Speaking from practical experience with both on/in wall and dipole systems:
The on/in wall speakers sound balanced but have almost zero soundstage. Supposedly the brain interprets reflections from the listening space and these provide an enhanced experience in terms of "spatiousness" and depth of image, etc. I find this to be true when listening to my DIY open baffle or baffle less dipole systems. Very 3-dimensional compared to any boxed speaker.
To make this effect happen with a dipole system you have to take care that the sound power is even, that is to say that the frequency response of the sound radiated in all directions (primarily to the front and rear in a dipole system) is as similar to the on-axis response as possible. This is where small baffle (or no baffle) dipole systems are superior to large baffle dipole systems. I often see a small fullranger in a huge baffle, and know that it just will not sound as good as it might be. Also, the frequency response to the rear is just as important as to the front. No one seems to check the rear, and the rear response of a driver in a dipole system (like a fullranger) can be quite different above 1kHz.
When you have even power response, and the system is far enough away from room boundaries (e.g. 1m or more) you get the wonderful open and 3D soundfield for which dipole systems are heralded. Room reflections are NEEDED for this effect to happen.
The on/in wall speakers sound balanced but have almost zero soundstage. Supposedly the brain interprets reflections from the listening space and these provide an enhanced experience in terms of "spatiousness" and depth of image, etc. I find this to be true when listening to my DIY open baffle or baffle less dipole systems. Very 3-dimensional compared to any boxed speaker.
To make this effect happen with a dipole system you have to take care that the sound power is even, that is to say that the frequency response of the sound radiated in all directions (primarily to the front and rear in a dipole system) is as similar to the on-axis response as possible. This is where small baffle (or no baffle) dipole systems are superior to large baffle dipole systems. I often see a small fullranger in a huge baffle, and know that it just will not sound as good as it might be. Also, the frequency response to the rear is just as important as to the front. No one seems to check the rear, and the rear response of a driver in a dipole system (like a fullranger) can be quite different above 1kHz.
When you have even power response, and the system is far enough away from room boundaries (e.g. 1m or more) you get the wonderful open and 3D soundfield for which dipole systems are heralded. Room reflections are NEEDED for this effect to happen.
Bbutterfield: You are creating an illusion. This is all what recording in stereo ( and in general) is all about, but this is not the place to discuss this. 
Your sceptical about the new school approach... well keep it for yourself (this is a well kept secret! ) but since the advent of the tape multitrack deck this is the way 99% of recording/mixing are done.
So if i should draw a line between oldschool and newschool i would say... around 1970.
Oh and this true even in classical or jazz music...not only 'pop'. There is some exception but... they are exception.
Put in other way don t worry it does work nice... as you had never noticed.
Your sceptical about the new school approach... well keep it for yourself (this is a well kept secret!
) but since the advent of the tape multitrack deck this is the way 99% of recording/mixing are done.So if i should draw a line between oldschool and newschool i would say... around 1970.
Oh and this true even in classical or jazz music...not only 'pop'. There is some exception but... they are exception.
Put in other way don t worry it does work nice... as you had never noticed.
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Maybe, maybe not.
Lot of 'audiophile' blames recording/mixing engineers for poor sound (and all diseases on earth!) but tend to have zero knowledge of a recording process or constraints they faces.
But they often forgets musicians... Once multitrack and overdubbing appeared lots of musicians suddenly became lazy.
"You know we will overdub it" or "it'll be fixed at mix" are things which was said too much easily.
And quality suffers from such practice when they become the norm rather than an helpfull tool used occasionaly.
There is another big difference which appeared when the whole industry of recordings appeared: before you could make big money selling discs musicians had to perform live events for a living.
Recording was the last step within a process where musicians had to "burn in" a set for an album every night during month before enter studios.
Since 60's / 70's you made a record and then you have to defend it on tour.
Do you see where the difference is?
All interesting, but we are drifting off topic. Charlie says you need reflections for a spacious image. I'd say "yes" with some heavy qualifiers. If the reflection from the front wall is too soon and/or not diffuse, I don't hear the depth. Not sure why I hear depth when there are almost no reflections from behind the speaker. Side reflections are different (for me) - without them the sound stays narrow and usually right between the speakers.
I would love to hear a good set of in-wall speakers for the comparison.
I don't know what reflections are needed for depth, but they certainly do exist. The guys at Lexicon probably know, as they seem to be able to imitate them. The old SONY DSP-100 could also generate decent depth clues in its front 2 channels.
