I have appreciated a quite nice separation of instruments in my system's soundstage. I have read many times about people experiencing depth in their music and have never appreciated this. I was talking to an audiophile friend this week about it and he brought up the fact that recorded music is a mix of tracks and how could there be any natural depth in this? If there was a live recording then yes, it is understandable, but from all studio music that is engineered and mixed, where would we get depth? Are the engineers incorporating delays to create depth?
In mix studio recording acoustical cues for depth are added artificially ...
i have a few DJ music like this...
I listen mostly jazz and classic and i always experienced depth level and soundstage filling the room at some degree accordingly to the recording process ...
If you dont perceive it your system/room is not optimized acoustically... The electrical noise floor level, and lack in vibrations mechanical control, are the causes, maybe the gear synergy also, but the problem most of the times is also a lack of acoustic room control... for sure speakers positions and location play a role but this is evident...The other cause are less evident and very powerful actors in sound perception degradation...
I do know that my room is not acoustically optimized. It is asymmetrical and open to a very large space. I have auditioned a system in a local dealer in a small well treated room and the 2-dimensional aspect was definitely more impressive. I didn't notice depth in my short demo. I have not ever listened to quality headphones and all this makes me wonder sometimes how that would sound at a fraction of the cost and space LOL.
The ability to hear depth within a stereo image is one of the truly groovy, addictive aspects of high-end audio. To experience it, though, (1) your system needs to be a pretty good one, (2) your speakers need to be symmetrically placed within your listening room, and (3) you yourself need to be the third point in a symmetrically consistent triangle with the speakers being the other two. The recording itself.needs to have been recorded much the same way...though it might be said that modern electronic trickery can also go a long way in creating the illusion.
Find a copy of Holst The Planets with Sir Adrian Boult conducting The New Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus (EMI ASD 2301). If your system doesn't reproduce the astonishingly-deep soundstage captured by EMI's engineers, you need a better system. ;-)
The first time I heard the LP I was flabbergasted; the percussion instruments at the back of the orchestra sounded further away than was the wall behind the Magneplanar Tympani loudspeakers. And the percussion section was obviously on a riser; the delicate sound of the triangle floated above the rest of the orchestra. Height information!
With many classical recordings, on my system it sounds as if much of the orchestra is located behind/beyond the wall behind the speakers. Studio recordings can be engineered in a number of different ways. All I know is that I have some pop/rock CDs where, for instance, it definitely sounds as if the bass guitar or the drums are well behind the lead singer.
@dhite71 - If you think of how we "percieve space" from sound e.g. live music...
think about the various artists are spaced on the stage
as the sound of each instument reaches our ears, our brains interpret two slightly different sounds
one ear hears a slightly louder sound
which provides us with the ability to
assess the location of the artist in the ’left to right’ plane
when both ears hear a slightly louder sound we can
assess the location of the artist/instrument (front to back) in relation to other artists/insrtuments
however those sounds are also slightly out of phase
it is the phase that provides that final piece of the puzzle
the various phase differences between what the left and right ears actually allows the brain to build a more accurate representation of the live performance in relation to "our location" within the venue
so if we are located to the side we build a totally diffeent image to that of a person having a more central location
Also, when we listen to a recodring, the image may or may not be confined to the boundaries of our listening room.
i.e. provided we have good system in a perfect listening environment
The sound engineers in the recording studio can manupulate EVERY aspect of a recording
each instrument and artist are recorded on their own track
the signals can be manipulated, such that the "sounds" of each track can be "placed" with great precision in any part of the resulting image in left/right and front/back planes
and using the subtle differences between what our left and right ears will eventualy hear, by adjusting volume and phase differences between the left and right channels - they can build a pretty convincing "image"
these days, even "venue acoustics" i.e. those little echoes and reverberations generated by music being played in a venue, can be emulated, to achieve a more relaistic reproduction.
When playing back a recording, better systems will take the recorded signals in the left and right channels and reproduce them with an amazing degree of accuracy, such that, it convices our brain that we are in the venue where the recording took place OR in the "vitual venue" as created by the very best sound engineers.
The really great thing about today’s electronics is that you do not have to have the very best components to get a reasonably realistic sounding image.
but you do need to have pretty darn good cables!
because cables actually play a significant role in conveying those incredibly detailed signals while maintaining the ever so subtle variances in phase between left and right channels
thus allowing the components to build that amazing image
Every cable in a system will impact sound quality in some way.and it isn’t until you start using excellent cables that you will be able to hear very noticeable improvements in imaging.
Those mega expensive systems you hear at audio shows and at those high end audio stores all have excellent cables.
Relatively good but not too much costly cables will do... Why?
