Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
--On 13 April 2012 03:08 +0100 Stefan Schreiber st...@mail.telepac.pt wrote: I am not sure that any form of surround will make it into the home, I have quite a lot of commercial surround music recordings, on 5.1 media. However, because of my recording activities, my surround reproduction equipment is tied to my computer, and the SACD media containing these surround recordings is specifically designed to be not playable on my computer, or transferable to it - so I have heard hardly any of these. I can decode and play my even larger number of UHJ recordings (from Nimbus, of course, but also others), but even setting that up is a pain to do because of the lack of integrated software UHJ players. Actually, I'd be interested to know how many people on this list listen to surround recordings on a surround system for simple pleasure, as opposed to in the lab or as part of specific investigations of the process. Paul -- Paul Hodges ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Me for one. Steve On 13 Apr 2012, at 08:37, Paul Hodges wrote: Actually, I'd be interested to know how many people on this list listen to surround recordings on a surround system for simple pleasure, as opposed to in the lab or as part of specific investigations of the process. Paul ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
On 13/04/2012 09:07, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote: On 04/13/2012 03:49 AM, Robert Greene wrote: While the mode of expression is even more emphatic than my own, RCFA is to my mind right all up and down the line. Talking about 3rd order is just castles in the air. As a theoretical mathematician, I spend most of my life building castles in the air. But one ought to know that that is what they are! you know, for every email you guys write about this tired old topic, i have _set up_ and _calibrated_ a higher order ambisonic system, and believe me, that's way more exciting. can you please stick your heads out the window eventually? it's 2012, bandwidth is ridiculously cheap, storage even more so [1]. there is absolutely no valid argument to be made against very high orders indeed for production and archival. That's not the point (well, at least, not mine). Out of the many choices available, which type of HOA system have you set up? What decided you on that choice rather than another? And which Higher Order would you choose as standard out of the many possibilities available? The closest to a consensus I have seen is third-order horizontal with second or even first-order height. For production and archival etc, should it be a free-for-all (= order creep), or would it be constructive to settle on one specific order (hybrid or otherwise) which everyone agrees to use as standard? Richard Dobson ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
On 13/04/2012 03:08, Stefan Schreiber wrote: .. If you promote G format, 99% would see and listen to this as a 5.1 surround file. (An 99% would listen to an UHJ as a stereo file, cos there are really very few decoders around. In fact, 5.1 seems to be way more mainstream than decoded UHJ.) Part of the issue seems to be that people want it to be known that this or that soundtrack or album uses Ambisonics. Without that piece of information, all 5.1 tracks are simply understood as 5.1 tracks, and the sound may be in some unspecified way better or worse than expected. This must be something of a dilemma - B-Format (and G-format) may well be the best example of art that conceals art. In just the same way that people geneally have no idea of the techniques used to record something - single-point, multi, or whatever. The engineer knows, and that is enough. And hope for a good review. Or... Richard Dobson ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
On 13 Apr 2012, at 04:08, Stefan Schreiber st...@mail.telepac.pt wrote: Steven Dive wrote: IMHO I can't see how FOA isn't clearly worth promoting along with up to 3rd order G-format decodes for 5.1/7.1 setups for home users. Basically, get UHJ and, while we are at it, superstereo into people's homes, then get on with full 1st and higher orders. Steve Steve, Anthony: In which sense is UHJ and superstereo a viable alternative to 5.1 surround, if 5.1 is clearly better than any 2-channel system can be? Because it's NOT better. 99.9% of 5.1 mixes SUCK because they are pan-pot BS. 0.1% maybe use Ambisonic panning to do the mix, and they may be great, provided your setup is matching exactly the setup for which it is pre-decoded, at which point it is barely better than UHJ, shedding some matrixing constraints, while adding issues of irregular speaker arrays. Chances are, a 5.1 surround mix is a 4.0 in reality, using only 5.1 distribution. Further, as I said, 90%+ of 5.1 installations are not suitable for music playback anyway, because of the fact that the speakers are neither full-range, nor even matching in tone coloration. Without excessive room EQ and speaker compensation, phase is all over the place, and any moving sound changes character as it goes from front speakers to side or rear speakers, because they are typically different and cheaper speaker models. None of that matters for a bit of sci-fi