5.1: gimmick, or closer to reality?

[kstrauss]

Originally Posted by dbssound1

What is commercial air travel, other than a dream that took awhile to become a part of our daily life?

That is an absurd analogy. Commercial air travel became a hit because of two factors: military applications funded R & D, and it became an indispensible part of doing business.

Originally Posted by dbssound1

My fellow engineers and colleagues, I implore you that even though the commercial consumer manufacturers royally screwed s to this point, DON'T GIVE UP!!!!. SACD, and DVD-A are obviously not the answers, but don't give up.

I attended a surround seminar at AES 2006 given by the five or so engineers actually doing any work in the format. They made the exactly the same plea. Thing is, they never addressed the bottom line: if there is no viable market and your clients all want stereo, who pays for the extra resources required to work in surround?

[mohthom]

Hasn't everyone seen the dramatic rise in the level of multi-format releases recently?

Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' - released on LQ MP3, CD, Vinyl etc.
Previous example of Natasha Barrett - CD, DVD-A (same pack)
Many artists - CD, Vinyl, MP3

Why can't we get our heads together and agree on one surround format to support? I'm all for it being an internet (high bandwidth) format - if people can be bothered downloading full movies (1gb+) then they can be bothered downloading (to a home computer) surround mixes too. Multitrack MP3 etc. isn't necessarily the answer (lossy), but there's got to be a better way to look at it. I'm really interested by the possibility of multitrack DSD, but think I'll be waiting a while.

Anyone else a fan of solutions rather than problems?

MohThoM

[dbssound1]

Well,

It was pointed out that I made an absurd analogy about air travel...I am sorry that it was taken so literally. It was merely meant to illustrate a point that dreams (in this case commercially available surround sound) can become reality under the right convergence of events.

The overwhelming amount of foot stompers in here have, for whatever their individual reasons may be, been very clear in pointing out that any and all of us who enjoy creating, and would like to see surround sound recordings become a part of the market place, are completely off of our rockers. There is no way anyone would ever want the amount of speakers in their house or would care. Stereo obviously portrays a full and accurate experience of being at a performance, and it just a waste of our time.

As I said a few posts back, I feel this way sometimes. I get and can even agree with some of your points. I believe that there is something better, but hey if you don't that's cool.

I didn't realize this would become the "dog pile on the guy with the lofty ideas about giving the listener a better experience" thread. I merely was making the point that if we all give up, that we are doomed to never putting out anything that will be reproduced in a better format than a 60-70 year old one.

I don't hate stereo. Far from it. I have an extensive vinyl collection. I also have a jukebox for my 45's. But I also listening to my surround system. There is NO way to record antiphonal music for stereo. yeah you can set the choir up at the front of the room and do an ortf, and make you CD (which by the way is a hideously inadequate format, but it's what we have), but that was not the way it was intended to be heard.

5.1 is flawed. Corporations care more about immediacy of sales for the next drugged out pop princess than they do about sound quality. People want to listen to their Ipod on their earbuds to their Ipod. I get it.

People were happy with cassettes until CD came along.

As I've said before, we will just have to agree to disagree on this issue. I will continue to make my surround recordings with enough forethought that the will intelligently and easily fold down to stereo, and will be prepared if the day come. If not, I don't think I am hurting myself, or anyone else by doing so.

All the best!!!

[mohthom]

DB,

Is it fair to draw from your post two things;

That the responsible thing is to, if you decide to create a surround project, ensure that it it stereo compatible?
That a clever thing to do is to ensure we have multi-channel backups (and not just bounces) of our original recordings?

I'm going to nitpick a little and let you know that at one time it was possible to buy vinyls with QUAD sound!

MohThoM

[dbssound1]

I would say that both of those are very fair things to draw from my post! Thanks for looking past my lengthy soliloquies and getting to the heart of my intention.

I know about quad vinyl, My father has a player and records. He also has a working wax cylinder player and cylinders. He's the one that got me hooked! Growing up there was always a player for all of the available formats in the house.


All the best

[matyas]

Originally Posted by dbssound1

I didn't realize this would become the "dog pile on the guy with the lofty ideas about giving the listener a better experience" thread. I merely was making the point that if we all give up, that we are doomed to never putting out anything that will be reproduced in a better format than a 60-70 year old one.

You keep making surround recordings. As I keep saying, some of us actually do like to listen in surround. I'm not set up to record in surround myself, nor will I be any time soon (I just can't afford it), but some day, I will. And you know, I really wish Michael Bishop would jump in. He posts here sometimes, and he's made some very nice surround SACD's.

Originally Posted by dbssound1

People were happy with cassettes until CD came along.

I wasn't, and I was about 12 years old when CDs began to catch on. I collected cassettes up to then, but I was pretty much done with the format once I got my first CD player. Vinyl, on the other hand, was and is a format I never gave up on and still love. I can't say the same for .mp3.

[andy_simpson]

The idea of 'stereo' is well supported by research.

The jump from mono to stereo is not analogous to the relationship between stereo & surround for the reason of the fatal flaw I mentioned earlier.

