Missus moved out to pursue her career goals so I hauled in a pair of Karlson K15 enclosures to try my newly re-coned 803A (original VC spider , hard suspension 515 Cone)
Edgar 340 Hz with 2441 at 500hz default Edgar 6dB crossover. Reconned 803A rolls off so fast that I may not need a LF filter after all. The set up stinks with SET low powered tube amps but 120W Mosfet YBA amp sounds very pleasant. I listen to piano recordings , Opera , Operetta , Symphonies all they long . No highs , no real lows , little "strange " sounding in low mid but very listenable nonetheless. Horns are so easy.,..
Edgar 340 Hz with 2441 at 500hz default Edgar 6dB crossover. Reconned 803A rolls off so fast that I may not need a LF filter after all. The set up stinks with SET low powered tube amps but 120W Mosfet YBA amp sounds very pleasant. I listen to piano recordings , Opera , Operetta , Symphonies all they long . No highs , no real lows , little "strange " sounding in low mid but very listenable nonetheless. Horns are so easy.,..
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It's OK, and all that some recordings have to offer. But there is so much more in many recordings.
Can we really call a system High Fidelity if it can't take you there?
I guess that depends if you know exactly what the recording is supposed to represent. i doubt any of us can know that information about all of our records.
Some recordings have massive amounts of ambient information some are dead and dry. How much is there and how much is not? Stereo recordings can have vast amounts of ambient sound but often does not.
Some people like me go to great lengths to recreate or create the room ambiance and space we imagine that is or could be there. IE I use Circle Surround with overhead and behind horn arrays and a delayed dual 18" subwoofer in a corner behind me (if I want to turn it on) that can be turned on or off and up and down with varying degrees of delay and ambiance. There is 5 channel and 7 channel discrete recording, dolby digital, SRS surround and other methods to embed ambient sound beyond stereo - "I am there" is a guess at what where is supposed to be - "they are here" is much more distinct in my mind.
Then stick with binaural and tactile transducers and give up on stereo loudspeaker listening?
That's the only way I know of to really meet (very) high expectations consistently with stereo.
The "they are here" approach certainly doesn't meet very high expectations.
-plus, its not like you give up listening to your loudspeakers - there is always HT and Video (..something I also like quite a bit).
(..I'm actually starting to consider going Headphones (with tactile transducers) on that once I've seen how well the Occulus Rift/HT Vive ect. "pan-out" for movies and shows that I'll watch alone.)
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Even the "dry" ones usually have something going-on. Virtually no one wants to hear their favorite artist doing their "thing" in an isolation booth (or a bunch of stacked mattresses surrounding them).
It seems like POOH has made the jump to multichannel recordings and that may well be the best answer. The problem as of now is just the limited use for music. How it can be done well without ending up being just another gimmick is the question? I'm sure many of us remember quadraphonic sound, that became a joke with some of the things that were done to the sound field and things moving around the room. But a modern 7.1 or 9.1 system could do some interesting things if done correctly.
The next step,,, which will likely be several steps from now, may be a mic recording of each instrument playing, and simulating the same in the listening venue/home living room with the same number of channels, one for each instrument/voice. I think there may need to be one additional open mic as well though to capture the venue. I certainly don't have the answers but food for thought. Until this, we can only hope to get as close as many of you/I have.
It's great to hear how all you go about achieving this addiction to the, "they are here". I think the listening room is responsible for 50% of what we're getting or not getting.
I think that this discussion of "spatial high-fidelity" will not lead to any universally applicable resolution.
At least 98% of recorded and published music is 2ch stereo recorded in multiroom studios (each instrument as mono) and mixed/panned/mastered by sound technicians in well treated studios. It means everything spatial is artificial. This raw material can also be masterd to multichannel.
The remaining 2% is recored live with vast number of microhone techiques and again mixed and mastered to 2ch or 5.1 or Atmos etc. in studios. The ideal that the musicians, technicians, producers and marketing people are aiming towards is "something like" the best seat in that music hall.
The remaining 0.000001% is recorded and produced and published as binaural or other 2ch miking techniques with minimal/no postediting.
So ...
At least 98% of recorded and published music is 2ch stereo recorded in multiroom studios (each instrument as mono) and mixed/panned/mastered by sound technicians in well treated studios. It means everything spatial is artificial. This raw material can also be masterd to multichannel.
The remaining 2% is recored live with vast number of microhone techiques and again mixed and mastered to 2ch or 5.1 or Atmos etc. in studios. The ideal that the musicians, technicians, producers and marketing people are aiming towards is "something like" the best seat in that music hall.
The remaining 0.000001% is recorded and produced and published as binaural or other 2ch miking techniques with minimal/no postediting.
So ...
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That's what I have thought. There is no way a simple recorded material can store live sound information. And there isn't "what is in the recording" [what in the recording is not sound waves]. Developing believable soundstage is part of speaker design reproduction technique. You don't want the sound to be over your head [like in headphone]. Most certainly you don't want the singer to be standing on the drum. You just have to make it believable by creating your own reproduction system of the recorded material. It is not part of "hifi", but you have to choose, whether to listen to your music with a glass of wine, a glass of coke or whatever that makes you happy.
That's not what he said. What he said was that very little material is recorded "properly". And in particular "these days".
Fortunately such material exists and is worth the hunt. e.g. the 1964 recording of Allegri Miseri by Willcocks & King's College Choir.
@Kindhornman - still going back through to re-read your post several pages back. Sorry that I misrepresented you.
