How do you know when an image is supposed to be “in front” of you? Are there not rear reflections reaching one’s ears in a concert hall?
Ok, I see that comment was too simplistic for it's purpose, I'd encourage an understanding of the limitations of stereo, which was done here a few years back on a very long thread. This includes what stereo appears to be capable of but isn't, and appears not to be capable of but is.
Let's not lose sight of the point though. You were implying something which I understood to be that listening outside of a room was not enveloping. I asserted that spaciousness as we generally know it is not necessary for proper imaging. I then introduced the third variable, late reflections.
Let's not lose sight of the point though. You were implying something which I understood to be that listening outside of a room was not enveloping. I asserted that spaciousness as we generally know it is not necessary for proper imaging. I then introduced the third variable, late reflections.
This phenomenon described above, is literally why the "audiophile" hobby is overrun with snake oil.
The vast majority of "audiophiles" are looking for ways to improve their system. They'll try new cables, new amplifiers, different tubes, different DACs, etc.
The truth?
95% of the time it's the speaker and the room. YES, I can hear notable differences between DACs, and YES there's some verrrrrrrry subtle differences in amplifiers. But the real 'bang for the buck' comes from changing the speaker and the room.
This phenomenon, is the reason that the Beolab 90 is my favorite speaker of all time. It is one of very few speakers where you can literally sit there on the couch and 'dial in' the sound stage. It's not exactly like having a button that says "big soundstage" and a button that says "pinpoint soundstage" but it's pretty close.
Oddly enough, I'd argue that some of the best soundstaging I've ever heard is in a CAR of all places.
Gary Summers is a friend of mine. He has more Oscars than Steven Spielberg and he's been working on movie soundtracks since Empire Strikes Back.
His car images about as good as anything I've ever heard.
I think the secret sauce is two things:
1) Gary really knows how music and movies should sound. He's been doing this a looooong time. Some of his demo tracks are pieces that he's worked on personally. He's invested thousands of hours refining his system.
2) If you know exactly where the listeners ears are going to be, you can use DSP to hyper optimize things for that single point in space.
Gary was the person who got me into upmixing. Part of the reason I haven't been as active on diyaudio as I used to be, is that I've been spending a lot of time pondering how to do multichannel right.
In the world of home theater, I think that multichannel largely exists because it produces good sound for most of the people in a large room. But with DSP and upmixing, you can do some interesting things with multichannel to make your favorite tracks sound "new and improved."
Hmm. I’m not sure how you got that; there’s no reason the delayed speakers I have mentioned couldn’t also work in an outside environment. And there’s also headphone listening which is about as dry as playback can be had and yet can be completely enveloping (especially with binaural recordings).
Playback in a room creates reflections; whether or not they interfere with imaging (which they can and do) or enhance the sense of spaciousness (which they can and do) to the point of envelopment (which they can) is a matter of application. What degree is requisite for what the OP is after seems to be the heart of the matter, imo.
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Most of the musicians I’ve met are more concerned with the tonal balance of a recording being preserved whether it’s played back in mono, stereo or more and less so with the number and placement of loudspeakers. In fact, I asked a musician friend with a home recording studio if he had considered making headphone mixes of his recordings for the streaming market and he looked at me like I was from another planet.
I don't think sound stage and spaciousness are interchangeable. Sound stage conveys the sense/or lack of spaciousness which is present in the recording. So, a recording can contain the sense of space (ousness) leaving the loudspeaker the task of reproducing that in a realistic manner by producing the required sound stage to match the recording. Leaving the listener with a believable illusion of the performance.
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I could imagine two things to increase sound stage.
The first would be a rear tweeter used to generate late reflections.
The other one would be the trick that was used on ghettoblasters: From euch channel a highpassed and inverted version was added to the other channel at a low level. This way they achieved a sound stage that was wider than the whole cabinet.
The first would be a rear tweeter used to generate late reflections.
The other one would be the trick that was used on ghettoblasters: From euch channel a highpassed and inverted version was added to the other channel at a low level. This way they achieved a sound stage that was wider than the whole cabinet.
Interesting and sharing that the sound inside the passenger compartment of the car can sound fabulous, but I think that is not the case that the OP claims.
I see it as two totally different "things". Soundstage: 2-channel stereo system, may include subwoofer. We try to recreate a musical performance that is invariably in front of our ears.