Simply speaking, the minimal improvement in immersion offered by surround is not great enough an improvement to motivate the industry or the consumers.

Greater immersion can be achieved as effectively by simply upgrading the stereo speakers & microphones.

Still, as I said, the research going into surround is simply soaking up consumer patience, marketing money and research man-years.

The monaural transducer at both ends of the recording chain is still far from the resolution of the ear.

Andy

[mohthom]

Simply speaking, the minimal improvement in immersion offered by surround is not great enough an improvement to motivate the industry or the consumers.

Every cinema I've visited in the last ten years or so had surround sound. Are they not part of the industry?

MohThoM

[Yannick]

Originally Posted by andy_simpson

The idea of 'stereo' is well supported by research.

The jump from mono to stereo is not analogous to the relationship between stereo & surround for the reason of the fatal flaw I mentioned earlier.
Andy

But here you forget the fatal flaw of stereo. The phantom mono image.
If we were to follow your logic, stereo should be abandoned.

I agree with you about upgrading the stereo chain to achieve a similar amount of immersion and precision.
Unfortunately, this is more expensive than adding three channels to a good setup.
And you have the added bonus of having a home theatre surround system.

So, economically this makes even less sence than 5.1.

[David Spearritt]

Originally Posted by mohthom

Every cinema I've visited in the last ten years or so had surround sound. Are they not part of the industry?
MohThoM

I think that movie sound is not part of this debate, assuming we are talking about music reproduction. There are some profound differences.

1. It doesn't need to resolve to meaningful images between the speakers
2. In the cinema you are forced to sit still in the sweet spot for the duration which is large because the cinema is large, this is completely different to the home setup.
3. Cinemas have n.1, where n > 16 or more, walls of speakers down the walls, this again is out of the question at home.
4. Most cinema sound is dialog, which could and does come, largely, from one centre speaker.

[dbssound1]

Originally Posted by andy_simpson

The idea of 'stereo' is well supported by research.

The jump from mono to stereo is not analogous to the relationship between stereo & surround for the reason of the fatal flaw I mentioned earlier.

I agree that the jump from Mono to Stereo is a well researched and big leap forward.

However, I do believe it is a perfectly placed analogy when discussing what the consumer will do, and the beliefs of manufacturers. Everyone from the "Hi-Fi" industry to car manufacturers in the 50's had the belief that "people will never pay for an extra speaker when mono works fine" and made the argument that "people don't wan a bigger hi-fi cabinet, or extra speakers to take up space in their homes"

I often feel we are fighting the same battle. However in many instances, the consumer already has the speaker channels available in the form of a home theater surround system.

Before the debate begins again, I realize the limitations of the small satellite speakers and the home theater components purchased for $100 for an entire system. But these are our audience. Do we think that just because they have a crappy home theater system that they are magically going to have a $20,000 separate stereo playback system?

Those engineers who have commented on the low quality of consumer playback systems, and questioned if we should master for that have obviously forgotten about the time honored tradition of the car test (where most american consumers listen to their music, and funny enough where most of them have a speaker system that could accommodate surround material).

Yes, we have our fancy expensive studio monitors, and I have my fancy speakers at home, but I also remember that the listening environments and playback systems I use are the exception, not the rule.

With millions of home theaters in homes around the world I don't understand why providing music for these people surround music is such a jump.

Imagine a world where 1 download would get you the stereo program (for your ipod) and a multichannel version for your surround system (as may have pointed out before, many many computers have the capability built in from the factory). A world where if you buy the Vinyl copy of a release, the CD is included, and while you're giving them a CD why not give them a hybrid SACD, DVD-A, or BluRay disc.

For an additional $0.25 per unit in manufacturing cost (just an example number not a real figure) why don't we do it?

We'll there is that whole lifestyle that record executives have become accustom to, and that costs a lot, and how could they survive in this word with only 1 new BMW this year instead of 2.

Originally Posted by andy_simpson

Still, as I said, the research going into surround is simply soaking up consumer patience, marketing money and research man-years.

I can't determine the implied sentiment, but at face value, I can agree with the statement. With countless failed format discussions, and years of telling the consumer "this is great, but we don't have any product to give you" has created a huge belief in not only the consumer market, but the industry as well that surround is nothing more than Vaporware. We've had stereo for 60-70 years and it has worked. I can't help but believe that that is in part due to the fact that the format came out and the industry said "Yes this is good". There was not a huge surge like (and this is a factious timeline, so don't bother letting me know my dates are off) 1950 - stereo, 1952 "hey lets add another speaker", 1955 "hey now we got people to by 3 speakers, but 4 is better, so let's do 4". Not to mention that they did not have to play the format game with SACD, DVD-A, and the likes, wondering if next year that format was even going to be around.

I'm starting to ramble, so I'll leave it there now!

Al the best!!!

