Do NOT Blow Your Entire Budget on Two Channel Audio

@nonoise 

I strongly agree with you. Yes, there is a place for room treatments, and they can certainly be effective, and just as certainly, they can be overdone. For the OP to flatly state that good systems are a waste without room treatments, and without him ever hearing them is plain ridiculous.

And yes, the OP overbearingly pushy about this "object-based audio." Good for you if you like it, but what's good for you isn't necessarily what others want or even care about. Let it go.

@nonoise Wrote:

 Again, fear sells. With all the links the OP provides, it makes me wonder if he’s getting some kind of kickback for it and his constant, hard sell approach.

My sentiments exactly!

Mike

To each their own, but I’m just not interested. I’m a guy who tried quadraphonic sound way back when. Really, instead of concentrating on a marketing gimmick (and trying to sell more stuff), I’d rather studios simply create great sounding masters in two channels. That would be a START in the right direction.

I mean, home theater is yeah, a big market, but how many people do you know who have more than a 5.1 system even here in 2023? I don’t know very many at all. Most people I know who have huge 65" to 85" TVs are still using a crappy soundbar. Only one serious guy at work has a "theater" set up in his basement with about 11.1 speakers. And you know what? I wasn’t THAT impressed by it - not for music. Movies with helicopters and spaceships, well maybe.

Until studios can get 2-channels right, I don’t think there’s going to be any rush to listen to crappy 11.2 or whatever. Just my two cents. YMMV.

More news on the growth of object based audio, just wanted to share. The Kota has no dog in this race, just sharing what is going on in the music business.

This was published a few days ago in Music Business Worldwide, click the link below for more info:

‘DOLBY ATMOS IS NOT JUST A GIMMICK. MUSIC IN 3D HAS THE POTENTIAL TO REPLACE STEREO.’

“Even skeptics have to admit how much more vivid and natural music sounds in 3D formats,” Stalter adds. “There are more and more products launched that are capable of Dolby Atmos, from mobile devices to sound bars up to car entertainment systems and many more.”

“This market is rapidly growing and it is foreseeable that music in 3D has the potential to replace Stereo just as Stereo did with Mono almost 50 years ago.”

And if you got no space for a system in your house, there is always your car:

Surround sound (home theater ) is not exactly the same as 3-D soundfield as in Choueiri BACCH filters ...

For those who want to read the basic in a short text :

https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=caps_thes_all

This citation comes from a user of BACCH in ASR forum :

«“BACCH is focused on stereo and getting the most out of stereo. We have two ears only and we therefore, in principle, need only two channels to get the cues needed to correctly locate sound in 3D. This is the binaural approach (as opposed to object-based Surround Sound approach) to 3D sound.

Multi-channel Surround Sound (i.e. Dolby 5.1, 7.1, Atmos, Auro3D, etc.), wether channel or object based, is not of interest to us. It is not a focus of research and development at Theoretica (nor is it a topic of academic research in spatial audio, where the main three approaches are: binaural, higher-order-ambisonics, and wavefield synthesis).»

BACCH is wonderful from what I heard from others. I have not heard it myself. Too hard to do. I don’t want a Mac and it seems a bit too customer. Edgar comes over and does install and super expensive. I will wait for the BACCH in a box for less than 5k. Then I will jump in. The bonus of that kind of system is any 2 ch music to feed it. Atmos or object based has to be mixed and will always be limited. 
 

For the poster that says their tuned 2 channel system is just as good as a 5.1 has not listened to a proper system. Also atmos is min 5.1.2. Just adding a center for dialog improves movies.  2 vs multi ch for movies no contest. Playing a 2 ch song via some stupid DSP to multi ch surround. Yuch. Just have a good 2 ch setup is better.

I think the bigger point is you can have both. As long as your pre has bypass.  If it does not then you will end up compromising the 2 ch system to share speakers and amps.  

Comparing Quad from 70’s is not exactly even close comparison to object based music. 

