HiFi Technology Flatlined Last Century

[Robin L]

Ah, but a reference to what?

Most recordings were conceived as stereo recordings, with surround or Atmos releases an afterthought. I have a number of "pop" productions on SACD and DVD A that were released as surround recordings long after their first issue. Talking Heads, Grateful Dead and Dire Straits recordings come to mind.

It is completely useless to appreciate the art that the recording team tried to present in a Quad, 5.1, or Atmos soundfield.
If you don't appreciate the musical art they present, that's your loss

But the recording team intended the recording to be issued as two channel stereo. Surround was an afterthought, created when it became technically possible to release those recordings as such.

That's one way to present home music production, far and away not the only one.

The idea of having the audience facing the performers on a stage in front of them is the most common and consistent mode of presentation. So, most people are used to that kind of presentation.

Sometimes I feel like it's the 1960s again, who needs stereo, bah humbug, a good mono system is all you need.

But stereo did become the popular mode of musical presentation and still is. There is some semblance of depth. Those who want multichannel obviously have that option, but most music consumers/audiophiles do not.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Pretty much a moot point regarding stereo vs surround. Mainstream music listening is now dominated by headphones. Stereo it will be as you can't have a center channel with headphones.

 

[Sal1950]

Pretty much a moot point regarding stereo vs surround.

Ah, but the headphone scene is a big driving force for Atmos.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Ah, but the headphone scene is a big driving force for Atmos.

I've read that, which doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Never made the attempt, never had the means. At one point, had enough microphones but not enough mixer or recorder. Often had projects that asked for a lot of microphones, like orchestra and chorus.

It can done with as few as three microphones. A bi-directional microphone and a cardioid front plus a carioid rear. You can extract 5 or more real channels out of it. Schoeps champions this approach for an unobtrusive method of multi-channel sound.

Double MS | SCHOEPS Microphones

schoeps.de

You can also do this with double figure 8's and a cardioid. You can do it with two microphones if you use one of those in which the pattern can be decided after the fact. Those use two channels per mic, so a pair of those in 4 channels or 1 combined with a bi-directional in 3 channels.

You could also do it with one microphone with the Calrec Soundfield or the modern copies like the Tetramics.

The Double Mid-Sides Array

M-S miking is already a versatile technique, but it can be built upon to provide surround-sound recording and a whole lot more besides!

www.soundonsound.com

Here is a fellow using double MS for all sorts of things. Has some examples to listen to on his page.

Variation on double mid-side recording – Dr Badphil

drbadphil.com

 

[Robin L]

It can done with as few as three microphones. A bi-directional microphone and a cardioid front plus a carioid rear. You can extract 5 or more real channels out of it. Schoeps champions this approach for an unobtrusive method of multi-channel sound.

Double MS | SCHOEPS Microphones

schoeps.de

You can also do this with double figure 8's and a cardioid. You can do it with two microphones if you use one of those in which the pattern can be decided after the fact. Those use two channels per mic, so a pair of those in 4 channels or 1 combined with a bi-directional in 3 channels.

You could also do it with one microphone with the Calrec Soundfield or the modern copies like the Tetramics.

The Double Mid-Sides Array

M-S miking is already a versatile technique, but it can be built upon to provide surround-sound recording and a whole lot more besides!

www.soundonsound.com

Here is a fellow using double MS for all sorts of things. Has some examples to listen to on his page.

Variation on double mid-side recording – Dr Badphil

drbadphil.com

Again, never had the mixer or the recorder. And the folks that hired me never asked for surround recordings. The other (more professional) engineers I knew and worked with did not have requests to record in surround. I did have access to the types of microphones that could be used in a MS configuration, but my work never called for it.

For those who find this sort of stuff interesting, it's interesting. But the gigs I got simply didn't call for surround recording.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Again, never had the mixer or the recorder. And the folks that hired me never asked for surround recordings. The other (more professional) engineers I knew and worked with did not have requests to record in surround. I did have access to the types of microphones that could be used in a MS configuration, but my work never called for it.

For those who find this sort of stuff interesting, it's interesting. But the gigs I got simply didn't call for surround recording.

Well you don't need a special mixer for that. Just do it after the fact in the DAW. So if you have the mikes and three channels of recording it can be done. But I hear you, I never had a request for surround either. I simply found it interesting. I experimented with it some, but don't even have a real surround recording. All anyone cares about (well 99% or more) is stereo. The good thing about double MS is you already have single MS which is just stereo. So for one extra mike and one extra channel you can record both at once.

So I think stereo and MCH are just divided. Even in MCH for movies, the majority of people at home use a soundbar or stereo.