[mohthom]

David,

Good intentions appreciated, but it doesn't detract from my point . . . surely movie sound is surely still sound (and a part of the industry we inhabit)? 5.1 was a standard introduced as a meaningful (similarly drastically improved) accompaniment to the (similarly drastically improved) increase in video quality with DVD, and as such I am of the belief that if it weren't for DVD we'd be talking about quad (4.0) instead of 5.1. I think your second point is factually inaccurate (there are seats next to the walls), but appreciate the sentiment. Again, your fourth point is contentious (I've worked with editing foley - there's a LOT of sound there). When read in context of the statement I was replying to, my point remains valid.

I have seen concerts of acousmatic music in cinemas because they're rooms designed with picture and sound in mind; to achieve THX certification they've got to have a benchmark quality of sound, lack of bleed, lack of reverb etc. etc. - and of course this isn't possible in the home. Not everyone listens to music at home!

MohThoM

[dbssound1]

For my own personal edification, and education (I had forgotten most of the dates and only remembered decades) I went to dig up some historical data on stereo and how long it took to take hold of the market place.

1932 - March 12 Stokowski recorded his first stereo disc, Scriabin's "Poem of Fire" for Bell Labs in Philadelphia using vinyl rather than shellac, with the dynamic range extended to 60 db and response to 10,000 hz. The master disc was gold-coated by vacuum-sputtering. At first, for the Scriabin recording March 12, Bell had recorded two separate grooves for each channel, but later Arthur Keller in the patent #2,114,471 described the 45/45 method in one groove. The patent application was not filed until 1936 because Bell did not see an immediate commercial application of the method. Keller was unaware of Blumlein until the 1950s when his 45/45 system was re-invented by Westrex.

Also, as a side tidbit regarding the Harvey Fletcher "Wall of sound" experiments going on around the same time...

Consequently, the initial microphone array was systematically simplified to find the minimum number of microphones that produced acceptable results. The general consensus was that three microphones and three loudspeakers represented the best compromise between high-quality imaging and practicality.

The three-loudspeaker arrangement is the standard method of frontal sound reproduction in every cinema


In 1938, MGM started using three tracks to record movie soundtracks instead of one and very quickly upgraded to four tracks. One track was used for dialogue, two for music and one for sound effects. The purpose for this form of multi-track recording was to make mixing down to a single optical trackeasier and was not intended to be a recording for stereophonic purposes. The very first binaural recording MGM made (although released in mono) was "It Never Rains But What It Pours" by Judy Garland, recorded on June 21, 1938 for the movie Love Finds Andy Hardy. Some of the soundtrack of Gone With The Wind used multitrack sound recording and these effects have been included in DVD releases of the film.

The first commercial motion picture to be exhibited with stereophonic sound was Walt Disney's Fantasia, released in November 1940, for which a specialized sound process, Fantasound, was developed. Fantasound used a separate film containing four optical sound tracks. Three of the tracks were audible, and the fourth track controlled the volume level of the theater's amplifiers. The film was not a financial success, however, and after two months of road-show exhibition in selected cities, its soundtrack was remixed into mono sound for general release.

(Sounds Familiar... Scientists devoted to sound reproduction develop new, better technique, and who adopts it and takes advantage first...The film industry. Now who is making effective use of surround sound now??? You guessed it. But as we all know, the audio guys caught up eventually!)


22 years after the first stereo recording.....

1954 - Feb. 21, RCA made its first commercial stereo recording of a symphony when Jack Pfieffer and Leslie Chase went to Symphony Hall in Boston to record the "Damnation of Faust" by Berlioz with a RCA RT-11 two-channel tape recorder and two Neuman U-47 mics. This same month, EMI in London made "Stereosonic" recordings at its Abbey Road studio that were announced to the public in April 1955.


Sometimes things just take a while!!!

[Martin Kantola]

Originally Posted by Yannick

But here you forget the fatal flaw of stereo. The phantom mono image.

No, because the phantom center image created between our left and right ears works just fine. The spectrum is different than from a real center speaker, but this can usually be compensated for in the mix.

Martin

[seriousfun]

Originally Posted by mohthom

If I may, Until moderately recently, people didn't distribute audio in 5.1 for a number of reasons. Among those were;

• Portability - media
• Portability - working in different studios
• Lack of standardisation of both speaker position and relative level
• Delivery to the consumer (VHS? SACD?)
• Playback by the consumer (cost, space and reliable reproduction)

The biggest of these reasons, as far as I'm concerned, is the final one. Only recently did the consumer market (the one that pays for all this content to be made) really embrace surround sound as a part of the listening ethos - simply put, six speakers are more expensive than two (along with associated amplification and playback equipment etc.). With the rise in cheap home cinema systems, this problem was slightly alleviated, but given that the quality of these systems was generally poor (at the consumer level at least) 5.1 was generally used as a gimmick for placing individual sounds in the rear rather than attempting to achieve immersive soundscapes in film.

With the advent of better home cinema playback systems (and consumers willing to pay for them and give them greater priority in their homes - better positions), 5.1 has become not only a reality, but an easily acheivable one for the consumer. ...

The problem I had with the 5.1 question until recently was that if sound designers and recordists and engineers and producers were producing FOR these crappy systems, I simply wasn't able to enjoy them on a well balanced system. I do own a consumer level 7.1 system, and it's truly terrifying how bad it sounds. Trying to mix a film score for one of those must require booking rehab time before the session starts!

