Thoughts on ideal speakers for quadraphonic

[himey]

As anyone who knows me will know that I am very biased and I declare my interest that we do manufacture electrostatic speakers.

Having said that my answer is as follows

1 Scrap the external subwoofer idea if you can, it really was only put out in the first place to sell little Bose like cubes where you could lift the bottom crossover frequency on the lie that you cannot directionalise base.

I posted that same sentiment in one of the "audiophile" Reddit threads and had ten downvotes and was called multiple names like old and can no longer hear within minutes.

Needless to say, I no longer go on Reddit for music interests, only for the crazy videos once in a while!

 

[jimfisheye]

I would go with quality first rather than matching. If the option is four lesser speakers that match or "better" unmatched speakers, I would choose the better ones, unless you will be listening in an enclosed cube with a symmetrical furniture layout.

Agreed.
To try restating that from a different direction: The better speakers will allow you to calibrate the speaker array more accurately than the matched lesser speakers could achieve.

 

[Soundfield]

I also have an ultra rare item. I guess,- probably less than half a dozen in the world.
The genuine BBC UHJ matrix decoder from 1977, which I constructed myself from the wireless world plans and PC boards from that period.

Probably not that rare if you mean the old Integrex NRDC thing - Sonik Wiz certainly still has one in his cupboard if you look closely!-
SonikWiz's cupboard of stuff
I also made one from the kit, but was very underwhelmed by its performance-Integrex Decoder

 

[himey]

Agreed.
To try restating that from a different direction: The better speakers will allow you to calibrate the speaker array more accurately than the matched lesser speakers could achieve.

My thought too is, buying four matching speakers nearly excludes buying used. You would have to be one lucky person to find four matching speakers used.

However, getting two speakers at a great price used, is the norm in most areas. Old large full range speakers that in my opinion are the best for a quad setup, are pennies on the dollar compared to buying new full range monitors. Of course if you don't put value into the equation, and have an unlimited budget, four matching new speakers would be the way to go. Matching the type of tweeters to all four speakers can be done buying used with a little effort and that can improve the overall experience. Buying 4 speakers with soft domes for example.

 

[multi_est]

2 Always use concentric dipole speakers. This is a problem as 99.9% of speakers on the market are nonconcentric monopoles (done a lot of testing on this and its dramatic!). Oh bias alert - electrostatics are concentric dipoles naturally!

3 use highly directional speakers (yes electrostatics are perfect) and sit in the 3 cm of joy sweet spot.

5 You can break some of the above guidelines if you use our Involve SST (Sweet Spot Technology)

2/ total waste of time.
I hate very small listening areas, makes a total nonsense of the whole concept of surround.

3/ IDEM, hate highly directional speakers, this is the equivalent of cardioid microphones in the reverse.

Any decent sound engineer will tell you cardios have their place, for location cues where they are ultra precise but proper engineers use omnis for very obvious reasons, as the good old neumann KM83-84 for series are almost impossible to find. (Idem Calrec).

ESL are very very far from perfect and have additional aggravation of presenting a near short circuit to the amp as soon as you start approaching 15khz.
They are NO GOOD at all for bass response and can't be controlled with pure current drive.

The resolution questions of ESL are the only place they beat every other design, but most people are unable to make the difference between 16bit and 24bit resolution anyhow.

Sorry I disagree with so much of what you say, and software in my mind makes nothing better (DSP speakers included, no matter how much people claim "perfection")

 

[multi_est]

My thought too is, buying four matching speakers

pointless.
The rear channels have so little input anyway, you wouldn't notice.

Fact is, front channel information is ENHANCED by the rear.
Go to a live concert in a church, this is how it is.
Turn your back to the main source and all you will get is confusion.

Therefore by the sheer force of logic it's pointless buying rear channel speakers the same as the front.
There is not even remotely close to the same content and frequency response/power/SPL demands.

I record live music with exactly this optic in mind.
TBQH, I use totally different microphones for the rear mix compared with the much larger and more complex front channel setup.

 

[himey]

2/ total waste of time.
I hate very small listening areas, makes a total nonsense of the whole concept of surround.

3/ IDEM, hate highly directional speakers, this is the equivalent of cardioid microphones in the reverse.

Any decent sound engineer will tell you cardios have their place, for location cues where they are ultra precise but proper engineers use omnis for very obvious reasons, as the good old neumann KM83-84 for series are almost impossible to find. (Idem Calrec).

ESL are very very far from perfect and have additional aggravation of presenting a near short circuit to the amp as soon as you start approaching 15khz.
They are NO GOOD at all for bass response and can't be controlled with pure current drive.

The resolution questions of ESL are the only place they beat every other design, but most people are unable to make the difference between 16bit and 24bit resolution anyhow.

Sorry I disagree with so much of what you say, and software in my mind makes nothing better (DSP speakers included, no matter how much people claim "perfection")

I have to agree on all three.

I own some Polk Audio SDA speakers which are the opposite of "directional", and sound wonderful as rears in a quad setup. I switch between them and standard three way's.

