"They are here" vs. "You are there"

3) Omnidirectional presentation in the listening space presents in an omnidirectional manner not only the reflected sound that was captured in the recording space, but also the sound that was captured in the recording space via the direct path between instrument(s) and mics. The directly captured sound, of course, having a significantly earlier arrival time at the mics. Intuitively that would seem, at best, to invoke a significant tradeoff.

Yes, Al, I did miss this when responding to your post. Don’t know why. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that, if you construct a reactive listening space with an omnidirectional sound field, that omnidirectional sound field will include both the DIRECT and the INDIRECT sound from the recording space. In other words, some of the sound that was DIRECT in the recording space is now INDIRECT in the listening space, which is, strictly speaking, an INACCUATE ambient cue. If that is the “tradeoff” you are referring to, then…

In my view, it is a worthwhile tradeoff. I believe that the value of providing a listening space in which ambient cues can arrive at the listening position omnidirectionally outweighs the value of hearing the exact ambient cues on the recording without the addition spurious ambient cues created by the listening space. The criterion for that judgment is: Which is more valuable to creating the illusion that “you are there”?

In other words, OMNIDIRECTIONAL ambient cues are more valuable than STRICTLY ACCURATE ambient cues for creating the illusion that “you are there.” I believe that headphones (in the absence of a binaural recordings) illustrate that, in that headphones will give you the most ACCURATE sound of the ambient cues of the recording, but not an OMNIDIRECTIONAL presentation of those cues. The result is the ABSENCE of the illusion that "you are there."

In my view, if you value accuracy above all else, then listening through headphones or in an acoustically inert room is superior. But if you value the experience that “you are there,” then listening in a room that supports omnidirectional ambient cues is superior, even if some of those ambient cues do not exist on the recording. This is an especially worthwhile tradeoff if the spurious ambient cues created by the listening space RESEMBLE the kinds of ambient cues created by the recording space. This brings me to…

…listening rooms do not come anywhere near capable of recreating the original recording space, if this space is a concert hall (or a good jazz club, for that matter) - so this means that the listening space will ALWAYS be fundamentally different from the recording space…

Learsfool – I think you slightly overstate the case here, but the general point that you are making is one that I have acknowledged throughout this thread. That is to say, constructing a listening space that CLOSELY resembles certain recording spaces can be nearly impossible, unless we were all very rich men. However, that does not mean that we must abandon the concept of resemblance altogether. To me, the listening space can still APPROXIMATE the recording space in ways that enhance the illusion that “you are there.” I mentioned some ways in a previous post.

Admittedly, a close approximation may require more architectural design and more acoustical treatment than most of us can afford, but I believe that audiophiles can learn lessons from great listening rooms in order to improve their own listening rooms, even if it is only on a very modest scale. As it turns out, many of the features that make a listening room great are available to the thrifty audiophile in a more modest version, if he has the inclination to try.

Incidentally, I am not holding myself up as a exemplar of conscientiousness about listening room acoustical design. Hardly. But I have the belief that it is The Great Frontier for audiophiles. That goes for me, and frankly, for most A’gon folks, judging from the virtual systems on this site.

Thanks Bryon. Yes, you interpreted my point no. 3 as I intended it, that the inclusion of what was direct sound in the recording space in an omnidirectional listening space presentation represents a significant inaccuracy, which must be traded off against the benefits of the omnidirectional listening space presentation.

The reason you didn't see no. 3 previously is simple -- it wasn't there when you started composing your previous response :-). As I mentioned in my subsequent post, I added it in sometime after initially submitting the post to which it was added, and by that time you were obviously working on your response (as shown by the fact that you referred to the headphone part of my post as item 3, rather than item 4 which it subsequently became).

I suppose that the bottom line in the tradeoff we are referring to comes down to matters of degree, which in turn are dependent on the speakers, the constraints imposed by the particular listening space, the types of recordings that are listened to, and the preferences of the listener.

The only exception I would take with respect to your last post would be the statement that:

I believe that headphones (in the absence of a binaural recordings) illustrate that, in that headphones will give you the most ACCURATE sound of the ambient cues of the recording, but not an OMNIDIRECTIONAL presentation of those cues.

I am doubtful that on non-binaural recordings headphones can be said to give an accurate reproduction of ambient cues, or anything else, because of the fact that they bypass the pinnae, and inject the sound from the sides instead of from the front. Although of course they can be extremely revealing and analytical. And once again a tradeoff is involved, because their accuracy (in the sense that you are using the term here) is aided by the absence of room effects.

Best regards,
-- Al

Hello all, another interesting thread from Bryon. As a sidebar, after years of casual listening to quite decent Sennheiser HE60 electrostatics through the stock head amp, I recently had an opportunity to hear an all-out custom tube head amp driving current top-model Sennheiser dynamic headphones. For the first time I think I "got it" regarding what headphones can achieve in terms of disintermediating electronics and room affects from the music. The key insight was that I had never heard a headphone set-up that approached my regular stereo in quality. Most audiophiles outside of the "head-case" niche are likely in the same boat. IME the gain in detail and separation out-weighed the loss of natural acoustic space.

On a lark I set about modifying my Headroom line-level processor to the point where I felt that the advantage of the crossfeed process was not off-set by degradations in the electronics that had relegated this unit to storage for some years. Briefly, crossfeed has the effect of shifting forward and tightening images that in normal listening appear furthest to the side and rear. Only images that are way out to the side and rear seem affected. The effect is to make a headphone "sound stage" analogous to the experience of a conventional listening room. So I am inclined to agree with Al, that this more forward sound stage is natural, with the caveat that a process like crossfeed can spook the ear into hearing a natural sense of the room acoustic, while preserving the advantage that headphones have in being unfettered by reflected sound. As with so much in hi-fi, its all about the implementation.

