BACCH4Mac "Absolute Sounds Product of the Year 2024"

[tmtomh]

No that’s objective reality. You can’t squeeze a 100 piece orchestra between two speakers at home. The expansion of the soundstage is more accurate to the actual orchestra used for any given recording. The disparity is so substantial that this is always going to be an objective fact.

How wide was the real performance space for Dark Side of the Moon? Where were the four members of Led Zeppelin physically standing or sitting when they recorded the tracks on Led Zeppelin II? Were all the musicians standing in the same place during each of the two recording sessions for Kind of Blue?

What's the typical width and depth of a performance stage that fits a 100-piece orchestra? What's the typical width and depth of a home hi-fi listening space? What's the typical height of a large orchestral hall? What's the typical height of a home hi-fi listening space?

If you stretch a recording's perceived width far more than you stretch its perceived depth and still far more than you stretch its perceived height, is that realistic?

If you feel like the instruments are jumping out of the plane of the speakers so that they can come very close to you, is that realistic with regard to listening to an orchestra in a large hall?

 

[goat76]

No doubt every hard pan was done with the intent of having the image land right on the speakers.

That is the nature of a hard-panned sound, whether you like it or not.

A sound object that is hard-panned is just played by either the left OR the right speaker, so the sound can only come from the exact position of that speaker as long as no effect is applied. It's as simple as that, and that is the reason why it can be used to determine if BACCH is fixing a problem or if it's just an effect. It is an effect as it often makes the sound object appear to be coming from a position outside the speaker.

“Thank god for the limitations of two channel stereo! All I ever wanted as a recording engineer is to have any and all wide imaging come straight from the speakers. It would be tragic if the sound stage were to ever go past the speakers in depth or width!”

Said no recording engineer ever. Why do you think multichannel is even a thing?

You still don't understand that the only thing I argue against here is that you say that BACCH will make the reproduction more accurate, but it's very simple to show you that's not the case as the above-mentioned hard-panned sound now appears to be coming from a position outside the speaker which most of us know is impossible without being an effect.

 

[tmtomh]

You still don't understand that the only thing I argue against here is that you say that BACCH will make the reproduction more accurate, but it's very simple to show you that's not the case as the above-mentioned hard-panned sound now appears to be coming from a position outside the speaker which most of us know is impossible without being an effect.

Sadly at this point it's less about "he doesn't understand" and more about "he doesn't care." He appears more interested in trying to win an argument at this point than in engaging with what you're actually trying to explain. When you or anyone else brings up fidelity/accuracy to the recording, his stock answer is, "there is no reference." Yet he incessantly argues for BACCH based on a reference - an orchestral performance. The recourse to "realism" has been thoroughly and persuasively rebutted here in many threads - but I have to hand it to him: usually folks incorrectly insist that realism and accuracy are the same thing. He's going further by trying to argue that accuracy doesn't exist and that there's only realism. It's just silly at this point.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

You know what a lounge in a concert hall is?

At Disney hall, Segerstrom hall and Davies hall they are lounges. Reserved for donors mostly.

What I am saying is that you can record the concert at one position binaurally. What does it sound like at chair 344? 566? A live concert is far from the ’pinpoint imaging of instruments’ that a stereo recording usually contains replayed in a home. It’s much more a differnce in timbre and dynamics.

What does any of that have to do with the actual scale of the orchestra?

Doesn’t matter how you record an orchestra. The actual orchestra is always to big to fit between your speakers and with conventional two channel stereo that’s always going to be the confines along with your listening room

 

[tmtomh]

At Disney hall, Segerstrom hall and Davies hall they are lounges. Reserved for donors mostly.

What does any of that have to do with the actual scale of the orchestra?

Doesn’t matter how you record an orchestra. The actual orchestra is always to big to fit between your speakers and with conventional two channel stereo that’s always going to be the confines along with your listening room

Actual orchestra is also too big to fit in the width, depth, or height of your entire listening room. Actual orchestra is also farther away from you than the entire length of your listening room.

And - this might come as a surprise - there are recordings that are not single/minimally miked recordings of single live performances of large ensembles playing with unamplified instruments.

 

[MattHooper]

OTOH we actually can make objective claims about the scale and dimensions of a live orchestra or most other live acoustic ensembles.

To a degree.

Orchestras and other live ensembles will vary in size and position.

And then there is the variable of listener distance/perspective as well as all the variables of hall acoustics, not just between individual halls, but again depending on listening position in the hall.

