DrWho

Hey, I'm not the one systematically going through my entire music collection to add smiley face EQs to make all the FFTs look the same. I used to adhere to this mindset - probably because I spent too much time on these forums. But think for a second about the philosophy behind such a perspective.....and then put yourself in the shoes of some young kid new to the audiophile world that has been enjoying great music and wants to step things up to the next level. You are now going to tell him that this "better system" sounds worse because his source material and musical preferences are the problem? And you guys wonder why this is a dying hobby? I could only imagine the reaction if I put one of our microphones in front of a few singers and tried to explain that they sound worse because this microphone is "better" and therefore more revealing of their flaws. Now that's a sales pitch the young kid wants to hear! What if we instead defined "better" by the actual subjective human listening experience instead of some arbitrary line drawn on a computer screen? There's an old adage in the prosound world where if you're applying the same EQ to every channel (on a mixer), then your system isn't calibrated properly.

I do most of my listening these days on headphones and earbuds, but my main system is very custom: 2-way Chorus with Othorn sub, and system manually EQ'd. Room acoustics are above average with almost no room modes. It's a very humble system with its own set of warts. My point is that if you tweak the system to sound very acceptable on all these "horrible recordings", then you're going to find that "great recordings" don't stop sounding great (if not better). It's not required to be an either or thing. Granted, there will be variance in production quality for audiophile listening, but there is something wrong with your setup if any of the greats are unlistenable. Our systems should be bent around the music we love, not the other way around.

So why does it sound good enough in the car, but bad enough at home? Ever stop to consider the reasons behind that apparent paradox? While there may not be standards, there are certainly dominant trends - which if understood should have a large influence in how we setup our playback systems. If you're blaming 95% of the source material, then I simply need to point out that your system needs fixing.

Call it what you want, but they sound better mastered the way they are. The problem is you have a playback system that doesn't sound good with that kind of source material. Call it accuracy if you will, but I simply call it "sounds bad". The interesting thing is that source material sounds great on other systems. So where you're slaving away trying to undo your system, I'm blissfully listening to a very non-fatiguing experience. How could that be?!? Maybe there's more to sound quality than the few metrics you're so focused on.

Nope, try again. Maybe try reading for comprehension next time. You aren't listening to what I'm saying. And of course I'm going to pull in other related experience! Doing so doesn't nullify the other experiences! Garbage in, garbage out. You can polish a turd, but that doesn't make it a gemstone. It makes it a shiny turd. I don't like turds. Apparently you like shiny things. Stop blaming source material for deficiencies in the playback systems. Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Madonna, Metallica, Rush etc wouldn't have had the necessary authenticity to impact culture without the intentional production quality that you're unsuccessfully trying to remove. Or I suppose we should just piss on their validity as music since it's not classical or jazz?

Just because a DR number increases doesn't mean it sounds better. I stand by my dull lifeless comments and base it on 24 years of experience on this very subject. 8 years of that has been in a professional capacity at a company that has likely preformed the most objective and subjective research on EQ and dynamics processing. Let's not confuse old age and narrow mindedness with experience and wisdom. Ultimately you're arguing for a glorified smiley face EQ, or pressing the loudness button. It's what the amateurs do. And it does sound better! At first anyway...Nobody is contesting that your DR numbers increase. I have tried your approach and don't like the results and even have mathematical basis for it. I don't even need to criticize genres and styles of music either! More DR is not always more better. It's really that simple.

The compression, expansion, and EQ are happening in both places: the individual tracks and the total mix. Both are adjusted in light of each other, so hacking at the LR mix doesn't "fix" anything because the individual channels were compensated for it in the process.

