Real vs. Artificial Depth of Soundstage

[edorr]

The reason the overwhelming majority of audiophiles don't listen to music with an HT system is that they feel they are less accurate than a 2 channel stereo system. HT is very similar to the failed quadraphonic technology of the 1970s. Seeing performers or videos of them may add synergistically to hearing a recording but when you close your eyes, it's clear to most audiophiles that what they're getting is not particularly convincing sound, in fact not as good as 2 channel reproduction.

Absolutely incorrect. There are two reasons many audiophiles stay away from multi channel. First, there is limited content. The second is related to the first. TO do MCH right you need to invest substantially in center, surrounds and subs. Why spend 10s of thoudsands on channels when only a fraction of your favorite content is available in this format.

Otherwise, MCH done right beats 2 channel hands down. Try one of the 2L nordic sound recordings in 2 channel and MCH. There is no comparison.

 

[Robh3606]

The reason the overwhelming majority of audiophiles don't listen to music with an HT system is that they feel they are less accurate than a 2 channel stereo system. HT is very similar to the failed quadraphonic technology of the 1970s.

Hello Soundmind

Comparing a discrete lossless Blueray 5.1 system to a matrixed Quad system is like comparing apples and oranges. The technology is not even close. What we have today is leaps and bounds better.

Seeing performers or videos of them may add synergistically to hearing a recording but when you close your eyes, it's clear to most audiophiles that what they're getting is not particularly convincing sound, in fact not as good as 2 channel reproduction.

Well yeah with lossy formats that certainly is possible not with the new lossless formats. Do you even have an HT set-up to base your opinion on??

Rob

 

[Bill Hart]

I used to extract rear channels using old Quads in the front, it was a gorgeous sounding system on the right material.
I do have a big theatre system that I've used over the years, Meridian, then McIntosh processor, big woofers front and rear, etc. You can get that thing to really rock out.
But, I'm pretty happy with my vinyl only two channel system for music.
And, soundstage depth is one attribute, there are lot's of others too. I'm a nut for grainless, open midrange. I've got great 'tone,' and huge dynamics, along with a very 'in the room' sound, so focusing on 'imaging' or 'depth of soundstage' is only one factor of many.

 

[NorthStar]

-- Depth of Soundstage; isn't it a combination of quality music recordings first, then quality loudspeakers (with drivers and crossovers), and finally positioning of them speakers in that room, in regard to the main listener?

...Then quality electronics; sources, preamplification, and amplification.

 

[NorthStar]

At a live concert most of the performers are approximately the same distance give or take 15 or 20 feet or so from any one seat in most of the audience. All of the musicians should therefore seem approximately the same distance away. The further they seem at a given loudness, the more powerful they are perceived to be. In fact it increases with the square of the distance. This is why I think imaging is so important to many people. At a concert, most of the audience is anywhere from about 20 or 30 feet away from the musicians to as much as a hundred feet or more. In a cathedral it can be even greater. But when all of the reverberant sound comes from the same direction as the source, it sounds like they're inside the Holland Tunnel and you are on the outside. In a large reverberant room you are surrounded by reflections, they come at you from all directions in rapid succession. In a stereo sound system they come from a narrow angle in front of you, the same direction as the players. In a surround sound system they may come from all around you but so do the instruments. With binaural recordings it all comes from inside your head. None of these systems work.

flez007"I have some friends that place tonality well over soundstaging in their systems and preferences"

Unfortunately you cannot duplicate the tonality of musical instruments heard at a live venue unless you duplicate the reverberation as well. This is because as the sound dies out, the higher harmonics die out faster (about twice as fast by 8khz) as the fundamental and lower harmonics. This alters the perceived tone.

---- Good point here, regarding 'Reverberation', that can confuse and also contribute to depth's perception.

