Anyone has got or had an experience with ultra near field listening?

[UltraNearFieldJock]

... but retaining the phantom scene projected in front of you. But all this has some limit, if positioned extremely close, then the phantom scene goes up to your head and if even closer it gets then inside your head, losing the front projection effect, which in my opinion it's not desirable.

Yes, this problem (stage) was for me the main reason to make experiments with ultra-near-field. But not caused by my living-room setup. I find my standard living-room-setup good enough - naturally in the frame of costs, efforts and possibilities – it makes a lot of fun. But I never haven’t got unfortunately enough free time to sit workless and listen to the music :-(. And when I have, it's too late in the night to listen loud enough – I live in a flat. Due to this, I was very long time an enthusiastic headphone listener. But one time (for more then 2 years) I said enough – I will have a more real phantom-stage, and not a one in the middle of my had! And I started to experiment. And now I’m writing this post, is 01:25 am and I’m listening to the music in the quality, loudness and phantom-stage, it really satisfied me – without any thing in or over ears. And tomorrow ours main aspect: the phantom-stage-issue.

 

[jonfitch]

This is really where coaxials shine, because anytime you shift your head nearfield it causes a huge shift in terms of listening axis. I think this is why historically 3" drivers has been the sweet-spot for cheap desktop speakers because it was the easiest way to achieve wide and uniform directivity.

 

[JeyB]

I’ve never heard in my experiments such effect. My supposed explanation: Currently I have got two ultra-near-field setups: One based on headphones-speakers (5 cm distance) and other one based on fullrange speakers (Visaton B80 - 25 cm distance) – both are only “quasi-fullrange” – lack of (or very week) bass section! The supplementary bass speakers are perhaps very difficult to localise – the same effect why subwoofers placement has no effects for the listening-stage.

Understood. It's logical then that you don't experience this issue due to full range drivers employed in both of your setups. From your photos I thought it was one only setup, but they are two different ones, ok. In my own setup I'm using an acoustically small dipolar 4 way system. The LX521 top baffles have three way, with low mid driver, upper mid driver and tweeter arranged vertically. The driver's full integration is produced at about 70 or 80 cm from my ears. If I sit closer than that distance, then it's easy to differentiate which frequencies come from each driver. On the other hand, in low frequencies where wavelenghts are big compared to the driver's diameter it's impossible to locate the physical position of the woofers.

So your subwoofers are over your head, close to ceiling. Do you use the same xover frequency for both of your systems? I suppose that Visaton B80 reach more in the low mids than HE500 (even at 5 cm)

 

[JeyB]

Room effects liberation: has for me two aspects: one (for me perhaps secondary and more a side-effect) is the listening more what is in the recording.
In the standard room setup is the “deep-bass-section-quality” (frequency-linearity, accuracy (THD) and deepness (20 Hz and deeper) ) very difficult (and/or expensive) to achieve. With UNF(ultra-near-field)-setup I can hear deep bass signal without any room-modes – like by a good IE-headphones.

I suppose that in UNF setup the low frequencies have a so small in-room spl that they can't develop any room mode excitation but still you listen lots of low fequencies at 25 cm or 5 cm distance. Also logical.

In my approach, i've solved the room modes with dipolar bass radiation pattern, opposing both subwoofers at 50 cm from my ears, they cancel all room modes due to inverse polarity of waves. If I turn 90° any of the bass bins then I can hear all the standing waves rumbling in my listening room. If both subwoofers are aligned at 180° they kill all the room modes. Both subwoofers need to be very close one to each other, in any other case the trick doesn't work. True directional bass.

This is the measured effect in my listening room for standing waves. After&before.

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

Please play this song by Karajan and Wiener Philarmoniker from Bizet's Carmen opera, recorded live and try to describe what you hear:

Normally I’m not a big fan of opera, but this recording is indeed very good! Sorry, this evening I can’t write any more, I’m in Vienna in the Opera in Salzburg by the Festspielen in 1967! ;-).

