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You are being terribly unfair to Charles Hansen, President of Ayre Acoustics. Their CX5e universal player has garnered rave reviews for its SACD (and redbook) reproduction. In the interview you mention, Charles states that in order to achieve the quality of sound in the surround and center speakers to match that in the mains, the price of the unit would be prohibitive. This is the main reason he is offering two channel only. (BTW, Charles is a regular contributor to the hi-rez forum at Audio Asylum and is far more sophisticated than you make him out to be.)
I have a CX5e and it is extraordinary. With my system, which features moderate room treatments (at a fraction of the cost of the CX5e) and a lot of attention to speaker and listener positioning, I feel considerable ambiance. If I have to trade off tonal purity, overtones, dynamics, etc. in order to achieve slightly more ambiance, I would not do it. Others might. Vive le difference!
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flytomars said:
Do you find the "on stage" versions of Tacet not giving the whole perspective?
I think it gives the best of both worlds- sitting in the middle of the orchestra and hearing it all in the same time...
I would generally agree but this is not typical for sitting in the middle of an orchestra!
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Polly Nomial said:
I would generally agree but this is not typical for sitting in the middle of an orchestra!
Well, since I never actually sat in the middle of an orchestra, this is how I imagined it :)
To make a long post short- for me the most involving surround option is the one where all speakers convey equal amount of information (as opposed to the "best seat" where the rears are just ambience).
This applies to rock too, or more accurately- especialy to rock :)
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Post by Cornan July 14, 2007 (14 of 31)
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armenian said:
No I do not have one yet, but just one question regarding auto SACD players; With all the freez-ups and NO-Disc and other problems so common with desktop SACD players what technology is Sony using to deal with dust, vibration, heat and host of other problems that will add on top of all the current issues and still be able to read these discs?
Vahe
I can answer your question partly anecdotally and partly with almost facts.
Almost facts first - the Sony MEX-DV2000 and at least some of its brethren have a new chassis, and I believe I read that this new chassis was part of the [seemingly endless] delay in the introduction of a car SACD player. I'll know soon.
As for freez-ups and skips, I have never had those problems with the players I've owned. I jumped in with the Sony SCD-C555ES, which for me was a major purchase ($1300 at the time), and it's still going strong several years later. Then I bought the Pioneer DV-563A, which I haven't used a lot but never failed.
In between I bought a JVC unit that failed quite early in its life, but not because of any problems with SACDs - the drawer mechanism failed and repair would have cost more than the purchase price.
So overall my results have been quite positive to date. When I say "I'll know soon", well, I drive over a few train tracks on the way to work almost every day, so if the MEX-DV2000 doesn't handle it... If nobody else has reviewed that unit here, I'll post my results.
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Post by Cornan July 14, 2007 (15 of 31)
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flytomars said:
Yes and no.
I am interested in high fidelity AND in creating a musical presentation in my room that you don't hear in concerts.
and definately- if I had the chance- I would enjoy more a concert while sitting in the middle of an orchestra.
In an earlier life I played viola, and I've always said the violists have the best seat in the house - usually right in the middle of the orchestra.
I've always loved that immediacy in recordings.
I've also felt that small groups (small jazz ensembles or classical chamber music) were appropriate "being in the group" settings.
Polyphonic music is yet another case where "being in the midst" can be a great experience. If I had to choose just one SACD to own it would definitely be "The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues" / "The Four Antiphonal Organs of the Cathedral of Freiburg", which I believe was recorded in the quadraphonic era.
What about just plain FUN? Listen to the Firesign Theatre's [now I'm really showing my age] "Everything You Know is Wrong". Just isn't the same without being surround sound (alas, not available on SACD, but I've still got both the 8-track and a reel-to-reel tape).
In my original post I referred to the painful avoidance of gimmickry during the introduction of DVD-Audio and SACD, and to me this was one of the greatest of the marketing mistakes. The antiphonal music of composers such as the Gabrielis should have been among the first surround recordings, but years went by before such a recording surfaced (I understand Telarc hoped that their stereo recording would be multichannel but that technical difficulties intervened).
In the quadraphonic era there was certainly a group of people who decried the "gimmicks", but let's not be TOO serious, for gosh sakes.
And if all the above isn't enough, I see no reason to NOT create an environment that doesn't exist in most concerts, or even in any concert.
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Cornan said:
In my original post I referred to the painful avoidance of gimmickry during the introduction of DVD-Audio and SACD, and to me this was one of the greatest of the marketing mistakes. The antiphonal music of composers such as the Gabrielis should have been among the first surround recordings, but years went by before such a recording surfaced (I understand Telarc hoped that their stereo recording would be multichannel but that technical difficulties intervened).
Your ideas are very interesting.
I agree and disagree with what you have said. There are still idiots in influential positions (Sam Tellig) of Stereophile for example who maintains: "I'm a two channel sort of guy", the guy at Ayre quoted by Stereophile: "Who wants the sounds of performers coming at them from behind?" The editor of The American Music Guide - whose name escapes me at the moment - saying: "I have no use for the multi-channel aspect of" (his new Marantz SACD player). The reason they feel that way is that they still do not realize the potential of mch for reproducing concert hall sound(as experienced by the concert's attendees not the performers)in the living room. - EXCEPT maybe the guy from Ayre has no interest in acoustic music?