Streaming also has opened the door to make this generation of multi channel music to be more successful. Comparing to SACD and DVDA is unfair. Need special players and setups etc.  not to mention to finding the discs. Millions upon millions have apple and Amazon and tidal. It’s there ready and waiting. The entire library of them. 

this forum is not exactly know for its open mind-ness and probably not the best place for the OP to try and find others to join in the fun. 

@mahgister Thanks for the information on the Bacch filter. Just watched a few interesting videos on the technology and the product. I believe you may be correct Mahgister, depending on what they can get the price of the unit down to when in full production it looks like it could make Dolby Atmos the new MQA.

BACCH has really dominated the market in the 8 years it has existed. Totally dominant. Probably at least a few hundred people have heard of it.

It is a good technology for one person, calibrated for that one person, in one specific environment. No listening parties. No trade shows with more than one person in a room. No listening with your spouse, family or friends. That limited market means it will always be a fringe product and hard to justify for any content creators.

If I were them I would ditch their present business model and work on only the ear calibration for headphones. Way bigger market. Stupid to compete with ATMOS and similar. They won’t just lose. They already lost. Ship has sailed. Integrate with them and make them better for the headphone crowd.

@fittebd you think most music available will work? Heck no. It would all need to be remixed. Who is going to do that for such a small market? Almost no one. The only steady stream of music that could be adapted automatically would be ATMOS.

@fittebd

For the poster that says their tuned 2 channel system is just as good as a 5.1 has not listened to a proper system

I disagree, you never know what mix you will prefer. I have EJ in two ch, 5.1, and atmos. I have him in lossy spotify, redbook CD, MQA and 24/192 hirez.

Having a 5.1 system you can choose, having only stereo you get what you get.

I think the bigger point is you can have both.

+10!! Agree

Welcome to EVERY TOPIC ON EVERY AUDIO FORUM!!!

What did you do @kota1 ?  Did you upset someone annointed?  We covered Toole and room treatments in the Amir bashing thread. Toole has not done much research on room acoustics in real rooms and critical listening. He did some basic preference work, limited dataset, and similar limited dataset in an anechoic chamber. Nothing for multichannel either. Drawing any complex conclusions (like Amir did) is flawed. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. @kota1 is excited. At least he is excited about something real.

Getting so wrapped up in it to the point where one says "Toole has a room like mine", when it’s the other way ’round, and posting shots of recording studios that one has copied doesn’t make them one of the big boys of audio but just someone who now has invested so heavily into it he needs to have validation in his choices by forcing them on others as there’s comfort in conformity and herd mentality.

Last year I and teenage daughters moved into a newly built house with the good fortune that my wife waited to move in ten months later. I immediately put together a Sony/Anthem/Emotiva/Klipsch/Hsu 11.1 Atmos theater where family members primarily watch movies, Korean/Japanese Dramas and YouTube. The next nine months I carefully put together a two channel room. I have enjoyed watching concerts in the theater room and do enjoy watching dance/music performances, but prefer listening to most music in my two channel room. I must admit that I would never be able to afford an 11.1 Atmos system which was the equal of my two channel system. It never occurred to me to listen to music without video in the theater room, but then again I consider my theater room components to be good, but not nearly as satisfying without the video. I should admit that Magic Dragons performance of Arcane’s opening song “Enemy” is incredibly in 11.1 Atmos.

To summarize, I can’t afford theater room component which perform at the same level as my two channel room.

