Are loudness and tone controls necessary?

[edwinr]

If you really want to get into the music, you have to get into the whole package.

What was the artist trying to say at the time of the record's release? Why did the artist/engineer make the record sound like that? What did people think when they first heard this record back when it was released? Why did they release it in mono and not stereo? - Hey! Lets throw some DSP in as well just to create a quasi surround sound or simulated stereo effect!

Can you get a true feel for the music and it's significance if you give it a bit of a tweak with the tone control? - you know, just to compensate for that hiss, or that aneamic bass, or whatever...

I might be pompous. But am I right?

You better bloody believe it! []

[sfogg]

"If you really want to get into the music, you have to get into the whole package. "

OK, then please tell me what speakers were used when the album was mastered?

How large was the room?

What treatments were in the room?

How loud did they listen?

What amps?

What source?

Listening position?

Speaker position?

What if the original artist hated any and all horns and thought they killed their music? Gonna run out and buy new speakers?

Etc...etc...

If you haven't duplicated all this you haven't even remotely got into the 'whole package/intent.'

"I might be pompous. But am I right?"

Half right.

Also, I'm quite sure *I* know what *I* need to do so that *I* get into the music better then what *you* think *I* need to do.

Shawn

[edwinr]

Shawn says: "...If you haven't duplicated all this you haven't even remotely got into the 'whole package/intent."

Exactly, Shawn. So the more you add or subtract from what is reproduced on your choice of software, be it Vinyl or CD, the more you remove yourself from your system's 'core' sound. You should be familier with that core sound. It forms a reference for your listening - no matter what source/amplifier/speakers you may have. When you play your choice of music, you can then reference that to other music.

How was it recorded? Why does this disc sound so different from another disc of the same era?

If you start 'tweaking' the sound so that every disc you play sounds similar to other discs you play (i.e. making the disc conform via DSP/tone controls to a sound that is pleasant to you), then everything starts sounding like it WAS engineered by the same person.

Why do that?

P.S. I guess there's an argument that you could set and forget the DSP/tone controls so that you maintain a reference sound... But to mind that's an overly complicated way of doing things. Why not just carefully system match? Synergy is the key word here. It's simple. It works. And there are fewer electronics bits and pieces to get in the way.

P.P.S. Well... In for a penny. In for a pound. Isn't that what an 'audiophile' is all about? - Getting the best possible sound using the most simple and most cost effective methodology?

[sfogg]

"the more you remove yourself from your system's 'core' sound. "

Again... what does your own systems 'core' sound have to do with what was originally recorded or the 'intent' of the artist?

It doesn't, not at all.

One picked their systems components (and that 'core' sound) to their own ideal of what it should sound like. They have no clue what it sounded like when the recording was made.

"If you start 'tweaking' the sound so that every disc you play sounds similar to other discs you play (i.e. making the disc conform via DSP/tone controls to a sound that is pleasant to you), then everything starts sounding like it WAS engineered by the same person."

Who ever said they tweak every disc so that they sound like every other one?

The differences between CDs in my system is huge.

Why?

Because I have gone to great lengths to limit the effects of my room during playback.

Unlike most I don't have my room homogenizing the sound of everything that is being played back within it by imparting the same acoustic queues to each and every pieces of music no matter if they were small intimate recordings or large concert halls.

" It forms a reference for your listening - no matter what source/amplifier/speakers you may have. When you play your choice of music, you can then reference that to other music."

If you want to analyze the music and cross reference it to other pieces of music... maybe.

Me, I want to experience and enjoy the music......

Shawn

[edwinr]

I've been down that path, Shawn. You don't want to know what sort of money I had tied up in my old system. You really don't.

Even though it sounded stupendous. It got very tiring after a while. I just wanted to switch my system on and listen to music. I couldn't do that. Even though my electronics were first rate and seemingly didn't add or subtract from the music - well they did... I had a brain snap one day and pulled everything out of my music room. I left in place my main speakers, a CD player and a simple tone control free integrated amplifier. At first it sound like sh*t. I tugged and pulled my speakers around the room, played with furnishings, threw a few mats here and there and, ta da! I was done.

When I next played my system... Wow! What had I been missing? Everything! The intimacy was back. The ability to sit down and just enoy the music was back. It was staggering.

The big test was when I called my wife down to the music room to listen. I played some music. She said: "Oh, that's better! I didn't like the way it sounded before!"