I think the gimmickery of placing the listener within the performers was properly avoided and that avoidance was a reaction to the failure of analog quad to take root amid no few such gimmicky recordings which were hotly criticized in the musical and audiophile press.
Still where the composer has arranged for that type of presentation in the score, it is very desirable to be so presented and like you I think it is a shame that not more were immediately recorded and released as SACDs along with those which (like the new PentaTone Dvorak Eighth) are recorded to make the multi-channel listener be able to imagine with far less effort than was ever the case with any form of stereo, that she or he is in a good seat in a concert hall not too far back from the stage and far enough that the hall's contribution to the sound flatters every instrument.
We are at or just beyond a cusp on a graph of progress in the recording arts wherein both the tonal or timbral characteristics and the spatial characteristics of a performance are being captured with astonishing accuracy when reproduced on the right equipment. Also with lesser equipment that spatial characteristic is so well reproduced that the failure to accurately reproduce the ultimate in timbre (I am taking in a whole gamut of things here such as that word "congestion" which has been often used to describe the breakup of sound in the forte passages) is compensated by the spatial accuracy to give those whose budgets wont support several thousands of dollars in equipment, a taste of the concert hall in their homes.
Its an asymtotic curve friends, but multi-channel recording has moved us ever so much closer to attaining the dream of concert hall sound in the listening room, at far less expenditure of the consumer's funds that to give up and opt for "artistic" license and record to place the listener in the middle of things seems just wrong headed to me.
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Cornan said:
In an earlier life I played viola, and I've always said the violists have the best seat in the house - usually right in the middle of the orchestra.
I've always loved that immediacy in recordings.
I've also felt that small groups (small jazz ensembles or classical chamber music) were appropriate "being in the group" settings.
Polyphonic music is yet another case where "being in the midst" can be a great experience. If I had to choose just one SACD to own it would definitely be "The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues" / "The Four Antiphonal Organs of the Cathedral of Freiburg", which I believe was recorded in the quadraphonic era.
What about just plain FUN? Listen to the Firesign Theatre's [now I'm really showing my age] "Everything You Know is Wrong". Just isn't the same without being surround sound (alas, not available on SACD, but I've still got both the 8-track and a reel-to-reel tape).
In my original post I referred to the painful avoidance of gimmickry during the introduction of DVD-Audio and SACD, and to me this was one of the greatest of the marketing mistakes. The antiphonal music of composers such as the Gabrielis should have been among the first surround recordings, but years went by before such a recording surfaced (I understand Telarc hoped that their stereo recording would be multichannel but that technical difficulties intervened).
In the quadraphonic era there was certainly a group of people who decried the "gimmicks", but let's not be TOO serious, for gosh sakes.
And if all the above isn't enough, I see no reason to NOT create an environment that doesn't exist in most concerts, or even in any concert.
Amen to all you said, especially the last line :)
So what if it doesnt really exist, its more fun this way!
and thanks for the SACD you recommended- this sounds up my alley :)
I also find human vocals very compelling, especially in this surround sound- Ide be happy if you could recomend some of those (classical and non classical- I find Bjork`s Medulla a great example for this, but a classical choir will do the trick too :) )
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Agree 100% Windsurfer - a very good analysis.
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Post by armenian July 15, 2007 (19 of 31)
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In total agreement with Windsurfer, I do not have a MC setup and I do net believe that I will ever get into that, the cost is the only reason.
My main two channel stereo is massive and plain expensive, expanding this properly into a MC is an unaffordable proposition for me, yes I can do it cheap but then it would be a compromise.
Vahe
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Post by Cornan July 15, 2007 (20 of 31)
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Windsurfer said:
I agree and disagree with what you have said. There are still idiots in influential positions (Sam Tellig) of Stereophile for example who maintains: "I'm a two channel sort of guy", the guy at Ayre quoted by Stereophile: "Who wants the sounds of performers coming at them from behind?" The editor of The American Music Guide - whose name escapes me at the moment - saying: "I have no use for the multi-channel aspect of" (his new Marantz SACD player). The reason they feel that way is that they still do not realize the potential of mch for reproducing concert hall sound(as experienced by the concert's attendees not the performers)in the living room. ...
The most surprising thing for me about the current generation of multichannel sound recordings has to do with one of the major differences in consumer audio equipment today as compared with the 1970s.
In the heyday of quad there was almost no ambience-generating gear, certainly not in everyday equipment. I remember owning one of the early digital consumer ambience processors, and it was certainly a far cry from pushing a button to cycle through the various to numerous "soundfields" on today's receivers (apparently it was not the FIRST digital ambience processor, as I haven't yet found any reference to it on the Internet; anyway, before the Phase Linear 6000, which I also owned for a while).
During the intervening 20+ years I had apparently been lulled into an implicit belief that as the ambience processors improved in sophistication and sound quality, they had somehow become pretty much "as good as" real sound waves bouncing around a performance space.
So when I listened to my first few SACDs and DVD-audios I was awakened once again to the audible differences, sometimes palpable differences, between those authentic sounds and their artfully simulated doppelgangers coming out of those digital circuits.
I'm not an especial fan of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, but perhaps the moment of epiphany for me came when listening to the Telarc SACD (SACD-60578) of that work. It was one of those few moments of recorded sound when the quality of performance and the quality of sound, for a few seconds, transported me to that place where the music comes first and the equipment fades away.
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