Musicality or accuracy?
Another word that has come up is “quality”
What is musicality? What
is accuracy? What is Audio Quality? Here are some references. And of course, always refer to Linkwitz.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/whos-right-acccuracy-or-musicality
https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_matt.php
https://www.scribd.com/document/227415732/AQT-A-New-Objective-Measurement-Of-The-Acoustical-Quality-Of-Sound-Reproduction-In-Small-Compartments
When recording engineers are being taught how to listen to
find the right mic for a particular instrument they begin by listening to and
comparing the sustain of the real instrument to the mic’d version of the instrument. Here they hear the tonal quality of the real
instrument and how the mic changes the tonal quality. This kind of is in the direction of accuracy,
accurate tonal reproduction. Makes
sense, linear recording and playback sounds musical.
But no, that’s not all there is to it. The recording
engineers are next taught to carefully listen to the attack transient
that precedes the sustain. One might
think of the attack transient as the sonic presentation of the sustain. It’s where the sustain comes from. The attack is very short lived, a fleeting
event compared to the long winded sustain.
It’s hard to concentrate on and capture such a short lived event in
order to evaluate mics but it can be done.
Curiously, out of 6 seemingly identical mics, only one might come close
to actually capturing the true sound in the attack part of the tambourine. While all of them fairly equally represent
the sustain of its little cymbals. Musicality
is rooted in the clarity of the attack transients.
And so, the audiophile might want to look toward the faithfulness
in the attack transient instead of the faithfulness of the sustain as a clue to
musicality. There is no problem hearing
the attack transient if silence precedes it.
The problem is to hear the attack transient within a musical piece,
which is filled with many other attack transients. There have been studies relating to the speed
of separate sonic events in music and is speech. The overall average rate of man-made sonic
events is 8 separate events per second.
Each sonic event begins with some kind of attack transient which evolves
into a sustain. The attack transients occur
so frequently that the much longer lasting sustains become overlaid one on
another, creating a set of running complex and ever changing chords that tag
along with the music, fitting and blending everything together.
Ideally we will have 10 dB of quiet immediately preceding
each attack transient. In a large hall
the reflections of one attack transient are delayed and weakened by diffusion so
as to not interfere with the next attack transient and the sound sounds musical. But in small rooms, our hi-fi listening rooms,
the very early multiple reflections of the attack transient are quick and
strong and they fill up the desired succeeding quiet and overlay themselves onto
the low level details of the next attack transient, obscuring the listener’s perception
of the next attack transient, aka sound masking.
A test that measures the tonal clarity has been developed,
actually back in the golden days of hifi, back in 1986. It is called MATT, Musical Articulation Test
Tones and is a gated sine sweep, 8 tone bursts a second, 1/16th
second burst followed by 1/16 second silence.
The clear Ta-ta-ta of ascending and then descending tones is audible
over headphones. But in most rooms,
yodeling turns into gargling.
This means that the sounds are where they should be in time but
the articulation within each sound, the dynamic aspect of each sound, is lost
to the excessive sustain produced by poor, undeveloped room acoustics. To get a fast (musical sounding) room you
have to seriously quiet down the front 1/3rd of the listening room,
the area where the sound is being created so you mostly only hear the direct
signal from the speaker and the instantaneous ambience or running reverb is at
least 10 dB below the direct at all times.
So, what we see is people choosing speakers that can somehow
penetrate the running reverb noise floor.
Speakers with overly bright directional top-end might help or those with
large midrange horns are very effective in delivering a strong direct to
running reverb ratio signal. And yes,
dipoles are excellent at this because they do not project sound vertically nor
laterally, but only forward and backward.
It’s the component of sound projected vertically which is then caught
and stored between the parallel floor and ceiling surfaces, early vertical
reverb buildup, which lingers too long and floods into the next 1/16th
second of desired quiet. Same with side
to side and the subsequent lateral early reverb buildup. Notice
woofers and sub woofers are running totally out of high speed dynamic control.
Musicality is in the record and it’s in the signal being
played by the speakers. The problem is
not the equipment it is the room obscuring, literally masking, our ability to
hear successive attack transients which means that all we get to listen to is
the running aggregate set of sustains left over from the preceding rapid set of
inaudible (masked, drowned out) attack transients.
Down load a MATT test for free and play it over headphones
and over your sound system. Audition the
musical clarity response curve of you audio system, remembering that the last
link in our sound systems is the room acoustic link. https://www.acousticsciences.com/products/matt-acoustic-test-cd
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