 

[NorthStar]

-- Another thing too; any kind of distortion kills depth.
In a loudspeaker, enclosure's resonances (amplitudes) and construction, and drivers' interactions plus their back waves; affect depth's quality for a given set of measures.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Of course the simple answer to the simple question is it's all artificial. Neither stereo nor multi channel place instruments at different distances from your listening position. Multi channel has a much better chance of creating a more realistic rendering of the reverb characteristics of the room. A more realistic presentation of a "sound stage?" Not really. Not the way I'd define that term, which is the reproduction of the original placement of instruments, and their reverberant fields, in a listening space. We do not have the technology to do that; not even scaled down for the space. We don't record for it. We don't design playback for it. Doesn't keep people from hearing it, though.

Tim

 

[NorthStar]

-- I disagree Tim; some music recordings (Mercury 'Living Presence', RCA Victor 'Living Stereo', ...) have excellent realistic 'depth of soundstage' quality recorded onto them.
I guess some recording engineers of yesterday knew stuff better than the new generations of recording engineers.
...Except from some great recording studios like ECM in Norway for example.

 

[Robh3606]

I disagree Tim; some music recordings (Mercury 'Living Presence', RCA Victor 'Living Stereo', ...) have excellent realistic 'depth of soundstage' quality recorded onto them.

Hello Northstar

Yes but what you may be missing is hearing them in the 3 channel format some were originally recorded in. I agree they do sound very good in stereo but when you compare stereo to the 3 channel format the latter will drop your jaw. Much better than stereo.

Rob

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Hello Northstar

Yes but what you may be missing is hearing them in the 3 channel format some were originally recorded in. I agree they do sound very good in stereo but when you compare stereo to the 3 channel format the latter will drop your jaw. Much better than stereo.

Rob

depends on the stereo and room.

 

[NorthStar]

Hello Northstar

Yes but what you may be missing is hearing them in the 3 channel format some were originally recorded in. I agree they do sound very good in stereo but when you compare stereo to the 3 channel format the latter will drop your jaw. Much better than stereo.

Rob

---- Hi Rob,

I did not forget, I simply did not mention it. In fact I do have a bunch of those 3-channel SACD music recordings. :b

* Call me Bob, it's shorter to type. :b

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

-- I disagree Tim; some music recordings (Mercury 'Living Presence', RCA Victor 'Living Stereo', ...) have excellent realistic 'depth of soundstage' quality recorded onto them.
I guess some recording engineers of yesterday knew stuff better than the new generations of recording engineers.
...Except from some great recording studios like ECM in Norway for example.

Some do sound wonderful, but I've got you on a technicality, Bob. As long as you don't have a channel/speaker for each instrument, placed appropriately in the ensemble and projecting appropriately for the instrument, it's artificial. It can be really good, but it's still the relative volume of the instruments in the mix and the reverb cues (usually artificial) creating an illusion of depth where there is none. In stereo, the source of all the instruments is in the same plane at the same distance from the listener, front to back. Can't record or even spend your way out of that one.

Tim

 

[edorr]

Some do sound wonderful, but I've got you on a technicality, Bob. As long as you don't have a channel/speaker for each instrument, placed appropriately in the ensemble and projecting appropriately for the instrument, it's artificial. It can be really good, but it's still the relative volume of the instruments in the mix and the reverb cues (usually artificial) creating an illusion of depth where there is none. In stereo, the source of all the instruments is in the same plane at the same distance from the listener, front to back. Can't record or even spend your way out of that one.

Tim

Obviously by definition any sound reproduction system is "artificial". However, if if the sound system in the acoustic space where the reproduction takes place manage to reproduce the exact same soundwaves when they hit my eardrums as what was present in the original recording space, the artifact is similar to the original. This is of course impossible, but the discussion is about how close the artifact can get to the original. The fact that sound reproduction is and always will be "artificial" is in my view trivial and hence irrelevant.

 

[microstrip]

Some do sound wonderful, but I've got you on a technicality, Bob. As long as you don't have a channel/speaker for each instrument, placed appropriately in the ensemble and projecting appropriately for the instrument, it's artificial. It can be really good, but it's still the relative volume of the instruments in the mix and the reverb cues (usually artificial) creating an illusion of depth where there is none. In stereo, the source of all the instruments is in the same plane at the same distance from the listener, front to back. Can't record or even spend your way out of that one.

