SO ... HOW do we measure soundstage???

[pablolie]

Can we?

I don't have an answer on the matter. But our reaction to measured parameters clearly doesn't tell the "audiophile" reaction to those...
And again, I think we're using the wrong tool for the job. I can look at at a real painting from some artist and think "this is crap" yet may get crucified by friends in the same event. Measurents have zero to do with that, because more pixels per square inch would not matter. It's the overall outcome, which will always end up to be a fusion of the measurable and the possibly measurable and yet immaterial in catering to our preferences.

 

[Chrispy]

I don't have an answer on the matter. But our reaction to measured parameters clearly doesn't tell the "audiophile" reaction to those, clearly... and oddly.
And again, I think we're using the wrong tool for the job. I can look at at a real painting from some artist and think "this is crap" and may get crucified by friends in the same event. measurents have zero to do with that pixels per square inch neither. it's the overall outcome, which will always end up to be a fusion of the measurable and the possibly measurable and yet immaterial in catering to our preferences.

Me either, kinda why I hang out here in case someone does!

 

[Ricardus]

No other things like microphone placement and no mixing can yield a very good result. Your basic premise is correct, speaker accuracy, placement and room dynamics can preserve it but not fix it if not there to begin with. If done well, even mediocre speakers will reveal it.

A very good WHAT result? A recording? Sure. But mic placement isn't going to make something sound like it's on the left with "no mixing" (whatever that means) unless you are talking about using a stereo recording technique like X/Y. But if they're panned in the middle (no mixing??) then there will be no stereo imagery.

 

[Sal1950]

I do believe that there are things that can help with soundstage. Tweeters with good dispersion.

Humm, maybe? I've heard systems the beam like a laser, taking the sidewall reflections out of the perceptions
as much as possible, that provided some of the best, most well focused soundstage I've heard?

I do know good soundstage when I hear it. But I don't know if the next person hears exactly what I heard...

How? How do you or anyone know what the productions intent was? Very complicated.

Where the mix engineer put the pan pots on his console (or DAW) when he mixed the session.

Basically true for the usual studio created mix.
OTOH it would be nice to have something like a 2 mic perfectionist recording to use as a tool?

Because the multi-dimensional perspective is the crucial aspect, the term stereophonic also applies to systems with more than two channels or speakers, such as quadraphonic and surround sound"

True but the inclusion of multich critically distorts the "illusion" of the 2ch soundstage that is being discussed here.

 

[ahofer]

Meaure how much you love your wife or girlfriend. Or why you enjoy a movie or a book. Probably some dopamine or such things going on. But again... wrong tool for the job.

Quantitive (u can easily measure) vs qualitative (which puts our own preferences first). Different beasts.

Measurements are awesome because they help you establish sound engineering. Beyond that, it's our personal preferences.

Something in humanity wants to rank things, be they readily measurable or ineffable. Who is the greatest guitarist? Who is the hottest woman? What’s the best movie? What is the most beautiful piece of music….what speakers have the most palpable soundstage?

And then a bunch of mansplainers (usually) get on it, they slowly break it down into some things we can (actually or sort of) quantify and try to build more ‘objective’ rankings on those attributes. Then we break into factions and have bitter arguments about each other’s ranking systems.

Crooked Timber indeed.

 

[Timcognito]

A very good WHAT result? A recording? Sure. But mic placement isn't going to make something sound like it's on the left with "no mixing" (whatever that means) unless you are talking about using a stereo recording technique like X/Y. But if they're panned in the middle (no mixing??) then there will be no stereo imagery.

They do on direct to disc all the time.

 

[HaK77]

To give you a better idea of how the software actually behaves, I put together a few short videos demonstrating BGM's workflow in motion.

The first video shows the Topology Solver at work. You can see how the algorithm actively calculates the physical layout of the room in 3D space—fitting the dummy head positions (yellow) and the speaker locations (blue) together completely blind, using only the raw acoustic data.

The other videos focus on the Stereo Soundstage. I animated a 0–100% panning sweep across the different visualization modules (Sound Image, Stereo Map, and Pan Comparison). Seeing the data animated makes it much easier to understand how the room acoustics actively smear and elevate the phantom center across different frequency bands compared to a discrete, hard-panned source.

 

[Ricardus]

They do on direct to disc all the time.

Using stereo miking techniques, sure.

