Invisible speakers?

fas42 · Jan 15, 2011

Okay, a straightforward one ...

As the title says, who has speakers that have disappeared, and why do you think so? If possible, as a special treat for all, tell us where do you think they've gone

?

Frank

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 15, 2011

fas42 said:
Okay, a straightforward one ...

As the title says, who has speakers that have disappeared, and why do you think so? If possible, as a special treat for all, tell us where do you think they've gone?

Frank

The door was broken off the hinges so I assume.....

Just kidding. What do you mean by invisible speakers? To get any kind of accurate response, that's going to require some defining. Here's my definition:

When you close your eyes and listen you can't tell where they are....no, that doesn't work. I know where they are, so there's too much psychology involved.

There are instruments and voices in a field between and maybe even beyond the speakers, they don't seem to coming from the speakers exclusively...probably not good enough, even more psychology involved. OK, this one works because it is so hard to make your brain do it for you --

Play something that is well recorded in mono. close your eyes and hit play, if you're using box speakers (not dipoles or bipoles, they disappear differently) the sound stage should collapse toward the center. Your speakers should actually disappear, replaced by a single center channel speaker.

And yes, mine do this. Where did they go? They went into good, quiet components. They went into excellent channel separation. They went into excess headroom. They went into superb driver control. They went into careful room placement.

Tim

tony ky ma · Jan 15, 2011

fas42 said:
Okay, a straightforward one ...

As the title says, who has speakers that have disappeared, and why do you think so? If possible, as a special treat for all, tell us where do you think they've gone ?

Frank

Hi Frank
It is possible, we detect the direction of the sound by two ears and eyes and brain since from baby, the difference timing by the ears distance by eyes and memory in brain, stereo system, speakers provide delusion timing let your memory tell you the image is not in the speakers
tony ma

amirm · Jan 15, 2011

Well, I have an easy solution to this. We sell architectural speakers from a company called Amina: http://www.aminatechnologies.com/

You literally mud and paint the speaker to look like drywall. So even if you wanted to see them, you could not!

We put JBL Synthesis DSPs in front of them to get them to sound good though. And no, they are not audiophile speakers.

JackD201 · Jan 15, 2011

Mine do completely in mono. Some panned instruments in stereo, come out of the speakers rendering them "visible".

es347 · Jan 15, 2011

I had a pair of speakers disappear when I was in college...along with a TT and receiver.

fas42 · Jan 15, 2011

Yes, apart from the ones that that toodled off down the hallway, it's interesting that no-one yet has stated they have achieved the invisibility that has been got by some.

Tim, in your case you state the mono images collapse to a phantom center speaker. So you've never had a stereo recording where if you were to look at the left speaker, the image of one instrument would be to the left of the that speaker and the image of another would be just to the right of that speaker and left of the centre?

we detect the direction of the sound by two ears and eyes and brain since from baby, the difference timing by the ears distance by eyes and memory in brain, stereo system, speakers provide delusion timing let your memory tell you the image is not in the speakers

tony, I agree with you entirely. That is the mental trick the brain can do: the knowing where the sound is coming from is overriden by the strength of the information coming from the ear/brain. The key word in that is strength: if the message is feeble then the illusion is also feeble. Hence the need for the audio system to work to a very high level so that the illusion always works -- this is the "clean" electronics we just mentioned ...

(not dipoles or bipoles, they disappear differently)

I have very little experience of such. In what way do they disappear differently?

My version of disappearing is that under all circumstances you can't pinpoint that the sound is coming from the speaker drivers, no matter where you are in the room or how close to the speakers you get. This is EXTREMELY difficult to achieve, and only happens when absolutely everything is working correctly. Going back to my response to the comment by tony, we have to help our ear/brains as much as we possibly can, by feeding them with the most detailed, least distorted information that we can. Hence the need for "clean" electronics ...

The McGurk effect is a simple example of this sort of thing, that your ears and brain CAN override what you KNOW is not correct ...

Frank

mep · Jan 15, 2011

I don't think that in normal stereo recordings that your speakers ever disappear entirely. Sure, you will hear all sorts of sounds in all sorts of places your speakers aren't, but you will hear sound from the speakers themselves unless you hearing a true mono recording.

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 15, 2011

Tim, in your case you state the mono images collapse to a phantom center speaker. So you've never had a stereo recording where if you were to look at the left speaker, the image of one instrument would be to the left of the that speaker and the image of another would be just to the right of that speaker and left of the centre?

Sure, that happens all the time, I just gave you the most dramatic example. No matter how good the imaging is, with your eyes open it's easy to imagine music coming from the left and right coming from those speakers on the left and right. But with that phantom center speaker in mono, the speakers, playing right there before your eyes, seem to go silent. It's quite an effect.

I have very little experience of such. In what way do they disappear differently?

Omni directional speakers have very broad dispersion by nature. They don't pinpoint image like a box speaker can and they won't create a phantom center. Mono will be spread out across the front of the room. Actually makes them a little better for mono.

Tim

Robert · Jan 15, 2011

I have heard a couple speakers that totally disappear, to reveal a totally dissociated soundstage deep behind the speakers and beyond the boundaries of the room. Avalons do that. Magico also does that. There are more brands, but I do not have personal experience.