As a sound designer, composer and recordist, I see my biggest challenge with 5.1 being the lack of standardisation in playback environments. ...
MohThoM

You must realize that most of what you say has been true since the advent of 2.0 stereo. When stereo arrived in the home in the '50s, just as much angst was felt about the usage and placement of the second channel, and this continued through the golden age of Hi Fi - it was always the hobbyist minority that paid good attention to placement, etc., to reproduce in the home what was done in the concert hall or studio.

After having installed hundreds of home theaters and studio systems, I can assure you that on-average the consumer spends a little more time and effort to get speaker placement and calibration correct with a 5.1 system than they did with 2.0 systems. With C anchoring the system, I have found a psychological advantage to 5.1 systems in that consumers finally get the concept that if C is right in front of them L and R should be, well, to the left and right (as opposed to L in a corner and R on top of a cabinet or any of the common variations in 2.0 systems).

Yes, media portability has been a problem, but MP3 surround and other compressed formats are easily used now in portable units - more encouragement that each mix, whether music or movie, should start in 5.1. Yes, many engineers have decided to reinvent the wheel with speaker placement and calibration, but the existing ITU standard works great. Yes, consumer delivery formats have failed - all disc-based delivery is failing, and SA-CD and DVD-A were caught in the crossfire. It's possible to deliver 5.1 content at all quality levels, through streaming and physical means, and an appropriately immersive environment is available at nearly all playback locations.

Originally Posted by just.sounds

...

BTW it is possible to create a phantom image between front and back loudspeakers of an 5.1 system. ...

No, not really. Our ear/brain mechanism doesn't allow us to create a phantom image from the sides or rear. Extensions of stereo systems, with added side channels and rear channels, can fix this with brute-force application of physical side and rear channels, which can be heard.

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

I'm afraid I am in the gimmick camp. Who cares if surround envelopes the listener more than stereo, those of us interested in listening to music with great enveloping sound go to live concerts with good friends. ...

In the home, what is wanted is convenience, good stereo is enough, it has a large sweet spot and allows us to do other things while listening. I doubt surround will never take off in the home, its too damn complicated for the common man. By all means research and develop it for scientific purposes, but it appears dead for home audio. Look at the current market acceptance factor.

Far, far, fewer people go to live concerts than listen to recorded music - I'm not quite sure where you came up with your numbers. And have you attended a concert lately (other than non-amplified)? Live amplified sound is usually the worst way to hear music.

2.0 has an infinitesimally tiny sweet spot (again, I'm not quite sure where you are getting your information), limited to one position by the phantom image. A good 5.1 presentation widens this considerably with appropriate use of the Center channel.

Surround has taken off in the home! There are over 100,000,000 surround-capable systems in homes worldwide.

Originally Posted by mohthom

I'm not against change - I'd like that to be clear from the off . . .

But just because people *buy* things (especially in this day and age), doesn't mean they know what they do, how they work or what benefit they will bring. A poorly set up 5.1 system will bring the listener far fewer benefits that a poorly set up stereo system, for three main reasons;

• The sweet spot in a 5.1 is smaller
• 5 speakers = £x /5. 2 speakers = £x /2.
• The angle used for stereo playback is much more flexible, allowing much more room for error

...

I thought SACD flopped anyway?

...

MohThoM

No, the sweet spot with 2.0 is tiny, and the sweet spot with properly-presented 5.1 can be as large as the listening area (as large as a mono presentation).

And again SA-CD flopped as a mass-market item (they're still being produced as an audiophile format) because all spinning-disc media is flopping (and because it had a worthy competitor, and because it was marketed incorrectly).

Originally Posted by Timsplace

I'd take surround if it were 3.1! Having a "Real" center as apposed to a Phantom center is a beautiful thing. My biggest issue with surround is the crappy downmix. You go to all this trouble to create an amazing space and (in my world anyway-live TV) most people still listen to the fold-down of the 5.1. Those spacious 5.1 reverbs get summed to mud. If you have to deal with the fold down to stereo (as apposed to a remixed stereo) it puts a bit of a limit to what you can do in your mix.

Tim

Yes. Mono, 2.0, 3.0, QUAD, 5.1, etc., can all be presented wonderfully on a 5.1 system. Of these, only 2.0 can be presented on a 2.0 system!

Crappy downmix is a producer's problem - sometimes even the best dedicated 2.0 mix can't compete with an appropriate 5.1 mix, and usually a downmix can't compete with a dedicated 2.0 mix, but sometimes we have to play the cards we're dealt.

Originally Posted by dbssound1

I am a little baffled at this comment. Isn't our job, ney our creed to give the listener the most realistic and enjoyable listening experience that we possibly can?

Not everyone wants to spend x$ to sit at a live performance with the coughing, small children, and overweight gentleman that smells like the pastrami sandwich he ate an hour ago. I love going to live performances, but I am actually more relaxed and can enjoy the performances more on my couch or in my studio.

