Videos of Acoustically-Coupled Audio Recordings

[tima]

Listening in any other ways than with headphones is not going to guarantee that your listening experience is in any way equivalent to the in-room experience, because you are adding the effect of your own system and room.

I don't figure you for a naivety that believes headphones guarantee anything. Negative logic -- saying what is not the case -- may be appealing to Scott Naylor, but it doesn't really say anything.

Here is more straw dog negative logic, postulating something then telling us what is not necessarily the case. It strikes me as vacuous, a nonsense way to speak.

if you believe that your system reproduces live acoustic instruments to your liking AND you believe the video's author when he says that his recording sounds like what he is hearing in his room (perhaps on some aspects) THEN it does not automatically imply that you will get the same sound as he will... or that hearing it through your system will let you assess the "accurate to live" sound that you crave.

I understand that you like to evaluate a system against live acoustic music, and that's fine, but don't think that a system video listened to your own system is the same thing.

A public service announcement that reproduction of a reproduction is not reality? Thanks, we'll consider ourselves warned.

 

[hopkins]

I don't figure you for a naivety that believes headphones guarantee anything. Negative logic -- saying what is not the case -- may be appealing to Scott Naylor, but it doesn't really say anything.

Here is more straw dog negative logic, postulating something then telling us what is not necessarily the case. It strikes me as vacuous, a nonsense way to speak.

A public service announcement that reproduction of a reproduction is not reality? Thanks, we'll consider ourselves warned.

I'm all for a system sounding "live", but I just don't see why that is in opposition to "accuracy", so there is something I am missing in your thought process, which you have not explained. If you care to elaborate, I will do my best to understand. Perhaps you can also illustrate with some recordings that you feel meet those criteria.

If you are more comfortable assessing the "live" aspect of a video recording by playing it on your speakers, then I am not stopping you from doing so. I just pointed out the potential pitfalls, and explained what I feel the advantages of using headphones are in that specific context - I never claimed headphones are superior in a general sense, or don't have their own limitations.

 

[stehno]

I'm all for a system sounding "live", but I just don't see why that is in opposition to "accuracy", so there is something I am missing in your thought process, which you have not explained. If you care to elaborate, I will do my best to understand. Perhaps you can also illustrate with some recordings that you feel meet those criteria.

What do you think of this video

What do you think of this video. And this is not directed to those who think every mobile phone video is trash, thanks. Please listen to the end for the brass and the woodwinds

www.whatsbestforum.com

Perhaps this will give you some perspective where tima is coming from.

 

[Scott Naylor]

I don't figure you for a naivety that believes headphones guarantee anything. Negative logic -- saying what is not the case -- may be appealing to Scott Naylor, but it doesn't really say anything.

Here is more straw dog negative logic, postulating something then telling us what is not necessarily the case. It strikes me as vacuous, a nonsense way to speak.





A public service announcement that reproduction of a reproduction is not reality? Thanks, we'll consider ourselves warned.

Quoted for posterity. And my ego,

 

[tima]

I'm all for a system sounding "live", but I just don't see why that is in opposition to "accuracy", so there is something I am missing in your thought process, which you have not explained. If you care to elaborate, I will do my best to understand.

skipping over the "which you have not explained" ...

I don't expect any system to sound live -- no quotation marks needed. I use my accumulated experience with live acoustic music as my reference in assessing stereo reproduction.

I made no claim that using live acoustic music as a reference is in opposition to accuracy, although it may be orthogonal to it. I understand "accurate" to mean free from error or precise or when a measurement agrees with a standard value. I recognize that people talk about stereo systems in terms of accuracy.

In general, accuracy is not a sonic evaluative. Talk of accuracy for audiophile words is talk about measurement. I cannot listen to measurements. There was talk earlier about the resolution and transparency of a video. What is accurate resolution?

I do talk about "stable accuracy" as a positive value about turntable speed. That is something that can be measured and used as a description of table operation. But I do not hear the measurement or the result of taking a measurement, I hear the turntable and system playing records.

As you say,

Who knows whether a system is accurate or not?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

yesterday i did receive the Sennheiser HD-400 Pro headphones i purchased based on the recommendation of @hopkins. on Amazon around $200.

in the last day or so i've quickly grabbed them 7 or 8 times to listen to a You Tube or other video that i happened on. they quickly plug into my laptop and it drives them just fine.....using around 40%-50% of available volume. also listened to a number of You Tube video's i've listened to many times already to get a feel for the difference.

no; this is not my big rig performance. but it's much more complimentary to the video than the laptop speakers or i-phone 13 Pro; i get a more top to bottom balanced sound, more micro dynamics and clarity/detail, and the listening experience is more true to the source IMHO. an improved tool for the job.

if we are going to take YouTube videos seriously, at $200; not at least acquiring these is a mistake if you are now commonly using your phone or laptop for judging the merits of videos. not saying this is more than it is, but it's certainly a common sense thing to do. you are reducing the degree of error to a valuable degree. differences between different video's is clearly more apparent.

i've owned $30k plus headphone rigs. so i know how they can sound. this is not all the way to that. but it's far enough to matter.

and i could also see reviewing your own video's with these prior to posting to get a better idea of what you are sending out.

