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WanderingKid
Feb 27, 2005

lives here...

Jerry Cotton posted:

Regarding recorded music, there are some records where one needs to turn up the <gasp> loudness knob just to hear all the instruments being played at sensible volumes. If you don't, you'll end up asking the band "hey when did you get a horn section?" after the first live gig you attend and the answer is: "We've always had them". These are almost always self-produced, of course.

The thing about self production is that it can be a blessing and a curse but its all one package, for better or worse.

If you know what you are doing, then you will have more control over how your songs sound when recorded. Production really becomes an extension of your song writing process (which can change how you go about writing songs).

The bad part is that you know at every level how the illusion is constructed, so you don't see it the same way other people see it. Its easy to make errors of judgement or spend alot of time and effort on parts of the mix that in the scheme of things, nobody really cares about except you.

A good way to experience this limbo state is to just have a go yourself. You can get alot of the tools you need via trial/freeware. It is common for bands to sound different live, even if the intention is to recreate (as faithfully as possible) the recorded sound so it is inevitable that some parts of the song will have different emphasis and you will notice some parts more than others compared to the record.

The simple fact is that you can't have everything in a mix with uniform amplitude. If something is getting drowned out then that is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. This is part of the illusion you are trying to create. If you want to draw attention to one sound, you have to recess all the other sounds so they do not compete for the listener's attention. Beyond a few maxims there isn't strictly speaking a list of rules you should adhere to when mixing.

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WanderingKid
Feb 27, 2005

lives here...

longview posted:

It may just be the live mixing is that way in the first place sometimes, but a combination of eq (based on the sound and the known characteristic of the microphone used) and dynamics processing made a big difference in making it sound less flat.

That is normal. If you use an EQ with a drastic low and high shelf you are de emphasising all the bass and treble. So everything sounds like its playing through a telephone. You have just distorted the sound in a very localized way.

If you boost mid range a tonne, it will also sound like its playing through a telephone. It will just be vastly louder until you normalize, so there is an aspect of it which is highly relative.

The point is that if you are listening to a song and the bass drum isn't banging hard enough, you can use an EQ to emphasize certain parts of the drum (and everything else in the mix that "overlaps" the same frequency range). Those EQ settings are specific only to that one song. If you play a different song with a different sounding bass drum then your EQ settings are now useless for the purpose of emphasizing the bass drum because it doesn't have the same emphasis across the same frequency range.

To emphasize this new bass drum, you'll have to change all your EQ settings. If you try to fix mix problems with post processing, you will have to create new post processing settings for every song and theres no guarantee it will work for the intended purpose (since arrangement of sounds in every song is different).

All the EQ I do when mixing my own songs is on a per song basis. This is also the reason why I don't like to change sounds mid mix, because it throws off all your signal processing and automation, which can have far reaching effects.

If I mix a song and decide I don't like the bass drum, so I swap the drum sample for another sample then that creates alot of problems because I mixed everything around that particular sound. All my reactive signal processing has been set up with that sound present. So I have to follow the entire chain of signal processors connected in any way to the bass drum and may have to rework all the settings.

If you find yourself wanting to change specific aspects of a mix after you've mixed it then it is often easier to just start over rather than try to follow the tangle of threads.

In the end a track that has been mixed with an anemic bass drum has some other focal point for the listener's attention. I can't say if that is deliberate or not because I didn't mix it. To me it is what it is and if it ever needed fixing, the proper place to do it is in the mixdown. Once its baked and released, it is what it is, for better or worse. There is some limited correction you can do with EQ to compensate for room modes but thats an acoustic science and has nothing really to do with EQing songs.

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


Socket Ryanist posted:

Why do polarized, non-grounded plugs exist then? (I can count at least half a dozen devices in the room with me that have one of these)
The threaded part of a light bulb base has to be neutral for safety since it's easy to accidentally touch it while unscrewing the bulb. If the switch is on (and who hasn't accidentally changed a light bulb with the switch on at least once?) and touch the metal part of the lamp with your hand or touch anything else that's grounded, you're in for an unpleasant surprise. I agree that metal lamps should be 3-prong, but polarized is the next best thing.

