Recording room acoustic variations cause the circle of confusion
Evidence
It is relevant to consider what professional recording engineers think is good spectral balance, because their opinions get incorporated into the recordings they create. Mäkivirta and Anet (2001) measured room curves at the recording engineer’s location in 250 control rooms, using functionally similar Genelec loudspeakers (see Figure 9.7). Although the median curve is commendably flat, the variations that exist in these control rooms can be large, especially at low frequencies. Recording engineers who work in these circumstances demonstrate the truth in the “circle of confusion” (Figure 1.8). They cannot be certain of hearing the same sounds when moving among different recording studios, much less anticipate what consumers are hearing with any certainty. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 923
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Room curve variations across control rooms distort recordings’ spectral balance (similarity 0.93)
- A spectral flaw echoed across many speakers gets misattributed to the recording. (similarity 0.86)
- Cinema’s non-neutral spectral target forces engineers to compensate and varies across venues (similarity 0.84)
- Recordings with broadband spectral variations still reliably reveal loudspeaker resonances (similarity 0.83)
- Recording monitors with deliberate response errors perpetuate the circle of confusion (similarity 0.81)
- Engineers’ colored monitors embed personal EQ into the recording itself (similarity 0.81)
- Tone controls remain essential because recordings and rooms vary widely (similarity 0.81)
- Recorded room ambience may distract listeners from evaluating raw loudspeaker quality (similarity 0.80)
- Recording methods and cues for stereo are chosen independently of the listening arrangement. (similarity 0.79)
- Flawed studio monitors bake their own coloration into recordings (similarity 0.79)
- Resonances are the primary problem in loudspeakers (similarity 0.79)
- Stereo playback masks differences between loudspeakers with room reflections (similarity 0.79)
- Direct-sound-dominated rooms maximize the stereo center-image spectral distortion (similarity 0.79)
- Stereo reproduction injects room and speaker location cues unrelated to the recording (similarity 0.79)
- Matched room curves do not guarantee matching direct sound for imaging (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- A spectral flaw echoed across many speakers gets misattributed to the recording.
#expands(0.82) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1141