I’m afraid, then, I have no idea what you are talking about rvpiano.
What in the world is "trick holography?"
A speaker doing soundstaging and imaging sounds 3 dimensional and hence "holographic" in that respect. And it’s all a "trick" as it’s just giving the impression sound is occurring here or there, or that some portion of your room has transformed it’s acoustics.
Therefore I can’t understand *what else* there is for you to refer to as some additional "trick holography" that is artificial. (And hence, why this is an issue anyone would care about).
Can you try to explain?
What would be the difference between an image in a soundstage...and a "trick holography?"
|
"It is a parlor trick, although I agree it can be pleasant on small
combos (jazz, folk, chamber). You simply don't hear it with live music,
even sitting close to a jazz combo. " You may not hear soundstaging/imaging in live music (which I find strange - presuming you have two ears). I certainly do. And certainly with jazz combos. And orchestras (I tend to prefer closer seating). And plenty of other live music scenarios. If I close my eyes under those scenarios I usually have no problem pointing to precisely where any particular sound is coming from. Our two ears are there to provide directionallity to sound. It's part of how we evolved/survived. It works. The idea that people don't hear any imaging with live music is to me something from the Twilight Zone. (Unless one is talking amplified music, or perhaps sitting very far back from a performance). |
I presume the OP is referring to what is typically called soundstaging/imaging. (I’ll just use "imaging" for short here).
My take:
It is quite important as part of the experience in listening to my stereo.Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother having "stereo" speakers.
I certainly don’t demand imaging at the expense of other qualities. I’m a tone/timbre guy first. A speaker absolutely has to have, to my ear, an organic and beguiling tone, wood sounds like wood, sparkling guitar strings, shimmering metallic cymbals, reedy-sounding reed instruments. All that stuff. If a system doesn’t have that, all the imaging in the world won’t allow me to enjoy the sound. I also value palpability/dynamics.There are speakers that soundstage in a wispy fashion. The drummer that is up front and physical on one pair of speakers can be placed deep back in the soundstage in another pair, but with a loss of palpabiilty and drive. I’ll take the speaker that gives me the presence and drive of the musician with some sacrifice of imaging/depth over the speaker with the huge soundstage with less palpability.
But of course, I want it all. Once I have a system doing great tone, and good palpability, imaging is a wonderful and important addition to my enjoyment. For one thing, a speaker that images well tends to do so at least partially as a result of being low coloration, so the speaker "disappears" from the sound. The result of lower obvious speaker coloration aides timbral realism, and the result tends to leave the music floating free of the speakers too. I had Harbeth speakers for a while, wondering if they could help me downsize from my bigger Thiel speakers. I love the Harbeth sound, but they just couldn’t compete with my Thiels because the Thiels did tone at least as well (even more realistic IMO), and the Harbeths always had a more congested sense of imaging/depth/soundstaging.Hearing symphonies through the Thiels was more reminiscent of being transported to actually hearing a symphony, eyes closed. Recordings of The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet on the Harbeths showed great timbre and clarity. But on the Thiels, I got not only that, but the wall of my room just "melted away" with the guitars sounding real-sized, and the musicians arrayed before me in a way that made me feel transported to their concert. That added sense of realism is magical.
Mono sources can be good on a good speaker insofar as you will get a good feeling for the music - tone, timbre, dynamics, presence. But part of the appeal to me in high end audio is, to some degree, a sense of believably (if not sheer realism). For a seated listener, Mono is far too limited to ever do what’s needed for realism. Every band and symphony isn’t just lined up behind one another in mono in real life. On a good stereo system with imaging, a Tympony roll just ignites the sense of space - it just blooms - more like the real thing, on a system with great soundstaging and imaging.
And I totally disagree with those who claim we don’t hear soundstaging/imaging in real life. Of course we do; that’s why we have two ears, for acute directionality to sound sources. I tended to sit close at the symphony as I like vividly distinct timbre among the instruments, and it imaged like mad when I closed my eyes. Sure, imaging CAN certainly sound artificial depending on the recording. But it CAN also sound more natural, depending on how it was captured/mixed.
When I play my system for non-audiophiles one of the reasons they are so stunned and comment on how "real" it sounds, is that they are reacting to is the soundstaging imaging. Some don’t even know that it was even possible that music playback had such properties. I played Bernard Herrmann’s Taxi Driver score for a musician pal and he said "Incredible. It was like I was THERE, on the floor with the players around me, as it was being recorded."
