What's wrong with stereo?

[Kal Rubinson]

So are you saying it is impossible to capture the event's ambient acoustic using stereo recording, and then generate that in the playback environment using stereo playback?

Not exactly. I am saying it is possible to capture some aspects of the event's ambient acoustic using stereo recording and generate it in the playback environment using stereo playback but with the loss of the directional content of that ambience. Anecdotally, I was listening to the Wispelway/Britten Cello Suites (Channel Classics CCS SA 17102) and comparing the stereo and MCH tracks. Granted, they both sounded excellent and I am not anti-stereo. However, by chance, I switched from MCH to stereo just as Wispelway lifted his bow on the last note and I heard the strangest thing: The decay of the sound ebbed and receded directly away from me rushing towards some point way behind the speakers. I repeated the experience in MCH and heard the same decay but, this time, as one would hear it in the hall, diffusing in all directions but with the focus remaining on the position of the instrument. Same ambience, different spatial distribution.

Said, because people say something is wrong with stereo because it doesn't create the sense of being at the event; and having experienced many people's systems I can see where that view comes from. What I said there, is what one has to do to overcome the hurdle of "just" using stero.

Of course, ambient cues are captured, room acoustics redistribute them and the human mind infers a lot. Nothing wrong with it.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Not exactly. I am saying it is possible to capture some aspects of the event's ambient acoustic using stereo recording and generate it in the playback environment using stereo playback but with the loss of the directional content of that ambience. Anecdotally, I was listening to the Wispelway/Britten Cello Suites (Channel Classics CCS SA 17102) and comparing the stereo and MCH tracks. Granted, they both sounded excellent and I am not anti-stereo. However, by chance, I switched from MCH to stereo just as Wispelway lifted his bow on the last note and I heard the strangest thing: The decay of the sound ebbed and receded directly away from me rushing towards some point way behind the speakers. I repeated the experience in MCH and heard the same decay but, this time, as one would hear it in the hall, diffusing in all directions but with the focus remaining on the position of the instrument. Same ambience, different spatial distribution.

Of course, ambient cues are captured, room acoustics redistribute them and the human mind infers a lot. Nothing wrong with it.

Kal: Did they use the same mikes for the stereo and multi-channel recordings?

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Kal: Did they use the same mikes for the stereo and multi-channel recordings?

AFAIK, yes. I believe that one set is used for both formats.

 

[MylesBAstor]

AFAIK, yes. I believe that one set is used for both formats.

And do you believe one set of/arrangements of mikes can support and give the best appraisal of each format? Or does it slant the results to one format or the other?

 

[NorthStar]

I think the question is: How can you recreate the illusion with only two loudspeakers?

After a well recorded music medium, perhaps two Omnipolars can do wonders.
I mean all around, not only front and back, but sideways too.

* Put a live Jazz band in your room.
Then try to fit a full Classical orchestra (79 musicians, plus the conductor).
Now, listen.

** Stereo is a restriction due to economic and other reasons outside the power of its inventors,
and with this handicap, and over years and years of hard labour and stubbornness, we've learned to improve few things, harbored others, and even more into believing the unbelievable.
But we are easily adaptable as the basis of our human race, and we're happy to live with all the good and all the bad as well. We go for the practicality of our zones of comfort. We fill our homes with families, a wife, children, and in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and now, we still, and we are stepping into multichannel with dedicated rooms, and even in our living rooms.
The year is 2012, and often it feels like 1966.
Stereo is still pleasant for most of us (majority); because we have learned to live with all its deficiencies.
Even the recordings are fabricated into that perception! That notion, that futile aspiration. No?

We've talked about three front speakers before (one in the middle); but ....

Sorry Myles and Kal for being in the middle of your discussion.
...Just jump over me (I just replied to the first original post of this thread; I was highly attracted by the title).

 

[ALF]

It works...

Smoke and Mirrors...

along with a little help from a confirmation bias

Happy Listening!

 

[RogerD]

I think the question is: How can you recreate the illusion with only two loudspeakers?

