I really don't like to point, it was quite rude.
DrDyna I found a few posts a tad pointed at times when the band wagon gets going but genuinely curious everywhere you've posted. That fire in the belly desire to understand. A character trait I rather like.
I have no desire at this point to work on this subject, all financial. I want a very good set of what could be considered high quality sounding design. In an apt. with a typical not big enough living room. OB is out, shame too, would be best in preventing neighbourly complaints. As they say it's all in the compromises. I do want SOME level, but will not be listening at those levels normally. I do want clarity where it counts most. Thus far the midrange driver covering ~250-2200 is the toughest choice. The 6md38 is the current forerunner. Altho 6dB more effecient than necessary, think of it as reverse baffle step compensation. Yes active
Unless someone can suggest a couple of 5" say 90-92dB to be used MTM with equal or better specs (polar/bandwidth/low breakup/distortion etc) for the price of the 6md38 @~$86 I'm game.
Now after this project is completed and the W has calmed down for this after a few months I'd say then I would be interested in working on a design that would would mix both and blend them. Having messed around with multiple ambience/image enhancement tricks might work.
As I mentioned before the experiment I ran with dual 6.5" midwoofers side by side (a psychoacoustical effect here), wired in parallel crossed at 2200 L/R2 and 4th order. Firing up @ midroom heigth, midroom wall placement within 3" of the wall, with a small 7"x12" baffle with 2" roundovers flush mounting an RT-4001 run active. Didn't have the pinpoint imaging except from the tweeter band (no suprise there) from a typical seated position heigth. What I did find intoxicating was listening to Darkside of the Moon and the desire to kick back in the lazyboy and absorb it all in. Very easy sounding when kicked back yet wonderful clarity, imaging vastly improved. I'm particularly sensitive to phase anomolies, breakup and the like. Very fatiging sound, that just hurts if not in the ball park. This was just pleasant to listen to everywhere for hours. Later perspective of this gave me the everywhere but with too much ambience. So from what I've done eons ago and from this, my next step would be to add more direct balancing the other. Also changing heigth as this was a TL test run so mid wall was it.
I blissfully ended the night at 4:30am after passing out three previous times getting mad at myself for not staying awake to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Nor having disturbed a soul in the process
Of course Lazyboys do have a bad rap for sucking you in when you least expect it
DrDyna I found a few posts a tad pointed at times when the band wagon gets going but genuinely curious everywhere you've posted. That fire in the belly desire to understand. A character trait I rather like.
I have no desire at this point to work on this subject, all financial. I want a very good set of what could be considered high quality sounding design. In an apt. with a typical not big enough living room. OB is out, shame too, would be best in preventing neighbourly complaints. As they say it's all in the compromises. I do want SOME level, but will not be listening at those levels normally. I do want clarity where it counts most. Thus far the midrange driver covering ~250-2200 is the toughest choice. The 6md38 is the current forerunner. Altho 6dB more effecient than necessary, think of it as reverse baffle step compensation. Yes active
Unless someone can suggest a couple of 5" say 90-92dB to be used MTM with equal or better specs (polar/bandwidth/low breakup/distortion etc) for the price of the 6md38 @~$86 I'm game.
Now after this project is completed and the W has calmed down for this after a few months I'd say then I would be interested in working on a design that would would mix both and blend them. Having messed around with multiple ambience/image enhancement tricks might work.
As I mentioned before the experiment I ran with dual 6.5" midwoofers side by side (a psychoacoustical effect here), wired in parallel crossed at 2200 L/R2 and 4th order. Firing up @ midroom heigth, midroom wall placement within 3" of the wall, with a small 7"x12" baffle with 2" roundovers flush mounting an RT-4001 run active. Didn't have the pinpoint imaging except from the tweeter band (no suprise there) from a typical seated position heigth. What I did find intoxicating was listening to Darkside of the Moon and the desire to kick back in the lazyboy and absorb it all in. Very easy sounding when kicked back yet wonderful clarity, imaging vastly improved. I'm particularly sensitive to phase anomolies, breakup and the like. Very fatiging sound, that just hurts if not in the ball park. This was just pleasant to listen to everywhere for hours. Later perspective of this gave me the everywhere but with too much ambience. So from what I've done eons ago and from this, my next step would be to add more direct balancing the other. Also changing heigth as this was a TL test run so mid wall was it.
