[abomwell]

My understanding is that back in the days before CD's some recording companies, Decca in particular, added a +5dB boost to the frequency response above 1kHz to compensate for the missing upper frequencies on LP's. When those master tapes were transferred to CD's one ended up with overly bright CD's which were so common in the mid to late '80's. DSP is a great tool to attenuate those overly bright recordings.

Al

[abomwell]

I used to own Kef model R107 Reference speakers in the 80's which I loved because nothing sounded bright on them and everything sounded great! But look here at the frequency response graph of them: https://images.app.goo.gl/nqXWFP5QUPgbDNPw7
Kef knew what they were doing. Look at that huge dip in frequency above 1kHz.

[DannyBadorine]

Nice discussion gents,
I had dinner with the late James Bongiorno at CES many years ago. He was aware of the issues being discussed here and spent quite some time thinking about how to keep a system “purest” and still compensate for these recording differences.

Not an easy task even for an brilliant designer. His unrealized solution was to mount loudspeakers on a robotic sled with programmed positioning for each album in your collection. The sled would adjust loudspeakers toe and listening distance to compensate for this type of perceived balance.

We both laughed and enjoyed the company and the theory discussion that evening knowing it would likely never come to fruition.

Many years later I adopted DSP room correction (Lyngdorf) and placed my speakers close to the back wall. My system like all others is not perfect in room, but adjustable on the fly and the sound on any reasonable recording is everything I could ask for.

There is not one perfect solution for every system and room, but glad to see you guys out there in the bold DSP frontier working on solutions for your systems and rooms. There is no point standing still, acting like the problems in the sound reproduction chain don’t exist.

In this regard, the pro sound guys are way ahead of the average audiophile. Keep the discussion going. 

Cool stuff.  The robotic sled thing is really funny to me, but was probably effective and, at the very least, lots of fun.
I really think there is no perfect system.  So much of this is all perception and opinion.  That's what makes it so fun and gives us reason to constantly try new things and spend too much money on this fabulous hobby.

I would say that the pro sound guys are ahead of everybody in using DSP.  We use a ton of it and that has allowed us to give nearly the same sound to the person in the back row as the front row.  Our systems are so much more effective in dealing with room problems.  But, for me and my home system, there is still no substitute for a purely analog signal path and if that can be achieved for a record player then it's still the best option.  I've worked on the most advanced and most expensive digital consoles in the world, but they still aren't analog.  I've recorded albums in different digital formats for years but it still doesn't sound as good as recording to tape.  But, the digital world offers solutions that we just can't do with analog circuitry.  So, in the end, we have to figure out what works for us.  How do we get those violins and cellos to sound real in our living room.  If it takes some EQ around 3k and that works for our ears then by all means, throw on that EQ, pour yourself a scotch and enjoy the listen. 

[DannyBadorine]

My understanding is that back in the days before CD's some recording companies, Decca in particular, added a +5dB boost to the frequency response above 1kHz to compensate for the missing upper frequencies on LP's. When those master tapes were transferred to CD's one ended up with overly bright CD's which were so common in the mid to late '80's. DSP is a great tool to attenuate those overly bright recordings.

Al

I'm not sure about the specifics on that but I do know that there were different kinds of tape to record to and some tape was brighter than others while some had better low end.  Most high end condenser mic's have boosted high frequencies starting around 3 or 4K.  They also have a better sounding depth.  When you dive into different microphones, different ways to use them, etc. it can be a deep rabbit hole and that all has a lot to do with what we're listening to.  Mixing consoles, microphone preamps, etc. also have that effect. 
When CD's came out the digital technology (specifically the A/D and D/A clocks and converters) were no where near as good as they are now so many of those early recordings done in the mid 90's don't sound as good to me.  There is a substantial difference now.  I was just listening (through Tidal in my car) some stuff from the late 90's today and it was really bright. 
Then came the loudness mastering wars and that made everything so much more compressed and in your face.  There is a ton of digital distortion on the early ones but mastering engineers have gotten so much better at making things loud but maintaining the dynamics. 
So really, there are an infinite number of variables that you're dealing with.  Do you have a well recorded classical record you want to sound good?  That's going to be much different than a heavy metal album made in 2018 and mastered to sound good through a shitty Spotify MP3. 