@britamerican

Really happy you joined the conversation, nice to see you in this thread, welcome. As for Dr. Toole he didn’t set that up all by himself, Kevin Voeckes tuned and calibrated it and I am sure Harman provided all the resources he needed for the setup. In Dolby’s guidlines the MLP is setup toward the back of the room. That wasn’t the best setup for my room. I was lucky as all get out to get advice from Anthony Grimani, Wilfried Van Baelen (auro 3d founder, owner of galaxy studios), and Marti Humphries (owner of immersive audio studio The Dubstage). Wilfried was adamant to have the MLP equidistant between front and back walls. He also recommended ceiling treatment and bass traps on the ceiling. The aurlex geofusors you see on my ceiling are back filled with polyfill and double as bass traps. When Marti saw my pics before doing any treatment he said all of the wood paneling and dry wall were terrible for acoustics, gave me some tips, and also introduced me to Wilfried. Anthony Grimani couldn’t have been nicer and more supportive in responses to my e-mails. It was AFTER I did all this I saw Dr. Tooles and Abbey Road studios layouts were basically the same style I ended up with. We all use an equidistant MLP, use monitors mounted high as height channels, use a center height, wide channels and VOG channels. Dr Toole uses 4 subs, Abbey Road has subs on the ceiling. I compromised and used 3 subs and the one on the back wall is mounted high on the wall instead of the ceiling. The people in this professional community really seem to care about the end user and were happy to help.

@vonhelmholtz

That’s a great post, thanks and you budgeted according to your preferences, all good. If you are going to get another atmos concert bluray kraftewerk 3d: the catalogue is the best one I have tried so far. I’ll get the imagine dragons, thanks for the tip. The Firestick/Firecube is the only streamer I know that does both atmos music and hirez/ultra-hd AND the firestick is cheaper than an ATV4K or a shield. The voice search feature works pretty good too.

@deep_333

There is a significant technical learning curve for correct implementation of object based audio that would be very difficult for technologically challenged old men.

Of course you are right. But then I see the shrines to the gods of music the geezer crowd has built over the years in the system area and I go, well, they are doing something right. A LOT of members already do 5.1 and buying a receiver these days isn't that big of a leap.

Now, some of these DIY guys can make speakers, tube amps, and stuff you can't imagine. For them an atmos setup would be like making cereal for breakfast.

It can be very difficult to go back to stereo after it is experienced on a rig that means business.

Yep, roger that, I like stereo for listening on my porch, my patio, my office but when its time for a 2 hour playlist of critical listening it is generally either upmixed to MCH or atmos in the media room. With Atmos there is so MUCH content I still want to get to and they keep dropping more.

This has to be the lamest of jokes ever perpetrated on A'gon, ever.

As an audiophile that loves two channel and has the setup to experience spatial audio on Apple Music through my AppleTV. When I browse around and try and enjoy the experience especially music I know and love it’s kind of distracting, lacks impact, feels like all of the music has lost its upfront soundstage like there no one in front of you playing, the music has lost its instrument separation and sounds a little mono sounding from each speaker like it has no dynamics, feels overly processed and makes my eyes wonder (weird) at least in what I’ve tried.

The only time I feel it’s pretty cool is with some meditation type music/sounds.

So when it comes to music such as classic rock or something we might prefer what are some good examples I should look for and try out?

"Really happy you joined the conversation, nice to see you in this thread, welcome. "

That’s a great post, thanks ...

Etc., etc....

You are really laying it on thick.

@deep_333 ​​​​​@kota1 ,

Both your last posts are incredibly insulting to the majority of forum members and not based in reality. Being older precludes us from having the intelligence to set up a system like the one you're so thick in your pants about??!

I'm certain the 'geezer crowd' here can run intellectual circles around you both. Your presumptuous arrogance speaks to your intellectual immaturity. You two kindred spirits should take your age bashing nonsense private.

@britamerican  A few hundred is not dominant  did you mean few hundred thousand?  Even so most have zero clue what BACCH is outside the audiophile world. But millions know what spatial audio is as they have tried it since it’s on mainstream’s streaming services  D o they like and use? Justly still out  will they build a 5.1 system just for it, prob not   But 5.1 systems have sold and continue to be sold at numbers greater than people like us who have dedicated 2 channel systems.  We are the outliers.

Also when I said anything will work I was referring to BACCH  you just play the 2 ch through the filter no mixing needed as it is with object based  object based needs studio work  

@kota1 when I said someone has not listened to a proper 51.1 I was was referring for only movies.  Not music  I do not recall who posted they have heard movies on both and said the 2 ch was just as good.  

not for me, thanks.  budget already blown.  

