Post by nickc August 18, 2005 (21 of 33)
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akiralx said:
Er, that is a truly horrendous misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of what MC reproduction is. MC when done properly simply increases the soundstage and sonic depth of the music and places it more securely in front of the listener.
I'm sure those who have heard say, the Budapest/Fischer Dvorak 8 or Wispelwey/Lazic Beethoven Cello Sonatas SACDs will agree that the MC mix gives a sense of reality and fidelity that stereo simply cannot match. When listening to these recordings one wouldn't hear sound coming from anywhere other than the soundstage in front of the listener, beacuse the ambient rear channels have been correctly transferred.
Even more remarkable in some ways is the Pollini Chopin Polonaises disc which sadly sounds mediocre in every medium other than MC SACD.
Like you I find surround-sound gimmicky effects simply unacceptable - I wouldn't countenance those chamber SACDs (several Praga Digitals I think) which place the listener in the middle of a string quartet by having one instrument per channel. That is just absurd.
Hi Alex
its Tacet that puts an instrument in each channel. I have the Debussy/Ravel and Beethoven Opus 18 quartets (on DVD-A) and once you get "used" to it it's not that bad - for instance the scherzo of the Ravel where the pizzicato strings swirl around you - as long as you don't get dizzy...(and the actual sound of the strings is fantastic).
But I agree it's unrealistic and in the end prefer just ambient sound from the rear.
Cheers
Nick
BTW I'm interested that you say the Pollini/Chopin disc is good - I've had the CD for years and always thought it was one of the worst sounding discs I owned - dry, shallow and dessicated - though the playing was great. I may now think of buying it.
Funnily enough I used to look at CDs and if they were AAD (like the Pollini)I became wary - now I'm quite happy for there to be analogue masters!
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I wouldn't say a misunderstanding of MC. I'm only judging on the material i've experienced. I don't write off re-exploring MC when funds allow as i've increased my SACD repertoire considerably since I last had MC capabilities. But I won't be losing any sleep over it and I certainly don't feel short changed.
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Post by mdt August 18, 2005 (23 of 33)
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Couleddie said:
There are good reasons why a few people, including myself, only listen in stereo. One of them being that I actually PREFER it. MC just doesn't do it for me. Sorry but it seems some people actually do still like listening to purity of sound without it bouncing all over the place. It's a shame that people are missing the point of SACD in that it isn't purely a medium for MC but also a high resolution format for music lovers who demand a more natural sound than CD can offer.
There is, also, the cost. For me to upgrade my system to full multichannel, keeping the same quality of components, would just be too expensive and i'm not prepared to compromise on terms of sound quality.
I do gain an enormous amount of listening pleasure from stereo SACD across a wide spectrum of music and am especially enjoying the Mercury Living Presence discs.
If you enjoy MC, great! But this perception that MC is the saviour of SACD and stereo is the ugly sister is rubbish.
Agreed absolutely. SA-CD should approach as broad a public as possible to make progress, i believe the music lovers wanting a more natural sound are important potential buyers. In my experience most people really loving music and having experience with live concerts, don't really involve themselves with HiFi. They dont appear as SA-CD buyers because they simply dont know what it could bring to them musically, most probably don't even know SA-CD exists or they think it's only about multichannel and way out high end.
If SA-CD was also presented as a hi res medium offering much more realistic and satisfying music listening , they would shurely embrace it, especially since they could tell the difference imediately because they now how instruments really sound.
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Post by mdt August 18, 2005 (24 of 33)
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Couleddie said:
There is, also, the cost. For me to upgrade my system to full multichannel, keeping the same quality of components, would just be too expensive and i'm not prepared to compromise on terms of sound quality.
If anyone doesn't believe that, have a look at the Abbey Road web site, the Penthouse-Studio and you will see how much space and costs (you can imagine the cost when seeing the picture)Multichannel demands, when it's done THE RIGHT WAY. I have only two of those speakers and that was allready lots of money for me. The reproduction is fantastic, like Couleddie i wouldn't want to comprimise that quality in order to afford five speakers, and it would have to be a big compromise.
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mdt said:
If anyone doesn't believe that, have a look at the Abbey Road web site, the Penthouse-Studio and you will see how much space and costs (you can imagine the cost when seeing the picture)Multichannel demands, when it's done THE RIGHT WAY. I have only two of those speakers and that was allready lots of money for me. The reproduction is fantastic, like Couleddie i wouldn't want to comprimise that quality in order to afford five speakers, and it would have to be a big compromise.
And they know a thing or two about sound quality at Abbey Road. Nice stuff - think my insurance premium would go up a little with a set of those B&Ws :-)
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Post by mdt August 18, 2005 (26 of 33)
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Couleddie said:
The 3.1 ears comment was tongue in cheek :-)
I did have a MC set up when I first got SACD a few years ago but it was entirely seperate from my stereo set up and significantly inferior quality. However, it still gave me the ability to experience surround but I just found I was trying too hard to hear everything at the detriment of the music. I can't quite put my finger on exactly why but I just don't like the feeling of having the sound coming from around me. The definition is totally lacking and I don't think it sounds natural.
I guess I just like stereo as a personal preference but i'm pleased I at least tried 5.1 from an interest point of view.
When i wrote to the manufacturer of my stereo SA-CD, player why they didnt't produce mch players, they answered that they have been observing and investigating mch very closely and had come to the conclusion that it was not completely mature yet and still had inherent problems, so they would stay with stereo for the moment.