 

[Chrispy]

True but the inclusion of multich critically distorts the "illusion" of the 2ch soundstage that is being discussed here.

I don't care how you create soundstage, and multich can do it better in any case but not many recordings are made that way. The phrase "stereo" isn't necessarily 2ch is something I was trying to point out. Way overdiscussed especially when people start talking amps/pre-amps/wires as affecting it....

 

[Sal1950]

I don't care how you create soundstage, and multich can do it better in any case but not many recordings are made that way.

Absolutely, and more and more are getting multich recordings every day.

The phrase "stereo" isn't necessarily 2ch is something I was trying to point out. Way overdiscussed especially when people start talking amps/pre-amps/wires as affecting it....

I guess, but the term "stereo" has been in use and understood as a 2ch audio format since the 1950s, a hard persecption to change.
We have amps in monoblocks, stereo, and multich, mostly the entire world understands the reference immediately.

 

[Chrispy]

Absolutely, and more and more are getting multich recordings every day.


I guess, but the term "stereo" has been in use and understood as a 2ch audio format since the 1950s, a hard persecption to change.
We have amps in monoblocks, stereo, and multich, mostly the entire world understands the reference immediately.

Meh, 3ch was known back then too. 2ch was just the easier way to go to sell to the home market....

 

[AJM1981]

Soundstage is a recording challenge, the rest is just dependent on competent system setup. Catch up with single speaker measurements. If they are accurate, they'll produce any staging captured in the recording when set up correctly.

In producing there are stereo wideners. I wonder if some amps also produce a similar illusion within a small margin from amp a to b. As some sound more projected and some more expanded. Probably measurable, probably a combination of factors but no one cares about exploring it the measurable way really. Regular consumers don't care about it.

It is anecdotal, but just to throw it in. Brands like Pioneer among others seem to have applied more of an illusion of stereo expansion and a bolder sound along the way to the top of the range. It contributes to the idea of consumers buying something of quality and more grandeur. It seems to have been a logical choice in how to pursuade consumers to look up the range apart from weight and just specifications. Given auditions at audio stores were common as well.

 

[goat76]

There is a lot of “stereo illusions” in pretty much every multichannel mix in the form of phantom-panned objects, and most Atmos mixes hardly ever use the center as the main channel for the center-panned sounds.

 

[Timcognito]

Using stereo miking techniques, sure.

Direct-to-disc recording - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Listen to a Sheffield Labs recording mostly boring music but soundstage is super real.

 

[coonmanx]

I think we should measure every particle of air in a room and see if it contains "soundstage".

 

[pablolie]

Direct-to-disc recording - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Listen to a Sheffield Labs recording mostly boring music but soundstage is super real.

Boring but super useful for setup. The "walk around" track where they describe the room and then walk around hitting claves in different places - it is so real I'd struggle to call it an illusion.

 

[goat76]

Direct-to-disc recording - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Listen to a Sheffield Labs recording mostly boring music but soundstage is super real.

Do you have any specific examples?

 

[Timcognito]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovered_Again! is good both on LP and CD, XRCD

 

[dshreter]

In producing there are stereo wideners. I wonder if some amps also produce a similar illusion within a small margin from amp a to b. As some sound more projected and some more expanded. Probably measurable, probably a combination of factors but no one cares about exploring it the measurable way really. Regular consumers don't care about it.

It is anecdotal, but just to throw it in. Brands like Pioneer among others seem to have applied more of an illusion of stereo expansion and a bolder sound along the way to the top of the range. It contributes to the idea of consumers buying something of quality and more grandeur. It seems to have been a logical choice in how to pursuade consumers to look up the range apart from weight and just specifications. Given auditions at audio stores were common as well.

No, I don’t think that stereo widening type effects are a meaningful difference between amps. That effect or any other is a measurable change in the signal that would show up as distortion. We measure distortion, and for any decent amp within its power limits, that’s below audibility.

 

[Sal1950]

Direct-to-disc recording - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Listen to a Sheffield Labs recording mostly boring music but soundstage is super real.

True about most "audiophle" recordings.
I remember all the "phile" noise over 1988 Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session
Recorded IIRC using a single Blumlien mic with the band setup around it in a very active sounding church.
I've only played it a few times, mainly to compare against someones written review of the soundstage.
Meh. These types of "rock" recordings are best done in a multich studio. JMHO
YMMV LOL