--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EB100003 Date: 06/30/97 From: DAVID SCHMOLL Time: 07:10am \/To: MATT ION (Read 0 times) Subj: Re: system balancing Hi Matt, MI> It's taken somewhat out of context (I MI> don't know if other factors are covered MI> elsewhere) but offhand it just sounds like BS. No, the rest of the material didn't relate to this area at all. MI> Bingo! Driver efficiency VERY MUCH comes MI> into play. If the amp driving a That is why this section of the book jumped out at me and prompted me to ask for a second opinion, since I had never heard this particular theory before. Anyway, Apogee hasn't installed anything, since nothing new has been bought. The church system has some problems, anad the church was exploring their options to solve them with a new speaker system, but I think they are missing the point of their problems. For example: the room has brick on the side walls and behind the choir and the room echo's like crazy. The room supposedly has a resonance at 250 hz, so the 1/3 band EQ has all bands below 50 hz cut, the 250 and 500 bands cut, as well as several other higher bands cut (all -15 db), creating holes that I feel destroys the balance to my ears. I suggested treating the brick walls before exploring a different speaker system, since that problem will remain - the sound man agreed, but church politics comes into play. Another option was to get the Berringer DSP8000 EQ, so the band cuts could be cut in smaller slices than 1/3 octave, but the people that installed this system, are against that, as it would change the system too much, and they won't stand behind it then. All I know is I hear bass and echo problems, and I'm attemepting to find out more about the system, so I can offer suggestions if anybody is receptive to them. I'm actually a bass player, but the bass mix in the room is not very good, so I have put off asking to play for now. In the meantime the soundman is teaching me the sytem. ... dschmoll@nyx.net (David Schmoll) ___ QWKRR128 V5.0B [R] --- Platinum Xpress/Win/Wildcat5! v2.0 * Origin: The NeverEnding BBS/Deltona,FL/407-860-7720/neverendi (1:3618/555) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EB100004 Date: 06/30/97 From: DAVID SCHMOLL Time: 07:40am \/To: TERRY SMITH (Read 0 times) Subj: system balancing Hi Terry, TS> In other words, some oversimplified sales TS> literature to comfort people trying TS> to have incompetent volunteers pretend to TS> be able to handle things they should TS> contract out.... Well I'm a volunteer and I don't have a degree in sound, but I have been around sound systems as a musician for 25 years, and audio has been my hobby for that same period of time. The church did contract out this system years ago, but my ears tell me, something is wrong, and a new speaker system is not the total answer. TS> Some parts of what you quoted aren't too TS> far off as simple explanations. The TS> above seems to be the heart of the TS> instructions, and is quite simply wrong. Which is why I decided on my own to ask for a second opinion, since everybody else was willing to take that statement at face value. TS> utterly absurd. It is interesting to TS> note that they likely suggest tests with TS> speakers disconnected to avoid being TS> blamed for destroying garbage better TS> taken direct to the dumpster as found in TS> many churches, while suggesting a TS> procedure ripe for toasting mid/high Fortunately in this case the church actually has some nice equipment, such as EV, Crown, QSC, Rane, but there are no names visable on the main speakers, so I can't tell much about them. The main speakers are hung from the ceiling and are spread out in a semi-circle to cover the room, with 2 bass bins and 4 mid/high cabinets. The mid/high cabinets have a nice sound, but I don't like the bass sound, as it is very subdued and indistinct - maybe that is what churches like? TS> Dare I mention architectural acoustics, TS> and differences between music fidelity TS> and speech intelligibility? That is the real problem, and you can read about it a bit more in a previous message. ... dschmoll@nyx.net (David Schmoll) ___ QWKRR128 V5.0B [R] --- Platinum Xpress/Win/Wildcat5! v2.0 * Origin: The NeverEnding BBS/Deltona,FL/407-860-7720/neverendi (1:3618/555) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EB100005 Date: 06/30/97 From: DAVID SCHMOLL Time: 10:45am \/To: BONNIE GOODWIN (Read 0 times) Subj: system balancing Hi Bonnie, Sorry to have taken so long to respond back, I was loosing my access to this echo, and I wanted