whoosh or action flick shooting, it's however useless for music. So as far as my experience goes, the assertion that 5.1 is better than UHJ Stereo or 4.0 1st order horizontal-only Ambisonics is plain wrong. You should introduce something which exceeds the existing solutions, not going back to something which fits into the stereo distribution chain. We already had this. Because that's still the only thing we have, the stereo distribution chain. A new technology needs to get the foot into the door. Nobody is going to make a speculative investment costing massive amounts of money, for an unproven, no-demand system. The only way to get it in the door is through guerilla tactics. Quality doesn't matter, convenience and simplicity do. Why do you think MP3 trounced AAC, which in turn trounced CD sales, which again are leaps and bounds above DVD-Audio and SACD? Only AFTER surround music is common can one address quality issues, just like only after online music was established, slowly the cries for better quality were raised, and the bit rates went up, and DRM was removed. According to your line reasoning, online music distribution cannot possibly be successful until it's lossless audio without DRM, but the reality was different. People bought lousy 128kbit/s compressed files encumbered with DRM, over better quality and DRM-free CDs, because it was SIMPLE and CONVENIENT. UHJ is simple and convenient, because people can buy it as a regular stereo track like the rest of the music. No pop-up with a choice: stereo or surround version, no playlists where one has to make sure the stereo version ends up on the iPod, and the surround version is used for home playback. None of that. One file, one solution, stereo, portable, home, car, whatever. No confusion for consumers, distribution channel, radio capable, etc. THAT works. I have written that you could decode a 3rd order .AMB file on a 4 or 6 speaker home installation, for example ignoring the 2nd and 3rd order components. 8 speakers would be even better, but less is still possible. And I have said that none of that matters, because no musician in the world, except some esoteric avant guard musicians with a cumulative audience smaller than the number of members on this list is going to go through the cost and trouble of doing HOA productions. The only Ambisonic productions you're going to see are the ones that Tony Fatso Miller (and similarly unknown people) can do in their basement studios for some garage band that scratched together $500 to finally get a professional demo CD made. That sort of production is where the vast majority of music originates. Even if you go up three notches, do you really think the producer of Madonna's MDNA album has the slightest clue about HOA? You might be able to get such industry people to toy around with one extra channel and go from a LR or MS setup to a XYW setup, provided they can ship regular CDs that sell millions of copies. If they can mention in the liner notes, that as a special bonus it is surround encoded for playback on systems capable for that, then that's an added bonus, and that's ALL you're going to get until 100 million people or more have Ambisonic setups at home and ask for more. It is exactly these things, where e.g. some hard core Madonna fan would want to hear the album the way it was meant to be heard that will get people to buy a decent 4.0 setup, and spread the word. Nobody is going to have 6 or 8 speakers in the house,
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
On 13 Apr 2012, at 10:07, Jörn Nettingsmeier netti...@stackingdwarves.net wrote: On 04/13/2012 03:49 AM, Robert Greene wrote: While the mode of expression is even more emphatic than my own, RCFA is to my mind right all up and down the line. Talking about 3rd order is just castles in the air. As a theoretical mathematician, I spend most of my life building castles in the air. But one ought to know that that is what they are! you know, for every email you guys write about this tired old topic, i have _set up_ and _calibrated_ a higher order ambisonic system, and believe me, that's way more exciting. Exciting in the same way as people spending massive amounts of money on speaker wire and listening to the same recording over and over to decide if the CD player sounds better with a magic brick on top, or without can you please stick your heads out the window eventually? it's 2012, bandwidth is ridiculously cheap, storage even more so [1]. there is absolutely no valid argument to be made against very high orders indeed for production and archival. get it in your heads that there is a difference between what the consumer uses and what the production format is. this is what ambisonics is all about: scalability. you get to keep your meridians and your four quad speakers, and everyone can just live happily ever after. None of that matters: - there are globally speaking between zero and none studios that even understand the concept of higher order ambisonics - there are between zero and no artists who ask for their works to be produced in HOA - there are between zero and none record labels that will pay the extra expense for a HOA production. So who cares about bandwidth and storage? But even if these other issues were moot, bandwidth and storage remain at a premium, because my iPad holds only 64GB, and the iPhone's music download over 3G or 4G has a rather hefty price tag. The reality of music, in 2012, isn't a desktop computer with cheap hard drives attached to it, that's so 90s, its a wireless, low-power portable device with expensive SSD storage and expensive always-connected wireless networking. So yes, even despite all the other cost factors and hurdles that speak against a system of the complexity of HOA, bandwidth and storage still matter, or should I say, matter again? Ronald ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
