Talk but not walk?

Excellent post shadorne. Yup, I neglected to cover the matter of pitch bend---the phenomenon where the tone of the drum (generally) drops as it’s sustain subsides, a sound I love. I too use Evans, their kick heads exclusively. I for years taped feminine minipads on my drumheads to damp the high ring, but that’s no longer necessary---self damped heads are now plentiful.

I play vintage---Ludwig’s brass-shell snare drums from the 1920’s (I have four), and the Black Beauty from the 70’s (in both 5" and 6-1/2" depths) being my favorites. I have just about all American-made sets from the 40’s through the early 70’s---Camco, Gretsch, Leedy, Ludwig, Radio King, Rogers, and Slingerland.. Did I leave any out? ;-). They all have 24" kicks, and I collect the Black Diamond Pearl finish, hence my AudiogoN moniker.

My use of the term tensioned in place of tuned was done, yes, to make a point. Tuned is of course the term commonly used, but it is used loosely, not literally. My point was, that to say a drum can go out-of-tune when moved from one room to another in nonsense, for the reasons I stated. Unless, that is, one is speaking of something other than pitch. It’s timbre (the relative strengths of it’s fundamentals, overtones/harmonics, and partials) can change, as can it’s sustain, but not it’s pitch. And that is not a matter of semantics.

Drum "tuning" is a talent not all drummers possess. The studio guys are the best---Hal Blaine, Jim Gordon, Keltner, Roger Hawkins (he’s on all the Jerry Wexler-produced Muscle Shoals recordings), Kenny Buttrey (Neil Young’s Harvest album), all masters. And then there is Levon Helm; listen to the sound of his drums on The Band’s "The Weight". As good as it gets!

Hi mapman

I’d have to leave that one up to the listeners themselves. Of course most of the folks who come to me are looking for that next step or even their ultimate setup including the room built variable.

This is just me as an onlooker, but most of the threads I see there are folks looking for change. Or at least the guys who have emailed me from here are looking to take a step. Not even necessarily a purchase, but a further step in their method.

Also guys keep in mind I'm not here to dictate, but instead to share the options when tuning in a system. Some of you have no desire to change anything and that's way cool, but there are many more looking toward the variables.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

"The biggest choice in HEA of course is whether to select a guru or be your own."

My experience has been all the above. Attitudes and egos aside, there's that musical uniqueness to everyone. Some you have to look harder (that's a drag) but most have their values because of what they have either experienced or what they have read. Both have a value and there are all levels of knowledge.

for example, reading a reviewer from a magazine

For some this gives a certain level of info, measurements and comfort. For myself it's a door opener only, an infomercial. First thing I do, since I have learned about mass is look at the chassis, next I look inside to see how cramped the parts are. Next thing I do is look at the different sizes of parts and wire. Next are the parts bolted down. Then I look for dampeners and things like how the power wires go from the outlet to the board and transformer. Once I get the lay of the land I begin to set the component free so I can hear what is going on.

Now not thinking of price and marketing, if I get two components in and one is built to allow the signal flow without blockage and the other is a tank, I can make a fairly reasonable guess that the simple unit (tuned) is going to beatup on the over built one. This has proven to be the case I would wager 98% of the time.

I say this because for me personally a guru looks deeper than the cover. That being the case empirically exploring units using this paradigm it puts a certain shortcut into play. Gurus know the shortcuts and gurus also don't waste time exploring the same thing over and over trying to get to the sound. I see this again and again with expensive products. Having heavy chassis and over built parts and crossovers takes points away from the status of guru-ism. For me, speakers that need complicated crossovers are speakers (cabinet and drivers) that needed to be fixed. The perfect speaker is one that can work in many rooms and with many components. That to me means a speaker that is tunable, built like a musical instrument, and one that has one or two parts to the crossover. For components, light weight, parts that are relatively similar in size (also low mass), an easy to tune chassis and a nice layout of space on the board. Also a resonant board so the parts can gel. Hardly ever with a top cover. And limited to no shielding. Shielding is a choice to be made by the listener after the unit is setup and has a chance to interact with the environment. Pretty much good products are ones that can be made to produce the sound desired after they have been acclimated to a listeners space.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

The chances of a one sound HEA system reproducing the actual sound (sounds) of a recording is far fetched at best.

