Jump to content
IGNORED

Beyond stereo?


Recommended Posts

On ‎7‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 8:49 PM, AJ Soundfield said:

So sayeth the Lord thy Ambio, amen

It is stereo that is the religion founded in 1931 by the Prophet Blumlein, (originally denoted as Binaural by him) and promulgated by the later disciples Fisher and Scott.  Since that epochal event, the sacred texts of Audio Magazine, High Fidelity, Stereophile, TAS, and the catholic discipline of the AES order have maintained the mythology that stereo can achieve Nirvana by the perfecting the only true paradigms worthy to be worshipped and restricted to frequency response, resolution, distortion, loudspeaker dispersion, and noise.  Specifically abjured from the catechism are the use of more than two speakers, two media channels, or objectivism..      

Link to comment
18 hours ago, semente said:

 

But this change happens when I measure the response at the listening spot of a single loudspeaker.

These measurements were made in from a former living room with speakers I no longer own:

 

listening spot: 2.50m from front wall

front of speakers: 0.60m to both walls

5989627749_aea7ddb85b_b.jpg

 

 

 

listening spot: 2.75m from front wall

front of speakers: 0.60m to both walls

5990186076_49fd16dae6_b.jpg

5989628041_e7a9968ef2_b.jpg

 

 

listening spot: 2.75m from front wall

front of speakers: 0.60m to side wall, 0.75m to front wall

5989627617_dbde0cc642_b.jpg

5989628117_ea9260f27e_b.jpg

 

 

listening spot: 3.00m from front wall

front of speakers: 0.60m to side wall, 0.75m to front wall

5990186294_ba6f4ca629_b.jpg

 

 

I am afraid I know less about very low bass than the rest of list members.  I just buy the biggest subwoofers I can afford and hope for the best.

Link to comment
12 hours ago, esldude said:

Yeah I would like to hear that demo especially over Soundlabs.  Quite the setup the Isomike. 

 

I have a lot of the Isomike recordings including the 7 SACD set of Mozart Piano Sonatas with Robert Silverman and I agree, they actually sound excellent and image like gangbusters! Unfortunately, Ray Kimber's setup is wildly impractical for most recording use but I have to hand it to him for figuring out a way to make omnidirectional microphones function "coincidentally". Normally a pair of omnis that close together will give you dead mono. There simply isn't enough difference between the left and the right signal to give one anything else. Traditionally, omnis are placed 12-14 feet apart (further if a center channel mike is employed as in the Mercury Living Presence recordings by C. R. Fine) for "stereo". But by using that huge, heart-shaped baffle between them, he gets the phase-coherent stereo of coincident miking and the super-flat frequency response of omnidirectional mikes. Best of bothe worlds! 

George

Link to comment
1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

 

I have a lot of the Isomike recordings including the 7 SACD set of Mozart Piano Sonatas with Robert Silverman and I agree, they actually sound excellent and image like gangbusters! Unfortunately, Ray Kimber's setup is wildly impractical for most recording use but I have to hand it to him for figuring out a way to make omnidirectional microphones function "coincidentally". Normally a pair of omnis that close together will give you dead mono. There simply isn't enough difference between the left and the right signal to give one anything else. Traditionally, omnis are placed 12-14 feet apart (further if a center channel mike is employed as in the Mercury Living Presence recordings by C. R. Fine) for "stereo". But by using that huge, heart-shaped baffle between them, he gets the phase-coherent stereo of coincident miking and the super-flat frequency response of omnidirectional mikes. Best of bothe worlds! 

I have designed a much better surround mic array than the IsoMic.  There are demo recordings made using it on the www.ambiophonics.org website but they are full 4.0 surround and really need to be played back via four speakers and two RACE apps.  This is what the first model looked like being used at Columbia University.  It will be on display at the AES convention if you take the technical tour.  This mating of recording array and playback method is one way to get a truly binaural loudspeaker system close to ideal timbre/spatial realism.  But you have to be willing to use more than two speakers which seems to be anathema right now.  Of course you can use the Ambiophone to make great sounding 2.0 recordings for playback using just one Ambiodipole.

Panambiophone Best.jpg

Link to comment
19 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

Before being subverted, this thread was exactly about that!

Well my job is to convince the world that realism in the home for music and movies requires no less than six speakers and no more than six speakers, two in front and four behind all at narrow angles around 20 degrees or less.  On the recording side, 4.0 media are all that is required for full direct sound 360 degree in the horizontal plane.  If you then really want height for movies you can add another height media pair 6.0.  For music height is deleterious but you can have it via convolution.  You don't need to record it live.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Ralph Glasgal said:

home for music and movies requires no less than six speakers and no more than six speakers, two in front and four behind all at narrow angles around 20 degrees or less.

 

I think you can do these with 4 speakers only. I have experimented but not fully implemented and the solution looks feasible with four speakers.

 

It is possible to feed both the front channels and rear channels signals to one pair of rear speakers. 

