You're welcome Pano. According to the book, if you have troubles depicting dialog you can go up to 6dB and if your hearing is impaired (not saying yours is) mono is preferred 
because dialog clarity is the overriding factor. Maybe my hearing.........
Interesting. I guess the big question is "why has the center channel received such bad press?" My guess is the sideways MTM and height requirements d/t the TV screen. I moved my TV up to get it out of the way.
Dan
because dialog clarity is the overriding factor. Maybe my hearing.........Interesting. I guess the big question is "why has the center channel received such bad press?" My guess is the sideways MTM and height requirements d/t the TV screen. I moved my TV up to get it out of the way.
Dan
Wouldn't it be too prominent? I mean the center is 3~6dB louder than main channels. I remember a simple volume pot connection diagram (suggested by Klipsch?) to extract 3-ch from ordinary stereo, in which the signal is at identical level IIRC.
I used to use a center channel back then the TV was a rear-projection type. I hung an open-back box above the TV, tilted it down a little... (Later I switched to plasma panel and it's not easy to integrate them well. So I quit using it)
Maybe helped by a very large angle of toe-in, I don't feel any lack of the vocal (or dialog) at the center by just plain 2-channel. And being an OB and horn lover, it's just too painful to make a proper center channel. Any idea?
I used to use a center channel back then the TV was a rear-projection type. I hung an open-back box above the TV, tilted it down a little... (Later I switched to plasma panel and it's not easy to integrate them well. So I quit using it)
Maybe helped by a very large angle of toe-in, I don't feel any lack of the vocal (or dialog) at the center by just plain 2-channel. And being an OB and horn lover, it's just too painful to make a proper center channel. Any idea?
You're welcome Pano. According to the book, if you have troubles depicting dialog you can go up to 6dB and if your hearing is impaired (not saying yours is) mono is preferred
Interesting. I guess the big question is "why has the center channel received such bad press?" My guess is the sideways MTM and height requirements d/t the TV screen. I moved my TV up to get it out of the way.
Dan
The foundation question is, "What is the sound we are trying to produce or reproduce?" For a lot of stuff, we are trying to reproduce sound coming from that center speaker!
It has been a long time since any serious person answered, "I want Carnegie Hall in my living room." Curiously, a "missing piece" of logic in Toole's book is the realization that you get a major influence in real-live concerts halls from the ventriloquist effect, normally associated with reproduction. From my concert hall seat, there's no way in the world that I can really "hear" the flute sound coming from the flautist. Just an illusion based on the ventriloquist effect. Oddly, the recording engineer has to support/create a degree of localization accuracy in your living room that you don't have in the concert hall with your eyes closed (In good concert halls, I spend time pointing my nose at the ceiling where the best sound seems to come from).
Jumping ahead in the argument, the center channel is taking a stereo signal and kind of extracting the correlated parts by adding L and R together. But the L and R are cooked-up by the engineer in the first place to produce a certain satisfying illusion, sometimes of sound in the center (phantom sound or stereo illusion). With fun special cases like the off-stage brass in Verdi's and Berlioz' requiems.
If you had only a center or mono channel, couldn't we say it was just like listening to a concert through a small window? A quality stereo set-up playing mono (same signal to both L and R speakers) makes every note of the sound seem to come from a small, very stable window midway between the speakers, not a large window encompassing both speakers.
So the "right" center level for a three-speaker system might be when the sound seems to broaden to the full width of the system. Alternatively, maybe there just isn't a "right" center level.
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Does anybody have listening experience with Trifield?
Trifield - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trifield - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think the situation is probably more complicated than as presented in this thread.
Toole describes and shows the differences in frequency response perceived from an actual center channel speaker as opposed to a phantom one. In his book "Surround Sound," Holman notes that many popular recording microphones have a peak at or near 2 kHz, probably to compensate for the comb filter induced by the presence of two ears spaced apart. Simple summation of the channels is likely to result in coloration of the signal compared to either the left or right channels. Toole does not discuss upmixing of stereo content to more channels, but Holman writes that simple summation and attenuation "often may cause problems such as a narrowing of the stereo sound field. More sophisticated extraction of center is available." Incidentally, Holman also has a few paragraphs on the problems associated with dual center channel speakers.