Hi jssmith

When it comes to listening I have learned to let the individual artist do the magic while I watch and learn. Going back to drummers for a second, as a kid I have had my hands slapped so many times when I went to tune in their room and set for him. If I knew I was doing some drums I made sure the rug closet was ready to be gone through. Many times they brought their own towels and wouldn’t let you get near the set. Love those guys! Anyway, we did a setup at a guitar shop some years ago where we brought in our PZC’s to surround the players while we handed them different guitars that they asked for (actually took two days). I wish HEA audiophiles could go through this. It was a lesson too be learned for the ages. I wish I would have kept those series of recordings.

I’m so glad that musicians have joined this thread!! Having experience in the studio "live room" and playback both is totally different from being in the audience or going to an audio trade show. There’s a completely different set of values. For one, you learn to throw out the $$$$$ myths and are able to focus on what is actually taking place musically. There are so many variables!!! Some engineers still went by the book, but it was the experienced guys who would come in and just know everything the minute they came in the space and their ears made contact with the room. Absolute geniuses. A couple of guys trained me early on with guitars, two were my cousins Doc & Merle Watson, the other was Mick Ronson. Lots of other guys added to my learning but they were the ones (oh and Phil Keaggy) who got me into those instruments. And while I’m handing out credits, the guys at Guitar Works down in Atlanta, they were great and talented.

guys

This is also why I build Tunable products. A listener might be sitting there content, and that’s cool, but think of how many people want (need) to hear the actual event in order to be satisfied? The chances of a one sound HEA system reproducing the actual sound (sounds) of a recording is far fetched at best. When I have an artist sitting in my room with my system I tune in the music to his original recollection.

This is just me personally, but I can’t even imagine how HEA has survived with only a volume control and no tunable system. My clients always tell me how they can’t see how tuning has been overlooked in this hobby. And honestly I believe the future for HEA has to include tuning, if it plans on being around much longer, but that’s me.

please read this again from Mr. Smith "Another test I found interesting was a $2,000 Mesa amp against a tiny $170 amp voiced specifically to mimic the Mesa. They sounded slightly different, but the $170 amp sounded BETTER!"

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

"Drum set are tuned in a different way to every other instrument. It is extremely complex. Being able to get the right sound for the room or venue is an art.

The only way to learn to “tune” a drum set is to tune a drum set so many times that you train your ears to know what to adjust."

BINGO!

uberwaltz said

"MG
Yes tbh I am just about in heaven with my system for sure
I can and do sit and listen for 5, 5 or more hours at a time with no fatigue or desire to stop the music flowing.
Twas not always that way of course, I have had the same room for 11 years and when I think back to what I started with in their and where I am now.
The biggest mover was the Lyngdorf 2170
that basically did all the room tuning I need for me.
Not much more I need to achieve and changes I make now are just because I feel like it or the desire to "upgrade" like new cartridges.
So yes ring that bell!"

_________________________________

This for sure is one of the options for the now and for the future as innovations keep moving forward. I have been talking with designers who are working on the audio hologram. One of them is using my Tunable Room as the physical adjustment space. It’s pretty fascinating to see into the future of the hobby. It’s going to be so cool when the AV holograms come out and as I have been pushing for, I would like to see the licensing able to be marketed.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself or the industry, but someday you will be able (hopefully) to download the original master yourself and plug it into your hologram device. At that time you will see and hear the recorded code. Unfortunately the visual will not be going back to recordings that haven’t had the AV codes applied, but I bet even those will be somehow simulated with new visual formats remade for that particular piece of music to new visuals. But recordings being done now in the hologram version are crazy cool.

This is one of the reasons I tell folks, don’t down play the stereo soundstage, because the future of audio and visual is all about the soundstage. Now that we have files the innovative part of this industry is moving at lightening speed. Those debates on real soundstages probably won’t even be around a few short years from now.

I’ll let you know if I get time to pickup a Lyngdorf 2170. I've had my eye on a potential prototype unit but maybe I should play with the Lyngdorf too. I'm more into the physical tuning but, playing is the name of the game.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Iwal22

Good post!

