Why Saint-Saëns 3rd Symphony from Ondine SACD in only 5.0?

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jeffty

Active Member
Joined
May 27, 2005
Messages
61
Location
Austin TX
If this was covered elsewhere I apologize but my searches turned up bupkis. Why, oh why would anyone (in this case Onodine) produce an SACD of Saint-Saëns 3rd Symphony featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and a brand new whiz-bang organ that obviously is meant to feature the range and bombast of that organ and that great symphony, without an active LFE channel!? SACD 5.0 and SACD Stereo only. What were they thinking?

Seriously, does anyone here know why they would do this? I am referring specifically to the Onodine ONO 1094-5 SACD featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Christopher Eschenbach with Olivier Latry on the organ with additional pieces by Sam Barber and Francis Poulene. Enlightenment anyone?

Organ.jpg
 
An LFE track just isn't needed in music. LFE stands for Low Frequency Effects , which is meant for movies. Well I guess it could come in handy when it's time for the canons in the 1812 Overture, but otherwise any bass produced by a musical instrument will just be routed to the subwoofer in accordance with the crossover and speaker setup in your processor.

I've heard it said that the vast majority of surround music, especially classical, only contains 5 channels of music material even though there are 6 or 8 channels defined in the format specifications. I think this is normal.
 
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If this was covered elsewhere I apologize but my searches turned up bupkis. Why, oh why would anyone (in this case Onodine) produce an SACD of Saint-Saëns 3rd Symphony featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and a brand new whiz-bang organ that obviously is meant to feature the range and bombast of that organ and that great symphony, without an active LFE channel!? SACD 5.0 and SACD Stereo only. What were they thinking?

Seriously, does anyone here know why they would do this? I am referring specifically to the Onodine ONO 1094-5 SACD featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Christopher Eschenbach with Olivier Latry on the organ with additional pieces by Sam Barber and Francis Poulene. Enlightenment anyone?

View attachment 37115

A slew of modern classical recordings eschew the .1 LFE channel. Whether they 'assume' most classical listeners have 5.0 FULL RANGE speakers is anyone's guess.
 
An LFE track just isn't needed in music. LFE stands for Low Frequency Effects , which is meant for movies.

Well...since my system crosses over to the subwoofer at 80 hz I certainly appreciate its support with the additional 50 hz (give or take) of audible musical information that lies below that threshold. That being said, it seems that I rushed to judgement somewhat - the packaging says 5.0 but as soon as I started playing it my receiver indicated all six speakers active, as did the automatic 'power-on' lights on my subwoofer.

I appreciate all your input, sorry I jumped the gun. As you were...
 
As others said, the .1 channel isn't necessary for classical and not using it frees up space - a stereo+5.1 SACD actually has less playing time than a CD, as Deutsche Grammophon discovered with a number of their early releases. Now, the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony certainly goes down to subwoofer depths, but the assumption is that (1) you have full range speakers or (2) you have your crossover set for your subwoofer.
 
A slew of modern classical recordings eschew the .1 LFE channel. Whether they 'assume' most classical listeners have 5.0 FULL RANGE speakers is anyone's guess.
Now, the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony certainly goes down to subwoofer depths, but the assumption is that (1) you have full range speakers or (2) you have your crossover set for your subwoofer.
Exactly, there is no reason for an LFE channel in a music recording. If your main speakers are suitable and can reproduce low bass with power, you don't need it.

If your speakers cannot handle low bass, you need to implement bass management anyway (and route the lowest tones to the subwoofer). In addition, bass management implemented to suit your particular room and system is much more effective than a one-size-fits-all LFE implementation.

For movies/HT, YMMV.
 
[QUOTE="Kal Rubinson, post: 404053,Exactly, there is no reason for an LFE channel in a music recording. If your main speakers are suitable and can reproduce low bass with power, you don't need it.