But not only is imaging helpful if the goal is to attain some semblance of believability to recreating sound. It’s also to me a compelling artifact in it’s own right.
I listen to lots of electronic/synth music. Obviously, all the soundstaging/imaging is entirely artificial. But I LOVE listening to my favorite electronica on my high end system because, especially with the precise, dense imaging/soundstaging I have in my system, it’s almost like being transported to an alien realm. The different sounds and shapes of synthesizers, from buzz-saw sound tearing the air, to tiny sparkles, to throbbing midrange tones etc, just magically "appear" around the room. It has an amazing cinematic quality to the listening experience.
If high end audio were truly "only about the music" in a very narrow sense, I wouldn’t need high end audio. I can get in to music, and get the musical message on almost any system - my car radio, a blue-tooth speaker, I even truly enjoy listening to music on my iPhone’s speaker!
But High End audio to me offers a different way to experience music - "added value" as it were, and being immersed in the sound, and having the sensation of being transported to various spaces is part of that. It’s why I bother to sit down between a pair of stereo speakers in the first place.
I’ve been buying lots of older LPs and occasionally one shows up in mono. When sit between my speakers and hear that it’s mono, I no longer feel that compelled to sit between my speakers. I will tend to play mono albums and often listen from another room, doing something else.I still enjoy the music, the tone, the dynamics, I still boogie. But I just don’t find it compelling to situate myself in my system’s sweet spot because it just doesn’t pay the dividends that it does with a recording that has enveloping soundstaging, or nice imaging.
|
rvpiano Maybe you’ve never heard the type of holography I’m speaking of. It’s not typical imaging, where the soloist is in front of rest of the rest of the forces as you would hear in real life. It’s a disembodied sound, almost ghostly, hanging in front of the speakers. Some systems can create that effect. Aside from having heard (like most audiophiles) countless systems, the speakers I have owned have been notable for their soundstaging and imagine - e.g. Audio Physic, Von Schweikert, Thiel 3.7, and most notable my MBL 121 omni-directional speakers, whose major claim to fame is their extraordinary 3 dimensional imaging. And I have often sat almost nearfield to increase the 3 dimensional effect from my speakers. Every single instance of sound coming from those speakers, or any others that I’ve heard, is captured in the usual audiophile terms "imaging/soundstaging." Some speakers may have a sway-back dip in the frequency range that recesses the imaging somewhat (e.g. so a centralized singer will always appear behind the speakers to some degree or another), and other moren flat/neutral designs will allow the singing voice to occur along the plane of the speakers (if mixed up front that way), and sometimes may even seem a bit forward of the speakers (rare). But in all cases a singer is "disembodied" and "ghostly" and "hanging in the air" because that IS the effect of stereo imaging. I’m afraid I’ll have to give up trying to understand what other phenomenon you think you are hearing. |
rvpiano,
If a singer is panned to the middle of a stereo mix, or if you are listening to a mono mix, virtually any half decent pair of speakers will produce the effect you just mentioned of the singer seeming to be in the middle of the speakers, hanging in space.
This happens pretty much be default given the stereo imaging process.
- It always happens in a typical stereo set up with a centralized listener.
- It's always artificial.
- There are common existing audiophile terms to describe the effect."Soundstaging" (in general, the apparent scale and dimensionality of the soundspace seemingly created by the speakers) and "imaging" (in general: the localization if individual sound sources - for mono, always localized between the speakers).
Therefore, I don't see what new distinction you wish to make with "holographic" as if it were to refer to something distinct from the normal terms "imaging" or "soundstaging."
Anyone else know what rvpiano is trying to describe if it isn't just plain old imaging/soundstaging that virtually all of us can xperience from our system?
(I can't imagine anyone here has a pair of speaker so awful that, when situated in the stereo configuration, would not produce the singer-in-space-between-the-speakers effect).
|
Ok, we are talking about imaging. (And soundstaging)
I don’t know what I should consider an "extreme" case of imaging and soundstaging, as the imaging/soundstage of my system changes with the source. One minute I’m listening to a singer in a tiny dry space, intimately placed between the speakers with little ambience. The next I’m listening to a classical recording of a singer in the far distance with the sense of hearing in to a big hall. I don’t see which one should I consider "extreme" and why. The system simply reproduces the imaging/soundstaging encoded on the source, so by nature it changes "by extremes" when listening to extremely different recordings.
