https://spectrum.ieee.org/two-speakers-are-better-than-51
Some older info (as usual, I found this looking for something else).
Kirk Bayne
Some older info (as usual, I found this looking for something else).
Kirk Bayne
2 Speakers are better than 5.1?
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And of course we went in the other direction with Atmos with speakers either all over the place or entirely virtual.
Which is why I prefer quad 
Settled for Aqualung in maximum quad 4.1.Which is why I prefer quad
Mr. Afternoon
Mixing Engineer & Artist
Anybody who has the space in their room and places their rears at 90 degrees needs a little correction for their behavior!
To me, the ideal 5.1 placement is quad angles + center. Basically a box with an extra speaker up front. Not any of the circular ITU garbage. But alas, ITU is what works best in a lot of rooms, including mine! I do make sure to keep my rears at 110.
I think this article is actually talking about cogging? I haven't noticed any cogging in my system really, so maybe whoever wrote the article has a skill issue on calibration?
To me, the ideal 5.1 placement is quad angles + center. Basically a box with an extra speaker up front. Not any of the circular ITU garbage. But alas, ITU is what works best in a lot of rooms, including mine! I do make sure to keep my rears at 110.
I think this article is actually talking about cogging? I haven't noticed any cogging in my system really, so maybe whoever wrote the article has a skill issue on calibration?
MidiMagic
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The author thinks stereo was around in the 1920s and 1930s????
Stereo appeared for Fantasia in 1941, and then first for consumers in 1952.
Before then, everything was mono.
jimfisheye
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Skill and calibration issue and they have the surround vs stereo thing literally backwards. We have an ambiguous area to the sides in our frequency and delay perception for spacial awareness for perceiving front vs back. You have to turn your head to the sides slightly here and there to resolve it. (That's what some people call "cogging". When your perception was backwards in the moment and then finally locks in. FYI, more accomplished mixes might lock position in better with reflection work and avoid this. Or avoid masking that leads to ambiguous results.) This experience can only be achieved with an actual surround sound speaker array. Binaural is very limited! Surround sound is all about an experience where there's more than you can easily take in at any given moment!
Not for nothing and the binaural fold downs for Atmos encoded surround mixes will lead to stereo listeners hearing more of the surround mix than they would have before. (Unless someone makes a dedicated stereo mix with including surround elements in binaural. Could be an identical experience in theory. In the past, dedicated stereo mixes worked out better in stereo even though they paled vs the surround experience. We'll see if Atmos binaural changes this.)
The head tracking stuff and real time altering of the audio on the fly in closed loop with that is all about addressing this. This goes from zero to 100 real quick with fidelity nose diving if the altering isn't just absolutely perfect and with no perceivable latency. Meanwhile we see kids with these bluetooth headphones that give audio a gurgling sound that has to be heard to be believed. So, not quite there yet!
Everyone here has their system set up well enough to hear a phantom center image, right? You experience being absolutely certain you're hearing the center speaker unless you get up and walk up to it. Feels a little uncanny even. Get a little sloppy on aiming your speakers (all axis) and that collapses. Kind of sounds like the author has never been set up well enough to experience that.
This morning's coffee inspired rambling on this FWIW!
(Probably got some bit wrong in there too.)
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Nothing wrong with placing the rears at 90°, that way they image much like headphones. I likely wouldn't listen to straight stereo that way but quad/surround is different. Still usually the rear speakers will be a bit behind, assuming a room with a couch and speakers up near the back wall, so they would be toed in a bit. Likewise it they are placed slightly forward I would toe them out.
I still find it odd specifying speaker position by means of degrees, in the quad days it was never talked about in those terms, must be a Dolby thing.
Also this author.:
He’s just trying to sell his technology.
. He also lead the team that developed MDA (Multi-Dimensional Audio) an object based authoring and playback system for game and cinema sound that is currently in use in theaters worldwide.
https://silverwoodpartners.com/our-team/alan-douglas-kraemer/
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Actually, Walt Disney invented a form of surround sound for Fantasia. The Theaters had to be fitted with speakers all around.
In our prior house with a fairly small living room I had to put the rears in my 5.1 directly left/right of the couch. It worked fine but required me to lower the rear levels more than they would normally be. Now in the new home with a much larger living room and 'proper' rear speakers behind the couch in a box with the fronts, I get noticeably better imaging in the surround field. Because they're mounted to the walls directly without mounts, none of my speakers are angled. But the way sound travels it's not super critical IMO, as long as the reflections are kept to a minimum and/or don't affect the sound reaching our ears.Nothing wrong with placing the rears at 90°, that way they image much like headphones. I likely wouldn't listen to straight stereo that way but quad/surround is different. Still usually the rear speakers will be a bit behind, assuming a room with a couch and speakers up near the back wall, so they would be toed in a bit. Likewise it they are placed slightly forward I would toe them out.
I still find it odd specifying speaker position by means of degrees, in the quad days it was never talked about in those terms, must be a Dolby thing.
