Speakers and wire length

Can we get from :

"Since the Pioneer SX-434 is working so well, thanks in part to advice
I recieved here, I'm going to hang the speakers in the shop and use
it. One speaker will be about two feet from the SX-434 while the ..."

To discussions of wave propogation, which is better left to the Russians actually, and totally ignor ethe fact that even if you could hear the difference, there are a hell of alot of people who just don't care...

But you see, just how close this is to quantum mechanics ? I mean, this whole thread is only a few days old, or new, depending on your particular conception of time, in most countries.

Next, people are going to wonder where those extra electrons went out of their speaker wires, which were insulated and everything.

They escaped to the Hendershot of course and are providing air conditioning fork someone in Cape Forward, Chile.

 

On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 6:03:59 AM UTC-7, Allodoxaphobia wrote:

On Tue, 1 Apr 2014 10:25:23 -0700, William Sommerwerck wrote:

If the wires are heavy-gauge, it shouldn't make any difference. If they're

thin, yes, you might hear a difference in bass output (maybe). I would make

them the same length.



It's more likely there will be a difference noted due

to the distance involved in the physical separation.

IF any difference is noted at all.

I believe the human ear is more sensitive to time

differences than intensity differences.

Agreed on the time vs amplitude but the time differences in speaker cable lengths are in the 10s to maybe 100s of nanoseconds. I ASSURE you you will never hear fractional microsecond differences.

When I got my first CD player (CDP-101) it had a single D-A converter so there was a 45 degree phase shift at 10 KHz. Keep in mind it's not a 'phase shift as much as a time offset (45uS). Translating that to path length in air it works out to 0.15 inches so the question was, if I turn my head to 'match' the path lengths, can I hear the difference? The answer is no and I seriously doubt anybody can.

G˛

 

[Phil Allison]

"William Sommerwanker"

The ear/brain system can be sensitive to inter-aural timing
differences down to a few microseconds...

What is your evidence for this? Above about 1kHz, the brain doesn't
recognize phase or timing differences.

** Huh ? That is rubbish.

Its above 1kHz that it all happens.

The ear has little or no sense of direction at low frequencies but is very
sensitive to higher frequency transients.

One can instantly recognise left, right, in front and even behind.



.... Phil

 

[Phil Allison]

<stratus46@yahoo.com>


When I got my first CD player (CDP-101) it had a single D-A converter so
there was a 45 degree phase shift at 10 KHz. Keep in mind it's not a 'phase
shift as much as a time offset (45uS). Translating that to path length in
air it works out to 0.15 inches so the question was, if I turn my head to
'match' the path lengths, can I hear the difference? The answer is no and I
seriously doubt anybody can.


** Have you still got your CDP101 ??

I ordered one soon as they became available in Sydney - the dealer said I
was the first to pick one up in May 1982, IIRC.

Mine it still in regular use.




..... Phil

 

[William Sommerwerck]

"Phil Allison" wrote in message news:bq3o8cFmqmdU1@mid.individual.net...

The ear/brain system can be sensitive to inter-aural timing
differences down to a few microseconds...

What is your evidence for this? Above about 1kHz, the brain doesn't
recognize phase or timing differences.

Huh ? That is rubbish.
It's above 1kHz that it all happens.

The ear has little or no sense of direction at low frequencies
but is very sensitive to higher frequency transients.

One can instantly recognise left, right, in front and even behind.

We're both wrong, here.

I said "phase or timing differences", when I should have said "phase". Above
about 1kHz, phase differences are not used for directionality. This is fact
(read any book on acoustics). I confirmed it 44 years ago when I used an
oscillator with fixed and variable-phase output feeding stereo headphones.

Arrival-time differences are another matter.

 

[Phil Allison]

"William Sommerwanker"

The ear/brain system can be sensitive to inter-aural timing
differences down to a few microseconds...

What is your evidence for this? Above about 1kHz, the brain doesn't
recognize phase or timing differences.

Huh ? That is rubbish.

It's above 1kHz that it all happens.
----------------------------------------

The ear has little or no sense of direction at low frequencies
but is very sensitive to higher frequency transients.

One can instantly recognise left, right, in front and even behind.


We're both wrong, here.

** Only YOU fuckhead.

I said "phase or timing differences", when I should have said "phase".
Above about 1kHz, phase differences are not used for directionality.

** But time of arrival for any transient is CRUCIAL !!

This is fact (read any book on acoustics). I confirmed it 44 years ago
when I used an oscillator with fixed and variable-phase output feeding
stereo headphones.

** Phase differences are not heard on headphones at all - with *SINE*
waves.

But with speech, music and other real sounds, reverse phase is VERY obvious.

It is less obvious with speakers, one must be near the centre of a stereo
pair and in a room that is not too reverberant or it can be hard to tell
between "in" and "out " of phase. But the we are dealing with VIRTUAL images
of real sound.

