How important is it for you to attain a holographic image?
I’m wondering how many A’goners consider a holographic image a must for them to enjoy their systems? Also, how many achieve this effect on a majority of recordings? Is good soundstaging enough, or must a three dimensional image be attained in all cases. Indeed, is it possible to always achieve it?
Maybe you’ve never heard the type of holography I’m speaking of. It’s not typical imaging, where the soloist is in front of rest of the rest of the forces as you would hear in real life. It’s a disembodied sound, almost ghostly, hanging in front of the speakers. Some systems can create that effect.
Aside from having heard (like most audiophiles) countless systems, the speakers I have owned have been notable for their soundstaging and imagine - e.g. Audio Physic, Von Schweikert, Thiel 3.7, and most notable my MBL 121 omni-directional speakers, whose major claim to fame is their extraordinary 3 dimensional imaging. And I have often sat almost nearfield to increase the 3 dimensional effect from my speakers.
Every single instance of sound coming from those speakers, or any others that I’ve heard, is captured in the usual audiophile terms "imaging/soundstaging." Some speakers may have a sway-back dip in the frequency range that recesses the imaging somewhat (e.g. so a centralized singer will always appear behind the speakers to some degree or another), and other moren flat/neutral designs will allow the singing voice to occur along the plane of the speakers (if mixed up front that way), and sometimes may even seem a bit forward of the speakers (rare).
But in all cases a singer is "disembodied" and "ghostly" and "hanging in the air" because that IS the effect of stereo imaging.
I’m afraid I’ll have to give up trying to understand what other phenomenon you think you are hearing.
FWIW, I was wrong about the Carver - Reading about BACCH tickled my memory. Carver's unit has all to do with cross talk cancellations, not phase issues. FWIW.
No one wants a strange disembodied image. The goal is to be transported to the venue. . . Yes this is very much affected by sound engineers and the way they mic and mix the music. This is why you will find that recordings made and mixed by a person you like will give you more of the same. It is challenging to find sound engineers who are true artists at their craft and can deliver the dynamics we all look for and the imaging/staging that we want to hear.
Binaural recording is one technique of many to record music by sound engineers using stereo pairs of microphones recording in a mannequin head so that the venue is recorded as it would be heard by a person sitting there. . . The playback has always been limited to headphones to hear the true 3D imaging of the music and environment. Huge strides have been made by Dr. Choueiri at his Prinston Lab to make this happen on our speakers.
Adding BACCH to my system is actually the next evolution of my stereo I am saving up for. The BACCH filters adjust in real time to eliminate comb filtering which is what ruins the 3D affect of true stereo reproduction and hearing the venue as if you were actually there. They have just offered the ability to execute it with a Mac mini. This is the next level in sound reproduction in my opinion and a very exciting time to be part of the audio world.
Peter_van_keuran: Yes, I had that Dynaco adapter years ago. It was very impressive with ambient sound filling from the rear speakers.
Prof,
Maybe you’ve never heard the type of holography I’m speaking of. It’s not typical imaging, where the soloist is in front of rest of the rest of the forces as you would hear in real life. It’s a disembodied sound, almost ghostly, hanging in front of the speakers. Some systems can create that effect.
Peterprvk, Re the Hafler loop - I agree that this can have a very pleasant encompassing effect. I believe that it really is not much more than reproducing out of phase sounds thru separate speakers using the same amp as used in the front speakers but you need a separate attenuator to get the right volume level (came in Hafler's box). Its simple and as far as I'm concerned, while not as sophisticated as most multichannel systems, it is effective and you don't have nearly the set up issues. For other reasons I chose to use only 2 channel systems, mainly because I'm not inclined to fiddle with placement and volume issues every time I put on a recording and more inclined to just listen to the music not the effects.
