Isn't it great that people can have world class sound quality for so little money!

[Anton D]

Two likes for you!

 

[Salida]

Here is an interesting transducer that claims to operate in 3D space.

 

[MattHooper]

Here is an interesting transducer that claims to operate in 3D space. View attachment 316467

Excellent example of affordable audio.

 

[Ron Texas]

Recently, reasonably priced electronics have improved massively. Loudspeaker manufacturers have caught on to Toole and Olive's research. It's better than it used to be.

 

[Anton D]

My future fantasy...

Totally not reality based, just yacking.

A consumer buys any number of transducers and places them all over the room: wherever! (Buy ten, buy a hundred!)

Then, the transducers all 'talk to each other' and calibrate themselves to each other and to the room and the consumer determines where he/she/they would like the sound field to take place, then BOOM! Immersive sound as the consumer prefers.

Tastefully hidden subwoofers, of course.

Anybody remember those wall mounted speakers made to look like paintings? They didn't sound so great, but the idea of hiding the system within a given environment was cool.

So, massive DSP and tech that conceals the transducers: walls, ceiling, art, anything, yet remains sonically high quality will be cool.

Fully auto, or tweakable, we really just need more of what we almost have.

 

[Astrozombie]

^^^^ Looks like a tequila bottle. Now let's argue if you can hear the difference between 44 and 88Khz .....

 

[JSmith]

^^^^ Looks like a tequila bottle.

Reminds me of one of these outdoor heaters;

JSmith

 

[kemmler3D]

Here is an interesting transducer that claims to operate in 3D space. View attachment 316467

My understanding is it's omnidirectional but not multidirectional as you'd need to reproduce sound in true 3D.

My future fantasy...

Totally not reality based, just yacking.

A consumer buys any number of transducers and places them all over the room: wherever! (Buy ten, buy a hundred!)

Then, the transducers all 'talk to each other' and calibrate themselves to each other and to the room and the consumer determines where he/she/they would like the sound field to take place, then BOOM! Immersive sound as the consumer prefers.

Tastefully hidden subwoofers, of course.

Anybody remember those wall mounted speakers made to look like paintings? They didn't sound so great, but the idea of hiding the system within a given environment was cool.

So, massive DSP and tech that conceals the transducers: walls, ceiling, art, anything, yet remains sonically high quality will be cool.

Fully auto, or tweakable, we really just need more of what we almost have.

I think you are on to something.

If we could cover the walls with "MEMS wallpaper" with (say) 30,000 individually addressable transducers per wall (think an LED wall, but for sound), with a bit of computational oomph you can recreate whatever sound field in the room you want, assuming FR and SPL requirements are met.

The question is then how to record audio in 3D... probably something involving multiple lasers, but that's all I've got for now.

 

[holdingpants01]

Is anyone being fooled into thinking they are in the presence of live musicians paying live music yet?

Just pointing out how far we still have to go.

Plenty of room for improvement!

Regarding the 'crazy' audiophiles, many people have their own fetish regarding what they most prize in our hobby that so often, in general, falls so woefully short of the goal. Some may prize imaging, others a vocal emphasis, on and on...some people take a very hyperfocused approach to searching out that one little slice of victory and many of us see it as foolhardy because it comes at the expense of balanced sonics, measurements, distortions of different types, etc.

There are segments of the hobby, say triode lovers with high efficiency single drivers, whose singlemindedness seems crazy to us, but they like the way it makes Ella seem more fleshed out to them.

Our hobby fails, even at its peak, at so many levels, that I can't begrudge those whose pursuit of one sliver of verisimilitude takes them places I may not need to go.

For those of us for whom perfect sound forever has already be achieved, I salute you!

Most of these aspects aren't really in the realms of details like tubes or single drivers. If you want reality then the biggest flaw is the "stereo reproduction through freestanding speakers in a living room" by itself. You can't have real center image, you can't have enveloping sound of the recording, you can't have real dynamics, real separation between channels etc. The closest you could get right now, outside of binaural recordings through headphones, is a real dolby atmos setup with at least 7.1.4 channels, in a rather dead room. The sense of space, dynamics and headroom (there's no destructive mastering and instead of cramping the whole band or orchestra into two boxes, they are diffused), precise localization outside of the left-right front window, envelopment is unmatched with any stereo setup bar none. It is THE audiophile dream, but I guess they're more interested in a hobby part rather than objective improvements

 

[holdingpants01]

My understanding is it's omnidirectional but not multidirectional as you'd need to reproduce sound in true 3D.

I think you are on to something.

If we could cover the walls with "MEMS wallpaper" with (say) 30,000 individually addressable transducers per wall (think an LED wall, but for sound), with a bit of computational oomph you can recreate whatever sound field in the room you want, assuming FR and SPL requirements are met.

