I don't care about stereo imaging - am I alone. (Poll)

[Hmast]

Or it could just be because music is something that 1) makes you wanna move 2) is to be appreciated with other people

Both of these things are handled very poorly in stereo

Surprising statement. Music is all the opposite for me: I listen to music focused, alone, and still (either seated or lying). It's an excellent way to "give up".

 

[Els]

Trigger warning for subjective descriptions

I see a lot of people obsessing about stereo image. Width, depth, height - it all seems to be important. Even more so in the more subjective arenas "...like you could pluck the instruments out of the air..."

If I set myself up for listening - dead center between the speakers, equalateral triangle etc, I can easily detect the image with appropriate music. But it does absolutely nothing for my listening enjoyment. It's an "oh yes, there it is - now lets get back to the music"

For me good sound quality is balanced freqency response, and most important - clarity of the music (which I describe as ease of hearing each voice/instrument, and each note distinctly and without blurring into the general sound. I also like to be "in the music" rather than looking in it. Playing from a single speaker is less enjoyable than playing from two - even if the sound is mono. Fake surround doesn't work for me though for music (at least not on my surround system) as it results in a loss of clarity. Movie tracks presumably mixed for multi channel are fine though. I've not listened to any multi channel music.

So am I the only one who doesn't care about imaging? Or is it common?

You are not the only one, I want the music to be alive even if I am in the hall or even in another room. I don't understand speaker manufacturers selling million dollar speakers who insist the listener be a ear level with the tweeter. Horizontal dispersion is easy what about vertical dispersion? In a concert situation the music does not change weather you are sitting down or standing up or even if someone passes in front of you. Some will say I am not an audiophile, but I still enjoy this forum.

 

[Hmast]

You are not the only one, I want the music to be alive even if I am in the hall or even in another room. I don't understand speaker manufacturers selling million dollar speakers who insist the listener be a ear level with the tweeter. Horizontal dispersion is easy what about vertical dispersion? In a concert situation the music does not change weather you are sitting down or standing up or even if someone passes in front of you. Some will say I am not an audiophile, but I still enjoy this forum.

It doesn’t change because you are far away from the speakers at concerts. At home when seated 1 meter away from the speakers it’s quite different and if you move away from the tweeter level the sound will change a lot.

If it’s an acoustic concert it isn’t even more impossible to do a comparison and would only show you have absolutely no knowledge of how speakers work.

 

[goat76]

I feel exactly like you in this. If I'm far enough away from the two speakers not to hear two separate listening points then I'm ok, I don't care if the double bass is 40 cm further back than the harpsichord..... that's not what gives me listening pleasure.
But on the other hand many are passionate about chamber music or orchestral music, they go to concerts and like to replicate the feeling. I listen to electronic or even rock music, but at concerts I definitely don't listen to the placement of the guitar, but to the huge speaker arrays. For me, the 3D image simply means little or nothing.

Based on what you say in the bolded part, I don't think your speaker's placement is optimal for stereo reproduction. If you want to hear what's on the actual recording when it comes to imaging (separation, width, and depth) you must make sure you have a stable and distinct-sounding phantom center, and maximize the perceived ratio of direct sound from your speakers vs the reflective sound from your listening environment.

If you must "sit far enough away from the two speakers not to hear two separate sound sources" it seems to me that you have your speakers way too far apart, which will create "a hole in the middle"/a non-distinct "washed-out" sounding phantom center. And it seems like you try to solve it by sitting far enough away from the speakers, but this will only "hide" the real problem of having the speakers too far apart and will reduce the ratio of direct sound which contains the separation, width, and depth of the actual recording.

If the two speakers will have a chance to give you a focused and correct stereo image you must make sure they work together as a single unit, stop treating them as two separate sound sources and more as two units that are supposed to create a "unified stereo image".

I have my floor-standing speakers set up in a fairly small equilateral triangle of just about 210 centimeters distance between the speakers, and the same distance from the speakers to the listening place. Sound objects that are placed in the middle phantom center sound as distinctively as if they were coming from a real physical sound source/a center speaker placed right in the middle between the speakers. The short distance also makes sure the ratio of the direct sound is high, which makes it easier to hear what's in the actual recording when it comes to stereo imaging (separation, width, and depth).