Interestingly Carver had a shot at holography which I tried out back in the day. The first thing I noticed, and it blew me away, was in a cut when the audience applauded a performance it placed you in the audience, as opposed to hearing all of the applause in front you. But it really became more of a distraction than a benign additive and I lost interest. This black box I believe was doing nothing much more than playing with phase issues.
One of the problems with max'ing out the soundstaging potential is when a recording is made, which includes all of the ambiance sounds in the recording environment, is that these sounds when reproduced thru your system can be in conflict (confused) by the ambiance in your room. For example if you have a recording with lots of ambiance and you play it in a bright room you are hearing neither of them any where near accurately. (Interestingly though, if you played a recording with all of the recording ambiance encoded and played it back in a 'dead acoustic' I think most folks would find it dead/dull as well. We have become quite adjusted, I think, to hearing the recording's ambiance when it is superimposed on the room acoustic (we know our rooms that well).
If a singer is panned to the middle of a stereo mix, or if you are listening to a mono mix, virtually any half decent pair of speakers will produce the effect you just mentioned of the singer seeming to be in the middle of the speakers, hanging in space.
This happens pretty much be default given the stereo imaging process.
- It always happens in a typical stereo set up with a centralized listener. - It's always artificial. - There are common existing audiophile terms to describe the effect."Soundstaging" (in general, the apparent scale and dimensionality of the soundspace seemingly created by the speakers) and "imaging" (in general: the localization if individual sound sources - for mono, always localized between the speakers).
Therefore, I don't see what new distinction you wish to make with "holographic" as if it were to refer to something distinct from the normal terms "imaging" or "soundstaging."
Anyone else know what rvpiano is trying to describe if it isn't just plain old imaging/soundstaging that virtually all of us can xperience from our system?
(I can't imagine anyone here has a pair of speaker so awful that, when situated in the stereo configuration, would not produce the singer-in-space-between-the-speakers effect).
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.
We only have two ears, not 5 or 7, and yet, if you close your eyes and have a friend walk around you while speaking, you have no problem determining where he is, yes? That's because you are hearing not only his voice directly, you are also hearing the reflections of his voice bouncing off the walls around you. You are hearing him AND the room around you. You hear in 3 dimensions. You are hearing the ambience of the room. Whether you are listening to a studio album or a recording of a live performance, that ambience gets recorded, unless of course, it is done in an anechoic chamber. An ambient loop, or Hafler loop, as it is sometimes called, is what you need to reproduce the ambience that is recorded on every DVD, CD and vinyl record you own. Back in the 60's, David Hafler realized this, and invented the Dynaco QD-1 Quadapter when he was at Dynaco. It is designed to extract this ambience. All you need is two more speakers in the rear, with the same signal from the front, going through the QD-1, and then out to the rear speakers. If the front signal is absolutely identical on both sides, the rear speakers won't make a sound, The more difference in the front, the more the rear speakers will sound. It is as close to how we normally hear as one can get, and produces a wonderful 3 dimensional image. I've been listening to an ambient loop system for 45 years. If you're familiar with the movie 'Inception', you should hear the village scene on my system. It will blow you away. I should note that with movies like 'Inception', you have a choice of listening in 5-1 or just stereo. I always choose stereo, as I do not have or want a 5-1 system. If anyone wants to further discuss my system, or tell me that I'm full of BS, you can email me at prvk@earthlink.net. Be sure to put something in the subject line that I'll recognize, as I have a pretty aggressive anti-spam program.
If you read all my posts above, you’ll get a better idea of what I’m talking about. Typically, I’m referring to a solo singer whose voice seems suspended in space between the speakers producing an artificial holographic effect.
For me, sound stages are established when recording with 3 or more mikes and a mixing console, and all we are doing is recreating at home, the engineer's 'view' of the sound in his control room best we can! So, anything through a multi-channel mixer is artificial placement of instruments assembled into a 'sound stage' with lots of MONO mikes... Holographic ? Not too sure...
