To pick up Ted's comment - and because you don't have to be retired to appreciate the good stuff - is there a really satisfactory way of listening to full-spectrum orchestral music in an affordable car?
I've been fortunate with the sound systems in my present and previous cars: the Volvo's HU-803 was simply superb, although limited by its age to input from CD and FM, while the BMW that replaced it has the modern and powerful - though less refined - Harmon Kardon audio option. But both have also lived their lives on the motorway, and even the Volvo's 205-section tyres - never mind the 255s on the BMW - make their own contribution to the soundtrack.
All this means that while the loud passages of a Mahler symphony come through with appropriate vim and vigour, there can be long passages in between when I'm struggling to hear anything at all. Smaller groups and solo instruments don't suffer this problem, because their dynamic range is narrower. But I do love the big stuff - certainly more than the sound of tyres.
There's always the LEC, of course, which is much quieter inside but has - by comparison - a bargain-basement standard fit audio system. These days it usually has the rest of the family in it too, who are apt to create further sonic interference regardless of my choice of music.
Anyone gone to the lengths of - say - creating a special version of a file with dynamic compression, just for the car? Much as I love to tinker, perhaps that will have to wait till I'm retired.
};---)
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Wed 24 Feb 16 at 17:51
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Most of my recent cars have only had the standard audio systems but all have had an auto volume setting which compensates for ambient (road) noise.
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That's fine, ON, if your music level is steady but your background noise is variable - usually with speed. I'm describing the opposite situation: steady speed and a constant but highish noise floor (certainly higher than my room at home) with music that veers between very loud indeed (for a small space) and a single pizzicato double bass. I can hear it all at home but in the car the quiet bits fall below the noise floor.
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I think that's where Classic FM comes in. Hardly any dynamic range at all!
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I think Classic FM applies the sort of dynamic compression I was thinking of earlier, which is why it sounds tolerable over DAB in the kitchen or car, and pants on the proper kit in a quiet room.
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Mahler ??....Top man WdeB !
Loud as I can tolerate when in the car alone. Pieces like Kindertotenlieder and Das Lied do have me going up and down the volume a bit but with my old diesel rattletrap I'm just grateful to be able to hear the music anyway.
I spend no money on improvements...City driving combined with potholes...not condusive to concert hall quality. I do like to get me hands on a nice big knob though. I changed the wireless on this car as the other one had tw fiddly little volume control buttons on the edge of the facia which you really had yo look for. This one...up and down with a quick turn.
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Where's BBD when you need him?
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I think Classic FM applies the sort of dynamic compression I was thinking of earlier, which is why it sounds tolerable over DAB in the kitchen or car, and pants on the proper kit in a quiet room.
Classic FM applies a lot of compression. Obviously now being deaf, I cannot say if they are doing the same amount as earlier, but 15 years ago, it was enough to destroy a lot of pieces for the serious listener.
Something like the Saen Sans organ symphony illustrates the effect of gain ducking to a huge degree. In the 3rd movement, the orchestra does an introduction at moderate volume, and then there is a brief silence and the organ comes in with a bass note at pretty well full blast. The playing on the organ is then very staccato. The gain goes everywhere as there are silences interrupted by full volume basically.
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>> I think that's where Classic FM comes in. Hardly any dynamic range at all!
>>
Hardly any musical range either. They play the same old things endlessly, in between the inane outpourings from the highly irritating Tim Muro.
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>>>is there a really satisfactory way of listening to full-spectrum orchestral music in an affordable car?
My way (OK so not classical but the rock music I like often has range... I hate a constant thrash of sound) is not to worry and accept it's only at home do you ever have a real chance of depth/range/delicacy/slam/etc.
My last 5 cars have all come with differing quality but acceptable sound systems and when I listen to a track my mind sort of auto converts the music to how I know it can sound.
This attitude was indicated to me decades ago by my lifetime classical enthusiast uncle when I asked him how he could possibly enjoy listing to radio 3 in the kitchen on a transistor when he would say if you enjoy music the spirit of good pieces will shine though even a cheap device.
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With the exception of the appalling £20 Saisho lump I installed in my Mk1 Escort, I don't think I've ever really been able to tell much difference between in-car sound systems. Our current Mazda has a Bose unit with some big device in the boot (inside the spare wheel), which is supposed to make it all brilliant, but I just don't see any difference.
I think I went to too many Anthrax concerts when I was a teenager. i.e. 1.
Classical music, it's one of those things I know I'm supposed to like. And I try to every now and again when I get the urge. But I can never quite get in to it. I've been to a few gigs at the Barbican, Royal Opera house, those sorts of things Always get crushingly bored and sleepy. Can never really convince myself that anyone can really, really like it. Seems more of a chore than a passion to me, more of something to be seen to be liking, but evidently I'm wrong.
Ho hum.
I'm pretty much Radio 4/5 Live only in the car these days anyway.
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The R4 news earlier this week reported that the BBC is considering making R5L online-only. Seems an odd idea for something that so many seem to listen to on the move. (Not me, though; don't think I've heard it since we moved house and no longer got the foghorn tones of Alan Green over the garden fence.)
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The R4 news earlier this week reported that the BBC is considering making R5L online-only. Seems an odd idea for something that so many seem to listen to on the move. (Not me, though; don't think I've heard it since we moved house and no longer got the foghorn tones of Alan Green over the garden fence.)
Odd, I could imagine medium wave transmitters ceasing, the coverage must be less than the DAB coverage by now, but not the DAB. Can't see it as a programme budget issue, radio costs far less to make than TV.
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I for one would be damned cross if 5Live goes online only. I usually wake up to it on DAB - Nicky Campbell is much gentler on the ears than Chris Evans.
