Was the phonogragh considered hifi sound back then? What about the reel to reel? Musical can have variety of meanings but technology have made it to a point where we can enjoy it.
Describe the "new HiFi sound"?
Recently had a discussion with an audio friend over the word "musical" and what this word means to each of us with regard to sound from different amplifiers and speakers. Some debate too. And, reading this other comment on Agon once in a while...how some equipment has the "new HiFi sound".
ASK:
Can someone describe this, in your words, what is the new HiFi Sound to you? Examples? Or, opposites of the new HiFi sound, what does this sound like?
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Well, first off, the post is inane and lacks specificity. There is only authentic believable sound. Some of that “sound” was made way before you were born. Great recordings can be done in various ways…the Technology does not a great sound make! This applies to playback as well…many variables involved. There is Sound and then there is Reproduced Sound. Atmos is a way to make cheaper systems sound more detailed and immersive which while enjoyable for movies, doesn’t really apply that well to conventional music playback. Most concerts are performed in a location in a 3D space with radiation patterns emanating from a more or less well defined location. Well designed 2Ch does it more authentically. If you want to hear the drunk guy taking a piss behind you in row 50…be my guest. |
Who talks about Elton John as a pianist? He is a piano player who early on wrote many great songs (the music only). it was rumored he only played 4 chords, although I doubt that. Billy Joel is a better musician than Elton and he wrote music and lyrics. Sold a lot less records though....Wouldn't call him a pianist either. |
Not my bag Dawg! But you knew that…so why ask? Atmos is backward compatible, an object based mix can be enjoyed on 2, 5, 7, channel system. When you play object based/atmos audio in a 2.1 system it sounds good. So, you can still enjoy atmos with two speakers or headphones. You can also enjoy it with more speakers and height channels. I think people who listen to high end stereo seem to feel they would need to make radical changes to enjoy object based mixes. Nope. When you deploy an immersive setup like I do you can mix and match your setup to the content. I love 2 channel stereo in the morning with my coffee. I love listening to classic albums remixed in atmos. I love upmixing rock and EDM to immersive audio. I can basically flip from mm music to movies by hitting the remote. Concert videos on blueray that were originally 5.1 sound better when upmixed to 9.2.7 in my current system. It simply gives me more choices. As for my system it is setup following the dolby specs and it isn't difficult, you just need to follow them. I have a thread here an atmos setup and BTW, treating your room makes a big difference. |
I knew I never should have posted to this ridiculous thread ( sorry to the op ). Commenting on my use of Elton John (for keeping it simple, as everyone should know him ), makes me realize the few ignorant folks here, have no clue as to my point of musical. If you do not think Elton a good piano player, I am so very sorry for those of you who commented. I could have stated Mike Garson, Erroll Garner, or even Count Basie, but again, I wanted to keep it simple. The round and round and round some go through with constant equipment change, shows me a few here, know nothing about music, music theory, and especially, what they are looking for, in a music system. BTW, I do believe Elton a very accomplished piano player, as I do Billy Joel. Continue on my peers, and as always, Enjoy ! MrD. And, if you want to continue your banter....I can take it ! There are always a few.........sad indeed. |
@hilde45 Whatever the other merits or demerits of this thread ++ for analytical rigor.
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@decooney I apologize to you. You stated in your post, " relative to amps and speakers ", and I took it somewhere else. My best ! MrD. |
@kota1 Aperion Audio SuperTweeters…not very expensive but add a bit of air, of course I’m running through transparent cable network to get rid of the grunge! |
No apology necessary, no limits here ...this merely highlights there are many different factors involved from the original live performances, gear used in the old days too, pickups, mics, cabling, recordings, mastering, reproduction formats, amps, speakers and more. Kinda funny - my buddy who just retired now uses a tube DAC in his recently completed commercial recording and mastering studio. Shhhh, dont tell anyone. Sort of made me think again about what has changed past 50 years at all layers, from original sources to play back. All relevant discussion, enjoy! 👍 |
Talking about old sound vs. new sound, ...has anyone noticed SG is starting to listen to tube gear again more recently? Just gotta love it, "personal taste" :) |
Post of the year so far. |
In 2019 I attended a show and one room had a world renowned amplifier manufacturer paired with a recently popular speaker coming up through the ranks. It was 1 of 87 rooms. If it was not last place, was close to it in my mind. Simply sounded horrible. Felt bad for both manufacturers knowing their gear sounds good when paired with other partners. Just not this pairing. |
When the audience sits at the center of the performance, and the musicians play around them, encircling them, Atmos might make more sense for music listening. Most music recordings start in stereo format. Hearing cymbols and instruments playing behind you and above you is odd when comparing to live performances. @kota1 did you happen to read feedback comments below the video you shared? |