to find another feed before replying. I'm accessing Fido via my Internet account and rlogin, so despite the feed being in Florida, I'm in Colorado. :) BG> Then a lock goes on the adjustments for these things as "no one" BG> is supposed to play with this EVER!!! Mucho testing with expensive BG> test equipment verified that there was no better way to make these BG> adjustments, no user servicable parts inside.. Keep your hands off That is a wise appoach if the system is set up right. I have the same approach to my stereo EQ as well, but I do understand it is even more important in a fixed live situation. Having said that, my ears tell me there is something wrong with this particular church system, and this locked down approach isn't going to fix it. :) BG> Oh, if we REALLY want to do a first class job and have that sound BG> system sound so primo... FIRST, the room needs to be considered BG> that you are going to put the sound system into.. A first step that I would say that is the main problem with the church system now, brick walls and lots of uncontrolled echo from the sides. BG> Often times, it is an afterthought in the design of facilities.. It definitely was in this case. I heard that an attempt at echo control was made on the wall at the back of the room aabot a year ago, with some success, but nothing was done to the rest of the room for some reason? BG> amazingly enough, since they ought to realize that people are BG> going to collect in these places and they are so spoiled by what BG> they hear at home that they are expecting at least that good out BG> of the system in this church, concert venue, etc.. Yep, guilty as charged. :) I've spent 25 years tweaking my home systems as well as my stage bass setup, and I want to hear the music in the church sound as good. BG> Hopefully, after all of this effort to produce good sound, BG> hopefully, you have something worth all of this effort to put BG> through this system! The musical director and pianist are very talented, and the desire to have a first rate music program and system is there. BG> Yes, that basically works, as far as you take it. Additionally, BG> you need to consider the listening position, the distance to that BG> listening position, what the kind of source and whether it BG> conforms to the inverse square law or not (some speaker systems DO BG> NOT conform to this). The room is about 125' wide, 75' deep, and 50' tall. Wood ceiling, plaster acoustically treated back, brick, sides, and brick behind the choir at the front. The speakers are on the ceiling, so the stage is closer to the audience than the speakers are for half the audience. The organ is a seperate system, and I can hear the piano directly, as well as the drums directly, but the bass, and guitar are direct feeds only, with the onstage amps facing away from the audience towards the front brick wall, so the sound reflects off the wall and combines with the room echo, and I hear no direct signal at all. BG> Now, if say, you wish an average of 95dB at the listening BG> position, and you are so far away from the drivers, you will need BG> to feed the the speaker with x number of watts on an average to BG> get you to that level without exceeding the headroom or BG> capabilities of the power amplifer. This may require a considerably The system appears to be tri-amped with Crown Micro-tech 400,600 and 1200 amps, as well as a QSC amp, but I don't know what amps run what speakers, since the company that installed the system isn't running it. I have asked about the speaker systems, but I haven't been told anything usefull, and since the speakers are on the ceiling I can't look. Regardless, everything seems clean with lots of headroom, except the bass seems very weak and undefined to my ears. However that may be what they want for the choir and sermon. I think the room resonances (250 hz) are making them shy of a balanced system in the bass area, and I can't argue with that in theory, but I can in bass sound quality compared to my home system - which nobody cares about but me. ;-) ... dschmoll@nyx.net (David Schmoll) ___ QWKRR128 V5.0B [R] --- Platinum Xpress/Win/Wildcat5! v2.0 * Origin: The NeverEnding BBS/Deltona,FL/407-860-7720/neverendi (1:3618/555) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EB100006 Date: 06/29/97 From: CHARLIE HADDEN Time: 08:52pm \/To: PETER SINCLAIR (Read 0 times) Subj: Help me if you can I'm a little late answering this and you've prob had much advice already. You can't just say I'm using a 12" speaker and then put it in a generic