"Stereo" was designed for 3 speakers, not two. The entire 2 channel system most people use today is flawed which is why two channel stereo is a money pit. Very wise of the electronics industry to roll out a hopelessly broken system that requires regular cash infusions from sound starved customers hoping they will finally attain the promised result. STOP, just switch to immersive/spatial audio and keep your two channel system for nostalgia.
Are audiophile products designed to initially impress then fatigue to make you upgrade?
If not why are many hardly using the systems they assembled, why are so many upgrading fairly new gear that’s fully working? Seems to me many are designed to impress reviewers, show-goers, short-term listeners, and on the sales floor but once in a home system, in the long run, they fatigue users fail to engage and make you feel something is missing so back you go with piles of cash.
Showing 12 responses by kota1
I love the JBL/Lansing Paragons I see on youtube, stunning. It's said Frank Sinatra used 3 of them (L-C-R) channels in the studio. . There are rumours that Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin acquired three Paragons each – one for each of left, center and right channels – with which they used to monitor their recordings from master tapes.[4] |
The center channel makes you less dependent on one sweetspot. If you go through the virtual system area you will find most members setup their speakers in a equilateral triangle. Why? To create the "phantom" center channel ith two speakers. When you have an actual center channel you are less dependent on the triangle/sweetspot and you can get good imaging just walking around the room. |
Audio engineer Bob Clearmountain: One of the other aspects of Atmos mixing on which consensus has yet to be reached concerns the use of the centre speaker. If you want a source such as a lead vocal to appear right in front of the listener, routing it only to the centre speaker will achieve that, but the ‘phantom centre’ effect works in Atmos too, and many people advocate using only the left and right speakers. This is a point on which Clearmountain has strong opinions. Bob Clearmountain: "One of my favourite things is the centre speaker, because the nice thing is when you anchor stuff to speakers, especially the centre, you can walk around the room and it doesn’t move." “That’s just silly. I think. One of my favourite things is the centre speaker, because the nice thing is when you anchor stuff to speakers, especially the centre, you can walk around the room and it doesn’t move. If it’s just phantom, you walk over to the right and the phantom centre follows you to the right, just like it does in stereo — which is one of the drawbacks of stereo. I like actually walking around the room, I’ll stand over here on the side between the right side and right rear and the picture still stays the same. I mean, the balances are different, so I’ll be hearing more of whatever’s coming out of those speakers, but everything’s still in the same place, right? The vocal’s still coming from the centre, and I love that. |
I love the COB and was lucky enough to see him at Carnegie Hall with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra in the nineties. I’ll bet that MC22 costs more now if you can find one than it did brand new back in the day. Today you have many upmixers that do a good job to use whatever speaker set up you like. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that other article and saw the Toole used the same setup I do and is also a fan of the Auro 3D upmixer. The atmos setup you often see is with the MLP closer to the back. Me and Floyd are both equidistant from both walls in the center of the room.. |
Great speakers and yes, the wave guide that trickled down from the JBL M-2 has the most stable center image imaginable. I own the JBL Studio 2 series which was the first consumer speaker that used that trickle down tech from the M-2. On the desktop the 230 monitors are incredible, the way they lock the center image in is amazing. I now have them setup in the man cave as a 5.1.4 atmos setup. With the matching center channel it just gives you more of that great imaging but yes, they sound fantastic in stereo, agreed. |
So who is really to blame? The two channel format sucks. This is why six figure speakers and components exist, to try and repair the damage. This is why there is a "sweet spot", because all the other spots in the room are horrible. Go immersive like I did, problem solved. You get a new problem though, you like listening so much the sessions get longer than planned.👌 |
Stereo relies on an equilateral triangle to maintain the "phantom center". You need very high quality amplification to create a soundstage that goes beyond the speakers location. You need to pressurize the room if you want a true concert like experience and that requires speakers that are big enough for your room to get it done. All of this is painstaking to dial in for the ONE MLP in the room and if you move anything start over and good luck with that. Granted, do all of the above, sit in the right spot and as long as you don’t move it sounds good as long as the material you are listening to is typically presented in FRONT of the listener like acoustic trios, piano, female vocals. All the stuff they dish out at audio shows (for a very good reason). This is not a scheme, it is just what you are forced to do because the recording engineer was forced to compress x number of instruments, voices, and room reverb into ONLY two channels. Ask any engineer if they want a bigger palate than two and see what they say (duh). Now once you drop in a center channel no more "phantom" and you can move around the room and vocals still come from the center, what a concept. Atmos is object based, the engineer can place objects specifically in the mix. Atmos "sees" you speakers layout and will try and recreate that object at the same location. More speakers=more freedom for the preciseness the engineer employed. Less speakers (or headphones) it still works. A SOA two channel preamp (like the AudioNote M10) is $100K+. A SOA immersive preamp (like the Trinnov) is between $20K and $30 depending on how you configure it. As for speakers a pair of of SOA speakers can easily cost more than $25K, add the amps and that can easily be another $10K. This is not a ripoff, its simply necessary to have two speakers fill a room with a high quality believable soundstage (uhhh IF you are in the sweetspot). When you employ 5 or 7 or 9 bed channels and 2 or 4 or 6 height channels you don’t NEED all of that power. Think of the driver coverage in just two speakers with 8 inch woofers for example (16 inches total). Now think of the total driver coverage of 9 speakers (5 beds and 4 heights) with 6 inch woofers (54 inches total). You can get a completely immersive soundstage as "objects" appear in the mix where the engineer placed them in the mix or at least close if you have fewer speakers. Now, stereo needs and equilateral triangle. Immersive audio need the layout of the specs of whatever format you want to use (dolby or auro 3d are a bit different). Now with stereo you get what you get. With an atmos setup I can still listen to a two channel mix in stereo. But I got options to upmix whatever I want to as many speakers as I want AND every seat is a "sweet spot" as the "phantom" center is now an "actual" center, just like if someone was singing or talking from that same spot in the room, it will always sound like its coming from the center, wherever you sit.
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Going to the store and finding something you don’t already have at home. +1, if you already have a "stereo" don’t keep buying/upgrading MORE stereo. Supplement (not replace) with an immersive audio layout. BTW, anyone who decides to simply get better two channels, fine. Don’t max out your credit card, just get a pair of all in one, active speakers and you are done. For example: Dynaudio Focus 50- Best Product 2022
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