If we aim not to improve the experience of the home listener, than by all means, halt production of all new playback devices, and stop all research. I however am not content to accept the mentality that "stereo works, therefore it's good enough"

5.1 is flawed, as any home reproduction system for the foreseeable future, but it is a better, more enjoyable listening experience than stereo. If we don't try to improve the experience, than we are no better than the mp3, earbud set.

With millions of 5.1 systems in peoples homes with their home theaters, it seems stupid not to be delivering music that they can enjoy the same way.

If the internet had been around 60 years ago we would be having the same debate about stereo and mono.

Flaw yes, Gimmick NO

thumbsup

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

Up to a point. Consumers don't want more speakers and more amps and cables in their loungerooms. Witness the rise and rise of MP3. They also want to share the experience in a collective way. There is still much more enthusiasm for going to live music than their is to buy HiFi crapola which is what the "millions" have in their loungerooms.



What percentage of normal people have dedicated home theatre rooms or "studios" at home I wonder.



Of course I agree that its better than stereo, but no-one wants it. Most women in particular, you know, half the population, are so bored by the tech crap that is home hifi.

Its even more crappy now that there are NAS devices and networks and IPAddresses and stupid OS updates, and backup devices and RAID config and cables, the bloody cables everywhere, and the wallwarts and power points and the speakers everywhere, little ones, big ones, centre ones, and the speakers not working and finding out why etc etc. Its a complete joke.

But movie sound doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to be coherent and the images do not have to resolve sensibly between the speakers. Just as well, because the normal person usually has it setup all wrong. But it doesn't matter. With music its a whole different story. People are buying 5.1 systems in the supermarket all wrapped up in one box they can add to their basket at checkout. They cost next to nothing, and you're saying that we should be mastering for playback on that? These are the devices that the millions have in their loungerooms.

SACD is dead. DVDA is dead. Stereo's are returning to HiFi shops again, people want simplicity and elegance at home, they don't want their home to look like the basement of Ghostbusters. Live music is the most ancient and most satisfying of all human musical expression and will always be so.

The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association, the trade organization that stages the CES exhibition yearly) shows that in the US, between 12-15% of households have what they consider to be mid-fi-or-better audio systems, and that at-least 60% have HTITB-or-better. 12-15% of us have attended a live concert in the last year - sad, but true (and only a tiny fraction of them have been unamplified). You have to accept and deal with the fact that recorded music (played on iPods, car radios, home theaters, computer speakers, etc.) are what we listen to, and that a certain (and growing) number of them are surround.

And I still can't easily find 2.0 systems better than a boombox in mass-market stores around here.

As with music for the last century or-so, we mix on high-quality reference systems and check our mixes on lesser systems to make sure that the mixes translate to average-or-below consumer systems - how has this changed?

Originally Posted by dbssound1

...

My fellow engineers and colleagues, I implore you that even though the commercial consumer manufacturers royally screwed s to this point, DON'T GIVE UP!!!!. SACD, and DVD-A are obviously not the answers, but don't give up.

One of the biggest tragedies of the audio market was the SACD. Great sound quality that was backwards compatible with 90% of the players on the markets. However any store you went into, the people working there had no idea what it even was. They were not educated, thus the consumers were not. Also, they wanted to sell players, so they never upsold the recordings that could be played on a regular CD player. The industry could have stopped production of all CDs, however they were to busy being a pissing battle with kids on the internet to realize they were missing an opportunity. The physical production cost of the media was pennies more, however everyone wanted there pound of flesh. Many engineers were more than happy to spend a few more days doing the surround mixes, however the label execs needed a new car. Also, if they were recording with the surround Idea from the start, the mix time would be even shorter.

Don't even get me started on DVD-A!!

Sony just came out with their first SA-CD-compatible car stereo (I have one in my car) - ten years too-late.

If Sony was truly interested in making SA-CD a mass-market replacement for CD, they would have had every boombox and portable player Stereo-SA-CD-compatible in 2000. If the industry wanted DVD-A to be a mass-market replacement for CD, they would have made every boombox and portable DVD-compatible. Obviously, there was no real desire to make these formats succeed.

Originally Posted by mohthom

Shouldn't you allow a channel for the LFE as well? 3x the bandwidth - if working at the same (CD) quality (i.e. not taking advantage of higher samplerates or bitdepths).

MohThoM

There is already enough bandwidth and headroom in one channel of a CD or MP3 to deliver all the bass in any music (or any sound event, for that matter). Going from one to two channels, or from two to five channels, just gives more headroom for bass. There is no need, ever, for an LFE channel in a music mix.

Originally Posted by andy_simpson

The idea of 'stereo' is well supported by research.

The jump from mono to stereo is not analogous to the relationship between stereo & surround for the reason of the fatal flaw I mentioned earlier.

Simply speaking, the minimal improvement in immersion offered by surround is not great enough an improvement to motivate the industry or the consumers.

Greater immersion can be achieved as effectively by simply upgrading the stereo speakers & microphones.

Still, as I said, the research going into surround is simply soaking up consumer patience, marketing money and research man-years.

The monaural transducer at both ends of the recording chain is still far from the resolution of the ear.

