Soundstage Width cannot extend beyond speakers

[PeterSt]

10 minutes ago, STC said:

41 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Yes. And I am afraid that @STCis all about that and that he does not really like to see his hard work debunked.

 

Nothing there to debunk. It is a valid and accepted method.

 

Please. I wasn't talking about the debunking of the method. Don't draw my text out of context by quoting one line only.

The remainder I dedicate to language problem. You don't like to see your hard work debunked. ... Which would happen when others would be able to achieve the same but outside of ambiophonics. No re-read my text to see better that I don't debunk the method at all.

 

But not to forget : you debunk the other possibilities implicitly. See your OP. No big deal because it doesn't make the discussion less interesting.

[STC]

16 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

If I browse quickly through the Ambiophonics article/guide I (personally) see mistakes only. Almost a commercial for the phenomenon.

 

Wow...you can see mistakes that others who reviewed his AES papers couldn't? @Ralph Glasgal will be interested to know. But I am sure you wont able to point out here. For the record, the pioneers of the institute that went commercial but it is still a non profit institute.

 

You have not answered any of my replies to your and I wonder if this is all about what is contradicting what you have been for your commercial interest. I will wait for Mr.Rao to rebut. It will be interesting to see what he can come up with.

[STC]

18 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Please. I wasn't talking about the debunking of the method. Don't draw my text out of context by quoting one line only.

The remainder I dedicate to language problem. You don't like to see your hard work debunked. ... Which would happen when others would be able to achieve the same but outside of ambiophonics. No re-read my text to see better that I don't debunk the method at all.

 

But not to forget : you debunk the other possibilities implicitly. See your OP. No big deal because it doesn't make the discussion less interesting.

 

Stereo is stereo. There is only one method to retrieve the spatial information contained there. What other methods are there? If its there then it can be heard by everyone. And nothing there to debunk. It is based on solid scientific principles and can be objectively and subjectively tested. There is no gray area that only can happened in some unique situation. 

[PeterSt]

31 minutes ago, STC said:

You have not answered any of my replies to your and I wonder if this is all about what is contradicting what you have been for your commercial interest.

 

Oh wait. What commercial interest are you referring to ?

I have zero commercial interest here. You claim something and I don't agree.

 

Can you repeat one of your "replies" I should have answered to ?

OK, responded to.

[PeterSt]

26 minutes ago, STC said:

Stereo is stereo. There is only one method to retrieve the spatial information contained there. What other methods are there?

 

I suppose my English is too lousy. But I recall talking about it all the time.

 

PHASE RELATIONSHIP

 

35 minutes ago, STC said:

you can see mistakes that others who reviewed his AES papers couldn't?

 

You want to talk about MQA perhaps ?

 

35 minutes ago, STC said:

@Ralph Glasgal will be interested to know. But I am sure you wont able to point out here.

 

I already did, so I won't again.

 

36 minutes ago, STC said:

I wonder if this is all about what is contradicting

 

Me contradicting ??

Shouldn't you read back on your own first 10 posts or so ?

 

23 hours ago, STC said:

Why is that the soundstage never extends beyond the actual location of the speakers? Unless, there is phase manipulation it is impossible to hear stereo sound going outside the speakers outer boundary. Thoughts? 

 

You seem to have some 2nd agenda with this. It won't be a commercial one, but things don't fit.

You have your thing with it, which is fine. If others can do it too by different means, you get angry ?

 

 

[STC]

5 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

I suppose my English is too lousy. But I recall talking about it all the time.

 

PHASE RELATIONSHIP

 

 

You want to talk about MQA perhaps ?

 

 

I already did, so I won't again.

 

 

Me contradicting ??

Shouldn't you read back on your own first 10 posts or so ?

 

 

You seem to have some 2nd agenda with this. It won't be a commercial one, but things don't fit.

You have your thing with it, which is fine. If others can do it too by different means, you get angry ?

