Re: [Sursound] Spatial music
On 14 Apr 2012, at 04:46, JEFF SILBERMAN ambis...@pacbell.net wrote: 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. That suggestion may apply for the 1% of people, not for the 99%. More than half the people in the US live what in Europe people would simply call a ghetto, and of the rest, a lot of people are on their way to descend into that level of wealth, given that wages under the new union contracts are not sufficient to sustain what one would call a middle-class life style with secured retirement. To stick to your kitchen mataphor: the 1% have custom cabinets, Sub-Zero refrigeration units, Wolf or some high-end European appliances. For the rest, a kitchen is simply a room with a sink, a super-cheap electric stove and a second-hand fridge. They also don't have a laundry room, they have to go to the Laudromat with their dirty clothes, and I'd venture to guess that people rather invest in their own washer and drier than into a media room of the 21st century. For a technology to succeed, it can't just target those who lead the gilded life. Ronald ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Spatial music
On 14/04/2012 04:27, JEFF SILBERMAN wrote: .. soundstage envelopment and spaciousness)! Indeed, I would never replace my 3 front loudspeakers with a quadrilateral layout. Why three-speaker stereophony never became an end in itself is a mystery to me. It is not nearly as financially and logistically burdensome as surround sound and yet its benefits are very tangible. I would have thought the answer to that was fairly simple - the choice is simply not available in the places the general public buys hifi, such as: http://www.richersounds.com Note for example that you see listings for either stereo systems or Cinema systems. Anything that involves buying some extra piece of kit, such as a decoder, is out of the question - too complicated, and visibly more expensive. You need a do-everything amp with sufficient outputs at the back, and a simple switch offering, say, stereo, 3-ch stereo, quad, 5.1 (etc., with built-in automatic up-mixing if required - folk may shudder at the thought, but just deal with it). And packages not just of matched pairs of speakers, but matched triplets and quads of speakers - triplets being the weird combination for shops and customers alike. And of course those who do venture into 'real' hifi showrooms need to be able to hear such systems demoed, ~outside~ anything to do with cinema. Richard Dobson ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
[Sursound] Spatial music
I still claim that 3 loudspeakers would have been an easier sell than 5.1! If I am not mistaken, I do believe there were a handful of 3-channel symphonic DVD's recorded with the 3 omni mic technique. In my experience, most 5.1 users correctly position the L/C/R loudspeakers, more or less. The problem lies in positioning the surrounds at the proper distance, angle and height or compensating the inaccuracy with delay and/or gain. 3-speaker stereo is much less hassle. On Apr 14, 2012, at 2:42 AM, Richard Dobson richarddob...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: On 14/04/2012 04:27, JEFF SILBERMAN wrote: .. soundstage envelopment and spaciousness)! Indeed, I would never replace my 3 front loudspeakers with a quadrilateral layout. Why three-speaker stereophony never became an end in itself is a mystery to me. It is not nearly as financially and logistically burdensome as surround sound and yet its benefits are very tangible. I would have thought the answer to that was fairly simple - the choice is simply not available in the places the general public buys hifi, such as: http://www.richersounds.com Note for example that you see listings for either stereo systems or Cinema systems. Anything that involves buying some extra piece of kit, such as a decoder, is out of the question - too complicated, and visibly more expensive. You need a do-everything amp with sufficient outputs at the back, and a simple switch offering, say, stereo, 3-ch stereo, quad, 5.1 (etc., with built-in automatic up-mixing if required - folk may shudder at the thought, but just deal with it). And packages not just of matched pairs of speakers, but matched triplets and quads of speakers - triplets being the weird combination for shops and customers alike. And of course those who do venture into 'real' hifi showrooms need to be able to hear such systems demoed, ~outside~ anything to do with cinema. Richard Dobson ___ 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
