Is the seated-centered solo listening to music a dated tech?
Is the seated-centered solo listening to music a dated tech? Is the design of modern loudspeakers that facilitates stereo wrong? Are we surfing a compromised tech please recall early 3 channel was superior they used stereo because it was a compromise? I have worked with a research group that used MRIs and sound to light up areas of catatonic people’s brains the research showed that higher quality playback lit up more areas but that stereo caused the brain to work harder is this a source of listening fatigue? After all, we are processing 2 unnatural sources that trick the mind into perceiving a sound field wouldn’t it be better to just have a sound field that actually existed? Stereo is a unnatrual way to listen to music its something that sound doesn’t do. Real music floods a space in all directions stereo design requires beaming and narrow dispersion to form an image is this just wrong? Mono had benefits over stereo modern loudspeaker design can make one speaker with a 360d radiation pattern that can form a soundstage for listeners almost anywhere in a room yet we still sit mostly alone seated dead center not wanting to move much because the image collapses just all seems wrong to me today. The more I experiment with non-traditional sound reproduction the more right it feels to me and those hearing it. Music should exist in a real space not a narrow sliver of it.
Let y’all know when my playing about with surround Walsh gets a bit deeper into it. Even with just a 2ch source, with current mixing, interesting things occur.... ...even in a crude space. Linkwitz himself said ’ignore the room’, and I’m certainly attempting that....*L* Got to... ;) BACCH 'sounds' interesting, under my circumstance.....thanks for the hint. 👍👌 | ||||||||||||||||||
@surfcat Totally agree. Look, I’m a purist at heart and would always first skew to using room treatments to fix the all-important and oft-neglected room first and then look at DSP if absolutely still necessary, but BACCH looks like a totally different animal and the reviews from the people who’ve heard it sound amazing. Honestly, my first choice would be for a driver that’s a round orb that recreates sound like how we hear instruments in live space (Lansche?). Yeah, i know that’s not the way it’s recorded, but still. Then there’s Ohm, MBL, German Physics, etc. that seem to do a damn good job of generating that result but that can create a more diffuse imagery, which may actually be very accurate as that’s more how I hear live music. So maybe BACCH is overly focused and hyper real — think LED versus a good plasma HDTV — but it still sure sounds intriguing and I’d love to hear it, especially if I can get the basic essentials for under $1000. MBLs would cost me a truckload more $$$, that’s fer sure. | ||||||||||||||||||
@ddd1 You certainly point our one of the often overlooked challenges, miking. Got to first collect the sound before one can even think about reproducing it. I'm sure we'll get there. I wonder what the arguments will be about in Audiogon a hundred years from now. I think we can assume the power cord debate will never be settled | ||||||||||||||||||
@soix BACCH is dangerously interesting. I know that many will reject it as interfering with pure reproduction, and they are not wrong. But DSP is seriously impressive tech. As we know, every component, every circuit or length of wire has a signature it adds. What we often forget is every feature of the room also adds it's signature to the sound and that's where DSP can be so powerful. I've heard it in the Kef LS50W where the onboard DSP was used to account for the speakers being placed on an open shelf and the result was very surprising. If I hadn't seen them I'd have assumed they were appropriately placed in the room, away from the back wall. Stage depth of lateral projection were very good for such little rascals. | ||||||||||||||||||
@redlenses03, I'm not talking about home theater, at least not as we envision it today but, rather, a truly transformative evolution in the collection and reproduced presentation of audio information that will undoubtedly happen given enough time and technological advancement. We didn't always have stereo. Adding separate low frequency devices already takes us out of the purely 2 speaker configuration to sometimes great benefit. I also absolutely agree that a really good home theater audio set up is at best a mediocre to poor music audio system. They may both like water, but one is fish and one is a duck. quack quack | ||||||||||||||||||
@surfcat Actually, we may be closer than you think. Not sure if you’ve heard of the BACCH technology, but it looks pretty impressive and those who’ve heard it have been pretty amazed (apparently it works wonders with headphones too). And it’s already available in several product forms from a company named Theoretical… Heres some info on its development and technology at Princeton. Interesting stuff. I’d love to demo this at some point. | ||||||||||||||||||
You can identify a number of sounds/loudspeakers greater than your number of ears. If you go to a choir, for example, you can hear many voices singing and also hear the lady talking to her husband sitting behind you. You can also hear a single voice or a single speaker using both ears, unless you are deaf in one ear. | ||||||||||||||||||
Absolutely not and never will be. If you want home theater multi channel / surround / atmos - those are "effects" IMHO and are based off of the stereo foundation. Those have there place for home theater and if that’s what one likes, cool. It’s all subjective of course. Again, those are effects and are way more "unnatural" IMHO to listen to music. I don’t care for it. A superbly setup 2chnl creates some of those multichannel "effects" naturally and is the standard. For 2chnl, when you get right down to it, there can only be one single main listening position - the sweet spot - its physics. That sweet spot (larger - smaller) is system/setup/room/acoustic dependent. | ||||||||||||||||||
