rostele2
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Post by rostele2 on May 19, 2017 17:12:20 GMT
What's this all about? This is just your opinion and your ideas of where a mics should be placed*. Never heard of Ivry Gitlis, or Neeme Jarvi? Actually this is just your opinion. What actually makes you entitled to have an opinion*? Do you have any professional training in order to make this? Just curious. |
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on May 19, 2017 17:19:59 GMT
Yes, of course I've heard of them but what is your point? Am I supposed to be impressed?
Do you have any professional training in engineering or performing? You trained in both did you? How about driving Jaguars? I don't really care if you do tbh. Are you Welsh, Scottish or Russian? What is your point? You just ramble on about mics and name drop. Why?
I was trained in composition by Herbert Howells and Alan Ridout. Herbert was a friend of Vaughan Williams. I did oboe with Sidney Sutcliffe and Terrance McDonagh. Sidney was a pupil of Leon Goosens, and piano performing with Margaret Plummer at the RCM. Oh I forgot - conducting with Norman del Mar. I have performed in both orchestral and pop for a long time in both live work and in recording work for pure music release, radio and tv, plus musicals at one point, but I don't tell everyone else what is right or wrong in music to listen to. I have performed in whatever has been on offer and have never limited myself to one particular genre so therefore have rarely been out of work which is pretty unusual for a musician. Even touring with various UK bands as well. I ended my career by teaching in a University and a school. What's that got to do with anything though?
Because I'm music trained, I'm not allowed an opinion on recording and mic placement? Absolute rubbish.
If I haven't the right to have an opinion then don't waste your time with me. Please don't. I only offered my opinion because you were enforcing yours on us.
However, I don't describe myself as the only person in the world that is correct as you do. I don't say things like 90% of the world's oboists are rubbish. I don't need to and don't feel the need to either. Was it 95 or 90% of engineers know nothing and musicians are clueless? Really? A cretinous thing to say and very arrogant too.
All headphones have a raised bass .... Really? Pure ignorance.
What you see as right or wrong with microphones isn't necessarily right by other people. If you can't accept that then who cares? I do have friends who work in engineering you know and I can't repeat what was said after they saw your slightly sweeping percentage statement!!
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sekar
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Post by sekar on May 19, 2017 17:42:34 GMT
Ian , could you definitely notice that version of Concertos i'd proposed featured with some extra deep stage especially #4 or #6 ?
It seems the instruments located rather before you and stretched out into some distance .
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on May 19, 2017 17:51:29 GMT
There is some nice spread Sergey. The bass section certainly sound further back. The 4th is played in a very 'light' way as well. Leaves a lot of 'space' between sounds. They have very carefully shaped the phrases too.
4 and 6 are very nice actually, but I have a bit of a problem with the piano in the 5th!! Bach might have wondered what it was because it hadn't really become a common instrument yet in his time. It was only in developmental stages.
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rostele2
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Post by rostele2 on May 19, 2017 18:11:19 GMT
Because I'm music trained, I'm not allowed an opinion on recording and mic placement? Pretty much correct. I am also used to hearing all these meaningless phrases like "sound stage", "holographic this and that"...there's a whole newspeak dictionary of them. The reason you HAVE to increase the bass out of all proportion on a headphones is simply because the ear is up to 100x less sensitive to those frequencies. It doesn't alter the fact either of human hearing or headphone frequency response does it? Speakers are totally different and they don't put the image behind the ear line / at the back of the head. You are in denial about time domain corrollation, but I can of course ask you to read a little more carefully some stuff from Gerzon and resolution audio magazine. The Audio Century: Top Ten Audio Personalities of the 20th Century Rupert Neve – Champion of Audio Quality Ray Dolby – Household Name Sir George Martin – People’s Producer Willi Studer – Tape Machine Pioneer Colin Saunders – Founder of SSL Alan Blumlein – Inventor Georg Neumann – Microphone Designer Michael Gerzon – Mathematician Valdemar Poulsen – Inventor Les Paul – Guitars and Multitracks |
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sekar
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Post by sekar on May 19, 2017 18:20:08 GMT
Hmmm ... Ian, It seems we have a bit different approaches here  You have a more professional look at that . We may agree this record offer much space though ! I imaged to be at a higher position and the orchestra has been stretched before me but rather in deep outward not to the left and right sides , very unusual feeling. It was like a corridor or a passage going outward . |
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on May 19, 2017 18:23:14 GMT