[abomwell]

Here is an interesting comment by Robert Greene, of The Absolute Sound, pertaining to this topic. It was from his forum.

"A great deal is actually known about how human
hearing and acoustics work. Not everything is known==
human hearing is complex. But a lot is known.
And a whole lot is known about how sound works
in musical performance spaces.
One of the reasons that things are so confused
in audio is that there has been relatively little actual
science done about even such a simple thing as
making the reproduction of a cello, say, sound
like an actual cello in any sense at all, in any
environment under any circumstances.
Most of the live versus tests have been ultimately
intended not to find the defects but to make people
say golly it works. E.g. the AR tests, done in a reverberant
environment. The AR people meant well but they
really wanted to convince people that audio worked
at a time when people did not realize how well it actually
did work
But when one gets down to details, things tend to turn to
mush. Surely it has occurred to people that audio reviewing
as currently practiced is not going to be able to nail down
total detail with any precision. It is too disorganized and there
is way too much dependence on the use of commercial recordings
that one does not really know the sound of
Gross things are quite detectable. And differences are
observable. But absolute rightness is somewhat elusive
even with the best of intentions.
But that does not mean it could not be approached by
more careful work.  It could be , It just isn't because
so few people are really worried about it, about getting
it exactly right.
Actually, I think I have commenced to annoy a lot of
people by pointing out that almost all speakers
need EQ especially within a given room.  I think most
people know this is true, but it seems that they
do not always want to think about it. And surely
not many people are researching the subject---
though some are, mostly the room correction designers.
Progress will happen.
REG

[DannyBadorine]

That's brilliant!  I love it.
For context, imagine this:
You are in a room with a cello.  You put one microphone on it then record it through a preamp.  Then you put that recording onto a CD.  Then it has to go back through a different preamp and out of a speaker into a room.  How do you do that and make it sound the same as being in the room with the cello?   Additionally, when placing a microphone on an instrument, the exact placement of it greatly effects how it sounds. The microphone is only picking it up from one spot unlike how our ears would hear it in a room.  Can you imagine the variables being dealt with?  How do you get it to sound natural in the room?
Now, imagine having an entire drum set or orchestra with every instrument having it's own microphone, but each individual microphone picks up everything else to a varying degree (instrument bleed).  Imagine the phase problems.  Now record that and put it on a CD and into your living room.  Tremendous amounts of EQ and engineering go into this.  There are infinite ways of doing this.  So the end result can be drastically different just like our home stereo systems.

[abomwell]

Right on!

It always puzzled me why anyone can tell the difference between a live instrument vs. a recording of the same instrument, even from another room. For example you can be walking down the sidewalk on a city street and hear a piano being played from a partially opened apartment window. Even though there is street noise, and you aren't in the room, you always know it's a real piano, not a recording of one. Why is that?

I had an aha moment at a NYC audio show many years ago. For two days I listened to audio systems, some of which cost more than my house. And indeed I heard some great sounding "systems".  I was leaving the event at 5:00PM and walking down the hotel corridor when suddenly, from around the corner, I heard some jazz music coming from a partially opened door in one of the display rooms. Even from around the corner it sounded more real than anything I'd heard all day. So I went back to the room from where the music was coming to see what kind of system was being played. I pushed the door open and saw five musicians warming up for their evening performance!!

Al

[Desertpilot]

Right on!

... you always know it's a real piano, not a recording of one. Why is that?

Al

Sad but true.  Think about it.  Each instrument has its own build and sound.  In fact, the sound of certain older instruments is so profound that many classical artists are loaned the instrument for a period of time.  Now look at what we are asking a speaker to do, reproduce each of these instruments and sound identical.  Impossible!

Marcus

[DannyBadorine]

Right on!

