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

[Ralph Glasgal]

There are some 40 papers on file at http://www.ambiophoics.org archive on these topics if you really want to get technical.

 

But if the compressions and expansions of all the soundwaves arrive at the ear drum from the proper directions then it does not matter how they are generated either in a concert hall or from speakers. This is called wavefield synthesis and involves both scientific recording methods and compatible reproduction methods. There are three main methods of recording and reproducing normal soundfields at the ear drum and these include the Dutch Wave Field Synthesis, Ambisonics, and Ambiophonics. Of these, Ambiophonics and similar is the only one practical for home use and compatible with old and new standard media. By contrast Ambiophonics is not practical for movie theaters or large audiences but is a lot better than Auro 3D or Dolby Atmos in homes.

 

Perfection is never attainable but you can come close if you understand the basic psychoacoustics involved. Ideally, you want to both record and playback using Ambiophonic methods. So the Ambiophone is a 4.0 microphone array that treats all sound direct and ambient as direct sound so that the directional characteristics of each wave are preserved. There are DTS encoded 3D Ambiophone demo tracks on the Ambio website that you can download, but you would need to play them using Panambiophonics to judge them properly. The Ambiophone captures a full 360 degree soundfield in the horizontal plane. Height can be an option but that is too complex to get into here.

 

In playback the trick is to preserve all the interaural level differences and time differences captured by the Ambiophone or what ever other mics have been used or what ever electronic music panning program has been used. The level and time cues, if both are present must not contradict each other when reproduced. It is better for realism if the recording method does capture both level and delay cues. There is yet another requirement and that is that at the higher frequencies where localization and thus sonic realism are sensed by the pinna, that all such HF sound arrive at each ear from a direction that will not cause a discrepancy between the low and high frequency localization cues.

 

As hard as it is to believe, all the above requirements can be met using ideally six speakers and any good 4.0 (5.1) recording. When you have six speakers going and you are in the near field, ((even when playing 2.0 files) room reflections are not that audible anymore than nearby seats in a concert hall are. To accommodate 2.0 files that lack the rear soundfield data, you can use hall impulse responses to generate either a rear pair or better signals for multiple 3D surround speakers. Such ambience further swamps the room. You still want to play 2.0 recordings via four speakers using Envelophonics to satisfy the pinna as indicated above and work with the later room reflections.

 

Finally, the idea that minor bumps in the frequency response of components is more audible or significant than the errors in the localization parameters of soundfields is just not supportable or detected in the NYU listening panel tests. The 60 degree stereo triangle has frightful frequency response with bass doubling, lots of unavoidable large peaks and dips and ITD/ILD distortion. Concert halls are not flat either and vary from seat to seat but one hears a real sound field at any seat by definition. Same with Ambiophonics and the other soundfield or loudspeaker binaural systems.

[audiventory]

There are some 40 papers on file at http://www.ambiophoics.org archive on these topics if you really want to get technical.

 

Thank you. I planned to read the articles.

 

P.S. Link http://www.ambiophoics.org don't qork in the post. Need to use Home Page ?

[Ralph Glasgal]

Sorry. That is Home Page Then there are tabs for papers, tutorials, recording techniques, and PC stuff, demos, etc.

[semente]

There are some 40 papers on file at www.ambiophoics.org archive on these topics if you really want to get technical.

 

(...)

 

Thanks.

I find the concept quite interesting as long as you use properly/adequately mic'ed recordings.

 

Finally, the idea that minor bumps in the frequency response of components is more audible or significant than the errors in the localization parameters of soundfields is just not supportable or detected in the NYU listening panel tests. The 60 degree stereo triangle has frightful frequency response with bass doubling, lots of unavoidable large peaks and dips and ITD/ILD distortion.

 

 

Concert halls are not flat either and vary from seat to seat but one hears a real sound field at any seat by definition. Same with Ambiophonics and the other soundfield or loudspeaker binaural systems.

 

Sorry but I don't think it makes sense to use reality (live sound) to justify distorted frequency response in reproduction.

 

R

[gmgraves]

I remember you now. You used to be active in RAHE newsgroup in the 90s.

