Holographic depth soundstage and 3d impression 2025

[Sokel]

* Note: This is a case where it is usually impossible to achieve both.

Not impossible, just difficult for a typical home set-up.
At a dedicated room or a professional room where bass problems are addressed with extensive passive treatment (yes, bulky and allover or very targeted) one can easily have both.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Interesting. In this Audioholics article he wrote: "It is my opinion that smoothness and consistency in the amplitude response are more important than the spaciousness afforded by stereo bass*."

And I would agree with that, too. I haven't found stereo bass to be of any particular value, especially when sacrificing it offers a way to get smooth bass response in a room.

 

[NTK]

Not impossible, just difficult for a typical home set-up.
At a dedicated room or a professional room where bass problems are addressed with extensive passive treatment (yes, bulky and allover or very targeted) one can easily have both.

It may not be totally impossible, but seems impossible enough that neither Dr Toole nor Dr Griesinger nor Thomas Lund has proposed any practical solution.

 

[Sokel]

It may not be totally impossible, but seems impossible enough that neither Dr Toole nor Dr Griesinger nor Thomas Lund has proposed any practical solution.

The practical applications already existed should be studio control rooms, with soffit-mounted mains, heavily treated, etc.
Or extended use of solutions like the PSI's AVAA.

That should allow both decent FR without problems and stereo bass.

I admit though, hardly what we do at home.

 

[krabapple]

Surely it is of no matter whether the spatial quality is real or artificial if it can be reproduced.

So now we are back to 'hearing what the guy in the production suite heard'.

 

[SCPB1967]

'Cos headphones are boring?

'Holography' is already a thing we called 'imaging', which includes side to side (width) , front to back (depth), and top to bottom (height). No need to rename it.

The OP makes strong, dubious assertions about what speakers categorically can or cannot do, and this thread humors him too much with its gemisch of pipings-up about this or that speaker. I believe psychoacoustics would tell us that '3D' imaging at home, of whatever was recorded, is very much a function of positioning (of speakers and listener) and room acoustics, and not generally a function of the speakers -- exceptions can exist. But hey, OP, go ahead and buy whatever speakers Erin said are really great at '3D', in the sighted i.e., most subjective, part of his eval.

Holographic, great imaging, depth, width, height.....
The wonderful thing about speaker measurements provided by Amir & Erin is it finally allows us to link our audible perceptions to proper data.
To me that's great.
To then have 'said' guys describing what they perceive is absolutely priceless to me.
Erin does this quite well.
I do wish Amir would give a touch more subjective too; then, going forward as designs are refined it helps us all learn more.
Sadly I'm sure Amir is rather pushed for time already ...
Thanks for the continued efforts

 

[prerich]

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.

My Whispers can pull this off. With the addition of BACCH 4 Windows (vst) its even more realistic. Its not only depth, its also height. I've experienced overhead sounds with just two speakers. I've also experienced sound behind my head. Instruments being played by someone sitting on the couch to my left or even sound coming through the wall to my right. I've had people come and didn't tell them what to expect...but they heard it too. It's wild and I know Bacch is processing, you can still hear it without Bacch, but its more subtle. My room is also treated.

 

[AJM1981]

Why are amplifiers excluded from this topic exactly? The illusion of changes in a soundstage can well come from capacitor coupling and somehow smoothening out certain frequencies that contain the 'esses' in voices and vocals, that are not as loud in perception in real life compared to a microphone-loudspeaker presentation, as well as some other 'right in the face' frequencies (slicing and tearing kind of sounds) that, when perceived less direct automatically puts more focus on the other frequencies. Perhaps even done with plosives like the B and P for example. I know the ones who call for everything to be flat always and ever are not in for this. But just an opinion from someone who used the same loudspeakers for years, but switched between amps on occasion.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Why are amplifiers excluded from this topic exactly

Quality amplifiers with flat frequency response, low noise minimal crosstalk, low output impedance, low noise, no sensitivity to load, and operated within their design envelope don't affect soundstage width or depth.

 

[Arindal]

And even where it's not, 'stereo' playback simply cannot recreate real space.

I agree that two-channel playback cannot recreate a realistic acoustic image of the whole scenario of musicians, concert venue reflections and perception of envelopment at the same time. People trying to push the reproduction of stereo recordings towards a more ´realistic, wide´, ´holographic´ or enveloping impression, they inevitably will compromise on other imaging aspects.