Now, a REAL stereo recording in an acoustic space with only TWO mikes (rare these days because it is expensive for recording engineers to get it right as it takes more time for placement), can re-create (IMHO) an image, and probably more along the lines of the theme of this thread.
It is the way I record my live classical performances, which is more of an audience perspective. I don't care for 'hokie' sitting on the stage with the musicians' effect. Even the beloved 'Decca Tree' tends to be too close to the stage, usually hung over the Maestro's head! Violins/violas tend to be close sounding withless natural reverb. Ever notice how the brass sections seem to have MORE reverb surrounding them? They are set further away from the mics, and usually when 'spot miked' the level is very low due to their output. Those powerful instruments tend to excite the venue more so...
Classical composers and conductors have worked hard to get the arrangements of the instruments mixed 'natrually' on stage according to their strengths in volume. When parts needed to be softer or louder, the composer will call for more or less instruments to play...
Just my observations and experiences...
My dedicated 23X18' reference listening space audio consists of a rebuilt pair of 1965 Dynaco Mark 3 amps fed by a PAS- 2 preamp, all built by the same factory worker back in the day. Those feed into a pair of 1967 Klipschorns with no alterations except for new caps in the crossovers..
I’m afraid, then, I have no idea what you are talking about rvpiano.
What in the world is "trick holography?"
A speaker doing soundstaging and imaging sounds 3 dimensional and hence "holographic" in that respect. And it’s all a "trick" as it’s just giving the impression sound is occurring here or there, or that some portion of your room has transformed it’s acoustics.
Therefore I can’t understand *what else* there is for you to refer to as some additional "trick holography" that is artificial. (And hence, why this is an issue anyone would care about).
Can you try to explain?
What would be the difference between an image in a soundstage...and a "trick holography?"
As I’ve made clear, I certainly believe sound staging and imaging are an important part of the stereo experience. In my opening post I was only referring to “trick holography” as artificial to real life experience.
I presume the OP is referring to what is typically called soundstaging/imaging. (I’ll just use "imaging" for short here).
My take:
It is quite important as part of the experience in listening to my stereo.Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother having "stereo" speakers.
I certainly don’t demand imaging at the expense of other qualities. I’m a tone/timbre guy first. A speaker absolutely has to have, to my ear, an organic and beguiling tone, wood sounds like wood, sparkling guitar strings, shimmering metallic cymbals, reedy-sounding reed instruments. All that stuff. If a system doesn’t have that, all the imaging in the world won’t allow me to enjoy the sound. I also value palpability/dynamics.There are speakers that soundstage in a wispy fashion. The drummer that is up front and physical on one pair of speakers can be placed deep back in the soundstage in another pair, but with a loss of palpabiilty and drive. I’ll take the speaker that gives me the presence and drive of the musician with some sacrifice of imaging/depth over the speaker with the huge soundstage with less palpability.
But of course, I want it all. Once I have a system doing great tone, and good palpability, imaging is a wonderful and important addition to my enjoyment. For one thing, a speaker that images well tends to do so at least partially as a result of being low coloration, so the speaker "disappears" from the sound. The result of lower obvious speaker coloration aides timbral realism, and the result tends to leave the music floating free of the speakers too. I had Harbeth speakers for a while, wondering if they could help me downsize from my bigger Thiel speakers. I love the Harbeth sound, but they just couldn’t compete with my Thiels because the Thiels did tone at least as well (even more realistic IMO), and the Harbeths always had a more congested sense of imaging/depth/soundstaging.Hearing symphonies through the Thiels was more reminiscent of being transported to actually hearing a symphony, eyes closed. Recordings of The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet on the Harbeths showed great timbre and clarity. But on the Thiels, I got not only that, but the wall of my room just "melted away" with the guitars sounding real-sized, and the musicians arrayed before me in a way that made me feel transported to their concert. That added sense of realism is magical.
