IIRC there's a point in the piece where it seems like someone put their finger against a reel and slowed it slightly, around the heterodyning effect at the beginning, I think. There may be one or two other interesting bits too, could be time to listen again.
I owned a television with q-sound encoded in, so it could be tried with all source material. I also had the stereo with that TV placed in a very wide room. I agree that having the walls well away from the speakers made an enormous improvement in the ability to localize outside the speakers, if the signal was encoded with that effect.
The move "The Bear" (L'ours (1988) Movie Review ? MRQE) made exceptional use of hrtf encoded auditory cues. There is one scene where a horse is trotting in on hard rock: It was spine tingling, I could hear the horse coming from 40 feet away stage left steadily towards the house, through the side window, across my living room and speakers and screen, then 40' right into the other neighbour's yard all without any gaps in localization placement.
Do I ever miss that listening room!
My other experience is that with walls about 5' to the outside of the speakers, you often get reverberation in the recording sounding like it is left of left and right of right but it may be a purely artificial enhancement.
Dave
where the
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I mean the hight of the horns in the music appear 45cm 1.5feet above the loudspeaker-horn. And they stay there.
Although the church file appears to bee a big space the height of the horns seem the same although les pin pointed.
And the with of the sound stage was also similar sounding in my place.
The depth was very different the Gothic file sounded deepest.
I was going to have a listening session with these tracks this evening. Hooked the pc up to the amp and then realised there was a massive clothes horse with a sheet draped over it sticking out and blocking one of the speakers... Maybe tomorrow....
I listened on the headphones and my goodness, horns in an anechoic chamber sound utterly crap
On the headphones I liked the church and the LaScala the best. They sounded the most like horns to me. Will be interesting to hear on the speakers. Tony.
Interesting. I'm most perplexed why nobody else is noticing what I did. Either its something about my speakers, or something to do with me.
I got my girlfriend to try the same test, "tell me where you hear the guitar from", and at first she said "straight ahead", when quizzed about the height though she pointed to a spot about 1-2 feet above the speakers in the middle.
So she hears it more or less where most phantom images form for me, but not much higher up, which is where the plucking sounds like to me on this song.
Very odd. Should I be concerned about the fact that my speakers consistently image a foot or so above the tweeters ? What are other peoples experience with phantom mono image height for normal recordings, relative to the tweeter and/or midrange drivers ?
Oh no, it's your ears!!
Who knows, maybe this track has something that is just perfectly wrong for your HRTF.
I tend to hear the phantom image at the same height as my horns, or a foot higher. So do others.
Last night heard a waltz by Bizet on the radio, piano solo. Weird.... the opening arpeggio had the piano as wide as my room but pulling quickly into the center as he ran up the arpeggio. It stayed centered after that, but the beginning was truly odd. The rapidly shrinking piano.
Who knows, maybe this track has something that is just perfectly wrong for your HRTF.
I tend to hear the phantom image at the same height as my horns, or a foot higher. So do others.
Last night heard a waltz by Bizet on the radio, piano solo. Weird.... the opening arpeggio had the piano as wide as my room but pulling quickly into the center as he ran up the arpeggio. It stayed centered after that, but the beginning was truly odd. The rapidly shrinking piano.
I listened to the horns on the speakers tonight. Still prefer the church I think, but the Lascala had the most height (or at least the horns sounded the highest in that version).
One thing I noticed though was that the height of the horns seemed to reduce with reducing frequency, the low frequency ones seemed to be much closer to the floor.
The Gothic sounded like the largest space by far, but the echo was very strong.
I also listened to the wish you were here track (found the full track on youtube) I can't find my cd to do a comparison, but I would have to say that the youtube track sounded MUCH clearer than what I remember my cd. The crackling radio at the begining was much sharper, the instruments were much more distinct. I didn't notice anything weird with the positioning of the guitar though.
I definitely need to find my cd to do a comparison, I thought I'd listened to it after finishing the new crossovers but perhaps I hadn't. I realised too after listening to the track that it is the first Shine on you crazy diamond that I remember hearing the distortion on, I think specifically on the "horns".
edit: I just listened to shine on parts 1-6 on youtube, and the distortion is there, but not where I remembered it. It is on the guitar in the first few parts. Quite possibly it is deliberate (ie an effects pedal) but it just doesn't sound quite right to me.
Tony.
One thing I noticed though was that the height of the horns seemed to reduce with reducing frequency, the low frequency ones seemed to be much closer to the floor.