I would love to hear a good set of in-wall speakers for the comparison.
I don't know what reflections are needed for depth, but they certainly do exist. The guys at Lexicon probably know, as they seem to be able to imitate them. The old SONY DSP-100 could also generate decent depth clues in its front 2 channels.
Following on from what I quoted from the linked article, Linkwitz goes on to say the following, note he appears to say a similar thing happens with box speakers but I understand from what he says, the effect is greater with a dipole ?
"Much has been made about the wall behind an open baffle speaker, the front wall from the listeners perspective. The wall reflects the rearwards radiated sound which is 180 degrees out-of-phase with the forward radiated sound. The interference between the two leads to progressive cancellation at low frequencies and comb filtering at higher frequencies for steady-state sounds. A corresponding effect occurs with a box speaker, at least up to several hundred Hz, only the comb filter frequencies are different and the low frequencies are boosted. All of this is controlled by the distance between speaker and wall. If the speaker is at least 1 m (3 ft) in front of the wall, then the reflected sound is delayed by about 6 ms, which is sufficient not to be perceptually summed with the direct sound. The cognitive process disassociates it from the speaker and attributes it to the room with a sense of space."
"Much has been made about the wall behind an open baffle speaker, the front wall from the listeners perspective. The wall reflects the rearwards radiated sound which is 180 degrees out-of-phase with the forward radiated sound. The interference between the two leads to progressive cancellation at low frequencies and comb filtering at higher frequencies for steady-state sounds. A corresponding effect occurs with a box speaker, at least up to several hundred Hz, only the comb filter frequencies are different and the low frequencies are boosted. All of this is controlled by the distance between speaker and wall. If the speaker is at least 1 m (3 ft) in front of the wall, then the reflected sound is delayed by about 6 ms, which is sufficient not to be perceptually summed with the direct sound. The cognitive process disassociates it from the speaker and attributes it to the room with a sense of space."
From the quoted note of Linkwitz this what happen to every speaker which isn't in wall ( from eveything which doesn t radiate into 2pi).
From conventional boxed speaker this lead to a suckout in the low frequency (same things as floor bounce effect). This well known and most serious brand advice to locate speaker within a given distance relative to boundaries (in pro field anyway Genelec have a paper about that and it is stated in the manual of their nearfield amplified offer).
It is interesting to note that if you plan to use sub they advice to have a distance which make the suckout occurs just below or at xover freq planned ( maybe it was Nht or Quested rather than Genelec i can t remember).
With non dipole directivity ( i don t know of an omni pro loudspeaker) the issue is related to bsc frequency, as once you are higher in freq driver start to beam so no comb filter effect happen.
Charlie could you define "soundstage"?
Otherwise from your description the best effect from dipole should be with quad or ML type of speakers.
The esl63 i ve heard where located more or less as you described and was quite nice to listen for acoustic instruments. Violin and guitars was very impressive for me.
The open sound you are talking about i experienced, and intuitively i said to myself it was result of zero box. But i didn t felt the 3d you are talkin about ( but i felt the room 'coloration' for sure).
From conventional boxed speaker this lead to a suckout in the low frequency (same things as floor bounce effect). This well known and most serious brand advice to locate speaker within a given distance relative to boundaries (in pro field anyway Genelec have a paper about that and it is stated in the manual of their nearfield amplified offer).
It is interesting to note that if you plan to use sub they advice to have a distance which make the suckout occurs just below or at xover freq planned ( maybe it was Nht or Quested rather than Genelec i can t remember).
With non dipole directivity ( i don t know of an omni pro loudspeaker) the issue is related to bsc frequency, as once you are higher in freq driver start to beam so no comb filter effect happen.
Charlie could you define "soundstage"?
Otherwise from your description the best effect from dipole should be with quad or ML type of speakers.
The esl63 i ve heard where located more or less as you described and was quite nice to listen for acoustic instruments. Violin and guitars was very impressive for me.
The open sound you are talking about i experienced, and intuitively i said to myself it was result of zero box. But i didn t felt the 3d you are talkin about ( but i felt the room 'coloration' for sure).
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About '3d-ness', i m always a bit annoyed about the concept:
except with some electronic instruments (Serge modular) with which i experienced 'elevation feeling' ( on a filter opening, probably some wild phase rotation with the right source material) i' ve never experienced this 3d thing.
