Live unamplified music v home audio, another thread/perspective

spiritofmusic · Jul 20, 2017

Well, that's the rub
Not all 2ch responds to MCH processing
In the six cds I took to Ked's MCH expert, only one was slam dunk improved
Two were worse, three "different"
On the basis of a demo being positive when effects don't shift from one's conciousness for weeks (like my Apogees baptism), this MCH demo was interesting but not compelling

Mike Lavigne · Jul 20, 2017

bonzo75 said:
Channel classics CDs which have both 2-Ch and 5.1 sound better in 5.1 on the same system, and sound best upsampled to Auro 3d (which there was 14.4). Not all 2 Ch respond well to upsampling but these MCH CDs do

of course, I specified 'dxd' not 'cd' for the 2 channel; and I also mentioned that the system needs to be optimized for 2 channel as well as multi-channel. otherwise there is no truth to be found.

NorthStar · Jul 20, 2017

cjfrbw said:
I still don't understand why audiophiles who say they like live music don't use surround systems more. The surround gives a living, breathing space that swells and recedes with the music, and enriches tone, especially with classical pieces. That breathing sense of large space is something that I would miss and just can't be created by a two channel system.

It's one of the ironies of high end audio that the adamantine devotion to two channel reproduction makes the ostensible goals even more elusive, but there it is, year after year, post after post. Multi channel surround still won't be "live", but it is a lot closer, IF it is set up correctly. Guys will squiggle their cartridges, mess with cables and tweak rooms ad infinitum, but think surround is "artificial" and seek the goal of ever greater razor blade definition, instead.

I have to saw on about it from time to time, but realize that it is a pretty pointless to sway two channel guys from their notion that two channels can emulate a performance space.

Hi Carl,

Reading this thread is educational. None of us went to all the best halls in the world, none of us listened to all the best stereo rigs in the world in the best acoustically treated rooms, none of us have listened to the best multichannel music recordings in the world and in the best setups and rooms. We all have our own +/- experience and inclination from what we decided to build upon that experience and experimentation of our music passion @ home.
I believe many systems setups can create a beautiful sounding musical movement. ...Just like many venues have their own unique characteristic in acoustical properties.

One can execute a phenomenal experience with stereo. Another one can get closer to nirvana with multichannel. ...Assuming quality stereo and multichannel recordings, done with zest and taste that fits particular music listeners.

Live music is about musicians positioning on a front stage. The sound's provenance, direct and reflected, is largely influenced by the room and the performance in that particular room with its audience.
I believe you can create the illusion @ home with a state-of-the-art stereo setup inside a sota room.
Multichannel recordings on SACD, DVD Audio and Blu-ray Audio are generally from the 5.1 variety, and some are 4 and even 3 channels.
On some special music recordings like from Auro-3D (Blu-ray), the number of channels, for optimal performance utilize more than 5 speakers, more like 10-11 speakers; that's for home.

We are restricted in installing eleven speakers @ home for best live illusion. The ones who do are mainly for home theater sound effects.

It's fun to experiment, simplify, choose, adapt, being practical, having access. ...All that jazz.
Each recording space has its own sound, same for each room. And when talking about a music recording it's nice to be on a similar wavelength; analog, speed (33 or 45rpm or 15 or 30ips), digital hi-res stereo or multichannel, which pressing, which media, which recording/mixing engineer, which master, which and which.

With both unamplified live music and @ home, no two listeners are listening to the exact same things. Our brain are different, our ears and our positions.
And, we don't live in the same rooms in the same homes, when intimately/privately living. Sharing those moments with close friends is within the boundaries of our entourage; the rooms we're invited in and the gear and setups in those various rooms.

We live with what is accessible to our personal evolution. If a guy is into mono music, let him be happy. If one has 186 speakers in his studio, he's onto something too.
Live music (unamplified) is from all around the instruments, @ home is from all around the speaker(s), and @ home we have no choice but to have it amplified, and up to several amplifiers.

I read this thread, it is educational from the people with the most experience in both stereo, multichannel music reproduction, and live unamplified (classical concert halls, jazz/blues clubs, chamber auditoriums, small alleys and cabarets and dancing clubs). And we know that many of these clubs is amplified music.

