Two-channel enthusiasts converting to multi-channel?

[chisoxpurdue]

And not to be snobby, but if you use a subwoofer for 2 channel listening, you should really be using two. One sub set to each channel. I think most people here can usually locate the base.

[Mallette]

However, I've found that the speakers don't have to be identical, rather just high quality and (you guessed it) horn-loaded. The surrounds usually loaf along during most movies and videos but come alive for quality surround recordings (e.g., Blu-Ray, DVD-A, DTS, SACD surround).

If you are limited to this context I can see why you wouldn't understand or need identical speakers. However, consider a recording made with choirs in front, brass to the sides, and a pipe organ with bomdarde division and royal state trumpets.

To recreate the space/time event it only stands to reason that doing it sans processor, that is placing the mikes in the listening position (4 identical mikes, of course), then playing it back with 4 identical speakers firing inward to recreat the mike point, is the best way to have a realistic image.

This isn't going to happen. The few discrete 4 track, 4 channel R2R releases were the only ones to provide a means for this for the ordinary listener. I've read of some work being done to encode tracks with digital data to route them to a speaker placed as close to where that sound should originate as possible. With such a system, one might have 15, 20, or more speakers with each one further defining an accurate sound field.

This MAY happen, as the proposed technology doesn't require any specific number of speakers or amps so doesn't really mandate anyone do anything. Further, the processor to sort out the channels is the same for mono as for XX (whatever the maximum might be) but only uses what is there. So, a user would only have to install the number speakers and amps they wanted.

With small, full range, high efficiency speakers a 20 speaker setup using T Amps really wouldn't be a lease breaker.

Anyway, not an issue at the moment.

dave

[Don Richard]

With small, full range, high efficiency speakers a 20 speaker setup using T Amps really wouldn't be a lease breaker

No can do. Hoffman's Iron Law is the stopper:

http://www.salksound.com/wp/?p=56

You have a choice of two out of three. Choose wisely, my friend.

[SilverSport]

with a nicely recorded DVD-A, SACD or some such, I like the difference of multi-channel for a change (DSOTM Special Edition) but for most listening, I prefer 2 channel...

Bill

[Chris A]

If you are limited to this context I can see why you wouldn't understand or need identical speakers. However, consider a recording made with choirs in front, brass to the sides, and a pipe organ with bomdarde division and royal state trumpets.

What I think I'm hearing above is that you are trying to recreate some exact geometry of apparent image, kind of like binaural recordings are supposed to do. That's okay. It's not my goal. The trumpets or choir can be in somewhat different places when reproduced. For example: E. Power Biggs' Bach: The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues [sACD] locates the 4 antiphonal organs into a front speakers + surround speakers matrix. I'm okay with that--it's quite inspiring, in fact. The real geometry of those organs in that cathedral are not very conducive to truly pleasing performance for its real-life listeners on the floor of that venue.

I find that time alignment of drivers within each speaker (...as it is presently done in my setup...) and of speakers in the surround array (ditto, including horn subwoofers), recreates the sound field effect in a very pleasing way. I'm willing to take sides here by saying that giving up extremely low distortion speakers in order to achieve "uniformity of speaker type" isn't my idea of a good trade or a good resulting surround setup. I prefer low-distortion speakers - the lowest distortion that I can find. When I say that the speakers don't have to be identical, I'm thinking, for instance, Jubilees/TADs for fronts (carrying most of the load in most recordings), a Belle center (maybe with a K-510 horn, bi-amped), and two Belles or Cornwalls for surrounds, time-aligned. I find that they integrate very well. Typically, at this point in the discussion I find similar situations going toward the subject of "timbre matching". That's certainly in-bounds for the discussion at hand.

I've heard folks say that stereo tries to recreate the actual sound field. Bob Carver and Polk (SDA monitors) made money in the '80s proving that isn't correct (i.e., canceling cross-channel signals if you are sitting on centerline between the speakers). I believe that I'm hearing similar goals here that are used to justify binaural recording, which, of course, requires headphones to reproduce in a meaningful way. I remember the video interview with Bob Carver where he pointed out (ever so eloquently) that eardrum bounce back into the typical high-impedance headphone drivers creates significant reproduction distortion. There is a trade there, too. He apparently built some test headphones that were six feet wide so that he could put an absorbing tube to catch the majority of the reflected wave off the eardrums. He didn't try to market it for obvious reasons.

