[William Sommerwerck]

Gary, I'm going to explain this one last time. And that's it.

1. There are two recording/playback technologies that are known to more or
less accurately render directionality (and therefore spatiality) -- binaural,
and Ambisonics. (There might be comparably good WFS systems.) These represent
a standard against which other forms of recording and playback can be judged.

2. As someone else pointed out, Michael Gerzon's research into surround
psychoacoustics is the current "reference" for such things. Is it necessarily
complete and correct? Almost certainly not. But he did develop a "meta-theory"
of directional hearing which can be applied to a range of recording and
listening conditions. *

3. All we're interested in is accuracy. (De gustibus, etc.) Anyone is free to
record and/or play back in any way they like, and if they like what they get,
fine. But liking something doesn't mean it's accurate.

4. You can argue all you like, but at some point you have to do the following
things:

a. You have to demonstrate that your playback technology /accurately/
reproduces the original ambient field (at least subjectively).

b. You then have to connect your technology with existing, accepted
theories --
either as extensions of them, or corrections to them.

Once you've done these things, then others will be willing to give your ideas
serious consideration. If you are not working to these ends, then you are
wasting your time and ours.

Please, please, please -- make an effort to understand my e-mail signature.

* I haven't studied the theory, and am blindly accepting the truth of its
validity.

http://decoy.iki.fi/dsound/ambisonic.../data/6827.pdf


"We already know the answers -- we just haven't asked the right questions."
-- Edwin Land

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

Gary, I'm going to explain this one last time. And that's it.

1. There are two recording/playback technologies that are known to
more or less accurately render directionality (and therefore
spatiality) -- binaural, and Ambisonics. (There might be comparably
good WFS systems.) These represent a standard against which other
forms of recording and playback can be judged.

Binaural comes in the category "a recording that fits my system", but not in
the category "a recording that fits all systems" even if the headphone use
requirement is met. It fails 100 percent of the time for me.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

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.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

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.

--MFW

[William Sommerwerck]

"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.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

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.

--------------------------------------

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.