After a well recorded music medium, perhaps two Omnipolars can do wonders.
I mean all around, not only front and back, but sideways too.

* Put a live Jazz band in your room.
Then try to fit a full Classical orchestra (79 musicians, plus the conductor).
Now, listen.

** Stereo is a restriction due to economic and other reasons outside the power of its inventors,
and with this handicap, and over years and years of hard labour and stubbornness, we've learned to improve few things, harbored others, and even more into believing the unbelievable.
But we are easily adaptable as the basis of our human race, and we're happy to live with all the good and all the bad as well. We go for the practicality of our zones of comfort. We fill our homes with families, a wife, children, and in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and now, we still, and we are stepping into multichannel with dedicated rooms, and even in our living rooms.
The year is 2012, and often it feels like 1966.
Stereo is still pleasant for most of us (majority); because we have learned to live with all its deficiencies.
Even the recordings are fabricated into that perception! That notion, that futile aspiration. No?

We've talked about three front speakers before (one in the middle); but ....

Sorry Myles and Kal for being in the middle of your discussion.
...Just jump over me (I just replied to the first original post of this thread; I was highly attracted by the title).

Like I have with 2 main speakers and 2 L&R speakers above and behind,using a passive circuit similiar to the David hafler design. The sound stage is enhanced and time and phase relationships are improved. The major problem with stereo is that most audiophiles are unaware that stereo can be enhanced easily and cheaply. I think there is a pretty strong bias that prevents people from doing something like this. I call it the gimmick effect,and it's not really a gimmick it's just a different way of addressing the faults of the listening room.

 

[NorthStar]

Roger, I am so glad to see you. I know that you are a sensitive person,
and I also know that you are a Music explorer.
Your system setup demands more exploration,
as I believe you are ahead of most other members here (in some Stereo aspects of course).

Roger, please, I would love that you share your Stereo system setup in more details.
I only saw few pictures before (mainly the front).
You have a lot to bring to the table, and I invite you to "approfondir" your searches and efforts and solutions that you discovered over the years.

Like Myles who loves R2R tapes (and yourself as well), and Kal's extensive experience in Stereo over the years,you three guys have so much to contribute and share with us.
Plus Ethan's feedback on other aspects of Stereo reproduction.
And a bunch more of other members ...

This is a great thread's subject, and here we have the members with a high caliber of knowledge, experience, and intelligence to further up our education. Our OP (Greg) asked the right questions, smart questions.
And the main thing here that keeps me around (I wanted to quit so many times before), is the intelligence level and the incredible amount of years of experience among the expert members and regular members.

There is a high caliber of bodies, minds and souls here; and that is the main essence to continue the pursuit of sound happiness. Some of the discussions I've read are highly motivating and invigorating at encouraging others in their goals and life's aspirations.

And remember; the best discussions are always lively, sometimes controversial, and with different ideas and opinions. Respect is always the key. And we are simply mature enough that we are already beyond that point. We understand each other. Because we want to go much further than what we just know and believe ...

 

[DonH50]

Disclaimer: I have extremely limited experience, exposure to, and knowledge of current multichannel recording for ambience (vs. typical multitracking/multichannel recording and reduction to a stereo mix).

In the early days of "surround sound" additional "ambience" mics were used in the hall to capture the delayed sound as modified by the hall. These would become the rear or surround channels. The ambience channels were often (again IME) added to the stereo mix, at much lower level, to provide a bit more deoth to the sound stage, but the effect from a stereo mix and surround mix using stereo or surround systems was quite different. Sort of like the stereo mix would give you you the feeling of the hall in front of you and a sense of space in the sound stage, and to some extent "around" you with contributions from your room, while the surround mix would actually put you "in" the hall during playback.

Again, my experience is old and foggy, but I suspect the mics used and almost certainly the final mix is much different for stereo vs. multichannel recordings.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

And do you believe one set of/arrangements of mikes can support and give the best appraisal of each format? Or does it slant the results to one format or the other?

