recording method vs sound reproduction

[gmgraves]

I have seen a couple different research papers where recordings were made at the same time with several different miking techniques. Then judged by a panel as to which were most accurate upon playback over good systems. In one of those papers they used a very good system indeed. In one case the listening panel was shown positions of what was recording, and in the other they were present to hear it live. IRC, both chose Blumlein crossed figure 8's as most accurate. These both used playback over speakers. Speakers were used at an angle of 60 degrees for all playback. Strictly speaking accuracy during playback with crossed figure 8's would be improved somewhat if the speakers were angled at 90 degrees.

 

I have done a little recording, and find crossed figure 8 mikes or the mid/side version of that to perform most accurately most often. Other versions of paired mikes can also work very well if angle of recording and playback are taken into account. The better you deal with your room and the speakers within it the better it can be, but usually the recorded room masks your room pretty well spatially, but not in terms of frequency response. Sometimes those response errors can manifest as perceived spatial anomalies too.

 

Nevertheless, there are limits to true playback accuracy possible from using only 2 channels over speakers. More channels can create some more accuracy than 2 channels over speakers can. But for the mainly upfront portion of it stereo can be very good, and rarely is commercial recording that well done.

 

Now theoretically binaural could be better if you used a dummy head with the right shape and the correct outer ear shape. Some people find it works while in my experience binaural never quite delivers. And how much it delivers varies greatly from headphone to headphone. It also punctures the naturalness to me when minor movements of your head have the soundfield moving with you. In reality moving your head should occur within a static soundfield. That is something speakers get right better than binaural recordings over headphones. There is equipment which can process the sound so head movement allows the soundfield to remain fixed with headphones. I haven't had the pleasure of using such equipment, but many who have speak highly of it.

 

Now there are several variations of two microphone recording than can work quite well. They produce very natural sound handled properly. Such recordings commercially are extremely rare. Even many of the outfits with a rep for minimal miking and processing use three or four or several microphones for various reasons. Similar to compression and the loudness wars. A little compression sounds better, sounds louder and within reason we always perceive louder as better. Until of course it becomes a ridiculous amount. Blend a couple extra mics for better low end or a bit more room sound being evident or whatever. In those ways it sounds a touch better until it becomes ridiculous.

 

As much as I wish more recordings were done simply, and the good sound comes from the good musicians in a good space that is not happening. The genie will not be put back into the bottle except rarely.

 

Now for an example. Several of the Enya tracks on her early CDs were made with extreme layering on her voice or so I have seen reported. She sings the vocals once, then a second time, and then a third time and so on and so forth. These are all mixed together. With of course slight variations in her voice, her pitch or timing. The extreme layering involved her doing this over 100 times for a few of the songs. So she sung those lyrics 100+ times and they were mixed together. A few too far out of timing were tossed. You get this ghostly, spacely unique sound to her voice. It isn't and could never be natural. In this case, in my opinion, it actually was in good taste and makes for a pleasing and interesting sound. There is no natural version of it however.

 

Figure-of-eight miking is excellent because it picks up the entire sound field, rather than just the individual instruments. That means the room/hall sound is represented as well. But such miking practice is impractical in a live concert where you want to minimize the "audience participation" in the recording. It is also fairly useless in a studio recording because there is nothing behind the figure-or-eight mikes to pick up, just the studio wall. Second best, and what I generally use, is a variation on the XY miking scheme, in which two cardioid mikes are used on a stereo "T" bar about 7" inches apart and 90 degrees from one another or I use a true stereo microphone. Another arrangement that gives realistic stereo is the so-called M-S (for Middle-Side) miking arrangement. This consists of a single figure-of-eight mike arranged at a right angle to the musicians and a cardioid or omnidirectional mike pointed at the center of the musicians (yes, it's a mono pickup). The two mike signals are matrixed at the mixer to give stereo. Again, I use a cardioid here because an omni would pick-up too much audience.

 

 

 

M-S Miking Using

An Omni for the 'M'

Mike

 

True Stereo

Mike from

TeleFunken

The top capsule

Rotates in relation to the

bottom capsule and the

mike base

 

 

XY Configuration of a Stereo

Pair Mounted on a stereo 'T'-bar

[gmgraves]

Stereo recording is as old as the hills now. Yes, there are different mike techniques, some of which, like two-mike coincident pair and binaural, have theoretical advantages. But, they have flopped commercially and they have other practical and theoretical problems that have not been solved. There are few such recordings that are recent and take advantage of the better, higher resolution equipment we have today. Two-mike is also anathema to the recording of pop music where multitrack mixing of different performers on their own separately miked tracks has long been preferred in order to be able to create an "artistic" mix.

 

I am a classical music guy and I finally came to the realization that stereo itself was the limiting factor. Yet, it persists in popularity in spite of the realization by many sophisticated listeners that stereo still leaves a big gap in recreated realism vs. the live event. I think that is true no matter what one does in milking with stereo or even with the fanciest playback gear. So, I think trying to "perfect" the stereo recording/playback process is a lost cause. The gap vs. live music still remains and it will continue to do so because the listening models in stereo, even at their best, have important weakness and limitations.

 

Discretely recorded multichannel is the biggest step forward toward better recording/playback realism in my book since the advent of stereo itself. It is a small niche commercially and primarily used via hi rez SACD and for music on BD-A or -V. But, there are thousands of available recordings. I have about 3,000 such discs myself, and there are thousands more I do not have, yet at least. Some practitioners use a minimalist 5-mike technique - Channel Classics - while many more use multi-mike - Polyhymnia and many others. I have many excellent examples of both techniques and I have no clear favorite.

 

So, I sold off much of my stereo gear 8 years ago and I have never looked back. I just do not listen to much in stereo any more, except for the occasional important archival performance. Since then, I have heard no stereo even at ridiculous prices rivaling the cost of a decent house that comes close to the sound of my system or those of close friends with quality Mch systems. We all go to a lot of live concerts and to us, stereo just does not cut it any more.

 

And, I have not heard it, nor is it guaranteed to commercially succeed, but sonic realism might be on the threshold of getting better still via Auro 3D, which expands recording and playback into a true 3rd dimension, closer to what we actually hear live in the concert hall.

 

Stereo recordings cannot even dream of reducing the gap with a live event even vs. today's 2D 5.1/7.1 Mch recordings. But, the myth persists that somehow some great breakthrough or refinement of 2-channel stereo will do the trick. Sorry, stereo had its chance and improved though it is since the 1950's, it just ain't' gonna get there.

 

 

Needless to say, I disagree with you about the value of stereo recording. Most classical music lovers, when they are first exposed to a real stereo recording (and it is explained to them what they are listening to and how it differs from multi-track, multi-miked recordings) are astounded and mesmerized by how lifelike the recording sounds. The illusion of live musicians playing in an actual space is always a revelation to people who take their classical music seriously. Of course, pop music aficionados don't really enter into this discussion because most of them realize that their musical choices don't, and mostly can't, exist outside of a studio so the notion of stereophonic sound is pretty much a non-sequitur. As you sort of hint at, for the average music buyer, the idea of true stereo is passé. In fact the whole meaning of "stereophonics" has been corrupted to the point that the term is meaningless for most people. The word "stereophonic" does not mean two or more channels. It means three-dimensional sound (stereos is Greek for "solid", and phonos is Greek for "sound") and multi-track recordings made with a forest of microphones does not fit that definition (BTW, correctly done surround (musicians up front, ambience in the surround channels) is still stereophonic sound and not something separate from it). Now, I'm not advocating that real stereo recording is the only kind of recording that there should be. Different kinds of music warrant different recording techniques. Small ensemble jazz, for instance, is best served with close multi-miking mixed down to three channels: right, left, and a phantom center channel. This method gives the music a sense of intimacy not possible with more distantly miked methodologies. That's difficult to accomplish with a stereo pair.