What it can do with recordings containing such information, is creating a plausible image of the event, balancing phantom source localization, stability thereof, depth-of-field, adequate proximity and perception of the venue´s size as well as shape and absorption grade.

Surely it is of no matter whether the spatial quality is real or artificial if it can be reproduced.

With spatial qualities on the recording which are not covering any real event (like an acoustic performance in a concert venue), it is actually difficult to, as a listener, judge what sounds right and what sounds wrong. I noticed many people expecting things like ´realistic ambience´ or ´singer has to sound like singing in the listening room´ kind of things from an electronic recording without meaningful reverb pattern. That will, in my understanding, lead to inevitable dissatisfaction.

I enjoy listening to various genres of popular music, but i always do so with the expectation that imaging on these recordings is something artificial. If I want to judge imaging of a reproduction system, I listen to classical recordings, preferably those which I know the original concert experience as well as the mixdown in progress of.

Holographic, great imaging, depth, width, height.....

I personally would avoid both the term ´holographic´ as well as the dimension of ´height´. The latter, at least with stereo recordings mixed for loudspeakers, cannot be reliable tracked to information which are on the recording, but is a rather random side effect of HRTF-related tonal imbalances.

´Holographic´ in my understanding is used by too many people in contradictive ways. Some use it to describe an overly ambient or coherent image of the phantom sources and reverb, others like very distant imaging, or very proximate one, with the most commonly found definition being phantom sources appearing to be ´stable but in a vacuum´ with no enveloping reverb. That is how I understand for example the posting about KEF Q speakers, as these oftentimes produce such image (which I do not like at all).

Its not only depth, its also height. I've experienced overhead sounds with just two speakers. I've also experienced sound behind my head. Instruments being played by someone sitting on the couch to my left or even sound coming through the wall to my right. I've had people come and didn't tell them what to expect...but they heard it too.

As mentioned, localization with no intraaural differences, is a real thing, but it is vastly based on HRTF-related tonal changes (see Blauert´s theories on preferred directions of frequency bands). Boost certain bands (like 800-2,000Hz) and attenuate the neighboring ones, compared to a reference source of the same timbre, and imaging will move to the back, same with 2,000-5,000 and the front.

But that is not something that is recoded and mixed on recordings for loudspeakers. Headphone mixes, for example binaural ones made with a dummy head microphone, are an exception here, but rely on headphone reproduction.

The wonderful thing about speaker measurements provided by Amir & Erin is it finally allows us to link our audible perceptions to proper data.

In theory yes, but if we talk about localization, ambience and imaging, it is actually pretty difficult to link perceived characteristics with data precisely. And in part this data is not even existing.

Take localization precision/stability as an example. What contributes most to that, in my experience, is coherent position and size of the relevant sound sources (midrange drivers, tweeter), as well as interchannel amplitude deviations (which are oftentimes not measured as it requires several units of one and the same speaker on the bench) and tonal coherence of early reflections (side wall, ceiling, floor) as well as in the listening window. Partly, traces of these characteristics can be found in spinorama, but the data is far from sufficient to really predict anything but very clear deviations from the ideal, IMHO.

The second aspect is that directivity and resulting reflections/reverb in the listening room, seemingly are not really understood in their implications on imaging and ambience. At least, that would be my explanation for so many speakers being lauded for excellent measurements, when they actually show a pretty problematic behavior hinting to compromised imaging, such as narrowing directivity towards higher frequencies, or significant lobing in the early reflection windows.

 

[krabapple]

Why are amplifiers excluded from this topic exactly? The illusion of changes in a soundstage can well come from capacitor coupling and somehow smoothening out certain frequencies that contain the 'esses' in voices and vocals, that are not as loud in perception in real life compared to a microphone-loudspeaker presentation, as well as some other 'right in the face' frequencies (slicing and tearing kind of sounds) that, when perceived less direct automatically puts more focus on the other frequencies. Perhaps even done with plosives like the B and P for example. I know the ones who call for everything to be flat always and ever are not in for this. But just an opinion from someone who used the same loudspeakers for years, but switched between amps on occasion.

"Somehow"