A Broad Discussion of Speakers with Major Audio Luminaries

[Newman]

I have a multichannel question that I think isn't very far off-topic. Maybe Floyd knows the answer.

If you have a multichannel system with front-wide speakers, does the surround processor synthesize (create) first lateral reflections from the L & R channels and feed those synthesized reflections to the front-wide speakers? If the answer is yes, then clearly we would want to absorb the first side reflections from the L & R speakers in order to not interfere with the synthesized reflections. If the answer is no, then we're back to deciding whether or not to absorb the 'real' first reflections based on room size, personal preference, etc.

My understanding is that allowing the first lateral reflection only provides an advantage for two channel playback, because it assists to compensate for one of the limitations of two channel playback. Once you progress to multi channel playback, it is no longer a recommended treatment.

Cheers.

 

[hex168]

Yes!!! I've been doing this in various forms since 2013. My colleagues and I call the separate late-reflection generating speakers "LORAs", which stands for "Late Onset Reflection Assist." The first generation version fired up at the ceiling to get path length; we still use the vertical dimension but with some angling in the horizontal plane as well.

How did you come up with this idea?

Are you doing this in your system?



I've been using a different set-up geometry and smaller horns that don't go as low, with the late-reflection generating speakers behind the main speakers such that the main speakers "shield" them from line-of-sight.

I can see how the setup geometry you describe maximizes the reflection path length of the late-reflection generating speakers.



It's the time delay gap between the arrival on the direct sound and the arrival of the additional reflection energy that matters, so (unless I misunderstood you) the ten feet distance for the direct sound would have to be subtracted from the total path length of the additional reflections to arrive at the time delay gap.



Yes, that's why I like to use the main speakers to block any direct sound leakage from the late-reflection generating speakers.

Ime with a good initial set-up this approach has both spatial quality and sound quality benefits. The sound quality benefit arises from using the additional reflection energy to deliberately correct the in-room reflection field's spectral balance.

I came up with the idea by reading about what you (and Bill Waslo) have done. No claims of originality. The new-ish part is just moving the reflecting speakers to a location near the listener for additional delay. And, yes, of course, sorry for the arithmetic error, it is the time delay difference that matters, and that is improved by moving the speaker. Whether it is worth having a separate box for an extra few msec, I can't say.

 

[Vuki]

My understanding is that allowing the first lateral reflection only provides an advantage for two channel playback, because it assists to compensate for one of the limitations of two channel playback. Once you progress to multi channel playback, it is no longer a recommended treatment.

Cheers.

Understanding or expirience?
My expirience is that (to me) for lateral reflection diffusion is preffered, then absorption and no treatment is the worst.

 

[Newman]

Understanding or expirience?
My expirience is that (to me) for lateral reflection diffusion is preffered, then absorption and no treatment is the worst.

Understanding of the science, which, unlike personal sighted listening, draws on experimentally valid evidence.

 

[Vuki]

Understanding of the science, which, unlike personal sighted listening, draws on experimentally valid evidence.

You understand that this scientific result was based on personal preference?

 

[MaxwellsEq]

You understand that this scientific result was based on personal preference?

?

I can't tell if you are joking or being ironic.

Scientific results should always be reliably repeatable in a different location, by a different person or team and at a different time.

 

[Vuki]

?

I can't tell if you are joking or being ironic.

Scientific results should always be reliably repeatable in a different location, by a different person or team and at a different time.

Of course, but in this case it means that some percentage of listeners will prefere diffuse reflection. And I'm among them. And you don't know what you like until you listen for yourself. Or you can just let someone else to decide for you.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Of course, but in this case it means that some percentage of listeners will prefere diffuse reflection. And I'm among them. And you don't know what you like until you listen for yourself. Or you can just let someone else to decide for you.

OK understood. This is preference. Nothing to do with repeatable science.

 

[Vuki]

OK understood. This is preference. Nothing to do with repeatable science.

That science that says lateral reflections are preferable is based on preference. They are preferable for some listeners in that room with those loudspeakers.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

That science that says lateral reflections are preferable is based on preference. They are preferable for some listeners in that room with those loudspeakers.

Are you saying that the preference score (let's pick a number, say 80%) is always repeatable everywhere regardless of the time of day, location and people involved? For example, if the test was performed a decade ago in Canada, you would also get a preference score of 80% in Burkina Faso next Thursday. To a certain extent that meets some level of scientific rigour.

But it would probably require an identical room to be built in Burkina Faso as was built in Canada 10 years ago. Perhaps the loudspeakers would need to be identical.

But it would definitely not be reproducible in a room 2.1m by 2m by 1.9m. Nor would it be reproducible in a room 120m by 104m by 31m.

 

[Newman]

You understand that this scientific result was based on personal preference?

