If we appreciate the art, be it two channel created imaging, or concert hall recordings, whatever, then we must attempt to recreate it as it was intended. We may not like what was intended - like 20 Ft. wide drum kits - but then it is the art that we object to not the reproduction system. Which is it we are honoring/critiquing here? They are not the same thing.
Yes, however we must keep this firmly in mind, and not blame the audio system for the recording's problems.
It's difficult to evaluate an audio system when the recorded sound has never existed acoustically so that we can
hear and use it as a goal to strive toward.
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I find stereo image a distraction/artificial/transient and my main listening set up is now converted to single-speaker mono. It is a Boffle style speaker so some sound is coming from the back. The sound bounces around the room so my ear-brain hears the ambience of the room I am actually in, rather than an attempt to reproduce the ambience of a room where the sound was created. I don't have to worry about furniture and other 'room treatments' and I can sit and listen anywhere in the room (with some limitations). It sounds very natural and pleasant.
My thoughts exactly. There are many more important things. Plus I have found most systems that excel at imaging, fall way short on things I value.
It is a very subjective thing, I suppose.
One must learn in listening as well as discussing to separate the production of the art from the reproduction.
Yes, it can be difficult to evaluate a recording for which you really don't have a reference, but it can be done. I have excellent recordings from many years ago that I have heard 1000's of times on multiple systems. I have come to understand what these recordings have and should sound like despite not having an original source reference. Its harder, but possible.
Everybody is right. Think of it like Renaissance painting. When the painters invented vanishing points and horizons, they were able to partially simulate perspective (although geometry is only one of the many cues the brain uses to assess distance and the more trustworthy cues present the more the realism).
An engineer playing with their board, like the Renaissance painter, is able to produce a recording with some aspects of a realistic image. But a recording with pan-pot, time warping, and tone shading is no more a re-creation of a live acoustical experience than just getting the geometry right in a painting. Yes, you can tell how far left is the oboe (that's really simple engineering). But this is far from the real sound at your ears in a hall.
Can we enjoy Giotto? Sure. Nice progress in painting. But nobody would ever say, "Umm, look at that, the Roman Forum in my own living room."
There is no way to have loudspeakers put your ears in Carnegie Hall*. It is just a matter of enjoying the artifice of the engineer for what it is.
Footnote: all speaker systems are compromises which emphasize one virtue or another. Quite a nice accomplishment to achieve good imaging but not a priority for all speaker builders.
Ben
*and that is just as true for purist recordings which are just engineering choices by other means.
An engineer playing with their board, like the Renaissance painter, is able to produce a recording with some aspects of a realistic image. But a recording with pan-pot, time warping, and tone shading is no more a re-creation of a live acoustical experience than just getting the geometry right in a painting. Yes, you can tell how far left is the oboe (that's really simple engineering). But this is far from the real sound at your ears in a hall.
Can we enjoy Giotto? Sure. Nice progress in painting. But nobody would ever say, "Umm, look at that, the Roman Forum in my own living room."
There is no way to have loudspeakers put your ears in Carnegie Hall*. It is just a matter of enjoying the artifice of the engineer for what it is.
Footnote: all speaker systems are compromises which emphasize one virtue or another. Quite a nice accomplishment to achieve good imaging but not a priority for all speaker builders.
Ben
*and that is just as true for purist recordings which are just engineering choices by other means.
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Okay, but everyone has their own values, I think. Your overall assessment was right on IMHO!
As I got into hifi when the flat earth contingent was in full swing in UK I became a mini monitor devotee and thought imaging was everything. When I moved to US for a few years I listened to everything and chose apogee hybrids as I had only heard one other pair of speakers that gave the illusion that those did.
Over the last 15 years I had started to feel I was going the wrong way and focusing on the wrong things, not least because of some experiences with supposedly superior speakers. But last 6 months I have had to go back to my 25 year old minis and have realised that the stereo illusion is, for me the key to enjoying music. My system has severe limitations, mostly due to the room it is in, but I get wall to wall and floor to ceiling music with nothing giving away the location of the transducers producing it. That is what I want.
Oh and I blame Earl for my realizing I was not a freak in my desires!
Over the last 15 years I had started to feel I was going the wrong way and focusing on the wrong things, not least because of some experiences with supposedly superior speakers. But last 6 months I have had to go back to my 25 year old minis and have realised that the stereo illusion is, for me the key to enjoying music. My system has severe limitations, mostly due to the room it is in, but I get wall to wall and floor to ceiling music with nothing giving away the location of the transducers producing it. That is what I want.
Oh and I blame Earl for my realizing I was not a freak in my desires!
The only reason this question seems at all valid in the first place is that the whole wonderful scheme of music reproduction via the records you buy at the store or online or whatever is full of compromises from recording to eardrums.
It's actually ludicrous, because presumably the full question is "How important is stereo image in order to reproduce a stereo recording"? How important is 3D in order to reproduce a 3D video recording? How important is color in order to reproduce a color film? Either you do reproduce it, or you don't, or you sort of do. "Important" is not really an applicable word.
It's actually ludicrous, because presumably the full question is "How important is stereo image in order to reproduce a stereo recording"? How important is 3D in order to reproduce a 3D video recording? How important is color in order to reproduce a color film? Either you do reproduce it, or you don't, or you sort of do. "Important" is not really an applicable word.
It depends
To some extent, imaging is just a taste/trade-off/compromise, but to another extent (in multi-way speakers), it is a sign that the system is correctly designed.
