If you don't have a wide sweet spot, are you really an audiophile?

Mahgister--  OK. Now I'm following this. Your later posts seem (at least to me) to use the ordinary meaning of timbre.  What I did not understand was the relation of this to things like "imaging" or "soundstage", which I believe in this context are essentially 'something else' (perhaps not 'red herrings', but not crucial to what you're talking about).  But yes, surely the reproduction of timbre correctly will improve our experience of music (and even perhaps enhance the feeling that instruments are 'right there' or 'over there'.)

Thanks for the translation.... 😊

Save there is other means of controls in acoustic, and others in mechanical and electrical dimensions for sure...

A remark:

If you coupled this Helmholtz idea with the ideas of the 2 Japanese scientists i cited already in a preceding post about the law of the first wave front and his relation to the source width (ASW)and the listener envelopement concept(LEV) who gives us a very precise set of experiments to understand how it is possible by room material treatment and by room controls to create a balance which will make us able to create an image width also compatible with an enveloping listener sound, we have some idea about how it is possible to make the room an activated entity in the recreation of sound, imaging and timbre and no more a set of passive walls...

I will give their introduction here and their conclusion....


«In 1989, Morimoto and Maekawa demonstrated that
spatial impression comprises at least two components and
that a listener can discriminate between them [1]. One is
auditory source width (ASW) which is defined as the width
of a sound image fused temporally and spatially with direct
sound image, and the other is listener envelopment (LEV)
which is defined as the degree of fullness of sound images
around the listener, excluding a sound image composing
ASW [1,2],»




«In conclusion, it seems that the results of three experiments shown in this paper evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the components of reflections under and beyond
the upper limit of validity for the law of the first wavefront
contribute to ASW and LEV, respectively. Accordingly, it
is possible to control ASW and LEV independently by controlling physical factors for each component. The important is that it is necessary to provide reflections beyond
the upper limit in order to generate LEV. Furthermore, it
is clarified that the reflections beyond the thresholds of
LEV do not always lead to disturbance. In other words,
it is possible to make the listeners perceive LEV without
causing disturbance.»

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223804282_The_relation_between_spatial_impression_and_the_l...

I will repeat what is the LAW OF THE FIRST WAVEFRONT:


«In audio in the past, the terms Haas effect and law of the first wavefront
were used to identify this effect, but current scientifi c work has settled on the
other original term, precedence effect. Whatever it is called, it describes the
well-known phenomenon wherein the fi rst arrived sound, normally the direct
sound from a source, dominates our impression of where sound is coming from.
Within a time interval often called the “fusion zone,” we are not aware of
reflected sounds that arrive from other directions as separate spatial events. All
of the sound appears to come from the direction of the first arrival. Sounds that
arrive later than the fusion interval may be perceived as spatially separated
auditory images, coexisting with the direct sound, but the direct sound is still
perceptually dominant. At very long delays, the secondary images are perceived
as echoes, separated in time as well as direction. The literature is not consistent
in language, with the word echo often being used to describe a delayed sound
that is not perceived as being separate in either direction or time.Haas was not
the first person to observe the primacy of the first arrivedsound so far as localization in rooms is concerned.»

Sound Reproduction The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms Floyd Toole Chap.6 P.73

If you read carefully about the law of the first wavefront and the paper of the 2 japan scientists written in 2008, you will begin to understand why imaging is possible and guess how we can make it with materials means in the context of this law of the first wavefront and his relation to early and late reflections balance in a room...

You will also immediately understand why it is impossible to recreate a natural timbre perception in a room where no imaging is clearly delineated or possible....

Then this is the reason why i affirmed that timbre perception is the benchmark of audio judgement of the balanced relation or the disruptive relation between room and gear....


The recording source i will repeat contains information and cues about the original musical event, but by the recording choices of the engineer about mic. location and types the information about timbre and imaging are no complete without the dynamical addition of what is missing in the recording source and is potentially in the activated room of the listener which will make possible the recreation of the imagin and timbre perception... The frequency response of the controlled room  synchronize itself with the frequency response of the audio system....It is my way to describe that but i am not an acoustician....

I learn all that in few hours of arguing with someone who does not seems to know timbre concept nor imaging concept...And by my anterior experiment and experience with my room problem now solved...


I am not a scientist only an average listener dreaming of Hi FI at low cost....

I succeed and anybody with a room can....

Mahgister-- OK. Now I’m following this. Your later posts seem (at least to me) to use the ordinary meaning of timbre. What I did not understand was the relation of this to things like "imaging" or "soundstage", which I believe in this context are essentially ’something else’ ’

It is difficult concept of acoustics i work hard to understand them a bit in few hours i cannot make that more simple than the japanese article about Imaging and soundstage....

Nor more simpler than Toole explanation in his book...

I has given the adress of the article and the book is on the net free to read...

I cannot create longer posts here and take 3 or 4 hours to make them clearer ....

I give the gist of the problem....

All that was to argue with someone who was arguing with everybody here.... 😁

i am not a scientist but i learned how to read in my daily 45  years work: counselling students for books and their reading abilities in almost any fields... I know nothing but i can create relations with multiple fields rapidly....It serves me well to create my own audio system at peanuts costs when parsing the essential bits of information percolating audio thread.... I only made a synthesis of these bits and i called that working with the three embeddings controlled dimensions of any audio system... I discovered this triple tuning of a system is more important than the system itself....Simple no?

I hate the word "tweaking" because it miss the point, being interpreted to be SECONDARY additions and not essential installations controls and dogmatic mind call that "snake oil" easily because they are costly, or "placebo" because they are not always very audible in some conditions...For sure true snake oil and placebo effects exist... But thowing the baby with the bath waters is not a solution....

My best to you...

That Japanese science thing is very similar to what I have heard from years ago and what Duke has talked about as well. 

Image focus comes almost entirely from the direct sound. Reflected sound affects this differently depending on the amount of delay. Within a window of about 3-5ms it is too close in time and imaging suffers. Sound travels about 1ft/ms. This is where the advice to place speakers several feet from walls comes from. Beyond about 5ms reflected sounds contribute to a perception of space. This is where the sense of envelopment comes from. 

That is of course far from the whole story. That is just one aspect of it. The initial wave front. Really accurate low bass is associated with large spaces and is another factor in envelopment. Then there is the spectrum of direct sound to the reflected, diffuse sound. And more. They all go together. 

These are all closely related and similar. There is more difference in the language being used to describe them and from what point of view than anything else.