What makes the sensation of "sound stage"?

[Emlin]

But nope It is just one of multiple examples of wrong naming. It is just 2 channel sound reproduction, contrary to mono which is a single channel reproduction and quadrophonia which is a four channel and certainly closer to stereophony. It should have been called biphonia

However you try to twist things, the word stereo means 3D. End of.

stereo-in British English
or sometimes before a vowel stere-
COMBINING FORM
indicating three-dimensional quality or solidity
stereoscope
Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
Word origin
from Greek stereos solid

 

[audiofooled]

You're lucky to have reached such a result. It's kind of planets alignment.

Generally speaking, I think the quest for tridimensionality is one cause for the small monitor nearfield listening trend. After all, it resembles the studio way of listening during mixing sessions.

Exactly. Nearfield is easy, but the more far field you want it, everything becomes exponentially harder to achieve (more reflections, more directivity issues, more sound power on axis and more sound power off axis requied to balance, more bass extension, more amplifier power, more room mode issues. Damn physics of it all
The way I've done it is a bit unconventional though, but that's exactly what it took. This takes a lot of synergy and a lot of trial and error to achieve it. A kind of balancing act, even alchemy, if you will. You could compare it with planetary alignment, yes, but once achieved, the consistency of the repeatable results is remarkable. Switch it on, and forget about it. All what you're left with, is music.

 

[richard12511]

Your probably not going to like, or agree, but that's similar to what's happening in my room with the 2 sets of speakers. One set is VERY forgiving of listening position. It sounds wonderful almost anywhere. The other is VERY position dependent. But when your in position, the sound from the more directional speakers is MUCH different, and to my ears, more engaging, and much more dimensional. Maybe calling it 3d was a mistake. I think some took that too literally. I didn't mean that you can tell where each musician actually stood when the recording was made. The sense of space is an illusion but it's also real - there's a difference. A paradox I guess?

No one has even discussed the position of your ears. If you turn your head 2 degrees, or one ear is angled differently. I'm sure someone here could make the calculations of how that impacts all kinds of things.... Also, if you cup your ears with your hands, the sound changes dramatically, in all kinds of ways. So the shape of our ears creates differences that no one can account for too. Try it and you'll be surprised.

You're pretty much hitting the advantages of wider/narrower dispersion on the head, so I'm reasonably sure that's what's going on. Wider dispersion speakers are more forgiving of positional changes. One "flaw" that has been pointed out with Harman's stereo blind testing method is that they put all speakers in the exact same position with no toe in. This favors wider dispersion speakers more than they would be favored in an environment where the person has complete placement/toe-in freedom. Toole acknowledges this "flaw", but he doesn't see it as a "flaw", but rather a fair way to highlight one of the main advantages of wide dispersion. His argument is that people in real rooms often don't have complete positional/toe-in freedom, and so doing it the way they do is more representative of real life. He's not wrong, though I think it depends on the person and their situation.

Narrower dispersion speaker sound quality is more dependent on both speaker position/toe-in, and listener position. The advantage is that if you can optimize those things, you get a slightly more locked in sound.

 

[No. 5]

I would put my money on the accuracy of the match between the two units making up the stereo pair.

This.

Two speakers may look identical, but that doesn't mean they are acoustically identical. And the less acoustically alike they are, the harder time your brain is going to have turning what it's hearing into a convincing sound stage.

 

[Emlin]

This.

Two speakers may look identical, but that doesn't mean they are acoustically identical. And the less acoustically alike they are, the harder time your brain is going to have turning what it's hearing into a convincing sound stage.

Likewise with asymmetries in the listening room, surely. I actually think that the influence of the room is the most important. If the room overpowers the recording, you won't hear the cues in the recording. Instead, you'll hear your room. That's the difference between feeling that you are in the original venue and thinking that the musicians are in the listening room. I prefer the former.

 

[restorer-john]

Any disadvantages of using a passive radiator instead of a bass reflex port?

Yes. I've never heard a passive radiator speaker system that a) played deep at high volume and b) wasn't easy to overdrive.

I remember those horrible Polk PR based speakers everyone raved about. I had a few pairs for about 5 minutes.