Personally, in my very modest way, and because LPs are mainly stereo, I opt for more channels only when I want to be more engulfed closer to the recording artist.
But most of the time stereo (90%+) is my regular trend. We all have our periods, and each period has its own unique zone of comfort more or less depending of our dedication and disposition. Sometime we go high; we go live, we follow the high winds sitting on the clouds above.

I always like threads like these; there is always something to learn new and more, and to evolve in our pursuit of music listening happiness.
Right now I am listening to the winds from the west coast above in the high leaves of the trees surrounding me all around outside, live. ...Unamplified.
If I can reproduce this @ home in a room, that'll be the day. Because my skin feels those winds too, and my hair is blowing along.

audioguy · Jul 20, 2017

cjfrbw said:
I still don't understand why audiophiles who say they like live music don't use surround systems more. The surround gives a living, breathing space that swells and recedes with the music, and enriches tone, especially with classical pieces. That breathing sense of large space is something that I would miss and just can't be created by a two channel system.

It's one of the ironies of high end audio that the adamantine devotion to two channel reproduction makes the ostensible goals even more elusive, but there it is, year after year, post after post. Multi channel surround still won't be "live", but it is a lot closer, IF it is set up correctly. Guys will squiggle their cartridges, mess with cables and tweak rooms ad infinitum, but think surround is "artificial" and seek the goal of ever greater razor blade definition, instead.

I have to saw on about it from time to time, but realize that it is a pretty pointless to sway two channel guys from their notion that two channels can emulate a performance space.

Very well said and I totally agree. This subject is certainly not as inflammatory as, for example, the value of high end cables, but the proponents of either side will not be easily moved.

I was a hardcore 2 channel guy for the longest time but, on occasion, experimented with using more speakers. The first time I heard something that got my attention was a Merdian processor I had that used some kind of proprietary approach of extracting additional channels from a 2 channel recording. On some music, it made a huge (positive) difference.

As multi-channel technology has advanced (Atmos, Auro, DTS:X and the very high end processors that support them), I have experimented more (adjusted trims and delay in the surrounds and heights - experimentally) and am now in the position where the vast majority of the time, "up-mixing" to one pf these 3D audio formats greatly improves the sense of "being there". On occasion, it doesn't work but mostly it does.

And while there are certainly some trade-off between a 2 channel room and a multi-channel room, a single use room does not prevent getting very good performance from either approach. In my case, my left and right speakers are out in the room where they would be if the room were only two channel but all others are in a column or behind the screen (or on the ceiling). My room acoustic design (professionally done) was only marginally different between the two room types (e.g. in a HT, it is very typical for the first reflection point to be absorptive but in my case, since I started out listening to just 2 channels for music, my first reflection points are diffusive --- and it does nothing to distract from a multi-channel environment.

BUT, as you have said, probably no one on this site who is a hard core 2 channel guy is going to, based upon what he reads here ( or elsewhere) jump ship !!

I have a good friend who has heard my system and for him, he still "prefers" plain old 2 channel......and we are still friends

the sound of Tao · Jul 20, 2017

Great to see you getting out and enjoying classical music Marc. Schumann and Chopin, now there's some real piano music for you, hope they were good performances.

In your topic heading there lies the the core of an issue that I think might be very fundamental to the way we evaluate our system's performance anyway.

To compare live music with home audio isn't actually a direct correlation and the phrasing of the heading is still quite revealing and I believe a valuable point to explore. Not playing semantics at all (well maybe I am) but this is part of the dilemma we all face. I believe it is easy to spend a lot of time evaluating our systems on how they sound and trap ourselves into a way of listening rather than just simply reflecting on how our gear allows us to experience music. Listening wholly rather than dissecting into part.

Maybe a more direct and whole comparison is just how we compare the direct experience music performed live against our experience of music as recorded and replayed at home. This could also be a really useful criteria to use to evaluate where we are at if our goal is in our experiencing music rather than listening to sounds.

Not that there is fundamentally anything wrong with tuning our setups on sonic criteria but if that is all we do I believe it is just a step in our journey towards experiencing the music.

Not to say that therefore we are at all ultimately missing the mark in our pursuit. The lure of the connection to musical experience will I believe always call us back eventually to music as it is ever seductive like a siren and will ultimately do it's best to lead us back to it's source and along the way crash our boats upon the rocks of crazy arsed spends, audio misdirections and big fat luscious power cables... sigh, gear, so pretty, but still music so elusive when we just fill up our rooms and lives with the messy maya of wrong things... and when the lure of the music isn't obvious we stress and start pulling apart our sound.

