bsimpson77 posts03-07-2019 2:27amWhoever feel holographic image is critical in listening enjoyment, would you please tell us where should we sit when we attend a live performance in a concert hall? Thank you >>>>>No, thank you! Thanks for highlighting an obvious advantage of home systems over a concert hall, I.e., a consistent and better holographic soundstage. Plus you don’t have to put up with all the coughing and snoring. |
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I lot of stuff I enjoy, you know, 60s and 70s stuff, was recorded and mastered with headphones in mind, so it’s not a real holographic soundstage, anyway. It’s more of a fake holographic soundstage. Plus, I listen on headphones so it’s a win win.
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orpheus105,917 posts01-21-2019 12:29pm I’m simply going to think "Styrofoam" for the time being and go from there. Thicker styrofoam covered in speaker cloth with a frame could be made attractive. >>>>>>Styrofoam, the audiophile’s secret weapon! And so attractive! Who woulda thunk? |
A couple things. The Trial and Error method of speaker placement - move a little, listen a little - or a random or convenient placement can only result in finding local maximums - at best. There is no reason to fiddle endlessly, nor any benefit. Second, the optimum speaker placement changes as the room is treated over a period of time and should be re-evaluated whenever room acoustics changes. Lastly, most people believe that the best holographic soundstage is achieved by placing the speakers relatively far apart and toeing them in toward the listener. Actually that’s not true at all. Generally, most speakers should be placed relatively close to each other, let’s say for argument sake, five feet. With no toe in. My 2 centavos.
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By the way, to clarify, I’m not suggesting that room treatment is not very important. But in order to actually get the best results, care must be taken to optimize whatever room treatments one decides to employ. Whether it’s acoustic panels, or tiny bowls or Helmholtz resonators or those Shakti Hallographs, or Mpingo discs, or whatever, it’s best to apply these things slowly over time, with the help of test CDs like the XLO Test CD to make sure speaker placement is changed to account for better room acoustics as one goes forward.
It’s also very helpful to use a test tone and SPL meter to establish where in the room standing waves, reflection points, echos, etc. exist. Guessing by trial and error, especially when the number of devices in room grows high, can have rather bad results sound wise. You will be lulled into a false sense of security. And your fate will be sealed. 😝
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Things are never what they seem. Let’s take SONEX for example, the common grey nicely articulated acoustic foam panels oft found covering the walls of recording studios and frequently used by audiophiles. Newsflash! The problem with SONEX is that even though it appears to be “acoustically transparent” it hurts the sound. A panel cannot be “acoustically transparent” and still be able to absorb or otherwise change the acoustic waves striking it. In the case of SONEX even a panel or two diminishes sound quality, making the sound “phasey” and unnatural sounding.
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Just a brief comment to mention that room acoustics is only one part of the problem in achieving holographic soundstage. There are a great many other areas of the system that must be attended to in order to achieve the very best holographic soundstage. Examples: vibration isolation, electrical contact housekeeping, good cabling housekeeping, speaker placement and CD or LP treatments, not to mention getting rid of extraneous junk lying around, e.g., old newspapers, books you don’t need any more. Reduce entropy!
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There are real holographic soundstages but most are more of a “projected soundstage” - the real soundstage’s phoney sibling - that is not the same thing as a transparent, well-organized and realistic soundstage. I would rate holographic soundstage right up there with speed, warmth, dynamics and air. Ah, air. Maybe the hardest to obtain of them all.
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Everything is relative. Obviously, whether a record or CD is in correct overall Polarity - which is what I’m referring to - depends on the mastering engineer, who cannot change whatever damage was produced by the recording engineer in terms of Polarity, or phase as you call it, which are the issues you referred to. There is no standard for Polarity or even Absolute Polarity. The best strategy for coping with the ubiquitous OOP records and CDs might be to ensure your system is in Reverse Absolute Polarity.
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I like flamenco, too. Especially the pink ones. |
I heard through the grapevine the Mercury Living Presence CDs are in Reverse Polarity as well, maybe the records, too. Everything is relative. Very good records that are in Reverse Polarity still sound pretty darn good and have good holography. You don’t know what you’re missing until you hear them in Correct Polarity. Maybe someone can try reversing speaker connections to see if Mercury’s, Proprius, Opus 3 are actually in Reverse Polarity. Unless, of course, the system is in Reverse Polarity, as someone just suggested, which would make them all in correct Polarity. 😳 The In Phase track on test CDs and LPs such as XLO Test CD is in fact in correct Polarity.
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Ah, right, Opus 3 is another independent Swedish label, like Proprius. Yes, I’m aware a lot of people like Jazz at a Pawnshop, including your humble scribe, nevertheless apparently it’s in Reverse Polarity. What can I tell you? 😬 As for Opus 3 - Depth of Image, it probably sounds “depthy”- if that’s a word - even in reverse Polarity. 😛
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I heard through the grapevine that Opus 3, Depth of Image, is in Reverse Polarity. That can’t be too good for a holographic soundstage. In fact all Proprius label records are in Reverse Polarity.
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Frank, you misunderstand. No biggie. 😁
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Not to be judgmental, but the way I judge a system right off the bat is how high the soundstage is. There are many steps on the way to a great soundstage. Getting the sound to disassociate from the speakers is as important and memorable as the day your testicles dropped. But you cannot get good soundstage height without implementing some drastic measures.
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1.5 person sweet spot? You mean like for Roseanne Barr? |
Getting a nice deep wide soundstage is best accomplished, at least to a large degree, by a method that eliminates or reduces trial and error. Correct speaker placement is critical for obtaining the best possible soundstage, but the ubiquitous trial and error technique of moving a little, listening a little is bound to fail to come up with the absolute best locations. The best you can do is find a local maximum. The best way to determine the best speaker locations for any speaker in any room, for whatever stage of room treatment employed, is using one of the test CDs that contain a speaker set up track, also called out of phase track. Another tip is start with speakers closer together and work outward. As fate would have it most speakers should be placed closer together, not farther apart. You know, for best soundstage. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than speaker placement. |
Hey, if you know what you’re doing for the most part and you don’t have five thumbs on each hand, if you persevere and have a little bit of luck you can have it all. But soundstage is not black and white, it’s not as if you either have it or you don’t. There are degrees of soundstage, you’ll know it when you hear it. You can even get air, maybe, if you’re real lucky. If you can achieve a wide, deep and high transparent soundstage chances are pretty good everything else will follow, detail, tone, dynamics, frequency extension. Maybe air.
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Soundstage is important. Air is more important. Dynamic range is a must. You always want what you can’t have.
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Why? Mono Binaural is strictly for headphones.
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Stereo sound is analogous to 3D movies or even stereo optics for viewing maps that have been developed from aerial photographs of the same geographical area taken from different angles. There is some similarly to those 3D computer generated images (stereograms) in that some skill or learning is required to be able view those images in the deep three dimensionality they can provide. Ideally, soundstage and imaging should be natural and should duplicate to a large extent what the experience would be like in person, with two ears. The experience should be natural, transparent and convincing, not phony.
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On a competent system you can hear the space of the venue of the recording in terms of three dimensions and reverberant decay and echos, that sort of thing. Assuming it was recorded live in a good hall, like say Boston or Chicago or Vienna or Berlin. So in that sense, in terms of a real soundstage, the recording on a good system might be more accurate and revealing than many seats in the hall. Look at the LP or the CD as an archaeological site that requires work in order to extract all the glorious details including soundstage parameters.
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Dynamics is king. Everything else is secondary. |