Maybe things have become better over the years- I sure hope so. A PR is still the same speaker with the magnet torn off and no VC sold for quite a bit of money.

 

[restorer-john]

It is just one of multiple examples of wrong naming.

You have used a stereoscopic microscope right? Tell me what you saw when each ocular was perfectly focused and the objective brought the object into view.

 

[audiofooled]

Your probably not going to like, or agree, but that's similar to what's happening in my room with the 2 sets of speakers. One set is VERY forgiving of listening position. It sounds wonderful almost anywhere. The other is VERY position dependent. But when your in position, the sound from the more directional speakers is MUCH different, and to my ears, more engaging, and much more dimensional. Maybe calling it 3d was a mistake. I think some took that too literally. I didn't mean that you can tell where each musician actually stood when the recording was made. The sense of space is an illusion but it's also real - there's a difference. A paradox I guess?

No one has even discussed the position of your ears. If you turn your head 2 degrees, or one ear is angled differently. I'm sure someone here could make the calculations of how that impacts all kinds of things.... Also, if you cup your ears with your hands, the sound changes dramatically, in all kinds of ways. So the shape of our ears creates differences that no one can account for too. Try it and you'll be surprised.

I see your point. Wide dispersion sacrifices output as per giving away more of the sound power to the reflections. Kind of if you would move your pair of stereo headphones just a few centimetres away from your ears and the output suddenly becomes part of the room. Maybe not the best analogy, but you get the point how much more power you would require to get the same SPL at your ear. In my case, I sacrificed a lot to augment the illusion and to be able to move my head and my pair of ears or seating position wherever I deem fit at the moment. Most of all, sensitivity. It really took an arc welder of an amp to play loud. Also, impedance is all over the map. Again, not for an average amp. Finally, an additional 12 inch subwoofer was needed, not for bass extension, but to get to reference levels of loudness with ease and even better visceral experience. So, again, bottom line would be that there's no free lunch, sadly. If I had a dedicated room with better options for speaker and seat positioning, I would have done things differently, certainly more easily...

 

[fmplayer]

Remember also that in the real life, lots of people have their speakers rather close to their back wall... (WAF somebody ?)

More seriously, as a musician, sound stage is not the most important feature to me.

Also, a study made by Stereophile some times ago showed that most people are low tech listeners: They listen to music while doing other things

FIW

 

[fmplayer]

You have used a stereoscopic microscope right? Tell me what you saw when each ocular was perfectly focused and the objective brought the object into view.

If you're speaking of binocular microscope, it was just ... binocular. No depth (which is perfectly normal since what you're looking at is in the same plane, and aperture is great, which makes for a small depth of field).

But stereoscopic images can be another story (if photographed with purpose). Similar to listening on headphones recordings made with an artificial head

 

[Destination: Moon]

FWIW, my room - by accident - is really ideal for sound. 36 feet deep, 10 foot ceilings. Crazy heavy drapes on all windows, padded valences, fireplace glass covered with a blanket (we were losing a lot of heat when it's cold and not being used), a lot of fully upolstered chairs, sofas to break up the room and large area rugs. There's very little reflected sound. Only the ceiling and TV

 

[restorer-john]

If you're speaking of binocular microscope, it was just ... binocular.

A stereoscopic microscope has twin optical paths and presents a 3 dimensional image.

 

[audiofooled]

Remember also that in the real life, lots of people have their speakers rather close to their back wall... (WAF somebody ?)

More seriously, as a musician, sound stage is not the most important feature to me.

Also, a study made by Stereophile some times ago showed that most people are low tech listeners: They listen to music while doing other things

FIW

Don't you dare start on me with the WAF, but interestingly enough, after some time had passed, she's now so into it that she wants to hear every song that she likes as she never heard it before.

I'm a musician as well, and more sensitive to other stuff, too. More crucial stuff, like timbral and timing accuracy, phase, group delay, dynamics and visceral aspect of it, etc. Sound stage and imaging is just an icing on a cake, and sometimes the actual product of other stuff done right.
Background listening is great too, anywhere in the room, or just crank it up and go outside, or just shake the snow off the roof

Seriously, my system is turned on by my kids in the morning, and plays cartoons, movies, damn commercials, songs for children, and then everyone's favorite music. Everyone's trained what's too loud and no one is allowed to touch the amp's volume control. Just the TV remote would do.
In general, I think everyone knows what sounds good when they have a chance to hear it.

