Group delay produced by stereo

[kemmler3D]

No matter how good Amir's objective rating, no matter the room treatment etc., we can never match the original.

Yes and no. What is "the original"?

A hypothetical unamplified live concert? For most genres other than classical, such a thing never exists in the first place. Even Jazz uses guitar amps and vocal mics, even synthesizers sometimes.

If "the original" is what was heard in the studio, then you can get pretty close to the original and probably not spend more than $10K in most rooms.

There is a further question of whether you even really want to hear the original, which in most cases would be a fairly dry, uncolored, near-field studio monitoring experience.

 

[fineMen]

... a fairly dry, uncolored, near-field studio monitoring experience.

Those are the ones I like the most by far. Anyway, the physical impression of being there at that time is never reproducible, just by pure logic. Being there gives opportunity to interfere, that simple. Playing a harpsichord and feeling it breathe is not conveyed by any recording I know of. What else to say?

 

[jsilvela]

Of course the reverberation from a so called 'phantom source' is not right. That's why a 'dry' recording is hard to find. With the emphasis on a full fleshed stereo rendition aka 'imaging' with perfectly sharp localization of those phantom sources the business got to mix-in tons of artifical, nowadays pretty cheap extra reverberation.

Anecdotally, back in the day when reverberation was not yet available via digital processing, voices were, literally, recorded in airplane hangars ...

Two channel stereo is just ill defined--in nearly every aspect. Let's come back to ping-pong stereo

My idea of narrow side speakers combined with a wide center derived from the two channels + delay may come to the rescue. But for the time being its my business alone, sadly.

I don't think you're alone.
I've seen a similar proposal at ASR here: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...n-ht-center-channel-speaker-sound-like.36434/

Also, David Griesinger, whom i mentioned in my first message in this thread, is a big proponent of phase-linear speakers.
I think you'd find this video interesting:

 

[jsilvela]

Yes and no. What is "the original"?

A hypothetical unamplified live concert? For most genres other than classical, such a thing never exists in the first place. Even Jazz uses guitar amps and vocal mics, even synthesizers sometimes.

If "the original" is what was heard in the studio, then you can get pretty close to the original and probably not spend more than $10K in most rooms.

There is a further question of whether you even really want to hear the original, which in most cases would be a fairly dry, uncolored, near-field studio monitoring experience.

Agree completely.

And, lack of direct knowledge of what is "the original", for me spells out another big issue: we are a lot more forgiving of inaccuracies.
I've never heard say Bruce Springsteen sing in person, un-amplified, in a small auditorium.
So once my hifi set is good enough, I'll believe I've heard him with excellent quality.

Change a music piece with something like a loved one having a conversation with you. There, you are likely to notice problems with the reproduction much more clearly.

 

[Sancus]

Yes and no. What is "the original"?

Yeah, practically speaking, "the original" for effectively all genres minus purely-acoustic ones is actually the studio recording, which is designed to sound the way the artist and audio engineer want it to sound. There's no "unaltered acoustic version" because the parts were not recorded together in the first place.

Even some classical albums, and ALL film soundtracks, are recorded the same way. Trying to capture the sound of an orchestra in a room all playing together is a niche recording technique at this point, and it mostly just doesn't work that well IMO. There are major exceptions, such as Morten Lindberg's technique, but that uses a large number of microphones and is targeted to produce the best experience with Auro3D reproduction, not stereo.

 

[jsilvela]

Very interesting. Could be developed a bit more.
By the way, a little hit speaker in the country where I live

SoundFun to Demo MIRAI Speaker That Improves Dialogue And Makes Sound Easier for All to Hear

SoundFun, a Japanese startup focused on designing assistive listening products for seniors will present its new MIRAI curved speaker concept at CES 2023. The design uses a curved frame with an internal waveguide that generates a particular sound dispersion. The company says the MIRAI speaker...

audioxpress.com

【ミライスピーカー公式】TVの音量上げずに、言葉くっきり

【株式会社SoundFun（サウンドファン）】聞こえやすい音に変換するテクノロジーMIRAI SPEAKER®（ミライスピーカー）。100年のスピーカーの歴史を変えた、世界初の特許技術「曲面サウンド」を搭載。言葉をはっきりとクリアに表現するテクノロジーで、テレビの聞こえのお悩みを解決します。音量を上げなくても聞き取りやすいから、聞こえにくい人もそのご家族もみんながうれしいスピーカーです。

soundfun.co.jp

The speakers, marketed for TV with the catchphrase "Clear words without raising the volume", were basically designed to be used in a single unit...

Oh cool!
Even at ASR there are quite a few threads on movie dialog being muddled etc.
There is definitely an issue ... and a product opportunity

 

[fineMen]

Oh cool!
Even at ASR there are quite a few threads on movie dialog being muddled etc.
There is definitely an issue ... and a product opportunity

I wonder how the concept of stereo or surround would possibly realize in a cinema, where not all listeners are sitting in the sweet spot. The center speaker plus a lot of reverberation, synthetic or from the room, might be the hidden kicker.

Btw, the above mentioned center speaker to enhance performance for, as they put it, "older folks" is something. Good that I wasn't tempted to raise a patent on it

 

[Wesayso]

If you haven't seen it yet, try this thread on diyaudio.com: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/fixing-the-stereo-phantom-center.277519/

I'd say that thread discusses what you are perceiving. Personally, I use trickery to get better phantom center coherence. Having my speakers operate in linear phase is part of that. Actually, my speakers follow minimum phase throughout their bandwidth. I use a mix of tricks that were discussed in that thread to fight the effects of the Stereo crosstalk.
Further more my speakers plus room are specifically chosen to work together, with minimum room treatment needed, to absorb early reflections to further enhance these results. That does emphasize the biggest stereo concept flaw, meaning it makes the cross talk that's always happening even more obvious. Which is why I spend many hours trying to find a proper solution. (I guess I like a challenge) What I've come up with works for me, but I do realize it isn't a standard solution, nor a simple one.

It is save to say that David Griesinger was a huge influence and inspiration in my countless experiments.

 

[jsilvela]

I was doing some testing in my living room system, which has a dedicated center speaker (I've never had surrounds, so it's 3.1).
Played some youtube talks setting the AVR to convert to Dolby Surround with the dialog routed to the center channel.
And ... so much better.
Youtube talks get to sound in my 5K euro system much closer to what they sound in my laptop speakers. And that is a compliment.

I now use DAC + single speaker for my computer, which is an improvement over the builtin speakers.
My home office's stereo system never left me happy regarding zoom and youtube talks.

Was remembering old style radio-cassettes that had a single speaker. Maybe they were on to something back then.