Thanks for that, Tim.
While I agree with gregadd that larger speakers can produce a more realistic and dynamic presentation simply because of physical size, the fact that they may produce sound omni-directionally can only serve to reduce the significance of the original soundstage, by adding all sorts of room characteristics to it. Because the speakers radiate 360 degree does NOT mean that an instrument with a 360 degree radiation pattern recorded in conventional stereo is going to be any more realistic. Probably less so. People who's hearing interprets it that way are simply being fooled by all the local reverberation in their room.
Likewise with height display. The more I read descriptions of people's height hearing justifications, it is clear that some/many of them are actually describing the height effect generated by driver placement. They just don't realize that, and somehow liken it to distance between the floor and the instrument in the original recording. The ears are still not sufficiently trained. Still others are holding on to the notion that you can position a mic x number of feet from the floor, vary its height during stereo recording and hear the height change on playback. You'll hear A change, but not one of height.
It seems to me that most of the followers of preserved-height information displayed by their systems, are and remain completely ignorant of how microphones work, despite accurate descriptions presented by you, me and others (soundproof). Many are also unaware of how much processing CAN'T be down in a studio on a mix board, pertaining to height. It's an unknown to them and therefore it can be or do anything. It's magic!
But I guess anything is possible if you don't know any different and refuse to logically sort it out.
--Bill
Hi Bill,
I read what you wrote with special attention.
And to me it seems that the contrary could also be true; as we don't know all the intricacies of recording technics and the relationships between microphone's capture, human ears (different shapes), and people's brains.
Plus the room's interactions (acoustics) with the loudspeakers; from various sizes and forms.
A soundstage is formed from many elements; right from the recording process, the recording gear, the mic's characteristics, the recording engineer, his audio mixing/console, the programs (DSPs) in it with all the effects, the recording premises, the medium, the mastering, the wires, the transfers, to the loudspeaker's reproduction, in various rooms from various dimensions, and with more or less acoustical treatments.
Humans are sophisticated machines on their own, and are open to many observations, and improving scientific discoveries of the audio listening experience.
Ignorance and knowledge can be closely related at times ...
One doesn't go without the other when we are in search of new evidences.
And before we got all our knowledge, we were all ignorants to start of with ...
Furthermore, all we know is only a fraction of the entire ensemble; in that sense that we are still experimenting and listening from various observations.
I do agree with you regarding height that it isn't truly in the recordings; same as width and depth, to a certain extent. In music reproduction, the soundstage is created by our loudspeakers in conjunction with our rooms. We cannot go inside a microphone and hear with exactitude what it can capture or not. Because the microphone can also use the help of other friends; like physical structures of special material and form & shape, to capture natural room reverbs from various directions.
And microphones are still being developed to capture the extreme lower and higher audio frequencies.
Some of them right now are pretty good. And the techniques to use them and position them are still being explored.
I understand your viewpoint, as well Soundproof's one; you guys have first hand experience with recording techniques and microphones' capture characteristics.
You are working in that domain, and you even know the several tricks of studio recording/mixing engineers with their mixing consoles. Plus the live recordings from live venues; concert halls and other clubs or auditoriums ...
For me, there isn't an absolute definition, or scientific evidence on audio's perfection ...
We are part of the overall process. Our
Ears & Brains.
And that is where it becomes another essential element in the overall equation of that soundstage's perception, and 3D holographic stage in all dimensions; horizontal, vertical, and depth. The three vectors, mixed with time (delay), energy (velocity), and space (real venue).
...And all that Jazz; phase manipulation, stereo effects, added reverbs, etc.
Our audio systems of close or distant recording captures by capsule mics and loudspeakers' reproduction are less than perfect. We are far from the real audio 3D experience like in real life; jungle, forest, city streets with overhead jet planes, etc., ...But we'll get there eventually, I truly believe.
For right now, we are discussing relations from the recordings and to the reproduction of those recordings in our own soundstages.
The soundstage from the concert hall, and the one from our rooms at home.
At the end they go hand in hand.
If it is my imagination (brains) that is perceiving height while I'm listening to some particular music recordings, then be it. For me it is still there (in my imagination); even if it is not in the recording.
* But there are few audio recording gurus out there with knowledge on microphone's characteristic, and with experience on capsule's pattern and their influence by ambient energy from physical obstacles positioned deliberately or accidentally.
We have already uncovered some of those links regarding height from the music recordings ...
Should we simply ignore them?
P.S. Sorry for any typos.