To each our own reality tunnel... some validly see audio as a pursuit to recreate sound and some see it is a way to purely experience music and then many of us see it as both. So this sets the criteria that we need to identify when trying to evaluate the effectiveness of our systems.

How many burnt out and jaded audiophiles have we encountered along the way who get hooked on a specific sound effect and chase it relentlessly without realising that they stopped listening for music and just always hear that specific artefact. It could be lower noise floor, more detail, greater extension, less glare, the list goes on and all these things are fascinating dragons to chase but if we spend all our time focussing on a small list of individual benchmarks we can easily forget about the simple quality of musical connection. If music is the alpha and the omega then the goal is easier to evaluate, every now and then I ask simply myself what music I am enjoying. This is (for me at least) the ultimate review of the ultimate success or otherwise of my system.

But comparing a direct experience of music to a replayed one at home is never going to be on par in terms of the phenomena. The experience of music live and direct has not just the experience of sound, but also the feel and sights of place and shared moments with player and audience alike that cannot be replayed and exist only in one moment. There is the expectation before experience, the buying the tickets, making your way to the venue, the buzz of the crowd before the music begins. All this colours the experience of the music itself. We are always bouncing between retention, experience and antiiiiiiciiiipation. All this makes the ritual of live experience and this kind of direct connection to the source of music as something waaaaay beyond just only the experience of the sound of the music, and yet the sound alone is mostly all we replay at home.

And then we break things into parts to evaluate. These individual goals can easily become misdirections in the path..., things like dynamics are relative, we hopefully don't all sit at home listening at realistically original sound levels if we at all hope to keep our hearing, our significant others and our neighbours in a happy place... yet without hitting the full db of a large orchestral experience we can still get the impression of dynamics sufficient to allow us to experience the emotions that the varying range of sound level creates in our experience of music. This is where the artefacts of compression can make us feel like our much quieter replay level at home is still loud enough.

Resolution... now there's a tantalising goal but its just so easy to confuse extra detail for more truth. We've all heard systems where the detail is beyond the real... the hyper real that is an addictive buzz like plunging down three double short blacks or injecting some risstrettos in a crazy caffeinated hit.

Sometimes I think we should occasionally drop the individual sonic criteria of audio and replace it with just ultimate musical value. Does the live experience connect us to the music better than the experience of music at home and perhaps the answer to that is not always. Sometimes in the solitude and quiet and familiarity of our listening rooms we can also connect just as deeply to the music if not the complete sensations of the sound or the multi layered experiences of live.

We can always evaluate in terms of both the quality of the experience of the sound and the quality of the experience of the music. I've come to believe great audio is a step towards experiencing great music but great music is still accessible even when replayed through even relatively OK audio... and that more importantly OK music however is just not worth listening to when there is so much great music out there. If I had to choose between sitting listening to great gear with an ordinary selection of music or even a live experience of then poorly played music rather than playing great music through relatively ordinary gear I'd definitely choose the latter. In the end, great music live or replayed at home trumps all.

Yes, and how many times has someone tried to show you how great their setup sounds and then just put on genuinely crap performance of music... wow, its just torture.

Sometimes we are in love with the beauty of the sound which is all very cool but without music the destination is something of an empty village. Great music live or at home is a goal and a different one to great sound be it at home or live. So to evaluate ultimately maybe its not about individual criteria but simply does the Chopin you hear live remind you of the Chopin you hear at home. The spirit of great music and great musicians can potentially be captured in either scenario and all the various things we measure against like sounding live just help us along the way but aren't I believe ends in themselves.

I do believe sometimes we spend way too many hours and also easily way too many dollars chasing very specific aspects of sound that so easily can just be out of context artefacts only partially connected to our original goal (if it is to experience music) and then along the way just lose touch with the best aspects of a simple musical experience. So perhaps that it sounds live is not the goal either but rather that there is no longer any separation at all between you and music and that ultimately is the shared goal of both live and replayed music.

