Holographic Stereo Image & Volume Level

[drp1003]

I was reading up about true holographic stereo imaging (along with speaker placement and room acoustics) and the best recordings one can sample which represents the phenomenon precisely. I watched some YouTube videos on the subject as well.

PS Audio's Paul McGowan has a YouTube channel; his two or three videos about holographic stereo imaging do a very good job of defining what it is and why it's sort of counter-intuitive to what most audio enthusiasts think.

In a nutshell, your speakers are acting like reverse-microphones and the recorded music should be sounding like it's coming from behind the speakers, or in between them at the very least anyway. This is especially true for music that has been recorded live - like a jazz band recording for instance. That does not to mean that the recording might lack depth of instrumentation; it still does, it's just that the whole stereo image is pushed away from you, sounding like it's coming from - again - BEHIND the speakers.

Assuming you have your speakers sitting away from the back wall and each one placed properly from the listening position. And assuming you are listening to the appropriate recorded music (Dave Brubeck's Time Out for instance).

Studio recorded rock music might not sound like this because they can use any manner of audio tricks sound effects to get the music to POP out at you.

Which brings me to what might be the only thing that could push the holographic stereo image out from behind your speakers and closer to you: YOUR VOLUME LEVEL. I said, YOUR VOLUME LEVEL. Louder volume levels can push the music closer to your face.

I like listening to music sorta loud and in my face, and in a very immersive surround-soundy kinda way, and I've often wondered why with some music this is harder to achieve than most.

Now that I understand holographic stereo imaging better, I think I'm gonna start backing off the volume level quite a bit and enjoy this phenomenon properly and in a more realistic fashion (and save my hearing in the process). I'm gonna move my music's stereo image back to where it belongs in relation with my speakers, by using the volume knob on my preamp of course.

Crank it to 11? Not now. Not anymore. Now that I know what I've been missing all this time.

And by the way: Baby Yoda rocks!

 

[JoeESP9]

Many of us just call it a soundstage. Classical, Opera and Jazz recordings are more apt to have a soundstage because they are not a product of multitracking, overdubbing and studio manipulation. Using fewer mics and having everyone there and playing at the same time has a lot to do with it.

 

[drp1003]

The only drawback for me so far has been the apparent lack of bass at lower listening levels. I think this is a thing that happens. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a little bass needs to be applied (bass EQ) when listening at lower volume levels - cuz human hearing sucks down there.

 

[Condorsat]

Most modern recorded music is an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation of an event that never happened.

Always found this point interesting .. at about the 13:00 time mark on YouTube video below.

 

[JoeESP9]

You might want to check up on loudness curves. Many/most vintage integrated amplifiers and receivers had a loudness button. Even better were those with a variable loudness control. Yamaha still equips their current two channel gear with a variable loudness control. IMO/E a properly used variable control is a lot better than a simple switch.

 

[kray]

Most modern recorded music is an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation of an event that never happened.

Always found this point interesting .. at about the 13:00 time mark on YouTube video below.

Always agreed with this! Thanks for bringing this up... those talking about DACs say "I want it accurate like it was in the studio.."
This explains my retort to that exactly...

 

[sqlsavior]

I recently posted about this subject.

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...listening-routine.894637/page-3#post-13309187

I should add that bass boost doesn't seem necessary in my system at low volume.

 

[Guest159]

Many of us just call it a soundstage. Classical, Opera and Jazz recordings are more apt to have a soundstage because they are not a product of multitracking, overdubbing and studio manipulation. Using fewer mics and having everyone there and playing at the same time has a lot to do with it.

I think I already called BS in this claim. Have you never seen or heard an orchestra do a studio recording? They use dozens of mics, and dozens of tracks, which are overlayed. Same with opera. Just this morning I was listening to an orchestra I know for a fact was recorded in a studio. It had great imaging. Why do you think those 3 genres are exempt from modern studio mixing and mastering techniques? You do realize guys like Frank Sinatra invented the approach to recording whereby the tools of the studio were "played" like an instrument. He played the mic to the master tapes like an instrument.

Back to the original point....

I find imaging falls apart with volume when the amp runs out of power. Volume itself doesn't diminish imaging. It brings things a bit closer, yes, but the proportion of the space doesn't really change. The Dynamics and distortion of a sound are what give it a sense of distance. We're very visual animals. Our brains only pay attention to that information enough to tell our eyes what direction and how far to look. We're not like bats that can find a bug with fraction of an inch precision in the dark, in flight. It's not that hard to trick us into hearing spaciousness.

I agree that if something it mic'd 20 feet away, it should sound 20 feet back from my speakers. The speakers I usually hear failing to do that are the ones with very punchy, hyper-real dynamics that present the far field with too much punch and detail; detail you wouldn't hear if you were personally that far from the sound source.

