The Audiophile's Dilemma.....

[Mallette]

Chris, I'd love to see your results with The Fox Touch.  Never measured to see how low it goes but I know of no recording with deeper bass on it.  32' pipes extend to 16.5hz at C0.  Even more interesting is that it was cut both direct to disc and digital at the same time and remains available in both forms.  The digital was one of those quarter million dollar (at the time) Soundstream recorders that, I believe, were 18/32.  As pipes don't do much in the high harmonics the results are really quite spectacular.

 

Dave

[Chris A]

I have many Virgil Fox recordings, but not that one, unfortunately.  I did The Bach Gamut, Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C (BWV 564) first movement (the Toccata) from that Prof Johnson Reference recording.  Here are the cum frequency response curves uncorrected, corrected, and the EQ curve:

 

 

The amount of EQ required for this pipe organ recording is much less than any others that I own, but note the levels of EQ that are required to correct, nevertheless.

 

Chris

[Chris A]

Actually, I thought that I didn't own it, but I do.  Those were the recordings in the Crystal Cathedral in southern CA under the Bainbridge label, and is also called "The Digital Fox, Vols. 1 & 2" on CD.  Here are the uncorrected, corrected, and EQ curves for the first track--Toccata & Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (anyone listening to Phantom of the Opera?):

 

[Mallette]

The analog and digital recordings were made simultaneously...which I why I think a comparison would be fascinating.  The analog engineers were Ed Wodenjak, Bert Whyte, Stan Ricker, and Richard Simpson.  Bert Whyte controlled the cutter manually and the work is considered perhaps the best of all time.

 

The LPs were issued by Crystal Clear and remain available.  I have the LaserLight CD reissue.  The LP is one I did an early high resolution recording of from my LPs and performed blind test with a bunch of golden ears.  Votes were almost perfect 50/50. 

 

A comparison of the original digital and analog versions would be very interesting.

 

Dave

[Chris A]

BTW: The low D (D0) is about 18 Hz.  The previous Toccata in C posted above, the low C (C0) is 16.5 Hz.

 

These low frequencies are getting close to typical tonearm resonant frequencies in the 10 Hz regime, and certainly much closer to the second harmonic  (16-20 Hz) that could excite an undamped tonearm.  Additionally, if your preamp or phono preamp has an infrasonic filter switch in it, you'd have to turn that off to hear the 16-20 Hz stuff. 

 

I wouldn't do the low frequency test at concert volume without precautions taken to ensure that room resonances don't make it much worse.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Chris A

[Mallette]

Lot's of energy down there, for sure.  It's why I needed that horn loaded sub good to 16.5Hz. 

 

Dave

[CECAA850]

It's why I needed that horn loaded sub good to 16.5Hz.

 

You need a Lil Wrecker

[Mallette]

I'm good, Carl...

Dave

Edited September 9, 2015 by Mallette

[garyrc]

Some of the engineering on Crystal Clear direct-to-disc sessions is so good that even Chrome cassettes made from the back-up reel-to-reel tapes sound good!  One of these is titled something like Sonic Spectaculars.  It has the old war horses, including the best version of Fanfare for the Common Man*, IMO.  I wonder if those old back-up tapes still exist?  Maybe they could be put on SACD or something better.

 

* Bass control + 12 dB really rocks, +16dB, still clean, bends the framing of the room.

Edited September 9, 2015 by garyrc

[garyrc]

Chris,

 

Do modern movies on Blu-ray have the same frequency response and dynamic range anomalies and ill-advised manipulations that you are finding on music disks?  Most of the Blu-ray movies we have rented or bought seem to be pretty good, but maybe we've been lucky.  Some classical or other orchestral music got onto the screen pretty well, even if we go as far back as Fantasia 2000, or Amadeus.  I'd love to hear some new recordings of jazz on Blu-ray movies, but don't know of any.   

[Chris A]

Do modern movies on Blu-ray have the same frequency response and dynamic range anomalies and ill-advised manipulations that you are finding on music disks?... I'd love to hear some new recordings of jazz on Blu-ray movies, but don't know of any.   

 

I've only looked at music from music discs, and that includes DVD-As and DVD-Vs.  There is some music shaping there, but I don't see the extreme loss of low frequencies like CDs, simply because there is a LFE channel in addition to the L, C, R front channels that carry plenty of low frequency information. 

