What is "Sound Stage?"

[NorthStar]

I said it before and I'm saying it again; I was just listening to a recording two nights ago by Roger Waters - 'Amused To Death', and the drums are lower, the vocals higher, and the guitar(s) even higher, The bass in the middle, everywhere, and the talkin' on the r.a.d.i.o. at the extreme left and higher than the drums, or a kitchen table.

And so on so on so on ...

Several Patricia Barber recordings have also various heights in them, so some from Eva Cassidy.
... Kasey Chambers, Aimee Mann, Stacy Earle, Laurie Anderson, Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier, Katie Webster, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Julie Miller, Sam Phillips, Jennifer Warnes, Loreena McKennitt, Joni Mitchell, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rickie Lee Jones, Janis Ian, Ani Difranco, Kathleen Edwards, Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman, Joan Osborne, Loretta Lynn, Alison Krauss,
Diana Krall, Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Allison Moorer, Jane Monheit, Eleanor McEvoy,
Cindy Blackman, Holly Cole, Natalie Cole, Norah Jones, Cassandra Wilson, Christy Baron, Sara K., Rebecca Pidgeon, Laverne Butler, Rosemary Clooney, Koko Taylor, Shemekia Copeland, Etta James, Rita Chiarelli, Sue Foley, Rory Block, Eliza Gilkyson, Virginia Rodrigues, Jewel, and so on ...

*** Talkin' 'bout the well recorded acoustic music recordings here, and in particular the live ones.
There is height to the vocals, and other instruments, plus depth as well ... And even forwardness and rearwardness from the audience standpoint and soundstage size respectively.
You can also size the height of the cabarets, the small venues, Jazz clubs, etc.

Talk 'bout holographic sound stage with real height, width, depth, & imaging! :b
And from just a single pair of loudspeakers ...tra la la ...3D & all ...Blues, Jazz, Classical, World, ...

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Several Patricia Barber recordings have also various heights in them, so some from Eva Cassidy.
.. Kasey Chambers, Aimee Mann, Stacy Earle, Laurie Anderson, Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier, Katie Webster, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Julie Miller, Sam Phillips, Jennifer Warnes, Loreena McKennitt, Joni Mitchell, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rickie Lee Jones, Janis Ian, Ani Difranco, Kathleen Edwards, Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman, Joan Osborne, Loretta Lynn, Allison Krauss, Diana Krall, Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Allison Moorer, Jane Monheit, Eleanor McEvoy, and so on ...

You've got great taste in music, Bob.

Tim

 

[fas42]

But if you imagine that within that height, your system or your speakers are imaging elements like they do in the horizontal plane, that you hear a voice at 6 feet, the guitar a couple of feet below that, as it would be if the player were standing in front of you, you are imagining that. There seem to be a few people here who believe that's exactly what they're hearing, that there are "clues" on the recording that their remarkable systems are reading to reproduce that kind of vertical image. Unless I've misunderstood them, that is not a semantic argument.

Tim

Perhaps the misunderstanding is of what has height, or perhaps a better term is vertical displacement ...

If we are purely talking of vertical displacement of images, as a "silly" example: three violinists playing the identical type of instrument; one sitting with her bum on the floor; the next sitting on a high stool, and the last standing on a table. If they were individually miked, with the mikes are the same height relative to the instrument, you would be struggling to pick up anything, I would agree. However, if they were performing together in a reasonable acoustic space with decent walls and ceiling, miked by a single decent pair of mikes some feet away, I would suggest that better systems would give sufficient clues as to what was going on ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

There is height to the vocals, and other instruments, plus depth as well ... And even forwardness and rearwardness from the audience standpoint and soundstage size respectively.
You can also size the height of the cabarets, the small venues, Jazz clubs, etc.

Talk 'bout holographic sound stage with real height, width, depth, & imaging! :b
And from just a single pair of loudspeakers ...tra la la ...3D & all ...Blues, Jazz, Classical, World, ...

Perhaps we're talking here of perceived height of the soundstage, not vertical displacement of elements, images of the music making machinery ...

Frank

 

[treitz3]

I have never had a "tall" image. It has always been more of a left to right and beyond image. The height of the overall sound stage or image within, while [still debatable] is still......oh, what's the word I'm looking for......shrunken, reduced or maybe collapsed, if you will, against the width. That said, much of the height information, or the spatial location cues thereof have been detectable and with the proper setup, undeniable. Whether this is something that everyone in this thread needs to explore more or whether it's a semantic argument....even if it's something that science needs to explore more within the human ear/brain interaction, it's definitely to me a very interesting and engaging subject.

I think we just have communication issues in this thread more than anything else about this height thing.