Bryon, regarding your recent post on ambience cues, directionality and listening rooms, I think you may be overlooking some aspects of what is going on with respect to the cues in the recording versus the cues from the listening room.

Consider doing the playback in exactly the same space as the recording. You set up the speakers and the equipment to optimally reproduce the soundstage, and put the listener in the position of the microphone that recorded the performance. Thus, your listening space exactly reproduces the recording space. Is this the optimal space for creating the “you are there” experience? I don’t think so, but it illustrates some issues:

1) Consider a single drum hit. From the optimal listening position, the stereo effect tells you that there is a drum set on the stage, left of center. What does the wall directly to the right of the speakers see? It sees two sources (the left and right speakers), separated in time by the distance between the speakers. The reflections along the wall will see a delay between the two sources that varies something like the sine of the takeoff angle. The same for the left wall, other objects in the room, etc. This effect does not exist in the original performance. These echoes come to your ears as something other than what the single source on the recording produced. Let’s call it “source distortion.”

2) Now let’s replace the pair of speakers with a single speaker in the position of the drum set. The drum hit now behaves as a single source: the direct wave travels from the speaker to the listener as it should, and then hits (say) the back wall and comes back to the listener at exactly the same time as the echo in the recording gets to the listener as a direct wave. Thus, you have achieved your goal of reinforcing the primary cue. But the recorded echo itself then travels to the rear wall and comes back to the listener as a secondary echo that did not exist in the original performance. Let’s call this “echo distortion.”

3) Of course, your room is not exactly the configuration of the recording room, so on top of #1 and #2, you hear your primary room echo and the echo on the recording at different times. Let’s call this “temporal distortion.”

In general, to get ambience cues on the recording to be omnidirectional in your listening space, you would have a) primary echoes from your listening room that were stronger than the secondary recorded echoes, and thus dominant, b) recorded ambience cues reflected by your room that arrived at your ears too late (i.e., the reflected ambience cues will be out of sync with the directly radiated (from the speakers) ambience cues), and c) many of the reflections suffering from source distortion.

I see this as a continuum. If you succeed in recreating a recording space perfectly, you get source and echo distortion with it. If your space is some average of the spaces you prefer (say, a generic jazz club), or you listen to recordings recorded in more than one place, you’ll also get temporal distortion. If you manage to suppress echo and temporal distortion (or the recording has weak ambience cues), then the direct echoes from your room will dominate, and you’ll actually get a “they are here” effect, rather than the desired “you are there” effect. If you suppress your room so that the recorded cues dominate, you get “you are there” cues but they’ll be bidirectional (but only if the recording has sufficient cues -- if it doesn’t you may get a somewhat dead or recording studio sound).

So you have a range of recordings (from heavy cues to none), and a range of rooms (from live to dead), but it doesn’t seem possible to have an optimal room for both ends of the spectrum (which I think you’ve said), and it doesn’t seem possible to get time/phase correct omnidirectional ambience cues that aren’t dominated by your room, rather than the recording (short of electronic intervention, which you and Learsfool have said is not desirable).

To sum up, I think to the extent that you succeed in making the ambience cues from the recording omnidirectional, they’ll be mis-timed, out of phase, and probably polarity flipped. And that is on top of all of the very strong room cues that you will necessarily generate to get the recorded cues to be omnidirectional. Or, to put it another way, I don’t think it is possible to get the recorded cues to be omnidirectional without seriously compromising the “you are there” effect.

So, my theory:
1) Strong recorded cues + live room = a mess tending toward “they are here”
2) Strong recorded cues + dead room = “your are there” but bidirectional cues
3) Weak recorded cues + live room = “they are here” but if the room is sufficiently like the recording space, you approximate “you are there” for that space
4) Weak recorded cues + dead room = “they are here” (or in a studio)

All of this comes with the caveat that what I say may be true for certain kinds of cues and not others.

...I composed my response, above, before seeing Bryon's most recent post. But I think everything still stands.

I am doubtful that on non-binaural recordings headphones can be said to give an accurate reproduction of ambient cues, or anything else, because of the fact that they bypass the pinnae, and inject the sound from the sides instead of from the front.

This is a good point, Al. I should have chosen an anechoic chamber rather than headphones to illustrate my view that omnidirectional ambient cues are more valuable than strictly accurate ambient cues for creating the illusion that “you are there.”

On a side note, how do you edit a post after it’s been posted? Can you give me a link to instructions here on A’gon?

Dgarretson – Glad that you joined in. I had never heard of the crossfeeding process you describe. I would love to hear it some day. Connecting it to this discussion, I would say that, like binaural recordings, it once again illustrates the importance of the DIRECTIONALITY of ambient cues for creating the illusion that “you are there.”

Cbw – Wow! A lot of great thoughts and insights.

Consider doing the playback in exactly the same space as the recording. You set up the speakers and the equipment to optimally reproduce the soundstage, and put the listener in the position of the microphone that recorded the performance. Thus, your listening space exactly reproduces the recording space. Is this the optimal space for creating the “you are there” experience? I don’t think so…

The real goal in this approach is not to PHYSICALLY replicate the recording space, but rather to approximate it in some important ACOUSTICAL parameters, including: relative balance of direct and indirect sound, relative balance of reflected/diffused/absorbed sound, time delay of first indirect sound, reverberation time, and so on. Optimizing these acoustical parameters of the listening space so that they have values that approximate those of the recording space is the kind of “resemblance” I have in mind. I should probably drop the word “resemblance” altogether from this discussion, because it does conjure up images of physical likeness. I should stick to words like “emulate,” to avoid the idea that this approach is about PHYSICAL resemblance. It’s not. It’s about ACOUSTICAL resemblance.

