Yes and no?
Stereophony causes central images to become wider than they should be as frequency increases. Ambio does not, but might suffer some dynamic range loss for lower frequencies when trying to recreate width for those frequencies. This is where OSD is supposed to correct this potential pitfall, if really a problem.
Some things to consider
1) Stereo has been trained to us. We would have to unlearn this to accept something else.
2) If a DBT was performed, the listeners would have to not know anything about what they were going to be hearing and have almost no knowledge of such a setup existed. Otherwise, since the setup is flip-flopped it will be easier to pick out and a bias may be introduced. Then somehow, point one might also present a problem. I think using musicians of amplified instrument variety might take care of point 1...maybe? If it passed the test with regular instruments/bands then it should pass for everything else.
3) If we look back at history, spacial sound had two camps, Blumlein binaural and 3 channel (Bell Labs) as mentioned earlier about Harvey Fletcher. We have to remember that either would cost a pretty penny to change out from monophonic, with 2 channels cheaper than 3. Not only would playback cost more, but recording equipment had to be invented and developed at the same time. It took 15+ years for people to warm-up to the idea of what we know of as the marketed term "stereo". Ambio may be be a more economical choice to 3/5 channel depending on implementation, and still retain the benefits a monophonic centered type setup.
As recommended below in some of your posts, a center speaker is important solution. A 3 channel setup might not be suited for a particular room however if the side speakers are too close to the sidewalls. This could cause too early of sidewall reflections causing a loss in spaciousness/width. So, in a small room, it might work with the room better.
It's been calculated by people such as Angelo Farina (don't recall exact paper), Transaural folks, and ISVR (more here)that the errors are less with a centrally located speaker setup. The tricky part is proving this is true in real life and some of those issues overcoming that hurdle are noted above without promoting said technology in a faith based way.
OSD could in theory improve the sweet spot and improve dynamic capability of steering wide located lower frequency sounds with a controlled crosstalk setup.
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Sorry to come in so late... but I was just listening to the ambiosonics demos on my laptop with headphones. Yes, I know this is not the intended application. BUT, I found that the ones that I listened to in the "unprocessed" versions seemed to be strangely "left-right" recordings (like early Beatles?), with very very little information in the center. On headphones. Listening to the same samples in the processed version, again with headphones, the result was more "normal" in terms of the mix. An excellent example is the Lil David cut. With ambiosonics the extreme left-right quality is changed back to something of what I consider to be the expected normal good ambience from a minimalist 2 mic recording. The ambiosonics does cause some odd upward shift of the soundstage in the headphones, but that I merely note that for the record.
The main thing is that the exemplar recordings presented do not appear to be "normal" in the 2 channel "stereo" form.
On another related question - is there yet a codec for Windoze media player, winamp or Quicktime that will do this trick on the fly, or does one have to first process the source material via one of the aforementioned programs??
_-_-bear
The main thing is that the exemplar recordings presented do not appear to be "normal" in the 2 channel "stereo" form.
On another related question - is there yet a codec for Windoze media player, winamp or Quicktime that will do this trick on the fly, or does one have to first process the source material via one of the aforementioned programs??
_-_-bear
Bear,
I don't know if you mean ambiophonics or ambisonics? If you are talking about ambiophonics, there are several VST plug-ins that will work "on the fly" with winamp referred to on the right side of this webpage, towards the bottom. Some are free and some aren't. I have used the electro-music.com version with good results.
Home Page
I don't know if you mean ambiophonics or ambisonics? If you are talking about ambiophonics, there are several VST plug-ins that will work "on the fly" with winamp referred to on the right side of this webpage, towards the bottom. Some are free and some aren't. I have used the electro-music.com version with good results.
Home Page
For winamp, download and install the "vst bridge/host" add-in
VST Winamp Bridge - Winamp
or here
Christian's Blog WinAmp
Assuming you already have one of the available vst ambiohponics plugins already:
(Here is another from the same author as the vst bridge Christian's Blog Spacial Plugins)
Go into the preferences menu for winamp, scroll to DSP, select vst bridge and configure. Load in any VST .dll file located on your hard drive. it will stay that way forever unless you unselect the vst bridge. Play away in real time.