@fittebd ,

Also when I said anything will work I was referring to BACCH  you just play the 2 ch through the filter no mixing needed as it is with object based  object based needs studio work  

So you get a bit of left right enhancement from the crosstalk rejection. To have spatial information to listen to with the BACCH system there needs to be spatial information in the music.   There is no spatial information in the music except some left and right from panning and some tricks for the rest.

To get much out of the BACCH system you need newly encoded music (that is why they sell the tools) and no one is going to do that with no market. Best you could hope for is someone transcodes ATMOS.

@ibisghost

Thanks so much for contributing to this thread! As for the sound you are hearing in your room it would be great if you could post your system. Click on the virtual system area and at the top click "add a new system". It could be related to so many different things. I am sure it can get better, whatever the issue.

As for classic rock one that stands out as a favorite in atmos is Chicago. Man, those horns sound amazingly refreshed in this format. Depending on the mix sometimes it is like they are standing in front of you, sometimes they put you in the studio and wrap them around you like a horseshoe. I like when a solo horn takes the center channel and it just resonates in a very clear, real, articulate fashion. 

But millions know what spatial audio is as they have tried it since it’s on mainstream’s streaming services

Roger that, check out the links below, most people like it, love it, and want more of it:

 Apple reports spatial audio is a HIT

Apple reports more than 80% of subscribers have listened to spatial audio

and check THIS out

Why spatial audio is the future of the music industry, even if you HATE it (ouch)

Spatial audio all about taking marketshare:

In it, Eddy Cue said, "Since launch, the number of monthly Spatial Audio listeners has more than tripled, with more than 80 percent of worldwide subscribers enjoying the experience, while monthly plays in Spatial Audio have grown by over 1,000 percent."

Apple is all in on Spatial Audio. So much so that it bundled it with lossless audio and gave it away to subscribers for no additional cost — despite Apple paying more in royalty fees for those audio formats.

@britamerican i am not sure what you are referring to as there are more options than just the windows tools.  BACCH for MAC and the. There is a $28,000 all in one box that has roon core I believe as well as dac. Just add amps if you want. Those systems you just feed music to them and the filters are applied live.  There is a whole thread on this on PSAudio on this very subject. A few people have bought it along the way.  

not for me, thanks.  budget already blown

Exactly why I started this thread, its a prevent strategy before your wallet hits E 🔥

test

@fittebd 

Feed what music??   You can't hear spatial information that is not there. 

What music are you going to listen to? 

The BACCH filters eliminate crosstalk. Great now you can hear a different left/right pan. What other spatial information do you think crosstalk elimination will give you?

@britamerican Please join the PSAudio forum and ask those guys. They do not have special music and I would not call it spacial. It’s filters they control with an iPad.  I don’t own I just read their posts and they love it. Hard core 2 channel people. 

With the BACCH if you read there is no degradation of timbre and the spatialization of the original acoustic trade 0ff of the recording engineer manifest more holographically and clearly in your room with speakers or headphone... There is a special set of psycho-acoustic measures for each listener which made the system personalized for any number of people..

For sure the spatialization is recording dependant and is related to your own acoustic room...

it is not a surround system at all , it is a 3-D system designed first for 2 channels... It is not a gimmick for sound effects it is a new mathematical design to help music perception...

Then any old stereo recording will benefit to some extent ... No need to buy a marginal number of specialized mixed albums for it...

It is a revolution not a gadget...😊

Read the scientific papers of Choueiri... He is a scientist not a marketer...

For me anyone with an already relatively good system can benefit from it in a way any other upgrade will be if not useless throwing his money at the wrong place ...

To understand what it is you must read his science papers and vulgarization...it is not marketing it is acoustic revolution...

@mahgister , I use BACCH in my 2 channel rig. It is definitely a step above purist stereo, but, it is certainly no substitute for a dedicated rig built around object based audio. For one who has not experienced the latter, BACCH can be quite impressive.