Sure, it can slant the results but it need not. Still, in this case, the stereo was superb and I would not criticize it. The point of my story is not that the stereo track was inferior, else that fortuitous manouever would not have surprised me. It only served to let me experience something that one would have predicted: The longer decay time of the performance space would come from the source since the listening room, with its different acoustic and shorter decay time, would not contribute to it. Thus, as the sound of the stereo source decayed there would proportionally less "surround" ambiance.

BTW, I love stereo, lest anyone think otherwise, and I would not have asked the question that titles this thread. I got in, however, in response to Frank's post which seemed to blow off the contribution of room acoustics. Now, there are people who listen only for tonal purity, others who listen for detail, others for soundstage, etc. I would like to think that I am relatively unbiased among these but, it must be admitted, I am probably more sensitive to image and soundstage than I am to absolute tonal purity, unless I am consciously attending to it. Nonetheless, all of these, and other features, are greatly affected by room acoustics regardless of the number of channels but, depending on one's primary goal, one might choose differently.

 

[DonH50]

Hard to make your 15' x 18' (or whatever) room sound like the concert hall without some help...

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Hard to make your 15' x 18' (or whatever) room sound like the concert hall without some help...

It is hard to make almost any domestic room sound like a concert hall.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I wonder if , and provided you had the proper amplification, you could make a stereo setup sound like a concert hall...in a concert hall?

 

[Gregadd]

Hey Micro, we found common ground on this one.

Greg, well, I never thought you would start a thread like this but I think we are all coming together on better understanding of what we have been listening to for ages. My views on this subject are known, and my signature line now better reflects where I am coming from vs stereo.

Tom

Tom

Tom the title thread is of course rhetorical. I of course beleive stating the obvious "stereo is not perfect" does not give us license to abandon it or tinkle with it however we please. However the input of you and others regarding what it does it right and wrong is productive.

 

[NorthStar]

Hard to make your 15' x 18' (or whatever) room sound like the concert hall without some help...

DSPs? :b

 

[DonH50]

I wonder if , and provided you had the proper amplification, you could make a stereo setup sound like a concert hall...in a concert hall?

Been done, in the primordial past. In general "no"... Hard to put two speakers at the mic spots and provide the same sound as a jazz combo and a full orchestra on the same stage. It is two very different things, production and reproduction. Not sure such an experiment is really meaningful. At some point you have to just listen past the system, at least IMO/IME/whatever.


Bob/Northstar: DSPs, multichannel, Sound in the Round(TM), it's all about providing the original ambience information from the recording in the hall and taking your room out of the picture.

 

[Gregadd]

Smoke and Mirrors...

along with a little help from a confirmation bias

Happy Listening!

Certainly some slight of hand is involved.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Been done, in the primordial past. In general "no"... Hard to put two speakers at the mic spots and provide the same sound as a jazz combo and a full orchestra on the same stage. It is two very different things, production and reproduction. Not sure such an experiment is really meaningful. At some point you have to just listen past the system, at least IMO/IME/whatever.

The question was kinda tongue-in-cheek, and I understand what you are saying. No matter how good one's room and gear we can never come close with electronics in re-creating a concert-Hall feel. I will go so far as to say it can be done with small-venue recordings, or at least a pretty good representation of it.

 

[Gregadd]

Wow! Flies in the face of everything I know that I need for musical experience, especially harmonic balance and soundstage. The worst systems I have every heard were the product of lousy rooms, not lousy equipment.

Kal (who had dinner with Ethan last night)

Most us place new equipment in the same room and note the improvement. For me tonality is more important. Then again I used to think midrange was more important than bass. Maybe if I paid more attention to room treatment, I might value it more.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Most us place new equipment in the same room and note the improvement. For me tonality is more important. Then again I used to think midrange was more important than bass. Maybe if I paid more attention to room treatment, I might value it more.

Sure. Equipment selection and setup are not trivial. What bugs me are people who are very perspicacious about that but trivialize the room acoustics.