 

[E-Stat]

I think I already called BS in this claim.

Not everyone agrees with your opinion.

IHave you never seen or heard an orchestra do a studio recording?

No, but I participated in a Telarc recording at the ASO where Jack Renner used but five mikes. Ever heard a Telarc recording? One of Wilma Cozart-Fine's Living Presence recordings?

 

[sqlsavior]

Most modern recorded music is an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation of an event that never happened.

Always found this point interesting .. at about the 13:00 time mark on YouTube video below.

I'll bet they don't record the symphony one player at a time. Or do they now?

 

[JoeESP9]

I think I already called BS in this claim. Have you never seen or heard an orchestra do a studio recording? They use dozens of mics, and dozens of tracks, which are overlayed. Same with opera. Just this morning I was listening to an orchestra I know for a fact was recorded in a studio. It had great imaging. Why do you think those 3 genres are exempt from modern studio mixing and mastering techniques? You do realize guys like Frank Sinatra invented the approach to recording whereby the tools of the studio were "played" like an instrument. He played the mic to the master tapes like an instrument.

Back to the original point....

I find imaging falls apart with volume when the amp runs out of power. Volume itself doesn't diminish imaging. It brings things a bit closer, yes, but the proportion of the space doesn't really change. The Dynamics and distortion of a sound are what give it a sense of distance. We're very visual animals. Our brains only pay attention to that information enough to tell our eyes what direction and how far to look. We're not like bats that can find a bug with fraction of an inch precision in the dark, in flight. It's not that hard to trick us into hearing spaciousness.

I agree that if something it mic'd 20 feet away, it should sound 20 feet back from my speakers. The speakers I usually hear failing to do that are the ones with very punchy, hyper-real dynamics that present the far field with too much punch and detail; detail you wouldn't hear if you were personally that far from the sound source.

Could it be that you've never heard a soundstage? If pop/rock Is your thing it's unlikely you've heard one as pop/rock recordings do not have a venue to reproduce. Hence no soundstage.

FWIW: I've actually spent time in front of a mic. I've also been plugged directly into the mixer.

As I've suggested before, "if you want to hear a soundstage you must listen to something that hasn't had the "benefit" of multitracking and plenty of studio sweetening. Direct to Disc LP's much orchestral music and a lot of jazz is recorded with a minimal number of mics and no studio sweetening. They have a soundstage because there is the sound of the venue to reproduce.

 

[Condorsat]

Actually I wish more pop/rock recordings sounded like The Trinity Session

 

[Uncle Fester]

I've found that with some older comedy albums that were recorded live in a club, probably with one microphone, you feel like you are in the room.

The comedian is somewhat centered, and you can hear people in one part of the room or the other.

You can make out glasses clinking, chairs moving and people laughing and chatting, just like you are there.

This probably has to do with it being an organic recording with little or no studio manipulation.

 

[Akustic]

I've found that with some older comedy albums that were recorded live in a club, probably with one microphone, you feel like you are in the room.

The comedian is somewhat centered, and you can hear people in one part of the room or the other.

You can make out glasses clinking, chairs moving and people laughing and chatting, just like you are there.

This probably has to do with it being an organic recording with little or no studio manipulation.

Omni mike ??? Two mikes ... pointing in opposing directions about 6" apart mimics what a set of ears would hear ..

 

[Guest159]

Not everyone agrees with your opinion.


No, but I participated in a Telarc recording at the ASO where Jack Renner used but five mikes. Ever heard a Telarc recording? One of Wilma Cozart-Fine's Living Presence recordings?

Big studio recorded orchestral music isn't at all hard to come by. Think like every movie sound track you've ever heard. If you want to see classical recorded well, there are plenty of YouTube videos of it. Just because a few people like to use simple mic'ing methods does NOT mean it's the norm.

Could it be that you've never heard a soundstage? If pop/rock Is your thing it's unlikely you've heard one as pop/rock recordings do not have a venue to reproduce. Hence no soundstage.

FWIW: I've actually spent time in front of a mic. I've also been plugged directly into the mixer.

As I've suggested before, "if you want to hear a soundstage you must listen to something that hasn't had the "benefit" of multitracking and plenty of studio sweetening. Direct to Disc LP's much orchestral music and a lot of jazz is recorded with a minimal number of mics and no studio sweetening. They have a soundstage because there is the sound of the venue to reproduce.