Neurophonic posted:

My new career is going to be snipping off all the gold plated connectors I see and sending them to Cash4Gold.
Boardsort pays $1.60 per pound for them.

longview posted:

Apparently the Audigy series of sound cards had a dynamic range expander built in as one of the main features.

Assuming it was set properly that might help a lot of modern recordings, I've used that to get more life out of concert recordings that were effectively compressed by the microphone overloading. Still wouldn't trust an automatic system to not mess things up though.
There was a plugin for Winamp I used a few years ago that used 4 or 5 parameters controlled by sliders to produce harmonics in an attempt to "reverse" clipping and compression losses. The alleged science behind it was about as realistic as the Lone Gunmen on X-Files sticking a clay pot in a record player and getting a recording of Christ speaking (I think they may have actually referenced that scene in the description,) but with some tweaking to the settings, some stuff did sound a lot better. I mostly used it on obscure old electronic music that wasn't available in anything better than a 64kbps rip of a 20-year-old vinyl. For stuff like crappy basement recordings of metal bands, it just sounded grating.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

GWBBQ posted:

The threaded part of a light bulb base has to be neutral for safety since it's easy to accidentally touch it while unscrewing the bulb. If the switch is on (and who hasn't accidentally changed a light bulb with the switch on at least once?)

I was just taught as a kid never to touch the metal bits when screwing a bulb in or out. That's good enough.

VVV I'm not much of a jumper. Anyway, I do realize accidents happen. The point was that since I can never know what hosed-up wiring there is, I always assume the socket and the metal bit are live.

3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jun 28, 2012

Factory Factory
Mar 19, 2010

This is what
Arcane Velocity was like.

Jerry Cotton posted:

I was just taught as a kid never to touch the metal bits when screwing a bulb in or out. That's good enough.

And then you are surprised, you jump, and you brush the metal. Accidents happen.

Banano
Jan 10, 2005
Soiled Meat
Which is why the bayonet fitting is and always has been superior :britain:

GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


Jerry Cotton posted:

I was just taught as a kid never to touch the metal bits when screwing a bulb in or out. That's good enough.

VVV I'm not much of a jumper. Anyway, I do realize accidents happen. The point was that since I can never know what hosed-up wiring there is, I always assume the socket and the metal bit are live.
Even if everyone follows safety rules perfectly every time, the difference between "can shock someone if they don't follow the safety rules" and "can't shock someone as long as the outlet is wired properly" is a big one.

Gromit
Aug 15, 2000

I am an oppressed White Male, Asian women wont serve me! Save me Campbell Newman!!!!!!!

KillHour posted:

To be fair, I think your job makes your perceptions of how many people look at CP a tad skewed. (Also, I almost typed "skewed" as "SKU'd", so that says something about my job. :psyduck:)

Well, if you believe that the percentage of the population that have pedophillic tendencies is somewhere between 3% and 9% (as per cited doco listed on wikipedia) then that sounds like a greater proportion than there are audiophiles.
But I'll not harp on, as this would be a derail from which no good can arise.

My Yamaha amp has a setting for playback of MP3s and the like called "compressed music enhancer mode". The manual says:

"Enhances your listening experience by regenerating the missing harmonics in a compression artifact. As a result, flattened complexity due to the loss of high-frequency fidelity as well as lack of bass due to the loss of low-frequency bass is compensated, providing improved performance of the overall sound system."

Presumably that's some sort of EQ tweak rather than magic, but I don't know a thing about the subject.

jonathan
Jul 3, 2005

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Gromit posted:

Well, if you believe that the percentage of the population that have pedophillic tendencies is somewhere between 3% and 9% (as per cited doco listed on wikipedia) then that sounds like a greater proportion than there are audiophiles.
But I'll not harp on, as this would be a derail from which no good can arise.

