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I've often considered the notion of high-frequency extension from two points of view, one being frequencies above say 10K not sounding rolled-off, the other being a not too subdued sense of treble energy as the point of issue to contend with. So where is the cut-off point, and who decides what is extended and what is too bright for their system, for their own particular listening taste, or as compensation for a listener's own hearing loss.
How much real acoustics reside above say 10K or so when listening to live music without sound reinforcement to boost treble information above and beyond what is naturally experienced within a live venue. Treble energy by nature is not aggressive, nor even assertive in its natural form to be considered as something to be enhanced or even missed while listening to a live orchestra, or a live performance by an amplified band without sound reinforcement with microphones placed against instruments or amplified cabinets providing what might be considered the equivalent to the Fetcher Munson Curve as a pre-treatment, not a post-production effect.
So what is your take on the notion of high frequency extension and the nature of natural acoustics without the aid of microphones nor equalization provided by unnatural electronic enhancements. Is it real, or is it Memorex? If it's real, throw that cassette tape out the window and don't call it high frequency extension by proxy.
Cheers, Duster
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on something. See my siganture...
. I judge any sound system by how tiring it is to listen to.
Linkwitz
Nt
I'm preparing a new line-up of cables that have been very revealing of how "unbalanced sounding" in terms of tonality some audio cables can sound due to what I consider spotlighted treble, when the ear becomes unnaturally attracted to what's being presented at the very top-end of the frequency extremes, not unlike how some listeners who are bass-heads concentrate on the bottom-end above all else. The ear should be attracted to the critical midband where most spatial cues, ambient information, and timbrel delineation resides. I seek a presentation where images tend to pop from a blackened background, for both soundstage depth and forward dynamics to be better expressed without what can seem a rather unnatural notion that a detailed sounding cable or power cord is based on detail that's presented at the top-end as proof of being a detailed cable, to one's ear.
A lowered noise floor tends to be experienced as a more revealing level of resolution within the critical midband, with better fleshed-out images and timbrel texture, as well as a greater level of contrast for inner detail and trailing decay to be observed. The ear needs to be very aware of what's observable within the midband where most musical information is found, not pay one's primary attention towards hyper-detailed and too airy treble energy that is more akin to signal processing than natural acoustics. A point of issue is at times there is very little natural treble energy within a recording, other than the highest harmonics of the instruments and the high frequency shimmer of cymbals that should also pop within the soundstage without spurious false detail based on etched treble that some folks believe to be a very detailed sounding cable.
If I find myself being attracted to what's happening at the top-end as though it is a place where my ear can linger, there is something happening that simply does not occur in real-world acoustics, of which I believe is paramount. One should not pay attention to what a cable is producing, it's the signal being passed with a level of transparency from top to bottom with a tonality that is realistically conveyed without alteration, without a bottom-end that's too big to be real, nor an artificially spotlighted treble that may include a hyper-detailed aspect that may be perceived as extended treble.
Cheers, Duster
So where is the cut-off point, and who decides what is extended and what is too bright for their system, for their own particular listening taste, or as compensation for a listener's own hearing loss.
Higher ordered harmonics are interpreted by the ear as brightness and harshness. This is very different from high frequency extension! The ear assigns a tonality to all forms of distortion. This is why solid state of the last 60 years has been seen as 'bright' by tube lovers- not because it has a frequency response error, but because the ear interprets distortion the way it does. Its also important to understand that the ear uses the higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure and so is more keenly sensitive to them than almost anything else.
So when talking about 'too bright for their taste' are we talking about a frequency response issue or distortion?
Music poses special reproduction challenges because Fletcher Munson means that we are most sensitive at birdsong frequencies (this is a survival thing...) and there are a lot of musical harmonics that occur in that range, as well as plenty of opportunity for higher ordered harmonic distortion products to show up. When you combine those two sensitivities of the ear with those two aspects of music and distortion, it can be quite vexing.
I find that the best systems will not have a sense of loudness; that even at high volume they remain relaxed but have plenty of authority. IME this comes from really paying attention to how electronics make distortion and making sure that microphonic influences in the front end of the system are minimized.
Especially if they are placed too close to the instrument/vocalist, or at an unnatural listening angle, so that they capture more treble "detail."
Examples of the former include the tiny breath and saliva noises of a singer's lips, finger squeaks on strings, the clicking of the keys on woodwind instruments, creaking of the harpsichord mechanism, the bubbling of spit in a horn's mouthpiece, the sound of the flautist's breath over the soundhole, as separate from the body sound of the flute, chairs creaking, pages turning, etc.
Example of the latter: consider how many orchestral string sections are recorded with microphones suspended overhead. These mikes capture ALL of the higher overtones of the fiddles, which the audience -- at approximately 90 degrees off axis -- hears only after they are reflected/diffracted/diffused by the ceiling over the stage. What gets recorded thus sounds much shriller than what you would hear from the fifth row at the venue.