The question is then how to record audio in 3D... probably something involving multiple lasers, but that's all I've got for now.

this is again just an atmos setup, you don't have to have 30,000 individually addressable transducers, 12 is a good start and you can add more in between if you want, recording audio in 3D through ambisonics or spatial microphone arrays is pretty much figured out

 

[JSmith]

Then, the transducers all 'talk to each other' and calibrate themselves to each other and to the room and the consumer determines where he/she/they would like the sound field to take place, then BOOM! Immersive sound as the consumer prefers.

As AI continues to evolve and leech into various industries, I daresay it won't be long before we have active AI systems that may be able to do something along those lines. Constant monitoring of the room response with on the fly EQ.

By that stage everyone will have amazing sound. I wonder if we will still have people then saying they can hear differences between USB cables.


JSmith

 

[kemmler3D]

this is again just an atmos setup,

Not really, at best an Atmos recording will create an impression of sound sources surrounding you in 3D, but it can't replicate (for example) the dispersion pattern of an actual cello or saxophone. I'm talking about scanning the full volume of sound, so you'd need the room to be chock-full of microphones floor to ceiling, or use some other technology entirely.

To recreate the volume in another room you need more control than even a good Atmos system can give ... no idea if literally 30,000 are necessary, but you need to control reflections completely, so you'll need transducers everywhere.

 

[holdingpants01]

Not really, at best an Atmos recording will create an impression of sound sources surrounding you in 3D, but it can't replicate (for example) the dispersion pattern of an actual cello or saxophone. I'm talking about scanning the full volume of sound, so you'd need the room to be chock-full of microphones floor to ceiling, or use some other technology entirely.

To recreate the volume in another room you need more control than even a good Atmos system can give ... no idea if literally 30,000 are necessary, but you need to control reflections completely, so you'll need transducers everywhere.

Of course you don't have to use that many speakers, phantom field between speakers work fine, otherwise you'll need 10000 speakers in front of you to reproduce standard stereo. Speakers around you can reproduce the way cello sounded in specific room and imo that's the goal of realism, not to have instrument playing in your room as it would sound like crap for the most part, but to transform given room into different space and this is a big step in the right direction with Atmos. Stereo is just a blurry window into that room

 

[killdozzer]

@MaxwellsEq Finally some nice positive topics. Thank you Max for that. Yes, this is a true wonder we don't mention enough. No cassette revival or vinyl revival... We waste too much time justifying unnecessary compromises.

On the other hand, we should really dub this era to be the true Golden Era of Home Audio, we would only need to add Theater, so, The Golden Era of Home Audio and Theater. I only doubt it'll reach the scale in relative terms when comparing to the past times.

Source material that can be so well done and clean and superb. The availability of room EQ-ing!!! I mean, this was just the top-notch studios in the yesteryear. The headphones, the amps, clean pure energy, abundant energy...

And finally, well executed relatively neutral speakers. Going for some decent entry JBL series, Paradigm, KEF or such and going for a 2.1 or 2.2 system (if Stereo listening) and doing what needs to be done with room acoustics and EQ and your system can wipe floors with those boutiquey ones costing 10x 20x more.

 

[kemmler3D]

Of course you don't have to use that many speakers, phantom field between speakers work fine, otherwise you'll need 10000 speakers in front of you to reproduce standard stereo. Speakers around you can reproduce the way cello sounded in specific room and imo that's the goal of realism, not to have instrument playing in your room as it would sound like crap for the most part, but to transform given room into different space and this is a big step in the right direction with Atmos. Stereo is just a blurry window into that room

What I'm talking about is recreating a volumetric sound field from one room inside another room. So in that case I think you really do need finer control over radiation as well as reflection, assuming you could even record such a thing in the first place. If you have seen Star Trek, think "acoustic holodeck", something beyond a 3D TV or even VR for the analogy to video.

Standard stereo doesn't reproduce the sound field, it can kinda sometimes trick you into thinking you hear the original sound field. I'm talking about actually recreating it. This is pretty far beyond today's tech as far as I know.

It would not sound like a real cello in YOUR room, it would be a full, accurate recreation of how it sounded in the studio / venue. For this you need high-resolution control of the sound in three dimensions, as well as perfect absorption at the walls, which in theory you'll need active transducers for - on the entire wall.

This would also enable really interesting "acoustic treatment" including active soundproofing and "active anechoic" spaces, but I think it would all depend on whether you can measure air pressure indirectly with lasers or something. AFAIK today the tech for this is still pretty weak.

This might all be possible using directed sound and very high-res head tracking. So don't recreate the whole sound field, but beam it directly to someone's ears. Probably cheaper that way...

I'm just trying to imagine the most advanced playback system conceivable. It would have to capture and recreate all of the relevant audible information that exists. And that means ALL, not just an approximation or a sampling.

 

[holdingpants01]

What I'm talking about is recreating a volumetric sound field from one room inside another room. So in that case I think you really do need finer control over radiation as well as reflection, assuming you could even record such a thing in the first place. If you have seen Star Trek, think "acoustic holodeck", something beyond a 3D TV or even VR for the analogy to video.

