I did, but my system was set up inferior to how it is today so I really can't say. I use a 4K receiver now, so I can no longer use my miniDSP HDMI to add delay to specific channels.
Up until a month ago, I had the 'ambience speakers' (atop the stereo mains, pointed towards the front wall) hooked up as surround channels and ran Dolby Pro Logic IIz in movie mode (movie mode delays the surround channels, music mode does not)
Now I have a 4K receiver so Pro Logic has been replaced with Dolby Surround. I do the same thing but the front ambience speakers are set to 'front height' because I use proper surrounds now. I've set all channels to the PIR curve and reduced the output of the surrounds (DS sets them too high)
I endorse Toole when he says that straight stereo sounds a bit antiquated now. Up-mixed surround sounds better on >90% of my daily music listening. The secret is still having proper waveguides in front, so that the imaging doesn't suffer, and the delayed surrounds add spaciousness, and possibly help imaging. Audyssey XT32 was also a game changer. And of course multiple subs to even out the bass.
Excellent imaging in my room is probably aided by best design practices as well, which include minimal diffraction. As seen in the picture below, save for some dumbbells on the floor, there is nothing between the stereo mains and the listening position.
ps. That wall becomes a 4K 110" screen when the projector is on. Soon there will be a minimum diffraction diy screen with a proper center channel behind it as well.
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Up-mixed surround may sound better, subjectively. But it seems very hard, if not impossible to mimic the original recording location, especially with a stereo-mix.
A delayed, close-mic recorded piano or violin played through surround channels isn't the same as the reverberant field of the original location (at all).
A delayed, close-mic recorded piano or violin played through surround channels isn't the same as the reverberant field of the original location (at all).
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It all comes back to expectation. If we want to create the sound of a real venue, that is one thing, but if we want to recreate the stereo recordings made in a studio, that is another thing. Clearly Toole and Greisinger want to create the ambiance of a large venue. Hence, that is what they look for and design too and rate everything against. Stereo is a failing in this regard. But if stereo was the arts intent then we have a different set of objectives. I don't think that you can have it both ways.
Don't you think there's a bit of a middle ground? Live venues don't have much for imaging, but at home, if one controls the early reflections then you can preserve the studio imaging, while expanding 'immersion' and 'spaciousness' with delayed reflections.
It's not the 'bring the band into your room' or 'bring yourself into the studio' dichotomy. Because bringing the band into the room with a setup like Toole's listening room (pictured below) doesn't work for studio music, early reflections like crazy. But bringing yourself into the studio, with a pair of 90 degree waveguides may not do the trick either in terms of immersing yourself into the original recording.
I've admittedly only been in two studios, they looked like most other studios I've seen photos of, and I wasn't hugely impressed. I really think my listening room sounds better. Sometimes when I see what some studios look like I wonder how they get decent mixes out of them at all.
A lot of Micheal Jackson's best was mixed on a pair of Auratones, sitting atop a console... They were enough to get a good mix, but I'm confident that the same tracks are rendered with a much better holographic illusion in my listening room.
Would certainly be interesting if you could give the front stage ambience speakers a try one of these days and report back with your impression. I know your system's most recent iteration was a bit of a pain to set up as it is though.
It's not the 'bring the band into your room' or 'bring yourself into the studio' dichotomy. Because bringing the band into the room with a setup like Toole's listening room (pictured below) doesn't work for studio music, early reflections like crazy. But bringing yourself into the studio, with a pair of 90 degree waveguides may not do the trick either in terms of immersing yourself into the original recording.
I've admittedly only been in two studios, they looked like most other studios I've seen photos of, and I wasn't hugely impressed. I really think my listening room sounds better. Sometimes when I see what some studios look like I wonder how they get decent mixes out of them at all.
A lot of Micheal Jackson's best was mixed on a pair of Auratones, sitting atop a console... They were enough to get a good mix, but I'm confident that the same tracks are rendered with a much better holographic illusion in my listening room.
Would certainly be interesting if you could give the front stage ambience speakers a try one of these days and report back with your impression. I know your system's most recent iteration was a bit of a pain to set up as it is though.
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Thanks. This graph is probably the closest to what I'd like to know -
Hmm. None of the curves is something I would especially strive for. The omni setting seems just crazy. Doesn't this loudspeaker sound best in the narrow mode anyway?
(Must admit, I've never heard these.)
When I built my 2nd Unity Horn, I scrapped the project after a couple of weeks. Basically they had a habit of making my recordings sound bad.
Because I listen to a lot of punk and Indie rock and 80s music, and all of it is recorded terribly.
So when you listen to that music on directional speakers, it basically sounds mono.
That's the beauty of the Beolab 90: you can use the narrow setting for high quality recordings and the wide or omni setting for crummy recordings.
Sure there is a middle ground if you want to compromise each end. But Toole et. al. don't do that. They try and achieve optimum at one end and ignore the other. Admittedly, I am the same way, but at the other end. All I ask is that we understand that there are two ends and that we are clear on which one we are trying to achieve.
Modifications to my system are never going to happen. It's just not what I do now and I am more than content with what I have. I have never liked "modifications" to stereo, like surround, etc. It just all sounds so phony to me.
Not everything, but most of it.
Another, older example of a highly relevant album from a historical perspective, that was recorded pitifully poorly, is this one:
Last year I went to a club where a dj couple played lots of 80's and 90's indie/alternative/hiphop/world music through four Danley SH50s and two Danley TH118 subs.