Foobar also has the capability but it is called vst wrapper and is setup in a similar fashion.
yohng.com Foobar2000 VST Wrapper
I don't recall anything for wmp.
What happens if you use the headphone mix (crossfeed) plugin with those tracks anda pair of headphones? http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/vst-plugins/stereo-plugins/
I will have to test them myself this way.
VST Winamp Bridge - Winamp
or here
Christian's Blog WinAmp
Assuming you already have one of the available vst ambiohponics plugins already:
(Here is another from the same author as the vst bridge Christian's Blog Spacial Plugins)
Go into the preferences menu for winamp, scroll to DSP, select vst bridge and configure. Load in any VST .dll file located on your hard drive. it will stay that way forever unless you unselect the vst bridge. Play away in real time.
Foobar also has the capability but it is called vst wrapper and is setup in a similar fashion.
yohng.com Foobar2000 VST Wrapper
I don't recall anything for wmp.
What happens if you use the headphone mix (crossfeed) plugin with those tracks anda pair of headphones? http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/vst-plugins/stereo-plugins/
I will have to test them myself this way.
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Hmm, I experience the opposite. When using ambiophonics (sorry for my typing dyslexia earlier) with headphones I experience a stuck between the ears feeling (no depth) but almost binaural because of extreme width. I was trying to listen to unprocessed binaural recordings to compare, but they do not show up like the following and sound proper on headphones of course.
Here is Lil David unprocessed (left) and then processed (right) shown on a Goniometer. You can see how it compresses everything to left and right only. Second picture is before and after using a headphone crossfeed plugin. Not much difference, but it sounds fuller in the lower frequencies because that is what most crossfeed's do, fix the response created by the mismatch azimuth angle.
Here is Lil David unprocessed (left) and then processed (right) shown on a Goniometer. You can see how it compresses everything to left and right only. Second picture is before and after using a headphone crossfeed plugin. Not much difference, but it sounds fuller in the lower frequencies because that is what most crossfeed's do, fix the response created by the mismatch azimuth angle.
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What you see on an oscilloscope or a meter is the average of the direct unaltered stereo signal plus a long train of early reflections which are the crosstalk cancellation vectors. Naturally the signal goinng to any speaker is a mixture of the left and right channels but because of the delays and polarity reversals this is not what you hear. The only way to see what you really get acoustically is if you measure the signal at the listening position using a microphone at a one ear location. Then you will just see a pure left channel and a pure right channel if everything is adjusted normally. Incidentally this sort of mixing means that if you are off center you can always hear both channels in Ambio, unlike stereo where you normally just hear one speaker.
The Electro VST plug-in, has some adjustments that are not strictly according to the RACE theory and they do manipulate the sum and difference signals in ways that may not be always desirable. These controls can make the center or sides more or less prominent, are easily abused, and I don't really know what some of them do myself.
Ralph Glasgal
Home Page
The Electro VST plug-in, has some adjustments that are not strictly according to the RACE theory and they do manipulate the sum and difference signals in ways that may not be always desirable. These controls can make the center or sides more or less prominent, are easily abused, and I don't really know what some of them do myself.
Ralph Glasgal
Home Page
I am still running an ambio setup at home, fairly similar to what Choeuri is using at Princeton. I'm using Gedlee Summas instead of the Gedlee Nathans that Choueri has.
A couple of random observations:
#1 - Most music is practically mono. It's ironic, because people are so obsessive about soundstaging, and I'm beginning to think that they're chasing after something which really isn't prevalent in the recordings.
#2 - It's lulz that audio guys have such disdain for home theater, because movies have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more soundstaging cues than music does. This is especially noticeable over an ambio setup. (And i'm not even using rear speakers!)
#3 - Oddly enough, VIDEOGAMES seem to have some of the most impressive soundstaging. There are a lot of videogames where sounds seem to emanate from locations that are well outside of the loudspeaker.
A couple of random observations:
#1 - Most music is practically mono. It's ironic, because people are so obsessive about soundstaging, and I'm beginning to think that they're chasing after something which really isn't prevalent in the recordings.
#2 - It's lulz that audio guys have such disdain for home theater, because movies have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more soundstaging cues than music does. This is especially noticeable over an ambio setup. (And i'm not even using rear speakers!)