A lot of us have compromised listening environments (by the book, unless we've built a listening room and dumped thousands into it, probably all of us have compromises inherent in our setups), so the idea has always been to make what we have work the best we can within reason. Academic discussion about ideal speaker placement is for the lab. Our dog likes to play with the laser pointer and my GF do her morning stretches in our lab. lol
Fwiw, I have never found any form of 2 channel audio (stereo or spatial) superior to dedicated multichannel 4+ surround mixes played through proper speaker setups. I have heard stereo mixes that are better sounding than the same material as a surround mix, but that's not because 2 channels are better than 4+. It's because the surround mix sucked.
When the rear speakers are placed to the sides they should be pulled farther apart than the front speakers. This diagram from the Lafayette SQ-W manual illustrates the set up perfectly. It is the setup that I came to favour on my own only seeing this diagram in recent years. Almost at 90° but toed in a bit, and no mention of degree spacing just suggestions for distance which is just about right for most Living Rooms!
Although the setup is optimal for a listener sitting in the middle of the couch it still provides decent surround to those seated in other positions. Many times better than normal stereo!
Although the setup is optimal for a listener sitting in the middle of the couch it still provides decent surround to those seated in other positions. Many times better than normal stereo!
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Stereo was invented by Alan Blumlein whilst working for EMI. He made the first stereo disc and demonstration film in 1931 (which you can see on the EMI Archive website).
I love all the surround forms.Which is why I prefer quad
What's best depends on the mastering for me.
In the example of PF-DSOTM they are all so very different I listen to
4.0, 5.1, and Atmos at different times depending on my mood.
Cogging is most prevalent when the front and rear speakers are not closely matched.
If they are identical and setup is correct, it's mostly non-existent IME
That's very close to the way my rears as set, only that they are a couple feet behind the listening chair, no couch here. I don't have a lot of choice in my room but played with their positioning and found having them pointed at the MLP the best.
jimfisheye
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I was thinking about that recently. Would make a great candidate for an Atmos remix! I don't know what remains or what might be possible. I suspect the original was more about the ability to balance the mix for the front 3 channels in different theaters than a "surround" surround mix. But I think their early formats were technically 5.1, 7.1, and then 7.1.1.
jimfisheye
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The thing to realize is the use of phantom imaging in mixes. Just like the phantom center often mentioned. This extends to the whole array. That leads to requiring proper speaker array setup to hear a mix made for that as intended. Sure, we try to keep some old school mix tricks to help things translate to less than ideal systems. (Kick drum mono to front L/R to couple the speakers, for a classic example. As opposed to something like "imaging the kick drum 2.5' from the bla bla bla...")
If you don't set up the array as intended the mix gets altered. That's why people will chime in and say "Hey, that doesn't work!"
If you don't set up the array as intended the mix gets altered. That's why people will chime in and say "Hey, that doesn't work!"
"Fantasound" system to represent the "Flight of the Bumblebee" around the theater room.
Sonic holography is next-generation stereo, plain and simple.
It is hard to set up, but once working correctly it presents a stereo image that stretches beyond the speakers, placing each instrument in the front hemisphere array where it was placed in the mix. It really works and makes stereo into almost-surround. For example, a guitar placed in the far left in the mix would be at about 10 o'clock for the listener, and, if mixed louder, closer to the listener, too.
The photo I have attached is really how the system sounds, with each "x" denoting an instrument location. You can turn your head to "look" at an instrument, and it stays in its location in space. I have an ATMOS set up, but I often like the HD stereo version of the material better in sonic holography.
To gain a feel for what it would sound like, sit in your listening chair and listen to something with headphones. Close your eyes and note the location of each instrument. Then, imagine what it would be like if the instrument was in the same location in space, but coming from the speakers. It's that simple.
Cons: it can take weeks to get the speakers positioned correctly based on room design, and you have to be in a fixed listening position.
Pros: it will reveal your entire stereo collection in a new and exciting way, and costs nothing: a C-9 stand-alone sonic hologram generator goes for less than $200 on eBay.
And Bob Carver is releasing a new, upgraded stand-alone sonic hologram generator in the next couple of months.
It is hard to set up, but once working correctly it presents a stereo image that stretches beyond the speakers, placing each instrument in the front hemisphere array where it was placed in the mix. It really works and makes stereo into almost-surround. For example, a guitar placed in the far left in the mix would be at about 10 o'clock for the listener, and, if mixed louder, closer to the listener, too.
The photo I have attached is really how the system sounds, with each "x" denoting an instrument location. You can turn your head to "look" at an instrument, and it stays in its location in space. I have an ATMOS set up, but I often like the HD stereo version of the material better in sonic holography.
To gain a feel for what it would sound like, sit in your listening chair and listen to something with headphones. Close your eyes and note the location of each instrument. Then, imagine what it would be like if the instrument was in the same location in space, but coming from the speakers. It's that simple.
Cons: it can take weeks to get the speakers positioned correctly based on room design, and you have to be in a fixed listening position.
Pros: it will reveal your entire stereo collection in a new and exciting way, and costs nothing: a C-9 stand-alone sonic hologram generator goes for less than $200 on eBay.
And Bob Carver is releasing a new, upgraded stand-alone sonic hologram generator in the next couple of months.
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