Because most of all acoustical cues cannot be rendered audible in a badly treeated and controlled room ...
Then cables are important to gain the better information possible but there exist aminimal threshold of information quality without paying many thousand dollars for cables then it is irrational and useless to pay more for cable than to room acoustic...
Dont throw too much money on cables, more on acoustic...
My cables are basic good relatively low cost one...Not cheap one at all, but low cost...I begin to listen ALL imaging, soundstaging, timbre naturalness etc AFTER acoustic treatment and control...A huge difference, i repeat : HUGE....
Too much money on cables and nothing to acoustic is a lost of money...
Every cable in a system will impact sound quality in some way.and it isn’t until you start using excellent cables that you will be able to hear very noticeable improvements in imaging.
Reqarding the following comment from your post above
Relatively good but not too much costly cables will do... Why?
Because most of all acoustical cues cannot be rendered audible in a badly treeated and controlled room ...
I do agree to your second point - however - in my years of designing and building cables I have found that the benefits of well designed cables can be heard even if the acoustice environment is lacking some acoustic treatment.
I started building cables just because I believed that audiophiles should not have to pay excessive amounts for good cable performance.
During the development process I came to realize there are a few things that many great cables designs share
cable geometry - i.e the proximity/spacing of each wire within the cables
the type of metal used in the wire e.g. OFC, UP-OCC copper, Silver
The type of insulation used - governed by Dielectric Constant
the qualtiy of the connector
Unfortunately, incorporating the best of these attributes in a cable does increase the price of a cable, but today there are some very good cables available for what I believe is a reasonable price.
But it turns out that cables are no different from any other component
excellent components can command some very high prices
but you will never get to fully appreciate just how good they are if your cables are poorly designed
just as - you will never get to fully appreciate just how good your system is - if the aocustics of the listening space is lacking treatment
There is fine line between brilliance and insanity - especially in this hobby 🤪
I never contested that "differences" between cables cannot be heard if the room acoustic is not treated and well controlled, the difference can be heard in ANY room with ani system...
I tested difdfrent cables before my scoustic journey and i always hear a "difference" ...
But a diffrence between cables is not the specific improvement of all acoustical cues of the system room...
What is an acoustical cue?
Timbre, dynamic., imaging, soundstage, LEV/ASW ratio, Bass clarity, all that is specifically and hugely differentiated and improved by acoustic treatment and acoustic mechanical control of the room... Each one of these cue is DIFFERENTIATED and IMPROVED not only lightly changed...
Cables cannot have either the impact of vibration mechanical control nor the same impact than the control over the decreasing of electrical noise floor of the house/room/system and not on the same level in my experience...
Cables make an impact but a small one compared to the three embeddings controls : mechanical,electrical and acoustical... For most people even a 1000 bucks cable is too much and way better invested in these other areas i just described...
Anyway you are not alone on this boat, most people cannot fathom or imagine it because they never experienced this the HUGE improvement created by the three embeddings controls...Especially acoustic....
I know i have read many audio threads and the same ignorance is evirywhere... I woud have never know it if i had not go through it by chance and by reading in acoustic...
Most people boast about gear brand name and cables brand name...
Why no system at any price cannot change my mind about this?
My 500 bucks system is not far behind ANY system at any price why?
Embeddings controls of the system/room...But my claim is unbelieveable anyway for those who dont have lived through the same...
I even cannot listen to any of my 8 headphones, they are infeirior on all acoustic count to this 500 bucks system...I begin my journey with headphones improvement...I will never listen an headphone again ... Do you imagine?
I do agree to your second point - however - in my years of designing and building cables I have found that the benefits of well designed cables can be heard even if the acoustice environment is lacking some acoustic treatment.
@mahgister- I have just read through my prevoius post and noticed that I had made reference to the words "you".and "your" in the paragraph...
But it turns out that cables are no different from any other component
excellent components can command some very high prices
but you will never get to fully appreciate just how good they are if your cables are poorly designed
just as - you will never get to fully appreciate just how good your system is - if the aocustics of the listening space is lacking treatment
This was an error on my part, since I was not actually refering to you or your system - the comments were meant to be interpreted in a more generalised manner
I should have chosen my words more wisely - what I really meant to say was....
But it turns out that cables are no different from any other component
excellent components can command some very high prices
but the audiophile will never get to fully appreciate just how good they are if their cables are poorly designed
just as - they will never get to fully appreciate just how good their system is - if the aocustics of the listening space is lacking treatment
My apologies - I do think we are in agreement about the roles of cables and acoustic treatments, but my unfortunate choise of words let me down in this instance.
