I don't care about stereo imaging - am I alone. (Poll)

[charleski]

A lot of stereo imaging is artificial (well, you could say all of stereo is artificial anyway…). If you listen to a symphony orchestra live you’ll find it hard to locate instrument sections beyond a vague set of locations. This can vary a lot depending on where you sit. It’s standard practice to use multiple microphones and goose up the imaging in the mix so you get ‘better imaging’ from a decent home stereo than you would live in the hall. Still, it’s pleasant and adds to the experience, and I do find I miss the imaging illusion on old mono recordings.

 

[jsilvela]

For "true mono" recordings (made with mono release in mind from start to finish) while 2 speakers do give a center it still requires some brain processing. Every once in while I will move one speaker to the center and disconnect the other one and listen to some old mono "girl and guitar" music. The center is locked in without any effort of my brain to construct an illusion [...]

Exactly. Single speaker is much much better than phantom center, for mono source material.

 

[audiofooled]

Trigger warning for subjective descriptions

I see a lot of people obsessing about stereo image. Width, depth, height - it all seems to be important. Even more so in the more subjective arenas "...like you could pluck the instruments out of the air..."

If I set myself up for listening - dead center between the speakers, equalateral triangle etc, I can easily detect the image with appropriate music. But it does absolutely nothing for my listening enjoyment. It's an "oh yes, there it is - now lets get back to the music"

For me good sound quality is balanced freqency response, and most important - clarity of the music (which I describe as ease of hearing each voice/instrument, and each note distinctly and without blurring into the general sound. I also like to be "in the music" rather than looking in it. Playing from a single speaker is less enjoyable than playing from two - even if the sound is mono. Fake surround doesn't work for me though for music (at least not on my surround system) as it results in a loss of clarity. Movie tracks presumably mixed for multi channel are fine though. I've not listened to any multi channel music.

So am I the only one who doesn't care about imaging? Or is it common?

To me it's not that simple. I voted the second option because stereo imaging is high on my list, but option no. 3 also works for me. Higher up the list and most important is the frequency response, low distortion, bass extension and quality, clarity, basically all things we usually evaluate/measure to quantify SQ. But if we already have most, if not all of that, then why not go the extra mile when it comes to speaker-room interaction.
I mean, directivity, proper setup, acoustics in order to get subjective experience of good sound stage and imaging. To me it is very rewarding to have it all and, when building my DIY setup, I spent a great amount of effort to have controlled directivity and dispersion.
I won't go into any detail here, but the result is such that it does not depend on where I sit or stand in the room to have a solid phantom center, clarity, spaciousness, speech intelligibility, basically everything that needs to be in the middle. For pinpoint imaging, depth and bass quality I have to sit at MLP, which is no surprise. But still, I am free to move my head wherever I deem fit without affecting the perception of imaging. As in wearing headphones.
Finally, when it comes to music, I can enjoy my favorite tunes listening on a clock radio...

 

[goat76]

Hi goat76,
I've found my setup has similar "critical distance", bit over two meters listening triangle after which phantom image gets a bit blurry and envelopment disappears and the sound is now on front. Basically good stereo image when the triangle is smaller than this and poor when its bigger.

Problem I have is that its a family living room situation and positioning of things needs to be practical and the good stereo imaging doesn't quite reach the listening spot around 2.5-3m equilateral triangle.

I've been slowly trying to figure out terms associated with the phenomenon and would like to figure out how to extend the good stereo sound all the way to practical listening spot.

I've experimented with it only little and it seems I cannot extend it with positioning so its probably function of the room acoustics/speaker interplay. I haven't pinpointed it to anything more specific than just DRR, direct-to-reflected sound ratio. Griesingers proximity is probably something that relates?

I might be able to negotiate some acoustic treatment in, but easiest would be to manipulate speaker directivity as I build my own. Current prototypes have nice controlled directivity and before making new set I'd like to zone in what to target for, main goal would be to extend the listening triangle a bit.