As my 'studio' is my spare room in our flat, I have decent set up where I can use the surround set-up, which Ronald will be pleased to know uses five matched loudspeakers, an LFE unit and has proper bass management, to listen for both work and pleasure. I play my SACD recordings on an inexpensive Pioneer unit that plays almost anything, has six separate outputs and is hooked up to a Metric Halo ULN-8. My wife has the same unit, used as a CD player, hooked up to a Yamaha receiver that has six separate inputs and outputs, although we don't have a surround system in the living-room. (Too full of 'cellos and house-plants) A long time ago, I asked how many people on this list actually had any sort of surround systems, let alone properly set-up home-cinema 5.1 systems, in their homes and I think about three people said they did. I wonder how many there are now? Regards, John On 13 Apr 2012, at 08:37, Paul Hodges wrote: Actually, I'd be interested to know how many people on this list listen to surround recordings on a surround system for simple pleasure, as opposed to in the lab or as part of specific investigations of the process. ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
At 02:37 13/04/2012, Paul Hodges wrote: Actually, I'd be interested to know how many people on this list listen to surround recordings on a surround system for simple pleasure, as opposed to in the lab or as part of specific investigations of the process. I try to do this; but it is not always easy. The most friendly media are DVD-A and SACD which have a good enough bit rate. These I can play and enjoy. Playing wavefiles, which is what I would like to do, while relatively easy for two-channel stereo, is for me a PITA for ambisonics. Someone suggested using an Oppo BDP-95 for this, but then I heard that it will only play one wavefile and stop, thus one wavefile per track (movement) is a pain: even an LP will play four movements of a Mozart symphony without stopping. David ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
I disagree with this. I suppose for some things like pop vocals that do not have a natural acoustic venue surrounding them, surround is not helpful. But for large scaled acoustic music like orchestral music(which of course some people here would dismiss as a niche market) it really does help generate a better facsimile of the real experience. The problem is that practically none of the commercial material available does it right. But anyone who knows anything about acoustics knows that the concert experience of orchestral music has a very large amount of diffuse field sound involved--in energy terms, there is more diffuse field than direct arrival at most audience locations, quite a lot more. The precidence effect to some extent conceals this fact from people who listen superficially. But the reality is that stereo presentation of orchestral music is very much wrong. It can be pleasing, even beautiful, but it is always wrong. Surround can be right, or closer to right. But it usually is not, actually, as it is currently practiced. In most cases, you would be better off to take a stereo recording and make it into surround yourself. Quite disappointing situation, actually. But then people in contemporary High End audio do not seem to want to think about how music actually works in concert. It is not that the information is not available. I wrote this http://www.regonaudio.com/Records%20and%20Reality.html more than twenty-five years ago in The Absolute Sound. But not very many people seemed to understand the essential message--that a LOT of what you hear in concert ie diffuse field reverberation. People should have been trying to figure out how to generate that effect at home all along, but they mostly were not. And they still are not. They are worrying about other things entirely. Robert On Fri, 13 Apr 2012, newme...@aol.com wrote: Ronald: Wrong. They would want it, if they ever heard it. Sorry. I've heard surround and it's just not good enough to matter -- for MUSIC. I've heard Dark Side and I've heard Kind of Blue . . . and most of the rest of the SACD and DVD-A releases. Some are fabulous, some are not but none of it was enough. Good try. Experiment failed. I've recorded with Tetramics and I've set up an HSD 3D system, on which I enjoyed the 3RD DIMENSION of music -- height -- but none of this is enough. Amibsonics (i.e. FOA) is fabulous for AMBIENCE but, alas, not for MUSIC (due to the lack of frontal emphasis) and c'mon . . . we all know it. The reason why Ambisonics hasn't succeeded -- after all this time -- for MUSIC is that it's not *good* enough to make a difference. That's why the HOA debates happened. Smart people with well-trained ears KNOW that FOA isn't good enough. It has nothing to do with MAG or the British government or bad timing or bad business decisions -- it doesn't *improve* the listening to MUSIC enough for people to care. Seems that Apple also figured that out. I also know many people in the music *business* and they also heard it (indeed, spent a lot of money on it) and have universally come to the same conclusion. Case closed. Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/bb8fc69a/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
