how important is the human voice (to your hifi listening)?

I've just been listening to a play on radio, and started to apply all the usual music & hifi criteria. Spoken word is quite demanding. Siblence and bass boom are easier to detect.

As an aside, sound effects matter alot in radio plays - a different kind of 'suspension of disbelief': all praise the Foley artists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_artist

I've also been listening more to vocals in classical music.

 

When the Hitch Hiker Guide Tertiary Phase radio play first came out there was a thing on the BBC website that explained a lot about how they made the sound effects and recorded the dialog for it. I can't find it now unfortunately but it was really interesting if anyone knows where it is?

BTW if its of any interest I believe radio 4 use the Electrovoice RE20 for their vocal mic and I think most of the vocals for the new Hitch Hikers Guide radio plays were done with a Neumann USM 69i. You can tell the RE20 has a much warmer slightly bommier sound I think.

 

Foley's a proper art..
I worked on Hetty Wainthropp Investigates many years ago(!), and used to go to the foley sessions at Universal in Perivale. The foley artists were amazing!
There was one scene, where a waitress walks through a crowded restaraunt, almost loses her tray of tea cups about 4 times, finally sets them down at table then knocks the table over. The foley guy watched the scene once, got together all the bits and bobs he needed, then did all the footsteps, clothing rustles, tea cups shifting on the tray, putting cups down and knocking the table over in 1 take!
The most famous foley artist went by the immortal name of Betty The Boot - known for her ability to perfectly recreate any footstep on any surface...

 

Are there any other voices other than human I am missing in the world of HIFI? I've had 6 months off from forums playing golf and I come back to aliens?

 

I think BBC radio still had a lot of the Coles 4104 (and still does for all I know) mics still kicking around when the orginal radio series was made. Perhaps Len could tell us what was used, and about the mic techniques of radio drama recording...
BTW Isn't Footsteps a much nicer term than Foley

Edited to add:
I think it's actually the 4038. A ribbon mic of probably BBC design in any case, and still popular in some quarters.

 

To answer the question posed by this thread, the human voice is crucial to hi-fi listening. Our hearing has evolved primarily for the recognition and comprehension of voice and, when listening to the voice, we are most capable of determining realism.

If a system doesn't do an excellent job of reproducing the sound of the human voice, then it isn't high fidelity.

 

No idea what mics radio use - I was in telly and never the twain shall meet (apart from the odd chat here and there, and I used to spend a lot of time at the radiophonic workshop playing with their NoNoise kit, and hanging around in the back of the radio 1 session studio..).
Still, in TV we tended to use Schoepps mics for location (though that was only the really keen sound recordists - otherwise it was Sennheiser 451 I think, but always M&S stereo or mono), and those big old-fashioned looking AKGs for commentary etc. There were even a few ancient Calrecs being used.
And you can't just call it Footsteps - there's a whole lot more to it than that.. Either way, it's seriously skilled.

 

I think Footsteps is a good, atmospheric name for it. Whatever the name, you are right, it's highly skilled work also requiring a good deal of talent and creativity.

 

hmmm, Blumlein
http://www.independentaudio.com/CDCatalog/layout graphics/Coles/4040sb.gif

 

I'm with 7_v on this .....when setting gear up in an unknown system I always try to use radio3 or 4 to get voices .....this helps determine the balance and neutrality, not just for me but the owner as well. Most people know what the human voice sounds like.

My cats can talk.....all be it on a limited vocabulary....mostly startin with "I want......
feeding, to sleep, let in , let out, the chair , the bed , etc"

 

It's impossible to disagree. Human hearing is (apparently) optimised for.. listening to speech.
How many speakers are designed to play back speech accurately though (a slightly loaded question )?

 

So:

Joel, have you heard Steve's speakers?

Steve - in the area of human voice alone - how would you compare your designs to those of Mr Alan Shaw? (taking a wild guess that that is who Joel is referring to)

and

Are we expecting a new product release any time soon?

 

Some are. For example, Thorsten's speakers have one drive unit reproducing the whole of the voice band, rather than using one type of driver for the voice fundamental frequencies, another for the harmonics and a crossover in between. In addition, he has used an open baffle design which avoids boxy colouration - once more improving speech reproduction. I've taken different routes with my own speakers to achieve similar ends.

I predict that more speakers will be designed with speech in mind now that home theatre systems have become more popular, as films contain so much dialogue.

 

I'm not over-familiar with Harbeth speakers, although what I've heard about Alan Shaw leads me to regard him highly as a designer.

Yes, we're hoping for a new product release very soon. I'm awaiting prototypes of exciting new drive units and I've employed a talented, young designer to handle the aesthetics. He and I are working together to blend his visual concepts with my sonic ideas. I'm hoping that the new products will be a progressive improvement over the current and significantly less expensive (better production techniques). Hopefully, they will be drop-dead gorgeous this time - does anyone remember my introduction to this forum?

 

That's not quite what I meant. I'm not particularly interested in how you get there TBH.
What I'd like to know is how many speakers are voiced using a recording of human speech as a reference.
It was Alan Shaw I was referring to obliquely. He uses a recording of speech that he made himself (in a field, no less) to voice his speakers.

Coda:
I haven't heard Steve's speakers I'm afraid. AFAIK, they are unavailable in Japan. It is always good to hear of desigers who use speech as a reference, though.

 

A very good speaker for voice is the Quad 988. Superb, actually.

 

I definitely rate Harbeth speakers, especially the Monitor 40... Even better than the Rogers LS5/8 for TV sound dubbing, and much, much better for music..

 

Shame about the M40s I think (passives would be fine, honestly).

 

importance of listening to the human voice?

Sibilence in voice - extremely important to me

Bass boom - less so, because it's less obvious (to my ears) whether the boom is an artifact of the system or the recording