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"Frightening" or "Relaxing" sound quality?

What do I mean by that?
Not that I wish to start a new controversy --- knowing some of the usual contributors, it may not be entirely avoidable, so let’s see what gives.

Following some of the threads on the –ultimate- ‘phase-coherent’, 'time-coherent' or yet better, both, 1st order up to steep slopes, an so on, cross-over opinions, I have these notions. So let me explain.

One quite well known ‘maverick’ (done some picking on some other well known reviewer, posting it on his site...), somewhere he states: a good speaker must have the ability 'to frighten you' --- his words, and I can see/hear what he means, at least I think so.

Some other dealer in Wilson’s marvellous products (he's around my place), tells me he can only listen for about ½ hour than he is 'exhausted' --- i.e. too intense to do any longer listening…

Nobody is talking about ‘listening fatigue’ actually, it is more an emotional fatigue, as far as I get it.

Now me, I go to a life orchestra listening and emerge pretty well ‘up-lifted’, never had any fatigue (maybe my bottom, when it got a bit too lengthy) never mind emotional fatigue! Gimme Mahler, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, heavy (classical) metal, whow --- upliftment. Never occur to me run away, get uneasy, GET FRIGHTENED!

I clearly get ‘emotional fatigue’ listening to some types of speakers!
What were they?
I think they had one thing in common: They all where, in some way, VERY realistic, but they also had something else in common, --- they did not, as it seems, stick too well to a reasonably flat amplitude response… ah ha.

What this design regimen seems to produce during listening to keep on making you jump? Apparently always something rather unexpected in happening! Now we do also know what makes us (as humans) ‘jump’: it is some unexpected ‘something’ coming ‘out of the bush’ a snapping branch, some sort of VERY REAL sound, that does not quite go along with the general set of the acoustic environment.

Now take some ‘benign, dumb’ kind of speaker, it has so little in REALISTIC sound to offer, it just can’t frighten you. You (your instinct, subconscious) just don’t ‘buy’ into it.
Now take a VERY realistic sound-producer (the ones that can make you jump) and mess with the amplitude response, what you are getting is this on the edge of your seat reaction. The VERY opposite of what a lot of music has as its intention. (Not like AV ‘Apocalypse now’ kind of chopper going to attack you from any old angle, top, behind, etc.)

Lastly, has this something to do with why lots of folks perhaps shy away from these sort of designs?
I have listened to my share and I shy away, because as REAL everything seems to be in the reproduction, it keeps me in a state of inner tension, apprehension --- even listening to some Mozart Chamber music, as there is ALWAYS something very REAL, but somehow unsettling going on.

It might just explain why some of these designs don’t ‘cut the mustard’ and not survive in the long run. Unless, and open to opinion, that we are (most of us anyway) so messed up and transistor-radio-sound-corrupted that we seem ‘unworthy of these ‘superior’ audio-designs.
I honestly don’t think so, but you may have it otherwise, as they say YMMV.

I thought it is of value to bring this up, since it does not ever seem to be part of any of the more ‘technical’ discussions ---- the human ‘fright/flight’ element in ignoring proper FLAT amplitude response in favour of minimal insertion losses, or proper impedance compensation, notch filtering, et al, just so to obtain this form of stressful realism.

It might be also something to do with age, a much younger listener (in my experience) likes to be stirred up, and emotionally knocked all over the place ---- listening to Baroque music like bungee jumping?!
Maybe.
It be interesting to hear if it is just my form of ‘over-sensitiveness’ that brings forth this subject.
Best,
Axel
axelwahl
axelwahl OP
788 posts
 
Hi Jabo,
hey man you got a point!
Spend 100 - 200 Grand (on a speaker alone) is more frightening than ANY listening can get. (And mostly if the wife didn't know!)
Well said, keep it coming.
Axel
unsound
7,335 posts
 
Axe, yes, I most cetainly do still get "startled", but I do believe that was the intent of performance.
I'm not that thin skinned and Ifind no afront to your posts. I'm just unclear as to your intended point.
Here is another simpler link:

http://www.thielaudio.com/
You will need to navigate through this web site to find the appropriate content.

Yes, the Thiels use a first order crossover. My understanding of that phrase has to do with the slope and not the count of components used to achieve it.
The components used in Thiels cross-overs compensate for driver irregularities, loading for steady impedance and yes, even amplitutde response. Along with selected drivers and cabinets that permit staggered positioning of drivers, the crossovers are used to make time, phase and amplitude correct speaker systems. Thiel is not alone in this regard, currently Green Moutain and Vandersteen amongst others use this approach and in the past Dunlavy and Meadowlark (which seemed to better fit your description of a 1st order cross-over) have also used this approach. I have yet to hear anyone accuse any of these manufacturer's of providing anything less than linear amplitude response.

I guess I'm saying that I think that your conclusion that "time and phase" designs have sacrafised amplitude response in that pursuit is unfounded.
gawdbless's avatar
gawdbless
1,235 posts
 
I get frightened whenever I hear the sound of the dentist's drill as my teeth are very sensitive.
axelwahl OP
788 posts
 
Gawdbless,
and I wish you a good dentist to take care of you!
And thanks for your deep insight, always like some weighty contribution (-:

Unsound,
I have tried that 'clipped' link version of Thiel, it also bombs.
I think they want to get some cookies installed and I don't let them. My system don’t like that marketing stuff, neither do I.

But in any way, it looks like that's it for me.
If Wilson, van der Steen, von Schweikert, Hansen, Krell and company is giving me the 'willies' I guess it must the blerry set-up, either in my own head, or in the listening room -- or both.

Your 1st order info is not right, because 1st order = 6dB slope and only one (I repeat ONE) coil or cap will do that. All else is some other 'magic'.
So, 1st order will give you that one and only 90 deg. phase shift with the two drivers involved, and that happens to cancel out (by vector addition) to 0 deg. phase shift -- in the maths at least, and mostly as it is hoped for in the air.
Sit 10' away and all should integrate, so much for the good theory. Amplitude is not part of the 'minimalist package'.
The superior openness is achieved my minimum insertion loss (and like hell that ain't the Thiels either, I know their PCB too) and incidentally neither are the Dunlevy's, which have more stuff on the x-over boards then you'd like to know.

The Green Mountain Audio, seem plenty closer to the pure teaching of 1st order, but that's a completely different story, also I've not heard them --- so no fright-flight there. Now look at their stuff and you'll see it looks nowhere near like those Thiels, and the others I mentioned. Their chief know a-plenty about this here subject, he's freighteningly knowledgable. At least some freight her too...

So nobody got much of a clue in the line of what these speakers x-over do and why they do it, and why some a them give me (only me?) a heart(head)burn. I guess at least we had a good go at it, including Gawdless and his dentist theory.

Greetings,
Axel
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Music has to do with emotion and many composers of classical music put "scary passages" into their music quite purposefully. R. Strauss does, Mahler does, Sibelius, Mozart in Don Govanni, Schnittke, Shostakovits, Berlioz, just to mention a few A good rig will bring that all out, almost as well as a real life concert performance. Deep registers below 20hz or so, no matter if heard or just felt will scare the living daylights out of you. And yes, Axel, you are quite right, that has nothing to do with listeners fatigue. That form of discomfort comes from bad soft- or hardware.
An afterthought: Carl Jung never went to concerts. It shook him up too much, caused him emotional turmoil. I would say, that anyone who has never gotten goosebumps listening to music, be it from joy or being simply scared for a second, does not really know on a deeper level what music is about.
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