 

[Robin L]

Well you don't need a special mixer for that. Just do it after the fact in the DAW. So if you have the mikes and three channels of recording it can be done. But I hear you, I never had a request for surround either. I simply found it interesting. I experimented with it some, but don't even have a real surround recording. All anyone cares about (well 99% or more) is stereo. The good thing about double MS is you already have single MS which is just stereo. So for one extra mike and one extra channel you can record both at once.

So I think stereo and MCH are just divided. Even in MCH for movies, the majority of people at home use a soundbar or stereo.

I was using Sound Designer II in the mid 1990s, as I recall. That was an editing program limited to two channels. At least the version I was using was. I know I could use Audacity now, for free. I currently use Audacity for the elementary school assemblies I currently record. I'm pretty sure it's capable of multi-channel work, but the feed I'm getting off the mixing board at Lincoln Elementary is essentially mono, so it would make no difference anyway. In fact, the end product is data reduced to MP3 of an average rate so the songs recorded would be easy to share as small files in E-Mails. The initial recording is 24 bit to allow a lot of room to normalize level - things can get suddenly loud for no good reason.

I realize that now it could be easy and cheap to have good all-digital multichannel. But at this stage of the game, it could only be a hobby.

 

[Verig]

Seems to me that the past, mono, is the present and the future of sound played back on speakers. 50 years ago a fairly high percentage of homes had stereo systems, many of them big councils with TV, Radio, and a TT built in and a fair number of stand alone stereo systems with speakers. Fast forward 50 years and outside of a few 5.1 systems and the very rare stereo system (most stereo is now listened to with headphones / earphones) everything has gone back to mono (cars are the exception). Today soundbars, phones, and smart speakers are all you find in most homes and they work pretty well, are unobtrusive, and meet most peoples needs.

My soundbar is not mono. It conveys surprisingly nice width, height, and even some surround effect if you don't sit too far away. Also, it has clear center channel working. I think it has seven speakers inside.
While not quite comparable to real 5.1 these have come a long way in recent years.
Do people adjust and use them properly... well, that's one matter. But technically most households are at least quasi-surround with three front channels.

 

[Scytales]

In my experience, center channel distorts well recorded music. Keith Jarrett's piano becomes even more gigantic etc and poor Charlie Haden recedes into insignificance and such.

It depends on the recording and what is done with it.

With front-end multichannel, where each microphone corresponds to one loudspeaker for playback, the third channel definitely improve imaging and sound quality, and not by a small margin. In my experience, it's actually a decisive step and it is incentive to add more channels recorded the same way.

I have been implementing front-end 3 channels for about 1 year with relevant recordings (the like of RCA Living Presence, Mercury Living stereo released on SA-CDs, Everest released ont DVD-Vs/As or 5 channels front-end recordings from BNL, Passavant and Syrius released on DTS CDs or DVD-As). I cannot remember a hardware improvement as decisive as going from 2 channels to 3 channels has been.

Or course, artificially created surround sound obtained from recordings thought out for 2 channels stereo through signal processing has nothing to do with a recording natively done in multichannel, be it front-end or surround. It is very important that the reproduction chain does match the loudspeaker lay out foreseen at the production stage of the sound track.

Blumlein 88 wrote about experiment in 3 channels made in the '50s of the 20th century. I am aware of even earlier experiment from the '30s. See the reprint of William B. Snow's seminal work in the August 1957 issue of Audio originally published in Bell Laboratory Report in 1934 (page 24 of the pdf) : https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/50s/Audio-1957-Aug.pdf

See also the detailed technical discussion of the test set up in this commemorative publication of the AES : https://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/bell.labs/auditoryperspective.pdf

 

[levimax]

My soundbar is not mono. It conveys surprisingly nice width, height, and even some surround effect if you don't sit too far away. Also, it has clear center channel working. I think it has seven speakers inside.
While not quite comparable to real 5.1 these have come a long way in recent years.
Do people adjust and use them properly... well, that's one matter. But technically most households are at least quasi-surround with three front channels.

I like soundbars for TV and movies and have had some fancy ones over the years that were supposed to recreate surround but to me their main advantages is they do a good job of downmixing MC to the center with clear dialog and balanced sound effects. I have never really noticed much in the way of an "image" from them... maybe I sit too far away. I wonder how much of the "image" is what is heard and how much is the interaction of our brain with the picture and the sound. I know from watching music videos that the video changes the way I hear the sound, probably something like the McGurk effect.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I like soundbars for TV and movies and have had some fancy ones over the years that were supposed to recreate surround but to me their main advantages is they do a good job of downmixing MC to the center with clear dialog and balanced sound effects. I have never really noticed much in the way of an "image" from them... maybe I sit too far away. I wonder how much of the "image" is what is heard and how much is the interaction of our brain with the picture and the sound. I know from watching music videos that the video changes the way I hear the sound, probably something like the McGurk effect.