 

As to the different types of surround sound, yes, I've heard surround recordings that work really well but those are few and far between. When investigated, it is found that they too are minimally miked with a stereo pair on the musicians and another stereo pair somewhere back in the hall (Ray Kimber's IsoMike SACD recordings, for instance). Most surround recordings are over-produced like much of today's recorded music (even classical). I've often wondered why anyone would spend perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars on stereo playback equipment in order to listen to sonic crap! There is a reason why recordings made back in the infancy of stereo recording in the 1950's still sell and sell well decade after decade. The recordings of C.R. Fine for the Mercury label and Lewis Layton and Richard Mohr for RCA Red Seal still set the standard for decent stereo, and people still appreciate what they accomplished and how good the recordings still sound with their often uncannily real soundstage and pin-point imaging; and not just right to left, but front to back and even image height in some instances.

[gmgraves]

George - just a couple of things. First, the Mercury's and RCAs of the 50's were originally released to consumers on mag tape in 3 channel, which is how they were originally recorded. 2-channel playback was a compromise introduced later because that was the best they could do with the LP and the 45/45 degree cutting process. So, everything was down mixed on those labels from the get go, as they continued to record them in 3-channel. There are SACDs containing hi rez remasterings of many of those in both 2- and 3- channel. It is just no contest that the 3- channel sounds much better.

 

That's not exactly true. Strictly speaking, there were never any 3-track tape players designed for the consumer market. Sure, a well-healed enthusiast could buy a 1/2-inch three-track deck from Magnecord or Ampex in the late '50's, but they certainly weren't consumer decks.

 

Secondly, when RCA released their first spate of stereo tapes and players in 1955, they were not three-track, but rather they were staggered-head two track machines and tapes. They were staggered because at the time, nobody made stereo heads, so RCA mounted two 1/2-track mono heads side-by side with one inverted from the other. This meant, of course, that they had to be played back on a machine with the playback heads staggered equally distant from each other as the record heads, otherwise the sync between channels would not be maintained.

 

Since I knew Bob Fine (slightly - I used to run into him at AES conventions in the early 1970's) and had many conversations with him, I know the reason that Mercury recorded to three track in the late 50's and on into the 60's and it was not because three-track sounded better than two-track (even though it does). It was done because those were the days of "dual-inventory" records. that means that the same title was released both in stereo and mono versions and two spaced omni-directional mikes do not mix down into mono very well due to a lack of phase coherence. So a center mike and a center channel were recorded along with the spaced stereo array as a mono pickup. The center channel became the master for the mono release of the title. During a playback session back in Fine's New York studio, his assistant, Bob Eberenz, noticed that mixing the mono center channel equally into both the right and the left channels, gave a more solid image. Henceforth, all "Living Presence" stereo cutting masters contained all three channels. Fine told me that he felt that he had to use omni-directional mikes for his recordings because the cardioids of the day (which he admitted gave much better stereo) had poor frequency response off-axis. I don't know this for sure, but since early RCA Red Seal recordings were strictly two-track stereo, and Layton and Mohr only went to three-channel when stereo LPs were introduced, my guess is that they recorded three-channel for the same reason as did Fine.

 

I do agree with you however that if you have heard the SACD Mercury's and the SACD RCA Red Seals where the surround channels consist of only right, left and center played that way over three identical speakers, they do sound really spectacular! That just wasn't the original intent of the third track.

 

Second, as is clear, I was not born yesterday. I have many man-years of stereo listening experience dating way back before I discovered Mch. I have heard probably all the stereo recordings you have cited and many more on very good playback systems. My Mch system, which is very carefully calibrated and of very high quality, also plays excellent stereo when called upon. I can easily switch back and forth. I do not know exactly what you have heard in Mch or what the degree of your live concert attendance is. But, everyone who listens in my room who has good live concert experience strongly prefers the Mch vs. the stereo version of the same recording. They find it much more true to the live concert experience, as do I.

 

I am a location recording engineer. I have probably recorded more symphony orchestra concerts than most people have attended. I have recorded in 4-channel, 2-channel and both digitally and analog. IOW, my experience isn't just listening to music, it's capturing it as well and it's extensive.

 

Your summary of the state of the quality of Mch recordings also betrays very superficial and apparently trumped up knowledge based on what appears to be little experience with classical Mch media and sound systems. Great sounding Mch recordings are not few and far between at all. One of my closest friends reviews many Mch recordings for a couple of major magazines. You would know his name. He does not share your dismissive view which is clearly based on precious little experience.

 

I have a Sony XA777ES multi-channel SACD player and I have scores of SACDs with surround channels on them. My main system is set up with 4 identical Martin-Logan Vantage ES speakers and I can and have listened to all of my multi-channel SACDs in surround mode. So your characterization of my "precious little experience" is incorrect. Sorry about that. Better luck next time!

 

 

IsoMike - yes I have them all. Good, yes, but there are better which happen not to be minimally miked.

 

Now we get to the crux of the debate. You see, I happen to believe that any classical recording not minimally miked is wrong. This is a matter of taste. But those titles that you find "better" than IsoMike recordings because they are not minimally miked, I dismiss out of hand as sounding terrible. I don't really care that you know some reviewer who happens to agree with you, If he thinks that surround recordings made with a forest of microphones sounds like real music, then his tastes and yours are antithetical to my own.

 

In any case, ISoMike did not set the world afire and the label is defunct after only a few releases.

 

Irrelevant. BTW, IsoMike was merely an example of correctly made surround. There are, of course, others.

 

Meanwhile, labels like BIS, Channel Classics, Pentatone, RCO Live, Harmoni Mundi, and many more small, European labels dedicated to Mch continue to turn out really excellent classical recordings as they have done for years.

 

Some are, some aren't. Some of the best surround I have ever heard was recorded using a British system called Ambisonics. This system used a tetrahedral microphone array called a Soundfield mike. The British record company, Nimbus used it a lot in the late 70's and 80's. What was good about it was that the microphone captured the space that the performance occupied, not just the instruments themselves. Images were stable, and life-like and the hall ambience was extremely realistic. It was not a commercial success either. While these recordings sounded very good, I found that Nimbus' approach resulted in a somewhat distant perspective with which I don't really agree.

 

Just to be clear, my initial post was not to criticize surround sound, but to counter your mistaken (and "very superficial and apparently trumped up knowledge" of the subject) belief that stereophonic sound and surround sound are two different animals and that stereo is passé. Correctly done surround IS stereo in that it fulfills the actual definition of stereophonic sound by "fleshing-out", as it were, the three-dimensionality of a real listening experience.

[gmgraves]

Strictly speaking accuracy during playback with crossed figure 8's would be improved somewhat if the speakers were angled at 90 degrees.

 

 

You're making the classic error in viewing microphone pickup patterns as if they worked like camera lenses. They don't. There is actually little or no correlation between speaker placement and microphone arrangement. There are simply too many variables on both ends of the chain to make such a simplistic analogy.