Trades are implicit in sound reproduction. Floyd Toole mentioned in his book that "sound field recreation" really isn't the objective. I initially had a hard time accepting this argument, but after I looked more closely--I accept that he is mostly right. I think we are actually trying to recreate a pleasing perception of the original sound field.

Chris

[Mallette]

Not a problem, Don. I didn't say anything about not having a sub in the system, and by "small speakers," I was speaking of the drivers without specifying the tuning environment for them. Having 20 or more speakers in ANY kind or size cabinet would rather clutter up a room no matter how great they sounded.

Now, I'd be perfectly happy for someone with real speaker engineering knowledge to comment, but it occurred to me that in a dedicated music/HT environment one might mount...let's get wild and spend a few bucks...full range speakers in like a line array (may be a line array...can't remember the definition) in closed chambers between the rafters, perhaps baffled or helmholtz loaded. Let's say two rows down the left, three rows (left/center/right) across the cieling, and 2 rows on the right. Two more rows on the back, and three rows of ten high/middle/and near the floor on the front.

Now, Hoffman or not, you are moving a lot of air just as in the real sonic world of a concert hall or watching a rocket blast off. No doubt many would still want a sub flat from DC to butt tickle, and I would as well. If the technology I mentioned in my previous post is perfected to allow ensuring that every sound is sent to the speaker nearest the position from which it originated in the original time/space event I think we'd have a "one size fits all" audiophile/HT system. No doubt the imaging would be downright spookey. The 4 mike/4 identical speaker recording I made a decade ago place each and every sound precisely...above, behind, etc. However, one had to be positioned precisely at the center point of the 4 speakers for the full effect. That's one reason why, though it's the only way to get accurate surround without processors, it's also not practical commercially.

However, digital tagging of multiplexed channels for precise location might be more viable as a commercial format. The complexities at the source engineering end would be significant. But the end product would be a truly universal format suitable for playback on anything from a mono clock radio to the system above, with the signals being routed appropriately and automatically for each device.

If I dream further, I think of long electrostatic type drivers somehow engineered to allow exciting of various points independently and overlapping. Then you'd have as perfect a playback situation as I can imagine. Well, if one can dream it up, somebody can build it.

Further, I suspect many classic two channel recordings could be remastered with no loss to the 2 channel playback if that's what you had, but with significant enhancement in image and staging when played back on one of these systems after being digital directionally tagged by someone with the knowledge of how the band, orchestra, or whatever was laid out. In the case of most acoustic music, this would be easy and even if you had only the stereo master you could do a reasonable job of putting the reflections where they belong and the instruments in their proper locations.

This is all conceptual, and I'm sure many will see major issues. There's major issues building the space elevator as well...but the concept is sound and we'll eventually build them.

Dave

[sfogg]

" I've read of some work being done to encode tracks with digital data
to route them to a speaker placed as close to where that sound should
originate as possible. With such a system, one might have 15, 20, or
more speakers with each one further defining an accurate sound field.This
MAY happen, as the proposed technology doesn't require any specific
number of speakers or amps so doesn't really mandate anyone do
anything. "

That sounds like Michael Gerzon's Ambisonics. Meridian processors have that but there aren't a huge number of recodings that are recorded in Ambisonics. The ones that do can sound very nice but there is a flaw in Ambisonics. It is trying to reproduce all the sounds for a single point in space.

We hear from two points in space.

Gerzon is also who did Meridian's Trifield.

On nice thing that came out of all that work was the Ambisonics Soundfield mic can make really good recordings without the Ambisonic encoding. Cowboy Junkies 'Trinity Sessions' is likely the best known example of this. Sounds great in 2 channel sounds downright spooky in an excellent multi-channel system.

Shawn

[Ironsave]

And not to be snobby, but if you use a subwoofer for 2 channel listening, you should really be using two. One sub set to each channel. I think most people here can usually locate the base.

ChiSox, I disagree with this slightly. A properly set up sub "disappears".I use my sub for 2 channel listening; and you can not tell where the bass comes from. (There are peaks and valleys; depending on where you move in the room; but you can not tell where it originates). 2 subs can be better; but if set up poorly would be worse then one correctly set up sub......