 

 

 

Yes, it will not extend beyond the speakers boundary unless there is phase manipulation like the QSound. All other sound that you hear outside the speakers already answered by quoting Toole. Too busy defending your interest?  

 

And whats the big deal of quoting MQA papers. Has that not been criticized?  I am asking for a valid criticism. 

[STC]

@PeterSt since you are mentioning phase, are you using some vector based system which entirely relies on phase. But I thought you need three speakers for that. If you are claiming to do it with two then I am interested to know how. 

[semente]

10 hours ago, GUTB said:

Soundstage width in my experience is guided less by the electronics and more by the music and speakers. Speakers with a wide dispersion pattern seem to be better / easier is attaining width of soundstage. Room / speaker setup is key.

 

In my environment, soundstage quality (imaging, stability, focus, etc) is more important than width (or depth).

 

If the speakers have a wider dispersion pattern you'll be listening to more room / less direct sound. The creates the effect of widening the stage but reduces imaging focus.

[MetalNuts]

5 minutes ago, semente said:

 

I the speakers have a wider dispersion pattern you'll be listening to more room / less direct sound. The creates the effect of widening the stage but reduces imaging focus.

 

Agreed.  Other than the DNA of the speakers themselves, toe-in tends to make image more focus and less or no toe-in tends to widen the sound stage.

[semente]

For those who can read French, here's a presentation by Jean-Michel Le Cleac'h entitled "the audiophile and phase distortion" about stereo recording and reproduction:

 

 

JMLC_Distorsion de phase.pdf

[semente]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

An amusing aside - went to a flashy opening  last night - had a pretty good quality PA; one could tell at times what it was capable of. Yet it was set up as such things nearly always are. Lots of bass oomph, making the room feel like it was full of sound, "enriching the space" - and the treble ... where was it?!!

 

A clever violin recital was done; she recorded on the fly a rhythm backing, just plucking it out, and then sequencing that to endlessly repeat; and then accompanying herself. The finale was to add layer upon layer, so that it became ever richer, round by round - very creative.

 

Did it sound like a violin? A million miles from that - the bass strings were huge, inches in thickness, the treble were like spider's gossamer, if you blinked they vanished completely.

 

A mono recording of a violin will sound like a violin. But it won't produce the imaging/location. For that you need a stereo recording and a pair of speakers.

 

 

This is the definition of Stereoscopic taken from Oxford Dictionaries:

 

Relating to or denoting a process by which two photographs of the same object taken at slightly different angles are viewed together, creating an impression of depth and solidity.

 

 

Stereophony works very much in the same way. And if you are not positioned in front of the speakers (apex of a triangle) this effect will become less effective until you reach a point where one speaker is behind the other speaker and the effect ceases.

[semente]

8 hours ago, STC said:

Let’s rephrase the question - why soundstage cannot extend beyond the speakers spread in an anechoic chamber?  This will be easier to discuss as room interaction is eliminated. 

 

My guess is that your brain is combining the sound coming from both sources and for this reason it cannot come from any point in space outside of those two sources but can only shift between one an another due to changes in amplitude / balance.

[semente]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

HiFi 1976.

 

 

Can someone now tell us why this would be so ?

Mind you please, I explained it from my POV with the 3m and 1.5m wide beam and such.

 

What's radiated towards you - and most certainly what arrives at your listening position (assumed a few m from the speakers) is not a point. It is a wide beam. Two wide beams.

Now please explain instead of stating that it isn't so. And anticipate your visit for support if the claim, of course. 

 

To reproduce or recreate the spatial information (differences in amplitude / balance) you either:

 

a) sit equidistant from both speakers

 

b) adjust the balance and delay the closest speaker so that the sound from both speakers reaches the listener at the same level and time

 

Simples.

[semente]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Toole is not wrong, but doesn't have full understanding. The variable which he fails to take into account is the level of audible anomalies - vary that, and the experience changes.