 

[JeyB]

Normally I’m not a big fan of opera, but this recording is indeed very good! Sorry, this evening I can’t write any more, I’m in Vienna in the Opera in Salzburg by the Festspielen in 1967! ;-).

Understood. Hehe Back in time

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

To clear, here the newest photos of my UNF setups (sorry for the shabby-look, but they are perhaps not the finish-versions ):

Setup1 (HE500 + AL180 + Epique180, the Becherovka is not a part of the setup!) with a stereo-viewer to better show the position of my head. Stereo-photos with a visual-virtual-scene and the depth-dimension are my other big obsession .

Setup2 (B80 + Mivoc-Sub)

And here my little subjective statement about virtual-listening-scene:

 

[MattHooper]

This is really where coaxials shine, because anytime you shift your head nearfield it causes a huge shift in terms of listening axis. I think this is why historically 3" drivers has been the sweet-spot for cheap desktop speakers because it was the easiest way to achieve wide and uniform directivity.

I think that's one reason I like my Thiel speakers so much. They use coax mid/tweeter drivers, sound incredibly coherent, and they maintain that aspect whether I move further or closer to the speakers. (I often like a closer-than-average seating distance, down to 6 feet or so, and they hold up great. I also auditioned Devore O/96 speakers which are a two way with a big 10" driver and tweeter, and though I liked the sound it really started to fall apart at anything closer than 8 feet).

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

In my approach, i've solved the room modes with dipolar bass radiation pattern, opposing both subwoofers at 50 cm from my ears, they cancel all room modes due to inverse polarity of waves. If I turn 90° any of the bass bins then I can hear all the standing waves rumbling in my listening room. If both subwoofers are aligned at 180° they kill all the room modes. Both subwoofers need to be very close one to each other, in any other case the trick doesn't work. True directional bass.

Yes, it's a very interesting solution with 2 or more subwoofers also for a living room. I've never tried this but I will do. In UNF-case it's not necessarily.

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

I think that's one reason I like my Thiel speakers so much. They use coax mid/tweeter drivers, sound incredibly coherent, and they maintain that aspect whether I move further or closer to the speakers. (I often like a closer-than-average seating distance, down to 6 feet or so, and they hold up great. I also auditioned Devore O/96 speakers which are a two way with a big 10" driver and tweeter, and though I liked the sound it really started to fall apart at anything closer than 8 feet).

6 feet is 183 cm: it's my living room situation! My living room is only 4 x 6 m :-( . I used to live in the EU not in the USA!

 

[DanielT]

Well, buy two of these...Costs hardly..nothing..Place them near your ears. Test.

Conclusion:​

This driver has an incredible bandwidth for its size. This driver literally fits in my palm yet should have no problems playing from 300-400hz (with a proper high-pass; listener dependent) all the way up to 20khz without issue. Cone breakup is practically non-existant with only a hint of breakup at 18khz. THD is very, very low given its size. At 96dB output the 3% THD mark is about 300hz; Above 500hz the THD is < 1%. Use this with a high-pass filter and most shouldn’t have an issue crossing down to 400hz. At 30 degrees off axis the response is down 3dB and at 60deg off axis the response is 7dB down at 10khz. Those numbers are on par with some of my favorite 1 inch tweeters. I’m very impressed. Of course, all this comes at a cost and the cost here is: sensitivity. On average this driver runs about 77dB at 2.83v/1m. Bummer. Compression testing would benefit me here but since I have nothing to A/B it against, I’m gonna let it stand. Of course, a high-pass filter also remedies compression to a good degree and since I don’t expect someone listening to this driver at high output near Fs, I suspect compression issues will be fairly inconsequential.

Naturally people will compare this to the AuraSound 2″ driver (aka: the “whisper”). While the whisper has approximately 4dB higher sensitivity on average, this driver has a lower Fs, low THD, and an excellent polar response. I don’t believe the whisper can cover the same bandwidth as well as this particular Tectonic Elements driver can.

At their current retail price of about $9/each, they’re worth trying out if are even remotely interested. My biggest hangup with them is the very low sensitivity but if that’s not an issue for your specific needs, it’s hard to not recommend them when used with a reasonable high-pass filter. They’d also make some neat “project” speakers (something like a personal bluetooth boombox or some other DIY-type project).