Anyway, I hope you got some decent answers to what you meant to ask.
|
rvpiano
All stereo imaging of any singer is "disembodied" because...there are NO BODIES ACTUALLY THERE. It is a "disembodied" voice. That’s what I mean - ANY image of a singer’s voice between a pair of speakers is a "disembodied voice" - a trick getting us to perceive a voice where it is not in fact even occurring.
Now you seem to be talking about the palpability of the reproduced sound. As in: Is it "dense" with the sense of "body" like one would hear from a real singer?
Well...it seems to me we all want that. That’s what is so compelling about a live singer vs reproduced sound. And some systems are better at producing that sonic density, body and palpability of a singing voice than others.
(As this sense of "body" and density is very important to me, my speakers are particularly good at giving that sense of physical density).
So now it seems when you talk of a "holographic voice" you mean "disembodied" in the sense of the sound NOT having palpability, body and density.
But then...that makes the question in your OP really weird. If by "holographic" you mean some dimensional sounding sonic image (e.g. voice) that lacks realistic body....why would you be asking if that is "important for people to achieve" in the first place???
I don’t know of any audiophiles who want their sound images to lack body and realism...so why would you think anyone would have the mindset that this "disembodied" character would be "a must for them to enjoy their systems?"
I can’t make any sense of what you are trying to say here.
Are you asking "Do you feel it is important to achieve a dimensional sonic image with no body to it’s presentation?"
The obvious answer would be "no." I don’t know of any audiophiles who don’t want some body/palbality to the sonic image.
Or are you asking "Do you want a holographic/dimensional image?"
In which case, many of us will answer (and have answered) "yes" but this is par for the course in high end sound systems, and stereo speaker set ups, and it’s "imaging/soundstaging."
|
Uhm...yes...it is obvious and well known, that in many cases (though not all) the imaging and soundstaging is an artificial creation. And of course the image/soundstage of the real event would be different for listeners on either side of the musicians.
All obvious.
The curious thing is you keep using a term "holography" when we already have terms that refer to these effects in stereo playback: Soundstaging. Imaging. Any decent stereo system will reproduce the encoded soundstage/imaging artifacts of the source.
Yet you keep using the term as if to refer to SOMETHING DIFFERENT or BEYOND the soundstaging and imaging most of us hear.
Why don’t you just ask people if soundstaging/imaging is important to enjoying their systems? Why introduce a distinction...with no distinction...that only confuses things?
I was listening to some Gordon Lightfoot recently. His voice appeared floating between my speakers, with a sense of 3 dimensionality and body, very reminiscent of a real person who may have been sitting between the speakers.
That’s imaging.
What is different about that, vs the "holography" you are talking about?
|
Re Carver,
I grew up listening to my Dad's set up, which consisted of the Kef 105.2 speakers, driven by Carver's M-400t Magnetic Field Power Amplifier Cube, and the Carver C-1 Sonic Holography preamplifier.
It was incredible sound and certainly introduced me to the magic of imaging.
Though I found over time playing with the sonic holography that I often turned it off, as it sounded just a bit more artificial to me, and slightly altered the tone of the speakers (which imaged amazingly on their own).
|
erik,
I just find this so weird. My experience is different. Just a couple weeks ago I encountered two different small bands playing on the sidewalk in my city. One was acoustic guitar, stand up bass and a sax.
Other was larger, drums, tuba, trumpet, sax, electric guitar and I think trombone.
In both cases when I closed my eyes the musicians were distinctly "imaged and soundstaged" with obvious localization.
And I find that typical when I hear live acoustic music.
(As in for instance some of the pubs near me where live acoustic music is played - in particular Irish instrumentals, vocals etc)
|
@orpheus10
—- “Without a shadow of a doubt, the most desirable aspect of high end audio is "The Holographic sound stage",”
Correction: FOR YOU that is the most desirable aspect.
I’m often puzzled by how many audiophiles confuse their own subjective preferences and criteria as if it is THE goal to which all do or should aspire.
