In article , Rob
scribeth thus
On 30/06/2010 22:07, Bob Latham wrote:
In ,
tony wrote:
I'm quite happy to accept that I would not be suitable to offer much
advice regarding a product for classical listening. However, it would
be IMHO no worse than me buying a product based on your classical
evaluation of a product. For example, you use ESL63s I believe. I am
aware of their merits and I appreciate their clever design. Never the
less, they would be totally unsuitable for me, something would go bang
in a week and the last time I heard a pair I was expecting a sound on
the thin side with no deep bass, not a bit of it. What I heard shocked
me as it was the top end that I found difficulty with - I didn't think
there was any.

Its about one of the flattest speakers around and yes there is top as
well as very other audible frequency..

Do you mean they were "lacking in top"?...

That was my perception.


You have to sit bang on axis to get treble - then they sound just about
right IMO.

No you don't, there might be a bit of image shift but the room might be
influencing it a bit but they should be just as good as far as audio
balance is concerned more or less anywhere you'd normally listen to any
speakers..

Rob

--
Tony Sayer

In article , Bob Latham bob@sick-
of-spam.invalid scribeth thus
In article ,
John Rumm wrote:

I find that surprising actually. I have often found that while much
"pop" is mixed in such a way as to sound at least "ok" on a wide range
of kit[1], full orchestral recordings can be very much more demanding
and revealing of strengths and weaknesses in equipment.

I don't have a problem with people saying they prefer to use classical for
*their* tests. They obviously find it more useful and good luck to them. I
object if it's suggested that everyone should.

The shear dynamic range is one aspect, also unlike studio recordings,
where the sound stage can be assembled from multiple mics to place
sounds wherever the engineer thinks they sound best, there are defined
positions for many orchestral parts, which makes for a far more rigorous
test of imaging.

I've never ever heard an image on classical that impressed me. Strings on
the left is useful for making sure the channels are the right way round.
For me that's the end.

My inability to use classical probably has something to do with the fact
that I don't think orchestras sound nice. I like much of the music but I'm
not impressed with the sound. Organs and pianos are much better sounding
than the rest for me.


Bob.


Well I don't think your the only one, Keith G who used to post to
uk.rec.audio before they came to take him away .. used to extoll the
virtues of one valve single ended triode amps;!...
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:
In article , bugbear


Further, classical music tends to have a much higher dynamic range

Yes, I would agree there entirely but unless the system cannot cope with
the peaks this also tends to tell me very little.

It can also show you if the system has problems with very low level sounds.
Examples from ye olde crossover and more modern quantisation ranging to
unwanted background hiss, loops, hum, etc. Quite surprising how many items
of kit want to 'sing along' when you get to ppp passages.


Jim would be the first to point out the very poor nature of acoustic
memory so I can't see how listening to classical or acoustical can help
much unless you've just come out of a concert and even then...

I certainly agree that our 'acoustic memory' should be treated with great
caution as it can easily be unreliable or misleading. However it isn't as
simple as that. There are differences between free recall and prompted
recall. And having heard something many times whilst paying attention to
details is different to an occasional hearing.

So for example, you may not know what some things sound like until you hear
them, and then recognise them. Taking imaging as an example, I was
initially stunned when I first heard realistic imaging by a stereo system
of a broadcast from acoustics I had repeatedly sat and listened in.

For me this came from the wonderful BBC. Praise be to them. As a student I
used to go to concerts at their various venues like BH, Maida Vale, St
Johns. Often hearing something live during the day and then hearing it
rebroadcast later on R3. On the early stereos I had the sound at home was
good, but it was only when I used better systems (particularly speakers)
and a decent room I discovered that the stereo imaging could indeed, give a
clear perception of depth and 'solid' location with good
broadcasts/recordings that really did faithfully convey the acoustics you
heard at the venues. Once you hear this it is amazingly clear. But it can
be very elusive to get at all unless you have excellent (in this respect)
speakers *and* a decent listening room arrangement.

Fundamentally I use my stereo for pleasure not technical accuracy, I
think Jim and I differ there.

Wrong. The point of the music is the 'pleasure' it gives. The 'technical
accuracy' is the means to that end. Understanding the 'technology' is a
means for being able to improve and move towards really hearing all the
details as close to the original as possible.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
Well I don't think your the only one, Keith G who used to post to
uk.rec.audio before they came to take him away .. used to extoll the
virtues of one valve single ended triode amps;!...

Driving horn loaded speakers with a single driver. For that mellow tone.
;-)

--
*How many roads must a man travel down before he admits he is lost?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf
wrote:
In article , Bob Latham
wrote:

If someone asked me to decide between two hi-fi items using
classical music (which I have a great deal of) I wouldn't even
bother to turn up as I know I couldn't do it.

Thats fine if you aren't working as a 'reviewer' in a magzine trying
to tell people about the capability of equipment. Your choices are
your business if you aren't giving your conclusions to anyone else
whose tastes, hearing, etc, may differ from yours.