Question is, with all that has been said.....can anybody [or is anybody that has the knowledge, willing] to break through the barrier of miscommunication and lay it all down to where all involved on this thread understand?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Perhaps the misunderstanding is of what has height, or perhaps a better term is vertical displacement ...

If we are purely talking of vertical displacement of images, as a "silly" example: three violinists playing the identical type of instrument; one sitting with her bum on the floor; the next sitting on a high stool, and the last standing on a table. If they were individually miked, with the mikes are the same height relative to the instrument, you would be struggling to pick up anything, I would agree. However, if they were performing together in a reasonable acoustic space with decent walls and ceiling, miked by a single decent pair of mikes some feet away, I would suggest that better systems would give sufficient clues as to what was going on ...

Frank

How? When you hear these things with your ears, it is because your flesh and hair and the shape of your head and ears, and the way frequencies are re-shaped when they have to travel around those things to reach your eardrums, and your brain's ability to pick up those minor differences in the audio reaching your eardrums and interpret those differences as direction.

What are the physical/response qualities of your two microphones that re-shape the audio into direction cues before it reaches the mic's diaphragm? And how does it so accurately imitate the re-shaping of the signal by human head and ears and cheekbones and hair and still just look like a microphone?

Tim

 

[NorthStar]

Several Patricia Barber recordings have also various heights in them, so some from Eva Cassidy.
... Kasey Chambers, Aimee Mann, Stacy Earle, Laurie Anderson, Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier, Katie Webster, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Julie Miller, Sam Phillips, Jennifer Warnes, Loreena McKennitt, Joni Mitchell, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rickie Lee Jones, Janis Ian, Ani Difranco, Kathleen Edwards, Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman, Joan Osborne, Loretta Lynn, Alison Krauss,
Diana Krall, Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Allison Moorer, Jane Monheit, Eleanor McEvoy,
Cindy Blackman, Holly Cole, Natalie Cole, Norah Jones, Cassandra Wilson, Christy Baron, Sara K., Rebecca Pidgeon, Laverne Butler, Rosemary Clooney, Koko Taylor, Shemekia Copeland, Etta James, Rita Chiarelli, Sue Foley, Rory Block, Eliza Gilkyson, Virginia Rodrigues, Jewel, and so on ...

Talk 'bout holographic sound stage with real height, width, depth, & imaging! :b
And from just a single pair of loudspeakers ...tra la la ...3D & all ...Blues, Jazz, Classical, World, ...

You've got great taste in music, Bob.

Tim

Still editing my post, just look at the quote above yours ...

Thanks Tim. :b

 

[NorthStar]

I said it before and I'm saying it again; I was just listening to a recording two nights ago by Roger Waters - 'Amused To Death', and the drums are lower, the vocals higher, and the guitar(s) even higher, The bass in the middle, everywhere, and the talkin' on the r.a.d.i.o. at the extreme left and higher than the drums, or a kitchen table.

And so on so on so on ...

Several Patricia Barber recordings have also various heights in them, so some from Eva Cassidy.
... Kasey Chambers, Aimee Mann, Stacy Earle, Laurie Anderson, Lucinda Williams, Mary Gauthier, Katie Webster, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Julie Miller, Sam Phillips, Jennifer Warnes, Loreena McKennitt, Joni Mitchell, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rickie Lee Jones, Janis Ian, Ani Difranco, Kathleen Edwards, Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman, Joan Osborne, Loretta Lynn, Alison Krauss,
Diana Krall, Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Allison Moorer, Jane Monheit, Eleanor McEvoy,
Cindy Blackman, Holly Cole, Natalie Cole, Norah Jones, Cassandra Wilson, Christy Baron, Sara K., Rebecca Pidgeon, Laverne Butler, Rosemary Clooney, Koko Taylor, Shemekia Copeland, Etta James, Rita Chiarelli, Sue Foley, Rory Block, Eliza Gilkyson, Virginia Rodrigues, Jewel, and so on ...

*** Talkin' 'bout the well recorded acoustic music recordings here, and in particular the live ones.
There is height to the vocals, and other instruments, plus depth as well ... And even forwardness and rearwardness from the audience standpoint and soundstage size respectively.
You can also size the height of the cabarets, the small venues, Jazz clubs, etc.

Talk 'bout holographic sound stage with real height, width, depth, & imaging! :b
And from just a single pair of loudspeakers ...tra la la ...3D & all ...Blues, Jazz, Classical, World, ...

Perhaps we're talking here of perceived height of the soundstage, not vertical displacement of elements, images of the music making machinery ...

Frank

No Frank, I'm talkin' 'bout quality acoustic live recordings here and from a good quality sound system, including the loudspeakers (full range), and in a good decent listening room. :b

It's all there; in your ears, in souplesse, in awe, in grandeur, and in height. :b
And from the sweet listening spot of course.