You HAVE to increase the bass output?  You calibrate the headphone sound to suit the way that we hear at close distances. So they are balanced in a different way to a speaker. What about it? I can't see the problem. Of course if you are measuring just the driver of a speaker and a headphone cone, yes they will be different because they need to be calibrated in a different way. Or would you like a flat speaker bolted to your head? In studio recording, sound is often monitored on headphones that have a rolled away treble. Reason is that they are listened to at life volume to perform into. Later, for listening to playback, some people use headphones with a limited frequency range in order to monitor or hear problems of buzz or hiss. Home headphones are often made with a bass boost and actually a treble boost because many people like the more colourful sound picture. They call this a 'v' or 'u' shaped, but if you want to be literal, it's not actually a proper v or u. Just a slightly raised bass and treble with a lower mid response. Headphones are just tools for monitoring. Not everyone wants flat you know!! Most headphone designers know this. Why are you so right because you think you have flat? And what is 'flat' in a headphone? Headphone enthusiasts have been struggling with that one for a few years now. How loud do you listen on a headphone ... now what's flat? You've cracked this have you? Dream on. The terms that Hi-Fi people use are not aimed at engineers. You take things literally, where Hi-Fi people are describing distance clues, decay and attack on headphones. Why do you feel the need to put them down because they don't use terms that you like? Some headphones are extremely good at conveying very minute detail and the clues concerning room or recording spaces can be even clearer than on a speaker. I think that is often referred to as soundstage. Just because they use terms like 'holographic' doesn't mean that you need to throw such scorn on them because you know better. I've had people new to headphones telling me this or that one is clearer. Doesn't mean I pour scorn on them because they've chosen a headphone with a raised treble. One local guy has fallen for a Sony v6 which is an old studio monitoring type headphone with a massively raised top end (although not extended) he preferred it to the Senn hd650 because he thought it was much clearer and more natural sounding. He's probably wrong but I wouldn't dream of putting him down because of that. It's just his preference and so be it. So if you actually listened to what they were saying taking that into consideration, perhaps it's not all nonsense? There's no need to be so anal about it. We all know that speakers do image better. Some headphones produce a sense of space better than others as well. The hd800 is one. The hd650 isn't. Neither is the hd414. Those two have a constricted feel to their sound. I don't care what frequencies you have measured, they are both constricted in sound width and you would know this if you had a wider experience of headphones. If you tried an AKG headphone, tonally you might find it awful but the width of the sound is far greater than the hd650. Surely you have experience with headphones in order to monitor live takes? You sound to me like someone who hasn't used headphones and now has a 414 and a 650. Have you used anything else? You'd then be aware that some headphones have more of a sense of 'space' than others surely? That's what I think Hi-Fi people are describing as a hologram. I can have an opinion on anything I want, including mic placement. Some people trained in engineering think that you talk a load of moonshine as well btw. What on earth is this about? Useless fact of the day? What point are you making now? Are you a mathematician as well then? Because I'm music trained, I'm not allowed an opinion on recording and mic placement? Pretty much correct. In that case, don't talk to me about music and I won't talk to you about microphone placement. Nor anyone else on here for that matter. Wrong audience. |
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on May 19, 2017 18:29:16 GMT
Hmmm ... Ian, It seems we have a bit different approaches here You have a more professional look at that . We may agree this record offer much space though ! I imaged to be at a higher position and the orchestra has been stretched before me but rather in deep outward not to the left and right sides , very unusual feeling. It was like a corridor or a passage going outward . For me Sergey, space in headphones is very difficult. I had a listen on speakers and I can hear the space. It's quite a dead sounding room too. I think for me, I tend to listen perhaps in a different way and if I'm really honest, the technicalities of reproduction bore the pants off me and I get more attracted by the musicianship even if it's played on a transistor radio!! |
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solderdude
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Post by solderdude on May 19, 2017 19:28:24 GMT
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rostele2
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Post by rostele2 on May 20, 2017 5:14:31 GMT
