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Classical Court From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here. |
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Classical Court From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here. |
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In Reply to: You flatter yourself if you think your opinions are science posted by Chris from Lafayette on September 7, 2019 at 19:15:09:
> Actually, I was the one who quoted the scientific papers above - and I don't know how much more wrong you can be about Disney Hall.
Based on what? Your experience testing the sound of Disney Hall from various sections of the hall? Based on actual objective data about Disney Hall? Other than a basic formula that takes no consideration of the unique acoustics of Disney Hall what do you base that opinion on?
> > From the first balcony [of Davies Hall] the orchestra sounds like it's about 200 feet away and a solo piano sounds like a toy piano that was never taken out of the box
> Wow! That's the way you hear things? I'll leave the absurdity of that quote to speak for itself.
Oh I see, so everyone's personal memories of their experience with live acoustic music is an objective reference for accuracy in judging audio...except my experience which is completely so far off base that it doesn't even warrant comment. Talk about some crazy moving goal posts...
> > OTOH at Disney hall the frequency response from the back of the hall is virtually the same as the front and mid hall to the sides is where you will get the highest ratio of high frequencies
> Another quote I should leave to speak for itself. The further sound travels, the more it loses volume (duh!) - but it loses its high frequencies first. Here's a little thought experiment for you: next time you're in your car, and a car with a ghetto blaster audio system passes you by, what do you hear? Sure, they've got the bass jacked up to infinity, but the closer you get the blaster, the more you can hear the highs. How do you explain that?
mid hall to the sides is where you will get the highest ratio of high frequencies
Are you seriously comparing the unique acoustics of Disney Hall to two cars passing by each other on the open road? I will let that speak for itself
> And you know this exactly how? You're saying that the projection from the stage is somehow compensating for the universally known property of sound to lose high frequencies as it travels?
I know this by actually having done listening comparisons at Disney Hall with their various Steinway Pianos during the tuning and selection process for a particular friend of mine. I actually went from section to section and listened to her play the piano to help her pick the piano. Now since apparently my personal experience with live music is THE exception to your rule that memories of personal experience is the reference for accuracy for audio I will defer to Mori, the Steinway piano technician for Disney Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. He was the one who pointed out the specific seats in the section we call "the boat" are the seats where the sound is both the loudest and most bright. Buy hey, maybe Mori the expert piano master technician for Steinway is the other exception and has no idea what he is hearing at Disney Hall where he works and has the job of judging the sound of the pianos in Disney Hall.
> You can't possibly judge depth at Disney Hall
I can with my eyes open.
> As with any hall, you can if you're sitting in the right spot. (And you don't need visual cues to do it.)
Yeah you do. Of course this is a typical audiophile belief that their ears are so infallible that they can hear things that scientific research suggest is impossible to hear.
> And that [i.e., Disney Hall's supposed inability to allow for sonic depth perception on the part of the audience] is because it is such damned great acoustic space for concerts
You might want to do some research on concert hall acoustics. One sign of a great hall is greater consistency of sound quality throughout the hall. But, Disney Hall also allows for better sight lines as well as superior acoustics so one can see the depth with amazing clarity. Actually come to think of it perhaps not as much. there is this interesting optical illusion in Disney Hall that makes the stage look closer from much of the hall than it actually is.
> Once again, words fail me! You're claiming that there's no place in Disney Hall where a listener can judge depth?
No that is not my claim. The phenomenon is pretty universal for all concert halls and not unique to Disney. I wish we could test it ourselves under blind conditions. I'd be very willing to wage money that you or anyone else blind folded would be all over the place by ears alone in estimating the distance between yourself and musicians playing on the stage from various seats.
> I'll concede that the further back you sit, the less and less the depth becomes part of your perception - but that's because the distances among the various members of the orchestra are an ever decreasing proportion of the total space within your forward hearing purview. If you're sitting close enough (say, row 5), you will hear depth - no ifs ands or buts.
You will always perceive some sense of depth from any seat in any concert hall. What I am saying is that it won't be accurate. And I would be willing to bet cash that most people would get the distances quite wrong from the first to the fifth row at a piano concerto if they are even a little bit off axis from the center under blind conditions. Yes everyone will perceive some sense of a distance between them and the piano. But most people will get it wrong. the fact is in the first row, particularly off axis in most halls you are missing a lot of the more directional high frequencies which are aimed over your head while the lowere frequencies are being blocked by the stage floor. Piano will sound much more focused and dare I say it, closer from the fifth row off axis than the first row. Of course this also depends on the rake of the concert hall floor.
> > concert halls are unique in that anywhere in a decent to excellent hall the ratio of reflected sound to direct sound one hears is at least 80-20. that is true in the front row as well as the back row and in the better halls the ratios are much more uniform throughout the entire hall. Excellent concert hall acoustics pretty much obliterate those typical cues that we use to judge depth as well as direction.
That is simply wrong - where are getting this?
I got it from one of the many scientific papers I have read on concert hall acoustics. I can't find it now but even this other paper should illustrate it if you look at the various graphs. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/80c1/f8c8d8e1e4b20b1e854aea296d5705170d10.pdf
> Let's do another thought experiment: let's say we've made a minimal microphone recording of an orchestra with the microphones fairly close to the orchestra. Are you claiming that, if such a recording is made in Disney Hall, we won't hear any depth on the recording?
Of course we will. It just won't be accurate to the actual placement of the mics in the hall. We don't need to do the thought experiment. We already have such a recording made by Shefield Labs. https://www.stereophile.com/content/recording-august-1986-sheffield-labs-orchestral-direct-disc-lp
> There are zillions of minimally microphoned recordings, which anyone can play back on their own systems, and which fairly accurately reproduce the depth of the orchestra (with no visual cues!).
Zillions? Actually that Shefield is the only one I know of. Which others were minimal microphoned recordings?
> Anyone here can test this observation for himself with these recordings (RCA Living Stereos, Mercury Living Presence, early EMI's, etc.).
Those weren't minimally microphoned recordings. Maybe compared to the massively multimiked recordings from the 80s by DG but by audiophile label standards those were not minimally microphoned recordings.
> So my question to you is, how come the microphones on these recordings can reproduce depth when you claim there's no depth to be reproduced?
That's easy, Stereo imaging is an aural illusion. A result of microphone techniques that work in tandem with stereo playback. It's like asking how a magician can possibly cut a woman in half and she lives. After all we see it with our own eyes. I have never said we don't get a sense of depth with stereo recording and playback. We do! Much more so than we get with actual live music. We need it. It compensates for the actual lack of visual cues that dominate our sense of imaging in live performances. One of the many reasons literal accuracy is not the goal of audio
> > Again I have to ask myself who do I believe, the scientific research or Chris? Once again I am going with science.
> And yet, I'm the one who quoted the scientific papers, one of which EXPLICITLY stated that depth can be perceived even on mono recordings - a statement which you're STILL disputing! Geez, this is getting tedious.
And yet as tedious as it may be for you you still haven't watched the video of JJ Johnston, one of the world's foremost accomplished scientific researchers in psychoacoustics talk about aural memory and other issues. What is tedious is people who argue against a large body of scientific research and refuse to look at it.
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- RE: You flatter yourself if you think your opinions are science - Analog Scott 09/8/1909:36:40 09/8/19 (0)
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