True to life recording? - We are fooling ourselves!

[STC]

40 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

I haven't read this whole thread, which is quite long, but I think of this sometimes when I'm in a concert hall. There has long been an obsession with surround sound - from quadrophonic to 5.1 etc. - but has anyone done any serious work with, say, four equidistant front speakers?

 

Yes. It is known as domestic/virtual concert hall reproduction. A real concert hall RT is about 1.7second and it is impossible to create them unless you have a room that is capable of reproducing the long RT which means it is impossible with any typical room unless you do them artificially with multi speakers to recreate the long RT using real 360 degree concert hall impulse response . See my signature for more info.

 

There are other attempts of multi channel production but they all still limited to the physical restraint of reverbs and limited channels of reverbs. Having said that, they are more natural than a typical equidistant stereo setup.  

 

40 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

 

Naturally, this would require recordings to be made specifically for those four channels, but it would seem to me that this would blur the sweet spot a lot more than having back speakers. Even having a three-channel system would be an improvement on two speakers, but that would probably reinforce the central sweet spot. 

 

Or, perhaps most people just don't care and aren't obsessed with trying to hear music "as it sounds in the concert hall." 

 

Again, for music the extra channels are there to reproduce the rear ambiance which is part of concert hall experience. They are better than stereo but still more to catchup as the reverbs do not come from just the rear speakers location.

 

Centre channel got no role for music. It was invented for theaters.

[Kal Rubinson]

3 hours ago, kirkmc said:

Even having a three-channel system would be an improvement on two speakers, but that would probably reinforce the central sweet spot. 

In my experience, it does the opposite if properly  recorded and balanced.

[zacster]

Whenever I go to a live acoustic concert, whether orchestra, opera, acoustic band, guy/girl on a guitar, or just my daughter playing our grand piano at home, I realize that nothing I play on my system or any system I've ever heard comes close to reproducing that sound.  Also, invariably the best recorded music from the audiophile labels is not to my taste and even if it were the perfect recording that somehow were to work with all of my system's distortions and undo them, I would never listen beyond the curiosity.  

 

So rather than pursue the perfect, I just listen to what I have and enjoy it.

[KeenObserver]

3 hours ago, STC said:

 

Yes. It is known as domestic/virtual concert hall reproduction. A real concert hall RT is about 1.7second and it is impossible to create them unless you have a room that is capable of reproducing the long RT which means it is impossible with any typical room unless you do them artificially with multi speakers to recreate the long RT using real 360 degree concert hall impulse response . See my signature for more info.

 

There are other attempts of multi channel production but they all still limited to the physical restraint of reverbs and limited channels of reverbs. Having said that, they are more natural than a typical equidistant stereo setup.  

 

 

Again, for music the extra channels are there to reproduce the rear ambiance which is part of concert hall experience. They are better than stereo but still more to catchup as the reverbs do not come from just the rear speakers location.

 

Centre channel got no role for music. It was invented for theaters.

 

"Centre channel got no role for music. It was invented for theaters."

 

I believe that many years back research was done ( I think by Bell Labs, but don't quote me on that) on the followup to mono.  Three speakers were considered optimum, but two speakers became the norm.  It is usually referred to as stereo, but I believe any multiple was considered "stereo".

[KeenObserver]

I'm trying to find the information on the original research on multiple speakers.  I'm having difficulty finding what I was looking for, but I did find information that they were making multi channel recordings on tape in 1949 and they were playing them on left, center, and right speaker arrays.

[KeenObserver]

I'm taxing my memory today.  Had to look up some details.  After the initial recordings, the later Mercury Living Presence recordings were recorded on three tracks which Wilma Cozart later mixed down to two tracks. I know that Wilma Cozart Fine later remastered them for digital. I have played some of them through a surround sound synthesizer.  Some take well to the synthesizer and some sound better to me in the original 2 channel mix.

[4est]

On 8/17/2019 at 8:44 PM, fas42 said:

 

And this is precisely why I aim for the SQ that I describe, which is achievable if one goes to enough effort ... whether you choose to focus or not, the music never registers, subjectively, as "irritating" - I can have the system running at "maximum volume", and be doing something completely otherwise for some time - and I never get a buildup of irritation ... If I do, then I know something's wrong with the sound! ... that's my "measuring stick"!

 

IOW, the soundstage is fully consistent, no matter how little or how much attention I pay - just like having real musicians in the room, you see ... .

Gosh, my stereo in 1980 could do all of that. Is this what all of your hubbub is about?

[fas42]

13 hours ago, STC said:

 

 

 

Reverbs and the relation of its use is far too complex. Even Blauert cautioned in his book that the observation detailed in his book was only correct under lab condition. I have given the recording technique used in your reference YouTube videos. They were manipulated with a lots of reverbs (echoes). No one here (including me) could accurately tell the depth of an instruments accurately based on the reverbs of an instruments as they do not provide accurate information of depth but only an approximation. You will use your learning experience to fix an arbitrary depth. I will not respond to your reply unless you want to take up the challenge where you can identify the depth of an instruments in the sample that I provide.

 

 

Here, you are confusing the competence of the listener, with that of the playback system - if I listen to your sample on a low grade setup, like my current laptop, I most likely will have problems with your "challenge". Conversely, if a high performing replay happens, then people who have not the slightest interest in such affairs will have little difficulty picking up the depth cues.