I can enjoy listening to a mono speaker. When the tweeter "blends" with the woofer (phase, dispersion, etc), the effect is a "floating stereo", a disappearing drivers, sounds come not from the location of the drivers. This is basically a necessary "stereo" characteristics.
Fullrange or simple crossover may have good stereo, but then there may be too many peaks or breakups unhandled that may bleed the ears. And the steeper crossover may solve the breakups issue but the phase tracking may be worse than the first. This is an example of the taste/trade-off/compromise issue.
To some extent, imaging is just a taste/trade-off/compromise, but to another extent (in multi-way speakers), it is a sign that the system is correctly designed.
I can enjoy listening to a mono speaker. When the tweeter "blends" with the woofer (phase, dispersion, etc), the effect is a "floating stereo", a disappearing drivers, sounds come not from the location of the drivers. This is basically a necessary "stereo" characteristics.
Fullrange or simple crossover may have good stereo, but then there may be too many peaks or breakups unhandled that may bleed the ears. And the steeper crossover may solve the breakups issue but the phase tracking may be worse than the first. This is an example of the taste/trade-off/compromise issue.
For me imaging has to be spot on, I want to pinpoint the individual singers in a choir just like I can in real life.
Unfortunately this involves using microphone techniques that are rare these day's. The soundfield mics are a favourite of mine as they are very neutral and can indeed create pinpoint imaging. And on top of that you can get as much or as little ambient sound in the recording as you want.
Unfortunately this involves using microphone techniques that are rare these day's. The soundfield mics are a favourite of mine as they are very neutral and can indeed create pinpoint imaging. And on top of that you can get as much or as little ambient sound in the recording as you want.
Important IS applicable because the compromises you make in chosing and locating speakers has a direct bearing on how well the imaging illusion works. It shouldn't work, after all 2 speakers cannot give height and depth, but given the right conditions the DSP that is you brain can give a very satisfying output.
I did once hear a demo at a show (20 odd years ago now). Dave Wilson was showing watt/puppy/whow using recordings from a studio that used them as nearfields, so we were hearing what the Engineer had. I accept that we were given clues as to what to hear so an expectation was set, but on a choral recording the choir were 30 feet behind the rear wall of the room. I was expecting a recording done in a cathederal, and I know how that sounds, but was still a pointer as to what could be done with the right source and replay equipment setup properly.
Mind you the worst imaging I have every heard was also a pair of Wilson speakers...
We are at home saying, "Gosh, big soundscape, just like sitting in Row 6 on the aisle."
But what the recording engineer does with ANY microphone technique, is fish around the hall for locations (not necessarily anywhere near Row 6 on the aisle) that will make people at home say, "Gosh, big soundscape, just like sitting in Row 6 on the aisle."*
All recordings are cooked in order to produce the effects the producer wants.
Ben
*what often leads to great recordings is when the recording team have worked in the same hall repeatedly.
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A big soundscape and pinpoint imaging are 2 completely different things.
Often big speakers produce big sound, witch means everything sounds big. A triangle sounds just as big as an organ. This is a big soundscape but not pinpoint imaging. Imo a triangle should sound small like a single point in space and an organ should sound big.
Pinpoint imaging is a rare thing, you need the correct microphone technique (coincident) and you need speakers (like the Quad esl's) that can reproduce it.
<cough> Listening room acoustics...
The first time I heard an actual stereo image was when working as a summer intern at the BBC. I was helping to set up a small production studio that used Dynaudio nearfield monitors in an acoustically treated room. We put on some location recordings to test it out, and it was amazing, I was transported to the location where the interview took place! Granted it wasn't a very exciting location, a picnic table in a park or something, but the sense of space was still incredible. I immediately resolved that one day I would own a pair of Dynaudio mini monitors because of their "pinpoint imaging." 🙂
Many years later I did in fact get my hands on a pair of Dynaudio mini monitors, and set them up in the closest thing I had to a "studio", an almost cubical room with hard plastered brick walls. You can probably guess the result, a boomy, indistinct wash of sound that was hardly any good for even enjoying music, let alone critical listening or production work. A vague stereo image was just about discernible sitting right between the speakers in the nearfield position. I should have resolved that one day I would own a bunch of fibreglass, curtains and bass traps. 🙂
The first time I heard an actual stereo image was when working as a summer intern at the BBC. I was helping to set up a small production studio that used Dynaudio nearfield monitors in an acoustically treated room. We put on some location recordings to test it out, and it was amazing, I was transported to the location where the interview took place! Granted it wasn't a very exciting location, a picnic table in a park or something, but the sense of space was still incredible. I immediately resolved that one day I would own a pair of Dynaudio mini monitors because of their "pinpoint imaging." 🙂
Many years later I did in fact get my hands on a pair of Dynaudio mini monitors, and set them up in the closest thing I had to a "studio", an almost cubical room with hard plastered brick walls. You can probably guess the result, a boomy, indistinct wash of sound that was hardly any good for even enjoying music, let alone critical listening or production work. A vague stereo image was just about discernible sitting right between the speakers in the nearfield position. I should have resolved that one day I would own a bunch of fibreglass, curtains and bass traps. 🙂
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Yes, many tubes and incorrect system may give you "huge" soundscape, singer floating around the room (like casper), vocal "on your face", etc etc. The best one is of course what is available in the recording. Pinpoint imaging is beautiful, not because of the image, but because it is what it should be, hence the intended music. I have only 1 CD that is recorded so well to display this kind of imaging.
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