If I correctly understand what you're saying, JohnK, then, yeah. I can easily imagine systems in the future comprised of 30 or 40 or more "sound generating devices" spread around the periphery of a space, maybe wall and/or ceiling mounted. They'll be of some future technology that energizes the air to create the compression/rarefaction that is sound without the need for a moving mass driver. The amplification electronics will precisely measure and deliver to each device the exact amount of energy and frequency to create real performance presence. I'm not being glib as I don't doubt we'll get there and when we do people will look back at our chunky speakers with their moving diaphragms and dumb amps and pity us and wonder why we'd even try to reproduce music that way. But we're not there yet. Your point, though, is well taken. Realistically there's no way two or three or 5 sources of sound can precisely and accurately pull it off. But accurate and engaging are not necessarily the same thing so at least we can go for musically engaging while we wait for the future to arrive. (of course tomorrow never comes, but we all know that) | ||||||||||||||||||
OP,
Yes, sorry… I completely misread your initial comments. My bad. I can tell you from my point of view that mono does not hold my interest…. for a second. I have a number of well recorded mono albums… I generally cannot get through two cuts. Admittedly I am using two speakers. On the other hand I know more than one person who are completely fine with it. I have no grand sweeping conclusions, other than stereo is absolutely essential for my enjoyment and three too many. | ||||||||||||||||||
Didn’t read the other posts, but almost all music is recorded in stereo so why wouldn’t you play it back that way and situate yourself in the position where it sounds best? Yes, there are speakers like Von Schweikert, Boenicke, etc. that use rear-firing tweets and others like Ohm and MBL that that are omnipoles, but as great as they may sound (and I do think they sound great) they’re the designer’s interpretation of the sound rather than how the engineer recorded it. And IMHO that’s perfectly fine and may even be preferable for many. For those who really care about optimal sound, having to sit in the sweet spot is a small price to pay and well worth the small effort. And I doubt even omnipole speakers, although they can sound very good off axis, sound as good or as balanced that way as opposed to sitting in the sweet spot. Hey, if you really care that much about walking around and getting the same (crappy) sound, just get a Bose Wave Radio and live it up. | ||||||||||||||||||
crustycoot re:
One of my favorite recordings is Ry Cooder’s "A Meeting by the River", with V.M. Bhatt. It was produced/recorded by Kavi Alexander of Water Lily Acoustics. He used two superb mics made by audio legend Tim de Paravicini, placed in a "Blumlein configuration". It is a gorgeous recording. "A Meeting By The River is universally praised for the authenticity and realism of its recording and its 2008 vinyl release is often cited as audiophile-quality reference material. The session was captured using two customised valve mics in a Blumlein-array arrangement into a converted Studer two-track analogue tape recorder and the louder you play it, the more every rattle and scrape of slide on fingerboard and every microtonal flurry draws you into its rarefied, spontaneous atmosphere." https://guitar.com/review/album/the-genius-of-a-meeting-by-the-river-by-ry-cooder-and-vishwa-mohan-bhatt/ | ||||||||||||||||||
2 channel playback is the simplest form of stereo. Listening tests suggest that people generally prefer two or more speakers to a single speaker even when listening to mono recordings. Even for a person deaf in one ear there may be perceivable benefits to having more speakers in a room. It might help to smooth out some serious peaks and dips in the response, or mask some of the room’s characteristic sound. As for trying alternate approaches to putting sound in a room, I’m not above trying unorthodox arrangements. I’ve gotten interesting results by putting the tweeters very close together in the front, with the midrange drivers spaced wider and the upper bass even wider still. Of course it sounds very different. There was a lot to like about it even if it was strange in some ways. It had a better sense of live presence of sound in the room than when the drivers are all more closely arranged as a point source. I An arrangement I’ve been playing with lately involves pointing the stereo speakers away from you at a window, large screen TV, or large bare wall and listening to the stereo image reflected back at you. Absorption between the listener and the speaker to minimize bleed, although I’ve found this isn’t necessary for the image to move forward away from the speakers. It can help with the tonality. This set up can be surprisingly good sounding in some situations. The speaker’s virtual position is now behind the wall from an imaging perspective, so the sweet spot widens and the soundstage is big and spacious. The sound can become overly "wet" and revealing of the room’s colorations as you are virtually further away from the speakers so the room sound dominates. But after listening to this arrangement for a while, going back to the standard setup sounded too dry and rather small. I’m thinking a dipole speaker like Magnepans could be a good candidate for this setup. The listener could be positioned off to the sides of the speakers in the cancellation zone, so the bass wouldn’t tend to reach their ears too soon. That’s the problem with this setup and conventional speakers - the bass gets to you early compared to the reflected highs.
