Sorry, spaciousness has been captured in the recording, and can be fully realised in stereo playback. Why it typically, in fact nearly always, is not heard is because too much low level distortion masks the detail that's necessary for one's hearing system to put the picture together correctly. Using multichannel or DSP separation of the elements in the track, and replaying the extra content through more speakers is an aid for the ear/brain to reassemble the soundscape, one solution to the "problem". However, another solution is to clean up, improve the replay, which also has the benefit of making the overall experience more satisfying.
If one has never experienced this level of replay then it's easy to assume that it doesn't exist. However, that doesn't prove it doesn't exist, but indicates more the difficulty of always having it on tap. Current thinking by the 'experts' doesn't help matters -- the quandry remains ...
Then you can not or will not specify your bold claims? Are they really worth reading, then?
This is not fact, it is opinion. I would say opinion born of limited experience with stereo. You've asked others:
Can you?
rather it seems to depend strictly on who listens and to what exactly
ditto
again goes the same question as before - Do You honestly believe that there is no audible difference between an effect of an incoherent reflection delayed by ca 2.5 ms or a coherent one delayed by ca 6 ms? As far as the first order ceiling reflection is concerned. Because as far as the first order floor reflection is concerned there is simply no such reflection in a FCUFS system.
but I don't adjust anything in a FCUFS setup, any changes in the perceived spaciousness between different recordings depend strictly on what is in the recording
well, the photoshop argument is Yours
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The original name of the thread was Loudspeaker and room as a system, if anyone remembers ?
Considering this, how does multichannel fullfils the original idea ? It does not ! Rather it works best in the opposite where the room has been eliminated.
Actually multi-channel can work even better "with" the room, but not in the manner originally intended.
The best results I've ever gotten were (and on point with this thread), from fullrange drivers done in an upward firing configuration placed on the wall - looking rather like upward lighting sconces. (..I'm referring to side and rear channels here.)
It does nothing for floating images *into* the room, but then again multi-channel isn't particularly good at that either (..to do that well you need a system similar to binaural with headphones - i.e. highly directive speakers near centered and convolved to binaural). Rather, it's excellent at providing that added measure of hall ambiance or distant source effects while particularly eliminating the perception of the signature of the room.
In every "pro" installation of multi-channel I've heard (utilizing significant absorption on walls for higher freq.s) - those walls still perceptually "limit" the space - even large theaters and even larger performance venues.
This makes me think that "flooding" the room with a relatively broad uniform reflective pattern (at least at higher frequencies), makes for an easier cognitive process than any alternative including an anechoic condition (and even one with multiple discreet sources).
Sorry, but no it can't. This is reason why there are so many alternative speaker designs reflecting sound all over the room - there isn't sufficient spaciousness in the source itself, it is all a front loaded event. To perceive realistic spaciousness, you must have signal arriving from the sides as well as the rear, or you are not immersed in enough sound to realistically perceive spaciousness.
Actually that is not the reason. The reason is the primary recording information(the musicians) and the recorded ambiance is coming from the same direction. If you are going to perceive spaciousness clearly, it has to be coming from the sides, not the front. Toole has noted this as well as an argument in favor of multichannel.
And it is a solution that stereo cannot do with just two channels.
You can clean it up as much as you want, but it won't create information that just is not there.
You are assuming that an individual has not heard a low distortion high quality stereo system. I have, every day, and two many times to mention.
You cannot provide water to a population of 1 million with a 2" pipeline. Two channels is just not a large enough pipeline to provide enough spatial cues to be spacious.
I have to brush aside your comments in the same way as you have brushed aside current thinking by "experts". Their observations comes from testing, yours from your personal opinion? I'll take the experts.
The original name of the thread was Loudspeaker and room as a system, if anyone remembers ?
Considering this, how does multichannel fullfils the original idea ? It does not ! Rather it works best in the opposite where the room has been eliminated.
If you are speaking about film sound, you are right. If you are speaking about multichannel music, then your comment is a fail. The established standards for the two are quite different.
We can put a multichannel system in the same room as a stereo system. Any notion that the room itself has to be different is nonsense.
I don't function very well as a tape recorder than one can push a button and repeat the same message over and over again. It is best to just keep up with the discussion instead of asking some one to repeat things.
It is a fact that you have no idea what my experience is with stereo, so your comment is a assumption that you cannot support. Even Toole has recognized that stereo needs room reflections to be perceived as spacious. Remove those room reflections, and stereo collaspes to hard front, and spaciousness disappears. Ever listen to stereo outdoors or in a anechoic chamber?
Yep, already have several times. Listen to the Lucern Festival Orchestra's Mahler series with a high quality well calibrated and set up 5.1 system. Turn off the center and surrounds and listen to it again in 2.0. The holosonic acoustic bubble disappears, and the entire sound field collapses to the front channels. That is clear enough evidence that stereo does not have enough immersive spatial cues to be perceived as spacious. I think the effect goes beyond the word "different".
