Dear TAS & PLUS writers,
Can anyone help me how to hear/notice incoherences in a loudspeaker?
Please explain with music selections which help us to learn better regarding incoherences..
BTW I use Quad 2905 , ARC REF110 , REF3LE , Esoteric X-05
best regards
antono
I suggest buying a very bad quality subwoofer and hook it up to your current system.
Choose anything with some bass in it and you will immediately be able to tell where your Quads stop and the sub starts - THAT"S INCOHERENCY.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Steven's suggestion is a good one (though given the cost you may not want to learn that badly). I have been using the term "coherence" in reviews to get at another issue. Consider:
1. We tend to be somewhat analytical in reviewing audio equipment (it is the Western way), breaking down the sound of products into their component parts.
2. We like to compare the sound from components to the sound of live music (the absolute sound) -- that gives us an objective standard to measure against.
3. Putting 1 & 2 together, a review ends up being a kind of "error profile" of a product -- it is flawed here, here, here and here.
4. Often, to try to truly convey how a component sounds, we simply dial up the analytical effort, offering more detail. We end up with a more detailed error profile.
5. A somewhat overlooked problem is that we don't (automatically) have a way to qualify or quantify two or more different error profiles.
6. If a reader has a good sense of his/her realism triggers and inhibitors, the review is probably useful; if not, point 5 can be a problem.
7. The idea of coherence can be used (and this is how I've intended it) to characterize the error profile. Coherence in this sense means the error profile doesn't distract much from the music as an overall statement (a gestalt if you will).
Therefore, to get a sense of loudspeaker coherence in this sense I suggest first that you listen to plenty of live music. Then, when listening to loudspeakers note if their errors get in the way of the music for you, or if you simply notice the errors analytically. Simply ask (over the course of many recordings) "does this sound real?"
For example, I like and listen to a lot of late 19th/early 20th century symphonic music (e.g. Mahler, Rachmaninoff). I noticed a while back that a slight upper treble rolloff and a bit of warmth in the bass didn't interfere with my enjoyment of this music. But veiling and dynamic restriction was really annoying. In some reviewing efforts, I first noticed these problems less as a bunch of factors and more as an overall feeling of coherence or incoherence with the music (slightly lush in the first case, not vivid in the second). With additional work, I could identify the underlying factors that I named (mid-bass warmth, slight rolloff above 10k etc).
There is good reason to believe that as we get more analytical, we move our brains farther from the normal experience of listening to music. Therefore it is worth trying to listen more naturally, and then reflect on whether music reproduction works overall.
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
Coherence can mean "continuity" or rather lack of discontinuity as in the case of Steven Stone's subwoofer example. I think of coherence as a seamlessness throughout the frequency band, as though everything "gels" into a whole rather than sounding like a sum of disparate parts. That's tonal or harmonic coherence.
I also consider dynamic coherence, or the impression that transients are lined up from the bass end of the spectrum to the treble. In some components, the midrange and treble have a different transient structure than the bass, leading to a somewhat smeared presentation. This concept was really driven home in my review of the Wilson MAXX 2; more than any speaker I'd heard to date, the MAXX 2 seemed to speak with one voice on transients.
Thanks Guys..
Regarding incoherence from mid to bass as is the point from SS , I think it is easier to notice than from mid to high isn't it?
What kind of music/recording in cd/lp that can help us notice this incontinuity from mid to higher frequencies?
@ Martin :
-In my country not easy to attend a concert in a well designed acoustic and well engineered sound system.
-I usually listen to my son who plays several instruments ( piano , violin , sax ) to understand timbres , macro and microdynamics.
regards
antono
I've found that listening to individual instruments played at home is especially helpful. You are lucky that your son plays three instruments! Live music doesn't have be in concert, though of course for some things that is a must.
As for recordings, if you are more focused on mid to high frequency discontinuities, piano, violin and voice (esp. female) recordings are especially useful. There is also a post here about a useful disc from Chesky:
http://www.avguide.com/forums/training-our-ears
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC