|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
67.171.193.240
In Reply to: For those of you who prefer two channel. . . posted by Chris from Lafayette on January 1, 2007 at 23:06:40:
"When you're at a live concert, is all of the applause entirely in front of you, or is some or most of it behind you?"Depends on where I sit, though I've never gone to a concert or jazz club to listen to the applause. I'd note, too, that having spectatored rehearsals as well as the actual performances, the latter always sound somewhat different, the result of having the warm-body room treatment of a capacity live audience installed in the performance venue. By far the vast majority of the recordings I listen to haven't been performed before a live audience, so unless the producer and engineer have inserted something to simulate one, what I hear in those recordings won't sound like what I hear in a live performance from my tenth-, fifteenth-, or twentieth-row seat, anyway.
"Do you really feel you can hear the back of the recorded space (club, auditorium, concert hall, or whatever) with only your two front channels?"
Depends on the recording--and to no small degree on speaker placement and room acoustics, particularly its diffusive envelope, something I've spent some time fine-tuning in my more or less dedicated listening space. Altering that envelope will indeed induce "collapse" into the speaker plane and behind it, but with proper positioning the sonic presentation blooms into the room, achieves non-window, spatial-cue ambience--and in some cases (again, recording-dependent) moves the applause in a live-performance recording forward of the speaker plane.
So you're right--the mileage varies.
Follow Ups:
"When you're at a live concert, is all of the applause entirely in front of you, or is some or most of it behind you?"Depends on where I sit, though I've never gone to a concert or jazz club to listen to the applause. I'd note, too, that having spectatored rehearsals as well as the actual performances, the latter always sound somewhat different, the result of having the warm-body room treatment of a capacity live audience installed in the performance venue. By far the vast majority of the recordings I listen to haven't been performed before a live audience, so unless the producer and engineer have inserted something to simulate one, what I hear in those recordings won't sound like what I hear in a live performance from my tenth-, fifteenth-, or twentieth-row seat, anyway.
I don’t go to concerts to listen to applause either, but the point of my question is that, in a live-music situation, the listener has an acoustic space behind him (where some or most of the applause comes from, depending on where he’s sitting), and even if there’s no actual applause originating from that space, I believe this space holds some not insignificant components (e.g., spatial cues) of what makes live music sound live. When the sound of this space behind the listener is replaced by the walls of one’s listening room, or is transferred via the recording process to sound which originates in front of you, I’d guess that the chances of one’s home playback environment to provide an accurate image (which correctly positions all the audible real estate of the actual recorded space, including the space behind the listener – where the applause often emanates) is a bit reduced.
"Do you really feel you can hear the back of the recorded space (club, auditorium, concert hall, or whatever) with only your two front channels?"
Depends on the recording--and to no small degree on speaker placement and room acoustics, particularly its diffusive envelope, something I've spent some time fine-tuning in my more or less dedicated listening space. Altering that envelope will indeed induce "collapse" into the speaker plane and behind it, but with proper positioning the sonic presentation blooms into the room, achieves non-window, spatial-cue ambience--and in some cases (again, recording-dependent) moves the applause in a live-performance recording forward of the speaker plane.
I hear you, and I appreciate that the sound from two speakers can be perceived forward of the speaker plane. (I’ve had that experience too with, as you say, the right kind of recording.) But does even a properly placed two-channel system in a dedicated room move the applause so far forward that it mimics the original recorded space behind you as well as in front of you? That’s one phenomenon I have not experienced. Mind you, I’m not saying that it can’t be done with two channels, only that I’ve never experienced it myself.
Audibly so (in properly reared systems, anyway), and here are just a few examples:Maurice Jarre's theme for "Grand Prix", spiced up with Brad Miller-recorded race cars looping the entire room in "More Than Music: The Mystic Moods Orchestra" (a MoFi reissue of Bainbridge LP BT 6201, OOP). This recording was a staple of four-channel demos in a series of two-FM-station (K101 and KDFC) simulcasts of quad program back in the '70's in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hearing the cars whiz around them while listening to the two-channel LP has caused more than one visitor to ask if my tube traps (especially the ones behind them) were speakers.