 

Achieving low levels of such anomalies is hard, and hence it's understandable he writes this.

 

Nonsense.

It is you who doesn't have full understanding of Stereo.

[PeterSt]

4 minutes ago, STC said:

are you using some vector based system which entirely relies on phase.

 

I use nothing.

 

4 minutes ago, STC said:

But I thought you need three speakers for that.

 

This is how I mentioned the two antennas and frequencies etc. in the post you did not want to read.

 

With one radiating (frequency) object of 2cm diameter and two antennas 10cm apart, that object can be localized in a space of 12x6x2.5m at an accuracy of 0.1mm.

 

Mind the distance of the antennas and how the object can be e.g. 10 meters to the left of both (one + 10cm) under an angle of even 90 degrees (the side of the stage and line of performers example) and beyond of course (91, 92 ... degrees).

 

There is no difference between the two antennas (receivers) being transducers (radiators AKA speakers) and the object of 2cm being projected in the 3D space. Both use the exact same mechanism, though reversed (what radiated (the object) now receives (the instrument in space) and what received (the antennas) now radiate (the speakers).

It is all about how the radiated frequencies form a unique phase relationship in the projected space.

The important side note (just repeating myself) :

 

While this all works with GHz frequencies, it does not work at all for the way lower frequency of audio. However, this is exactly why it works for "sounds" (listen to the crow and how sharp-boundaries the on/off frequency of its throat is) and not for instruments as such because their general frequency is too low to localize. Read : to form a unique phase relationship in the 3D space. The whole shebang is unrelated to phase manipulation (like in Q-Sound) because it is not necessary. It works as it is and it works the same as Q-Sound. One difference : with Q-Sound the whole spectrum will be manipulated so the low frequencies now appear to be elsewhere just the same - something no-manipulation can not do. If you listen closely to Q-Sound sounds, you will notice an out of phase (inside out) behavior.

 

The vector idea is nice, but is the very same as phase ANGLE. So where we tend to speak about phase differences, it might be good to understand that this shows by the difference in phase angle. These are sheer numbers for math.

 

The other clue might be that colliding frequencies of the proper phase in air, add (why did I quote from that 1 out of 100 emails with vrao). If a stereo microphone captures (read : catches a 0.01mm instance) of a sound which are a bunch of frequencies, then it can be regarded that this moment of capture is the optimal amplitude for that sound (it doesn't matter where the wave of each of the frequencies resides (think degrees)). When this is radiated again by two speakers, somewhere in air this same optimal amplitude emerges again. One crucial thing : this "somewhere" could be at a 1000 places because it is not unique for location and this is because of the waves being far too long.

I can't determine the phase angle of a 0.01mm part of a 50Hz frequency wave. It will be zero.

 

It is not super easy to see that 

a. low frequency waves are harder to locate than higher frequencies;

b. that where amplitudes add up, the sound is louder at that point (think LF standing waves now);

c. and that when the frequencies are sufficiently high and TWO radiators form it, at one point in space it adds up and sound loud.

 

Ad c. There's the seagull.

But only because of its very square sound with sufficiently high frequency. And then still it is too low. This works partly by illusion because the high frequencies are the only "sounds" which allow localization and the lower frequency (say formed by the beak of the beast) are found to be on the same location as the higher frequencies, by our brains. This was exactly @Abtr's point (though seen from a distortion point of view, but this does not matter).

 

 

 

[PeterSt]

31 minutes ago, semente said:

If the speakers have a wider dispersion pattern you'll be listening to more room / less direct sound. The creates the effect of widening the stage but reduces imaging focus.

 

So fly the North See. Through the Canal Tunnel is also OK. Bring a good mood.

It is the farthest from the truth possible.

 

The more pinpointed the sounds (read : frequencies) the wider the sound.

 

Quote

but reduces imaging focus.

 

For our discomfort, that is true jus the same.

