My new DeanG networks…

[muel]

... the logical problem of the word "accurate."

How 'bout "toe tapping"

[Daan]

Now it's ; CD player- passive pre- miniDsp- two Decware Zen tube mono's [mid-high] and Bryston 4B [lows]- University Classics [two-way].

Hi Nico...

Good story. Thanks. As a 2-way, I assume your crossover is something like 1KHz or so? Did you ever try reversing your amps, and put the Zen amps on the driver that carries all the fundamentals and put the Bryston on the driver that is carrying all the over tones?

I would bet that the Zen amps are the better sounding of those two, and might make quite an improvement to your vocals.

The Decware's are configured as mono's , each driving only one 2" Beyma driver for mid and high frequencies, each channel of the Bryston 4B drives a C-15W woofer, don't know if that was clear from my earlier post.

This combination is sounding delicate and detailed, yet when pushed hard with one of my favorite "Kodo" Japanese drum tracks delivers punches that are like the real thing accoarding to my ears and stomache . With only the Decwares powering the old [3-way] setup this was not the case; they lacked the control over the C-15 W's.

BTW; sorry for beeing ignorant but not sure what you mean by "carrying all the overtones".

[Daan]

Live Performances I've been to most types of musical performances from opera to rock concerts. Here's a summary of what I typically hear.

I completely agree with that; it makes me go to concerts sparely.

You should hear a concert of the choir my wife sings in; over 150 trained voices singing on different occasions without sound reinforcement. Many times; goosebumps [ and moving toes] guaranteed.

Edited August 8, 2014 by nico boom

[Marvel]

I purchased a set of networks to replace my Khorns orginal (but frankensteinianly modified) crossovers from Dean and I wanted to comment on them here. For those with ADD, one word: AWESOME! You can now move on to the next topic .

Steven,

Glad you like the crossovers. Enjoy the music...

Bruce

[Daan]

Ahhh.... just learned something again today; thanks. I will make that change to find out what it sounds like.

Here comes the versatility of a active system into play imo; it's easy to change everything, adjusting levels for each channel and listen some time. Going back to the previous setup is simply hook up the wires as they were and load the last saved setting with a few clicks.

I've got some amps stored because I couldn't part with them; will put them into play again with this experiment, but you are right about the Decware's defenately sounding the best.

Sorry for getting off-topic btw; this thread has gone from north to south as we say over here. Will post my findings elsewhere.

Thanks again,

Nico

[Don Richard]

We just assemble gadgets to pretend we are listening to music. All pretend from one end to the other.

Maybe you don't remember how 2 Khorns reproduced the sound of a full symphony orchestra well enough to fool nearly everyone that was there. That's a convincing demonstration of accuracy of reproduction.

And without EQ, room correction, active crossovers or time alingment imagine that..

If they had done all of that (not possible at that time), they would have fooled everybody.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Don Richard

[Don Richard]

Nobody records with 2 microphones. Well, nobody that matters. If you are buying commercial recordings, they are all synthetic concoctions, Don.

Not so. I have many recordings made with 2 mics. In fact, most of the orchestral recordings I have are made that way.

[NOSValves]

Look at the block diagram of the system......what's that....Could it be......EQ !!!!! They were compensating for system and room characteristics.

Page 21 and 22 gives more details

This paper is a must read if you care at all about audio reproduction...

miketn

I did not read the document but searched it and found two references to Klipsch.....both on the cover sheet. So I have to ask what does this paper have to do with 2 K-horns?

[Mallette]

Let's break it down. A human head has to "pickups" and they are spaced in a way that shades each from each other, and shades rear sounds down in level from front sounds. It's a very special acoustic map that the brain draws from its two ears. Let's call it then, the human brain map, or just brain map.

Well, you start off pretty well quoting my own paper on the subject and most of what you say is quite true....but none of it answers the question.