With REAL sounds, in the three dimensional world - recognition of sound
direction is normally instant and accurate.

Our ears are fantastic at it.


.... Phil

 

[dave]

On 04/01/2014 11:04 AM, John Robertson wrote:

On 04/01/2014 9:57 AM, etpm@whidbey.com wrote:
Since the Pioneer SX-434 is working so well, thanks in part to advice
I recieved here, I'm going to hang the speakers in the shop and use
it. One speaker will be about two feet from the SX-434 while the other
will be 30 feet away. Will it make that big of a difference if the
speaker wires are of such different lengths? I have enough speaker
wire laying around that I could make them both the same length. I
could just coil up the wire to near speaker.
Thanks,
Eric


If it is just background music, then you can use almost anything on
hand. If you are going for music quality with some volume, then minimum
18 gauge.

Louder? 16 gauge.

Stadium? 00 gauge. (right...)

John :-#)#

You can only put so many speakers on one pair

(load impedance). The wires never get bigger than abt 10g

 

[William Sommerwerck]

"Phil Allison" wrote in message news:bq42isFom72U1@mid.individual.net...

I said "phase or timing differences", when I should have said "phase". Above
about 1kHz, phase differences are not used for directionality.

** But time of arrival for any transient is CRUCIAL !!

You're knowledgeable tons of things, but here you're wrong.

The ear cannot and does not hear phase

This is fact (read any book on acoustics). I confirmed it 44 years ago when
I used an oscillator with fixed and variable-phase output feeding stereo
headphones.

** Phase differences are not heard on headphones at all -- with *SINE*
waves.

They are. Not only do the books say so -- but I've done the experiment. The
ear/brain can hear phase differences -- //steady-state differences// (not just
polarity reversals) up to about 1kHz. Not surprisingly, this frequency roughly
corresponds to the acoustic wavelength of the head.


> But with speech, music and other real sounds, reverse phase is VERY obvious.

You didn't read what I wrote.

 

[Bill Gill]

On 4/2/2014 8:38 AM, Phil Allison wrote:

"Bill Gill"

It takes ten times the power to seem twice as loud.

Ten times the power is 10 dB, that is 10 times as loud.

** Bollocks.

Most would say it was 2 or maybe 3 times as loud.


Twice as loud would be 3 dB.


** Bollocks again.

+3dB is only slightly louder.

+1dB is almost unnoticeable.


.... Phil

In one respect you are right +1 dB is just detectable. That is
how it was originally defined. +3dB is twice the power. To my
mind that is twice as loud. +10 dB is 10 times the power. Again
that would be 10 times as loud. Check the math. The calculation
is 10 * log(10) P2/P1.

Bill

 

[dave]

On 04/03/2014 06:12 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:

"Phil Allison" wrote in message news:bq42isFom72U1@mid.individual.net...

I said "phase or timing differences", when I should have said "phase".
Above about 1kHz, phase differences are not used for directionality.

** But time of arrival for any transient is CRUCIAL !!

You're knowledgeable tons of things, but here you're wrong.


The ear cannot and does not hear phase

This is fact (read any book on acoustics). I confirmed it 44 years ago
when I used an oscillator with fixed and variable-phase output feeding
stereo headphones.

** Phase differences are not heard on headphones at all -- with *SINE*
waves.

They are. Not only do the books say so -- but I've done the experiment.
The ear/brain can hear phase differences -- //steady-state differences//
(not just polarity reversals) up to about 1kHz. Not surprisingly, this
frequency roughly corresponds to the acoustic wavelength of the head.


But with speech, music and other real sounds, reverse phase is VERY
obvious.

You didn't read what I wrote.

There is no summation and comb filtering, flanging, etc., with
earphones regardless of phase differences between L and R.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

"Bill Gill" wrote in message news:lhjn7s$qpi$1@dont-email.me...

In one respect you are right +1 dB is just detectable.
That is how it was originally defined.

It was /never/ defined that way.

The bel is the logarithm (to the base 10) of a power ratio. Decibels are ten
times that. That a decibel just happens to be the smallest change in level
that can be easily detected is total coincidence.

 

[Bill Gill]

On 4/3/2014 9:40 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:

"Bill Gill" wrote in message news:lhjn7s$qpi$1@dont-email.me...

In one respect you are right +1 dB is just detectable.
That is how it was originally defined.

It was /never/ defined that way.

The bel is the logarithm (to the base 10) of a power ratio. Decibels are
ten times that. That a decibel just happens to be the smallest change in
level that can be easily detected is total coincidence.

