Have you ever tried to capture-record, a single voice,singing acapella,and play it back?
Not so much of a multi-dimensional soundfield, eh?
Still no reason why...
Is it the microphone,the recorder,the amplifier,the speaker?
And even,if one of them is flawed,how come measuring and listening data,are not?
B.L.
Of course it is.
Yes, sometimes, rarely, yes. But you left out several things that are more important.
I happen to be familiar with one who does multi-channel surround, SACD with a setup of Audionet MAP/AMP and a room full of AudioPhysic loudspeakers, but only one couch.
Oh No, doesn't count, he's an (expensive) audio designer too.
I happen to be familiar with one who does multi-channel surround, SACD with a setup of Audionet MAP/AMP and a room full of AudioPhysic loudspeakers, but only one couch.
Oh No, doesn't count, he's an (expensive) audio designer too.
Oh sure, it exists and it CAN sound very good indeed, but given the failure of DVDA and relative failure of SACD, it never really went big.
People listen to crappy boombox-style 5.1 sets OR a good stereo set, but people don't usually invest in good 5.1 anymore. At least that's my experience.
Exactly! It is unmeasurable in the conventional sense. You won't know what it is until you listen to it.
If you think how different is the sound field that each microphone will see, knowing that your brain doesn't work at all like a microphone and that music is a time-space event it is clear why the more microphones/channels you use the more confusion you generate without control.....
It just becomes a guess game but the result isn't any better in comparison to well implemented old techniques. The main thing you notice is a dilution of the sonic sensation which isn't just something related to SPL's and other technical definitions. It's just how intense is your feeling!
Now you could think that this could not be an objective way to get repeatable results BUT it is. Music has been created and evolved exactly in such way!
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On thing that clearly is missing is the whole environment of the live event. That in itself will make sure that the reproduction is ALWAYS experienced differently. Even with the future, 5-dimensional super matrix 48 bits 2.048 MHz digital format.
jan didden
A very good example.
Let us assume this singer S in some room R1 performing. We have a process, P, that captures this event and allows to replay it for a listener, L, in some other room R2.
Now what exactly do we want L to experience while sitting in R2, with the constraint that R2 is the average living room?
Please try to be precise, explicit, and complete in your possible replies.
Stereo is a good compromise. It gives far more spacial clues than mono without all the extra channels and equipment. Handy for iPod earbuds, too. 😉
It is funny that multichannel never became popular for music, but is fairly popular for home theater. Wonder why? Simple marketing, or something else?
It is funny that multichannel never became popular for music, but is fairly popular for home theater. Wonder why? Simple marketing, or something else?
Maybe because you usually expect to have the band/singer in front of you in a music recording/orchestra/concert whereas some explosions could happend behind you in an action movie 😉
Nice.
There is only one answer,as far as, my experience and limited knowledge,allows me
(S + R1)P = [ L * X *Y+(S + R1)P]R2
X = Listener bias.Y= Playback process
B.L
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Most people tend to sit when they watch a movie. Most do not sit still when they consume music. In fact most are still clueless about stereo. I'm quite sure that my mother, sister, colleagues (*), ... never ever have heard a stereo image. But they all know movie surround.
(* Excepting our ex-Pioneer CEO who now runs ESL-57s with my old FM4/34/306 stack ;-)
I'm thinking of what binaural recording offers that other formats do not, and it's two things:
Pretty much exact spatial positioning of sounds
Elimination of the acoustics of the listening space (which happens anytime you listen through headphones or earbuds instead of speakers in a room).
But of course many of us find wearing headphones or earbuds or in-ear-monitors to be inconvenient. Wearing headphones is about the only "compromise" of binaural, but apparently that has been enough to keep it from becoming more popular.
This brings a thought to mind about the listening room- has anyone ever take their stereo outside into a field or in the desert? The listening room sound would pretty much go away, and it's cheaper than making a totally acoustically dead room.
Comparing it to binaural, the three-dimensional sound of acoustics in R1 is reduced to a point, and the whole thing is reproduced from a single point in R2, the speaker. Binaural fixes all of that, reproducing (from the point of listening at the "head" microphone) S singing in R1.
Since you're so pointed about replies being "precise, explicit, and complete," I'll admit up front this response might not be all those things.
Ironically, binaural can (I presume, I've never tried it) be reproduced quite well on iPod earbuds. This "Sony Walkman" method of listening to music is more popular (at least with the general public) than ever, so there's more opportunity for binaural to become popular now than ever before.
Perhaps binaural's problem is the odd name. If it were given a new, sexy name and trademarked, someone could promote it, control it and make money off of it. Someething like "iSound."
Unfortunately, I suspect iPod users would complain binaural is "too realistic," a distraction from whatever else they do while listening to music.
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A very good point. The way most women listen to recorded music, I can't believe women would have ever invented stereo - it just isn't that important to them.
