Speaker Recordings

[zingo]

The best example of this is the Smyth Realizer. You can record the sonic signature of a audio system, then play it back through your headphones to recreate the experience including the room/environment. Recording the "sound" of speakers can be done, but it is hard to do well. Good luck Trey!

[VR3]

I appreciate everyone's feedback on how to record these. Based on how well the LSi9 recording sounds I believe I will be able to accomplish what I am wanting to.

as far as recording one speaker... That is not my objective... We have successfully recorded and captured imaging and sound staging with a stereo set of speakers and that is party of my goal.

thanks again

[VR3]

Studio debut!

[sk88]

I believe if you are comparing speaker A and B by listening to the recordings from them on Speaker C, you should be able to hear the relative difference between A and B on speaker C as long as C is at the same or better sound reproduction quality than the better of A and B. Of course, the recording eqipment and process have to be adequately good (ie. capturing all the details that the speakers can produce). I am trying to do the same for pre/post upgrades as well.

[VR3]

Speaker recording went absolutely fantastic!!!

I am excited to bring these results to the table. Every recording sounded very different and adequately represented the loudspeaker sound traits :)

[sk88]

I recorded a short section on Lsi 9 and Lsi 25 stock (no mod) in 24bit/96kHz resolution and converted them to wave form. You should be able to download from the following link (I hope it works). For a fair comparison between the two speakers, the subwoofer on the Lsi 25 was turned off. It's a recording only on one channel. Depends on your playback system, I hope it should reveal some differences to you. I'd say it's pretty subtle.

After you listened to both, I hope that you can share your feedback for what you heard between the two recordings. Thanks!
http://ppl.ug/bsuWzWoz7a0/

Vr3, please feel free to add them to your online library if you like.

p.s. forgot to say each file is about 22MB.

[sk88]

Just wonder if any one has listened my 2 recordings or if the download link works or not. Since there has been no comments, here is my own.

Before I start, let me say that I am trying to train and educate myself on differentiating different sound characteristics so that I can appreciate them more. There is no good or bad here, just differences. And, my recordings are subject to my limited knowledge and equipment that I have so it is not a fair representation of any speaker. I own both Lsi9 and Lsi25.

The reason that I chose that piece of music in the recording was that it has a quite dynamic range between midrange and treble duing the first 20secs and then just soft and quiet trebles in the last 20secs. What I heard was that Lsi9 sounded warmer than Lsi25 while on the other hand Lsi25 has more clarity. My wife has better hearing than me and she confirms. She actually likes Lsi9 more exactly for its warmth. I on the other hand likes Lsi25 more for it sounded just a little cleaner to me (but I am not sure if I wasn't biased because I paid more for it).

To support what I heard objectively, I also tried to look from a technical angle. Lsi9 and Lsi25 actually are exactly the same on the upper section (the lower section for the sub on Lsi25 was turned off) except for two things:
1) Lsi25 has a high pass filter at 80Hz for the upper section while Lsi9 does not. I believe this is because Lsi9 was meant to be a full range speaker while Lsi25 has a separate sub built-in to handle the lows.
2) although the depth of Lsi25 is about 2" longer than Lsi9 by looking from the outside, in reality the interior depth of Lsi25 is more than 3" shorter than Lsi9. I had to open both speakers and was surprised to see that Lsi25 purposed blocked the interior space to make the upper section a lot smaller inside.

I belive it is largely because of the larger interior size in Lsi9 and that it gets more lower frequencies makes it sound warmer and that Lsi25 sound crisper (mind you that this is all relative speaking between the two recordings). The other specs between them are actually almost exactly the same.

When I open the two WAV files using Sony Sound Forge (any other audio software would do the same) I can see minor but noticable differences as shown in the two attached plots.

Lsi9


Lsi25


Lsi9 shows a bit heavier (more bone) in general. Technically, it should sound louder but I can't hear that. It also shows higher intensities at those spikes while Lsi25 shows deeper valleys (more decrease in volume) next to those spikes. And if you look at the last 10 seconds, Lsi25 shows more cleanness (more even, thinner spikes).

I have no idea if what I said is correct or not. In any case, I am hear to learn. Any comments are welcome.

[timalan]

Interesting project. I'll be curious to see how it goes. How are you deciding on volume changes based on speaker sensitivity? Are you equalizing every speaker to the same in-room db measurement or are you setting the volume knob at a fixed level and letting some recordings be lower than others?

[sk88]

I don't know how Vr3 does it. This is his thread and project. I only did the Lsi9 and Lsi25 for my interest. In my case, both Lsi9 and 25 have the same sensitivity and I didn't do any sound adjustment between the two. They were recorded exactly the same way.

I understand for a professional sound recording, it's best to adjust them to the same reference level which is normally 75 or 85dB. I wasn't that critical in mine but don't know if Vr3 is or not. I was more interested in the characteristics of the sound and not the volume.