This also seems like a nice candidate for an array to gain some extra SPL.

Tectonic Elements TEBM35C10-4 Miniature BMR® Driver Review

Tectonic Elements TEBM35C10-4 Miniature BMR® Driver

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

...

Edit:
This with bass, time delay, since extra bass modules are needed, I'll leave it at that. Those who engage in this type of ultra near field listening will have to figure it out for themselves, of course ask those with experience about it.

It might not even be suitable with a pair of TEBM35C10-4 for ultra near field listening? I do not know.

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

Well, buy two of these...Costs hardly..nothing..Place them near your ears. Test.

I think it's a very good idea to try it! But I'm not sure if this will succeed. I made more tests and experiments with similar 6-7€ speakers, VISATON FR 7. But the result was for me not satisfying. I think in DIY-domain the most important thing is the motivation: The source of it is any privation, desire, "unhappiness". The target is to make something for us more suitable, more satisfying, and sometimes technically better, cheaper or simply because not available as a product on the market. The way from the source to the target consists from our inspirations, ideas, how know, trial and error, craftsmanship etc... At the end we ourselves decide, if the target is achieved. For me is the target achieved: My UNF setup is for me much better solution as any headphones I have/had and as my living room setup. Why? The reasons are obvious: natural virtual scene (not in head, head rotation change direction etc...), base up to 16Hz (no room modes), moderate room sound level (family and neighbors friendly, even 2:00 am), and my ears and head are free from any piece of foreign matter and pressure. Sometimes I use the UNF-setup1 more than 10 hours a day, and I'm really fascinated. But I won't be misunderstood, this thread is not any agitation for UNF. I hope, it could be an inspiration, but not more - and even when you/somebody is any degree motivated!

 

[hex168]

Tectonics makes a drive optimized for ultra-near-field. This was designed for off-ear VR headsets:

Home

Tectonic TEBM35C02-6B 1-3/4" BMR Full-Range Headphone Driver 6 OhmsThe compact TEBM35C02-6/B 1-3/4" full-range BMR driver from Tectonic is perfect for nearfield applications that require flat and extended response with extremely wide dispersion capability. Its unique capabilities make this...

www.parts-express.com

Bending mode transducers are quite different from fullranges like the Visaton. Might be worth a try.

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

Here are my newest measurements of the UNF-setup1. You can see, I like base! It is only the left channel. I placed the UMIC microphone exactly where is normally my left ear by the listening. What do you think about? It could be better with DSP. But currently, I use DSP only for sub bass channel < 100 Hz.

 

[Tim Link]

Interesting thread! I've been thinking about some issues with room acoustics that led me to try nearfield again. I've just set up a little system on my desktop at work. The tweeters are about 2 feet from my ears, and I have a 2" thick fiberglass panel inboard each speaker to block some of the cross talk across the head, and an angled deflector on the right side because of a nearby wall. This is by no means an optimized system, but minimizing the room effects by getting near is a revelation again, and provides a meaningful comparison for any whole room listening triangle. It reminds me of what's being lost to the room.

I've been thinking about how the room effects our perception, whether or not the sound from the speakers is interacting with it much. The problem with nearfield is that we know what the room sounds like subconsciously, so any sound in the room that's doesn't sound like it's interacting much with the room is correctly perceived as near to the ear. Where else could it be? So I think the room should still be well damped and as free from room coloration as possible. It also might help to not see too much. And it should be quiet. You might want to walk in and get seated with ear plugs in so you don't inadvertently pre-calibrate your hearing to the sound of the room before the music starts. Also don't move your head too much or it'll be another giveaway. The head motion issue is a reason to damp the room down and give yourself a little more distance from the speakers. And definitely use something to reduce the inter aural crosstalk. I've found that if the speakers are just far enough away that I can't quite reach out and touch them, and if a crosstalk barrier is used, and any reflective room surface is further away from myself or the speakers than my distance from the speakers, I can get some real magic to happen that I have not heard happen in any other kind of setup. A small amount of room sound doesn't seem to damaging, because that can give the impression of a wall being missing, or acoustically transparent. So it's like your room is connected to the event in the recording. It's like you've got a box seat at the theater in the shape of your room with one wall and part of the ceiling missing. That can be very compelling. With that in mind it makes sense that maybe just the front part of the room be heavily damped. If the sound from the speakers is coming from that direction, the combined effect of the room and the speakers should create a coherent impression of two acoustical spaces being connected.