You're about as wrong as wrong gets, or you genuinely don't know what imaging is. Do you think the sound of the venue is imaging? You seem to equate that to imaging at every turn. It's not true. You need to look up the definition of imaging... but I think I already posted that for you, too. It's got nothing to do with the sound of a live venue. That's nice ambiance, but it's not imaging. It's usually an obstacle to imaging. It's not a matter of my opinion. It's a matter of what the words actually mean. Repeatedly asserting demonstrably false statements doesn't make them true no matter how much they're repeated.

I'm sitting here listening to the Dionysus album by Dead Can Dance, and if you're going to tell me that entirely studio produced album doesn't have excellent imaging, nobody should take your ideas about imaging too seriously. I'm not trying to be a weenie, but I don't understand what's so confusing about imaging to so many people. Why do you keep claiming that imaging requires some kind of real live space when I can point to examples of studio recorded music that's got great imaging all day long.

 

[Guest159]

I've found that with some older comedy albums that were recorded live in a club, probably with one microphone, you feel like you are in the room.

The comedian is somewhat centered, and you can hear people in one part of the room or the other.

You can make out glasses clinking, chairs moving and people laughing and chatting, just like you are there.

This probably has to do with it being an organic recording with little or no studio manipulation.

Not with one microphone! The audience is obviously being mic'd with multiple mics and mixed in production to produce a coherent work. For all you know the audience sound was recorded at an entirely different venue and mixed into the comedian doing his bit in an empty room just so the sound of his voice could be properly recorded in the space.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

You're about as wrong as wrong gets, or you genuinely don't know what imaging is.

I think he knows what imaging is.

Imaging is perceived spatial location of sound sources, and a soundstage is perceived -- and ideally realistic -- three-dimensional sound imaging.

What's worth noting is how you perceive 3D spatial sound when you've got exactly two simple non-directional sensors -- ears -- supplied (typically) by two non-directional sources -- speakers or headphones. Imaging and soundstage are the result of your brain inferring positional cues from all sorts of acoustic information: phase differences between left and right[1], echoes, reverberation, differences in volume, past experience, knowledge about what you're hearing, and so on. It happens in a manner analogous to the way you can infer 3D visual images from flat, 2D sources like printed pictures or your computer/phone/tablet screen.

As such, you may or may not hear good imaging or a soundstage due to all manner of factors: what the recording has captured (including room reverberations, echo, background noise, etc.), what has been generated in the recording via production effects, volume differences, your listening position, your listening room reverberations, left/right phase differences generated or altered by the recording or reproduction equipment, your own brain's tendency (or not) to infer positioning from all the aforementioned cues, etc., etc., etc.

That's why some hear an excellent soundstage and others don't -- even given the same recording -- and why some purely studio-constructed recordings may present a soundstage whilst some purely natural recordings may not, and vice versa.

--
[1] Which, out in the "real world", are naturally enhanced, apparently, by the whorls in the ear. It's strongly theorised that's what they're for.

 

[fill35u]

I'll bet they don't record the symphony one player at a time. Or do they now?

Even if the main mic is a stereo pair of some flavor, it's often supplemented by other mics, including spot mics for soloists. Mid/Side micing is designed for panning during mastering.
If, for the sake of argument, we were extremely generous and said that half of jazz and classical albums were essentially direct-to-disc with no panning and merely minimal processing, that would still be only 1% of recorded music sales. So yes, more than 99% of modern recorded music is "an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation of an event that never happened."

In general, studio albums vastly outnumber live albums.

Heck, there are entire genres of music that are composed and recorded without live instruments. And there are several influential or popular bands that almost never played live.

 

[sqlsavior]

Big studio recorded orchestral music isn't at all hard to come by.

Nobody said it was.

Just because a few people like to use simple mic'ing methods does NOT mean it's the norm.

No assertion about norms was made, IIRC.

You're about as wrong as wrong gets, or you genuinely don't know what imaging is.

Goodness gracious, how helpful!!

Do you think the sound of the venue is imaging?

JoeESP9 makes a distinction between reflective information from the original venue, with the performers sharing the space in real time, which he calls a soundstage, and other placement cues. Many of us use the term imaging to include both. Some of us are aware of, and honor, his distinction in terms.

It's a matter of what the words actually mean. Repeatedly asserting demonstrably false statements doesn't make them true no matter how much they're repeated.

I am finding many of your posts tiresome, and your username very apt. I suggest lightening up.

 

[Grenadeslio]

Nobody said it was.

No assertion about norms was made, IIRC.

Goodness gracious, how helpful!!

JoeESP9 makes a distinction between reflective information from the original venue, with the performers sharing the space in real time, which he calls a soundstage, and other placement cues. Many of us use the term imaging to include both. Some of us are aware of, and honor, his distinction in terms.

I am finding many of your posts tiresome, and your username very apt. I suggest lightening up.

Time to start a list lol?