Toole is talking about the overly precise left and right. For those who've missed it or like to read it again: click.
I agree with this. Today I noticed that when I turn my dipoles towards the side wall, the depth in a recording completely collapses.
Two weeks ago, Keyser and I experimented with adding absorbers made of 4" of glass wool to the first reflections points in his listening room. Although his cardioid-waveguide speakers are already very directional, the elimination of the last early lateral reflections (especially the contralateral) made the room and the stereo image appear much bigger although still well defined. It was very impressive and contrary to what we expected. After all, lateral reflections should enhance ASW and spaciousness; in this case eliminating all early reflections < 20 ms did the same, provided the recording was good of course.
Strong lateral reflections can increase ASW and make the image a little more fuzzy so this might be different solution to the problem, somewhat like Toole suggests. But eliminating those reflections made it really impressive. The only drawbacks, in my opinion, were that the stereo cross talk dip seemed to be more audible on dry recordings and that the spaciousness was only well defined in the rather narrow sweet spot.
I agree with this. Today I noticed that when I turn my dipoles towards the side wall, the depth in a recording completely collapses.
Two weeks ago, Keyser and I experimented with adding absorbers made of 4" of glass wool to the first reflections points in his listening room. Although his cardioid-waveguide speakers are already very directional, the elimination of the last early lateral reflections (especially the contralateral) made the room and the stereo image appear much bigger although still well defined. It was very impressive and contrary to what we expected. After all, lateral reflections should enhance ASW and spaciousness; in this case eliminating all early reflections < 20 ms did the same, provided the recording was good of course.
Strong lateral reflections can increase ASW and make the image a little more fuzzy so this might be different solution to the problem, somewhat like Toole suggests. But eliminating those reflections made it really impressive. The only drawbacks, in my opinion, were that the stereo cross talk dip seemed to be more audible on dry recordings and that the spaciousness was only well defined in the rather narrow sweet spot.
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I don't think anyone has argued against what Dr. Toole is saying there.
Hear this Dave ! We are not alone ! Elias is with us !
Dave already mentioned this earlier in the thread.
Dan
Did I? What did I say? I can't remember which side of the arguement I'm on!
David
Did I? What did I say? I can't remember which side of the arguement I'm on!
David
Don't worry. It will all come back to you once you've made all your points for the fourth time
.
Don't worry. It will all come back to you once you've made all your points for the fourth time
(Keep at it until you get it right!)
I will say (and this may please Elias) that I was playing with my new home theater AVR the other day and you can feed it a mono source and select different surround modes. With mono played as stereo (2 identical channels feeding to left and right speakers only) there is a fairly well centered image. Now if I switch to Dolby prologic it senses that that L and R signal is the same and steers it to the center speaker, turning off the L and R.
This sounds fairly different, clearly more firmly centered and less diffuse.
There, I said it.
David S.
This sounds fairly different, clearly more firmly centered and less diffuse.
There, I said it.
David S.
Hi Tom
I agree, its absoultely possible to make the speakers disappear and this is in fact the principle test that I use for the speakers, room and setup quality (it takes all three). The speakers in my room disappear and the image is equally well produced at any location across the front including somewhat outside of the speakers.
Few, maybe almost all, other setups that I have heard fail to do this. SO its no wonder people complain that its not possible. Its extremely rare, but it is possible.
I agree, its absoultely possible to make the speakers disappear and this is in fact the principle test that I use for the speakers, room and setup quality (it takes all three). The speakers in my room disappear and the image is equally well produced at any location across the front including somewhat outside of the speakers.
Few, maybe almost all, other setups that I have heard fail to do this. SO its no wonder people complain that its not possible. Its extremely rare, but it is possible.
indeed
WOW!
Sounds like Toole is having some symptoms of non-stereo hearing ! The sound is heard as coming from the speakers. I'm not alone. What a relief
Hear this Radugazon ! We are not alone ! Toole is with us !
