Griffinator Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 It's patently obvious to me, based on my own experimentation with studio monitors, et al, that one gains a comfort level with a particular piece of equipment. The brain gets acquainted with that piece of equipment's output characteristics. Net result? No matter what it is, it becomes a "point of reference" for the person's appreciation of its performance. If you spend 5 years listening to nothing but boomboxes as your primary source of music consumption, you will believe, honestly, that your boombox sounds good, because your brain has acclimated itself to the tonal characteristics of that boombox and has gone the step beyond and "filled in the blanks" of what that boombox is failing to reproduce. This is exactly why I gave up trying to find "the perfect" studio monitors for my rig - I realized that as I acclimate myself to a given speaker, if that speaker can reasonably reproduce (within a few dB) the entire audible spectrum, then as I learn its deficiencies and my brain gets acclimated to it, I will be able to cipher what sounds "right" and "wrong" on that speaker based on previous experiences with music that sounds "right" to my ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 Yep, that's right. It's "the reference by which all others are judged", good or bad. But that's not to say that we are unable to recognise a "good" or "better" sound vs. the sound we are accustomed to... So the brain still works (somewhat)! But is it RELIABLE? not really - but it has control over the wallet! DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkot Posted December 7, 2004 Share Posted December 7, 2004 great topic!! i have often wondered about this myself. but due to the fact that untill i got my new processor every other audio component that i purchased was either a demo or used, i didnt ever hear a differance after hooking it up. when i got my new processor i think that it sounded better with time but now im not sure?? on the other hand my family did have a chance to experiance a burn in. about 4 years ago my house got hit by lightning. the room that was effected was an addition thats built on the back of the house. the light sockects were all exploded out of the wall on one side of the room and the cords were burnt away from the sockets about 3 feet. lucky for me the only thing lost was the tv/vcr/cable box. i had the wireing fixed and replaced the spent equipment. the first time i fired the system back up it sounded thin, flat, and shallow. i thought that i was imagining things and then my wife, who likes great sound, but could care less about it in the grand scheme of things, walked into the room and asked why the sound was so crappy??? i had not mentioned my feelings to her about my same concerns!!! then my oldest son, who cares deeply about his music said the exact same thing!!!! i called the shop the next day and asked if they knew what the deal was and was told to have the rewire checked and call them back. i did and all checked out ok. i was in the area and stopped in to see them, and by chance the audioquest rep was visiting that day. he overheard my conversation and opined that my cables may have, unpolerized?? (that may not be the term he used, it escapes me) but he sugested that i need to burn in the cables again. i then left the system playing at low volumn 24/7 and sure enough the great sounding system that i had been building for years slowly came back to life and repaired itself. im talking a huge differance. the audio quest guy gave me his number so i called him to report on the progress and asked why the cables didnt sound that way when i got them and he told me that they are burnt in at the factory before shipment.. things that make you go HHHHHMMMMM jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted December 8, 2004 Author Share Posted December 8, 2004 So: 1. Acoustic memory is for the birds - we aint got none. 2. The fillings in your mouth affects the sound. 3. Any speaker - playing full range - can be adapted to and will sound great over time. 4. An electrical storm can really screw up your sound for a while. Kinda makes me wonder why I partake of this hobby.. As for the post Electrical storm degradation of performance I have another thought - weird as it might be. The earth to your house got screwed up - or even magnetically charged. After a massive electrical strike the ground can hold and retain the charge for a while - taking a varying amount of time to return to normal - depending, presumably, on the nature of the ground. That, I imagine, would reek hovac with electrical systems. (And just in case you think Max has gone completely off the deep end I mention it in the light of a news item I saw on TV a couple of months ago. During a football match (soccer that is), I think in South America somewhere, there was a thunder storm. At some point during the match there was a lightening strike to the pitch - no-one was struck directly - BUT every player on the pitch was felled like a tree. Not only that but no-one could get out to help them on the pitch for several minutes as the ground appeared to retain the charge. Weird huh!) Now if one supposes that the reason any particular spot is struck is that it is a better conductor than the surrounding area, possible due to a larger amount of underlying ores or metals in the ground then it is not a huge leap to suppose that a residual charge - electrical and/or magnetic is retained. Now I am going to consult the tea-leaves before listening to my