Another very good point. Most of the iPod/Walkman style of listening is simply "The background music to my life" style. Not my taste at all, but immensely popular, it seems.
I detested CD players when they first came out - the media was expensive and the sound back then was terribly harsh and unpleasant.
As time went on and new releases were getting harder and harder to find on vinyl, I revisited the medium and started buying CDs. At first I started with a Nakamichi CD4 player and then added a used Theta Basic DAC (remember those!?!). Through my limited system at the time, I thought digital was easily starting to best my Thorens TD-165 table.
Flash forward a couple of years and I'm playing with different DIY DACs like the Monica and the RAKK DAC. The RAKK DAC was a big leap forward in sound compared to anything else I've ever heard digital-wise. My system had changed drastically too with way better speakers and electronics (UREI 813As and Threshold gear). Somehow the sound was getting less involving as my system quality went up.
Then a friend brought over his spare turntable - a Rega P2 with glass platter and a budget Ortofon 2M Red. Phono stage was a DIY tubed unit based on the ARC SP-3. We plugged it in and really, I wasn't expecting much. After listening to a few records, I ended up preferring that little Rega over my K&K RAKK.
I ended up buying a VPI HW19 Mark III and have done various changes since - SDS, Denon 103-R cart, Audio Sector Phono Stage, etc... I've also invested heavily in vinyl, literally buying up 100s of records as quick as I can.
Is there limitations to vinyl - heck yes! But in the end, I keep going back to records. CDs/MP3s/ etc are good background music but nothing grabs me like a record. But - if someone prefers the convenience or sound of digital, I'm not going to get upset over the idea. Different strokes for different folks. Some people like playing with big V8 engines (like myself) while others like trying to squeeze as much HP out of a little 4-banger as they can. I'm not going to lose any sleep over which is better since it's all fun n' games in the end.
As time went on and new releases were getting harder and harder to find on vinyl, I revisited the medium and started buying CDs. At first I started with a Nakamichi CD4 player and then added a used Theta Basic DAC (remember those!?!). Through my limited system at the time, I thought digital was easily starting to best my Thorens TD-165 table.
Flash forward a couple of years and I'm playing with different DIY DACs like the Monica and the RAKK DAC. The RAKK DAC was a big leap forward in sound compared to anything else I've ever heard digital-wise. My system had changed drastically too with way better speakers and electronics (UREI 813As and Threshold gear). Somehow the sound was getting less involving as my system quality went up.
Then a friend brought over his spare turntable - a Rega P2 with glass platter and a budget Ortofon 2M Red. Phono stage was a DIY tubed unit based on the ARC SP-3. We plugged it in and really, I wasn't expecting much. After listening to a few records, I ended up preferring that little Rega over my K&K RAKK.
I ended up buying a VPI HW19 Mark III and have done various changes since - SDS, Denon 103-R cart, Audio Sector Phono Stage, etc... I've also invested heavily in vinyl, literally buying up 100s of records as quick as I can.
Is there limitations to vinyl - heck yes! But in the end, I keep going back to records. CDs/MP3s/ etc are good background music but nothing grabs me like a record. But - if someone prefers the convenience or sound of digital, I'm not going to get upset over the idea. Different strokes for different folks. Some people like playing with big V8 engines (like myself) while others like trying to squeeze as much HP out of a little 4-banger as they can. I'm not going to lose any sleep over which is better since it's all fun n' games in the end.
Fine!
Here is also one evidence in favor of a full analog process (if well made):
Information for prospective students
Time domain is certainly strongly related to frequency domain in the digital regime. Especially regarding resolution. While it is not in an analog system where you can have a limited frequency domain with astonishingly high time resolution. Apparently humans are far more dependent on time than frequency when it comes to perception and emotional states.....
Also note in one of those article how tricky can be a typical and innocent comparative A/B test!!
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P.S.
Because in this case you listen and watch and thus use two senses to make it as "real" as possible?
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Other reasons: No phantom center, when you see something in the middle of the screen you want to hear it in the middle (sonys SDDS uses 5 channels spread across the front, not a big deal for a 50 inch TV but sure helps for a 50 foot screen) , no matter where you sit. Clear dialogue. Not understanding movie dialogue is unacceptable, vocals not such a big deal. Isolating the dialogue in the centre speaker and the SFX to L R helps this and makes it possible to turn up just the dialogue (night mode). Violins dont fly around the room, bullets do. (Saving Pvt. Ryan). House shaking LF. The .1 channel is 10 db hotter than the low freqs out of the other channels for movie mixes.
Saying that, I still think 5.1 mixes of music are a good idea, no phantom center (a better more stable sound stage) much better room/reverb representation.
You can hardly say that. Look at the vast sales of music DVD's and they are normally 5-channel and would be played on AV setups which would typically be 5 channel.
I'd like to, but I don't know where to look to find the figures for relative volumes of sales for music CDs versus music DVDs. I presume that you can give us these figures?
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