Where Does Clarity Come From?

[Ian Eales]

@ linear phase:

Perhaps it's a matter of conditioning or definition.

Since I was a toddler, I was exposed to live performances by military bands, my mother was a pianist, my father's mono HiFi used a University tri-axial, as a former recording engineer and most recently technical director for a live performance music production non-profit, I've spent a lifetime in live music.

Since the 1970's accurate sound stage reproduction has driven my loudspeaker choices. Early compressed audio ala iPod not played mono on poor systems would make me nauseous.

When I visit audio emporia in large cities, I appalled at the near total lack of coherence even in the most expensive systems. FR is fine but Miles plays a two-foot-wide trumpet and Philly Joe plays a 3-foot hat in the fog in a room with no walls.

If you can't walk up and sit in, clarity is just wishful thinking.

 

[fattire]

That's new for me. I thought that dynamics was inherent to speakers not related to the room and it environment.

"Dynamics" as defined by HAA is the ability of the system to accurately reproduce both the quietest and loudest sounds in content. CEDIA's RP22 doc, which is quickly becoming the industry engineering standard, calls this "Dynamic Range" and has a great definition:

The key is this part "the difference between silence and the loudest burst of sound". The metrics to measure this are the noise floor of the room and the low distortion SPL capability of the equipment. I have been in very few rooms that can reproduce "silence" well. It takes a lot of careful thought and design of literally everything for a room to be truly quiet. Quiet room construction is tedious and difficult. The best room in this regard that I've personally calibrated was a room within a room build. 2x8 exterior walls and ceiling with spray foam insulation, 1" air gap, 2x8 interior walls also fully insulated. The doors to the room entry and equipment room were several hundred pounds each and extremely well sealed. All interior walls and the ceiling were double drywall with green glue on top of hat-clip and channel. Every outlet and light fixture was sealed from behind with acoustic putty. There was no equipment of any kind installed inside the room. There was absolutely zero noise from A/C or other ventilation. I couldn't accurately measure the noise floor as the room's noise floor was lower than that of my measurement equipment.

Producing reference level burst sound at the highest level (111 dB) at the RMP typically requires high sensitivity speakers, but one must have very low noise amps and other components to avoid hiss which compromises the noise floor. Amps need to have sufficient capacitance to sustain voltage and current as long as required by the content.

Long answer and explanation, but it's quite a bit more complex than people realize.

 

[linearphase]

@ linear phase:

Perhaps it's a matter of conditioning or definition.

Since I was a toddler, I was exposed to live performances by military bands, my mother was a pianist, my father's mono HiFi used a University tri-axial, as a former recording engineer and most recently technical director for a live performance music production non-profit, I've spent a lifetime in live music.

Since the 1970's accurate sound stage reproduction has driven my loudspeaker choices. Early compressed audio ala iPod not played mono on poor systems would make me nauseous.

When I visit audio emporia in large cities, I appalled at the near total lack of coherence even in the most expensive systems. FR is fine but Miles plays a two-foot-wide trumpet and Philly Joe plays a 3-foot hat in the fog in a room with no walls.

If you can't walk up and sit in, clarity is just wishful thinking.

Fantastic-Agreed that live performance is the best reference as long as it is unamplified. My wife played in a symphony for 28 years and I recorded them for about half that time mostly use just 2 coincident mics and no processing. Where do you live? If you are interested perhaps I can suggest a reference so we can compare notes.