In regards to the (correct) original question..... I have 5.1 set up in the living room and use my HK receiver for 2 channel listening also in the same system.......

No dedicated 2 channel room till we move out of the apartment.......

[SWL]

Analog sound.....tubes....correct imaging/soundstage. Doesn't get any better for me. []

[Mallette]

Been a while since I paid attention to Ambisonics, but I do not believe it to be a completely digital situation. So far, what I am suggesting is completely conceptual. Doable, IMHO, but completely conceptual. It would not involve anything like the current processing and routing I am familiar with.

Dave

[gnatnoop]

Analog sound.....tubes....correct imaging/soundstage. Doesn't get any better for me.

+1

[Fish]

I was born a 2 channel enthusiast, that's all we had for years......I also like multi channel done right, not just for the sake of multi but for the sound.Deep Purple Machine Head dvd audio is better than 2 channel ever was.The Eagles -Hotel California, Yes- Fragile, Jeff Beck- Blow by Blow, Elton Johns Madman across the Water sacd remix is stunning.Some multi mixes would have been better left alone, Grateful Dead comes to mind.A radio that does not do 2 channel pretty well is useless to me, and there are plenty that suck at it.

[Mallette]

....correct imaging/soundstage.

Given that correct imaging and sound stage is all you can get with two channel, and yet many are perfectly happy with that slice of the high fidelity pie, I got to thinking.

I am not sure the question that started this thread is adequate to get any real sense of the situaton without knowing what people are listening to. Certainly the majority of material was engineered for a completely surreal medium like two channel...that is, one that is "3D" acoustically in the sense that the only a small part of the sound field is represented. Sort of like listening through a an open window into a concert hall.

I suspect that those who are happy with or prefer 2 channel listen to very mainstream things like created performances and studio recorded works that really have no original acoustic environment.

In my case, I love it all but since I first heard the E Power Biggs "Glory of Gabrieli" recording back in the late 60's my greatest love is for recordings that contain high fidelity representations not only of music but of the great spaces of the world where that music is performed. A pipe organ in a recording studio doesn't just sound bad, it sounds awful. It's said the one of the great builders of the German baroque would take a large staff, pound it on the flower of a church, then plan the organ for it. Whether organ, choirs, orchestras, small groups, jazz...all acoustic music must take the space into account in order to be successful. IMHO, a good range of importance here would be the organ at one extreme, where it must be constructed in perfect harmony with the space that contains it to reach its full glory, with jazz or solo piano on the other end. There, it still adds a lot but isn't a death sentence...partially because 2 channel playback of these forces is often into a space not largely different from the kind of space they'd be hear in anyway.

If I've made sense so far...and that's open to question I am sure...then there is really only a small number of us in the audiophile community pineing away for a real high fidelity medium capable of creating not only accurate playback of music but also the acoustic space/time event itself such that we are placed at the point in St. Mark's Cathedral where the mikes were place for best effect, or a small club with brick walls in the French Quarter, or in the Kennedy Center.

I've made only one actual music recording so far useing my own theories, that of the Ayslum Street Spankers nearly a decade ago. Saxon Street Pub was a just less than intimate size place perhaps 30X50 or so with brick walls. Not too bad when filled with people. The Spankers are so acoustic they won't even use a PA. In any event, one of the few times I've set up the inverse identical speaker array and played back the 4 channel version, my friend Ron (the occasional Lonelobo here) and I were listening and there was a very pronounced clink of beer bottles as a tray was set down heavily on the table just behind and to our right. He commented "That was a really foxy waitress..."

To me, THAT defines imaging and high fidelity: Sitting one table back from the front row at the Saxon Street Pub with a perfect reproduction of an acoustic space/time event surrounding you and making you want to order a beer.

As mentioned in this and other threads, my own methodology for recording these events isn't likely to go anywhere commercially due to its very simplicity. Achieveing this level of reality via the complex algorithms used for HT or music in commercial systems, mainly DPLII at this point, requires a level of skill or will that is apparently lacking either in the engineers or in the industry. For the most part, HT users simply want explosions and such coming from all directions and "realism" is in the ear of the beholder since the entire situation is created in the mixing room.

