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

No one wants a strange disembodied image. The goal is to be transported to the venue. . . Yes this is very much affected by sound engineers and the way they mic and mix the music. This is why you will find that recordings made and mixed by a person you like will give you more of the same. It is challenging to find sound engineers who are true artists at their craft and can deliver the dynamics we all look for and the imaging/staging that we want to hear. 

Binaural recording is one technique of many to record music by sound engineers using stereo pairs of microphones recording in a mannequin head so that the venue is recorded as it would be heard by a person sitting there. . . The playback has always been limited to headphones to hear the true 3D imaging of the music and environment. Huge strides have been made by Dr. Choueiri at his Prinston Lab to make this happen on our speakers.

Adding BACCH to my system is actually the next evolution of my stereo I am saving up for. The BACCH filters adjust in real time to eliminate comb filtering which is what ruins the 3D affect of true stereo reproduction and hearing the venue as if you were actually there. They have just offered the ability to execute it with a Mac mini. This is the next level in sound reproduction in my opinion and a very exciting time to be part of the audio world.

FWIW, I was wrong about the Carver - Reading about BACCH tickled my memory. Carver's unit has all to do with cross talk cancellations, not phase issues. FWIW.

rvpiano

Maybe you’ve never heard the type of holography I’m speaking of. It’s not typical imaging, where the soloist is in front of rest of the rest of the forces as you would hear in real life. It’s a disembodied sound, almost ghostly, hanging in front of the speakers. Some systems can create that effect.

Aside from having heard (like most audiophiles) countless systems, the speakers I have owned have been notable for their soundstaging and imagine - e.g. Audio Physic, Von Schweikert, Thiel 3.7, and most notable my MBL 121 omni-directional speakers, whose major claim to fame is their extraordinary 3 dimensional imaging. And I have often sat almost nearfield to increase the 3 dimensional effect from my speakers.

Every single instance of sound coming from those speakers, or any others that I’ve heard, is captured in the usual audiophile terms "imaging/soundstaging." Some speakers may have a sway-back dip in the frequency range that recesses the imaging somewhat (e.g. so a centralized singer will always appear behind the speakers to some degree or another), and other moren flat/neutral designs will allow the singing voice to occur along the plane of the speakers (if mixed up front that way), and sometimes may even seem a bit forward of the speakers (rare).


But in all cases a singer is "disembodied" and "ghostly" and "hanging in the air" because that IS the effect of stereo imaging.

I’m afraid I’ll have to give up trying to understand what other phenomenon you think you are hearing.

Prof.

if when you’re listing to a live singer, she/he sounds disembodied or ghostly, 
you must have some extraordinary ears.

rvpiano

All stereo imaging of any singer is "disembodied" because...there are NO BODIES ACTUALLY THERE. It is a "disembodied" voice. That’s what I mean - ANY image of a singer’s voice between a pair of speakers is a "disembodied voice" - a trick getting us to perceive a voice where it is not in fact even occurring.


Now you seem to be talking about the palpability of the reproduced sound. As in: Is it "dense" with the sense of "body" like one would hear from a real singer?
Well...it seems to me we all want that. That’s what is so compelling about a live singer vs reproduced sound. And some systems are better at producing that sonic density, body and palpability of a singing voice than others.
(As this sense of "body" and density is very important to me, my speakers are particularly good at giving that sense of physical density).

So now it seems when you talk of a "holographic voice" you mean "disembodied" in the sense of the sound NOT having palpability, body and density.


But then...that makes the question in your OP really weird. If by "holographic" you mean some dimensional sounding sonic image (e.g. voice) that lacks realistic body....why would you be asking if that is "important for people to achieve" in the first place???

I don’t know of any audiophiles who want their sound images to lack body and realism...so why would you think anyone would have the mindset that this "disembodied" character would be "a must for them to enjoy their systems?"

I can’t make any sense of what you are trying to say here.
Are you asking "Do you feel it is important to achieve a dimensional sonic image with no body to it’s presentation?"

The obvious answer would be "no." I don’t know of any audiophiles who don’t want some body/palbality to the sonic image.

Or are you asking "Do you want a holographic/dimensional image?"
In which case, many of us will answer (and have answered) "yes" but this is par for the course in high end sound systems, and stereo speaker set ups, and it’s "imaging/soundstaging."