jkenny
Full Member
Posts: 83
About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
http://Ciunas.biz
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Post by jkenny on Mar 28, 2020 5:52:55 GMT 10
I also came across Soundbloke on DIYA who mentioned the phrase "bispectral analysis" as a way forward in a type of measurement which may well reveal factors in the soundfield which existing measurements are not revealing. Bispectral analysis is a method of signal processing that quantifies the degree of phase coupling between the components of a signal not currently typically measured. This measurement technique has application in other areas such as analysis of EEG signal. link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01618421But the term originated with Micheal Gerzon, the genius behind ambisonics & in researching it a bit I came across this thesis (based on Gerzon's idea) which is a good read "Polyspectral Analysis of Musical Timbre" www.cse.huji.ac.il/labs/learning/Theses/Dubnov_PhD.pdfSo my takeaway is that our replay systems need to be able to accurately portray both long range correlated fluctuations & at the other end of the scale, short term micro-fluctuations in order for it to be perceived as more natural sounding. I see this as the bleeding edge of audio reproduction as I named this thread. I've said before that this is one of the characteristics of music reproduction that captures our interest/attention & keeps it - I reckoned that this was mainly because there was more texture in the sounds - this texture may well be the portrayal of micro-fluctuations? When systems only portray all the right notes in the right place, it can lead to systems which we lose interest in listening to. I also believe that the portrayal of these factors is mainly to be found in the source components - amplifiers, speakers & rooms affect different, unrelated aspects of the sound
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jkenny
Full Member
Posts: 83
About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
http://Ciunas.biz
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Post by jkenny on Mar 28, 2020 6:24:08 GMT 10
Richard (Abraxalito, Opus101) mentioned to me recently that he was looking at a Youtube video about the conductor Celibidache - his performances are almost always slower than mainstream ones. In the video he berates a conducting student for not listening to the orchestra carefully enough - 'Don't you hear? They're not listening to each other!' in another part of the video he mentions to members of an orchestra he was conducting 'We're not machines - you violins aren't interacting with the ....." I reckon this is the same sort of phenomena - when playback is not portraying the micro-fluctuations, it won't portray the LRC stuff either - all the notes in the right place but the long range temporal correlation is missing - the choric effect is missing - they are not playing as a team. And this paper, although peripheral is nonetheless touching on the same topic "The averaged inter-brain coherence between the audience and a violinist predicts the popularity of violin performance" www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920301427?dgcid=rss_sd_all
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sandyk (RIP Alex, 1939 - 2021)
Global Moderator
Posts: 226
About Me: Retired ex Principal Telecommunications Technical Officer with 43 years at Telstra (Australia)
I am also a Moderator in Hi Fi Critic Forum
Electronics hobbyist for >65 years with DIY projects including Loudspeakers, Stereo FM tuner, S/W Regen Receiver, Superhet AM ,
Synchrodyne PLL AM tuner (Phase Lock Loop),Stereo Tape Deck, Amplifiers including I.C. types, Class A, Class AB 100W/Ch. (ETI5000) 240W/Ch. Mosfet (AEM6000) ,several DACs , numerous PSUs including VERY low noise (<4uV) types etc.for myself and friends
Audio Industry Affiliation: NIL
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Post by sandyk (RIP Alex, 1939 - 2021) on Mar 28, 2020 7:17:00 GMT 10
I also came across Soundbloke on DIYA who mentioned the phrase "bispectral analysis" as a way forward in a type of measurement which may well reveal factors in the soundfield which existing measurements are not revealing. Bispectral analysis is a method of signal processing that quantifies the degree of phase coupling between the components of a signal not currently. This measurement technique has application in other areas such as analysis of EEG signal. link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01618421But the term originated with Micheal Gerzon, the genius behind ambisonics & in researching it a bit I came across this thesis (based on Gerzon's idea) which is a good read "Polyspectral Analysis of Musical Timbre" www.cse.huji.ac.il/labs/learning/Theses/Dubnov_PhD.pdfSo my takeaway is that or replay systems need to be able to accurately portray both long range correlated fluctuations & at the other end of the scale, short term micro-fluctuations in order for it to be perceived as more natural sounding. I see this as the bleeding edge of audio reproduction as I named this thread.I've said before that this is one of the characteristics of music reproduction that captures our interest/attention - I reckoned that this was mainly because there was more texture in the sounds - this texture may well be the portrayal of micro-fluctuations? When systems only portray all the right notes in the right place, it can lead to systems which we lose interest in listening to. I also believe that the portrayal of these factors is mainly to be found in the source components - amplifiers, speakers & rooms affect different, unrelated aspects of the sound Yes, Bleeding Edge indeed , and worthy of far greater investigation.
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Post by ROWUK on Apr 3, 2020 1:10:07 GMT 10
Hi John, the CD is here, but I did not get a chance to listen to it yet. I will post soon!
As far as time and musicians go, it is everything but random. Changes in timbre, time or intensity are all used to moderate “tension” in the musical line. We actually teach this.
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jkenny
Full Member
Posts: 83
About Me: Audio equipment designer forever in pursuit of more realistic & engaging music reproduction purely because of the extra enjoyment of music created by such reproduction.
http://Ciunas.biz
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Post by jkenny on Apr 11, 2020 5:51:10 GMT 10
Hi John, the CD is here, but I did not get a chance to listen to it yet. I will post soon! Great, interested in your impressions Do you find differences in the portrayal of these more subtle aspects of music presentation when using different equipment playback - excluding speakers in this?
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Post by ROWUK on May 8, 2020 4:20:43 GMT 10
As far as time and musicians go, it is everything but random. Changes in timbre, time or intensity are all used to moderate “tension” in the musical line. We actually teach this. Do you find differences in the portrayal of these more subtle aspects of music presentation when using different equipment playback - excluding speakers in this? I find that we use different words and do not always talk about the same thing. Timbre for instance is the basic "color" of the instrument - but instruments have varying capacity to alter that color - based on musical content. A solo trumpet can sound "smokey" in an intimate jazz setting or very raucus and brilliant in a loud symphonic setting. There is no word for this in "audio". We have "tone" and density of tone, but different types of drivers change the proportions of color compared to live. With musical instruments we also have "articulation" which can be a very soft beginning of a note or a very hard attack (and everything in between). It can also mean how we treat the duration of the individual notes. Articulation in audio is more like "separation" of individual notes. I can confirm that different types of playback deal with these aspects dramatically different - and not always as our logic would expect. There are systems that tend to sharpen things - but deal with the color afterwards in an acceptable manner. There are other combinations that soften everything. I have heard systems that compress single aspects like color or articulation - but not dynamics as a whole. There are systems that "cloud" the pitch being played - it is hard to hear if the musicians are even playing in tune. There are also systems that portray these factors very colorfully. In this respect, I find LPs to be as hard as speakers to get right. Digital (at least the level of digital that I use) - when not resampling can be VERY good with the primary "flaws" in articulation and "density" of tone.
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