Reminds me of an argument I had with my dad when I was about 5 years old. Obviously I knew nothing about technology. I was quite convinced that the voices of the people on TV emanated from images of their mouths. It was clear as day. I could hear it and see it unmistakably. My dad insisted the voices all came from the little speaker below the picture tube.


We never really settled it. I’m sure I was right. I heard it, always trust your ears. ;-)

 

[Verig]

@levimax For best effect you need to sit as close as my six year old.
But it works fine, just a bit limited, in games you have a lot of sounds coming from all over the place and some of those are not visible on screen. Also, a lot of very artificial and strong ambiences.

 

[earik]

When I was little, the way you listened to music at home was with a turntable and records. The only thing you could listen to was what you had, and if something new came out, you had to know about it and go purchase it.

Nowadays, I have access to not just some music, but pretty much ALL the music. It arrives from "someplace" over the air, and then my phone, or tablet, or computer talks to my speakers and plays it for me. If I'm walking around on the street and hear a cool song, I pull out my phone, it listens and tells me exactly what that song is, and then I can go home and listen to it myself.

I guess for people still listening to vinyl, for them technology maybe seems stagnant, but for the majority of music lovers, this is a whole new world compared to what it used to be and is completely different from what people were up to in the old days.

 

[levimax]

When I was little, the way you listened to music at home was with a turntable and records. The only thing you could listen to was what you had, and if something new came out, you had to know about it and go purchase it.

Nowadays, I have access to not just some music, but pretty much ALL the music. It arrives from "someplace" over the air, and then my phone, or tablet, or computer talks to my speakers and plays it for me. If I'm walking around on the street and hear a cool song, I pull out my phone, it listens and tells me exactly what that song is, and then I can go home and listen to it myself.

I guess for people still listening to vinyl, for them technology maybe seems stagnant, but for the majority of music lovers, this is a whole new world compared to what it used to be and is completely different from what people were up to in the old days.

Growing up in the 1960's and 1970's 95% of the music I listened to was on the radio. First AM then FM. You could listen in the car or walking around or in the house and you were fed all the new releases and they were identified after every song (or several songs on FM) if you wanted to go buy the 45 or LP. I don't see that streaming is really much different than radio for the way most people use it.

 

[Tell]

Growing up in the 1960's and 1970's 95% of the music I listened to was on the radio. First AM then FM. You could listen in the car or walking around or in the house and you were fed all the new releases and they were identified after every song (or several songs on FM) if you wanted to go buy the 45 or LP. I don't see that streaming is really much different than radio for the way most people use it.

Except that you're not limited to random mainstream music and can skip the songs that you don't like.

 

[terryforsythe]

Growing up in the 1960's and 1970's 95% of the music I listened to was on the radio. First AM then FM. You could listen in the car or walking around or in the house and you were fed all the new releases and they were identified after every song (or several songs on FM) if you wanted to go buy the 45 or LP. I don't see that streaming is really much different than radio for the way most people use it.

Except that you're not limited to random mainstream music and can skip the songs that you don't like.

And you can create play lists with only the songs to which you want to listen.

Back in the day I used to record cassette tapes with only songs I liked, but the fidelity and the experience of swapping out cassettes, fast forwarding, rewinding, etc., not to mention carrying around a large case of cassette tapes in my car, left the experience greatly lacking in comparison to using modern streaming services. Also, there are no annoying commercials on the streaming services to which I listen.

 

[earik]

Access to 60M+ songs on demand makes it a little different than the radio imo, especially if you like to listen to genres that aren't super popular. But yeah, I guess it's sort of like the radio, but perfected.

 

[Tell]

Back in the day I used to record cassette tapes with only songs I liked, but the fidelity and the experience of swapping out cassettes, fast forwarding, rewinding, etc., not to mention carrying around a large case of cassette tapes in my car, left the experience greatly lacking in comparison to using modern streaming services. Also, there are no annoying commercials on the streaming services to which I listen.

I recorded music to cassette from CD and then later burned CDs, and while I do see a nice charm with that I would probably have a hard time going back to it. My internet has been down for a week now so I've been listening to my MP3s and even that have felt a bit limiting, so going even further back to CDs or cassettes probably won't ever happen.

 

[Sal1950]

I guess for people still listening to vinyl, for them technology maybe seems stagnant, but for the majority of music lovers, this is a whole new world compared to what it used to be and is completely different from what people were up to in the old days.

Absolutely ! So thrilled we live in this incredible digital music world we do today.
It's the answer to the prayers of every Hi Fi enthusiast from back then.
Awesome access to the exact sound of the recorded master, any where, any time.
In 2 to 16 channels of high resolution sound.
When I was a kid it was "snap, crackle and pop" 2.5 minutes at a time at either 45 or 78 rpm.
Or the same top 10, 10 times a hour from AM radio. LOL
Thank God for the progress.
Remember when?