The Gothic sounded like the largest space by far, but the echo was very strong.
I also listened to the wish you were here track (found the full track on youtube) I can't find my cd to do a comparison, but I would have to say that the youtube track sounded MUCH clearer than what I remember my cd. The crackling radio at the begining was much sharper, the instruments were much more distinct. I didn't notice anything weird with the positioning of the guitar though.
I definitely need to find my cd to do a comparison, I thought I'd listened to it after finishing the new crossovers but perhaps I hadn't. I realised too after listening to the track that it is the first Shine on you crazy diamond that I remember hearing the distortion on, I think specifically on the "horns".
edit: I just listened to shine on parts 1-6 on youtube, and the distortion is there, but not where I remembered it. It is on the guitar in the first few parts. Quite possibly it is deliberate (ie an effects pedal) but it just doesn't sound quite right to me.
Tony.
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I have had the image a foot above the tweeters. I have also heard phantom mono images in weird places. My current image is about 4" down from the tweeter centre line.
I've come to accept that these were deliberate, or otherwise allowed to pass. Although I always wanted to think this, I've heard nothing to suggest otherwise. As speakers/room begin to surpass the mastering equipment of the day, some of these distortions become more identifiable, and eventually less noticeable, almost trivial.
On the other hand, it is the linear distortions that I find annoying.
It must be something magical about your system or room. I have both versions of these. What I'm hearing is the initial "bite" of the pick leaving the string seems to be a little taller, but as soon as the note starts to resonate in the guitar body, it's down at the height that I'd expect it to be if it was a man standing with a guitar. The image height on both versions seems to be fairly similar, but the exaggerated treble on the remaster puts the "pluck bite" up a little higher it seems.
On both versions, the guitar, as well as the singing when it starts lean ever so slightly to the left of center.
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Joined 2009
I just tried Dave's wet/dry tests. It was fun indeed. I compared "mozartdry", "mozartwet" and "dry less spread" first on headphones and then on my speakers.
On headphones there was clear separation of the left and right channels on "mozartdry", then they got closer together on "dry less spread". Both recordings sounded somewhat thin and "mozartwet" definitely fixed what was missing.
I had the opposite experience with my speakers. They are designed to be very wide dispersion and are positioned not far from the side walls. "mozartdry" and "dry less spread" sounded extremely convincing, as if a singer and a piano were actually in my room. "mozartdry" had the sources come from the left and right directions but they were not localized at the speakers; "dry less spread" had the sources at the space between the speakers but not hard center. "mozartwet" sounded very bad to my ears, it had that typical fake bathroom reverb.
I don't think I can discern what parameter is responsible for making speakers disappear. But I got an interesting insight into how much impact reverb can have for realism. What sounds artificial on headphones comes alive in a live room and too much reverb for the listening room can sound realistic on headphones.
On headphones there was clear separation of the left and right channels on "mozartdry", then they got closer together on "dry less spread". Both recordings sounded somewhat thin and "mozartwet" definitely fixed what was missing.
I had the opposite experience with my speakers. They are designed to be very wide dispersion and are positioned not far from the side walls. "mozartdry" and "dry less spread" sounded extremely convincing, as if a singer and a piano were actually in my room. "mozartdry" had the sources come from the left and right directions but they were not localized at the speakers; "dry less spread" had the sources at the space between the speakers but not hard center. "mozartwet" sounded very bad to my ears, it had that typical fake bathroom reverb.
I don't think I can discern what parameter is responsible for making speakers disappear. But I got an interesting insight into how much impact reverb can have for realism. What sounds artificial on headphones comes alive in a live room and too much reverb for the listening room can sound realistic on headphones.
Hi,
Could you make photo and tell some thing about your walls sealing and floor material. Do you have curtains in the room?
To get more info about listening room character.
Member
Joined 2009
Please excuse the appearance of my speaker stands.
I have taken no care to minimize reflections in the listening room. There's a wall on the right, a big panoramic window on the left (I usually have the curtain on) and a thick carpet on the floor. The speakers are designed to have very wide horizontal dispersion. Note that the measurements on the file I posted are taken from 0-60-90 degrees.
The system renders human voice very realistically, there is a certain quality to the sound that evokes the illusion of the singer being present in my room. Most music sounds great if it's not very processed or compressed. I particularly have trouble with metal recordings at high volume. Cradle of Filth for example ends up sounding like I'm in a garage (but it was probably recorded in one).
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