Mallette's Cat on Stereo

[Mallette]

Stereophile's lead article was another report on the death of SACD, DVD-A, surround music, and why stereo is best. As they've not even managed to learn to engineer a decent 2 channel recording, it did suprise me that it was largely a load of BS.

Pondering this, I was listening to one of my live concert recordings last night when the piece ended and the applause was thunderous. My cat raised her head and looked towards the front. What's wrong with that picture?

I wanted to write Guttenberg, et al, a single response: "It's about the ENGINEERING, STUPID!"

Consider:

Take a fine recital hall and treat all the area from the stage forward with anechoic materials, the best science has to offer. Now, treat the back of the stage area with acoutically refective materials, again, our best.

Bring in the performers and audience.

At the end of the performance during the standing ovation, where will the audience hear their applause coming from?

Do you think they'll return to this venue for another performance?

That, my friends, is stereo...and it fools my cat. In this case, not like the "...doesn't fool my cat" associated with video, but fools her with realistic sound from the wrong direction.

Appreciation of stereo is, like video, a learned response. You have to teach yourself to become comfortable with sounds arriving from the wrong direction.

Each of these "2 channels is quite enough" articles I've read references at least ONE surround recording they found excellent.

HOW MANY DOES IT TAKE TO PROVE THE POINT!

I submint, the answer is "1."

And the problem is engineering.

Cuss, discuss, and debunk at will...

Dave

[fenderbender]

ohh, I Know

According to the nature of quantum superpositions, your cat is both alive and dead.......oh wait that was that Schrodinger fellow, never mind.....

[dtel]

A common sense cat !

One part that is a little confusing is if proper " stereo " is left and right, a good sound stage, the ability to feel depth of different instruments and there placement and a whole list of other things why is this only good for stereo ?

Why is it that some will only have a 2 ch setup because " that's how it should be " without the other gimmicks of multi channel. There are plenty enough gimmicks in 2 ch, like trying to make a 2 ch recording sound like real life, your ears hear more than just from one direction.

I know I have heard some 2 ch recordings that can make you turn around and look over your shoulder thinking you heard something, which is great but most recording don't do that. I don't think multi channel is the answer to everything but why do some simply toss it out, is that the same attitude that happened when that new fangled thing came out called stereo 2 ch, did the mono people say it's just a gimmick ?

I would say the problem is not with multi channel but in recording overall, almost no standards and an overall just get it copied so we can sell it attitude. I would think multi channel could be done as well or even better than 2 ch if there were just a few standards set for recording for both. I would guess that 75% of the problems with audio today could be fixed with the recording, and it has nothing to do with if it's an LP, CD or tape, ( for the most part ).................the other 25% is lack of talent for the most part. IMO

[Mallette]

You nailed it, dtel. It's about the engineering. You have to be very self deluded to trully believe that only two sources can realistically fool my cat as well as reproduce all the information required to accurately re-create an acoustic space-time event.

2 channel, at it's very best, is wonderful. I love it. AAMOF, I love well engineered mono and have hundreds of examples I listen regularly.

But it is not and cannot ever be accurate except between the at the single (mono speaker) or between two source points (stereo speakers) and the events that emanated from them. While a very poor analogue, it can be visualized as a performance hall with highly contained lights covering only the performers.

If that is good enough for you, fine. You'll stick with HD video when holographic 3D becomes available and be very happy.

Dave

[dtel]

Like the commercial " I want it all ".

[Hifi jim]

Dave, you raise an excellent point that surround sound is better than stereo for some recordings and can give a more lifelike experience on such recordings. However, Stereophile is just what it's name intends... the pursuit of high fidelity in the stereo format. There are many magazines that specialize in surround sound and snub their noses at the plain-Jane two-channel crowd. Klaman Rubinson is one of Stereophile's rare birds, he loves multichannel and has five B&W 802Ds in his current system. In his review of the PSB Imagine T this month he is quoted as follows: "Still, I felt that the soundstage wasn't wide enough in either of my listening rooms. I admit a well-documented bias in this regard: I believe that multichannel reproduction is necessary for such large ensembles, and that two-channel stereo is hard-pressed to approach what surround sound can offer. Despite this, I listen to stereo most of the time for reasons of repertoire, but even with my abiding expectations regarding stereo, some speakers can throw a bigger soundstage than did the PSBs." Because Kalman, like all Stereophile editors, is expected to review two-channel gear they rarely comment on multichannel performance. They are simply not given complete speaker packages to review, for that check out Home Theater Review, or Sound and Vision among others. Stereophile reviews speakers two at a time, and components that are dedicated to the two-channel craft. For those who enjoy multichannel, this may seem a bit ancient but no more so than the digital lover sneering at vinyl, or the digital shutterbug bewildered by film. For myself, I enjoy surround sound for TV and film, but I do not have the room for five large and matching speakers which I find necessary to accurately reproduce music. The small surrounds I employ are fine for movie soundtracks, but very much out of their element when trying to keep pace with the three full range speakers up front for music. I have heard surround sound done properly and I think it is marvelous, but only when the software allows. Placing instruments behind the listener is something I'm not a fan of, and sometimes those old two-channel recordings just sound better reproduced as such... horses for courses.

