If moving your hear drastically changes the image, something is wrong. Very wrong.
Is Imaging Worth Chasing?
Man, am I going to be torn apart for this. But I says what I says and I mean what I says.
Here’s a long term trend I’ve noticed in the audio press. Specs that used to be front and center in equipment reviews have essentially disappeared. Total harmonic distortion, for instance. Twenty years ago, THD was the start and end of the evaluation of any amplifier. Well, maybe power, first. Then THD. Armed with those two numbers, shopping was safe and easy.
The explanation for the disappearance is not hard to figure. Designers got so good in those categories that the numbers became meaningless. Today, most every amp on the shelf has disappearingly low distortion. Comparing .00001 to .000001 is a fool’s errand and both the writers and the readers know it. Power got cheap, even before Class D came along to make it even cheaper. Anyone who tries bragging about his 100 watts will be laughed out of the audio club.
Stereophile still needed to fill it’s pages and audiophiles still needed things to argue about so, into the void, stepped imaging. Reviewers go on and on about imaging. And within the umbrella of imaging, they write separately about the images height, width, and depth. “I closed my eyes and I could see a rock solid picture of the violas behind the violins.” “The soundstage extended far beyond the width of the speakers.” And on and on.
Now, most everyone who will read this knows more about audio equipment than me. But I know music. I know how to listen. And the number of times that I’ve seen imaging, that I’ve seen an imaginary soundstage before me, can be counted on my fingers. Maybe the fingers of one hand.
My speakers are 5-6 feet apart. I don’t have a listening chair qua listening chair but I’m usually 8-9 feet back. (This configuration is driven by many variables but sound quality is probably third on the list.) Not a terrible set-up, is my guess from reading lots of speaker placement articles. And God knows that, within the limited space available to me, I have spent enough time on getting those speakers just right. Plus, my LS50s are supposed to be imaging demons.
I’ve talked to people about this, including some people who work at high-end audio stores. Most of them commiserate. It’s a problem, they said. “It usually only happens with acoustic music,” most of them said. Strike one. My diet of indie rock and contemporary jazz doesn’t have much of that. “You’ve got to have your chair set up just right. And you’ve got to hold your head in just the right place.” Strike two. Who wants to do that?
(Most of the people reading this forum, probably. But I can’t think of any time or purpose for which I’ve held my head in a vise-like grip like that.)
It happens, every now and then. For some reason, I was once right up next to my speakers. Lots of direct sound, less reflections. “The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads” was playing. And I literally gave a start because David Byrne was standing on the coffee table. Cool.
But, generally speaking, imaging is something I only read about. And if that little bit of imaging is the dividend of dropping more money into my system, I’m not sure that I want to deposit into that account.
I think that I still have a few steps to take that will pay benefits other than imaging. But maybe the high-end is not for me.
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- 102 posts total
@paul6002 (what happened to @paul6001 ?)
I completely disagree with @mijostyn. Imaging is very easy. In fact, you already found out exactly how to get it,
All good imaging takes is two speakers, with somewhat flat response at the listener position, that are somewhat matched, forming a reasonable angle with the listener (~ 60 degrees is standard), and the most important, an environment free of any competing reflections. There is one other very important aspect. The music must have within it, the ability to be imaged. By virtue of the age of the users here, most of the music listened to will have been mixed on what are comparatively, by today's and audiophile standards, pretty awful speakers. That was all done near field in the conditions I described above. Where the trouble comes in is balancing imaging with a desire to use reflections to create some nice ambience in the sound, and doing that in a room that for most is not custom built and may be multi-purpose. It is all about controlling reflections. It really is not any more complicated than that, though doing that may be complicated. It is best to start with a speaker with a flat response and good, consistent off axis response. That will make the rest of the work easier. |
I’d love to know something about the engineering aspect of imaging. Some/most of the music I listen to was made by recording each instrument on a separate track. Often, each instrument is playing in a separate room. If nothing else, the singer is almost always recorded separately from the band. But somehow the engineer can put these tracks together in such a way that it forms an image. Fascinating. The comments above make it clear that this task is performed with differing levels of care and expertise. But how is it supposed to be done? If someone could point me to an "Image Engineering For Dummies" article, that would be great. Another disclaimer that should be unnecessary: Before anyone gets on me for not doing my own research, I'm trying to draw on the wisdom of the audiophiles on this forum. Some people like sharing their wisdom. If you don’t, then don’t. But, really, I can do without your comments. |
I would say that to deem any specific stereo system trait “the most difficult” to get right is, more than anything, a reflection of that particular listener’s ultimate sonic priorities. IOW, what he/she is most sensitive to, or simply wants in a particular way in the sound of the system. It is a reflection of the threshold for that particular trait that when reached the listener feels it is perfect; or, at least, state of the art. It is not an absolute. Accepting the fact that no sound system will ever sound “just like” the real thing we are left only with what is perceived as SOTA for comparison; and we all know how much agreement there is on that front……. My experience has been that true tonal accuracy (naturalness) is far more difficult to achieve than a level of imaging at which I can say “Wow, that is great imaging, I don’t think that it can get any better”. Far more difficult for me to get to that point re tonal accuracy when listening to even the best sound systems that I have heard. |
- 102 posts total