All of this thought is based on a false assumption about the spectral content of unprocessed instruments. It's also wrongly assuming that the unprocessed sound represents the desired result. In other words, targeting 1/f total response is just silly. Trying to expand (uncompress) the signal - even with knowledge of the exact original processing used - results in new frequency content that is not harmonically related to the original source. This is extremely problematic when EQ is used post compression. Analog companding is a bread and butter concept to analog wireless microphones so I've spent a lot of time looking at the spectral content of various sources (mostly guitar and vocals, but drums are the worst). Any amount of mismatch is incredibly audible in a way that is very unpleasing. On the EQ side of things, the assumption of the 1/f curve as a natural frequency response is not founded on reality. Each instrument has its own complex harmonic structure and its relative amplitude to the other instruments is incredibly important. Trying to EQ to this odd concept of "flat" totally ignores the complex interaction of EQ to the sound of any one instrument. When applying EQ to an entire mix, the complex tonal character of each instrument changes at the same time. It's not possible to isolate individual sounds. Then doing so with the purpose of making everything the same level? Making everything sound the same is what rookie sound engineers do. A constant state of blah. Using the kick drum as an example....there are various mic'ing techniques. The far field response is closest to the natural acoustic performance, but that includes too many reflections making it sound too distant. For rock and roll, we want that punch you in the gut riding the tempo feeling, which you get from nearfield techniques. However, the nearfield performance of microphones is very different from the farfield, and the short story is we end up with too much bass (due to proximity gain). The interesting thing is that a kick drum with a ton of single digit low frequency information doesn't sound punchy. It sounds very bland and lifeless actually. The interesting thing is that fixing this with a compressor sounds more punchy than fixing it with EQ. In fact, boosting the low frequency EQ so you can use more tone shaping compression gives it an even fatter more thunderous sound....even though the final result has very little low frequency information. This is due to the time domain behavior of the gates and compressors. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with loudness wars for CDs, this is entirely a music creation thing. The point is that the resultant desired sound often does not match your assumptions about the final frequency response. A better kick drum sound for rock and roll simply does not have extreme LF extension even though it's present in the original close-mic'ed proximity effect signal. The more classic you go, the less deep it digs it seems. I think in part due to the microphones available, which in turn defined the sound of the genre. Btw, I pick drums as an example because I get a lot of positive comments on my live drum sound....and I'm pushing well over 30dB crest factor in my live mixes. Applying your technique to my live mix would absolutely make everything fall flat and lifeless. Not only the drums, but all the other instruments that didn't have the same processing! That sound to which you're aspiring here is the mediocre result of an amateur sound engineer where everything sounds the same. Just to stress the point, the processing happening on the kick drum channel is different than the processing on all the other channels. It's impossible to fix one instrument without severely affecting everything else. And then doing this blind by looking at FFT's? Yikes! Yes, too much source material suffers from loudness wars, but don't think for a second that this method is "fixing" anything. Sure, you may prefer the subjective result, but just because sciencey looking methods are used doesn't make this a mathematically / scientifically sound approach. The numbers here are very flawed and that's the only reason I'm commenting. The subjective correlation to science is the heart and soul of audio engineering, and it hurts to see causality attributed to the wrong variables. I know it's an arrogant jerk move to suggest it, but it needs to be said. I know guys that use dbx multiband expanders in their systems all the time and it sounds amazing. However, they're doing it from a purely subjective angle - and I think that's why it sounds better. I also know the guys behind those products and they've done their homework, and are published on these topics.

Ya, it's not low noise at all. We use the KSM44A in omnidirectional mode for measuring ambient noise of acoustic spaces at work. 6dB SPL self noise.....requires a preamp with -135dBV EIN to not add more than 0.1dB of noise to the measurement.

Going back to this plot....the noise floor isn't flat over frequency, but let's take the levels at 20kHz (extrapolated looks like -12dB for inside and 3dB for outside). Adding 43dB gets you to 31dB SPL inside and 46dB SPL outside. These numbers aren't too far off. The way noise energy works, you can have a tilted line where 20Hz is 31dB higher than 20kHz and it only adds 3dB to the integrated total. This is because higher frequencies have more energy that lower frequencies (they're wiggling faster). In this plot, the energy at 20Hz is 50dB higher than at 20kHz, which means the average noise floor is actually 20dB higher. However, our ears don't hear LF energy very well - especially this low in amplitude, which is where A weighting comes into play and ignores some of the LF energy. It also ignores the extreme HF energy as well because 20kHz is really hard to hear. If we go to the 1kHz number, then 1kHz can be 13dB louder for the same effect as the 20Hz. The 1kHz number is at 12dB SPL, so subtract 13, add 3, and then add 43 and you're at 45dB SPL equivalent if the noise floor were actually flat. In other words, the Awtd noise floor with 20kHz bandwidth here is somewhere between 35dB and 45dB SPL. Just thinking about studios for a second - it's hard to get below 30dB SPL. I would be extremely surprised if an untreated room (even in the middle of nowhere) was getting below 40dB SPL. Anyways, my only point is that it's hard to tell from plots like these. Knowing the spectral content is helpful, but a straight up RMS average is how it's really measured (using the meters on your equipment). One could certainly integrate these plots by hand, but my question is why go down this road? Are we trying to prove to the world that our room is quiet? Or are we trying to identify problems that need resolution?

