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

I remember a time when both the trailblazers of high-end audio here in the UK, Linn and Naim, decreed that holographic imagery a minor issue - timing was said to be the thing back then.

I love holographic imagery but the best I heard was through some noise cancelling Bose over ear headphones. Literally causing users to turn their heads to follow the sound.

However when it comes to commercial recordings I have serious doubts about how high a priority it is for recording engineers. Books like Greg Milner’s ’Perfecting Sound Forever’ paint a rather grim picture regarding some of the shenanigans that take place during recording. It’s quite possible that less than 1% of recordings were made with any real regard for capturing a three dimensional sound. Alan Blumlein, these engineers are not.

So for me tone, texture, timbre, timing and dynamics all come before imagery. I guess those speakers which are able to disappear better must also be better at imaging.

But can they also do those other things as well? Perhaps Linn and Naim were right all along, although their priorities have no doubt changed over time too. Compromises you can live with, and compromises you can't. 

Everybody seems to think "holography" is some kind of trick; no, it's when you put HEA audio, and the room together as well as it can be done.

Are top of the line Theil speakers, trick speakers?  Are top of the line tube ARC Amplifiers, trick amps?

While I used those two names,  substitute any very high quality components you like, and you can probably get the same results.

Once it's done right, everything that everyone mentioned that is desirable will be present.

The record or CD delivers whatever it delivers; but it's for sure that you will get every iota of what there is on the record or CD.

In regard to "holography"; while it is relatively rare, meaning you reach out and touch each musician, I have heard it to the extent, that I heard sounds from a CD of a record that I purchased in 1970, that I have worn out many copies of; it is almost my favorite record.  (my favorite record changes every other day)  But I have been listening to this one long enough to be very well acquainted with it, and I heard something in the background that I had barely heard before; plus it was suspended in space. 

That had to be close to extreme as it can get; no tricks, just high quality components in the chain that were arranged by professionals, in a room that had been designed and treated by "professionals".

I'm with you cd318 as I proposed the same concept for enjoying recorded music.  

geoffkait  I wasn't referring to a person other than myself.  I can sit  about1 foot to my left of center and to my right of center and have a centered sound.  I am 5'11" and 168 lbs. so I'm not Rosanne Barr shaped (luckily).  

As I’ve mentioned before in the Thiel
owners thread, one of the salient characteristics I find in my Thiel
speakers is a focus and density to the imaging. This is a purported feature of time/phase coherence and I can not verify it’s due to that technical feature of the Thiels. All I know is they have a particular density of imaging I don’t quite hear in most other designs. And this for me is a case where imaging has musical consequences. The added density gives a solidity and palpability to the sound that gives a sense of connection - the sense of air being moved by the sonic images rather than a see through mirage.

The only way you can get everything you want in a speaker is to do it yourself. While that was impossible for me to do alone, I discovered a crossover design engineer who could help me. He was about as eccentric as anyone I have ever encountered.

Since I’m a do it yourself technician, I was shopping at a speaker store that sold high quality wire of all compositions, and any kind of drivers that you wanted. Me and the owner had become quite well acquainted, and I told him about my new project. That’s when he told me about his new engineer that he would introduce me to if he was in. (if he’s your engineer, why don’t you know whether or not he’s in)?

This is where things really got interesting. The owner took me to the room where the engineer was working; it was a darkened room where the engineer was peering into a computer screen that had two solid colored, red and green, geometric figures with numbers on them that he was moving around on a screen. (how can you have pictures of a solid cone and sphere on a flat screen?)

After I was introduced, he said "Hi", just barely turning around, and went back to moving his figures with the numbers on them around the screen.

That’s when I realized he wasn’t the talkative kind, and I went to blabbing about what I wanted. I had read every thing I could find about "crossovers" in the library, In "Audio" magazine, in "Stereo Review", in the UK magazines, and in "Stereophile".

I went on and on while I assumed he was listening, but he didn’t give much indication that he was. I told him Theil was the closest speaker I had auditioned that I could use as an example, but I wanted to also incorporate an AMT driver. That’s when he responded (at last I knew he had listened)

"That’s not going to be easy. You say you want a 3 way with a 12 inch woofer and a 6 inch midrange with a AMT tweeter. Come back in two weeks".

The owner said, "I think he likes you", when I left. How he could tell, I don’t know; maybe it was because I had communicated that I knew something about crossovers.

After two weeks, he showed me his drawing on paper. The owner told me he would have the crossover together in two or three weeks. When I returned, there it was; 3 separate crossovers; one for the tweeter, one for the midrange, and one for the woofer; a total of 6 crossovers, one for each driver in two speakers.

This is the way it went; They gave me the parts, and it was up to me to put them together; but I knew his crossover would be magic.

After I built a cabinet, put it all together and listened; I went back and told the engineer about something I thought should be changed. He told me he would crack my knuckles if I changed anything, and he wasn’t smiling. If his convictions were that strong, I wasn’t about to change anything.

That was sometime in 1990, and since then, I have switched to the highest quality parts, plus I don’t know how many modifications to the cabinet; but I have not changed one single value of any part, and I couldn’t be happier.