Thanks for the summary, Newman. I haven't been following this thread, but since my name is involved, perhaps a brief clarification is appropriate. At this late stage in my life I reflect on things somewhat simply - it is the big things that matter most, so getting those right is essential. After that one can seek all manner of "inner voices, detail, resolution imaging and soundstage" issues.
My research began with the notion that sound quality was the starting point - voices and instruments should sound natural, uncolored, and loudspeakers of that era all had strong "personalities". It was gratifying that in organized double-blind equal-loudness, multiple-loudspeaker comparison tests listeners reliably preferred loudspeakers that exhibited the fewest audible resonances. In measurement terms this translates into what is best described as "technical excellence" - flat and smooth direct sound, followed by similarly smooth off-axis sounds that appear as early reflections in small rooms. The tests used single loudspeakers - mono listening - because listeners were most sensitive to defects when listening in that mode. The highest rated loudspeakers in mono listening were also the highest rated in stereo and multichannel listening when sound quality was the criterion. This finding was repeated in loudspeakers having a variety of directional radiation patterns. In these tests the room and the recording were constant factors - loudspeakers were the variable and sound quality alone was the criterion of excellence.
However, when the "play" button is pressed at home all loudspeakers, including the "best" are at the mercy of the listening room a low frequencies - about 30% of our overall opinions of sound quality - and this must be dealt with in every playback setup or we are not comparing apples with apples. Two chapters in my books provide explanations and remedies.
BUT, as soon as one starts to judge soundstage and imaging the recording becomes part of the evaluation, and recordings exhibit enormous variability. They are created in control rooms by recording engineers who add their preferences and judgments to the final artistic product, while listening to their loudspeakers in their control rooms, not yours. These days a high percentage of monitoring is done in the direct sound field, either by using close (near-field) listening or by listening in acoustically dead, reflection-controlled rooms. So, what is heard during the creation of the art may be very different from the playback conditions in homes (or earphones).
Add to these significant uncertainties the basic fact that stereo is a directionally and spatially compromised format - fact not opinion. So, the recording engineers do what they can to create a directionally and spatially interesting artistic product, and consumers do what they can to achieve satisfaction with what they hear. These two objectives can be very different. As a result, we end up with strong subjective preferences for loudspeakers having different directional properties. No one of them is "perfect" or "correct". They are what they are: post processing alternatives that provide listeners with distinctive perceptual effects in terms of soundstage and imaging, spaciousness, and probably other subtleties. They are not right or wrong in a technical/moral sense, but they were not used when the art was created. If they provide satisfaction to the listener, that is sufficient justification. End of story.
Beyond this kind of acoustical manipulation of the playback sound field there are multichannel options. In my life's experience of listening to reproduced sound through loudspeakers, the most gratifying experience was a demonstration of an elaborate immersive set up by the creator and playing recordings done by the creator. They were stunning in their realism, there was no sweet spot, and I was in a concert hall, a cathedral, or even outdoors with manmade and natural sounds all around. It was a spine tingling experience. I wanted it! It could be reproduced in homes able to accommodate a multichannel setup. But, then, where does one get the source material? What about the colossal existing recorded repertoire in stereo, and more to come? All challenges, but it
can be done. Small room resonances remain a challenge, as large performance spaces lack audible resonances in the musical bass frequency range - two ears and a brain cannot easily ignore that or what the eyes see when we are aiming to "transport" ourselves to different venues.
The other impressive playback experience was binaural (dummy head) recordings reproduced through head-tracked, calibrated headphones or through crosstalk-cancelled loudspeakers. Headphones remove the listening room entirely, and crosstalk cancelling with some control of bass resonances in the room can significantly "remove" the walls. It can be very gratifying. Again, where do we get the recordings of the artists and music we like? I have a feeling that this situation will improve because headphone listening is so popular, superb sounding headphones are available at affordable prices. Stereo through headphones is not stereo, but fortunately the digital post processing necessary to translate conventional stereo and multichannel "loudspeaker" recordings into more rewarding headphone experiences exist and more are in progress.
Upmixing stereo to multichannel is a lottery. When it works, it can be - in my opinion - a tasteful embellishment of the sense of envelopment, of being in a large space. But that requires the right up mixer combined with the right recording, both meeting the expectations of the listener and the program being auditioned. In my experience, a good upmixer (e.g. the long gone Lexicon algorithm) that does not destroy the soundstage while delivering delayed surround information to loudspeakers to the side (even 60 degrees to the side is enough) was rewarding. Now, it is a greater challenge, but by keeping the upmixed information at a low, background, level, it is still useful for certain kinds of music. It can easily be turned off, so it is an option to embellishing stereo that does not force one into choosing loudspeakers that are always in the delivery path, and frankly, are less rewarding (my personal opinion - let the flames begin
).
Cheers, Floyd
). Happy to discuss generically, but I see no reason to sidebar the issues I am discussing into such a personal orientation. I assume you want to take this line of questioning somewhere helpful, but you haven't revealed the point of the exercise.
)
instead of perfectly functional and beautifully made japanese electronics with 2*power for 1/2 the price or less .