How did you calibrate the SPL of your signal path? There's no way your room is sitting at 68dB SPL, so your electronics are dominating the noise floor of your measurement. Are you sure that 70Hz wasn't actually 60Hz? The 60Hz of the grid shows up all the time in acoustic and electronic measurements. Since we're already geeking out..... The Behringer ECM8000 capsule is rated for -39dBV per 94dB SPL: http://www.cross-spectrum.com/cslmics/001_mic_report.pdf This means that a 94dB SPL tone results in a voltage waveform with an amplitude of -39dBV. 20dB SPL is 74dB lower than 94dB, so the voltage level coming out of the microphone would be -113dBV if you were playing a 20dBSPL sine wave. The voltage level at each frequency for a flat noise floor would be even lower....more like -156dBV at each frequency. That's really really quiet. On your SPL chart, this would correlate to -23dBSPL for the noise floor frequency response amplitude. This is in order for your system to resolve down to 20dB SPL ambient noise. It's doable, but you gotta be careful with your gain structure and all that.

Nerdy engineering talk for a second, but if you're looking at the frequency response of the noise floor, then your total noise energy needs to be integrated over frequency.... In other words, if you have a flat noise floor showing up at 25dB on a frequency response or FFT, then the actual RMS measured noise will be 43dB higher for a noise floor of 68dB SPL. Basically, add 43dB to the response you're seeing in your plots....if your noise floor is flat. If your noise floor isn't flight (usually there's a lot more LF energy), then you should add 43dB to the level measured at 20kHz. You'll usually be within a few dB of the actual unless things are crazy.

You should stay off the road. In one breath you're annoyed that others drive slow, yet it's unacceptable for others to drive faster than you. If you're so concerned about accidents, then how is your obnoxious behavior reducing that risk? Is it really such an awful thing that someone might have a genuine reason for trying to pass?

Wow, how is this not sold yet??? Such a great deal. Unfortunately I don't need one right now.

Aye, but the opinions and impressions of the informed people carry over to the uninformed without Klipsch ever getting mentioned... Btw, who are you referring to when you talk about the people that snub Klipsch without regard for their role in the industry?

Probably because there are many who have an informed experience with Klipsch and did not prefer the result. Why does it have to be ignorance if someone else doesn't like Klipsch? The honkiness of the Heritage products is extremely easy to hear. It doesn't bother many people here, but I think overall there are more people who are bothered by it. Whatever you want to attribute to the honkiness on a technical level is simply not present in a direct radiator. Ya sure, the direct radiator has more other forms of distortion, but those other forms of distortion were present during the recording phase - which means the recording engineer has adjusted the process to make them less annoying. There's also an argument for cultural conditioning having an impact too (the majority of what we hear comes through direct radiators). It just makes sense to me that horns represent a minority of the audiophile community. It doesn't help that the consumer Klipsch products have moved away from using properly sized horns. Heck, many of the Klipsch products are barely horn loaded at all...