Well, we were bound to run across each other again, somewhere. After all this is a small hobby and a big Internet. One nice thing about CA over RAHE, is NO Arny Kruger!

Thanks for the post. The problem with Stereo is not only in the recording but also with the playback. You could only improve so much with the current method.

Meanwhile, have you read

Transforming Ambiophonic + Ambisonic 3D Surround Sound to & from ITU 5.1/6.1 - Abstract

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I tried Ambisonic once, but it's been a while. I agree that of all the surround schemes, Ambisonics, along with Ray Kimber's IsoMike technique provided the least objectionable and probably the most realistic presentation I've heard. Of course, that's all they have in common, otherwise they're entirely different. But neither is really my cup of tea. Despite the continuing search for a viable hall ambience retrieval system, none have proved popular enough to catch on with most audiophiles, and most of us remain focused on getting two-channel correct.

[gmgraves]

Great post and thanks for the link; I'll look into it.

 

It surprises me to see audiophiles worrying so much about "3D-ness" and "soundstage" while neglecting aspects of reproduction that are far more important such as "tonal balance" that so many speakers just don't get right, people who listen to classical music where timbre is paramount.

Shouldn't we get our priorities straightened?

R

 

Of course, you're right, but that's another discussion for another day. Since it is impossible for even the best and most expensive audio system to even come close to sounding like real music played in a real space, in my experience, many audiophiles tend to pick a couple of aspects of live music that they find important to them and they concentrate of making their systems do that to the best of their ability and budget. With me it's realistic imaging/soundstage. In fact, that's so much my main interest that many years ago I started doing my own recording because the commercial record companies weren't satisfying my need for "purist" recordings. Of course, it is also important to me to get flat frequency response and low distortion, but they're fairly easy in this day and age, and, of course, I want realistic dynamic range as well, and outside of the realm of pop music, that's generally easy to get as well.

[STC]

..... One nice thing about CA over RAHE, is NO Arny Kruger!

 

If not for him, I would be still stuck on the "other" side.

 

 

I tried Ambisonic once, but it's been a while. ........

 

 

The link got nothing to do with Ambisonics. The title of the link was wrong. The title should be " The AmbiophoneDerivation of a Recording Methodology Optimized For Ambiophonic Reproduction". Either way, It will still take you to the correct page which got nothing to do with Ambisonics.

[witchdoctor]

No matter how you slice it two speakers is OK for nearfield listening but in an open room it seems lame compared to a 3D audio system. While it is true you can't get a real orchestra in your room with just electronics movies are another story. The sound in my room will blow away a movie theater, period.

[audiventory]

Of course, it is also important to me to get flat frequency response and low distortion, but they're fairly easy in this day and age, and, of course, I want realistic dynamic range as well, and outside of the realm of pop music, that's generally easy to get as well.

 

Absolutelly. Last years audio industry almost solve frequency-distortion aspect of audio transfer.

 

Now time of spatial aspect came.

[gmgraves]

No matter how you slice it two speakers is OK for nearfield listening but in an open room it seems lame compared to a 3D audio system. While it is true you can't get a real orchestra in your room with just electronics movies are another story. The sound in my room will blow away a movie theater, period.

 

When playing movies, I don't doubt it for one second, as most movie theater sound systems aren't very well maintained even with the dubious merits of "THX Certification". However, a movie theater is not a well designed concert hall, and 95% of all so-called classical "surround" titles are crap IF you are interested in a real sound field experience. OTOH, if your idea of a concert hall experience is the orchestra (or part of it) swirling around the room, then I'm sure that a theatrically optimized surround system and the program material made for it is just fine. It's just not my cup of tea.

[gmgraves]

If not for him, I would be still stuck on the "other" side.

 

Is he still there?

The link got nothing to do with Ambisonics. The title of the link was wrong. The title should be " The AmbiophoneDerivation of a Recording Methodology Optimized For Ambiophonic Reproduction". Either way, It will still take you to the correct page which got nothing to do with Ambisonics.

I stand corrected. I didn't read the link yet, but I plan to.

[STC]

I think we are confusing with 3D recordings and extracting the hidden ILD and ITD in the recordings. Ambiophonics is simply a method to extract better depth, clarity and soundstage from the existing 2.0 or 4.0 format.

