Does Imagination play a role in how we enjoy Sound Stage?

[Justdafactsmaam]

And yet…… when they were evaluating speakers at Harman Kardon one of the qualities of the speaker that the listeners would evaluate and rate on a numerical scale was spaciousness. And yes, these were single speaker mono listening tests.

Hmmmmmmmm

 

[Robin L]

And yet…… when they were evaluating speakers at Harman Kardon one of the qualities of the speaker that the listeners would evaluate and rate on a numerical scale was spaciousness. And yes, these were single speaker mono listening tests.

Hmmmmmmmm

 

[goat76]

Let's attack this subject from a different angle.
Let's say that you have a stereo recording that you know well, and YOU think that it has good soundstage, played in normal stereo in your room.
1) Play it in mono through one speaker only. Can you hear the soundstage? I would guess that the answer is ,"No!".
2) Play it in mono, but through the two speakers that you have, placed in the same locations that you always use. What I'm talking about here is playing L+R through the right speaker and L+R through the left speaker; two-speaker mono, not stereo. Do you hear a soundstage?
3) Can you force yourself, by whatever means at your disposal, to hear a soundstage with the two speakers each playing a mono signal?

If you can, then the only mechanism that I can think of allowing you to do this is the force of memory, which is imagination.
If you cannot, then I would posit that the soundstage derives from a conventional stereo signal and NOT from imagination.

Am I wrong?

Jim

The width of the soundstage will of course be lost, but the depth of the soundstage will still be there as that is dependent on the distance between the microphones and the sound sources (and the room reflections of the recorded space). But it will of course be harder to distinguish that soundstage depth as all the sounds will now be stacked upon each other as they no longer spread out in the horizontal plane (which will further help us to separate all the different sounds as unique sounds in the recording).

 

[Titurel]

The width of the soundstage will of course be lost, but the depth of the soundstage will still be there as that is dependent on the distance between the microphones and the sound sources (and the room reflections of the recorded space). But it will of course be harder to distinguish that soundstage depth as all the sounds will now be stacked upon each other as they no longer spread out in the horizontal plane (which will further help us to separate all the different sounds as unique sounds in the recording).

Not a bad point. When you composite photos, you purposely lose contrast, saturation, and acuity for objects you wish to appear farther away, i.e., behind the more contrasty, saturated, and sharp images in front. Shelving the top end, compressing the dynamic, and reducing volume would have much the same effect.

 

[Jim Taylor]

No there is no way I -or anyone- can hear a soundstage in decent classical recordings when stuff operates in mono through both speakers. The notion is ludicrous honestly.

I didn't necessarily stress "classical" recordings. Listen to this through two speakers, and tell me what you think.

Jim

 

[Robin L]

I didn't necessarily stress "classical" recordings. Listen to this through two speakers, and tell me what you think.

Jim

Well, first this is mighty close to classical music. Violinist Felix Slatkin and his cellist wife Eleanor Aller of the Hollywood String Quartet are part of these sessions and Nelson Riddle's arrangements are very much in a classical vein. I don't know if the mono versions of this song are fold-downs, but there's a much greater sense of soundstage in the stereo version.

If I were to pick something to indicate soundstage in popular music, I would have picked something less connected to classical tradition, like:

 

[Chrispy]

All this about classical and soundstage just makes me think of how little classical I want to listen to in general so maybe my appreciation of it is different.

 

[Robin L]

All this about classical and soundstage just makes me think of how little classical I want to listen to in general so maybe my appreciation of it is different.

Maybe. Orchestral music presents a lot of different instruments in different positions (including different depths), so they have been the acid test of soundstaging all along. Most modern pop productions are all artifice, and soundstaging is likely not as solid or stable. Most pop productions have tracks recorded individually, mixed later. So, the soundstage of "Find My Way" is the work of the mixing team, not the musicians, and ultimately not as convincing as musicians playing in the same space at the same time. Musicians playing in the same space at the same time can be recorded with just a handful of microphones.

 

[Chrispy]

Maybe. Orchestral music presents a lot of different instruments in different positions (including different depths), so they have been the acid test of soundstaging all along. Most modern pop productions are all artifice, and soundstaging is likely not as solid or stable. Most pop productions have tracks recorded individually, mixed later. So, the soundstage of "Find My Way" is the work of the mixing team, not the musicians, and ultimately not as convincing as musicians playing in the same space at the same time. Musicians playing in the same space at the same time can be recorded with just a handful of microphones.

Indeed. Then again not even familiar with where instruments are "supposed to be" in classical context, just not that interested. Still, microphone placement is likely still key

 

[Robin L]

Indeed. Then again not even familiar with where instruments are "supposed to be" in classical context, just not that interested. Still, microphone placement is likely still key

Speaking from (lots of) experience - yes.

 

[Chrispy]

Speaking from (lots of) experience - yes.