If your speakers cannot handle low bass, you need to implement bass management anyway (and route the lowest tones to the subwoofer). In addition, bass management implemented to suit your particular room and system is much more effective than a one-size-fits-all LFE implementation.
---
Perhaps I've made a mistake in nomenclature? I've always equated the LFE channel with the ".1" of the subwoofer channel. Some of us who can only afford consumer-grade HT equipment realize that our main L-R speakers may be pretty decent but they can always use some support down at the lowest part of the frequency range. As a working musician, recordist and occasional sound designer for the last 45 years I have a hard time agreeing with the statement that there is "no reason for an LFE channel in music recording". Every tutorial I've taken in surround sound music production has told me otherwise, as have many of my SACD, DVD-A and Blu-ray audio discs which use all six speakers in their mix. In fact I think I've encountered more discs that eschew the center channel speaker than avoid the subwoofer channel (Alan Parsons anyone?).

Perhaps If I had the means to own a better system this issue might be a different discussion, or none at all. And although I fully enjoy the music from many genres and composers thru the centuries, I am a classic rock & pop guy at heart and that bass extension I get from my sub (no boombox sounds here, just low-end reinforcement) is most gratifying.

I enjoy the discourse, I respect all of you who fight the good fight to retain and increase the fidelity in our listening experiences despite the recent consumer swing to convenience over quality. Convenience has it's place but when I sit myself down in the sweet spot I want the finest experience I can afford. Then again, don't we all?

BTW the disc that started this conversation sounds quite nice in many aspects however I still prefer the old CBS recording with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra with E. Power Biggs in the power seat. Magnificent!

Jeffrey Glenn Tveraas
Cheshire Moon Studio - Austin TX
www.jeffreytveraas.com
 
Perhaps I've made a mistake in nomenclature? I've always equated the LFE channel with the ".1" of the subwoofer channel.
That is common. They share the subwoofer as their usual output but the signals are different. LFE is determined in the studio or mastering. Subwoofer output from bass management is determined by the end-user's system and is specific to it. (N.B.: With some setups, one routes the LFE to the main speakers.)
Some of us who can only afford consumer-grade HT equipment realize that our main L-R speakers may be pretty decent but they can always use some support down at the lowest part of the frequency range. As a working musician, recordist and occasional sound designer for the last 45 years I have a hard time agreeing with the statement that there is "no reason for an LFE channel in music recording". Every tutorial I've taken in surround sound music production has told me otherwise, as have many of my SACD, DVD-A and Blu-ray audio discs which use all six speakers in their mix.
There's nothing wrong with taking steps to assist a speaker system that lacks bass/power response in the main channels but it is almost always accomplished simply with bass management. I regard the use of an LFE as an unnecessarily paternalistic device. How can the mastering engineer know anything about any particular end-user's system? If there is an LFE signal, that is OK with me because my system can deal with it but I would rather not.
In fact I think I've encountered more discs that eschew the center channel speaker than avoid the subwoofer channel (Alan Parsons anyone?).
I do not know what goes into such a decision but I am going to assume it is an aesthetic one and leave it there. The LFE issue is a technical matter. Is there any downside to eliminating it?
Perhaps If I had the means to own a better system this issue might be a different discussion, or none at all. And although I fully enjoy the music from many genres and composers thru the centuries, I am a classic rock & pop guy at heart and that bass extension I get from my sub (no boombox sounds here, just low-end reinforcement) is most gratifying.
Here you are confusing LFE with bass management. Any boom-box or HT-in-a-box has bass management built in to protect the usually puny main speakers and take advantage of the subwoofer (or woofer) for bass. Eliminating the LFE signal does not change the effectiveness of the bass management.
 
