New Weiss crosstalk cancellation speaker

[Purité Audio]

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Why indeed.
Keith

 

[watchnerd]

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Why indeed.
Keith

Not at all.

Producers create mixes with a specific stereo / soundstage effect in mind. Sure, you can muck with that during playback in many ways. But does that make it better? And is it true to the original artistic intent?

 

[Purité Audio]

Perhaps someone else here has the patience to explain it to you.
Keith

 

[watchnerd]

Perhaps someone else here has the patience to explain it to you.
Keith

Likewise.

 

[Purité Audio]

The new Weiss DAC 502 , it has a couple of vaguely interesting features but nothing that can't be performed in software.



Keith

 

[Sal1950]

Back around 1982 Bob Carver was doing similar things with his Sonic Holography circuits.
What's old is new again, or what goes around comes around. LOL

 

[Purité Audio]

I used to own one, but I don't remember it being anywhere near as convincing as the Bacch demonstration I heard, I haven't listened to the Weiss Livebox, but I would expect it to rival the Bacch system .
Keith

 

[Sal1950]

Carver really knew how to do a product intro, with a hottie Miss Hologram and all.
Guy's ya gotta watch this video, it's a real hoot. Don't miss the 10:00 minute marker.
Plus its funny how much the marketing spins were similar then as now, think hypex class d amps and all that. What's old is new AGAIN. LOL

 

[Cosmik]

Carver really knew how to do a product intro, with a hottie Miss Hologram and all.
Guy's ya gotta watch this video, it's a real hoot. Don't miss the 10:00 minute marker.
Plus its funny how much the marketing spins were similar then as now, think hypex class d amps and all that. What's old is new AGAIN. LOL

I enjoyed the video (I haven't seen it all yet) - your description drew me in. Life was simpler and more colourful in those days..!

His "sonic holography" appears flawed in that it omits that each cancellation impulse needs to be further cancelled before it reaches the ear it was not intended to reach. This is what BAACH and RACE etc. do: every impulse that the system produces results in a decaying ping-pong of impulses between the speakers. Clearly, without sitting in one precise location in an anechoic chamber and tuning the system to the listener's head shape, the cancellation to each ear cannot be complete, and the ears are picking up the residue of this processing.

We could ask: how big a problem is it that the cancellation isn't complete? But this would be on the pure assumption that the system basically works as intended, but has side effects. Perhaps a more realistic question is: if the cancellation is never complete and we are hearing the residue all the time, does this do anything but produce a novel 'spacey' effect that we want to turn off after 5 minutes?

Or, like ordinary stereo, does it exceed expectations in the quality of the illusion that the brain can supply? Would head tracking help? Does it need an anechoic chamber? In an ordinary room, are highly directional speakers e.g. phased array, an advantage over omnidirectional speakers but sound worse outside the sweet spot etc.?

Another rare example where the subject of psychoacoustics might just have something helpful to say on the matter - or maybe it's best just to try it.

 

[Cosmik]

OK, this answers some of my questions!
https://www.audiostream.com/content/disruptive-tech-bacch-3d-sound

In the comments, one of the developers explains that they're using head tracking.

 

[Sal1950]

Perhaps a more realistic question is: if the cancellation is never complete and we are hearing the residue all the time, does this do anything but produce a novel 'spacey' effect that we want to turn off after 5 minutes?

IME, that has been the case over the years with all the holographic-ambisonic types of manipulation I've heard. But remembering that Carver was working in the analog domain with his early approach he was badly handicapped compared to modern Weiss type works, Maybe they can make the jump to something that is comfortable to listen to in the long run?
When it comes to using speakers for reproduction, IMO these type of things are better approached with the use of a multi channel system.
YMMV

 

[c1ferrari]

Carver really knew how to do a product intro, with a hottie Miss Hologram and all.
Guy's ya gotta watch this video, it's a real hoot. Don't miss the 10:00 minute marker.
Plus its funny how much the marketing spins were similar then as now, think hypex class d amps and all that. What's old is new AGAIN. LOL

Sal,

That was hysterical...what a trip!