Generally speaking, my observations have been that if you want depth, you need to treat the area between the speakers and behind the listener. Diffusors between the speakers, first reflection, etc.
My room is unfortunately practically square. I do get some layering which I'm content with. The one time I was able to hear real depth is when I was sitting on the floor listening to my new stand mounts (no stands yet).The soundstage was way beyond the walls and out in the yard. Very cool but bizarre.
Getting speakers away from boundaries usually works very well at improving the soundstage. Want to hear a good demo? Take your speakers and put them in very large space or outside.
When trying to improve your image, first reflection points are usually the first places to look. Having speaker close to side walls will screw things up badly 95% of the time. These first reflection points, (side wall boundaries or hard low ceilings), are usually the places to attack first with acoustic absorption- this reduces the reflections coming from them and enhances the ratio between direct vs reflected. With the ideal wide dispersion speakers, were off axis sounds close to on axis, the image can get quite good. If the off axis sounds a lot different from on axis, you are in trouble and will never get a good image.
Some may not want to fix a highly reflective environment or an unbalanced environment. In some of these cases, a narrower dispersion speaker works well in reducing these off-axis reflections (especially in mid and high end) and is another way to keep this ratio (direct vs reflected) high. However, methods to restrict dispersion always result in similar increases in beaming, where direct HF gets so narrow, moving your head an inch completely changes the sound. This is of course not as it is in real life, so seeking wide dispersion and a high direct vs reflected ratio is desired. Its difficult to achieve.
This subject stresses the importance of Engineers & Mixing in the recording process. The internet is such a great resource. The Allmusic site will list the engineers on an album and then links that engineer to all the other albums they were part of. If there is an album that you really enjoy the spatial aspect of you you can see other bands that use the same people and discover quite a lot of music that ways.
Yes imaging is manufactured but talented people can manipulate it in such a way that at times it better than live.
Danager has it- I read here where people think the artist is the one who "builds" the sound, it's the engineer who builds it to the artists liking. Like many of the Diana Krall records are Al Schmidt, and they all have a very familiar sound as its Al at Capitol Studio A over and over. In most cases, artists hire the engineer they think is better at recording than they could ever hope to be. And once that relationship is formed, it often becomes lifelong. Engineering is art form- very much on par with mastering an instrument or being a great songwriter.
The depth in recording comes from the distance the mic is from the noise maker. Mic right up on the singer, the singer should pop out of the front of the speaker and vice verse. same with horizontal and height.
What edcyn, williewonka and erik_squires said, +1 each.
Symmetry of your overall system (channel balance, both electronic and room acoustic), quality of components, purity of signal transfer (there are those cables, again) and time alignment of all speaker drivers, all are critical in the reproduction of a recorded sound space.
While some depth is manufactured/manipulated by electronics; well engineered/mic'd live sound can and will present an original recording venue's depth of field.
One of the main tricks in enjoying that: reproducing the event at a level close to the original recording's.
Having said all that; whenever a question arises, regarding sound stage and imaging; I suggest the following tests, by which one may determine whether their system actually images, or reproduces a sound stage, as recorded:
On the Chesky sampler/test CD; David explains in detail, his position on the stage and distance from the mics, as he strikes a tambourine(Depth Test).
The LEDR test tells what to expect, if your system performs well, before each segment.
The tests that I referenced are scientifically designed to eliminate all variables, as far as the source/recording.
If your system reproduces the effects, as recorded and announced/described prior to play; your system will reproduce whatever soundstage and imaging your media contains.
Having sold David Cheske a microphone or two, a major difference between his recordings and many other "traditional studio" recordings is that David usually chooses large spaces with large sources that [together] sound very good. In other words, if you were there and could hear the the real event, then the recording immediately after, you would say the recording did an excellent job of representing the real event. That’s Davids thing. A choir in a great hall, an orchestra in a famous venue, etc. He’s absolutely great at that kind of recording work and was a niche he sort of owned for a long time I think.
This large venue/large source recording is NOT the type of recording done in studios. It is quite rare in the business, especially rock and roll. The size of a recording studio’s "live room" is often surprising small, unless it’s designed specially for orchestra (then it’s called a "scoring stage"). Live performance venues set up for live recording had a tremendous amount of work invested to set up for that. The cabling alone is daunting; mic placement takes hours and hours of experimentation and is certainly not a set up and forget type of thing. Commercial recording studios are already set up, wired and ready to walk in and record as soon as you set up your guitar and amp. It’s fair to say a normal recording done in a normal studio live room would be multitracked out of necessity (one track at a time). Some studios would maybe have enough space for a small 5 pc chamber orchestra to play together- no more. The Pet Sounds room at East West is small- no way could an entire band set up in there and play at once. That’s what makes the recording so brilliant- Brian figured out the production to make it sound HUGE.
