[Florian]

That's part of our Save The Listener initiative. Stereo systems are now designed to properly process good music, but distort market-driven, mass produced pop and rock. If you think what happened to Madonna was scary, don't risk a boy band or anything by young blond female singers of any sort. Not if you like your speakers, anyway. *noddle*

---
"Which video is next?"
"Britney Spears."
"Um... are you gonna turn the speakers on?"
"Why would I do that?"

Hehehe, damn boy bands and blond bimbos. I which i would have been born in the good old days. Now i need to spend huge amounts of money that take me back in that time  

[Florian]

So you changed three things at once, speaker connection phase at the amp, left/right channel swap at amp and left/right channel swap at the CD player.  What happens if you try each of these item independently?  Are you saying that only switching the phase and not switching the channels twice does not give the same results?

Exactly, this is the ONLY way that it works.

Switching of speaker cables at binding posts (left+right)
Switching phase on BOTH speakers
Switching CDP cables to restore the right balance

[Florian]

May be due to toe-in differences or distance to the listening position difference.  Measure this with a tape-measure.  Also, if the speakers are not symmetrical in the room, this can easily cause this.

The speakers are diled in by the millimeter and when using my strange cabling technique all is awsome. Absolutly dead on center with a soundstage and realism to die for. I really feel like i am in a concert hall or smoky bar. Everyone who is close to me should come buy and experience this  

[nathanm]

Pure guess on my part, but my thought is that this is a hyper-compressed recording.  This article here seems to suggest something along those lines:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jul03/articles/rmehammerfall.asp

When OVS is enabled in Digicheck you can see the level the original material had before it was clipped, so I decided to check this out with the 'American Life' track from Madonna's recent album of the same name as a good example of a modern CD release. When OVS was disabled, the peak meters showed the signal peaking at 0dBFS, and with OVS enabled, the peak meters showed the signal peaking at over 2dBFS. Since OVS doesn't change the display of valid digital data, Matthias recommends leaving OVS activated, except when checking final masters for overs when preparing a Red Book-compatible CD.

[Florian]

Pure guess on my part, but my thought is that this is a hyper-compressed recording.  This article here seems to suggest something along those lines:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jul03/articles/rmehammerfall.asp

This is interesting, it also happens with some of my Diana Krall and LoreenaMcKinnet CD's. Why would this be a problem on my Unison but not on my Rega?

-Flo

PS: Interesting article by the way.

[_scotty_]

Florian. maybe there is some kind of problem with your Unision.
Can you get a second sample of the Unision and see if the problem is still present .
I have almost all of Loreena McKinnet's  CDs and none of them appear to have distortion during playback through my system.
Good luck tracking down the problem.  Scotty

[dave_c]

Pure guess on my part, but my thought is that this is a hyper-compressed recording.  This article here seems to suggest something along those lines:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jul03/articles/rmehammerfall.asp

This is interesting, it also happens with some of my Diana Krall and LoreenaMcKinnet CD's. Why would this be a problem on my Unison but not on my Rega?

-Flo

PS: Interesting article by the way.

Do you have the phase issue with other sources too?  Maybe the RCA outpouts are connected out of phase internally.

[ekovalsky]

I listen to Loreena McKennitt pretty frequently and image is dead center.  I agree the problem must be somewhere in the player or the cables.  

The Divas don't beam badly at all.  The midrange ribbon covering most of the vocal range is almost 6' tall and about 1" wide.  The tweeter ribbon is only about 0.25" wide and has great horizontal dispersion.  I guess the upper frequencies from the bass panels could beam, but as it is so wide it doesn't present a problem.

Thsi reminds me of a CD I was recently listening to, which was a bit strange in that the female vocal on one track started off to the left and seemed a bit recessed.  As the track went on the vocal moved slowly to the right and became had an increasingly forward presence.  I figured it was some funny business in the mix, but later I saw the DVD of same and realized the woman was actually very slowly walking down the stage, which was filled with a bunch of other people, and coming towards the audience.  So the recording was spot on!