| ||||||||||||||||||
@johnk , you should look into Ambiophonics. Have fun?! | ||||||||||||||||||
I always thought that stereo was an invention of Alan Blumlein, who created recordings with crossed microphone pairs to simulate our anatomical auditory apparatus. Playback was intended to be by 2 speakers with an equilateral angular relationship to the listener. This was when recording was strictly 2 channel in a live venue...still the model for any good HiFi system, IMO. This doesn't directly suggest a particular speaker dispersion pattern is best...Ohm/Walsh, MBL, German Physiks, all go for a cylindrical wave pattern (Ohm modifies theirs to reduce treble splatter). Quad ESLs whether intentionally or not were highly directional. Floyd Toole's influence has made "uniform power response" the de facto orthodoxy. Most of us have issues fitting the ideal into our homes' limitations anyway, so solutions are many, some effective. | ||||||||||||||||||
@johnk …”True Dat”!! | ||||||||||||||||||
Yes and no the loudspeaker is designed to replicate a sound field using one speaker of unique design. Stereo or mono signals can be fed into the loudspeaker. I have been working on it for 7 years so who knows what I will do with it. For now, I greatly enjoy what I'm hearing. But I know humans are stubborn things audiophiles maybe even more so so not expecting much from it. | ||||||||||||||||||
Eric is spreading lies accusing me of being a fake account. johnk Sunprairie, WI, United States Joined View 0 Items for SaleDiscussion PostsSend Message
| ||||||||||||||||||
The absence of punctuation in the OP caused me reading fatigue:)) Aside from that, if the music in question is pretty much any genre outside of acoustic music, recorded since the 1970's, what we are listening to is, in fact "the sound field as it originally existed", since that sound field was created by the engineers of the recording. Listening to music is a cognitively complex process, so it's hardly a revelation that the increased musical information provided by a stereo recording caused an increase in brain activity. The logical fallacy is in the speculation that more brain activity = listening fatigue. More brain activity might equal more pleasure. | ||||||||||||||||||
Dear Johnk, very interesing question(s). Since this early morning, I'am busy with putting my reflections into words. Here's the result🤗 BDW, I am working in a project where music is used to light up areas of catatonic people’s brains. It is a way to activate these people, getting into a kind of conversation. And it works! Using a specific music title as an anchor. They show a reaction when hearing a tune which is memorized in their brain and than we try to get a conversation started. Binaural hearing is hearing with two ears. Since ever, this helps human beings to orientate in the physical environment and eventually recognize potential danger. So, our hearing is kind of a 'survival gear'. To be able to listening to music in 'stereo' is added value, imo. But, isn't stereo reproduction artificial? It is not possible to have the exact sound field that actually existed during the recording or the live concert in your home (or anywhere else than the original location of recording). Coincidence? Yesterday I have readjusted (not the first time..) the place and direction of my 2 speakers because some night critters 👹👿 must have been moving them (again..). Some 30 minutes later, I was delighted with the sound quality when sitting in the sweet spot, listening (not only hearing) to music. To me, for example some tracks from Buddha Bar are sounding really nice in stereo under 'good' stereo listening conditions (including sweet spot). But then, it's electronic music, artificial. A play with sounds. And with an artificial sound stage. During the past years I have figured out, that I like stereo listening most the less instruments are in play (vocal and 2 to 4 instruments). What I do reckon - it's mainly the 'quallity' of the recording and mastering which brings the listener as close as possible (which imo is still far away) to the sound field that has been produced by the environment when recording. For example, listen to Norah Jone's 'Little Room'. Or David Klein Quartett 'My Marylin. And 'Chanchullo' from Ruben Gonzáles. Then you might know what I mean. Listening to these records, not sitting in the sweet spot is not the same pleasure to me. In this case, 👍for me to stereo and seated-centered solo listening. I own some records from the fifties which are incredible to listen to, with a very good sound stage (I use a mono cartridge with a mono preamp, including a shorting plug for one input channel to get 'real mono'). Basically, I should use as well only one loudspeaker to have realreal mono. I have figured out that listening to mono recordings can be less tiring than listening to low quality stereo recordings (some jazz recordings from the beginning era of stereo recording). But for good stereo recordings, there should be no listening fatique per se. Basically, if in good health, I believe our brain is very well capable of processing that many information in question. Basically, I agree with your comments. I guess we need to live with some compromises when listening to music at home. Cheers! eagledriver
| ||||||||||||||||||
Basic fact: The speaker closest to you will always sound louder. Always...there is no technology from any speaker designers that will track where you are and adjust itself. Consequently, a stereo mix that's well done always sounds better from the middle...period. Sorry...alleged wide dispersion, tweeters on the back of the speaker, omni directional drivers, clearly incompetent drivers, etc., etc.,...uh, no. | ||||||||||||||||||
