Playground for practical listening exercises

We use the Tune Method to evaluate performance

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Charlie1
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Charlie1 »

Some Friday fun!

Second system so nothing serious. This is the room above the garage where I work.

Apologies in advance that I have not painstakingly setup each speaker. They are level but not carefully tuned into position.

Here you go - Enjoy!!

1) Audio Note AX2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hzuawrap250p9 ... 1.MOV?dl=0
2) Royd Eden: https://www.dropbox.com/s/muhs88ieb067p ... 2.MOV?dl=0
3) Linn Katan: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qochryv6q7se4 ... 4.MOV?dl=0
4) Shahinian Larc: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lncwpbaqwzbyf ... 5.MOV?dl=0
5) Linn Kan: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a7mxt3g18lwtw ... 6.MOV?dl=0
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ThomasOK
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by ThomasOK »

AudioNote too much guitar body, Royd not enough body, Larcs too much strings. Katan not bad but I think they could be better, but the Kans were the only ones I really thought sounded musical and balanced in this comparison.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Charlie1 »

I agree with your observations Tom, although I hadn't picked up on it all until reading your comments.

I brought the left hand Katan in so they are closer and that sounds better. It's actually a pitched roof so not as much space as it looked.

This room probably sounds better than the bedroom from a hifi perspective but it also exposes the slightly ragged sound of the Kans and I found them fatuiging in a way I never did before. The Katans have a softer presentation which seems to better suit this room.

Here's a clip of them closer with view from desk, although it faces out the window:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7rxp4unhq2g0b ... 7.MOV?dl=0

I need to think about selling some of these. Royd Edens or AX2's anyone :)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by beck »

Interesting lineup of speakers. Like ThomasOK I find the Linn options to work best with your setup. I lived in a similar kind of room in my teenage years. There I got my first Linn system up and running. Linn Basik turntable, Intek amp and Helix II speakers. :-)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by ThomasOK »

That sounds pretty good. I was thinking you might want to try them a bit closer to the back wall and with a little toe in. Try it with the outside edges 90% to the back wall.

Maybe what you need for that room is a pair of these - at least to match the decor.

Image
Last edited by ThomasOK on 2019-03-08 22:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Charlie1 »

LOL :)

Thanks for the tips.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Spannko »

Charlie1 wrote: 2019-03-08 16:59 Some Friday fun!

Second system so nothing serious. This is the room above the garage where I work.

Apologies in advance that I have not painstakingly setup each speaker. They are level but not carefully tuned into position.

Here you go - Enjoy!!

1) Audio Note AX2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hzuawrap250p9 ... 1.MOV?dl=0
2) Royd Eden: https://www.dropbox.com/s/muhs88ieb067p ... 2.MOV?dl=0
3) Linn Katan: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qochryv6q7se4 ... 4.MOV?dl=0
4) Shahinian Larc: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lncwpbaqwzbyf ... 5.MOV?dl=0
5) Linn Kan: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a7mxt3g18lwtw ... 6.MOV?dl=0
Brill set of vids Charlie1, thank you!

1) Quite unmusical. I’m surprised, I expected more from AN
2) Not great, just as I remember Edens. Coniston R’s are more musical
3) Sound great, then the bass comes in and they fall apart.
4) Now we’re getting somewhere!
5) Very famillier sound and possibly the most musical of the bunch.

1-3 miss the mark, but 4 & 5 are worthy of further experimentation. Great stuff!

Edit. Now you’ve moved one of the Katans I’d say that they were worthy of further experimentation too. I think it’s really important that each speaker “sees” the same acoustic space.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Spannko »

Have you ever been waiting ages for a bus and then two turn up together? Well here’s another one!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z14p1uzk4nzk ... qrEqa?dl=0

The recordings are of:

1. Empty room (except for carpet and sofas)
2. Absorbers Set by ear
3. + absorbers (bass traps?) in the front corners
4. + absorbers on the first lateral reflection points
5. + absorbers (bass traps?) in the rear corners

Enjoy!
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by beck »

The “dry” sound from clip 3 (absorbers in front) is my kind of sound. Here I can “feel” a man singing into a microphone. I do “get” why others may think differently.

Good work!
Last edited by beck on 2019-03-09 13:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Charlie1 »

You beat me to it beck. Absorbers in front and rear corners were my two favourites with a slight preference for front corners. I like it.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by tokenbrit »

beck wrote: 2019-03-09 10:06 The “dry” sound from clip 3 (absorbers in front) is my kind of sound. Here I can “feel” a man singing into a microphone. I do “get” why others may think differently.

