Stereophile's Jim Austin Says Streaming Atmos Sucks

[mhardy6647]

PWK's commentary on quad, but specifically matrixed (?) quad on LP, from the same issue of Dope from Hope referenced above:

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Cover of a Klipsch brochure I picked up at Myer-EMCO (now defunct) in the DC suburbs ca. 1975 (but originally prepared, I believe, in the early 1970s).
Col. Klipsch was a big fan of the use of a derived center channel (see below) for domestic stereo, as shown on this brochure.

Conveniently placed in the middle of a large doorway, I see.

 

[Blumlein 88]

It’s a fad, just like 3D tv’s.

Been around far too long to be a fad. It has a stable though niche market.

 

[Ken1951]

Cover of a Klipsch brochure I picked up at Myer-EMCO (now defunct) in the DC suburbs ca. 1975 (but originally prepared, I believe, in the early 1970s).
Col. Klipsch was a big fan of the use of a derived center channel (see below) for domestic stereo, as shown on this brochure.
To give a sense of scale, the 'center fill' is provided by a Klipsch Cornwall.


EDIT: or, from a 2-ch preamp...



The diagrams are taken from one of Klipsch's Dope from Hope newsletters, don't know exactly which one offhand.
EDIT: Vol. 14, No. 4, July 1974.

I worked for a Myer-Emco competitor from 1973 - 1976. Later on I bought a pair of Magnepans from M-E sometime around 1988 or so.

 

[fuzzychaos]

Been around far too long to be a fad. It has a stable though niche market.

Perhaps I should have used niche. I personally don’t think it will get beyond being niche though.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Perhaps I should have used niche. I personally don’t think it will get beyond being niche though.

I don't either. I think the main issue will always be that you need to have so many speakers the system is all over the room. People can tolerate two channel usurping part of a wall or one wall much more readily than having to dedicate the whole room for it. Not to mention headphone listening's greater popularity. In fact by my informal knowledge, stereo itself has decreased in popularity as a system. People have a big TV and a soundbar far more often.

When I've recorded musicians, sending them resulting recordings ended up being for them to listen in their vehicle, over phones/laptops and that is it. Only two persons had a stereo set of speakers. I've wanted to do multi-channel recordings, but really there is no point.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I don't either. I think the main issue will always be that you need to have so many speakers the system is all over the room. People can tolerate two channel usurping part of a wall or one wall much more readily than having to dedicate the whole room for it. Not to mention headphone listening's greater popularity. In fact by my informal knowledge, stereo itself has decreased in popularity as a system. People have a big TV and a soundbar far more often.

When I've recorded musicians, sending them resulting recordings ended up being for them to listen in their vehicle, over phones/laptops and that is it. Only two persons had a stereo set of speakers. I've wanted to do multi-channel recordings, but really there is no point.

Says a lot about the “artist’s’ intentions” and “what the artists heard” axiom in audio.

 

[Chrispy]

Says a lot about the “artist’s’ intentions” and “what the artists heard” axiom in audio.

How many artists are actually involved in the whole production, tho? Intentions is usually a better descriptor as to limitations?

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

How many artists are actually involved in the whole production, tho? Intentions is usually a better descriptor as to limitations?

Hard to say. That’s the thing. Unless an artist is publicly explicit about their intentions we just don’t know.

And in the cases of artists passing judgement using earbuds and iPhones or their car stereo I definitely don’t care what their intentions were.

 

[Chrispy]

Hard to say. That’s the thing. Unless an artist is publicly explicit about their intentions we just don’t know.

And in the cases of artists passing judgement using earbuds and iPhones or their car stereo I definitely don’t care what their intentions were.

I think in most cases they're going with a label or production team guidance rather than their own actual experience/expertise......but it is still important for commercial audio distribution to take into account more than those with the best reproduction systems/experience.

 

[Sancus]

An interesting twist to this is that apparently (I have not tried this) the BACCH SP can take a Dolby Atmos mix and accurately recreate the imaging through 2 channels.

Well the Smyth Realiser has been able to do this with headphones very well for a long time so it seems fairly obvious that you can do the same thing with stereo speakers.

That said this functionality actually just seems worse than doing it on headphones to me, which is more convenient. Biggest problem with both of these systems is just the cost is astronomical for what they're providing. Needs to come down by 20x to reach a wider audience - without losing the head tracking.