Multichannel or home theater:
We're not trying to emulate anything specific, we're just reproducing an environment created by the sound engineer, with sounds coming in front of and behind our ears. It's like the "chaos" example I gave earlier, about how a player by one instrument located inside the symphony orchestra perceives the sound. Very different from what the assistant to the show hears, who has a sound front, with its breadth and depth, but never hears instruments behind him.
I had a 5.1 system in my living room, I built the wiring with two selector switches to add the center and rear speakers to the front speakers that I use for music.
Any of the AVR's selected effects did not approach the realism of the conventional stereo amplifier. I disassembled the whole setup when the projector lamp blew up and now I watch movies with headphones from my bed.
It's enough for me. I'm not interested in jumping out of my seat when a bomb drops or an enemy plane explodes on the ground. Perhaps it is the self-preservation instinct, the heart pumps adrenaline and there is no way to eliminate it if there is not a physical reaction to consume it. The accumulation of it is bad for someone my age.
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The imaging issue can also be inherently within the source material, due to azimuth error etc. that results in incoherent left and right channels. I have several digitally mastered recordings that have their channels out of phase by just one or two samples. In mono recordings, the left and right channels need to exactly the same (both amplitude and phase-wise) for the ears to perceive the music as coming from the centre i.e. between the speakers. Fortunately, this type of incoherence can be easily found out and corrected using a wave-editing software, if the source is digital. In case of a cassette tape, a small screw allows azimuth adjustment right by the side of the magnetic head, if desired. No idea about gramophone discs.
In my opinion, small rooms need to be deadened to make them sound like outdoors (no room at all). Any extra reverberation / effects can then be added in real-time during playback, if desired. This way the listener can also select from the various impulse responses (hall, church, concert etc.) that are commonly available.
In my opinion, small rooms need to be deadened to make them sound like outdoors (no room at all). Any extra reverberation / effects can then be added in real-time during playback, if desired. This way the listener can also select from the various impulse responses (hall, church, concert etc.) that are commonly available.
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OK ... take a jazz trio and record them in a practice room. Record the same trio in a medium sized club with an audience.
Which will/should sound more spacious? Should the loudspeaker(s) present the same illusion for both cases?
Each recording will have a corresponding spaciousness baked in. The recording(s) gives you the ques as to practice room vs club. The loudspeaker(s) present that difference as sound stage.
All that is left is whether or not the loudspeakers can fool you into believing the illusion presented by both recordings. Large space illusions require large enough speakers to present that sound stage and make it believable.
Maybe think of sound stage as a photograph. Using the two examples above, you'd see the differences in each venue. Each photo was a depiction of the space the photo was taken in. The spaciousness is particular to each as will be their recording(s).
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My true dual monaural two channel power amplifier images better than all of my two channel stereo amplifiers. Granted some could argue that it's a better made amplifier. My others are not limited with positive atributes. But I feel dual mono and mono block designs have the advantage, for completely eliminating cross talk. That directly effects, enhances, over all soundstage in my experiences.
I feel speakers play more and less of a part with soundstage and imaging. The amp and speakers are the strongest influencer's, the most important links in the chain.
I feel speakers play more and less of a part with soundstage and imaging. The amp and speakers are the strongest influencer's, the most important links in the chain.
Much like what Polk did with the SDA series? I’m planning on trying it with my ess heils on top just for experimentation, if I ever get to it…….I’ve had the heils nib now for a few months! 😕
maybe some small low level satellite speakers (even just super tweeters) above and l/r of mains would widen the soundstage?…….I’ve done it before with awesome results.
puppet :
Now I understand what you mean, it is a complex question and it requires a complex answer, many factors to analyze there.
Personally, I prefer the large environment with large speakers, bringing the listening point closer to the speakers to listen to the two proposed scenarios. I don't see a reproduction of a large orchestra in a small space as close to reality. Physical dimensions are a limitation.
But it's a personal choice, I didn't find the Holy Grail.
The questions to give a correct answer (approximate, huh):
How do you know how that signal/signals were worked on (captured with how many microphones? How were they located, in the near or far field?, etc.)