Let me state it from only one approach: If binaural works, it follows that quadaural MUST work or binaural actually does not. We are talking microphone plans here, for the rest of you. Please do NOT confuse the Hindenburg of audio (quad of the 70s) with what we are discussing here. The fallout from that debacle continues to hinder the quest for actual high fidelity almost as thoroughly as the Hindenburg disaster discredited a technology that would have resulted in a very different world today had it not happened.

O, the humanity!

Dave

[Don Richard]

Can you give me an example of one or two of the recordings you refer to with 2 mics?

Most of the Telarc CDs made during the 80s are done that way. Nearly all of the RCA Masterworks LPs also. The newer stuff uses more mics because they are recorded for movies and played on surround sound systems.

Of course, there have been symphony orchestras that were recorded multitrack. Without exception, all that I have heard were horrible. Music played through amplified instruments are best done multitracked, however.

[Don Richard]

If you record an orchestra in a room using just 2 mics, you will end up with a lot of spatial information in the recording.

Not necessarily. Most of the time they are positioned for clarity, which means the mics are elevated so that they are roughly equidistant from all of the instruments. There is not a lot of ambience with that setup, but it sounds more like it sounds if a person is sitting in a seat in the concert hall.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Don Richard

[Mallette]

Forget binaural. Turned into a red herring. We agree that two coincident microphones placed where your ears want to be make the best recordings. Anybody seriously into acoustic music and fine acoustic spaces agrees. To the list you mentioned the Mercury Living Presence issues are notably absent and remain landmark recordings, both the single point mono as well as the two mike stereo.

In my paper on the subject, I used the SoundCube I developed as the vehicle for explanation as it provides a perfect 360 degree recording field that provides all the locational information the brain needs. I've also used ribbon microphones in a 4 microphone coincident array to achieve basically the same result, but that is a bit more complex and not quite so easy to use as an illustration.

I would state again: Where reproduction is as close as possible to the inverse of a soundfield recorded in this manner, the soundfield will be very accurately reproduced.

This has been the experience of all who have heard my experiments using this technique.

Dave

Edited August 8, 2014 by Mallette

[Deang]

I have a question.

Roy supplies all of the various active settings for the jubilee. Roy is big on phase, and he's one of the most anal retentive guys I know. As I pointed out earlier, these settings are primarily derived from the raw data gathered from within the anechoic chamber.

My question is simply this: since there appears to be a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this -- how are you guys coming up with your settings? Thanks.

[mark1101]

I do not use Roy's settings. I use settings that closely approximate the same response. It's not exact.

"Roy's settings" are his interpretation of a baseline to run the horn off of. He alsways used the words "salt and pepper" to taste and suggested it was fine if we taylor things to our own taste.

What I found with the K402 is that you definitely do not want to stray too far. 1db off in certain places is totally noticeable. The beauty of the K402 is very easy to corrupt. On the high end you have some room. The key is from about 600-5000........you better be on the money in that range.

When you get it in its sweet spot it's a thing of beauty.

I haven't touched those settings in a very long time.

The other consideration is teh number of EQ's you enter into the processor. The more you use.........the more you hear. You want less filters. If you can achieve the same response by using less filters, that is the way to go. That is what I have done. I think I only use 3 PEQs and no shelves on the 402. I can't remember now. I'd have to look. Quite differnet from Roy's choice of programming, but almost the same exact response.

In other words I have EQ'd the horn to the driver and room and that's it. I don't EQ the music.......some guys do that, I don't feel the need, nor do I have the energy to fool with that song for song.

So the way I run my system is that all I do is play music and turn the volume up and down. Nothing else.

[mark1101]

If you want me to be specific on how I did this Dean, here's how.

I used the EV RACE tool on my PC (I don't have an EV DX-38), and input Roy's settings. I printed out the resultant graph of the repsonse that combination of filters generated.

I then worked in the ASHLY Protea PC tool (I use Ashly processors) and created virtually the exact same response graph..........in a variety of ways. Lots of different filter combinations could be used to almost identically copy Roy's response..........using none of his settings.