[gmgraves]

George - I respect your experience. However, it is clear that you are missing something by insisting on 4.0 rather than 5.0. The ITU standard using 5.0/5.1 is the de facto standard used by most classical recording teams today. The major exceptions are many releases on the LSO Live and Hyperion labels and a few others. But, you will find that those efforts are not highly regarded sonically for that and other reasons, and not just by me. Our ears have very high directional sensitivity front and center, so the center channel becomes important for best imaging vs. a phantom center. It also "anchors" the image in spite of slight, conscious or unconscious turns of one's head.

I have also had this same 4.0 vs. 5.0 argument with Peter McGrath, who, like you, insists on bucking the current trend and living in the quad-era past. There is 25% more information conveyed by the center channel vs. 4.0, and it is not simply the redundant sum of Front L+R.

I just use a phantom center when I listen to surround. I don't listen to it often, because of the issue I brought-up yesterday. Most of the time, I play only my own surround recordings which are 4 channel.

And, just for the record, I am quite aware of the true definition of "stereo". I have used the word as most people understand it, which is to mean 2-channel sound.

Well that's up to you, but technically, you are wrong. Most correctly, what you are referring to is "stereo surround" which clears-up any ambiguity in terminology.

I understand and lived through the dark days originated mainly by DGG of the highly multi-miked, "multiple mono" stereo recordings. I also have great respect for Jared Sacks at Channel Classics and his minimalist 5.0 milking. He does produce many excellent recordings that way, from chamber to symphonic scale. But, I have just as much respect for the output of Polyhymnia, Sound/Mirror, Jack Vad, Michael Bishop, and many other engineering teams who use extensive multi milking.

 

That's your prerogative, of course, but when it comes to multi-miking of classical music, for any reason, include me out!

I have no exact explanation for it, just a layman's theory, but the old characteristic signature of multi-milking just does not show up to my ears in countless modern Mch recordings. I could provide a list of hundreds, but check out most anything on the RCO Live label, mainly Polyhymnia engineered, such as the excellent Mahler 3rd with Jansons and the Concertgebouw. Also, check out the BD-Vs of the Abbado Bruckner 5th at the Lucerne Festival or any of the San Francisco Keeping Score BD-Vs with MTT (except the Shostakovich 5th from the Albert Hall, which is poor). You can even see all the spot mikes in the videos, but the sound is really quite excellent with no audible trace of the multi milking.

 

My main complaint is very apparent in most of the commercial surround recordings that I have: They don't have any image because the multiple mikes are pan-potted into position, and that is an electronic artifice that has no depth and can only move instruments laterally.

There was also an interesting transition that occurred in the technical team that recorded the Mariinsky Orchestra under Gergiev. The first two releases had been engineered by Sound/Mirror in 5.0. Shostakovich's The Nose and his 15th were those releases and they received very high accolades for sonics. Sound/Mirror were then replaced by the Classic Sounds Ltd. team, of LSO Live infamy, who use a 4.0 technique. If you look at the trend of reviews and user responses at sa-cd.net, there is a clear drop off in perceived audio quality on that label. There were undoubtedly other factors than just 4.0 that contributed to this. But, the sound became run-of-the-mill, as is typical of the LSO Live Mch catalog?

Your praise of ISoMike is consistent with your 4.0 mindset. But, if you try the Mandelring Quartet's Shostakovich cycle on Audite or any of the 2L string quartet releases, all in 5.0, I think you will find them to be superior sonically to ISoMike 4.0's with the Fry St. Quartet.

 

4.0 is what I prefer in surround. Actually, when push comes to shove and shove comes to fall-down, I really prefer 2.0 above all, and I have nothing but disdain for 5.1 for music (I guess it's OK for movies, I don't know. Few of the movies that I am likely to watch have 5.1 soundtracks) I have a number of 5.1 LPCM surround recordings on Blue-Ray, and I'm not really enthused about any of them. However a Naxos of Copland's Billy The Kid, Rodeo, etc. isn't too bad if one listens to the two-channel "mix" on the disc.

Also, for chamber scale, try Sound/Mirror's superbly engineered Profanes et Sacrees with the Boston Chamber Players in multi-miked 5.0. Or, try their superb Beethoven Piano Sonatas with Peter Takacs on a Boesendoerfer. Or, for symphonic scale, their Brahms German Requiem with Levine and the BSO is quite excellent. I do not know of a better recording for large orchestra and chorus than that. I visited with Sound/Mirror at Symphony Hall, Boston several years ago and I got a guided tour of their extensive multi-mike setup, which is what they prefer everywhere. Yet, I do not hear the evidence of any inferiority of Mch mult-milking with Sound/Mirror engineering or a host of other excellent teams' recordings.

I suspect that we listen for different things in our pursuit of high-fidelity.

My examples only skim the surface, of course. But, it seems to me you need to get around more and listen with an open mind to a lot more modern, Mch recordings in true 5.0. Not saying your mindset was not once correct, but I think it gets in your way in appreciating what has been going on in discrete Mch. Great things have been happening over the past 10 years or more in Mch music recording. Ambisonics has been dead for a long time and is only a sentimental memory, like myth. There is absolutely no need for it, nor could it survive commercially, given what we have in discrete Mch recording today.

It's obvious that you are passionate about surround sound. I am not. I find just getting 2-channel stereo right is challenge enough without adding another layer of complexity. The fact is that is that surround sound for music is the niche market and two-channel is the mainstream. I don't think that surround will ever be a market leader, and while, if what you are passionate about, is surround sound, then an evangelistic attitude is natural, and I certainly understand your passion, even though I do not share it.

I also have 7 Martin Logan 'stat hybrids all around with a JL f113 sub, all fed by my PC, Dirac Live and the superb Exasound e28 DAC and some very good amps. This is beyond the sound I had only dreamed of for decades as a stereo-centric audiophile.

 

Looking back on what I wrote last night, I misspoke. I don't have M-L Vantages, I have M-L Vistas I get the two models mixed up all the time and tend to transpose the names if I'm not really careful. The difference, of course, is that the Vantages have powered subs built-in and the Vistas do not. I have a pair of powered Athena subwoofers that I use because I don't like mono bass. That's one reason why I have no interest in 5.1 (or 7.1) surround.

[gmgraves]

Well, George, believe what you want. But, Kavi Alexander, for one, who exclusively uses coincident pair recording for his Water Lily recordings, would strongly disagree with you. sixaugfb is right. Check also Robert E. Greene's audio blog. REG is a strong proponent of the Blumlein mike technique, and he has worked with Kavi on numerous recordings. And, it says so right on the Water Lily album covers. Professor Greene could prove it to you mathematically and he has a second listening chair at the +- 90 position in his listening room just for that reason.

 

First of all, I don't believe what I want to believe, I believe what I know! Are you talking about about a coincident pair of cardioids or a pair of crossed figure-of-eights? The pickup patterns for figure-of-eights and cardioids are not the same and the former are not considered a coincident technique. I do 95% of my recordings using a some variation on the coincident pair of cardioids method, and believe strongly (and I have test CDs to prove it) that coincident miking with cardioids is the best way to record a live event. It yields a phase coherent recording that has pin-point imaging (and minimal audience pickup). When I don't have an audience to deal with, I often use M-S miking. I have recordings that I have made of experiments where both a spaced array of omnis was used along with a coincident pair of the same jazz orchestra rehearsing the same piece of music. Listening to both (one right after the other) will leave no doubt in the minds of even the most casual observer as to which yields the most accurate stereo sound stage.