For me, there is hope at least in that the systems are inherently capable of realism even if the skill and demand are not there for them yet. I hope to have time to further experiment trying to creat an AC-3 version of the Spankers or recordings yet to be made that at least approximates the discrete versions.

So, I've spent the time to write all this perhaps only to settle in my own mind the "why" of audiophile attitudes at this point in time. Personally, though no hijack intended, I'd be more interested in commentary on whether my reasoning as to why so many cling to 2 channel and why surround remains so poorly represented ( with the few exceptions noted by others in this thread) than who prefers one or the other.

Dave

[SWL]

I'd be more interested in commentary on whether my reasoning as to why so many cling to 2 channel and why surround remains so poorly represented ( with the few exceptions noted by others in this thread) than who prefers one or the other.

For me, my experience with multi-channel surround sound receivers is that they very much lack the realism, purity, feel, emotion and richness that an analog preamp/power amp tube combo can offer. They sound fake, one dimentional and lifeless in comparison. Fine for movies but doesn't quite cut it after hearing what a properly set up two-channel rig can do. I'd be lying if I said nostalgia didn't play a minor role as well. []

[Mallette]

They sound fake, one dimentional and lifeless in comparison.

Fine, but the comment is on the message, not the medium. I've heard a boat load of 2 channel recordings, mono as well, that meet that description.

Dave

PS - My comment was too quick. We have a mixture here of equipment and medium. Any chance you'd say the same thing about SS or digital amps in both applications or if you were using one of the few all tube DPLII processors made?

[Audible Nectar]

For me, Dave, I think my mental marriage to 2 channel for music is primarily borne out of the fact that I'm still rediscovering the magic of 50+ years of stereo audio through my systems, and I have a bit of a "rule" here: 2 good channels of audio must exist before proceeding to more channels than that. I don't want multichannel expenditures cutting into my 2 channel quality, because, as I say, I'm still "re-enjoying" and rediscovering the history of 2 channel music and that's enough to keep me busy in and of itself.

The introduction of the DVD video disc as "consumer standard" is what got me interested in multichannel, because now the discrete mutichannel audio was now a possibilty on an "off the shelf at your video store" level. This saturation makes the added investment worth it, and I have been pretty engrained in multichannel for film and concert video (pretty much all of my multichannel music habit) for some time now. But it's NOT "all about the explosions" - in fact, it's actually the opposite. I want titles that make the most of the six Cornwalls and so yes it's about the fidelity and true realism of the experience, just as it is for 2 channel to the degree that format allows.

However, I'm not as willing to buy into the "esoteric" formats to get the best of the best in multichannel audio. I want universal formats that go massive with the public, because you get more choices and more return on the investment dollars spent. I'll let the guinea pigs pay the higher early entry fees until those formats either live or die with the overall public....such as Blu-Ray, the now accepted standard for HD video. Now that Blu-Ray has emerged as the new HD standard, I'll now jump in and spend a more normal amount of $$ to tap the capabilities of that medium. Had mutichannel hi-res audio taken off better with the public I would probably step into more of those titles, and still don't exclude additional investment in this area where crossover formats exist in video decks. My main drive for building a multichannel system was the standard issue DVD video disc, and will certainly continue with Blu-Ray and possibly any audio formats that crossover on those machines.

[Mallette]

Well, AN, nothing in there I disagree with. Anyone thinking I am some sort of iconclast for two channel should bear in mind that the vast majority of my source material is some 2200 LPs, sigificant R2R, and around 600 or so 78's. Not really the stuff a "old is out" type might have...

However, your post is in line with my "arguments," if they are really that, right down to HT being the main driving force. Further, my characterization of the nature of the HT experience as explosions and such from all around wasn't intended to be either critical or to suggest that many of these do not create a very realistic and exciting environment. What I was saying was that it was far easier to create a realistic environment for a battlefield, a riot, or an amusement park (whatever) than a great cathedral, concert hall, or jazz club. The subtleties of these situations and the critical ears that percieve them make the task far more daunting than putting a person in the middle of D-Day...a situaton we really have no idea what is "really" like. Actuall, seems like I recall a vet saying "Saving Private Ryan" had some moments that really took him back...but few of us actually have a reference for that.

OTOH, I've a very critical ear for spaces and have only a handful of moments in my own or any other listening room when I find myself anything like satisfied with the accuracy of the recreation of the acoustic space/time event du jour.