 

[NorthStar]

Question is, with all that has been said.....can anybody [or is anybody that has the knowledge, willing] to break through the barrier of miscommunication and lay it all down to where all involved on this thread understand?

I can try. :b

 

[treitz3]

...When you hear these things with your ears, it is because your flesh and hair and the shape of your head and ears, and the way frequencies are re-shaped when they have to travel around those things to reach your eardrums, and your brain's ability to pick up those minor differences in the audio reaching your eardrums and interpret those differences....

Along with what it is you are listening for and how you listen? It's either a blessing or a curse.

 

[RogerD]

I can tell you one thing,the less distortion,but more so the less RFI and EMI noise that is in the electronics and present in the cable shield,the more your system will mimic the original venue. Scale can be pretty impressive as part of the stereo illusion. Listen to a Puccini opera on London CD,you get everything,depth, height,width,holography in spades.

 

[fas42]

What are the physical/response qualities of your two microphones that re-shape the audio into direction cues before it reaches the mic's diaphragm? And how does it so accurately imitate the re-shaping of the signal by human head and ears and cheekbones and hair and still just look like a microphone?

Tim

The mics do nothing to reshape these cues, the whole recording chain does nothing but pass along these cues to you, the listener. In the ideal, it is making a perfect copy of the sound that's occurring at a certain point in space, and then recreating it in your listening space: the audio system, from the mic to the final speaker, is a time and space machine. Once in the space where your listening ears are, that's where all the type of decoding by the body organism that you talk of take place, not anywhere earlier.

How is this possible? Take the example I mentioned, consider only the direct sound, and 2 direct echos, the ones coming straight towards the mic, one bouncing off the floor, and one off the ceiling of the studio. Three separate tracks shall we call it, which meet at the mic: for each musician these 3 signals have taken different path lengths, so the phase interference pattern at the mic varies for each.

I postulate that the system, if good enough, can reproduce all that information, and then the ear/brain is certainly smart enough to decode it, and interpret the images of the musicians being at separate vertical positions.

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

I bet there are people reading this thread and having a big nice smile in their 'High Heart'. :b

 

[NorthStar]

Bunch of Info on Sound Stage - Height - Mic Techniques - & all that Jazz ...

1. Stereo - http://www.tnt-audio.com/topics/testrecords.html

2. Multi - http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/tetrahedral-recording.html

_______________________________________________

* Multichannel recording with Height information (discrete channel), not stereo; still though, info).

________________________________________________

Mic Techniques:

3. http://web.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/sound.html

4. http://www.shure.com/idc/groups/public/documents/webcontent/us_pro_micsmusicstudio_ea.pdf

Additional:

5. http://www.linkwitzlab.com/accurate stereo performance.htm

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_imaging

____________

Multichannel:

7. http://www.hauptmikrofon.de/doc/AES_130_Theile_Wittek.pdf

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

"The mics do nothing to reshape these cues, the whole recording chain does nothing but pass along these cues to you, the listener."

Exactly. But the physiology of the head and ears do. They re- shape the sound in ways that the brain interprets as direction. Microphones don't do this, nothing in the rest of the recording/processing/playback chain does this, and the recording is ultimately projected into the room by soeakers that's only "height"cues are the various heights of its drivers playing back certain frequencies that may or may not have anything to do with the actual height of the elements of sound as they exist in life. The physiology of your head and ears goes to work again, but what it has to work with is completely different from what they would have heard in front of the instruments.

Tim

 

[MylesBAstor]

"The mics do nothing to reshape these cues, the whole recording chain does nothing but pass along these cues to you, the listener."

Exactly. But the physiology of the head and ears do. They re- shape the sound in ways that the brain interprets as direction. Microphones don't do this, nothing in the rest of the recording/processing/playback chain does this, and the recording is ultimately projected into the room by soeakers that's only "height"cues are the various heights of its drivers playing back certain frequencies that may or may not have anything to do with the actual height of the elements of sound as they exist in life. The physiology of your head and ears goes to work again, but what it has to work with is completely different from what they would have heard in front of the instruments.

Tim

I'm curious Tim. Did you read Greg's post or just chose to ignore it?

 

[bblue]

OK smarty pants, then tell me why image height varies as a function of VTA settings if there's no height in the recordings? Or am I hallucinating about that too?

Yes, grossly. It demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of sound recording and reproduction.

Perhaps instead of pursuing a flat earth policy of how height can't exist that runs contrary to many audiophile's observations, maybe more time should be spent to figure out what's wrong with the theory.