Paul Hodges wrote: --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. I have criticized this again and again, also at companies: SACDs are fine, but they are not compatible with computers and the current crop of mobile devices. UHJ should be supported on any Ambisonics decoder, such as FOA. 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. This is a very valid question...;-) Best, Stefan ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Ronald C.F. Antony wrote: 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. No, it didn't work. UHJ will (mostly) be heard as plain stereo, and then there might be a few issues. (Mathematically-logically, it is impossible to press 3 channels into 2. You will have some artefacts if presenting surround sound in just 2-channels.) Surround reproduction requires more than 2 speakers, say: at least 4. (Even decoded UHJ, so to speak.) If speakers are crappy, surround won't be enjoyable with any system. :-) Best, Stefan ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Ronald C.F. Antony wrote: 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. Yes, but your next iPad will hold 256GB (for example), and if Apple doesn't want to offer this somebody else will do. But for mere interest: How do you listen to surround on your iPad? Cos this question has to be asked, sorry for my ignorance.:-D You can listen to UHJ. But as stereo. See former posting. Best, Stefan Schreiber P.S.: Surround reproduction is not related in any form to cheap hard drives () vs. SSD storage. I am actually tired of reading this stuff about cheap, crappy speakers, cheap hard drives etc. Nice rhetorical attempt, but what is the aim of that? ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Robert Greene wrote: I was not objecting to high order for production. But it is never going to fly in playback terms. Everyone takes for granted (I assume) that people can and often do things to make recordings that do not happen at the playback end. (How many consumers know Protools?) That was hardly the point. What seems to have emerged from this long discussion is that Ambisonics is really not going to be much use as a consumer format--or perhaps more precisely, that rather few people here are interested in making it of much use as a consumer format. I think this is a shame, because I was under the impression(and still am) that it makes for rather nice playback. Robert Future consumer formats will be file-based, computer-decodable. If so, there is more opportunity for several surround formats existing next to each other. (5.1 has to be included into the bigger framework.) I mean, you have to decode AVC and HEVC (successor standard for video compression, nearly finished), and you have to decode a movie which is presented in some container format. (sound, menus, synchronization...) Mobile smart devices are not PCs, but obviously computers. Best, Stefan Schreiber ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
Hi, Generally I totally agree with Ronald C.F. Antony and Robert Greene. Ambisonics is useful and pleasing, even at first order. Until that gets out of the starting blocks into more widespread use it will remain a minority pursuit. I think all on this list would agree that this is undesirable. It is scalable, and first base is first order. As Ronald says we need to make it widely hearable and available for people at all levels to use. Anyone who takes care to set up home cinema, home studio monitoring or public address systems effectively can understand the basics, and these can easily be promulgated. This would promote more widespread use and content creation. This doesn't stop anyone with the interest and budget exploring and using higher orders. There have been suggestions of using higher order ambisonics as a production format, with UHJ or first order as a distribution format. This could be regarded as unnecessary. The Soundfield microphone has a fairly large user base, and higher order microphones are unlikely to be widely available and used for some time. Other than such direct recording nearly all productions are going to involve panning of mono and stereo sources, and possibly mixing them with Soundfield mic recordings or even 5.1 (etc.) recordings. As these productions are nearly all done with DAWs now, it is the scene description (direction, distance, width etc.) of each source that is important and already future proof. This can be applied subsequently to any spatial audio algorithm, ambisonics to any order, WFS, VBAP, zillion.1, Delay/Amplitude panning etc. Any software or plug-in that we use now may not be useable in five years time, and may have been replaced with something else. Any finished material will survive and hopefully be playable. A scene description could survive, or could be recreated by careful listening, much as old multi-track recordings can be remixed and polished up now. Ciao, Dave Hunt ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please? New Title and questions...