I'd be grateful if you could summarize what is your setup like: size of the room, shortly about acoustics and speaker directivity? Also if you have pointers what I should read/study to get deeper knowledge on it, thanks!

My room is 4,27 x 5,08 x 2,59 meters. I use the longer wall as the speaker wall, and the baffle of the speakers about 1,1 meter out from the wall. Equilateral listening triangle of 2,1 meters, and with the listener position quite far from the back wall.

I have bass traps in the front corners of the room, some absorption panels on the front wall as well as on the side walls. Non of the panels are placed to specifically take care of the first reflection points (not possible with the current setup), but the REW measurements shows that there’s no big issues with first reflections at my listening place in my room.

I have ATC SCM40, a 40-liters floor standing speaker. They have a wide directivity but still a pinpoint accuracy when it comes to stereo imaging. According to some measurements of other speakers from ATC, they are not “state of the art” when it comes to evenness in directivity, but I can’t say I’ve noticed any problems with that.



I like to think that speaker size is the main factor of how far apart the speakers can be placed before you lose a distinct-sounding phantom center image, but I’m not sure it's the only factor. I have had 3 different pair of similar sized speakers in this room, but the most optimal distance between them have not been exactly the same so it seems to depend more on the speakers than the room.

Maybe you just need larger speakers if you must have them further apart?

 

[tmuikku]

Thanks! I've got quite big ones, with directivity of big speaker as its cardioid and waveguide and all. Nominal 90 deg and bit wider on low mids, similar to what a huge baffle would have. I guess next step would be to try speakers with bit higher DI.

I also have a bit bigger room but not much, height is similar to yours. Have you tried absorption on the ceiling?

edit.
room is about 5 x 8m, asymmetric as roughly half is kitchen, half is living room. Listening triagle extends to about 2.3m where there is good sensation being inside the sound. Sit back at sofa, listening triangle is now around 2.9m and sound gets veiled a bit, envelopment is lost, image is now more clearly in front and not all around. Literally stepping in/out from good sound. Well, I bet my wife wouldn't spot it though so the difference is not between good and bad but more like rather good and best Relative terms of course.

Bass changes some as there is no multisub or bass traps. Perhaps bass is important to this? Toe in doesn't seem to matter, listening window response is pretty smooth, very little diffraction for example so didn't expect it to affect much. Also pile of pillows on the floor don't seem to affect but that doesn't really change room acoustics/reverberation. Haven't tried any acoustic treatment yet. Acoustics in the room is comfortable in general, haven't measured though. Mild flutter echo with hand clap test, much better than on some other rooms here.

Anyhow, some sort of threshold gets crossed so perception changes. I guess I need to keep on experimenting.

Its a silly problem, proper western lifestyle nitpicking but its like having a race car with wood pallet as drivers seat, ready to race but uncomfortable and the enjoyment is not what it could be, a bummer.

 

[MattHooper]

A lot of stereo imaging is artificial (well, you could say all of stereo is artificial anyway…). If you listen to a symphony orchestra live you’ll find it hard to locate instrument sections beyond a vague set of locations. This can vary a lot depending on where you sit. It’s standard practice to use multiple microphones and goose up the imaging in the mix so you get ‘better imaging’ from a decent home stereo than you would live in the hall. Still, it’s pleasant and adds to the experience, and I do find I miss the imaging illusion on old mono recordings.

I have rarely found location of instruments at live orchestral concerts to be as vague as often implied. (I would listen with my eyes closed often, to check this).

Admittedly I do prefer closer seats, but have often sat at all sorts of distances, and I've never had any problem sensing a quite specific location for an instrument section or solo.

Also, many people presume that spot-lit mic techniques are a way of creating a more artificial perspective for recording an orchestra. "The mics are placed closer than anyone would ever sit, so of course it's going to be an artificial perspective unlike reality." But that misunderstands the rational. Yes it CAN be used for an artificial perspective. But it is often used to balance the sound for a more natural perspective.

Microphones don't hear as we do, don't have brains to hear through hall ambience and ignore it to some degree. So many mics if placed at the same distance as a typical listener will produce a balance much more swamped by room reverb. Spot lit micing on the sections are often used to redress this balance, to balance the the more direct sound with the recording including the hall ambience, so it sounds less muddy and more like what you could hear in the real thing.

Certainly plenty of micing for sound recording is meant to produce a certain effect, but also lots of what look like "artificial" micing is actually meant to address idiosyncracies of microphones and produce a more natural sound.

 

[goat76]

Thanks! I've got quite big ones, with directivity of big speaker as its cardioid and waveguide and all. Nominal 90 deg and bit wider on low mids, similar to what a huge baffle would have. I guess next step would be to try speakers with bit higher DI.

I also have a bit bigger room but not much, height is similar to yours. Have you tried absorption on the ceiling?

edit.
room is about 5 x 8m, asymmetric as roughly half is kitchen, half is living room. Listening triagle extends to about 2.3m where there is good sensation being inside the sound. Sit back at sofa, listening triangle is now around 2.9m and sound gets veiled a bit, envelopment is lost, image is now more clearly in front and not all around. Literally stepping in/out from good sound. Well, I bet my wife wouldn't spot it though so its not like good and bad, just matter of rather good and best

Bass changes some as there is no multisub or bass traps. Perhaps bass is important to this? Toe in doesn't seem to matter, listening window response is pretty smooth, very little diffraction for example so didn't expect it to affect much. Also pile of pillows on the floor don't seem to affect but that doesn't really change room acoustics/reverberation. Haven't tried any acoustic treatment yet. Acoustics in the room is comfortable in general, haven't measured though. Mild flutter echo with hand clap test, much better than on some other rooms here.

Anyhow, some sort of threshold gets crossed so perception changes. I guess I need to keep on experimenting.

Its a silly problem, proper western lifestyle nitpicking but its like having a race car with wood pallet as drivers seat, ready to race but uncomfortable and the enjoyment is not what it could be, a bummer.

I have not tried absorption on the ceiling. According to the measurements I've done, the ceiling doesn't seem to be such a big issue in my room with the reflection at -19 dB, as can be seen in the picture below (left speaker). I have thought about adding diffusion panels to the ceiling, you know the light ones made of styrofoam, but I don't know how effective they are.

My listening room is also a normal living room and I like to keep it looking like one, so it's a bit of a challenge to find acoustic treatments that "melt" into the room or at least are looking good. The strategy I've had to make my listening environment acoustically better has been to add one treatment at a time, and after every change make new measurements to get an idea of what the next treatment should be. It's a slow process but I think it's fun to hear what every step does for the sound.



I have two subwoofers in my system set up in a stereo configuration, and one thing I noticed going from a single subwoofer was the sensation of a more enveloping sound. I know that in theory, we can't hear the direction of the lowest bass frequencies so sub-bass in stereo shouldn't be a thing, but I think David Griesinger can be right in his theory that phase changes in the low frequencies can lead to a more enveloping sound (when the recording contains such information).

"However to create spatial impression it is not sufficient to localize the sound source. We must use the sound source(s) to cause the time delay across the listener’s head to vary chaotically – at the time rate of the original hall. To do this we require at least two independent low frequency drivers, and a recording made in such a way that the phase of the reverberation varies randomly at low frequencies." - David Griesinger

http://www.davidgriesinger.com/asa05.pdf

 

[goat76]

Microphones don't hear as we do, don't have brains to hear through hall ambience and ignore it to some degree. So many mics if placed at the same distance as a typical listener will produce a balance much more swamped by room reverb. Spot lit micing on the sections are often used to redress this balance, to balance the the more direct sound with the recording including the hall ambience, so it sounds less muddy and more like what you could hear in the real thing.

Certainly plenty of micing for sound recording is meant to produce a certain effect, but also lots of what look like "artificial" micing is actually meant to address idiosyncracies of microphones and produce a more natural sound.