Of course this cannot be said out loud in public since if you have some difficulties in hearing phantom images, generally you'll be condemned of having something wrong with your speakers or with your hearing
- Elias
I think there's a difference in perceiving "a relatively spatial set of phantom images created by both loudspeakers" and perceiving no phantom image at all.
The obvious question is, why does it sound better ? Three possibilities I can think of:
1) Elimination of comb filtering and precedence effect when listening from a non-perfectly central listening location.
2) Differences in perception of the centre image due to the difference between 0 degree and 30 degree HRTF, and elimination of the contradictory cues of each ear thinking the same sound is coming from 30 degrees on its side.
3) Greatly reduced amplitude and increased time to first side wall reflection due to the physical location of the centre speaker being the maximum possible distance from side-walls.
Of these I think (1) is only an issue if you're off centre in your listening position - even if you are dead on centre phantom imaging can be excellent or poor depending on speaker and room set-up, so I don't think its a major point.
Point (2) I think is only an issue if you have a wide speaker separation (>60 degrees total) or you're one of those few people who apparently have trouble melding a phantom channel image with normal speaker separations.
Point (3) I think is probably the dominant factor in any set-up where the side walls are less than say 2 metres from the Left and Right speakers.
Tests with toe in by some in the thread have shown a correlation between a diffuse phantom channel image and toeing speakers out, along with a strong phantom image when toeing the same speakers in significantly.
The obvious conclusion from this is a strong early side-wall reflection will tend to "stretch" the ASW, but in doing so a centre phantom image becomes more indistinct and less solidly defined.
By reproducing the sound from an actual centre channel we are greatly increasing the time to first lateral reflection (possibly from below to above a critical perceptual threshold) as well as greatly reducing its amplitude due to distance differential.
Although all 3 points may play some part, my hunch is that just having the centre channel well away from the walls is a big part of the difference.
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Can you believe it - there is no "laughing hysterically" smiley face?
I am getting caught up slowly but surely and might even see a time when I can actually do something other than work. I'm having paint done outside and now some assembly as well. I still have to make all of the critical parts myself however. And my client load is pretty heavy.
Someday!
That's not the way I interpret his comment. I see it more as a criticism of simplistic stereo mastering techniques where certain instruments are sometimes simply pan potted fully to one channel or the other, something I also dislike.Sounds like Toole is having some symptoms of non-stereo hearing ! The sound is heard as coming from the speakers. I'm not alone. What a relief
If an instrument is fully panned to one side with no other processing, where else should it appear to come from other than that speaker ?
I agree that it doesn't sound good when you have some instruments panned to various locations near the middle, but some others panned hard to one side or the other, causing the locations of the speakers to be revealed. I don't see that as a failing of stereo reproduction though, but rather a failing of simplistic mastering techniques, eg poor use of simple amplitude pan potting.
This is not an issue with music that uses processing that is a bit more advanced than amplitude pan potting to position instruments in the virtual sound stage, nor is it a problem with an actual stereo or binaural recording, which inherently has a lot of channel crosstalk which avoids any individual instrument being reproduced by only one speaker, which is the real problem.
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I think that is his intention also. If you read the section where he criticizes the Quad ESL63 he is clear that witha mono source it images at the speaker and that that is undesirable. He then says that the image improves in stereo except where elements are panned hard left or right (making them, again, mono).
So if his stereo setup give a diffuse and nebulous center image, he wants it to give a similarly diffuse left and right image.
David S.
My speaker setup (DIY RD75's line source dipoles with distributed subwoofers, built in 2005) provides a very pleasant sense of you are there,; in fact if you walk from the standard listening location (~12 feet back) towards the speaker(s), it's hard to localize the drivers unless you press your ear aginst the baffle. In spite of this, they also present a stable well formed image across a wide horizontal swath maybe 8 feet wide with a rock solid image.
