I ask this, because if it is not considered crucial for the enjoyment of listening, there are many benefits, if it is dropped down the importance table:
You can listen anywhere in the room,
you can use Alison style speakers (I saw in an interview he admitted that pin point imagery was not a feature of his designs),
or omnidirectional designs, which many consider give a more natural sound,
or even (heaven forfend) go mono.
Headphone listening?
One thought. With studio recorded pop music, you are not listening to a reproduction of a band in front of you with the drummer there, and the bass guitar somewhere else. It has all been individually recorded in mono and arbitrarily pan-potted. The band member's positioning is just an artificial construct.
You can listen anywhere in the room,
you can use Alison style speakers (I saw in an interview he admitted that pin point imagery was not a feature of his designs),
or omnidirectional designs, which many consider give a more natural sound,
or even (heaven forfend) go mono.
Headphone listening?
One thought. With studio recorded pop music, you are not listening to a reproduction of a band in front of you with the drummer there, and the bass guitar somewhere else. It has all been individually recorded in mono and arbitrarily pan-potted. The band member's positioning is just an artificial construct.
Exactly. With the vast majority of recordings, there is no true stereo image, just a synthetic creation of the recording engineer.
This synthetic image should not be of much importance to the listener seeking accurate reproduction of music.
Yes, discrediting studio work as arbitrary and unimportant makes for very good logic to follow when designing speakers.
- With the vast majority of recordings, microphones with non-flat response were used and engineers arbitrarily applied EQ to both individual tracks and to the final stereo mix, thus it doesn't matter what the frequency response of the speakers is.
- With the vast majority of recordings, the relative sound levels of instruments are arbitrarily created with various level knobs, thus it doesn't matter how loud the speakers can be used because everything to do with volume is an arbitrary construct anyway.
- With the vast majority of recordings, the music was actually all just created by people using instruments to arbitrarily make tones and such in an arbitrary order, so there is no need to be concerned about whether the speaker produces output that has any causal relationship to the recording.
Therefore, I conclude that the ideal loudspeaker is, in fact, my dog. 2nd place, a ukulele in a washing machine.
In all seriousness, yes I think it is fine to put the stereo illusion low on the priority list in any circumstances where you think it is a good compromise. The risk is that in doing so, you accidentally end up with very strong and distracting localization illusions that have nothing to do with the recording whatsoever, not even with a knob in a studio.
- With the vast majority of recordings, microphones with non-flat response were used and engineers arbitrarily applied EQ to both individual tracks and to the final stereo mix, thus it doesn't matter what the frequency response of the speakers is.
- With the vast majority of recordings, the relative sound levels of instruments are arbitrarily created with various level knobs, thus it doesn't matter how loud the speakers can be used because everything to do with volume is an arbitrary construct anyway.
- With the vast majority of recordings, the music was actually all just created by people using instruments to arbitrarily make tones and such in an arbitrary order, so there is no need to be concerned about whether the speaker produces output that has any causal relationship to the recording.
Therefore, I conclude that the ideal loudspeaker is, in fact, my dog. 2nd place, a ukulele in a washing machine.
In all seriousness, yes I think it is fine to put the stereo illusion low on the priority list in any circumstances where you think it is a good compromise. The risk is that in doing so, you accidentally end up with very strong and distracting localization illusions that have nothing to do with the recording whatsoever, not even with a knob in a studio.
Last edited:
stereo image matters.
Even for a simple "two-channels sum-to-mono" center image, a quality pair of speakers will give the illusion this sound is coming from behind their plane. Less decent speakers will reveal their individual locations and completely throw off the immersion. JMO.
Even for a simple "two-channels sum-to-mono" center image, a quality pair of speakers will give the illusion this sound is coming from behind their plane. Less decent speakers will reveal their individual locations and completely throw off the immersion. JMO.
This is the "true stereo image". Some artists and engineers spend hours or even days creating it.
I had a strange friend years ago. He was really into listening to stereo orchestral music, as in two microphones flown over the orchestra. His set-up was a set of studio monitors set (touching) back to back right in front of the listening position firing into the walls.