 

Try to step over the anti-intuitivity here.

The small higher frequency sounds collide everywhere. They completely fill the room. But admittedly I like the curtains open (more reflections). Does that make it messy ? no. As long as I don't hear back my own hand clapping ...

The wide dispersion makes it messy (but this is what you say too, so no disagreement there).

[PeterSt]

24 minutes ago, semente said:

A mono recording of a violin will sound like a violin.

 

No again. A mono recording of the violin or anything for that matter, will sound grey and bland (but foremost grey).

This is because no "sparkling" high frequencies can emerge. Sparking : there do and there don't. There is nothing to collide (see previous post). Maybe a bit from reflections, but that is there anyway.

 

Take an ear plug with you, so you can test me. Haha.

[PeterSt]

27 minutes ago, semente said:

Stereophony works very much in the same way.

 

Wait. So with vision it can work, you say ?

[semente]

2 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Please. I wasn't talking about the debunking of the method. Don't draw my text out of context by quoting one line only.

The remainder I dedicate to language problem. You don't like to see your hard work debunked. ... Which would happen when others would be able to achieve the same but outside of ambiophonics. No re-read my text to see better that I don't debunk the method at all.

 

But not to forget : you debunk the other possibilities implicitly. See your OP. No big deal because it doesn't make the discussion less interesting.

 

I agree with you but we've already beaten the subject of Ambio to death. Haven't we? ?

[semente]

22 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

So fly the North See. Through the Canal Tunnel is also OK. Bring a good mood.

It is the farthest from the truth possible.

 

The more pinpointed the sounds (read : frequencies) the wider the sound.

 

 

For our discomfort, that is true jus the same.

 

Try to step over the anti-intuitivity here.

The small higher frequency sounds collide everywhere. They completely fill the room. But admittedly I like the curtains open (more reflections). Does that make it messy ? no. As long as I don't hear back my own hand clapping ...

The wide dispersion makes it messy (but this is what you say too, so no disagreement there).

 

I'd love to give your system a listen. Must do so before Brexit hits these shores... ??

[semente]

24 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

It is the farthest from the truth possible.

 

The more pinpointed the sounds (read : frequencies) the wider the sound.

 

I don't think we are talking about the same thing here.

Put your system in an anechoic chamber and without reflections (room interference) your imaging will be square between the two speakers and the images will be as sharp as the finest katana blade...

[semente]

21 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Wait. So with vision it can work, you say ?

 

What can work?

I'm lost now.

[PeterSt]

@semente & all - maybe the analogy is wrong. But for fun :

 

 

Enlarge this picture (click on it). Are you able to lock into this by means of looking cross-eyed ? If you are not used to it, it may be very hard to do a first time because you don't know it can happen. It is the idea to focus on the middle picture of three you will see (looking cross-eyed) and you can take it from me that after sufficient (hard) trying, you will be able to lock into it. Now you see the 3D picture.

Is this illusion ? no, I don't think so, but it is about this :

 

Once you are locked in, do you see how difficult it is to lock out of it again ?

I think this is a bit analogues on the stereo imaging we talk about. When you get locked in (ouch, I hear Frank's words now) you won't easily lock out again. It keeps on working. Adrenaline flows.

Edit : so when you're locked in to the picture you can move your head all directions and it will stay. This, while it was so hard to lock in ...

 

As said, for fun. And made up just now.

[PeterSt]

2 minutes ago, semente said:

What can work?

I'm lost now.

 

3D picture with two eyes and such. Sort of. See previous post by now.

[semente]

24 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

No again. A mono recording of the violin or anything for that matter, will sound grey and bland (but foremost grey).

This is because no "sparkling" high frequencies can emerge. Sparking : there do and there don't. There is nothing to collide (see previous post). Maybe a bit from reflections, but that is there anyway.

 

Take an ear plug with you, so you can test me. Haha.

 

I'll have what you're having, thank you. ?