The sonic FOV will mirror the visual FOV, so if I'm sitting up front near the orchestra the first violins may stretch waaaay out to my periphery on my left, and the double basses may be waaaay over to the side on my right. But if I'm at the back of the hall most of the instrument will be much more centred in the FOV.

So there's a hell of a lot of variability in there, in terms of trying to appeal to some objective, reliable reference.

We can also objectively say that in all but a few very rare exceptions the application of the BACCH SP will render a soundstage and dimensionality to the playback that is substantially closer to reality

Only if, per above, that is understood in the context of the huge amount of variability in the actual live experience.

Which means, it seems to me, your argument is treading in to the same territory as the ones you reject for accurately recreating the different sounds in mixing studios.

 

[kemmler3D]

To a degree.

Orchestras and other live ensembles will vary in size and position.

And then there is the variable of listener distance/perspective as well as all the variables of hall acoustics, not just between individual halls, but again depending on listening position in the hall.

The sonic FOV will mirror the visual FOV, so if I'm sitting up front near the orchestra the first violins may stretch waaaay out to my periphery on my left, and the double basses may be waaaay over to the side on my right. But if I'm at the back of the hall most of the instrument will be much more centred in the FOV.

So there's a hell of a lot of variability in there, in terms of trying to appeal to some objective, reliable reference.



Only if, per above, that is understood in the context of the huge amount of variability in the actual live experience.

Which means, it seems to me, your argument is treading in to the same territory as the ones you reject for accurately recreating the different sounds in mixing studios.

Good points. Variability in listening position and recording setup for orchestras is at least as great as it is among recording studios' monitoring setups.

"Concert halls are bigger than living rooms" is true but doesn't get us very far.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I doubt it was anything but normal hard-panned sounds @jimbill was referring to when he described the ultra-widening effect going from 30 to 60 degrees.



Yes, that is just some out-of-phase trickery. I once had a plugin from Voxengo that could be used for that effect, I used it to make some applause appear to be coming from both sides way outside each speaker.



Yes, maybe it's the lack of properly positioned speakers, or maybe a way too lively room that masks the effect. But I doubt it, I still think it was a normal recording without the phase trickery jimball described.



If the BACCH filter was a universal fix for addressing faults with crosstalk, it should have worked equally well for all types of recordings no matter how they are mixed.

Nonsense. Playback systems don’t “fix” recordings. The BACCH fixes crosstalk.

And it does work equally well at reducing crosstalk for all recordings.

But no playback system magically turns a bad recording into a great recording

That is obviously not the case and the team behind BACCH says so themselves in their documentation, as the filter effect works best for certain types of recordings.

Which is true of any and every playback system

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

How wide was the real performance space for Dark Side of the Moon?

Absurd question. What is your point?

Where were the four members of Led Zeppelin physically standing or sitting when they recorded the tracks on Led Zeppelin II? Were all the musicians standing in the same place during each of the two recording sessions for Kind of Blue?

Bill Evans' Kind Of Blue Liner Notes

You will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."

www.sfjazz.org

What's the typical width and depth of a performance stage that fits a 100-piece orchestra?

Is that a serious question? Are you unfamiliar with orchestra configurations and concert hall stages?

Let’s start with the obvious. Considerably bigger than what you would typically find in any home listening environment and considerably wider than the distance between the speakers in most home stereo systems.

Do you really want to take the his line of argument? Are you seriously going to argue that we don’t actually know for a fact that the biggest failure of conventional two channel stereo is it’s inability to convey the full scale of a large orchestra in a concert hall?

What's the typical width and depth of a home hi-fi listening space?

Considerably narrower than a 100 piece orchestra and concert hall.

What's the typical height of a large orchestral hall? What's the typical height of a home hi-fi listening space?

Are you honestly trying to argue that we don’t actually know that concert halls for large scale orchestras are not actually substantially bigger than typical audiophile listening rooms?

You are truly delving into an absurd line of arguing here

If you stretch a recording's perceived width far more than you stretch its perceived depth and still far more than you stretch its perceived height, is that realistic?

What does that even mean? Who is stretching what and how?

If you feel like the instruments are jumping out of the plane of the speakers so that they can come very close to you, is that realistic with regard to listening to an orchestra in a large hall?

If a car travels at the speed of light and turns on their headlights dies anything happen?

I get the feeling you have never done an A/B comparison with the BACCH with an orchestral recording

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

That is the nature of a hard-panned sound, whether you like it or not.