 

[Soundfield]

pointless.
The rear channels have so little input anyway, you wouldn't notice.
Fact is, front channel information is ENHANCED by the rear.
Go to a live concert in a church, this is how it is.
Turn your back to the main source and all you will get is confusion.

Yes that's largely true for classical music, but of course one or two of the members here are quite interested in pop music and seem to enjoy the positioning of instruments all around the listener and so their requirements are somewhat different.

 

[himey]

pointless.
The rear channels have so little input anyway, you wouldn't notice.

Fact is, front channel information is ENHANCED by the rear.
Go to a live concert in a church, this is how it is.
Turn your back to the main source and all you will get is confusion.

Therefore by the sheer force of logic it's pointless buying rear channel speakers the same as the front.
There is not even remotely close to the same content and frequency response/power/SPL demands.

I record live music with exactly this optic in mind.
TBQH, I use totally different microphones for the rear mix compared with the much larger and more complex front channel setup.

I think you are confusing quad mixes to other surround techniques.

 

[multi_est]

"other surround techniques" include Michael Gerzon's highly controversial, and largely unsuccessful ambisonic stuff.

I think despite Gerzon being a genius, he simply could "no longer see the wood for the trees", stuck in his Oxford based ivory tower.

He had a go at the BBC, pretty non-stop which resulted instead of him being assimilated into the establishment, became a bit of a pariah.
Luckily with digital we don't have to use that lousy noisy calrec soundfield any more, nor any of the other various kludges that came with 70s tape etc.


I'm sad.
Technologies with so much promise, usually with the "so British" input of 'we invent but we haven't a clue about marketing", got thrown under a bus.
I don't see that continuum ending any time soon with BOJO and his hilarious 'electric planes".

Sounds like something from Lennon...."maybe I'm a dreamer", and Bojo's "new British golden age coming" soon....

 

[LuvMyQuad]

The rear channels have so little input anyway, you wouldn't notice.

Fact is, front channel information is ENHANCED by the rear.
Go to a live concert in a church, this is how it is.
Turn your back to the main source and all you will get is confusion.

Therefore by the sheer force of logic it's pointless buying rear channel speakers the same as the front.
There is not even remotely close to the same content and frequency response/power/SPL demands.

As soundfield noted, this is likely very true of most classical and/or live recordings.

But it's just plain wrong with most popular studio recordings. In the latter, individual instruments are often isolated in a single channel. It is not at all uncommon for instruments to be projected as a phantom center image between RF and RR or LF and LR, or even RR and LR. In these cases, it is not an enhancement. and the same response, power and SPL demands are very desireable.

My unscientific estimate of the makeup of this forum is something like 80% pop/rock/jazz listeners vs 20% classical listeners.

 

[multi_est]

But it's just plain wrong with most popular studio recordings. In the latter, individual instruments are often isolated in a single channel. It is not at all uncommon for instruments to be projected as a phantom center image between RF and RR or LF and LR, or even RR and LR.

Which goes to show the majority of studio stuff is utter bollocks,- always has been.

All they needed was to be given this stupid liberty to start putting instruments instead of L -R, to screw it all up further by mucking about with hopelessly bad spatial stuff (Go to IRCAM to see how it should be done...).

FYI decent sound engineers have to learn to do stereo properly, learning invariably with classic or contemporary music concerts first (which is by far and away rare enough as it is...)..
.. give them some sort of surround smorgasbord to make a mess of, you can rely on them to do it, as most of them are even incapable of making a decent stereo mix!

No wonder surround sound is considered as a total non starter except of course for films.
Surround with video works great, even badly done with amateur ham fisted stuff.

 

[himey]

Which goes to show the majority of studio stuff is utter bollocks,- always has been.

All they needed was to be given this stupid liberty to start putting instruments instead of L -R, to screw it all up further by mucking about with hopelessly bad spatial stuff (Go to IRCAM to see how it should be done...).

FYI decent sound engineers have to learn to do stereo properly, learning invariably with classic or contemporary music concerts first (which is by far and away rare enough as it is...)..
.. give them some sort of surround smorgasbord to make a mess of, you can rely on them to do it, as most of them are even incapable of making a decent stereo mix!

No wonder surround sound is considered as a total non starter except of course for films.
Surround with video works great, even badly done with amateur ham fisted stuff.

The baby and the bath water...

This is off topic. Please start another thread.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Which goes to show the majority of studio stuff is utter bollocks,- always has been.

All they needed was to be given this stupid liberty to start putting instruments instead of L -R, to screw it all up further by mucking about with hopelessly bad spatial stuff (Go to IRCAM to see how it should be done...).

FYI decent sound engineers have to learn to do stereo properly, learning invariably with classic or contemporary music concerts first (which is by far and away rare enough as it is...)..
.. give them some sort of surround smorgasbord to make a mess of, you can rely on them to do it, as most of them are even incapable of making a decent stereo mix!

No wonder surround sound is considered as a total non starter except of course for films.
Surround with video works great, even badly done with amateur ham fisted stuff.

You are definitely going to find yourself in a tiny minority in this forum. Most here crave a discrete mix like I described and shun the ambience derived mixes usually called "Big Stereo"

Take a look at the top 25 or so releases in the polls.