You should try it, Shawn.

[sfogg]

"I've been down that path, Shawn."

Which path?

Two channel with a very dead room?

If so I'd agree. That would sound very tiring after awhile. That is the unfortunate paradox of two channel listening. You don't want the room to homogenize everything yet without the rooms influence the music sounds very dead and lifeless and ultimately fatiguing.

That is not what I'm doing.

"The big test was when I called my wife down to the music room to listen. "

Is there any more tired an audio cliche then the wife/girlfriend/SO hearing the difference?

Don't forget about 'the veils lifting...'

"You should try it, Shawn."

Been there, done that....

It sounded like a pale comparison of what I hear when I go listen to live music in a concert hall. It left me still searching for a better method of reproducing music.

Shawn

[edwinr]

You are funny, Shawn. The reference to the wife/girlfriend IS a tired cliche. I should trade her in too! []

My former system was orientated towards multichannel music. I'm lucky with a fairly large room about 25 feet by 30 feet, of double brick construction.

The room DOES have significant influence. My current system seemingly slots very well into this room and sounds very nice. This is because I have tweaked the room to my taste. I didn't find the lack of tone controls to be an inhibiting factor when I set my system up.

So you've 'been there and done that...' too. Hmmmm.

Out of interest, why would your foray into 2 channel sound so lifeless? How could it sound like a pale comparison to live music? A properly set-up and synergistic 2 channel system shouldn't sound like that. []

P.S. How come you're up so early (or late?) in the morning? Here in Australia it's just after midday!

Edwin.

[SET12]

"is the mid-range is to high in its spl level ALK allows the user to dial it in"

Just like a mid-range tone control.......

Shawn

Its high to begin with, From what may be considered flat speaker reponse, As a consumer I for one don't want to add eq to take care of a design issue and a serious one at that

[SET12]

You can go to ALK's web page, because the cost of copper is up I'm sure his prices are up I think you could order the parts and build them for 250-300$ if you buy from him you can expect to pay some 500$ these will just drop in, If your handy at all the DIY approach is the way to go he has the schematic available for you free to use just not to use commercially.

It is a very shocking experiance to hear these when the mid's are brought down to where they should be. They also allow you to passively Bi-Amp one for the mid and treble and one for the bass, the amps of course still will run full range but a tube amp can be tweaked by running a cap at the input to roll the low end off for greater volume levels if one wants.

SET12

[SET12]

Edwin,

I would just like to second much of what you have said here I couldn't agree more.

Set up is half of the systems performance and maybe more when room treatments factor in and maybe tone controls can help there but then you have to deal with the reduction of everything else even volume controls in the digital domain have been known to truncate the digital imformation down from 16 bit to as low as 12 bit and there are manufactures that claim they have fixed it but have they?

SET12

[sfogg]

"My former system was orientated towards multichannel music."

What processing were you using? The difference between good processing and bad processing is on par with the differences between say Bose and Klipsch.

"? How could it sound like a pale comparison to live music? A properly set-up and synergistic 2 channel system shouldn't sound like that."

There are numerous reasons why, most have to do with fundamental problems in 2 channel playback itself.

Vocals sound wrong because of different sets of timing differences to your ears and comb filtering altering response. No one you know speakers from two places in space at the same time. A single speaker reproducing vocals sounds more real (less phasey, more coherent) then two trying to phantom image a vocal.

Center imaging isn't stable with position. Move side to side (and humans unconsciously bob their head slightly to aid in localization) and the imaging shifts and the timing relationships from left speaker to each ear and right speaker to each ear changes.

Unless the room is the same same size as the concert hall the acoustic space queues the room imparts will be completely wrong for what is recorded on the disc. For example in a concert hall you may be 100 feet from the rear wall and say 20 feet from one side wall and 70 from the other. The reflections from the rear wall will be delayed 200ms and somewhere above 20ms from one wall and above 70ms from the other side wall. This is what gives a hall some of its reverb. In your room you might be 15 feet from the rear side walls with all of 30 ms of delay on the rear reflections and somewhere above 15ms for the side wall reflections. Humans hearing is very good at determining the acoustic space of a room by hearing queues like this.