 

Sure, you can listen without doing that, but that negates the spatial advantages of the coincident pair technique. It is part of the reason that mike technique has flopped commercially, since it requires a different speaker positioning.

 

 

Bull Puckey! Have you personally tried this or are you talking through your hat again? I have 35 years of recording experience and I have tried everything. If by coincident miking you really mean crossed figure-of-eights, I've made recordings using figure-of-eight mikes (actually it's one big-capsule stereo mike where the capsules can be rotated in relation to one another and can be switched between cardioid, fig-8, and omni) and most of the time they have no real advantage (and some well known disadvantages) over coincident cardioids unless one is recording in an empty auditorium or some such space.

 

Theoretically, and mathematically, it's possible that in an anechoic chamber, angling true line-source speakers at 90 degrees to mirror-image the crossed figure-of-eight (or coincident cardioid) mike arrangement might make some difference, but in most real listening environments it simply doesn't. It depends on the speaker to a large extent and there is really no such thing as a true line source; that's an ideal speaker radiation pattern and has yet to be realized (as far as I can tell). For instance, on the playback side, Magneplanars sound and image best when toed-in slightly, but Martin Logans like to be square to each other because of their curved diaphragms. Other speakers respond differently depending on their radiation patterns. No one who understands what they are talking about would ever say that all speakers require the same positioning for best imaging and that they need to be moved depending on what stereo mike arrangement was used to capture any given performance (how would most listeners know what mike arrangement was used, anyway?).

 

As to your conclusion that coincident pair "has flopped commercially", it's patent nonsense (much like the nonsense you were trying to sell yesterday about early consumer stereo tapes being three-track). Coincident miking has no more flopped commercially than any other mike technique! Different microphone techniques exist because of different recording situations and the skill set and tastes (or lack of same) of the producers and recording engineers involved.

[gmgraves]

Recalling the following' date=' June 2009, Post by Robert (von Bahr, CEO, BIS Records and eClassical) :

I find that Petry can be contacted at Take5 Music Production, [email protected]

 

Robert Von Bahr is saying much the same thing as I have been saying. That microphone choice and placement depends on the recording circumstances. I disagree with Bis' use of spaced omnis, but I have to admit that it's better than a whole forest of microphones where each instrument of each section is miked separately and then everything is mixed and pan-potted together to form a whole and utterly artificial "performance".

[gmgraves]

George - you got right.

But, when I add up what you have said, I think you are inflating your Mch experience both in recording and in listening. I am not aware of any commercial Mch recordings you may have done. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

I don't record commercially. I do location recordings for individuals, civic groups, jazz bands and chamber ensembles - but mostly for myself. The only commercial recording that I ever engineered was a Musical Heritage Society lute recording done in the late 1970's. I figure that if I can't buy recordings that sound like real music, I'll make 'em myself. And my Mch experience is limited. Few of my clients have ever requested it, and I can't stress this too strongly: I don't value it. All of the surround that I have done was for my own edification to see for myself whether it was worth the extra effort. I decided after making a dozen or so such recordings (trying different things) that I really don't care that much.

You think you know all about Mch classical recording, but you clearly do not. You strongly object to some modern Mch recording best practices, whether minimally or mult-miked. You are unable to play them back as intended in 5.0 ITU. You also have a blasé attitude about speaker placement, which is fairly critical for best Mch sound. And, your actual listening experience with a decent sized sample of modern Mch recordings played on a properly set up system is suspect. Yet, you rush to judgement on all of them, citing doctrines and beliefs of your own, whether you know how they were made or not.

 

Let me try this one more time. I have a four channel setup to monitor/listen to my OWN 4-channel recordings. I have scores of SACD and Blu-Ray recordings which contain surround mixes. I have listened to the surround material on all of them (usually soon after obtaining them) 90% of them are incompetently recorded and sound like crap to me! I have rarely listened to any of the surround layers more than once, because, as I said before, I do not value Mch or surround sound or whatever you wish to call it at all. I was heavily into the Quadraphonic fiasco of the 1970's. I tried SQ, QS, CD-4 (also known as "Quadradisc") and spent a passel of money on all of them. I even bought a Sony 850-4 tape deck so that I could record the fine San Jose Symphony Orchestra in Quadraphonic sound! (never did it though. There were too many obstacles to running the mike lines for the rear channels). Anyway, except for the Quad tapes I made (the best was a boy's choir in a large church. It always sounded spectacular) I was disillusioned by the poor recording practices as well as the lack of actual separation between the channels in the matrixed Quad formats and the poor S/N and high distortion of the sub-carrier based CD-4 format. The technical problems have long since been solved and we don't have those problems with separation any more, but I still find most modern surround to be poorly recorded and despite your obvious enthusiasm, I don't care about it! OK?

In the process, you cite bogus issues such as "pan-potting", which does not occur in best classical Mch music recording practice. That does occur in Mch remasterings from multi-track pop recordings, such as Dark Side of the Moon, agreed. But, so what? It is not an issue with classical recording, which we were discussing. You have invented a non-existent issue merely to bolster your weak argument.

 

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Of course, they pan-pot multiple microphones into lateral position! How the hell else do you think they got in the right place to begin with? The microphones don't know where they are located in the ensemble, The engineers have to "tell them" where they are supposed to be in the musical ensemble and they do that with pan-pots!

What can I say about "they don't have any image"? Yeah, well, that can happen if you disregard proper ITU speaker layout. But, it does not happen on my system or on numerous others I have heard. The frontal image simply collapses in both width and depth and hall ambience is greatly diminished on switching between hi rez Mch and stereo. It is quite a compelling demo on any properly set up system.

 

You don't need to say anything. If you think these wholly artificial presentations have any real imaging, then you don't understand what actual soundstage is at all!

So, others may choose to believe your sweeping dismissal of classical Mch, which is their right. But, I will stick with Mch myself, thank you. That is true whether or not Mch is "popular". Classical music is already a small niche. And, hi rez Mch classical an even smaller one. But, the recordings keep coming. Check out HRAudio.net (formerly sa-cd.net) for a complete catalog, non-classical genres as well, which identifies recordings in Mch.

 

My god, you just insist on making what started out as a simple discussion about stereo vs surround into some adversarial argument. As I said before, My contribution to this thread was merely to explain to you that two-channel stereo is neither dead nor passé, and that properly recorded Mch is still stereo. My mistake was to continue to engage you after I corrected your misconceptions.

None of the active classical concert goers I know - who are all smart, experienced and sophisticated audiophiles, by the way - disagree with me that properly done, discretely recorded Mch is the closest recordings have yet come to reproducing the realism of the live event in the concert hall. Mch simply captures several times more information from the live event than 2-channel, and it successfully reproduces that to our ears in the listening room given a properly set up system.

 

Christ, you don't read for comprehension, do you? Where have I disagreed that "properly done, discretely recorded Mch is the closest recordings have yet come to reproducing the realism of the live event in the concert hall"? It's the "properly done" part and what each of us considers "properly done" that seems to keep our views apart. This is going nowhere. I've tolerated your half-baked and often erroneous misconceptions about recording history and procedures, and put up with your insults long enough on this thread. Go, enjoy your Mch. believe your misconceptions, and enjoy them both in peace, but enjoy them without me. I won't respond to any more of your nonsense. So let's just agree to disagree, OK?

[gmgraves]

But, it is now clear that your own experience with Mch recording is amateur or semi-pro, at best. You really have no clue how those recordings are made commercially.