 

[Rexp]

For me, accuracy means the sound would measure the same in the mastering studio as the listening room. Not a goal I would seek since mastering studios all sound different. Does it sound real/natural is good enough for me.

 

[Rexp]

yesterday i did receive the Sennheiser HD-400 Pro headphones i purchased based on the recommendation of @hopkins. on Amazon around $200.

in the last day or so i've quickly grabbed them 7 or 8 times to listen to a You Tube or other video that i happened on. they quickly plug into my laptop and it drives them just fine.....using around 40%-50% of available volume. also listened to a number of You Tube video's i've listened to many times already to get a feel for the difference.

no; this is not my big rig performance. but it's much more complimentary to the video than the laptop, i get a more top to bottom balanced sound, more micro dynamics and detail, and the listening experience is more true to the source IMHO. an improved tool for the job.

if we are going to take YouTube videos seriously, at $200 not at least acquiring these is a mistake if you are now commonly using your phone or laptop for judging the merits of videos. not saying this is more than it is, but it's certainly a common sense thing to do. you are reducing the degree of error to a valuable degree.

i've owned $30k plus headphone rigs. so i know how they can sound. this is not all the way to that. but it's far enough to matter.

and i could also see reviewing your own video's with these prior to posting to get a better idea of what you are sending out.

If you're listening to the headphone output of the laptop, make sure the 'sound enhancement ' is disabled in sound settings/sound device properties. This is the case with my HP, might be the same for yours.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

If you're listening to the headphone output of the laptop, make sure the 'sound enhancement ' is disabled in sound settings/sound device properties. This is the case with my HP, might be the same for yours.

i will look. i just checked, no enhancements showing. but who knows the linearity of the laptop amplifier? sounds proper as far as i can tell.

my Lenovo X1 Thinkpad Carbon 11th Gen is brand new, my third X1 Carbon over 10 years. this one won't need to travel so much. no more of that.

 

[Rexp]

i will look. i just checked, no enhancements showing. but who knows the linearity of the laptop amplifier? sounds proper as far as i can tell.

my Lenovo X1 Thinkpad Carbon 11th Gen is brand new, my third X1 Carbon over 10 years. this one won't need to travel so much. no more of that.

Maybe they dropped it, check this vid just in case.

How to increase the sound volume on you Lenovo PC - Lenovo Support MY

support.lenovo.com

 

[hopkins]

yesterday i did receive the Sennheiser HD-400 Pro headphones i purchased based on the recommendation of @hopkins. on Amazon around $200.

in the last day or so i've quickly grabbed them 7 or 8 times to listen to a You Tube or other video that i happened on. they quickly plug into my laptop and it drives them just fine.....using around 40%-50% of available volume. also listened to a number of You Tube video's i've listened to many times already to get a feel for the difference.

no; this is not my big rig performance. but it's much more complimentary to the video than the laptop speakers or i-phone 13 Pro; i get a more top to bottom balanced sound, more micro dynamics and clarity/detail, and the listening experience is more true to the source IMHO. an improved tool for the job.

if we are going to take YouTube videos seriously, at $200; not at least acquiring these is a mistake if you are now commonly using your phone or laptop for judging the merits of videos. not saying this is more than it is, but it's certainly a common sense thing to do. you are reducing the degree of error to a valuable degree. differences between different video's is clearly more apparent.

i've owned $30k plus headphone rigs. so i know how they can sound. this is not all the way to that. but it's far enough to matter.

and i could also see reviewing your own video's with these prior to posting to get a better idea of what you are sending out.

This is exactly how I feel about them, and how I use them. On my desktop computer, I have them plugged in to an external DAC/amp, and I think they benefit from a little additional power and better quality output than a computer's line out, but they don't need an uber-expensive solution either.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Maybe they dropped it, check this vid just in case.

How to increase the sound volume on you Lenovo PC - Lenovo Support MY

support.lenovo.com

the amp gain setting in my laptop is more than sufficient for the headphones. i'm setting the volume about 40%-45% and at higher volumes i'm not hearing distortion. i will investigate the video from Lenovo to see if there is something i'm missing. thanks.

my view is that the performance/elegance factor ROI on the headphones simply direct out from the laptop seems perfect.