My Yamaha amp has a setting for playback of MP3s and the like called "compressed music enhancer mode". The manual says:

"Enhances your listening experience by regenerating the missing harmonics in a compression artifact. As a result, flattened complexity due to the loss of high-frequency fidelity as well as lack of bass due to the loss of low-frequency bass is compensated, providing improved performance of the overall sound system."

Presumably that's some sort of EQ tweak rather than magic, but I don't know a thing about the subject.

The problem is, with a high quality lossless FLAC file, it still makes it sound more bassy and more mids. If it worked properly, it wouldn't do anything to uncompressed music. I think its a gimmick.

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
A reconstructive algorithm is practically impossible. It wouldn't be able to discern between lost information and intended waveform/frequency content. The SBR algorithm, which "restores" high frequency content in MP3 and AAC, relies on sideband data to function.

Any function in an amp or playback device/software is probably just a multiband compressor.

Gromit
Aug 15, 2000

I am an oppressed White Male, Asian women wont serve me! Save me Campbell Newman!!!!!!!

jonathan posted:

The problem is, with a high quality lossless FLAC file, it still makes it sound more bassy and more mids. If it worked properly, it wouldn't do anything to uncompressed music. I think its a gimmick.

Well, it's one of the modes I can turn on or off, just like "cinema" or "concert" or whatever else of the preset effects it has are. Given that, it will affect absolutely any audio that is put through it while the mode is on. It's not smart and able to detect that the stream is MP3 compressed audio.
I never use any of the audio tweaks this amp has, to be honest. It sits on one setting and that's it. It would be amusing, perhaps, if the cinema mode randomly put the sounds of people coughing and rustling candy wrappers over the audio, but how would it kick the back of my sofa?

Sagacity
May 2, 2003
Hopefully my epitaph will be funnier than my custom title.

Gromit posted:

but how would it kick the back of my sofa?
Subwoofer. :)

WanderingKid
Feb 27, 2005

lives here...

Gromit posted:

My Yamaha amp has a setting for playback of MP3s and the like called "compressed music enhancer mode". The manual says:

"Enhances your listening experience by regenerating the missing harmonics in a compression artifact. As a result, flattened complexity due to the loss of high-frequency fidelity as well as lack of bass due to the loss of low-frequency bass is compensated, providing improved performance of the overall sound system."

Presumably that's some sort of EQ tweak rather than magic, but I don't know a thing about the subject.

Thats a load of handwaving to avoid having to say that your Yamaha receiver has a digital signal processor (DSP) chip in it, which crunches a non programmable suite of sound effects. Honestly, it could be anything and if they wanted you to know what it was, it would be easier for them to just say so.

If I had to guess from the description, I'd say its a multiband harmonic exciter effect which is ehhh. Its basically a (subtle) controlled distortion effect that is frequency dependent, so you can move the bands around and decide how much distortion and phase shift you get in each band. Except its designed for someone who knows nothing about sound design, so they take away all the control and just give you a "wow!" button which you press to turn it on or off. They might give you some presets to cycle through. Shrugs.

And rather than get into the ins and outs of distortion and equalization and phase shift, Yamaha uses vague but strangely appealing language like how wine connoisseurs talk about mahogany overtones. This way, they don't have to explain why you should buy a soundsystem with really low THD and then deliberately add distortion after the fact to make things sound (subjectively) better.

WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jul 4, 2012

Babylonian
Jan 18, 2008
its time for some
sad
dad
posting
This conversation about self-production specifically reminds me of what my brother Porter says about this stuff. He's a pretty huge EDM musician who's constantly encountering stuff like this, and he's coined the term "lofty audio myths" to describe it. He talked about it a lot in old interviews, and he puts it way better than I could:

quote:

EO: What do you use to produce? Any particular hardware or software that you love?
Porter: I use FL Studio. I recommend this program so highly. It generally gets a bad rap because it isn’t unnecessarily esoteric and convoluted, which means it attracts a lot of newbie producers who aren’t good yet. This phenomenon has caused music production elitists to conclude that the program itself is subpar. It’s ludicrous. Don’t subscribe to lofty audio myths. I don’t use any hardware at all. I think approaching hardware in 2010 would be a huge step back.

quote:

Cal: FL Studio has definitely matured over the years. You’re an all software guy right?
Porter Robinson: I think *every* sequencer has matured over the years. (Except pro tools. Hahah.) I’m very much big on software. There are so many lofty audio myths out there with no basis, and I’m not convinced of “analog” as an inherently good thing, and it’s certainly not something worth foregoing the convenience of software over. I’m huge on Sylenth1. Its unison detune is absolutely spectacular sounding. I also find myself using a lot of the simple synth 3xOSC. Lately I’ve grown to use a lot of Sytrus. So a good part of my arsenal are FL-native plugins.

Basically: as hard as people look, it's really, really difficult to find excuses for why your music sounds bad other than that your music sounds bad. Audiophiles are the worst!

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Babylonian posted:

This conversation about self-production specifically reminds me of what my brother Porter says about this stuff. He's a pretty huge EDM musician who's constantly encountering stuff like this, and he's coined the term "lofty audio myths" to describe it. He talked about it a lot in old interviews, and he puts it way better than I could:

Basically: as hard as people look, it's really, really difficult to find excuses for why your music sounds bad other than that your music sounds bad. Audiophiles are the worst!

Ha your brother is Porter Robinson? Awesome, I really dig his work.

Gromit
Aug 15, 2000

I am an oppressed White Male, Asian women wont serve me! Save me Campbell Newman!!!!!!!

Sagacity posted:

Subwoofer. :)

Whilst my sub does a fair job of shaking the seat, I hate to think how beefy it would need to be to really put the boot in like a drunken loon.

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Gromit posted:

Whilst my sub does a fair job of shaking the seat, I hate to think how beefy it would need to be to really put the boot in like a drunken loon.

This fella for some INSANE reason decided to put two Bill Fitzmaurice THT cinema subs in his room. The entire house moves...

http://youtu.be/ZglcBoKBuaY

I have the plans to build these but I want to see what the little brother does first with just an 8" driver.

Olympic Mathlete fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jul 5, 2012

jonathan
Jul 3, 2005

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN
I want to do a Danley DTS-10 or a THT or something similar for my home theatre. It will be used as a riser platform for the rear seating row.

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

jonathan posted:

I want to do a Danley DTS-10 or a THT or something similar for my home theatre. It will be used as a riser platform for the rear seating row.

I'm building a long style Table Tuba first as I mentioned, purely because I want to see what a £40 8" car audio driver can do in a proper enclosure. I have the wood and driver, just need some spare time to get it started (hopefully at the weekend).

I've already got a pair of T39 PA subs and Omni12 tops from Bill's site and I've got driver for a pair of T60s now too.

The T39s and Omnis are really impressive, I ran them outdoors a few weeks back in a nice big open space and it's just like listening to a very nice quality stereo setup, just a whole load louder... Very very impressive considering the cost to build them.

Neurophonic
May 2, 2009

88h88 posted:

I'm building a long style Table Tuba first as I mentioned, purely because I want to see what a £40 8" car audio driver can do in a proper enclosure. I have the wood and driver, just need some spare time to get it started (hopefully at the weekend).

I've already got a pair of T39 PA subs and Omni12 tops from Bill's site and I've got driver for a pair of T60s now too.

The T39s and Omnis are really impressive, I ran them outdoors a few weeks back in a nice big open space and it's just like listening to a very nice quality stereo setup, just a whole load louder... Very very impressive considering the cost to build them.