Hi Geoff

"Michael, The “fundamental forces” and the interaction of the Earth’s forces sound like interesting topics. Can you expound on what you mean? What are we talking about here?"

Yep, I think this deserves it's own thread. I also think this is an area of audio in which you shine.

here's the wiki

"Fundamental interactions, also known as fundamental forces, are the interactions in physical systems that do not appear to be reducible to more basic interactions. There are four conventionally accepted fundamental interactions—gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. Each one is understood as the dynamics of a field."

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Hi bdp24

Thanks for jumping in. What setup do you have? We have several drum kits at the shop. Maybe some time you can hook up with one of the musicians here and talk tuning vs tension in real time.

One thing cool about my stereo stores is that we had studios setup at the locations so local musicians and recording artist could hang out with us. nothing like having discussions while actually doing what you are talking about.

One thing though just as a point of reference. When I was on tour I never had a musician or road tech tell me to "tension" up the drum kit. They told me to "tune" up the kit. Also the same was true when working with orchestras and drum lines. So, I know your trying to make a point but maybe you should take that up with drummers! My instrument is African drums btw so the tuning on them is a stretching and curing process.

thanks for you view point, I'll actually be meeting with some folks this weekend and will ask them about the terms they use and get back to you if you would like

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

The biggest choice in HEA of course is whether to select a guru or be your own.

Speaking of tuning, and that of a drum in particular: To proport that a drum that has been "tuned" (the reason for the use of the quotation marks to follow) in one room, and then moved to another where it is now "out of tune", is to unwittingly reveal something about oneself. Except for "tuned percussion" (tympani, vibes, etc.), drums are not tuned, they are tensioned. The threaded rods which pass through the holes in the hoop that holds a drum head in place on a drum shell are called tension rods, not tuners (as on guitars and basses). A drum is not tuned to a note, so can not be out of tune.

A drum produces many fundamental tones, with many, many harmonics and overtones---some related to the fundamentals, some not. Those that are not are referred to as "partials"---tones in between the dominant fundamentals and their harmonics. A drummers adjusts the tension rods until the drum produces the mix of fundamentals/harmonics/partials he prefers (as well as the tightness of the head, which affects drumstick rebound). A drum does NOT produce one, single, dominant note, it produces a vast mix of related and unrelated tones. If that were not true, a snare drum would need to be tensioned so as to match the key each song is played in.

What DOES happen when a drum is moved between rooms, is the balance between all the tones the drum produces is affected by the acoustic properties of the two rooms---the decay times of the rooms at various frequencies, the tones reinforced or diminished according to the resonant characteristics of the room, a result of it’s dimensions. And by the absorptive and reflective nature of the material used to construct the room, which varies at different frequencies, of course. The rooms affect the timbre of the drum(s), not their pitch. The most extreme change occurs when a drum is played outside; their IS no room, so no room-related decay times or resonances. I hate to play outside---drums always sound thin and flat there.

gulpson said

"Ok, I get some of the thinking behind these pressures, rooms, etc. I am not sure I am fully sold on it, but have never tried anything but a plain system made up of a few not-too-fancy components. I did notice that room made a major difference. I will leave it at that, being a bit suspicious and, at the same time, leaving door open that room pressure 360 and the rest is all really true.

However, I am wondering how, for the purpose of this thread, we define poor recordings. Not "poor", but "recordings". Maybe the word "recordings" is used incorrectly."

_______________________________________________________

This is a biggie and HEA should have early on made things more clear. Introducing the term "recorded code" or equivalent should have been in play a long time ago when describing the actual recording. Here’s why. All recordings are different from each other and all playback systems are also different in the source/pre/recording interaction. There’s a couple of things that never really got passed on to the next generation (digital music) like what was tried to be done between the Eqing of tape and vinyl when the attempt was made to go from single source systems to multiple source. Adding a source selector into the mix created an un-equaling of performance that even till now has never been adequately implemented. HEA in particular moved way too fast into "discrete" componentry, not thinking about what they were doing.