I mean, aren't we all super nerds here who aim for the best possible reproduction of music, we want to optimize everything to perceive a better view into the recordings and a correct stereo image should probably be high on everybody's list.

 

[Talisman]

Based on what you say in the bolded part, I don't think your speaker's placement is optimal for stereo reproduction. If you want to hear what's on the actual recording when it comes to imaging (separation, width, and depth) you must make sure you have a stable and distinct-sounding phantom center, and maximize the perceived ratio of direct sound from your speakers vs the reflective sound from your listening environment.

If you must "sit far enough away from the two speakers not to hear two separate sound sources" it seems to me that you have your speakers way too far apart, which will create "a hole in the middle"/a non-distinct "washed-out" sounding phantom center. And it seems like you try to solve it by sitting far enough away from the speakers, but this will only "hide" the real problem of having the speakers too far apart and will reduce the ratio of direct sound which contains the separation, width, and depth of the actual recording.

If the two speakers will have a chance to give you a focused and correct stereo image you must make sure they work together as a single unit, stop treating them as two separate sound sources and more as two units that are supposed to create a "unified stereo image".

I have my floor-standing speakers set up in a fairly small equilateral triangle of just about 210 centimeters distance between the speakers, and the same distance from the speakers to the listening place. Sound objects that are placed in the middle phantom center sound as distinctively as if they were coming from a real physical sound source/a center speaker placed right in the middle between the speakers. The short distance also makes sure the ratio of the direct sound is high, which makes it easier to hear what's in the actual recording when it comes to stereo imaging (separation, width, and depth).

I mean, aren't we all super nerds here who aim for the best possible reproduction of music, we want to optimize everything to perceive a better view into the recordings and a correct stereo image should probably be high on everybody's list.

in the meantime, thank you for the careful and in-depth analysis, however the part you bolded was in no way referring to my configuration, it was a more general consideration on the fact that what is enough for me in terms of "imaging" is just that the music sounds as a single front and not as separate points. That's all.
However I have my main "listening" setup in a near perfect equilateral triangle and with close listening to bookshelf speakers, I have plenty of distance both behind the speakers and behind my back and a good distance to the sides, the sofa is so close that block the first floor reflection and right above me is my bed (I created a listening environment under my loft bed) so the hypothetical ceiling reflections are also blocked, the room is full of wicker desks, bookcases, paintings, shelves, etc. in an extremely dense environment. Indeed, an extremely suitable listening environment was created almost spontaneously, and all the speakers placed there sounded very good to my ears.
This is to say that I don't miss placement or experimentation at all. I simply lack interest in seeing a "virtual stage"

 

[Multicore]

You are not alone.

I've been meaning to write my anti-stereo rant for many years. For one it's way more trouble and cost than it is worth. And you can't use it properly without being anti-social. But perhaps worst of all, because it is the default output format for studio music, recording and mix engineers seem too often compelled to use it in very obvious ways, i.e. in very distracting ways. Distracting from the music, I mean, like the show-off film directors who ensure their glorious production overwhelms the drama. Seldom does stereo actually enhance the aesthetic value of music and often it diminishes it. It's the single most retrograde technical innovation of all in the development of consumer music playback.

And I resent always having to split my loudspeaker budget into two for the sake of a silly effect that never really worked.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I don't understand speaker manufacturers selling million dollar speakers who insist the listener be a ear level with the tweeter. Horizontal dispersion is easy what about vertical dispersion? In a concert situation the music does not change weather you are sitting down or standing up or even if someone passes in front of you

This is an interesting point. If you are sitting next to someone playing a tambourine and you stand up, the sound will change a bit, but not much. This is because the energy leaves the tambourine as a sphere, so, although your ears are further away, the frequency will be about the same.

Loudspeaker drivers are "pistons" and when mounted in a baffle, they beam as the frequency increases. This is unlike the spherical dispersion from the tambourine. Actually, horizontal dispersion also falls off at wide horizontal angles. The vertical challenge is made worse because at least one other driver is vertically mounted in the baffle, so interacts with the tweeter and has longer baffle distances. Therefore, the ideal alignment is always when the tweeter at ear height.

 

[MattHooper]

There is no debating your personal preference, however....

