Why Haven;t You Tried Immersive 3D Audio Yet?

[witchdoctor]

I see a lot written on this board about audio and a lot of what is written about seems like a traveler confused by a mirage. Recorded audio is a glimpse of a live performance with its own limitations. Last I looked you can't fit a piano in a microphone and extract it at the other end.

Can somebody please explain why two speakers is the right number? No you can't because it isn't the right number. If it was a PA system at a concert would only use two speakers right? Maybe if it was in closet but last I checked they place speakers around the auditorium.

Take a moment and ground yourself and see if you can answer that question, why two speakers? If you don't know start with this book, chapter 15-

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduction-Psychoacoustics-Loudspeakers-Engineering/dp/0240520092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485726927&sr=8-1&keywords=floyd+toole

in section 15.8 the author discusses upmixing algorithms. My favorite is Auro 3D. To me trying to achieve the best SQ with two speakers is like trying to cross the ocean in a row boat, more effort than its worth, YMMV. Please check this out:

 

Auro-3D Music Upmix Demo with StormAudio ISP 3D.16 Elite Pre/Pro at CES 2017 - AVSForum.com

[kilroy]

Seems more like a gimmicky A-V thing than something the typical audiophile might be interested in.

[witchdoctor]

Seems more like a gimmicky A-V thing than something the typical audiophile might be interested in.

 

Exactly, "typical audiophile" is the key. Do you really want your system to be typical or do you want it to be excellent? You can check out the content section of the book I posted for free on Amazon. Just take a look at the topics and specifically chapter 15.

[Sam Lord]

Oops witchdoctor, time to learn about acoustics. To maintain fidelity with a large number of transducers, you must either wear a big heavy array on your head or, with gobs of speakers, have very distorted sound in all but one head position. Physics is your friend!

 

Go ask Bob Stuart about the ideal balance of channels in a playbàck system. He will tell you not "5.1," not "11.1," but 3. Chesky prefers four.

 

I use two, because when you spend half as much per speaker for four you lose SQ. And surround is an ugly PITA.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Computer Audiophile mobile app

[witchdoctor]

Oops witchdoctor, time to learn about acoustics. To maintain fidelity with a large number of transducers, you must either wear a big heavy array on your head or, with gobs of speakers, have very distorted sound in all but one head position. Physics is your friend!Go ask Bob Stuart about the ideal balance of channels in a playbàck system. He will tell you not "5.1," not "11.1," but 3. Chesky prefers four.

I use two, because when you spend half as much per speaker for four you lose SQ. And surround is an ugly PITA.

Cheers

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

Bob Stuart-

 

S&V: What to you think about the new object-based sound formats, Dolby Atmos, or Auro-3D?

Stuart: I think they’re better than we’ve had before because they have height. But there’s always been very good technology for that in the Ambisonic technology. Auro-3D gives the highest resolution in 3D sound.

[blownsi]

My own personal opinion is that it's yet another attempt to sell us on surround sound and all the gear that goes along with it.

[witchdoctor]

Oops witchdoctor, time to learn about acoustics. To maintain fidelity with a large number of transducers, you must either wear a big heavy array on your head or, with gobs of speakers, have very distorted sound in all but one head position. Physics is your friend!Go ask Bob Stuart about the ideal balance of channels in a playbàck system. He will tell you not "5.1," not "11.1," but 3. Chesky prefers four.

I use two, because when you spend half as much per speaker for four you lose SQ. And surround is an ugly PITA.

Cheers

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Computer Audiophile mobile app

 

I noticed you use ATC speakers, they are releasing new speakers for immersive setups-

 

An install-specific sibling, the SCM12i, will also be available as of Q1 2017. This model will feature threaded mounting points to mate with widely-available wall and ceiling brackets from K&M and Adaptive Technologies to simplify installation – useful in complex multichannel systems, such as those required by Auro 3D, Dolby Atmos, or DTS:X.

[witchdoctor]

My own personal opinion is that it's yet another attempt to sell us on surround sound and all the gear that goes along with it.

 

If I only had my desktop system I would still enjoy listening to music. You are 100% right, they are selling gear. Every year brings advances in audio and video. I waited for the prices to drop significantly before I bought a 3D processor (about 50% off MSRP) I added matching speakers over time, as budget allowed. first two front height channels, then two rear height channels. Finally the VOG top surround channel. It was fun to upgrade but I had to space out my purchases. However once it is setup the realism and dynamics was worth it for me. I drew the line at cutting holes in my ceiling for atmos overhead speakers but some people swear by them. Atmos sounds just fine in an auro 3d layout and I used tall stands so I didn't even need to drill holes for wall mounted speaker brackets.

