• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Holographic depth soundstage and 3d impression 2025

Bartez2000

Member
Joined
May 8, 2022
Messages
64
Likes
28
I have noticed that the subject of holographic sound, the depth of the sound stage, is often ridiculed here. However, having several pairs of speakers in one room and presenting them in different places, one issue stands out very clearly. It is a physical, tangible impression of the presence of the voice/instrument. And this, apart from the acoustics of the room, is due to some speakers, let's not talk about amplifiers. Let's not talk about a large stage to the sides, because when we move the speakers apart, most people will say wow, what a large stage. We are talking about holography and depth front to back that is tangible, you can tell that something is 2 meters in front of you and every 50 cm. Let those who have had contact with it and are delving into this experience speak up. Recommend some speakers that can do this. Thank you and I love you.
 
I like how my big beamy electrostatic hybrids place a "deep" image in front of me. And, if it is in the recording, I get all 180 degrees.

Once I listened through* them nearfield, about a foot from each speaker, it was scary. Need to try that again someday.

---

* Another time, closed my eyes and spun around and tried to locate a speaker by sound.

My nose bumped into it (they're taller than me) but it still sounded like it was two or three feet away.

---

The medium-big Magicos in the Big Room at the Big Show with the Big Peripherals perked my ears. Don't have the dollars or the space for them, though.
 
Last edited:
I have noticed that the subject of holographic sound, the depth of the sound stage, is often ridiculed here. However, having several pairs of speakers in one room and presenting them in different places, one issue stands out very clearly. It is a physical, tangible impression of the presence of the voice/instrument. And this, apart from the acoustics of the room, is due to some speakers, let's not talk about amplifiers. Let's not talk about a large stage to the sides, because when we move the speakers apart, most people will say wow, what a large stage. We are talking about holography and depth front to back that is tangible, you can tell that something is 2 meters in front of you and every 50 cm. Let those who have had contact with it and are delving into this experience speak up. Recommend some speakers that can do this. Thank you and I love you.
You really can't love strangers, as nice as the sentiment is.
 
I have noticed that the subject of holographic sound, the depth of the sound stage, is often ridiculed here. However, having several pairs of speakers in one room and presenting them in different places, one issue stands out very clearly. It is a physical, tangible impression of the presence of the voice/instrument. And this, apart from the acoustics of the room, is due to some speakers, let's not talk about amplifiers. Let's not talk about a large stage to the sides, because when we move the speakers apart, most people will say wow, what a large stage. We are talking about holography and depth front to back that is tangible, you can tell that something is 2 meters in front of you and every 50 cm. Let those who have had contact with it and are delving into this experience speak up. Recommend some speakers that can do this. Thank you and I love you.

Sound stage is not ridiculed here. Saying a certain streamer / dac / amplifier improved the sound stage is ridiculed.

The recording/mastering matters the most. The best speakers / room can't give you a good sound stage if the recording / mastering is bad.

As far as speakers able to do what you are talking about, any good speakers should work. Besides the room, getting speaker separation and toe-in right will make a big difference.

Too much or too little toe-in matters. I have my Heresy 4s slightly toed-in and on some recordings, I can clearly hear things way to the left and right of the speakers. I did a lot of testing with big and small adjustments until I got it just right.
 
We often ignore depth front to back. Because left and right is a panorama, each speaker has a better or worse panorama. But so few speakers have depth a few meters in front of the speakers and another few meters behind the speakers that most have not experienced it and consider it a "ufo". Amir does a great job but when testing one speaker he omits the topic of depth and holography. Erin mentions depth and holography but only a few speakers had this feature in his reviews. Forum users will say that the room, that it is enough to add 2db 3khz and the vocals will be forward - No, it will not. NewRecordDay puts holography in the first place praising e.g. kef ls50 or like Cheapaudioman elac uni-fi ub52. Amir did not mention the imaging of ub52, which is supposedly great because my speaker had technical defects. And we revolve around graphs, which I appreciate very much but we lose the beauty of music that we cannot measure with a microphone. Holographic ability is a feature of a speaker, which loses it due to bad positioning in the room. However, if it does not have this feature, then positioning will not help, it will not become holographic. And dirac will not help. Even a cheap small speaker can be more holographic than expensive ones.
 