If you go back to the generation before HEA discrete you will see that components had a volume control, balance, tone controls and inputs. The reason this was done is because it gave you an opportunity to find the center position of each recording, adjust the EQ differences between recordings, and so you would have separate inputs to add your effects to. In other words the pre-amp stage was so you could play several sources through one unit, kind of like an in home mixer. When HEA got rid of all those choices, they also were only able to give you a "one sound" choice at a time. No longer were you able to do the things mentioned above. That was the beginning of discrete listening. But here’s the problem, recording playback doesn’t work that way. Not only is every recorded code different, but so is the same with your playback input and output selectors. Let’s say you’ve hooked up your Tape deck, TT, CD’s, FM and Files to your one system. When you selected and dialed that system in to your preferred source, all the other sources are then not dialed in as well. If you’ve dialed in your setup to play a particular vinyl well, it will not sound the same with any other of your sources. There’s nothing in your system that automatically switches the sound of the audio chain (after changing sources), and HEA got rid of all the adjustments you use to have. That’s a big problem and unfortunately HEA was not knowledgeable enough to take you into that next chapter needed. For the last twenty to thirty years you have been sold systems that are incomplete and the answer the market has thrown at you is upgrade your system to another discrete system, instead of giving you real solutions. And even worse, they have turned you into skeptical hobbyist. Everyone has an opinion that only leads you back to the same place "audio is variable". You can spend 100years in this hobby listing our favorite components that had a particular sound when playing a particular recording on a particular source in a particular room, and that’s all good, but that’s a different hobby from playing back recordings correctly and with consistency.

the solutions are

A different type of play back system electronically, a different system for every source and recording, a method of tuning or bring back the options that were taken away. To get to the answers it brings us back to the OP "Talk but not walk?" If you guys did a simple exploration of the hobby you would find out, that you didn’t need these over built components. You would discover your hearing your room and if your speakers were more like musical instruments you could tune them to the room/system/ears/recordings. Some of you have already made the switch to electronic room correction. And some of you that are more purist you are going to have one source systems that are mechanically, electrically and acoustically tunable.

It also brings us back to the question of HEA itself and why it is on the decline. No matter my opinion or anyone else’s HEA of the past is on the decline. It’s not going to have a sustainable future without correcting some of the missteps. They’re not hard to identify missteps and any one of you can challenge the facts by doing yourself. It was asked earlier how do I know these things? Because I have done them, and so have others.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Hi rhg88

"Sometimes the "listenign comparison" mantra is pushed a bit too far. I was flabbergasted to see a 250+ thread in audiogon on whether or not someone can hear the difference in sound quality when interchanging two cat6-certified internet cables."

I’m paid to hear the differences, and they do exist, but I think folks need to relax sometimes and study sound from a more settled approach. Audio settling doesn’t happen in a few minutes, it can take weeks or even more to hear changes in a system take on their full meaning.

It’s like these blind fold tests and ABing. Those are all cool and fine to do but their not really more than a possible snap shot, just like any test.

I’ll also comment on the Dynamic Range Database thing. I started to explore these (again) after it was brought up on the Stereophile forum and found this to be very if-y at best. I even went as far as to contact some of the testers and it’s extremely unprofessional and there is no standard testing protocol at all. The results are all over the map on the same recordings and it’s simply amateurish. Plus not one of these tests, that I witnessed, were done where someone physically changed the conditions of the testing. It goes back to our findings in 2004 where we found the physical conditions of the testing changes the results more than the testing itself. So for myself, after testing (doing) this 3 different times (late 90’s, 2004, last year) I feel pretty confident putting this one to bed. Then again if it’s helpful for others, it’s all good.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Hi uberwaltz

"I totally understand it is likely my listening space that needs work rather than bad recordings per se.
However to some their listening space is not an area that can be subjected to various treatments, ynow wife dictates etc, so some of the changes required are just not practical for any number of reasons."