[semente]

In my opinion DSProcessed immersive 3D audio is a gimmick; I think that the only type of high fidelity immersive sound possible, both from a tonal and from a spatial perspective, is surround, where you get one speaker for each channel/mic.

 

I don't have enough space for a 5.2 setup and even if I did I would rather invest the available budget in a 2.0 or 2.2 system.

Most recordings are issued as 2.0 anyway...

 

I won't even be trying immersive 3D audio.

 

R

[STC]

In my opinion DSProcessed immersive 3D audio is a gimmick; I think that the only type of high fidelity immersive sound possible, both from a tonal and from a spatial perspective, is surround, where you get one speaker for each channel/mic.

 

....

 

Generally, that is true. Many attempted 3D sound before but somehow they were not commercially successful.

 

Anyone remember about Weiss speakers? Or Carver's Holographic amplifier or something like that?

 

Having said that, you don't need any kind of DSP to retrieve the 3D information from a true stereo recording.

 

 

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[witchdoctor]

Generally, that is true. Many attempted 3D sound before but somehow they were not commercially successful.

 

Anyone remember about Weiss speakers? Or Carver's Holographic amplifier or something like that?

Having said that, you don't need any kind of DSP to retrieve the 3D information from a true stereo recording.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yes I remember Carvers Sonic Holography (and still use it in my desktop system with a Sunfire TG3 processor).

I like it, it works better for 2 channel music in stereo than it does for surround in movies.

 

Do you NEED a 3D surround system. No, all you NEED is youtube and a pc technically. I wasn't able to determine the real benefits until I tried it in my own room. Do I WANT the benefits? Now that I have compared I would say most of the time yes. On the occasion I crave 2 channel I just listen in Pure Direct on the big rig or to my desktop system.

[semente]

Yes I remember Carvers Sonic Holography (and still use it in my desktop system with a Sunfire TG3 processor).I like it, it works better for 2 channel music in stereo than it does for surround in movies.Do you NEED a 3D surround system. No, all you NEED is youtube and a pc technically. I wasn't able to determine the real benefits until I tried it in my own room. Do I WANT the benefits? Now that I have compared I would say most of the time yes. On the occasion I crave 2 channel I just listen in Pure Direct on the big rig or to my desktop system.

What kind of music do you listen to?I very much doubt that the "immersion" factor would outweigh the losses in imaging focus and in tonal accuracy with classical music, which is what I listen about 90% of the time.On the other hand, I'm not fussy when it comes to pop/rock and could easily live with a more involving sound, less accurate reproduction (i.e. a pair of Bose 901s) because it's mostly played as background music...

[NOMBEDES]

Some people like 2 channel. Some people like multi channel. No big deal.

[STC]

What kind of music do you listen to?I very much doubt that the "immersion" factor would outweigh the losses in imaging focus and in tonal accuracy with classical music, which is what I listen about 90% of the time.On the other hand, I'm not fussy when it comes to pop/rock and could easily live with a more involving sound, less accurate reproduction (i.e. a pair of Bose 901s) because it's mostly played as background music...

 

It is not correct to say immersion is at the expense of imaging and tonal accuracy.

 

The latter may be true for typical studio recordings but not for large ensembles or it matters.

 

The problem with 3D sound is us. For more than 50 years, we adapted listening to the distorted stereo sound and now we judge other reproduction from the stereo sound standard. No sound in nature, comes out identically from two sources but that what Stereo does and we have adapted to its flaws.

 

 

 

 

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[witchdoctor]

It is not correct to say immersion is at the expense of imaging and tonal accuracy.

 

The latter may be true for typical studio recordings but not for large ensembles or it matters.

 

The problem with 3D sound is us. For more than 50 years, we adapted listening to the distorted stereo sound and now we judge other reproduction from the stereo sound standard. No sound in nature, comes out identically from two sources but that what Stereo does and we have adapted to its flaws.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Well said and nice system I see in your signature, thanks for posting all those videos

[semente]

It is not correct to say immersion is at the expense of imaging and tonal accuracy.

 

The latter may be true for typical studio recordings but not for large ensembles or it matters.

 

The problem with 3D sound is us. For more than 50 years, we adapted listening to the distorted stereo sound and now we judge other reproduction from the stereo sound standard. No sound in nature, comes out identically from two sources but that what Stereo does and we have adapted to its flaws.

 

I see where you are coming from but I meant the "immersion" factor that results from DSP'ing 2, 3 or even 4 channels into Immersive 3D.

[STC]

I see where you are coming from but I meant the "immersion" factor that results from DSP'ing 2, 3 or even 4 channels into Immersive 3D.