It's only Rock and Roll, but I like it.

 

[multi_est]

The baby and the bath water...

This is off topic. Please start another thread.

This is not the slightest bit off topic.
I actually do authoring of surround stuff, have a live surround concert of "the Gladiators" live.

It's truly wonderful, except of course you can't smell what they are smoking

Fact is, once you start doing live, you are immediately trying to "VALIDATE IT", with a surround reproduction system...EXCEPT there are none!
Hence why I made my own.

I went around several major cities in Europe and hardly a single one had a surround reproduction system that was not an utter shambles...especially in the "hi end" audiophile end of the market...

The audiophiles look down their nose at "home theatre" 5+1, the home theatre people,- used to listening to utter trash,don't know what to reply.
It's a dialogue of the deaf, apart from the great evening I spent once with Wilkes in London, where we shared some great anecdotes and as usual..."WTF are we supposed to do now"??

 

[himey]

This is not the slightest bit off topic.
I actually do authoring of surround stuff, have a live surround concert of "the Gladiators" live.

Fact is, once you start doing live, you are immediately trying to "VALIDATE IT", with a surround reproduction system...EXCEPT there are none!
Hence why I made my own.

I went around several major cities in Europe and hardly a single one had a surround reproduction system that was not an utter shambles...especially in the "hi end" audiophile end of the market...

The audiophiles look down their nose at "home theatre" 5+1, the home theatre people,- used to listening to utter trash,don't know what to reply.
It's a dialogue of the deaf, apart from the great evening I spent once with Wilkes in London, where we shared some great anecdotes and as usual..."WTF are we supposed to do now"??

Your first line of your first post is so far off the mark when discussing a quadraphonic setup that you are obviously in the wrong thread.

Here is what you said : "The rear channels have so little input..."

That may be true (probably isn't) with other surround formats but for quad, it is just silly.

 

[multi_est]

Here is what you said : "The rear channels have so little input..."

That may be true (probably isn't) with other surround formats but for quad, it is just silly.

Have you ever tried to record in surround?
Ever tried to play back what you just recorded?

I thought not..
Once you have done some of that, you can have an opinion.

I can think of 2 productions we did this way, one of which was with the choir singing in the theatre foyer.. (rear channels)... was completely ruined by the stupid audience starting to talk amongst themselves at that critical moment...

The other was Tchaikovski nutcracker where a child's chorus sings on the balcony (mixed rear and front channels to give a centre side)...with audience applause all around..

As a direct result of a patently obvious total inability to find a proper system to reproduce at least the test sequences I opted to stop all surround recording for the foreseeable future, despite the astonishing result.

I wish it were not so.
...again, why I opted to make my own system from scratch, which BTW can actually reproduce the surround stuff from Nimbus if and when I feel like it.....never mind the rock concerts I recorded in multi channel, despite the mic poisoning smoke.

Somehow this reminds me of the debates with the brilliant genius who did grateful dead's stuff... but that will truly GO OT then.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I can think of 2 productions we did this way, one of which was with the choir singing in the theatre foyer.. (rear channels)... was completely ruined by the stupid audience starting to talk amongst themselves at that critical moment...

The other was Tchaikovski nutcracker where a child's chorus sings on the balcony (mixed rear and front channels to give a centre side)...with audience applause all around..

I have many recordings of performances in which there is real program content in the surround and which are consistent with the composer's intent. Of course, there is the obvious example of Berlioz' Requiem which specifies multiple brass ensembles surrounding the audience but there's no need for a list. Let's just say that there is no disadvantage to having all the speakers equally good and there are many instances in which it is eminently desirable.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Have you ever tried to record in surround?
Ever tried to play back what you just recorded?

I thought not..
Once you have done some of that, you can have an opinion.

Wow. Are you sure you aren't looking for the Steve Hoffman forum?

 

[himey]

Have you ever tried to record in surround?
Ever tried to play back what you just recorded?

I thought not..
Once you have done some of that, you can have an opinion.

I can think of 2 productions we did this way, one of which was with the choir singing in the theatre foyer.. (rear channels)... was completely ruined by the stupid audience starting to talk amongst themselves at that critical moment...

The other was Tchaikovski nutcracker where a child's chorus sings on the balcony (mixed rear and front channels to give a centre side)...with audience applause all around..

As a direct result of a patently obvious total inability to find a proper system to reproduce at least the test sequences I opted to stop all surround recording for the foreseeable future, despite the astonishing result.

I wish it were not so.
...again, why I opted to make my own system from scratch, which BTW can actually reproduce the surround stuff from Nimbus if and when I feel like it.....never mind the rock concerts I recorded in multi channel, despite the mic poisoning smoke.

Somehow this reminds me of the debates with the brilliant genius who did grateful dead's stuff... but that will truly GO OT then.

Record in surround? Hmm. I prefer manipulation in the studio to live recordings on the fly. I never liked the bootleg cassette tapes my deadhead friends listen to but I do like the studio 5.1 mixes of American Beauty and Workingman's Dead.

I never trust someone who a) uses a put down to make a point and b) over inflates his resume to elevate an OPINION. So now you know where you stand with me.