Peter Oxford wrote on Mon, 30 August 2004 18:20 |
Dear Bob,
Perhaps I am just completely hopeless at internet communication. Probably, that is the case, I expect. Quite honestly it?s not my intention to argue fine points, twist words, or even narrowly interpret them at all.
You seemed to be saying the sweet spot is better and larger with surround.
The way I read the article it seemed to be saying there is a problem with the sweet spot on surround, that it needs to be made larger.
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Peter, it's a language and syntax issue.
Let me try to clarify where I believe Thomas Lund is coming from:
a) The sweet spot in Surround is potentially FAR larger than in stereo. Your old friend Michael Gerzon understood this very well. For example, increase the front number of speakers from 2 to 3. Instantly, the horizontal sweet spot is widened. This is becuase the greater the number of direct sources of sound (e.g. loudspeakers) the easier that the ear localizes the sound to each of those sources. The fewer the "virtual" sources, the better the situation.
This is identical to your analogy of how in a concert situation, you can sit most anywhere, and still identify where each musician is standing. This is because each musician is a distinct source of sound. The more louspeakers, the more distinct sources of sound and the fewer "virtual" or "phantom" images of sound.
b) The sweet spot in 5.1 is POTENTIALLY FAR larger than in stereo. The key word is "POTENTIALLY" (as you corrected me, reading Thomas's own words). As Thomas cautions us, if we mix with power panning between front and surround, this potential will be lost and the sweet spot will actually be worse. The ultimate would be a multiple mono signal fed identically to all 5 speakers. NO, IT WILL NOT IMAGE INSIDE YOUR HEAD. IT WILL IMAGE NOWHERE WELL, REALLY, FOR EVERYWHERE YOU MOVE YOUR HEAD, THE IMAGE WILL MOVE TOWARDS THE NEAREST LOUDSPEAKER.
But so what! That's not the way to mix a stereo OR a surround recording. Instead, as Thomas says, when mixes are made with uncorrelated information between front and surround, or using early reflections and natural reverb, then the sweet spot widens, and you can sit in more seats in the listening room and still identify WHERE the sound is coming from. Wider and deeper than in stereo.
Kind of like your concert thing, only much more delusionary, eh? That's it, that's the sum of the points... Alll right?
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On your other points....
As to how realistic surround is compared to real life? Well, let's just say that the old principle of "willful suspension of disbelief" continues to prevail no matter what artificial reproduction system we engineers invent. There are listeners who simply don't get stereo at all! They can't suspend their disbelief. Stereo is a serious illusion requiring great trust on the part of the listener; 5.1 is also an iIlusion, but requires perhaps 10% less work on the part of the listener to suspend disbelief.
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I agree with Mr Proffitt (sure to be the successor to Alan Greenspan), that to do surround sound really well, is absolutely guaranteed to be really expensive indeed, fraught with coding problems, as the productions chain grows, and involve a very steep learning curve, involving lots of mistakes from everyone to begin with.
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That's Ms Proffitt, by the way. And I do agree with you both that doing it right is very expensive. But that's the approach I had to take with stereo, so it is no surprise to me that my budget just on the reproduction side will have to multiply by 4 or 5!
I also agree with the rest of your opinions, such as
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Personally, I would prefer to do stereo properly than surround badly.
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You bet!!! And VERY few people reading this forum have had the privilege of hearing STEREO done well. Or really know how to mix stereo well. When it comes to learning how to use depth and dimension in recording, most recording and mixing engineers are still on their stereo training wheels. I strongly suggest we all master stereo recording before we move to surround. Multiple mono panpotted overcompressed drek does not qualify as "stereo". Learn from Thomas Lund and from many others, including my chapter "How to Achieve Depth and Dimension in Recording", which I plan to expand in the second edition for surround.
Learn from great mixing engineers like Bruce Swedien and George Massenburg. George's excellent stereo and surround mixes of, for example, Lyle Lovett are a joy to behear!
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I?m glad to hear everything is O.K. Bob and your dear wife is alright.
Have a happy week!
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You too, Peter. We had a tornado after Charley, and now Hurricane Fwhatshername.... is now on her way, oh dear.