So the sound stage question is very much up to the engineer, the producer and the artist. It might vary with the record and the people so it could be one way on one record (Ive seen Bill Schnee record jazz ensembles all at once in the live room) and a completely different way on another record from the same artist or engineering team. And yes @rodman99999is right- if "its" there, it was put there on purpose and your system has to do the heavy lifting of reproducing it. Not easy!
Having that immersive 3-d experience is the ultimate goal for an audiophile. As many said above, you need a good system, a good room, take care of vibrations & room acoustics, and have a good if not great recording. I believe that the most critical component of generating this 3-d soundstage is the preamplifier and the cables (assuming a good recording). My 3-d image really got to where it blew me away with the Soulution 725 preamplifier and tara labs the one cables. The cables really frame the rear of the soundstage, and the preamp is guilty of adding all that gooey goodness.
@cerrot a preamp cannot "generate" a 3D soundstage or improve upon what is there. It can hide things though. My guess is your previous preamp and cables took away the 3D soundstange of the recording and your new preamp and cables don't.
I had a beautiful 3-d soundstage before. Its just better, now (should be with a $60k preamp)I didn't say it generated it, what it does is reveal it. My prior preamp was a Jeff Rowland Criterion and it was excellent, but bested by the Soulution 725 as it was even quieter than the JR. The thing here is removing all the noise and all the vibrations so that you can hear all of the sound. Stillpoints and SRA bases really shined a bright light on the 3-d sound stage.
@cerrotThat's a great story Cerrot. Its awesome when you can "discover" better sound in your own system. Working on the pro side, a lot of studio mix engineers and mastering engineers LIVE for that!
In my experience, a great sense of depth can be achieved to an impressive degree without the total sound quality being top notch. In other words, you can get it with fairly cheap gear. It is very important to get the the frequency response correct though. I say this because I’ve played a lot with digital EQ, trying all sorts of approaches to see what I could get to happen. I wasn’t expecting to achieve a sense of depth at first. It was a surprise discovery while trying to produce natural tone. Over and over I’ve set up systems that gave me no sense of depth at first. Subtle adjustments to EQ involving both measurements and plenty of listening and experimenting will usually get it to happen so long as the listening setup is decent. It never ceases to amaze and gratify me when the sound all at once transforms because I got the combined frequency response of the room and system components close enough to where they need to be to let my brain change modes and perceive depth. The cheaper the system, the more gratifying it is when it happens. It’s like I broke the rules. This system is not supposed to be able to do this! With a cheap system and EQ I cannot necessarily get a sense of depth and fully natural tone to happen simultaneously unless you’re willing to sit fairly close to the speakers and limit the total output. You can only squeeze so much blood out of a turnip. Lowered volume makes distance effects easier. Lifelike volume and dynamics while maintaining a sense of depth requires some investment.
One strange thing I notice from going to trade shows where there are sometimes big rooms with the speakers way out from all the walls, is that when a system has plenty of space to create depth, I’m not that impressed by the fact that it does. Of course it should. I can see so much space that I almost can’t imagine how it wouldn’t sound that way. When it can happen in a relatively small room in such a way that your eyes tell you that you shouldn’t be hearing what you’re hearing, but you hear it nonetheless, that impresses and pleases me more. It’s a better magic trick. I guess it’s just the idea that I can have a concert hall in a small space. That’s magic, more magical than a real concert hall. A real concert hall sounds great of course, but I can’t have it in my family room.
1) small room nearby first reflection points will cancel direct on axis information by arriving late, therefore creating large dips in response you cannot fix with EQ or any kind of DSP.
2) In a small room, a speaker with poor off axis reponse will make imaging almost impossible as the frequency response of the reflection and the frequency response of the direct sound are different, causing dips/cancellations in in multiple places when direct and reflected sound are added together at your ear. The sum of the sound is what the the mic/measurement system looks at. So the room correction DSP corrects the direct sound coming out of the source (which was likely not that wrong to start with) based on what the refelctions are doing. The problem is the direct sound was fine, it was the refelcted sound that was messed up. SO via room correction, you are fixing/repairing/EQing only the direct sound NOT the reflected sound which is the real problem. The reflected sound is still just as different from direct sound as before due to physical room problems (like glass or highly reflective walls or poor speaker off axis). The reflected sound only gets better by boosting or altering the direct sound so the sum comes out better. And this new sum only works for one tiny location- 1 foot that way the reflected sound is different and the "solution" or fix (room correction) would be different. This is why we say you cannot fix room problems with electrical soliutions because the room problem never goes away.