folks i just looked out of my window and it is 1975! Wireless World gave up waiting for the third part of MAG's article and started publishing somebody called Ivor Catt, who wanted to fight Maxwell in single combat. umashankar i have published my poems. read (or buy) at http://stores.lulu.com/umashankar Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:40:31 -0700 From: gre...@math.ucla.edu To: sursound@music.vt.edu Subject: Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music I disagree with this. I suppose for some things like pop vocals that do not have a natural acoustic venue surrounding them, surround is not helpful. But for large scaled acoustic music like orchestral music(which of course some people here would dismiss as a niche market) it really does help generate a better facsimile of the real experience. The problem is that practically none of the commercial material available does it right. But anyone who knows anything about acoustics knows that the concert experience of orchestral music has a very large amount of diffuse field sound involved--in energy terms, there is more diffuse field than direct arrival at most audience locations, quite a lot more. The precidence effect to some extent conceals this fact from people who listen superficially. But the reality is that stereo presentation of orchestral music is very much wrong. It can be pleasing, even beautiful, but it is always wrong. Surround can be right, or closer to right. But it usually is not, actually, as it is currently practiced. In most cases, you would be better off to take a stereo recording and make it into surround yourself. Quite disappointing situation, actually. But then people in contemporary High End audio do not seem to want to think about how music actually works in concert. It is not that the information is not available. I wrote this http://www.regonaudio.com/Records%20and%20Reality.html more than twenty-five years ago in The Absolute Sound. But not very many people seemed to understand the essential message--that a LOT of what you hear in concert ie diffuse field reverberation. People should have been trying to figure out how to generate that effect at home all along, but they mostly were not. And they still are not. They are worrying about other things entirely. Robert On Fri, 13 Apr 2012, newme...@aol.com wrote: Ronald: Wrong. They would want it, if they ever heard it. Sorry. I've heard surround and it's just not good enough to matter -- for MUSIC. I've heard Dark Side and I've heard Kind of Blue . . . and most of the rest of the SACD and DVD-A releases. Some are fabulous, some are not but none of it was enough. Good try. Experiment failed. I've recorded with Tetramics and I've set up an HSD 3D system, on which I enjoyed the 3RD DIMENSION of music -- height -- but none of this is enough. Amibsonics (i.e. FOA) is fabulous for AMBIENCE but, alas, not for MUSIC (due to the lack of frontal emphasis) and c'mon . . . we all know it. The reason why Ambisonics hasn't succeeded -- after all this time -- for MUSIC is that it's not *good* enough to make a difference. That's why the HOA debates happened. Smart people with well-trained ears KNOW that FOA isn't good enough. It has nothing to do with MAG or the British government or bad timing or bad business decisions -- it doesn't *improve* the listening to MUSIC enough for people to care. Seems that Apple also figured that out. I also know many people in the music *business* and they also heard it (indeed, spent a lot of money on it) and have universally come to the same conclusion. Case closed. Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/bb8fc69a/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/e86702af/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Could you explain to me this phrase: Amibsonics (i.e. FOA) is fabulous for AMBIENCE but, alas, not for MUSIC (due to the lack of frontal emphasis) and c'mon . . . we all know it. For one, why would I want frontal emphasis? The whole point of Ambisonics is that it does NOT have any emphasis, that things can be whereever. If one might have a complaint, then that UHJ might HAVE a frontal emphasis, but then again, that doesn't matter with most kinds of music. Again, we're not trying to shoot virtual musicians blind folded. It's about creating space in a small-ish living room, what you might call ambience, which you admit it's great for. So then what's the problem? Clearly I and many of the people who even know about Ambisonics never heard anything but FOA, e.g. I was convinced of the technology having listened to a bunch of Ambisonic UHJ encoded recordings on a Meridian system, and comparing them to stereo playback. I also listened to stereo recordings played back in SuperStereo, and the conclusion was the same: vastly superior listening experience. On 13 Apr 2012, at 17:09, newme...