spiritofmusic said:
I know this subject crops up every so often, I don't have any clever views, just another perspective
But it's a topic always worth garnering opinions on
In London I didn't get out to much live classical music, but w my recent move to The Sticks has opened up my opportunities
I'm attending a fortnight festival half a dozen times, will go on to at least a weekly concert thereafter
On Monday saw an Oboe Group (2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons, 2 Tailles, period instruments) playing Philidor and Purcell amongst others in a beautiful old building (part Norman/gothic) sympathetic acoustic, and then piano recital in the big Minster, slightly harder very reverberant space, program incl Chopin, Schumann and Tchaikovsky
None of this was my usual music of choice, but it was 200% super enjoyable
What I take away from my comparison to music played at home, a sound I'm totally happy with
First, live unamplified dynamics are just plain scary! In a domestic like environment 50x25x20 w plenty of soft furnishings, the Oboe Group just effortlessly scaled the heights
I've never experienced any home system come even close
Acceleration from a standing start just puts all our systems to the sword
Where I felt my system could hold its head up was in the area of tonal density and timbre to some extent
My system w tubes and full range drivers, zero crossovers, makes a pretty decent stab at replicating what I heard from the Oboe Group ie a texture and density I don't hear from more tipped up, treble spotlit uber resolution super brand systems (no names, no criticism)
I remain totally vindicated my choices here are proven to be good ones by what I heard
Also the other conclusions are that despite a superficial similarity to hi Rez digital, live classical IMHO more analogous to the best vinyl replay, esp in the areas of tone, timbre, density, flow and energy
And no doubt the absence of listening thru the mic feed a couple of generations down from the master reveals the massive bottleneck on dynamics, energy and flow we put up w at home
To hear such unrestricted flooding of the space w energy and dense information gives real pause for thought in the comparison to what we experience at home
Just my two cents

spiritofmusic · Jul 20, 2017

Just returned from a really enjoyable gig, a small intimate concert hall with a projection of the world's first horror film "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari", 1920 silent film w live accompaniment by revered silent film soundtrack specialist group MinimaMusic, a kind of electronica/chamber music mash up
Now, this wasn't strictly unamplified, but a far leap away from an overamped rock gig
Sound balance of drums, tympani, dulcimer, percussion, cello, bass, guitar and keyboards was really superb, w no instruments over dominating and excellent definition and texture
So this brings me to a big curiosity I have about live classical, that this gig and tbh all others haven't answered
I'm always hearing about soundstage at live music
But other than left to right width, I remain immune to hearing depth at live music
I don't really pick up pin point imaging, and certainly no layering in the depth plane
I get some impression of instrumentation at the back of an orchestra and at the front, but certainly nothing like I hear in a stereo that images and stages well
Yet all I hear from those proponents of live classical as an education for what to look for in a home stereo always seem to emphasise staging, imaging and depth layering
After many years of listening live, both unamplified and amplified, I'm no closer to picking these traits up, and so my comparison to home audio never comes to anything
Now, tone, timbre, density, energy, flow, and scary dynamics, I hear these in spades live, and certainly did today
But imaging, staging and depth I remain mainly immune too
Btw, the gig really was enjoyable
The MinimaMusic guys really produced a stunning combination of avantgarde/electronica/chamber/brooding mood music, and the fact it was a totally original composition made just for this film, and played in real time alongside its projection, made for a once in a lifetime experience

spiritofmusic · Jul 20, 2017

Tao, a dozen more gigs to go, incl an evening of harpsichord and Beethoven Eroica to close the festival
And off I go to at least one live classical or jazz gig a week
Rock, I've had my fill, from awful acoustics at O2 and Wembley, to soul destroying ticket touts/scalpers and resellers
So, I'm just loving the low key, easy acoustics alternative of live music another way
Loved MinimaMusic today, and I'll travel to hear them at other silent film gigs as often as I can
Any guys who can state Bartok, Bach, Stravinsky, Copland, Varese, King Crimson, Magma, etc, as influences, are heroes in my book
Re yr thoughts, you're spot on in all you say
For me, it's confirmed that any pretension to even trying to emulate live dynamics at home is destined to fail
When simple wire brushwork on snare drum is super present in the concert hall, and is a background artifact played at home, we don't stand a chance
Maybe Cessaro Gammas or triamped Apogee Full Ranges at 110dB plus might try to get there, but even here my guess is you'd hear pixelation of the space
In the concert hall, the very air is dense w energy, everyone present is trapped in the moment
At home, the music is still "presented" to you
No, for me the home audio experience needs to somehow emulate the tone and timbre of live music, and here I do believe many uber pricey high end systems that present hyper resolution tipped up in the treble band are missing the point of live, where the realism is in the tone density, timbral differentiation, and centre of gravity towards the darker/lower midrange
Having got a lot of this myself, my remaining holy grail is to try and reduce noise flr as much more as I can

Kal Rubinson · Jul 20, 2017

spiritofmusic said:
Well, that's the rub
Not all 2ch responds to MCH processing

Not all 2ch responds to this MCH processing. There are many ways to reprocess 2channel to MCH and they are like condiments. Some work better and some worse depending on what the dish is.