I have a modern Lynn classical recording that is 4.0 and it sounds fine to me. I would surmise that Lynn believes that it is sufficient to make a large orchestral/choral recording in 4.0 without trying to incorporate a center and LFE channel. To cloud things up further, I question the use of a center channel in orchestral recordings given that most center channel speakers are some sort of compromise compared to the fronts. If I had my druthers, I'd have five identical speakers all around...well, at least the front three...but it's just not practical as long as there is a TV in the equation. (I do like solo vocals in the center however because you can mess with the volume when necessary. The Doors Perception set comes to mind.)
 
As far as I'm concerned (from a classical music perspective) less is more. The best imaging I've ever achieved comes from just four speakers (each incidentally with the minimum number of drive units / crossovers). If you are lucky enough to be able to use transmission line speakers bass response is not an issue. Centre channel and LFE channels may or may not be of some value for home cinema / gaming effects but I've never been convinced they convey any increase in musical fidelity (quite the reverse in my experience). Mind you I also use valve amplification exclusively so you may think me rather old school!
 
I run a 4.0 speaker setup myself using two pairs of Kralk Audio BC-30 speakers (they're the same size as Linn Kans and sonically not too dissimilar: bass-lite but big on the fast, fun boogie factor) and although I need to keep bass in check due to my having neighbours on three sides of my living room, speaker placement and room layout can go a long way to increasing or decreasing the feel of lower frequencies. In my case, the speakers need to be tight against the wall to make the most of bass reinforcement whereas when I had ATC speakers, I needed to place them away from the wall to avoid bass boom. It might well be that using centre and LFE channels allows upstream tweaking of what comes out of the speakers, but it's certainly not a requirement in order to enjoy multichannel music (and film) for the aforementioned reasons i.e. speaker placement and room layout.
 
I have a modern Lynn classical recording that is 4.0 and it sounds fine to me. I would surmise that Lynn believes that it is sufficient to make a large orchestral/choral recording in 4.0 without trying to incorporate a center and LFE channel.
It is not a Linn policy. I just did a quick scan of about 15 Linn mch SACDs and found that they are all over the map from 4.0 to 4.1 to 5.0 to 5.1 but the majority were 5.1. This is not a statistical sample but it seems that the format is a function of the particular recording team on a particular project. FWIW, the 4.0s were among the older ones (but good ones).
I question the use of a center channel in orchestral recordings given that most center channel speakers are some sort of compromise compared to the fronts. If I had my druthers, I'd have five identical speakers all around...well, at least the front three...but it's just not practical as long as there is a TV in the equation.
My condolences. My TV (in the one system with one) is mounted just above the floor-standing center.
It might well be that using centre and LFE channels allows upstream tweaking of what comes out of the speakers, but it's certainly not a requirement in order to enjoy multichannel music (and film) for the aforementioned reasons i.e. speaker placement and room layout.
Certainly. OTOH, since you can be happy with 5.1 mixed down to 4.0, why would anyone advocate for doing that pre-emptively and compromising the performance of more capable systems?
 
Is an LFE even needed for movies? Wouldn't bass management work just as well for movies as for music? If a system needs a sub or two, crossovers are going to kick in the subs. So I question the .1 channel at all, but I'm open to opinions or explanations as to why it's ever needed. LFE for music is often derived, via filtering, from the other channels anyway. It's not like it's unique information or music.
A center channel, on the other hand is useful, if matched with the fronts, because it reduces use of the fronts, allowing them to do less and do it better.
 
Is an LFE even needed for movies? Wouldn't bass management work just as well for movies as for music? If a system needs a sub or two, crossovers are going to kick in the subs. So I question the .1 channel at all, but I'm open to opinions or explanations as to why it's ever needed. LFE for music is often derived, via filtering, from the other channels anyway. It's not like it's unique information or music.
A center channel, on the other hand is useful, if matched with the fronts, because it reduces use of the fronts, allowing them to do less and do it better.

I guess the thing that springs to mind about the last part there is that the phantom centre of a stereo system sounds just fine as is, as long as the speaker placement is suitable, of course, so I couldn't say for sure myself that the addition of a centre channel means that the resulting soundstage will be better because the left and right speakers are doing less. I'll admit, I don't use a centre channel myself so you might be right.
 
The entirety of a stereo image is a phantom and I know of no mechanism by which the left and right channels of themselves can become higher quality by diverting their common mono component to a third channel. Once you start trying to reinforce bits of it with additional speakers you start to distort it (which may be your aim of course). The use of a centre channel generally only serves to “pinch in” the image in my experience. I understand that in some home cinema applications the ability to artificially anchor speech to the centre of the screen is seen as desirable (although I personally find it actually distracting). But, at least in classical music reproduction (which is all I know about in all honesty) it has no role. In fact in opera and choral works the last thing you want to do is tie vocals to the centre of the image (in fact sometimes they have to move about!).
 
I guess the thing that springs to mind about the last part there is that the phantom centre of a stereo system sounds just fine as is, as long as the speaker placement is suitable, of course, so I couldn't say for sure myself that the addition of a centre channel means that the resulting soundstage will be better because the left and right speakers are doing less. I'll admit, I don't use a centre channel myself so you might be right.
The entirety of a stereo image is a phantom and I know of no mechanism by which the left and right channels of themselves can become higher quality by diverting their common mono component to a third channel. Once you start trying to reinforce bits of it with additional speakers you start to distort it (which may be your aim of course).
The center channel is not something created in the studio by the diversion of information from the L/R channels but the output of a direct mic feed, so it is contributing additional and unique information.

The use of a centre channel generally only serves to “pinch in” the image in my experience. I understand that in some home cinema applications the ability to artificially anchor speech to the centre of the screen is seen as desirable (although I personally find it actually distracting). But, at least in classical music reproduction (which is all I know about in all honesty) it has no role. In fact in opera and choral works the last thing you want to do is tie vocals to the centre of the image (in fact sometimes they have to move about!).
First off, have you ever compared the RCA Living Stereo or Mercury Living Presence 2-channel releases with their 3-channel versions? The improvement across the entire soundstage is readily apparent. In fact, mixing that center channel information into the L/R for the stereo releases does "pinch in" the image (and for good acoustical reasons). Those are many of the recording which have been hailed as representing the Golden Age of stereo and, yet, their (original) three channel releases are obviously superior. (The Heifetz recordings may be the exceptions to that because he hogs the center with his outsized prominence.)

Second, clumping the singers into the center channel in opera/choral recordings is a huge mistake and, afaik, not done in any decent recording that I know of.

Too many people have been brain-washed into thinking that stereo is the pinnacle of natural reproduction. Frankly, in classical music reproduction (which is all I know about in all honesty), the center channel is essential.
 
If this was covered elsewhere I apologize but my searches turned up bupkis. Why, oh why would anyone (in this case Onodine) produce an SACD of Saint-Saëns 3rd Symphony featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and a brand new whiz-bang organ that obviously is meant to feature the range and bombast of that organ and that great symphony, without an active LFE channel!? SACD 5.0 and SACD Stereo only. What were they thinking?

Seriously, does anyone here know why they would do this? I am referring specifically to the Onodine ONO 1094-5 SACD featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Christopher Eschenbach with Olivier Latry on the organ with additional pieces by Sam Barber and Francis Poulene. Enlightenment anyone?

View attachment 37115

Boring question. I love organ music. Should I buy this? :p
 
Seriously, does anyone here know why they would do this? I am referring specifically to the Onodine ONO 1094-5 SACD featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Christopher Eschenbach with Olivier Latry on the organ with additional pieces by Sam Barber and Francis Poulene. Enlightenment anyone?
Boring question. I love organ music. Should I buy this? :p
Yes and no. The recording is, imho, outstandingly good and the low end extension and resolution superb, the lack of an LFE notwithstanding. OTOH, it is a lovely but not particularly exciting performance. For the sound, yes. For the performance, I'll stick with Paray, Munch and, surprise, the new Stern/KCSO on RR.
 
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