Link to comment
18 hours ago, STC said:

 

I think you can do these with 4 speakers only. I have experimented but not fully implemented and the solution looks feasible with four speakers.

 

It is possible to feed both the front channels and rear channels signals to one pair of rear speakers. 

Yes, I don't see why this would not be possible if you have a good mixer.  This is akin to mixing left and right stage impulse responses to feed one speaker on the left surround side.

Link to comment
6 hours ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I missed the paper where they were control tested vs each other. Link?

You are correct.  They have never been tested with a listening panel side by side after making a recording in the same auditorium with the same performers.  So it will be a matter of subjective opinion likely for eternity  However, two peer reviewed AES papers are in the Ambio archive, and the Ambiophone is at NYU at the moment.  There is also more mathematical justification for the Ambiophone than for the Isomike.  But the more important difference is portability, and full surround even for direct sound.  There are demo surround tracks in the Ambiophonics.org archive but they are DTS 4.0 and so not for audiophiles and need four speakers minimum so again not for stereophiles.  The picture is above if any of you have missed it.  

Link to comment
3 minutes ago, Ralph Glasgal said:

There are demo surround tracks in the Ambiophonics.org archive but they are DTS 4.0 and so not for audiophiles and need four speakers minimum so again not for stereophiles. 

I'll have to check, but is DTS 4.0 an option with DTS capable AVPs/AVRs or is it proprietary?

The IsoMike stuff can be played with MCH SACD player

Link to comment
3 hours ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I'll have to check, but is DTS 4.0 an option with DTS capable AVPs/AVRs or is it proprietary?

The IsoMike stuff can be played with MCH SACD player

DTS  CDs can be played on any standard CD player or similar track media player.  If the player has a decoder then you get 4.0 output.  If not then if it has a digital output you can use any DTS decoder.  Nothing proprietary.  Dolby made a fuss about 5.1 CDs but there are some also.  Yes I have an IsoMike SACD.  Unlike IsoMke cable co I am not a business and so CDs are all you get to prove a technical point.

Link to comment
9 hours ago, Ralph Glasgal said:

DTS  CDs can be played on any standard CD player or similar track media player.  If the player has a decoder then you get 4.0 output.  If not then if it has a digital output you can use any DTS decoder.  Nothing proprietary.  Dolby made a fuss about 5.1 CDs but there are some also.  Yes I have an IsoMike SACD.  Unlike IsoMke cable co I am not a business and so CDs are all you get to prove a technical point.

I knew the CD format long ago allowed for 4ch, but I had never seen it implemented and was unaware there are disc players with DTS that can decode 4ch. Is there a particular model you are using? A cursory look found a DTS 4.1 spec, but not 4.0, which I assume is 4.1 minus the bass management (my preference anyway).

Link to comment
14 hours ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I knew the CD format long ago allowed for 4ch, but I had never seen it implemented and was unaware there are disc players with DTS that can decode 4ch. Is there a particular model you are using? A cursory look found a DTS 4.1 spec, but not 4.0, which I assume is 4.1 minus the bass management (my preference anyway).

The Redbook spec meant real 4 channels, not encoded ones like DTS which did not exist then.  I am using Oppo players but actually I use the digital output of the Oppo and that goes to a TACT TCS home theater decoder, or any other home theater DTS gizmo.  There was also one from Klipsch that was great.  I could also use the analog outputs from the Oppo, but I am an all digital 3D entity and the TacT provides digital signals for front and rear pairs.  Yes DTS is 5.1, 4.0, 5.0, 4.1, etc.  I just tell the TCS how to format the digital pairs.  I have never seen a 4.1 CD but you never know. 

Link to comment
15 minutes ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I'll try them later. Just realized I had a bad link in an earlier post.

This is the paper showing 4ch is sufficient for envelopment The Minimum Number of Loudspeakers and its Arrangement for Reproducing the Spatial Impression of Diffuse Sound Field

 

4ch.jpg

It gets even better with the four speakers if you use XTC so you can move them much closer in front and behind.  Much easier to place and the envelopment is much more audible.  The rears do not need to be the same as the fronts. Try it.  Miniambio charges less for two or you can use any of the other computer apps and plugins.  Read www.ambiophonics.org/Tutorials/Envelophonics.htm

Link to comment
On 7/8/2017 at 0:46 PM, Ralph Glasgal said:

It gets even better with the four speakers if you use XTC so you can move them much closer in front and behind.  Much easier to place and the envelopment is much more audible.  The rears do not need to be the same as the fronts. Try it.  Miniambio charges less for two or you can use any of the other computer apps and plugins.  Read www.ambiophonics.org/Tutorials/Envelophonics.htm

I'm sure it does..for the one perso/persons in centerline "queue" in all your demo pics.

I'll stick with the ITU positions for envelopment over a much wider lateral area (like those things called "sofas"), in my non iso-ward living room, thanks.

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...