2) small rooms cannot support bass. The lowest note a room can support depends on its dimension: a 32Hz note requires a 35 foot room dimension to exist, a 50 hz note requires a 22 foot long room dimension, a 85Hz note requires a 13 foot dimension! Complaining about bass in a 10x12 room is like arguing that wavelengths dont exist. Expecting much below 100Hz in a 10x10 room will just frustrate you. If you are stuck with a 10x10 room, you are better off letting the dream of great bass go and focusing on great midrange and top end. Headphones can be a workaround. Multiple (4, one on each wall) small subs turned low can also help.
3) highly reflective surfaces such as glass or hard painted walls or ceilings are destructive to mid and top end by reflecting sound in a particular bandwidth. Using absorption to stop the reflection all togther is one countermove; diffusion can change the angle of reflection and randomize it by creating actually more reflections (so none dominate), as major reflections often get stuck between parallel surfaces and keep ringing for a long time. Clap your hands in a room and you’ll likely hear this slap echo and the frequency it emphasizes.
The last two posts were both very good and packed full of info that I agree with. It seems to me that very few people realize how critical specific tonality (represented by a detailed freq response curve) is to soundstage characteristics. It's absolutely primary and critical, and acoustics (timing at listening position), clarity, and dynamics are also factors, but don't matter without the right freq response.
@lonemountain- I agree 100% which is why I went with stats in my 12 X 16 (small) room. No first order reflections. Also, as for room size and bass, problem, in my opinion, can only be solved by applying real eq (parametric, not graphic) at, probably 200hz or 250 hz and below. Bass in a small room will always smudge the lower midrange at any reasonable listening level.
I have appreciated a quite nice separation of instruments in my system’s soundstage. I have read many times about people experiencing depth in their musicand have never appreciated this.
Category 1: Least expensive
If you are happy/satisfied with a flat 2D sound that becomes a face smacking wall of sound when you crank up the volume, that’s all there is to it. That’s the old school "hifi" that many dudes have been happy with for decades. Don’t worry about depth or 3D if you fall in that category.
Category 2: Very expensive
No matter the recording, some level of partial 3D and pertinent depthwise spatial nuance is created primarily in the digital domain with FPGA dacs, processors like BACCH, etc (still inside the domain of channel based stereo)... There are also elements of speaker design, analog circuits design and setup - speaker positioning/listener positioning/room, etc that play into its conduciveness.
Category 3: Can be as expensive, more expensive or less expensive than category 2
True immersive 3D envelopment/immersion/detail/full on spatial nuances/etc, which is more representative of live unplugged events in great acoustic spaces can be accomplished with object based audio, i.e. more than 2 speakers and pertinent object based audio processors.
Note: "All knowing seers" in the 3 above mentioned categories will claim that they achieved audio nirvana in said category (to each his own/who cares).
I am of the mind that "time alignment" is very important for the best 3D image.
I had been working on a replacement pair of speakers for my JBL L200/300s that would do justice to the female voice and developed the "Mermans" that use JBL 2241H (18"), JBL 2251J (9.5") and the ESS Great Heil. The crossovers use Audyn Q4 caps, heavy gauge air core chokes, and high wattage, Dale 1% resistors.
At first it was a matter of getting everything to play nice together. Then it was a matter of getting a smooth flat frequency response in the room, and I wasn’t getting it from the Heil.
So I made modifications to the Heil, and Carlos Santana’s amplifier jumped out into the room infront of the other instruments. It just happened! The RTA shows that the modification filled in a dip in the 3-8kHz range vasting increasing the "order of the crossover" and this is where the detail lies! Further modifications, and the soundstage and imaging are like anything I’ve ever heard at any price. And I have one-off, Altec Big Red Supers (triamped), LS3/5As, JBL L200/300s, and L112s), as well as have been to shows and showrooms (Magico, Focal, etc.) so I’ve heard some decent stuff. My source is an Oppo95 through a Yamaha RX-Z9 RECEIVER in "Pure Direct" mode. I use no eq or room correction, electronic or physical and the room is ~5,000 cubic feet. I can play clean to concert levels and believe that you need a certain amount of volume (i.e., loudness) to envelope you for proper imaging.
And, the other day one of the gents from AudioKarma came by for a listen. He has Altec 604 Hollywoods, ADS, and ???). On the first track (equipment not even warm), he said this was nothing like he’s experienced and he just heard a $100,000+ system with $40K monoblocks. He said he was going to have to re-assess everything.
BTW, I am in Orange County, CA, and anyone is welcome to come by and experience this for themself.