Do you know how many listeners out there would love to get to that 1% place? There is absolutely nothing like listening contentment. There must be a bell that goes off somewhere in heaven every time there is a happy listener. Being able to spend time on the music collection is very cool indeed.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Hi Falconquest

When I first started my relationship with HEA (late 70’s early 80’s) I was hit with my first blast of "highendism". It’s a language and personality that is a mixer of Electrical Engineering, science, Webster, compulsive RTA & blind fold testing, Male ego, empirical testing, physics, neuroticism, myth making and marketing. I think I said earlier, my friends in the entertainment biz warned me to stay as far away from HEA as I could. It reminded me of the different types of studio engineers, techs, producers and artist. When you take something as cool, and young, as stereo and begin to "tech-no-fy" it I have found that the best way to approach it is, be careful to what you lay claim to (credit for), and be humorist in your private world, while trying not to engage with those who have learned enough to be dangerous but not necessarily accurate. And (and this is an important one) always keep in mind of the folks who aren’t speaking up.

For every one person that is speaking an opinion out in the open there are a 100 not saying anything. In todays info world that may even be more like 1 to 1000, who knows.

HEA has created it’s own paradigm that exist with it’s own unique set of words and rules, that outside of HEA, makes little sense to onlookers. I always say "guys it’s not that hard" but HEA hates that type of simplicity. For example, HEA has sold the myth that these over built, beautiful looking, heavy, expensive, complicated, discrete audio components & speakers are better at reproducing sound. Yet the reality is, they actually play less of the recorded signal than does something with lower mass and simpler build. The writing is now on the wall that HEA’s over built and over priced products are on their way to the dinosaur archives, but the transition is hard to go through for those of us who have bought into our big system comfort zone.

Along with the products themselves going through the transition, the HEA marketing starts to look suspicious. The sales tool of trying to make audio more difficult than it really is, is all part of the paradigm of trying to sell HEA as a more advanced hobby than it really is. The more the listener is mystified the longer he or she hangs on to the hope that one fixed sound is going to be the answer to playback, even though everything about music playing, recording and playback is a variable science. As I and others point out the transition should have taken place back in the 90’s when the reviewers were actually on this path to tuning, but the HEA revenue world didn’t want to let go of it’s new found wealth. It was a paradigm of guilt marketing, greed, incomplete science and eye candy.

Quantum, discrete, isolation, dampening, compression, NASA, EE, inert, first reflection point, transparency, revealing and many more that are a part of the selling of HEA aren’t necessarily being used in the truest sense but have been turned into tools of convincing a certain part of the public of HEA to defend the market. You take a forum like this and throw in a little internet trolling and limited experience and you can see why the transition is taking so long. But the more you have folks like Tjbhuler speaking out, the easier the pill is to swallow.

also I want to throw this in from Geoff

"There is much confusion over what quantum physics is, what audio devices employ quantum physics or operate via quantum mechanics or quantum physics. However, it might be a little bit of an overreaction to condemn all audiophile devices marketed as quantum devices as hoaxes or suggest deception or lack or integrity. For example, the CD laser itself operates quantum mechanically, or any laser; they are “two dimensional quantum wells.”

And one more thing that you guys should think about studying are the "fundamental forces". A lot of audio is easy to figure out if you have taken a course in, or even study on the internet, the interaction of the Earth's forces.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Hi Guys & Gals (got an email from one of the gals who asked to be included). So just wanted to say "hello ladies". I’ll be using "Guys" or "folks" or whatever as general terms for saying "hey gang". Thanks for the emails too. I’ll do my best to be here, facebook, TuneLand and by email, but if I fall behind please be patient with me, as soon as I’m caught up with clients and my own listening I’ll be back at it.

You guys have been very kind with your private emails, thank you! It’s a lot of fun for me.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Quantum is the Latin word for amount and, in modern understanding, means the smallest possible discrete unit of any physical property, such as energy or matter. Quantum came into the latter usage in 1900, when the physicist Max Planck used it in a presentation to the German Physical Society. Planck had sought to discover the reason that radiation from a glowing body changes in color from red, to orange, and, finally, to blue as its temperature rises. He found that by making the assumption that radiation existed in discrete units in the same way that matter does, rather than just as a constant electromagnetic wave, as had been formerly assumed, and was therefore quantifiable, he could find the answer to his question.