Al M. · Jul 20, 2017

the sound of Tao said:
Great to see you getting out and enjoying classical music Marc. Schumann and Chopin, now there's some real piano music for you, hope they were good performances.

In your topic heading there lies the the core of an issue that I think might be very fundamental to the way we evaluate our system's performance anyway.

To compare live music with home audio isn't actually a direct correlation and the phrasing of the heading is still quite revealing and I believe a valuable point to explore. Not playing semantics at all (well maybe I am) but this is part of the dilemma we all face. I believe it is easy to spend a lot of time evaluating our systems on how they sound and trap ourselves into a way of listening rather than just simply reflecting on how our gear allows us to experience music. Listening wholly rather than dissecting into part.

Maybe a more direct and whole comparison is just how we compare the direct experience music performed live against our experience of music as recorded and replayed at home. This could also be a really useful criteria to use to evaluate where we are at if our goal is in our experiencing music rather than listening to sounds.

Not that there is fundamentally anything wrong with tuning our setups on sonic criteria but if that is all we do I believe it is just a step in our journey towards experiencing the music.

Not to say that therefore we are at all ultimately missing the mark in our pursuit. The lure of the connection to musical experience will I believe always call us back eventually to music as it is ever seductive like a siren and will ultimately do it's best to lead us back to it's source and along the way crash our boats upon the rocks of crazy arsed spends, audio misdirections and big fat luscious power cables... sigh, gear, so pretty, but still music so elusive when we just fill up our rooms and lives with the messy maya of wrong things... and when the lure of the music isn't obvious we stress and start pulling apart our sound.

To each our own reality tunnel... some validly see audio as a pursuit to recreate sound and some see it is a way to purely experience music and then many of us see it as both. So this sets the criteria that we need to identify when trying to evaluate the effectiveness of our systems.

How many burnt out and jaded audiophiles have we encountered along the way who get hooked on a specific sound effect and chase it relentlessly without realising that they stopped listening for music and just always hear that specific artefact. It could be lower noise floor, more detail, greater extension, less glare, the list goes on and all these things are fascinating dragons to chase but if we spend all our time focussing on a small list of individual benchmarks we can easily forget about the simple quality of musical connection. If music is the alpha and the omega then the goal is easier to evaluate, every now and then I ask simply myself what music I am enjoying. This is (for me at least) the ultimate review of the ultimate success or otherwise of my system.

But comparing a direct experience of music to a replayed one at home is never going to be on par in terms of the phenomena. The experience of music live and direct has not just the experience of sound, but also the feel and sights of place and shared moments with player and audience alike that cannot be replayed and exist only in one moment. There is the expectation before experience, the buying the tickets, making your way to the venue, the buzz of the crowd before the music begins. All this colours the experience of the music itself. We are always bouncing between retention, experience and antiiiiiiciiiipation. All this makes the ritual of live experience and this kind of direct connection to the source of music as something waaaaay beyond just only the experience of the sound of the music, and yet the sound alone is mostly all we replay at home.

And then we break things into parts to evaluate. These individual goals can easily become misdirections in the path..., things like dynamics are relative, we hopefully don't all sit at home listening at realistically original sound levels if we at all hope to keep our hearing, our significant others and our neighbours in a happy place... yet without hitting the full db of a large orchestral experience we can still get the impression of dynamics sufficient to allow us to experience the emotions that the varying range of sound level creates in our experience of music. This is where the artefacts of compression can make us feel like our much quieter replay level at home is still loud enough.

Resolution... now there's a tantalising goal but its just so easy to confuse extra detail for more truth. We've all heard systems where the detail is beyond the real... the hyper real that is an addictive buzz like plunging down three double short blacks or injecting some risstrettos in a crazy caffeinated hit.