Along with this bass in a room sounds very different then in a hall. In a hall the bass reflections from the side walls gets delays relative to each other (most listeners aren't situated dead center between the walls) such that when they hit the listener there is differences in timing and phase in the bass between each ear. (ITDs, Interaural time differences) This contributes to a sound of spaciousness and externalizes the bass. In a hall with some type of fairly constant bass (an organ or something like that) listen to the bass. It sort of sounds like it is breathing and all around the hall. This is why.

In a room the listener is usually dead center between the walls and the walls aren't far enough away from the listener to generate the ITDs in the bass. The end result is the loss of spaciousness and bass sounds more 'in your head' compared to the rest of the soundstage.

The ambience on the recording will be reproduced from the wrong direction. The ambience (halls sound) should surround the listener... yet with 2 the source of the ambiance is from up front. Ditto other things, like audience applause coming from on stage on a live recording. With a good surround system the applause will be removed from L/R and reproduced in the surrounds so it puts the listener in the audience. Sometimes 2 channel can sort of phantom image things like applause from the rear but it is unstable compared to actually having the sound reproduced from the rear.

Shawn

[sfogg]

Set12,

"As a consumer I for one don't want to add eq to take care of a design issue and a serious one at that "

But you did. The autoformer lets you adjust the relative balance of the speaker, the same function as what an EQ performs.

It is always funny how some anti-EQ people end up searching out EQ like functions by 'system matching', adjustments on speaker (like autoformers), attempting it with changes to tubes, with wires...etc..etc. In a very real sense all of those are EQ... just ones that are much harder to adjust and much less predictable.

"but then you have to deal with the reduction of everything else even volume controls in the digital domain have been known to truncate the digital imformation down from 16 bit to as low as 12 bit and there are manufactures that claim they have fixed it but have they?"

Digital volume controls can go a lot lower then 12bit. Every 6dB you reduce digitally you loose 1 bit of resolution. Of course now any processing like that would start off at 24 bits.

However, do you actually know what the loss of resolution means? Most don't and are just parroting back something they read.

It simply means the signal fed to the DACs is closer to the noise floor of the DACs. Resolution is Signal to Noise Ratio.

Turn down the volume control on a normal pre-amp and guess what happens.... the signal gets closer to the noise floor of the pre-amp too.

Its also worth pointing out that even with only '12 bits' of resolution (down from 16) most people don't have that much resolution available in their *systems* (which includes the room) anyway.

Whats the noise floor in your room? 50dB? If you listen at peaks of 100dB your system has no more then 50dB of SNR. That is just over 8 bits of resolution. Getting back to your original example... if you started at 16 bits in a digital volume control which equated to 100dB peaks in your listening room if you turned down the volume to '12bits' of resolution that means you lowered the signal by 24dB. Now your peaks are at 76dB... yet your noise floor in the room itself hasn't changed. You only have about 26dB of SNR between your loudest peaks and your noise floor.... just over 4 bits of resolution.

BTW, my pre-amp performs volume controls in the analog domain.

Shawn

[Guest " "]

SET12 said:

"As far as the stock LaScalas I stand firm on my opinion and if it weren't for ALK's work I would not likely be on the Klipsch forum and I might add ALK's work did truly transform the LaScala into a fierce performer one that finally yielded some very nice bass performance as well with doing great justice with the mid-range and top end and if you haven't heard it and heard it set up correctly you are really missing a real outstanding performance of what the LaScala is capable of! There just isn't any comparison and I for one would never own them in the stock form. I could live with the stock Forte's though my Modified ones are in a differant league."

SET12  

 

Have you been able to compare the ALK crossovers to the new crossovers Klipsch is using?  I have a pair of 2004 La Scalas and have not been able to compare them to the older models.  I love the way mine sound and would love to find someone in the Austin area  ALK's and bring em over and do a comparision with the new Klipsch crossovers. 

I know Deans KHorns were had the new crossovers so if he is reading this post maybe he can give us his opinion.

I also have a set of 2004 lascala's with the AL-4 xover network.

Have a few older lascala's as well, almost all the xovers.

The Al-4's are in use 99% of the time.

The other 1% is spent jumping around AA's, AL's, AL-2's, and AL-3's.

I expect that Al's extreme slope networks could sound better than the AL-4.

I also realize, that my views are based on SS equipment, and realize that folks with tube equipment may favor the AA xover.

[jbsl]

edwinr said:

"If you really want to get into the music, you have to get into the whole package.