Andy

We hear everything is a three-dimensional environment, and 2.0 is not, and never will be, able to deliver anything resembling that environment. 5.1 was designed to be the minimum, not the ultimate.

I haven't met a consumer yet who didn't prefer an immersive audio environment over the small window that 2.0 can provide.

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

I think that movie sound is not part of this debate, assuming we are talking about music reproduction. There are some profound differences.

1. It doesn't need to resolve to meaningful images between the speakers
2. In the cinema you are forced to sit still in the sweet spot for the duration which is large because the cinema is large, this is completely different to the home setup.
3. Cinemas have n.1, where n > 16 or more, walls of speakers down the walls, this again is out of the question at home.
4. Most cinema sound is dialog, which could and does come, largely, from one centre speaker.

Have you been to a movie lately?

Cinema sound absolutely needs to resolve between speakers (typical cinema speakers are admittedly inadequate to do this well) - one example is any sound panned from left to right (quite common and simple to envision). Sony developed the SDDS system to increase the number of screen speakers from three to five to directly address this issue, but thankfully they never tried to make a home version.

The point of a cinema system is that only a few people out of the hundreds in a theater can sit in a sweet spot - hence the Center Channel.

Cinema systems, no matter how many speakers are used to cover a large audience, have no more than five surround channels, but two is still the most common.

Originally Posted by Martin Kantola

No, because the phantom center image created between our left and right ears works just fine. The spectrum is different than from a real center speaker, but this can usually be compensated for in the mix.

Martin

Phantom image will never sound the same as a discrete image. It can be a useful tool, and probably sometimes better, but never, ever the same. The time issues alone, caused by HRTF, can't be totally simulated and delivered. The frequency dip can be partially fixed, but why not start with an un-broken image?

-

I think that it's un-quesionable that 5.1 can be used to deliver a more-convincing multi-dimensional image than 2.0. Either delivery format can be used for the purposes of good or evil . It's up to us to understand the parameters of the tool and use them to our advantage, not to ignorantly discard the tool.

[David Spearritt]

Far, far, fewer people go to live concerts than listen to recorded music - I'm not quite sure where you came up with your numbers. And have you attended a concert lately (other than non-amplified)? Live amplified sound is usually the worst way to hear music.

I live in the classical world, where live unamplified music in great acoustic spaces is the normal preferred way to listen. I agree that amplified concerts are woeful, but I and most others in our world avoid them like the plague.

If Sony was truly interested in making SA-CD a mass-market replacement for CD, they would have had every boombox and portable player Stereo-SA-CD-compatible in 2000. If the industry wanted DVD-A to be a mass-market replacement for CD, they would have made every boombox and portable DVD-compatible. Obviously, there was no real desire to make these formats succeed.

So the companies who invested millions in these formats had no desire to milk the public for yet more copies of DSOTM to satisfy their shareholders. No desire? And they should have made hardware to run these hi-res formats on a boombox where it makes no difference, ... this was the reason it didn't succeed? Bosh.

[seriousfun]

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

I live in the classical world, where live unamplified music in great acoustic spaces is the normal preferred way to listen. I agree that amplified concerts are woeful, but I and most others in our world avoid them like the plague....

I go to both, and listen to both, and record both. They live in the same physical world, living according to the same natural laws, and musicians, acoustical designers, and audio engineers tend to screw things up predictably:-)

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

...So the companies who invested millions in these formats had no desire to milk the public for yet more copies of DSOTM to satisfy their shareholders. No desire? And they should have made hardware to run these hi-res formats on a boombox where it makes no difference, ... this was the reason it didn't succeed? Bosh.

Of course. Make all of their consumer hardware compatible, make professional gear more available, affordable, and feature-competitive with other recording gear, and release all of their music on the new format (hybrid for backwards compatibility for the transition) - why wouldn't it have succeeded?

[dbssound1]

I think that the point that is trying to be made is that the player manufacturers, and the industry as a whole didn't make a whole hearted effort due to the fact that they wanted to charge a premium for the players and the media. As I have stated before, if companies had truly accepted SACD, for example, they would have stopped productions of CDs all together. SACD is a backwards compatible format. They could have done it. They could have done it and most people would have never noticed. As long as it was round and shiny and played in their CD player, they wouldn't have cared.

However as in most instances, lining the pockets of the executives was far more important than providing better quality sound. If this practice had been adopted, manufacturing of SACDs would have gone down in cost and would have completely replaced CD.

So I must agree with serious fun on some level that the manufacturing companies did not make a "serious" effort, or show a "serious" desire in putting out a better product.

Look at the drivel that most of these companies are putting out and calling music. Obviously, quality is not a concern to most companies!

I agree with David that in the classical world (the world I work in as well) that everyone loves a good performance in a good hall, and often prefers it.

However I must agree with serious fun that concert attendance is growing smaller and smaller, even in our world. With the growing union fees for the players in the US, the cost of attending concerts as become outrageous. Many times it can be $25 to see what I would consider a mid level quartet in a mediocre hall. When you start to do that 3 or 4 times a week, with your wife and family, you begin to realize ow shallow your pockets really are.