@aol.com wrote: Ronald: Wrong. They would want it, if they ever heard it. Sorry. I've heard surround and it's just not good enough to matter -- for MUSIC. So how can you unilaterally decide that this isn't worth it, when there are plenty of people who by the very experience were convinced of Ambisonics? How many of the people you claim have decided FOA isn't worth it, have expectations that don't matter to the average music listener? e.g. I'm not interested in the opinion of a professional musician who complains that the string section isn't exactly where it was during the performance. I'm not interested in the opinion of some Audiophile geek with a recording of someone walking in a circle clapping their hands complaining that the motion perceived isn't as uniform as the person was walking in a circle. All these things don't matter at all to the enhanced euphonic experience FOA provides during playback on a half-way decent 4.0 home setup. I've heard Dark Side and I've heard Kind of Blue . . . and most of the rest of the SACD and DVD-A releases. Some are fabulous, some are not but none of it was enough. Good try. Experiment failed. Most of that stuff has really nothing to do with FOA, because that to a large degree was 5.1 junk, with old-fashioned pan-pot mixes. If you're trying to say that ANY surround sound isn't good enough for music unless it has oodles of speaker channels, HOA and height information, then you might as well say there will never be surround sound good enough for music in the home, because the bar you set is too high to ever be surpassed in a home listening environment for the foreseeable future. I've recorded with Tetramics and I've set up an HSD 3D system, on which I enjoyed the 3RD DIMENSION of music -- height -- but none of this is enough. Maybe you should just decide it's not for you, and let the rest of us enjoy a less than perfect world. The way you talk reminds me of some of my friends who are single, because no girl is ever good enough for them, they will keep finding flaws even if they have a super model in front of them. If these women are not good enough for them, that's fine, they can remain single, but they should stop being spoilers for all the rest of us who enjoy women (and FOA) the way they are (it is). That's why the HOA debates happened. Smart people with well-trained ears KNOW that FOA isn't good enough. Elitism pure. I don't need someone else's smarts nor their well trained ears. As a matter of fact, IQ tests claim I'm well above average in smarts, and given that I can hear a good portion of bats in flight, I'd say my hearing isn't the worst, either. I'm sick and tired of other people deciding what I'm allowed to enjoy because of their perceived sense of superiority and qualifications. If I and many others of the few who ever even had a chance to listen to an Ambisonic setup enjoy the improvements in listening pleasure then that's plenty enough reason for this technology to exist, because the people who don't like it, like you, are not forced to listen to it. They should just be quiet and wait 500 years until maybe their perfect world manifests itself. It has nothing to do with MAG or the British government or bad timing or bad business decisions -- it doesn't *improve* the listening to MUSIC enough for people to care. Yeah, right. That's why Meridian keeps investing time and money into the system, that's why the system was invented at all etc. Let's face it, Dolby surround, matrixed, which is clearly inferior to even FOA/UHJ did have a success in the market, because the right people were behind it, and it lasted until Dolby pushed the next greatest thing (AC3), etc. Dolby understood that these things go incrementally, even though they chose a fundamentally inferior approach to the
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
I think that the idea that surround is not good enough for music , good enough to matter, really does not make sense. This is more or less like restricting the idea of music to what works well enough in stereo to be all right. But that is not all music, and indeed for example it does not include orchestral music. Of course we have all experienced this kind of reasoning in practice. When I had electrostatics with limited bass and dynamics, I hardly ever listened to big orchestral music(in recorded form). It did not work well with that system so I just listened to other stuff(even though I really like big orchestra music). When all there were were turntables and before I got a Nakamichi disc centering turntable, piano music was a problem(on account of off centered records). Once I got a Nakamichi (and digital came along), piano music became a joy again, instead of a watery imitation. And so I listened to more of it. What has happened to the audio industry in my view is that for more than fifty years, they have dealt almost exclusively with stereo. So people have evolved in their tastes to suit the medium. They listen