IDK what you mean by audience sitting at the center and atmos making sense. Before I type a response I just want to ask if you have a system setup for atmos in your home. If we are talking what makes sense we need to be specific. There are good and bad mixes in everything. There are atmos mixes where it sounds like you are standing right at the position of the conductor. There are mixes when you are in the audience and many other types. What specific track or album are you referring to where cymbals play behind you?? Your post is written like you don't have a proper atmos setup or just very little experience. Do you realize that most mixes start at the microphone into multiple tracks before they get compressed into just 2 channels for stereo? The don't start in stereo at all. |
Right, well the problem is that Atmos is based (started) primarily as a movie format. That makes sense…multichannel sound for special effects and cues. Problem is it involves mostly non audiophile equipment and or would be cost prohibitive if scaled up for most people. Ideally, it would add more of a sense of space around the sound if it were a live recording, but could only offer fake cues for studio recordings. Most of my music is from by gone days…certainly not current mainstream garbage. A properly set up stereo with a great recording can be immersive on its own…music designed for Atmos sounds like Frankenmusic! Strong Quadraphonic vibes I’m afraid. But again…midfi gear, so it’s a non starter. |
Here is the president of Grammophon records describing how they can take multi-track masters and recreate the acoustics of the concert halls they were recorded in. Then they get to present the work to the artists that are on the recording in dolby atmos. This is a 3 minute video and if the artists themselves are "absolutely blown away" like violinist Daniel Hope is why would the MLP be any different at home? "It’s not about the sound its about the experience. Once you have listened to your own pieces in Dolby Atmos there is no going back" |
As for getting yourself a setup that will absolutely delight it can be far less expensive than stereo. Let’s start with Focal speakers, an all active system includes speakers and all the required amps (plus two subs) for a 7.1.4 system which ranges from $7K to $25K: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/search?s=focal+atmos Here are Focal’s atmos setup guidelines: https://www.focal.com/en/pro/dolby-atmos Remember, you are NOT ditching stereo, you are simply adding atmos.
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@kota1 yes I have, a good friend owns a recording and mastering studio. While that does not qualify me as any kind of an expert, I’ve heard it, and do not prefer Atmos (yet) for my regular music listening experience, personally. This all goes back to the original source, recordings, tracks (as you mentioned) and how it’s orchestrated from the get-go. And so what recrordings are optimized for this, that we like to listen to. Not much yet, is it evolving, yes. This is the underlying point I’m making for my own usage. You have your own opinion about Atmos, good for you. I do run a full home theater at home. Tried Atmos, went back to 5.1 DD. Like it more and most of the content I watch or concerts is still Dolby 5.1 still today. Also, with Atmos I did some additional in-room testing with a group after hours at a local magnolia store, just for fun and to see if the sales guys had ever really compared directly. Wanted to see what average mainstream Atmos systems sound like, what regular people use. We used a full Atmos setup, all ML speakers, listened to all kinds of movie tracks and concerts we all liked. Turned up the volume pretty good to make sure we were hearing everything well. It sounded okay, kinda confused in some ways. Some tracks better than others. Was not that enjoyable for concerts videos, and you can tell when the playback is not optimized for Atmos, or the simulation modes they had on was a mess. Not an optimum set up, but tried it for about three hours. In the end, we all agree what still sounded best to all of us. We then set up two very larger Martin Logan electrostatic speakers, two subs, and started going through movies and concerts one by one. They were all shocked how good it really sounded in plain old vanilla stereo. 5 of 5 of us actually preferred the stereo playback to our own surprise. So, go figure, at least for the test samples we did. The big stereo format was more cohesive to all of us at louder volume levels - for whatever reason. Less confused sounding. Agree, is the content optimized for Atmos. Yes, agree, in absolutely perfect circumstances, it can sound nice, but is it better. Jury is still out for some on this topic. Will it change more in the future for the type of listening I do/prefer, maybe, yet I still have yet to hear good Atmos for music, concerts. Maybe down the road. For music, back to 2ch class A and tube amp listening for me, for now. Best of luck with your Atmos research, keep up the good work👍 |
Like I said before, you need to have a system setup at home before you can properly evaluate anything. I think you are being dismissive out of ignorance. BTW, you can do atmos with tubes like member @brianlucey , it is not an either or decision. I have noticed that the dumbest comments (frankenmusic?) all come from people who don’t have an atmos setup and are clinging to legacy (antique?) two channel setups that they basically spent way too much money on. How else can they voice their bitterness of buyers remorse? As for Martin Logan, great choice for an atmos system using their Motion AI speakers for surrounds and height channels in addition to those two towers: https://www.audioadvice.com/videos-reviews/martinlogan-motion-home-theater-speaker-options |