[_scotty_]

ekovalsky,was she carrying a hand held mic  during her stroll on stage.
Scotty

[ekovalsky]

ekovalsky,was she carrying a hand held mic  during her stroll on stage.
Scotty

No, there were some stationary mics and she was wearing an earpiece mic too.  The producers did a nice job on the sound mix.

PS - how do like the Teton GS ?  Very, very nice speakers!!!  Rare too.  Gorgeous maine coon kitty, looks just like my Brutus  

[Florian]

Yeah its the Unison  When i use my Rega everything is dead on center who Peter Frampton moves a bit on stage  

The Unison uses 2 tubes in balanced and 1 tube in unbalanced mode and since its worse in balanced mode i am highly suspecting the tubes. New ones are comming.

Thanks

Flo

[_scotty_]

I wondered if the apparent motion was induced by panning. My Broadway cast recordings of Camlot and My Fair Lady also have motion due to movement across the stage during a scene.
As far as the Tetons are concerned my wife and  I are very pleased with their looks and performance. I don't encourage Willie to camp out on top of them on a regular basis. I keep his claws clipped short to reduce the danger of scratches as I can't stop him from seeking the high ground once in a while.
This is off topic but I wondered if you have noticed bass extension to well below 20Hz results in better sounding high frequency reproduction? I think it does, but this is anecdotal  evidence at best. I have heard the bass definition improve when greater high frequency response is present as well.
Scotty

[Florian]

I did read somewhere that High Frequency Waves have effect on lower ones as well. On my Very Best of Meat Loaf recording he moves too, and its one of the things i really like about a good system. The imense amount of information which is hidden in a recording and the unrevealing of it.

 

[_scotty_]

Florian, glad you tracked down the problem and it appears to have a simple solution.
As far as I can see the only down side to high fidelity playback of pop music that you hear the cumulative effects some of the stupidest decisions ever made.
When you can hear the layering of effect upon effect on top of the underlying  vocal sometimes you wonder why they bothered to record the person at all.
Frequently  there is no vocal talent present underneath the special effects.
Scotty

[Florian]

Definetly true. I have a very good Test CD here with unamplified and non-filtered voices, and its scary how shitty they sound compared to what your used to with pop music. But sounds real  

[doug s.]

So you changed three things at once, speaker connection phase at the amp, left/right channel swap at amp and left/right channel swap at the CD player.  What happens if you try each of these item independently?  Are you saying that only switching the phase and not switching the channels twice does not give the same results?

Exactly, this is the ONLY way that it works.

Switching of speaker cables at binding posts (left+right)
Switching phase on BOTH speakers
Switching CDP cables to restore the right balance

it has to be your amp - do a stick figure dwg of cdp/amp/speakers in both configurations. channel of cdp is the same at each speaker in both configurations; the amp channel switches from one speaker to the other in each configuration...

your amp likely has a small gain imbalance that is amplified by the room shape/layout. switching amp channels corrects it. phase has nothing whatsoever to do w/it - phase on recordings is not at all consistent & changes, even from track to track on the same cd or winyl.... i bet if you change the l/r connections of cdp-to-amp, & amp-to-speakers, you will get the same results, w/o changing phase of speaker wire.

regards,

doug s.

[Florian]

Ok this took me 2 hrs to draw in paint

The right side of the picture shows the hookup that solves my problem. The left side is the correct hookup where the image is off center.

-Flo

[doug s.]

Ok this took me 2 hrs to draw in paint

The right side of the picture shows the hookup that solves my problem. The left side is the correct hookup where the image is off center.

-Flo

two hours?  you have WAY too much time on yer hands!    i would suspect that if you kept the channels reversed, but made the phase normal, you would still have your problem solved, since phase is software-dependent.

regards,

doug s.

[Florian]

Is there a automatic phase checker that inverts the phase depening on software?

-Flo

[doug s.]

Is there a automatic phase checker that inverts the phase depening on software?

-Flo

i don't see how this could possibly work.  i don't see how you could determine whether or not something was recorded in phase.

my preamp has a phase reversal switch.  i never use it.

doug s.