 

My 35 years as a PAID recordist (BTW, paid is the definition of professional) as opposed to your NO recording experience at all? You've rocks in your head. I know exactly how the recordings you are touting are made. I can tell how they were miked just by listening to them. As you say, they are multi-miked. And in classical music multi-miking is anathema to me. I don't care how spectacular you think they are, they are not true stereo, and true stereo is all I'm interested in. I don't care about Kal Robinson's column in Stereophile or Andy Quint's TAS column I rarely, if ever read either of them even though I subscribe to both rags. The subject just doesn't interest me, but I've met Kal when we both worked for Stereophile and he's a nice, knowledgeable guy. But our interests differ. I have nothing against real stereo, minimally miked "Mch" (as you like to call it), but I don't like anything captured with a forest of microphones irrespective of how many final channels we're talking about and whether or not it has a Mch layer is a matter of complete indifference to me. For instance, I just received a pre-release copy of Reference Recordings' upcoming Utah Symphony recording of Mahler's First on SACD. I don't even know whether it has a "Mch" layer or not. I haven't bothered to check. Why? Because I don't care. When I review this title (and I will) I'll review it as a two-channel SACD and check its Red Book CD layer for compatibility. And that's all I will comment on because that's how the vast majority of those who ultimately buy that title will listen to it. I'll let Kal and Andy review it for its Mch worth, if, indeed it has an Mch layer. Are we clear now? Are we done? You can go back to searching for that mythical consumer three-track tape deck you've been going on about, an those three track Mercury and RCA pre-recorded tapes that went with it. Let me know how that works out for you.

[gmgraves]

Ok, George. Hopefully, we are done here. But, do try Channel Classics in Mch with a correct speaker setup. As I said, they are minimally miked, just 5 omnis, and also in pure DSD, if that matters to you. But, though you protest, I still do not believe you have any clue how truly professional hi rez Mch recordings are made.

 

Now why would I not know that? I have been in a number of venues and studios where such recordings were actually being made (including Davies Symphony Hall in SF when Tilson Thomas was conducting the recording session for his interpretation of Mahler's 5th Symphony in 5.1)! But, you go ahead and believe whatever helps to get you through your day!

 

Yes, that varies somewhat from label to label and from team to team. But, I am having the time of my life with them. I never thought audio in the home could be this good. But, of course, unlike you, my sense of proper imaging is seriously handicapped, in spite of all the 2 dozen or so live concerts I attend each year. Vive la handicap!

 

Sigh! I'm glad that you are enjoying yourself, but You still don't seem to understand my POV. I'm sure that the Channel Classics (strangely, I don't have any of those, to my recollection) 5-Mike recordings sound OK (3 in the front, 2 in the rear, I suspect), But they are not what I consider "multi-miked", which is what I have been railing against this entire thread. 5 mikes are, of course, the MINIMUM one can use and get 5.0 surround. But here is my problem with the whole concept. While I obviously have enjoyed the classical recordings of Bob Fine and Mercury Living Presence for many years, I have never particularly liked the stereo perspective afforded by the spaced omni method that he and many others (such as Bob Woods of Telarc) employed. Some variation (and there are many) of the coincident mike technique using cardioids*, is to me, the only proper way to record true stereo. Whether it's A-B, X-Y, ORTF, the "Decca Tree", or M-S, The results are true, phase-coherent stereo. The reason why I have always recorded the surround that I have done in 4-channel is because coincident miking doesn't lend itself to a center channel for what, should be, obvious reasons. Your assumption that only 5.1 can give "proper Mch" is based on your erroneous belief that three front channels for the musicians is either necessary or desirable. It's certainly not necessary and many recordists (me amongst them) don't believe its even desirable There are only two ways to get three front channels out of a musical performance: 1) use three spaced omni-mikes ala Mercury Living Presence, or 2), use a forest of close-up microphones, recording each section (and in some cases, even each instrument) to a separate recording track, and then going-back and mixing those multiple channels down to a final mix of three channels, right, center, and left. Neither of these methods gives an ideal stereo soundstage (not to mention the fact that instruments in a symphony orchestra do not sound the same (read that as: "they do not sound right"!) miked close-up as they do when heard from the proper perspective of the audience. 12-20 close miked violins tend to sound like 12-20 individual violins rather than a "string section" as they're supposed to. And with all of the record industry's tools and toys, they still can't fake it either). The three omni method being the lesser of those two evils. The multi-track, of course gives no real sound stage and no real imaging (just a line of instruments stretching across the stage from left-to right with no depth because multi-miking techniques capture no depth, so there can't be any). Here's the bottom line: Unless a recording was made using three spaced omnis or a forrest of microphones feeding a 8-48 track recorder, there is no way to produce a 5.1 surround recording. And since neither method of deriving three front channels is satisfactory to me for proper imaging, or proper instrument sound, I don't want to listen to it. That's why I don't value modern 5.1 surround. Now, if that doesn't explain my objections to the practice, then I cannot be any clearer than that.

 

*The exception is, of course, Kimber's IsoMike process with it's huge valentine-shaped baffle between two pairs of otherwise closely spaced omnis (two facing forward, two facing back).

 

If I had any interest whatsoever in surround sound (which, it should be apparent by now, I don't have), I would certainly take your advice and thank you for it.

 

BTW, Ampex made a 3-channel tape machine back in the 50's:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_multitrack_recording

 

Ampex isn't the only one, but it is what Mercury used (RCA Victor tended to use their own in-house designs). Also making 3-track pro recorders were Magnecord, Westrex (3-track, 35mm magnetic film recorder such as those used to capture the famous Verve Getz/Gilberto album and the Getz/Byrd Jazz Samba album), Magnetech, Stancil Hoffman, 3M, Amega, Willi Studer, RCA, of course, and Telefunken and probably many more that neither of us have ever heard of. All 3-channel, 3-track pro recorders were either 1/2-inch tape or 35mm magnetic film recorders.

 

Yes, I realize it was a pro machine, and consumer versions for playback of 3-channel RCAs and Mercurys from tape never quite came to fruition.

 

Now there's an understatement! I told you in our initial exchange that three-track recorders were only pro machines and there were no consumer 3-track decks ever sold. And the only way that anybody could get a three-channel recording to play "at home" was if they knew somebody at RCA or Mercury who would dub them a half-inch copy of the master, and I'll guarantee you that didn't happen very often! Remember, 3-channel recordings were only made so that they would have both a stereo master for stereo vinyl discs (as well as stereo R-to-R tapes) and a mono master for "regular" LPs. Mixing the center channel equally into the right-and left channels for a "phantom" third channel) didn't come until later. Some recording engineers (such as Bert Whyte of Everest Records) never recorded three channel because they tended to use coincident or M-S miking techniques. Other labels that never recorded 3-track in stereo's early days were British Decca, DGG, HMV, and I'm sure there were others. Reason? If you use coincident or M-S miking you don't need a separate mono track to get a mono mix for regular LPs because these miking methods yield a phase coherent recording that sums perfectly to mono, while spaced omni arrays do not.

 

That idea was quickly overwhelmed by the appearance of the stereo LP, when standards for that medium were finally agreed upon, rather suddenly as I read in an archival copy of Audio Magazine. 2-channel LP technology was not new, but there were differing proprietary standards. Finally, there was industry-wide agreement in the late 50's using the Westrex 45/45 degree cutter head. And, of course, the LP was much cheaper to manufacture than tape reproductions. Unfortunately, we lost the center channel in that Faustian bargain in the interest of better market penetration. So, the rest, as they say, is history.

