[Gary Eickmeier]

Audio_Empire wrote:

Well, you know Gary, Ambiophonics has been around almost as long as
your beloved Bose 901s have been for sale - IOW, more than 40 years!
I heard it at a CES show in Chicago in the early eighties in one of
the hotel suites down in the loop (I think it was the REALLY old one
and not the Conrad Hilton or the Palmer House) The Ambiophonics demo
was very impressive, even then. They even had a static display of the
microphone array (8 Coles condenser mikes in an octahedron
arrangement with a controller/power supply).

Yes, I know. And every few years some new genius invents loudspeaker
binaural all over again and calls it some new pet name. It's novel at first,
but in the long run I prefer stereophonic in the classical sense, auditory
perspective on loudspeakers placed in your room in geometrically similar
positions to the orchestra and generating their sound anew within your
space. Come one, come all, suitable for large audiences, no mattress up to
your forehead or crosstalk cancellation circuits required. I think I have a
fairly ideal system on which I can play most any recording properly and get
all of the intended spatial effects out of them.

I just did an interesting experiment. My system incorporates surround sound,
of course, and the receiver has several modes that can manipulate the sound
field around you. I bought a recording of Dr. Chesky's Amazing Binaural
Sound Show, which consists of nothing but binaural recordings and sound
effects. I looked for the mode on my receiver that can display the stereo
channels the widest, and found "Game" and "Neo 6 Speaker" to be able to
image the L and R channels completely to the sides. I think it puts the L
and LR at equal loudness so that they combine to form an apparent S channel.
I wouldn't have thought that could be done, but with identical 901 speakers
to the front and the rear/sides, it works.

The result was not magical, but it did display the Amazing Chesky's sounds
as intended, just a little too distant. It worked great for music, such as a
live band spread 180 degrees in front of you, but when it came to the
"barber cutting your hair" material, or Chesky whispering into each ear, it
was too distant to fool me. I have heard it work amazingly on headphones,
but note that it is only these extremely close effects that work that way in
binaural. The farther away stuff just starts having problems. But in my
experiment, the farther stuff worked great.

One thing that never can be overcome is physical size. You just cannot make
a small room sound like a large room by playing a recording of a large room
within it. You and I are recording engineers - you for real, and me
learning - but perhaps you have experienced the same phenomenon after a
session. The finest recording played on the finest system simply does not
and cannot sound the same as the live group in the huge audition hall.

There is nothing that Ambiophonics can do about it, nothing that my system
can do about it, nothing that anyone can do about it, and going anechoic is
not the answer either. Play even a good surround recording in an anechoic
environment, and you get IHL, as described by Floyd Toole.

The most realistic reproduction I have heard, bar none, is in a large room,
almost performance size room, because the acoustics of that room take over
and are REAL and not trickery, and you can move around, and it IS real,
happening right up there on stage in front of you, and you are using your
natural hearing and every nuance of the live sound experience is present in
that recreation, or re-staging of the recorded sound, and all of Arny's and
Dick Pierce's "lost" spatial cues are there present and are REAL, happeining
all over again for the same reasons theay happened live.

Them's the facts of audio life, and maybe that says it better than I have
said it before, and I wonder if they are reading this and wish to comment.

Corollary to Image Model Theory is my EEFs, or Essential Elements of
Fidelity - the four factors of sound that are audible and must be accounted
for in comparing live to reproduced. They are Physical size, Power, Waveform
fidelity (freq response and freedom from noise and distortion), and Spatial
Characteristics. Image Model Theory, or IMT, is contained within the last
one.

Did you get that crazy set of recordings I sent you? What think ye?

Gary Eickmeier