Changing VTA changes distortion by-products of mis-tracking. This can be clearly seen on a spectrum analyzer. When VTA is right on, most by-products are not there at all. Those by-products are primarily high frequency (above the normal recorded audio range), so those with tall speakers with tweeters on top, or those with any speakers with tweeters that are not aimed straight ahead (Vandersteen's come to mind, but there are many) will hear that distortion only from a higher physical source -- the tweeter and its distortion. Likewise, very odd types of distortion from the existence of those by-products can cause further downstream odd behavior and additional harmonic distortion from preamps and power amps, depending on their design.

The cleaner the entire reproduction chain, the less out-of-ear experiences you will have.

--Bill

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

1. Stereo - http://www.tnt-audio.com/topics/testrecords.html

2. Multi - http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/tetrahedral-recording.html

_______________________________________________

* Multichannel recording with Height information (discrete channel), not stereo; still though, info).

________________________________________________

Mic Techniques:

3. http://web.cortland.edu/flteach/mm-course/sound.html

4. http://www.shure.com/idc/groups/public/documents/webcontent/us_pro_micsmusicstudio_ea.pdf

Additional:

5. http://www.linkwitzlab.com/accurate stereo performance.htm

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_imaging

____________

Multichannel:

7. http://www.hauptmikrofon.de/doc/AES_130_Theile_Wittek.pdf

Sorry, Bob, I don't have time to read all of that. Can you quote the parts where they talk about capturing height information that will later be properly decoded and played back on a stereo system to create a vertical image?

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'm curious Tim. Did you read Greg's post or just chose to ignore it?

I've read it now. Planar speakers, lacking multiple drivers playing different frequencies at different physical heights, lack the ability to even create the illusion of height I'm sure some of you are experiencing, in spite of the complete lack of height information in the recording and height decoding/playback capability in stereo.

With that said, I have no doubt that Greg is sincere and actually believes he hears what is not there.

While I have your attention:

Perhaps instead of pursuing a flat earth policy of how height can't exist that runs contrary to many audiophile's observations, maybe more time should be spent to figure out what's wrong with the theory.

There are no theories at work here. There are microphone patterns that have absolutely no ability to discern which direction the off-axis sound is coming from, and two-channel systems that have absolutely nothing in them that would be capable of interpreting that information and playing it back as "height," even if the aforementioned microphones developed eyes and brains and sent that information.

Can you hear "height?" You can, no doubt, hear something you interpret as such. Can you hear a vertical image that separates instruments and voices appropriately along that plane? No. How could you?

It is mind-boggling that there is even an argument against that.

Tim

 

[bblue]

Sorry, Bob, I don't have time to read all of that. Can you quote the parts where they talk about capturing height information that will later be properly decoded and played back on a stereo system to create a vertical image?

I just finished reading all of it. Since #7 is a multi-channel reference, I did not read it. Items #1-#4 are standard descriptions of micing techniques, mic polar patters, and stereo mic recording placement. Height is never discussed. Only lateral width and some depth.

#5 has one interesting reference about height. It says that a stereo field played on properly placed speakers (at least 1m from a back wall) will be the width of the speakers (plus some, depending on the amount of ambience), and the height will be the height of the speakers or slightly more (presumably depending on the polar pattern of the tweeters and reflections from surrounding objects. It also explicitly states that there is no height information preserved in L/R stereo recording, though there may be in rare cases subtle cues that the ear/brain might interpolate as additional height perception (based on previous experiences in live situations).

#6 further defines the ability to pass height information along in L/R stereo channels by a recording and encoding technique called ambisonics (* Multichannel recording with Height information (discrete channel), not stereo; still though, info). In this case a multichannel (more than two) mic array of a particular configuration (called a Sound Field Mic; SFM uses a tetrahedral array of capsules, the outputs of which are matrixed together to generate the component B-Format signals) can record extra channels of height information which can then be manipulated and encoded into an L/R stereo pair. BUT it can only become audible if an ambisonics decoder is present on the listening end. This only describes L/R as the two channel 'carrier' for the encoded additional channels. When decoded they require more than two speakers to properly render the additional information.

Bottom line is that there is no height information available in two channel stereo and played on two speakers.


Some members seem to think that the microphone's directionality (whether it is omni-directional, uni-directional, cardiod, super-cardiod, shotgun, or figure 8 pickup patterns) makes a difference in the perception of height in stereo recording. It doesn't. It only defines what part of the field the mic's primary focus is, and is used to control ambience, listen 'into' an area, be immune (mostly) to sounds not in front of it, etc. It still is receiving those sounds as if it is in one physical location, at that specific spot. Stereo, then, is two such spots and the soundstage presented is from the perspective of those two spots and the differences between them. Sounds from any direction are summed by each mic and presented in the stereo field laterally only. Only the speakers and the room they're in have anything to do with perceived height, and then only randomly by acoustic anomalies.

--Bill