 

I'm not convinced that there was ever a serious consideration of marketing three-channel to the public. I know a lot about the history of recording and the record business and I've never heard of such a marketing scheme. Welch and Reed don't mention it either in their exhaustive study of the recording industry in From Tinfoil to Stereo and neither does Tremaine in his even more exhaustive and detailed The Audio Cyclopedia. If such a thing were being seriously considered, surely, at least one of them would have mentioned it. Keep in mind that in the early days of stereo, before the advent of 8, 16, 24, and 48 track recording with it's concomitant forest of microphones, the only source of three-channel material would be those record producers who mastered in three-track. Otherwise the material for such a consumer product wouldn't even exist. If you have a citation that says definitively that the recording industry was ever going to release a three-track consumer tape format, please post it, I would love to see it. Bye for now.

[gmgraves]

I good read from when it was all starting,

Journal of the Audio Engineering Society April 1958

Stereophonic Sound with Two Tracks, Three Channels by Paul W Klipsch

https://community.klipsch.com/forums/storage/3/1084848/Stereo_2track_3channel.pdf

 

Thanks for this. Most of the Derived 3rd channel matrixing info is old hat now. But Klipsh's perspective on microphone placement is interesting. Keep in mind that many in the recording (and playback) industries in the 1950's and into the 1960s believed that because the frequency response of cardioid mikes rolled-off (or became uneven) at the edges of the pattern, that they weren't acceptable for recording music. While that might have been true early-on, it certainly wasn't true by the late '50's. I've made a number of stereo recordings using a Telefunken M-270 "stereo" mike (not mine, unfortunately) with both capsules switched to cardioid and gotten excellent stereo recordings with great, pin-point imaging and excellent, smoothe frequency response. When using a coincident cardioid pair the truth is that where the left mike's right edge starts to roll-off, the left edge of the right mike is rolling-on. Careful back-and forth placement of the stereo pair will ensure that the outer edge of the pair's pickup pattern is beyond the placement of the furthest right or left instrument in the ensemble and whatever rolloff there is becomes therefore, irrelevant. I guess that this is the type of thing that either one has a feel for or one doesn't....

 

 

For some great modern multi channel recordings on BluRay see,

Mark Waldrep's BluRays usually include 5.1 recording done with different mic perspectives that give you either a audience or a stage listening position. All done in excellent 24/96 True High Definition sound. If you have a top shelf 5.1 system these offer some of the best multi channel hi def recording available.

AIX Records - Home Page

 

 

I have several of Mark Waldrep's Sampler DVDs, and I think that he is probably a competent and knowledgeable mastering engineer, but a lousy recording engineer. Most of his miking techniques are, to my tastes, completely incompetent. He tends to close-mike everything and he mikes pianos by putting stereo microphones inside the piano! This yields, on playback, pianos that are as wide as the room with the bass end of the keyboard on the left, Middle C in the center, and the treble-end of the keyboard on the far right! He does a similar thing with drum-kits. Part of the kit is on the left, part is in the center and another part on the right. There might be some people who like this sort of thing, and likely, most are probably indifferent to it to the point of not even noticing, but to me it completely destroys the illusion that I'm listening to music. When I first played his samplers, I was appalled! Waldrep asked me the next day at the show what I thought of the samplers, and I couldn't even come up with the simplest platitude, so I lied and told him that I hadn't had a chance to listen yet.

[gmgraves]

We think this is the best method, not just for the benefit of the listener, but for the performer too.

 

This is the only way artists can retain full control over the sound of their music, when done correctly it can create a direct link between artists and listener. Read hear for a better explanation: About - PlayClassics, the art of true music

 

It may seem that making a recording with only two mics would be a simple thing to do, but the truth is that this type of recording is technically the most challenging one. To get it right, problems have to be solved on the real world. It takes a lot of time before the actual recording event to get a right setup of the auditorium, and in most cases this just cannot be done.

 

Mario Martínez

PlayClassics, the art of true music

Musicstry Studios, discover the Truthful Recording Technology

 

 

+1!!!!!!

 

Yes, simple two-mike stereo does seem like it should be easier than other mike techniques, but in reality it takes something that I feel that most recording companies have neither the patience nor the in-house talent, expertise, nor experience to pull-off successfully, so they play it safe and multi-mike everything. You are also right when you say that multi-miking techniques take control of how the performance ultimately sounds away from the musicians and the conductor.

 

Well written and very lucid description. Thank you.

[gmgraves]

I couldn't agree more.

 

It completely baffles me how anyone could possibly think otherwise.

 

 

My guess is that in many cases, it's because people have gotten out of the habit of attending live classical concerts and therefore have either forgotten, or never knew, what real, live, acoustical instruments played in a real space actually sound like. The only other reason that I can fathom is that they have 'different' tastes and/or are so caught up in making their stereo systems sit-up and do tricks that they don't really care that it has little or no relation to real music. If there are other reasons that anyone else can think of to legitimize such a travesty, let's hear them, by all means (and before rockers, rappers, and other "pop" aficionados chime-in, we're talking classical, mostly symphonic, music here. What the pop and jazz recordist do, is irrelevant to this conversation)

[gmgraves]

I agree with that. I believe Barry D has the idea one mike per channel of playback. I think that is a good way to go.

 

 

That's somewhat simplistic, but yes. But it's not just one microphone per channel, it's the kind of microphone and how those mikes are arrayed. Spaced omni's, for instance, to me are wrong. You'll never get phase coherent stereo out of them. Coincident mikes using figure-of-eights or cardioids, in XY, AB, ORTF or MS configuration are, on the other hand the only correct way to record for stereo. Most minimally-miked surround, for instance is five channel; with a single omnidirectional mike for each of the five channels (with or without a point-one for the mono bass*): right front, center front, left front, and right and left rear. The three front channels screw the stereo up beyond redemption! Even though it can "sound good" and even spectacular, it fails at what I can only believe to be it's primary goal which is to transport the listener to the venue where the performance took place. Yes, the real "thing" has the room ambience coming from behind the listener, but the real thing also images the musicians giving a realistic soundstage where the listener can close his/her eyes and pick out each instrument in its actual location on the stage - side-to-side and front to back. Spaced omnis (whether two or three) cannot give that kind of pinpoint stereo. Most people don't notice it because they've rarely (if ever) experienced it, but once one does experience and recognize it for it is, it gives people goosebumps.

 

* OK for surround movie soundtracks, wrong for classical music.

[gmgraves]

I still like the idea of subtle ambient hall sound in rear surrounds either miked, dsp, or matrix. Been having something like that available since the 70s quad days. But I'm a rocker so we're told we don't count here. Too bad since we're about 95% of the market. Won't make any money by ignoring us. WOO :-)

 

 

Nobody's "ignoring" rockers, it's just that even though rock and other forms of pop are a by far the largest market segment, the way the music is realized and recorded doesn't lend itself to ambience retrieval. Besides, if you gave most most rock producers the carte blanche to do surround for their productions, they wouldn't be able to resist putting the musical group all around the room and this has been proven by the fact that they couldn't resist it during the quadriphonic era. Also, pop is primarily a commercial venture rather than an artistic one (although many would argue that pop and rock are art as well, I'll stay out of that can of worms) and by far, the lion's share of that audience is listening on ear-buds or cheap players of some kind and don't give a hoot or a dollar about such niceties as "subtle ambient hall sound". After all, the term 'subtle' is not exactly the word that most people would associate with most pop, and especially rock and rap.