Prove it. Show me the recording engineers that state their goal was specifically to land hard pans on the speakers

A sound object that is hard-panned is just played by either the left OR the right speaker, so the sound can only come from the exact position of that speaker as long as no effect is applied.

That’s just wrong.

It's as simple as that, and that is the reason why it can be used to determine if BACCH is fixing a problem or if it's just an effect.

Wrong again. Hard pans emanate from the speaker because of the crosstalk. The crosstalk is masking spatial cues that place hard pans in a variety of positions away from the speaker.

It is an effect as it often makes the sound object appear to be coming from a position outside the speaker.

It’s not an effect. It’s the elimination of an effect

 

[MattHooper]

Prove it. Show me the recording engineers that state their goal was specifically to land hard pans on the speakers

I work in film sound and have been in bands that produced recordings. In both cases I have hard panned sounds sometimes to a specific L or R speaker. With no expectation (or intentions) that those sounds would appear "outside" the speakers or "away" from the speakers vs the position I put them.

It’s not an effect. It’s the elimination of an effect

Then, in terms of it's accuracy to the choices of the mixer, it's like eliminating an intended effect, like eliminating a tremolo or a reverb on a guitar in the recording.

If cross talk is part of what the mixer is hearing, then the effect of cross talk is incorporated in to the mixing choices, as is everything else.

The mixer is always working with what she actually hears, not what someone may "correct for" in the future. So if the mixer wants the sound RIGHT HERE in the mix, that means where she heard it with the cross talk. And we don't know the mixer would even approve of that effect of that "correction."

 

[tmtomh]

Absurd question. What is your point?

Bill Evans' Kind Of Blue Liner Notes

You will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."

www.sfjazz.org

Is that a serious question? Are you unfamiliar with orchestra configurations and concert hall stages?

Let’s start with the obvious. Considerably bigger than what you would typically find in any home listening environment and considerably wider than the distance between the speakers in most home stereo systems.

Do you really want to take the his line of argument? Are you seriously going to argue that we don’t actually know for a fact that the biggest failure of conventional two channel stereo is it’s inability to convey the full scale of a large orchestra in a concert hall?




Considerably narrower than a 100 piece orchestra and concert hall.



Are you honestly trying to argue that we don’t actually know that concert halls for large scale orchestras are not actually substantially bigger than typical audiophile listening rooms?

You are truly delving into an absurd line of arguing here


What does that even mean? Who is stretching what and how?


If a car travels at the speed of light and turns on their headlights dies anything happen?

I get the feeling you have never done an A/B comparison with the BACCH with an orchestral recording

You've demonstrated you can't tell a rhetorical question from an actual question, and that you're incapable or unwilling to draw proper conclusions from the facts.

You've also demonstrated a high level of skill at alienating someone who started out defending your position (in this case, the idea that one cannot dismiss BACCH as a "special effect," and the view that Toole's preference for multichannel is not based on any objective reason why multichannel would be superior to something like BACCH). Well done.

I and others have tried to explain the reasoning multiple times before and you simply refuse to follow.

As for you "getting the feeling" that I have "never done an A/B comparison with BACCH with an orchestral recording, of course I haven't - I've never heard BACCH in action, and you don't have to infer or "get the feeling" that I haven't, because I've repeatedly and explicitly stated in numerous comments that despite my disagreements with you here in this thread, I am still curious about BACCH and would like to try it. Basic logic and reading comprehension dictates that this means I have not yet heard BACCH in action. What is wrong with you?

 

[tmtomh]

To a degree.

Orchestras and other live ensembles will vary in size and position.

And then there is the variable of listener distance/perspective as well as all the variables of hall acoustics, not just between individual halls, but again depending on listening position in the hall.

The sonic FOV will mirror the visual FOV, so if I'm sitting up front near the orchestra the first violins may stretch waaaay out to my periphery on my left, and the double basses may be waaaay over to the side on my right. But if I'm at the back of the hall most of the instrument will be much more centred in the FOV.

So there's a hell of a lot of variability in there, in terms of trying to appeal to some objective, reliable reference.



Only if, per above, that is understood in the context of the huge amount of variability in the actual live experience.

Which means, it seems to me, your argument is treading in to the same territory as the ones you reject for accurately recreating the different sounds in mixing studios.