Planck wrote a mathematical equation involving a figure to represent individual units of energy. He called the units quanta . Planck assumed there was a theory yet to emerge from the discovery of quanta, but in fact, their very existence defined a completely new and fundamental law of nature. Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory together explain the nature and behavior of all matter and energy on earth and form the basis for modern physics. However, conflicts remain between the two. For much of his life, Einstein sought what he called a unified field theory -- one would reconcile the theories' incompatibilities. Subsequently, Superstring Theory and M-theory have been proposed as candidates to fill that role.

A more succinct definition is here...

  A discrete quantity of energy proportional in magnitude to the frequency of the radiation it represents. 

I have written to at least one company asking how they employ "quantum theory" in their product with no response. We must be vigilant when accepting these terms and their possible implications.

Hi glupson and Guys

Thanks for the post. Btw the folks that are wanting to argue on this thread or any other have a different agenda than the OP. With that, we can skip over those posts and move on, try to come to an understanding, jump in and ask them to stop or wait till they give us space to discuss the OP. Anyone’s guess is as good as anyone else’s to know how to deal with trolling. Every time I get trolled on here, I thank my lucky stars I have TuneLand.

There’s a huge importance to exploring and not just taking guesses about music, audio, recording and playback. I can bring up literally tons of topics to use as a discussion tool, and with those based on the answers or comments made you can tell whether a person has done something or not. Keep in mind that everyone on the planet has their own taste, so there is no right or wrong way to listen, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to be heard. It only means we have chosen to go to a certain level of listening. How do you know?

Recordings have a real space and real size to them. For example, lets say we setup a microphone in the isle of the concert hall while recording so we can add the hall sound to the close up and direct mics. In my case I usually did the direct miking, an over head miking, a mid hall miking and a couple of mics way in the back. Sometimes I would do 3 halos and other times 4, very common no brains miking. During the mix I can then choose how much depth and girth I wanted to give to the piece. If you’ve "done" this a few hundred times you instinctively learn how the halos were shaped by other engineers. Now the recording console, pre effect, doesn’t know anything but a 360 view of what is going on. That’s why when you are listening to headphones the sound is all around you when wearing non-directional cans. Now your going to notice something with these cans (unless they’ve been tweaked a certain way). There are no blacks holes in the soundstage. The sound covers the entire stage 360, that’s what a recording is. When we start using stereo in a room with the speakers in front of us instead of directly at the ear on either side we create that frontal image. It is the recording, but it is the recording reacting to the room and speakers. In other words, you are actually hearing the pressure in the room being stimulated by the speakers and not the speakers themselves (their just the origin). When you hear folks say "there is a black space between the instruments" that’s not what the recording is doing, that’s what the system is doing to the recording. The system is not connecting the dots, it’s not giving you the whole recording, it’s giving you parts and pieces. If the speakers and system is working with the room there is an easy way to tell. Any recording you put on will do this if you are hearing the recording itself. Put on a recording, hit play, and you will instantly hear and feel pressure behind you as if you were outside walking into a room and feeling the rooms pressure all around you. If you only see the stage in front of you and don’t sense the recording pressure around you (it has a sound too), your not playing the whole recording, or even close.

Any of you guys, put on a recording you like where you can feel the sound all around you as if the speakers weren’t even there. Now play what you think is a sub par recording. First thing you will notice is the "so so" recording is not giving you that presence. It’s not the recording. All recordings have that 360 element to them. There’s no way to remove it. Even a very compressed recording will still give you that 360 effect. As has been mentioned earlier some folks can play that music in the car and it sounds acceptable, and put it on their home system and not as good. Folks, it’s not the recording. Recordings don’t dumb themselves down to play in a car or headphones and not in your home. It’s also not that your system is more "revealing". The fact is if your car can play it and your headphones can play it, your home stereo should be able to play it. If your in room system is more revealing than your car and your headphones you will hear more not less.

That’s going to make some of you mad and for some even go into denial, but that’s reality.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

PS: don’t shoot me I’m only telling you guys the reality, ok

folks are talking theory and there is absolutely no doubt to any of us who have actually done the testing needed, that the guy talking has never done the actual empirical testing themselves.