No, actually I am building a new multichannel listening room.
Based on what has been posted in this thread, I just mentioned an observation. There are not a lot of people here who have heard a high quality well calibrated multichannel system. Every time I have asked this question, the answer is no. Just reading people describing what stereo can do let's me know that not many have heard a live performance in a concert hall. I am just reading what is posted here. Unlike you, I am not assuming anything.
Face it Pano, I have just as much experience with stereo as you have. I recorded in the format, and I listened to it just like you. Unlike you, I don't limit myself to stereo, my systems are all multichannel systems. However, you can play any channel format on a 7.1 system including stereo. You can playback 7.1, 5.1, 4.1,3.1, and 2.1. With stereo, you are stuck with just plain stereo.
The stereo format in and of itself does not have the capability to present realistic spaciousness without help from the room. That is a fact that can be supported by just listening to a stereo recording in a anechoic chamber. Without room reflections to assist the format, it will sound dry and lifeless, hence why we have(and I think I have mentioned this a dozen times) Bose direct/reflecting speakers, AR Magic speakers, Flooders, and omnidirectional speakers. All designs that add reflections in the room to make stereo sound more spacious. We haven't even began to discuss the various black boxes that have been brought to the market like the Spatializer, the SRS/Hughes space enhancer(and dozens of others), and how about the thousands of plug-in to widen the stereo image on computers.
If stereo in and of itself was capable of presenting realistic spaciousness, then why all of the reflections and black boxes? They are all band aids designed to shore up the lack within the format. Multichannel does not need any of this. That is a fact.
Stereo does not have a surround channel that carries ambiance in the first place.
I agree and stated as such.
All of this information is well known. Nobody is debating this.
It seems to me the farmer would also get good exercise, and then he can shower afterwards. That is what they make showers for.
Originally Posted by weltersys
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.
Regarding the thought experiment, I have many actual experiences of the same. Having grown up taking winter vacations with my family in an old converted bus which broke down from time to time, we lived in the bus while it was being repaired inside a large "Quonset Hut" type garage.
The more bus windows open, the closer the sound inside the bus approximated the sound of the large room.
If only two windows on one side were open, a sense of spaciousness still could be heard inside the bus, but if windows on both sides were open, one could discern the actual location of the various voices, machines and transistor radio making all the sounds.
Even with multiple windows open, the sound within the bus was only a pale representation of the Quonset hut's reverberation.
As a 5 year old kid I had never experienced that type of reverberation before, the experience was transformative, and being "inside the box" listening "outside the box" is a sonic memory I hope I never forget.
Later, as a young professional sound man our sound company shared a large warehouse with several vehicles inside.
It was interesting to compare the reverberant warehouse sound of rehearsals by the Lamont Cranston Band, Prince, and Lipps Inc. through the windows of our Dodge Travco, Ford F700 straight truck, Larry Lewis' bus, and Steve Raitt's Scenicruiser bus.
Warehouse living at it's best.
Each vehicle (and band) had a different sound, different window sizes and locations, the individual acoustics of each changed the way the warehouse reverberation sounded, but they all had the signature sound of Del's Tire Mart.
At any rate, reflecting on the memory of multiple windows of reverberation, it is obvious the only way to reproduce the same with realism is with multiple (more than two) sound sources.
I enjoy using reverb in the stereo recording process or in live sound reinforcement to enhance performance and give a sense of large, complex acoustical spaces, and even though stereo reproduction can reproduce the sound of that acoustic space as recorded or reinforced, it does not reproduce three dimensional reverberation.
The lack of three dimensional reverberation from a stereo speaker set up, (as Soundtrackmixer has repeatedly pointed out) is why some prefer designs that add reflections in the room to make stereo sound more spacious.
And there are of course many of us that would prefer additional room reflections and reverberation to add as little as possible to the original recording.
Art Welter
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.
Wallace Sabine's experiments in the 1890's provide great insight as to the definition of reverberation time and to it's contribution to the acoustical quality of a room.
Regarding the thought experiment, I have many actual experiences of the same. Having grown up taking winter vacations with my family in an old converted bus which broke down from time to time, we lived in the bus while it was being repaired inside a large "Quonset Hut" type garage.