You are quite right to point out that acoustical resemblance during playback cannot be achieved simply by creating a facsimile of the recording space. Creating an acoustical resemblance between the listening space and the recording space takes into account things like the number of sound sources in the listening room (two, assuming you are listening in stereo) and the position of the listener relative to those sources and to room boundaries. It also takes into account a host of other variables, the manipulation of which, with any luck, results in a listening space that acoustically emulates the recording space, at the listening position. With that in mind...

The various kinds of room colorations you mention, what you are calling “source distortion,” “echo distortion,” and “temporal distortion,” are definitely things to be addressed. But it seems to me that these are precisely the kinds of things that an acoustically treated room DOES address. “Source distortion” is typically addressed by absorption or diffusion at the first order reflection points on the side walls and the ceiling. “Echo distortion” is typically addressed with diffusion behind the speakers. “Temporal distortion” is typically addressed by balancing the ratio of absorption to diffusion to achieve a specific reverberation time.

In light of this, I do not believe that the various kinds of distortion you mention are, in themselves, reason to believe that this approach is doomed to failure. IF this approach were tantamount to constructing a listening space that was a PHYSICAL replica of the recording space, then I would agree with you that it would be doomed. But the approach is to construct a listening space that, in important ACOUSTICAL respects, emulates the recording space, AS HEARD FROM THE LISTENING POSITION. It seems to me that that approach is not doomed to failure, though it is certainly bounded by constraints, both practical and theoretical.

So you have a range of recordings (from heavy cues to none), and a range of rooms (from live to dead), but it doesn’t seem possible to have an optimal room for both ends of the spectrum (which I think you’ve said)…

I agree that it is not possible to have an optimal room for all recordings. A person must choose on the basis of the recordings they tend to listen to, or the ones they are the most interested in optimizing, for whatever reason.

To sum up, I think to the extent that you succeed in making the ambience cues from the recording omnidirectional, they’ll be mis-timed, out of phase, and probably polarity flipped. And that is on top of all of the very strong room cues that you will necessarily generate to get the recorded cues to be omnidirectional. Or, to put it another way, I don’t think it is possible to get the recorded cues to be omnidirectional without seriously compromising the “you are there” effect.

This is an interesting argument. As I understand it, you are saying that the measures required to create omnidirectional ambient cues in the listening space would, in effect, destroy the accuracy of the ambient cues of the recording, as heard at the listening position. In a way, you are saying what Al said in point (3) of his post from 9/13 - what he described as a “tradeoff.” So my response to your argument is the same as my response to his observation: My view is that omnidirectional ambient cues are more valuable than strictly accurate ambient cues for creating the illusion that "you are there." Having said that, I guess I’m not as skeptical as you, Cbw, about the possibility of constructing a listening space whose acoustics allow for omnidirectional ambient cues that are REASONABLY ACCURATE to the recording. I wish I had the resources to build some rooms and put these theories to the test!

So, my theory:
1) Strong recorded cues + live room = a mess tending toward “they are here”
2) Strong recorded cues + dead room = “your are there” but bidirectional cues
3) Weak recorded cues + live room = “they are here” but if the room is sufficiently like the recording space, you approximate “you are there” for that space
4) Weak recorded cues + dead room = “they are here” (or in a studio)

Now this is a nice way of organizing things! But I don’t agree with it all. I think you are absolutely correct about scenarios (3) and (4). But, as I've indicated above, I don’t think category (1) would necessarily result in the “mess” you anticipate, provided that careful attention were paid to acoustical design. I am also doubtful that scenario (2) would result in the illusion that “you are there,” for the reason I have stated many times in this thread, namely that I don’t believe the bidirectional presentation of ambient cues can create the illusion that "you are there." In effect, scenario (2) is an approximation of an anechoic chamber, and I don’t believe you can create the illusion that “you are there” under those conditions.

Having said all this, I should reiterate something I mentioned earlier in this thread, but that may have been lost in the discussion by now: I don't believe that constructing a listening space that emulates a particular recording space is the BEST approach to building a listening room, for many of the reasons that have been pointed out, and some that have not. I do believe that it is a VALID approach, especially for audiophiles who tend to listen to one type of music. For folks who listen to a wide range of music with vastly different recording spaces, constructing a listening space that emulates a particular recording space is probably NOT the best approach. In the latter case, the best approach is probably a balance of:

(1) Emulation of some set of recording spaces.
(2) Creation of a listening space that provides a balance of attributes important for the hearing exactly what is on the recording.

To the extent that an audiophile chooses (1), he is favoring colorations over accuracy. To the extent that he chooses (2), he is favoring accuracy over colorations. (1) is the approach of some audiophiles who are primarily interested in creating a playback space that they themselves find interesting; (2) is the approach of recording studios, where accuracy is the Order of the Day.

The use of the word "coloration" above is not pejorative. Although I am an outspoken (read: notorious) advocate of the absence of colorations in equipment, I have a much more mixed view of colorations in the listening room. Although many listening room colorations are destructive (think: room modes, flutter echo, comb filtering, etc.), some room colorations, I believe, are beneficial. Among other things, they can enhance the illusion that "you are there."

A brief interruption to say a few words about the nature of this thread...