Sergei Prokofiev's "Chout" (Walter Susskind cond. the London Symphony, Everest CD EVC 9019). Produced and engineered by Bert Whyte in 1958, this recording produces a believable illusion of a large concert hall acoustic that extends behind the listener. I hear a similar effect with the Whyte-produced Tchaikovsky "Francesca da Rimini" (Stokowski cond. the "Stadium Symphony Orchestra of New York" [the NY Phil], Everest CD 9037) and in Steve Hoffman's remastered LP version. "Similar," not "identical", because the former was recorded in London's Walthamstow, the latter in Manhattan Center, suggesting that the difference in ambient spatial cue perception is less a reflection of listening room acoustics than what's embedded in the recording itself. And I haven't even mentioned the so-called "Spatializer" recordings or others that employ gimmickry to achieve a spatial illusion.
Which brings up a point raised by your comment "when the sound behind the listener is replaced by the walls of one's listening room". I believe the assumption of some is that the walls aren't in play with a multichannel system. But walls (and other room appurtenances) are still a factor, since even multichannel doesn't function in a vacuum and has to contend with room acoustics--a point demonstrated when I salted a friend's quality-system MCH listening room with a just a couple of traps that imparted more definition to the acoustic space.
Jim – Thanks for your thoughtful responses! I can't resist commenting on your first sentence however:Audibly so (in properly reared systems, anyway). . .
No pun intended, I assume? (Properly reared systems?) Anyway, on to the the substance of your post:
. . . the difference in ambient spatial cue perception is less a reflection of listening room acoustics than what's embedded in the recording itself.
I couldn’t agree more! Of the recordings you cited, I have only the Stokowski/Francesca. It’s a fabulous recording, and you certainly can hear how Manhattan Center contributes toward the overall sound. But even here, I just don’t hear the “behind sound” from behind. (And even if this recording should be released in the current series of Everest HDAD/DVD-Audio releases from Classic Records – with the 24/96 three-channel option – I still won’t be expecting to hear that rear information, because all three channels will still be in front of me.)
Which brings up a point raised by your comment "when the sound behind the listener is replaced by the walls of one's listening room". I believe the assumption of some is that the walls aren't in play with a multichannel system. But walls (and other room appurtenances) are still a factor, since even multichannel doesn't function in a vacuum and has to contend with room acoustics--a point demonstrated when I salted a friend's quality-system MCH listening room with a just a couple of traps that imparted more definition to the acoustic space.
I don’t disagree here either. Certainly, walls and the items in the room affect our perception of the sound. So you’re right: multi-channel has to contend with room acoustics too. But in general, I find multichannel more forgiving of room acoustics. (And I know there may be some listeners here who disagree with me about this.)
Finally, if you get the chance, try to hear the recording of Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang Symphony on the Nishimura label (DVD-Audio and possibly only available in Japan at the moment). Recorded with five omnidirectional microphones, it’s the nearest approximation to live I’ve heard in my own home, even though the resolution is only 24/48.
It's how I play the game.Like so many other things in life, you won't know what you have with "behind" sound until you've lost it. You'll certainly notice its absence, for example, if you shut off the rear channels while playing a well-recorded four-or-five-channel disc with subtly-encoded (i.e., more or less natural) rear ambience. The same is true here if I alter the diffusive envelope by removing or simply changing the orientation of a few "behind" traps.
The Wild/Fiedler Gershwin RCA SACD three-to-two mixdown is a (one of several) case in point. The Mohr-Layton (Rhapsody, American in Paris) and Delheim-Salvatore (Concerto, Cuban Overture, I Got Rhythm Variations) productions differ from each other in their soundstage signatures (mike selection? placement? mixing decisions?), but in each instance they project "outward" to the extent that altering the diffusive envelope behind me (e.g., by orienting one or more traps to absorb head-on rather than randomly reflect the output) will collapse the presentation.
With this recording (and with the Francesca), it would be interesting to know what you'd hear if you moved your rear speakers completely out of the way. I'm not suggesting that you schlep them around, especially if they're hefty floor-standers, but in a previous incarnation I learned early on that dormant speakers behind the listening position--larger ones in particular--had a tendency to create a degree of suckout or otherwise affect what was heard from the listening chair.
More important than any of this, though: I'd like to see someone pick up the Everest ball and release some more of that fine catalog on SACD.
Cheers,
I have followed your approach to room treatment with some interest.I wonder if, with your careful attention to detail in optimizing your room for 2 channel playback, you have duplicated what I get with MCH. One of these days we may talk you into MCH. If we do, when you do similar optimization for MCH, it should sound truly spectacular.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: