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

[Killingbeans]

We already got 50 threads or so discussing that

 

[Jim Taylor]

What is soundstage ?!

What is a Soundstage? — Audioengine

What is Soundstage? Imagine yourself in a small theater, 10 rows from the front, dead center, watching an orchestra perform on stage. You can see the...

audioengine.com

https://soundstudiomagic.com/what-is-soundstage-in-audio/

Not to be confused with imaging ... but I do that all the time anyway

Soundstage vs Imaging: What Are They? Which Matters More? [Guide]

Learn more about soundstage and imaging in headphones and speakers. Learn how soundstage is created, and which factors affect sounstage reproduction.

soundgearlab.com

Understanding the Differences between Soundstage and Imaging in Audio – HiFiReport

www.hifireport.com

Jim

 

[rank]

Propagation of a sound wave?

 

[Curvature]

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.

I'll write a fulsome response if you don't mind humoring me first. Name a few examples of the kind of variation you have in mind, and then let's go from there.

 

[pablolie]

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.

I'd say some sense deviations shouldn't be too error prone or evolution would weed them out. As in, one hunter-gatherer tells another "oh I hear a sabretooth coming from the right" and the other one goes "what? clearly from the left!". Both start running. Only one survives...

Some senses are more vital to survival than others. The whole "everybody hears something different according to their personal hearing" doesn't entirely wash with me.

 

[KellenVancouver]

I'll write a fulsome response if you don't mind humoring me first. Name a few examples of the kind of variation you have in mind, and then let's go from there.

Sure. Here are some quick examples.
Taste: One person has an aversion to broccoli, another loves it. Taste varies widely.
Touch: One person has a high tolerance for pain, another can't stand even the slightest discomfort, or even to be touched. Touch varies widely.
Smell: One person has hyperosmia, can even make a career out of it, while another can work in a sewer no problem. Smell varies widely.
Vision: We see people with vision disparities every day (not to mention color blindness and even photophobia). Vision varies widely.
Hearing of course follows the same pattern of variability. These sense differences don't necessarily dovetail on physcial limitations or disabilities, they are mainly driven by our working perceptions. Personally, I think that is why there is so much discrepancy between audiophiles harboring such widely varying opinions about sound, which sounds are more pleasing, fuller, brighter, pick your adjective. Like most people on ASR I'm an advocate of objective measurements (the reason I went with a Benchmark system), but we can't get around the final reality that sound must be processed through our extremely subjective brains, thus no real consistency in hearing or other senses.

BTW, I've recently been teaching leadership courses that differentiate between objectivity and feelings/intuition when making critical decisions, and scholarly research is evincing the importance, even dominance of subjectivity compared to objectivity. Seem to be parallels with what I was describing above...

 

[Robin L]

Personally, I think that is why there is so much discrepancy between audiophiles harboring such widely varying opinions about sound, which sounds are more pleasing, fuller, brighter, pick your adjective. Like most people on ASR I'm an advocate of objective measurements (the reason I went with a Benchmark system), but we can't get around the final reality that sound must be processed through our extremely subjective brains, thus no real consistency in hearing or other senses.

I've been pointing to examples of soundstage in orchestral music, this subjective auditor having more than a little experience listening to recordings and making recordings of "Classical" music for large ensembles. But someone who doesn't listen to that sort of music wouldn't have a frame of reference for massed instruments and/or voices, so certain aspects of soundstaging wouldn't mean anything to them. Mind you, as someone who has worked for many years in record/cd stores and collected, listened to, pop productions, I also have heard many "Pop" productions. I find, for the most part, that pop productions usually have artificial presentations of soundstage. Whatever one might think of H.P.'s concept of "The Absolute Sound", this is one aspect where the concept does apply. Imagination plays a large role in how one enjoys soundstage with pop productions.

 

[Sokel]

Lets take it from the source (posted again at another thread) :

Imagination has nothing to do with it,it's literally constructed,what we hear is pre-designed and it's well repeatable with some decent conditions.

 

[goat76]

Imagination plays a large role in how one enjoys soundstage with pop productions.

Do you have any example of how you use your imagination when it comes to the soundstage in pop productions, and in what way do you think other people use their imagination when listening to that type of music?

I ask the above questions as I’m curious how the “imagination part” is done as I can't remember myself ever doing that while listening to music.

 

[Doodski]

Do you have any example of how you use your imagination when it comes to the soundstage in pop productions, and in what way do you think other people use their imagination when listening to that type of music?

I ask the above questions as I’m curious how the “imagination part” is done as I can't remember myself ever doing that while listening to music.

I imagine the position in space and even today I was listening to my Samsung Buds2Pro earbuds and I was hearing a instrument out about 7' and slightly ahead of my ears.