It always puzzled me why anyone can tell the difference between a live instrument vs. a recording of the same instrument, even from another room. For example you can be walking down the sidewalk on a city street and hear a piano being played from a partially opened apartment window. Even though there is street noise, and you aren't in the room, you always know it's a real piano, not a recording of one. Why is that?

I had an aha moment at a NYC audio show many years ago. For two days I listened to audio systems, some of which cost more than my house. And indeed I heard some great sounding "systems".  I was leaving the event at 5:00PM and walking down the hotel corridor when suddenly, from around the corner, I heard some jazz music coming from a partially opened door in one of the display rooms. Even from around the corner it sounded more real than anything I'd heard all day. So I went back to the room from where the music was coming to see what kind of system was being played. I pushed the door open and saw five musicians warming up for their evening performance!!

Al

I love that story.  We just know when it's real.  But some recordings are so damn close sometimes.

[DannyBadorine]

Sad but true.  Think about it.  Each instrument has its own build and sound.  In fact, the sound of certain older instruments is so profound that many classical artists are loaned the instrument for a period of time.  Now look at what we are asking a speak to do, reproduce each of these instruments and sound identical.  Impossible!

Marcus

It is impossible!  But there are so many amazing ways that we can try to get as close as possible.  That's the fun of it, from the recording engineer all of the way to the speaker engineer to the subjective opinion of the person listening.

[abomwell]

Below is another comment by Robert Greene. I find this interesting and supports the DSP discussed in this thread:

"Personally I think
that many audiophiles just do not like the way
live music sounds. I have encountered this so often
although I do not have a ""statistical sample".
I think audiophilia has developed a comprehensive
set of impulses that have little to do with actual music.
One is too much treble. Another is that a lot of them
actually LIKE the hole between 100 and 300 Hz--- they
say it makes the sound transparent.
Of course,musically , by the standard of live music,
this is a total disaster, and it is compounded by the
fact that close miking or more precisely dry recording
reduces energy in this region(and lower down too)
because the reverberant field has more energy
in lower frequencies than in midrange -- and way more
than in the treble. (the former in a good hall, the latter
in any hall at all because of air absorption)
In fact one of the better things you can do for many recordings
and most systems is to introduce some loudness compensation
even at normal listening levels.
(Another good thing to try is to introduce loudness compensation
fully and actually play the recordings at a rather lower level.
THis actually tends to produce something like concert hall
impression in a variety of ways)
Yet another thing worth looking into is backing off 1-2 kHz and
really backing off 3 kHz The former was recommended by Dudley
Harwood in the Wireless World article we had a link to a bit ago.
The latter is recommended by Linkwitz on his website, as a compensation for
the ears increased sensitivity to diffuse field when it is flipped
to all in front. by stereo.

[DannyBadorine]

Below is another comment by Robert Greene. I find this interesting and supports the DSP discussed in this thread:

"Personally I think
that many audiophiles just do not like the way
live music sounds. I have encountered this so often
although I do not have a ""statistical sample".
I think audiophilia has developed a comprehensive
set of impulses that have little to do with actual music.
One is too much treble. Another is that a lot of them
actually LIKE the hole between 100 and 300 Hz--- they
say it makes the sound transparent.
Of course,musically , by the standard of live music,
this is a total disaster, and it is compounded by the
fact that close miking or more precisely dry recording
reduces energy in this region(and lower down too)
because the reverberant field has more energy
in lower frequencies than in midrange -- and way more
than in the treble. (the former in a good hall, the latter
in any hall at all because of air absorption)
In fact one of the better things you can do for many recordings
and most systems is to introduce some loudness compensation
even at normal listening levels.
(Another good thing to try is to introduce loudness compensation
fully and actually play the recordings at a rather lower level.
THis actually tends to produce something like concert hall
impression in a variety of ways)
Yet another thing worth looking into is backing off 1-2 kHz and
really backing off 3 kHz The former was recommended by Dudley
Harwood in the Wireless World article we had a link to a bit ago.
The latter is recommended by Linkwitz on his website, as a compensation for
the ears increased sensitivity to diffuse field when it is flipped
to all in front. by stereo.

