Soundstage Width cannot extend beyond speakers

[Summit]

On 10/18/2018 at 10:18 AM, 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? 

 

Soundstage width can extend beyond speakers and am going to explain why. First thing first; am saying that speakers are not limiting there the sound appear to be coming from and not where it really comes from.  

 

 

The left speaker can produce an image that the guitar is located to the right of where the transducer actually is placed on the speaker and that the singer is on the guitars right or left side, or in the middle of the stage. The same but opposite is true for the right speaker. Now to my point: >95 percent of all speakers is not made to be used as just left or right speaker, meaning that you can use whichever as left or right speaker. If both speakers can make an image that seems to be closer to the middle of the stage than the transducer are placed and the speakers are interchangeable it will mean that the speakers is not the limitation factor at any direction. All limitation is then made by the recording, or should I say placing of the mics and of course your placement of speaker in the room.

 

Remember that it’s a big difference between playing dual mono and a true stereo. With dual mono you can play with amplitude and get some left - right sense, but it’s together with phase we get stereo and pinpoint image.

[Blackmorec]

44 minutes ago, STC said:

 

It is theoretically correct but there are other experiment with lateral reflection and real room scenario where image shift takes place. It also affects the perceived loudness level. 

Hi STC, I’d be interested to read any good reference or link you could provide. ?

I can imagine changes to loudness levels as reflections that arrive early from different directions are summed together with the origin. 

[semente]

21 minutes ago, Jud said:

This stuff goes all the way back to Blumlein in 1931, when he pointed out the means of manipulating the width of the stereo image by mic arrangement and simple variations in mic feed volume.

 

Here you can see how different mic arrangements spread the instruments between the speakers:

 

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/Visualization-XY-E.htm

[Jud]

25 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Here you can see how different mic arrangements spread the instruments between the speakers:

 

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/Visualization-XY-E.htm

 

Yes, but outside the speakers as well - Carver’s unit was referred to in reviews as a “Blumlein shuffler.”

[Summit]

And here some miking techniques and pics.

 

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/how-to-mic-choir/

 

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/7-stereo-miking-techniques-you-should-try/ 

[botrytis]

Soundstage presentation HAS to include your room and the environment that the system is in. The room bears a huge part of soundstage.

[semente]

1 hour ago, Summit said:

And here some miking techniques and pics.

 

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/how-to-mic-choir/

 

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/7-stereo-miking-techniques-you-should-try/ 

 

That is not real 2-channel stereo.

[semente]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Yes, but outside the speakers as well - Carver’s unit was referred to in reviews as a “Blumlein shuffler.”

 

But the topic is about unprocessed real 2-channel stereo. No shuffling alowed.

[gmgraves]

19 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The fact that setups were getting the sound right 50 years ago shows how little true progress has been made in understanding - there's nothing new under the sun! Again, it's not the speakers, but how well the whole rig has been sorted - there's a continuum of behaviour: start with very best recordings, on a decent rig - and work up to all recordings, on a setup of highest quality that's been optimised to the last detail - there are places all along the spread between those points for systems to reside.

"...a setup of highest quality that's been optimised to the last detail..." Yeah like with an admittedly cheap NAD amp and "boom-box" speakers, you'd know! Like an old Turkish handyman that worked around my college campus once told me: " You can put a tuxedo on a goat. But it's still just a goat."

[Blackmorec]

1 hour ago, Summit said:

 

Soundstage width can extend beyond speakers and am going to explain why. First thing first; am saying that speakers are not limiting there the sound appear to be coming from and not where it really comes from.  

 

 

The left speaker can produce an image that the guitar is located to the right of where the transducer actually is placed on the speaker and that the singer is on the guitars right or left side, or in the middle of the stage. The same but opposite is true for the right speaker. Now to my point: >95 percent of all speakers is not made to be used as just left or right speaker, meaning that you can use whichever as left or right speaker. If both speakers can make an image that seems to be closer to the middle of the stage than the transducer are placed and the speakers are interchangeable it will mean that the speakers is not the limitation factor at any direction. All limitation is then made by the recording, or should I say placing of the mics and of course your placement of speaker in the room.

 

Remember that it’s a big difference between playing dual mono and a true stereo. With dual mono you can play with amplitude and get some left - right sense, but it’s together with phase we get stereo and pinpoint image.

Let’s take a look at a soundwave, from loudspeakers to ear. 

A regular cone speaker is basically 2 or 3 pistons, driven by a magnet and coil. In response to the incoming signal the coil and piston move up and down in the magnetic gap, causing the piston to generate compression waves...sound waves. Those waves are radiated as expanding concentric circles, all exactly uniform around their 360 degrees. The soundwaves carry all the image information but they cannot arrange themselves or create anything...they simply carry information as uniform pressure variations.....waves, which are the same everywhere in the room.