[Mallette]

I sneer at nothing, except bad music, poorly performed, and badly engineered. I am not into mono, stereo, or surround, I am into the recreation of acoustic space-time events as accurately as possible.

Dave

[Hifi jim]

I sneer at nothing, except bad music, poorly performed, and badly engineered. I am not into mono, stereo, or surround, I am into the recreation of acoustic space-time events as accurately as possible.

Dave

Dave, I certainly didn't mean to imply that you were sneering at two-channel, and your love of various recording formats is well documented within these forums. My point, which was a comment on the original post, is that it's no surprise that Stereophile is less than enthused by multichannel given their magazines intended audience and the rather unfortunate and short life of DVD-A and SACD. I hope the latest codecs will raise multichannel up again in the form of audio only BluRay or at the very least, more concerts on the BluRay format.

[Mallette]

I hear you, Jim. I take $tereophile because it's 7 dollars a year and I get about that much value from it. It's about 80% BS and bluster, maybe more. "Objectivity" is not in thier MO or lexicon, and music is simply an excuse for the equipment.

Dave

PS - I take Home Theater as well, and would say about the same about them...though perhaps a bit more positive as they have a lot more "Joe Sixpacks" in thier readership.

[dtel]

However, Stereophile is just what it's name intends... the pursuit of high fidelity in the stereo format.

You just take all the fun out of it going straight to a logical point like that . [*-)]

[jbsl]

There is not enough demand by the public for quality recorded albums, stereo or multichannel. The majority of people are happy with their I-pods and computer speakers so their is no incentive for the music industry to actually produce quality recorded albums.

There are some musicians and eng that actually make the effort to produce a quality recorded album but they are a minority.

[Mallette]

There is not enough demand by the public for quality recorded albums, stereo or multichannel. The majority of people are happy with their I-pods and computer speakers so their is no incentive for the music industry to actually produce quality recorded albums.

There are some musicians and eng that actually make the effort to produce a quality recorded album but they are a minority.

An interesting point. My first non-broadcast audio job was producing soundtracks for cassette-filmstrips. Since everything had to be filtered such that there was nothing significant at 50hz and these were played back on institutional units, there was an assumption that audio quality was irrelevant. Really much in common with what you are pointing out. I was able to demonstrate that the lower the quality of the final machine the better you have to start with in order to achieve a usable output.

MP3 is pretty awful at best. But an MP3 made from quality engineered material is going to be far more listenable even to the ignorant ear than "who cares, it's gonna be compressed to crap anyway" stuff. You can't avoid good engineering simply by choosing a low fi release medium.

Dave

[jbsl]

I just bought the new rock album from the new band Chickenfoot(Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony,Van Halen, and Chad Smith,Red Hot Chilli Peppers)and really like the album.

But it is recorded terrible!![8o|] The first Audioslave album is recorded very good so I know you can record a rock album with very good quality.

Most people just want the music to play. Then you have people in our hobby, a very small minority.

[pauln]

On the subject of space, location, standards... and "physical engineering", may I consider it an offensive abomination that the current conductor of the Houston symphony insists on seating the violins on the audience's right side of the stage?

[Mallette]

On the subject of space, location, standards... and "physical engineering", may I consider it an offensive abomination that the current conductor of the Houston symphony insists on seating the violins on the audience's right side of the stage?

Very strange, indeed. Is his brain crosswired or what? That would be, in a very real sense, disconcerting.

Dave

[Zen Traveler]

... For myself, I enjoy surround sound for TV and film, but I do not have the room for five large and matching speakers which I find necessary to accurately reproduce music. The small surrounds I employ are fine for movie soundtracks, but very much out of their element when trying to keep pace with the three full range speakers up front for music. I have heard surround sound done properly and I think it is marvelous, but only when the software allows. Placing instruments behind the listener is something I'm not a fan of, and sometimes those old two-channel recordings just sound better reproduced as such... horses for courses.