There's no one answer fits all. All the components in the chain as well as room acoustics, speaker placement etc. play a part. It took me over 40 years of learning, trial and error to put together a room and a system that sounds "3D" with pretty much any recording, and cost played a small part, but was not the deciding factor. Knowledge, experience and knowing what to do and look for is the key.
There's no one answer fits all. All the components in the chain as well as room acoustics, speaker placement etc. play a part. It took me over 40 years of learning, trial and error to put together a room and a system that sounds "3D" with pretty much any recording, and cost played a small part, but was not the deciding factor. Knowledge, experience and knowing what to do and look for is the key.
Yesterday I was listening to Billie Jean and even though this (Thriller) was one of the first CDs I got with my first CD player, I was suprised when yesterday I heard how 3D this actually is with the latest mods.
Michael sings to the center and his little vocal "fills" seem to have been done in a different sound booth and are typically about 1-2 feet to the side and in front of the main vocal line, but can pop up anywhere across the room.
Until you hear such soundstage/imaging, you just don't know what's possible.
I’ve been enjoying the unnatural sound (just like everybody here) for 4 decades. Now I have a natural sound system and I don’t think about upgrade anymore and I am enjoying more music.
It is perfectly fine you enjoy the unnatural sound (immersive 3-d, magical sounds, etc). We didn’t have any other options before anyway. Now there is another option which is recreation of the original music. I just want to point out to new comers to audio that they need to know what they are facing (natural sound and audiophile sound). Also, general public will understand better what audiophiles are. Some people call us audio-fools (or nuts) because they think audiophiles pay so much for bad sounds (to their ears). Alex/WTA
It is perfectly fine you enjoy the unnatural sound (immersive 3-d, magical sounds, etc).
@mihorn I think you may have got the "unnatural" mixed up... Go to a great acoustic hall, book the golden seat (in advance) and watch a wind ensemble or a string quartet, i.e. no punk rocker screaming into PA crap equipment inside a bar.
When you compare the former event to stereo vs multichannel object based audio, you will note that it sounds a whole freaking lot like object based audio and nothing like stereo. For the first 5 minutes of my relatively recent attendance at such an event, i was constantly looking behind me because it sounded like there were diffuse effects all around and active from back surrounds and back heights. How the sound materializes from the instruments and are perceived by the ears thereafter (like flowers blooming and closing perhaps inside a 3D dome of space), it sounds nothing like channel based stereo. So, perhaps, stereo is very unnatural! But, i suppose we never had a choice until around 2014.
We must not confuse an unnatural timbre sound ( from many speakers right out of the box, milhorn is right here ) and the spatial information encoded in the recorded acoustics and destructed by crosstalk ...Choueiri BACCH filters is not multichannels , this is for sure another interesting debate ... But BACCH filters will also improve timbre perception and not only the spatial qualities, provided the right set of measures for ears and head are well done and provided that the room acoustics is optimal ....
Immersiveness or the way the listener envelopment (LV) is realized without being detrimental to the sound source width (ASW) is another very important characteristic of the sound experience as much as imaging and soundstage ...
Then redesigning speakers as milhorn did , or creating a multichannel system, so good it could be, is not enough ...I am with Dr. Choueiri articles about that ...
Timbre experience ask for more deep acoustical controls ....Choueri explain it well ...
I must specify that this is only my opinion ... I dont own the BACCH filters nor a multichannel system nor the Milhorn speakers ...
@mihorn I think you may have got the "unnatural" mixed up...
How the sound materializes from the instruments and are perceived by the ears thereafter (like flowers blooming and closing perhaps inside a 3D dome of space)
Thank you for detailed kind explanation!
Yes. I know the sound images blooming and disappearing in the air. Those effect and quality make me stayed in audio for decades. My system can do that better than any other systems since my systems background very quiet. I had Avalon Eclips and Jadis Defy-7 almost 20 years ago and those were pretty good, but they are not even close to what I have now.
What I mean by unnatural sound is a left speaker in below. Alex/WTA
People must read about crosstalk and Dr. Choueri research ...
They did not understand generally what are the acoustic conditions of musical and three D acoustic experience in a system/room/ears ...No the solution is not owning a multichannel system so good it could be !
Because the 5 aspects defining a better timbre perception are not related to the number of speakers at all ...But these aspects must be improved by the crosstalk controlling filters that then will improve the spatial qualities of sound then the naturalness of timbre perception as recorded initially ..
Acoustics rules audio gear not the reverse ...
😊
If you want a true three dimensional sound stage and imaging from two channel stereo there is really only one game in town. BACCH SP.
"More critically, the BACCH filter doesn’t introduce any coloration to the signal."
Not supported from the videos presented here.