Good work!
Maybe this is why you (& other musicians) tend to prefer a different sound: you're more inclined to like a system that gets closer to what you hear when you are creating music, whereas others look (listen) for systems that sound like it does to them in the audience... I think the 'dry' sounds were my least favourite.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by beck »

tokenbrit wrote:

Maybe this is why you (& other musicians) tend to prefer a different sound: you're more inclined to like a system that gets closer to what you hear when you are creating music, whereas others look (listen) for systems that sound like it does to them in the audience... I think the 'dry' sounds were my least favourite.
I also prefer dry recordings and dry wine for that matter! :-)

I do not buy into the “recreate the venue with all it’s sounds” approach. I want to get close to the “lips” of the singer.
But that is just what I prefer to listen to and what I get a kick out of when enjoying music. I fully understand that others feel differently.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Charlie1 »

Spannko wrote: 2019-03-09 01:241) Quite unmusical. I’m surprised, I expected more from AN
The ANs were a recent impulse buy, partly because I liked what I heard of the much more expensive AN-K's.

However, they are just not working for me. I've moved them into the bedroom to avoid the pitched roof of the garage. I've also played around with positioning more but the bass still lags a fraction behind so they don't have the tight timing of the Katans, Kans and Larcs, which is one of the main plus points of a small speaker for me. And whilst I quite like the AX-2's presentation, they just don't seem to carry the tune much and engage me, even when there's no beat to the music. A bit disappointed with them tbh.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3dgowiepgh3mk ... 8.MOV?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9f1v8nwtp6s2e ... 1.MOV?dl=0

PS What do you mean by 'each speaker sees the same acoustic space'?
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Spannko »

I’ve liked the AN-K’s when I’ve heard them at shows too.

Re, speakers seeing the same acoustic space:

Strictly speaking, it might have made more sense if I’d have said ‘For a 2 channel sound system it’s important that each loudspeaker sees a similar mirror imaged acoustic space”.

The sound we hear in the room consists of the direct sound followed shortly thereafter by the reflected sound. Within limits, our brain has the ability to turn a blind eye, as it were, to a reflection being a separate entity and integrate it with the direct sound. The nature of that integration depends upon the time between the direct sound and the reflected sound and their relative sound intensities. Both of these factors are a function of the distance to the reflecting surface and the surfaces reflective properties. From this, we can see that for optimum sound reproduction both loudspeakers ideally want to be placed the same distance from any reflective surfaces and each reflective surface should have the same acoustic properties. Ideally, we want the left speakers direct sound time of flight, reflected sound time of flight and its spectral content to mirror that of the right speaker.

All of the above relates primarily to spatial qualities, which is all well and good, I hear you saying, “But we’re not interested in HiFi artefacts, we’re only interested in the music”! So, to understand how acoustic spaces affect musicality, we need to think about this thing called ‘Inharmonicity’.

For our purposes*, inharmonicity is a term used to describe errors introduced into the harmonic structure of a musical note. ie frequency and amplitude shifts of the notes partials. Changing the harmonic structure affects things like spaciality and timbre, but most importantly, pitch perception. It’s known that inharmonic notes, in addition to sounding dissonant, are more difficult to tune an instrument to, and also to sing along to. The exact mechanism by which this occurs isn’t known, but the most accepted hypothesis is that we have a pitch processing area in the brain which matches the pitch of the perceived note to a pitch “template” which immediately allows us to detect errors in pitch.

* Inharmonicity is also a term used to describe mainly frequency “offsets” when tuning musical instruments.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by beck »

Now, if I read the above with a scottish accent in my mind a picture of a certain man would appear in front of me! ;-)

Interesting stuff.

Quick update on the AT. I really enjoy it and can quite easily put the sound from the Klyde away for now. The AT is close enough.

Being back into vinyl is a gooooooooood thing!
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Spannko »

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

My personal preference is for the room with absorbers, but without the duvets in the corners or the first reflection point. I feel that, of all the combinations presented, it’s the most musical, but I can understand why some people might prefer a bit of extra absorbent in the room. The number of absorbers and their position was set by ear using pitch coherence as a guide, but for a while I’ve felt that the room’s still just a little bit too lively, so I’ve ordered another set of absorbers identical to the ones I’m using but 75mm thick as opposed to 45mm. I’m hoping that the extra thickness will extend their range down by an octave or so to reduce a bit more of the lower midrange energy you can see in the photos below.

Without absorbers: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mro5v8cks7tdb ... .jpeg?dl=0

With absorbers: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gyeubknwt9ih9 ... .jpeg?dl=0

The “warmth” of a sound can be determined by the ratio of the RT60’s (125Hz||250Hz):(500Hz||1000Hz). As can be seen from the spectrograms, I’ve got a bit of a surplus in the 500-1000Hz region which I’d like to try and tame to see what effect it may have.

I need to stress that using room measurements like this in no way suggests that they take precedence over listening and evaluating using a pitch based method!
Last edited by Spannko on 2019-03-11 00:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Spannko »

beck wrote: 2019-03-10 08:31 Now, if I read the above with a scottish accent in my mind a picture of a certain man would appear in front of me! ;-)
You would think so, wouldn’t you. However, they’ve taken a rock solid scientific phenomena and dumbed it down to such a degree that most people (including nearly every dealer I’ve met) feel that “Tune Dem” is a poor marketing slogan dreamt up by a HiFi manufacturing charlatan!