box. You will get the same type of garbage out of it that you find in low end speakers like Bose. (I shouldn't trash them too much as they are still using one of my designs). Go to your library and look up some books on designing speakers. Study a lot. experiment a lot. and then go buy some good ones. You can't make a really good speaker (I mean real fidelity) for less than you can buy a pair. If you want a set of plans for one of the best woofers ever designed, drop me a note E-Mail and I will send you the plans. I sell these things for $800 a pop and can't make them fast enough. I'm going to just give out the plans from now on. I will tell you up front. YOU CAN NOT CHANGE the design or the MAKE and MODEL of driver, or it willl never work. EsarHaddon@Juno.com --- GEcho 1.20/Pro/PBBS * Origin: Redbeard's Cove BBS, Security, CO. (719) 392-2705 (1:128/202) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EBC00000 Date: 07/06/97 From: BONNIE GOODWIN Time: 03:13pm \/To: JOHN ALLEN (Read 0 times) Subj: Re: Alien Technology Hi John!! Quite the testimony on your new magic plug in to your audio system. Care to give us more information on what it is, what it claims to do, if they have a website, etc?? I gotta here more about this thing! Bonnie *:> --- QScan/PCB v1.18b / 01-0249 * Origin: The Capitol City Gateway, Since Dec 1979, 916-381-8788 (1:203/909) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EBC00001 Date: 07/06/97 From: BONNIE GOODWIN Time: 03:06pm \/To: JASON LAVOIE (Read 0 times) Subj: Re: Website for AUDIO Hi Jason, -> BG> signal source, guitar amps intentionally distort and have other -> BG> than a flat frequency response intentionally, to make the -> BG> guitar -> sound right. what's "right" ? What's right for a guitar is radically different than a normal audio system, where we strive for perfection in cleanliness, even frequency response and the ability to handle whatever we want to put through it. A musical instrument amplification is a totally different thing, where the end result is to do whatever is necessary to get the desired sound out of the equipment, not to make it clean, etc. In a guitar amp as an example, distortion and a compression of the sound of the guitar is desired. Tubes help to get this all important sound to the electric guitar. Try to put a guitar through a clean stereo system and it will sound like crap! Thin, clean, etc.. none of the characteristics that a guitar amp can help to enhance the sound of the guitar itself. A musical instument amplification system is a part of the instrument. When I play keyboards live in a band, I usually run the sound as well, and have control over the how the band sounds. The keyboards only make sounds through an amplification system and thus all of the electronics and electroacoustical interface is part of that total system of playing and making music. The band works much the same way, as I can blend the various aspects of each of the players together to create the "performance". Other musical instrument types of things include the crystal bullet mics that harpists (harmonica) use to plug into a guitar amplifier to create that wonderful amplified harp sound. Most of the rest of the instruments are miced and treated as typical clean audio sources, but hopefully, you can see the drastic difference in treatment of some musical instruments and typical hi-fi and recording sources. Bonnie *:> --- QScan/PCB v1.18b / 01-0249 * Origin: The Capitol City Gateway, Since Dec 1979, 916-381-8788 (1:203/909) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EBC00002 Date: 07/06/97 From: BONNIE GOODWIN Time: 03:26pm \/To: CHRIS MALONE (Read 0 times) Subj: Website for AUDIO Hi Chris! Thanks for those examples on how to enclose audio files. I will probably use something like you suggested, perhaps Real Audio or Shockwave. I am now developing my personal page on Pacific Bell Internet, as a beta tester and while severely limited in space yet, at least it is a start, and without a start, nothing gets done! You did presume that I am using .WAV files. I am not, but I can convert to that format. While my Digital Audio Workstation is PC based, it has little in common with most PC based audio systems other than the Windows GUI. Perhaps you can contrast what the MPEG compressed files, if they do, have in common with the Shockwave or Real Audio formats. Frankly, I haven't spent much time trying to figure out which is better up to now, just like one wire is largely like another wire, as long as the signal gets delivered, who really cares