Great quote. 

[Tyson]

Great quote. 

True, but maybe not entirely fair.  We all hear differently.  And how we hear even changes within our selves as we age.   So FR preferences for one person will not be exactly the same as for another person, even when both of them use 'live unamplified music' as their standard. 

[abomwell]

That is so true, Tyson. I find that, for some reason, as my high frequency hearing deteriorates with age I'm far more sensitive to any harshness and stridency around 3kHz than I was before.

Al

[DannyBadorine]

True, but maybe not entirely fair.  We all hear differently.  And how we hear even changes within our selves as we age.   So FR preferences for one person will not be exactly the same as for another person, even when both of them use 'live unamplified music' as their standard.

Absolutely.  It's so subjective.  And, our ears all have a different frequency response from each other.  Our ability to locate a sound has to do with how the sound bounces off of our ear and goes into the canal.  Since we all have different anatomy our preferences are clearly shaped by it.  There are so many variables!

[Mr. Big]

We all have our idea of good sound, mine was formed in the early '80s with tube gear, that stays in my head till this day. The other great experience was a Threshold 400A SS amp, it was unreal sounding on Telarc records with an Audio research SP3A for a preamp. No fancy power cords or conditioners, and the music produced was out of this world good. Go figure.

[DannyBadorine]

We all have our idea of good sound, mine was formed in the early '80s with tube gear, that stays in my head till this day. The other great experience was a Threshold 400A SS amp, it was unreal sounding on Telarc records with an Audio research SP3A for a preamp. No fancy power cords or conditioners, and the music produced was out of this world good. Go figure.

Would you say that you respond more to how music sounds or how it feels? 

[doggie]

We all have our idea of good sound, mine was formed in the early '80s with tube gear, that stays in my head till this day. The other great experience was a Threshold 400A SS amp, it was unreal sounding on Telarc records with an Audio research SP3A for a preamp. No fancy power cords or conditioners, and the music produced was out of this world good. Go figure.

I am the same way. I still fondly remember having a Conrad Johnson PV3, a Hafler 220 amp and some Spica speakers. Also in the 80's. I wonder what I would think if I heard them now?

Would you say that you respond more to how music sounds or how it feels?

For me the question suggests that those two things are easily separated. Perhaps they exist on a continuum?

I know that if I am feeling the music I am closer to enjoyment that if I am listening to the sound/system.

Having said that, the nerd in me does enjoy experimenting to see what can actually get me to the "Happy Place".

Unfortunately once I arrive at a configuration that I really enjoy I eventually start plotting to see if I can still improve it.

Hi. I am Paul. I am an Audiophile.

[Mr. Big]

My system should move me, make you sit back and just enjoy the performance, the talent, and of course how real some things can sound, and once in a while a surprise of a recording you may not have played in a few years and on saying my new Sapphires M3's I hear the playback sound so different than when I last played that recording, then you really hear the change in your system from the last time you listened to that recording, and I know my recordings like the back of my hand, Even back in my LP days I had a good sound memory, to me with the Sapphires the music has taken on an in-room live feel to it, my Quads made you feel like you are your hearing a good recording, things sounded neat and in place, more like looking into the recording which was their biggest strength, of course, no crossovers, tweeters, mid-range drivers or woofers, there was a purity to it due to its design, but never made you feel like the M3's can do. I love them both for different reasons, but the Quads you would not want to push them like you can with the Spatial Audio without fear of damaging them, not that I play at ear-deafening levels but is nice to crank up without the worry of arcing the speakers and damaging them. I owned the Dynaudio Confidence 5's for a long while also, they were somewhere between the Quads and Sapphires M3's. Could don tone well and had dynamics but they were a box speaker and sound also came from them, you knew speakers were in the room, powerful bass though if you used the 4ohm tap on my McIntosh Amp. To me, Spatial Audio speakers sound more like a panel speaker than a dynamic driver speaker. Good stuff.