I think that SACD, and DVD-A have been pushed to the back burner, but I again say that I don't believe surround is dead. It took 22 years from inception for companies to start releasing stereo recordings. The time will come or it won't when it will be accepted by consumers and major record labels, and I will be prepared either way.

All the best!

[mohthom]

I think it partly also has to do with the Dawkins Evolution thing;

For a producer to make a good stereo recording of classical music takes a fair amount of time (to learn the skills, techniques, musicality etc.).

For that engineer to learn how to mix for 5.1 takes another [insert long amount of time here].

It's all well and good when you've got a wealth of information and skill at your fingertips (as we have at the minute), but when the money dries up (can anyone say recession?) it would seem like the carpet had been pulled from under the consumer's feet if they could 'only' afford the stereo mixes in future. 5.1 is billed as a 'luxury' - an expensive add-on, not the necessity that is 2.0. You get the SOUND for £6 per album, you get the 5.1 for a £15 DVD.

Pure conjecture, I'm not up for getting flamed for this one!

MohThoM

[Martin Kantola]

Originally Posted by seriousfun

Phantom image will never sound the same as a discrete image. It can be a useful tool, and probably sometimes better, but never, ever the same. The time issues alone, caused by HRTF, can't be totally simulated and delivered. The frequency dip can be partially fixed, but why not start with an un-broken image?

Sorry, but I feel you missed the point again. The original issue was how creating an image between say left front and left surround doesn't work as well as it does between left front and right front. Easy to understand why, just look at the shape of our ears and head.

In the first case the phantom image is always very poor and unstable, in the second it can be solid enough to touch (in a good system).

Think that a system of three front speakers was first suggested for better-than-mono playback. Center one (unfortunately?) abandoned, probably for economical and practical reasons.

Interesting to note that most cinemas I've been to do have speakers at +/- 90 degrees from where I'm seated...

But I do agree that the difference between discrete and phantom source is a very useful tool in 5.1 mixing!

The ITU 5.1 standard has some serious built-in problems, but of course we can still use it for delivering audio. Working with a limited media is nothing new.

Martin

[Martin Kantola]

Originally Posted by seriousfun

I haven't met a consumer yet who didn't prefer an immersive audio environment over the small window that 2.0 can provide.

"Small window"? Sounds like you need to hear some proper stereo playback... There are many that feel that 2.0 works much better than 5.1 for music. They might be pretty serious about their music interest, but consumers nevertheless..

Martin

[Timsplace]

I think HDTV will drive the surround market (Music included). Everyone will be moving to an HD television with some form or Surround capability. THEN we'll see a convergence of the Internet as a delivery system for content (already Itunes, Netflix etc)-Movies AND Music. Once the internet bandwidth catches up (IF it does) then ALL this content will be capable of 5.1. Some form of crappy 5.1 compression will become the norm.

Tim

[andy_simpson]

Originally Posted by seriousfun

We hear everything is a three-dimensional environment, and 2.0 is not, and never will be, able to deliver anything resembling that environment. 5.1 was designed to be the minimum, not the ultimate.

I haven't met a consumer yet who didn't prefer an immersive audio environment over the small window that 2.0 can provide.

My point is simply that the development of surround sound uses resources that could be better spent on more immediate research problems, ones more fundamental to the field.

The field of electroacoustic transduction is still young!

Andy

[Melodioso]

Originally Posted by Martin Kantola

"Small window"? Sounds like you need to hear some proper stereo playback... There are many that feel that 2.0 works much better than 5.1 for music. They might be pretty serious about their music interest, but consumers nevertheless..

Martin

That's exactly how I feel! 5.1 is fun and entertaining, but I highly prefer listening to music in stereo. It's easier to concentrate on the music and paradoxically (is that english ?!?), to get "immersed" into it. With 5.1, I'm distracted by the "additional" info of more speakers. Maybe you have to get used to it...

[andy_simpson]

Originally Posted by Martin Kantola

"Small window"? Sounds like you need to hear some proper stereo playback... There are many that feel that 2.0 works much better than 5.1 for music. They might be pretty serious about their music interest, but consumers nevertheless..

Martin

Yes. Scale of image is something often overlooked by those working in the near-field, either 2.0 or 5.1.

In my experience, a (horn-loaded) far-field 2.0 is far more immersive than a near-field 5.1.

Andy

[dbssound1]

2.0 by definition can not be as immersive (by the definition of immersive) as 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1. The simple truth is that All of the sound is coming from the front of the room.

Often in this thread people have made comments about how the surround guys would feel differently if we listened on a high end 2 channel playback system. I have both a high end 2.0, and 5.1.

I think we have definitely crossed the line into preference than reality. There is nothing wrong with preferring either but as stated above, 2.0 by definition can not be immersive. by the same token, the abuse of 5.1 engineers putting far too much information in the rear so they feel that there is something back there can be highly distracting. I am of the mindset that you can make a fun mix with tons of info back there, but I prefer those channels to be reserved for ambience at a proper level and placement to give the listener the experience of being in that space.