 

Below is the response Ralph to BAS newsletter addressing such confusion.

 

Boston Audio Society-Stereo Vs Ambio

 

 

• Published on September 7, 2016
  

Ralph Glasgal

Founder and Researcher at Ambiophonics Institute

 

This is my technical response to a lengthy comment included in the latest BAS newsletter. It is rather technical so be warned. You are welcome to come for a demo if you can't try out these things DIY.

 

"You can't make up your own definitions of binaural and stereo at the recording or, more importantly, the hearing end. The difference between so called stereophonic listening and our normal binaural hearing sense is a difference without a distinction. There is no such thing as a stereophonic hearing mechanism that is different from what we normally consider everyday physiological binaural hearing. In any case, by the laws of physics, we only have three ways of localizing sound and that is by ITD, ILD and pinna direction finding. It does not matter whether a recording is made with coincident mics, spaced omnis, a dummy head, a computer, or 100 spots. As far as human localization is concerned, it is only the final values of TD, LD and pinna directional cues impinging on the ear canals that matter for localization. It does not matter how they were collected or stored. It is lucky that most 2.0 files like LPs and CDs have quite a lot of good (real i.e. everyday binaural) TD and LD stored on them (but no pinna data per se). If you can deliver these localization cues intact to a listener, you have a better chance for a high end result than if you change these values in an unpredictable nonlinear way during reproduction. We normally describe any changes in the playback of a recorded signal as distortion. So I call these commonplace playback errors Localization Cue Distortion. LCD has nothing to do with absolute source position errors although these can be minimized if you know how to record properly.

 

So LP and CD discs are just two channel data files, neither stereo nor binaural, but unfortunately seldom mastered with attention to psychoacoustics. Nevertheless, such common 2.0 media files can be played back in hundreds of different ways. The 60 degree triangle is just one of the ways and is mostly a habit. Earphones seem to be preferred these days. Unfortunately, both of these playback methods, produce large amounts of LCD. Again remember it is not the exact location of a source that is important. What counts is that the ITD, ILD, and pinna cues reaching the brain are not so changed that they are inconsistent with each other and now have values and properties that could never exist in nature. So if the speakers are at 60 degrees, you are generating pinna direction finding cues that say all sources are at 30 degrees even if the sources are centered. Similarly the recorded values of inter channel time and level difference are also radically changed. There are numerous AES papers on this. It is remarkable that the brain can still use these distorted and conflicting cues to localize at least between the speakers. But note that loudspeaker stereo only works if you are centered and the speaker angle is in a restricted range. Even then, 60 degree loudspeaker stereo is still very nonlinear in placing sources and is limited in stage width. The senses of depth and envelopment are also impaired. So anyone listening to a stereo system will know it is a recording even if the system, the room, and, indeed, the recording are perfect in frequency response and dynamic range. There is a passable exception to this if one only listens to a vocal soloist playing a guitar in a nice listening room so you can move the speakers close together to have the correct pinna cues and reduce the erroneous changes to the recorded LD and TD. This is sort of what the BAS writer is proposing, great mono.

 

Now with earphones, the 2.0 LD and TD are preserved so one hears a nice wide stage. But all earphones cause pinna malfunctions. This produces internalization where the sound stage seems to be inside the head. Also if you rotate your head the stage swirls around you because there is no changing head shadow or pinna function in the system. A gadget called the Smyth Realizer can fix this and even eliminate a lot of LCD if used with Ambiophonic rather than stereo speakers when setting up. Not something for amateurs and Smyth does not support this application.

 

The BAS writer also conflates stereo with multi-channel mono. Yes, if you record each instrument with a mic and a separate media channel and play it back through a separate speaker, you can have a good sense of "They Are Here" in a treated living room. Again, this is good for a vocalist with a guitar but a bit impractical for a jazz band, a chorus, an orchestra, or a movie. A lot of audiophile listening is of this solo vocalist type. So something like Ambiophonics may only become popular if classical music makes a comeback or where 3D movies and games are involved. Dolby Atmos and Auro 3D are examples of multi mono with some LCR stereo in front. If you boil down multi mic mono to two speakers as mentioned in the BAS article, then you just have an ordinary 2.0 file as in LPs and CDs. Another problem with this antique curtain of sound approach is that no concert hall ambience is coming from the rear half of the listening room and indeed all the recorded ambience is frontal in spades. Also the pinna directional cues are mostly wrong.

