Thank you very much for providing that. Though sadly a 78db scale lacks good resolution for my eyes to be precise, it does seem that they used 6db as a cut-off to get the speaker to rate "75Hz".
I am referring to a speaker very similar response patterns at on and off axis, all the way around the speaker, encompassing 360 degrees, or most of this range so far as critical room loading is concerned.
OK. The speakers you mentioned don't seem to fit that bill at all. Is it just my reading? Did you move between two different recommendations ("either this speaker or, as another option, 'omnipolar'")?
The Morrison speaker used top firing mid-range and tweeter. The drivers fire into wave diffusors(half spheres). The frequency response at any horizontal angle (from 0 to 360 degrees) around the speaker will be very similar at any point as a result.
It was actually his website that got me into my ranty mode on pro-omni in the first place. My field is computers. I've spent a lot of time in how artificial envyronments are created... and sound and light have a great deal in common here in createing 3D. I think the biggest "BS" reaction I gave was over the requirement that one must use two mics to get stereo, and that an envyronment can never be recreated from (my words), "waveforms and proccessing".
My more on-topic position I stated in my initial response, and I suspect will be elaborating on below.
You can get clear, non-realistic presentation with little spatial effect and poor timbrel resolution from headphones of traditional type. If you use a headphone with extreme transducer positioning ability(AKG K1000 as an example), you can almost replicate the sound field of a near-field speaker system(still far from ideal). If you add complex DSP processing coupled with personalized/customized HRTF sets for an individual's ear structure, you can get realistic space effect from a headphone(you still have other problems to deal with like lack of physical body vibration at lower mid and bass frequencies); though I don't know of any consumer available units that have this capability within ideal limits yet. But such systems have been used in credible perceptual research to determine loudspeaker and room interface issues before, actually.
I was with you at the beginning of that and then you lost me. I agree that the drivers in headphones are inferior... but it's not the ability to imitate the "power" of the wave that I'm discussing.
My comment on your comment (and indeed, on the omni-directional-speaker in general) had been that, one need not use walls to create ecchos in order to get a sound as originally created. In point of fact, room acustics will always *modify* the original sound. Perhaps in pleasent ways. Perhaps in ways that offset modifications from the speaker. But always modified.
Then you spoke of ear-shape. Yes, ears channel sounds slightly differently, so may introduce very short timing changes relative to direction; but I doubt that such timing changes (representing distances of around an inch) create a signifigant difference in positioning.
I suppose the other possible conclusion on why ear-shape would effect a difference between a sound acutally coming from behind you and one coming from the side but being faked to be behind you is that different ears baffle different directions differently (we don't all hear the same, but our brains have been trained to our specific ear).
Again, from an academic perspective this may be valid. However, to call this a disadvantage over any speaker system (other than one which physically surrounds you with speakers from a source with as many mics (real or vitrual), would not appear valid. Since omni-directional speakers don't throw specific sounds at specific walls, they suffer the same problem as our headphones above but to a bigger degree.
Could you adjust a room for your own ears by adjusting the accustics? Sure. But you could adjust the headphones by changing the delay, volume, and EQ for sounds coming from different directions as well.. and in any a case I suspect the differences are well below a threshold of notice relevent to this discussion.
Also, don't make the mistake of thinking I don't know what a good headphone is; I have used many of the upper end headphones on the market, as well as having experience with measurement/analysis of headphones.
Between your number of posts and stated hobby, I have no doubt that you have a great bredth of exposure to all sorts of AV equipment... one which likely far exceeds my own. Please don't interprete my post as personal... not even the last part of the previous post which was really an attack on an appeal to authority logical fallacy.
First, no one is talking about random 'bouncing around the room' effect. The desirable outcome is controlled reflection points and room reverberation; in order to target ideal balance for sound quality in respect to a speaker with identical on and off axis response patterns.
I never said random.
Let's assume I've just put a pair of mics in a cathedral and recorded a piece. All of the reverberations, delays, ecchos, etc are recorded on my master. If I point two uni-point, uni-directional speakers capable of a perfect reproduction of the sound hitting the mics (which we presume perfectly recorded) in a room with 100% sound absorption in all directions and no background sounds, you should not be able to tell it from live (earshape already discussed).
Any variance at all from that is a variance from live.
Some times that change is desireable. Our rooms aren't 100% absorbant, and our speakers are not perfect, and our heads not locked ridgidly in the "sweet spot". I love, for example, properly positioned planar speakers for teir tendancy to put pretty equal volume levels throughout a space.
Actually, according to credible perceptual texts, when the delay/reverb exceeds the room's inherant reverb(which is always very short - and a performance hall will have much longer delay times), the longest delay is the one that is primary in perception; the brain tends to remove the shorter delay from the primary auditory perception process - so long as that short delay falls within a specific time window(generally between 5-10msec). In such capacity, if the 1st reflected signal fits in this window, and is very similar to the on axis response, it acts as an effective phantom channel that enhances the audibility of timbre and increases perceived sound quality. The audibility of timbre was originally discovered in relation to the room acoustic properties an off axis response in: "The Modification of Timbre by Resonances: Perception and Measurement", Floyd Toole, Sean Olive, JAES, Vol. 36, No. 3, 1988, March, pages 122-141
I'm looking for the part in there where it says "the sound hitting the ears is more similar to what sound would hit the ears in the actual setting in which the music was recorded".
See my previous comment for why wall-reflections might be preferred.
"Viewed in total, the indications are that reflections and reverberation improve the ability to hear small timbral features in impulsive and transient sounds due to nondelayed medium and low Q resonances. In music production this might help explain why listeners clearly prefer loudspeakers with the smoothest and flattest frequency responses, those with the fewest resonances. The fact that loudspeakers with similarly good performance both on and off axis are preferred to those exhibiting irregular response away from the principal axis is especially important. These off-axis sounds account for much of the reflected sound field in the listening room. By providing the listener with a temporal sequence of near replicas of the direct sound, they appear to lead to a further perceptual enhancement of timbrel subtleties, whether they are in the program material(good) or added by the loudspeaker(bad)."
This is simply one highly credible text dealing with the effect on human auditory perception of reflections. There are many - but I have no desire to spend lots of time covering these basic texts with you.
But did you *read* what you cited?
My read of that is "given that all speakers reflect sound: one which reflects a sound close to the original is preferred to one which reflcets distorted sound". I think that is obvious, and unless you live in a room with no reflections at all, I agree that off-axis response (how good it is, not that it's present) is always important.
Your statement ignores the real issues dealing with recording of information and de-coding of these recordings.
Get to the ears (and body) of the listener the same stimulatoins that would have gotten there in a real envyronment? What did I miss?
Many of the so-called professionals appear to be ignorant of the very perceptual research that can aid them in designing superior speaker systems. Is their ignorance an excuse to build/design inferior systems?
So then you agree with me that the appeal to authority ("I build these things") is fallacious?