I hope that eventually Apple's headphone spatializer eventually reaches similar levels of capability, there's no technical reason it couldn't, at least.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Well the Smyth Realiser has been able to do this with headphones very well for a long time so it seems fairly obvious that you can do the same thing with stereo speakers.

That said this functionality actually just seems worse than doing it on headphones to me, which is more convenient. Biggest problem with both of these systems is just the cost is astronomical for what they're providing. Needs to come down by 20x to reach a wider audience - without losing the head tracking.

I hope that eventually Apple's headphone spatializer eventually reaches similar levels of capability, there's no technical reason it couldn't, at least.

When they make headphones that allow you to feel a bass transient in your chest it may be a substitute for a speaker based system

 

[Chrispy]

When they make headphones that allow you to feel a bass transient in your chest it may be a substitute for a speaker based system

That can be done. I can't imagine using headphones myself, tho....don't like them.

 

[Sancus]

When they make headphones that allow you to feel a bass transient in your chest it may be a substitute for a speaker based system

"People with speakers that can do that" is a very tiny niche-within-a-niche though, even smaller than actual multichannel systems. The benefit of those technologies is they make surround more accessible(which means more effort will go into producing good mixes for it) and headphones are a lot more accessible than huge speakers or even small ones.

 

[Blumlein 88]

How many artists are actually involved in the whole production, tho? Intentions is usually a better descriptor as to limitations?

There is this myth that you are hearing what the artists heard is good. In minimalist recordings this myth is you'll hear what the audience heard. Yet the artists don't know what they audience heard. They were in amongst other musicians. In more artificial recordings they hear what it all sounded like over some studio gear and may have intentions. What artists hear is there own performance, how they played, was it slow or fast, was it clean, was there a mistake, it fit with what the other musicians were doing. All important, but well detached from any fidelity concern. If the most basic levels of fidelity let them hear themselves they are good with it. Yet them hearing themself is nothing like how you hear it and I don't mean the fidelity.

 

[Sal1950]

Perhaps I should have used niche. I personally don’t think it will get beyond being niche though.

In discussion of Quad or Atmos, no more or less so a "niche" than a proper stereo.
Outside of any possible "audiophile" acquaintances, how many do you know that have 2 decent speakers properly positioned in their home to produce a great soundstage? Or would even know what you meant if you talked about soundstage without first explaining and demoing the illusion to them? LOL
Actually the modern home theater boom has worked to support and popularize immersive music because many have built large high quality systems for that first.

Beyond the WAF and such of 4 or more speakers in the room, back in Quad's hey-day it's biggest issue was that of the available source technology. LP's SQ and QS matrix'd systems had problems with sound quality far beyond what is being ragged about now with Apples lossy Atmos streaming. They were not in any way a proper discreet High Fidelity 4 channel system.
LP's CD4 could deliver near fully discreet Quad separation but was a major headache all it's own. It required most everything about it to be "special" from the stylus, wiring, etc; all the way back to a tweaky "demodulator" box. Then after all was just "so", the discs life expectancy could be short as the 30khz carrier could wear away rapidly if everything wasn't perfect.
You had-have to be a truly dedicated LP Quad enthusiast/collector to get deeply involved in this "niche" end of the hobby. Yet as websites like Quadraphonicquad.com show, there are many with a passion for this world wide.
Thankfully modern multich codecs come fully populated on todays AVR gear and all the above tech headaches are over.

OTOH, labels such as Vocalion-Rhino-Quadio have recently gone back to the vaults of the 70's Quad master tapes and are releasing some incredible sounding 4 channel BluRays in full discreet 24/96 and higher resolution discs. Many of these releases are selling out in their pre-release offerings.
This Gordon Lightfoot - Sundown 24/192 is just awesome.

Rhino - Quadio's latest 4 releases have been available for pre-order a couple months now and just started shipping in the last few days, YEH They can be purchased in a money saving bundle or individually.

QUADIO BUNDLE #3

Buy QUADIO BUNDLE #3. Browse the vast selection of products available.

store.rhino.com

 

[Blumlein 88]

In discussion of Quad or Atmos, no more or less so a "niche" than a proper stereo.
Outside of any possible "audiophile" acquaintances, how many do you know that have 2 decent speakers properly positioned in their home to produce a great soundstage? Or would even know what you meant if you talked about soundstage without first explaining and demoing the illusion to them? LOL
Actually the modern home theater boom has worked to support and popularize immersive music because many have built large high quality systems for that first.