I do wonder if this is due to:

1. Forget customers or dealers, not even “The Marketing Dept” understand Tune Dem!
2. The marketing team feel they have to justify their cost, so they dream up ever ridiculous “Marketing Plans” and somehow manage to convince people who should know better to go along with it.

To turn a pitch based model of assessment (complete with hundreds, if not thousands of peer reviewed experiments to support it) into what most people feel is a charlatans ramblings has to be the HiFi marketing fail of the century!

EDIT. It’s just occurred to me that my ramblings might look like a regurgitation of the marketing material fed to us over the last 40 years or so. However, whilst I’ve been using Tune Dem since the 80’s, I’ve also been of the opinion that it was a very clever idea, dreamt up by a HiFi company, which just happened to work. It’s only very recently I’ve discovered that it’s a true scientific phenomena and therefore much more than just a marketing ploy. The fact that it’s taken even a “believer” 30 years to fully understand its value indicates just what a marketing failure it’s been! It’s not a belief, it’s not even open to debate. It’s a scientific fact! Just google inharmonicity, pitch, timbre, harmonic dissonance, spaciality, research. There are more research papers than one can shake ones proverbial stick at!
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Charlie1 »

I believe I'm actually happy with my main system (and 2nd system for that matter). Is this possible? No doubt I will not be able to resist the occasional 2nd hand purchase (out of curiosity) but the last year's changes and taking funds out of the system have worked out really well, financing another system so I can listen to more music and adding to our bank balance.

It's taken a lot of effort and various purchases, but I feel I can settle down with this now. Thanks to all here for their valuable feedback. It's been the most useful thread ever! I know my taste isn't everyone's choice by a long shot but I appreciate the acceptance. For some unknown reason I'm sharing Sister Sledge to mark the moment...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qoqh6cu78cw0m ... 2.MOV?dl=0

Stay Funky People!
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by beck »

When we have found out what to listen for to get true enjoyment out of this hobby everything is possible.

We just have to open our own ears and listen. It is that simple (but very hard until we get there).

Stay funky! :-)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by tokenbrit »

Charlie1 wrote: 2019-03-13 21:38 I believe I'm actually happy with my main system (and 2nd system for that matter).

For some unknown reason I'm sharing Sister Sledge to mark the moment...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qoqh6cu78cw0m ... 2.MOV?dl=0

Stay Funky People!
Does that vid mean you have settled on the 'Shenanigans' over the Kans? Not Sledging you if you have... they seem a funky choice; appropriately enough ;) Your system; your ride - thanks for inviting us along. Good to have things in balance, esp the bank :)
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Charlie1 »

Yes, settled on the Shenanigans :). They sound a bit strange in clips. I'm not sure if this is becasue the sound is not directed straight at the smartphone, or whether they really do sound like that all the time but I only notice it through clips. Anyway, I enjoy what they do so doesn't really matter.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Spannko »

Loving all your shenanigans too, charlie1!

I was expecting “We are family”, which would’ve been quite appropriate!
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by Spannko »

After going to the HiFi Wigwam Show this weekend, I’ve become intrigued by the idea of building a pair of speakers. After hearing what you guys (on the forum) have said, combined with my own experiences, I think that something along the lines of a ported 2 way with 10” (250mm) bass & 1” (25mm) treble with 90dB + sensitivity.

Just for fun, and to give you an idea what can be done, here’s a video of some diy speakers using drive units salvaged from an old car!

https://youtu.be/X25-d5KUZbM

PS. I’ve got some vintage MS’s with the same bass units Naim used in the SBL’s. Hmm, I feel another project coming on! Apparently, all I need is a Brummagem Screwdriver and I’m good to go!

PPS. If I can’t find my Brummagem Screwdriver, then I’ll have to use a lumpomma!
Last edited by Spannko on 2019-03-18 13:08, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by beck »

Spannko wrote: After going to the HiFi Wigwam Show this weekend, I’ve become intrigued by the idea of building a pair of speakers. After hearing what you guys (on the forum) have said, combined with my own experiences, I think that something along the lines of a ported 2 way with 10” (250mm) bass & 1” (25mm) treble with 90dB + sensitivity.
Interesting. Do you have any comments on what you heard at the show?
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Re: Playground for practical listening exercices

Post by beck »

Spannko wrote: Sorry beck, I prefer your old Klyde too. The AT still appears to have that typical AT of old impressive but slightly unmusical sound which I’ve never really liked.
You are a wise man Spannko! :-)

Now the AT has settled in and is ”sounding” great the above is my impression exactly. Seems like Linn carts are the only way to go from here.
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