The more bus windows open, the closer the sound inside the bus approximated the sound of the large room.
If only two windows on one side were open, a sense of spaciousness still could be heard inside the bus, but if windows on both sides were open, one could discern the actual location of the various voices, machines and transistor radio making all the sounds.
Even with multiple windows open, the sound within the bus was only a pale representation of the Quonset hut's reverberation.
As a 5 year old kid I had never experienced that type of reverberation before, the experience was transformative, and being "inside the box" listening "outside the box" is a sonic memory I hope I never forget.
Later, as a young professional sound man our sound company shared a large warehouse with several vehicles inside.
It was interesting to compare the reverberant warehouse sound of rehearsals by the Lamont Cranston Band, Prince, and Lipps Inc. through the windows of our Dodge Travco, Ford F700 straight truck, Larry Lewis' bus, and Steve Raitt's Scenicruiser bus.
Warehouse living at it's best.
Each vehicle (and band) had a different sound, different window sizes and locations, the individual acoustics of each changed the way the warehouse reverberation sounded, but they all had the signature sound of Del's Tire Mart.
At any rate, reflecting on the memory of multiple windows of reverberation, it is obvious the only way to reproduce the same with realism is with multiple (more than two) sound sources.
I enjoy using reverb in the stereo recording process or in live sound reinforcement to enhance performance and give a sense of large, complex acoustical spaces, and even though stereo reproduction can reproduce the sound of that acoustic space as recorded or reinforced, it does not reproduce three dimensional reverberation.
The lack of three dimensional reverberation from a stereo speaker set up, (as Soundtrackmixer has repeatedly pointed out) is why some prefer designs that add reflections in the room to make stereo sound more spacious.
And there are of course many of us that would prefer additional room reflections and reverberation to add as little as possible to the original recording.
Art Welter
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A thought just occurred to me: most systems are not run loud enough to build up levels of natural reverb that match the real thing - one can instantly pick that it's "just" hifi sound. And why aren't they run at at natural levels? Because, the level of underlying distortion then becomes too obvious; the sound hardens, is congested, starts to feel like a battering ram -- if this is happening, you are hearing distortion, it's as simple as that. The louder the SPLs, the more the sound 'nasties' start trying to drill holes in your skull, and for some strange reason most people don't like this
, and turn the volume down. The sign that a system is truly on song is that you reach the limit of the gain control, and you want more - the sound reproduction at maximum is totally effortless, no sense of strain - and the sound bounces off all the surfaces of your home environment, and never irritates - it just sounds 'right' ...
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A thought just occurred to me: most systems are not run loud enough to build up levels of natural reverb that match the real thing - one can instantly pick that it's "just" hifi sound. And why aren't they run at at natural levels? Because, the level of underlying distortion then becomes too obvious; the sound hardens, is congested, starts to feel like a battering ram -- if this is happening, you are hearing distortion, it's as simple as that. The louder the SPLs, the more the sound 'nasties' start trying to drill holes in your skull, and for some strange reason most people don't like this
This makes total sense.
Frank,
Nicely put.
As driver native linearity is used up a rising see of IMD components follows the sound up. It often completely swallows up low level reverberant detail, entire room just becomes loud. Yes, like a battering ram. The sound gets loud with demand of signal, basic intelligibility isn't necessarily lost, leading to false sense to many of greater dynamics. This false sense of dynamics is fostered by small amplifiers, and speakers prone to IMD do to poor bandwidth control of drivers, and often due to drivers that just don't make the grade.
I've attended classical concerts where I've heard well mixed stereo from full array of microphones for archival and broadcast purposes. No artificial reverberation, no compression. Spaciousness doesn't present well until volume is turned up to live levels. This means hearing seat squeaks, throat clearings, stifled coughs, and all the other potential intrusions. A memorable one for me was a performance of Beethoven's 9th where a patron's hearing aide had feedback issues. Many parts of this piece are very punctuated playing; good conductor tweaks the tempo so that this rhythmic driving sound modulates well with sound reflected from back of hall, generating tremendous space between the notes, and amazing reverberant decay at end of passages that end with crescendo. Transients are numerous.