I happen to really value dimensional imaging in my system, but plenty of people don’t have that as a priority. Good for them. People are different.
Also, I find it weird that a very “holographic” dimensional sonic image is being depicted as some hard to achieve result. Nah. I’ve found it pretty easy. I just choose speakers that image/soundstage/disappear well to begin with, and care with positioning and listener orientation brings it out very nicely.
Yes other components can aid the phenomenon to some degree - I’ve had many different amps, CD players/DACS preamps, different turntables, phono stages etc and yes the imaging/dimensionality has “flexed”
somewhat, sometimes.
But by far the bulk of the dimensional imaging comes from the speaker design/room acoustics/speaker positioning. No expensive cabling needed, no tweaking-to-the-max, no taking apart and messing with every component required.
|
@orpheus10
—-“I stand by that statement 100%, “
Suite yourself. Doesn’t make it a jot more reasonable to keep standing by it.
If I declared “Without a shadow of a doubt the most desirable car is the 68 corvette”
everyone would understand I am talking for MYSELF since I used the word “desirable” which is a subjective value statement.
No matter how many times I stand by that claim, that will remain the case. To think otherwise is to be confused about the nature of subjectivity and objectivity.
—-“Since whether you know it or not; it is 100% impossible to get holography without having the other desirable elements of audio; “
So you claim. I hope you won’t be insulted if we don’t automatically take everything you claim as Gospel Truth. I haven’t seen reason yet to presume we are in the presence of an enlightened audio guru - writing style aside :).
My own experience suggests your claim is incorrect. I have heard plenty of systems do some incredible dimensionality and soundstaging while sounding to my ears bereft of convincing instrumental timbre, or dynamics, or other traits.
There is no perfect audio reproduction system. All have compromised to one degree or another - something that some other system may do better, or that is preferred by other listeners.
Therefore someone who chooses a system that does not do everything exactly as YOU want it is not by default desiring some coloration akin to a smiley faced eq. It may simply be that they have chosen their own set of compromises where the system has better fidelity either to some aspect of the source or to the qualities of live music that another system doesn’t do as well.
I played in a large funk band for many years. If my main criteria were to reproduce that type of live sound as closely as possible any number of pro PA speakers would kick the crap out of the typical audiophile system no matter how “holographic” their image. Holography wouldn’t even come in to the picture as the live sound never had such a quality to begin with.
So there is no “one size fits all” criteria or claim that can be made as you seem to want to make.
|
orpheus10
——“Since "holography" requires the best electronics, and speakers set up by professionals, that statement lacks credibility.“
As I’ve made clear through the thread: I’ve been referring to a holographic quality in the sense well understood and accepted for many years in high end audio: as captured by the terms imaging/soundstage/dimensionality.
A number of my systems routinely produce a large soundstage with excellent image precisIon, great depth, a sense of sound dimensional sonic images of musicians in layers of depths detached from, around and behind the speakers. Often with a nice sense of density and presence.
I recently played the Taxi Driver soundtrack for a musician friend and he was utterly blown away by the sense of real musicians in a real space “Like I was as right there on floor listening to the musicians make the recording.”
Plenty of other audiophiles have systems that soundstage spectacularly as well.
Whereas: You have been throwing around the term “Holography” in an ill-defined manner. Seemingly it’s conveniently something you have... but no one is left the wiser if in fact you are experiencing something beyond what we have. So your pronouncements about what it takes to achieve “holography” just hang in the air as unsupported, vague claims.
—-“If you don’t want a good system I have no problem with that...”
You’ve pulled that out of nowhere. Of course I want a good system. That’s why I have one. And it is very “holographic” was in the ways I have indicated.
And no it didn’t take a professional to set up my system.
Though I did redesign my room in consultation with an acoustician so perhaps my system has that advantage over yours.
(Though I was able to get a very dimensional image even before the reno)
|
As I’ve mentioned before in the Thiel
owners thread, one of the salient characteristics I find in my Thiel
speakers is a focus and density to the imaging. This is a purported feature of time/phase coherence and I can not verify it’s due to that technical feature of the Thiels. All I know is they have a particular density of imaging I don’t quite hear in most other designs. And this for me is a case where imaging has musical consequences. The added density gives a solidity and palpability to the sound that gives a sense of connection - the sense of air being moved by the sonic images rather than a see through mirage.
|