I spend a lot of time with the Chicago AES chapter where we bring in a bunch of engineering types to talk about their research, passions, whatever... One of the things I've noticed is that there is not consensus about what is / is not BS. It's hard to talk about these things abstractly because these end up being very specific topics. For example, I can show you a ceramic capacitor that causes distortion in one circuit, but does not cause distortion in another. Someone who deals with the other circuit might subscribe to the idea that a cap is a cap and it doesn't matter - therefor snake oil. However, someone that deals with the first circuit where capacitor voltage linearity matters will subscribe to the idea that "better caps" are required....and they'll even have data backing it up... So which ideology do we subscribe to? Do fancy caps make a difference? Some will say yes, some will say no. One of the difficulties with the person saying "no" is that there will always be some finite influence from the non-linear capacitor. The magnitude of this non-linearity can be readily calculated too. However, that little knowledge erodes away at the audiophile pursuit of finding every last drop of performance. The point isn't to get into a debate about capacitors, but to point out how one perspective of a situation results in an ideology that is not true across the board - and now the audio community suffers from those over limited perspectives. In the meantime, it also breaks down what is otherwise a very fun part of the hobby. Questioning ideas and setting up opportunities to listen is something that brings a lot of people together....and results in bringing friends to these sessions as well where they get exposed to some great sounding stuff. I'm actually kinda surprised Klipsch doesn't try to capitalize on the tweaker culture...or personal customization if you want to talk about the younger generations. Making things personal is a HUGE part of the hobby. This idea that there is only one way to do anything comes off very confrontational to the next generation. Why doesn't Klipsch make xovers with multiple slopes and make them easy to swap out? I could just see all the shootouts of people comparing which ones they like and comparing them. There are absolutely subjective tradeoffs when choosing xover slopes and different styles of music might benefit from one versus another.... Okay, I've rambled too long.....Klipsch can definitely do whatever they want (and they will). And as much as I'd love to see the real snake oil get ousted entirely, there's a part of me that still wants some of it. It's just part of the magic and if nothing else it affects the emotions of the person doing listening, and if my emotions are different, then I am definitely going to hear things differently. Why is that bias such a bad thing?

Haha, weren't you a moderator at one point? Isn't that Queen Bee gone that banned you? You should have Chad get right on that....

Amy worked for Klipsch and she was often referred to as the Den Mother. She totally treated us like kids because we always acted like kids. Jeremy Clarkson acts like a kid. All the old posts are there. I'm surprised they haven't gone through and censored everything yet. Look for posts by guys like Parrot or MAS - they eventually got themselves banned. Craig (nosvalves), Dean, Mdeneen are some other names to look for. Then there was coytee who was obsesses with Amy's earlobes for some reason. And wasn't there a rubber duck floating around for a bit too? Take any old thread with more than 10 pages that is more than 6 years old....so much fun.

Aye, but it's the previous generation that gave birth to that sensitive don't hurt anyone's feelings crap.....the millenials are the first generation to experience it in its full fruition. And it's not that any one person in the older generation is sensitive on everything. Each person picks their line that they won't allow to be crossed....until we have a culture full of all these lines, each drawn by individuals. That's why having multiple moderators sucks so much....especially the volunteer types that want to prove their worth to the world. There is no clear boundary to push....the resultant culture here is just boring. Think about why a show like Top Gear was so much more popular and genuinely more interesting with Jeremy Clarkson as the host versus the new cast.

That shouldn't be the case...I've got huge files where I use Min/Max on Excel 2010 without this problem. Something on the order of 40,000 entries.... I've since moved to Matlab (there are free alternatives though like Scilab) because my files are getting up into the 200k entry range, which is too big for Excel. It can only do 65k max. What kind of file format are you saving your file in? Maybe try as Save As, give it a different name, and use the latest format (.xlsx).

If you do that approach, then make sure you also add an index column....that way you can always get your results sorted back into their original order.

Pick the cell where you want the result, and type the following for the minimum value: =MIN(A1:A10) In a different cell, type the following for the maximum value: =MAX(A1:A10) Change the values of A1 and A10 to be the cells where you're storing your data.

Don't be jealous.

I didn't see this post until just now.....I think my posts are getting interpreted as some arrogant prick trying to piss in your cereal....which is totally not the intent. I am always on a constant pursuit of improving my understanding of the world. I saw this riddle and was thinking oh cool, this will be fun. I figured out a solution, then read the posts from others before replying, and then realized there were multiple ways of analyzing it. Then I took a step back to see if there was a way to determine which of the offered solutions was more valid. It was then that I realized the whole thing is illogical. When illogical crap is presented as "only worthy of genius" (as implied by the riddle itself), then I think it certainly warrants telling the emperor he's not wearing any clothes. Not once was I thinking "check out this intellectual flexing". Unfortunately it is very difficult - especially in written form - to accurately depict the offness of the riddle. I think I probably burned close to 4 hours trying to understand these ideas well enough before I could start putting words together. But if that's how it came across, then I'm sorry for pissing in your cereal. Honestly, I just wanted someone to share in the aha moment.