 

The BAS author keeps confusing binaural hearing with dummy head recording. One has nothing to do with the other. If you want the basic rules that govern such systems, they are as follows. In any recording and reproduction chain there must be one head shadow and only one, but the head need not be that of the end listener. In any recording and reproduction chain there must be one set of pinnae and only one and they must belong to the end listener. In any recording and reproduction chain the directional attributes of both direct and indirect sound must be preserved. These three rules apply to both frontal only and full surround recordings. Yes, a practical means to achieve this means it may not work in theaters, etc. but in the case of Ambiophonics, the home listening area is quite large, larger than two speaker stereo by far, and there are ways, using sound bars, to allow a room full of family to watch a 3D movie. Yes, multi mono would have fewer seating restrictions, like Wavefield Synthesis, which is a technology very much like what is proposed.

 

Despite some comments in the BAS column, two speaker 60 degree stereo is indeed a head related system. There is no way that the signals from any loudspeaker will not produce pinna cues, level difference cues, and time difference cues from sound going over, under, around the back and across the front of the head to create a mélange of binaural localization vectors. Thus if more than one speaker has some of the same signal, LCD is unavoidable and a single speaker at any angle will produce a pinna direction finding error.

 

It is remarkable that some LPs and CDs, mostly classical, have values of TD and LD that correspond to what you would hear if you were just behind the conductor. So when you play these with LCD removed you do hear a stage that is wider than anything ever heard before in audiophile history. I find this thrilling and you can easily make the stage narrower in a variety of ways, but I don't think too many will worry about this. If you use an Ambiophone to make recordings then you can place it at the best seat further back in the house and this then becomes a personal preference item rather than a psychoacoustic one.

 

Ralph Glasgal,

www.ambiophonics.org

[semente]

Absolutelly. Last years audio industry almost solve frequency-distortion aspect of audio transfer.

 

Now time of spatial aspect came.

 

I don't agree with this, unless you are referring to DSP.

 

The (classical music) recording industry is still using mics that exaggerate the top end and they are still close-mic'ing, most speakers (even the most touted high end ones) still produce an uneven frequency response on- and off-axis and I would also think that the largest majority of audiophiles is not using DSP or EQ of any kind...

 

R

[Ralph Glasgal]

Sorry but I don't think it makes sense to use reality (live sound) to justify distorted frequency response in reproduction.R

 

I am not saying that frequency response should not be flat, just that the concept that the loss of 1 dB at 5,073 Hz is an audible impairment more significant that the 6 dB peaks and 30 dB dips of normal stereo due to combing does not make much sense. If you can correct the stereo response using DSP and this results in a say a loss of .5 dB at !0,273 Hz I think the tradeoff is worth it. Yes if you can have perfect DSP for flat stereo and be flat at 10,273 Hz that is fine.

 

I think what I was trying to say originally was that Ambiophonics and other non-stereo technologies are often bad mouthed by stereophiles on the basis that they think some minor response aberration puts them beyond the pale. They blithely ignore the easily documented audible distortions inherent in normal stereo. So it is like black and white photography buffs rejecting all color because the red seems a bit pink in one film brand.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

However, ... 95% of all so-called classical "surround" titles are crap IF you are interested in a real sound field experience.

 

Complete nonsense. Spoken by another self proclaimed "expert" who knows not of what he speaks. Do you want to explain to us exactly how many classical surround titles you have heard on what systems exactly?

[semente]

I am not saying that frequency response should not be flat, just that the concept that the loss of 1 dB at 5,073 Hz is an audible impairment more significant that the 6 dB peaks and 30 dB dips of normal stereo due to combing does not make much sense. If you can correct the stereo response using DSP and this results in a say a loss of .5 dB at !0,273 Hz I think the tradeoff is worth it. Yes if you can have perfect DSP for flat stereo and be flat at 10,273 Hz that is fine.

