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
