[Gary Eickmeier]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message ...

William, for the record I don't believe in adding some phony "hall
effect"
from a processor. I like to hear only what is contained in the
recording,
for better or for worse.

Then demonstrate that your system actually does what is claimed for it.

I should add that both the JVC and Yamaha synthesizers use models based on
actual halls. Furthermore, they work with any kind of recording,
including.

The argument is that you can't actually do a real hall simulation unless
you have directional information about the complete wavefront coming from
the sound source. You have some of that, but not necessarily enough to do
a transparent job, and you're starting out with a recording that isn't
designed to be played back that way.

So my inclination to say that hall simulators are as misguided as the
Bose 901, for the same reason, that assumptions have to be made about the
sound source, and that the added ambience is not necessarily accurate.
However, the hall simulators are much more adjustable.

If you _must_ have rear ambience, there is always 5.1 these days. It's
not perfect surround but it's better than the alternatives presented in
this thread, because you're able to emulate the sound heard in the control
booth pretty well if nothing else.
--scott

I of course have 5.1 and listen in surround all the time. That is, DPL II.
Please read a paper by Jeffrey Borish, "An Auditorium Simulator for Home
Use." In it he describes the image model of the typical live sound field,
then suggests doing what I am doing but with extra speakers and delay,
rather than just reflecting the sound normally. Doing it by reflection
duplicates the patterns - spatial patterns - that the typical live field
has, and does it 3 dimensionally such that the spatial pattern changes as
you walk around, just as it does for the different seats in the concert. You
know how mirrors are three dimensional? Works like that. My surround
speakers and DPL II complete the spatial shape of live sound. It's all done
with mirrors, and time delay is the key to this whole operation.

A brief comment on the hall simulator idea - the Philips company in
Eindhoven built a semi anechoic room that had (I forget how many exactly)
over 20 speakers and signal processing to replace the ambience that would be
missing in such a room. That can work, but I think it would be best with
very dry recordings whose ambience can then be brought back in such a room
with processing from a convolved signal captured in the original hall.

It doesn't have to be that complicated though, but you certainly can't
achieve it with just two speakers in a dead room (which I realize you
already know). You use LEDE and Maggies, I use image modeling and 901s.
Basic idea is the same, you are just not addressing the frontal soundstage
part of the ambience modeling.

Gary Eickmeier