Have heard almost the full gamut of Bill's designs, and whilst they serve a purpose, there are far, far better box designs for free. The components however, usually cost more. One thing that really irks me about BFM stuff is the almost audiophile way he describes and 'tests' his kit. None of the comparisons to commercial or other subs are done fairly, or in a standard manner compared to other professional stuff - that extends to Tom Danley's newer bits too, awesome sounding boxes but the measurements have to be calculated backwards to be directly compared to their competitors.

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Neurophonic posted:

Have heard almost the full gamut of Bill's designs, and whilst they serve a purpose, there are far, far better box designs for free. The components however, usually cost more. One thing that really irks me about BFM stuff is the almost audiophile way he describes and 'tests' his kit. None of the comparisons to commercial or other subs are done fairly, or in a standard manner compared to other professional stuff - that extends to Tom Danley's newer bits too, awesome sounding boxes but the measurements have to be calculated backwards to be directly compared to their competitors.

Seeing as this whole thing started off on pretty much a whim I've been more than happy with the results so far. I just like how everything is all ridiculously simple to throw together. If there's better I'll have a dig, I'd quite like to manufacture a whole stack of different designs; Big E Loudspeakers seem pretty impressive and are a new company with a slightly different design ethos.

Basically this is a hobby that came about from being loving tired of hearing lovely club sound systems so I wanted to see if it was possible to make better myself. It's actually easier than I thought it'd be though that said it's not like venues round here are actually thinking about the stuff they put in, are getting sold the wrong kit by companies and aren't exactly treating any of the rooms.

One room has loving line array speakers 4 aside and the ceiling is barely 8ft... :aaa:

Neurophonic
May 2, 2009

88h88 posted:

Seeing as this whole thing started off on pretty much a whim I've been more than happy with the results so far. I just like how everything is all ridiculously simple to throw together. If there's better I'll have a dig, I'd quite like to manufacture a whole stack of different designs; Big E Loudspeakers seem pretty impressive and are a new company with a slightly different design ethos.

Basically this is a hobby that came about from being loving tired of hearing lovely club sound systems so I wanted to see if it was possible to make better myself. It's actually easier than I thought it'd be though that said it's not like venues round here are actually thinking about the stuff they put in, are getting sold the wrong kit by companies and aren't exactly treating any of the rooms.

One room has loving line array speakers 4 aside and the ceiling is barely 8ft... :aaa:

Without going too far off topic, if you're getting into DIY and wanted something (significantly) more challenging to design and build, I fully recommend looking into Unity or Synergy horns. Or, if you wanted to keep it simpler, build oblate spheroid waveguides to suit the drivers you have available. That's going to be the biggest improvement over the vast majority of club or local systems you'll find.

http://redspade-audio.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/synergy-horn.html is a good place to start, follow his builds from first gen to third gen to get an idea of why this is worth pursuing!

As for bass, try building some Jensen Imperials. There's something just right about that design and it goes reasonably low too.

As for line arrays in stupid places, I work in live sound day in day out and have seen far, far more stupid things than that. Some places expect you to be able to mix a band through a bunch of JBL Control 6 dotted around the ceiling and an old, chipboard bass cabinet with an 18" driver held into a 15" baffle using 6 inch woodscrews…

Neurophonic fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jul 6, 2012

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

I'll certainly have a lookie at those designs, they're definitely interesting but I just like the ease of using a few boxes to cover the entire range rather than using a shotgun approach and having a million different designs sat about the place all doing a smaller section of the frequency range.

Guess that makes me an un-audiophile?

But seriously thanks, I enjoy hacking up wood and pissing about with drivers so I'll add them to the (slowly growing) list. :v:

Gromit
Aug 15, 2000

I am an oppressed White Male, Asian women wont serve me! Save me Campbell Newman!!!!!!!
I'm not clever enough to build my own, but my HT runs Monitor speakers, with the sub being an RSW12.
Does a good enough job for me.

jonathan
Jul 3, 2005

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN
I dont understand why that THT guy is running both subs in the same spot. Adding a second sub only gives you a max spl change of 3 db extra. The adavatage comes from placing subs in different areas of the room to spread out the "sweet spot" and giving you a uniform bass response.