Also fine if you are just deciding to stay within your own 'comfort
zone' of familiarity as being the best place for making your own
personal decisions. However professional reviews aren't just for the
sake of the reviewer - or at least should not be so limited.

I'm quite happy to accept that I would not be suitable to offer much
advice regarding a product for classical listening. However, it would be
IMHO no worse than me buying a product based on your classical
evaluation of a product. For example, you use ESL63s

ESL63s, ESL988s, and a pair of Spendor LS3/5As. Have various other
speakers, but these are the ones in daily use an I would not be without.

I believe. I am aware of their merits and I appreciate their clever
design. Never the less, they would be totally unsuitable for me,
something would go bang in a week and the last time I heard a pair I was
expecting a sound on the thin side with no deep bass, not a bit of it.
What I heard shocked me as it was the top end that I found difficulty
with - I didn't think there was any.

That reaction is quite common for people who mainly listen to rock/pop and
who use conventional dynamic speakers. There are various reasons for it.
However it can change with exposure.

Many conventional dynamic speakers have quite uneven treble responses which
also have wildly complex frequency-dependent directional patterns. This
means the HF responses you see plotted 'on axis' (curious term for
multi-unit systems) are quite misleading. The measurements are also often
frequency-smoothed.

Peaky responses of that kind are quite 'attention grabbing' when you play a
lot of pop/rock music. Bear in mind that to a large extent rock and pop
have developed to 'sound good' on conventional speakers and there often is
no 'original sound' just the need to impress the listener using speakers.

The 'lack of treble' is actually a flatter treble response, taking away the
peaks you are accustomed to. Just like the start of this thread where
'boom' is used as 'bass' so conventional speakers tend to use 'ting'
resonances to fill in the treble in their uneven responses (in both
frequency and direction) and this makes the sound more noticable even at
the same frequency-averaged level.

People recording/broadcasting classical acoustic music tend to use flatter
and better controlled speakers equivalent in this respect to the LS series
and the ESLs.


Honestly for me /most/ classical is so 'mid range' and undemanding I
wouldn't bother. What is more, even though it probably wouldn't be
admitted, the vast majority of people would be same I suspect.

Surprised that you think items by composers as diverse as Prokofiev,
PMD, Bach, Messiaen, Neilsen, Part, and all kinds of others, or all
kinds of totally different sounding things on a wide range of
instruments are all 'mid range', from Britten's "Prince of the
Pagodas" to early music on Crumhorns.[1] But again, your personal
preferences and limitations are your business I accept.

Two of those I've never heard of which I suppose was your intention

My intention was to make you think more about your "most" and bring out
that what may be "most" of what you listen to may not be "most" of actual
classical music. BTW which ones hadn't you heard about?


and Messiaen is only for masochists and show offs surely.

Well, I do find it odd when I've encountered people who say his music is
wonderful and they then slag off someone like Schumann or Rubbra. :-)

However I do enjoy some of his music, and struggle to be interested in
other works. So I like his organ pieces very much (and Alain's) but tend to
find my mind wanders with some other things. All depends on my mood and
state of mind, though. As with other kinds of music. Sometimes I enjoy some
Jazz, other times I find the same piece boring or annoying. Me that
changes, not the music.


I have around 500 classical CDs. not a vast amount I agree but a good
chunk. Very few of mine offer much of a challenge to kit IMHO for
aspects that appeal to me.

That is fine in the context of being your personal preferences and
circumstances. But it may simple tell us that your taste/experience of
classical music would not be sufficient to act as a 'reviewer' of equipment
for anyone who might want to play a wider/different range. That was the
basis of my initial comments. That when reviewers *just* use pop/rock they
may not be providing a basis for those who like other things and may be
missing aspects of performance vital for some readers.


Why only use a hammer when there are other tools in the toolkit? But
if you like to use a hammer for every job, that's you choice. fair
enough.
:-)

Look, I'm from near Birmingham, have you not heard of the brummagem
screwdriver? :-)

Yes. Used one more than once. I'm not much good at DIY or mechanical work.
:-)

A watchmaker's screwdriver can't do every job either.

Personally, I find classical acoustic music useful for assessing
things like depth in imaging and how faithfully it reproduces
'solidity' of acoustics and the hall sound. And massed strings useful
for detecting things like crossover suckout in speakers or the
presence of other notches or peaks in the spatial patterns of
speakers. If you don't, or don't care, fine for you. But so far as I
know none of the commercial magazines are aimed *only* at one of the
two of us!

Fair enough.

For me "faithful reproduction" is the only sensible design goal but not
the best purchasing goal, enjoyment is.

The difficulty with that is when you listen to music like concert
broadcasts on R3 and similar 'acoustic events' the "faithful reproduction"
is the crucial goal for the reproduction chain. Anything else becomes 'rose
tinted glasses' that they colour everything pink and narrow down the range
of experience. Nice that some things are pink. But not everything - unless
you are Barbara Cartland. :-)

I have said to you before that I have never heard a good image on
classical not on even the exotic kit in exhibitions or shop demo rooms.
I suspect what you're talking about with imaging is totally different to
me.