As Al pointed out several posts back, this thread is full of speculation. I myself have speculated at a furious rate. I just want to say that I do not regard speculation as great way to reach reliable conclusions. I regard carefully controlled TESTING as a great way to reach reliable conclusions. In that sense, I am an empiricist.

Unfortunately, I cannot currently afford to build a highly customized listening room, like some of the ones posted here on A’gon. In light of that, I am left to speculate on the basis of my experiences with (1) customized listening rooms for professional mixing; (2) customized listening rooms at audio dealers; and (3) my own quite humble listening room.

The purpose of this post is to explicitly acknowledge that I do not believe that speculation can ever be an adequate substitute for carefully controlled testing. Having said that, not all speculation is groundless. Speculation can be grounded on prior experiences, theoretical knowledge, and sound reasoning. I have made an effort to ground my speculations, though that may not always be apparent, which is my own fault. My thanks to other posters who, it seems to me, have made an effort to do likewise.

It would be nice if some folks with extensive experiences with customized listening rooms or expertise in acoustics would chime in, as it would elevate some of our speculations to the level of highly informed or even expert opinion.

Until that happens, let the speculation continue.

Hi Bryon - once again, you and Al and Cbw and Dgarretson have provided some excellent posts with much food for thought! Let the speculation continue, indeed! I have really enjoyed reading all of it, and you are certainly correct that although very few of us can design and build the rooms we might wish, there are many low cost ideas that can greatly improve any room. I envy all of the folks on this site who have a dedicated room, I don't even have that myself. Maybe in my next house!

Cbw – I have been giving more thought to your theory, and I have some fresh speculations…

You mention two parameters that determine whether a playback space creates the illusion that “you are there” or “they are here,” namely whether a recording has ambient cues or not, and whether the listening room is “live” or “dead.” To these, I think it’s useful to add a third parameter, namely, whether or not the listening space is acoustically similar to the recording space. With that in mind, I think there are…

FIVE SIGNIFICANT CATEGORIES:

(1) reactive room, ambient recording, acoustical similarity

(2) reactive room, ambient recording, acoustical dissimilarity

(3) reactive room, non-ambient recording

(4) unreactive room, ambient recording

(5) unreactive room, non-ambient recording

SOME DEFINITIONS TO GO WITH THEM:

-“reactive room” is a listening space with significant ambient cues. Hence a listening space that significantly interacts with the ambient cues of the recording during playback. A.k.a., a “live room.”

-“unreactive room” is a listening space with insignificant or no ambient cues. Hence a listening space that minimally interacts with the ambient cues of the recording during playback. A.k.a., a “dead room.”

-“ambient recording” is a recording that contains ambient cues of the recording space.

-“non-ambient recording” is a recording that does not contain ambient cues of the recording space.

-“acoustical similarity” refers to the acoustical similarity of the listening space to the recording space, as discussed in my second post from 9/14.

Each of the parameters that define the five categories is a continuum. A room is not either reactive or unreactive. Reactivity is a continuum, with maximally reactive rooms at one end and minimally reactive rooms at the other. Likewise for ambient cues on recordings. Likewise for the acoustical similarity of the listening space to the recording space. Since each parameter is a continuum, the five categories that they define are each idealizations, in the sense that actual members of each category will APPROXIMATE its idealized description.

Taking the five categories one at a time…

(1) reactive room, ambient recording, room similarity =

…YOU ARE THERE...

In my view, this maximizes the illusion that “you are there,” as I have suggested in earlier posts. I acknowledge, however, that this is not the most practical approach to building a listening space, since the greater the acoustical similarity the listening space has to the recording space, the LESS acoustical similarity it will have to different recording spaces, and the more your listening space will be “recording-specific.”

(2) reactive room, ambient recording, room dissimilarity =

…YOU ARE CONFUSED…

In my view, this would be the “mess” that Cbw was describing in his last post. To the extent that the ambient cues of the listening space are different from the ambient cues of the recording space, it could result in a confused, contradictory, or paradoxical set of ambient cues at the listening position. In other words, “you are confused.”

(3) reactive room, non-ambient recording =

…THEY ARE HERE…

In my view, the absence of ambient cues in the recording combined with a reactive listening space is what creates the illusion that “they are here.” This is perhaps the most straight forward of the five categories. And in some ways, it is the easiest type of illusion to create. Of course, if you don’t like the sound of your listening room, then you won’t like the way “they” sound when “they are here.”

(4) unreactive room, ambient recording =

…YOU ARE “ALMOST” THERE…

This is the trickiest of the five categories, I think. As I have argued in previous posts, I don’t think that you can fully create the illusion that “you are there” without omnidirectional ambient cues at the listening position. So, as a listening room becomes less and less reactive, I believe it will sound less and less like “you are there.”

Having said that, I should acknowledge that this comes close to creating the illusion that “you are there.” The bidirectional presentation of the ambient cues of the recording provides some significant information about the recording space, though as I have argued, it doesn’t present that information with the correct DIRECTIONALITY, which limits the illusion that “you are there.”

Of course, all this assumes that the playback is stereo. If playback were multichannel, then an ambient recording played back in an unreactive room could, in theory, create the illusion that “you are there." I say “in theory” because, as other posters have pointed out, most multichannel music mixes leave much to be desired, and hence typically fail to create the illusion that “you are there.” Nevertheless, the multichannel playback of ambient recordings in unreactive rooms to create the illusion that “you are there” is the prevailing methodology in movie sound, where it achieves some success, I think.

I should also acknowledge that there is a significant advantage to a SOMEWHAT UNREACTIVE listening room when playing back ambient recordings, namely, that it prevents your listening room from being “recording-specific.” But I don’t think that’s the ONLY way to prevent your listening room from being recording-specific (More on that in a future post).

