A Sunday with Involve

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Since you already have a way to QS encode as in previous broadcasts.... why would you have an Involve encoder board and not use it in the smart mode?
I did a small grouping of songs in both, then asked a few people to weigh in. Some who had no interest in surround and some who have been into it for nearly as long as I (going on 50 years). Some had decoders, only 1 had a SM. I'm a 4.0 guy, but I mixed the discrete files in a combination of 5.0, 4.0 and 5.1 as the material seemed to call for it. There are a good deal more variables I used in testing, but the outcome was 11 to 4 preferred the fixed setting, of the 4, 3 preferred the smart, and 1 wanted to know if I was providing lunch.
Oddly, they all agreed that the better surround effect when listening through stereo headphones, was with the fixed setting.
You see, I actually put over 100 hours of work into this 3 hour show .and. I ended up having to buy lunch!
 
Hey Bill - can’t thank you enough for providing these files to us. It’s awfully nice of you!! Maybe next week’s too ( Beggars can’t be choosers
Well, I'd love to, these were a lot of work (obviously not carrying a piano up a flight of stairs work), but time consuming. And I'm kind of proud of the end result. Posting kinda goes against the qq rule, and the way the station pays for clearances. PM me and we can go into more detail.
Thanks
 
Eeek!
Change it to "Intelligent encode". Its a win- win, variable parameter psychocoustic encode. Listeners get normal idth stereo but the decode has full width to. On fixed encode both the stereo stream and the decode stream ends up having 12 db separation.....not the full 35 db. Fact is you cannot actually hear any more than 12 db but 35 db sound better in a surround pissing contest.

Oh secret, don't tell anyone 12 db is a magic number
 
Might also be a good idea to go through the ways to actually get to your station on various systems.

As an example, on my old Sansui QRX-8001, I’ve run a long headphone cord with a stereo splitter at the end of the cord-from my main computer (or laptop) to the left and right inputs of the Surround Master, and on to the Quad inputs to the Sansui.

On my newer main system at the other end of the house; I don’t have a Surround Master (SM2) for, I’ll need to try the Squeezebox I have connected via Digital Coaxial to an input on my old Marantz SR8500. Just need to find the station on the Squeezebox. And on those types of older Receivers, it’s good to try the various types like Dolby Pro Logic, DTS, and other codecs.

What I’d really like to see Bill do also, is perhaps have an app on ROKU that accesses his station (there’s already other regular non- Quad stations on there) which I run via HDMI input on the back of my Oppo and that goes analog out to my Marantz (no HDMI inputs)

Lots of ways to skin the feline; other ways mentioned would be welcome; as I’m sure newer Receivers probably have direct capabilities for internet connections.
Wish I could get one of the radio sites to pick us up. I've been on this station for 14 years, and they were around for 7 years before that, but still, internet radio just seems like a passer in the night to some.
 
Eeek!
Change it to "Intelligent encode". Its a win- win, variable parameter psychocoustic encode. Listeners get normal idth stereo but the decode has full width to. On fixed encode both the stereo stream and the decode stream ends up having 12 db separation.....not the full 35 db. Fact is you cannot actually hear any more than 12 db but 35 db sound better in a surround pissing contest.

Oh secret, don't tell anyone 12 db is a magic number
Dr Bauer used to tell me it was 3db.
 
Nup, no magic at 3 db. 12 is magic. Try the Intelligent involve
3db was the level at which his SQ system was designed, he felt at 3db you could hear separation.
I did a small grouping of songs in both fixed and Intelligent mode, then asked a few people to weigh in. Some who had no interest in surround and some who have been into it for nearly as long as I (going on 50 years). Some had decoders, only 1 had a SM. I'm a 4.0 guy, but I mixed the discrete files in a combination of 5.0, 4.0 and 5.1 as the material seemed to call for it. There are a good deal more variables I used in testing, but the outcome was 11 to 4 preferred the fixed setting, of the 4, 3 preferred the smart, and 1 wanted to know if I was providing lunch.
Oddly, they all agreed that the fixed had better surround effect when listening through stereo headphones.
You see, I actually put over 100 hours of work into this 3 hour show .and. I ended up having to buy lunch!
nut the next show will be 100% Intelligent mode (I bow to your superior knowledge of the device - but me bowing, is NOT pretty!)
 