Mono sources can be good on a good speaker insofar as you will get a good feeling for the music - tone, timbre, dynamics, presence. But part of the appeal to me in high end audio is, to some degree, a sense of believably (if not sheer realism). For a seated listener, Mono is far too limited to ever do what’s needed for realism. Every band and symphony isn’t just lined up behind one another in mono in real life. On a good stereo system with imaging, a Tympony roll just ignites the sense of space - it just blooms - more like the real thing, on a system with great soundstaging and imaging.
And I totally disagree with those who claim we don’t hear soundstaging/imaging in real life. Of course we do; that’s why we have two ears, for acute directionality to sound sources. I tended to sit close at the symphony as I like vividly distinct timbre among the instruments, and it imaged like mad when I closed my eyes. Sure, imaging CAN certainly sound artificial depending on the recording. But it CAN also sound more natural, depending on how it was captured/mixed.
When I play my system for non-audiophiles one of the reasons they are so stunned and comment on how "real" it sounds, is that they are reacting to is the soundstaging imaging. Some don’t even know that it was even possible that music playback had such properties. I played Bernard Herrmann’s Taxi Driver score for a musician pal and he said "Incredible. It was like I was THERE, on the floor with the players around me, as it was being recorded."
But not only is imaging helpful if the goal is to attain some semblance of believability to recreating sound. It’s also to me a compelling artifact in it’s own right.
I listen to lots of electronic/synth music. Obviously, all the soundstaging/imaging is entirely artificial. But I LOVE listening to my favorite electronica on my high end system because, especially with the precise, dense imaging/soundstaging I have in my system, it’s almost like being transported to an alien realm. The different sounds and shapes of synthesizers, from buzz-saw sound tearing the air, to tiny sparkles, to throbbing midrange tones etc, just magically "appear" around the room. It has an amazing cinematic quality to the listening experience.
If high end audio were truly "only about the music" in a very narrow sense, I wouldn’t need high end audio. I can get in to music, and get the musical message on almost any system - my car radio, a blue-tooth speaker, I even truly enjoy listening to music on my iPhone’s speaker!
But High End audio to me offers a different way to experience music - "added value" as it were, and being immersed in the sound, and having the sensation of being transported to various spaces is part of that. It’s why I bother to sit down between a pair of stereo speakers in the first place.
I’ve been buying lots of older LPs and occasionally one shows up in mono. When sit between my speakers and hear that it’s mono, I no longer feel that compelled to sit between my speakers. I will tend to play mono albums and often listen from another room, doing something else.I still enjoy the music, the tone, the dynamics, I still boogie. But I just don’t find it compelling to situate myself in my system’s sweet spot because it just doesn’t pay the dividends that it does with a recording that has enveloping soundstaging, or nice imaging.
"It is a parlor trick, although I agree it can be pleasant on small
combos (jazz, folk, chamber). You simply don't hear it with live music,
even sitting close to a jazz combo. "
You may not hear soundstaging/imaging in live music (which I find strange - presuming you have two ears). I certainly do. And certainly with jazz combos. And orchestras (I tend to prefer closer seating). And plenty of other live music scenarios. If I close my eyes under those scenarios I usually have no problem pointing to precisely where any particular sound is coming from.
Our two ears are there to provide directionallity to sound. It's part of how we evolved/survived. It works. The idea that people don't hear any imaging with live music is to me something from the Twilight Zone. (Unless one is talking amplified music, or perhaps sitting very far back from a performance).
@rvpiano Semantics, yes. Imaging and soundstaging are not the same thing, but *are* complementary. Simply (simplistically?) imaging~clear definition/location of a particular sound source in the space; soundstaging~the sonic painting of the limits of that overall space, width and depth and perhaps height. If a speaker does one of these right, it's hard to believe it would do the other particularly badly.