Ronald C.F. Antony r...@cubiculum.com wrote: On 12 Apr 2012, at 19:57, Martin Leese martin.le...@stanfordalumni.org wrote: ... The UK Government, through the National Research Development Corporation, strongly supported the development of Ambisonics; they paid for it. While the NRDC had strange ideas on how to market Ambisonics, there were no legal restrictions on them doing so. I heard that there were some effects of Thatcher era privatization efforts that directly or indirectly hurt Ambisonics... ...can't remember the details, though, except that the research had some bad luck with timing, i.e. it was ready to be marketed when the conditions for government funded research were the worst. Maybe someone can elaborate on that? Somebody who was involved at the time (which I was not) would be better able to answer this. Thatcher came to power in 1979. In 1981, the NRDC was merged into the British Technology Group. It is true that development and promotion of Ambisonics was the sort of thing that the Thatcher government felt should be left to industry. However, the marketing plan for Ambisonics being pursued by the NRDC/BTG was so at odds with how the audio industry actually worked that failure was certain. Much as I would delight in blaming Thatcher for the failure of Ambisonics (she is the reason I emigrated to Canada), I don't believe she was significant. Regards, Martin -- Martin J Leese E-mail: martin.leese stanfordalumni.org Web: http://members.tripod.com/martin_leese/ ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
On 14 Apr 2012, at 16:47, Stefan Schreiber st...@mail.telepac.pt wrote: Ronald C.F. Antony wrote: 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. No, it didn't work. That's just a plain lie. Obviously I can listen to a UHJ encoded CD or radio transmission as regular stereo, and if I have the equipment/software, I can also decode it into surround. It works, I've heard it, I have the UHJ CDs that I can (and often have to) play back as stereo. UHJ will (mostly) be heard as plain stereo, So what? That's the entire point. Selling UHJ encoded material requires hardly a change in the distribution channel, and requires no change at all for the consumer, unless they want to explore the surround sound feature. The latter is something people can explore at their leisure, as time and budget and equipment allow. But there's never a choice to make about which track to buy, which track to sync, what information to strip out to reduce size. There are also no choices about which versions of a track to produce, which versions to bundle, etc. because there's always only one mix, and one product, it only can be listened to in different ways. This is the path that provides the least options, meaning the least confusion and the least overhead; and that's always the winning path in any business that's consumer oriented. This is NOT an engineering or technical product, nor is it a professional product, where people might like and want options and choices. and then there might be a few issues. (Mathematically-logically, it is impossible to press 3 channels into 2. You will have some artefacts if presenting surround sound in just 2-channels.) The artefacts are not significant. They are certainly less of an issue than all the artefacts that arise from lossy compression, and people by and large don't care or notice either. Surround reproduction requires more than 2 speakers, say: at least 4. (Even decoded UHJ, so to speak.) And? Did I ever say anything different? If speakers are crappy, surround won't be enjoyable with any system. :-) Did I say anything different? The thing is FOA sounds just fine with 4 speakers, and 4 decent speakers are a lot more affordable than 6, 8, or more decent speakers. The way the world economy is going (stagnant wages combined with inflation in the rich countries, and rising wages in poor countries, which means global income averaging), people will in inflation adjusted terms have less disposable income for tech gadgetry in the rich countries, and may be barely get to the point where they can afford entry-level systems in the poor countries. That means stereo systems will already be considered expensive, and something that requires four speakers will start to push the pain envelope. Forget 6 or 8 speaker setups, these are a luxury for an upper crust of high-income or high-networth people, and they won't sustain a mass market. On 14 Apr 2012, at 16:58, Stefan Schreiber st...@mail.telepac.pt wrote: Ronald C.F. Antony wrote: 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. Yes, but your next iPad will hold 256GB (for example), and if Apple doesn't want to offer this somebody else will do. That doesn't make the cost much lower. SSD prices, although they have come down quite a bit, are still prohibitively expensive for large capacities. A 480GB SSD still costs well over $1k, a 480GB disk drive you can get for $50. That's a factor of 20, and it's not going to go away that quickly. Besides, bandwidth is a separate issue: a lousy 2GB data allowance costs $30 or more in the US. In Austria, where mobile data is globally speaking dirt cheap, 1GB is about €1 when bought in bulk, but even so, transmitting large sound files would cost as much to transfer as the purchase price of a track would end up being in e.g. the iTunes store. So for mobile devices, bandwidth costs matter greatly. But for mere interest: How do you listen to surround on your iPad? Cos this question has to be asked, sorry for my ignorance.:-D Binaural decoding would be the way to go. Besides, the iPad ends up in the dock when at home, which is hooked up to the power amp. An iPad with amp is a complete entertainment system, for those who haven't noticed that fact. What is missing is software, and that's why convincing companies like Apple to get
Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music
can a tetrahedral mic be used to create a room (correction) impulse response in B format? and how? Yes. I can make a sensible attempt today for an Ambi rig spaced away from the walls as the HiFi pundits and other gurus have mandated for years. This however has near zero Wife Acceptance Factor. What i can't figure out is how to EQ for speakers mounted on or close to a wall. (Unless the speakers have been designed to work well in such positions. eg from the Unobtainium Speaker Co.) This is necessary to move towards Jeff's integrate in-wall loudspeakers at pre-specified locations (including ceiling) except the Supa Ambi Decoder doesn't need pre-specified locations. It measures the speaker positions using the TetraMike. I think Angelo has tried the 1st method using some naive strategies; just EQing WXYZ to get matching WXYZ from a Soundfield. This doesn't give very good results cos in speaker / room EQ, what you DON'T EQ is probably more important than what you do. Perhaps Fons knows more. You need some strategy like what's used in Dennis' Digital Room Correction but taking into account multiple speakers and B-format. I'd dearly love details of what Trinnov do. If I ever get to grips with 21st century programming tools, I intend to do some work on this so expect results before the end of the millenium. ___ Mark, please don't ignore my question about HSD 3D systems. ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
[Sursound] Spatial music
Are things really that bad? I need to get out more often! I'm thinking that the 99% own flatscreens by now. If a homebuilder is going to place an electrical outlet on the wall suitable for mounting a flatscreen, he might as well put in suitable-located outlets for in-wall loudspeakers as determined by the location of the flatscreen. As rooms shrink in size and skrink in number, I foresee the media room as the hub of all internet, entertainment and telecommunications of the future. Since living space will be at a premium, a wall-mounted flatscreen and in-wall loudspeakers will become all the more advantageous. --- On Sat, 4/14/12, Ronald C.F. Antony r...@cubiculum.com wrote: On 14 Apr 2012, at 04:46, JEFF SILBERMAN ambis...@pacbell.net wrote: 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. That suggestion may apply for the 1% of people, not for the 99%. More than half the people in the US live what in Europe people would simply call a ghetto, and of the rest, a lot of people are on their way to descend into that level of wealth, given that wages under the new union contracts are not sufficient to sustain what one would call a middle-class life style with secured retirement. To stick to your kitchen mataphor: the 1% have custom cabinets, Sub-Zero refrigeration units, Wolf or some high-end European appliances. For the rest, a kitchen is simply a room with a sink, a super-cheap electric stove and a second-hand fridge. They also don't have a laundry room, they have to go to the Laudromat with their dirty clothes, and I'd venture to guess that people rather invest in their own washer and drier than into a media room of the 21st century. For a technology to succeed, it can't just target those who lead the gilded life. Ronald ___ 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/20120414/96175921/attachment.html ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
Re: [Sursound] Spatial music
On 15 Apr 2012, at 02:14, JEFF SILBERMAN ambis...@pacbell.net wrote: Are things really that bad? I need to get out more often! I'm thinking that the 99% own flatscreens by now. If a homebuilder is going to place an electrical outlet on the wall suitable for mounting a flatscreen, he might as well put in suitable-located outlets for in-wall loudspeakers as determined by the location of the flatscreen. As rooms shrink in size and skrink in number, I foresee the media room as the hub of all internet, entertainment and telecommunications of the future. Since living space will be at a premium, a wall-mounted flatscreen and in-wall loudspeakers will become all the more advantageous. Lots of people do own flatscreen TVs, largely because they have become dirt cheap at the peril of the display manufacturers running huge losses. However, hardly anyone will have special outlets for these TVs, that's custom home stuff, i.e. 1% material. Most people have the flatscreen on top of a dresser, TV table, whatever. People combining their TV with some BOSE mini-cube speakers think they are high-end. A big factor in getting people to buy TVs these days are games. Even rather poor people with kids will get a Wii, PS, or XBox Kinect because it allows them to entertain their kids and their friends at home, which is still cheaper than trying to pay for all sorts of other activities. The issue is, anything that's solid state keeps getting cheaper. But speakers are electro-mechanical, and their price really hasn't come down much over the years. Today, good, relatively powerful and clean class-D amps could easily power at an affordable price a surround sound system, but getting a set of decent speakers unless you're a champ at bargain shopping is not easy. And if people have to choose between a bigger screen and better speakers, I think the screen will win most of the time... Ronald ___ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