I think most people have done recordings with their phones or the simple tape recorders many had when they were young, and I also think most people will remember how much more roomy the sound they ended up with on those recordings vs how it sounded to their own ears while making the recording.
I think that should be a good example many people can relate to, and why the microphone must be placed much closer to capture the balance between direct vs reflective sounds while recording music.

As you say, the reason doesn't have to be to create an "artificial" sound, most of the time it's just about getting the recorded sounds to sound closer to how our hearing perceives them in real life.

 

[charleski]

I have rarely found location of instruments at live orchestral concerts to be as vague as often implied. (I would listen with my eyes closed often, to check this).

Admittedly I do prefer closer seats, but have often sat at all sorts of distances, and I've never had any problem sensing a quite specific location for an instrument section or solo.

Also, many people presume that spot-lit mic techniques are a way of creating a more artificial perspective for recording an orchestra. "The mics are placed closer than anyone would ever sit, so of course it's going to be an artificial perspective unlike reality." But that misunderstands the rational. Yes it CAN be used for an artificial perspective. But it is often used to balance the sound for a more natural perspective.

Microphones don't hear as we do, don't have brains to hear through hall ambience and ignore it to some degree. So many mics if placed at the same distance as a typical listener will produce a balance much more swamped by room reverb. Spot lit micing on the sections are often used to redress this balance, to balance the the more direct sound with the recording including the hall ambience, so it sounds less muddy and more like what you could hear in the real thing.

Certainly plenty of micing for sound recording is meant to produce a certain effect, but also lots of what look like "artificial" micing is actually meant to address idiosyncracies of microphones and produce a more natural sound.

Well, I can't say I've experienced clearly specific aural locations for anything over a small ensemble. Maybe I'm sitting in the cheap seats.

Obviously there are a lot of tasks that need to be performed when mixing a recording. Creating a hyper-real soundstage is certainly a secondary consideration, but it's still a part of the job, and can go beyond simple mixing and EQ. Take a look at chapter 15 of Robert Toft's 'Recording Classical Music'.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Music is enjoyable to me even if it's played on an AM car radio. The difference between that experience and a hi fidelity experience is faithfulness to reproducing the full frequency range at the full dynamic range. And the difference between a hi fidelity experience and a high end audio experience is the immersive three dimensional soundfield the best systems create for musical enjoyment. All three are enjoyable but the system that can do images in a three dimensional soundfield is the edge of the art, and the holy grail sought by audiophiles.

 

[thecheapseats]

Maybe I'm sitting in the cheap seats.

Take a look at chapter 15 of Robert Toft's 'Recording Classical Music'.

you can learn a lot from being in the cheap seats...

more on topic - I've been continually amazed at the skill sets of crews on scoring stages when recording orchestral scores for film - both in the U.S. and in many cities across Europe... and the same skills apply to recording classical repertoire compositions as well...

many of the techniques are well known - from mic selections, multiple mic placement decisions, iso-panel location between sections, etc... but many very immediate decisions made regarding featured orchestral soloists, headphone cue mixes, control room mixes on-the fly, and sync-to-picture systems for the conductor are made in mere moments...

it's a specialized craft as well as an art-form, done quickly and effectively as the costs per second (depending upon the size of the orchestra) are ticking by at $60 -$120 or more per second... in many ways it's amazing that the resulting quality of the recordings are so well done...

 

[posvibes]

I heard Wynton Marsalis with the Jazz at the Lincoln orchestra along with the Melbourne Symphony orchestra back in 2019, I was 5 rows from the front stage left, and at one part of the performance the complete ensemble was going at it, I mean really going at it, and I could see the violin section going hell for leather fiddling fit to burst and I couldn't hear them at all, they must have been contributing something to the sound even if it was just grunting and heavy breathing because the string sound wascompletely absent even as a drone much less distinct notes.

Watching them was almost comic. And it was Hamer Hall which is no acoustical performance venue slouch by any means.

 

[norman bates]

We seem to have an ability to pick out what we are hearing and squash (lower ?) the rest.
Similar to improving a signal to noise ratio.
Probably helps for evolutionary survival.

