[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 22 May 2012 18:51:10 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 May 2012 07:30:33 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

The speaker disappearing act is caused by a simple image shift toward the
reflected sound from behind the actual speakers. An aerial image is
formed
in the region behind the speakers, getting the sound OUT of the speaker
boxes and creating the unmistakable impression of the musicians being
right
there in front of you performing in your room, rather than sounding like
they are flat cartoons coming from the speakers and strung on a
clothesline
between the speakers, with no depth or dimensionality.

You speak as if this is a characteristic inherent in the speaker itself.
Well, I agree that the speaker must be able to image well and "throw" a
wide
and deep soundstage, BUT - and this is all important - if the information
is
NOT there on the recording in the first place, even the world's best
imaging
speakers won't be able to produce the illusion to which you refer. Take
most
any classical recording from the mid-sixties to the late eighties and the
great majority of recordings made since then, and there is NO imaging
information on the recording. Most are, as you so aptly put it, a series
of
"flat cartoons" 'Strung on a clothesline." This is because most
recordings
are multi-miked, multi-track travesties and sound simply dreadful from an
imaging perspective. I believe that one of the reasons that audiophiles
still
revere recordings made more than 55 years ago by the likes of Lewis
Layton,
and Richard Mohr at RCA Victor, Bob Fine, Wilma Fine and Bob Eberenz at
Mercury, and Bert Whyte for Everest is because these recordings were made
with simple, two or three mike setups directly to tape with no electronic
"futzing" between the mikes and the tape. Many of these recordings have
the
soundstage information that allows for good, realistic imaging (assuming
that
the playback system is up to the task).

Yes, sure, I agree with most of that, but with some caveats.

As I mentioned, if it is a tight and dry recording it gives a "they are
here" impression. In other words, no original acoustics recorded, it places
the instruments right in the environment of your listening room, like a
player piano or something. Those images will take a position the closest up
front that your system is capable of displaying, but still should not EVER
come from the speaker boxes themselves.

Unless you "frap" the instrument, or record in an anechoic chamber, that's
impossible.

At the audio club I demonstrated this with the dry, mono recording of the
human voice outdoors. I transferred it to my laptop and processed it with
Audition so that it would pan from extreme right to extreme left chennel.
This was with my experimental speakers that were entered in The Challenge.
Most audio people would expect such a dry sound to image from one speaker to
the other and come from the speaker itself when at the channel extremes. So
to prove my point, I obtained an orange cone from Home Depot so that I could
place a visual where the audience perceived the sound to be coming from. I
started the recording at stage right, and when it got to the center I asked
them where the voice was. I placed the cone as directed until everyone
agreed. It ended up centered but a foot or two back behind the line of the
speakers. Same question when it got to stage extreme left. To their surprise
the voice was coming not from the speaker but from a foot behind the
speaker - unmistakably. To me, this proves the image shift, which slightly
defies the precedence principle. But even the textbooks say that if the
reflection is strong enough there will be an image shift.

That can also be attributed to a frequency suckout in the voice range of the
speakers used. Conversely, a peak in that range would put the voice forward
of the speaker. Another variable would be room acoustics. A subtractive phase
anomaly could move the voice backwards or and additive one could move it
forward .

This principle can be a very powerful tool in setting up your speaker system
for imaging, but if done wrong can be a disaster of Consumer Reports vs Bose
proportions. Bose did not give correct speaker positioning instructions in
the owner manual for the 901s, inviting disaster with a strongly negative
directivity speaker (strong reflected portion of its output). CR reported a
hole in the middle and stretched soloists, as did many audiophiles. If
correctly placed by accident, they could be impressive, but if you put them
too close to the walls all of the criticisms rear their ugly heads.

Bose speakers and systems are lousy. Always have been.