Most speakers present a 2D stage between the speakers and slightly beyond the lateral edge.

It's a matter of personal preference. Many non-classical recordings are 2D in their perspective. These speakers can be quite finicky.

fas42 · Jan 15, 2011

mep, when you say you hear sound from the speakers, do you mean that in the sense that in the recording the instrument just happened be localised exactly where the speaker is, or that you can hear the speaker driver working? Those are two very different things!

Frank

fas42 · Jan 15, 2011

That, Robert, is exactly what I am talking about! I will now be controversial, and claim that all speakers are potentially capable of that. The Avalons and Magicos, etc, can do it, because so much effort and expense has been put into them to eradicate weaknesses and to maximise their potential for adding to the illusion, even when they are hooked up to less than optimum setups.

A car analogy: an ordinary sedan, you put on extremely high performance tyres, all of a sudden you can go around corners faster. However, if you were to engineer the whole car for good cornering ("synergy" -- ta da!), the overall capabilities of the vehicle would be so much better again, even if the tyres weren't all that special.

Frank

fas42 · Jan 15, 2011

They (dipoles) don't pinpoint image like a box speaker can and they won't create a phantom center. Mono will be spread out across the front of the room

Yet some say that particular speakers do both; Quad's come to mind. My take is, that the way the treble component is projected from the drivers is the key to their sound. If you were to limit such a speaker to low treble and below only, and use a high quality dome tweeter for the rest of the treble, the sound would revert back to that of a box speaker.

Frank

microstrip · Jan 15, 2011

fas42 said:
Okay, a straightforward one ...

As the title says, who has speakers that have disappeared, and why do you think so? If possible, as a special treat for all, tell us where do you think they've gone ?

Frank

I will assume that you are referring to speakers you can not year (!) in the sense you can not locate from the sound comes for and have good imaging capabilities.

I have seen many systems with this property, but it is not only a property of the speakers - for example if you change a component in the system, you can kill this effect.

Used in convenient systems (I am avoiding the word synergistic as is usually triggers many off-topic posts... ) some speakers, such as the Quad ESL63, the MBL 101, some Wilson Audio's or the The Sonus Faber can create an holographic sound stage so solid that it seems that the speakers are not in place. This effect is recording dependent and my speaker list is just a few examples that I have direct experience with and I am remembering now.

IMHO any good high end system should have this invisibility - some have more of it others less.

mep · Jan 15, 2011

fas42 said:
mep, when you say you hear sound from the speakers, do you mean that in the sense that in the recording the instrument just happened be localised exactly where the speaker is, or that you can hear the speaker driver working? Those are two very different things!

Frank

Good question. It probably is the instrument is located there, but it still draws your attention to that speaker.

tony ky ma · Jan 15, 2011

tony, I agree with you entirely. That is the mental trick the brain can do: the knowing where the sound is coming from is overriden by the strength of the information coming from the ear/brain. The key word in that is strength: if the message is feeble then the illusion is also feeble. Hence the need for the audio system to work to a very high level so that the illusion always works -- this is the "clean" electronics we just mentioned ...

Frank, take this simple checking, turn volume control, high and low to see can the sound stage feel move close to you and move a way, is not only sound get louder or lower, if you can feel like that , means your system's set up OK the speakers is invisible
tony ma

muralman1 · Jan 15, 2011

I know the Apogee Scintilla is a prime example. I think that any speaker that does not reveal itself as making the music is invisible. My first listen to a Scintilla had me doing a walkabout all around the big listening room, and in the end, was dead certain the weird panels were not making the music.

JackD201 · Jan 16, 2011

tomelex said:
Hi Frank, I have been enjoying your posts, nice to have you aboard.

Not only have I never heard this but theoretically with plain old stereo it is not even possible.

Tom

I agree. If the sound is panned dominantly where the speaker is, that's where you'll look. If the speaker shifts that image's position, there's something wrong not right.

fas42 · Jan 16, 2011

Tom, thanks for the kind words ...

Not only have I never heard this but theoretically with plain old stereo it is not even possible.

When I was first playing around in this audio game many, many years ago I would said exactly that too! When CD first started to sound reasonable I got together a very simplified setup of pretty good components, as I have mentioned earlier; started tweaking like mad and got the shock of my life when this effect occurred. I certainly didn't understand it, found it very hard to sustain, but certainly knew I wanted it to always be around!

I am at a point now where I feel I have a pretty good handle on this phenomenon, and I have been giving the clues away over and over again in my posts. As muralman1 has said many times in his posts you have to work very diligently at it, but he has been enjoying the benefits of tweaking to this degree in his setup for some time.

Frank

fas42 · Jan 16, 2011

turn volume control, high and low to see can the sound stage feel move close to you and move a way

tony, that probably works in the sense of being equivalent to moving towards or away from a live musical event. Personally, I find the easiest technique is to listen as close as possible to the treble driver. If you can't hear it, as in the sense that if you were to close your eyes, and somebody move your head around a bit, that you would not be able to point your finger at the tweeter accurately, then the speaker is truly invisible. Any "harsh" recording is a giveaway when things are not right, the driver spits at you like a wounded cat!

Frank

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