I blissfully ended the night at 4:30am after passing out three previous times getting mad at myself for not staying awake to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Nor having disturbed a soul in the process
Of course Lazyboys do have a bad rap for sucking you in when you least expect it
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I appreciate that, honestly, I just like to experiment and build. It's very rare that a few days goes by when I don't have sawdust or paint on me
I'm also actually in the market for a pair of good midrange drivers. I was considering something from the Dayton RS like these but they aren't quite efficient enough, and I think the back isn't open enough to use (I was going to use them in the OB I'm currently working on.) Your B&C driver actually looks pretty nice...wildly efficient is good, especially for me working with a MiniDSP, it'll let me run the level low, as the MiniDSP is a little allergic to voltage at times.
My favorite ambiance trick is one that's been around for decades, (and gave me the idea for my nickname that I've used online for nearly 15 years) is the old Dynaquad setup. I haven't ran it in a long time, but it's an interesting effect, really all you do is put two speakers off to the sides or back of the room, ran with L and R positives connected to the amplifier, and grounds on the speakers to each other, with an l-pad in between the ground to adjust level.
On some recordings, you don't get much out of it at all, but on others, (usually more acoustic / lightly processed) it gives you a really interesting "air" that's very difficult to describe unless you try it.
It's actually one of the things that I had on my list to try with the FCUFS, I've only ever tried dynaquad with speakers hung on the wall, I wonder what it would sound like with flooders.
I'm also actually in the market for a pair of good midrange drivers. I was considering something from the Dayton RS like these but they aren't quite efficient enough, and I think the back isn't open enough to use (I was going to use them in the OB I'm currently working on.) Your B&C driver actually looks pretty nice...wildly efficient is good, especially for me working with a MiniDSP, it'll let me run the level low, as the MiniDSP is a little allergic to voltage at times.
My favorite ambiance trick is one that's been around for decades, (and gave me the idea for my nickname that I've used online for nearly 15 years) is the old Dynaquad setup. I haven't ran it in a long time, but it's an interesting effect, really all you do is put two speakers off to the sides or back of the room, ran with L and R positives connected to the amplifier, and grounds on the speakers to each other, with an l-pad in between the ground to adjust level.
On some recordings, you don't get much out of it at all, but on others, (usually more acoustic / lightly processed) it gives you a really interesting "air" that's very difficult to describe unless you try it.
It's actually one of the things that I had on my list to try with the FCUFS, I've only ever tried dynaquad with speakers hung on the wall, I wonder what it would sound like with flooders.
Back when I was in airforce tech school built a opamp signal processor that took a stereo signal and stripped it down to discreet channels. You had Pure L & R without mono, Mono with the stereo differential stereo signal removed with buffered I/O for signal processing on all outputs. Worked quite well minus SN ratio. TL072's blow especially multiples in series. That was in the summer of '82. You could adjust the gain of the ambience and equalization of any channel discreetly. EQ stereo differently than the mono component etc. Inspiration for this was the same trick you mentioned.
Haven't seen anything similar in probably 25 years now.
Haven't seen anything similar in probably 25 years now.
I really hope it does, I'd like to have a proper FCUFS speaker in my collection that I know is done right.
You have all the data and instructions in this thread to do this right. Yes, measurements as well, from other users.
You have no excuse.
I am not applying for a patent protection
thank You so much for all the toil and for reporting Your results
Can You please give us some more details? Type of the driver, size and proportions of the box, size and proportions of the room and of the stereo triangle etc?
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Sorry again for the late answer. I'm lagging behind quite a bit reading this thread.
The "image" does not change or eventually collapse "into" the speakers as you move around, as is the case with conventional setups. The image does not completely collapse even in the most extreme case, when you're standing next to one of the speaker with your ears right above it!
Two mics into two channels are all that's needed to record all the information that one would get through his ear if he was there.
The problem is only how to most properly "make use" of that recorded information, that is how to best convey it from the recording to the listener so that it recreates (as much as it is possible) the illusion of being there.
Oh, let me make it clear: here I'm talking about true, real stereo (or binaural) recordings. Exactly two mics directly recorded into two channels. That's it. No multiple mics & tracks, no mix, no tricks, no pan-pot. No cheating. No post-production at all. Nothing and nobody should mess in any way with the signal after it have been captured by the two mics and directly recorded into two tracks!