[gmgraves]

The argument for omnis vs. directional mikes goes way, way back. And, different engineers, some with terrific credentials and recordings to their credit, prefer one way, the other way or a mix of the two. Same goes for single mike/channel vs. multi-mike. So, while there may be one and only one absolute answer for you, others have found a different one and been successful with it. I think each recording needs to be judged on its own merits, not in terms of dogmatic adherence to a particular ideology, much like audio equipment.

 

I'm sorry, this is not a matter of opinion, this is as incontrovertible as the run rising in the east and setting in the west. Spaced omnis simply do not make for real stereo. They can't, It's impossible. All one has to do is sit in front of a musical ensemble while they're playing, close one's eyes and LISTEN. Then record the same ensemble with spaced omnis and then, again, with a stereo pair. Go back to one's stereo system with those recordings and listen to both of them. One will give pretty much the same perspective and stereo soundstage experience that one heard listening to the ensemble live, and the other will give this vague, amorphous soundstage. Three guesses which is which. It's unambiguous, it's as clear as crystal, and there's no room for debate. People who record using modern spaced omnis are simply wrong from a stereophonic sound perspective. I suspect that it is done for reasons other than proper imaging and stereo.

 

In my discussions with recording engineers who prefer omni mikes, they cite the frequency colorations in directional mikes as a major downside. Truth be told, I have heard these colorations myself in some famous recordings done with coincident pair, directional mikes. Decades back, there was a front cover of TAS featuring the Water Lily "In Nature's Realm", recorded at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Sawallisch. That was done by Kavi Alexander using crossed figure 8's, I believe. A fair number friends and I were quite familiar with the sound of that orchestra in that hall. One of my friends volunteered to help Kavi on the project, so he was there in the hall at the live session.

 

Like I said. They do it for other reasons than proper stereo. And, it can be a matter of opinion as to whether the tradeoffs are worth it (or even exist at all). I've been recording that way since the 1970's and using Sony C-500s and C-37Ps in those days and I can tell you that if you know what you are doing, there are no "frequency colorations".

 

Yes, there was very good, dimensional image retrieval on that recording by stereo standards, provided one sat at +-45 degrees to one's speakers.

 

Well, that depends upon the speakers. The Magnepan 0.7s that I'm listening to now do require a bit of toe-in for proper imaging, but my Martin-Logans do not. They prefer being square to the listening space as do many other speaker designs.

 

 

But, the overall sound of the orchestra in the hall was disappointing and the recording quickly fell from audiophile favor in spite of the hype by TAS. It is a very difficult hall to record in, and it has seldom been used by any other label in the stereo era. My friends and I unanimously agreed, though, that the sound was just much drier than the real thing, which is dry in the first place, and it failed to accurately capture the sound we knew as orchestra subscribers. We did not think the recording was competive in capturing live orchestral sound compared to many multi-miked commercial recordings of the day.

 

I had a similar experience in the venue where the San Jose (CA) Symphony played their concerts. The place was designed with a moveable ceiling: closed for plays and lectures, and open for concerts. Unfortunately, when they were getting ready to open the hall for the first time, they were testing the ceiling and it completely collapsed! Luckily there was no one in the audience when it fell. They fixed it by scrapping the moveable ceiling and replacing it with a compromised fixed ceiling: i.e. too reverberant for lectures and plays and music too dry for music. I tried to solve the problem by first adding two microphones to the back of the hall, and when that didn't really gain me too much, I started using an early "reverb" machine consisting of bucket-brigade delay lines and long springs in big cardboard tubes. It was better, but still not ideal.

 

This is but one isolated example, and maybe Kavi screwed up. I do not find his other orchestral recordings, such as those in St. Petersburg, to be that good either. The point being, minimal milking is no panacea that guarantees a great stereo recording. Conversely, multi-miking is not automatically doomed to produce a second-rate recording, though certainly there are many examples of where it has done so. It all depends ...

 

Correction: minimal miking is no panacea for making good recordings period. One needs to know what one is doing. Properly miked stereo will guarantee good stereo, but that doesn't guarantee a good "recording". I've heard recordings made with cheap electret mikes (like the Sony single-point 929 MS mike) that have great stereo imaging, but with little bass and rolled-off highs, it's nothing I'd want to listen to except out of curiosity.

 

There have also been many audiophiles and a handful of recording engineers over the years who, like you, insist that minimally miked, coincident pair is the only "correct" way to record classical music. Yet, it has never managed to convince the main stream of audiophiles and engineers, in spite of the continued advocacy by you and others. The engineers I have talked to are quite aware of the techniques you advocate, but their considered opinion is you are quite wrong, all things considered.

 

There's a lot of incompetence out there and a lot of record company recording engineers who would rather be recording the Rolling Stones than the Philadelphia Orchestra, but they go where they're told and record what they are bid to record even though they may not have the interest or the aptitude for it. Likewise, most listeners wouldn't know a properly miked classical recording if it came up and bit them in the arse. I don't think that I need to speculate very hard to understand where you fall.

 

And, I also think you are quite wrong about 3-channel Mercury and RCA stereo from the 50's-60's. It is far better than the 2-channel versions. Unfortunately, since you have no center channel in your setup, you have no idea based on actual listening. But, you have a strong ideological belief nonetheless.

 

Well, Like I said, in an earlier forum. You have convinced me that you have no idea what comprises a proper stereo perspective. Your adherence to three-channel spaced omnis tells me that you have never performed the experiments with different microphone placement strategies to have even the slightest clue about what the advantages and disadvantages are of using different microphone techniques. I'm sure if you look on the Internet long enough you can find a site that will show you, mathematically, why spaced omnis cannot do real stereo. But I doubt that even that will convince you, since obviously, listening has taught you nothing.

[gmgraves]

Totally agree with your comment on what most producers do with 5.1, I had full quad back in the mid 70s with Marantz 2270 + 2440, most were garbage. But there's some very fine work being done on BD like David Gilmour's Remember That Night.

 

Not familiar with the work, so I'll take your word.

 

We could have a real argument over what is or isn't art but that just boils down to opinion and isn't worth the breath to discuss LOL

 

+1

 

As to what rockers are listening on, don't forget it was baby boomer gen rockers that built high end audio.

 

While that might be true later on, I don't think they had much say initially. Go back and look at some of the very early TAS issues or Stereophile issues or Hi-Fi News and Record Reviews. There were lots of record reviews but nary a one pertaining to rock music. Seems to me (IIRC) that rock reviews didn't start to appear with any regularity until the late 1980s (and then rarely), but by the turn of the century, they had slowly, but inexorably become dominant. Same with equipment reviews. Early-on in the high-end game, all references to recorded works used to evaluate equipment were classical (with an occasional jazz reference). Now it's pretty much all rock with an occasional classical reference (especially from the older reviewers).

