2. misc-audio
  3. 1347580739

What Does Holographic Sound Like?

And how do you get there? This is an interesting question. I have finally arrived at a very satisfying level of holography in my system. But it has taken a lot of time, effort and money to get there. I wish there had been a faster, easier and less expensive way to get there. But I never found one.

Can you get to a high level of holography in your system with one pair of interconnects and one pair of speaker wires? I don't believe so. I run cables in series. I never found one pair of interconnects and speaker wires that would achieve what has taken a heck of a lot of wires and "tweaks" to achieve. Let alone all the power cords that I run in series. Although I have found one special cable that has enabled the system to reach a very high level of holography -- HiDiamond -- I still need to run cables in series for the sound to be at its holographic best.

There are many levels of holography. Each level is built incrementally with the addition of one more wire and one more "tweak". I have a lot of wires and "tweaks" in my system. Each cable and each "tweak" has added another level to the holography. Just when I thought things could not get any better -- which has happened many times -- the addition of one more cable or "tweak" enabled the system to reach a higher level yet.

Will one "loom" do the job. I never found that special "loom". To achieve the best effects I have combined cables from Synergistic Research, Bybee, ASI Liveline, Cardas, Supra and HiDiamond -- with "tweaks" too numerous to mention but featuring Bybee products and a variety of other products, many of which have the word "quantum" in their description.

The effort to arrive at this point with my system has been two-fold. Firstly, finding the right cables and "tweaks" for the system. Secondly, finding where to place them in the system for the best effects -- a process of trial and error. A lot of cables and "tweaks" had to be sold off in the process. I put "tweaks" in quotation marks because the best "tweaks" in my system have had as profound effect as the components on the sound. The same for the best of the cables, as well. For me, cables and "tweaks" are components.

Have I finally "arrived"? I have just about arrived at the best level that I can expect within my budget -- there are a couple of items on the way. In any case, I assume there are many levels beyond what my system has arrived at. But since I'll never get there I am sitting back and enjoying the music in the blissful recognition that I don't know what I am missing.

I should mention that there are many elements that are as important as holography for the sound to be satisfying, IMO. They include detail, transparency, coherence, tonality, and dynamics, among others. My system has all of these elements in good measure.

Have you had success with holographic sound in your system? If so, how did you get there?
sabai
bryoncunningham
890 posts
 
Sabai - I'll be interested to hear your impressions when you move into your new room. Are you going to treat it acoustically in any way?

bc
learsfool
1,215 posts
 
Hi Bryon and Sabai - I will now chime in on your discussion here. By and large, if I am understanding both of your positions here, I agree with Sabai. Bryon, when you are talking about your concept of "reactive" listening rooms, you seem to be implying that they are more "live" than the original recording space. For those of us that listen mostly to classical and jazz, this is quite simply false. The vast majority of these recordings are not done in a studio, but in a concert hall or church or jazz club, all of which are MUCH more "live" than any recording studio. One of the biggest reasons that a home listening room can never match the original recording space is precisely because there is almost no way to make the room as "live" as the recording space was. Your discussion, however, might be much more valid for mostly electronically produced music done in a studio. I think this is where the difference in the positions of Sabai and yourself are coming from. The rest of the discussion, I think we are all in basic agreement with.
sabai OP
2,027 posts
 
Bryoncunningham,
The acoustic treatments will be Shakti Hallographs, SR ART and I would like to add the Steinmusic Harmonizer System, as well. I have been interested in the latter for a couple of years.

Unfortunately, it is going to take time for the construction work to get done. We're looking at a time horizon of a couple of years at the moment. Since we have a large property we may end up building a new bigger house on it and sell off the old house that we are living in now. The cost of renovation is so high that building new is starting to make sense to us.
bryoncunningham
890 posts
 
10-08-12: Learsfool
Bryon, when you are talking about your concept of "reactive" listening rooms, you seem to be implying that they are more "live" than the original recording space.
I didn't mean to imply that. With the word "reactive," I was simply referring to listening rooms with significant reflection, diffraction, and diffusion. So basically, a room that isn't "dead."
The vast majority of these recordings are not done in a studio, but in a concert hall or church or jazz club, all of which are MUCH more "live" than any recording studio. One of the biggest reasons that a home listening room can never match the original recording space is precisely because there is almost no way to make the room as "live" as the recording space was.
I don't believe that typical listening rooms are more reactive than typical recording spaces outside the studio. I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I believe that. I agree with you that typical listening rooms are in fact significantly LESS reactive than typical recording spaces outside the studio. IMO, the lack of "reactivity" is one of the major problems with typical listening rooms, as I mentioned in my last post. So I think this is a point about which we are in agreement.

And FWIW, I don't believe that a listening room MUST BE more reactive than the recording space in order to be effective at creating "holographic" sound or the illusion that "you are there." In fact, I believe that "holographic" sound can be achieved even in a dead room, as I mentioned in my last post. On the other hand, the illusion that "you are there" is more difficult to achieve in a dead room, IMO.

Whether the listening room SHOULD BE more or less reactive than the recording space isn't something I've expressed an opinion about, because I don't have one. :-) I honestly don't know.

Bryon
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Regarding Holographic Sound and Soundstage and all that jazz, I'm afraid things are worse than we thought. Much worse. To get an idea how much the room influences the sound, dictates the sound, how much distortion is produced by comb filter effects, map out the room with a test tone and handy SPL meter some time. You'll find the sound pressure varies dramatically all around the room, with a great many peaks 6dB or higher than the average pressure in the room. These peaks will be observed on room walls, the floor, buildup in room corners and in the 3D Space of the room. The peaks can be produced by slap echo, first reflections, standing waves, secondary reflections and others. All of these peaks, many of which are *louder* than the speakers, interfere with the pure signal of the speakers, obviously. What this means is that no matter how much effort is spent to produce a pure signal out of the speakers, all will be lost between the speakers and the listeners ears.
More to discover