Additionally, if the primary intent is to remove crosstalk, why do they recommend it for headphones where crosstalk is not an issue, and why shouldn’t one just buy the best headphones out there for far less $$$?
"More critically, the BACCH filter doesn’t introduce any coloration to the signal."
Not supported from the videos presented here.
Additionally, if the primary intent is to remove crosstalk, why do they recommend it for headphones where crosstalk is not an issue, and why shouldn’t one just buy the best headphones out there for far less $$$?
First i want the BACCH filters because i already owned one of the best headphone ever designed and i paid it 100 bucks the only hybrid ever designed a mythical beast for 45 years ...I optimize them after 6 months of working with them ... The AKG K340... There is better on some aspect with some costly headphones but not on all acoustic aspects then it is always a top headphone but very hard to understand and drive 😊
For the alleged added "coloration" ... Read Dr. Choueiri explanation... There is no added coloration and this is why the BACCH filters innovate compared to other crosstalk cancellation dsp ...If the BACCH filters could add coloration they will not be an acoustic revolution but a more or less useless tool just a toy ...
For the headphone, there is more in the BACCH filters that crosstalk filters only here from the mouth of the beast :
«The Smyth Realizer has no way of emulating a pair of BACCH-ed speakers. First, in order to emulate BACCH-ed speakers you would need to make the impulse response measurements (needed to produce the headphones filter) with the BACCH filter on, so you would need BACCH4Mac, but even that will not work as the BACCH 3D Sound process consists not only of a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter for crosstalk cancelation (XTC), which, in principle, could be measured by an impulse response measurement system (although not easily, as the filter requires a true stereo (aka 2x2) convolution) but also a proprietary mono correction algorithm than cannot be captured by an impulse response measurement.
With the BACCH-hp module of BACCH4Mac, you make an IR measurement with in-ear microphones and head tracking (a process not unlike that the Smyth Realizer requires) and the BACCH-dSP application then automatically produces, from the same measurement, two filters that are applied in series. The first is a head externalization filter that allows emulating those speakers over headphones (that filter plays the same goal as that produced by the Smyth) and the second filter is a BACCH filter for crosstalk cancelling the (headphones-emulated) speakers. For listening, BACCH-dSP applies these two filters in series to the input audio, along with the the mono correction process, to emulate BACCH-ed speakers. At any time, the user, if he so wishes, can bypass the BACCH filter with a click of a button and hear an emulation of the speakers (non-XTCed), which would then be equivalent to what the Smyth Realizer does.
In other words BACCH-hp does what the Smyth Realizer plus gives you the additional option of projecting the perceived sound in 3D space — not having the soundstage anchored at, and limited to, the (headphones-emulated) speakers as in regular stereo listening.
An additional advantage of BACCH4Mac over the Smyth Realizer is that head tracking is done optically (and very accurately) via a regular webcam (or the built-in webcam in your laptop) and therefore does not require that you wear anything on your head in addition to the headphones.
We generally advise not to think of systems like BACCH-hp or Smyth Realizer, as wonderful and magical as they are, as replacements of the audiophile speaker listening experience (for reasons that include that mentioned by maverickronin) but rather as a way to emulate that experience when you are constrained not to turn on your speakers (someone is sleeping nearby, or you are on travel away from your system). No matter how good your headphones are and how accurate the emulation is, the sensation of sound waves hitting you in the face and body, which adds much to the “being there” realism, is in the realm of speakers and real life sources.
I hope that this explanation is helpful.
Please feel free to reply here, and/or write to us at info@theoretica.us if you have more detailed questions.
Now about the mono correction algorithm which corrected what one of the ASR forum member called , «One of the (very few) quibbles about BACCH processing in the past was that it seemed to cause a subjective "thinning" of the tonality of instruments or vocals placed dead center in recordings»
«The mono correction algorithm is a result of 2 years of research aimed at solving one of the most daunting problems of crosstalk cancellation.
A mono signal in a 2-channel system is defined as one that has 100% correlation between the left and right channels. In real life it is practically impossible to produce a sound from a real acoustic source (or a speaker) with 100% correlation at the right and left ears of a listener, even if the source is equidistant from the two ears, as there will always be a finite amount of left-right de-corelation due to reflections and/or even the slightest misalignment of the head with respect to the source. However, it is very easy to produce a mono recording by having the left and right signals be the same. Any crosstalk cancellation filter, including the BACCH filter, requires a stereo signal (which by definition is not 100% L-R correlated) and therefore has a singularity when the input is mono. This singularity manifests itself as a bass rolloff that becomes more audible as the half-span between the two speakers is decreased below +/- 30 degrees. This fact can be shown mathematically. Therefore, if one plays a mono signal, or a mono-heavy signal (such as some pop music mixes where typically the lead vocalist is mixed in as a mono signal to produce a dead-center image) there would be a bass rolloff (which can be heard as a slight nasal coloration) in the sound of the center image that is audible when the BACCH filter is designed for a speaker configuration that has a speaker span (measured from the position of the listener) that is smaller than that of the regular equilateral triangle (the so-called "standard stereo triangle”). Activating the new Mono Correction algorithm completely fixes this problem. A mono signal, or the center image of a mono-heavy signal, will no longer have any coloration through a BACCH filter and will have the same tonal character as when the BACCH filter is bypassed.