I input a few of these combinations ("scenes" or presets we'll call them) into the processor and used my RTA setup to get a baseline response in the room. The response looked the same on all of them. I picked the filter combination "scene" that sounded the best. The one with the fewest EQs.

From there, I changed drivers a few times. I always went back to the original (in room RTA) curves generated from my interpretation of Roy's settings and adjusted the EQ to give that same response in the room.

Over time I tweaked a few things...........crossover points.......EQ just a touch.

Haven't since touched anything in a very long time.

Edited August 8, 2014 by mark1101

[Mallette]

So, if a listener was there when you made the recording, and standing/sitting in the middle of the 4 mics, they would say the 4 speaker setup on playback "sounds just like what they heard at the recording." Is that what you are saying?

Not just me. Everyone who has experienced it. People look to the side to see the source of a noise that is on the recording. Frankly, it's totally simple. If stereo works, this has to. It's simply stereo taken to its logical conclusion.

I have successfully created an interleaved FLAC file for four channels. Next is to find a free player that can play it back. Once I've managed that, I'll post files and a link to the player for those who want to try this at home.

Your post above concerning the hall information on stereo recordings is, of course, what Hafler realized and the reason I have used a DynaQuad since the mid-70s. Imperfect, but does the best job so far of sending those out of phase signals were they belong and doing so without coloring the sound in any way I can detect. Most who experience it for the first time say they aren't hearing anything from the rear speakers. I flip the bypass switch and they immediately hear the collapse of the soundfield to the stereo speakers.

Dave

[Mallette]

One other point. I know recording isn't your primary field so SoundCube may not make much sense. It consists of 4 Crown PZM microphones mounted on 1 meter square plex to forum a boundary. The PZM is has a natural pickup pattern of a near perfect 180 degrees. There 4 arranged this way form a 360 degree soundfield and the channels merge seamlessly.

One of these placed anywhere will provide a soundfield with all the directional cues the brain needs. As I mentioned, you can do this with other mikes but it takes a bit more skill. SoundCube is a WYHIWYG device.

Dave

[Mallette]

because your cube isn't providing the shading of the nose, face and ears to the mics.

I have heard nothing to suggest this is a significant issue. Don't doubt that it exists...but I can't really see what you are getting at. If the soundfield created is a reasonable facsimile of the original acoustic/space time event seems to me I would hear it with whatever "shading" my face might create.

1. How close (and at what angle) your cube is to the source of the music, and 2, how close the listener is the speakers in the room during playback.

As with my normal procedure, I place the mikes/cube where my ears want to be. As to the speaker placement...that's why we have a hobby. Move'em around to suit your own sense of what works best in the space you have to work with. I have been quite happy with between six and 8 feet to each speaker. One drawback is that you can't really use a nice lounge chair as is so common to we dilettante audiophiles as you cannot block the path to the rears. But, of course, you don't have a lounger in the concert hall either.

We are in agreement that, so far, science and technology (and technique) cannot perfectly recreate an acoustic space/time event. However, we can do a LOT better than the recording engineers and music purveyors are supplying us at the moment. I am glad you are seeing the science and the sense of the approach. TBHWY, the original thought was a totally simplistic "If stereo works, why wouldn't it work doubled?" As logic would suggest...it does.

Dave

Edited August 8, 2014 by Mallette

[ClaudeJ1]

"Thermionic emission noise multiplied through enough amplification stages to make a tube EQ would probably sound like Niagara Falls"

White EQ, the one with no power cord, the best.

http://www.whiteinstruments.com/4220-archive.pdf

They also made a 1/3rd oct.

1/3 octave passive was Altec's approach for many years. All cuts, no boost.

[ClaudeJ1]

The facts are that, like it or not, digital is here to stay. Digital recording has many advantages over analog, especially sound quality. A properly done 24/96 recording has every advantage over older analog efforts - including no noise, full dynamics, low distortion, and absence of wow and flutter. Of course, if one prefers to hear noise and distortion, it's easier and less expensive to realize one's dreams - you pay your money and you make your choice.

Agree with this totally.