We often ignore depth front to back. Because left and right is a panorama, each speaker has a better or worse panorama. But so few speakers have depth a few meters in front of the speakers and another few meters behind the speakers that most have not experienced it and consider it a "ufo". Amir does a great job but when testing one speaker he omits the topic of depth and holography. Erin mentions depth and holography but only a few speakers had this feature in his reviews. Forum users will say that the room, that it is enough to add 2db 3khz and the vocals will be forward - No, it will not. NewRecordDay puts holography in the first place praising e.g. kef ls50 or like Cheapaudioman elac uni-fi ub52. Amir did not mention the imaging of ub52, which is supposedly great because my speaker had technical defects. And we revolve around graphs, which I appreciate very much but we lose the beauty of music that we cannot measure with a microphone. Holographic ability is a feature of a speaker, which loses it due to bad positioning in the room. However, if it does not have this feature, then positioning will not help, it will not become holographic. And dirac will not help. Even a cheap small speaker can be more holographic than expensive ones.

If it can't be measured, it doesn't exist.

Being able to perceive sound in front of or behind the speakers would depend on the original recording / mastering capturing the depth and room echos and reverb. No speaker can reproduce something that isn't there. What you hear during playback will depend on that and on how speakers interact with your particular room.

If you want to hear things behind or in front of your speakers listen to some Pink Floyd albums. They were very good at spatial positioning.
 
1. Holography is a feature of speakers, not amplifiers, not rooms. A speaker either has it or it doesn't.

2. The room and positioning settings can help bring out holography but don't create it.

3. A wide setting that loses the central image is not spatiality but the advantage of the side volume over the mid.

4. Depth is not the mix's fault, if the speaker can't push the dry vocals in front of the speakers, the speaker doesn't have this feature.

5. The central vocal image is always in the front. The mix can enhance the effect but only in speakers that have the ability to create holography.

6. When music is a wall of sound in the speaker plane, it's awful 2d. Why do so few people talk about it here. I'd rather have resonance that I cut out than flat speakers without THD that play 2d.

Best regards brothers
 
1) assertions are just assertions.
 
Plenty of loudspeakers will give a sense of sonic holography to one degree or another.
Some seem to go a step further than others, though for whatever reason.

Both my current Thiel and Joseph speakers can create what sometimes feels like almost unlimited depth - instruments as far away as the recording can suggest.

There’s only one set of loud speakers that I can remember didn’t conjure enough depth for me: the Harbeth Super HL5plus.
For some reason, no matter where I placed it in the room, there is always a sense that the depth of imaging behind the loudspeakers have been shortened, like it was bringing everything to just a few feet behind the speakers.

I’m presuming that this was a rare poor match for my room. The reason is that I’ve had so many different loudspeakers and never had that problem in the room.
And I’d also big Harbeth Monitor 40s produce very convincing levels of depth and Sonic holography, in a very big room.

All that said, it was hard to beat my old MBL omnis for three dimensional imaging.

You can listen to a pair of regular box speakers and think they are producing a really three-dimensional sonic picture, but if you throw in the MBL’s you find out “ there are levels.” Through the MBL’s, sonic images seemed to have a sense of space not only in front and beside, but a sense of space behind them. It was a sort of extra layer of dimensionality that normal speakers didn’t quite reach. Going back to the same tracks on regular speakers… the imaging sounded a bit more “ pasted it against a two dimensional surface” in comparison.

I think Dipoles can create a similar extra-spatial effect somewhat like the Omnis.
 
Write here your speakers models that create holographic depth, describe your experiences. I felt the vocals 0.5 meters from my face as if there was a physically real person there and it remained there even though I was walking in different directions, the human voice seemed to hang in the air. The rest of the sounds were behind the speakers.
 
I don't want to strain my imagination to consider the sound blurred by reverberation as distant. It has to be far in front of me, behind the speakers, behind the front wall of my room. I have to hear it there with my eyes open, as if it were 20 meters away physically, tangibly.
 
I don't want to strain my imagination to consider the sound blurred by reverberation as distant. It has to be far in front of me, behind the speakers, behind the front wall of my room. I have to hear it there with my eyes open, as if it were 20 meters away physically, tangibly.
I've heard thousands of different speaker models and I cannot say any of them where that great.
 
You can turn LITERALLY any transducers to have holographic depth soundstage with DSP Surround Virtualizer :)

1739241105898.png
 
I had an experience on this scale once, and I'll add that I don't drink, I don't do drugs, and I don't have delusions. I appreciate measurements, I studied physics at a technical university. I've been making music for 30 years, listening for 45. I don't sell speakers or advertise. That's why I'm looking, experimenting how far you can go in audio holography.
 
SPL BIG This is what I mentioned, mid/side controller. Nothing special, music producers know that is a tricky spatial effect. Make side louder/mid quieter.
 
Last edited:
@Bartez2000 :

Please use the "Reply" icon in the lower right-hand corner of the post you wish to reference, as you did for @majingotan . Sometimes replies come in hot and heavy, and your reply will be out-of-position in relation to the post your are answering. Without the internal reference, it can get confusing.
 
Back
Top Bottom