A 2ch mix made from many mics and a bunch of added effects is NOT real stereo.
Any mixing or post-processing will alter the delicate information which was naturally "encoded" in the signal, messing it up. The more processed is the sound stream, the less chance the brain will have to properly recognize and "decode" the complex, subtle and delicate original information which had been captured by the mics.
The sound engineer work should be done all and only in "pre-production", before the actual recording is made. It should consist in choosing the best setup for the specific event to be recorded, in particular the mics, and finding the right "sweet spot" to place them (the only two of them!). As it used to be done in the "golden age" of stereo... and produced some of the best recordings ever made.
Unfortunately, today only a few "audiophile" labels (such as e.g. "MA Recordings" and "Proprius") correctly does this.
Sadly most other contemporary recordings are not true stereo, but just unrecoverably screwed-up, artificial 2 channel mixes. Too bad.
this is true with conventional speakers and setup! And that's exactly why we are talking about different things (omni, flooders, etc), which basically exploits listening room reflections to "diffuse" the sound and get it to come from "everywhere" as it should, rather then (mostly) from two well-defined sources (the speakers).
That's exactly why, I believe, some unconventional speaker designs/setups (mostly omnidirectional) are so much better than any conventional one and produce a much more "natural" (that is, "lifelike") and involving result.
In some rooms, a somewhat similar (though usually not as good) result may be obtained also with (some) "conventional" (front-firing) speakers, provided that the "right" positioning and orientation is found (unfortunately, not all rooms and all speakers can be made to work well together).
Talking about this, just about everyone talks about the "sweet spot" for the listening position: it's much less common to hear people talking about the "speaker's sweet spot".
That's very sad, as it is way more important and much more critical too (by experience I can tell that sometimes even less than a cm in position or a fraction of a degree in toe-in or "tilting" may screw-up everything!).
Finding the sweet spot for a given pair of speakers in a given room is a lenghty and tedious empirical work, which may take from several hours (if you are lucky and experienced...) to several months (!) of trials and errors to accomplish properly. It may be kind of a nightmare. But, if it's correctly found, it pays back with great (someone would say unbelievable...) results.
Having the speakers in their proper "sweet-spots" is IME what makes by itself most of the difference between an average (if not poor) system and a great sounding one, with wonderful imaging too. It even makes much more difference than the inherent quality of the gears used! (...unless they are really unacceptably bad, of course).
This clearly must have A LOT to do with the interactions between the specific speakers (sound field) and the specific room... so it happens to be quite on-topic here (well, with the old topic subject).
Of course you're right about "spatial enhancement boxes" that do add "artificial spaciousness" (usually with quite questionable results...).
But what omnidirectional speakers and some other non-conventional setups do is rather reducing or eliminating altogether the single-direction primary source(s). This is a pretty well different thing!
With proper setups, sound is not (ever) perceived as coming from the speakers, as it actually does not (directly) come from them (that is, direct sound does not directly reach the ears, or is not stronger and/or does not come earlier than reflections).
When such conditions are met and other localization cues are missing, the speakers are not localizable and sound just "comes from everywhere".
This removes the -wrong- perceptual cue which confuses our brain that affects all conventional stereo (and multichannel...) setups. That is the actual position of the only real sound sources in the room (the speakers).
In this way the brain is not confused by incoherent, conflicting cues and is left free to make much better use of the many other cues which are naturally "encoded" into the recorded audio stream (of course if they are still available and reasonably coherent, that is if they have not been completely messed up by multi-mic recording, mixing, post-processing, etc...).
That is, direct experience. Which is more than enough.
Explaining exactly how and build a scientific/mathematical theory and model would be a though work and not something that a hobbyist can do, I'm afraid.
). Yet I'd say it's definitely not about "effect". Not at all. It's rather because of the lack of the many problems (interferences...) created by the introduction of more than a single (correlated) sound source (speaker) in a room. Fact is, rather than to "spatial presentation" they do care more about timber accuracy and other perceptive and "emotional" aspects of reproduced music which are much better (or at least way more easily) conveyed using a single speaker (not to mention size and costs, considering that they are often using rare and/or ridiculously expensive parts, large speakers, etc).