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Our bedside clock radio gadget runs on Classic FM for both sleep and wake up, (at different volume).
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 26 Feb 16 at 19:53
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To have a go at answering my own question, I've been playing today with dbPowerAmp, the ripping and compressing utility I've been using for my recent experiments. In its Convert panel - with which I convert my lossless FLAC files for home to 320k MP3 for the iPod - is a sub-panel in which I can specify Digital Sound Processing effects, one of which is dynamic compression, so I've applied it to some Beethoven orchestral stuff and will try it out in the car tomorrow. No clue as to how to gauge the parameters, so I guessed and will just judge it by ear.
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I hope you'll tell us the results of the experiment. I can't help wondering how far it's worth going to achieve the highest of fi when you've got wind and road noise to contend with, plus (presumably some sound from the engine of a diesel BMW driven in the way it was intended to be driven). I'm not being cynical; just interested to know how worthwhile it turns out to be.
I still remember Flanders and Swann's gentle dig at hi-fi in the late 1950s:
High fid-el-i-tee,
Hi-fi's the thing for me.
The highest notes, neither sharp nor flat,
The ear can't hear as high as that.....
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...Still, I ought to please any passing bat
With my high fidelitee.
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Thanks for the encouragement, Avant. As you say (and whatever the car and kit makers might suggest) concert hall quality is an unachievable goal. In fact, by compressing the dynamics I'm reducing the fidelity of the recording but giving it a better chance to assert itself against the noises of a moving car.
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There is the same problem with UHDTV you need UHD vision to see any improvement in quality. The best improvement detector is your wallet.
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Depends what you listen to and how you listen, ON. (That replaced my first thought, which was one word beginning with B.) Does anyone here not now wince when unexpectedly confronted with a standard definition TV image? The process is analogous: representing a rounded reality with a square grid and trying to make the grid elements small enough for us not to notice the edges.
Anyway, today's experiment wasn't about resolution but simple audibility and I'd call it a qualified success. I had the classic Kovacevich-Davis-LSO recording of the Emperor concerto (from a £1.99 charity shop CD) which has noticeable tape hiss in the quiet passages when played at home (it was made in 1969.) At the 70ish the M4 allowed in patches, I could hear both the hiss and the piano, but didn't have to rush to turn down the volume when the full orchestra joined in.
That was what I hoped for, and I'll be interested to see if it still works at full cruising speed tonight (fingers crossed.). There was a strange impression at one point that some of the top notes of the piano were missing in one quiet passage but I'll have to check that on the CD version. Otherwise, a very enjoyable listen.
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>>There was a strange impression at one point that some of the top notes of the piano were missing in one quiet
>> passage but I'll have to check that on the CD version.
Have you had an audiometer test, that will give you a frequency response graph of each ear? I had them annually for many years when I worked in underwater acoustics. My hearing is still good but I have always protected my ears from loud music, machinery etc. I know that the engineers had a frequency dip in their hearing at the machinery rotation rate frequency.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 29 Feb 16 at 09:37
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No, but like you I'm careful with loud noises. I seldom use headphones, which are very easy to play too loud, and I've measured the sound pressure at my home listening position. It peaks at 89 or 90 dB, which is too loud to work all day in but safe in small doses.
Despite my liking for the hard and heavy end of the rock spectrum I've been to surprisingly few live (amplified) music events - although lots of orchestral concerts - mainly because I find the sound levels oppressive. 100dB or more is not safe for a few minutes, never mind the whole evening.
The 'missing notes' this morning were a curiosity, possibly an artefact of the processing I'd done on the file. There were plenty more high notes later that came through just fine.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Mon 29 Feb 16 at 09:56
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I have noticed that H&S has become an issue in orchestras and wind bands with clear plastic sound deflectors shielding players from nearby loud instruments.
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Yes, there have been some concerns raised recently about orchestral musicians' hearing, which is understandable; if I'm getting 90dB 20 metres away in the stalls, the poor oboists stuck in front of the trombones must be getting a whole lot more, but generally not for extended periods.
Meanwhile (ponce alert) I'm glad to report that my ears are not playing tricks on me. I played the Kovacevich recording again, this time the uncompressed version at home. What I was hearing (or almost not hearing) in the car was his extraordinary delicacy with those high notes, so that they weave into the texture created by the string accompaniment. I dug out my other recording (Ashkenazy on LP) and the same notes stand out much clearly above the strings, and are paradoxically less expressive as a result. (Ponce off)
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Pon-ce. An obscure Italian composer?
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Meanwhile (ponce alert) I'm glad to report that my ears are not playing tricks on me. I played the Kovacevich recording again, this time the uncompressed version at home. What I was hearing (or almost not hearing) in the car was his extraordinary delicacy with those high notes, so that they weave into the texture created by the string accompaniment. I dug out my other recording (Ashkenazy on LP) and the same notes stand out much clearly above the strings, and are paradoxically less expressive as a result. (Ponce off)
Sounds like another report of Musicam masking being more audible than claimed, and not to me an effect of compression. Wikipedia is mostly correct but falls over with its harsh words for users of the musicam name.
I have heard others say this, although I personally doubt any car is a good enough listening environment. At home with a good system, probably.
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Not sure I made myself clear, Slidey, but I don't think I heard any effect at all. The 'disappearing' piano notes sound the same in the CD, my FLAC copy at home and the dynamically-compressed 320k MP3 in the car. It's part of the original performance, not something I'd inadvertently added in processing.
Ponce's career never really got going; 'too clever by half' was the critics' verdict at the time.
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Classics in the car - Old Navy