 

I have compared immersion with and without DSP and I don't hear any difference. Although, BAACH at $50K is beyond my reach, the DSP employed there gives you the best 3D immersion but such application is more suitable for HT.

 

WEISS too is now including some sort of RACE DSP, I do not think it will ever be accepted by the audiophiles no matter how accurate the playback is going to be.

 

You can also Google for Aria3D to experiment yourself. They have speakers and headphones version there.

 

 

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[Fitzcaraldo215]

What kind of music do you listen to?I very much doubt that the "immersion" factor would outweigh the losses in imaging focus and in tonal accuracy with classical music, which is what I listen about 90% of the time.On the other hand, I'm not fussy when it comes to pop/rock and could easily live with a more involving sound, less accurate reproduction (i.e. a pair of Bose 901s) because it's mostly played as background music...

 

I really do not know what your experience is with classical music in Mch. Yours seems like the typical response of someone who has not actually heard it properly set up in a system of quality. With all due respect, you are only guessing at what it is capable of. For what purpose, I have no clue.

 

Absolutely none of the dire negative consequences you ascribe occur with discretely recorded Mch in my system or those of numerous friends who, like me, are frequent live classical concert attendees. There is also a parade of listeners who have heard stereo vs. Mch on my system, or on those of my friends, including about 50 members of a local audio society within the last year. The comparison overwhelmingly favors Mch to the ears of most all of these listeners. I have a fair number of friends who prefer classical and who consider Mch one of the great all time breakthroughs toward greater realism in audio.

 

I agree that the type of music one prefers is key. But, it works in reverse of what you say. It is the classical music that excels in Mch, since at its best it realistically captures the acoustic of the venue with the performers arrayed naturally within it. The pop/rock is often just a gimmicky, repanned remix of a previous multi track stereo release. Consequently, it is the classical releases that greatly outnumber pop/rock in Mch, most of them recorded natively in hi rez Mch.

 

I am quite happy with my library of thousands of Mch discs in 2D 5.1 or 7.1. 3D, which is the theme of this thread, is of interest to me. However, I seriously doubt that 3D music will amount to much in my lifetime in terms of available recordings. I have heard discrete Auro 3D, however I have no interest so far in artificially synthesized 3D. I will wait and see on 3D, but I am totally committed to 5/7.1 Mch.

[STC]

I really do not know what your experience is with classical music in Mch. Yours seems like the typical response of someone who has not actually heard it properly set up in a system of quality. With all due respect, you are only guessing at what it is capable of. For what purpose, I have no clue.

 

Absolutely none of the dire negative consequences you ascribe occur with discretely recorded Mch in my system or those of numerous friends who, like me, are frequent live classical concert attendees. There is also a parade of listeners who have heard stereo vs. Mch on my system, or on those of my friends, including about 50 members of a local audio society within the last year. The comparison overwhelmingly favors Mch to the ears of most all of these listeners. I have a fair number of friends who prefer classical and who consider Mch one of the great all time breakthroughs toward greater realism in audio.

 

I agree that the type of music one prefers is key. But, it works in reverse of what you say. It is the classical music that excels in Mch, since at its best it realistically captures the acoustic of the venue with the performers arrayed naturally within it. The pop/rock is often just a gimmicky, repanned remix of a previous multi track stereo release. Consequently, it is the classical releases that greatly outnumber pop/rock in Mch, most of them recorded natively in hi rez Mch.

 

I am quite happy with my library of thousands of Mch discs in 2D 5.1 or 7.1. 3D, which is the theme of this thread, is of interest to me. However, I seriously doubt that 3D music will amount to much in my lifetime in terms of available recordings. I have heard discrete Auro 3D, however I have no interest so far in artificially synthesized 3D. I will wait and see on 3D, but I am totally committed to 5/7.1 Mch.

 

 

To recreate the realism of concert hall performance no stereo reproduction can ever match multichannels. Even the compressed 5.1 DVD sounds more enjoyable when properly setup. I loved the 5.1 SACD disc but I gave up when I knew that is not going to catch on.

 

The existing 2.0 media already contained the hidden location information in it. It can be retrieved without any kind of DSP.

[Kal Rubinson]

I loved the 5.1 SACD disc but I gave up when I knew that is not going to catch on.

Caught on quite well for some of us but it doesn't look like there's a future. Files taking over.

 

The existing 2.0 media already contained the hidden location information in it. It can be retrieved without any kind of DSP.

Somewhat.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

To recreate the realism of concert hall performance no stereo reproduction can ever match multichannels. Even the compressed 5.1 DVD sounds more enjoyable when properly setup. I loved the 5.1 SACD disc but I gave up when I knew that is not going to catch on.