Sadly, once again you are wrong as two left shoes on a man with one right foot.
Using the side channels in a multichannel system, we can easily move the audio images "into" the room. With a full 7.1 system, we can move the audio images anywhere in the room. Try that with stereo. In film sound we have been doing this since Dolby stereo six track appeared in 1978. You are playing catch up with your understanding of multichannel audio.
Wrong again. With a high quality, well calibrated, properly set up multichannel system, you can perceptively push back the walls of the room. Two great examples - The Lucern Festival Orchestra doing the Mahler series, and the movie Hugo. When heard in the proper environment, these two examples have sound that perceptively images outside of the walls of the room, thereby expanding your sense of playback space.
Do you have any proof to support this statement beyond what you think?
Simple thought experiment: an actual concert hall, musicians playing; a copy of your listening room is built in a good listening position in the audience area, with the wall facing the musicians not there - the window into the performance analogy. You sit in your normal listening seat; if this happened for real, would you hear a sense of spaciousness in the sense that you're speaking of? That is, you are listening to the real thing in a "non-optimum" space ...
A thought experiment analogy closer to listening through stereo loudspeakers would be your listening room inside a concert hall with two open windows the size of your speakers cut in the wall facing the stage.
Whether the two windows are placed at the floor, mid wall, or ceiling of the "room within a room", they still can not provide the three dimensional reverb of the original hall.
Cut additional holes in the center front, side and rear of the "room within a room" and the sound image will provide most of the sense of spaciousness of the actual hall.
A surround system virtually can do the same thing, as can binarual recordings played back on headphones, but two channel stereo through two speakers can not, regardless of what the reflection path in the small room may be.
Art
Has anything along these lines actually been done, or is it just assumed that this will be the case ...?
And if done, has the size of the openings been varied as a test parameter?
A concert hall experience is not a window to the performance experience, it is a immersive experience with sound coming from all around you. In other words, the window should cover all four walls instead of the one behind the speaker. When we sit in a concert hall, we hear the orchestra up front, and the actual ambiance of the hall to the left and right sides, and from behind you. That is what makes up the immersive experience. With a good recording, you find yourself listening in a "acoustical bubble" that perceptively pushes the walls of the room way beyond their boundaries. That does not happen with stereo.
The window to the performance analogy is exactly why stereo is incapable of generating enough spatial cues to sound realistic and provide a real sense of spaciousness.
I get the impression that not only have few hear heard a high quality multichannel presentation, but they don't visit concert or performance halls very often to hear a band orchestra. This means you idea of "spaciousness" is limited to your system in your room. This is not a very broad perspective to draw from.
The 'experts' don't achieve "invisible speakers" with their test setups - this is a key indicator of the reproduction of spaciousness 'happening' to a high degree; if they were able to do so on a regular basis I suspect they would mention this is an achievable effect
.My statements are based on experiences, not opinions - if one has not had the experience then it's relatively easy to proclaim that it doesn't, or can't happen - and until that experience can be explained away by something other than a trite "it's all in your head" comment then the gap in understanding will remain ...
You still haven't answered the question:
Are you saying that the real musicians in a real situation, as I described it, would sound just like a feeble stereo system, and no more than that?
More evasion on your part. You present opinions as fact, than evade when called to task.
Multichannel has some real advantages over stereo - no argument. That does not preclude the fact that stereo can do what you claim it does not. The claims made about what stereo can not do, simply point to limited experience with stereo. That's quite obvious.
I get the impression that you are building straw men.
You tell us that we don't know what your experience is - then tell us you know what ours is.
Turning off surrounds that contain ambiance information doesn't leave proper stereo mix.
Likewise two window analogy is crap with respect to how orchestras are recorded and mixed, be it stereo or surround.
All good mixing environments for recording are isolated from outside, and need to err on dead side to achieve reliable results. Playback in echo chamber or anechoic chamber is best avoided.
Loudness within a somewhat lively room is highly dependent on total energy in room. Getting there with 90 degree horn or highly omnidirectional speaker requires virtually the same amount of energy.
Driving graaf to passive-aggressive defensive codependent behavior in his thread is not unlike farmer wrestling a pig in it's pen. The pig gets good exercise, and the farmer dirties himself.
Likewise two window analogy is crap with respect to how orchestras are recorded and mixed, be it stereo or surround.
All good mixing environments for recording are isolated from outside, and need to err on dead side to achieve reliable results. Playback in echo chamber or anechoic chamber is best avoided.
Loudness within a somewhat lively room is highly dependent on total energy in room. Getting there with 90 degree horn or highly omnidirectional speaker requires virtually the same amount of energy.
Driving graaf to passive-aggressive defensive codependent behavior in his thread is not unlike farmer wrestling a pig in it's pen. The pig gets good exercise, and the farmer dirties himself.
You call this being called to task. LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!
If you have been following this thread, the question was pretty dumb.
Once again, you don't know what my experience is with stereo, so your comments are once again assumption.