Thread: why 2 channel?

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Post by Windsurfer May 16, 2006 (11 of 21)
Paul said:

Classical might be different; I have a limited selection of that genre. For jazz, at least, I have yet to hear MC recordings that sound like anything but a gimmick. At every concert I have attended, the musicians were arrayed in front of me. True, reflected sound does affect how you hear things, but that is based on the acoustics of the room in which you are listening, how packed the room was that night, etc.. Given that listening rooms are always different from the original venue it is impossible to recreate that. Worse, the rear channels will add waves of their own to bounce around the room, adding to the chaos. Listening only in near-field to avoid reflections is very diffcult with MC apart from headphones. I suppose if your room were anechoic you could come closer to the goal, but even then I think it would sound artificial. To be sure, stereo is artificial as well, but to me, at least, it is closer to the real thing than what I have seen from MC. Regardless, if listening to MC on an "ordinary system" does the trick for you, wonderful. If you prefer to listen to a "high-end" stereo rig, or some combination in-between, great. In the end, as much as I enjoy SACD, it is the material more than the presentation that moves me.

I wish you could visit my home and give a listen. You would be surprised, probably amazed at how your theoretical claims fall apart with the practical experience of a GOOD multi-channel set up.

Of course everything depends on the recording and I can well imagine that perhaps most people who record jazz have no appreciation of the acoustics of a live unamplified concert.

My wife and I attended a jazz concert late last fall. It was held in a restuarant that has a small stage at one end and unfortunately, a very low ceiling. There was of course the obligatory "sound system". This was not an acoustical concert - it was all an electronically conceived experience delivered by a bank of speakers. If that is what is being "reproduced" on Jazz SACDs and you do not really listen to classical music, I can appreciate that for you stereo is absolutely sufficient!

As I say in another post however, one of the most compelling arguments for multi-channel is the unaccompanied Bach of Julia Fischer recorded oh, so very, very well by PentaTone. A single instrument played in a church, and it is about the most gorgeous sound I ever heard - in multi-channel that is! So much like being there!

It would be good if jazz people would begin to do acoustic rather than electro-mechanical productions. Then of course the benefits of multi-channel recording would accrue to this genre as well.

Post by Claude May 16, 2006 (12 of 21)
Bruce,

Of course a good multichannel setup has a good stereo performance sound as well. My reasoning is strictly about cost/benefit, and is related to the fact that the potential number of multichannel recordings in my music collection (70% jazz, 30% classical) is limited. In more than 90% of my listening time, the additional channels would be idle. Therefore, I prefer to spend my money in stereo hardware, and in software.

If SACD had more impact on the music market and many more new recordings were released on multichannel SACDs, I would certainly reconsider this.

Post by 2-channel May 16, 2006 (13 of 21)
MC is trying (and failing) to recreate what 'nature' provides with two channels - i.e. 360 degree stereophonic sound. If you can hear sounds behind you with just two ears, then logic would suggest that two channels is sufficient to replicate them 'artificially'.

This is necessarily an oversimplification, but true stereo can only be achieved with dummy head recording and replay equipment. A good second-best - for conventional microphone arrangements is to listen via AKG-K1000 headphones.

Many people confuse stereo with multi-channel mono which is produced by the majority of pop studios. MC may have its place here as an artistic tool, but it's got nothing to do with stereo.

Post by Windsurfer May 16, 2006 (14 of 21)
2-channel said:

MC is trying (and failing) to recreate what 'nature' provides with two channels - i.e. 360 degree stereophonic sound. If you can hear sounds behind you with just two ears, then logic would suggest that two channels is sufficient to replicate them 'artificially'.

Many people confuse stereo with multi-channel mono which is produced by the majority of pop studios. MC may have its place here as an artistic tool, but it's got nothing to do with stereo.

"failing" ??? Not in my experience it isn't...see my earlier posts on this thread and others.

Further, it appears that your notion of "what 'nature' provides with two channels" is bogus. Perhaps we should examine the psychoacoustics of hearing with two ears, which I presume is what you mean by "two channels". After discussing comb effects, we then we need to recognize established naming conventions.

We hear with two ears, that which is behind us, and with BINAURAL recordings (the dummy with microphones embedded in the ears) this can and is successfully reproduced via two channels when and only when earphones are used as the reproducing transducers.

How many binaural recording do you own? I know of none in SACD and only a few on LP that were mfg about 30 years ago. I never owned any because I never found them in record stores, further, neither Klemperer, nor Barbarolli nor Boult, nor Bernstein, nor Kleiber nor any other conductor of merit that I know has ever recorded in BINAURAL.

This would be truly unfortunate except for the triumphant success of Multi-channel recording to reproduce on speakers what could otherwise have only been done with BINAURAL recording and hot sticky headphones. [Yes I regard my beloved Stax SR 3 electrostatic headphones as hot and sticky even though they are "open air". Since I acquired an excellent multi-channel set up I haven't had any call to use them.]