I am sure that the experience of music from the rear could become something that we are used to, but as humans we are programmed for the "tiger in the jungle" response. We don't like for things to sneak up behind us. But at the same time we are used to sound coming at us from all directions, hence why I feel that stereo has definite limitations in the "immersion" department.

Also, pertaining to the multiple comments regarding the need to listen to a ultra high end 2.0 system, we are again losing site of the fact that we are the 2% that buys and has these products. The other 98% has small stereos, nearfield bookshelf speakers, satellite surround systems, car stereos, boom boxes, and earbud headphones. I think we would have an easier time convincing consumers to buy surround media than $10,000 speakers.

Anyway, there's some more fuel for the fire.

[Russ (Al) Prat]

It seems that what is lacking is discipline in 5.1 mixing, since the complaint that most people (myself included) have with the 5.1 productions they have heard is that there is an unrealistic amount of activity in the rear speakers. Is this a problem of the consumer listening environment, or over zealous engineers? Since we can't legislate "taste" we can only hope that the market and the production process matures. RAP

[Martin Kantola]

Originally Posted by dbssound1

2.0 by definition can not be as immersive (by the definition of immersive) as 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1. The simple truth is that All of the sound is coming from the front of the room.

Not the truth for all of us... Would estimate that the experience I have with my system is about 200 degrees wide with certain recordings. How's that for fuel on the fire?

And as somebody already hinted, the emotional impact and immersion is often many times stronger than with a typical 5.1 recording.

If you try to analyze this from a purely technical POW you forget what it's about; listening...


Martin

[dbssound1]

Originally Posted by Martin Kantola

Not the truth for all of us... Would estimate that the experience I have with my system is about 200 degrees wide with certain recordings. How's that for fuel on the fire?

And as somebody already hinted, the emotional impact and immersion is often many times stronger than with a typical 5.1 recording.

If you try to analyze this from a purely technical POW you forget what it's about; listening...


Martin

No, look up Immersion in the dictionary. I stand by my statement. You can not be as immersed in 2.0 as surround.

You may like it more. You may say you personally feel more connected, but you can't change a definition to suit your point of view.

Maybe you haven't been listening to the right surround mixes, on the right systems.

Again, we are speaking of personal preferences. I am not going to tell you that you are wrong for your belief and what you prefer, but merely illustrate that the use of the word "immersive" is inaccurate.

Also, if you read some other posts of mine, you will realize that I approach sound and recording far differently than a strictly technical POV.

I love how when anyone has an opposing point of view that the school yard tactics come out with comments like " you forget what it's about; listening...". Is this intended to imply that after my many years of doing this that I don't care about listening and enjoying music? I enjoy something more than you so I must be a complete moron?

Originally Posted by Martin Kantola

And as somebody already hinted, the emotional impact and immersion is often many times stronger than with a typical 5.1 recording.

Please provide us with your extensive scientific data and market research on this subject.

You are stating an opinion as fact. If you like 2.0 better, GREAT. That doesn't mean that 5.1 is wrong, just that you don't like what you've heard so far.

You can not state something as a fact wen using the terms "often", and "typical", and how do your quantify "emotional".

Also, What is a typical 5.1 mix? As I stated above, I am not a fan of what a lot of engineers do with the format. So wouldn't a better statement be to describe what you don't like about 5.1 mixes you've heard and do a comparison against the same recording in 2.0 rather than a blanket finger point and foot stomp?

Sorry to be a bit snippy, but arrant statements are the things that people that don't feel like reading the entire thread latch onto.

Immerse - To cover completely

[mohthom]

Well . . . the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't agree with you DB . . .

Immersion;

1. a. Dipping or plunging into water or other liquid, and transf. into other things.
b. The administration of Christian baptism by the dipping or plunging of the whole person in water: distinguished from affusion or aspersion.
c. Alch. Reduction of a metal in some solvent.
d. Ceramics. The application of the glaze to pottery by dipping it into a vessel filled with the glaze-cream.



2. transf. and fig. a. Absorption in some condition, action, interest, etc.
b. A method or system of teaching (or learning) a foreign language in an environment where all communication is conducted in the language, esp. at a school, etc., run for this purpose. Freq. attrib., as immersion course, school. Chiefly N. Amer.


3. Astron. The disappearance of a celestial body behind another or in its shadow, as in an occultation or eclipse: opp. to emersion.


4. Microscopy. The introduction of a liquid, as water or oil, between the object-glass and the object.


5. attrib., as (sense 1) immersion bath, (1b) immersion robe, (4) immersion fluid, lens, objective, paraboloid, system. (sense 1) immersion foot, a condition similar to trench foot caused by prolonged exposure of the feet to wet and usually cold conditions; immersion heater, a heater (usually electric) whose element may be immersed in the liquid to be heated; esp. one having a thermostatic control and designed to be fixed inside a domestic hot-water cylinder; immersion suit, a garment designed to give the wearer buoyancy when in the water and to provide insulation from the cold.




The only one you could claim is 2.a - and we're back to subjectivity . . .



MohThoM