A single source may only interfere with itself (given some conditions occurs). But that's relatively easy to avoid/control. Not so when you have two or more (related) sources to begin with, and can't eliminate them...
Got it? If it's the number that counts, how could just 5 or 7 discrete speakers be better than virtually infinite ones?
Real stereo and binaural recordings does capture and preserve the original, natural localization cues. Something that gives to the end-user at least a chance to produce a (more or less) coherent reproduction.
The trick is to accurately set-up the reproduction system so that the sound produced by the two speakers combines with each other in the listening room to recreate one sound field which (from the POW of our perceptual system) is as much "self-coherent" as it can be. With "self-coherent" I mean that it does not contain (well, it does contain as little as possible) "incoherent", contradictory information (perceptual cues).
Such a sound field will be perceived as "natural", will produce a great image and (if recording and system permits...) will usually also have a proper tonal balance, too.
OTOH, artificially combining soundfields captured in more than one place (like mixing together the signals coming from different microphones placed in different positions and/or with different directivity) makes this impossible, as the two (or more) signal contains (ambient and localization) information which is incoherent with each other. That makes it impossible to re-create a coherent reproduction which really sounds "easy and natural" to the listener brain.
That's what I mean when I say that multichannel (and 2ch mixes) almost always sounds "artificial" (WRT real, natural sound, which is the only "reference" I do care about).
Could it be possible to maintain coherency using more than two channels? I don't know, but I know quite well that it is already extremely difficult to get the two stereo channels to work together properly... so much so that almost no-one does it, and most everyone prefers to blame "the flawed system" instead.
I'm afraid that -if at all possible- doing a similar thing with more than two channel would be such a nightmare that no-one would care to do.
A speaker that works well in a given room does not necessarily work as well in another.
Speaker and room forms a system. Which can not be evaluated separately. A system is NOT the same as simply "the sum" of its parts taken in isolation (this is mathematically demonstrated by Systems theory).
Notice that this is true for any system composed of interacting parts, such as amplifier and speaker, etc. It makes no sense to judge any given amplifier, speaker, etc, alone. Results would be (are) completely meaningless WRT the overall system outcome (as audiophiles usually discovers the hard way).
Only the whole system (in its final setup) may be evaluated.
Problem one is, you reference is plain WRONG. You already admitted that what you hear from your monitor does not even come close to the real thing. Moreover, "normal people" (end-users) reference isn't whatever is reproduced by your (monitor) system. It could either be some other system (how wrong...) or (correctly) the real, natural sounds of (un-amplified) human voices, musical instruments, etc.
Problem two, from what you say I'd guess that likely the flooder speakers you've listened to were not properly optimized to work that way.
For instance, if you measure the periakusmas (in room) as they are meant to be used, you'll get a normal, pretty flat response. OTOH, if you look at their anechoic response "in axis" (with the drivers, which means 90° WRT their intended usage...) you will get a rather "strange" response. Should you place them on a side over a couple of stands (as if they were conventional speakers) they would sound awfully, in a totally unacceptable way.
A system is a system, and must be properly designed and optimized (or at least adapted) for its intended purpose and usage... you can not just turn a normal speaker, place it in some unusual way and believe that it will magically become something else.
How comes that you said here that anything you hear from your own "state of the art" monitor does NOT sounds anything like the REAL thing?
In my dictionary, "natural" vs. "artificial" meas just that.
A system sounds "natural" if (at least with some recordings) the illusion is so good that you can't tell whether you're listening to a reproduction or a real thing (without knowing it otherwise).
OTOH, a system sound "artificial" if there's always something (subtle) telling you that what you are hearing is NOT some natural sound source but a reproduction. This is the case with at least 99.999% of the existing systems I've heard, no matter how expensive and/or good (in terms of specs).
(actually I should also say that, for reasons which I don't know, systems following "modern standards" such as THX are usually much worse then others at that... at least IME. But that would be yet another long story...).
P.S.: sorry for the looong post...
yes and no. Strictly speaking, I'd rather never come to any conclusion unless that's a mathematical fact. Which is not (and possibly will never be) the case when we are talking about human perception related facts. But I do have my reasons to believe (until proven wrong) that it's "no good".
No. That's the whole point. Those speakers virtually disappears completely from the room. You can seat or stand near to one of them (and far from the other) yet you will not be able to perceive it as a sound source. You will have to really "step over" one of them (get your ear right over it or almost so) for this to happen.