However, I'm not as willing to buy into the "esoteric" formats to get the best of the best in multichannel audio. I want universal formats that go massive with the public, because you get more choices and more return on the investment dollars spent.

Here again I fully concur and agree. We audiophiles will get nothing until a format is developed that requires absolutely no thought whatsoever on the part of the user. Oddly, Netflix points in this direction with their outstanding predictive alogrithms that take an HD, multichannel audio/video stream and then scale it back on the fly to whatever bandwidth and equipment is available without the user even having to think about it.

That's what all my previous babbling in this thread was about. We need a truly universal format that can deliever audio and video to whatever is at the user end with no thought by the user at all. If it's a single crystal earpiece, then the user gets the best quality that device can handle. If it's the monster array of 60 or whatever speakers and subs plus 3D HD video screen where each and every acoustic event is routed precisely to a given location within that array, then that's what the user gets.

It is my belief that the technology already exists for this, and that such a universal format would do much to revive a moribund business. Certain, the 20th century emphasis on media...LP, CD, cassette, DVD, etc...must end as users have lost interest in them. These things, to the extent they are useful at all, are simply storage.

Mom and Pop (also Dave), should be able to make a 4 channel surround recording simply by using our acquisition format of choice, then adding metadata to the digital file that states our intentions. The playback device, whether the stream comes from the web, from a USB drive, from an HD memory chip, a hard drive, optical media, WHATEVER, should handle determining what the engineers intention was, determining the available resources, and providing the best experience possible with the forces in place. I suspect the cost of developing a standard logic device for this purpose would certainly be FAR less than Fostgate's efforts in developing DPLII in vacuum tubes and the cost of producing it even less than that. Hardly rocket science.

Heck, I could create the logic flow for such a system in about an hour in Visio, and as I've told my programmers in the past "If I can write the algorithm, surely SOMEBODY can write the code!"

Dave

[sfogg]

"Been a while since I paid attention to Ambisonics, but I do not believe it to be a completely digital situation."

From what you are describing it sounds very much like what Ambisonics aimed to do.

http://www.ambisonic.net/pdf/ambidvd2001.pdf

Shawn

[sfogg]

"....correct imaging/soundstage."

Play a live recording over two channel. It does not have correct imaging, the audience isn't on stage with the performers. The halls ambiance is being reproduced from the completely wrong direction.

In the real world you can listen to a performance and move your head or whole body without having the imaging shift side to side.

In the real world the instrument we are all most familiar with (voice) isn't riddled with comb filtering artifacts.

Music in surround (wether recording that way or processed into surround) can improve on all of the above.

For example try Dave Mathews 'Live at Luthor College' in 2 channel. Then try it in a good surround setup with something like Logic 7 Music. The difference is *stunning* (in every way) and very very much in favor of being reproduced in surround.

Shawn

[Mallette]

Thanks for the Ambisonics link, Shawn. Refreshed myself. Wow, it really was a while back...

Also your succeeding post is dead on. As I said, "stereo" is an acquired taste and it can't be argued that it can ever reproduce anything like a high fidelity reproduction of an acoustic space/time event. It can certainly provide an extraordinary, even transcendent, musical experience and it's simplicity allows for large margins of engineering error before it begins to suck. Every channel added using complex mutliplexing and processing vastly increases that margin of error, however.

Having reviewed Ambisonics technology I now recall that it is unquestionably a better and more nearly universal format than the current standard. However, it remains too complex and processor dependent.

The technology I propose is sort of like Linux. Very complex, but basically open source and standardized such that the "processor" units would be dirt cheap. The quotes are to remind me to point out I am not suggesting the processing of the audio streams, but simply reading metadata and routing them accordingly. With no processor at all you just get audio.

The problem is that there is nothing to patent or add cost to the system here, so commercial concerns aren't going to be interested. Of course, such a system would quite likely vastly improve sales of MUSIC, which is in trouble largely due to a public that simply wants to listen without having to think (not about the music, I mean about what format it is and what they have to purchase to enjoy it).

It is my belief, nonetheless, that such a system will gradually evolve simply because it is logical and technology is constantly becoming more generalized and less specialized. One day, we'll just look around and notice it's here. But it may be a long wait as "experience is a dear teacher, but a fool will have no other."

Dave