[VR3]

I had this discussion with the studio and we agreed it was better to record them at the same volume. All of the final adjustments will be made during mastering. Our main purpose was to capture how the gear sounds and tonal traits. We felt this was the best way to do and hearing the recordings directly after we played the song I would definitely agree with this...

unfortunately the studio had a small fire that decommissioned them a bit so there is a delay on the recordings...

I will have the modified LSi9 recording soon though!

[VR3]

When I say the same volume I mean we did not alter the volume to adjust for sensitivity

[KellyMic]

I think I would be more interested in the wav files to view the differences between them.

[VR3]

The program we use for showing the recordings - Soundcloud actually shows the wav patterns! :)

https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/lsi9stockrecording

[VR3]

Wanted to say we will be starting over on the speaker recordings... Even the stock LSi9 recording. Just a clean slate of recordings since this last trip went horribly wrong. We recorded about 3 hours of speakers and at this point in time we realize there is a problem for sure... It appears the last batch was essentially recorded in mono so only the center channel recordings are useful...

Thanks for the patience!

Stay tuned.

[audiocr381ve]

Wanted to say we will be starting over on the speaker recordings... Even the stock LSi9 recording. Just a clean slate of recordings since this last trip went horribly wrong. We recorded about 3 hours of speakers and at this point in time we realize there is a problem for sure... It appears the last batch was essentially recorded in mono so only the center channel recordings are useful...

Thanks for the patience!

Stay tuned.

Is the studio you're working with legit? Having engineered a few albums myself, it's crazy to me that this issue wasn't caught early on. I'm sorry they wasted your time on this awesome project. I would look for another place to have it done.

[VR3]

The studio is a local one with decent gear, no skywalker studio by no means... :)

It is ok in the end, I just left there having recorded a LSiC modified. So I have a great stock and modified LSiC recording.

But yes, I agree it is unacceptable that this issue was not caught earlier and I am surprised I did not catch it when we listened to the recordings there at the time.

But I will post a stock 1.2TL recording soon (not for speaker comparison purposes, too heavy to take to the studio, but more so for stock versus modified. A LSiC stock/modified and a Def Tech CLR1000 stock recording.

So stay tuned and thanks for your patience!

[audiocr381ve]

The studio is a local one with decent gear, no skywalker studio by no means... :)

It is ok in the end, I just left there having recorded a LSiC modified. So I have a great stock and modified LSiC recording.

But yes, I agree it is unacceptable that this issue was not caught earlier and I am surprised I did not catch it when we listened to the recordings there at the time.

But I will post a stock 1.2TL recording soon (not for speaker comparison purposes, too heavy to take to the studio, but more so for stock versus modified. A LSiC stock/modified and a Def Tech CLR1000 stock recording.

So stay tuned and thanks for your patience!

This project is so rad. Can't wait for more recordings :D

[VR3]

It is fun...

I think over time when I have 50-100 recordings available to listen to for folks to compare speakers whether it be stock, modded, whatever... it will be very cool.

I would like to make this is an option for folks to just get an IDEA of what speakers sound like. Not a concrete decision maker but atleast an idea!

[VR3]

Recordings posted today -

http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-a...c-vr3-fortress
http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-audio-lsic-stock
http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-a...rs-1-2tl-stock

Previous Recordings -
http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/lsi9stockrecording

[VR3]

Added Today -
https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-audio-lsi9-fortress - LSi9 Modified
https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/defin...h-pm900-castle - Def Tech PM900 Modified
https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-audio-rt55i-dayton - RT55i Dayton Modified
https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-audio-rti8-stock - RTi8 Stock
https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/tyler-acoustics-linbrook - Tyler Acoustics Linbrook Signature Reference
https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/bic-a...venturi-dv62si - Bic Venturi DV26SI - just to show how much you really can hear

Previous Recordings -
http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-a...c-vr3-fortress - LSiC Modified
http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-audio-lsic-stock - LSiC Stock
http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/polk-a...rs-1-2tl-stock - 1.2TL Stock
http://soundcloud.com/vr3mods/lsi9stockrecording - LSi9 Stock

You can listen to all of the recordings here on the fly -
https://soundcloud.com/vr3mods

Hope you guys enjoy!

[Drenis]

Wow those modded LSi9's sound good on my little desktop setup here. Going from stock to modded was neat. Just makes me want my new crossovers even more now!

[VR3]

Thanks for the feedback Andre!

I still have a few more to post in the coming weeks...

Def Tech CLR1000 stock and modified
Tyler Acoustics Linbrook signature monitors stock
Polk RTi10
Rogers LS7

and many mooooore in the future! :]

[Oldfatdogs]

Hello Trey,I enjoy reading and listening to your posts.I liked Millage Gilbert so much I bought the CD,the only problem is the man only has one Three faces of Millage Gilbert.Now I want more and none to be had.

BTW you do great mods,you did it up on MR.Moose68bashs 1Cs.
Dan

[VR3]

Thanks man!

If you like Millage I would recommend you listen to Government Mule if you do not have them already...

Enjoy!