 

[Chrispy]

Again, I'm far from an expert but the passive radiator seems like it would act like a counter balance spring in controlling or effecting the bigger movement of the woofer. If you press on the passive radiator, it exerts a force that's detached from air pressure to resume is static position. So yes it acts similar to a port but with significant differences.

Not really, if designing a speaker/sub it's just another ported design, but using PRs instead of actual ports/vents.

 

[fmplayer]

Passive radiator is the expensive way of making a resonant system, when either an enclosure is too small to make it with a bass reflex, or when you don't want the midrange port leakage.
Other difference is that the volume is in BR case a big amplitude with a small surface, where the PR gives a smaller amplitude with a great surface

 

[Destination: Moon]

Not really, if designing a speaker/sub it's just another ported design, but using PRs instead of actual ports/vents.

Once again, this isn't my field of expertise but one obvious difference is that the the PR has a limit as to how far it can deflect. I'm also guessing that as it reaches closer and closer to it's limits it will not act like an open port, but as a port that's closing, becoming more and more restrictive. And by doing so, exert a damping force on the woofer at times. I'm not saying ones better than the other, but to say they are the same seems to be a big over simplification....

 

[Chrispy]

Once again, this isn't my field of expertise but one obvious difference is that the the PR has a limit as to how far it can deflect. I'm also guessing that as it reaches closer and closer to it's limits it will not act like an open port, but as a port that's closing, becoming more and more restrictive. And buy doing so, exert a damping force on the woofer at times. I'm not saying ones better than the other, but to say they are the same seems to be a big over simplification....

I'm just saying in modeling they're generally considered equivalent....look it up.

 

[richard12511]

A stereoscopic microscope has twin optical paths and presents a 3 dimensional image.

Interesting comparison. Perhaps the word has slightly different meanings in different sectors?

@fmplayer is correct though that stereo can only ever really be 1D, as there are only 2 points. 2 points can never be anything more than 1D, and that's limited by physics.

That said, I do agree that it can seem 3D at times, which is really awesome, but it's just a clever illusion. A testament to the cleverness of mix engineers, I suppose.

I don't have great experience with multichannel music, but what I have heard does sound a little better, but it's not a huge difference(at least what I've heard). What I've heard has only been 2D, though(5.1/7.1). I do have height channels, but I don't own any 3D music yet.

 

[Destination: Moon]

Interesting comparison. Perhaps the word has slightly different meanings in different sectors?

@fmplayer is correct though that stereo can only ever really be 1D, as there are only 2 points. 2 points can never be anything more than 1D, and that's limited by physics.

That said, I do agree that it can seem 3D at times, which is really awesome, but it's just a clever illusion. A testament to the cleverness of mix engineers, I suppose.

I don't have great experience with multichannel music, but what I have heard does sound a little better, but it's not a huge difference(at least what I've heard). What I've heard has only been 2D, though(5.1/7.1). I do have height channels, but I don't own any 3D music yet.

How can sound that's moving in 3 dimensions be 1D? Unless we're all living in 1d? Is a flashlight's emission 1D?

 

[Chrispy]

Interesting comparison. Perhaps the word has slightly different meanings in different sectors?

@fmplayer is correct though that stereo can only ever really be 1D, as there are only 2 points. 2 points can never be anything more than 1D, and that's limited by physics.

That said, I do agree that it can seem 3D at times, which is really awesome, but it's just a clever illusion. A testament to the cleverness of mix engineers, I suppose.

I don't have great experience with multichannel music, but what I have heard does sound a little better, but it's not a huge difference(at least what I've heard). What I've heard has only been 2D, though(5.1/7.1). I do have height channels, but I don't own any 3D music yet.

2 dimensions would be 2d 3d with time as a dimension is also in the mix. Most anything in our audio experience is an illusion, tho....