You are right.
Pick a spot in the audience where it "sounds good to you.
Stick a mike there, record.

Playback on headphones.

Same thing for a smaller venue such as a church that seats 100.

 

[Tangband]

Trigger warning for subjective descriptions

I see a lot of people obsessing about stereo image. Width, depth, height - it all seems to be important. Even more so in the more subjective arenas "...like you could pluck the instruments out of the air..."

If I set myself up for listening - dead center between the speakers, equalateral triangle etc, I can easily detect the image with appropriate music. But it does absolutely nothing for my listening enjoyment. It's an "oh yes, there it is - now lets get back to the music"

For me good sound quality is balanced freqency response, and most important - clarity of the music (which I describe as ease of hearing each voice/instrument, and each note distinctly and without blurring into the general sound. I also like to be "in the music" rather than looking in it. Playing from a single speaker is less enjoyable than playing from two - even if the sound is mono. Fake surround doesn't work for me though for music (at least not on my surround system) as it results in a loss of clarity. Movie tracks presumably mixed for multi channel are fine though. I've not listened to any multi channel music.

So am I the only one who doesn't care about imaging? Or is it common?

The imaging from two loudspeakers playing in stereo is a fake 3D in best case. Very different from the recording session in the concert hall.

Yes, I like this fake soundstage. If its done in a good way ( good recording, good installation of the speakers ) the illusion of an event can be rather good. *

If one uses the sidewalls so the reflected sound from them in a symmetrical installation is about 25 ms of delayed sound, the illusion often gets bigger in my opinion, it fills up the stereo system flaws. A big room is needed in this case.

*However , perceived pitch accuracy in the bass area is far more important than a good stereo image to have a good musical experience of what tones the musicians are playing. You can have both, and fixing the pitch accuracy with correct installment of the speakers often also gives a good image illusion. This is best done with the help of ”tune-method” ( Invented by Ivor Tiefenbrun from Linn products ) when installing the loudspeakers.

 

[FrankW]

You can have both, and fixing the pitch accuracy with correct installment of the speakers often also gives a good image illusion. This is best done with the help of ”tune-method” ( Invented by Ivor Tiefenbrun from Linn products ) when installing the loudspeakers.

Google not helping, found a "Tune Dem" on Linn site, but doesn't seem to be what you are referring to. Link?

 

[Tangband]

Google not helping, found a "Tune Dem" on Linn site, but doesn't seem to be what you are referring to. Link?

Well, Tune method is a loudspeaker installation method, best described by Lejonklou here :

Setting up loudspeakers for the best tune -

 

[MattHooper]

This thread came to mind recently when I was, again, comparing my two channel system with my surround system.

On the theme of two channel vs surround, I know some feel 2 channel is hopelessly antiquated and far surpassed by surround sound. This was even before Dolby atmos become a thing in home playback. I understand why surround-fans go for surround sound. I just find that, my experience thus far is that 2 channel holds it's own surprisingly well, for my taste.

I haven't added dolby atmos speakers yet (difficult in my room at the moment) so I'm still using my 7.0 system (L/C/R sides and rear surrounds). My L/C/R are one of my favorite speaker brands, Hales (Transcendence) models and I love, love, love how it sounds. I listen to a lot of music upmixed via various matrix processing, whether it be youtube performances, music from my streamer, or whatever. So I'm a fan of surround sound (not to mention...I hear it all the time for my work).

But as good as the surround sounds, it's interesting when I do direct comparisons with my two channel system, which are currently the Joseph Audio Perspective speakers (and tube amps 'n all that stuff), with the speaker pulled well out from the back wall and wide flanking my listening position in a way that I could never do with a surround-only-based system. So I'm about 7 feet away from the 2 channel speakers which are almost 8 feet wide apart.

