once and for all...
"Marc Wielage" wrote in message
.com...
On Sun, 6 Oct 2013 06:42:24 -0700, William Sommerwerck wrote
(in article ):
1. There are two recording/playback technologies that are known to more or
less accurately render directionality (and therefore spatiality) --
binaural,
and Ambisonics.
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I think you mean for 2-TRACK RECORDING.
One could make a good argument that 5.1 discrete surround does a far better
and more accurate job, assuming identical speakers and great acoustics.
I don't think either Binaural or Ambisonics have a place in 2013. To me,
there are far better, more practical systems that sound better, if your goal
is to reproduce music recorded in a natural space with real ambience.
I agree with the gist of what you're saying, but I think a lot of this stuff
is academic at this point. The vast audience no longer cares. I'm not
saying the purist classical audience doesn't matter anymore, but it's not a
realistic market anymore in the real world.
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I was talking about "acoustical truth", not commercial realities.
5.1 discrete is not "more accurate" than UHJ. Even two-channel Ambisonics
images better, and WXY is better still. It remains the reference not only for
surround recording and playback, but for stereo recording and playback.
The issue of commercializing WXY Ambisonics was argued at length and
ad-nauseum in a surround group I belonged to. There are two major problems.
One is that most listeners -- most recording engineers, for that matter --
have no comprehension of what Ambisonics is supposed to do, and how it works
in practice. The other is that, if you record decoded speaker feeds (easily
done on SACD and Blu-ray), there's no guarantee the listener will hear the
intended effect.
Because Ambisonic recordings accurately render spatiality, they are, like
well-made stereo recordings, sensitive to setup, speaker choice, and room
acoustics. This unhappy fact is the commercial death knell for Ambisonics.
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