These are just a few instances of why the experience of hearing recorded music is so fundamentally different from the live experience. And of course recordings themselves vary hugely depending on far more acoustical and electrical factors than can be listed here. I figure a "neutral" playback system will tell you the truth about all of them, whether they are shrill or dull or hyper-detailed or murky or whatever. A system that sounds "soft" enough to render bright recordings more palatable might easily turn the best recordings into pastel mush.
thats really super high. Air has more attenuation with increasing frequency.Look at the plots here and notice the y-axis is absoprtion coefficient, the coefficient in *exponential* decay of SPL.
even 10 kHz (which is very high) vs 5 kHz, where we hear "ow that is some sharp sound" is a significant difference with reasonable distances.
I.e. I don't think there is that much significant 10 kHz in seats in the Concertgebow but I will defer to empirical measurements.
https://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/Absorption/Absorption.html
BTW this is why thunder is boomy, even though lightning is crack.
Edits: 03/22/21
Harbeth and some other speaker makers use supertweeters that provide > 20khz ultrasonic frequencies and supposedly provide more "air" and a more "realistic" and "human" sound by making it better able to produce the leading edge of each transient without time smear but being neither a firm believer nor a denier but a supertweeter agnostic...well, I have no idea what others can or can't hear
"Harbeth and some other speaker makers use supertweeters that provide > 20khz ultrasonic frequencies and supposedly provide more 'air' and a more 'realistic' and 'human' sound by making it better able to produce the leading edge of each transient without time smear but being neither a firm believer nor a denier but a supertweeter agnostic...well, I have no idea what others can or can't hear"Super-tweeters and tweeters extending well beyond 20 kHz were a big thing back in the 1970s and early 1980s, prior to the CD era..... (Even Radio Shack was marketing such products.) As were "high speed" and "wide bandwidth" amplifiers..... But the bandwidth limitations and HF artifacts from CD playback made these products less desirable..... And unlike vinyl playback, super-tweeters and wide-bandwidth amplifiers didn't make much of a comeback, mainly because they don't do particularly well with digitally-sourced audio.
Edits: 03/22/21
....was used to make an electronic rodent repellent ;-)
Will vinyl even go high enough in freq to warrant a super tweeter, or were they used to help "tilt up" the highs?
"Will vinyl even go high enough in freq to warrant a super tweeter, or were they used to help 'tilt up' the highs?"There has been a lot of debate about this, especially after the CD became prominent in the mid to late 1980s...... The audio science types were promoting CD playback fervently during that time, claiming that LP playback didn't extend much above 15 kHz...... (I think they're probably correct, but I do notice "sparkle" at the top end with a good analog source that I've never heard to the same degree with any digital format, regardless of resolution.)
Prior to the CD era, it was believed by many that high-frequency extension beyond 20 kHz had a profound effect on "spatial cues"..... The one thing that I remember prior to the CD era was that "soundstage" extending beyond the speakers (and beyond the walls of the listening room) was a common phenomenon with systems that were capable of extended response.... In spite of the systems being quite modest by today's audiophile standards...... (Although I sometimes wonder if I had better hearing during that time, which may have contributed to the effect.) And many of us believed that to maximize this effect, extending well beyond 20 kHz (as far as going up to and even beyond 50 kHz) was the key factor.
But after the CD came out, the obsession with "huge soundstage" faded, quite dramatically...... (I also believe the proliferation of digital devices and computers, due to the increase of ambient RFI of several orders of magnitude, has made it very difficult to restore this sonic trait, even with systems that once excelled with it prior to the digital age.) And even with high-resolution digital audio playback and vinyl exotica in recent time, this obsession has never been rekindled.
Edits: 03/24/21
Nt.
Mark in NC
"The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains" -Paul Simon
I've got a pair of those 'piezo button tweeters' on some franken bookshelf speakers ... they run the 8" aluminum woofers MCM Electronics used to sell wide open, with 2.5" paper cone tweeters and simple cap / resistor Xovers
very sensitive, very loud, very garage ... sounds great off my Emerson 8 track player! no bugs or mice in there!! in fact, it sounds best when I'm not in there either with the overhead doors open ... a crude mono 'horn'
in truth they actually give a rather sophisticated presentation driven by my little TDA10 chip amp ... they'll stare down most commercial bookshelf units I've heard in the $200.00 range ... I kid you not
regards,
Treble energy by nature is not aggressive, nor even assertive in its natural form
Horns can be both aggressive and assertive. A forceful trumpet player in a small jazz club can make me feel physical discomfort. Even a soprano sax can sometimes make my ears bleed if I'm sitting too close to the band.
Drum kits can be both as well, especially when played by a drummer who hasn't learned to use the dynamic range of the instrument and just whacks away.
Synths can be made to sound aggressive when you're starting with a triangle wave. Sometimes heavily distorted guitar played high in its range. Even a violin played too hard up close.
But it's usually not high frequency extension that makes things sound aggressive. It's an abundance of low treble energy, because that's where our ears are most sensitive. I can tolerate treble response that's elevated a little bit in the top octave, because it only bothers me with aggressive percussion. But if the response is elevated down in the 3-5 KHz range, that ruins a lot of music.
".... or as compensation for a listener's own hearing loss."
I've been wrestling with this personally..... I do recall hearing "sparkle" in recordings and even live performances that I think I don't hear as well in recent time...... That said, I've never taken "hyper-detail" well..... There is a distinction between true resolution and a tipped-up top end in an audio system..... It is tempting to seek the latter in belief that it attains the former.
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