Nobody running a THT is going to care about an extra 3db. He can literally damage the house with a single one.

Neurophonic
May 2, 2009

88h88 posted:

I'll certainly have a lookie at those designs, they're definitely interesting but I just like the ease of using a few boxes to cover the entire range rather than using a shotgun approach and having a million different designs sat about the place all doing a smaller section of the frequency range.

Guess that makes me an un-audiophile?

But seriously thanks, I enjoy hacking up wood and pissing about with drivers so I'll add them to the (slowly growing) list. :v:

Then an OS waveguide with a coaxial driver is ideal, you can get one single point source doing right down to 500Hz with a big enough horn, and with a Jensen Imperial you can likely cross straight from bass into that. Much more coherent!

jonathan posted:

I dont understand why that THT guy is running both subs in the same spot. Adding a second sub only gives you a max spl change of 3 db extra. The adavatage comes from placing subs in different areas of the room to spread out the "sweet spot" and giving you a uniform bass response.

Nobody running a THT is going to care about an extra 3db. He can literally damage the house with a single one.


Actually, a single bass source is the simplest way to get good bass unless you're absolutely sure there's going to be stereo or more panning done with the really low stuff. Adding distance between boxes will create peaks and nulls that can be unpleasant.

From what I have to hand, here are some examples that show sound pressure level differences. Phase coherence is going to be even more of a problem with multiple bass sources acting at once. Bear in mind this first example is in somewhat more ideal conditions than an average home theatre setup, being outdoors without the boundary effects you'll get from walls in a house, but it gives you an idea.

One stack of bass:


Two stacks of bass about 10m apart:


This is what is known as 'power alley'.

Here's an indoor space, bare brick walls. In order, single bass, two points of bass, three points of bass:


Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

The easiest way to think about sub placement is when you stand in front of a completely still pond and chuck a stone in. The ripples produced all come from the same spot and are nice and smooth.

Wait for the pond to become still again and chuck in two stones this time, you'll notice that unless you're unbelievably lucky the ripples will gently caress with each other in a destructive manner.

This is the simplest way to explain what happens with more than one sub source, obviously rooms factor into this but y'know...

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

I don't have a pond so I guess I can have several subwoofers.

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Nah you need the pond. It must be filtered using our new proprietary carbon nanotube filtration system to ensure the surface is completely oxygen free. The filtration system is to be run off our state of the art custom power system which removes any and all noise from the mains cables using anti-matter and so on and so forth... Basically buddy it's $200k to you. Bargain.

coolskillrex remix
Jan 1, 2007

gorsh

88h88 posted:

The easiest way to think about sub placement is when you stand in front of a completely still pond and chuck a stone in. The ripples produced all come from the same spot and are nice and smooth.

Wait for the pond to become still again and chuck in two stones this time, you'll notice that unless you're unbelievably lucky the ripples will gently caress with each other in a destructive manner.

This is the simplest way to explain what happens with more than one sub source, obviously rooms factor into this but y'know...

I have no idea what you are saying

are you saying having two subs in opposite corners of a room is a bad thing because the sound waves will be destructive and cancel each other out?

If so youre very very wrong.

15hz = 15 foot long wave, it already cancels itself out when you have one sub. Look up "room modes"

Having one sub is loving awful and causes all sorts of room modes

ohgodwhat
Aug 6, 2005

coolskillrex remix posted:

I have no idea what you are saying

are you saying having two subs in opposite corners of a room is a bad thing because the sound waves will be destructive and cancel each other out?

If so youre very very wrong.

15hz = 15 foot long wave, it already cancels itself out when you have one sub. Look up "room modes"

Having one sub is loving awful and causes all sorts of room modes

Since he's so very very wrong, could you explain how adding subs reduces destructive interference? And also how you calculated 15 Hz = 15 foot long wave?

coolskillrex remix
Jan 1, 2007

gorsh

ohgodwhat posted:

Since he's so very very wrong, could you explain how adding subs reduces destructive interference? And also how you calculated 15 Hz = 15 foot long wave?

