Is there "special" sound, or isn't there?

[Blumlein 88]

Don't need to ... the microphones do the work required, and in the case of completely artificial sound elements the effects processing from mixing, etc, adds space cues which are good enough. I've heard so many recordings, at huge ends of the spectrum of how they were recorded, and they are "adventures in space", nearly all of them! The "worst" performers I've heard are audiophile recordings, those specifically designed to sound good on typical audio rigs!! Why? Because they have very barren spaces, like a house with every skerrick of furniture removed - they become tiresome and boring to listen to, the very few I have are the least played of all the recordings I have ...

Some recordings are a bit sparse compared to studio creations because they are accurate. Almost sounds as if you have thrown the baby out with the bathwater here. You may have moved toward a sound that doesn't offend with most music. So it sounds spacious enough with enough processing, but it actually sounds boring with good high fidelity recordings because it won't portray the low level details of real recorded space.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The speaker doesn't become invisible because it throws sound, deliberately, in all directions. Like a Bose, or at the other end, the Beolab at an appropriate setting. Rather, it occurs because the acoustic information of the recording, as heard by the ears, always makes sense - the very nature of the normal sweet spot is a perfect example of that. That spot could be microscopically small, with a supremely beaming speaker setup - or it can be significantly larger; "special" sound just moves that aspect further along the scale, so that it becomes impossible to localise the speaker drivers, using one's ears. And it also means that a particular instrument or sound element appears, as far as your brain is concerned, to be locked in space - just like hearing something "real".

It's obvious it's an illusion that one's brain concocts, because once the right quality level is achieved one can dial back the quality in some deliberate way and "watch" the mirage evaporate as the sound deteriorates - the apparent sound source collapses back into the speaker drivers on each side. Poof! ... your violinist is no more ...

From your earlier statements I thought you were saying stereo done well can create a whole soundfield without a sweet spot. Something not true in my opinion. If you are allowing for restricted listening area then yes I have heard and owned several speakers that would disappear within a particular sweet spot. Sometimes that sweet spot was barely a person wide (Acoustat Twos) sometimes it has been 3 people wide.

 

[RayDunzl]

I don't mind when a recording puts the performers in "my" space.

It can also be interesting when a recording projects "their" space.

Either case is fine with me.

 

[Thomas savage]

I don't mind when a recording puts the performers in "my" space.

It can also be interesting when a recording projects "their" space.

Either case is fine with me.

Agreed.

 

[fas42]

Some recordings are a bit sparse compared to studio creations because they are accurate. Almost sounds as if you have thrown the baby out with the bathwater here. You may have moved toward a sound that doesn't offend with most music. So it sounds spacious enough with enough processing, but it actually sounds boring with good high fidelity recordings because it won't portray the low level details of real recorded space.

What you hear with each recording are the varying spaces - they can be enormous, or extremely intimate, depending upon what the setups were at the time. One example I just brought to mind is the Phantom of the Opera production, the normal one with Michael Crawford - this is a fabulous recording for showing off a system, BTW: in many instances there is the orchestral backing in an expansive setting, and Michael is in the centre, standing in a tiny recording booth; simultaneously, huge, and intimate spaces being presented.

I have a negative thing about recordings marked audiophile, probably over-reacting, because I can hear how they have been doctored to make them sound OK on typical audiophile system; the manipulation sounds fake. Some examples I can think of are violin ensembles where every ounce of treble has been chopped off; orchestral pieces where the sound has been squashed down into a small bubble, it's like looking at toy train set; and ones for the bass freaks, where every time a bass note comes across it rises like a behemoth from the swamp - it's just annoying, hearing this type of silliness.

 

[fas42]

From your earlier statements I thought you were saying stereo done well can create a whole soundfield without a sweet spot. Something not true in my opinion. If you are allowing for restricted listening area then yes I have heard and owned several speakers that would disappear within a particular sweet spot. Sometimes that sweet spot was barely a person wide (Acoustat Twos) sometimes it has been 3 people wide.

The way to express it is that the sweet spot extends to as far wide as you want to move - you don't move into, or out of, the "sweet spot". I demonstrated this to the audio friend down the road on the last visit to his place - he has a 'simple' system, now highly optimised in many areas that I believe count - uses tiny Tannoy speakers, even smaller than those B&W DM10s, but at times does mighty well for itself: standing close to the plane of the speakers, in the centre, the sound is completely outside the speakers, in a space in front of you; if you slowly move sideways then at some point the sound will suddenly pop back into the speaker on that side, you can slightly move either side of this point and "bounce" the subjective sense of the sound, one moment coming from the near speaker, and then from the space in front. What "special" sound gives you is that you can never get too close to that single speaker, such that the frontal "mirage" fails!

 

[RayDunzl]

I guess I don't have "special sound".

You win.

 

[Thomas savage]

The way to express it is that the sweet spot extends to as far wide as you want to move - you don't move into, or out of, the "sweet spot". I demonstrated this to the audio friend down the road on the last visit to his place - he has a 'simple' system, now highly optimised in many areas that I believe count - uses tiny Tannoy speakers, even smaller than those B&W DM10s, but at times does mighty well for itself: standing close to the plane of the speakers, in the centre, the sound is completely outside the speakers, in a space in front of you; if you slowly move sideways then at some point the sound will suddenly pop back into the speaker on that side, you can slightly move either side of this point and "bounce" the subjective sense of the sound, one moment coming from the near speaker, and then from the space in front. What "special" sound gives you is that you can never get too close to that single speaker, such that the frontal "mirage" fails!

Although at my house the sound stage does not collapse into one speaker if i sit wide right or wide left the image moves over, however A image of sorts remains but it's original integrity is compromised by my change of location.

All the sound is not coming from the nearest speakers though and there is some kind of image rather than things sounding as if one speaker only is playing...

 

[fas42]

Nothing to do with "winning" ... it's a goal to aim for with a system, and serves as a good reference point, a marker for progress made. My current setup, with NAD gear, only gets mighty close if I do everything right - for various reasons I haven't touched it for a while, and most of the time it's just so-so, by my standards.

Thomas, regarding the image moving that is very much how it should be, in the sense that it remains directly in front of you at all times - it's when you become aware that at least part of the sound is directly coming from the nearest speaker that the illusion is really starting to fail. With various systems the degree that the illusion is absolutely rock solid I suspect will vary to a large degree with the intrinsic quality of the speakers; very high quality ones like yours will do significantly better than a lesser unit at maintaining some decent image well off centre, as you mention.

What I've found is that the integrity of the illusion can always be improved if the right areas are addressed - the biggest headache for a particular system is trying to work out what those areas are ...

 

[c1ferrari]

I can!

Hehe...