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The system i am talking about is my main system i call Stargate lol, it is 99 percent 2 channel Stereo. I have thousands of albums, CDs, SACDs and DVDs. The jump I made was to try and take 2 channel better in my room through adding Circle Surround. It can be, with certain music, like a trip out of the room and transported to the recording space - this is my and others perception of it. It also can liven up the tone with the omni horns response - a wetter, denser tone that is more enveloping than even the best 2 speaker systems I have heard. Another advantage is it works with 2 or more people so listening to 2 channel isn't so much directed to one listener sweet spot centered between the 2 channels. Does it ever sound worse than 2 channel? Not very often, in most cases it is very subtle if not noticeable at all until you turn it off. In most cases the connection to the musicians and music is more profound and FUN than not using the omni horns and delayed back room subwoofer.
I do have another system that is MONO, LOL it's a huge corner horn with SET amps, and a multi channel rig for movies (used last i don't watch TV except football - but then I go to Stargate) my wife's 2 channel with B&W speakers and my outdoor patio "full range speaher system with a 12" sub. They all get there play - Mostly now I use my Koss or STAX electrostatic headphones though.
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There is nothing to be sorry for. It was a very interesting post which I saw just as I was going to bed. It got me thinking and I posted this truncated reply:
I didn't supply any examples did I? It was late.
Here's a review of the active Grimm LS1 speakers. Note the measurements.
Reviews of the sound are fulsome and pros using them for mixing are very pleased. [understatement]A prosperous, not necessarily rich, technically savvy, music loving person might look at these and figure all he has to do is supply a source, either digital or analogue, and he's up and running for $30K, maybe less. And, he's got better sound than 99% of folk who spend a lot more on high end. And it looks like it has WAF.
http://www.grimmaudio.com/site/assets/files/2737/audio_mai_2013_grimm_ls1_testbericht_english.pdf
$30K is a lot of money to most of us here but that's the price, right now, and it's paying for good engineering, development, and cost of small production runs.
I don't know if a major player like Harmon or Sony has the nerve to produce something like this concept, but I imagine it would sell for less.
There is also the possibility that some co like LG, which really needs sound to match its OLED TVs, (which are to die for, the picture being so gorgeous; you can buy one for @ $3K, they were $12K a year or so ago), and needs a go-with product cuz they're not yet making a dime off OLEDs which they've spent $billions on .... [deep breath] will make an LS1 like product because their screen is going to be the center piece of a lot of home theatre and why should they leave that space to the usual suspects?
If they don't, somebody else will, because all the customer has to do is plug it in. It's something else for Costco and Amazon to sell along with the TV.
What about us peasants that want value high end? Buy an M12/M22 combo from Nad ($6K) and a couple of speakers from Gedlee, and we're most of the way to high end and that's about $10K. If we don't like a system that doesn't sound like anything at all, (neutral, no distortion), we can always program in some extra 'warmth and detail' in DSP.
Or go diy and clone an LS1. There's enough info on diyaudio. Now we're under $5K.
Lynne, I realize this is not your line of country, but if we look around, I think we can see value high end might be undergoing a revival in near future because class D and switching power supplies and DSP are being sold that rival or perhaps even better the best conventional gear.
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FrankWW,
I can spot the commodity Seas drivers in those speakers in about two seconds. That is one of the major problems with all these so called high end speakers, they are nothing that you can't get from so many manufacturers in another pretty box. Less than a couple hundred dollars in drivers in each channel. Price and performance have no connection.
I can spot the commodity Seas drivers in those speakers in about two seconds. That is one of the major problems with all these so called high end speakers, they are nothing that you can't get from so many manufacturers in another pretty box. Less than a couple hundred dollars in drivers in each channel. Price and performance have no connection.
As ScottG mentions, most recordings have at least some sound of the recording venue. That can lead to a mix of They Are Here and You Are There.
Sitting in my chair and being virtually transported from space to space is great fun for me. It's one of the main things I enjoy about top end systems and rooms.
Sitting in my chair and being virtually transported from space to space is great fun for me. It's one of the main things I enjoy about top end systems and rooms.
I think this whole "you are there vs they are here" aspect of playback has to do with the amount of room or reverberation in the recording, your listening position and the degree to which you speakers trigger the listening room acoustic (for example, dipoles trigger it less due to the two null zones). To the extent that the reverb on the recording is greater that the reverb heard from your room as a function of your listening distance or the deadness of your room acoustic, then you are inclined to be 'there'. If the recording is very dry then most of the spatial cues will be from your room and 'they will be here'.
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Yes, that's possible.
I didn't repeat any of his words. I just mentioned that I agreed. When I said "simple recorded material", it referred to the way most are recorded as he said. So I think we are in agreement here.
Yes, agree with the major cause of "you are there"
This, I think I will disagree. From our room, we don't need any or many thing. What we need is from the recording itself [that's why it is rarer than "you are there"], and from our speaker to have that capability.
Listen to a DVD audio and/or live performance, there you can hear a lot of room reverberation and you will be transported easily to the "location".
I think this is a requirement for a movie. Even the sound of car's door being closed is very exaggerated and that's fine.
"They are here" is something different. More is required from your speaker. More is also required from the recording. Once your speaker has that capability, you will know which recording [or which studio/producer] has the right content.
From our system [room, speaker and electronics], we just need them to not interfere. Electronics is the least important, because even with cheap one the goal is achievable. Room effect is IMO too exaggerated, as I have mentioned before. It is the speaker that has the biggest contribution. It shouldn't create it's own sound. For example, in high frequency, you should control the baffle diffraction and cone linear distortion. In low frequency you should control the box resonance to remove the box sound which is easily localized.