The original work on which the system was based was done
by seeing what was the smallest increase in sound level that
could be detected by the human ear.

quote (from Wikipedia)
The decibel originates from methods used to quantify reductions in
audio levels in telephone circuits. These losses were originally
measured in units of Miles of Standard Cable (MSC), where 1 MSC
corresponded to the loss of power over a 1 mile (approximately 1.6 km)
length of standard telephone cable at a frequency of 5000 radians per
second (795.8 Hz), and roughly matched the smallest attenuation
detectable to the average listener. Standard telephone cable was
defined as "a cable having uniformly distributed resistance of 88 ohms
per loop mile and uniformly distributed shunt capacitance of .054
microfarad per mile" (approximately 19 gauge).[4]

The transmission unit (TU) was devised by engineers of the Bell
Telephone Laboratories in the 1920s to replace the MSC. 1 TU was
defined as ten times the base-10 logarithm of the ratio of measured
power to a reference power level.[5] The definitions were conveniently
chosen such that 1 TU approximately equaled 1 MSC (specifically, 1.056
TU = 1 MSC).[6] In 1928, the Bell system renamed the TU the decibel.[7]
Along with the decibel, the Bell System defined the bel, the base-10
logarithm of the power ratio, in honor of their founder and
telecommunications pioneer Alexander Graham Bell.[8] The bel is seldom
used, as the decibel was the proposed working unit.[9]


Bill

 

[bud--]

Not quite relevant, but interesting
From alt.engineering.electrical, 4th post by Bill Shymanski
http://preview.tinyurl.com/38879u7

 

[Lanso Prazole]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2014 14:24:05 +1100, Phil Allison spewed:

** Only YOU fuckhead.

Cripes! I thought I had this sewer mouth killfiled!
Adjustment made...

 

[Tom Miller]

"bud--" <null@void.com> wrote in message
news:533d94d1$0$61610$c3e8da3$f017e9df@news.astraweb.com...

Not quite relevant, but interesting
From alt.engineering.electrical, 4th post by Bill Shymanski
http://preview.tinyurl.com/38879u7

Good one. 1983 cables well beyond their service life. LOL

 

[Gareth Magennis]

"Bill Gill" wrote in message news:lhjn7s$qpi$1@dont-email.me...

On 4/2/2014 8:38 AM, Phil Allison wrote:

"Bill Gill"

It takes ten times the power to seem twice as loud.

Ten times the power is 10 dB, that is 10 times as loud.

** Bollocks.

Most would say it was 2 or maybe 3 times as loud.


Twice as loud would be 3 dB.


** Bollocks again.

+3dB is only slightly louder.

+1dB is almost unnoticeable.


.... Phil

In one respect you are right +1 dB is just detectable. That is
how it was originally defined. +3dB is twice the power. To my
mind that is twice as loud. +10 dB is 10 times the power. Again
that would be 10 times as loud. Check the math. The calculation
is 10 * log(10) P2/P1.

Bill



"Twice as loud" usually refers to how the human brain perceives how loud the
sound is. It is nothing much to do with mathematics, but just how our
auditory systems work.

It turns out that the average person thinks a 10dB increase sounds about
"twice as loud".


I'm not really sure I could determine at what point a sound was twice as
loud as previously, it seems far too arbritary and subjective an assumption
to me.
If not totally meaningless.



Gareth.

 

[gregz]

Bill Gill <billnews2@cox.net> wrote:

On 4/2/2014 8:38 AM, Phil Allison wrote:
"Bill Gill"

It takes ten times the power to seem twice as loud.

Ten times the power is 10 dB, that is 10 times as loud.

** Bollocks.

Most would say it was 2 or maybe 3 times as loud.


Twice as loud would be 3 dB.


** Bollocks again.

+3dB is only slightly louder.

+1dB is almost unnoticeable.


.... Phil


In one respect you are right +1 dB is just detectable. That is
how it was originally defined. +3dB is twice the power. To my
mind that is twice as loud. +10 dB is 10 times the power. Again
that would be 10 times as loud. Check the math. The calculation
is 10 * log(10) P2/P1.

Bill

Twice as loud should be twice the voltage. Forget power.

Greg

 

[Phil Allison]

"Bill Gill is a Dill "

The original work on which the system was based was done
by seeing what was the smallest increase in sound level that
could be detected by the human ear.

** Bollocks.

quote (from Wikipedia)
The decibel originates from methods used to quantify reductions in
audio levels in telephone circuits. These losses were originally
measured in units of Miles of Standard Cable (MSC), where 1 MSC
corresponded to the loss of power over a 1 mile (approximately 1.6 km)
length of standard telephone cable at a frequency of 5000 radians per
second (795.8 Hz), and roughly matched the smallest attenuation
detectable to the average listener.

** Fucks up your mad idea.



..... Phil

 

[Black Iccy]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2014 07:40:28 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
<grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

It was /never/ defined that way.

The bel is the logarithm (to the base 10) of a power ratio.
Decibels are ten times that.

Errm, 1/10_th surely.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

Phil, you are reading what you want to see, not what I actually wrote.