#3 - Oddly enough, VIDEOGAMES seem to have some of the most impressive soundstaging. There are a lot of videogames where sounds seem to emanate from locations that are well outside of the loudspeaker.
A morning's Ambio test
Got a really good test of Ambiophonics done this morning, interesting results.
The setup was with 2 Meyer Sound UPJ powered speakers. This is a 10" and horn in a small box. I would have liked bigger, but these were easy for the test.
The room was a very large warehouse with plenty of space. We were 10-12 feet from the speakers, the brick wall behind the speakers was at least 20' away and the wall behind us maybe 60'. Side walls were more than 25' away, ceiling at 15' or more. The UPJs were up on stands with the bottom of the box at 5' from the floor.
Started out with a 12' spread on the speakers, a normal 60° stereo placement. Nice image, but all sounds between the speakers, for sure. Nothing outside the span of the speakers, central image was there but sometimes clear, sometimes a bit fuzzy.
Then moved to a 5' spread and tried the ambio VST plugin. It works! Without it, the image was still squeezed right between the speakers, nothing outside. Central image was more focused, of course. With the plugin active, the spread was easy to hear. A little tweaking got us to 80uS on the dial as best spread. That was tested with the setup noise provided by the plugin.
We moved back and forth, but found that an angle of about 24° worked best.
The Ambio effect was really dependent on the recording, and there were some surprises. On some studio tracks, it really was not very noticeable, except for a shift in the tonal balance. The Ambio seems to kill some subjective mid-bass bloat that the speakers have. On other tracks, the widening effect was quite pronounced.
My conclusion from this test. It works.
The effect is track dependent, for sure - but so is stereo. The center image stays anchored, even far off axis. The width does collapse off axis, but it doesn't sound any worse than normal stereo, maybe better. Classical recordings do well, much better than most of the studio tracks we listened to, except the Ray Charles, which was killer.
We didn't really get 180° of spread, but maybe 100-120 degrees. Still much better than the normal stereo spread. Remember, there were no early reflections except the floor, and even it didn't show up in the measurements. The effect was most pronounced with the speakers angled out a bit, but not too much.
I can really hear how this might be a full time setup for a lot of people. I don't know what early reflections in a normal room will do to the effect, there weren't any to speak of in my test. But Ambiophonics does allow a compact speaker setup in the center and still retains a very wide image. That could be a big help to a lot of people. The center phantom image is much enhanced, more stable. I'm mot sure why there was such a shift in tonal balance on some tracks, perhaps it was unique to this test.
Got a really good test of Ambiophonics done this morning, interesting results.
The setup was with 2 Meyer Sound UPJ powered speakers. This is a 10" and horn in a small box. I would have liked bigger, but these were easy for the test.
The room was a very large warehouse with plenty of space. We were 10-12 feet from the speakers, the brick wall behind the speakers was at least 20' away and the wall behind us maybe 60'. Side walls were more than 25' away, ceiling at 15' or more. The UPJs were up on stands with the bottom of the box at 5' from the floor.
Started out with a 12' spread on the speakers, a normal 60° stereo placement. Nice image, but all sounds between the speakers, for sure. Nothing outside the span of the speakers, central image was there but sometimes clear, sometimes a bit fuzzy.
Then moved to a 5' spread and tried the ambio VST plugin. It works! Without it, the image was still squeezed right between the speakers, nothing outside. Central image was more focused, of course. With the plugin active, the spread was easy to hear. A little tweaking got us to 80uS on the dial as best spread. That was tested with the setup noise provided by the plugin.
We moved back and forth, but found that an angle of about 24° worked best.
The Ambio effect was really dependent on the recording, and there were some surprises. On some studio tracks, it really was not very noticeable, except for a shift in the tonal balance. The Ambio seems to kill some subjective mid-bass bloat that the speakers have. On other tracks, the widening effect was quite pronounced.
- On choir recordings, both big and small: The effect was quite good. Much more width and some extra depth.
- On string ensembles: Nice sense of realistic space (verified by the violinist in attendance)
- Riders on the Storm, The Doors: Wide spread, instruments were they should be, tho wider than normal. Strange effect on Morrison's voice, a little too far back and too much reverb. But pleasant.
- Perry Como, Dream On: Nice placement. Perry right in the middle, solid. Back up vocals off to the right, about 6' from the right speaker. Finger snaps the same on the left. Just as it's recorded in glorious pan-pot 60s stereo.