He just doesn't care, and he won't acknowledge your points (or at least not in a way that credits them their merits). The reference of the original recording doesn't exist for him, but despite that the reference of the concert hall does exist and transparently makes it through that non-reference of the recording right to your speakers, and BACCH gets you closer to that reference and it doesn't matter about variability of concert hall size or variability of hall size vs spatial cues in the recording, and it doesn't matter about people listening from different distances and positions in a concert hall and it doesn't matter that in our listening rooms we're much closer to the speakers than the typical listener is to the orchestra in a large concert hall, and it doesn't matter that we're almost never at eye level with the orchestra in a concert hall but are at eye level with our speakers at home, and it doesn't matter that there's an enormous slippage between "listen to BACCH with orchestral music" and "BACCH will always bring the listening experience closer to reality with all music" He doesn't care, he won't listen, he won't acknowledge any of it. It's a waste of time, and it's stupid since one does not need to buy into his silly argument in order to appreciate the potential of what BACCH does.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I work in film sound and have been in bands that produced recordings. In both cases I have hard panned sounds sometimes to a specific L or R speaker. With no expectation (or intentions) that those sounds would appear "outside" the speakers or "away" from the speakers vs the position I put them.

So without exception you have done hard pans and the speaker just happened to be exactly where you wanted the image to be and given an option of wider, deeper, closer or any combination you would have opted to put the hard pan exactly where your speaker just happened to be?

And from that we can extrapolate that that is the case with all hard pans?

The mixer is always working with what she actually hears, not what someone may "correct for" in the future.

So if a microphone captures and records a frequency extreme or a level of detail or a spatial cue that the recording engineer failed to hear during the recording or mix and it ends up on the final release we should try to eliminate that because the recording engineer didn’t hear it?

We should limit the dynamics, resolution, clarity, lack of distortion and frequency response of our playback to the levels of the monitors and control room used for the recording and mix?

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

He just doesn't care, and he won't acknowledge your points (or at least not in a way that credits them their merits). The reference of the original recording doesn't exist for him, but despite that the reference of the concert hall does exist and transparently makes it through that non-reference of the recording right to your speakers, and BACCH gets you closer to that reference and it doesn't matter about variability of concert hall size or variability of hall size vs spatial cues in the recording, and it doesn't matter about people listening from different distances and positions in a concert hall and it doesn't matter that in our listening rooms we're much closer to the speakers than the typical listener is to the orchestra in a large concert hall, and it doesn't matter that we're almost never at eye level with the orchestra in a concert hall but are at eye level with our speakers at home, and it doesn't matter that there's an enormous slippage between "listen to BACCH with orchestral music" and "BACCH will always bring the listening experience closer to reality with all music" He doesn't care, he won't listen, he won't acknowledge any of it. It's a waste of time, and it's stupid since one does not need to buy into his silly argument in order to appreciate the potential of what BACCH does.

All you have had for the past three or four posts is ad hominem. Ironic that you never addressed the point JJ made in his lecture about accuracy in audio that to measure objective accuracy one needs an accessible objective reference. And what was heard and what was intended fail to meet that criteria.

Please tell us why JJ was wrong scientifically.
Here’s some hints on what doesn’t work as a science based argument against JJ’s assertion about measuring accuracy in audio
1. The ASR folks won’t accept it
2. Dr. Toole said ________ (fill in the blank)
3. Justdafactsmaam is _________(fill in the blank with any cliche ad hominem)

Isn’t this supposed to be a science based forum? Where’s the science? All I am seeing is wild speculation, absurd hypotheticals and “Dr. Toole said.”

Jeez even the cable and power cord nut jobs at least go through some semblance of listening tests

 

[tmtomh]

All you have had for the past three or four posts is ad hominem. Ironic that you never addressed the point JJ made in his lecture about accuracy in audio that to measure objective accuracy one needs an accessible objective reference. And what was heard and what was intended fail to meet that criteria.

Please tell us why JJ was wrong scientifically.
Here’s some hints on what doesn’t work as a science based argument against JJ’s assertion about measuring accuracy in audio
1. The ASR folks won’t accept it
2. Dr. Toole said ________ (fill in the blank)
3. Justdafactsmaam is _________(fill in the blank with any cliche ad hominem)

Isn’t this supposed to be a science based forum? Where’s the science? All I am seeing is wild speculation, absurd hypotheticals and “Dr. Toole said.”

Jeez even the cable and power cord nut jobs at least go through some semblance of listening tests

Listing the factors you refuse to acknowledge is not ad hominem.