Gulpson, A fair observation, but to make this omission of a warranted moniker change worse, I've been posting here since about 2002! I think a lot of folks have not bothered with my posts. Who would want to take advise from a newbie. :-)
RV Piano, In that same vein, I first heard holographic imaging in a medium sized demo room at a dealers. They had a CJ 5 preamp driving a Threshold SA amp, driving a pair of smallish Thiel 4’s (preceding the CA series) using a Oracle TT (I don’t recall cartridge) and playing Opus Three "Depth of Image" which has a cut where there is a small group playing pan pipes. If you closed your eyes you could feel that you could walk on stage amoungst the players just as you could if this all occurred in your living room with real players. Obviously I was so impressed I still recall most of the detail. FWIW although for years this was a goal I never achieved it in my music room. I have a long list of the reasons why. :-)
It’s interesting that some folks talk about the live performance as the same event as playback when the two are completely different functions. It’s also funny to me how so many high-end-ers don’t know what a soundstage even is. Did that sound impolite? It's not meant to. It's just that I'm truly surprised that after all this time there is still confusion over what thousands of studio engineers produce every day for us to playback.
We live with a soundstage every day with or without the stereo playing. It’s a natural function of our sense of hearing and feeling. A recorded soundstage is no mysterious illusion. Having a system that can’t play a soundstage, now that’s the illusion.
“You simply don’t hear it with live music....”. Harrylavo I completely agree.
Holography is an artificial effect. However, I don’t disagree with ANYTHING hifidream said above. I just wouldn’t call it holographic. It’s excellent soundstaging. To me, holography exists when a solo singer is spookily suspended in air in front of you. That doesn’t happen in real life. I guess we’re dealing in semantics.
It is a parlor trick, although I agree it can be pleasant on small combos (jazz, folk, chamber). You simply don't hear it with live music, even sitting close to a jazz combo. To create it is a matter of absorption and reflection .... I have created the illusion in different dedicated rooms of enormously varied shape. If your system is in a living area, almost of necessity you have to compromise.
I am in the tonal balance and reasonable ambience camp. I can sit back, close my eyes, and enjoy the music, just as I do in a live concert (and I attend at least a few every month).
Hearing a live performance through speakers has always been the goal and what attracted me to the hobby when I first heard a high end system at the Sony Center in Berlin as a kid. I played second bassoon in the Wisconsin Youth Orchestra for awhile, sung in the Madison Boys Choir and my father played a number of two hour piano concerts practicing hours a day. I know what live music sounds like, just as many of you do. What I want to hear when a good recording is played is exactly what was played. In my opinion it is holographic meaning that I can close my eyes and feel like I’m in the concert hall and place each instrument that is played in space. The Tympany is far left rear, the bassoon and oboe middle right center, the flutist front left. Yes the speakers need to also produce the dynamics and hold a properly sized image of the instruments . . . I just played Peter Hurford playing Bach Organ music this weekend and I felt like I was in the church, organ 200 ft in front of me. That’s not a parlor trick. That is a great performance meshing with a great recording on a high end system that is dialed into the space that it exists. Yes there are many poor recordings and I actually usually prefer studio produced rock albums because live performances are usually poorly recorded from a badly set up PA system. It can be engaging being a part of the crowd but if I want to hear the music I go for the studio album. As mentioned above I find most holographic recordings are those jazz and classical recordings miked correctly. . .
With the best mono’s, the sound is expansive and fills the space between the speakers completely. Granted, there’s nothing outside the speakers, but there’s a certain "rightness" or "correctness" garnered from mono recordings that’s really hard to get from stereo records. Personally, I like both.
Oregonpapa.
With mono classical I agree the music sounds correct. It’s like sitting mid-hall and the orchestra is accurately positioned on stage. Once again, it means the mic placement was done well.
There are no tricks involved with acoustic instruments when proper mic placement is used. I'm referring to all forms of classical and small jazz combos, even when the combo includes an electric guitar. A revealing system should reproduce a 3D image and depending on the recording, a holographic image is possible.
