acoustics, adding two corner "panels" and slightly changing the speaker placement. For the time being, they are an ugly assembly of what I had on hand, but will soon have a nicer looking model. I took measurements before and after (but only once I found that I enjoyed the results).
Attached pdf shows differences in measurements.
Video without corner panels
Video with corner panels & slight change in speaker placement (there may be a slight channel imbalance due to the way I was holding the mic)
The two recordings are taken from the same location (my listening position, which has not changed).
Sorry it's that tune again...
If you are curious to compare, it is best to focus on specific segments of the track.
EDIT: someone commented that the second track has too much emphasis on the left channel (I use ortf-stylr mics, handheld, and may have tilted them slightly) and this affects the stereo image. So maybe there are different pluses and minuses between the two recordings . I feel I am not very objective when it comes to listening to my own recordings, it's much easier to be critical with others'
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First of all, the recording quality is very good (clarity, no obvious echo, sound is envelopping, etc..), and it sounds great, so congrats on that. I did not compare with the original track, I just listened to both (without actually knowing which was which, I changed the order of the tabs on chrome and could not remember which one corresponded to which version).
It is hard to hear any differences in the introduction, so I skipped randomly to 3:15, and here I notice a clear difference between the two videos. The second one has a fuller sound, more texture. I am not sure I could really tell them apart with a "casual" listening, but when focusing to hear differences, I am pretty confident I do. I am using these HD 400 headphones (with a desktop amp connected to my computer with a small USB-Toslink converter, for full disclosure!).
If differences are indeed heard, only you can tell whether they really correspond to a consistent change of the sound in your room, or whether it could be due to other more circumstantial aspects: small difference in mic placement, warmup of speakers, climate change
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Very nice to see the RT60 and decay curves. They show noticeable improvements in the band 50-100 Hz. Looking at the levels shown in the graphs I would suggest taking these kind of measurements at a louder level - although family and neighbors will not enjoy it! Take a look also at the other parameters displayed by REW for RT60 - sometimes I found EDT more helpful than RT30.
Around 40hz, it is still "problematic", from a theoretical standpoint at least - I'll be testing some other things to see whether an improvement can be made at the low end, but I'm not losing sleep over it. I am already happy with the improvements I've made over the past few months. I usually take measurements at night (or on sunday afternoons) because vibrations from a car passing by can cause low frequencies which affect the measurements. So most of the time, I keep the volume down, but will take that into account next time. Thanks.
My very successful effort at 36 Hz - the main resonance of my very solid (two feet stone walls) room.
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/diaphragmatic-versus-membrane-bass-traps.7710/
Without them I could not use large speakers. The microphone was not level calibrated, top is around 90 dB.
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