I believe they meant phase issues, and it's possible that this is why you missed definiton in the mch palyback you heard.
Besides that mch sets far greater demands on the listening room acoustics, there are more first reflections from speakers to be dealt with, and the calculating of speaker placement for minimum interaction with the room at low frequencies becomes more complex as well. This shouldn't be constantly neglected by mch enthusiasts. I suspect this fact is the most likely reason for your unsatisfying mch experience.
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mdt said:
If anyone doesn't believe that, have a look at the Abbey Road web site, the Penthouse-Studio and you will see how much space and costs (you can imagine the cost when seeing the picture)Multichannel demands, when it's done THE RIGHT WAY. I have only two of those speakers and that was allready lots of money for me. The reproduction is fantastic, like Couleddie i wouldn't want to comprimise that quality in order to afford five speakers, and it would have to be a big compromise.
I would question which is the bigger compromise: sticking to stereo with "posh" speakers as opposed to multi-channel with "ordainary" speakers? For most, our "ordainary" would be pushing their spending well beyond what they would consider normal or even "posh" for them. Whilst we are compromised fundamentally (until a 4D system arrives - 3D + time dimension; Multichannel = 2D + time; Stereo = 1D + time; Mono = Point source + time) then it seems that we are less compromised by an order of magnitude when indulged by multichannel, although still one more to go!
Space is not really a fundamental and determining issue for most vis a vis multichannel - after all, if we only allowed ourselves to buy equipment suited to the room, bearing in mind the normal levels of household interactions, traffic noise etc then we'd never have moved onwards and upwards from the one-box-does mentality. You just get the size of speakers that best suits the room; even if I had the money to lash out £100k or so on a pair of speakers I honestly cannot believe that the stereo experience would be significantly better than having 5 £20k speakers given that my listening area is comparatively modest.
All of the above ignores the hugely potent effect of rendering cori spezzati-style compositions closer to the way that they were intended, something that stereo can never do.
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Post by akiralx August 18, 2005 (28 of 33)
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nickc said:
BTW I'm interested that you say the Pollini/Chopin disc is good - I've had the CD for years and always thought it was one of the worst sounding discs I owned - dry, shallow and dessicated - though the playing was great. I may now think of buying it.
Funnily enough I used to look at CDs and if they were AAD (like the Pollini)I became wary - now I'm quite happy for there to be analogue masters!
Yep, check out the reviews for the Pollini - in stereo it sounds shallow and clattery but the MC remastering is excellent.
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The point is - it's just not worth, what I would consider compromising, my stereo set up (and it WOULD be a compromise) to gain a multichannel capable system when that ratio of multichannel discs to stereo sits at about 50:5000.
I don't dispute that some music maybe does sound more realistic given a faithful mix.
Also, mdt is entirely correct in mentioning the issues regarding speaker placement. In my listening room it's hard enough to get a stereo image i'm totally happy with (a problem with the acoustics of the room and not the equipment) so it would drive me nuts attempting to perfect a surround sound set up.
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Post by mdt August 18, 2005 (30 of 33)
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Polly Nomial said:
I would question which is the bigger compromise: sticking to stereo with "posh" speakers as opposed to multi-channel with "ordainary" speakers? For most, our "ordainary" would be pushing their spending well beyond what they would consider normal or even "posh" for them. Whilst we are compromised fundamentally (until a 4D system arrives - 3D + time dimension; Multichannel = 2D + time; Stereo = 1D + time; Mono = Point source + time) then it seems that we are less compromised by an order of magnitude when indulged by multichannel, although still one more to go!
Space is not really a fundamental and determining issue for most vis a vis multichannel - after all, if we only allowed ourselves to buy equipment suited to the room, bearing in mind the normal levels of household interactions, traffic noise etc then we'd never have moved onwards and upwards from the one-box-does mentality. You just get the size of speakers that best suits the room; even if I had the money to lash out £100k or so on a pair of speakers I honestly cannot believe that the stereo experience would be significantly better than having 5 £20k speakers given that my listening area is comparatively modest.
All of the above ignores the hugely potent effect of rendering cori spezzati-style compositions closer to the way that they were intended, something that stereo can never do.
You shouldn't forget that the listenig room has just about the biggest effect on what you hear.Getting this under control is difficult enough with stereo, and far more complex with multichannel.
If multichannel is used as intended, it should reproduce the acoustics of the recording environement, this will not work if the effects of the listening room acoustics are overwhelming. The rear speakers in discrete surround are to reproduce the ambience, this is very low level information, hard to reproduce. Proof for this is the fact that allready in stereo high resolution media bring a far better reproduction of ambient sound wether CD, the speakers seem to "disappear". This means if you want to reproduce the recording environement the rear speakers and amps have to be of high quality as well to reproduce this very delicate information, also the set up has to be exactly as standard and apropriate for the room (e.g speaker to wall distances), this is necessary to reproduce the time relations of arriving reflections as they were at the recording site.
If you don't consider this, you will not be reproducing the recording site, but just some random acoustic, it will sound like space but be an artefact.If surround isn't used in such a way, there is no need for high resolution discrete surround, one might as well set up 5 speakers in any way and feed them with artificially generated surround.
High resolution, be it surround or stereo, means that every part of the chain has to be able to resolve finest details from source to (all) speakers. And the room has to be so as not to blur the delicate details.
(of course this doesn't have to bet at Abbey Road's standards, i just used the example to make a point against the prevailing opinion, that surround is better per se no matter what you do)
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