Audiophiles: Are they hearing something we're not?

The test is the range from acceptable noise to acceptable distortion. Deane Jensen designed a preamp having as wide a useable dynamic range as one of the better tube preamps but never got it beyond the prototype that I had the opportunity to try out.

Hi Duke, thanks for your observations. I think we are both right!!! What I mean by perception of sound is how the ear perceives sound. Which relates to the Fletcher Munson Curve. For, example there is a 10db difference in the perceived low frequency energy between monitoring at 60db than 80db.

Music generally sounds better when its louder. This often fools folks. If you take the inner mesh away from a condenser microphone the level will go up because you have increased the sound pressure reaching the capsule's diaphragm.

So, if you compare the before and after at the same preamp setting it will usually sound better with the inner mesh removed but you have most likely reduced the headroom several db.


Notice, the Beatle's engineers added a 3rd metal "pop" filter to front of the U47's used at Abbey Road. This would have reduced the overall level reaching the microphone's diaphragm and softened the attack. It would reduce the popping also but effect the HF at 15khz by less than 1/2 db.


Now, the Fletcher Munson Curve is the frequency response of the listeners ears at different monitoring levels. They took a group of folks and did listening test and averaged out the results to get the Fletcher Munson curve. So, we all hear slightly differently from each other at different volumes levels.  So, each of us will have our own personal Fletcher Munson curve.


It is important to pick a consistent montor level when you are referencing gear that average listener can agree too. Probably not your friend "Animal" the Heavy Metal Harley driving, guitar player with a double stack of Marshall 100 watt amps that he likes to turn to 11.


At the Kim Novak mixing theatre on the Sony Picture's lot, they have a SPL meter and the average level must never exceed 85db SPL at the mixing desk.


Psycho-acoustics also suggests that we hear differently on different days depending on the humidity. Today, in a studio control room with good HVAC we can usually keep the humidity consistent.


In Howard Tremaines, The Audio Encyclopedia he alludes to Sound Stages in the LA during the 30's, misting the air before takes to increase the HF response when they had very dry days with low humidity. Sound travels faster as the air becomes more humid.

However, this increase in speed, is quite small. Sound travels about 0.35 percent faster in 100 percent humidity than it does in zero percent humidity.

Someone must have heard a difference or just got back from science class??


I know that humidity seemed to made a huge difference to the sound of our Reverb Plate.

Sound travels on average 343M/Sec in air but in stainless steel it travels 5790 m/sec. I had two 40 watt light bulbs in series inside the plate reverb to keep it at a consistent temperature and humity.


A properly working Neve 1073 or API 512 will often make a mediocre microphones sound "better" than the average transformerless preamp to my ears.


I see you are using Bi-Radial horns in some of your speaker designs.  We had a pair of JBL 4430 speaker in Control Room "A" at Ocean (circa 1980) that we custom flush mounted in the soffit.

The had very even dispersion horizontally compared to the Altec 604E which were in vogue at that time.  The didn't sound as harsh as the Altec's when the volumes go rocking.

You could also listen to them longer than the Altec 604E speakers without as much ear fatique.   

The also had a time aligned passive crossovers.   There was a great article on the design in AES magazine.  We drove them from a Sansui BA-5000 that could deliver 300 watts per side RMS into 8 ohms.



 

Cheers, Dave

Duke
The effects on humidity on speakers varies with material, I do know Electrostatics love constant humidity!

I think they are feeling something as opposed to hearing. I think we are as well. Humans are pretty emotional. We're also pretty smart and use science and art to build pretty amazing things. Sometimes those things make pretty sounds and we get excited. Lot's of people make a career or a hobby out of that excitement.

No, they appear to be deaf to that...

I'm not trying to troll or start an argument, Hmm ..maybe I am ;P

But seriously, I do agree this is an important question for the pros.  My sense is that you have to be somewhat of an audiophile in the first place in order to be a good engineer. As for amateurs like me who try to preserve our performances with technically flawed recordings, I sure do hope they are "hearing" the same music.

My understanding is that the goal posts are in slightly a different place for recording engineers than for high-end home audio, at least when it comes to loudspeakers. You want to hear what's wrong so you can fix it, and that's usually not the top priority in home audio.

And recording engineers have so many things they need to spend money on that most hard-core audiophiles are going to out-spend them many times over on the playback chain, source -> preamp/amp -> speakers -> room... EXCEPT for that last one. You guys usually have a far greater appreciation for the role that the room itself plays, and so you spend money on professional-level room treatment. Relatively few audiophiles do so.

Also, at least in the playback chain, you guys are much more inclined to figure out the best way to plow with the horses you have, before you start spending money on a new toy that promises to deliver better sound. You approach setup professionally, giving priority to results, whereas many audiophiles give top priority to something else, perhaps aesthetics.  Not only do you make measurements whenever it makes sense to do so,  but your ears are really well calibrated. 

So I would say that many if not most audiophiles are in a position assemble a "better sounding" (which may or may not include "higher resolution") system than most recording engineers, but relatively few of them capitalize on that. It seems to me that you guys are getting 110% of the potential out of what most audiophiles would consider to be a budget system.

Damn, now I need 5 pairs of speakers..

It's funny, I feel like I've been peripherally aware of this, both in practice and also in that a lot of on-line discussions I've read allude to it, but thanks Bob for just coming out and saying it. I have a set of B&W matrix 2's sitting in mothballs that I have avoided using for all of the reasons you have outlined.  I would just add (and especially for those of us amateurs who for any number of reasons rely heavily on headphones) that I'm pretty sure the same principle applies. In addition to my cheap monitors, I have two different pairs of headphones that I refer to when mixing, and even different sets of headphones for tracking.  Now that I've been psuedo-mastering my stuff and really need to consider giving it to pros to work on, maybe I should pull the B&Ws out..

All that said, I don't miss my NS-10s one iota.  I think I almost gave up writing songs because of them. They drove me nuts.

You can hear more deeply into the sound of transparent speakers. What sounds like apples vs. oranges on the transparent speakers can sound like right vs. wrong on less transparent speakers.

With my Duntechs I learned that when diffraction is properly handled, a speaker that measures flat will sound flat. When I remove the felt diffraction treatment, the speaker measures the same but sounds bright as all get-out.

Where NS-10s excel is sitting on a large console meter bridge. The low end goes away anywhere else.

La Scala will definitely tell you when there's too little dynamic range, everything sounds overly-present and fairly harsh.