Tim

In a life performance, most of the information about relative depth of instruments in the stage comes from visual cues and I never read about anyone being disturbed by this fact. Sound engineers really do a great job to recreate the illusion of this perception using a room with an audio system using two speakers, our hears and our brain.

I have found that I often analyze two main effects associated to depth - distance and layering of image in depth. As this perceptions are associated mainly with clues it is not easy to debate them on a personal basis, and we do not have members enough in WBF to create a statistical debate. All we can is exchange our single opinions or refer to others.

 

[NorthStar]

Some do sound wonderful, but I've got you on a technicality, Bob. As long as you don't have a channel/speaker for each instrument, placed appropriately in the ensemble and projecting appropriately for the instrument, it's artificial. It can be really good, but it's still the relative volume of the instruments in the mix and the reverb cues (usually artificial) creating an illusion of depth where there is none. In stereo, the source of all the instruments is in the same plane at the same distance from the listener, front to back. Can't record or even spend your way out of that one.

Tim

---- Ok, a nice one then (illusion). :b

 

[Gregadd]

Obviously by definition any sound reproduction system is "artificial". However, if if the sound system in the acoustic space where the reproduction takes place manage to reproduce the exact same soundwaves when they hit my eardrums as what was present in the original recording space, the artifact is similar to the original. This is of course impossible, but the discussion is about how close the artifact can get to the original. The fact that sound reproduction is and always will be "artificial" is in my view trivial and hence irrelevant.

Yeah. What he said.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

---- Ok, a nice one then (illusion). :b

At times, a very nice one indeed.

Tim

 

[Soundminded]

Absolutely incorrect. There are two reasons many audiophiles stay away from multi channel. First, there is limited content. The second is related to the first. TO do MCH right you need to invest substantially in center, surrounds and subs. Why spend 10s of thoudsands on channels when only a fraction of your favorite content is available in this format.

Otherwise, MCH done right beats 2 channel hands down. Try one of the 2L nordic sound recordings in 2 channel and MCH. There is no comparison.

I don't see it your way. IMO First about limited content. There is limited content because there is limited demand. If audiophiles liked it, wanted it, there'd be a lot more of it. It isn't produced because there's no market for it. Second, considering what audiophiles spend on their equipment, how frequently many of them buy, sell, swap, trade up, owning at least one multichannel system for listening to music would not be much of a hardship. Many do own them...but use them only for HT. It's all they feel they're good for. Otherwise they'd trade up.

 

[Soundminded]

Hello Soundmind

Comparing a discrete lossless Blueray 5.1 system to a matrixed Quad system is like comparing apples and oranges. The technology is not even close. What we have today is leaps and bounds better.



Well yeah with lossy formats that certainly is possible not with the new lossless formats. Do you even have an HT set-up to base your opinion on??

Rob

About the only thing lossless blue ray has over matrix quad recordings of the 1970s is better channel separation. But there was also the RCA CD-4 system and 4 channel tape. To analogophyiles, 4 channel tape had to beat any digital format and channel separation was also excellent.

Systems of this type suffer from at least two major flaws. First there's no way to record the ambient channels without the direct sound being recorded on them at the same time. That means you'll hear the performers coming from the speakers that only the reverberant field is supposed to come from. Second, even if that wasn't a problem, in any live venue the reflected sound comes at you uniformly, diffusely from every angle in three dimensions. In a multi-channel hi fi set it comes at you intensely from only two points in space, points which if you can hear them at all can be easily identified no matter how carefully you position the speakers, yourself, and adjust the loudness of each speaker. The effect is not in any way comparable in my experience. Either of these two flaws alone (there are many others) would be fatal. Taken in combination, it hardly surprises me the market judged it a flop in the 1970s and in large measure has the same judgment today. Of course it is good for enhancing movies with planes flying overhead and trains running right through you at ear shattering room rumbling loudness. But for serious music---nah!

 

[Robh3606]

About the only thing lossless blue ray has over matrix quad recordings of the 1970s is better channel separation.

And you are basing this opinion on what?? You are really critical and you didn't answer my question. Do you have a multichannel set-up?? Anyone can read opinions on the net and post them as their own. What counts is actual experience behind those opinions.

Rob