 

What I do see is shaping in the midrange and HF that I'd classify as "clarity shaping" of the music tracks.

 

As far as movie soundtracks, right now I'd say that there is the same type of "clarity shaping" that occurs.  Just think about foley artists and all the actors re-recording their spoken lines after they act them out.  This is the opportunity for the sound folks to work their wares to increase the splash and clarity of the soundtracks.

 

So to answer your question: yes, they do shape the EQ on these tracks, but that's not all that they're doing.  Much of the music is also re-EQed.  Some of the best sound that I've heard of popular music is from soundtracks on the big screen, so they're remastering everything - even music.  Why? Because they've got a captive audience , controlled quality in the sound systems (i.e., THX quality control), and the movie producers know that good sound sells tickets.  So if anything, it's a bit on the "spectacular" scale with perhaps even increased dynamics (re-recording music on the sound stage directly for the big screen movies.  Blu-Ray is, if anything higher fidelity and more dynamic in my experience--in fact too spectacular at times for my ears (as we've discussed in talking about the trailers to films driving me out of the room). 

 

Soundtracks from movies that are released on CD (stereo) are all over the map.  One of the worst CDs that I've corrected is the soundtrack from "Little Shop of Horrors" musical (movie) which was awful on CD but spectacular on DVD-Video.  Some of the best CDs that I've got are re-recorded Telarc, Sony and Philips (multi-channel DTS and stereo CD) recordings of music soundtrack compilations - usually requiring little of no correction at all. 

 

Blu-Ray music discs surpass everything that is in my music collection -- some of these are absolutely breathtaking.  Some of the discs that I've rated here are the absolute best recordings that I own or have heard--all muti-channel.  I recommend the Yellowjackets Blu-Ray, Pat Metheny (The Way Up - Live BD is the most spectacular of all, IMHO), Return to Forever BD, and Jeff Beck at Ronny Scott's--they are wonderful. 

 

Non-jazz titles that are excellent include Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, and BB King, These discs typically sound better to me than I hear on the big screens (more on that subject in another thread). 

 

Classical--well, that's another subject, but generally I've found Arthaus and EuroArts to have produced the best classical recordings that I own--by far.

 

In summary, the movie industry typically works hard to increase the quality and dynamics of their soundtracks, and big music seem to be in a race to bottom quality - finding ever-lower ground every day.

 

Chris

Edited September 10, 2015 by Chris A

[Jim Naseum]

I don't understand this idea of a 16Hz horn. If the Klipschorn is a nominally 47Hz horn - and is rather large - - how large would a 16Hz horn be that Mr. Mallette referred to??? Doesn't the size grow like exponentially or something? Anyone have a photo of a 16Hz horn? Sorry if I misunderstood.

[Fjd]

I don't understand this idea of a 16Hz horn. If the Klipschorn is a nominally 47Hz horn - and is rather large - - how large would a 16Hz horn be that Mr. Mallette referred to??? Doesn't the size grow like exponentially or something? Anyone have a photo of a 16Hz horn? Sorry if I misunderstood.

 

 

I believe that Dave has the Cinema F-20.  You may find the following two build threads interesting where Carl posted a lot of photos including the inside horn pathway during his builds of two horn loaded subwoofers; a Cinema F-20 and a Lil Wrecker.

 

 

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/134131-cinema-f-20-build-thread/

 

 

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/155619-next-up-lil-wrecker/

 

 

 

 

  First off, thanks to Lil Mike at the AVSforum for another great design.  Mike designed the Cinema F-20 and now it's big brother the Lil Wrecker.  For comparative purposes, the F-20 is a 20 cubic foot refrigerator sized sub.  The Lil Wrecker comes in at 29 cubic feet, is louder and goes lower.  It's right at 6 foot tall (5' 10" plus feet) and I'm guessing  well over 200 lbs using 3/4" birch.  MDF would have definitely been weight prohibited.  The box is tuned to 17 Hz so in room should be good to around 14 or lower.  Another difference between this and the F-20 is that the F-20 is a front loaded horn and this one is tapped.  The driver is a 15" Alpine that will be powered by a bridged Crown that should give it a clean 1200 watts.