Standard stereo doesn't reproduce the sound field, it can kinda sometimes trick you into thinking you hear the original sound field. I'm talking about actually recreating it. This is pretty far beyond today's tech as far as I know.

It would not sound like a real cello in YOUR room, it would be a full, accurate recreation of how it sounded in the studio / venue. For this you need high-resolution control of the sound in three dimensions, as well as perfect absorption at the walls, which in theory you'll need active transducers for - on the entire wall.

This would also enable really interesting "acoustic treatment" including active soundproofing and "active anechoic" spaces, but I think it would all depend on whether you can measure air pressure indirectly with lasers or something. AFAIK today the tech for this is still pretty weak.

This might all be possible using directed sound and very high-res head tracking. So don't recreate the whole sound field, but beam it directly to someone's ears. Probably cheaper that way...

I'm just trying to imagine the most advanced playback system conceivable. It would have to capture and recreate all of the relevant audible information that exists. And that means ALL, not just an approximation or a sampling.

Ok but that's just fantasy, the difference is Atmos is real, can be used right now and it's very upgradeable. Dirac ART is another real solution that works like you imagine, just up to 150Hz at the moment, but it can be used with existing Atmos setup which is very cool. Those are real solutions and steps into the future, yet take up in audiophile world is rather small, if this won't be popular then there won't be any innovation in the music reproduction in the future, just not worth the research and investment.

 

[kemmler3D]

Ok but that's just fantasy,

Agreed, just sort of talking out what "the ultimate speaker" might be like.

Atmos is real, can be used right now and it's very upgradeable. Dirac ART is another real solution that works like you imagine, just up to 150Hz at the moment,

ART is really cool, I would say it's the most advanced consumer version of that type of processing, although rudimentary compared to "speaker wallpaper" of the future.

I think there will always be a market for the latest and greatest in audio, if only because there's always a market for the latest and greatest, and people will continue to have ears for the foreseeable future.

The problem with Atmos is they expect normal people to attach speakers to the ceiling or put 7 floorstanders in their living room, or something equally impractical. Meanwhile, just having stereo floorstanders and 2 subs is pushing it for a lot of people. Until we have radically different form factors for transducers, we will not see universal uptake of in-room spatial audio.

 

[killdozzer]

What I'm talking about is recreating a volumetric sound field from one room inside another room. So in that case I think you really do need finer control over radiation as well as reflection, assuming you could even record such a thing in the first place. If you have seen Star Trek, think "acoustic holodeck", something beyond a 3D TV or even VR for the analogy to video.

Standard stereo doesn't reproduce the sound field, it can kinda sometimes trick you into thinking you hear the original sound field. I'm talking about actually recreating it. This is pretty far beyond today's tech as far as I know.

It would not sound like a real cello in YOUR room, it would be a full, accurate recreation of how it sounded in the studio / venue. For this you need high-resolution control of the sound in three dimensions, as well as perfect absorption at the walls, which in theory you'll need active transducers for - on the entire wall.

This would also enable really interesting "acoustic treatment" including active soundproofing and "active anechoic" spaces, but I think it would all depend on whether you can measure air pressure indirectly with lasers or something. AFAIK today the tech for this is still pretty weak.

This might all be possible using directed sound and very high-res head tracking. So don't recreate the whole sound field, but beam it directly to someone's ears. Probably cheaper that way...

I'm just trying to imagine the most advanced playback system conceivable. It would have to capture and recreate all of the relevant audible information that exists. And that means ALL, not just an approximation or a sampling.

I'd say this is actually off-topic although some might find that counterintuitive. While I don't disagree with one single idea (perhaps just with the assumption that everyone chases the actual sound of cello or any other instrument. While this is very common, still some people get that REproduction is just that), but it still holds true that you can have top sound quality for little money. The thread didn't say "isn't it great we have exact replicas of real instruments in our room for little money".

Still, even if you insist to se the bar so high, we were never closer no matter how far we may be.

 

[kemmler3D]

I'd say this is actually off-topic although some might find that counterintuitive. While I don't disagree with one single idea (perhaps just with the assumption that everyone chases the actual sound of cello or any other instrument. While this is very common, still some people get that REproduction is just that), but it still holds true that you can have top sound quality for little money. The thread didn't say "isn't it great we have exact replicas of real instruments in our room for little money".

Still, even if you insist to se the bar so high, we were never closer no matter how far we may be.

Yes, off topic... I was responding to the question "can we really improve much more than this" and IMO yes, by striving for actual perfection, even if it's totally unrealistic. However ... you're right that's not the topic of the thread.

I guess if we have to imagine wild sci-fi technology that works on an entirely new technical basis, then today's tech is really very mature. And so we're lucky to be able to experience it for relatively little money.

 

[Audiofire]

Is anyone being fooled into thinking they are in the presence of live musicians paying live music yet?

Just pointing out how far we still have to go.

Plenty of room for improvement!

Nonsensical that live performances should be the ultimate truth when acoustics (sound quality) is often inferior there.