only to music that works in stereo, and even when they do listen to things like orchestral music that obviously do not really work right in stereo, they have become adjusted to completely unrealistic presentations of the music (which really means only the notes and some of the dynamics since most of the rest is pretty screwed up). They have come to accept stereo on its own merits and have simply given up on its sounding real. Of course this happened with mono. People accepted it, completely unrealistic though it is. Then stereo showed up and all of a sudden mono seemed sort of Nowheresville. Surround could have had the same effect for music. It could have raised one's expectations of realism and made some kinds of music sound nearly right in a big way. But for various reasons, it did not happen. For one thing, the pop music industry had moved into a realm where people no longer cared about the acoustics of the venue. Music became something that was not anchored in acoustic reality with a real venue. But a lot of music is so anchored. And for that , surround done right is still valuable. But done right is the operative phrase. Robert ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Folks: ALL reproduced music is a special effect -- if you wish to hear a performance, as it was actually played, go to the performance. MONO is a special effect. STEREO is a special effect. SURROUND is a special effect. MP3 is a special effect. None of them is a live performance. And, no amount of money spent by audiophiles can change that. Neither can a few extremely well-executed recordings. It will always be a special effect and everyone knows it. Starting In the 1960s, the *stereo* special effect beat out the *mono* special effect for the reproduction of music. A lot of people *made* a lot of money as a new mass-market was generated, culminating in the CD (followed by MP3 etc.) Beginning in the 1990s, the music industry tried to promote the *surround* (i.e. 5.1 style) special effect -- driven by the installed base of home theaters and DVD players, along with a preceived need to recapture the revenues being lost in CD sales (due to the MP3 special effect). They *spent* a lot of money, tried various technologies, and they failed. The consumer did not believe that it was good enough (i.e. compared to the stereo special effect) to make the switch. No one is going to try that again. Furthermore, as music reproduction shifted to MP3-based online delivery and ear-bud reproduction (i.e. another version of the stereo special effect) -- the idea of pretending that all this isn't a *special effect* by trying to get absolute sound in your living-room just seemed more ridiculous than ever. Case closed. Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY P.S. By the 1990s, the ground of our experience had shifted from the acoustic/electric to the tactile/digital and we were freed to do whatever we wanted with sound. People playing with Ambisonics was the result. But our personal interests no longer intersect with the now obsolete efforts to generate mass-markets around new sonic special effects. Lou Reed can play around all he wants. It will not create a new mass-market for a new special effect. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/10ced087/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Being doctrinaire is really not a substitute for thinking. Of course no reproduced music at home is going to be identical to live experience. No one suggested it was. But one could get closer. And it is just silly to say go to the performance. The music played , even in major cities, is a very small fraction of what one might like to hear. It makes no sense to say case closed all the time. And monotonous repetition of buzz words like special effect contributes nothing to anything. Things like this are never closed. Who would have predicted in 1975 the current state of things? (IBM famously said that computers would never become popular home appliances, to take a particularly egregious instance of case closed being completely wrong.) Things change all the time. Furthermore it is silly to say that surround failed because of its not being musically interesting. The first try failed (SQ, Quad etc) because it really does not work well to try to put multiple channels on an LP. The second round failed at least in part because the industry shot the effort in the foot by failing to agree on a single format. DVD versus SACD ruined everything at that point. But who is to say that it will never come back? Lots of people have 5.1 home theater setups. They could play music on them. It could sound good. It could all happen easily enough especially since data distribution is getting so easy. It would be nice if Ambisonics were positioned to participate if this does happen. c Robert On Fri, 13 Apr 2012, newme...