Re John L's remarks
I am not sure this is relevant to the interests of most
people on this list as such, but I do think it is absolutely
true that few people have a functioning proper surround set up.
As a High End audio reviewer, I know lots of consumers who
are interested in sound. Effectively none of them has a
surround system--actually of any kind--as their main music listening
system. If they have
a home theater system with surround, it is generally separate
from their music listening system, the latter containing the
serious music listening equipment and being stereo.
One sees this in the products ,too. Go to a thrift shop and there
will be many "surround receivers" and DVD players with surround options
for amounts like $20, the leftovers of the mass market(much of this
stuff actually still works fine).
But go to a High End audio store and you will find next to nothing
with surround options.
One reason for this is no doubt that audiophiles are older and innately
conservative--they are still looking for the ultimate version of
"Kind of Blue" etc.
But there is another reason. There is almost no material for them to play.
SACD had surround possilibities but it is all but dead and moreover
almost nothing appeared that had good surround on it. I have surround
equipment but I do not set it up often because I have nothing to play on
it that sounds good to me
except my own two productions for Waterlily(St Petersburg Mahler 5 and
Shos. 7) and a few Unicorn UHJ items. This is pretty much it for music
material in surround that I actually like in both musical
and sonic terms. Most of the orchestral material otherwise sounds like a
big orchstra in front and a small orchestra in back. Very bad.
Of course if one is interested in surround as such, one can find things to
listen to. But if one is interested in music, which tends to me rather
specific types of music, albeait different for different people, then
chances are that what you want to hear is going to be in stereo only.
I worked hard on those Waterlily surround items. But as far as I could
tell, almost everyone who bought the SACD bought it in hopes of hearing
better stereo sound, not to hear the surround sound.
There really needs to be, if surround is going to take off ever, a
rather systematic attempt to get the material out there--and sounding
good.
As I say, most of us here seem interested primarily in theory and future
possibilities. That includes me, most of the time. But just for the
commercial perspective, there it is! as I have observed it.
And as I always say, NO ONE in the public is going to get interested
deeply in Ambisonics until there
is a lot of 5.1 material produced from it that sounds really good.
People do not buy theory. They buy more of what sounded good to them!
Cheers,
Robert
On Mon, 2 May 2011, Stefan Schreiber wrote:
John Leonard wrote:
Some years ago I asked a question about how many list-members actually had
correctly set up surround systems of any sort at home; not in the studio,
or research facility, but in their own homes as a way of enjoying music. I
seem to remember that very few - three, if I recall correctly - said that
they had. Is it worth asking the question again?
Most people I know (in the UK, at least, where the prevalence of a 'den'
set aside solely for watching sport on huge televisions is rather less than
it is in the USA) still have nasty all-in-one 5.1 systems in their living
rooms where the speakers are arranged so as not to get in the way or look
ugly. They're not listening to properly set-up systems with well-defined
levels and localisation, they're listening to a bunch of speakers in random
positions and occasionally to a bit of LFE going 'boom' when a car
explodes. It's probably far worse now in terms of localisation than it was
when stereo first came out and everyone knew how you were supposed to set
the system up and listen to it.
Regards,
John
But this is an advantage of Ambisonics (any oder), because the decoder should
be aware of the speaker positions.
Ideally, such a system should auto-measure.
5.1 is a "rigid" system, you can't compensate for non-ideal
speaker-positions. (Well, you can, but then you will probably use some
soundfield techniques anyway.)
Regards
Stefan
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