So essentially still a manufactured soundstage in many ways? Let alone actual size/placement etc? I still wait for the one that presents the best experience in reproduction I can get....which isn't close to a live performance IMO/IME.

 

[Holmz]

Maybe. Orchestral music presents a lot of different instruments in different positions (including different depths), so they have been the acid test of soundstaging all along. Most modern pop productions are all artifice, and soundstaging is likely not as solid or stable. Most pop productions have tracks recorded individually, mixed later. So, the soundstage of "Find My Way" is the work of the mixing team, not the musicians, and ultimately not as convincing as musicians playing in the same space at the same time. Musicians playing in the same space at the same time can be recorded with just a handful of microphones.

Or one can assume that placing a close-mic’ed in a particular phase/time place then places it in a location.
And that without the additional cues of wall reflections.
(Although those could be added in mathematically as well.)

 

[Robin L]

So essentially still a manufactured soundstage in many ways? Let alone actual size/placement etc? I still wait for the one that presents the best experience in reproduction I can get....which isn't close to a live performance IMO/IME.

Remember that microphones are transducers, subject to the same sorts of distortions and resonances as speakers or phono cartridges.

It's Xeno's Paradox: we can get closer, but we can't get there from here.

 

[Titurel]

If you want sound stage, try the following. The mic plot is minimal and the opera was staged on the soundstage, making this the best of two worlds, live and studio. It's also one of my all time favorites.

 

[Robin L]

Or one can assume that placing a close-mic’ed in a particular phase/time place then places it in a location.
And that without the additional cues of wall reflections.
(Although those could be added in mathematically as well.)

I think it's the other way around - placing the microphone close determines the phase/place/time, so one would need to monkey with those parameters in post-production to straighten out the time/phase/place anomalies. I think DGG has that sort of a technique for some of their overproduced orchestral recordings and the results are a tad artificial. One needs the additional cues of the room reflections to get really real. Of course, some rooms just suck, thus the development of the aforementioned tech.

 

[Robin L]

If you want sound stage, try the following. The mic plot is minimal and the opera was staged on the soundstage, making this the best of two worlds, live and studio. It's also one of my all time favorites.

Tebaldi, Bergonzi etc.? Very nice, probably using the Decca Microphone tree. Very good for a sense of depth in recordings.

 

[Holmz]

I think it's the other way around - placing the microphone close determines the phase/place/time, so one would need to monkey with those parameters in post-production to straighten out the time/phase/place anomalies.

I am not expert here, but there are no time/phase/place from a single close mic.
I am assuming that there is something happening like:

1. A time/amplitude to put the direct signal in the right place in
2. A comb filter that puts delays of the signal out corresponding to walls

 

[KellenVancouver]

Wrong logic here.

If this were true, we could not navigate the world. In the end our hearing is a positional system that, despite unpredictable differences in environment and anatomy, works consistently person to person.

Not sure I can agree. As one of our five senses, is hearing not equally subject to variation in working perception from one person to the next, same as the other four senses? Just like how a person reacts to taste varies widely.

 

[goat76]

All this about classical and soundstage just makes me think of how little classical I want to listen to in general so maybe my appreciation of it is different.

There is a lot of focus on classical music in this thread, but I'm usually more impressed by the three-dimensional soundstage I hear in some rock and jazz recordings that contain close-up recorded instruments which are then "blended" with acoustic drums where the dominating uptake of that drumset is the room microphones. Even if the size of the recorded rooms in those recordings is usually way smaller than a concert hall for large classical orchestral music, I often find rock and jazz recordings that contain real room acoustics to have a more impressive depth than recordings of classical music, as the relative distance between the close-miked sound objects (usually the electrical instruments as the guitar and bass) and the further away sound objects (usually the acoustic instruments as a drumset) has a more distinct difference when it comes to the distance. Unlike that, in many recordings of classical music, I find most of everything just sounds to be pretty far away and there is not a distinct difference in perceived distance between the different instruments, so I often don't find there is much "relative depth" in those recordings themselves.

An example with a good blend of close-miked elements and things further away, where the room acoustics (that are mostly excited by the drums) are the dominant factor for the overall sound which helps to put everything in the same three-dimensional space (even if most sound objects in the mix is close-miked) is the album Things We Lost in the Fire by the band Low.

I suggest you listen to it on Tidal, Qobuz, or Spotify as the sound quality is pretty bad for the songs I could find on YouTube. The whole album is great-sounding with an easily heard soundstage in both width and depth, but if you just want to listen to one song I suggest you listen to the song "Dinosaur Act" where the drums excite all the dimensions of the room it was recorded in, almost to the extent you can see it in front of you.

Studio B at Electrical Audio, Chicago. Recorded by Steve Albini. https://www.electricalaudio.com/studio-b

 

[rank]

What is soundstage ?!