How important is it for you to attain a holographic image?

For me,  sound stages are established  when recording with 3 or more mikes and a mixing console, and all we are doing is recreating at home, the engineer's 'view' of the sound in his control room best we can! So, anything through a multi-channel mixer is artificial placement of instruments assembled into a 'sound stage' with lots of MONO mikes...    Holographic ?   Not too sure...

Now, a REAL stereo recording in an acoustic space with only TWO mikes (rare these days because it is expensive for recording engineers to get it right as it takes more time for placement), can re-create (IMHO) an image, and probably more along the lines of the theme of this thread.  

It is the way I record my live classical performances, which is more of an audience perspective.   I don't care for 'hokie'  sitting on the stage with the musicians' effect.  Even the beloved 'Decca Tree' tends to be too close to the stage, usually hung over the Maestro's head!  Violins/violas tend to be close sounding withless natural reverb.  Ever notice how the brass sections seem to have MORE reverb surrounding them?   They are set further away from the mics, and usually when 'spot miked' the level is very low due to their output.  Those powerful instruments tend to excite the venue more so...

Classical composers and conductors have worked hard to get the arrangements of the instruments mixed 'natrually' on stage according to their strengths in volume.   When parts needed to be softer or louder, the composer will call for more or less instruments to play...   

Just my observations and experiences...

My dedicated 23X18' reference listening space audio consists of a rebuilt pair of 1965 Dynaco Mark 3 amps fed by a PAS- 2 preamp, all built by the same factory worker back in the day.   Those feed into a pair of 1967 Klipschorns with no alterations except for new caps in the crossovers..

Thanks for reading and DO feel free to add...

Prof,

If you read all my posts above, you’ll get a better idea of what I’m talking about.  Typically, I’m referring to a solo singer whose voice seems suspended in space between the speakers producing an artificial holographic effect.  

We only have two ears, not 5 or 7, and yet, if you close your eyes and have a friend walk around you while speaking, you have no problem determining where he is, yes?  That's because you are hearing not only his voice directly, you are also hearing the reflections of his voice bouncing off the walls around you. You are hearing him AND the room around you. You hear in 3 dimensions.  You are hearing the ambience of the room. Whether you are listening to a studio album or a recording of a live performance, that ambience gets recorded, unless of course, it is done in an anechoic chamber. An ambient loop, or Hafler loop, as it is sometimes called, is what you need to reproduce the ambience that is recorded on every DVD, CD and vinyl record you own.  Back in the 60's, David Hafler realized this, and invented the Dynaco QD-1 Quadapter when he was at Dynaco. It is designed to extract this ambience. All you need is two more speakers in the rear, with the same signal from the front, going through the QD-1, and then out to the rear speakers. If the front signal is absolutely identical on both sides, the rear speakers won't make a sound, The more difference in the front, the more the rear speakers will sound. It is as close to how we normally hear as one can get, and produces a wonderful 3 dimensional image. I've been listening to an ambient loop system for 45 years. If you're familiar with the movie 'Inception', you should hear the village scene on my system. It will blow you away. I should note that with movies like 'Inception', you have a choice of listening in 5-1 or just stereo. I always choose stereo, as I do not have or want a 5-1 system. If anyone wants to further discuss my system, or tell me that I'm full of BS, you can email me at prvk@earthlink.net. Be sure to put something in the subject line that I'll recognize, as I have a pretty aggressive anti-spam program.

Peterprvk@earthlink.net

Stereo sound is analogous to 3D movies or even stereo optics for viewing maps that have been developed from aerial photographs of the same geographical area taken from different angles. There is some similarly to those 3D computer generated images (stereograms) in that some skill or learning is required to be able view those images in the deep three dimensionality they can provide. Ideally, soundstage and imaging should be natural and should duplicate to a large extent what the experience would be like in person, with two ears. The experience should be natural, transparent and convincing, not phony.

rvpiano,

If a singer is panned to the middle of a stereo mix, or if you are listening to a mono mix, virtually any half decent pair of speakers will produce the effect you just mentioned of the singer seeming to be in the middle of the speakers, hanging in space.

This happens pretty much be default given the stereo imaging process.

- It always happens in a typical stereo set up with a centralized listener.
- It's always artificial.
- There are common existing audiophile terms to describe the effect."Soundstaging" (in general, the apparent scale and dimensionality of the soundspace seemingly created by the speakers) and "imaging" (in general: the localization if individual sound sources - for mono, always localized between the speakers).

Therefore, I don't see what new distinction you wish to make with "holographic" as if it were to refer to something distinct from the normal terms "imaging" or "soundstaging."

Anyone else know what rvpiano is trying to describe if it isn't just plain old imaging/soundstaging that virtually all of us can xperience from our system?


(I can't imagine anyone here has a pair of speaker so awful that, when situated in the stereo configuration, would not produce the singer-in-space-between-the-speakers effect).