I don't think it expensive in high end parameters to get a vertical image. Also a solid center image does not require a center channel. I do think the Ampex three channel recordings were exceptional for the most part.
What is "Sound Stage?"
- Thread starter Phelonious Ponk
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Wow, you should add clairvoyant to your profile. Good doesn't mean high priced. But no, good isn't a $200 boom box either. How's this for a basic system? Maggie 3.7s, VPI Classic (or you can add a digital front end here) and an ARC integrated amp. At about 10K.
And perhaps you should look around as there are many members that have dropped quite a bit on their audio system. Why don't you attack them too?
I insist that unless we know the way our hears and brain get the perception of the height of a sound source we are turning round between individual experiences.
As I sometimes get the perception of height from a full range electrostatic single panel speaker I could not sympathize with the driver height argument miming reality.
In the presentation Pitch, Timbre, Source Separation, and the Myths of Sound Localization David Griesinger of David Griesinger Acoustics says
(...) The sensitivity of human hearing is weighted to the frequencies of vocal formants.
These frequencies carry most of the information in speech
And they also carry most of our ability to localize sounds
Vertical localization is almost entirely above 1000Hz (...)
So, it seems that according to this author, the argument of the bass loudspeaker near the floor seems out of question.
I will go through the whole presentation when I have time - it needs more attentive reading than WBF posts,
but it seems rather interesting.
http://www.davidgriesinger.com/Acoustics_Today/Pitch,%20Timbre,%20Source%20Separation.pptx
The whole page seems very interesting, and I must confess I never heard about him before. Do you know of his work?
http://www.davidgriesinger.com/
As I sometimes get the perception of height from a full range electrostatic single panel speaker I could not sympathize with the driver height argument miming reality.
In the presentation Pitch, Timbre, Source Separation, and the Myths of Sound Localization David Griesinger of David Griesinger Acoustics says
(...) The sensitivity of human hearing is weighted to the frequencies of vocal formants.
These frequencies carry most of the information in speech
And they also carry most of our ability to localize sounds
Vertical localization is almost entirely above 1000Hz (...)
So, it seems that according to this author, the argument of the bass loudspeaker near the floor seems out of question.
I will go through the whole presentation when I have time - it needs more attentive reading than WBF posts,
but it seems rather interesting. http://www.davidgriesinger.com/Acoustics_Today/Pitch,%20Timbre,%20Source%20Separation.pptx
The whole page seems very interesting, and I must confess I never heard about him before. Do you know of his work?
http://www.davidgriesinger.com/
That sounds like Audyssey DSX with the two additional Front Width & Height speaker channels.
...That makes for a total of seven (7) front stage speakers indeed.
* But I would also add two more side/rear speakers as well, for the full and final surround envelopment. And if your room is of the larger type, make that four more surround speakers instead of just two (the side ones & the rear ones).
And with four subwoofers of course, for a full-fledged 11.4-channel surround sound system.
Talk 'bout a fulfilling soundstage in a realistic venue! For both Movies & Music as well.
_________________
I wanna add something here: since Audyssey came into my life, I learned to master its measuring technics (mic positioning) for a much better listening experience as compared to Pure Direct Audio mode (without EQ, bass management, video circuitry, and even front panel display lights).
Audyssey Correction & EQ is fantastic even for Stereo Music (LPs & R2Rs included).
--> Be it for two-channel stereo, or/and for multichannel music reproduction.
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THX introduced this multiple speaker array at CES 2011. I don't know how positive a reception it received.
http://www.thx.com/press-releases/t...and-multiple-listening-sweet-spots-in-a-room/
I feel that the home theatre speaker set-up is wasted on us audiophiles, and that people recording music for us should reapply those channels as below.
From the conventional home theatre set-up:
To moving those same speakers in front of the listener, and actually placing them laterally and vertically in order to provide exactly the information that we would like to get, and which some here claim to hear. But now with proper weight and technology behind the experience.