Yes. That is its strength. Your point?

 

[Vuki]

That there is every kind of people. Not everyone likes lateral reflections.

 

[Duke]

I came up with the idea by reading about what you (and Bill Waslo) have done.

Ha! No wonder I liked your ideas so much!

I'm honored. Thank you.

The new-ish part is just moving the reflecting speakers to a location near the listener for additional delay.

As a DIYer you have more freedom than I do in this area, as I need to keep marketability in mind.

Whether it is worth having a separate box for an extra few msec, I can't say.

I've found that having the ability to independently position and aim the source of the additional late-onset reflection energy can be quite useful.

I think you and I may be going off on a tangent that is not of general interest, so if you don't mind, let's switch to using direct messages.

 

[Newman]

That there is every kind of people. Not everyone likes lateral reflections.

Like I said before: so?

I was replying to a question about whether to maintain the same lateral reflections treatment when moving from stereo to multichannel with front wides. Which you commented on, that "it's only personal preference", then expanded on this with "there is every kind of people". You aren't taking the conversation anywhere useful.

If I was replying to a question about smoking and lung cancer, and I said that the science is telling us that smoking is a bad idea if you don't like lung cancer, would you think it is smart to chip in with "it's only personal biology, my grandma was a chain smoker her whole life and lived to 99", and "there is every kind of people, biology is personal, I smoke and I don't have lung cancer"? That would be about as unhelpful as it gets.

The science tells us what course of action is the safest bet to take at the individual level. It doesn't guarantee that outcome at the individual level.....but sometimes the confidence is quite high. (If it was all just random personal preference, then science wouldn't bother to issue a finding at all, and would conclude that "a correlation was not found", or "there is most likely no correlation", depending on the evidence and design.) In the case of lateral reflections, the conclusion was not that "everybody hears it differently and randomly". So the best bet is the advice I gave.

Now, of course, if one is not satisfied with applying the confidence level underlying the science-forward advice to oneself, one can increase the confidence level by conducting the experiment on oneself at home. That's a wonderful idea, but there are two points worth making:-

1. Not many people can be bothered to properly test themselves at home, so most people are well served by adopting the science-forward advice as the best proxy for a personal experiment, with good confidence.
2. The home test had better not be sighted listening, because the confidence level for that method is way less than if they had simply followed the science-forward advice. I bet the feedback forms of formal audio experimenters are littered with comments like "I was so shocked by how I scored in your (controlled, randomised, experimentally valid) test. I was so sure I was going to score the opposite, based on what I thought I was hearing in sighted listening tests at home."

From my POV it is most likely that your personal findings lack the rigour of a formal experiment, and if so, it would actually be more likely than not that you would have the opposite result if you had been one of the participants in the formal experiments. That's how unreliable are sighted listening tests at home.

Finally, even if one had successfully conducted experimentally-valid personal listening tests at home, with speakers with excellent spinorama, and concluded that one does not like near-side lateral reflections with two-channel stereo, bringing it up here is helpful in what way? The science still stands: its recommendation won't be changed by one extra data point. The confidence of the science-forward advice to the readers is not changed. And readers can be certain that your personal (minority) preference has zero applicability to them personally in determining their course of action.

It bemuses me.

cheers

 

[Keith_W]

If I was replying to a question about smoking and lung cancer, and I said that the science is telling us that smoking is a bad idea if you don't like lung cancer, would you think it is smart to chip in with "it's only personal biology, my grandma was a chain smoker her whole life and lived to 99", and "there is every kind of people, biology is personal, I smoke and I don't have lung cancer"? That would be about as unhelpful as it gets.

It is depressing that there are many, many people who make this exact argument. On another forum, I tried to tell them that raw milk is not safe if it is pooled and stored. If you drink it straight from the cow, it's more likely to be safe - even if it's contaminated, the bacteria hasn't had a chance to multiply. But pool milk from dozens of cows and store it, the likelihood of contamination goes up. I was met with replies with "I have drunk raw milk all my life", etc. etc. One guy replied with a rant about vaccines. They are udder idiots (sorry).

Anyway, if I am going to have a conversation with someone about something we disagree with, we need to establish common ground. The basic premise and facts must be established before we can proceed. If science is discarded in favour of anecdote before the conversation even begins, then the conversation is not worth having. Anecdote is not data, and the plural of anecdote is still not data. Data has to be collected under controlled conditions before it becomes meaningful. It is true that many anecdotes might suggest there is data to be collected, but the anecdotes themselves are not meaningful. I could easily find a few dozen people who would swear blind that copper cables sound warm, but we all know that's not data. For it to be data, we need a controlled double blind listening test with a statistically meaningful number.

Which is a long way of saying - yeah, I agree with you.