Sometimes I think we should occasionally drop the individual sonic criteria of audio and replace it with just ultimate musical value. Does the live experience connect us to the music better than the experience of music at home and perhaps the answer to that is not always. Sometimes in the solitude and quiet and familiarity of our listening rooms we can also connect just as deeply to the music if not the complete sensations of the sound or the multi layered experiences of live.

We can always evaluate in terms of both the quality of the experience of the sound and the quality of the experience of the music. I've come to believe great audio is a step towards experiencing great music but great music is still accessible even when replayed through even relatively OK audio... and that more importantly OK music however is just not worth listening to when there is so much great music out there. If I had to choose between sitting listening to great gear with an ordinary selection of music or even a live experience of then poorly played music rather than playing great music through relatively ordinary gear I'd definitely choose the latter. In the end, great music live or replayed at home trumps all.

Yes, and how many times has someone tried to show you how great their setup sounds and then just put on genuinely crap performance of music... wow, its just torture.

Sometimes we are in love with the beauty of the sound which is all very cool but without music the destination is something of an empty village. Great music live or at home is a goal and a different one to great sound be it at home or live. So to evaluate ultimately maybe its not about individual criteria but simply does the Chopin you hear live remind you of the Chopin you hear at home. The spirit of great music and great musicians can potentially be captured in either scenario and all the various things we measure against like sounding live just help us along the way but aren't I believe ends in themselves.

I do believe sometimes we spend way too many hours and also easily way too many dollars chasing very specific aspects of sound that so easily can just be out of context artefacts only partially connected to our original goal (if it is to experience music) and then along the way just lose touch with the best aspects of a simple musical experience. So perhaps that it sounds live is not the goal either but rather that there is no longer any separation at all between you and music and that ultimately is the shared goal of both live and replayed music.

Truly outstanding post, Sound of Tao. A joy to read, and it contains so much truth.

Al M. · Jul 20, 2017

Mike Lavigne said:
my position is that the promise/tease of multi-channel is formidable. and I respect that you and a few others have embraced it for where it's at. but it's existing off of a format (5.1 SACD) which while very, very, good still comes up short of high level 2 channel vinyl performance after my considerable personal experience and investment in multi-channel sacd including building a room optimized for it. so my comments have some effort behind them.

Many 2-channel systems do not properly energize the room. As a result, the soundstage is experienced as an image that you "look at", something that is not immersive but rather, somewhat detached in front of you -- something "happening over there", rather than something that fully reaches and involves you. I suspect that primarily in those cases multi-channel will be experienced as a large step forward. Yet once your 2-channel system, aided by proper component selection, speaker/listening position set-up, and possibly room treatment, provides a fully immersive experience where the instruments are still located with their proper size within a spatially deep soundstage, yet their sound robustly propagates forward towards you and energizes the entire room -- as live sound often energizes the venue -- , then I assume multi-channel will less likely be seen as providing a substantial additive advantage.

And in terms of tone and timbral resolution, fully optimized 2-channel reproduction will not be easy to beat by multi-channel.

cjfrbw · Jul 20, 2017

PeterA said:
I guess I don't really understand how you do this with your SME turntable. Do you mostly listen to digital Multi Channel and does it sound better/more realistic than your 2 channel vinyl? If you don't like squiggling with your cartridge, IMO, you are not optimizing your vinyl setup and hearing its full potential.

I DO use MCH for vinyl with Yamaha Surround system 8.4 as well as with digital sources. MCH is great with vinyl, but no center channel, thank you. The front two channels with vinyl are all analog, the surrounds and bass management are digital. The vinyl analog signal is sent back to the digital setup for processing of bass/surrounds.

Most guys who hear it don't even know the surrounds are on or even ask, they think those are just for the home theater because my audio/home theater are combined. They have sometimes asked if the center channel is on, which it is NOT for audio sources.

The main comments are that it is immersive and involving, and that's pretty complimentary. I want it to make me curious always about what comes next until I am in an audio trance that takes conscious effort to break.

I can also listen to it at a couple of levels, and I sometimes do with enjoyment: a. two channel crossover-less single panels with one amp, sounds great with 26 tube driver and Yamaha B2 Vintage VFET amp. b. Full fledged two channel three way active crossover with all ribbons engaged without subs or bass management of surrounds, sounds better and is also enjoyable, but in some ways the crossover-less panels still have their own charm. c. Same as b., but with four channel active crossover and subwoofers/ bass management d. Full bore system in 8.4 configuration with surrounds.