An interesting setup for center-enhanced stereo was described by Moulton at Moulton Laboratories :: A Happy Accident: A Better Way to Play Back Stereo?, which resonates with the wide front channels endorsed by Audyssey.
Toole describes and shows the differences in frequency response perceived from an actual center channel speaker as opposed to a phantom one. In his book "Surround Sound," Holman notes that many popular recording microphones have a peak at or near 2 kHz, probably to compensate for the comb filter induced by the presence of two ears spaced apart. Simple summation of the channels is likely to result in coloration of the signal compared to either the left or right channels. Toole does not discuss upmixing of stereo content to more channels, but Holman writes that simple summation and attenuation "often may cause problems such as a narrowing of the stereo sound field. More sophisticated extraction of center is available." Incidentally, Holman also has a few paragraphs on the problems associated with dual center channel speakers.
An interesting setup for center-enhanced stereo was described by Moulton at Moulton Laboratories :: A Happy Accident: A Better Way to Play Back Stereo?, which resonates with the wide front channels endorsed by Audyssey.
Thanks for the Moulton link, it's an interesting read. I've wanted to try something like this for about a year, but my darn speakers are so big, it's going to be hard to do. Also, Moulton's description of how he set the pan-pots is hard to understand. I'm a live sound guy and we just have simple knobs on the mixer. Will have to ask him what his description means.
Real center and phantom L/R could be fun.
But that's what I want. Or better yet, for the wall to fall away into Carnegie Hall or whatever space it was recorded in. 3 weeks ago I went to a concert with Gil Shaham as soloist. Great concert. Last week it was broadcast on the radio. Very interesting to hear the differences. I spoke with the recording engineer, it was just a stereo pair with a solo mic over Shaham. (the mics were visible) Nice recording and interesting to compare it to what I heard 2 weeks before.
Real center and phantom L/R could be fun.
But that's what I want. Or better yet, for the wall to fall away into Carnegie Hall or whatever space it was recorded in. 3 weeks ago I went to a concert with Gil Shaham as soloist. Great concert. Last week it was broadcast on the radio. Very interesting to hear the differences. I spoke with the recording engineer, it was just a stereo pair with a solo mic over Shaham. (the mics were visible) Nice recording and interesting to compare it to what I heard 2 weeks before.
The level of the center channel is dependent on a couple of things and what you are aiming for. Elevating the center channel is appropriate if you are messing with Home Theater applications (mostly for better speech intelligibilty by boosting the midrange)
If you are trying to improve a music system ("two channel") by giving a more stable center image and less fragile sweetspot, then use less gain. You need to keep in mind that as you raise the gain on the center you are creating some comb-filtering (unless the center channel -which is physically closer - has a time delay so the wavefronts are time aligned across all three cabinets).
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Centre Channel ONLY
Panomaniac / others,
Not sure if this is too off-topic, but I'm quite interested in your experiences with a Centre channel only - i.e. mono. I'm giving this serious consideration - building a mono tube amp and single speaker for my living / family room.
The reason is this. I want to position furniture based on family needs which precludes having a pair of stereo speakers with seating in the ideal listening position and also precludes room treatments to prevent unwanted reflections from hard surfaces (hardwood floor). I want people to be able to enjoy the music wherever they are seated in the room.
My experience of listening to live music (classical concert) is that I can't localize the sound from my seat in the auditorium anyway. I also find that listening to a simple portable mono radio to be quite satisfactory except for the quality of the audio in general - which a dedicated tube amp will address nicely.
And lastly, a mono-amp also allows me to be a bit more lavish with the amplifier and speaker.
Thoughts ?
p.s. I would not consider mono for my basement HT!
Panomaniac / others,
Not sure if this is too off-topic, but I'm quite interested in your experiences with a Centre channel only - i.e. mono. I'm giving this serious consideration - building a mono tube amp and single speaker for my living / family room.
