Acoustics: Understanding acoustics
What is a good speaker system is the most confusing question. The choice of acoustics depends on the individual characteristics of a person’s hearing, the parameters of the room in which the system will be located, and financial capabilities. In this system of three variables, finding an optimal point is very difficult. Therefore, we will consider three fundamental options to solve the problem.
Solution one. Budgetary. You can equip your home audio center with bookshelf speakers. These small systems can be placed on a shelf. They are suitable for small spaces. Due to its small size, it is also an inexpensive option. A significant disadvantage of this solution is that “shelf” acoustics will not produce normal bass sound.
Solution two. Luxurious. If the dimensions of the room and financial possibilities allow, you can buy floor acoustics. This system, due to its size, can contain a large diameter woofer. So there is a chance to enjoy a good bass.
Solution three. The “golden” compromise. This solution is suitable for large and small spaces and is affordable. It consists of acquiring a subwoofer and satellites. The subwoofer is responsible for high-quality bass reproduction. High frequencies are reproduced in stellites.
When choosing acoustics, you should not follow any advice. You need to rely only on your own hearing. You should also be prepared for the fact that the sound of acoustics in the store and in your apartment will be different.
Cables: brevity, the sister of talent
The choice of connection leads is a question that must inevitably be resolved in order to achieve high quality sound. Many articles have been written about the effect of cable on sound. The only thing the authors have achieved unity in is the cable length requirement. The shorter the better – this is the rule of thumb for choosing patch cables.
A little theory. Cables are divided into interconnection and acoustic. The interconnects are used to connect audio center units such as a player and a DAC. The speaker cables connect the speaker system to the power amplifier.
Depending on the type of conductive material, cables are divided into OFC, OCC and composite. OFCs are oxygen-free copper cables produced by pulling method. OCCs are monocrystalline copper cables, obtained directly from the melt. Composite cables are cables in which the conductor is made up of multiple materials.
If your goal is to create an ideal audio hub from blocks from different manufacturers, try using the shortest connection cables possible. And get ready to experience the perfect sound quality.
Hearing Portal
Today we discovered how to decipher an audiogram. Svetlana Leonidovna Kovalenko, senior doctor, audiologist and chief pediatric otolaryngologist in Krasnodar, and candidate for medical sciences, helps us with this.
Summary
The article turned out to be long and detailed: to understand how to decipher an audiogram, you must first familiarize yourself with the basic terms of audiometry and make examples. If you do not have time to read for a long time and understand the details, the card below is a summary of the article.
The audiogram is a graph of the patient’s listening experience. Helps diagnose hearing impairment. There are two axes in the audiogram: horizontal – frequency (the number of sound vibrations per second, expressed in hertz) and vertical – sound intensity (relative value, expressed in decibels). The audiogram shows bone conduction (sound that vibrates into the inner ear through the bones of the skull) and air conduction (sound that reaches the inner ear in the usual way, through the outer and middle ear).
In audiometry, the patient is given a signal of different frequency and intensity and the value of the minimum sound heard by the patient is marked with dots. Each point represents the minimum sound intensity at which the patient hears at a particular frequency. By connecting the dots, we get one graph, or rather two: one for bone conduction of sound and the other for air.
Hearing standard: when the graphics are in the range of 0 to 25 dB. The difference between the bone and air conduction graph is called the air-bone gap. If the bone conduction graph is normal and the air graph is below normal (there is a gap between the bone and the air), this is an indicator of conductive hearing loss. v