When driver bandwidth linearity is stressed significant IMD components arise, that prompt expectation in mind that reverberant tails will exist for them, but they don't, at least not in the performance, or in the recording. Only real reverberation of listening room is created for transient distortion events, and sticks out in conflict with room effect upon reverberations contained in recording.
When I play my Pluto Clones with 24dB/oct slope for 1kHz crossover (Linkwitz design) at live level, the 2" full range used for tweeter begins to stress as transients begin producing IMD. Spaciousness is lost to roughness, imaging detail suffers, and realistic listening pleasure is degraded. DCX2496 implementation using 48dB/oct crossover slopes improves this. With DSP via soundcard, frequency response and phase are flattened, and 200dB/oct slopes are used that are perfectly matched. Transient performance is cleaned up, keeping even worst case IMD components <1.6%, instead of in 2.5-5% range. It gets easy to want and turn it up louder than live to get rock concert rush.
The room doesn't just get louder, it gets bigger perceptually. Lively listening rooms give this larger spaciousness perception with lesser hardware demands, but with increased potential of perception of room's reverberation as a static effect.
Nicely put.
As driver native linearity is used up a rising see of IMD components follows the sound up. It often completely swallows up low level reverberant detail, entire room just becomes loud. Yes, like a battering ram. The sound gets loud with demand of signal, basic intelligibility isn't necessarily lost, leading to false sense to many of greater dynamics. This false sense of dynamics is fostered by small amplifiers, and speakers prone to IMD do to poor bandwidth control of drivers, and often due to drivers that just don't make the grade.
I've attended classical concerts where I've heard well mixed stereo from full array of microphones for archival and broadcast purposes. No artificial reverberation, no compression. Spaciousness doesn't present well until volume is turned up to live levels. This means hearing seat squeaks, throat clearings, stifled coughs, and all the other potential intrusions. A memorable one for me was a performance of Beethoven's 9th where a patron's hearing aide had feedback issues. Many parts of this piece are very punctuated playing; good conductor tweaks the tempo so that this rhythmic driving sound modulates well with sound reflected from back of hall, generating tremendous space between the notes, and amazing reverberant decay at end of passages that end with crescendo. Transients are numerous.
When driver bandwidth linearity is stressed significant IMD components arise, that prompt expectation in mind that reverberant tails will exist for them, but they don't, at least not in the performance, or in the recording. Only real reverberation of listening room is created for transient distortion events, and sticks out in conflict with room effect upon reverberations contained in recording.
When I play my Pluto Clones with 24dB/oct slope for 1kHz crossover (Linkwitz design) at live level, the 2" full range used for tweeter begins to stress as transients begin producing IMD. Spaciousness is lost to roughness, imaging detail suffers, and realistic listening pleasure is degraded. DCX2496 implementation using 48dB/oct crossover slopes improves this. With DSP via soundcard, frequency response and phase are flattened, and 200dB/oct slopes are used that are perfectly matched. Transient performance is cleaned up, keeping even worst case IMD components <1.6%, instead of in 2.5-5% range. It gets easy to want and turn it up louder than live to get rock concert rush.
The room doesn't just get louder, it gets bigger perceptually. Lively listening rooms give this larger spaciousness perception with lesser hardware demands, but with increased potential of perception of room's reverberation as a static effect.
Wow. Thanks for that - now we know how completely wrong your posts are, and can fortunately disregard them in future.
You do not know that you have "just as much experience" as I. You may have more, or less, or simply a different experience. You are fond of saying that no one here knows your experience with stereo. But now you claim to know ours. Are you trolling?
I do not limit myself to stereo, you have not been reading my posts. I actually worked at IRCAM and GRM 25 years ago where we did 24 channel playback and sometimes playback rigs up to 200 channels. My experience with the format is pretty well rounded and it's been a passion of mine for years.
Every time you have asked that question where? Here on this forum? You must not be reading the responses if you think that. You are simply wrong.
You "know" this? How can you know? Sounds exactly like an assumption to me. Not everyone here is the shut-in you suppose.
If we were on a boat building forum and a ferry boat captain came on to tell us that catamarans are incapable of fast speeds and good handling, would you:
- Accept his judgement without knowing the facts?
- Believe him simply because he drives a big boat for a living?
- Wonder if he really has much experience with top performance cats?
Multichannel recording and playback is a wonderful thing. I happen to like it very much - and have heard and worked with well setup systems across the world. The loveliness of multichannel in no way precludes that fact that 2 channel can create a very realistic illusion. So realistic that the walls melt away and another sonic space "appears".
If you have not heard a system like that, there is no need to be embarrassed; most people, even pros, have not. But they do exist. I've heard them and documented some here on this forum.
Wow. Thanks for that - now we know how completely wrong your posts are, and can fortunately disregard them in future.
Yeah, I choked when I read that bit of arrogance as well. 
What is spaciousness and what it is not
This changes completely when the crescendo stops. Now we hear the reverb/decay of the sound in every detail. And it is this which gives us a sense of the spaciousness of the hall. As very well noticed above, a good conductor will time the music in a way which allows the reverb to "shine through" every few moments. We don't need the full length of decay - most often a glimpse is enough for our brain to get a sense of the reverberation delay and decay rate - and this is our measure for the space we are sitting in.
Rudolf
This is a good remark to think about the true meaning of the word "spaciousness". In the mid of a crescendo we don't experience spaciousness. What we hear is envelopment, immersion or engagement, as Griesinger puts it. Sound is coming from everywhere. We get washed away by the impact of the music. The notion of decay is masked by the massive attack of ever new notes.
This changes completely when the crescendo stops. Now we hear the reverb/decay of the sound in every detail. And it is this which gives us a sense of the spaciousness of the hall. As very well noticed above, a good conductor will time the music in a way which allows the reverb to "shine through" every few moments. We don't need the full length of decay - most often a glimpse is enough for our brain to get a sense of the reverberation delay and decay rate - and this is our measure for the space we are sitting in.
What happens really, if we fill the lively listening room with music by making it louder and louder? We increasingly notice the reverberation - music starts to come from everywhere. Immersion/envelopment sets in, which some may mistake for spaciousness. There might be a small rise in experienced decay time too, but perhaps on a much smaller scale than is in the original recording. Certainly there is nothing wrong with having strong (late) reflections in the listening room. But they don't really enhance spaciousness, but the feeling of sitting amid the music: envelopment.
Rudolf
Wow. Thanks for that - now we know how completely wrong your posts are, and can fortunately disregard them in future.
Back at cha!
You seem to be having reading difficulties here.
During the course of this thread I have asked questions and answered them. Anyone with half a brain knows that when you ask questions and they get answered, it leads to a conclusion. From the answered questions I concluded that
A) Most of the participants here have never heard good multichannel audio. You are not everyone.
B) Most folks here don't go to live concerts. You are not everyone, and your experience does not cover everyone.
I must have missed the post where they selected you as the spokesman for everyone here.
If all you own is a stereo system, then you are limited to stereo playback.
25 years ago? This makes you knowledgeable about what is happening today? I don't think so. Are you mixing audio today? Based on our exchanges, no you are not. Let's us catch up here. Do you know in film sound we routinely work with 450 channels of information?
200 channels is truly yesteryear. What you did 25 years ago in audio is irrelevant to what they are doing today. 25 years ago they were mixing on analog boards. Today, you would be hard pressed to find one. 25 years ago, we were mostly in a analog world. Now analog is used as an artistic "effect".
What you are saying here is akin to saying you built your first gasoline powered car in a world full of solar electric cars. I am not impressed at all.
According to the responses, you are wrong. People have heard surround sound before, but not a quality presentation, not with quality multichannel recordings, and not a well calibrated system. Maybe you have heard one, but most here have not based on their answers. If I ask a question, and the answer is no - the answer is no. You cannot come back and change their answers, you don't have THAT much power.
I don't have to assume, It is their answers not mine.
We are not on a boat building forum, and my answer would have been #4 - I don't care.
