Immersive Audio and How to Achieve It

@kota1

I watched the video.

Is the difference between us that I view immersion more in terms of the capacity of the listener while you seem to view the listener more as a passive factor, with technology facilitating immersion? Or perhaps we define immersion differently. I don’t need to have my walls "painted with sound" in order to experience what I describe as immersion. This sounds like a remedy for people’s senses having become dulled.

If one is esthetically sensitive by nature, as I am, and has experienced making music, as I have, there is no need for any "added stimulation". I’m reminded of a current local Van Gogh exhibit I read about, which incorporates blowing up and projecting his paintings onto museum walls, so people can "walk through them". As a life-long art lover and someone who's been involved in drawing, printmaking and photography, this strikes me as very odd -- that people can only perceive and appreciate art when it’s turned into an IMAX experience. 

Listener envelopment is a rigorous acoustic concept abbreviated by LV and the apparent source width abbreviated by ASW is also a rigorous acoustic concept ...

«The auditory system has mechanisms that separate the processing of late reverberation from the processing of direct sound and early reflections referred to as precedence effect. While the late reverberation contributes to the perception of listener envelopment and reverberance, the direct sound and the early reflections mostly affect source localization, intimacy and the apparent source width.^[3] The balance of early and late arriving sound affects the perceived clarity, warmth and brilliance. » Wiki

Now in a small room or in vas hall acoustic there is means and acoustic design and tools to create IMMERSIVENESS which is the result of the right balance LV/ASW ...

I created it in my small room but not with only material passive treatment but i needed active mechanical one : aqn oriented grid of tuned Hemholtzs resonators around speakers and my listening position...

It was stereo on steroid as if i had many speakers... The recording trade 0ff of each musical album was plain to hear and astoundingly different between all albums..

All recording were interesting even the bad recording because the speakers/room revealed the recording engineer choices...

I lost my acoustic room selling my house, i was sad... I discovered the only headphone i can modify for my acoustic needs and now i came back here with an headphone system... An immersive one  for an headphone without the BACCH filters or no dSP associated like the Smyth realizer... The K340 is among the few  the best designed headphones ever...

Great post...

There is some truth in the idea and experience of kota1, but stereo system with no DSP and and dsp for home theater and multichannels are TWO world,..Then there is another sort of truth in stereo system...

Accoustic for small stereo room is one thing , and home theater another one...

I watched the video.

Is the difference between us that I view immersion more in terms of the capacity of the listener while you seem to view the listener more as a passive factor, with technology facilitating immersion? Or perhaps we define immersion differently. I don’t need to have my walls "painted with sound" in order to experience what I describe as immersion. This sounds like a remedy for people’s senses having become dulled.

If one is esthetically sensitive by nature, as I am, and has experienced making music, as I have, there is no need for any "added stimulation". I’m reminded of a current local Van Gogh exhibit I read about, which incorporates blowing up and projecting his paintings onto museum walls, so people can "walk through them". As a life-long art lover and someone who’s been involved in drawing, printmaking and photography, this strikes me as very odd -- that people can only perceive and appreciate art when it’s turned into an IMAX experience.

@stuartk

Is the difference between us that I view immersion more in terms of the capacity of the listener while you seem to view the listener more as a passive factor, with technology facilitating immersion?

Yes, I am focused on the tech side in this thread, buying a single pair of speakers for $$$$ is the costliest, least effective way to achieve an immersive experience or "a suspension of disbelief". The room is more important than the equipment so that means room treatments and some type of tech to measure and possibly use DSP.
A surround processor or receiver tops out at about $20K for a Trinnov but outstanding choices are available for far less. Finally 9-12 moderately priced small speakers setup properly with a couple of subs instead of two expensive towers.

Finally to have two sources, one for channel based audio and one for object based audio. My guess is less than 50% of the members here have experienced high end object based audio in a properly setup room.

that people can only perceive and appreciate art when it’s turned into an IMAX experience.

There is a lot of truth to that statement, and not just IMAX size screens. The members here have some incredibly luxurious systems and rooms. It is a matter of preference I guess.

@mahgister

An immersive one for an headphone without the BACCH filters or no dSP associated like the Smyth realizer... The K340 is among the few the best designed headphones ever...

Can you please post a link, to those cans, I have a great headphone amp and would like to try, thanks.

Is it this one?

https://www.headfonia.com/akg-k340-bass-heavy-version/