As for the science, you're mistaking me for someone who is asserting that BACCH can't enhance fidelity - my entry into this discussion was to say that I agreed with you that we can't simply dismiss BACCH as a special effect. You'll recall I cited the related phenomenon of headphone listening, which has intrinsic crosstalk cancellation properties and which we do not consider a "special effect" or any less "hi-fi" than speaker listening, to argue that by the same logic we can't say BACCH is not hi-fi. I am not convinced that BACCH does increase accuracy, but I am not convinced it doesn't either. I would not feel comfortable making a definitive-sounding argument either way without listening, which I have been totally clear I have not yet had the opportunity to do.

You're also mistaking me for someone who blindly follows what Floyd Toole says - you'll recall that when I entered this conversation I also stated that Toole's multichannel preference versus CTC was of no consequence since it is just a preference and he stated that it was just a preference. In fact, you don't even have to recall my first comment in this thread to realize that you're mistaking me for a blind follower of whatever Toole says, because I reminded you of that in my previous comment - the one you have just responded to, in which you once again ignored what I actually wrote.

As for my characterization of your comments to the effect that you just won't acknowledge what others write, you've earned that one, and I'm more than content for anyone else reading this thread to look at your comments and our exchange and come to their own conclusion as to whether my characterization of your conduct in this exchange is accurate or not.

Now kindly go away and bother someone else who more closely resembles the object of the caricature you're painting.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Listing the factors you refuse to acknowledge is not ad hominem.

It’s a gross mischaracterization which in effect becomes ad hominem

Now kindly go away and bother someone else who more closely resembles the object of the caricature you're painting.

Back at ya.

 

[MattHooper]

So without exception you have done hard pans and the speaker just happened to be exactly where you wanted the image to be and given an option of wider, deeper, closer or any combination you would have opted to put the hard pan exactly where your speaker just happened to be?

I'm not sure what you mean 'without exception.' But musically we hard panned some of our funk guitar parts right up to the front of the left (and sometimes left and right) speakers. Likewise that's where I've sometimes panned some sound effects. And yes they are exactly where I want them to be. Other sounds of course end up elsewhere in the soundstage. And I find your comment "where your speaker just happened to be" kind of strange. Obviously we are talking about maintaining the relative positions of sounds in the mix/soundstage. We can talk about variations on the classic stereo listening triangle, but whether you place your speakers somewhat wider apart or more narrow, the relative positions should mostly remain. E.g. singer/bass in the center, a guitar hard panned to the Left speaker, etc.

And from that we can extrapolate that that is the case with all hard pans?

I was responding to your request:

"Show me the recording engineers that state their goal was specifically to land hard pans on the speakers"

So I could at least confirm that.

And goat76 had it essentially right, with the proper caveat: "A sound object that is hard-panned is just played by either the left OR the right speaker, so the sound can only come from the exact position of that speaker as long as no effect is applied."

Pan an instrument hard right, dry, and it will end up at the right speaker position.

So if a microphone captures and records a frequency extreme or a level of detail or a spatial cue that the recording engineer failed to hear during the recording or mix and it ends up on the final release we should try to eliminate that because the recording engineer didn’t hear it?

You can if you want. And some details may come out in even a high fidelity stereo system (non-BAACH) that a mixer wasn't aware of. And we can maybe even enjoy that. But then it would seem it's not what the mixer heard or intended.

We should limit the dynamics, resolution, clarity, lack of distortion and frequency response of our playback to the levels of the monitors and control room used for the recording and mix?

We were talking specifically about the nature of panning and placing sound in regular stereo mixes. That is actually one of the artistic/mixing elements that *can* in principle be maintained pretty accurately. Recording engineers can be quite particular on this.

For instance, take this part of the conversation between Rick Beato and the "legendary" mixer/engineer Bob Clearmountain (at 4:45).

Notice how he says the panning is very important for him, and he's particular about for instance where each piece of the drum set ends up in the panning:

If the BAACH process creates the drastic differences in perspective you and others say it does, to the point "regular stereo" doesn't cut it, then you can pretty much know that you are departing in some way from the placement derived from and meant for regular uncorrected stereo mixes.

 

[fredoamigo]

http://soundmedia.jp/nuaudktua/

 

[STC]

Tonal colorations that plagued every previous execution of cross talk cancellation and the subsequent extremely narrow sweet spot that was inherent in all previous cross talk cancellation systems

Any listening tests with other DSP to prove this claim?