On the front wall. Our sonic world is not based on a front loaded or one dimensional experience. We hear sounds coming from all around us. If we were to only hear things in front of us, our ear shape would be much different than it is today. Our pinna would be shaped to block sound from the rear partially or entirely. Your idea of realistic, and my idea of realistic is obviously quite different. My realistic is not limited to in front of me, it is all around me. Stereo does not do all around me, it does in front of me.
Let's be honest if you can. There are very few people who have a sound system capable of the performance you mention. Based on what I have seen here in pictures, most folks system is not even set up to achieve such a lofty performance level.
I hear this kind of sound system everyday, but the system is not the problem and this is why I said you missed my point earlier. You don't seem to understand the difference between a system and the format. My argument is not with the system, it is with the format. The stereo format is incapable of presenting realistic spaciousness PERIOD. Our sense of spaciousness is not front loaded, it happens all around us.
This little p!ssing game you are trying to pull me into is beginning to bore me to tears. It is quite apparent you and I don't have any love for each other, and based on that I think it is time for me to ignore you, and respond no further to you. I am not interested in being baited into being banned by a moderator who does not mind using his power. I will continue to post, but I have no further interest in engaging with you.
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I will take my arrogance over your ignorance any day.
Just for the record, the above statement is not fact, it is personal opinion.
Opinion is fine, as long as it is stated as such.
Lest anyone think that I'm anti-multichannel, I am not. I like it and have done a lot of work in the field. I'm not talking about studio recordings in 200 or 400 tracks, I'm talking about playback using 24 to 200 speakers with a separate channel for each speaker. Not just the bog standard 5.1 or 7.1 used in cinema today (although that's great stuff, too). I think that I have some experience with multichannel, more than the average sound guy. Enough to let me accurately judge its merits against stereo.
Stereo can present realistic spaciousness, IMO & IME. I've heard it done beautifully in front of several hundred witnesses. It is not done with typical home systems or standard cinema playback gear. For that, multichannel is a more practical approach. No argument there. There may be other ways to it, thus the topic of this thread.
Frank,A thought just occurred to me: most systems are not run loud enough to build up levels of natural reverb that match the real thing - one can instantly pick that it's "just" hifi sound. And why aren't they run at at natural levels? Because, the level of underlying distortion then becomes too obvious; the sound hardens, is congested, starts to feel like a battering ram -- if this is happening, you are hearing distortion, it's as simple as that. The louder the SPLs, the more the sound 'nasties' start trying to drill holes in your skull, and for some strange reason most people don't like this
Although odd order harmonic distortion and IM distortion is quite annoying, I find that the short reverberation time in small rooms at high volume is the reason I don't enjoy listening at high volume.
I have many speakers capable of low distortion at very high playback level.
Outdoors, with no close reflections, the speakers sound fine up to amp clipping, around 125 dB at one meter.
Indoors, at lower levels, the sound is good, turn them up to the same 125 dB level as outdoors, and the room sound does all the things you attributed to the speakers:"'nasties' start trying to drill holes in your skull," etc.
The reflected sound in a typical living room is far shorter than in a "good sounding" large hall, I prefer to minimize it, rather than increase it.
I find when the short reflections are reduced, the sound reproduction at maximum is totally effortless, no sense of strain , and never irritates - it just sounds 'right'
.Art
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I very much agree, Art. It's easy to overdrive the room with levels that don't sound nearly as bad in bigger and better rooms. It's a real problem in domestic listening.
And even in large rooms, I dislike mixing or listening if stuck within about 16 feet (5 meters) of a reflective wall when levels get loud.
This business of 'overdriving' a room is interesting - when I got the bloke demo'ing the Bryston to show me what it could do, he put on a drum solo track, and I urged him to keep winding up the volume. The amp, and speakers, responded beautifully, they never lost their composure, and the visceral impact of the real thing was in the room -- I have a grandson who played a kit in a tiny practice area at one stage, and this was truly 'immersive' sound, your whole being was swimming in the intensity of the acoustic bombardment - I love it!
Yet, the Bryston chap wasn't 'into' it - thought that the room was being overdriven -- well, I'm not interested in polite, nicely mannered sound "over there", I want to feel that something with guts is going on! And, at the same time, no overt distortion - which is where the majority of systems come undone when asked to try too hard ...