The "image" does not change or eventually collapse "into" the speakers as you move around, as is the case with conventional setups. The image does not completely collapse even in the most extreme case, when you're standing next to one of the speaker with your ears right above it!
dozens of people (anybody who have had a chance to listen to them) can testify that it does. Build one pair an try yourself.
Exactly. As does a pair of mics in (true) stereo or binaural setup.
Two mics into two channels are all that's needed to record all the information that one would get through his ear if he was there.
The problem is only how to most properly "make use" of that recorded information, that is how to best convey it from the recording to the listener so that it recreates (as much as it is possible) the illusion of being there.
Oh, let me make it clear: here I'm talking about true, real stereo (or binaural) recordings. Exactly two mics directly recorded into two channels. That's it. No multiple mics & tracks, no mix, no tricks, no pan-pot. No cheating. No post-production at all. Nothing and nobody should mess in any way with the signal after it have been captured by the two mics and directly recorded into two tracks!
A 2ch mix made from many mics and a bunch of added effects is NOT real stereo.
Any mixing or post-processing will alter the delicate information which was naturally "encoded" in the signal, messing it up. The more processed is the sound stream, the less chance the brain will have to properly recognize and "decode" the complex, subtle and delicate original information which had been captured by the mics.
The sound engineer work should be done all and only in "pre-production", before the actual recording is made. It should consist in choosing the best setup for the specific event to be recorded, in particular the mics, and finding the right "sweet spot" to place them (the only two of them!). As it used to be done in the "golden age" of stereo... and produced some of the best recordings ever made.
Unfortunately, today only a few "audiophile" labels (such as e.g. "MA Recordings" and "Proprius") correctly does this.
Sadly most other contemporary recordings are not true stereo, but just unrecoverably screwed-up, artificial 2 channel mixes. Too bad.
Thank you for making my point...
this is true with conventional speakers and setup! And that's exactly why we are talking about different things (omni, flooders, etc), which basically exploits listening room reflections to "diffuse" the sound and get it to come from "everywhere" as it should, rather then (mostly) from two well-defined sources (the speakers).That's exactly why, I believe, some unconventional speaker designs/setups (mostly omnidirectional) are so much better than any conventional one and produce a much more "natural" (that is, "lifelike") and involving result.
In some rooms, a somewhat similar (though usually not as good) result may be obtained also with (some) "conventional" (front-firing) speakers, provided that the "right" positioning and orientation is found (unfortunately, not all rooms and all speakers can be made to work well together).
Talking about this, just about everyone talks about the "sweet spot" for the listening position: it's much less common to hear people talking about the "speaker's sweet spot".
That's very sad, as it is way more important and much more critical too (by experience I can tell that sometimes even less than a cm in position or a fraction of a degree in toe-in or "tilting" may screw-up everything!).
Finding the sweet spot for a given pair of speakers in a given room is a lenghty and tedious empirical work, which may take from several hours (if you are lucky and experienced...) to several months (!) of trials and errors to accomplish properly. It may be kind of a nightmare. But, if it's correctly found, it pays back with great (someone would say unbelievable...) results.
Having the speakers in their proper "sweet-spots" is IME what makes by itself most of the difference between an average (if not poor) system and a great sounding one, with wonderful imaging too. It even makes much more difference than the inherent quality of the gears used! (...unless they are really unacceptably bad, of course).
This clearly must have A LOT to do with the interactions between the specific speakers (sound field) and the specific room... so it happens to be quite on-topic here (well, with the old topic subject).
Fine. Problem is: what is the original? "your" artificial n-channel mix or the real acoustic event which have been recorded by the mics? (if it ever existed as one...)
Wrong.
Of course you're right about "spatial enhancement boxes" that do add "artificial spaciousness" (usually with quite questionable results...).
But what omnidirectional speakers and some other non-conventional setups do is rather reducing or eliminating altogether the single-direction primary source(s). This is a pretty well different thing!
With proper setups, sound is not (ever) perceived as coming from the speakers, as it actually does not (directly) come from them (that is, direct sound does not directly reach the ears, or is not stronger and/or does not come earlier than reflections).
When such conditions are met and other localization cues are missing, the speakers are not localizable and sound just "comes from everywhere".
