Parrot Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 1) I have Anthony Burgess reading some of "A Clockwork Orange" on an LP. 2) DSOTM is out in 5.1 on SACD. It is not the original quad mix, of course. 3) In a lot of the cases, ambience on MCH is not fake, but genuine, as recorded. MCH can do a better job of it than stereo. When it is fake, it's all a matter of how well the engineers do it. 4) Don't know. But it isn't necessary to make MCH mixes of everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisK Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 My first multi-channel music setup was my second HT system powered by a Marantz DTS receiver. I have Klipsch speakers all the way around. The DTS music discs sounded great. However, for me, surround sound music has little value. Hearing cocktail glasses clinking behind me, echo effects, audience noise and the like sounds fake to me. Not to mention, I rarely find myself sitting in the sweet spot between my Cornwall's long enough to really get any benefit from surround sound music. That's why I like Cornwalls so much. They fill up my entire downstairs with wonderful sound. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 Mark, " Wonder if it'll pop up on one of these SACD remasters? " DSOTM is already out on MC SACD. ". I was listening and thinking: why would anyone ever add phony ambience to a recording (unless they'd never heard the real thing) and also why I would ever want/need speakers behind me to simulate what I was already hearing with the Paramours and Cornies cranked up on this beautiful recording." What you were hearing wasn't just what was on the recording... what you were hearing is your rooms own signature sound added on top of the recording. When you go multi-channel you can make the room very dead to try to limit its influence and therefor better hear what is occuring in the recording itself. And no matter what you aren't getting ambiance from behind you just using two speakers up front.. not like you would in a real hall and not like you would if you had speakers to your sides and rears providing the ambiance that is in the recording itself. "4) What about famous recordings such as Cowboy Junkies' "Trinity Sessions" recorded with the "Ambisonics" microphone? How do you make an x.1 mix of that ?" Well... one obvious way would be to use an Ambisonic decoder on the original recording and then just store its output as 5 channels. But that actually wouldn't be quite accurate as the Ambisonic mic wasn't in ambisonic mode for that recording. Another way of getting to something greater then 2 channels is to use an ambiance extraction processor on the recording which will pull out the ambiance that is in the recording itself and store that as a 5 channel presentation. The Lexicon Pro 960L which is used in many many studios has this function. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 "It does a pretty darn good job without sounding artificial. " I had a C9 for awhile too. Now I have a similar type of processing in Lexicon's Panorama mode which like SH is an inter-aural cross cancelation mode. "The speaker placement is pretty standard, but being placed at least a foot from either wall (2' from back wall is prefereable)." SH proper speaker setup isn't very standard at all. I have a dealers manual from Carver on the C-9 and the suggested setup was with your speakers much closer together then the normal stereo angle. I'd have to recheck it but I think it was around 1/2 or 1/3 the distance between the speakers as there was to the listener. The C-9 worked very well with that speaker setup but traditional 2 channel listening was way to narrow in the configuration. That is actually one of the things that got me interested in the Lexicon's mode as it allows you to adjust its processing to your speaker angle. You don't need to adjust your speakers to the processing. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 Geez, someone's got a little something chafing somewhere. I have the room and can afford it. And think it's fine for movies, most of which were originally filmed with 5.1 in mind. %99.9 of the music being released on 5.1 releases were never inteded to be 5.1 releases, that's where I have my problem. From the demos I've heard and the reviews I've read, most of the mixes sound awfully contrived. Also many of the remixes are being done be people who were not the creators of the music. If the Beatles want cows and chickens on their album, that's fine, but if some producer stuck them on at the end of production just because "he could", that's not fine. Now, if artists are recording specific 5.1 mixes or artist directed remixes, that's great. ---------------- On 12/12/2003 10:32:47 AM paulparrot wrote: It is sad to read people talking about multichannel music who have obviously never heard it. If someone isn't interested in MCH, that's fine. But when someone says that he's not interested in it because he doesn't want flying guitars swirling around him and drums behind him etc etc blah blah blah, it just shows to me that he has never heard MCH. Criticize it for some vaild reasons, like you don't have enough space, or don't want to spend the money. Criticizing it for having a mix that it actually does not have, and that you just think that it has, is ignorant. And there is no law that says a recording has to represent what it would be like if you saw the performers live. A studio recording with a concept behind it can do anything the artists wants. Are you going to skip listening to "Sgt Pepper" because the Beatles couldn't have had a horse and a rooster on stage? ---------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 BTW, since a quasi-Ambisonic recording was brought up in defence of 2 channel listening it should be pointed out that Ambisonic is a method of transmitting *surround sound* via. 2 channels. Though it is mostly a dead technology at this point as there is very little material available in it. http://www.ambisonic.net/ Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgb Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 The shapes of my room have never allowed for my speakers to be too far apart anyhow (about 10-14 feet wide). The C-1 guide states that you do not hurt to have you speakers placed far apart, doesn't specifically reccomend it. But you're right, you do have to place them for the processor, not the other way around. Right now they are slightly toed in about 5 feet apart. Not too radical. ---------------- SH proper speaker setup isn't very standard at all. I have a dealers manual from Carver on the C-9 and the suggested setup was with your speakers much closer together then the normal stereo angle. I'd have to recheck it but I think it was around 1/2 or 1/3 the distance between the speakers as there was to the listener. The C-9 worked very well with that speaker setup but traditional 2 channel listening was way to narrow in the configuration. That is actually one of the things that got me interested in the Lexicon's mode as it allows you to adjust its processing to your speaker angle. You don't need to adjust your speakers to the processing. Shawn ---------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Hardy Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 FWIW, my "Dark Side" reference was to the 1970's quad mix, not the new multichannel version, which I am aware of. It was sort of meant humorously... also, FWIW, I happen to like listening to my room :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 12, 2003 Share Posted December 12, 2003 "also, FWIW, I happen to like listening to my room :-)" That is fine, listening to stereo without the rooms influence tends to be very lifeless, boring and fatiguing long term. If you ever get a chance to try your speakers outside away from walls do it. They will sound considerably different. But my point was just to recognize the rooms effect is 'phoney' ambiance that isn't in the recording. BTW, as a sort of obscure point about the rooms influence this was the trick behind ARs old live vs. recorded demos that they did many years ago. The recorded demos were made in a very very dead environment so the recordings were extremely dry. When played back the only ambiance heard by the listeners was that of the room the demo was being done in. Since it was being compared against a live person performing in the same room the acoustic sound of the room/ambiance was the same as the live sound. If the recordings had their own hall sound recorded on them which then had the rooms sound imposed on top of that it made distinguishing what was live and what wasn't much much easier. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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