You are not alone.

I've been meaning to write my anti-stereo rant for many years. For one it's way more trouble and cost than it is worth. And you can't use it properly without being anti-social.

Eh. I think that may be a bit exaggerated. First, what is your alternative? Mono? I'm going to assume if you have a preference over stereo that it's likely multichannel?

Multichannel isn't necessarily a big leap to "more social." For one thing, in movie theaters multi-channel speakers can at least be moved fairly far away from most listeners, so that there is some level of balance to the channels. But even in a big movie theater many seats end up closer to some channels then others and so there is an imbalance of sorts. This only gets worse for the far smaller rooms in which most audiophiles/consumers listen in their home theater/surround set up.
If you have multiple people in the typical-sized listening room, some will end up closer to, say, the side surrounds or whatever, and further from the Left or Right speaker, so even though surround expands the listening position to a point...it often doesn't really have everyone hearing precisely the same sound...any more than someone slightly off the sweet spot in stereo is going to be hearing the same sound as the person in the sweet spot.

BTW, I've had many listening sessions with several people, all who have enjoyed listening to the stereo set up.

But perhaps worst of all, because it is the default output format for studio music, recording and mix engineers seem too often compelled to use it in very obvious ways, i.e. in very distracting ways. Distracting from the music, I mean, like the show-off film directors who ensure their glorious production overwhelms the drama. Seldom does stereo actually enhance the aesthetic value of music and often it diminishes it. It's the single most retrograde technical innovation of all in the development of consumer music playback.

Fair enough if you personally find soundstaging and imaging placement often distracting. Yeah, sounds like stereo isn't for you. On the other hand, it's interestingon a site where most people care about accuracy, to essentially reject significant sonic choices made by the artists and engineers. I mean, once a long time ago sound reproduction was mostly about just that...reproducing the sound of some live musicians as recorded in front of some mics. But once the options expanded, and studio and production techniques because artistic choices in of themselves, of course recordings vary tremendously. Are you equally put off by all the different types of reverb, or mic choice colorations, or choices in altering timbre of voices or instruments, or various studio effects added to tracks to express what the artist wants? If you are, that would seem to restrict your enjoyment quite a bit. If not though, it's interesting you want to hear all those artistic choices accurately...but not all the choices made to exploit stereo separation, soundstaging, image placement etc.

I personally love not only music, but consider all these things part of the artistic choices in a recording, and I prefer to hear them all. I love the way the spatial relationships change between recordings.

And I resent always having to split my loudspeaker budget into two for the sake of a silly effect that never really worked.

Looks like I may have guessed wrong earlier. So does this mean your preferred recording and playback method is mono?

 

[Els]

It doesn’t change because you are far away from the speakers at concerts. At home when seated 1 meter away from the speakers it’s quite different and if you move away from the tweeter level the sound will change a lot.

If it’s an acoustic concert it isn’t even more impossible to do a comparison and would only show you have absolutely no knowledge of how speakers work.

This is an interesting point. If you are sitting next to someone playing a tambourine and you stand up, the sound will change a bit, but not much. This is because the energy leaves the tambourine as a sphere, so, although your ears are further away, the frequency will be about the same.

Loudspeaker drivers are "pistons" and when mounted in a baffle, they beam as the frequency increases. This is unlike the spherical dispersion from the tambourine. Actually, horizontal dispersion also falls off at wide horizontal angles. The vertical challenge is made worse because at least one other driver is vertically mounted in the baffle, so interacts with the tweeter and has longer baffle distances. Therefore, the ideal alignment is always when the tweeter at ear height.

Of course, everyone knows that having tweeter at ear height is the ideal alignement, that is a compromise some of us don't like, especially if you are spending mega dollars for a set of speakers. Full range electrostatics are a good alternative with different trade off of course, also line source speakers can have as many as a dozen tweeters, that solves the ear level tweeter problem, again with other trade offs.

 

[Multicore]

Looks like I may have guessed wrong earlier. So does this mean your preferred recording and playback method is mono?

It would be if I had a choice but practically I don't since nearly everything is delivered in stereo.

 

[MattHooper]

It would be if I had a choice but practically I don't since nearly everything is delivered in stereo.

Wow, that's pretty hardcore.