The reason is this. I want to position furniture based on family needs which precludes having a pair of stereo speakers with seating in the ideal listening position and also precludes room treatments to prevent unwanted reflections from hard surfaces (hardwood floor). I want people to be able to enjoy the music wherever they are seated in the room.
My experience of listening to live music (classical concert) is that I can't localize the sound from my seat in the auditorium anyway. I also find that listening to a simple portable mono radio to be quite satisfactory except for the quality of the audio in general - which a dedicated tube amp will address nicely.
And lastly, a mono-amp also allows me to be a bit more lavish with the amplifier and speaker.
Thoughts ?
p.s. I would not consider mono for my basement HT!
the Moulton Array
I heard back from Dave Moulton. Nice guy.
He says that this system is now his full time listening for music and movies. When talking about panning the left/right he was referring to the pan controls in Pro Tools. A simple pan or slight mix of left right should also be OK. I may try this with the "Width" control on the DEQ2496 to decrease width for L/R.
Dave also says he likes about 1ms delay on the left and right, if possible.
Bigun: The good mono systems I've heard and experimented with are quite good alone. It's when I hear the same on 2 speakers that I always pick 2. That said, in our living room my wife has 2 old Fisher console cabinets. They run Pandora, iTunes and the TV. But they are so close together that they are essentially a broad mono source. I really like it.
Sounds great and fills the whole house without being overly loud anywhere. Perfect for the Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Martin Denny stuff she digs. Most of those tracks are hardly stereo, anyway.
I heard back from Dave Moulton. Nice guy.
He says that this system is now his full time listening for music and movies. When talking about panning the left/right he was referring to the pan controls in Pro Tools. A simple pan or slight mix of left right should also be OK. I may try this with the "Width" control on the DEQ2496 to decrease width for L/R.
Dave also says he likes about 1ms delay on the left and right, if possible.
Bigun: The good mono systems I've heard and experimented with are quite good alone. It's when I hear the same on 2 speakers that I always pick 2. That said, in our living room my wife has 2 old Fisher console cabinets. They run Pandora, iTunes and the TV. But they are so close together that they are essentially a broad mono source. I really like it.
Sounds great and fills the whole house without being overly loud anywhere. Perfect for the Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Martin Denny stuff she digs. Most of those tracks are hardly stereo, anyway.
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Is this subtle difference of mono vs closely spaced stereo significant ? I notice most boomboxes are effectively closely spaced stereo and people buy them in preference to mono ?
A good question. I don't really know. There is some stereo effect remaining even with the two speakers touching. Certainly not the typical stereo spread.
When the living room is put back together, I'll try a mono vs stereo signal and let you know.
Stereo seems to have been the death of the big speaker for common domestic use. In mono you can have a big speaker somewhere in the room, even out of the way. But stereo? Now you gotta have two, and the placement is critical. Much harder to do in a typical living room. Not to mention 5.1 and more.
How about a JBL Paragon?
When the living room is put back together, I'll try a mono vs stereo signal and let you know.
Stereo seems to have been the death of the big speaker for common domestic use. In mono you can have a big speaker somewhere in the room, even out of the way. But stereo? Now you gotta have two, and the placement is critical. Much harder to do in a typical living room. Not to mention 5.1 and more.
How about a JBL Paragon?
Out of curiosity: Do you know which stereo mic technique he used?
Just asking because there are a number of ways to arrange a stereo pair like NOS (dutch radio, not new old stock;-), ORTF, Jecklin disc, Decca Tree (although this uses 3 mics), coincident pair or as a spaced pair.
They all are slightly different in their strengths except the spaced pair which is generally inferior IMO as it leaves the door wide open for phase problems.
Personally I'd prefer to use a Soundfield mic which can have staggering results even if mixed down to stereo or mono!
Soundfield microphone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
JBL Paragon - I've been thinking about them all along!
Listening to stereo playing from down the hall is no different than listening to mono down the hall.
Seems inevitable that two speakers playing mono is better in various ways. Maybe just me, but I prefer the visual image of Bruckner coming out of thin air between my two speakers than coming out of the grill cloth. If I add a center speaker, I will hang a picture of Lady Gaga or some other worthy image on the grill cloth.
As the last kid on the block to go stereo, I had to ask, "For a given budget, do I get better music with one great speaker or two poor ones?" An easy choice for me and my budget at the time.
About putting speakers together, there are some conventional practices that get violated. There is hyper-toe-in (partly to combat Haas effect), proximity to side walls to get Toole-ambiance, and for maybe some problems of axis geometry.
Comb filtering is mentioned now and then. Toole pooh-poohs it (and related flutter echos) and says not really audible except testing with a starter pistol. Likewise, the weird notion of compensating for the distance between ears or pinnas or ear tunnel in some way is like saying you are going to boost 18kHz a whole lot because people hear poorly up there and/or is a variant of the El Greco Falacy.
Listening to stereo playing from down the hall is no different than listening to mono down the hall.
Seems inevitable that two speakers playing mono is better in various ways. Maybe just me, but I prefer the visual image of Bruckner coming out of thin air between my two speakers than coming out of the grill cloth. If I add a center speaker, I will hang a picture of Lady Gaga or some other worthy image on the grill cloth.
As the last kid on the block to go stereo, I had to ask, "For a given budget, do I get better music with one great speaker or two poor ones?" An easy choice for me and my budget at the time.
About putting speakers together, there are some conventional practices that get violated. There is hyper-toe-in (partly to combat Haas effect), proximity to side walls to get Toole-ambiance, and for maybe some problems of axis geometry.
Comb filtering is mentioned now and then. Toole pooh-poohs it (and related flutter echos) and says not really audible except testing with a starter pistol. Likewise, the weird notion of compensating for the distance between ears or pinnas or ear tunnel in some way is like saying you are going to boost 18kHz a whole lot because people hear poorly up there and/or is a variant of the El Greco Falacy.
It was a pair spaced about 15" apart and turned slightly outward. Father apart than I've generally seen. But it worked well. The oboe and horn solos came right up, no problem. Image was good, tho the perspective was different - I was was not seated nearly as close as the mics.
I used to record in the ORTF technique a bit. Mainly because I used some old tube mics that were retired from the ORTF itself. Worked for me.
Not just you, I think that's one of the main reasons I like mono on 2 speakers. The illusion works better. It wasn't until last year when I'd gotten the stereo image really working that I realized one of my Tito Puente CDs is in mono! But there is Senor Puente, right between the speakers.bentoronto said:
If I were doing a mono system in my living room, I think something like the Altec Capistrano for the wall or Laguna for the corner would be killer. And still smaller than the JBL beast.
retro vintage modern hi-fi: Altec Laguna Capistrano
Well we differ there a bit. For me it might be Julie London. To each his own muse.
Might find this Gerzon article interesting. It's from 1990 but is interesting to see how the concerns and projects of 20 years ago worked out (or not).
http://www.audiosignal.co.uk/Resources/Three_channels_USL.pdf
http://www.audiosignal.co.uk/Resources/Three_channels_USL.pdf
While I am digesting that interesting Gerzon article, here is a core design question I have.
Since I will be working with say, 20 ESL panels, I can create a physically real center channel without needing a center amp. The center speaker would have say, 8 panels with L and R panels adjacent or even alternating on the speaker board.
Big question: how will that function compared to an amp with an electric mix driving all the center speaker drivers with the same mixed signal?
Thanks.
Footnote: I tend to be less frantic about the acoustic gremlins arising multiple drivers, diffraction, and other factors, which are to me, secondary to basic driver performance.
Since I will be working with say, 20 ESL panels, I can create a physically real center channel without needing a center amp. The center speaker would have say, 8 panels with L and R panels adjacent or even alternating on the speaker board.
Big question: how will that function compared to an amp with an electric mix driving all the center speaker drivers with the same mixed signal?
Thanks.
Footnote: I tend to be less frantic about the acoustic gremlins arising multiple drivers, diffraction, and other factors, which are to me, secondary to basic driver performance.
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