 

I think what I was trying to say originally was that Ambiophonics and other non-stereo technologies are often bad mouthed by stereophiles on the basis that they think some minor response aberration puts them beyond the pale. They blithely ignore the easily documented audible distortions inherent in normal stereo. So it is like black and white photography buffs rejecting all color because the red seems a bit pink in one film brand.

 

 

I can understand the advantages of binaural even though it poses problems on playback with speakers.

Is Ambiophonics similar to binaural?

 

If I understand correctly you are saying that it is possible to reproduce a two channel recording (let's stick with two for simplicity) with a bunch of speakers in a room without using a screening panel between each one of them and that the channel bleeding and dispersion interference can be minimized using DSP, while "extracting" some kind of "surround" information.

It looks like Ambiophonics consists of flooding the room with sound, hence the term immersed, which can be an interesting experience, perhaps like extending the lower frequencies down to the limits of audibility increases the sense of realism.

How is this done and can it be done "transparently"?

Can you digitally cancel crosstalk with any speaker?

I'd say that linear dispersion speakers are needed for effective use of such technology but I only know of some loudspeakers do produce a narrow dispersion pattern none that has a linear dispersion.

I can see it being done with headphones, though.

 

I'd try it myself but my DAC is slave to HQPlayer and cannot be accessed by any other software.

 

 

 

Meanwhile I found an interesting video:

 

[gmgraves]

Complete nonsense. Spoken by another self proclaimed "expert" who knows not of what he speaks. Do you want to explain to us exactly how many classical surround titles you have heard on what systems exactly?

 

Well, I have more than 100 SACD titles with surround, and probably a dozen or so blu-ray LPCM titles. I have a Sony SCD-XA777es 5.1 SACD player, and an Oppo multi-channel blu-ray player connected to a Harman-Kardon Hk990 for the front channels driving Martin-Logan Vistas in the front, and a Krell KAV-300L driving a pair of Martin-Logan Aeon-i's in the rear.

 

Few of these "surround" titles are recorded in such a way that pleases me, so when I play them, I choose the two-channel version. Look, you are a surround-sound enthusiast, and as such, obviously, you are looking for other things in a recording than what I am looking for. And that's fine. I don't expect you to agree with me, but my opinion is far from "nonsense". I've made literally hundreds of recordings of all types of music, much of it of symphony orchestras. I know what I want a recording of an orchestra to sound like - and that's from the perspective of third-row center and pin-point, accurate imaging. The only surround recordings that I have heard that do that even a little are Ray Kimber's defunct IsoMike recordings on SACD. Everything else sounds "gimmicky" to me. That's just the way it is to my ears. Ok? Surround just isn't my cup of tea. The "Quadraphonic" fiasco of the 1970's just burned me out on the idea, I guess. That coupled with the incompetence (willful?) of those producers making the recordings who seemed to have either learned nothing from the Quad debacle, or think that the music buying public wants their surround sound to mimic the soundtrack of a 'Star Wars' movie!

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Well, I have more than 100 SACD titles with surround, and probably a dozen or so blu-ray LPCM titles. I have a Sony SCD-XA777es 5.1 SACD player, and an Oppo multi-channel blu-ray player connected to a Harman-Kardon Hk990 for the front channels driving Martin-Logan Vistas in the front, and a Krell KAV-300L driving a pair of Martin-Logan Aeon-i's in the rear.

 

Few of these "surround" titles are recorded IN SUCH AWAY AS PLEASES ME, so when I play them, I choose the two-channel version. Look, you are a surround-sound enthusiast, and as such, obviously, you are looking for other things in a recording than what I am looking for. And that's fine. I don't expect you to agree with me, but my opinion is far from "nonsense". I've made literally hundreds of recordings of all types of music, much of it of symphony orchestras. I know what I want a recording of an orchestra to sound like - and that's from the perspective of third-row center and pin-point, accurate imaging. The only surround recordings that I have heard that do that even a little are Ray Kimber's defunct IsoMike recordings on SACD. Everything else sounds "gimmicky" to me. That's just the way it is to my ears. Ok? Surround just isn't my cup of tea. The "Quadraphonic" fiasco of the 1970's just burned me out on the idea, I guess. That coupled with the incompetence (willful?) of those producers making the recordings who seemed to have either learned nothing from the Quad debacle, or think that the music buying public wants their surround sound to mimic the soundtrack of a 'Star Wars' movie!