A musician/music lover friend who is deaf in one ear seemed to enjoy album listening sessions as much as I did. I suppose a true mono mix would have been better for him, akin to the OP’s comment, but I’m hooked on stereo. | ||||||||||||||||||
i’ve heard at least two different takes on getting a wide sweet spot. the first one was via Magnepan [the speaker company] with their Tympani III speakers, which due to sheer size, dominated the room [made the ears disregard any but the direct-radiator sound]. i have not heard any reproduced music with more sheer impact and clarity and REALISM, than from that megabuck maggie system. no matter where i sit or stood in the listening room [at Definitive Fifi in Seattle circa 1982] i heard the same basic stereo image WITH depth - but the Tympani speakers were the ONLY maggies i’ve heard that could do this trick. on the other hand, on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, i have a bose cinemate sr-1 sound bar [with bass bin] that uses a mixture of spraying direct/reflected sound to the room’s sides [get those shelves out of the way], and interaural crosstalk cancellation [in a manner similar to SRS] that achieves at least the same [perceived] general distribution/dispersion of sound that the maggies achieved [but NOT their depth]. with both systems, i could sit or stand just about anywhere in the room and get the same basic stereo image. these two systems both accomplish the goal of letting more than one person enjoy the best sound that each system could reproduce, without playing favorites with the center listener. if you were to compare the basic sound quality, the maggies win hands-down of course, they have much more direct radiating area, there is just more sound coming out of those things. the bass extended to the mid-20s very cleanly, the mids-trebles were neutral and very evenly reproduced, they live up to the greek root of "stereo" meaning "solid." OTOH the bose had usable response from the mid-30s [low volumes] up to about 16k or so, it was eq’ed fairly flat with a custom tuning for each room it is used in. in a smaller room it played plenty loud and clean. the bose unit will, for most people, be much more affordable, and offer a usable amount of the same large and uniform stereo image over much of the room, that the Tympanis offer. IMHO that is a pretty nifty trick from such a compact affordable system. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Post removed | ||||||||||||||||||
@johnk - Thanks for the interesting post and food for thought. Great breakthroughs in technology or other fields often come about through thinking outside the box like this. That being said, regarding listening fatigue caused by making the brain work harder to decode stereo, I think @zazouswing hit the nail on the head, "We have two ears..." Since we're "hard wired" for receiving sound in stereo, playing music in stereo does make a lot of sense. | ||||||||||||||||||
You neglect to mention one of the most wonderful things about stereophonic and surround sound -- its ability to literally immerse a listener in a field of sound. To construct a virtual (or highly fanciful) replica of the venue where the music was recorded -- whether the process was done naturally or by hook and by crook. In any event, when I lived in L.A. I'd take my acoustic guitar and fiddle to places like bars & pizza joints and jam with fellow musicians. We'd sit in a circle and play endlessly. Sometimes the establishment would give us free pizza & beer. Sometimes we'd get a few bucks from folks in the audience. Of course, we didn't deserve it, but we never threw anything back, either. Long story short, from our listening positions we enjoyed true 360* surround sound. From left to right to front to back. | ||||||||||||||||||
Multicell horns are used to reduce the level of early reflections in the listening space via tight control of their dispersion pattern. Most famously, the Altec 203B 'Long Throw' 2-Cell with a 20x40 degree pattern was 6dB hotter at 100 ft than other multicell with a 40X100 pattern. They had unmatched reach and clarity before distributed delay systems, but the same goal: improve the direct to reflected sound balance for improved speech intelligibility. What audiophiles call 'detail'. Same goal in the studio: more direct, less reverberant field. As for listening fatigue, sorting out the direct sound from the reverberant field would seem to be far more strenuous than listening in stereo. Suggest reading "The Language Game" by Christiansen And Chater, C. 2022 for a good description of how the brain parses the sound field for language purposes.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Stereo listening is certainly dated tech…mono even more so. I prefer stereo. Another dated tech I prefer is “constant directivity” which eliminates the narrow “sweet spot” listening.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Leonard Cohen also had something to say….. about… “ various positions “… i think if you look at control room speakers, or the cited singular multi cell speaker without context of what and where the engineer / artist / producer might be in the process…it would be easy to draw the wrong conclusion….. in general lay down the track, evaluate and tweak, add in other tracks, eventually mix down to ? | ||||||||||||||||||
