It was being cognizant of some of your early work that compelled me, starting in the 90s, to do some of my own blind testing, meagre as it was. Since then I have blind tested things like cables and electronics… level matched, randomize, switching, etc… which often enough have exposed bias effects. I’d bet you would agree that personal experience with blind tests is really the best way for the power of bias effects to really sink in. If only all audiophiles had the chance.
Along those lines, I hope you don’t mind a question about the use of
omnidirectional loudspeakers in multichannel surround systems.
This question arises from my own experience having owned
MBL Radialstrahler omnis at one point. I do Sound Design for film/tv and of course our mixing studios use regular controlled directivity loudspeakers for the surround systems. That same for my own Home Theatre (7.0 surround).
But I did some early experimenting using the MBL omnis as left and right speakers in my surround set up, and I found the experience quite positive in some ways - listening to both some of my own work, as well as various well-known movies in surround. (For reference I was using
THESE MBL OMNIS…in
MY 2 channel / home theater room here … which allows for lots of flexibility in terms of controlling reflectivity).
Among the positives was the increased realism of acoustic space. For instance, the sense of the insect and rustling leaves layered backgrounds (and rain!) in the Jurassic Park movies just taking over the space in the room around the projected image just felt so realistic.
The main detriment I found was a lack of cohesion with my existing centre channel (a large, well designed W(TM)W configuration).
The imaging didn’t “ float free” as easily from my centre channel as it did from the Omnis.
But it seemed like it sure would be intriguing to be able to hear a full 5 or 7 channel surround system comprised of those omnis.
I’ve only read one review of an MBL surround system which reported the sensation of being in a realistic acoustic space to be fairly startling.
As I understand it, for surround sound, you have a preference for controlled directivity loudspeakers. (Better imaging, more accurate localization, and consistent timbre etc)
I’m wondering if you are aware of surround sound tests using only Omni directional loudspeakers. Or whether you have experienced such a system yourself, and if so, what you thought about the experience.