Snake Oil and Disappearing Speakers

[sKiZo]

Holographic, anyone?

Been experimenting with the system a bit. Just picked up a Carver C9 Sonic Holographic Generator off EBay for $40. Figured for the price, it'd make a pretty good doorstop if nothing else, and I had an open loop on my DBX switchbox just going to waste anyway. Found a copy of the manual, actually read it (No, really!) and did the speaker setup they REQUIRE (front speakers approx 5 feet apart, toed in to face the listening position (1-4 feet from the rear wall), in from the side and front walls at least 3 feet, midrange drivers at ear level ... not too picky, are they?

Fired everything up, stuck The Doors into the Oppo (read somewhere that was a good one to test with), fully prepared to be blown away after all that grunt setup, and ...

<fizzle>

Egads ... all that for nothing?

Skootched up a bit in the chair, slouched some, moved my noggin from side to side a bit, tweaked the balance a bit to the right, and ...

Egads! I'm Holographed!! Stunned even!

Found a magic point in the soundfield where it just ... bloomed, for lack of a better word. The room got bigger, the instruments and vocals popped, the speakers disappeared, and the blending was lightyears beyond what I'd heard before out of the disk.

Spent the next couple hours experimenting around and found that some material just smoked with the hologram on, some didn't even notice, and some just plain objected. There's only three buttons on the C9 - Injection Ratio (normal/theoretical), Aperture (wide/narrow), and Hologram (on/off), so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work thru the options. Best so far is Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms) and pretty much anything by Tomita running thru SQ . PT's Lightbulb Sun just got weird .

Best $40 I've wasted this week. I plan to have all kinds of fun running my collection thru the C9 to see what comes out. Should keep the walls from closing in come winter.

 

[Doug G.]

Try "Whole Lotta Love" by Zep.

Doug

 

[sKiZo]

Thanx for the tip.

<dig dig dig>

I just got done playing some Genesis from the Lamb. Now I know what that fly on the windshield must have felt like ...

The C9 seems to tighten up the bass some too. Then again, that could have a lot to do with speaker placement. Only real complaint so far is some material tends to get a bit shrill - and I just noticed the 6001 doesn't have any tone filters onnit. You kinda take those things for granted when you never use them I suppose. More incentive to get kicking on the 9001 fix. Lucky me, I got a multi-program equalizer that had an open memory button so I could store a new curve.

* Just thought of another experiment to while away the time. Right now I'm running the effect thru all four speakers (not much of a choice - no preout, so all the outboard processors run out of a tape loop and end up being processed by the QRX thru all four channels). I did notice that switching down to stereo front only is a whole nuther beast with the hologram engaged. I <could> series the C9 in using the 4 channel aux or tape, but then the effect would only be available using the reel to reel or SACD (and not both), so I'll have to devote some head scratching to that. I DO have an 8080DB stereo receiver and an 800A rear quad amp ( I do love my Sansui) that I can blow the dust off and plug in. That way I can run the C9 off just the fronts and see how it mixes with the quad rears. Or plug it into the rears and see how it mixes with the front? OK - on the left now. And now for the right ...

I swear this $40 investment is gonna put me in the hospital with a ruptured disk or something. This stuff ain't as light as it used to be, eh.

<edit>

dOH!

Just realized ... I'm running my front channels off an outboard amp using "Y" cables. I can plug the C9 in there to limit the effect and save my back some. I should probably wait till tomorrow - it's past 3AM, and I noticed the neighbors can be a bit pissy when I throw 200 watt RMS per channel at em this time of the morning ...

</edit>

 

[jdmack]

Interesting. Reminds me of the Polk SDA speakers. If you sat in the sweet spot, sounds seemed to come from far to the left and right of the speakers, and every sound seemed to come from a specific point in space depending on how it was panned.

J. D.

 

[DennisMabry]

Another suggestion is Jethro Tull - Aqualung. If you are sitting in the sweet spot, it is hard to believe the sound is coming from only two speakers. The effect is actually better on the rest of the album than the title track itself.

I agree with your summation of Sonic Holography, some titles really shine, some are indifferent and others can have strange results. All in all it expands the sound field and provides astonishing imaging, more times than not.

I can use mine in 5.1 modes, however the effect is more subtle. Again, it depends on the source. It is definitely a user discriminating feature.

 

[Doug G.]

The Carver hologram devices (the C9 being the stand alone one) and the Polk SDA speakers do exactly the same thing except that the Carver units do it in the electronical chain and the Polk speakers do it right there at the speakers.

What they both do is eliminate signals from either the left or right speakers that shouldn't reach the opposite ear. It kinda turns a regular stereo into a binaural experience.

And they are meant to be used with just two channels because the timing of the cancellation signals is critical to the effect. Add more speakers and the signals become smeared and the effect is lost.

It is definetely based on real science, though, and is not snake oil :^)

I have had a C9 since about 1985 and used it for years but it is currently in storage since I got back into quadraphonics. Generally, I loved the effect and the only deficiency I ever noticed was that, sometimes, a vocal located in the center but maybe not exactly in the center would sound like it was buried in the mix if you weren't in the exact sweet spot.

But in "Whole Lotta Love", the guitar sweep from left to right during the "whole lotta love..." refrain goes from way beyond the left speaker to way beyond the right speaker and the middle sequence of "noises" is just really wild!

EDIT: Tomita stuff is really good through it too.

Doug

 

[tejanoboy]

I just found a C-9 at a flea market for $5, figured if nothing else, I'd use it to get the sound out of mid-skull with headphones.
It does a decent job at that, so next I put it between the mixer and the aux input on the QRX-5001.
I figured the cross-cancellation going on in the C-9 would move things around as pitch changed (it's based on a constant delay, so phase depends on pitch), but I was totally surprised at what DID happen...the whole room got bigger, a LOT bigger!
I don't have the room or inclination to set up the front speakers to the satisfaction of Mr. Carver, but this works with the speakers in the traditional "one in each corner" quad set-up. Source was regular stereo CDs, rock, classical, and pop, with decoder in normal "QS" mode.
Effect was there no matter what, albeit more or less impressive. Tried it laying down, with a storm recording done in Pro Logic II, and it REALLY got good! I was about 2 feet below the line of front mid-range drivers, with the rears sitting slightly higher, about 1/3 from the back, and reduced rear volume accordingly. The "sweet spot" is not super critical, and there seems to be a "dome" of sound over me, with well-defined source points on some sounds. OK, this is NOT what the C-9 is intended for, and it may only work in a strange room layout such as mine, but anybody with a C-9 laying around should give this a try...best $5 I ever spent on a "gadget"!

 

[Tyler]

Is too technical @:

 

[jefe1]

I have a Carver system with built in sonic holography and it works well with two speakers. It does expand the soundstage. I always leave it on. Their cd player came with a DTL switch, a digital time lens which seems to warm up the sound so I always leave it on too. Now that a protection default switch keeps shutting off the system (I've had it since the 90s) I need to get it fixed, best stereo sound I've ever had.