I'm aware there are some mono fetishists out there, but hadn't met one yet, or anyone that annoyed by stereo.

Life's a box of chocolates and all that...

 

[goat76]

It would be if I had a choice but practically I don't since nearly everything is delivered in stereo.

What's stopping you from sending the stereo signal to a single mono speaker and listening to the music the way you prefer?

 

[Mr. Widget]

I can ENJOY music from almost anything, but I very much prefer it with the "being there" illusion of stereophonic audio. There is no good option in your poll for me.
I would say I´m smack in the middle of "important" and "Nice"

Exactly!

Now having said that, a proper home audio system in my living room without it is unthinkable.

Yes!!!!

 

[Multicore]

What's stopping you from sending the stereo signal to a single mono speaker and listening to the music the way you prefer?

Sometimes I do when I'm at my desk and the stereo mix is bugging me. I have a setting in Equalizer APO.

But it just seems like a bad idea to remix all recordings by default. I suppose most mixes are made so that they sum reasonably well but it still feels like a step too far. So I play the damn stereo recordings dutifully and try not to let the production bother me.

I'm aware there are some mono fetishists out there, but hadn't met one yet, or anyone that annoyed by stereo.

It's not so much that I fetishize mono, more that I feel put-upon by stereo.

 

[thecheapseats]

creating a stereo 'image' is and always has been a fake thing... it's a cool thing - no doubt - and certainly can envelop a listener - but it's not a real representation of orchestral music in a live room... define live room? - ok... there are concert halls designed for orchestral audience listening and rooms designed for recording those same 60-90 orchestral musicians - or a quintet if you'd like - doesn't matter...

both environments sound quite different were you standing/sitting and listening in person - but it sure ain't stereo as we generally define finished recorded products we might listen to for pleasure...

exceptions of course are flying two well placed world-class mics above the musicians - but an exception as some of the best orchestral recordings of the present day (orch film scoring dates) are done with multiple close-in mics of each section (strgs, woodwinds, brass, perc and piano)...

 

[Inner Space]

... there are concert halls designed for orchestral audience listening and rooms designed for recording those same 60-90 orchestral musicians - or a quintet if you'd like - doesn't matter...

both environments sound quite different were you standing/sitting and listening in person - but it sure ain't stereo as we generally define finished recorded products we might listen to for pleasure...

True. At home, at best, you get an artfully assembled sonic tableau ahead of you, with width, some illusion of height, maybe some hint of depth. Nothing like the real-world 360-degree soundscape you know is all around you.

Yet people seem really happy to watch TV that way. A small rectangle ahead of them, with an artfully assembled tableau on it. Nothing like the real world visual space all around them. If one thing is inadequate, why isn't the other thing?

 

[Axo1989]

creating a stereo 'image' is and always has been a fake thing... it's a cool thing - no doubt - and certainly can envelop a listener - but it's not a real representation of orchestral music in a live room... define live room? - ok... there are concert halls designed for orchestral audience listening and rooms designed for recording those same 60-90 orchestral musicians - or a quintet if you'd like - doesn't matter...

both environments sound quite different were you standing/sitting and listening in person - but it sure ain't stereo as we generally define finished recorded products we might listen to for pleasure...

exceptions of course are flying two well placed world-class mics above the musicians - but an exception as some of the best orchestral recordings of the present day (orch film scoring dates) are done with multiple close-in mics of each section (strgs, woodwinds, brass, perc and piano)...

I don't regularly listen to recordings of live events—more often to those assembled in the studio—so I don't fetishize "real representations" or worry over the sort of minor flaws (to my ear) that bother people (eminent or otherwise) who do. No offence if live recordings are your preference of course, just a different perspective.

Stereo image (or soundstage if you prefer, though I think that term often confuses people) is part of the pleasure in a good mix/production, so I said "important" [edit: even though the poll presents that as a bit of an overstatement].

Not that said image transforms music I don't like into music I do like. That's something else. That said, I have found I listen a bit less to music with limited spatial variation: Godspeed You! Black Emperor seem to lean toward a proletarian Marxist mono in their (actually stereo) productions, which seems a shame because I'd enjoy their stuff a lot more if it didn't play out in miniature (on my system anyway).