I was wrong, theyre much longer (thats bad)

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-wavelength.htm

"Destructive interference" would be stuff like comb filtering from point sources.

Low freq dont really have ANY directivity. The length of a soundwave from ONE subwoofer already crashes into itself multiple times creating destructive nulls/peaks. Placing multiple subwoofers is both constructive AND destructive, it flattens out the peaks and fills the nulls. You dont want to be sitting in a standing wave that results in a bass suckout at 50hz for example, the way to get rid of that is to get more subs. You dont want to be EQing a high Q trough with a +10db boost.

The concept that you would be worse off with multiple subs because it would somehow be destructive to your frequency response is false. What you hear at your listening position is a summation of frequencies bouncing all over your room (and it also happens in 3 dimensions which is why people like Geddes recommend having one elevated subwoofer)

edit: I didnt realize this but i guess 88h88 was sort of just adding onto what neurophonic said with a metaphor. Im not sure what neurophonic means when he says

"Actually, a single bass source is the simplest way to get good bass unless you're absolutely sure there's going to be stereo or more panning done with the really low stuff. Adding distance between boxes will create peaks and nulls that can be unpleasant."

What he posted were charts of overall bass levels between 44hz and 88hz, which has nothing to do with frequency response. Ideally in your room you want a flat frequency response and you want it to be flat over most of the listening positions. EQing your room for one sub simply doesnt work. Ive tried it. You can EQ it flat for one side of your couch and sit 2 feet to the left and your EQ is totally useless and youve probably just put all sorts of stress on your amp using boost. It sucks to know that you have a sweet spot on the couch, and if you have anyone over if they arent sitting in the sweet spot theyre sitting in a null and they dont hear bass from an explosion because its 38hz and theres a huge suckout in their seat.

coolskillrex remix fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Jul 8, 2012

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

I did kinda put "obviously rooms factor into this but y'know..." at the end of that post for a reason. The stuff you just posted being that exact reason. I never stated it was the absolute answer to everything because sound is such a oval office to get right.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

The important thing is that the sub has a blue led.

Neurophonic
May 2, 2009

88h88 posted:

I did kinda put "obviously rooms factor into this but y'know..." at the end of that post for a reason. The stuff you just posted being that exact reason. I never stated it was the absolute answer to everything because sound is such a oval office to get right.

Exactly this. Also I wasn't advocating one sub, I was advocating one radiating area. One source is much more predictable and that's the best thing to work with. Ideally everyone would just get a copy of Room EQ Wizard and a Behringer ECM8000 mic to plot their room properly and pick their 'sweet spot' of choice, because there's absolutely no way you can get the same sound for everybody in the room.

Everything in sound is a compromise.

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

Neurophonic posted:

Everything in sound is a compromise.

No. There is no compromise when someone says "but I really want to listen to Kingston Wall."

Opus125
Jul 29, 2011

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Gromit posted:

No, what I'm saying is my circle of friends would think less of me for having a conversation that featured the phrase "detailed brights" or any talk about the frequency response of my speakers.

You should ditch your circle of friends because they sound like douchebags.

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

Opus125 posted:

they sound like douchebags.

If you used golden wires and acoustic stones then they wouldn't. :colbert:

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

I have a friend who insists stranded copper is a better for speaker cables than solid copper. He's not at all an "audiophile" though, turns out it's just something "everyone knows". I actually believed him for a good while; since he works in tech I thought there was some actual reason for it. When I got curious about why exactly it works better, I found out that it was completely baseless.

Of course, stranded cable can be a lot easier to install but that's not what he was saying.

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Megiddo
Apr 27, 2004

Unicorns bite, but their bites feel GOOD.
He's referring to a phenomenon called skin effect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_wire#Skin_effect

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