All configurations sound "good" and are eminently listenable, but "d" is the one that sounds most "real" and generally kickass. Peeling off the layers is to taste, but I mostly listen in full 8.4 for vinyl and all sources. Is vinyl better with this MCH setup. I certainly think so. I think the vinyl and MCH enhance each other very well.

Believe me, I have done my share of squiggling with turntables and cartridges.

Roxy Theater or Amsterdam Concertgebouw, anyone?

Kal Rubinson · Jul 20, 2017

Al M. said:
Many 2-channel systems do not properly energize the room. As a result, the soundstage is experienced as an image that you "look at", something that is not immersive but rather, somewhat detached in front of you -- something "happening over there", rather than something that fully reaches and involves you. I suspect that primarily in those cases multi-channel will be experienced as a large step forward. Yet once your 2-channel system, aided by proper component selection, speaker/listening position set-up, and possibly room treatment, provides a fully immersive experience where the instruments are still located with their proper size within a spatially deep soundstage, yet their sound robustly propagates forward towards you and energizes the entire room -- as live sound often energizes the venue -- , then I assume multi-channel will less likely be seen as providing a substantial additive advantage.

The fundamental flaw in comparing what you are describing to true multichannel is that your room is creating and filtering the surround information and, thus, cannot be different in how it deals with the different performance venues on different recordings.

Al M. · Jul 20, 2017

Kal Rubinson said:
The fundamental flaw in comparing what you are describing to true multichannel is that your room is creating and filtering the surround information and, thus, cannot be different in how it deals with the different performance venues on different recordings.

I understand the logic of your argument, but in practice that is less of a concern than theoretically it seems to be. My system can easily distinguish between different performance venues and how they are portrayed in the recording process (getting rid of unwanted room reflections by acoustic room treatment has made the sound signature of the room itself much more disappear). I assume others with a properly projecting 2-channel set-up will report a similar experience.

Al M. · Jul 20, 2017

I am not claiming, BTW, that even the best 2-channel set-up can compete in all aspects of spatial portrayal with a great multi-channel system. However, the gulf between the 2-channel and multi-channel experience will be much greater if the 2-channel system just does not manage to properly project out into the room as I descibed before and as unfortunately it often seems to be the case.

Kal Rubinson · Jul 20, 2017

Al M. said:
I understand the logic of your argument, but in practice that is less of a concern than theoretically it seems to be. My system can easily distinguish between different performance venues and how they are portrayed in the recording process (getting rid of unwanted room reflections by acoustic room treatment has made the sound signature of the room itself much more disappear).

You may believe so (and I cannot deny it) but I would not presume it.

Al M. said:
I am not claiming, BTW, that even the best 2-channel set-up can compete in all aspects of spatial portrayal with a great multi-channel system. However, the gulf between the 2-channel and multi-channel experience will be much greater if the 2-channel system just does not manage to properly project out into the room as I descibed before and as unfortunately it often seems to be the case.

Sure.

bonzo75 · Jul 21, 2017

cjfrbw said:
I DO use MCH for vinyl with Yamaha Surround system 9.4 as well as with digital sources. MCH is great with vinyl, but no center channel, thank you. The front two channels with vinyl are all analog, the surrounds and bass management are digital. The vinyl analog signal is sent back to the digital setup for processing of bass/surrounds.

Most guys who hear it don't even know the surrounds are on or even ask, they think those are just for the home theater because my audio/home theater are combined. They have sometimes asked if the center channel is on, which it is NOT for audio sources.

The main comments are that it is immersive and involving, and that's pretty complimentary. I want it to make me curious always about what comes next until I am in an audio trance that takes conscious effort to break.

I can also listen to it at a couple of levels, and I sometimes do with enjoyment: a. two channel crossover-less single panels with one amp, sounds great with 26 tube driver and Yamaha B2 Vintage VFET amp. b. Full fledged two channel three way active crossover with all ribbons engaged without subs or bass management of surrounds, sounds better and is also enjoyable, but in some ways the crossover-less panels still have their own charm. c. Same as b., but with four channel active crossover and subwoofers/ bass management d. Full bore system in 9.4 configuration with surrounds.

All configurations sound "good" and are eminently listenable, but "d" is the one that sounds most "real" and generally kickass. Peeling off the layers is to taste, but I mostly listen in full 9.4 for vinyl and all sources. Is vinyl better with this MCH setup. I certainly think so. I think the vinyl and MCH enhance each other very well.

