KEF LS50s - demos?

[Pharos]

I've not found that at all and indeed there is absolutely no reason why that would be the case. A better speaker system will make everything in the mix clearer. That's the definition of a better speaker system.

i suppose if you think you've improved the speaker system when in fact you've actually made it worse then it would make sense.

I absolutely disagree. My reasoning is that generally broadcasters, and even film sound recordists now either do not care much about, or are not trained well enough, to understand how to record good sound.

Bill Woodman (ATC) said to me many years ago that "It's all lowest common denominator", (Macdonalds), and that they do not even have sound engineers to make sure that the sound is good. (I also have a friend who mixed for years and has said to me that the BBC could not mix a cake.)

On occasions a film comes up that is well recorded, often 60s or 70s, and a cowboy in a desert for example, sounds natural and thin voiced, not as is so often the case now, as though he is in a wardrobe.

Alan Shaw (Harbeth) does not use any BBC sound recordings from after the rebuild of BH circa 2000 to new BH, because the sound is poor and a neglected aspect, much glass being used in the studios.

My core technical reason is that poor speech is often the result of poor mic. positioning, this producing the proximity effect of bass boost, and resulting in an unnaturally thick sound, masking mid intonations and detail. Lavalier mics. on TV are dreadful, they are under the chin and even the axis is often pointing down to the lap area of the announcer, away from the mouth.

This although maybe more acceptable on say an LS3/5, is much worse on a broad band speaker, which many larger ones are, and these will produce with great clarity high Q bass eigentones which cause much prominence and masking of the mid range throat inflections and intonations. It seems to be fairly widespread, I'm currently watching "The Killing III", Danish, and the speech is poor, but the musical inserts are very good particularly so the piano.

I have heard that much sound is multi channel derived, and then mixed down to stereo, and that it does not work very well.

[Macca]

I don't watch much on the BBC but have to say I have never had any problems with hearing the dialogue on their shows. You may be right that it is sub-optimal but it's still not a struggle to hear it.

I did watch a film recently (the one where they go inside people's dreams, forget what it is called) and I did have to crank the volume on that to hear some of the dialogue, could well be the result of a mix-down to 2 channels as you say. I know that big Hollywood films spend a fortune on sound and use state of the art equipment so I doubt that the engineers are not up to the job, at least there anyway.

I don't recall what channel it was on but I do notice that there is a fair difference in level between some channels. Agree that old westerns and such the dialogue is very clear, but then they will be in mono for the most part.



What you are talking about does sound like so-called 'cocktail party effect.'

Maybe EQ it up in the 1-3Khz region, see how that goes?

[Pharos]

The BBC also seems to contract out a lot of work to what I presume are fresh media studies graduates, this giving a benefit of cost reduction for the BBC, and a reputation for the newbies.

They probably lack experience and also will probably use not very expensive equipment, and the mics. are probably those fixed to the cameras which to an extent determines that audio is controlled by video needs and distances.

It also occurs to me that a major reason for the lavalier mics. sounding so bad is that not only are they off axis, but they are against a chest which is both a bass resonator, and a pressure boundary which boosts bass. Remember the Tandy PZM?

The cocktail party effect is a brain audiology function, and surely will apply to all, including sound recordists.

The big Hollywood budgets are only of use with knowledge, and to me American is often difficult to understand, but of course I have hearing loss, and the disadvantage that in my formative years I was brought up on received pronunciation, and I'm now marooned with that expectation.

[Macca]

I've never had any trouble understanding Americans but then I grew up watching their TV shows and my father and uncle grew up there so were completely 'Americanised'.

Have noticed when I've been over there that they sometimes had trouble understanding me, not due to my accent but because of me using words they just don't have, like 'fortnight'.

Asking for 'Twenty Marlboro' in a tobacconist also elicited blank looks.

One American woman I was chatting to insisted that my accent was not real and that I must be putting it on, and she was a Columbia graduate, not some hick.

[Pharos]

When I was ringing up ESS, Sacramento around the turn of the century I spoke to a ldy who could not understand me, and in response I emphasised my 'correctness' of pronunciation, to which she exclaimed "What is he saying?", so my attempts made it worse.

I also struggle when dealing with corporate admin people on the phone, not only because of the varied accents, but also because IMO mobile audio standards do not meet those defined for landlines.

[Pharos]

The other factor which probably applies to us all to an extent, is the speaker positioning and the room's coloration of it, most probably need to have them against walls.

[Macca]

Out of interest what speakers are you using for A/V?

[Pharos]

For both stereo and AV, ADAM Tensor Betas.

[Macca]

Crikey - well they're a considerably better speaker than the 40 year old B&Os I'm using so I don't think you're problem lies there.

You could try using some rubbish speakers instead just to see if it helps but for me logic defies that approach.

The better the speaker the less distortion it will have, and the clearer the individual elements of the recording will become up to the limits of the recording (or broadcast). That's true regardless of whether the recording or broadcast has been done competently or not.

I suppose an exception might be if the recording picked up some low frequency noise that was at high enough amplitude to mask higher frequencies. Assuming the speakers could reproduce it. But then it's not a case of using worse speakers, just use a speaker that does not have low frequency capability.

[Pharos]

The SQ quality problems I complain about were also audible on my ESS AMT 1Bs, redesigned by me using an LS 5/8 mid/woofer from the BBC, but not as pronounced because the Heil produces a lot of (arguably) inaccurate mid and HF.

But more to the point the problems were also evident on my old Sony 21" CRT with an oval, probably 4" X 2" in the plastic casing.

When you say;
"I suppose an exception might be if the recording picked up some low frequency noise that was at high enough amplitude to mask higher frequencies. Assuming the speakers could reproduce it. But then it's not a case of using worse speakers, just use a speaker that does not have low frequency capability.",
that is really consistent with a point I made earlier.

But, rather anomalously, and it has caused concern, the Betas at 100dB do produce rather high mid distortion at 3%. However I have been reading a thread on the YG acoustics Anat speaker, which claims to be the best in the world, and which is criticised for the same level of distortion but at 95dB. It costs a hell of a lot, over £100k. The discussion also says that quite a lot of high end, read expensive, do have quite high distortion, and that this factor does not really correlate with a good or bad sound.

Most of the market in TV probably uses standard speakers, necessarily of limited bandwidth I think.

Tonight I watched "Young Guns" from '88, and its sound was lifeless and lacking 'air' - openness, and what happens often on R4 is that each insert has clearly a different recording quality, the news being notably stifled.