The reason you HAVE to increase the bass out of all proportion on a headphones is simply because the ear is up to 100x less sensitive to those frequencies. It doesn't alter the fact either of human hearing or headphone frequency response does it? This is incorrect. Most people just prefer a small boost of around 4dB (a factor 1.5) is to mimic the effect a 'flat measuring speaker in anechoic conditions' has when such a speaker is used in a room. Lower frequencies are boosted a few dB because of their long wavelength and the way they bounce of floor, ceiling and walls. So to get the same 'sound' as one gets from speakers in a room some boost is desirable when the goal is to 'emulate' the tonal balance of a living room. It has NOTHING to do with Fletcher-Munson or Phon curves at all. It has everything to do with Fletcher-Munson and ISO 226:2003, because the difference between a proper measurement and how it is perceived is what the curves are for. However below are the serious reservations which have to be taken into account also** which is why I don't fundamentally trust headphones and anyone trained at "Primus" learns why too. Being as the vast majority of listening environments are disaster zones (never heard one in a "hi end" shop that was any good), then headphones remain the only option which contains some objectivity, and relatively clean, intact time domain sensitive information. "Relative" & some being the operational words. More than anything else it's why I turn to headphones to contain at least some clues as to what we are doing being right. Then, it's a quantum leap in the dark to imagine how it will sound on a good system, and NO, I don't turn up the headphones to the highest levels. Here was an interesting analysis done by what appears a highly competent individual on a really good "hi end" system. As you can see, it's very very far from ideal.  That is the problem, quite apart from room reflections and resonance, most "hi end" ie. multi 1000 to 100s of 1000s EURO hi end stuff sounds awful. I don't need a background in headphone testing at all, I just use them for an indicator system of what is going on. Ie. We are involved in a process of "virtualisation" with sound recordings. In most really good sound recordings I heard, the only common denominator was,- it sounds good no matter what you played it back on, and of course I maintain that the vast majority of commercial recordings are extremely mediocre .
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on May 20, 2017 5:26:55 GMT
Are you new to headphones? What have you been using in the past to monitor your microphones?
The FM curves are just to show how we perceive sound at different volumes. How the ear gets a flat response from a headphone is a different thing. It's more to do with the many other variations of a headphone like distance from the ear, pad shape and material and the shape of the ear canal. Let alone the effect of the outer ear in the cup.
How do the FM curves relate to headphone response other than give an indication of what is perceived at different volumes?
So if we listen at low volume, we might well turn up the bass. This was done even in the 70s with a 'loudness' button which was a crude way of trying to compensate.
I disagree. You say these things as though it's fact and it just isn't. Again, another 'sweeping' statement. Don't forget that these so called awful systems are placed in less than ideal places on many occasions and they tend to do a better job than cheaper systems.
What do you mean by 'awful' anyway?
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solderdude
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Post by solderdude on May 20, 2017 5:35:11 GMT
The plot you posted proves my point  The plot you see is of a good speaker which measuring to as close as flat as possible in an anechoic room BUT is being used in a ĺiving room' and measured at a listening distance. So the speaker itself measures 'flatter' at 1m in anechoic conditions. Say very close to HD600. What can be observed here is what the room changes. When you look closer you will see that 40Hz and 80Hz are resonance frequencies in that room and that the SPL at those (bass) frequencies are about 5dB higher than that around 1kHz. When Fletcher would have had anything to do with it the 'boost' at 80Hz would have to be +15dB (opposite 1kHz) and at 40Hz +25dB. And that is at average listening levels of around 80-90dB SPL. When you would be listening at average levels of 70dB the numbers would be far worse already. The dip around 250 Hz is most likely caused by interference between the direct woofer signal and a floor bounce. So to 'mimic' the response of a 'good speaker' in a typical room the bass response (till about 100Hz) would have to be boosted about 4dB. And yes ... well made recordings always sound good on 'flat' reproduction systems. |
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rostele2
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Post by rostele2 on May 20, 2017 5:48:02 GMT
Are you new to headphones? What have you been using in the past to monitor your microphones? The FM curves are just to show how we perceive sound at different volumes. How the ear gets a flat response from a headphone is a different thing. It's more to do with the many other variations of a headphone like distance from the ear, pad shape and material and the shape of the ear canal. Let alone the effect of the outer ear in the cup. How do the FM curves relate to headphone response other than give an indication of what is perceived at different volumes? So if we listen at low volume, we might well turn up the bass. This was done even in the 70s with a 'loudness' button which was a crude way of trying to compensate. Interesting answer. For headphones I usually pick up whatever happens to be to hand at any given moment, but most monitoring environments also have a pair of speakers which are turned on. The most popular often turns out to be stuff such as Genelec. All of them are rotten ways to assess anything, hence the interest in your (uber extensive) work on the HD650, which I read with great interest. The entire polemic about "WTF do we do to evaluate anything" is why I'm looking far more carefully at the whole environment