The recording and therefore the soundwaves contain all the information on timing, phase, frequency and amplitude that the brain needs to assign lateral location, depth, height and extent of the soundstage, etc.

 

The speakers transmits the data. The ears capture that data, send it to the brain as nerve impulses and the brain processes those impulses to make music and assign locations of the musicians, build the sonic soundstage and give the air in that soundstage presence and texture. The more perfect the information provided to the ears, the more perfect the sonic picture your brain can build. 

 

Essentially what your 2 speakers are transmitting are exactly the pressure waves your 2 ears need, with all the necessary attributes required to place all the musicians accurately within a soundstage. 

 

Signals from normal microphones will place musicians somewhere between the 2 speakers....a bit of judicious post recording fiddling and that soundstage can expand dramatically. 

[miguelito]

On 10/18/2018 at 7:42 AM, STC said:

I need the check whether I got this album. IOW, this recording will have soundstage beyond the equilateral triangle? And if you don’t mind, what’s your reference to say that no whatsoever processing done to this recording? I ask because one famous audiophile label which claimed not to have any processing appears to have added ambience. My email query wasn’t replied. 

What I mean is really very simple: Imagine a very simple recording setup where you have two microphones separated by about a foot, each recording to the left and right channels respectively. If you have a sound source at any angle, the timing of the signal arriving at each microphone will be different (sound will have to travel longer to reach the farther microphone). This translates in a phase difference between the two channels. On playback, each of the speakers will play with the same phase difference, recreating the effect of the side placement of the source. And it can easily be past the speaker itself if the phase difference is large enough. 

 

My point was that no processing is required to achieve this phase difference, it happens naturally given the mike placement.

[Jud]

19 minutes ago, semente said:

 

But the topic is about unprocessed real 2-channel stereo. No shuffling alowed.

 

Yes, but I’m pointing out that with Blumlein’s mic techniques described back in 1931, you can get a recording that will project a soundstage outside a stereo pair of speakers simply by adjusting volume of the mic feeds.

[semente]

21 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Yes, but I’m pointing out that with Blumlein’s mic techniques described back in 1931, you can get a recording that will project a soundstage outside a stereo pair of speakers simply by adjusting volume of the mic feeds.

 

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

[gmgraves]

39 minutes ago, semente said:

 

That is not real 2-channel stereo.

Indeed it is not. I used to mike the entire "Schola Cantorum" ( the San Jose (CA) State University choir) with a single pair AKG-414s set to cardioid, seven inches apart on a stereo T-bar with the diaphragms 120 degrees from each other! No other mikes were required to get a perfect choral recording. If the recording venue isn't a live performance, you substitute the figure-of-eight pattern for cardioid, and pick-up lots of lovely hall sound to augment the chorus singing. I've tried it other ways, it just doesn't sound real. 

[gmgraves]

 

 

 

 

[gmgraves]

30 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Yes, but I’m pointing out that with Blumlein’s mic techniques described back in 1931, you can get a recording that will project a soundstage outside a stereo pair of speakers simply by adjusting volume of the mic feeds.

Would that it were this simple! True stereo miking does give a correctly phased image, and depending on the speakers and the room, that can surely give one a better shot at a wall-to-wall soundstage; complete with image front-to-back, and image height (one can not only tell, merely from listening, that the brass is back there behind the woodwinds, one can also tell that they are on risers!). 

But ultimately, how wide the soundstage is (beyond the speakers) is a function of speaker choice and room acoustics. 

[Jud]

Just now, gmgraves said:

Would that it were this simple! True stereo miking does give a correctly phased image, and depending on the speakers and the room, that can surely give one a better shot at a wall-to-wall soundstage; complete with image front-to-back, and image height (one can not only tell, merely from listening, that the brass is back there behind the woodwinds, one can also tell that they are on risers!). 

But ultimately, how wide the soundstage is (beyond the speakers) is a function of speaker choice and room acoustics. 

 

Please do bother to read Blumlein’s 1931 patent in full before opining.

[Blake]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

"...a setup of highest quality that's been optimised to the last detail..." Yeah like with an admittedly cheap NAD amp and "boom-box" speakers, you'd know! Like an old Turkish handyman that worked around my college campus once told me: " You can put a tuxedo on a goat. But it's still just a goat."

 

Warning off topic post!

 

And don't forget Frank's source- a generic laptop, with no external DAC in his system!  Therefore, I am assuming Frank is using the 1/8" headphone output jack of his laptop, then using a headphone jack to RCA splitter cable to his NAD amp.  What happened to soldering connections, etc. that Frank mentions all the time?