What I'd like here is for the speakers to be reassigned duties - the rear surrounds would be moved in front to provide the back reflections of the orchestra, as well as details from the orchestra members there, and the L and R surrounds would be used to enhance the soundstage with the lateral reflections that occur in good halls.
If you Google -- microphone "height information" -- a lot comes up, some saying that you can't get height with 2 mics, but then mentioning Soundfield, Okatava, Eiginmike, and Ambisonics, of course. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=w8kXMVKOsY0C&pg=PA262&lpg=PA262&dq=microphone+%22height+information%22&source=bl&ots=nojkGyBYVh&sig=Q3jP3MwnUu_XBeHPXb4lLbbFdMI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_TZAT-aAIMiuiQePsonSBA&ved=0CHEQ6AEwCA , The Microphone Book, by John Eargle looks interesting ...
Frank
Frank
Tim, I appreciate your honesty more than you know. Many props go to you for even acknowledging it, you are a man amongst men with this thread. Thank you.
To dispel the theory of cost in relation to height, might I entertain you with this? I have heard a pair of DCM Time Window bookies not so very long ago produce a vertical image well beyond the tops of the cabinets. It was more like 3 feet above the cabinets and very clear and precise as to where the image came from [above the fireplace mantle, slightly off to the right]. What I am referring too was the lead singer. There were other aspects of that recording that offered the same thing, though I can not recall them to precise detail months later. My apologies for that.
Thing is, my buddy purchased these speakers for $10.00 at the local Goodwill. Tim, what I'm saying here is that if it goes "there"? Just reference this post. Cost means quite a bit in this hobby, while at the same time, cost can mean jack s__t. Things are what they are.
Thanks. I listen through small two-way active monitors. They're not terribly expensive, all things considered and deliver a very similar experience -- soundstage well above the speaker cabinets and an incredibly solid field of phantom images across the horizontal plane. Not expensive. <$2k for active speakers. Add the matching sub for another $1k. Not a big rig on the scale of some here, but a very precise, satisfying listening experience in a moderate sized room for midfi dollars. I think it's a little easier to get true high-end sound at reasonable $ by going active, but it's not impossible passive either. It just takes the right stuff.
Tim
Yeah, I know how to run a Google search, and did. I was hoping you might point me to the place you saw audio engineers specifically talking about capturing height information with multiple mics, so I wouldn't have to spend an hour opening and reading hits looking for something you already seem to have found.
Tim
So I take it you didn't try the link I inserted in that post, or didn't find it worthwhile ...
Frank
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Maybe you should read a bit about this yourself, then, Frank?
Ambisonics, for instance, captures vertical data, replays same through speakers designed to recreate it - and is a system created because regular stereo can't recreate such height information.
Ambisonics, for instance, captures vertical data, replays same through speakers designed to recreate it - and is a system created because regular stereo can't recreate such height information.
Soundproof, the argument was about whether microphones could capture height information; how that information is then conveyed through to the listener is another story. The obvious technique is to use extra speakers, but it has also been mentioned that you can mix in the extra information with the normal channels to increase spaciousness. And how accurate or realistic any of these techniques are for audiophiles, rather than than just creating HT experiences, is yet again a point for debate.
Ultimately the debate is whether the phase information that creates the illusion of height can come from a single speaker, or requires multiple speakers ...
Frank
Spaciousness is usually a function of reverb and distance from the performance. The Spotify-examples I linked to earlier, with Barenboim/Zukerman & Argerich/Repin are good illustrations of this. In both recordings, regular microphones have been used, but they have been applied differently. In the B/Z version of the Kreutzer, the microphones have been very close to the instruments and care was made (for some reason) to avoid capturing the manner in which a piano and violin radiate into the listening space. The studio has dead walls, and is not contributing at all. The effect is one of tunnel-hearing, where the surrounding space disappears, and the performance becomes very small - and placed between the speakers.
In the other recording, a combination of microphones close to the instruments and at various positions around the instruments (also above) was applied in order to capture the interaction of the instruments with the room they are in. Which is really the only way to record particularly a solo violin, as string instruments have extremely characteristic radiating patterns depending upon the frequency the musician creates. But the piano also radiates in different directions.