Hiphop sounded remarkably good as did most electronic music (Kraftwerk a.o.), but rock - and band music in general - did indeed sound like mono. There was a lack of "air" and the music seemed to emerge from 4 tunnels.
This is my experience as well.
That said, immersive audio is going to stay and can work wonders, not only for cinema sound (effects) but also for music in general.
I especially like the spatial/panning/reverb plugins for electronic music. Unfortunately, most clubs don't support multichannel sound yet.
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I've experimented with upmixing a bit, but I haven't used any of the commercially available upmixers... Originally, I was using a passive matrix (l-r, basically) with added delays and frequency contouring (similar to what user wesayso uses), but I found that this wasn't completely satisfactory. Some recordings sounded better and others worse. After a while of playing with it, I went back to plain stereo.
More recently, I've been working on an active (steered) matrix based on the ideas behind the Logic7 algorithm. I don't have a center channel, so it's 2 to 4 channel (2 fronts at ±30°, 2 surrounds at ~±110°). The front channels are almost completely left alone (just a bit of directional boost under strong steering). So far, I'm pretty pleased with the results, but I guess time well tell whether I eventually grow tired of it
. In my opinion, it consistently sounds better than plain stereo and I don't feel that it sounds "phony". Of course, I'm undoubtedly biased, so maybe I'm just fooling myself.
More recently, I've been working on an active (steered) matrix based on the ideas behind the Logic7 algorithm. I don't have a center channel, so it's 2 to 4 channel (2 fronts at ±30°, 2 surrounds at ~±110°). The front channels are almost completely left alone (just a bit of directional boost under strong steering). So far, I'm pretty pleased with the results, but I guess time well tell whether I eventually grow tired of it
. In my opinion, it consistently sounds better than plain stereo and I don't feel that it sounds "phony". Of course, I'm undoubtedly biased, so maybe I'm just fooling myself.
Makes perfect sense when one understands that on one end, we are listening to a form of music which predates any sort of consideration regarding a fixed performance being reproducible and on the other, a form of music crafted in a virtual environment with no pretenses beyond a pair of monitors/headphones.
bmc0, such a simple setup is what I'd use.
4 individual channels, 2 x front (mains), operating in stereo and the other 2 for additional "ambiance" (3D, reverb) effects.
With the appropriate processing this could even be a substitute for Auro-3D, Dolby Atmos, or DTS:X. Unless you're picky.
4 individual channels, 2 x front (mains), operating in stereo and the other 2 for additional "ambiance" (3D, reverb) effects.
With the appropriate processing this could even be a substitute for Auro-3D, Dolby Atmos, or DTS:X. Unless you're picky.
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I've experimented with upmixing a bit, but I haven't used any of the commercially available upmixers... Originally, I was using a passive matrix (l-r, basically) with added delays and frequency contouring (similar to what user wesayso uses), but I found that this wasn't completely satisfactory. Some recordings sounded better and others worse. After a while of playing with it, I went back to plain stereo.
More recently, I've been working on an active (steered) matrix based on the ideas behind the Logic7 algorithm. I don't have a center channel, so it's 2 to 4 channel (2 fronts at ±30°, 2 surrounds at ~±110°). The front channels are almost completely left alone (just a bit of directional boost under strong steering). So far, I'm pretty pleased with the results, but I guess time well tell whether I eventually grow tired of it
I'm interested to find out more about what you use. Could you describe what you are using?
My own virtual ambiance scheme has moved past the simple L-R to something a little more elaborate, including some reverb as designed by Lexicon, but I'm always interested to try other things.
If I may say so, for me it hasn't negatively affected imaging, in fact, it enhances the placement and imaging within the stereo source. It doesn't attract attention to itself and with an initial time gap of about 17 ms (still within the Haas limit), plus the band passed nature it doesn't detract from imaging in Studio material. To achieve this the real room queues have been absorbed or avoided to be replaced with these virtually generated queues. One key point is that the added queues are properly decorrelated from the source material.
While real room queues seem to cover each song with a similar sauce, this recipe I use changes based on the material within the song.
Before finding my current specifics I've played with using FIR files of real rooms. That too paints a picture like the real room queues. The same sauce is added to each song. That gets old quickly.
For me it started with the question: what to do if your own room isn't that great (or big).
Maybe we should start a thread about it? Not to clutter this one...
@bmc0 Or we could continue this talk on my thread, as it is full of this kind of stuff anyway.
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Hi Ro808,
Yes, i've also heard the "4 tunnel sound" on some tracks, from the same 4 speakers that could sound very immersive on other tracks. (Had a big 5.1 setup for a while.)
I like your description… 4-tunnels...
It's very weird how it's so music-type and track dependent.
Yep, does seem that immersive sound is here to stay. Will be interesting to see if, and then how far down, it pushes into the home.
I'd say it's just another surround sound setup, but it's clear that it's taking things to a new level.
At last infocomm in Orlando, almost every major speaker manufacturer was touting immersive sound in the demo rooms.
In this short Meyer Spacemap promo vid, the lady singer walked around inside the entire audience area, with her singing sounding like it was coming from her where ever she was.
I don't know how much of the audience area heard the same phenomenon, but from the look on peoples' faces it surely worked for a good portion of it. Spacemap LIVE Preview | Meyer Sound
The Astral Spatial demo was in partnership with Alcons. Astro Spatial Audio | Creativity Through Simplicity
Better technical info in this promo.
Crazy the special effects and also the natural sound capability at their infocomm setup
(Oh, if there's any driver that might move me away from CD's on horns, it could be the Alcon ribbons. They won't sell the drivers individually
)