@mahgister I am not questioning the technology which is advanced crosstalk cancellation. I am stating that you cannot hear what is not there. He is marketing when claiming that most "well recorded" music has all this fancy info. It doesn't. You cannot hear spatial information that is not there. That is impossible.

You are right for sure....

I never contradicted that...

But there is  much acoustic information coming from the acoustic trade-off recording of each album which is lost in most stereo system headphone or speakers...

We can retrieve it without lost of the timbre perception...

That is enough for my music goal ... I dont need spectaculaqr complez 7.1 or 5.1 speakers...

thats my point...

Surround is not 3-D...

For this point of view this is revolutionary...

@mahgister I am not questioning the technology which is advanced crosstalk cancellation. I am stating that you cannot hear what is not there. He is marketing when claiming that most "well recorded" music has all this fancy info. It doesn't. You cannot hear spatial information that is not there. That is impossible.

@deep_333 Could you post a pic of your room with your 2 channel set up using Bacch? Id love to see that . Thanks in advance.

@moonwatcher

I’d rather studios simply create great sounding masters in two channels. That would be a START in the right direction.

I think you will really like this 10 minute video by producer Steven Wilson. He discusses how the process he uses is exactly what you describe, getting the BEST two channel master before doing anything else, especially with old recordings.

It Suddenly Became All About Atmos

@kota1 thanks for the link. I'll check it out. Steven Wilson is sadly one of the few out there who seems to care. I'm not against all this "spatial audio" stuff, but just don't see it becoming a mass market thing when so many are happy with a soundbar in front of their TVs. They either aren't going to spend enough to get multi-channel audio right or their significant other is NOT going to let them place speakers and cable all over their multi-functional living space. 

Would you rather have a "so-so" multi-channel set up or a "great" two-channel one for the amount of money you have at your disposal? To me that is the key question. To those with deep pockets and the desire, more power to you. Enjoy. 

On the other hand, say in 50 years or so, could we envision a room shaped like a ball and you sit in the middle in an easy chair and the whole room is planar speakers with "power steering" of a matrix sort controlled by DSP software?

Maybe the whole thing could be miniaturized into a "sound helmet" you could wear that wouldn't be as expensive and still give you the sense of space you are looking for.  

@moonwatcher

just don’t see it becoming a mass market thing when so many are happy with a soundbar in front of their TVs.

The percent of people that will convert their living room to a 7.1.4 setup is probably about the same % as the number of people willing to pay over $2000 for a pair of speakers (few).

However, that doesn’t really matter to AAPL. They have backward compatibility with ALL of their products with spatial audio, see:

Apple sees Spatial Audio as a differentiator between Apple Music and its rivals, and more so than it does Lossless music. Every song in the Apple Music library is now available in Lossless, but Apple’s Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music and Beats, says it’s necessarily a niche.

"[The] challenge is it doesn’t play on any headphone in the world over Bluetooth or any wireless connection," he said, "and that is by a country mile the number one way how people consume music these days."

"And so," continues Schusser, "we went out and said we would like to have a feature for the mass market that works on pretty much every device and where people notice a difference."

"We now have more than half of our worldwide Apple Music subscriber base listening in spatial audio and that number is actually growing really, really fast," he adds. "We would like the numbers to be higher, but they are definitely exceeding our expectations."

Apple Says Spatial Audio is a Hit

@moonwatcher

Would you rather have a "so-so" multi-channel set up or a "great" two-channel one for the amount of money you have at your disposal?

I split my budget for a preamp almost down the middle, I have a nice Sony Signature preamp/dac/headphone amp that does 2 channel and a Marantz home theater processor that has a "pure direct" feature for two channel plus everything else. So basically two units at around $2000 a piece instead of one $5K+ home theater processor. That’s just me, you could certainly tilt it toward either format. I found getting my acoustics right made made a bigger difference than the hardware I chose. 