What was the artist trying to say at the time of the record's release? Why did the artist/engineer make the record sound like that? What did people think when they first heard this record back when it was released? Why did they release it in mono and not stereo? - Hey! Lets throw some DSP in as well just to create a quasi surround sound or simulated stereo effect!

Can you get a true feel for the music and it's significance if you give it a bit of a tweak with the tone control? - you know, just to compensate for that hiss, or that aneamic bass, or whatever...

I might be pompous. But am I right?

You better bloody believe it! "

I am not concerned with "What was the artist trying to say at the time of the record's release? Why did the artist/engineer make the record sound like that? What did people think when they first heard this record back when it was released? Why did they release it in mono and not stereo?"

I am concerned with the music sounding good to ME! So if I listen to a album that was meant to be heard in mono but sounds better to me in stereo then I will llisten in stereo everytime.

The history and meaning behind the music can be very interesting but it is not my primary goal when listening to music.

He is not pompous that is what he likes about this hobby. No one is pompous unless they believe their opinion is the only right opinion for everyone.

[edwinr]

Thanks for your well written response, Shawn.

Now I can accept your argument that the accurate reproduction of a large music venue is a challenge for any hi-fi system.

Now consideration number one concerns the recording engineer at the venue. Perhaps he has choosen to mix into several discrete channels. In doing so, I guess the engineer is attempting to capture all the ambience and localisation cues available to the lucky listener. The resulting mix is then reduced to a suitable multichannel variant and is made available to us, the consumer via SACD or DVD/A or whatever.

I guess we are trusting the ears of the engineer that all the audio clues have been captured correctly. Probably more importantly, we need to be assured that the correct weight has been apportioned to the audio clues. Now the engineer was at the original recording venue, so I am prepared to concede he/she has done the job properly.

Now we must also accept that this recording engineer is fully aware that this recording will later be reproduced in the home in a room considerably smaller than the recording venue. I argue that the resulting consumer mix has already been modiified to accomodate the smaller listening spaces. There should be no need for additional DSP or tone control intervention in a properly balanced multichannel hi-fi system.

Secondly, the issue of the so-called inability of a 2 channel system to accurately reproduce a large musical venue vexes me. Now many of the worlds finest recordings have been made with a stereo microphone placed so that, as much as possible, it captures all the audio clues and ambience of say, a large orchestra playing in a large venue. I suggest this would be not dissimilar to what a listener would hear if they were at the recording venue. I further suggest that an experienced recording engineer would have far greater success in capturing the feel of a large venue compared with the endeavors of the multichannel recording engineer.

Why? I can hear you ask...

Because 'less is more'. There is less to go wrong. There are less electronics to get in the way of the music. There is less chance that the engineer has overcompensated, or not allowed for certain variables. The audio clues should arrive at the microphones about the same time as we would actually hear them if we were sitting there.

Now taking this scenario a little further, why wouldn't a pair of stereo speakers accurately reproduce this large recording venue? Why wouldn't we get the feel of a very large space? After all we are only reproducing two channels. But those two channels contain all the audio clues that were at the venue. There is no need for the intervention of DSP or tone controls to give recordings more space or ambience. The argument that 2 channel stereo is somehow substandard carries little weight, as far as I'm concerned.

[edwinr]

Edwin,

I would just like to second much of what you have said here I couldn't agree more.

Set up is half of the systems performance and maybe more when room treatments factor in and maybe tone controls can help there but then you have to deal with the reduction of everything else even volume controls in the digital domain have been known to truncate the digital imformation down from 16 bit to as low as 12 bit and there are manufactures that claim they have fixed it but have they?

SET12

That's a problem I have with music processed in the digital domain - much of what I've heard just doesn't sound right. Shawn may very well be right though, if you are going to go down the path of DSP, you need to do it right and this would tend to support the need for big $$$. Why bother? There's a cheaper and better way to do it.

[SET12]

Again I have to concur with edwinr here.

Some electronics are certainly better at ambient, lateral, depth ,height, width, and projected imformation.

I myself prefer what Dennis Had of Cary audio often refers to life size imaging which is very large, When you have a degree of this the entire listening room is totally imersed in the recordings ambient cues this is what I have heard with his 211 equiped single ended 805 amplifier. I have not experianced this effect amplifiers that do not image much beyond speakers width. My own electronics excell at this and it is enjoyed much

jbsl, I think if what you have and you enjoy it, Thats all that counts! That goes for anyone and if others enjoy it thats great as well!

