Thread: Surround Sound
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Scott[_6_] Scott[_6_] is offline
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Default Surround Sound

On Sunday, November 3, 2013 7:21:00 PM UTC-8, news wrote:
Scott wrote:



IME with minimalist recordings or how shall I put it, recordings that


were done using the basic principles of stereo recording and playback


as originally designed by Blumlein himself.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumlein_Pair


You most definitely will get closer to the sound as heard from the


designated listening position of the original acoustic event the more


you kill the acoustic signature of the playback room. this is how


stereo was designed to work. *Most* playback room colorations work to


destroy the illusion intended to be created by stereo recording and


playback.




With that said there are inherent limitations to stereo recording and


playback and certain colorations can enhance and help compensate for


those inherent limitations. That can include some diffused playback


room reflections in very small doses. As well as other euphonic


colorations from the recording and playback gear itself.




The idea that one can make any kind of reasonable attempt to mimic


the sound field of a live performance of an orchestra with over 100


instruments in a concert hall that is several hundred times larger


than the listening room with an acoustic signature that is so far out


of reach by merely firing some of the speaker output at the walls of


the playback room is absurd. It will never be anything close. some


folks may like that kind of gross coloration but it will never ever


be more accurate than a proper stereo set up in a near dead acoustic


playback room. And since that is what the OP is interested in...




So Mr. Scott, please relate to me the ideal playback system. Outdoors with

two channel? 5 channel? Ambisonics? Loudspeaker binaural?



If none of those, then you are faced with the same problem that I am, coming

as close to the live sound as possible within your playback room. No, you

can't get around the fact that the time between reflections will superimpose

the size of your playback room upon that of the recorded space, but you

cannot solve that by making the sound come from just the speaker locations

either. That just makes it worse.



How is your system set up?



Gary Eickmeier


There is no "the" ideal sound system. I can tell you what *my* ideal sound system would be. It's just a few steps up from what I already have. But without getting specific for me the ideal playback system consists of full range electrostatic speakers with tremendous dynamic range for that technology in a near field stereo pair in a near acoustically dead playback room with OTL amps that have the juice to drive the speakers, a tube preamp. A universal digital playback component. And a euphonically colored high end TT rig..

That is *my* ideal in fairly broad terms. If you want me to name specific components I could do that as well. Koetsu, Forsell, Oppo, ARC, Joule Electra and Soundlab

My ideal may not be other peoples' ideal. We all have unique tastes in music an in sound. Those aesthetics are going to affect our preferences.