Believe me, I have done my share of squiggling with turntables and cartridges.

Roxy Theater or Amsterdam Concertgebouw, anyone?

Extremely interesting. There seems to be someone near Seattle or San Diego who has a 6 channel apogee system (no center). Not sure if you know him

spiritofmusic · Jul 21, 2017

Can someone please explain what's probably a very simple concept ?
One hears a band play live in concert (a hall v listening room)
The band is in front of you (just as our spkrs are)
The sound is fired at us (just as at home)
But the big difference is that audiophilia strives to control reflections and have the driest acoustic possible, whereas the live experience makes the most of the hall, no matter how complex, or large it is
And then the MCH proponents attempt to add it all back in
How come there's such a dichotomy, w all the top systems and rooms looking to tame reflections, the live experience made visceral by the totality of reverberance?
I ask because I recently listened to a pair of Apogee Divas in a 20x40x15 room, and it was damped to the hilt to try and make it sound good, and kinda fail, fast forward to a few days ago where in a 30x40x20 room, totally untreated and undamped, I heard the Oboe Group soar and conquer

bonzo75 · Jul 21, 2017

I think to sort these queries Mike needs to get a MM7 for the center with a 458 mono, and two MM3 with 108 for rear. Or all 458 and MM7

spiritofmusic · Jul 21, 2017

Yep Ked, I've tried to spend his money in the past too
I don't think his wife is too happy w the concept

morricab · Jul 21, 2017

spiritofmusic said:
Can someone please explain what's probably a very simple concept ?
One hears a band play live in concert (a hall v listening room)
The band is in front of you (just as our spkrs are)
The sound is fired at us (just as at home)
But the big difference is that audiophilia strives to control reflections and have the driest acoustic possible, whereas the live experience makes the most of the hall, no matter how complex, or large it is
And then the MCH proponents attempt to add it all back in
How come there's such a dichotomy, w all the top systems and rooms looking to tame reflections, the live experience made visceral by the totality of reverberance?
I ask because I recently listened to a pair of Apogee Divas in a 20x40x15 room, and it was damped to the hilt to try and make it sound good, and kinda fail, fast forward to a few days ago where in a 30x40x20 room, totally untreated and undamped, I heard the Oboe Group soar and conquer

You have two sets of ambient acoustic: That which is on the recording and that which is generated, in situ, from your listening room. In two channel audio, you are often (not always...take Apogees and other big planars for example) trying to minimize the impact from your room acoustic superimposing upon the acoustic space in a recording. Big Planars do minimize side wall, ceiling and floor reflections but they do give you a large wall reflection from behind them. This adds to the sense of spaciousness because of the time delay but doesn't usually alter the tonal balance too much. Minimizing side walls is really great for image specificity and ceiling and floor bounce elimination helps with maintaining and even frequency response (I got +-2 db in room with my Acoustats from 200-12000Hz).

Multichannel spreads the recorded acoustic around the room in an attempt to simulate a larger listening environement...like a concert hall. Of course your room acoustic will interfere here as well but perhaps it is more swamped now by more active steering of the amibence signal. I personally have yet to hear a really convincing multi-channel setup so color me skeptical on this approach.

I did an interesting experiment some years ago. I had my ex- playing her violin right in between my 8 foot + tall Acoustats, while I was recording it to a R2R analog deck (1970s TEAC machine) in two channel mono (I had only 1 working microphone so I split the signal to both channels). The result is very enlightening. I had a very dry acoustic in my room and so the playback, which very dynamic and present, is very dry sounding with a quick decay of notes. This was great for practice (as she wanted to hear what she was doing) as fingering and bowing are quite explicit but it is not the beautiful lush tone we hear in a big hall. When I played this back in my own room it was too much because I essentially was hearing my room's acoustic...twice. Dry on dry became pretty wiry and sharp. In other rooms with a different acoustic signature the sound of this recording was easier to live with and in some cases it was downright spooky with the presence it delivered. My room and Acoustats were great for hearing deep into the acoustic space that was on a recording and how musicians were placed upon that virtual stage. This is one area where my horns are not as good...perhaps if they were dipole horns it would be another story...that back wave makes a difference in ambience generation I think.

Live unamplified music v home audio, another thread/perspective

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