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"Save the Stereo!"


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But I beg to differ about Dark Side. Just sounded gimmicky to me

That's age and wisdom at work! It was considered fresh, dramatic, exciting, entertaining and scintillating when released. I actually drove to DC from Philly in '73 to get a British pressing from a record store on or near DuPont Circle, just to see what the fuss was all about.

 

As I recall, it was the first album for which Abbey Road used their brand new 16 track recorder. This played into the band's experimentation with looping and other effects now considered standard and/or boring by those currently the age I was when Dark Side came out. And the cash register's actually pretty neat. So it's full of well done gimmicks (OK - for those of you who love them, we'll call them sound effects) that many including me and obviously Crisnee think are also overdone. But it was the early '70s, dude, and they like took it to the max. It was like totally wicked tubular.........can you dig it???

 

I haven't listened to it in years - but I think I'll do so tonight, to see what it evokes in me.

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Hmm, didn't know stereo needed saving! Seems like there are lots of options and more people listening to stereo than ever before. In fact, it seems like there are more options than ever before including shiny black boxes in our living rooms, we also have smaller boxes sitting next to our computer and even smaller boxes we carry around with us to listen privately. I think the stereo is alive and very well!

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LOL! Remember, most of us heard the album on FM radio - the gimmicks were not overdone when listening to an FM transmission. :)

 

-Paul

 

 

That's age and wisdom at work! It was considered fresh, dramatic, exciting, entertaining and scintillating when released. I actually drove to DC from Philly in '73 to get a British pressing from a record store on or near DuPont Circle, just to see what the fuss was all about.

 

As I recall, it was the first album for which Abbey Road used their brand new 16 track recorder. This played into the band's experimentation with looping and other effects now considered standard and/or boring by those currently the age I was when Dark Side came out. And the cash register's actually pretty neat. So it's full of well done gimmicks (OK - for those of you who love them, we'll call them sound effects) that many including me and obviously Crisnee think are also overdone. But it was the early '70s, dude, and they like took it to the max. It was like totally wicked tubular.........can you dig it???

 

I haven't listened to it in years - but I think I'll do so tonight, to see what it evokes in me.

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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We have 64 bit DSP.

 

 

 

Save the stereo - that just rings so wrong in so many ways.

 

1) Stereo is so last century.

2) Most of the existing audio industry is living i the past and not fit for the future.

3) The title should be about appreciating good sound quality how ever it may come.

Promise Pegasus2 R6 12TB -> Thunderbolt2 ->
MacBook Pro M1 Pro -> Motu 8D -> AES/EBU ->
Main: Genelec 5 x 8260A + 2 x 8250 + 2 x 8330 + 7271A sub
Boat: Genelec 8010 + 5040 sub

Hifiman Sundara, Sennheiser PXC 550 II
Blog: “Confessions of a DigiPhile”

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We have 64 bit DSP.

 

 

 

Save the stereo - that just rings so wrong in so many ways.

 

3) The title should be about appreciating good sound quality how ever it may come.

 

Couldn't agree more. That's twice in one day I'm agreeing with your posts. You must be coming around. Just kidding.

David

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couldn't agree more. That's twice in one day i'm agreeing with your posts. You must be coming around. Just kidding.

 

 

yay :-)

Promise Pegasus2 R6 12TB -> Thunderbolt2 ->
MacBook Pro M1 Pro -> Motu 8D -> AES/EBU ->
Main: Genelec 5 x 8260A + 2 x 8250 + 2 x 8330 + 7271A sub
Boat: Genelec 8010 + 5040 sub

Hifiman Sundara, Sennheiser PXC 550 II
Blog: “Confessions of a DigiPhile”

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To quote that article:

"sound bars deliver multichannel sound and are the fastest growing component in audio! This is, in fact, validation that people are enjoying surround sound…even if it’s compromised by using a sound bar instead of separate speakers."

 

While sound bars may be replacing "home theater in a box" 5.1 kits, it's because they are easy and convenient to set up without requiring cables spread across the room to the rear channels, and because the speakers in ever-thinner flat panel televisions are so bad that even the general public is starting to notice.

 

Most of the sound bars people are buying are stereo devices, though with only a couple of feet between the tiny drivers, it's not really a true stereo experience.

You then have "virtual surround" DSP built into most of these, and all that really does is make the stereo image sound a bit wider, at the cost of very strange acoustic effects. (dialog is often "lost" below other audio when this sort of thing is enabled)

 

The only sound bars to actually reproduce multichannel audio with any kind of true positional audio, were the Yamaha Sound Projectors - and those were relatively expensive devices that relied on good room conditions to work correctly.

 

They were originally using large arrays of drivers like this, and now they look like this, without enough drivers to be effective, in order to bring the price down to a level that the consumer might pay. There just wasn't a market for a high-end product which delivered good sound quality.

 

 

Still, at least sound bars have a couple of feet between the drivers, rather than the couple of inches that bluetooth/airplay speakers have...

 

 

As for multichannel, I have been interested in hearing a good multichannel setup for music recently - I need to find somewhere local for a good demo.

In the past though, I have always felt that 5.1 has been a gimmick as far as movies are concerned, and always went back to listening in stereo.

 

The thing I can't seem to get past is the cost though. If I have $3000 to spend on speakers, it seems like I would be far better off spending $1500 each for a pair of really good stereo speakers, than $500 each for six speakers (5.1) or only $375 each for eight. (7.1)

 

And speaker manufacturers either sell you mis-matched speakers in "surround sound" kits which just sound bad together, or insist on selling stereo pairs so you end up with a "spare" speaker if you want them all to match properly and create a cohesive sound field.

 

It's no surprise that surround sound never really took off.

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