 

George, you have 100 classical titles, I have several thousand. Your system is also very seriously problematic for proper Mch playback. I am not knocking any of the equipment, but you just cannot maintain properly calibrated channel balance using two separate integrated stereo amps and two volume controls with Mch. A Mch preamp or digital controller is needed with calibrated level trims by channel with a single master volume control. Otherwise, main and surround channels will be constantly out of whack in terms of proper sonic balance.

 

Also, a proper center channel adds immensely to the image quality in playback. A phantom center is downright inferior to a discrete center. That assumes you even set up playback for 4.0 phantom center, or did you just discard the center channel information on the disc? Likely also your speakers did not adhere to the ITU angular layout, as defined in the SACD Scarlet book.

 

Ok, so you do an incorrect and inadequate, jury rigged Mch setup, and the results do not please you. You are entitled. But, with setup the mistakes you made, it is no wonder you did not like the result. The only problem, as I said, is that you think you know all about Mch. But, your opinion is based on faulty listening comparisons and it has no credibility.

[STC]

I can understand the advantages of binaural even though it poses problems on playback with speakers.

Is Ambiophonics similar to binaural?

 

If I understand correctly you are saying that it is possible to reproduce a two channel recording (let's stick with two for simplicity) with a bunch of speakers in a room without using a screening panel between each one of them and that the channel bleeding and dispersion interference can be minimized using DSP, while "extracting" some kind of "surround" information.

It looks like Ambiophonics consists of flooding the room with sound, hence the term immersed, which can be an interesting experience, perhaps like extending the lower frequencies down to the limits of audibility increases the sense of realism.

How is this done and can it be done "transparently"?

Can you digitally cancel crosstalk with any speaker?

I'd say that linear dispersion speakers are needed for effective use of such technology but I only know of some loudspeakers do produce a narrow dispersion pattern none that has a linear dispersion.

I can see it being done with headphones, though.

 

I'd try it myself but my DAC is slave to HQPlayer and cannot be accessed by any other software.

 

 

 

Meanwhile I found an interesting video:

 

 

See previous posts. You will also see the reference to the man in the video.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[STC]

 

Is he still there?

 

 

I am indebted to Arny. When I said the other side I was referring to the subjective side.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ralph Glasgal]

I can understand the advantages of binaural even though it poses problems on playback with speakers.Is Ambiophonics similar to binaural? If I understand correctly you are saying that it is possible to reproduce a two channel recording (let's stick with two for simplicity) with a bunch of speakers in a room without using a screening panel between each one of them and that the channel bleeding and dispersion interference can be minimized using DSP, while "extracting" some kind of "surround" information. It looks like Ambiophonics consists of flooding the room with sound, hence the term immersed, which can be an interesting experience, perhaps like extending the lower frequencies down to the limits of audibility increases the sense of realism.How is this done and can it be done "transparently"? Can you digitally cancel crosstalk with any speaker? I'd say that linear dispersion speakers are needed for effective use of such technology but I only know of some loudspeakers do produce a narrow dispersion pattern none that has a linear dispersion. I can see it being done with headphones, though. I'd try it myself but my DAC is slave to HQPlayer and cannot be accessed by any other software.Meanwhile I found an interesting video:

 

The Ambiophonics, Princeton, Ambidio, Neutron MP, Amtra, Aria 3D software and the dozens of others that are sure to follow are close relatives and are all Binaural loudspeaker technologies. Both RACE and BACCH are programs that eliminate crosstalk between two speakers. Think of the loudspeakers as big earphones. This is s way to listen to any two channel LP or CD without the frequency response and localization cue distortion of the normal 60 degree speaker arrangement. Or you can think of this as a way to get earphone advantages without the distprtopms of earphone listening. But both RACE and BACCH do not need dummy head binaural recordings to work although many such recordings are much more realistic reproduced using loudspeaker binaural instead of earphones. There are of course also extreme measures that can be employed to use RACE and BACCH with earphones but it is a lot easier with loudspeakers.