@kota1 I have the F360 and it’s a great little Preamp. I also run a BAT Preamp for 2ch and it feeds the F360. With some XLR splitter boxes, I can now painlessly switch between the two Preamps, use the BAT for the front channels with the F360 running the rear channels. Or I can have all for F360 channels going. I can also completely switch out the F360 with a Turn of a knob and just listen via the BAT Preamp.

For all my dedicated multichannel Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD-MA, DSD 5.1, DVD-A 5.1, BluRay 5.1. It’s my Onkyo AV Preamp circa 2014ish ?

This hobby is all about having fun many of the responses here don’t show that. If I could afford the BACCH system, I integrate it into my rig instead of the F360.

I heard it at the Audio Shows but there’s no free trial to try it out and get me addicted.

Great responses form you BTW.

@rajugsw

Thanks very much for that information. I don’t "need" a preamp but I really want that F360. First, I am a Jim Fosgate fan and highly respect his engineering skills and passion. Now that he is gone that pre will be likely his last design. Next, I love the features with the balanced connections and all the knobs to "diddle" with the sound as Zeos says. I could drop that unit into my desktop system so all those knobs are right at my fingertips and would add rear speakers to get quad. Or, I could drop it in my main system. The price is so reasonable for what you get IMO. I see tube preamps going for $$$. The idea of running both a digital and an analog surround system side by side is VERY appealing.

Does the F360 hold its own with the BAT (I think the BAT is around $10K right)

I have an Onkyo 9 channel receiver circa 2019 in the mancave and love it. That company is all about quality and convenience.

BTW, your room looks great. Have you thought about adding some room treatments to your ceiling? From the pic it looks a bit like a hard surface.

@kota1 Its a VK50-SE from 1999. It’s was factory refreshed last year with Mundorf Paper in Oil Caps to replace the old “6 packs” that were in it originally.

The great thing with Black Ice Audio like most of the American Audio manufacturers. You can reach the owners and engineers anytime during their business hours.

Many live Rock Concert Albums sound amazing through the F360 but the vocals can become lost in the mix. With this switching setup, I can run the BAT directly on the front channels and the F360 On my rear stacked sealed box Bose 901’s powered by the Orchard Audio Ultra Amplifier. The fronts are all Tube Black Ice F100’s.

I found the results more listenable in my rig/room like this instead of just turning down the dimension knob.

I’ve done 2 F360 Videos. One on what they do to my Electrostatic Headphones, the other on my listening experience using my Klipsch and Bose Speakers. I’m working on a 3rd one utilizing 3 DOUK Black Bear XLR Splitters.

BTW. Not shown in the Videos or my profile system pics are two absorbant panels the width of my Sofa above the listening area.

Cheers,

Joe

Joe

Do you have a link to the videos @rajugsw ? Looking forward to checking them out. Very good to know about your experience sounds like you dialed it in for your room.

@kota1 

https://youtu.be/hm5tbEE6FcE?si=RYjlm47GS3wZC4so

https://youtu.be/_tPlTrWsZWw?si=ZsIRw89NErdIJAnA
 

I'm working on the 3rd one this week. I’ll send you link once it’s uploaded.

@rajugsw 

Wow! Very professional, I am inspired to use my own headphone amp more after watching, Thanks!

@kota1 

"...I would just order a room kit from Sonitus for a one and done approach"

I covered my walls with 5" and my ceiling with 12" of rockwool, covered that with fire-resistant burlap. Semi-anechoic. Done. 

@unreceivedogma 

Wow, that will "git er done"

I think I saw the comments about the nice cartridge you were gifted from an artist in another thread. I admire your system, nice job!

I have been checking out Amazon Music Atmos offerings and I like the way they are organized. Listened to Sting's playlist last night, Desert Rose was a highlight in Atmos Music, especially the beginning. Michael Buble, "I'm Feeling Good", WOW. 

Only problem is it is the majority are children streaming on their iphone. Not people buying stereo or this fad you are peddling. 

Here is the growth of streaming, I rest my "premise":