headphones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 ---------------- On 12/8/2004 3:21:05 AM maxg wrote: 3. Any speaker - playing full range - can be adapted to and will sound great over time. ---------------- Can be adapted to, yes. However, whether you've adapted to it or not, listening to another speaker that more faithfully (or, to your ears, more pleasingly) reproduces what you are accustomed to hearing will result in a positive response toward that speaker. Case in point: My ex-wife. When we moved into the house I bought in October last year, she informed me that she would not tolerate my "big pile of black junk" (read: equipment rack) or those "big ugly boxes" (read: my JBL S38's and the Mitsubishi towers I use as stands for them) in "her" living room, and banished them to the basement. However.... When she complained about not having music upstairs, I bought her an inexpensive boombox. That lasted about a week, after which she commenced to start going down to the basement and turning on my system, very loud, to listen upstairs. I asked her why she didn't want to use the boombox - she said "it just doesn't sound very good" PROOF: Once you have heard superior reproduction, your ears are reluctant to go back to inferior... So, why do you do this hobby? Because you can't go back now, bro... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted December 8, 2004 Author Share Posted December 8, 2004 I'm a Bro - how cool is that!! Cheers Griff, I guess from the story that you have moved in with your ex-wife - or she with you - otherwise I cant make sense out of the thing - but I do recognise the SWMBO logic floating around there: I dont like your big ugly stereo. I dont like the sound of the little unit you bought for me because I said I dont like your big ugly stereo. I will therefore hide the stereo miles away and set the volume so I can hear it over the hoover a block away and ignore the fact that at this distance the boombox probably sounds better anyway. And what has got into out neighbours recently - they seem to snub us completely now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piranha Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 I knew there was a compelling reason for his divorce. What a b_tch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 Quite the contrary on the ex, Max. We bought the house October '03, and split up in May. I now have all that "ugly" equipment sitting in my room in this apartment I'm sharing with two other people, and will be moving it back to my house sometime this month, as my ex is moving out. Let's hear it for bank stubbornness, which allowed me to keep the house in the divorce. Of course, being the humanitarian I am, I allowed her to stay in it while she found someplace else to go... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodger Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 "More Metal in the Mouth causes feedback to happen sooner... I have a hard time believing that. wow" 37 years of working with live audio has shown me that with some vocalists, I will get feedback sooner from some. I have tried to figure placement, brand of microphone, monitor placement, volume and trim settings. I've also tried to note main speaker placement, etc.. The thing that was most in common were fillings or a number of crowns metal on 3 sides. To explain more would be more direct flat reflective surfaces inside the mouth. To note the feedback was when mouth open singing. Now wow is a great answer. There are no scientific studies. However, practical experience would lead to that conclusion. I am open to other theories. But vas I said, I chalk it up to that. No stating that studies have been done. Just plain old what could I find as a common factor. I do not get the same when the Vocalist is using In Ear Monitoring. But within context it make you go hmmm. Similar to hollow body Gibsons. They feed back faster. That's why one sees newspaper or other material as fiber-fill stuufed inside. dodger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted December 8, 2004 Share Posted December 8, 2004 I wonder if any of the singers I mix for have metal in their mouth...I think the next time I get feedback during practice, (of course never during the performance) I'm going to ask the musician if they have any fillings. If nothing else, it'll get some laughs (at least with some of the people I mix for). I've thought a lot about what you experience (not denying your observations) and the only rationalization I could come up with is that a person's mouth with metal in it resonates at a different frequency. This resonation probably occurs in the 1k-3k range which probably bumps the monitor mix over the edge causing feedback. During a live show, everything is always on the verge of feedback and any resonating medium is bound to throw it over the edge. This is the same reason your hollow gibson guitars feedback easier too. I was mixing for this one speaker dude once and he was drinking water out of a bottle...well there were a few times when he would hold bottle close to the mic and I'd get instant feedback (and I wasn't even close to feeding back otherwise). After a while though, this stopped happening and after thinking about it later, I attributed it to the fact that as he was drinking from his bottle, the resonance changed and that's why it only happened a few times when the bottle was half empty...or was it half full? haha, talk about way OT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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