I have a small Home Theater with large speakers and absolutely love experiencing multichannel music (along with movies) in the setup listed below. Where I believe I differ from you and Mallette in listening preference is probably due to the material we appreciate and how we listen to music...I don't necessarily imagine that there are folks with instruments standing in any particular location in the room unless there is a video along with it. While I am sitting enjoying a cold one with the lights darkened or chatting with you folks on line, I enjoy instruments and vocals emanating from 4 different sound fields with clarity, while my mind wonders or thinks of things to write. Roxy Music's "Avalon" is an excellent example of this. [8] [Y]

[Mallette]

TDKA, I was into surround when it wasn't cool. From the 70's until DPLII my system had a DynaQuad in it that did a marvelous job of providing some sense of space, and, on certain things, real directional information. Well engineered two mike recordings are best and with the DynaQuad properly null balanced reveal a very natural depth and spatiousness that's immediately addictive and makes front speakers only sound very dull and unidimensional. The most freaky stuff is material like the Firesign Theatre with lots of overdubbing and mixing such that there is a large amount of out of phase information. This results in voices and sounds appearing above, below, behind, or inside your head. That, of course, is perfect for Firesign, if you know what I mean.

I was enthused about quad when it was announced, but never adopted anything as it was nowhere near ready for primetime or sonically competetive with the DynaQuad. The engineering was uniformlly awfully and the decoding schema iffy, noisey, and non-compatible.

DPPII set correctly gets very close to DynaQuad in clean ambiense extraction and routing, though occasionally it errs due to it's "logic" making an error and sending something somewhere it doesn't belong.

Purists with an adventurous streak and a couple of extra speakers should give DynaQuad a try if you run across a unit. Of course, it adds or subtracts nothing to the origninal material as it is essentially a straight wire with no gain, so it's really a purist device. It's connected to the amplifier speaker terminals and simply and naturally separates out of phase information and sends it to the rear speakers.

Dave

[Zen Traveler]

...DPPII set correctly gets very close to DynaQuad in clean ambiense extraction and routing,... It's connected to the amplifier speaker terminals and simply and naturally separates out of phase information and sends it to the rear speakers.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I looked over that Firesign stuff and that looked pretty trippy....I am not as sophisticated as you on audio matters, but what you are describing above like what I have been able to do with my Denon Avr 4806. Using only the AVR's "matrix" function for surround (and no other processing) I can convert 5.1 SACD/DVD-A material into 6.1 (using 2 rear speakers) and actually have different material coming out of my rears verses side surround on alot of disks. {EDIT Note: Here is a link to a thread at AVS which attempted to explains this:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1103975&highlight=

Quote:

Originally Posted by sdurani No standard that I know of. In my experience, the surround channels contain plenty of mono information (same sound in both channels) as well as lots of stereo information (different sounds in each channel). With a 7.1 set-up, the more mono the information, the more it will be steered to the speakers behind you; the more stereo the information, the more it will be steered to the speakers at your sides...

Zen Traveler (aka tkdamerica ;-): I am amazed at how well DVD-As and SACDs sound in 7.1 going through my DenonLink, and then the rears being matrixed out of the side surround information. That "stereo vs mono" observation is interesting because I wondered how using the Denon's matrix function on this material made it seem like there was discrete material coming from my rear speakers.

[Mallette]

Yezzir, tdka, that's a good explanation and makes sense. Pure mono channels will be easily and cleanly separated and steered by logic circuits. Actually, this can be done completely passively with proper engineering. I have a copy of the original DynaQuad demo disc that has a performance of "Flight of the Bumblebee" that literaly flys around your head discretely as any modern DPLII could do...and at lot more error free since there is nothing to set except the null balance for the rears, and that process is pretty much error proof.

DynaQuad was doomed to fail for the same reasons as our modern surround system troubles...engineering. That disc is the only one I've ever heard that had it right. If the engineers had really appreciated music and understood the goal of recording we'd have had a stable, compatible surround system 40 years ago and be experiencing extraordinary realism by now in our recordings.

Dave

[Zen Traveler]

Fwiw, the remix of Burning Down the House on the "Speaking in Tongues" DVD-A is something to appreciate on a great surround system and probably my all time favorite song in multichannel...That being said, I remember dancing to that song in stereo at the last Corporate Christmas Party that I attended where I had just resigned my post (on good terms) and was feeling no pain. Given that I am NOT a dancer, I am sure there are at least several dozen other people that remember it as well...[<)] [H]