This removes the -wrong- perceptual cue which confuses our brain that affects all conventional stereo (and multichannel...) setups. That is the actual position of the only real sound sources in the room (the speakers).
In this way the brain is not confused by incoherent, conflicting cues and is left free to make much better use of the many other cues which are naturally "encoded" into the recorded audio stream (of course if they are still available and reasonably coherent, that is if they have not been completely messed up by multi-mic recording, mixing, post-processing, etc...).
empirical evidence.
That is, direct experience. Which is more than enough.
Explaining exactly how and build a scientific/mathematical theory and model would be a though work and not something that a hobbyist can do, I'm afraid.
that's exactly because there is no objectively best one. No perceptively optimal design. Thus the preferences between differently flawed designs is unavoidably highly subjective.
come on, that's obvious. Not by chance I said "optimal", not perfect. That's not the same thing.
surely it's a niche within a niche, but there are. It's (relatively) common in Japan, and there are "followers" in most other countries. I personally know a few of them here in Italy, too. You may read about some of their arguments (in Italian) e.g. in these two topics: "Ascolto monofonico" and "Mono, Stereo e percezione...".
I guess they couldn't care less... considering that usually they're are also "analogists", preferring good old LPs (and/or reel-to-reel analog tapes) to modern digital sources, flea-power (usually DIY) SET gears full of "iron" based on ancient triodes (often rare pre-WWII DHTs) to modern hi-tech solid-state gears, high-efficiency (and often vintage) speaker to mainstream boxes, etc. Their POW is as far as it could get from your vision of audio and "HiFi" based on current market and THX standards...
It's not me (personally I like mono about as much as I like earphones... can't stand either!
). Yet I'd say it's definitely not about "effect". Not at all. It's rather because of the lack of the many problems (interferences...) created by the introduction of more than a single (correlated) sound source (speaker) in a room. Fact is, rather than to "spatial presentation" they do care more about timber accuracy and other perceptive and "emotional" aspects of reproduced music which are much better (or at least way more easily) conveyed using a single speaker (not to mention size and costs, considering that they are often using rare and/or ridiculously expensive parts, large speakers, etc).have you ever heard of interferences? which creates well-known nasty effects like comb filtering, etc.?
A single source may only interfere with itself (given some conditions occurs). But that's relatively easy to avoid/control. Not so when you have two or more (related) sources to begin with, and can't eliminate them...
In my dictionary rhere's no such thing as "an extension of stereo". Perhaps it may be seen as an extension to "fake" stereo (2channel mixes). But real stereo is a whole different thing, and has nothing to do with multichannel.
with a conventional setup. With non-conventional system such as the ones we are discussing here, you have a basically an infinite number of (virtual) "speakers" distributed all around you.
Got it? If it's the number that counts, how could just 5 or 7 discrete speakers be better than virtually infinite ones?
when we are in a concert hall we do not have so many ears which captures the sound in so many different places in the room. We have exactly two ears, quite close to each-other, too.
Real stereo and binaural recordings does capture and preserve the original, natural localization cues. Something that gives to the end-user at least a chance to produce a (more or less) coherent reproduction.
The trick is to accurately set-up the reproduction system so that the sound produced by the two speakers combines with each other in the listening room to recreate one sound field which (from the POW of our perceptual system) is as much "self-coherent" as it can be. With "self-coherent" I mean that it does not contain (well, it does contain as little as possible) "incoherent", contradictory information (perceptual cues).
Such a sound field will be perceived as "natural", will produce a great image and (if recording and system permits...) will usually also have a proper tonal balance, too.
OTOH, artificially combining soundfields captured in more than one place (like mixing together the signals coming from different microphones placed in different positions and/or with different directivity) makes this impossible, as the two (or more) signal contains (ambient and localization) information which is incoherent with each other. That makes it impossible to re-create a coherent reproduction which really sounds "easy and natural" to the listener brain.
That's what I mean when I say that multichannel (and 2ch mixes) almost always sounds "artificial" (WRT real, natural sound, which is the only "reference" I do care about).
Could it be possible to maintain coherency using more than two channels? I don't know, but I know quite well that it is already extremely difficult to get the two stereo channels to work together properly... so much so that almost no-one does it, and most everyone prefers to blame "the flawed system" instead.