- Some old mono tracks: Pretty much the same with our without the effect.
- Ray Charles, Fever: Big surprise, this one. Spectacular! Crazy 3D sounds, left right and coming right up to us in an arc. Perfect placement of Ray slightly left of center Natalie Cole slightly right. Wish I had brought the whole album, it was a lot of fun!
My conclusion from this test. It works.
The effect is track dependent, for sure - but so is stereo. The center image stays anchored, even far off axis. The width does collapse off axis, but it doesn't sound any worse than normal stereo, maybe better. Classical recordings do well, much better than most of the studio tracks we listened to, except the Ray Charles, which was killer.
We didn't really get 180° of spread, but maybe 100-120 degrees. Still much better than the normal stereo spread. Remember, there were no early reflections except the floor, and even it didn't show up in the measurements. The effect was most pronounced with the speakers angled out a bit, but not too much.
I can really hear how this might be a full time setup for a lot of people. I don't know what early reflections in a normal room will do to the effect, there weren't any to speak of in my test. But Ambiophonics does allow a compact speaker setup in the center and still retains a very wide image. That could be a big help to a lot of people. The center phantom image is much enhanced, more stable. I'm mot sure why there was such a shift in tonal balance on some tracks, perhaps it was unique to this test.
I would like to point out something about ambiophonics that I haven't seen mentioned (or at least emphasized) in this thread. What has stood out to me in my recent experiments with ambio is the unmasking of detail ... even whole melodic lines... within well recorded and complex orchestral music. This isn't an artificial effect, but rather, a consequence of the elimination of crosstalk, and on some recordings, it makes me scratch my head -- I've listened to this recording hundreds of times over more decades than I'd like to admit , and I've just heard a different recording. WTF?
OTOH, multi-mic'd orchestral recordings that were pieced together by an engineer after the fact can really suck-- as can some pop/r&b. I'm still early to this, so I hesitate to make to many too many comparisons, but ambio has enough potential for me to make a concerted run at it.
OTOH, multi-mic'd orchestral recordings that were pieced together by an engineer after the fact can really suck-- as can some pop/r&b. I'm still early to this, so I hesitate to make to many too many comparisons, but ambio has enough potential for me to make a concerted run at it.
Glad to hear you had a positive experience. With your ambiophonics experiment it was good that you noticed the recordings expand and contract depending on small vs large ensemble. Of course stereo can do it too, but to me it's more noticeable and easier to pick out with ambiophonics. If your playback system can't pull that off, then it won't be convincing and you will always be tweaking. Did you try toeing them out a bit...just a little? I think that helps create a more uniform wavefront, but YMMV.
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I have both, but didn't think to bring them to the test. Oh well...
Yes, a little toe out was best. Too much was very bad, killed the effect.
a bit similar system to ambiophonics
advantage of it is that no active signal processing is required at all and that all types of recordings are reproduced equally well
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/10962-stereolith-loudspeakers-question-48.html#post2529668
advantage of it is that no active signal processing is required at all and that all types of recordings are reproduced equally well
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/10962-stereolith-loudspeakers-question-48.html#post2529668
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1 mono is ok to some extent...
certainly better to have pure mono than left to right pan ****... it needs moar...2 movie industry have somewhat more standarts, regarding mixing&mastering they play LOUD in thx-certified theaters you rarely find "piercing" music in movies...
3 but why games get win by soundstage? simple, neither music&movie industry holds value or importance for soundstage in their works, and thats also dominant belief in sound science, that soundstage is irrelevant to music and theres some artistic "space" where things are supposed to happen, bit difficult tho since theres no agreed default reproduction defaults...
Having logically consistent "space" surely is more important to game, but then again similiar "immersion" effect argument can be had over music/movies too... but our beloved industry has its own culture&legacy.
Besides Dr Keele @ Crown?
http://www.xlrtechs.com/dbkeele.com...S Preprint) - Interaural Crosstalk Part 1.pdf
I have not personally, but I don't have the space to do so. If you have tried it how was it? Good? Bad?
See my post at the top of the page. Not anechoic, but free of most early reflections. In a space much larger than most houses. Aprox. 1250 sq. meters