  The build.  I'm just about done and only have the Neutric connector left to install.  It'll take me a while to post pics so I thought I'd start.  I hope to fire it up this weekend.  I appreciate forum member mxr dad for entrusting me with this build.  It's always nice to build something different.

 

I knew this was going to be big when the cut sheets called for 4 sheets of 4x8 plywood.

 

Edited September 11, 2015 by Fjd

[CECAA850]

I think the F-20 is tuned to 22 Hz.

[Jim Naseum]

I believe that Dave has the Cinema F-20. You may find the following two build threads interesting where Carl posted a lot of photos including the inside horn pathway during his builds of two horn loaded subwoofers; a Cinema F-20 and a Lil Wrecker.

 

thanks. those are really big. Now are those "horns" or "transmission lines?" I don't know the difference.

[muel]

Some of the engineering on Crystal Clear direct-to-disc sessions is so good that even Chrome cassettes made from the back-up reel-to-reel tapes sound good!  One of these is titled something like Sonic Spectaculars.  It has the old war horses, including the best version of Fanfare for the Common Man*, IMO.  I wonder if those old back-up tapes still exist?  Maybe they could be put on SACD or something better.

 

* Bass control + 12 dB really rocks, +16dB, still clean, bends the framing of the room.

You are thinking of Sonic Fireworks.  I've been hoping to find in high res some day... I think I had the cassette but was lost long ago.  

 

off topic:

I've been looking for a GOOD version of "Fanfare for the Common Man."   No luck so far but I must have 6 or more versions.  With the versions that sound good I don't like the performance.  They rush it and play too fast... run notes together that should be.. what's their hurry?!  Bernstein had some place to be I think.  The only performance I really like is a pretty lousy recording I got in the early 90's  (Copland Conducts Copland - London Symphony Orchestra).   Who's going to conduct Copland better than Copland after all?!  Would love to hear suggestions on other versions.

[Travis In Austin]

Todays "Real World Reality" and why those that believe recordings should never be manipulated with EQ are ignoring one of several problem elephants in the listening experience..!!!

miketn

I agree, right on the head as per usual for Mike.

We have discussed this before, they record for the masses, they mix for the masses, and they master for the masses. Record companies are in the business of selling art to as many people as possible.

There was a time you could come close to recording/mixing/and mastering for almost the same universal audiophile speaker way back when Acoustic Research had 50 percent market share in the US with the AR-3. You could come close to doing it now if you mixed for Beats which has a 50 market share. I think that they are actually doing that on music for young people.

They used to mix and master studio singles differently for AM radio play so it would sound better coming from the 4 or 6" speaker in the dash than the stereo WLP for FM airplay. They mixed and mastered for their market.

The top 3 guys in mastering, I believe, are in fact the top 3 guys in mastering is because of the equipment and speakers they use which supports Floyd's theory. Unfortunately, there are only a few at this top level. A level that produced a consistently high level of quality on mastering. This is a difficult feat considering they in were stuck with what they were given in terms of the mix/recording to try and do something with.

Travis

[Chris A]

If you go to minute 8:30-12:30 on the following video, you might see and hear the state of the art (SOTA) for the year 2000 in terms of pop music mastering techniques, and how they achieve it (Warning: this will likely turn your stomach...)

 

 

I believe that it's driven by the clients--record producers and the artists themselves that are worried that if they make their music more natural sounding, they won't sell as many tracks online.

 

Also note that there are two types of digital albums: https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/143320-loudness-war-and-the-dynamic-range-dr-database-some-observations/?p=1630561

Chris

[Travis In Austin]

What do you think?

Yes, it's actually too easy: you have want to believe the information being given.

Most analog-only thinkers (i.e., the seat-of-the-pants, touch-and-feel types) can't accept that. Digital suffers no degradation--if you can read the "bits" at all (including parity), the information gets through to the other end, unchanged, very unlike analog.

Chris

The top few guys in digital mastering do not agree with this. They want the original source drive, not a copy, without limiting or compression.

They say, and I do not quite understand this, that every successive copy adds distortion. They are very clear about this because they have had to counter the notion some companies and studios had that digital meant you could copy without degradation.

Travis

[Mallette]

They say, and I do not quite understand this, that every successive copy adds distortion.

 

It's pure BS.  Do your spreadsheets become more or less accurate after being copied?

 

Dave