@aol.com wrote: Folks: D ALL reproduced music is a special effect -- if you wish to hear a performance, as it was actually played, go to the performance. MONO is a special effect. STEREO is a special effect. SURROUND is a special effect. MP3 is a special effect. None of them is a live performance. And, no amount of money spent by audiophiles can change that. Neither can a few extremely well-executed recordings. It will always be a special effect and everyone knows it. Starting In the 1960s, the *stereo* special effect beat out the *mono* special effect for the reproduction of music. A lot of people *made* a lot of money as a new mass-market was generated, culminating in the CD (followed by MP3 etc.) Beginning in the 1990s, the music industry tried to promote the *surround* (i.e. 5.1 style) special effect -- driven by the installed base of home theaters and DVD players, along with a preceived need to recapture the revenues being lost in CD sales (due to the MP3 special effect). They *spent* a lot of money, tried various technologies, and they failed. The consumer did not believe that it was good enough (i.e. compared to the stereo special effect) to make the switch. No one is going to try that again. Furthermore, as music reproduction shifted to MP3-based online delivery and ear-bud reproduction (i.e. another version of the stereo special effect) -- the idea of pretending that all this isn't a *special effect* by trying to get absolute sound in your living-room just seemed more ridiculous than ever. Case closed. Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY P.S. By the 1990s, the ground of our experience had shifted from the acoustic/electric to the tactile/digital and we were freed to do whatever we wanted with sound. People playing with Ambisonics was the result. But our personal interests no longer intersect with the now obsolete efforts to generate mass-markets around new sonic special effects. Lou Reed can play around all he wants. It will not create a new mass-market for a new special effect. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/10ced087/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Robert: Who would have predicted in 1975 the current state of things? Many did exactly that. In particular, the reality of technology increasing the productivity of manufacturing such that labor-arbitrage would come to dominate global trade and that the post-industrial economies would not understand how to cope with these new circumstances, was widely appreciated. IBM famously said that computers would never become popular home appliances, to take a particularly egregious instance of case closed being completely wrong. Sorry, that is not what happened. In fact, right around 1975, a fellow at IBM named Gary Chen (who I knew well) predicted to IBM's senior management that there was a *very* large market opportunity at the $5K (and below) price-point (based on a Paretto curve of demand vs. price/performance), which began the effort that led to the IBM PC -- based on the same Microsoft and Intel technology that still dominates the 500M unit market for the PC today. The fact that so many people in the hi-fi industry have been wrong in their predictions doesn't mean that predictions can't be made -- just that they aren't very good at it. Obviously no one should take my own predictions with anything more than a LARGE grain-of-salt -- even if (or maybe because) I might be one of the few on this list who has made a 40-year career out of predicting these things -- however, I can only hope that I have at least stimulated some thinking and perhaps even a little entertainment! Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/bde7375e/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
I do. I have two classic Ambisonic decoders, a old Meridian in the sitting room, decoding to 5.1 speakers (the TV shares the speakers), and an ancient Minim AD10-based system in my office with 4 good speakers (soon to be extended to a 6-speaker hexagon array). Both are horizontal-only, obviously; much as I would like a full periphonic system, I prefer not to invade my living space with more speakers. Gerard On 13/04/2012 08:37, Paul Hodges wrote: --On 13 April 2012 03:08 +0100 Stefan Schreiber st...@mail.telepac.pt wrote: ... Actually, I'd be interested to know how many people on this list listen to surround recordings on a surround system for simple pleasure, as opposed to in the lab or as part of specific investigations of the process. Paul ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
On 13/04/2012 00:43, Ronald C.F. Antony wrote: The cardboard speakers that ship with affordable 5.1 systems are not suitable for music, and anything halfway acceptable is on a good sale at least $250/speaker, which means with four speakers you're at or above $1k, add a decent four channel amp, cables, speaker stands, etc. and you're well above the typical consumer price level already. Agreed generally. But it _*is*_ possible to get decent speakers more cheaply, if you try. I got eight Wharfedale Diamond 8 Pro Active speakers at prices ranging from £100/pr to just under £200/pr, all new in their boxes. About half were unopened, still with the original Wharfedale tape and staples on the boxes; the others were new 'B'-stock - opened for display, but otherwise perfect. All came with a full guarantee from the dealer - most of them came from Dolphin Music. Great value, and no need to spend money on separate power amps. It took me about a year to get them, buying one or two pairs at a time as they became available at a price I was willing to pay (the last ones were