 

Normal hearing is binaural and so to the extent that Ambiophonics is meant to provide a normal sound field at the ear, I would classify Ambio as a binaural technology as opposed to a stereo one. Stereo does not rely on the normal localization mechanisms, it is not binaural it is a sonic illusion like an optical illusion. As an illusion it is far from perfect, with narrow stage width, nonlinear stage localization, limited listening area, poor frequency response, pinna vs ITD and ILD localization cue contradictions, and all ambience wrongly frontal. (But never fear, Stereophonics Magazine and TAS assure us that vacuum tubes, silver cables, 192/24 resolution, Vinyl, room correction, and flat response at 22,237 Hz will make stereo sound like binaural hearing.)

 

Yes The RACE equations and speaker spacing used in Ambiophonics systems does make it possible to hare two speakers work better than earphones or a physical barrier. You can just use two speakers for say pop music like small combos in small rooms. But if you want a sense of envelopment and ambience for classical music or direct rear sound from surround 3D movies you should think about adding some speakers at the rear. This is a question of budget and technical talent. You can further enhance plain 2.0 classical orchestral music reproduction by actually creating a concert hall in your living room by using surround speakers. Ambiophonics is very flexible, and its principles can be used with a lot of different sonic media like games, virtual reality, 3D movies, electronic music, and to construct domestic concert halls or rock venues.

 

Nothing is perfect or perfectly transparent, but Ambiophonics provides a lot more psychoacoustic verisimilitude than loudspeaker stereo, 5.1 home theater, Atmos, Dolby, etc. The NYU listening panel and the R. Miller panels both overwhelmingly preferred Ambio to stereo and this was just the two speaker version.

 

Yes crosstalk cancellation works with just about any speaker type. You can see a variety on the Ambio website. The speakers just need to be symmetrical about the center line in the horizontal plane. As long as the axial dispersion is the same for both speakers that does not matter. I have systems here with ESL panel, MBL radial, bookshelf, and soundbar speakers. The above comments seem to imply that nobody has ever set up one of these systems, but there are hundreds out there now and if there were any glitches we would all know about them. Anybody in the NYC area can come here or send a witness and hear for themselves that Ambio works and there are lots of witnesses to BACCH as well.

 

Ambiophonics does not extract anything, delay anything or filter anything. The front left signal gets to the left ear and the front right signal gets to the right ear unchanged, unlike what happens in stereo. That is the simplest form for Ambiophonics, what I call a single Ambiodipole. That may be all you want or need. But since most 2.0 classical recordings lack envelopment and proper hall ambience you can employ what I call Envelophonics, which uses a second Ambiodipole behind the listeners but still using just the same unaltered 2.0 media file again processed by RACE so now you have two binaural loudspeakers going in the same room playing an LP or CD. Why this produces envelopment is still being investigated. Then you can use yet another Ambiodipole with the rear pair from 5.1 and have a full circle of direct sound for games, movies, virtual reality, and classical symphonic music or opera.

 

The output from you DAC is analog and can go into a miniambio before it goes to your amplifiers. It can go to two miniambios if you want Envelophonics.

[Ralph Glasgal]

Well, I have more than 100 SACD titles with surround, and probably a dozen or so blu-ray LPCM titles. I have a Sony SCD-XA777es 5.1 SACD player, and an Oppo multi-channel blu-ray player connected to a Harman-Kardon Hk990 for the front channels driving Martin-Logan Vistas in the front, and a Krell KAV-300L driving a pair of Martin-Logan Aeon-i's in the rear. Few of these "surround" titles are recorded in such a way that pleases me, so when I play them, I choose the two-channel version. Look, you are a surround-sound enthusiast, and as such, obviously, you are looking for other things in a recording than what I am looking for. And that's fine. I don't expect you to agree with me, but my opinion is far from "nonsense". I've made literally hundreds of recordings of all types of music, much of it of symphony orchestras. I know what I want a recording of an orchestra to sound like - and that's from the perspective of third-row center and pin-point, accurate imaging. The only surround recordings that I have heard that do that even a little are Ray Kimber's defunct IsoMike recordings on SACD. Everything else sounds "gimmicky" to me. That's just the way it is to my ears. Ok? Surround just isn't my cup of tea. The "Quadraphonic" fiasco of the 1970's just burned me out on the idea, I guess. That coupled with the incompetence (willful?) of those producers making the recordings who seemed to have either learned nothing from the Quad debacle, or think that the music buying public wants their surround sound to mimic the soundtrack of a 'Star Wars' movie!

