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Soundstaging and Imaging: The Delusion about The Illusion

Soundstaging in a recording—be it a live performance or studio event—and it’s reproduction in the home has been the topic of many a discussion both in the forums and in the audio press. Yet, is a recording’s soundstage and imaging of individual participants, whether musicians or vocalists, things that one can truly perceive or are they merely illusions that we all are imagining as some sort of delusion?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/clowns-left-me-jokers-right

celander
orpheus10
8,668 posts
 

Absolutely no illusion, you would hear the same thing I'm hearing in a given room where there is "holography" meaning a 3 dimensional image. I first heard this 30 years ago in a high end emporium, the speakers were B&W, I don't remember the electronics; and then again in another high end emporium.

I recall the components the second time, they were all top of the line Audio Research electronics, including CD player and the speakers were Thiel.

It took 30 years, but I have recreated this illusion in my listening room. While you can get good imaging with decent electronics, I don't believe you can get "holography" with less than Class "A" electronics.

The first thing to do is get a good audio image; left, right and center. Although you may believe that everything depends on your components, and how you set your speakers up, that's not the case. The final phase depends on room treatment, and it's the most difficult to get. I got it right by following others suggestions, and sheer luck. Since every room is different, all I can tell you is, "Good luck".


orpheus10
8,668 posts
 

To be more specific, audio holography, the illusion of the vocalist in the room, is not a delusion, but a complex and difficult phenomenon to achieve, which is why most don't consider it essential.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,277 posts
 

Regarding tostadosunidos comments on the topic of the ability of a pair of speakers to reproduce depth:

I first heard the effect on the occasion of hearing a true high end system for the first time, a system being delivered and set up by Bill Johnson at his new ARC dealer in Livermore California (Bill was a pilot, and flew his own plane to dealer locations). It was a pair of the Magneplanar Tympani T-1 loudspeakers (which ARC was then distributing) bi-amped with a PC-1 passive x/o and D51 and D75 power amps, source a Thorens TD-125 Mk.2 turntable/ARC prototype arm/Decca Blue pickup into an SP-3 pre-amp.

Bill put a British EMI pressing of Holst’s The Planets on the table, and when the Jupiter movement played, there it was---the front row of the orchestra instruments were on the plane of the Tympanis, the back row (percussion) waaaay back from that plane. I had closed my eyes as the movement began, and at the shock of hearing the extreme depth of field opened them. I found myself looking at the wall behind the speakers, amazed by how much closer the wall was than the back of the orchestra appeared to be. The back of the orchestra appeared to be further away than the wall!

When an orchestra is recorded with a very small mic set-up (I believe EMI engineers employed the Decca 3-mic "tree" technique---3 mics facing the orchestra), the sound from the instruments furthest away from the mics are picked up by the mics later in time than those closest to them. When played back, that time differential is reproduced as the difference in distance. In contrast, a recording of an orchestra made employing close mic’ing contains no such depth information, so should be reproduced without it as well.

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
One of my first jobs was calibrating the optics at US Army Map Service used for 3D imaging. The Zeiss Stereo optics are analogous to stereo audio inasmuch as the overlay of two different maps photographed from different angles, when viewed through stereo optics, appear in 3D. Ditto for 3D movies. 
celander's avatar
celander OP
1,504 posts
 
Wharf: The poster didn’t comment about the size of his audio system to that of his listening room. He specifically focused on the reproduced soundstage in his listening room.

Had the poster said something about a frequency aberration in the room, like too much booming bass, then I would have concluded it was something about the sound system being out of kilt in the room.

Yet the poster suggested the room was “cutting off” the soundstage of reproduced sound.
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