EDIT:
It was about 7" from my ear and not 7 feet.

 

[Robin L]

Do you have any example of how you use your imagination when it comes to the soundstage in pop productions, and in what way do you think other people use their imagination when listening to that type of music?

I ask the above questions as I’m curious how the “imagination part” is done as I can't remember myself ever doing that while listening to music.

I would mostly be thinking about older pop productions (being an older person). Something like Sgt Pepper comes to mind, where the elements creating the illusion of a soundstage were assembled separately. Of course, that also applies to most modern pop productions. Although one knows (or should know) that these recordings are assembled at the mixing stage, one hears these recordings as having a unified soundstage.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Do you have any example of how you use your imagination when it comes to the soundstage in pop productions, and in what way do you think other people use their imagination when listening to that type of music?

I ask the above questions as I’m curious how the “imagination part” is done as I can't remember myself ever doing that while listening to music.

Imagination is perhaps the wrong description. I’d call mental reconstruction. And we can take an orchestral classical performance as a prime example. With conventional stereo you get solid imaging from speaker to speaker with some hint of smeared imaging beyond the speaker boundaries. You get some minor semblance of depth and height. And a hint of hall sound that is fighting the listening room sound.

And from that audiophiles do a taxing elaborate mental reconstruction of a full size orchestra in an actual concert hall. Or at least try to.

The degrees of success will vary. But the attempt at a mental reconstruction will often come into play as evidenced by numerous descriptions offered by various audiophiles.

 

[Doodski]

With conventional stereo you get solid imaging from speaker to speaker with some hint of smeared imaging beyond the speaker boundaries.

Hmmz. I have listened to some vivid horns floating out in space in a dark comfy room. Nothing smeared there.

 

[KellenVancouver]

I imagine the position in space and even today I was listening to my Samsung Buds2Pro earbuds and I was hearing a instrument out about 7' and slightly ahead of my ears.

Honestly, I kind of wish I had more imagination for musical enjoyment, it would seem to bring so much more depth and emotion to the listening experience. But I really don't. The only time that happened to me was the first time I heard Respighi's Belkis. Hearing that song for the first time created colorful floating images in my mind akin to the windows of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Sure wish I could recreate that experience...

 

[Doodski]

Honestly, I kind of wish I had more imagination for musical enjoyment, it would seem to bring so much more depth and emotion to the listening experience. But I really don't. The only time that happened to me was the first time I heard Respighi's Belkis. Hearing that song for the first time created colorful floating images in my mind akin to the windows of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Sure wish I could recreate that experience...

Try mushrooms and or THC and relax... LoL.

 

[Titurel]

Try mushrooms and or THC and relax... LoL.

Or take horseradish and THD and not.

 

[KellenVancouver]

Try mushrooms and or THC and relax... LoL.

That made me giggle. Thanks!

 

[Doodski]

take horseradish

Hehe... My friend and I where avid fishermen, we where constantly coming across these huge plants with huge leaves and a huge root-ball coming out of the earth. So being the cooks we also where we decided to dig one up and check it out. It turned out to be wild horseradish. It grows in large clumps in fairly large areas where they like to live and don't appear to be fussy about needing water. Anyway we processed roots and chopped and then blended together some nice clumpy horseradish dip and ate the stuff all the time.

 

[Piere]

Hmmm eh, although I don't remember anything of it myself, it appears that the unborn child enjoys music as well...

 

[goat76]

I would mostly be thinking about older pop productions (being an older person). Something like Sgt Pepper comes to mind, where the elements creating the illusion of a soundstage were assembled separately. Of course, that also applies to most modern pop productions. Although one knows (or should know) that these recordings are assembled at the mixing stage, one hears these recordings as having a unified soundstage.

The thing is that I never have to use my imagination to hear what's on the recording. Whether the audio engineers tried to capture the sound of musicians playing in a real space, or if it's a completely "doctored" space/soundstage made out of panned multi-mono recorded instruments and artificial reverbs, I still hear what's on the recording and nothing else (except perhaps some envelopment my listening environment is adding to the equation). There's no need for any more or less imagination on my part, I listen to the recording and either hear how well or not the audio engineers managed to capture the sound of the musicians in the real space, or how well or not the audio engineers managed to mix a convincing-sounding space (if that was what they aimed for).

Some of us may be "tricked" into believing an artificially made space/soundstage is a capture of a real space if it's convincing-sounding enough, while some of us fully well know it's just a well-executed artificially made space/soundstage made out of panned multi-mono recorded instruments and artificial reverbs, and hears just that. One group of people just knows it's artificially done while the other group of people may think it's real, but there isn't necessarily any imagination happening in either group as they all hear the overall sound the same way (with or without knowing how it's done technically-wise).