much further than normal, particularly with regards to surround.. That's a whole can of worms, and makes a complex job become really difficult, and now I find there is pressure being put on everyone in the industry to get in the "latest & greatest" new trend. That one is old or older than the craze for 3D video which has now died a death. Heck they even tried to broadcast wimbledon tennis at the BBC in 3D!!! It appears as long ago as 2000-2002 we appeared to have been doing roughly the right things in multi channel. I can listen to stuff we did 15 years ago and it DOES sound good, even though some was using compression as high as DTS. The whole polemic on that goes back to Gerzon v CBS SQ quad, which was also a series of quite heated exchanges, but ended up with the Americans basically setting the standards. I luckily kept a CD-surround recording of the entire setup of a surround recording in the Arsenal Metz during rehearsals. The singer is now RIP (Reinemann), which makes it all the more interesting, as there is NO recording of him doing Winterreise. It remains highly instructive, not least because the front or rear channels are switched in and out during the set-up. The effect is really astonishing. Imaging? You think it sounds good in good stereo? You want to try good surround!! FYI, it does bring us to the question of "we need to make or construct a purpose made listening room". This is no trivial question, and why I was especially pleased to get help from you guys here at least for stereo. The temperature of the discussion may sometimes rise quite high, but that doesn't mean I'm ignoring what you are saying. The mere fact things get heated is good, because it shows people do actually care. |
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on May 20, 2017 6:01:18 GMT
In order to get a 'better' speaker response, the closer we can get to an anechoic chamber, the closer we get to what the manufacturer has designed, so the gear is 'sounding' as it should be. The problem with speakers is indeed the room. The problem with headphones is the shape of the ear canal, outer ear ... so again, the room.
If we all lived in an anechoic chamber or had the same shaped ears, everything would be hunky dory. Unfortunately, as in most things it's a compromise.
In my last house which was much bigger than this one, I placed mirrors on the walls in order to try and find reflection points. (Points where I could see the speaker drivers from the sitting position) I even got a mate to hold a mirror up on the ceiling. At those points, I replaced mirrors with screens.
That 'seemed' to help but I can't be sure because the eyes might well have been instructing the ears, but for me, it seemed to help even more with speaker imaging.
However, this kind of action for yer ordinary listener at home is a bit drastic but I had a dedicated listening room then so it wasn't a problem.
Headphones produce more consistent results for many perhaps because the 'room' inside thecups is less reflective but the issue of imaging is a difficult one because of the proximity of the speakers in the capsules being so close to your ears. I think that this may well be the reason why I don't get an image in them while some others claim to hear 3D. I don't at all; certainly not like speakers, but the clarity offered by headphones is comparatively laser like.
I get the feeling that you are unfamiliar with many headphones.
Your hd650 would benefit big time from a Kameleon. Solderdude has measured the headphone response and the Kameleon compensates. A very good solution to the problem that you are describing.
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rostele2
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Post by rostele2 on May 20, 2017 8:48:50 GMT
The problem with speakers is indeed the room. I get the feeling that you are unfamiliar with many headphones. Your hd650 would benefit big time from a Kameleon. Solderdude has measured the headphone response and the Kameleon compensates. A very good solution to the problem that you are describing. Hence the program Roomeqwizard... This is the latest craze to hit audio. I'm not sure you are familiar with it, but it aims to provide an all DSP solution to such problems if needed, & is quite sophisticated with numerous DSP emulation models possible. All you then need is proper measurement mics (Bruel yet again!). At the opera we of course have animated discussions about all this. One person can go to demos of the professional DSP & speaker systems which I don't go to, particularly in Germany. Some of the stuff has to be seen to be believed, and then of course my role is to pick it to bits, pointing out why this or that won't work! Then of course there's lots of other funny stuff, like running Win8 on a Mac, not 7 or 10...(because either one or other software won't run on 10,or 7 and of course because it gives a better hardware support). That's the Jungle! As for the Kameleon, it was the first thing that caught my eye on this site, so no worry about soldering one up. I can stuff my passive filter inside the other headphone amp for the 414s, I got as a freebie when I got the HD650s. (s/h btw). |
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You have a more professional look at that .
You calibrate the headphone sound to suit the way that we hear at close distances. So they are balanced in a different way to a speaker. What about it? I can't see the problem. Of course if you are measuring just the driver of a speaker and a headphone cone, yes they will be different because they need to be calibrated in a different way. Or would you like a flat speaker bolted to your head?