 

By the way,  I have no problems with Frank's setup.  I am no audio snob and I believe Frank means well (to be clear, I have no animosity for you Frank).  As long as Frank enjoys his system, that is great. But I find it perplexing because Frank is always preaching to the CA members about the need for optimizations and how his system achieves sonic nirvana.  Suddenly bad recordings miraculously sound good on his system.  Also, with Frank's setup, he claims the sound staging and imaging remains perfect, even when walking around the room, he gets identical sound as compared to sitting in the sweet spot.  

 

  

[Ralf11]

besides that, Frank seem to feel entitled to "improve on" Floyd Toole

 

?

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

Please do bother to read Blumlein’s 1931 patent in full before opining.

If you are referring to British Patent #394,325, I've read it several times. And I'm not opining. I'm posting from quite a bit of experience here.

Also Blumlein's stereo microphone arrangement covers a certain type of microphone; i.e. a crossed pair of figure-of-eight mikes. I rarely have used it, preferring, instead an X-Y or a true stereo mike (such as a Telefunken ELA-M-270, or an Avantone CK-40) and on occasion some variation of an ORTF setup and very occasionally a mittle-seit (Mid-Side) setup. Since almost everything I have done has been before a live audience, I use cardioid pattern instead of figure-of-eight (except when I  do M-S, then the side mike is a figure-of-eight) because I need to exclude as much audience noise as it practicable.  

[Ralf11]

he had over 100 patents and is the guy people point to for the invention of stereo

 

OTOH, it's just a patent, and maybe we know more now than in the 1930s??

[gmgraves]

20 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

Warning off topic post!

 

And don't forget Frank's source- a generic laptop, with no external DAC in his system!  Therefore, I am assuming Frank is using the 1/8" headphone output jack of his laptop, then using a headphone jack to RCA splitter cable to his NAD amp.  What happened to soldering connections, etc. that Frank mentions all the time?

 

By the way,  I have no problems with Frank's setup.  I am no audio snob and I believe Frank means well (to be clear, I have no animosity for you Frank).  As long as Frank enjoys his system, that is great. But I find it perplexing because Frank is always preaching to the CA members about the need for optimizations and how his system achieves sonic nirvana.  Suddenly bad recordings miraculously sound good on his system.  Also, with Frank's setup, he claims the sound staging and imaging remains perfect, even when walking around the room, he gets identical sound as compared to sitting in the sweet spot.  

 

  

None of us have any real problem with Frank, except that he posts much and says little and his assertions are a very far-fetched and include more fantasy than they do reality. I will say that he has a powerful audio imagination. I expect that the frustration we feel because Frank won't tell us exactly what he does with his "method" is simply because it's all in his head. Perhaps his "fiddling" is real, but his results certainly aren't, they can't be. One can bend the laws of physics, but one can't break them (and one bends them at one's own peril).

[Ralf11]

re: breaking the laws of physics - they may well be broken inside a Black Hole, and Franks is very far down the Rabbit Hole...

[fas42]

13 hours ago, semente said:

 

Nonsense.

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

 

While people keep asserting asserting that what I say is nonsense, the longer it will take for the benefits of what my approach, and Peter's, delivers to spread everywhere. I've had 30 years to explore this behaviour, which sorta gives me a little bit of authority on the subject, shall we say ... .

 

I'll leave it to Peter to deliver the full blown poetical imagery of what's happening ... I'll nail like this:

 

1) The mind wants to make sense of what it's hearing

 

2) If the presentation is too messy, "blurred", simple tricks like being in the precise "best" place to unscramble everything works a treat - the classic "sweet spot" approach

 

3) The next steps in lifting in the standard is to iteratively reduce the messiness of the presented sound, giving the mind more "breathing room" to decode what the sound all means. Well done, the ear/brain can happily follow the sense of what it's hearing anywhere in the general location of the speakers

 

Toole and others have always relied on "messy" sound presentation to analyse the situation - hence their understanding is flawed.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

If you are referring to British Patent #394,325, I've read it several times. And I'm not opining. I'm posting from quite a bit of experience here.

Also Blumlein's stereo microphone arrangement covers a certain type of microphone; i.e. a crossed pair of figure-of-eight mikes. I rarely have used it, preferring, instead an X-Y or a true stereo mike (such as a Telefunken ELA-M-270, or an Avantone CK-40) and on occasion some variation of an ORTF setup and very occasionally a mittle-seit (Mid-Side) setup. Since almost everything I have done has been before a live audience, I use cardioid pattern instead of figure-of-eight (except when I  do M-S, then the side mike is a figure-of-eight) because I need to exclude as much audience noise as it practicable.  

 

The M-S arrangement can be used for sum and difference signals, and varying the volume of those feeds will vary the sum and difference so as to spread or narrow the soundstage.  As we know, sum and difference can be used to project a soundstage beyond the spread of the speakers.