For large speaker span half-angles, say 45 degrees and above, there should be no audible coloration to a mono center image through a BACCH filter and no mono correction would be needed. However, since the speakers of most stereo systems are typically configured with span half-angles smaller than that value, the new mono correction algorithm is required, and is very effective at fully restoring the tonal integrity of the center image, as you noted in your astute comments.
Buddy Gardineer
Senior Development Engineer
Theoretica Applied Physics»
"For the alleged added "coloration" ... Read Dr. Choueiri explanation... There is no added coloration and this is why the BACCH filters innovate compared to other crosstalk cancellation dsp ...If the BACCH filters could add coloration they will not be an acoustic revolution but a more or less useless tool just a toy ..."
But I can certainly hear a difference in mihorn videos, so there is added (rather subtracted) coloration on my monitor regardless of the good Dr's explanation.
Hey, I know of someone who insists he won a major election and figures that if he says it often enough, people will believe it even if not true, whether he believes it or not.
Second , i cannot take seriously your opinion...I will believe Choueiri...
You just said yourself that you had listen to this alleged "coloration" through a video (sic) on your monitor ?...😊
You are a humorist ?
No one can figure out very subtle aspects of timbre perception or spatial qualities about the acoustic of an alien system through a video of youtube played through his own system room ...Guess why ? 😁
We must be there to perceive the qualities in all subtleties...
Now suppose you are right and the BACCH filters degrade tonal timbre, seriously, do you think all reviewers acclaiming it and listening to it are deaf to these degradation of timbre save you with your "golden ears" and your "magical" monitors judging it through youtube video ?
Do you think Choueiri will bet his physicist reputation to make a dime with a defectuous toy ?
And by the way the BACCH filters dont repair the acoustic of a bad room or re-place it either ....And they dont replace the gear system defects on which they are used no more than they correct the prejudice of those who dont want to understand or dont understand Choueiri papers ...
I answered your question in your post above...
Instead of understanding the answer you posted non sense and sarcasm to me ...
You acted then exactly like Trump or Biden groupies believing without understanding ....
And if i never listened to the BACCH filters but at least i understand what i read , and Dr. Choueiri is not a marketer for an audio toy by the way , he is an acoustician and a physicist ...
"For the alleged added "coloration" ... Read Dr. Choueiri explanation... There is no added coloration and this is why the BACCH filters innovate compared to other crosstalk cancellation dsp ...If the BACCH filters could add coloration they will not be an acoustic revolution but a more or less useless tool just a toy ..."
But I can certainly hear a difference in mihorn videos, so there is added (rather subtracted) coloration on my monitor regardless of the good Dr’s explanation.
Hey, I know of someone who insists he won a major election and figures that if he says it often enough, people will believe it even if not true, whether he believes it or not.
By the way if we could and if we may perceive some relative and alleged differences between two systems ( as i did and as you did for milhorn and your system asking our opinions ) recorded and compared through youtube or videos from the internet , we cannot really judge these two systems completely, fairly and seriously without being there in person ...
There is no way to judge a specific system , save if it is a very bad one or evidently relatively defectuous or lacking on one aspect , compared to another one recorded with a different mic at distance through our own system ...
The fact that you did not like my opinion is one thing , the fact that i can be correct in the absolute sense is out of question... I only compared milhorn and yours through my own system... It was a game between two different recording not a truthfull evaluation of each one system/room ...
It seems the two of you take this game a bit too seriously about speakers ...
A system/room must be heard in person ...Speakers give sound in a room ...No room is the same ...
Anything else claiming to be a judgement is not serious ...
“ "More critically, the BACCH filter doesn’t introduce any coloration to the signal."
Not supported from the videos presented here.”
you can’t begin to judge the BACCH SP by a video.
“Additionally, if the primary intent is to remove crosstalk, why do they recommend it for headphones where crosstalk is not an issue, and why shouldn’t one just buy the best headphones out there for far less $$$?”
headphones present different issues. Two totally different filters.
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