[Audio_Empire[_2_]]

On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 6:37:45 PM UTC-7, KH wrote:
On 4/30/2013 9:54 AM, Audio_Empire wrote:

In article , KH

wrote:





Not nearly as big as you'd like to imply. According to this concept,

headphones simply cannot produce any stereo sound right?



Headphones can produce binaural sound fairly realistically, Stereo? Not

so much. Headphones will give you two channels, sure, but they won't

produce a sound stage like speaker will, with the ensemble spread out

before you from wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, or front-to-back. Center

placed sounds like vocals, then to end up inside the listener's head

instead of front-and-center, and that's not very stereo-like. So, I'd

say no. headphones don't produce anything that I would call stereo.



Really? Interesting. I wouldn't say they produce Mr. Eckmeiers

definition of stereo, which I don't believe is universally held, but

given your rather spirited defense of "stereo" as simply producing a

"solid image", I wouldn't have thought you'd disagree. I find they are

clearly capable of providing a solid image, just not a recreation of a

soundstage out in front of you.


I've never heard a pair of phones do this and I've a number of pairs. Everything from
Sony MDV-6 and AKG K-340's, to Hifiman HE-500s and Stax SR-007s (the original
ones from the 1980's). Even when playing a REAL stereo recording, I get right, and
left images and everything in between is in my head, I.E. it literally sounds like it's
inside my head! Headphones are necessary sometimes, but I find that even the best
of them or less than satisfactory (unless one is listening to binaural material, then
they are OK.

Nope. So you can tell where it *is*, but not where it *was*. If it's

front left, that's where you hear it. Doesn't matter that it was far

right in the recording. This is synthesis, not reproduction. You need

to understand the difference.



I think Mr. Eickmeier understands that difference. He also understands

that "where it was" is simply not important to the illusion that stereo

seeks to produce. Do you understand that?



Apparently not. I'm of the opinion that an "accurate" reproduction

would place the instruments in the proper position in the reproduced

soundstage.

We are talking at cross purposes here. The stereo image starts and ends
in your (or my) listening room. The recording you play may be real stereo
or some studio creation, and their locations in the sound field are going
to be wherever the recording engineer (or the stereo mikes) place them.
BUT, the sound field in your room is going to be wherever YOU place it
and however you place it. Erect speakers that don't image well, put your
speakers too far apart, or too close together and you wreck whatever
stereo image there might be in the recording. In that context, the where
is simply not important, as ultimately, the where is going to be whatever
your listening room and your choice of speakers and their placement
dictates. Under Ideal conditions, the "where" can be a fairly accurate
record of the space in which the recording took place, but whether that
space Symphony Hall, in Boston, Dinklespiel Auditorium at Stanford U,,
or Abby Road Studios in London or Sun Studios in Memphis, it all starts
at your speakers and your listening environment. For all practical
purposes, THAT's the "where"!

You don't think that's important to the illusion? Is it

necessary to build a solid image? No, only to build an accurate one.


Of course it is. See above.