You see, I actually put over 100 hours of work into this 3 hour show .and. I ended up having to buy lunch!

Much thanks for your efforts, Bill. 100 hours of work for that show does not surprise me. It can't be easy to mix multi-tracks into surround and come up with something convincing. I imagine one could just start throwing tracks every which way into the 4 corners, but the result would probably be a disjointed mess.

Eeek!
Change it to "Intelligent encode". Its a win- win, variable parameter psychocoustic encode. Listeners get normal idth stereo but the decode has full width to. On fixed encode both the stereo stream and the decode stream ends up having 12 db separation.....not the full 35 db. Fact is you cannot actually hear any more than 12 db but 35 db sound better in a surround pissing contest.

Oh secret, don't tell anyone 12 db is a magic number

I must say that on Whip It, you could have convinced me that there was much more than 12dB separation. On most tracks, the amount of separation, real or perceived, could have definitely been explained as a mixing preference. (I'm one of those radicals who believes that some small degree of ambient cross-talk into the other channels adds a nice sense of space.)
 
Much thanks for your efforts, Bill. 100 hours of work for that show does not surprise me. It can't be easy to mix multi-tracks into surround and come up with something convincing. I imagine one could just start throwing tracks every which way into the 4 corners, but the result would probably be a disjointed mess.



I must say that on Whip It, you could have convinced me that there was much more than 12dB separation. On most tracks, the amount of separation, real or perceived, could have definitely been explained as a mixing preference. (I'm one of those radicals who believes that some small degree of ambient cross-talk into the other channels adds a nice sense of space.)
Yep, it really is surprising. We set up a cross talk jig a few years back so we could dial in the separation and tried it on a panel of test monkeys. And we asked the question of when they could hear a loss of separation or crosstalk. The magic number was 12 db much to my surprise. It is interesting harking back to many well regarded phono cartridges that "only" had 12 db separation such as the Empire, yet it sounded great.

Having said that for 90% of the time Intelligent encode provides the full 25 to 40 db separation, just occasionally it drops the separation down in moments you cannot perceive. It really is sneaky.
 
The vocals on many of the tracks from the show, sounded much more intense than the normal stereo mix

I know what you mean. For example, Touch of Grey and Jump have vocals that sound too loud. This is a very easy fix with the Surround Master v2. Simply set the unit to Involve 5(.1) and lower the center channel volume until you get the results you prefer. You might want to do this with the processor's remote rather than the SMv2...unless you want all the exercise of going back and forth to the SM. If you have the SMv2 set to quad you won't be able to accomplish this adjustment...You must have it set to 5(.1).

You see @chucky3042 , that accursed center channel on the SMv2 does indeed come in handy. Don't ever get rid of it.
 
I'm thinking the vocals are loud because they exist in the front channels and are isolated in the center channel - so when encoded - the volume is increased
 
I know what you mean. For example, Touch of Grey and Jump have vocals that sound too loud. This is a very easy fix with the Surround Master v2. Simply set the unit to Involve 5(.1) and lower the center channel volume until you get the results you prefer. You might want to do this with the processor's remote rather than the SMv2...unless you want all the exercise of going back and forth to the SM. If you have the SMv2 set to quad you won't be able to accomplish this adjustment...You must have it set to 5(.1).

You see @chucky3042 , that accursed center channel on the SMv2 does indeed come in handy. Don't ever get rid of it.
You will burn in hell for that remark. There is still time to repent from your sins!
 
well well - looks like the station changed the schedule - today - naturally - so there is no rebroadcast set for today's show. because of the mix up - I'm posting the the show (not for streaming, but dl only, and only for two days - there is probably a rights issue, but they told me it was okay to do this, just this once, since they never told me about the change. - so for the next 48 hours

hour 1 (mp3) with all the encoded tracks in 16x44 wav format will be here:
https://volafile.org/r/gu3burp8
hour 2 (mp3) with all the encoded tracks in 16x44 wav format will be here:
https://volafile.org/r/d5kvk3jm
hour 3 (mp3) with all the encoded tracks in 16x44 wav format will be here:
https://volafile.org/r/f9gft6rw
they are uploading now - should be ready for pick up by 11pm NYC time

again sorry -
thanks for this Bill. just played the files through the SM v 2. All I can say is 'superb'!!!! :51QQ
 
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