how!! I do plan on initially getting the AUDIO webpages set up as a part of my personal page currently. I'm considering many things that can be done with a webpage, and am looking for ideas from those that would be visiting that site... all of you! If you have any suggestions, you can send them to me at bgoodwin@pacbell.net. As soon as there is anything worth looking at on my homepage, I will publish that information. I still think that a mailing list might be a good way to Internetize this echo so that we do have a start incase Fido goes down in the future. Bonnie *:> --- QScan/PCB v1.18b / 01-0249 * Origin: The Capitol City Gateway, Since Dec 1979, 916-381-8788 (1:203/909) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EBC00003 Date: 07/06/97 From: BONNIE GOODWIN Time: 03:10pm \/To: MATIAS RIZZONE (Read 0 times) Subj: white and pink noise Hi Matias: White noise is a mixture of all possible frequencies together evenly, or equal energy per cycle across the 20-20kHz range of frequencies. A good example of what this sounds like is the FM tuner off of a station with the muting off so you can hear the hiss. Pink noise, is similarly equal energy across the same range, but it is equal energy per octave. A much more valuable source for those of us in audio, allowing us to make meaningful measurements of energy distribution across the hearable spectrum. Bonnie *:> --- QScan/PCB v1.18b / 01-0249 * Origin: The Capitol City Gateway, Since Dec 1979, 916-381-8788 (1:203/909) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EBC00004 Date: 07/04/97 From: GARTH ROBINSON Time: 07:40pm \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Kingsley CD ?? Gidday everyone, can anyone tell me the catalogue number of an old favourite recording. Origonally an LP, you know, one of them big round black plastic things...... yeah well, it is: Kalaidescopic Vibrations / Perry Kingsley Has this been re-whatevered onto CD format? By whom? a catalogue number please. ;-) Thanks in advance from downunder NZ CFN, Garth, Sheryl & Amber,.... Dougals understudy! ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 --- Maximus/2 3.01 * Origin: === NZMC Maxie BBS. Ak, NZ +64 9 444-0989 === (3:772/1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 183 AUDIO Ref: EBC00005 Date: 07/01/97 From: KEITH KNAPP Time: 10:18pm \/To: BONNIE GOODWIN (Read 0 times) Subj: Re: Website for AUDIO BG>MSGID: 1:203/909@fidonet.org cc8fa908 BG>Hi Keith! BG>-> If I ever get a CD player, I'm gonna put a 12AX7 on the output -- BG>-> strip off the digital trash and replace it with nice warm analog BG>-> trash! A few months ago I listened to Bob Carver's new "Sunfire" amp. BG>-> In the "tube emulation" mode, there's a small but distinct muddiness BG>-> in the highs. BG> FETs and bi-fets don't do it for you? AFAIK, field-effect types sound closest to tubes, without the mud. I think tubes have largely been superseded in top-end hi-fi. But I do like the sound of an ancient Dynaco Stereo 70 I rescued from the scrap heap. The reason I don't like CDs is just 'cuz I've only heard two CD players over the years that didn't make my ears hurt after about 20 minutes. But from a production point of view digital is great. I still like discrete opamps the BG>best like the old Automated Processes and Spectrasonics professional BG>consoles used. I'm not sure if I can really go back to tubes for most of BG>anything... BTW, I have about 50 of those tubes in an old musical BG>instrument called a Cordovox that is an accordian with a built in organ BG>in it.. Hmm... hidden gold mine here??? My allegiance to tubes is bascially for guitar amps. Nobody has yet built a solid-state guitar amp that's quite as good as tubes, altho some have gotten close. I think it's probably 'cuz the guitar signal has so much dynamic range that some part of it is always being overdriven. Tubes are natural compressors, and when power tubes clip, they do it very differently than solid state. But if your hi-fi or commercial amp is clipping, you're doing it wrong. So that shouldn't be an issue. The other thing is that solid-body electric guitars sound dull as dishwater through a hi-fi amp. I think tubes put back some of the harmonic resonance that you get from a hollow-body instrument. I sometimes get to hear a top-end Krell system with some weird-looking B&W speakers, and I agree that at that level, the tube era is past. * SLMR 2.1a * Dammit Jim, I'm a writer, not a morning person! --- PCBoard (R) v15.3/5 * Origin: * Binary illusions BBS * Albuquerque, NM * 505.897.8282 * (1:301/45)