@kota1 re-read my post, already tried it. Did not like it yet. Not yet. Yes I’ve actually chatted with Brian Lucey some, we have had some tube amplifiers in common. For common music, still prefer really good 2-channel stereo for now. Best of luck to you on your passion and research with Atmos. :) |
Thin and bright since baffles are too small loudspeakers are too small designers of such are aiming for a more flat extension on top while the rest is overly small. Thus requiring baffle step corrections, impedance correction, requiring massive power to squeak out any SPL causing thermal compression toss in limited dynamic range and you have the modern fatiguing sound audiophiles crave and think is the absolute sound. No wonder so many hardly use systems or are on constant upgrade paths. The gear is designed to fatigue so you can buy new gear and repeat the cycle. |
No wonder so many hardly use systems or are on constant upgrade paths. The gear is designed to fatigue so you can buy new gear and repeat the cycle. +1. that is why you hear the lamest acoustic recordings at audio shows, You can't point two speakers at your head and expect not to be fatigued. That is why i upgraded to immersive audio. |
@kota1 all my speakers are pointed straight, not aimed at my head and they sound way better than all my friends Atmos systems. Atmos is an unnatural effect for a lot of types of music especially unamplified music. |
Article: WHAT HI*FI: The Problem with Dolby Atmos Music is it’s Inconsistency Quote: "But the format’s implementation in music still feels a bit like the Wild West, and for me has yet to yield a convincing case for its potential dominance as the format du jour. And even if this is the start of the Dolby Atmos Music era, I don’t think that stereo need go anywhere just yet." unquote.
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That article is over a year old and you can already tell that forecast was wrong. I do agree these are certainly "early/ wild west days" but there are new releases every week. The other thing is you have another dimension for stereo recordings called upmixing (atmos/dts-x/auro 3d). I agree there will always be a market for stereo but why be stuck with one format when you can easily have both? Thanks for posting. |
My friends stereo sucks too, should I ban all 2 channel recordings in my home? Not. When I think of the ridiculousness of two channels it just seems obvious that consumers should be able to use whatever format suits the recording best, channel based or object based. Why dump more money into just channel based recordings when you can easily have both channel and object based? It is like buying more horses for your carriage instead of just buying a car.
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@kota1 I didn't say that my friends stereo's suck, it's just that Atmos sucks for music. I didn't care for anything Dolby did since there beginning. |
Ok this has gone off the rails. Kota is obviously the poster child for Atmos. I was just transported to the Village Vanguard where the John Coltrane Quartet was playing live…absolutely soul satisfying and realistic! The sound was wild, unrestrained and washed over me like a sonic tsunami of heavenly tones and dynamics. I grabbed a Guinness and just melted into my chair! My speaker cables cost more than an Atmos system because they can convey everything the artist intended through my system. Kota would loose his audio virginity if he heard my system…but that could make a mess, so probably not a good idea. |
Do you remember the title of this thread? Atmos is new, your "rails" are intact. Dude, if you are so enamored with "old" I got no beef with that. Bitter after tossing all that cash into something so lifeless that the only thing they seem to play at audio shows on those $$$$$ systems is female vocals and acoustic instruments, I get it. The poor engineer doing the mix was forced to shoe horn it in to the two channels, hence you have an army of zombies, butt glued in the MLP, head in a vice with two sound cannons pointed at their head, yay for the old, I get it. Here is a link to a plethora of award winning engineers extolling how much they love having a broader palate to mix with in atmos then stereo. Does atmos have a complex setup? Yes, but the dolby standards are clear, it is backward compatible with whatever you have, and you can even use headphones:
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My point is I wouldn't make a visits to my friends anything a reference. As for stereo as you can see mine works great. I have a very nice Sony Signature dac/headphone amp/pre that I can use as a dedicated two channel pre with my active speakers or simply use the DAC with my processor. It sounds excellent and a few mixes sound better in stereo than immersive, I can always pivot. I seem to prefer stereo with my morning coffee: |
I did try to be congenial, but your incessant cheerleading for something that gets you off is rude…because you are forcing the issue. It’s annoying and it’s obvious you never owned a truly great 2 channel system. That’s ok, but you also know very little about a lot of things audio. Most of the music I listen to has never been played at any audio show, much is unavailable in 2023 and all of it requires a bit more of the listener than most have to offer. Don’t even assume you know anything about me or my music…my vintage and proof is far above your pay grade. |