Summitav wrote: "Those who state that live recordings will not sound 'real' in an anechoic environment have not listened (properly) in that environment."
You are quite correct that I haven't had the opportunity to listen to anything, much less a good stereo, inside of an anechoic chamber. That's a chance that's tough to come by for most of us. I have no doubt that the experience would be revelatory in many ways. (I have listened, and worked, in studio control rooms where recording, mixing and mastering are done, know that these are not anechoic environments but rather controlled environments, and have prefered using ones - and gotten better results - where the monitoring options are not limited to just the nearfield.)
But I'll still stick by my contentions A) that a stereo system would sound best in an anechoic chamber if the speakers (and the recordings played through them) were designed with that as their intended environment, and B) that a well-implemented multi-channel scheme would sound more naturally convincing in that environment than would stereo (there's nothing sacrosanct in theory about limiting ourselves to 2 channels as some sort of ideal paradigm for sound reproduction, it's just much simpler to do well than a higher number of channels).
Those statements imply some corollaries:
>That speakers intended for home use will sound better if they are not designed solely on the basis of anechoic measurements, but take into account more typical listening room acoustics.
>That a well-implemented multi-channel scheme could also sound better than stereo in the home, but also that this would not only be highly dependent on the efficacy of the recording process used, but on closely controlling things like dispersion and room acoustics as well. Or in other words, the room properties, or distortions, that can actually make 1- or 2-channel reproduction go down more easily as a subjective matter, will become more problematic as we continue to add channels and speakers. The more we do to try and supply some semblence of the 'real' recorded performance space acoustic, the less we will be able to tolerate overlaying the arbitrary and unrelated listening room acoustic as a kind of a ameliorative substitute.
You are quite correct that I haven't had the opportunity to listen to anything, much less a good stereo, inside of an anechoic chamber. That's a chance that's tough to come by for most of us. I have no doubt that the experience would be revelatory in many ways. (I have listened, and worked, in studio control rooms where recording, mixing and mastering are done, know that these are not anechoic environments but rather controlled environments, and have prefered using ones - and gotten better results - where the monitoring options are not limited to just the nearfield.)
But I'll still stick by my contentions A) that a stereo system would sound best in an anechoic chamber if the speakers (and the recordings played through them) were designed with that as their intended environment, and B) that a well-implemented multi-channel scheme would sound more naturally convincing in that environment than would stereo (there's nothing sacrosanct in theory about limiting ourselves to 2 channels as some sort of ideal paradigm for sound reproduction, it's just much simpler to do well than a higher number of channels).
Those statements imply some corollaries:
>That speakers intended for home use will sound better if they are not designed solely on the basis of anechoic measurements, but take into account more typical listening room acoustics.
>That a well-implemented multi-channel scheme could also sound better than stereo in the home, but also that this would not only be highly dependent on the efficacy of the recording process used, but on closely controlling things like dispersion and room acoustics as well. Or in other words, the room properties, or distortions, that can actually make 1- or 2-channel reproduction go down more easily as a subjective matter, will become more problematic as we continue to add channels and speakers. The more we do to try and supply some semblence of the 'real' recorded performance space acoustic, the less we will be able to tolerate overlaying the arbitrary and unrelated listening room acoustic as a kind of a ameliorative substitute.