 

The point is, that competent playback renders the distance cues very clearly - this is one of the 'obvious' markers that occurs. Formerly confused information as to "what's going on" becomes startlingly clear - and the layering of the various sound elements is easy to 'see'.

 

Quote

 

 

A speakers should not manipulate. It should produce the same. How is multi channel related to this? Are you one also in the category that who believes a recording is capable of capturing all the spatial information accurately?

 

All the spatial information that matters is captured. It won't be all the information, but it will be sufficient for the mind to decode it, completely unconsciously - if you haven't experienced the radical transformation that occurs in the subjective presentation when a rig is good enough, you won't understand this; having heard this for three decades is why I can listen to poor quality playback of some track and 'know' what it should sound like ... here, I'm consciously translating what I hear.

 

Quote

 

Firstly, if at all a recording is capable of capturing ( I am confining to musical performance only) 100% then pick any of the live performance of the recording and ask them why the applause is coming from the front stage. A true accurate recording shouldn't be producing the applause of the audience which in most cases comes from behind the microphones. Yet you can see even accomplish recordists insist a single pair of stereo microphones captures accurate spatial cues and close to the original event.

 

I also would not respond to your reply to this unless you want to start with explaining why the applause is coming from the front when in the actual event it supposed be from the rear. (This probably will give you a cue why multi channel playback is more accurate).

 

 

 

Whether the applause comes from the back or the front to me is irrelevant ... since it has nothing to do with the thrust of the performance. I'm far more interested in whether it "sounds like applause" - and actually, it usually appears like it's all around me - it fills the space I'm listening in; just like the real thing ... 😜.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, 4est said:

Gosh, my stereo in 1980 could do all of that. Is this what all of your hubbub is about?

 

You say this, but then ...

 

8 hours ago, zacster said:

Whenever I go to a live acoustic concert, whether orchestra, opera, acoustic band, guy/girl on a guitar, or just my daughter playing our grand piano at home, I realize that nothing I play on my system or any system I've ever heard comes close to reproducing that sound.

 

says that ... so, which is it ??

 

"That sound" is what I'm interested in - it emerged 35 years ago, for me; and I'm not interested in anything that is of a lesser standard.

[STC]

9 hours ago, zacster said:

guitar, or just my daughter playing our grand piano at home,

A good system should able to produce a grand piano in a concert hall sound reasonably well. However, to reproduce the sound of a piano like listening from 10 or 15 feet in a living room can be challenging. 
 

It depends on the recording, your room acoustics and if at all your system could produce close to the sound your daughter playing a real piano such system would sound over reverberant for solo vocalist. A real piano sound in a living room comes from 360 degrees. In a stereo reproduction, it is limited to the front sound only and very little of the other direction. 

[STC]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Here, you are confusing the competence of the listener, with that of the playback system - if I listen to your sample on a low grade setup, like my current laptop, I most likely will have problems with your "challenge". Conversely, if a high performing replay happens, then people who have not the slightest interest in such affairs will have little difficulty picking up the depth cues.

 

The point is, that competent playback renders the distance cues very clearly - this is one of the 'obvious' markers that occurs. Formerly confused information as to "what's going on" becomes startlingly clear - and the layering of the various sound elements is easy to 'see'.

 

 

All the spatial information that matters is captured. It won't be all the information, but it will be sufficient for the mind to decode it, completely unconsciously - if you haven't experienced the radical transformation that occurs in the subjective presentation when a rig is good enough, you won't understand this; having heard this for three decades is why I can listen to poor quality playback of some track and 'know' what it should sound like ... here, I'm consciously translating what I hear.

 

 

Whether the applause comes from the back or the front to me is irrelevant ... since it has nothing to do with the thrust of the performance. I'm far more interested in whether it "sounds like applause" - and actually, it usually appears like it's all around me - it fills the space I'm listening in; just like the real thing ... 😜.

As usual.  Evasive. You cannot answer the questions because you know very well you cannot prove what you claim. 

[fas42]

Questions? You only asked two in the post I replied to - the first one was this, "How is multi channel related to this? " ... I responded by pointing out that adding an extra acoustic space, by multi-channel manipulation, will create a confusing auditory experience, with many recordings ... you disagree?

[STC]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Questions? You only asked two in the post I replied to - the first one was this, "How is multi channel related to this? " ... I responded by pointing out that adding an extra acoustic space, by multi-channel manipulation, will create a confusing auditory experience, with many recordings ... you disagree?

You cannot even remember what you read a few minutes ago or misread or misunderstood them and yet you are claiming to remember a magic that happened 35 years ago. 
 

 

 

[Ralf11]

that's why it is magik

[STC]

We all may have experienced that magic moment in our life. Mine happened deep in the jungle while camping. It has been pouring the whole day. With an old flame, on a motorcycle. Soaked wet. Camp fire, full moon, the roar of the waterfall and music from a small cassette player. 
 

I could never forget the music and the whole setting. Recently, brought my family there and I took the opportunity to relive that old moment. 
 

The music sucked. The waterfall noise ( although the water level is only one fifth of what it used to be) drowned the music. Either, they don’t make audio players like they used to or I was extremely high on hormone some 34 years. 

[Ralf11]

Oxytocin is very powerful