Listen to older well recorded rock music in which the band was recorded together in a studio. I can hear space between the musicians. Early Hendrix releases sound like the artists are playing together in the same room. There is 3D space with natural reverb and ambience around the drum kit. Not so for the remasters.
I don’t know if it is that important. I am one that wants to be moved by the music and not so much by the effects. But I do like accoustic music most and the real thing does have a harmonic envelope that includes sounds of the room. So if that is not out of balance I find it contributes to the music in my opinion.
Okay, when it comes to "sound staging," what can we expect from mono recordings?
I have collected hundreds of mono jazz records from the early 50s. I can honestly say that when listening to the best of them, I could care less about a stereo effect. With the best mono's, the sound is expansive and fills the space between the speakers completely. Granted, there's nothing outside the speakers, but there's a certain "rightness" or "correctness" garnered from mono recordings that's really hard to get from stereo records. Personally, I like both.
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.
"I read people saying they have part and not able to get all, it makes me wonder what are they waiting on."
’I’ve heard (and have owned a couple) systems of lesser quality where it was relatively easy to get a "dimensional" sound from stage rear, and had pretty good imaging as well (at least across the front of the stage), but as things progressed for me over the years, the challenge has been to get the soundfield to fully fill in all the areas in between the front of the stage and the back and do so believably.’
Is that what you are referring to? I may have, through poor word choice on my part, have given you the wrong impression on my own system’s status...I did not mean to imply that it was a ’challenge’ that I did not overcome, but that it was accomplished in stages, by degrees, with varying methods of placement, noise floor reduction, grounding, power factor correction and power treatments. No waiting on anything here, not these days...quite the contrary. But, I can see how anyone might misconstrue what I said.
As I said previously, there’s a difference between sound staging and “holographic effect”. What you most typically get at a live concert sitting in an auditorium is sound staging, not holography. A holographic effect is produced by microphones placed in a location where few people sit. Perhaps if you’re sitting in a small setting such as a club where you’re close to the performers you might get something approaching this effect.
Go listen to some live acoustic music at your local high school, community college, college, church or your friend’s house down the street - “free of charge” usually - so no excuses 😀 If you think holographic imaging doesn’t matter then appparently you listen to arena rock, terribly miked symphonic music or you are deaf.
@jerrysfinger I agree that once you have it it's hard to go back.But I can enjoy music without it at other people's houses,in the car,etc.Just not at home.It's just thrilling to listen with closed eyes and get lost in the illusion.
"A low noise floor is required for holographic imaging. This improves dynamics, transparency, depth." Lowrider
Yes, lowering the noise floor brings forth more bottom end, wider soundstage and more inner detail---a lot more, and in layers not heard before. This is when information pop out to create depth. What has transformed my system can be read about in the thread "Perfectpathtechnologies-Omega E mat". See my posts on last page. Read the whole thread---the real deal.
Is imaging important? The word itself, "stereo" is from the Latin and refers to solid or 3-dimensional. The word itself derives from the ability of two properly positioned speakers to create the illusion of a solid sound source distinct from those two speakers.
Sound stage, image, focus- all these terms derive from stereo.
Imaging goes right to the heart of why we use two speakers at all.
On the other hand, for anyone who doesn't care about the whole reason this industry exists, you can save an awful lot on speakers! Half off!
I think once you've heard it, it's difficult to go back. Recorded studio music can be frustrating if vocals are slightly off, whereas with live music you have a visual reference and can accept the positioning. Closed eyes and revelling in the positioning of well reproduced music is bliss.
2018 and no soundstage yet? It's hard (impossible, frightening) for me to entertain the thought of stereo playback without it's soundstage. It's hard for me to imagine not playing fullrange, or having a system that doesn't play, fully, all of my recordings. When I read people saying they have part and not able to get all, it makes me wonder what are they waiting on.
Only getting part of stereo would be torture for me.
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