Nirvana has to be defined first. 😀
My take on it has i have been in rooms built around the loudspeakers is: when correctly implemented inwall solve a lot of issues (destructive interference, diffraction,...) but it gives a very 'dry' presentation of recorded signal. If this is your thing yes it is a form of Nirvana.
That said it won't please people favouring envelopment and enjoyment: if someting is wrong in the message it'll not be hidden ( in fact i wonder if the 'mercyless' reputation pro monitors have doesn't come from this).
Soffit i don't know i've never been convinced by the one i've heard despite loudspeakers many crave for ( Kinoshita's/ Tad) and reputed rooms ( Hidley's classic design) .
I once commented in Camplo's thread i found that once you pushed up volume sound started to 'dilate' in stereo width ( Kinoshita RM4).
I thought it was loudspeaker related but now i wonder if it wasn't a specific implementation issue: Dr Geddes keep on telling diffraction is worst with volume increase and it occured to me that what led Hidley to develop 'non environnement' room's could have been related to what i heard and bothered me:
Tom Hidley - Non Environment Rooms – Acoustic Fields
Now i wonder.
To be honest the overall best thing i've heard were freestanding speakers located in room relatively big and located more or less like what Pano described so...
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Horses for courses. If you are recording and mixing down tracks then soffit mount might work best for those needs. Listening for enjoyment and a natural feel, maybe not.
Video has it easy. As long as the room is dark and there aren't bright and shiny things around the screen, no worries.
Video has it easy. As long as the room is dark and there aren't bright and shiny things around the screen, no worries.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. I certainly enjoyed stereo better than mono in my lava cave, even tho mono was very enjoyable in that space. But not all caves are alike. Mine was hypo-echoic, the much larger and famous Thurston lava tube is much more reverberant. I don't know why the difference.
^ i'm sure a multichannel set up would had been really enjoyable into your hypo-echoic lava cave.
Georges Massenburg and his crew seems to came to this conclusion too ( i think they developped theyr studio C with that in mind. I will forever regrets not asked when i met him!)
Google Image Result
Studio Showcase: Blackbird Studio, Nashville
Pano i make a difference between in wall and soffit. I know this is not always the case in your side of the world, so:
In wall:
Google Image Result
Soffit:
Google Image Result
Georges Massenburg and his crew seems to came to this conclusion too ( i think they developped theyr studio C with that in mind. I will forever regrets not asked when i met him!)
Google Image Result
Studio Showcase: Blackbird Studio, Nashville
Pano i make a difference between in wall and soffit. I know this is not always the case in your side of the world, so:
In wall:
Google Image Result
Soffit:
Google Image Result
Thanks krivium. 
Yes the cave could have used some surround channels. Although the cave was damp, the acoustics were very dry. 😛 A center speaker probably would not have added much, but in the room beside and behind me the acoustics could have used some artificial ambience, as the cave walls didn't provide any. I never had the chance to try it.
The Blackbird studio looks like a wooden version of the lave cave.
Yes the cave could have used some surround channels. Although the cave was damp, the acoustics were very dry. 😛 A center speaker probably would not have added much, but in the room beside and behind me the acoustics could have used some artificial ambience, as the cave walls didn't provide any. I never had the chance to try it.
The Blackbird studio looks like a wooden version of the lave cave.
If you read my post it was clearly not anything at all about the mono subject.
It was in response to your post that said:
"The additional channel improved the system, despite the fundamental flaws in two channel stereo."
Every time you mention two channel stereo you always have to somehow denigrate it by talking about the "flaws". You've done that over and over again. It's as though you are preoccupied with the subject. No one else here seems to be nearly as worried about the so called "flaws" as you are.
^ i think this is because we accept the flaws as they are and the fact that reality can only be equaled by...reality. Sound recorded is and will probably ever be an illusion.
The issue i have is that the 'flaws' are here each time you use a mic to record something even in mono:
Does microphones are able to reveal "coktail party'' effect?
Is a couple able to retranscribe SRA* without distortion of position of source within it?
Is it really an issue that a Blumlein couple ( first couple ever used for stereo recording) has the 'back image' inverted?
In fact i wonder if with picture/image Bradleypn have the same issue: does 3d have replaced everything? Is depth of field distortion an issue? Does black and white have to be banned because it truncate the reality?
Whatever we do it'll only be an approximation of reality. And we listen mostly to art performance. Is there a need for an absolute objectivity/ reality in this case?
Not sure: Picasso paints are not this homotetic to reality, still we can be hypnotised by it.
*Sound Recording Angle
The issue i have is that the 'flaws' are here each time you use a mic to record something even in mono:
Does microphones are able to reveal "coktail party'' effect?
Is a couple able to retranscribe SRA* without distortion of position of source within it?
Is it really an issue that a Blumlein couple ( first couple ever used for stereo recording) has the 'back image' inverted?
In fact i wonder if with picture/image Bradleypn have the same issue: does 3d have replaced everything? Is depth of field distortion an issue? Does black and white have to be banned because it truncate the reality?
Whatever we do it'll only be an approximation of reality. And we listen mostly to art performance. Is there a need for an absolute objectivity/ reality in this case?
Not sure: Picasso paints are not this homotetic to reality, still we can be hypnotised by it.
*Sound Recording Angle
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The cocktail party effect does not happen for me.
The main reason I don't like going to pubs.
On the other hand (or may be it is the same hand?) I removed the battery from the analogue kitchen clock because the tsk-tsk-tsk from the jumping second hand interfered with my listening to music in the living room unless I turned the volume up to neighbour-bothering levels.
Maybe like the old photography addage that the best camera is the one you have on you when there is a picture to be taken, the best music system is the one you are currently enjoying 🙂
So hands up who ends up listening to more music in the kitchen than they do in living room/man cave? And still enjoying it?
Sometimes i wonder: i once listened to many kind of capacitors.
I used Einsturzende Neubauten 'Halber Mensch' as a source: test was inconclusive as the chainsaw still sounded like...a chainsaw. 😉
That said from someone which see himself as a microphone i don't know how to take it! 😀
It's a fine line but it's there only because of the...music, the driving force.
it's all good 😀
it's all good 😀