1st Post Intro & Ramblings

Huh?

The question is Why do so many stereophiles, audiophiles and/or avid listeners still go full surround to watch a movie?

Theater sound has not been about creating a larger stereo image since the 70s. Surround sound is about trying to put the viewer into the scene with sounds appearing to come from all around like in real life.

The center channel is not to widen the stereo image it is to lock the position of dialog with wide theater or home seating. It is not a simple left/right summation. For one or two this is why you can eliminate the center and have good results but still need the surround channels for the intended experience.

Realistically most of the time you have no clue "who" designed the product no matter whose name may be thrown around. It will be some engineer no one has heard of. Unless the "talent" has shares, it is best not to make them into figure heads. 

There is nothing "golden" about an equalateral triangle at least for sound. There is not a lot to justify it. So much is dependent on speaker dispersion, the room, etc. that using it as a starting point can have you hopelessly away from ideal that you will never get there. 



How many recordings are mixed with speakers in an equalateral setup?

Timing will be "aligned" as long as the two speakers are equal distance to the ears. There really is no other alignment. Most of it is a balancing act between direct/reflected, and shadowing function of the head to the other ear.  The first heavily impacted by speaker and room, the second by speaker, and angle.


Mixing studios are such a mish-mash of near-field, close to near field, and other setups, that trying to match it with your home setup would be pointless, and most wouldn't know what Cardas configuration was in that world. Pointless, but admirable goal. Most mixing rooms are deader though than the average home setup.  The point here is the setup is artificial, so using rules such as equilateral triangle, golden rule, Cardas, etc. really makes little sense since you are not recreating the recording session nor even the mixing session. 

That's okay I have come to the conclusion you don't know how we locate sounds. Stereo speakers will never replace a center channel no matter how perfect. For one, it is only perfect for a very narrow spot. For two even turning your head moves the image. A center channel is immune to these real world issues.  A home theater guy should know this.  He should also know the importance of listener and speaker position for bass nodes and how to quickly made a good first pass and the balancing act with perfect imaging, creating ambience, etc.

Dude you have shown you are Bestbuy installer level with your info.  You patted yourself on the back 10 times for parroting other info available in a 1000 places on the web and left out wickedly critical parts and probably don't even know the basis for most of it. Give it a rest.  No one is calling you when their studio does not sound right.

Sorry kreapin Millercarbon appears to have an exclusive on "going on about his extensive 'knowledge'".


You did lose me when you questioned full surround for home theater. Two stereo speakers will never provide the rock solid placement of vocals to the center of the screen. Two speakers tricks the brain using incomplete information to form the center image. An actual center channel provides the accurate timing information to both ears for accurate center placement.


Also critical to placement is your listening position out of dominant bass nodes which I don't think you addressed. That sets a reference for the speakers which must point behind the head not at it and if you don't have acoustic controls or bass arrays, adjusting the speakers for more consistent bass and moving away from an equalateral can often give a more consistently good setup.

Center can create an image with either of the left or right speakers that lies between the two. That should be obvious.

You have not helped anyone, you have provided 1/2 of the basic instructions that can be found on literally thousands of websites, blog posts, etc. Most of the good ones will start with a discussion of bass nodes and listener placement, before getting into speaker placement. That move them out from the wall, then make a triangle is not "audiophile" grade help, it is Crutchfield level (though if I remember they had a good guide at one point).  There are so many half - decent to good articles on the web that writing a few things in a forum post that are not even complete, on an audiophile website is not "helping"

Real sounds don’t come from two places at the same time, then come from one place. When you recreate them coming from two places, those locations you perceive sounds to be are artificial and hence subject to things like where you are sitting, are did you turn your head, etc. Again, the center channel locks the vocals to the screen, where the majority of dialog in a movie happens. It also focuses the sound in the center, where again, the majority of action actually occurs in movies. Real sounds come from one spot in space, which a center channel defines for the center of the screen (approximately) and that make it immune to listener position, head rotation, etc. You cannot replicate that with two speakers .... and we are not even getting into the rear channels which again, two fronts cannot recreate.

You have not provided the basics as you have not addressed listener placement for avoidance of bass nodes. I am not going to cover that as there are many resources that do. 

For a basis start:

https://realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm

But to my point, you have to think about more that just rules, i.e. boundary effects can dominate:

http://arqen.com/acoustics-101/speaker-placement-boundary-interference/

Of course GIK acknowledges that preferences and room sizes, etc. come into play:

https://www.gikacoustics.com/room-setup-speaker-placement-201-part-one/

This is an audiophile community, most are looking to get well beyond the basics.

Center and surround channels are not exclusively "mono" like they once were but image with other speakers in the system to provide a more immersive audio experience.

kreapin OP40 posts11-03-2020 11:54pma mono recording cannot recreate an image. Center cannot create an image with any other speaker, time alignment and yada yada ya..... back to basics and equilateral triangle

You really don’t know how we perceive sound do you? I am a bit shocked given your stated experience. Localization happens from relative sound levels and timing. Given traditional studio recording techniques, most of the placement of sounds in a stereo playback is level based, not timing. Timing can be captured through microphone techniques, but that is actually not very common. In a purely analog processing workflow, it is almost impossible to impart timing based location information into stereo playback given that each instrument or group is recorded separately and then mixed.

The only reason things come into the center in a stereo image is because essentially the same thing is coming out of both speakers at the same time tricking the ear into hearing the same thing in both ears at the same time which tell you "center". Most of the movement from left to right is level based forcing your brain to work against the timing information that says otherwise.

Digital processing has brought a significant potential to stereo mixing where some level of timing information can be attempted to be embedded that did not exist in the recording, but that is more difficult than it sounds as the sound still has to come from both speakers, confusing the brain, causing cancellations, etc. The research is on how to use that cancellation as an advantage not a disadvantage.

So ... your comment about not being able to use the center channel in combination with the left or right channel to place a sound somewhere between the center channel and the other two speakers illustrates a lack of understanding of how we perceive location and how location is encoded on most recordings.  Everything that goes to every speaker is unto itself mono. Stereo, quadraphonic, triphonic, comes from the implementation of multiple sources, and it does not have to be two.

I thought you were done with this thread? Still digging?

Leave the center channel on. There is still depth and width. Tell us, how do your "ears" determine depth or distance? Inquiring minds want to know.