The sound engineer can try to recreate the original environment and hit "on the key" or not, they can also introduce personal tastes and tendencies. When they monitor, are they in a room with the same dimensions as the place where the sound was taken? And your monitors are accurate enough? There are studios with high-quality equipment, others not so much.
I remember that The Beatles at one point decided to change their Tannoy monitors for JBL at Abbey Road....
I think someone with experience in recording will shed light here, I am not trained, I was in recording studios and I saw the sliders being manipulated in real time when the sound was recorded.....so, from the beginning, the ear is already involved human to modify the original.....
Look at the console at the end of the video! Minute 52.40
Sorry, the YT video is in Spanish, the best sound engineer in Argentina tells some experiences.
Surely someone will upload something similar in English.
Now I understand what you mean, it is a complex question and it requires a complex answer, many factors to analyze there.
Personally, I prefer the large environment with large speakers, bringing the listening point closer to the speakers to listen to the two proposed scenarios. I don't see a reproduction of a large orchestra in a small space as close to reality. Physical dimensions are a limitation.
But it's a personal choice, I didn't find the Holy Grail.
The questions to give a correct answer (approximate, huh):
How do you know how that signal/signals were worked on (captured with how many microphones? How were they located, in the near or far field?, etc.)
The sound engineer can try to recreate the original environment and hit "on the key" or not, they can also introduce personal tastes and tendencies. When they monitor, are they in a room with the same dimensions as the place where the sound was taken? And your monitors are accurate enough? There are studios with high-quality equipment, others not so much.
I remember that The Beatles at one point decided to change their Tannoy monitors for JBL at Abbey Road....
I think someone with experience in recording will shed light here, I am not trained, I was in recording studios and I saw the sliders being manipulated in real time when the sound was recorded.....so, from the beginning, the ear is already involved human to modify the original.....
Look at the console at the end of the video! Minute 52.40
Sorry, the YT video is in Spanish, the best sound engineer in Argentina tells some experiences.
Surely someone will upload something similar in English.
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academia50 ... others that have responded in this thread can speak to your concerns much better than I can.
Standard definition for "early reflections" includes everything reflecting of a boudary and arriving in the first 100ms, that's a path length of 34.4m/113ft. That's all considered "early" in the world of acoustics. Within that range there are differing effects. Common practice in building studio mixing rooms is to control reflections in the front of the room, which works out to the first 10 or 15 feet of total path. Control does not always mean absorb, diffusion is also desirable. But you don't want direct reflections arriving at the ear. Long path lengths, like off back walls, are stll "early" but if diffused add the sense of a room rather than a very dry space.
Rear tweeters would create early reflections. Some like this (the omni speaker fans), however it does the opposite of what studio design would dictate.
The interaural crosstalk cancellation idea was covered earlier with the Carver Sonic Holography discussion, though his was only one method and depended on all-pass filters for the interaural delay. Other methods used actual delay, and some even used an L-R difference signal to develop the cancellation signal. None were "perfect", and all were rejected by the audiophile community, though IMO they had merrit. I developed one myself, so I'm a bit biased. Mine was very gentle, using L-R/R-L, filtering, but no delay at all.
Also, IMO, permitting early reflections, or introducing them, confounds the image but makes the experience more enveloping. I don't favor that.
That is a very big part of your experience. Crosstalk is quite easily verified. The main advantage to a monoblock system is instantaneious peak power because the power supply stores energy, and that reserve is not shared. However, shared or not, so long as the amp is not operating within 3dB of max power, sharing a PSU doesn't affect crosstalk. But expectations always affect the experience.
The reality is, every transducer, speaker, headphone or microphone modifies the signal as it is converted either from or to an electrical analog of an acoustic signal. Devices that remain in the same domain, like electrical, also modify the signal lpassing through them, but to a minuscule extend (so long as modificatiion is not their purpose). The amplifier/speaker interface is also a modifier, but the amount of change is dictated by their interaction. Some combinations present very little interaction, some more.
I do not agrea that amplifiers are the most important links in the chain. It's about 40% speaker and 60% small room acoustics.
Depends almost entirely on the mics, position, etc. You can make a huge room seem very small, or a small room sound very big, by choosing mic positions.
The speakers never replicate the room. The best they can ever do is present an illusion sufficient to suspend disbelief.
See "Sound Reproduction - Loudspeakers in Rooms", Toole, Ch2, re: Circle of Confusion.