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136.1.1.154
In Reply to: Re: A very thoughtful post, thank you, but let me quibble about "Box speakers RIP". posted by crutschow on March 21, 2007 at 11:20:45:
"Do you feel as if you could walk over and touch a particular instrument?"Let me get this straight. In an auditorium, complete with reflections, and a stage full of live instruments, you would be able to walk up blindfolded and zero in on a specific instrument?
I think in certain circumstances that you could get close. But with a stereo recording you should be able to do the same. The depth of the soundstage is one that I don't get. If I were to close my eyes sitting in front of an orchestra, I don't think I could tell whether or not the drums were in the front or rear of the other instruments.
Follow Ups:
"I don't think I could tell whether or not the drums were in the front or rear of the other instruments.
"Really? I don't find this to be so difficult...especially if I am sitting in the front third of the concert hall.
Remember, when orchestral recordings are made many of the instrument groups are close miked and then mixed as if you were sitting quite close to the orchestra. If you are in the first few rows it is quite easy to localize instruments as direct sound dominates.
I have an orchestral recording made with only a single stereo ribbon microphone and the sense of depth on this recording is like what I hear live when sitting in the middle of a good concert hall. Very realistic but a killer in terms of dynamics for most systems.
Describing the soundstage as being deep, or 3D makes little sense given how most music is produced. If I hear (no visual cues) a set of drums 100meters distant, and a piano 20meters distant, I could probably tell that the piano was closer. But that is not a real situation. Even sitting in the front third, the depth of the orchestra is going to be some fraction of the distance from the listener to the nearest performers. And that is orchestra music. What about rock, jazz, vocal/piano and most other themes? There is no real depth to the performers in a live performance (without the visual cues). Closing your eyes and imagining depth is a fantasy. And that is live music. What about studio recordings? Regardless of how it is mic'd, where is the depth of field?
In an auditorium or concert hall, it's hard to locate particular instruments exactly by sound. It gets easier as you get closer to the performers but listening in the far field where the reflected sound can easily dominate the direct sound destroys, or "muddies" the information we need for precise location. On the other hand, if you're in a normal sized room sitting around a table with a group of people, it's pretty easy to close your eyes and locate each one of them. You're in the near field, the direct sound dominates, and the task is easy because everything in the sound that acts as a cue for our brains to do the job is about as clear as those things are going to be.Being able to locate things by sound, the whole imaging and soundstage area of audio, works pretty much the same as it does in real life with one added requirement. There has to be something in the recorded sound to provide the cues, so we need to be able to hear the performer in at least 2 channels. If they're in one channel only, they localise at the speaker. Provided they are present in 2 channels, it's pretty easy to do the location thing if you're listening in the near field. It gets harder as you move further away, out of the near field and the reflcected sound from your room becomes more prominent. Whether or not the recording used a simple microphone setup to record all of the performers individually or individual microphones for each performer with individual performer tracks then fed to 2 or more channels to provide the location info also makes a difference. Simple microphone setups that record all of the performers in real space definitely do a better job in my view.
Many people complain that the imaging/soundstage they get with recordings is artificial but in many instances they like listening to live music from a seat in the far field where they can't locate individual performers and they're either listening in the near field, or close enough to it, at home to be able to do so. They could solve their problem at home quite easily by using a bigger room and simply sitting further away from their speakers but that usually isn't an option. Instead they complain about the recordings sounding 'artificial' or 'wrong' and simply don't realise that what they regard as a problem with recorded sound is simply an artifact of their particular listening setup.
Whether you can determine location by ear or not in a live performance, it is possible to duplicate that aspect of the live experience, if the recording has the necessary information, simply by using the appropriate speaker and listening position locations to preserve or mask the cues that allow us to determine location by sound.
David Aiken
c
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