In a concert recording, STEREOPHONIC recordings only give an artificial slice of one end of the hall. They are flat and two dimensional apart from some hokey "depth" related artifacts of the stereo recording techique. If you attend concerts with any regularity you will immediately recognize the truth of this - how what you hear in the concert hall hardly relates to what you hear from a STEREOPHONIC recording.

Your post may confuse further the issue of multi-channel mono (which even EMI has employed, routinely downmixed to "stereo") with multi-channel reproduction via 4 or 5 full range speakers. The surround sound provided by PentaTone and others beautifully realizes the objective of BINAURAL reproduction without resorting to headphones. Find a good demonstration - maybe someone on this forum has a such a system within reasonable travel of your home and will accede to educate you via direct experience! You will be amazed how a modest listening room can sound like a great concert hall or a church or a jazz salon depending on what you play!

If you enjoy large symphonic ensembles - Mahler, Beethoven's Ninth, the Berlioz Requiem, you will be blown away by the sheer scale of the sound that is possible via a multi-channel system, the listening room walls just seem to fall away being replaced by a much larger venue. Stereo falls so pathetically short of this!

Post by eesau May 16, 2006 (15 of 21)
My experience with multichannel recordings tells me that only those recordings work well that have been captured in a natural environment using proper microphone techniques. This kind of recording is obviously more demanding than doing recording in a studio. And further; only very few companies can do this properly!!!

Most new classical music SACDs are multichannel, if you have not noted before! This is because classical music uses acoustic instruments that are recorded in some hall with ambience. They are typically very good and provide with improved fidelity. And this improvement is rather consistent.

With other than classical music recordings, the masters of multichannel recording are very few. Recordings made by Chesky and Opus3 are very good and provide with sound quality that no two channel set up can surpass (in my opinion, of course).

Note that proper recording with natural ambience further leads to stereo recordings with real “soundstage”. Most studio recordings lack this completely. I just got the dual disc version of Springsteen’s latest “We Shall Overcome” and I have to complain that this guy still cannot make engineers to record his albums correctly.

The future of multichannel music is uncertain because it will never be able to get to the main stream. It does not help if people have their multichannel DVD playback equipment at home because they are mostly used for movies sound effects. Boom boom ….

Esa

Post by braver May 16, 2006 (16 of 21)
Johnno said:

What model Sony headphones are they -- and do you feed them with four/five channels or what?

They're Sony IF5000 from a while back, cordless (infra-red) headphones, which Sony called the first "virtual surround" headphones. Alas, they feed off just a usual stereo signal, optical or analog, and then create surround effect which is amazing. Somehow the source seems removed from the center of your head into surrounding space. The DSP in the transmitter creates the surround. There's a setting to make it stereo, but in front of you, and another to also add artificial rear and center, or just put the sound back into your head. :) There's also a seeting to distinguish between "music" and "cinema".

My logic is that if with a limited processing, headphone sound can appear to come from in front of you, what are the possibilities with real surround! And headphones are still better positioned than 2-channel loudspeakers, since the headphones sit directly on your ears and the acoustic model for the effects is known.

Post by Claude May 16, 2006 (17 of 21)
Alexy,

If I understand you well, the headphones project a stereo image in front of the listener, instead of creating it in the head of the listener.

This has little to do with surround (and certainly nothing with multichannel). Other headphone companies have been trying this (with more or less success), either with signal processors or with a certain position of the headphone drivers.

Post by braver May 16, 2006 (18 of 21)
Claude said:

Alexy,

If I understand you well, the headphones project a stereo image in front of the listener, instead of creating it in the head of the listener.

This has little to do with surround (and certainly nothing with multichannel). Other headphone companies have been trying this (with more or less success), either with signal processors or with a certain position of the headphone drivers.

Definitely -- what I'm saying is, if our minds adapts to such effects, it should even easier adapt to real multi-channel and extract even more information. I guess I went for a convoluted argument here, which may even seem to play to 2-channel camp, but it's not.

Our mind is like a tomograph -- given more points of reference, it recreates soundscape much better. The point with artificial surround is that the mind adjusts. So even regardless of a room's acoustics mismatch versus the original concert hall, giving more points of reference will enable our own powerful 'sound processing'.

Post by Windsurfer May 16, 2006 (19 of 21)
braver said:

Definitely -- what I'm saying is, if our minds adapts to such effects, it should even easier adapt to real multi-channel and extract even more information. I guess I went for a convoluted argument here, which may even seem to play to 2-channel camp, but it's not.

Our mind is like a tomograph -- given more points of reference, it recreates soundscape much better. So even regardless of a room's acoustics mismatch versus the original concert hall, giving more points of reference will enable our own powerful 'sound processing'.

That was well said, braver.

I think about how much of a mish mash I have in place of 5 identical speakers and 5 identical amplifiers (the recommended implementation for 5 channel surround)and I am amazed at how truly spectacular the results are in terms of dimensional realism conveyed to the listener. Further this sense of realism extends well away from the center of focus we call the "sweet spot" for which all the measurements were made and duly recorded into the player's setup program.

Post by brenda May 16, 2006 (20 of 21)
2-channel said: ...This is necessarily an oversimplification
wow, is that ever an understatement.

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