(5) unreactive room, non-ambient recording =

…YOU ARE NOWHERE…

In my view, the absence of ambient cues in both the recording and the room creates an otherworldly “you are nowhere” effect, like you’re listening in outer space (yes, I know that’s impossible).

This may seem like a revision to what I said in my last post, when I agreed with Cbw that the category of “weak recorded cues + dead room” would result in the illusion that “they are here.” But I suspect that, when Cbw was referring to dead rooms, he was not referring to COMPLETELY dead rooms. Hence my earlier agreement with him that partially dead rooms (thus partially reactive) could create the illusion that “they are here.” I am now saying that, to the extent that a room is unreactive, non-ambient recordings will create the experience that “you are nowhere.”

Bryon, I agree that experimentation is really the only way to answer some of these questions and likely the only way to find an ideal listening environment for a person’s particular taste (aside from hiring someone who has the experience to design a room based on your expressed preferences -- though even that might take a few iterations or adjustments since it is unlikely that it will be right on the first pass (unless you’ve already heard exactly what you want and can point to it and say “I want that.”))

My point was mostly about the difficulty of getting the cues on the recording to be omnidirectional. If you achieve it, I think you also get a whole bunch of extra stuff from your room that you probably don’t want and would likely swamp the recorded cues. And even then, to the extent that the cues on the recording are omnidirectional, they’ll be mistimed and out of phase. I’m not sure it’s physically possible (outside of electronic intervention) to get the cues *on the recording* to be both omnidirectional and sound realistic.

The various kinds of room colorations you mention, what you are calling “source distortion,” “echo distortion,” and “temporal distortion,” are definitely things to be addressed. But it seems to me that these are precisely the kinds of things that an acoustically treated room DOES address. “Source distortion” is typically addressed by absorption or diffusion at the first order reflection points on the side walls and the ceiling. “Echo distortion” is typically addressed with diffusion behind the speakers. “Temporal distortion” is typically addressed by balancing the ratio of absorption to diffusion to achieve a specific reverberation time.

Right, I agree. But my point is again about the ambience cues in the recording. The primary signal in the music is generally going to dominate, and the cues are softer, lower SNR, and more diffuse. So, if you succeed in taming the distortions I mentioned for the primary, you also greatly diminish the omnidirectional nature of the cues -- probably completely out of existence. If you don’t succeed in taming the primary reflections, then they’re likely to overwhelm the reflected cues. But this is an argument from theory, and there may be some middle ground where it could work.

My view is that omnidirectional ambient cues are more valuable than strictly accurate ambient cues for creating the illusion that "you are there." Having said that, I guess I’m not as skeptical as you, Cbw, about the possibility of constructing a listening space whose acoustics allow for omnidirectional ambient cues that are REASONABLY ACCURATE to the recording.

If I understand you correctly, I think you are saying that one can, effectively, simulate ambience cues that approximate the cues on the recording, but are not sourced from the cues on the recording. If that’s the case, I agree (with the caveat that if the cues on the recording are strong and not well-matched to the room, you are likely to get a mess). To achieve this, you will be structuring your listening space to create a certain ambience. If that matches well with your music, you may have a very pleasing “live” sound. If it doesn’t, well, you’ll have to learn to live with it (or maybe have some movable absorption panels that can deaden the room effect when it’s not desirable).

I think, though, that purists will not like this approach. To the extent that you are creating ambience cues from the listening room, you are obscuring information on the recording. Learsfool, for example, might not like this approach for his listening, since he’s expressed a strong preference to hear precisely what is on the recording down to the differentiation of concert halls on fifty-year-old records. That probably wouldn't be possible in a room that was not very dead, or with a soundfield that was not very focused.

Bryon, I agree with most everything in your recent post. I would like to point out one detail that I tried (probably unsuccessfully) to make in my most recent post. You say:

-“reactive room” is a listening space with significant ambient cues. Hence a listening space that significantly interacts with the ambient cues of the recording during playback. A.k.a., a “live room.”

My point is that a reactive room reacts to everything in the signal, not just the ambience cues. Thus, with the drum hit I was talking about the direct wave reaches the microphone first* as a primary signal, then come the echoes, reverb, etc. in its wake. The cues come later, smaller in amplitude, and more stretched in time than the primary signal. So a room that reacts to the cues will always react also to the primary signal, and that signal will generally be stronger than the cues.

*While it is technically possible for a signal to reach the microphone before the direct wave, I don't think it is a big factor in most recordings.

Hi guys - I think, after reading the latest posts, that Cbw is probably correct when he says "about the ambience cues in the recording. The primary signal in the music is generally going to dominate, and the cues are softer, lower SNR, and more diffuse. So, if you succeed in taming the distortions I mentioned for the primary, you also greatly diminish the omnidirectional nature of the cues -- probably completely out of existence. If you don’t succeed in taming the primary reflections, then they’re likely to overwhelm the reflected cues. But this is an argument from theory, and there may be some middle ground where it could work." I don't think you would diminish the omnidirectional nature of the cues out of existence entirely, and there may be some middle ground there.

I also agree with him that you would be obscuring info on the recording by creating ambient cues with the room. He is right in saying I wouldn't prefer too live a room, however I wouldn't want one too dead, either. I personally think the most important quality of the room is it's size, that it is not too small. Of course, this has more to do with my preference for horns (and the more directional nature of the horn speakers does help focus the soundfield for sure) and the type of music I listen to - acoustic music seems to require much more space in the listening room than electronic music, even if it is a very small group of musicians on the recording. I would certainly not call myself a purist in any kind of audiophile sense, though. There are definitely many different ways to achieve good sound, and many different types of rooms that it can be achieved in.