Most recently I was watching some NPR Tiny Desk concerts on youtube as well as some new-gen prog rock performances, and some Vulfpeck (funky/jazzy) live performances. I'd watch them on my big projection screen (behind and between the 2 channel speakers) with the surround system playing, then switch over to streaming the audio through my 2 channel system. As good as the surround system sounded, the 2 channel system just blew it away IMO. First was just the sheer clarity and presence in the sound. But also, the 2 channel speakers "disappeared" as sound sources replacing the area behind them (just in front of me) with a wide open acoustic and 3 dimensionality placed sonic images. For those small acoustic Tiny Desk concerts it was like the performers were Right There!
Just performing in front of me. For the concerts in halls (like Vulfpeck) again, the sense of a big acoustic space opening up in front of me "sharing" the same sonic space, and the vividness and clarity of the audience yells and claps filling out that space, along with the way the sonic imaging mapped the visuals...it just had an amazing "you are there" feeling, more intense than the surround system which, even though the surround speakers helped "surround" me with the sound, the placement dictated for those speakers just couldn't compete with the envelopment and imaging of the more closely and optimized arrangement for the 2 channel speakers.

I'm certainly not saying "hey, MY 2 channel system will blow away anyone else's surround system!" But rather, GIVEN some of the realities many of us are dealing with in terms of placing speakers and optimizing everything, and GIVEN the level of spacial and tonal performance stereo is still capable of, stereo can still be mighty impressive and it's reasonable to feel it's "easily good enough" for an immersive experience for many people.

 

[RayDunzl]

I have not tried absorption on the ceiling. According to the measurements I've done, the ceiling doesn't seem to be such a big issue in my room with the reflection at -19 dB, as can be seen in the picture below (left speaker). I have thought about adding diffusion panels to the ceiling, you know the light ones made of styrofoam, but I don't know how effective they are.

View attachment 271242


My listening room is also a normal living room and I like to keep it looking like one, so it's a bit of a challenge to find acoustic treatments that "melt" into the room or at least are looking good. The strategy I've had to make my listening environment acoustically better has been to add one treatment at a time, and after every change make new measurements to get an idea of what the next treatment should be. It's a slow process but I think it's fun to hear what every step does for the sound.



I have two subwoofers in my system set up in a stereo configuration, and one thing I noticed going from a single subwoofer was the sensation of a more enveloping sound. I know that in theory, we can't hear the direction of the lowest bass frequencies so sub-bass in stereo shouldn't be a thing, but I think David Griesinger can be right in his theory that phase changes in the low frequencies can lead to a more enveloping sound (when the recording contains such information).

"However to create spatial impression it is not sufficient to localize the sound source. We must use the sound source(s) to cause the time delay across the listener’s head to vary chaotically – at the time rate of the original hall. To do this we require at least two independent low frequency drivers, and a recording made in such a way that the phase of the reverberation varies randomly at low frequencies." - David Griesinger

http://www.davidgriesinger.com/asa05.pdf

Reflections and their level...

Compare with narrow dispersion MartinLogan reQuest in my room:

Only two spikes above -30db

First is the dipole bounce off the front wall at 7ms, second is speaker to back wall to front wall back to listener at 27ms

 

[goat76]

Reflections and their level...

Compare with narrow dispersion MartinLogan reQuest in my room:

Only two spikes above -30db

First is the dipole bounce off the front wall at 7ms, second is speaker to back wall to front wall back to listener at 27ms

View attachment 275365

Looking good!

Do you have some acoustic treatment in your room or is it mostly the narrow dispersion keeping the early reflections down?

 

[RayDunzl]

Do you have some acoustic treatment in your room or is it mostly the narrow dispersion keeping the early reflections down?

Some rockwool in the corners behind the speakers, and some standing behind the couch reaching a foot above ear level.

But the panels don't fire at the sidewalls or ceiling or floor very strongly. I suppose the woofer does. Crossover is 180Hz.

I have a pair of JBL LSR 308 for everyday use located immediately outboard of the MartinLogans, they do "spray the room", and give a similar early graph as yours.

Red - JBL
Black - MartinLogan
Green - Preamp Electrical Output (for reference)