More high end equipment was sold to listen to Dark Side of the Moon than all other music styles combined. Plus the labels are still surviving on reselling 30-40 year old rock recordings on the latest digital or vinyl pressing fads. When we finally all croak off it will be dark days for the component equipment industry. LOL

 

I suspect that when we croak-off, so will the industry. It's already on life support. Do you understand why audio equipment has become more and more expensive? It's simple economics. The market is tiny and getting tinier, and the manufacturers are, for the most part, also tiny. There are two ways to go. Build thousands of cheaper components per year or build dozens of very expensive components per year. The former business plan requires huge capitalization with tremendous risks if it fails. You have to assemble a huge organization with lots of workers to build the widgets and you have to buy components in bulk. OTOH, if you make a couple of dozen per year and sell them at astronomical prices you can make just as much money, but now you can afford to pick and choose your components and buy them in onesey-twosey quantities (of course they cost more than way, but at the prices you are charging, who cares?). You can also farm out metal work and circuit board fabrication and stuff those boards at your kitchen table (I know one VERY high-end manufacturer who does just that!). If you only buy enough components to build a couple of units at a time, if the business goes bust, you are minimally impacted. That's why audio components get more and more expensive. The market is dwindling and the only way to keep up with it while making fewer and fewer devices each year is to go upscale.

[gmgraves]

True at the very beginning of High End cause JGH, HP, and all were mostly classical music fans. But it didn't take them long to realize that the market for equipment was being driven by the rockers and if they wanted the readership base to grow beyond the tiny numbers the classical music base would support, they better get on the soul train. The third thing the average boomer bought after he entered the work force was a HiFi for his crib and car

 

Well, he bought a mid-fi anyway with brands like Pioneer and Marantz. And I think if you go back and look through the early Stereophiles and the early TAS issues you'll find that it really did take them a long time to "get on the soul train" as you put it. And remember high-fidelity as a force in consumer electronics was invented for classical music, as other forms of music simply weren't available in high-fidelity playback formats. Pop had 7" 45RPM or 10" 78RPM singles early on, neither of which were exactly high-fidelity sources. Even pop LPs were generally culled from 78s.

 

I find it sad the way the whole industry has changed.

 

As do I. When I read reviews of equipment in stereo magazines, and I read about the music that they cite to illustrate some characteristic of the equipment under review, I find that it simply means nothing to me. Most of the time, I don't even know what they're talking about, much less recognize the artists or the 'cuts' that they are referencing!

 

 

What ever kind of music you like it's become just a background noise to life for today's generation?

 

Unfortunately, we've bred several generations of youngsters who have essentially zero attention span for activities such as listening intently and critically to music. I've had more than one educator tell me that!

 

 

I thought that the Home Theater market was going to hold out some hope but it appears that market is shrinking along with the boomers ageing too? Cheap ass sound bars are all most really want now.

 

Yep. A good friend of mine has a 10-year old boy. He's not dumb by any stretch of the imagination, but all he does all day is watch those cheap semi-animated cartoons (while doing 15 other things simultaneously). He's never (to my knowledge) watched a live movie, or read a book he didn't have to read for school, and he is always trying to do three or four things at once - none of them well, apparently. But we caused that with all of these "modern" teaching techniques coupled with the sound-byte mentality of modern information dissemination.

[gmgraves]

"Nimrod Antal"

An appropriate name I would think.

 

"one of the most popular and influential rock bands in history"

That's a laugh, just another crank the amps to 10 heavy metal noise band.

 

Now Atmos, When is the Home Theater crew going to learn that 5.1 systems are about as far as they can push the average joe and his spouse for clutter in the living room. First it was 7.1 then 9.1 then 11.1 now Atmos and that other new speaker in the ceiling system. The more they push these multi speaker systems the more the wife says, just get the sound bar. LOL

 

 

Well said! I've had similar musings myself. The industry will, apparently, come up with anything to sell more amplifiers and speakers....!

[gmgraves]

If the center and surrounds were disabled I don't see what's so "totally wrong" with that systems arrangement. Every stereo speaker has slightly different requirements but with the L & R speakers positioned out from the rear and side walls and angled slightly towards the listener, that setup looks good to me, maybe move the listening chairs a little closer to more of a equilateral triangle position, but still,, looks like it should sound pretty good to me.

 

If the center channels were disabled, then it would no longer be 5.1, now would it? And if it was a 5.1 recording that the center channel was disabled for then it would be doubly wrong because one would then have a huge hole-in-the-middle!

[gmgraves]

I sent you a private message with a link to download the file.

 

The file I sent you is a 320kbps 48kHz LAME MP3 file. (24 MB)

 

To maintain the best audio quality these files are mastered for PlayClassics directly from the 24bit 96kHz studio files. The original file is 346,2MB in size.

 

Happy listening!

 

As a recording engineer who agrees with your methodology 100% and would LOVE to hear some of your stuff on 320 kbps Mp3, could you please send me a link to download at least the Albeniz Iberia​? Thank You.

[gmgraves]

Are you saying that stereo speakers at +- 30 degrees from the sweet spot is always wrong, since that is what the diagram says, after subtracting all the other channels for Mch? It seems to me that it depends on the speakers and the room. Also, many hi fi guide books recommend the equilateral triangle setup, which is the same as this, as a starting point for stereo.

 

First of all, I said nothing in post you are quoting about +/- 30 degrees of anything! I have already said that the necessity (or even the advisability) of toe-in is speaker dependent. As I said in another post, the Magnepan Point Sevens that I'm auditioning now require a degree of toe-in for the imaging to "pop", but my Martin-Logans don't like that at all and image best when parallel to the wall behind them.

 

Hey, if it actually produces a hole in the middle in a specific setup, I would be all in favor of moving the front pair closer to one another. But, it ain't necessarily so in all rooms with all speakers.

 

I never said that it was. You seem to be selectively understanding what I'm writing. As I said above, in #53, if you are listening to a real five channel recording, with right, left and center front channels, derived from right, left and center mikes, and you disabled the center channel, then you are deleting the center fill of the 5-channel recording and are now getting only right and left with nothing from the center except what tends to spill over from the two side mikes. That will definitely give one a hole-in-the-middle where there simply ain't supposed to be one!

[gmgraves]

Yes, of course. I just sent you a private message with the link to download the file.

 

Enjoy!

 

Probably one of the best solo piano recordings I've ever heard! Perfectly centered piano that sounds like it's in the room with you and is the size of a real grand piano with lots of airy ambience on the sides, behind the piano and above it. Just delightful! Thanks.

[gmgraves]

He has the mikes inside the piano. LOLOLOL

 

You sure about that? If he has, he's doing something very different from what most people who stick the mikes in the piano are doing! What I heard is a piano that is NOT 10 (or 50) ft wide, is centered on stage, and is the right size and has plenty of ambience with none of the mechanical mechanism sounds that most other in-piano mike arrangements have. Now, I, myself have put an accent mike or two over the edge of a piano case before when I thought that the piano needed a bit more "presence" due the venue's acoustics, but it was always subordinate to the overall stereo pair. It sounds to me like if he has mikes inside the piano, he's done it this way. If not he's doing something totally unfamiliar to me. I'll go back and to listen to it again.

[gmgraves]

We use the same setup for every recording. It does not matter if it is just piano, or any other chamber music arrangement. We only use two mics and they are always placed on the same exact spot of our auditorium outside of the stage area. There is no mixing involved, left mic is left speaker and right mic is right speaker. We have obtained this sound by working the acoustics of the auditorium itself.

 

To see how this works for tenor and piano try out track 14 "Chitarrata abruzzese."

 

Songs of Paolo Tosti - PlayClassics, the art of true music

 

For soprano and piano you can try track 8 "Sliczny Chlopiec."

 

Chopin Polish Songs - PlayClassics, the art of true music

 

If you cannot stream it please tell me so. I will be happy to send you this samples.

 

 

I knew that those mikes couldn't have been inside the piano with those results!