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In Reply to: RE: Why i think soundstage rendering is very important. posted by beppe61 on March 04, 2015 at 01:39:05
of interest primarily to audiophiles. When I am in a concert hall - and I am with some regularity - I hear neither the hyper detail, nor the specificity of instrumental placement that I do on audiophile sound systems.
I would even go so far as to say that it was the subjective review magazines that began touting this to the exclusion of tone and musical flow in the 1970s. And ultimately that influenced the design of many components. The tail has been wagging the dog.
But really, whoever is writing the check should buy exactly what they want and not pay attention to any pundits.
Follow Ups:
Hi and thanks for the very interesting advice.
My "feeling" that this 3D test tracks can tell a lot of things about a system.
I hear often of system transparency, resolution, dynamic contrast ...
i think that these tracks are an excellent tool to evaluate all these properties in just one go.
They are very telling about a system playback quality.
I am not saying of course that this track from Sheffiel Lab is the best around but it is a really damn good one (to mention its Creator).
Thanks again.
Kind regards,
bg
I first noticed the specific positioning of instruments in a Philadelphia Orchestra concert in the late 1950's as a teenager. I was sitting in row 3, center and was amazed at the specific imaging of all of the individual instruments and the size of the string sections, etc... This was a few years before I first heard stereo sound. Most recently at a live opera performance in a small house (The Barre Opera House) there was superb imaging of all the orchestral players as well as the singers. Of course, we had paid a premium for the best seats in the house.
There is no parlor trick if one listens to two channel recordings made in the classic Blumlein configuration, with the listener positioned with the classic 110 degree angle between speakers. Do not expect anything like this with studio recordings (which are indeed parlor tricks) or most multiple microphoned disasters with close-up microphones. These recordings can never deliver a realistic soundstage and are made this way so that junk playback systems will have clarity and so that incompetent microphone placement can be "fixed" in the mix after the expensive union musicians have departed.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
.
It's a FUN parlor trick and where it does not contribute to musical performance or content
it DOES enhance the listening PLAYBACK experience and works as a "shiny object" for
audiophiles to obsess over and go "Ahhhhh!".
I would imagine it gives mixing engineers a bit of fun to play with too, making their job of
sculpting sound a bit more interesting.
Hell, I don't know how many thousands of times I listened to the CuĂca on Santana's "Stone Flower"
with headphones on in the 70's, just focusing on its little conversational tale.
When I listen to that song now, I listen to the SONG.
I'd wager a serious percentage of people who have bought DSOTM have done so because
of its audio gymnastics.
Sound staging is fun and an important aspect of this hobby, but really it is more imperative to
movie entertainment than recorded music.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
"I think that it is a parlor trick inside a parlor trick........
of interest primarily to audiophiles. "
I agree.
I visited a local high-end store a few years ago to hear a new DAC. The $ 100 K system in use produced a huge soundstage in which Frank Sinatra was as large as an elephant. His voice was unrecognizable.
my blog: http://carsmusicandnature.blogspot.com/
I've been to live performances where the specific locations of individual performers in an ensemble could be easily pinpointed, even with my eyes closed. Additionally, I'm often able to pinpoint the sound of various individuals who are making noise in the same room I'm in - even if the room is large, crowded, and noisy. I can often pinpoint the sound of a bottle breaking on the same street I'm in, even when the street is crowded and busy. The frequency range of the sound has something to do with it's ability to be pinpointed, but in general my ears are pretty good at localizing many types of sound sources.In real life, "soundstaging" is dependent on the size and shape of the listening space, as well as on the number and placement of the sound sources within it. That said, real life imaging/soundstaging originating from a live source may not seem exactly like the imaging/soundstaging that originates from a recording via an ensemble of loudspeakers. I'd say that real life soundstaging is identifiable by a peculiar sort of density, as well as by the way it "blooms" or propagates in the air.
So, while real life soundstaging does exist, it often (but not always) exhibits some unique sonic traits that differentiate it from loudspeaker soundstaging.
Edits: 03/04/15
> ...nor the specificity of instrumental placement that I do on audiophile sound systems.>
But in the concert hall you can see them.
Imaging and soundstage reproduction at home takes the place of the things you can't see.
And good ones do it well.
do you go to a concert to see?
roger wang
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