> > Is there really any commercially available Ambisonic material? >
yes ... in computer games. Buy yourself a PS3, then buy Codemaster's F1, or Dirt games ... and you'll be hearing (IIRC) 4th order ambisonic encoding and decoding ... you can listen in 3D sound using Simon Goodwin's hybrid 3D7.1 layout (height produced over an adapted 7.1 layout). > My impression is that the general public, even the audio public, > has never heard of it, even now. I think the revivial of interest > is mostly just among people like the people here. > I think that is largely true. Ambisonics has the problem that it is impractical. I believe it is too impractical for the home (at least with the currently available technology). I've blogged about that here: http://etiennedeleflie.net/2012/01/03/ambisonics-is-bad-technology/ > And canned artificial music , well, surround of > any kind hardly matters. I think it is the exact opposite. "Canned artificial music" is the only place where spatial audio maters and maters a lot. Here, I draw a distinction between 'surround' ... and spatial audio. The use of our spatial perceptual abilities to isolate sounds (auditory stream segregation) is used and abused with great skill by contemporary 'producers'. That's why the most important plugins in DAWs are things like reverberation, panning, digital delay, low-pass-filters, volume control etc. These are all *spatial* processes. I've blogger about that here: http://etiennedeleflie.net/2012/01/04/aphex-twin-and-spatial-audio/ Am I missing something? You are forgetting that ambisonics is inaccessible (to the masses). In this respect Ambisonics is a half-technology. The missing half is the half that allows people to have a consistently good and dependable spatial audio experience by buying a product, going home and hitting 'play'. In the consumer market place, its called *user experience*. The user-experience delivered by today's ambisonic technologies is only sufferable by a select few ... audio-engineers, technically minded audiophiles, academic researchers ... Etienne > > Robert > > > On Fri, 30 Mar 2012, Fons Adriaensen wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 12:52:22PM -0700, Robert Greene wrote: >> >> Surround in music has never been a hit in any form and it still >>> is not. Moreover most music is not really enhanced by it in the minds of >>> most people. Orchestral music benefits enormously--most of what you hear >>> in an orchestra concert is all around you--but most people do not listen >>> to that kind of music. And canned artificial music , well, surround of >>> any kind hardly matters. >>> >> >> Correct. And if you want to use Ambisonics for anything beyond >> listening to classical music, e.g. to compete with 5.1 for movie >> sound, you need higher order. Which was near impossible or at least >> horribly complicated and expensive with analog technology. >> The revival of the past ten years or so is largely the result of >> higher order becoming possible in practice, along with an interest >> from telecom companies rather than music producers. >> >> Ciao, >> >> -- >> FA >> >> A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. >> It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris >> and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) >> >> ______________________________**_________________ >> Sursound mailing list >> Sursound@music.vt.edu >> https://mail.music.vt.edu/**mailman/listinfo/sursound<https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound> >> >> ______________________________**_________________ > Sursound mailing list > Sursound@music.vt.edu > https://mail.music.vt.edu/**mailman/listinfo/sursound<https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound> > -- http://etiennedeleflie.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120331/b51f6266/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