 

The existing 2.0 media already contained the hidden location information in it. It can be retrieved without any kind of DSP.

 

To be sure, Mch music, whether from SACD, BD-A, BD-V or downloads, is only a niche. However, that niche for music listeners rides on the coattails of the huge Mch HT market, equipment-wise. (FWIW, my system contains no HT-specific equipment except for a TV monitor and a center channel speaker.)

 

Also, the SACD has sufficiently "caught on" over the past 15+ years to provide me with a substantial classical library in hi rez Mch. New releases keep coming. See the following site to assess the quality and quantity of SACDs:

 

hraudio.net

 

There are I believe well in excess of 10,000 SACDs in the catalog. Some are out of production. Some are stereo reissues from older masters. The remainder are predominantly classical releases, recorded over the past 15 years in discrete-miked Mch in hi rez. I have over 2,000 of those in my collection, which is still growing.

 

I am not clear on what you mean by existing 2.0 media containing "the hidden location information". That is true for recordings made with certain special mike setups: binaural, coincident pair(Blumlein,etc.), when played with headphones or restrictive speaker setups. It may also be done via DSP, like Ambiophonics, BACCH, or others you have cited. But, talk about something not catching on. That would be true of all these technologies plus others you cite.

[STC]

Caught on quite well for some of us but it doesn't look like there's a future. Files taking over.

 

Somewhat.

 

 

I am not sure why you are saying somewhat.

 

 

To be sure, Mch music, whether from SACD, BD-A, BD-V or downloads, is only a niche. However, that niche for music listeners rides on the coattails of the huge Mch HT market, equipment-wise. (FWIW, my system contains no HT-specific equipment except for a TV monitor and a center channel speaker.)

 

Also, the SACD has sufficiently "caught on" over the past 15+ years to provide me with a substantial classical library in hi rez Mch. New releases keep coming. See the following site to assess the quality and quantity of SACDs:

 

hraudio.net

 

There are I believe well in excess of 10,000 SACDs in the catalog. Some are out of production. Some are stereo reissues from older masters. The remainder are predominantly classical releases, recorded over the past 15 years in discrete-miked Mch in hi rez. I have over 2,000 of those in my collection, which is still growing.

 

I am not clear on what you mean by existing 2.0 media containing "the hidden location information". That is true for recordings made with certain special mike setups: binaural, coincident pair(Blumlein,etc.), when played with headphones or restrictive speaker setups. It may also be done via DSP, like Ambiophonics, BACCH, or others you have cited. But, talk about something not catching on. That would be true of all these technologies plus others you cite.

 

With respect, when I said music I was referring to all kind of genre out there. Outside this forum, not many would have heard of HRAudio or 2L or Bluecoast. I have about 3000 Cds and about 100 or less SACDs. Some of them are still in wrappers for years.

 

I wasn't looking for another new format or remastered stereo into Mch. I want my current collection and my future collection which will be predominately in stereo as that what 99% of the population would buy to sound realistic. If it is in multi channel then it makes things easier as I can always play them in mch and with the convolution speakers they would sound awesome but how do I improve the existing stereo recordings?

 

On the other point you raised, it is wrong to say you need DSP for Ambiophonics although having one replaces the need to use a physical divider between the speakers.

[semente]

I am quite happy with my library of thousands of Mch discs in 2D 5.1 or 7.1. 3D, which is the theme of this thread, is of interest to me.

 

I don't think so.

The topic is titled "Why Haven;t You Tried Immersive 3D Audio Yet?".

If you've been following @witchdoctor you'll know he means something different from your "regular" multi-channel.

I have heard discrete Auro 3D, however I have no interest so far in artificially synthesized 3D.

This is what I am referring to.

If I understand correctly, it's not the same as multi-channel...

[semente]

The existing 2.0 media already contained the hidden location information in it. It can be retrieved without any kind of DSP.

Are you saying that you can retrieve the other channels from 2 channel media?

How can you do that?

[STC]

Are you saying that you can retrieve the other channels from 2 channel media?

How can you do that?

 

There are no other channels to retrieve. The surround effect that you get with multi channels is rather limited. In a concert hall, the ambiance sound is said to be around 75% compared to the direct sound. How many channels do you think that would require to recreate such ambiance in your room? I am currently using 10 speakers just for the ambiance using convolution filters and still think I would probably need another 6 for my small room.

 

The idea is to get immersed in 3D sound with the existing stereo recording. Binaural with two "channel" headphones can give you realistic 3D "being there" sensation. Unfortunately, binaural would not work with speakers unless you isolate the speakers.

 

Disclosure: I do use Ambiophonics method. Even though I advocate Ambiophonics, I have no commercial interest in this non-profit organization.