 

[thecheapseats]

<snip> ...If one thing is inadequate, why isn't the other thing?... <snip>

inadequate?... didn't say that - for conversational purposes, 'adequate enough' is as close as we're gonna' get...
pay your money - get your illusion...

 

[MattHooper]

True. At home, at best, you get an artfully assembled sonic tableau ahead of you, with width, some illusion of height, maybe some hint of depth. Nothing like the real-world 360-degree soundscape you know is all around you.

I suppose this could come down to each of our perception of the same thing, and how we'd describe it. But I feel like I often get more than a hint of depth.
Sometimes it can really give me a sense of hearing something from a great distance away. I even find some orchestral recordings to sound somewhat "convincing" if I meet the illusion part way.

Also, if we are talking about creating the sensation of hearing through a hall to an orchestra playing, in one sense surround sound certainly has advantages - it's often touted that you can be surrounded by the ambience of the hall acoustic (sent to the sides/rear etc speakers) and in that way enter the space in a more realistic fashion than stereo.

But I don't find stereo to be THAT far behind. For one, with the right recording the entire room behind my speakers seems to melt away, the orchestra having a large spread between the speakers and even the back corners of the soundstage can seem to spread out far wider than the speakers. If I just imagine myself listening from the right distance, then the scale of the orchestra seems correct. What about immersion in the acoustic? I get that kind of effect too. Not by sending the hall acoustics to surround speakers, but more like melding the acoustic of my room with that of the recording. So if I play with reflectivity (I can shift around curtains, diffusors) when I get it just right the hall acoustics in the recording will sort of bleed in to or merge in to the room acoustics. The sensation then is that I am essentially sharing the same acoustic space with the orchestra, there isn't a listening through a portal effect to a different space, there is a "listening through a large acoustic space" to the orchestra.

I have surround too and listen to it a lot and I really don't find my stereo immersion lags behind much at all (and generally I find it better - the imaging is more precise and corporeal). I mentioned this in another thread I think, but I recently had an audiophile friend over listening and he was shocked, almost felt like I'd done some sort of magic trick on him, the sound was so capacious and vivid.

Yet people seem really happy to watch TV that way. A small rectangle ahead of them, with an artfully assembled tableau on it. Nothing like the real world visual space all around them. If one thing is inadequate, why isn't the other thing?

Speaking of TV...which got me to thinking of movie images actually...and the subject of illusions...

I discovered a neat trick when I was a teenager: Personal 3D at the movies. I discovered you can make a movie become 3 dimensional without the glasses.

Just by closing one eye.

It's a really weird thing. And it works best on big screen images (works very well on my projected image too). You close one eye and at first the image looks a bit odd because...well...you are using one eye. And it looks flat. But keep staring. As you do, over, say, a minute or so, you will start to see more and more depth in the image, expanding like you are donning 3D glasses...and frankly even better...it just starts to take on an almost real life look and depth! It can be utterly amazing on the right images.

I surmise that what's happening is when you close one eye you of course lose one of your main methods of perceiving depth - stereo vision. So your brain goes "hold on, what's going on here?" And, having lost the stereo cues the brain tries to understand the image in front of you and starts relying on all the other depth cues - the shading, the lines of perspective etc...to try to re-construct how far away things are. In the same way that if you close one eye you lose *some* depth perception, but it's not like everything actually looks like it's flat, 2 dimensional and up against your nose.

Anyway...fun trick sometimes. Not really the way I would want to watch full movies though. I still actually do it sometimes on my imac 5K monitor, watching 4K videos and such. If there is a vivid image of someone talking and I close one eye, within about a minute it can feel startlingly like there is no screen and I'm looking at a person right in front of me.

 

[thecheapseats]

<snip> ...No offence if live recordings are your preference of course, just a different perspective"... <snip>

no offense taken at all... I've no preferences... a quick story to illustrate... started my career on the 'otherside of the glass' initially almost fifty years ago... the first time I was allowed into a control room to listen to a playback at the end of a session (all live session players - not an overdub session) - I was amazed at very how different it sounded on playback... better of worse? - not the right words - it was just different...

years later, the first time I listened to a control room playback of an orchestral score I'd just been a part of - again it was just different from what I'd heard in the studio, moments before...