I have not had time to read through the posts. I have achieve the 'you are there' experience for the majority of my recordings. This is achieved by lowering the 'noise' and removing electronic artifacts. I put noise in quotes because there is also noise and distortion you cannot hear. I believe it also takes a highly resolving source (i.e. DAC). I do not think the recording is a limitation. The spatial cues are there, they are masked by most equipment.

Interesting, as I saw this thread today, and realized the same experience last week.

My point was mostly about the difficulty of getting the cues on the recording to be omnidirectional. If you achieve it, I think you also get a whole bunch of extra stuff from your room that you probably don’t want and would likely swamp the recorded cues.

Cbw – I think this is a possible outcome, but, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I am somewhat more optimistic about the possibility of constructing a listening space whose acoustics allow for omnidirectional ambient cues at the listening position that are reasonably accurate relative to those on the recording.

If I understand you correctly, I think you are saying that one can, effectively, simulate ambience cues that approximate the cues on the recording, but are not sourced from the cues on the recording.

Actually, that’s not what I was trying to say, though that’s a reasonable interpretation of what I wrote. Looking back, I can see that what I wrote was ambiguous. I was trying to talk about the ambient cues that ARE, as you put it, “sourced from the recording.” So what I meant was that…

I am more optimistic about the possibility of constructing a listening space whose acoustics allow for reasonably accurate omnidirectional ambient cues, sourced from the recording and audible at the listening position.

Having said that, as I discussed from my post on 9/11, the ambient cues during playback will always be a COMBINATION of the ambient cues of the recording and the ambient cues of the listening room, assuming that the recording contains them and that the listening space is at least somewhat reactive. With that in mind...

Strictly speaking, ANY ambient cue (omnidirectional or not) added by the listening room constitutes an inaccuracy, in the sense that it adds, subtracts, or alters information about the music as it is represented on the recording. But listening to a recording in a completely unreactive listening room (in effect, an anechoic chamber) would not be a rewarding musical experience, by any conceivable standard. Hence, it seems to me that virtually all audiophiles, myself included, are willing to tolerate a certain amount of inaccuracy for the sake of a more rewarding musical experience. The question then becomes: What are acoustical characteristics of those inaccuracies? In other words, some listening room inaccuracies are more musical than others, which seems to me to be a rather uncontroversial thing to say. I guess the point I am wandering around in search of is:

The goal of creating omnidirectional ambient cues at the listening position does, as you point out, result in inaccuracies. But ALL listening rooms result in inaccuracies. So we might as well try to design a room whose inaccuracies enhance the experience of listening to music, and for many audiophiles, that means enhancing the illusion that “you are there.”

Neither: "They Are There"

In the course of this thread, I have suggested at least three possible approaches to constructing a listening room, each with distinct consequences for creating the illusion that "you are there." A listening room may be constructed so that it…

(1)…acoustically emulates a recording space.
(2)…accurately reproduces what is on the recording.
(3)…sounds interesting, as judged by the individual listener.

RE: Approach (1). A lot of the discussion has focused on the benefits and liabilities of approach (1) – constructing a listening space that acoustically emulates the recording space. I have acknowledged that, although it may be an effective way to create the illusion that “you are there,” it is not a practical approach to constructing a listening room. Its impracticality results from the fact that, to the extent that your listening room emulates a particular recording space, it will fail to emulate acoustically dissimilar recording spaces. Hence approach (1) makes your listening room “recording-specific,” which, for most audiophiles, is an unacceptable drawback of this approach.

RE: Approach (2). Constructing a listening space that accurately reproduces what is on the recording is the prevailing approach in the design of professional recording studios. Accuracy is achieved by making recording studios, to a large extent, acoustically unreactive. However, most audiophiles, myself included, seem to prefer a listening space that is considerably more acoustically reactive than a typical recording studio. The evidence for this belief can be found by looking at the virtual systems here on A’gon.

It could be argued that most audiophiles simply ignore the acoustical treatment of their listening rooms, and so their rooms tend to be acoustically reactive by default. Or that most audiophiles would rather put money into new equipment than a better room. Or that acoustical treatments rank low in WAF, which makes their use less likely. I think there’s a lot of truth to those observations. Nevertheless, I believe that audiophiles also prefer acoustically reactive rooms for more rational reasons (“rational” in the sense of ‘consistent with their goals’). Some of those reasons: Unreactive rooms require a large amount of amplification to reach realistic SPL’s. Unreactive rooms can result in poor speaker performance for many consumer speakers, which are designed to interact with the listened space and “voiced” by manufacturers in a reactive room. Unreactive rooms are often perceived as less “lifelike,” and hence less musically involving. I would add this list that unreactive rooms are less likely to create the illusion that “you are there,” though I recognize that this is a point of controversy. For these and other reasons, I think approach (2), while the conventional approach to recording studio design, is of somewhat limited value to the average audiophile.

RE: Approach (3). Constructing a listening space that sounds interesting, as judged by the individual listener, seems like a natural solution to the shortcomings of approach (2). But it has its own liabilities. To begin with, it potentially suffers from the same problem as approach (1), namely, it may result in a the listening room that is “recording-specific.” In addition, tastes change over time, both as a consequence of age and as a consequence of acquired expertise. In light of that, approach (3) may also suffer from being too “listener-specific.” Finally, approach (3) gives little or nothing in the way of specific guidance to the audiophile other than “do what sounds right.” That advice, while simple to understand, is not simple to implement, since it does not describe any smaller, instrumental goals that would make the advice actionable.

Thus all three approaches above leave a lot to be desired. I believe that there is a fourth approach - to try to construct a listening room that sounds different for each recording. On small recordings, it would sound small. On big recordings, it would sound big. Its characteristics would change as the recordings change. In other words, the approach is to try to construct a listening room that…

(4)…sounds paradoxical.

Yes, I know, I have gone far down the rabbit hole with this one. But if you will follow me a little further, you will see that I have not gone completely mad. What I am trying to express is the idea that the acoustical characteristics of some listening spaces are psychologically ambiguous. That is, some listening spaces sound like they have different physical features under different conditions. With some recordings, the listening space sounds like it has one set of physical features. With other recordings, it sounds like it has another set of physical features. So, from a psychoacoustic standpoint, the listening space is paradoxical. Hence the term ‘paradoxical listening room.’ I have a hypothesis about how a paradoxical listening room is created, namely by the combination of:

(i) neutrality
(ii) complexity

RE: (i). Neutrality. In using the term ‘neutral,’ I am violating my oath not to mention that word on this thread, lest it be perceived as a violation of a cease fire that was arrived at after months of painstaking negotiation. However, it is the right word for the discussion at this point, and so worth the risk.

To say that a listening room is ACOUSTICALLY NEUTRAL is to say that it has a LOW AMOUNT OF CONSTANT INACCURACIES. An inaccuracy is “constant” when it stays more or less the same under varying conditions. An example of a constant inaccuracy is a room mode, the frequency and relative amplitude of which stay more or less the same across different recordings. A constant inaccuracy is another way of saying a "coloration." As colorations are reduced, the listening room becomes more neutral. And as the listening room becomes more neutral, it has the potential to become more paradoxical, provided that it is also sufficiently complex. Which brings me to…

RE: (ii). Complexity. To say that a listening room is ACOUSTICALLY COMPLEX is to say that has a HIGH AMOUNT OF VARIABLE INACCURACIES. An inaccuracy is “variable” when it changes under varying conditions. An example of a variable inaccuracy is a randomly diffused reflection, the frequency and phase of which change significantly across different recordings. As variable inaccuracies are increased, the listening room becomes more acoustically complex. And as the listening room becomes more acoustically complex, it becomes more paradoxical, assuming it is sufficiently neutral.

So, my hypothesis is that, in combination, neutrality and complexity create a listening space that is paradoxical, in the sense that its acoustical characteristics are psychologically ambiguous. A listening space that is ambiguous approximates the benefits of one that acoustically emulates the recording space, without the liabilities of the latter approach, namely making the listening room “recording-specific.” So, for the audiophile who listens to a wide range of recordings with vastly different recording spaces, a paradoxical listening space is the closest he can come to having a different listening room for each type of recording. In light of this, constructing a paradoxical listening room may be the best way to consistently create the illusion that “you are there.”

Hi Bryon - no, you are not going mad, though you have indeed gone far down the rabbit hole with this one. But that's OK by me - it is always interesting to read your posts! You are always very thoughtful and express yourself very clearly. Ultimately for me, the main point in all of this is that even your paradoxical listening room would greatly vary from audiophile to audiophile. And I still believe that both the recording and the speakers would still have a much greater effect on the "you are there" illusion. For instance, if one switched out the speakers in such a room, this would have a much greater effect on the sound than switching out acoustic treatments while keeping the speakers the same. Or would you not agree?

Ultimately for me, the main point in all of this is that even your paradoxical listening room would greatly vary from audiophile to audiophile.

Learsfool – There may be a variety of ways to create a paradoxical listening room, but I suspect they would have a lot in common - for example, the liberal use of mathematically-derived diffusion. An extreme example of this approach is George Massenburg’s Blackbird Studio C. That recording space is perhaps the apotheosis of efforts to construct a paradoxical listening room. According to Massenburg:

The room is conducive to accurate work because we have taken away the boundary effect by “eliminating” the walls.

Blackbird Studio C is described elsewhere in the following way:

The experience of this room is that one is unaware of sound reflection from the walls: it sounds almost anechoic, yet it has reverberation.

Of course, no ordinary audiophile can construct such an ambitious listening space. But Blackbird Studio C seems to me to be an “existence proof” that a paradoxical listening room is possible. And its acoustical design approach could be implemented, on a more modest scale, by ordinary audiophiles like us.

For instance, if one switched out the speakers in such a room, this would have a much greater effect on the sound than switching out acoustic treatments while keeping the speakers the same. Or would you not agree?

No, I don’t agree. But that is probably another infinite staircase. :-)

Hi Bryon - I have just read and digested the two links above. I fully understand where you are coming from now. One thing I will say is that Blackbird Studio C is designed to be a recording space, and most definitely NOT a listening space. I can tell by looking at the photos that if you were actually present in that room with musicians playing something in there, it would not sound like any space you have ever heard before, either live or recorded. As they say, it would be mostly quite dead, and any reverb heard in there would sound very strange indeed if you were actually physically present. It is definitely designed for multi-track recording of electronic instruments primarily. I am very curious what it would sound like to play my horn in there. The ideas behind it could certainly be implemented in an audiophile's listening room, but I am not at all sure that one would want to do this for orchestral music in particular. I have several thoughts I would like to share with you about some things in those articles, which I think would be better to send you in a private email, as they would be slightly off topic here - I will do this hopefully tomorrow, through the audiogon system, if you don't mind.

I agree that the question I posed at the end of my last post is probably another infinite staircase. :)

One thing I will say is that Blackbird Studio C is designed to be a recording space, and most definitely NOT a listening space.