There are no rules about what is important just opinions.
There are no rules about what is important just opinions.
He probably should have tried binaural headphone listening. With recordings made for this purpose, the results can be wonderfully natural.
This is actually the only recording technique with true stereo imaging.
Last edited:
Stereo image is critical and one of the most difficult things to create. This is why poor loudspeaker designs often decry it as irrelevant.
But there is certainly no accounting for individual taste. People can prefer anything, but that doesn't make it right. The right thing is to recreate what the engineer intended - good, bad or indifferent.
But there is certainly no accounting for individual taste. People can prefer anything, but that doesn't make it right. The right thing is to recreate what the engineer intended - good, bad or indifferent.
No doubt if he was still alive he would have loved binaural technology. This was in the early 80's.
Certainly getting speakers to act as a point source is quite difficult, but studio created "pan-potted mono" recordings
are far from a natural sound under any conditions, no matter how good the speakers.
This is why I wish recordings would come with descriptions of all the equipment used for playback in the studio. Also detailed measurements of the studio's dimensions, construction materials, furniture, listening positions and treatments. That way you could truly recreate what was intended. 😉
I have, It is lovely. 😀
I used a early version of binaural years ago whenever I had to mix a play from inside a closed sound booth. I would put a sterio pair on either side of a foam block about head dimensions into the theater to act as my ears.
Wonderful. More people should take advantage of this simple but highly effective method for very natural sound recording/reproduction.
It's disarming even on middle of the road equipment.
It's disheartening to see so many people fight hard on irrelevant issues while the true answer is so easy to reach.
Even on not that expensive stuff, that sheds light in what's really important.
Like real estate agents always say: what matters is 3 things: location, location and location 😉
In this case it would be: get the true stereo image from the very beginning and never let it go.
Period.
Even on not that expensive stuff, that sheds light in what's really important.
Like real estate agents always say: what matters is 3 things: location, location and location 😉
In this case it would be: get the true stereo image from the very beginning and never let it go.
Period.
It was fashionable a number of years ago (on the Joelist and other spots where horn afficionados hung out) to pooh-pooh imaging, deeming it unimportant or even somehow at odds with the prevailing wisdom that dynamics, or timbre, or (insert other feature here) was all that mattered.
My theory, then and now: If spatial information in contained in the recording, you want to retrieve it.
My theory, then and now: If spatial information in contained in the recording, you want to retrieve it.
Of course, how much of any "spatial" information as might be present in any given recording represents the real acoustics of the room(s) in which performances were captured, or unless there are handwritten "maps" of image locations, what the engineers had in mind or heard in the final mix-down will never be known.
Agreed that since the advent of commercial stereo recordings over 50yrs ago, far too many engineers have indulged in creative overuse of multi-track, pan potting and phasing effects, resulting in distorted perspectives (to put it politely) - one of my pet peeves is the 20 ft wide drum kit, with high hat and snare separated from the rest of the cymbals by a distance than only Reed Richards could achieve, should he decide to pack in his stretchy tights for the job security as a session musician.
All kidding aside, engineers have the right to play with the sound stage as much as they like - we can either try to enjoy the musicality in spite of their handiwork, or not.
Agreed that since the advent of commercial stereo recordings over 50yrs ago, far too many engineers have indulged in creative overuse of multi-track, pan potting and phasing effects, resulting in distorted perspectives (to put it politely) - one of my pet peeves is the 20 ft wide drum kit, with high hat and snare separated from the rest of the cymbals by a distance than only Reed Richards could achieve, should he decide to pack in his stretchy tights for the job security as a session musician.
All kidding aside, engineers have the right to play with the sound stage as much as they like - we can either try to enjoy the musicality in spite of their handiwork, or not.
Yes they do, but it isn't natural sound. High fidelity is not relevant to this. It's just sound.
Who cares? If a recording, and the system it plays back on can connect you emotionally with the music, then things are good.
Whatever rocks you.
dave
- Status
- Not open for further replies.