I ve seen it used about some microphone too (mono!) but there again i haven t got experienced this feeling.
So i don t know. As Pano said maybe we hear things differently one from an other?
except with some electronic instruments (Serge modular) with which i experienced 'elevation feeling' ( on a filter opening, probably some wild phase rotation with the right source material) i' ve never experienced this 3d thing.
I ve seen it used about some microphone too (mono!) but there again i haven t got experienced this feeling.
So i don t know. As Pano said maybe we hear things differently one from an other?
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Spot on - I think this is really good stuff that people are posting! Thank you all!
Pano what is a dsp100? I can t find something with this reference.
About reverberation unit there is no question to ask about depth, this is the tool used since birth of recording to produce that feeling ( being room themself- with speaker and mic* -of the early days, plate or spring to synthetic dsp or convolution).
Lexicon are the greatest but Yamaha, Sony or TC electronics all have produced pristine tools to do that.
*studio had dedicated room for that use. With loudspeakers and microphone dedicated to the task and a send line at console.
About reverberation unit there is no question to ask about depth, this is the tool used since birth of recording to produce that feeling ( being room themself- with speaker and mic* -of the early days, plate or spring to synthetic dsp or convolution).
Lexicon are the greatest but Yamaha, Sony or TC electronics all have produced pristine tools to do that.
*studio had dedicated room for that use. With loudspeakers and microphone dedicated to the task and a send line at console.
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Dunno.. went from Zero soundstage with an Arcam D290 amp to a Decent one with an LM3886 amp to an unbelievacle one when I fitted an FW f6.
ZERO other changes in room or system.
Ability of an Amp (assuming speakers are worth owning tho to reproduce Higher frequencies and subsequent subtle harmonics are Critical.
ALL else follows.
ZERO other changes in room or system.
Ability of an Amp (assuming speakers are worth owning tho
to reproduce Higher frequencies and subsequent subtle harmonics are Critical.ALL else follows.
Oops, pardon! YAMAHA DSP-1 or DSP-100. I have Sony on the brain today because of video gear.
Anyway, it's a soundfield processor that takes 2 channels analog in a generates 4 ambient channels. 2 channels behind you and two that are in front. The 2 front channels are placed near or behind your main stereo speakers. Yamaha went around and sampled different concert halls and venues, digitized them and put them in this box. There are other effect, too. Kinda cool for 1980s tech.
I've had a couple of them, mine is currently on loan to a friend.
In the real world we use cues to determine distance Sound localization - Wikipedia
the question appears to be whether enough of this information is able to be rendered by two speakers (or even one for that matter) simply from the recorded material to be able to fool us satisfactorily.
Pano, i was thinking about the case of the "open door".
In the CID report (i always talk about ) Robert Walker use some angled walls to redirect ER outside of listening zone. They specified frequency of interest to be 1khz and up so to have an effective reflector they choose a panel width of 1meter minimum.
This is roughly equal to 3x wavelength and what is usually seen for such task.
Do you remember how far appart where spaced the speaker when you were in the garage?
Because if there is informations about depth within the 400hz and below range (there is for stereophony as we agreed earlier) if speakers where spaced around 3 to 4 meter away the garage door/front door make a very nice reflector which may introduce artefact and change the subjective rendering image?
In the CID report (i always talk about
) Robert Walker use some angled walls to redirect ER outside of listening zone. They specified frequency of interest to be 1khz and up so to have an effective reflector they choose a panel width of 1meter minimum.This is roughly equal to 3x wavelength and what is usually seen for such task.
Do you remember how far appart where spaced the speaker when you were in the garage?
Because if there is informations about depth within the 400hz and below range (there is for stereophony as we agreed earlier) if speakers where spaced around 3 to 4 meter away the garage door/front door make a very nice reflector which may introduce artefact and change the subjective rendering image?
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For me it is not a question at all. Having heard it enough times to various degrees on different systems, I know full well it can fool us. Most systems don't fool us, tho. It's fun and amazing when it does. What gets really amazing is the sensation of height. No idea how that one works.
For me this thing is a clue. There may have been unwanted reflection from the front garage wall. With inwall speaker hornloaded this may be minimized or even negated.
For me neither even if i didn't experienced myself (except the case i talked about). There was a Bob Katz cd for calibration purpose which have a track about that: supposedly you should hear a "rainbow" of sound when played.
My question is wether or not you could record that kind of thing using standard mic technique.
Me too.
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