 

[Mosquito]

I always dreamed of something like this, but for me the solution can be achieved in a much simpler way: a room dedicated to the listening experience, curtains, dim lighting, a cushion to sit on the floor, and a pair of Quad ESL57 on each side , conveniently angled, at an arm's length distance... and let the angels fly!

 

[Tim Link]

I always dreamed of something like this, but for me the solution can be achieved in a much simpler way: a room dedicated to the listening experience, curtains, dim lighting, a cushion to sit on the floor, and a pair of Quad ESL57 on each side , conveniently angled, at an arm's length distance... and let the angels fly!

Seems to me that should work very well indeed! My friend who built speakers had a Quad nearfield setup for a while. He said it sounded really good. He wanted a more house filling sound though, more of a lifestyle thing where he could hear it loud all over the house. So he ended up with Klipschorns. I'm in that camp too. I love the nearfield experience, but want something for the whole house too. I want the whole house to be as good as possible, at least at the listening position on the couch. So I try everything I can think of to improve the imaging at that location with all its problems.

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

The tweeters are about 2 feet from my ears

It's ca. 60cm: in this case, the room plays with. My goal is to eliminate the room completely - like headphones. In the current version of my main setup, I reduced the distance: the main speakers are only a few cm from my chin, and a very short distance from each other, so now I have even better stereo imaging without additional cross-feed.

 

[Tim Link]

It's ca. 60cm: in this case, the room plays with. My goal is to eliminate the room completely - like headphones. In the current version of my main setup, I reduced the distance: the main speakers are only a few cm from my chin, and a very short distance from each other, so now I have even better stereo imaging without additional cross-feed.

I'm with you on that notion of removing the room completely, but I've come to understand that the problem can't be fully solved, at least to my satisfaction, by just moving closer to the speakers. If there's a room sound, you're brain is going to pick up on it no matter how close you get to the speakers, and compare what it's hearing from the speakers to what it thinks the room sound is. If there's little or no correlation between the room's transfer function and the sound you hear, your brain is going to figure out that the sound source is very near, like somebody walking up and talking softly right in front of you. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, but I want a little more sense of space. So the reflections and crosstalk have to be minimized, and the speakers given some space from the head.

The room needs to be devoid of any standout sonic character, even when you are very close to the speakers if there's any hope of getting a sense of distance in the sound.
If we don't have that, and it can be hard to do, we have to go ahead and try to blend the sound of the room in a compelling way with the sound in the recording to restore a sense of space and depth. At least that's how it seems for me.

Another issue with super close is that your head and the transducers will interact with each other. So you'll hear the sound bouncing off you and back on to the transducer and back again. There needs to be enough distance for good decoupling.

However, I am often happy with a sense of close detailed, miniaturized sound field in the space directly in front of me, outside my head that rivals headphones in clarity and separation but doesn't actually require me to wear headphones.

 

[UltraNearFieldJock]

I want a little more sense of space

The arguments are very logical, and when I started the experiment, I had the same fears, and I was sceptical whether I would succeed in eliminating this disadvantage. But in retrospect, the 3D illusion after the fascinating, deep bass without room infusions in UNF is the greatest benefit and advantage over NF and standard "living room stereo", which in no way seems too small or too narrow. On the contrary, the virtual room can be very large depending on the recording, and is always placed in front of you, and not in your head as in the case of headphones. By my experience, the main issue in UNF-space-feeling is the position of the speakers relative to ears and the resulting cross-feed, caused and influenced also by all the sound bouncing around the face and head.