the cheapest!). Technology hasn't moved on. 5.1 is 4.0 plus a crappy center speaker that has a totally different tonal quality and never blends with the other four lousy speakers, plus a subwoofer to make up for the fact that the other speakers are lousy. Four full-range speakers in a 4.0 configuration is better than what 99% of people have in their homes, and cost near what they could possibly afford. To talk about higher channel count is totally disregarding economic realities. Again, not necessarily so. I have a '5.1' set of Wharfedale bookshelf speakers (not the same as the ones mentioned above). Actually it's 5.0 since with four decent bookshelf speakers and a matching, slightly larger, centre speaker, bass is adequate for TV/videos and surprisingly good for classical music; so I didn't get a '.1' subwoofer. The bookshelf speakers all have a 5 bass unit as well as a tweeter; the centre speaker has 2 x 5 bass units of the same type as the bookshelf speakers and the same tweeter. Driven via the Meridian preamp, they put out a nicely balanced sound, provided you don't want too loud; the Meridian makes sure the bass goes to the 5 normal speakers. Gerard -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/3117c477/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
I ain't objecting to HOA. I'd love to have a HOA system again for normal listening; I /have/ heard it and agree it is good. But two things argue against it: 1.) Cost for a home installation. Despite what I wrote in an earlier message today, it was hard work to assemble even 8 /good/ speakers cheaply. I got them for HOA, but I probably will not use them for it, at least not for long, because 2) Having lots of speakers on one room is not compatible with home harmony or with visual aesthetics. Sadly, that is the killer. Bandwidth, storage, processing power? Yes, they are all affordable now. Now we need to find a solution to my point 2 above - and that is not an Ambisonics problem! In practice, Ambisonics is most useful as a production tool. Only a dedicated few will use it in a home environment. Only when the speakers can be effectively hidden from view without compromising the qualities needed for Ambisonics and for serious music reproduction will it have the potential to become part of the home system. Gerard Lardner On 13/04/2012 09:07, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote: On 04/13/2012 03:49 AM, Robert Greene wrote: While the mode of expression is even more emphatic than my own, RCFA is to my mind right all up and down the line. Talking about 3rd order is just castles in the air. As a theoretical mathematician, I spend most of my life building castles in the air. But one ought to know that that is what they are! you know, for every email you guys write about this tired old topic, i have _set up_ and _calibrated_ a higher order ambisonic system, and believe me, that's way more exciting. can you please stick your heads out the window eventually? it's 2012, bandwidth is ridiculously cheap, storage even more so [1]. there is absolutely no valid argument to be made against very high orders indeed for production and archival. get it in your heads that there is a difference between what the consumer uses and what the production format is. this is what ambisonics is all about: scalability. you get to keep your meridians and your four quad speakers, and everyone can just live happily ever after. [1] the only thing that's probably even cheaper is opinions. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/04d2ec7f/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
[Sursound] Spatial music
The solution lies in getting the home/spec builder industry to integrate in-wall loudspeakers at pre-specified locations (including ceiling) in the 21st century media room which room will become the new normal much like the kitchen has certain de-facto features/standards which are now taken for granted. In the fullness of time, multichannel audio in the home ultimately will prevail because it is the last frontier. --- On Fri, 4/13/12, Gerard Lardner glard...@iol.ie wrote I ain't objecting to HOA. I'd love to have a HOA system again for normal listening; I /have/ heard it and agree it is good. But two things argue against it: 1.) Cost for a home installation. Despite what I wrote in an earlier message today, it was hard work to assemble even 8 /good/ speakers cheaply. I got them for HOA, but I probably will not use them for it, at least not for long, because 2) Having lots of speakers on one room is not compatible with home harmony or with visual aesthetics. Sadly, that is the killer. Bandwidth, storage, processing power? Yes, they are all affordable now. Now we need to find a solution to my point 2 above - and that is not an Ambisonics problem! In practice, Ambisonics is most useful as a production tool. Only a dedicated few will use it in a home environment. Only when the speakers can be effectively hidden from view without compromising the qualities needed for Ambisonics and for serious music reproduction will it have the potential to become part of the home system. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120413/084cdc8b/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