 

[Vuki]

Smoking and lateral reflections? Such a lame analogy. It suprises me you didn't pull up an automobil related one.
Listening to a system with or without tamed down lateral reflections will not cause any long (or short) term health related issues.
Better analogy is eating a dish made by a recipe for a whole life and then years after you find out that a pinch more pepper makes it much more enjoyable.
Of course I'm pro science! It is science that says some percentege of listeners prefere tamed down lateral reflections. It's not that hard to make a test, even blind test.

 

[jhaider]

I came up with the idea by reading about what you (and Bill Waslo) have done. No claims of originality. The new-ish part is just moving the reflecting speakers to a location near the listener for additional delay. And, yes, of course, sorry for the arithmetic error, it is the time delay difference that matters, and that is improved by moving the speaker. Whether it is worth having a separate box for an extra few msec, I can't say.

Have you see this from the late Mr. Linkwitz?

WATSON-Stereo_Expansion_Loudspeakers

 

[krabapple]

The insistance of many here in trying to project multi channel as a de facto music playing solution for enjoying stereo music at home never cease to make me wonder.
A stereo system to play stereo music at home has so many advantages.

Except, not sounding as good with music as good upmixing and/or multichannel mixing does. ZING.
Different strokes, for different folks. And so on...

For most, dare I say interesting music, 2 speakers, adequately positioned in a room prepared for music reproduction is the elegant and mature solution.

That's one way of putting it.

After all, last I checked the overwhelming majority of music we already posses or is offered was produced in stereo.

Keep checking. Stereo is of course in no danger of going away -- though a great many consumers now find even two loudspeakers too inconvenient for music listening, favoring their bluetooth music boxes or earbuds instead -- but there is a gusher happening in the multichannel category. You may be astonished at the outpouring of streamed multichannel mixes occurring in the last couple of years. I know I am.

 

[patoulol]

The insistance of many here in trying to project multi channel as a de facto music playing solution for enjoying stereo music at home never cease to make me wonder.
A stereo system to play stereo music at home has so many advantages.
For movies, particularly the action pack American productions, which is where multi channel has its roots, if you are into that, then yes, thunderous bass and speaker galore, not to miss any noise from that helicopter coming from behind the listener is a very valid option.
For most, dare I say interesting music, 2 speakers, adequately positioned in a room prepared for music reproduction is the elegant and mature solution.
After all, last I checked the overwhelming majority of music we already posses or is offered was produced in stereo.

as a sound engineer specialised in Atmos mixing, and owner of two Atmos studios (one of them Dolby referenced), even though most of my day to day work is actually the conversion and standardisation of mixes that were originally produced in binaural, I follow this discussion with interest.


I fully understand the point being made.

A welldesigned stereo system in a properly treated room remains an elegant, coherent and often highly satisfying way to listen to music that was produced in stereo. The vast majority of the music catalogue was and still is created in stereo, and for a great many titles two carefully positioned speakers are more than enough to convey the artistic intent.


tthat said, my daily studio experience also shows that multichannel (and Atmos in particular) is no longer limited to American action films. An increasing number of music productions

including in genres many would consider “interesting”

are now mixed natively in immersive format. In those cases, a properly calibrated multichannel system simply allows the listener to hear the work as it was intended, rather than a fold-down to stereo.


I’m not claiming that multichannel is systematically better for every stereo recording. Far from it. But presenting stereo as the only “mature” solution and multichan as little more than a gadget for blockbuster feels a little reductive given how production practices are evolving


Both approaches have their place. It ultimately depends on the content, the artistic intention, and of course the listening conditions

 

[ShadowFiend]

The only insistence I see is that experiments have shown that (for stereo recordings, per your insistence) good upmixing has the potential to improve perceptions of ASW and ENV, which is proven to correspond with perceptual preference, while not simultaneously degrading soundstage imaging, which also corresponds with perceptual preference.

Means nothing. MCH systems can still work in stereo any time the owner wishes to do so. Then they can offer so much more when the owner finally overcomes his or her Late Adopter Syndrome and tries upmixing stereo or obtaining discrete MCH recordings.

We are in ASR. So please cite some major researches that show in blind test with statistically significant that upmixing-to-multichannel stereo is better than stereo. Experiment condition should be in varying range type of speaker, not just conventional cone/dome box speaker and with major existing commercial upmixing engine (DSU, Auro, DTS).

If not then the above is only your opinion or some anecdotes, not fact.

What are you even talking about? Are you talking about upmixing? I'm one of those who upmixes pretty much everything if so, and I wonder at anyone who doesn't personally. Actual multichannel mixes are generally (though not always) superior, of course.

Possibly because other people, including me, have also tried it but do not like the result.

Real multichannel contents in multichannel playback system are great, especially with multichannel content in the last 10-15 year. But I'm not sure about the "upmix" part.