Articles You Feel Should be Shared

Sound Reproduction: Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms

Good article touching on the measuring of loudspeaker behaviour in typical rooms and the dreaded Circle of Confusion which continues to this day because of the lack of industry standards from microphone to final cut. 

In fact so bad is the Circle of Confusion that it casts great doubt on ALL subjective evaluations of audio equipment. 

In the meantime fans of 60s music might want to check out a pair of vintage Tannoys or JBLs.

If not, there's always the possibility of experimenting with some EQ correction for those who can be motivated.

https://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/sound-reproduction

Interesting article on sound reproduction and room acoustics. Some of us can't have dedicated rooms and it's nice to see a book that helps get a good sound in a normal room environment. I agree on the subjective evaluation of audio equipment especially in digital playback and DACs in particular. I've  come to realize if the equipment is neutral, the noise floor is below human hearing then it's all you need. Speakers have a lot more distortion than well engineered equipment and room interaction with the speakers have the most to do with your listening experience. 

djones51,

Yes, I agree the best way forward would be to have loudspeakers that are reasonably neutral - both in the recording studio and the home.

I’ve no doubt that many users of brands such as ATC, B&W, Genelec, JBL, Neumann, etc will feel some assurance that similar speakers are being used today in the production of the music they listen to.

On the other hand when it comes to music recorded 60/70 years ago there seems to have been a huge variance in the monitors used back then for playback as illustrated in this Wikipedia Studio monitor article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_monitor

What are you supposed to make of the following statement?

"The Altec 604 had a notoriously ragged frequency response but almost all U.S studios continued to use it because virtually every producer and engineer knew its sound intimately and were practiced at listening through its sonic limitations."

Or this one referring to the 50s?

"As a result, pretty well every U.S studio had a set of 604’s and every European studio a Tannoy Dual Concentric or two."

No wonder these classic designs/brands still have a loyal following. To get close to what the artists, producers and technicians heard back in the day you’re going to need similar playback speakers or settle for a more modern take.

No wonder that the remastering of vintage recordings is such a tricky business. Especially if you want to retain that important ’authentic’ period feel many of us do whenever we want the occasional trip to travel back to those apparently more simpler times. Ah, those priceless memories!


Anyway here’s another article, one featuring some of the recording studios where most of this music was recorded.

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/history-of-recording-studios/amp/

Inside Track: The Second Coming Of The Technics Sl-1200

David Price talks to Tetsuya Itani, to get the full story of how Technics brought its iconic SL-1200 turntable back…


If you go on measurements and data the Technics is one hugely impressive feat of engineering.

But as the designer himself says,

“Measurement is only a rough guide,” he says. “For example, the wow and flutter figure doesn't tell us about a deck's performance under load, playing a record groove with music, but only with a test tone. It's like a two-dimensional photograph when you're working in three dimensions. Our engineers have been on a learning curve. For example, when we developed the new flagship SP-10R, we found that when we get more sophisticated in our approach, the sound quality becomes much better…”

https://www.stereonet.co.uk/features/inside-track-the-second-coming-of-the-technics-sl-1200

The dreaded Fletcher-Munson Curve.

For something that has huge implications for those audiophiles looking for accurate playback, this information was surprisingly difficult, at least for me, to assimilate.

Many, many points covered here, including the history and motivation behind the research, and some surprising findings too.

Perhaps the main one being that there might be only one correct volume level to listen at if we want to hear all the bass, midrange and treble frequencies that exist in a recording equally as well.

Plenty of other great points in there too.

Anyway, this excellent presentation by AVGenius was the closest one that came to making sense to me.

https://youtu.be/dGQh5bwm_8s