 

[hopkins]

What do you think of this video

What do you think of this video. And this is not directed to those who think every mobile phone video is trash, thanks. Please listen to the end for the brass and the woodwinds

www.whatsbestforum.com

Perhaps this will give you some perspective where tima is coming from.

Thanks. The discussion in that thread is interesting and your comments are spot on. I will refrain from repeating things here.... Back to having fun with videos!

 

[Blue58]

Speaking of fun, here’s my bass driven track. The iPhone mic may be overloaded and the ’reverb‘ on Pat’s voice may be enhanced a touch over what I hear in the room. Comments + or — please.
Delay on the addition of master fuse, sorry.

 

[stehno]

Speaking of fun, here’s my bass driven track. The iPhone mic may be overloaded and the ’reverb‘ on Pat’s voice may be enhanced a touch over what I hear in the room. Comments + or — please.
Delay on the addition of master fuse, sorry.

Considering the very limited space you have to work with those larger speakers, I'd say the video is quite musical and overall I'm guessing you did a pretty outstanding job configuring things.

Negatives? i've never heard this particular piece by Barber so I've little to reference but I'd guess the bass is just a tad thicker than perhaps it could or should be.

Oh, and of course your soundstage doesn't seem very large. Which I suppose is to be expected in a room this size.

The big negative is the boring color you chose for your horns. I'm not a big burgandy fan anyway but a nice racing butterscotch could have really spruced things up a bit. If they can wrap cars in different colors, why not horns?

Anyway, the sound is fer sure is very much on the musical side of life, the room looks good, ok the speakers look good too, every system can gain from more detail, and again it seems you've done an outstanding job including much thought with the configuration you assembled here not to mention the very real space limiations imposed on you.

 

[hopkins]

For me, accuracy means the sound would measure the same in the mastering studio as the listening room. Not a goal I would seek since mastering studios all sound different. Does it sound real/natural is good enough for me.

Refer to the picture of the recording studio I posted above. You cannot compare a studio (either listening or with measurements) and a listening room! The point of a recording studio is that it captures sound optimally on microphones, and is not designed for listening....

Edit: as for the mastering room, same thing, it is designed for mastering.

Anyway, this is all off topic.

 

[stehno]

Thanks. The discussion in that thread is interesting and your comments are spot on. I will refrain from repeating things here.... Back to having fun with videos!

Anytime, hopkins. Anytime.

Speaking of having fun. I get an absolute blast listening to some of this stuff - but only when I crank the volume on my macbook to my headphones all the way up.

 

[Blue58]

Considering the very limited space you have to work with those larger speakers, I'd say the video is quite musical and overall I'm guessing you did a pretty outstanding job configuring things.

Negatives? i've never heard this particular piece by Barber so I've little to reference but I'd guess the bass is just a tad thicker than perhaps it could or should be.

Oh, and of course your soundstage doesn't seem very large. Which I suppose is to be expected in a room this size.

The big negative is the boring color you chose for your horns. I'm not a big burgandy fan anyway but a nice racing butterscotch could have really spruced things up a bit. If they can wrap cars in different colors, why not horns?

Anyway, the sound is fer sure is very much on the musical side of life, the room looks good, ok the speakers look good too, every system can gain from more detail, and again it seems you've done an outstanding job including much thought with the configuration you assembled here not to mention the very real space limiations imposed on you.

Thank you Stehno. The space is only 9’ x 20’ and therefore soundstage width is restricted plus bass does tend to activate the room. The floor is floorboard over rafters on the 1st floor, can’t do much about that.

I bought the horns used 20yrs ago so had no choice in the colour and not a patch on what you can request now.

I’ll refrain from posting more until the SR Master fuse arrives.

 

[Ron Resnick]

it's much more complimentary to the video than the laptop speakers or i-phone 13 Pro; i get a more top to bottom balanced sound, more micro dynamics and clarity/detail, and the listening experience is more true to the source IMHO. an improved tool for the job.

if we are going to take YouTube videos seriously, at $200; not at least acquiring these is a mistake if you are now commonly using your phone or laptop for judging the merits of videos. not saying this is more than it is, but it's certainly a common sense thing to do. you are reducing the degree of error to a valuable degree. differences between different video's is clearly more apparent.

+1

 

[Rexp]

Refer to the picture of the recording studio I posted above. You cannot compare a studio (either listening or with measurements) and a listening room! The point of a recording studio is that it captures sound optimally on microphones, and is not designed for listening....

Anyway, this is all off topic.

One my former business partners owns a mastering studio, when an album is done, they invite the label and artist over to, guess what?