I'm afraid that -if at all possible- doing a similar thing with more than two channel would be such a nightmare that no-one would care to do.
not just a speaker, but the whole system!
A speaker that works well in a given room does not necessarily work as well in another.
Speaker and room forms a system. Which can not be evaluated separately. A system is NOT the same as simply "the sum" of its parts taken in isolation (this is mathematically demonstrated by Systems theory).
Notice that this is true for any system composed of interacting parts, such as amplifier and speaker, etc. It makes no sense to judge any given amplifier, speaker, etc, alone. Results would be (are) completely meaningless WRT the overall system outcome (as audiophiles usually discovers the hard way).
Only the whole system (in its final setup) may be evaluated.
given that your reference is the (reproduced) sound from your mixing monitor, that's no surprise to me. It's quite obvious...
Problem one is, you reference is plain WRONG. You already admitted that what you hear from your monitor does not even come close to the real thing. Moreover, "normal people" (end-users) reference isn't whatever is reproduced by your (monitor) system. It could either be some other system (how wrong...) or (correctly) the real, natural sounds of (un-amplified) human voices, musical instruments, etc.
Problem two, from what you say I'd guess that likely the flooder speakers you've listened to were not properly optimized to work that way.
For instance, if you measure the periakusmas (in room) as they are meant to be used, you'll get a normal, pretty flat response. OTOH, if you look at their anechoic response "in axis" (with the drivers, which means 90° WRT their intended usage...) you will get a rather "strange" response. Should you place them on a side over a couple of stands (as if they were conventional speakers) they would sound awfully, in a totally unacceptable way.
A system is a system, and must be properly designed and optimized (or at least adapted) for its intended purpose and usage... you can not just turn a normal speaker, place it in some unusual way and believe that it will magically become something else.
a common critics to many unconventional systems/designs is that they works well only with some recordings, while being totally unacceptable with some others. At least with the "periakusmas" this is not the case. Of course they do have their "preferences", but not unlike any other (conventional) speaker. No more no less.
OMG.
How comes that you said here that anything you hear from your own "state of the art" monitor does NOT sounds anything like the REAL thing?
In my dictionary, "natural" vs. "artificial" meas just that.
A system sounds "natural" if (at least with some recordings) the illusion is so good that you can't tell whether you're listening to a reproduction or a real thing (without knowing it otherwise).
OTOH, a system sound "artificial" if there's always something (subtle) telling you that what you are hearing is NOT some natural sound source but a reproduction. This is the case with at least 99.999% of the existing systems I've heard, no matter how expensive and/or good (in terms of specs).
(actually I should also say that, for reasons which I don't know, systems following "modern standards" such as THX are usually much worse then others at that... at least IME. But that would be yet another long story...).
P.S.: sorry for the looong post...
UnixMan,
I think you have detailed many of the reasons I found FCUFS to not sound "natural".
The floor positioning of the speaker was not a subtle locational cue, it was the primary cue.
As you put it, "incoherent, conflicting cues".
The early reflections from the FCUFS also furthered my sense of a "self-coherent" reproduction, as the small room reflections conflict with recorded spatial and directional cues.
Art
Could you please exactly describe what speakers you are talking about? Are they documented somewhere? I'd like to try them.
Only true if the encoding process includes personalized HRTFs and the decoding process eliminates crosstalk and additional HRTF-like distortions. Neither common recording nor reproduction techniques provide any of this. Two speakers on the floor don't provide those properties either.
Well, I have never listen to an FCUFS as the one described by "Graaf", thus I can not speak about that.
I can only speak about what I have experience of, that in this case are the "periakusma". Which are not exactly FCUFS: they are omnidirectional and (since a conspicuous fraction of their emission is aimed toward the ceiling) they can be called "flooders" too, but their drivers and emission is not so close to the floor (it's more or less at ear level, or not so much below that).
Nevertheless, perhaps they (may) have quite some "feature" in common with Graaf's idea. Assuming that the reported listening experience are true (and I have no reasons to believe they are not), I have read some descriptions which reminds me a lot of my own experiences with the periakusmas.
Back to "theory" (hypothesis...), I think you missed the point: in this case (with this kind of systems) the first reflections are not an "evil collateral effect" (as they usually are in the case of a conventional setup), but rather are (perceived as) the main sound sources themselves!