Learsfool - According to the Blackbird Studio website, Studio C is a space for "editing, overdubbing, and mixing." In other words, it is NOT identified as a recording space. Maybe by "recording space," you meant re-recording space, i.e. mixing space.

In any case, Studio C is not designed to be a room for recording performers and instruments with microphones. It is a room for editing and mixing those recordings after they have been captured elsewhere. As such, it is a listening space "par excellence." In my view, ALL editing and mixing rooms are listening spaces. That seems to me to be an uncontroversial statement. Maybe I am missing something.

As they say, it would be mostly quite dead, and any reverb heard in there would sound very strange indeed if you were actually physically present.

My understanding is that Studio C is NOT acoustically dead, and that that was the whole point of using massive amounts of diffusion and very little absorption.

It is definitely designed for multi-track recording of electronic instruments primarily.

Again, my understanding is different. According to the website, Studio C is described as being designed for BOTH stereo and multi-track mixing.

I have several thoughts I would like to share with you about some things in those articles, which I think would be better to send you in a private email, as they would be slightly off topic here - I will do this hopefully tomorrow, through the audiogon system, if you don't mind.

Of course. :-)

Ah, point taken - my mistake. It is a mixing space, indeed. In one of those links, though, the room is indeed described as mostly anechoic, which is why I assumed that it is mostly dead. I also assumed this from looking at the pictures of the walls. I did not notice that the floors were wooden when I first looked at the pictures, that would most certainly make a difference, though I still don't think the room would sound like what a musician would call "live." I apologize for my misunderstanding, anyway.

As horrifying as it is to audiophiles, the future of creating the illusion that "you are there" may be digital signal processing. Tgrisham posted a thread today about a Stereo Times article about 3D audio. That got me searching the web for related information. In five minutes, I turned up this:

...we try to produce the illusion in a listener of being in a "virtual" acoustic environment which is entirely different from that of the space in which he (or she) is actually located. We are thus attempting to achieve the long sought-after goal of making a listener in his living room hear sound as if he were in a concert hall.

The availability of modern electronic technology for processing acoustic signals digitally has transformed our ability to generate this illusion, almost irrespective of the environment (living room, office or automobile interior) which surrounds the listener. The approach that we take is to process acoustic signals prior to their transmission by loudspeakers. We undertake this processing in order to generate the illusion in the listener that sound is coming from a number of "virtual" sources in well defined spatial positions relative to the listener. Of course, the intention of conventional "stereo" sound reproduction by loudspeakers is to produce just such an illusion, but two channel stereophony is capable only of producing acoustic virtual source images over a very narrow range of spatial positions, these being restricted to positions in the plane of, and in between, the two loudspeakers used for reproduction. The use of modern signal processing techniques can remove this restriction, even when only two loudspeakers are used for reproduction.

A number of approaches to "3D Audio" have been developed in recent years, but few have correctly tackled the basic signal processing problem that has to be solved. This is the design of a processing scheme that ensures that the correct signals are produced at the listener's ears. In order to achieve such a goal, the processing scheme has to account for the effect on the signal of the loudspeakers, of the transmission path (including room reflections), and of the effect of the listeners head and torso on the propagation of sound to the ears. The central problem to be tackled is one of "inversion" where all these effects have to be "turned upside down" (and thus compensated for) before the signals are transmitted by the loudspeakers. This is a problem with many technical subtleties, but by tackling it correctly, it's solution can produce remarkable results.

That is from University of Southampton's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research.

Soon we will be able to forget all about listening rooms, paradoxical or otherwise. :-o

Generally, I prefer "You are there". In this instance( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FTEdn-Xvck ), I'd prefer she were here(Aussie women are VERY musical)! BTW- If you are easily offended....... DON'T WATCH! You've been warned.

To me most studio recordings sound like "there are here", and most live recordings sound like "you are there". It's probably caused by the extra cues for space and ambiance I'm not familiar with. I don't think it has to do much with the quality of the equipments.

A recent thread discusses a Stereo Times interview with Duke LeJeune of AudioKinesis. A passage in the interview struck me as relevant to an idea I've been trying to advance on this thread, namely that omnidirectional ambient cues are necessary for creating the illusion that "you are there." In the interview, Duke says:

We are accustomed to thinking of reflections as causing coloration and degrading clarity, and philosophically we don’t like the room adding to the recording something that was not originally there. But if the reverberant field is done right (which is something we can come back to), timbre is more natural and clarity is actually improved! That’s right, controlled tests have shown that speech intelligibility is improved by normal in-room reflections. Apparently the ear is better able to decipher complex sounds when it gets multiple “looks” in the form of reflections. The direction that reflections arrive from plays a role as well. Reflections that arrive from the same direction as the direct sound are more likely to be perceived as coloration than are reflections that arrive from the sides. And, reflections that arrive from the sides are more effective at imparting a sense of spaciousness and envelopment. One benefit of my recommended 45-degree toe-in is that it ensures a relatively large proportion of the reverberant energy will be arriving from the sides. The ear derives tonal balance from a weighted average of the incoming sounds, so the reverberant energy plays a significant role there. When the spectral balance of the reflections is very close to that of the first-arrival sound, perceived timbre is richer and more vivid. This is why we listen to grand pianos and choral groups in lively recital halls rather than in thickly-padded rooms. In my opinion the goal of high-end audio is to recreate, as closely as is practical, the perception of listening to live music.

Interesting thoughts on the role of reverberant sound in creating what Duke calls "the perception of listening to live music," which seems to be another way of saying the perception that "you are there."