On stupid mastered recordings (early Beatles, say Day Tripper, with much l/r panning and/or artificial separation) you can stand very close in front of one speaker listening to the lyrics or the other listening to the music, and the mix still works fairly well in room. Led Zeps Whole Lotta Love spins all over the room, no matter where you stand, but the majority of the image remains between and across the drivers
I'm pleased, and many others who've heard them are as well. All thisup to ~ 108dB ear splitting volumes...
Hence, I no longer have much urge to build new ones or continuously search for some "new" measurement schema to somehow prove what I'm actually hearing is, well, "correct".
I also don't post much anymore, as i remain supremely satisfied... ;-)
John L.
On stupid mastered recordings (early Beatles, say Day Tripper, with much l/r panning and/or artificial separation) you can stand very close in front of one speaker listening to the lyrics or the other listening to the music, and the mix still works fairly well in room. Led Zeps Whole Lotta Love spins all over the room, no matter where you stand, but the majority of the image remains between and across the drivers
I'm pleased, and many others who've heard them are as well. All thisup to ~ 108dB ear splitting volumes...
Hence, I no longer have much urge to build new ones or continuously search for some "new" measurement schema to somehow prove what I'm actually hearing is, well, "correct".
I also don't post much anymore, as i remain supremely satisfied... ;-)
John L.
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A very wide sweetspot is definitely not what I'm experiencing, with a more or less similar speaker and some acoustic room treatment. In my room imaging is very sharp and precise when you're in the sweetspot, but as you move off-axis it falls apart quicker than with more conventional setups. Do you attribute the wide sweetspot to time-intensity trading alone?
Someday!
I'd be very interested to see it, and compare it to the Abbey measurements that I posted. It might allow us to tease out the room (only) differences.
Should take 30-45 minutes to set up and run the measurements.
Sounds like Toole is having some symptoms of non-stereo hearing ! The sound is heard as coming from the speakers. I'm not alone. What a relief
I hope all the multiple smilies means you are not serious.
You have pretty drastically twisted the meaning and I can only assume it is not serious?Precisely. One could say they are opposite in meaning.
Agree and agree. Elias quotes a_tewinkel as quoting Toole (good grief) saying, in part, "In some recordings we hear a whole string section emerging from a single loudspeaker. " In *some* recordings. That does not appear to be an inherent problem with stereo reproduction's capabilities, but rather a problem with recording practices.
Dear Elias, I think you need to consider more seriously the possibility that your experience of your stereo in your room is unusual.
All this gets psychologically very interesting. Everybody gets excited because of a quote of Mr Toole that can be conveniently interpreted by each "camp" to give credit to it's own beliefs.
Well, first we don't have to mix the statistical research of Toole, with a panel of subjects, with his intimate opinions. Second, obviously he is not personally totally and always satisfied with the usual stereo stuff (who is ?), but he describes "some" symptoms that "some" other people recognize also when listening "some" records on "some" systems.
Do you think he suffers from hearing troubles, or that his system sucks ? No, this just shows that there is still a long way to go before reaching an other level of perfection, as this thread shows pretty well.
Note also that (at least for a while) Toole had a very big room, with sloped ceilings in a wooden house. From my experience, this can change a lot of things (to start with reflections timing and their spectrum) and then can influence his personal comments.
Well, first we don't have to mix the statistical research of Toole, with a panel of subjects, with his intimate opinions. Second, obviously he is not personally totally and always satisfied with the usual stereo stuff (who is ?), but he describes "some" symptoms that "some" other people recognize also when listening "some" records on "some" systems.
Do you think he suffers from hearing troubles, or that his system sucks ? No, this just shows that there is still a long way to go before reaching an other level of perfection, as this thread shows pretty well.
Note also that (at least for a while) Toole had a very big room, with sloped ceilings in a wooden house. From my experience, this can change a lot of things (to start with reflections timing and their spectrum) and then can influence his personal comments.
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