SET12

[sfogg]

Same question.... what processing were you using when you experimented with multi-channel.

"Now we must also accept that this recording engineer is fully aware that this recording will later be reproduced in the home in a room considerably smaller than the recording venue. I argue that the resulting consumer mix has already been modiified to accomodate the smaller listening spaces. There should be no need for additional DSP or tone control intervention in a properly balanced multichannel hi-fi system."

Are you talking about a multi-channel source? In this case some DSP is still required. Time alignment is needed and most likely some form of bass management would be needed as well. DSP can be useful in other ways too such as dealing with room resonances and such.

However, you totally misunderstand how I'm listening to music if you are thinking in terms of multi-channel sources.

" Now many of the worlds finest recordings have been made with a stereo microphone placed so that, as much as possible, it captures all the audio clues and ambience of say, a large orchestra playing in a large venue."

Captures some of it... sure.... Well done two channel recordings can do a good job of capturing ambiance and hall sound in the recording.

However....

"Secondly, the issue of the so-called inability of a 2 channel system to accurately reproduce a large musical venue vexes me. "

That isn't the same thing as being able to reproduce it. The sound of the hall does NOT come from front right and front left in the concert hall. It surrounds you from all around.

Yet in a two channel setup front left and right are the only source of sound possible. So it is not possible to accurately reproduce the ambiance that is already in the recording from the proper locations. As such you don't get nearly the same hall sound as you would in the original event. 2 channel listening is very much a 'they are here' and 'looking through the window' perspective. Multichannel is more of a you are there....

"There is no need for the intervention of DSP or tone controls to give recordings more space or ambience. "

Again, fundamentally you don't understand what I'm doing. I am not adding ambience or space to the recording, including the random ambience of my room.

As you said the ambiance is already 'hidden' in the original 2 channel recording. It is possible to extract that ambience from the recording and reproduce it from the proper directions.

That is what I am doing.

Since you keep missing that it is obvious you have not gone down the same path as I have.

"Because 'less is more'. There is less to go wrong."

Why use two speakers then? If less is more then one is therefor better then two. Instead of spending the money purchasing two speakers, two amp channels,etc..etc.. you could instead spend the money on one speaker that cost twice as much...etc..etc.

Sometimes less is just less.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler!" - Einstein

"The argument that 2 channel stereo is somehow substandard carries little weight, as far as I'm concerned."

Not my argument.

The people that created 2 channel at Bell Labs 70ish years ago knew full well that 2 channel playback was substandard. They were just hobbled by the available delivery formats of the day. Klipsch spent the better part of his life arguing that same point.

Shawn

[maxg]

Bit Johny-come-lately to this thread (not all that interested in Tone controls - but I see the thread heading off in another direction).

Stuck by this comment from Shawn:

"Center imaging isn't stable with position. Move side to side (and humans unconsciously bob their head slightly to aid in localization) and the imaging shifts and the timing relationships from left speaker to each ear and right speaker to each ear changes."

Whilst I think this is certainly a true statement a few thoughts arise:

1. Head shifting and brain dealing with the shifting sonic panorama is very much part of life - I think our brains are wired to deal with this and have therefore never been convinced this is a real issue to a listener.

2. As it happens if you are listening to a live singer and shift position there will similarly be a shift of sound patterns around you. Whether the sound emanates from a single point - from 2 points, multiple points or from all around room reflections I think doesn't matter other than for the mathematical complexity of the analysis.

3. Mutli-channel systems. I have always wondered whether these, in fact, suffer more or less from motion of the listener. In a modern surround sound system with, say, 3 speakers up front and 2 at the rear (a relatively simple system these days) there is sound firing at you from effectively all directions immediately and from relfections unknown. It would seem to my simple brain that in this scenario the slightest movement would yield dramatic changes - more so than for 2 channel.

One final note - less is more. It is interesting to see mono come up as the logical conclusion for speakers from this statement. I am still not convinced that this conclusion is wrong in many ways - except that in order to provide some level of spacial clue information 2 speakers does seem to be the minimum.

[Erik Mandaville]

Shawn:

"Klipsch spent the better part of his life arguing that same point."

He wouldn't have had to argue the point with me, or Marie for that matter. Things changed very quickly around here the instant we sat down and listened to some of our favorite music with a carefully blended center channel fill. And now, several channels and a subwoofer later...

Amazing.

Erik