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Pin point imaging isn't for everyone

A subject my posts touch on often is whether pin point imaging is desirable, or natural. While thinking about wide-baffle speakers in another thread I came across this quote, courtesy of Troels Graveson’s DIY speaker site. He quotes famous speaker designer Roy Allison:

I had emphasized dispersion in order to re-create as best as I could the performance-hall ambiance. I don’t want to put up with a sweet spot, and I’d rather have a less dramatically precise imaging with a close simulation of what you hear in a concert hall in terms of envelopment. For that, you need reverberant energy broadcast at very wide angles from the loudspeaker, so the bulk of energy has to do multiple reflections before reaching your ear. I think pin-point imaging has to do with synthetically generated music, not acoustic music - except perhaps for a solo instrument or a solo voice, where you might want fairly sharp localization. For envelopment, you need widespread energy generation.


You can read Troel’s entire post here:

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Acapella_WB.htm

This goes, kind of, with my points before, that you can tweak the frequency response of a speaker, and sometimes cables, to get better imaging, but you are going significantly far from neutral to do so. Older Wilson’s were famous, and had a convenient dip around 2.4 kHz.
erik_squires

Showing 4 responses by mapman

mapman's avatar
mapman
22,574 posts
 
Sweating size of intruments in a recording is a noble effort but practically a waste of time since what you hear is more about how things were recorded than how big the intrument is/was.  

Not that practicality ever stands in the way of a dedicated audiophile.   Carry on.......  
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,574 posts
 
Ill go along with "precise" imaging.  Just not "pinpoint".    But if people use the term I know what they mean so not a problem practically, just not an appropriately  descriptive term. 
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,574 posts
 
Can’t say I’ve ever heard pinpoint imaging anywhere including with countless live performances or very good mega systems I’ve heard over the years.

Realistic sounding  imaging and soundstage, yes all the time, No problem.

Any example of pinpoint imaging that occurs either in real life or in any studio recording will suffice. My take is the term is merely hyperbole. Now what vendor in his right mind would ever resort to that?

Closest perhaps is my setup in the basement with a good quality mono recording. Not pinpoint but highly focused and detailed with ambience, like if live. Also it moves to the left as you move to the right and vice versa as it might if the performers were standing there live as you move around. Can anyone guess what the speakers I use to manage this are? Most will not have a prayer reproducing this trick no mattter the cost though there are some that can, perhaps even better.


mapman's avatar
mapman
22,574 posts
 
Can anyone even cite an example of "pinpoint" imaging with sound?  Can' t say I have ever heard that.  
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