 

I have been playing SQ Quad LPs using Ambiophonic processing. I can only say that they are a marvel when you have direct sound coming from all directions or the rear hall acoustics are present coming from the rear. At the moment I think I am the only one in the world that can play these without localization error. But Gabrieli coming from four corners, or Witched On Bach from a full circle certainly proves that the technology was correct even if you don't care for direct sound from the sides or rear. Of course, the Mahler, Bruckner and Beethoven's 9th are a treat since the stage is wide and the rear channels are hall ambience with proper directionality.

 

You could try the Sony SACD of E. Power Biggs playing Bach on four organs at once. But again you would need two Ambiodipoles to do it properly.

[gmgraves]

George, you have 100 classical titles, I have several thousand. Your system is also very seriously problematic for proper Mch playback. I am not knocking any of the equipment, but you just cannot maintain properly calibrated channel balance using two separate integrated stereo amps and two volume controls with Mch. A Mch preamp or digital controller is needed with calibrated level trims by channel with a single master volume control. Otherwise, main and surround channels will be constantly out of whack in terms of proper sonic balance.

 

I had a feeling that you would attack my system in response. Believe me, I didn't get here with the milkman this morning. My criticism of most surround titles is not compromised by the fact that I don't have more than a hundred or so surround titles. I can certainly tell that I don't like the way a recording is done in seconds by listening on my "severely flawed" surround system.

 

Also, a proper center channel adds immensely to the image quality in playback. A phantom center is downright inferior to a discrete center. That assumes you even set up playback for 4.0 phantom center, or did you just discard the center channel information on the disc? Likely also your speakers did not adhere to the ITU angular layout, as defined in the SACD Scarlet book.

 

Ok, so you do an incorrect and inadequate, jury rigged Mch setup, and the results do not please you. You are entitled. But, with setup the mistakes you made, it is no wonder you did not like the result. The only problem, as I said, is that you think you know all about Mch. But, your opinion is based on faulty listening comparisons and it has no credibility.

[gmgraves]

I have been playing SQ Quad LPs using Ambiophonic processing. I can only say that they are a marvel when you have direct sound coming from all directions or the rear hall acoustics are present coming from the rear. At the moment I think I am the only one in the world that can play these without localization error. But Gabrieli coming from four corners, or Witched On Bach from a full circle certainly proves that the technology was correct even if you don't care for direct sound from the sides or rear. Of course, the Mahler, Bruckner and Beethoven's 9th are a treat since the stage is wide and the rear channels are hall ambience with proper directionality.

 

You could try the Sony SACD of E. Power Biggs playing Bach on four organs at once. But again you would need two Ambiodipoles to do it properly.

You do realize that the Gabrielli and the Biggs are just the kind of surround titles that I'm complaining about most, don't you? The Biggs recording, especially, is almost 40 years old and was recorded for Columbia SQ in the bad old days of Quadraphonic sound. If the Gabrielli is the one I'm thinking about with the 4 brass choirs, then it is just exactly the kind of exaggerated 4-channel sound that made me ultimately give up on Quad back in the day. Sorry.

[gmgraves]

I am indebted to Arny. When I said the other side I was referring to the subjective side.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I never agreed with almost anything Arny said, sorry to say. Anybody who believed that a $120 TEAC receiver from COSTCO sounded identical to a $6000 Pass class A amplifier, or that a 1968 Dynaco ST120 (the one with the hideous crossover notch) was equal to the best amps sold today, or that the Sony CD-101 (the original CD player) sounds no different than today's best, obviously can't hear, and the opinions of whom are more than a little suspect. There's no doubt that Arny has a lot of technical knowledge, but his insistance that audio electronics haven't improved in almost 50 Years, makes his pronouncements about SQ somewhat beyond the pale, wouldn't you say?