 

[Frank Dernie]

I do amateur recordings using 2 microphones or a dummy head. I get the balance by moving the microphones during rehearsal. I have done it this way since I started with a reel to reel recorder 50 years ago. I could use more and dick about with the sound using my computer now I use digital recorders, but I don't.
One thing this means is the phase coherence of the recordings is good, which, it seems, makes a big difference with DSP phase and amplitude corrected speakers. In a recent Linn demo of their Exakt correction compared to conventional active crossover the improvement was noticeable but modest with rock music which was certainly multi-miked and comprehensively dicked with on a computer it was HUGE with simply miked "classical" (OK Gilbert and Sullivan...).
A while ago somebody involved in recording "The Messiah" posted samples of a simple 2 microphone recording which was done at the same time as the now normal multi miked stuff where the mix and stereo are manipulated later. I preferred the simply miked stereo recording even with the inevitable extra noise. They only released the mix though

 

[Cosmik]

I do amateur recordings using 2 microphones or a dummy head. I get the balance by moving the microphones during rehearsal. I have done it this way since I started with a reel to reel recorder 50 years ago. I could use more and dick about with the sound using my computer now I use digital recorders, but I don't.
One thing this means is the phase coherence of the recordings is good, which, it seems, makes a big difference with DSP phase and amplitude corrected speakers. In a recent Linn demo of their Exakt correction compared to conventional active crossover the improvement was noticeable but modest with rock music which was certainly multi-miked and comprehensively dicked with on a computer it was HUGE with simply miked "classical" (OK Gilbert and Sullivan...).
A while ago somebody involved in recording "The Messiah" posted samples of a simple 2 microphone recording which was done at the same time as the now normal multi miked stuff where the mix and stereo are manipulated later. I preferred the simply miked stereo recording even with the inevitable extra noise. They only released the mix though

Of course you are committing audio heresy.

The official view is this:
" It turns out that, within very generous tolerances, humans are insensitive to phase shifts. Under carefully contrived circumstances, special signals auditioned in anechoic conditions, or through headphones, people have heard slight differences. However, even these limited results have failed to provide clear evidence of a 'preference' for a lack of phase shift. When auditioned in real rooms, these differences disappear.. ."
-Floyd Toole

 

[Frank Dernie]

Of course you are committing audio heresy.

The official view is this:
" It turns out that, within very generous tolerances, humans are insensitive to phase shifts. Under carefully contrived circumstances, special signals auditioned in anechoic conditions, or through headphones, people have heard slight differences. However, even these limited results have failed to provide clear evidence of a 'preference' for a lack of phase shift. When auditioned in real rooms, these differences disappear.. ."
-Floyd Toole

It was you pointing out to me a few months ago that you didn't accept the idea of insensitivity to phase that made me interested by this this test. OTOH I suspect very few actual modern recordings are phase coherent since multiple microphones mixed later pretty well rules it out, but the potential of the dozens of "Decca tree" classical music recordings I have should be fantastic.
Now I need to decide whether to buy or modify speakers to be phase accurate. I have Yamaha NS1000Ms and Proac EBS which could be modified...

 

[Cosmik]

It was you pointing out to me a few months ago that you didn't accept the idea of insensitivity to phase that made me interested by this this test. OTOH I suspect very few actual modern recordings are phase coherent since multiple microphones mixed later pretty well rules it out, but the potential of the dozens of "Decca tree" classical music recordings I have should be fantastic.
Now I need to decide whether to buy or modify speakers to be phase accurate. I have Yamaha NS1000Ms and Proac EBS which could be modified...

I suspect that phase coherency could work on many levels. If I record a vocalist in a room with a single mic, and then record the drums in a different room and mix the two together, I will still benefit from phase accuracy in the rendering of each element if my speakers are corrected. If multiple mics are picking up the same event, the differences in what they pick up are due to delays, and our hearing may simply accept that. This is different from sticking an arbitrary 'phase rotation' in the middle of the frequency range of the whole mix.

Needless to say, I don't expect to convince many people. We phase botherers are an exclusive minority.

 

[Thomas savage]

I suspect that phase coherency could work on many levels. If I record a vocalist in a room with a single mic, and then record the drums in a different room and mix the two together, I will still benefit from phase accuracy in the rendering of each element if my speakers are corrected. If multiple mics are picking up the same event, the differences in what they pick up are due to delays, and our hearing may simply accept that. This is different from sticking an arbitrary 'phase rotation' in the middle of the frequency range of the whole mix.

Needless to say, I don't expect to convince many people. We phase botherers are an exclusive minority.

Well unless there's a valid argument against phase correct speakers then I say you might as well engineer phase correction into the play back..

 

[Cosmik]

...you might as well engineer phase correction into the play back..

No problem doing that if you know the characteristics of the speakers. Devialet's SAM system can be programmed with presets for a whole bunch of existing commercial speakers.

 

[watchnerd]

Carver really knew how to do a product intro, with a hottie Miss Hologram and all.
Guy's ya gotta watch this video, it's a real hoot. Don't miss the 10:00 minute marker.
Plus its funny how much the marketing spins were similar then as now, think hypex class d amps and all that. What's old is new AGAIN. LOL

Something about it reminds me of seeing Wilma Deering on "Buck Rogers" as I was beginning to hit puberty:

 

[watchnerd]

Oh, and man do I miss tv show intros like this: