Might this simply be because musicians are accustomed to the sound of their instruments at much closer range than the audience? In other words, the sound balance they consider "correct" contains much more direct sound and less reflected sound.
A quote from Toole about room treatment:
“…the development of porous absorbers in the 1930s led to a popular belief that acoustical room treatment begins with a large stack of fiberglass. In the author’s opinion this approach has some value and should be applied to the interior of many popular restaurants within which conversation is all but impossible, especially for those with deteriorating hearing. However, for normal listening and listening spaces, time has shown that a certain amount of reflected sound is not only welcome but expected.”
And one that gets very close to our thread:
…a pair of loudspeakers deployed at +/-30° or less is not an optimum arrangement for generating strong perceptions of envelopment… Perhaps this is why audiophiles have for decades experimented with different loudspeaker directivities (to excite more listening room reflections), with electronic add-ons and more loudspeakers (to generate delayed sounds arriving from the sides and rear), and with other trinkets that seem capable only of exciting the imagination. All have been intended to contribute more of “something that was missing” from stereo reproduction experience. The solution to this is more channels.”
I want to learn more about multi-speaker solutions and hence opened a thread about it:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/164451-who-listens-surround-stereo-source.html#post2141912
“…the development of porous absorbers in the 1930s led to a popular belief that acoustical room treatment begins with a large stack of fiberglass. In the author’s opinion this approach has some value and should be applied to the interior of many popular restaurants within which conversation is all but impossible, especially for those with deteriorating hearing. However, for normal listening and listening spaces, time has shown that a certain amount of reflected sound is not only welcome but expected.”
And one that gets very close to our thread:
…a pair of loudspeakers deployed at +/-30° or less is not an optimum arrangement for generating strong perceptions of envelopment… Perhaps this is why audiophiles have for decades experimented with different loudspeaker directivities (to excite more listening room reflections), with electronic add-ons and more loudspeakers (to generate delayed sounds arriving from the sides and rear), and with other trinkets that seem capable only of exciting the imagination. All have been intended to contribute more of “something that was missing” from stereo reproduction experience. The solution to this is more channels.”
I want to learn more about multi-speaker solutions and hence opened a thread about it:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/164451-who-listens-surround-stereo-source.html#post2141912
For most instruments this seems a very good and simple explanation.
When asking musicians for judging between different reproduction
setups i often noticed them beeing focused on completely different
aspects of a recording than common listeners and giving such questions
like "spaciousness" or "may it be a little more presence there or
brilliance here" not the weight like e.g. "audiophiles" do it.
Holistic impression, interpretation due to timing and dynamics,
emotional content, things like that seem to be most important
for musicians.
Many of them do not really care if listening to a highly directional
speaker or a speaker having wide dispersion. A recording with an
interesting interpretation may even have lousy quality, it will not
loose its worth for a professional musician i fear.
A musician playing an acoustic instrument has to adapt to very
very different situations and must be able to perform even
under sub optimal conditions, thereby cancelling out everything
which distracts him or her from contributing is part of the whole.
A professional musician is professional even in that respect to
a c c e p t acoustical working conditions he cannot change.
There is no other way for him. "Dear Audience, the acoustics in
here is so lousy, that we will cancel the concert ..." is surely
the last thing to do, although such things may have happened.
It is the ability to listen very selectively and change the focus
immediately, which can make a professional musician a very
different listener than the common one or even a sound engineer.
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I have tried to understand some of my CDs that way. As a spatial realism fanatic I have to concentrate on not looking at this aspect, but when I do it, it works - for some. Others I still see just as "radio ready".
To me this is a key finding and one I completely concur with. It is key to my disagreements with Floyd on the subject of directivity. The wide directivity will mask to a much greater degeree the poor recordings that I find so common in marketplace. The highly directional speakers are brutally revealing of these flaws. Floyd is dominately a "symphonic music at home" person. I am quite the opposite. I claim that if the recordings of symponic music were improved, then the prference would shift to narrow directivity.
And the results of Floyd and his lab at JBL were strongly influenced by the need to sell products, to cater to the market, rather than change it. Don't get me wrong, 95% of what Floyd says, I agree with, but these quotes make it easy to see how someone could rationally argue against his position on directivity - as I do.
Problem is that it can't be improved with 2 channel playback. That's why classic concert hall reproduction people start fiddling around with concepts like omnis or dipoles. The main drawback is that they make each and every recording sound the same even when these recordings were never intended for that kind of reproduction.
The solution of the problem is pretty simple. Let the recording control it's reproduction. That's exactly why multichannel was "invented". Music industry just needs to start making use of it. One of the few that do: AIX Records - Audio Fidelity Beyond Reality
Markus
Quite true about the making everything sound the same. The proposals here will definately do that.
Thanks for the link as well I'll try some of those.
I've not gotten into multi-channel because of the limited availability of mainstream material, but maybe that will change. But it is taking an awfully long time and may never happen.
Quite true about the making everything sound the same. The proposals here will definately do that.
Thanks for the link as well I'll try some of those.
I've not gotten into multi-channel because of the limited availability of mainstream material, but maybe that will change. But it is taking an awfully long time and may never happen.
I actually wish more people would push for multi channel to happen. Stereo will always be here though d/t portable music--again a good thing for various reasons (one being financial).
I went and tried some out multi channel the other day. If the speakers weren't so terrible, you can see where it would have its advantages. Too bad there was no center channel.
A good stereo set up beats a bad multi channel in my book and there is plenty available for it.
This question would be for Dr. Geddes or Markus: If you had narrow and constant directivity speakers in a multichannel set up, would you still want the mains to cross in front of the listener like you recommend for stereo? Or should they be placed to reduce lateral reflections?
Dr. Geddes, would you recommend your speakers for surround sound? Center channel? or no center channel?
Thanks,
Dan
I went and tried some out multi channel the other day. If the speakers weren't so terrible, you can see where it would have its advantages. Too bad there was no center channel.
A good stereo set up beats a bad multi channel in my book and there is plenty available for it.
This question would be for Dr. Geddes or Markus: If you had narrow and constant directivity speakers in a multichannel set up, would you still want the mains to cross in front of the listener like you recommend for stereo? Or should they be placed to reduce lateral reflections?
Dr. Geddes, would you recommend your speakers for surround sound? Center channel? or no center channel?
Thanks,
Dan
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I prefer mono for portable music (other than headphone). You're very unlikely to be in an environment where stereo or multi-channel can be used to advantage. Better put the money into one good mono speaker instead of two average stereo speakers.
As for multi-channel, I'm all for it too as long as the additional speakers (and channels if used) are equal quality, if not equal power handling, to the "main" speakers. Just as multiple subs make it easier to get good bass in a room due to flexibility of positioning, multiple full-range speakers make it easier to tame less than ideal rooms.
Hi,
It already happened. In case you did not noticed. Many of the major labels released a few "test the market" multichannel Disks (SACD, DVD, even MC DTS CD).
I attended more than a few of the demos as well and was generally left bewildered by the sonic perspective selected by the engineers and not alone in this.
The paying public at large ignored this (oh no - another quadro) gimmick despite now often owning 5.1 Systems.
With no market demand for their gimicked up recordings the majors dropped this quickly.
To be honest, to use multichannel audio in a meaningful way, not gimmicky is not trivial and few engineers have or ever will master it. Most struggle to do something meaningful with 2 Channels of CD-Quality audio, never mind multi channel. I suspect in a decade or two sensible multichannel recordings will become more common and then the infrastructure will exist due to the home movie watching industry.
Ciao T
It already happened. In case you did not noticed. Many of the major labels released a few "test the market" multichannel Disks (SACD, DVD, even MC DTS CD).
I attended more than a few of the demos as well and was generally left bewildered by the sonic perspective selected by the engineers and not alone in this.
The paying public at large ignored this (oh no - another quadro) gimmick despite now often owning 5.1 Systems.
With no market demand for their gimicked up recordings the majors dropped this quickly.
To be honest, to use multichannel audio in a meaningful way, not gimmicky is not trivial and few engineers have or ever will master it. Most struggle to do something meaningful with 2 Channels of CD-Quality audio, never mind multi channel. I suspect in a decade or two sensible multichannel recordings will become more common and then the infrastructure will exist due to the home movie watching industry.
Ciao T
I was actually thinking headphones, but yea, better one good speaker than 2 pieces of junk.
ThorstenL,
Listening to SACD at the moment. It did receive a lot of resistance and thus arguably died. Too bad IMO.
I know what you mean about engineers, but that cheesy stuff is what they thought would sell many people on the new technology. They hooks a couple that got away. Not having a clear market seems to be their problem and caused the eventual demise. One could argue they're not dead yet, just hibernating. The situation was analogous to marketing expensive wine to high school kids. It just doesn't work. High quality music and its equivalent reproduction doesn't have mass market appeal. Drastically compressed pop mp3 rules the day. I have no desire to see it SACD go though. Too much potential there.
Hmmm, just got an idea,
Dan