For whatever reason this is something that some people hear, and others
don't. I have no real idea why. It may be a matter of 'discovering' it, or
it may be inherent. For all I know the 'ability' to hear realistic and
solid imaging may need the listener to have 'easily fooled' hearing in some
way. But once you hear it, it is worth effort to maintain as it so enhances
the experience with 'acoustic source' material from locations with suitable
acoustics.

I'm stunned by the image on some Diana Krall and Katie Melua tracks,
they're in the room with me locked solid and nowhere near the speakers.

Now think of multiplying that experience to really hear the players of the
orchestra clearly laid out in space in front of you with a convencing sense
of distance and location.

Slainte,

[1] BTW I also regard a lot of Indian/Japanese/etc music 'classical'
and think it should also be used some of the time. A wider toolkit and
catering for a wider range of experience seems preferrable to me. May
also help people to discover things they didn't know they would enjoy.
But that is another issue, I guess... :-)

Indian food is great, the music, not for me thanks.

How much have you tried? For example, have you tried the DGG 3CD set of
Shankar and various others? This also has a disc with him playing with some
Japanese musicians to combine Indian and Japanese musical sounds. I find it
very enjoyable as music. It also delivers some remarkable acoustic sounds.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

For me this came from the wonderful BBC. Praise be to them. As a student I
used to go to concerts at their various venues like BH, Maida Vale, St
Johns. Often hearing something live during the day and then hearing it
rebroadcast later on R3. On the early stereos I had the sound at home was
good, but it was only when I used better systems (particularly speakers)
and a decent room I discovered that the stereo imaging could indeed, give a
clear perception of depth and 'solid' location with good
broadcasts/recordings that really did faithfully convey the acoustics you
heard at the venues. Once you hear this it is amazingly clear. But it can
be very elusive to get at all unless you have excellent (in this respect)
speakers *and* a decent listening room arrangement.

And then they went an invented and implemented DAB;(...


--
Tony Sayer

In article , tony sayer

wrote:

For me this came from the wonderful BBC. Praise be to them.

And then they went an invented and implemented DAB;(...

And then the AAC+ iPlayer. :-))

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf
wrote:

That reaction is quite common for people who mainly listen to rock/pop
and who use conventional dynamic speakers. There are various reasons
for it. However it can change with exposure.

Many conventional dynamic speakers have quite uneven treble responses
which also have wildly complex frequency-dependent directional
patterns.

The 'lack of treble' is actually a flatter treble response, taking
away the peaks you are accustomed to.

I should have guessed really, my speakers are are a faulty design,

Nope. Not "faulty". Note my use of "many" (not "all") and that this is
essentially inherent in the use of convenional multiple-driver dynamic
speakers. And that many producers expect you to have such speakers, so
balance their output accordingly.

I listen to the wrong music and my perception is faulty as a result.

Nope. Afraid you are jumping to conclusions again. Your opinions and
preferences - as with us all - are based on the experiences you've had. You
then choose what suits you as an individual on that basis. The point I've
(repeatedly) made is that this is sensible for each of us as an individual.
*But* it isn't sufficient for someone doing 'reviews' that present their
conclusions as if they applied in general to a range of people with varying
tastes, circumstances, etc.


I'll tell KEF and while I'm on I'll ask why their graphs say otherwise.

People recording/broadcasting classical acoustic music tend to use
flatter and better controlled speakers equivalent in this respect to
the LS series and the ESLs.

Funny I thought most used B&W speakers.

Perhaps you've missed the "equivalent in this respect" part of what I
wrote. :-) Chances are, if you check you will find that in serious pro
recording and broadcasting of serious music they go to some lengths to sort
out things like the response of the systems they use. And they tend to use
different speakers, etc, to many of those sold for domestic use (at least
by those who aren't fanatic audio fans prepared to pay large sums and
re-arrange the room to get best results). TBH I doubt they usually resort
to the reviews aimed at domestic users for this. :-)

BTW You (and others) might find it interesting to read Floyd Toole's book
"Sound Reproduction: Loudspeakers and Rooms" (Focal Press paperback). His
work is very good in this area.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:59:42 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

Good luck with getting them to do anything about it. Most people who use
systems like this blythly assume it is what "people want" since most people
don't complain or even care. Those who do (like myself) simply don't go
into such places if we can avoid them as they are too nasty to endure.

And this also applies to shops. I have lost count of how many times I
have walked into shop intending to buy something only to be driven out
rapidly by loud and dreadful music. I don't bother to complain either
but they are very unlikely ever to see any of my money.

Good for Bill to take the time to complain though -- things may change
if enough people do this.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:28:57 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Paul D Smith wrote:
You clearly missed the episode of "The Archers" where a waiter,
attempting to chat-up one of the younger regulars, gave the explanation
for loud music in pubs and clubs.

If it's quiet, people buy a pint and chat. If it's loud, they can't
chat so drink up and buy another pint.

Quite wrong. It's there to keep the staff happy. After all, bar work is
about the most boring job ever. A sort of Music While You Work.

If the music annoys the customers then I would have thought it likely
to annoy the staff too.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.