Therefore, in the A/R recording, the sound stage opens up tremendously, and apparently expands beyond the limits of the speakers, filling our listening rooms. That is a function of the use of natural reverb, generated by the instruments - while the instruments themselves are fixed in space, the sound they create is definitely soaring about inside our listening space.
While the Barenboim/Zukerman performance is very good, the recording is an abomination, particularly when compared to what was achieved with Argerich/Repin playing the same Kreutzer Sonata.
So what's going on in these two recordings, to account for their extreme variation in sonic characteristics? There is no trickery with "phase" (which has become the straw clutched at here, apparently). It's just that the reverberant space around the performance has been registered, resulting in an opening up of the sound stage that is more realistic, and in keeping with other great performances where credible room interaction with the performers has been captured.
No sound engineer can correctly add reverb to a dry recording of a violin. The instrument has a too complex radiation pattern for that - and I suspect that the engineer who recorded Barenboim/Zukerman dry found that out too late when trying to add reverb, and therefore sent this accursed recording into the world, pretending it was a more accurate record of their performance.
Here's why adding reverb to a cello or violin post-recording will create an unnatural result, if the listener knows the instruments. Note how the radiation is frequency dependent, and how the direction changes radically. (View from side and top). This means that the reverberation will change accordingly, and that one added in the mix would have to account for the frequency changes (as the walls would be hit almost as if by a loose firehose spewing water). The reflected sound changes all the time, and the attempt to do something with this in the mix is doomed to fail (or sound fake). You have to capture this in situ, which is what the Argerich/Repin crew did, to create an incredible sound stage.
A violin has an even more lively and characteristic radiation pattern.
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That radiation pattern for the cello is absolutely remarkable! Would you have links to information explaining the reasons for this behaviour; I'm also intrigued at how sharply defined the boundaries are, surely the falloff isn't as dramatic as indicated here? The implication is that a cello will sound like a set of completely different instruments if played in an open space, depending upon where you're listening from...
The trickery about phase interference effects is that that is the technique the mechanism of the ear uses to make sense of direct and reverberant sound, how it "understands" what the complex pattern of air vibrations means in terms of the space in which the sound originated.
Frank
The trickery about phase interference effects is that that is the technique the mechanism of the ear uses to make sense of direct and reverberant sound, how it "understands" what the complex pattern of air vibrations means in terms of the space in which the sound originated.
Frank
The excerpts from the microphone book? I scanned it; didn't find anything about capturing vertical information for playback. Did you?
Tim
Builders of violins and celli do take these radiation patterns into account, and actually also work to influence them. The boundaries are very discrete, as they are decided by the shape of the instrument, and certain frequencies create particular resonances that move sound energy in particular directions. But as the musician is working the entire available spectrum, energetically, we get a "spraying firehose" effect from the instrument. But yes, it does affect perception of it, but that is also why one picks certain rooms for performances.
You should check up on Paganini's "Il Cannone" violin - it was/is famous for its ability to shoot hard beams of sound at listeners, at the violoinist's will. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Cannone_Guarnerius
There are oodles of papers on the topic, but this one should be interesting, as we are left trying to listen to music through loudspeakers, and they do not recreate this radiation pattern. They experimented with multiple loudspeakers to recreate a true performance soundstage:
http://articles.ircam.fr/textes/Causse92a/
Abstract:
Commonly used types of loudspeaker systems have directional patterns that bear no relationship to those of the sound sources which they purport to simulate.
The purpose of this project is to derive some parameters linked to the radiation and relevant to our perception.
To address this problem, a series of three separate experiments have been conducted:
collect data on sound power spectra and directional characteristics of musical instruments to be simulated.
build of a multiple drivers reproduction system with signal processing control.
investigate the physical and psychophysical properties of this sound source when the directional programming is varied. The influence of the coupling of the sound source and the room on the perception of the simulated sound sources is also examined.
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