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  1. Have noticed that we are pretty limited by the choice of words to effectively discuss their opinions on music and sound quality, below are some terms used in conversations to ensure that we are all on the same 'channel'. Happy reading... Tonal Balance Tonal balance is the art of achieving a balance or neutrality of volume between tones. If one tone or frequency is louder, softer, more apparent than another tone, then you do not have accurate tonal balance. This is tricky to try and explain in words. The problem is, what is correct? You could suggest that all one needs to further define proper tonal balance is to listen to live music. However, that is flawed. It is flawed because in nearly every live music venue, tonal balances are never perfect. The stage or the hall where live music is being played is not a perfect place and therefore the tones of certain instruments or voices will be altered. To further exacerbate the problem, the human ear very quickly adjusts and compensates for these tonal imbalances and one tends to not notice them when one listens to live music. It is actually easier to recognize tonal balance problems in a stereo system than it is in a live music venue. Variety of program material in a consistent setting is the reason. As an example, if you play five different recordings of live music in the consistent space of your home, tonal balance differences caused by your system will be easier to identify because each of the recordings will consistently have one or more tonal areas emphasized or de-emphasized. The chances that this was a consistent error made by five different recordists is slim to none. Therefore, the most likely culprit is your system or some component in your system. Soundstage The recreation of live space, or the recreation of the recording space. Every recording (with the exception of pure electronic music) was made in a space. The recording process picks up reverberant cues and ambient information of the space it was recorded in and the stereo system will attempt to playback these cues in such a way that the listener believes he/she is reliving that same space. Very few systems ever get the soundstage to be right. This is one of the most difficult tasks for anyone trying to setup a system and perhaps the most elusive of them all. Depth Depth is the ability of the loudspeaker to reproduce accurate distance from the recording microphone. That distance should appear from behind the loudspeaker�s drivers. As a person or an instrument gets closer to the microphone that is recording it, the sound will have less 'depth' and will appear to come from the speaker itself. If the recording is very close-miked the sound can actually appear in front of the loudspeakers. Most Audiophile recordings and well made recordings don't close mike the sound sources and therefore have a lot of depth. Width The ability of the loudspeaker to create an image that extends beyond the outer left and right boundaries of the loudspeakers when the program material supports it. Center image The phantom third channel. Many people think of a two-channel system as having three distinct channels or places where sound appears from. This phantom center channel is the product of an equal and identical sound source coming from both the left and the right loudspeakers. According to reports, this is incorrect. There is no phantom center channel, there is no center image. Properly setup a well balanced two-channel stereo system should produce a virtually seamless presentation that extends from one side of the room to the other side of the room. The only reason that there should ever be an obvious 'center channel' is when a recording engineer placed a center voice or instrument too close to the microphones. What we normally consider as a center channel is really a recording error. Phase and polarity These two items were recommended to be taken the same (although they are not, technically speaking). Phase in this context will be defined as the difference or lack of difference between the left and right channel speaker driver motion in an absolute sense. Loudspeakers generate sound that we hear because of the back and forth movement of the speaker drivers. This back and forth movement pressurizes the air and moves our personal hearing mechanism. We hear this pressurization of the air. If the same signal comes to both loudspeakers at exactly the same time, and the two loudspeaker drivers are moving at exactly the same rate and time, then the air will move in concert with the drivers. However, if the two drivers are out of phase, then each moves in an opposite direction from the other. This causes the sound to de-pressurize or cancel and you lose sound pressure or volume. Standing Waves Groups of high and low pressure waves that build up in a room. There are no standing waves without a room. A graphical view of a standing wave is easy to produce. Take a glass of water and set the glass atop your loudspeaker. Put on some music with lots of heavy bass and crank up the music. While it is playing, look at the water inside the glass. Note that there are ripples in the water caused by the speaker�s vibration. The ripples will appear to stand still and in many cases not be obviously associated with the sound. The air in your room can act the same as the water in the glass. As your speakers pressurize the air in the room, standing waves bunch together in much the same way as the water in the glass did. Typically these standing waves gather at the boundaries of the room and the corners. The problem with standing waves is that they create tonal imbalances, especially in the bass. Standing waves create interference patterns that will either boost some frequencies while attenuating others. This has a lot to do with why one room sounds better than another.
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