Beyond the WAF and such of 4 or more speakers in the room, back in Quad's hey-day it's biggest issue was that of the available source technology. LP's SQ and QS matrix'd systems had problems with sound quality far beyond what is being ragged about now with Apples lossy Atmos streaming. They were not in any way a proper discreet High Fidelity 4 channel system.
LP's CD4 could deliver near fully discreet Quad separation but was a major headache all it's own. It required most everything about it to be "special" from the stylus, wiring, etc; all the way back to a tweaky "demodulator" box. Then after all was just "so", the discs life expectancy could be short as the 30khz carrier could wear away rapidly if everything wasn't perfect.
You had-have to be a truly dedicated LP Quad enthusiast/collector to get deeply involved in this "niche" end of the hobby. Yet as websites like Quadraphonicquad.com show, there are many with a passion for this world wide.
Thankfully modern multich codecs come fully populated on todays AVR gear and all the above tech headaches are over.

OTOH, labels such as Vocalion-Rhino-Quadio have recently gone back to the vaults of the 70's Quad master tapes and are releasing some incredible sounding 4 channel BluRays in full discreet 24/96 and higher resolution discs. Many of these releases are selling out in their pre-release offerings.
This Gordon Lightfoot - Sundown 24/192 is just awesome.

View attachment 344248

Rhino - Quadio's latest 4 releases have been available for pre-order a couple months now and just started shipping in the last few days, YEH They can be purchased in a money saving bundle or individually.

QUADIO BUNDLE #3

Buy QUADIO BUNDLE #3. Browse the vast selection of products available.

store.rhino.com

I had Quad 8-track tapes. Genuine fully separate 4 channels. There weren't too many. Plus all the other 8 track tape issues. I think the 1st one I had was the Allman Brothers. I read on a list that Gil Evans did one called, "Gill Evans plays the music of Jimi Hendrix". Wow.

I'll have to check out Quadio, looks like I might need some of those.

 

[GA16SE]

I think that these new immersive audio formats (Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Auro-3D) should be promoted more, even for their playback more sophisticated devices and speaker setups are needed. Unconventional solutions should be also welcome because if someone doesn’t have enough room for a 7.1.4 speaker layout, then he/she might use alternative devices, such as Realiser A16 from Smyth Research. For someone who doesn’t like headphones, there's also Realiser A16 Speaker Edition, which might create an auditory illusion of multi-virtual speaker configuration all around you with only two real speakers. I’m aware that those are somewhat lower than is desirable, but one can get an idea about immersive audio.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I think that these new immersive audio formats (Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Auro-3D) should be promoted more, even for their playback more sophisticated devices and speaker setups are needed. Unconventional solutions should be also welcome because if someone doesn’t have enough room for a 7.1.4 speaker layout, then he/she might use alternative devices, such as Realiser A16 from Smyth Research. For someone who doesn’t like headphones, there's also Realiser A16 Speaker Edition, which might create an auditory illusion of multi-virtual speaker configuration all around you with only two real speakers. I’m aware that those are somewhat lower than is desirable, but one can get an idea about immersive audio.

Where do you find the speaker edition? I could not find it at the South Research site.

 

[GA16SE]

SMYTH Realiser A16 SE (Speaker Edition) par Audio XD

SMYTH Realiser A16 SE (Speaker Edition) par Audio XD

Le SMYTH Realiser A16 SE (Speaker Edition) est une version premium du SMYTH Realiser A16 pour écouter films, musiques, jeux ou séries avec audio jusqu'au Dolby Atmos, DTS:X et Auro-3D sur deux enceintes Hi-Fi, au moyen de la technologie brevetée Audio XD. Le SMYTH Realiser A16 SE permet de...

av-in.com

The text is in French, but it can be easily translated in English with google translate.

If you have already got a Realiser A16 unit, the upgrade to speaker edition is also available at av-in.

Upgrade d'un SMYTH Realiser A16 en SE (Speaker Edition) par Audio XD

La conversion d'un SMYTH Realiser A16 en SMYTH Realiser A16 SE Speaker Edition by Audio XD ajoute la possibilité d'entendre des mixages multicanaux sur deux enceintes Hi-Fi, au moyen de la technologie brevetée Audio XD. Cette version s'adresse à celui équipé d'une belle installation Hi-Fi et qui...

av-in.com