If my hypothesis is correct, to make this kind of system work properly the direct sound must not be "prominent" WRT room reflections. That is, basically the physical speaker position should not constitute a cue at all, let alone the primary one!
UnixMan,
Listening to omnidirectional speakers at ear height is quite a different listening experience than listening to an omnidirectional on the floor.
Graaf seems to lack the vertical locational perception that others have which makes the sound of an omnidirectional speaker on the floor sound like an omnidirectional speaker on the floor.
Try laying your periakusmas on their side on the floor, I would be surprised if you did not find the main sound sources to now appear to be located in a position roughly equivalent to the periakusma's tweeters.
Art
Sure. Here it is: "PERIAKUSMA: la costruzione". There you'll find all required information to build them. If you'd like to know the whole story from the beginning, read also here: "Diffusori omnidirezionali "Periakusma" (AKA Walkaround)".
N.B.: sorry, it's in Italian, but you should be able to understand most of it via some automatic translator (e.g. try this link).
To view images and download other material (which you will need if you want to build 'em) you'll need to register to the forum. If you have doubts or want to ask something, feel free to do it on the forum (though it is an Italian forum and that is the language normally used, members from other countries are welcome and can use English if they need to).
To get an idea of what we are talking about, I've previously posted a couple of pictures of a "prototype" in this same topic: Post #2544.
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In principle you're right. Yet in practice normal (unprocessed) stereo may work incredibly well. Much more so than what theory would predict (and not only with "unconventional" speakers, as I was saying in a previous post).
I guess that there may be something "unexpected" goin' on when the room comes into play in a "right" way. That is, when the speakers have a "suitable" dispersion pattern and are placed in the exact "right" spots with the "right" angles ("tilt" and toe-in) in a suitable listening room (among the other things, IME L/R symmetry is paramount). Again I guess that it should be somehow related with interactions between the two sound fields and their multiple reflections in a typical (relatively small and relatively reflective) room. Perhaps wave interferences unexpectedly producing some fortunate results? That may explain why IME to get truly good results the optimal "sweet spot" for speaker placement is so incredibly small, critical and difficult to find...
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Another excellent post, UnixMan. This demonstrates so clearly what the goal should be for competent sound, and that that destination is possible through more than one method.
Having got there through a very different route - using very conventional, front facing speakers, but highly optimised electrical path - it's interesting that the subjective results and impressions are essentially identical: at the highest level of performance it becomes impossible to locate the speakers irrespective of where one puts one's head, and the effect works for all recordings, not just the 'good ones' ...
That's not exactly the type of speaker discussed in this thread
Anyway, I see a lot of potential problems with the implementation, some of which can be solved by mounting drivers like Linkwitz did in the Pluto.
Your measurements showing 0°-90° seem to be wrong. Only 5dB difference between 0° and 90° at 10kHz??
In principle you're right. Yet in practice normal (unprocessed) stereo may work incredibly well. Much more so than what theory would predict (and not only with "unconventional" speakers, as I was saying in a previous post).
I guess that there may be something "unexpected" goin' on when the room comes into play in a "right" way. That is, when the speakers have a "suitable" dispersion pattern and are placed in the exact "right" spots with the "right" angles ("tilt" and toe-in) in a suitable listening room (among the other things, IME L/R symmetry is paramount). Again I guess that it should be somehow related with interactions between the two sound fields and their multiple reflections in a typical (relatively small and relatively reflective) room. Perhaps wave interferences unexpectedly producing some fortunate results? That may explain why IME to get truly good results the optimal "sweet spot" for speaker placement is so incredibly small, critical and difficult to find...
There's a lot about our hearing we don't know. More research is needed.
We still don't know much about high level hearing processes. How does our brain process 2-speaker stereo? Is it aware of the two separate sound sources (speakers) or does stereo hide the existance of multiple sources just good enough for a single auditory event to emerge?
P.S. Could you post the IR of the left and right speaker at your listening position? Preferably as a sound file.
unfortunately the research is flawed a priori because it uses conventional front-firing speakers almost exclusively
Have You ever tried a transaural stereo? I mean any effective CTC technique (like the simplest one ie. a physical barrier)? Yes? Have You heard any difference vs conventional stereo? Yes?
Then You know the answer to Your question