Pin point imaging isn't for everyone

Well in some acoustic environments you can certainly hear precisely where each instrument and voice is located .I agree that is not what you hear in large concert halls but in smaller performance spaces playing smaller scale music you certainly can.And for many of us creating that sort of sound in our system is what we aspire towards.And perhaps we can even get it better than the real thing.Just like a well filmed,lit and edited film might be better than a live play because it uses techniques to intensify ,focus and enhance the subject.

@Eric>

A subject my posts touch on often is whether pin point imaging is desirable, or natural. 

blindjim>

desirable?

 of course!

natural?

  many factors affect  that out come.

imaging intimates a couple things, first off is harmonic integrity and thereafter geographical identification  of the musicians within the sound field/venue, and for some, the atmosphere or physical attributes  of the venue itself.  

Which version of imaging is being taken to task here? geographic localization, or harmonic  integrity?

I’ll presume the former.

precise = marked by exactness and accuracy of expression and detail.

pin point adj.  to fix, determine or identify with precision

although these definitions are  not  the whole shooting match when the job of speakers is concerned, it does  define   their basic criterion during their performance. 

recreating localized imaging as has been said already is the predominate result of how the venue was miked and or how the studio demo was thereafter processed or mixed down.

speakers is ignert, but they ain’t stupid! you can’t fix stupid but you can fix ignert, .

the electrical signal educates the speakers to what ever level the speaker’s aptitude will allow.

many though not all  speakers can demonstrate very good imaging IF the upstream components and room are well accomplished.

this is why I profess spending more on the electronics than on the speakers usually. especially when the ‘ducket’ bucket only has so many frog skins  in it.

sit in the front few rows of any acoustic show/concert, and if you can not distinguish who and where singers or musicians are on the stage, then save your concert going money  and stay home.

alternatively if you are at the rear of the venue/hall, it becomes a tuffer task, unless of course you can actually see the performers. together, the visual and audible information locates ‘precisely’ the artists.

at school or church you can pick out your kids voice, or some other’s in the choir or on the stage, can’t you?

even with orchestras one can readily fix where the strings, brass, reeds, etc., are set.

I suppose at WoodStock 50 years ago this week, if you were standing or stumbling way on back from the stage, it was all a mono affair.

 so why can’t we expect speakers to do the same provided we’ve done our jobs and thoughtfully considered for our speakers, their room, positioning, their electronics, and of course, the media itself?

the design philosophy of any loudspeaker build should be to create a system which emmulates as closely as possible harmonic integrity, instrument localization, as given by the source, and the chosen media and dependant on the mixing process when it was mastered in as listenable a fashion as possible.

that said, I’ve yet to hear or own a system which I can undeniably state that from listening to a recording, I can ‘precisely’ locate everything within the concert including what material is making up the venue’s walls, curtains, width and or depth of the stage, etc., as some reviewers seem to enjoy accounting from time to time.  

perhaps the only way to actually gain such insight is to be there during that recording, and hopefully have a perfect auditory and otherwise, memory along with an outstanding uber performing audio rig. 

imaging, both localized and harmonic,  is the thread which connects the demonstration together propelling it to greater heights of enjoyment for many in this hobby.  when a recording combines positioning information, and tonal accuracy the depiction is considered excellent, but it all lives or dies with the recording itself and how much attention and effort went into its production.

how the recorded media content  is going to be conveyed is another crucial responsibility for the speaker system designer to develop.   

RE Mr. Allison

sounds to me like Mr. Allison is making an argument  for how he has chosen to build speakers or for his own philosophy for listening to them. His  position is a more relaxed perspective on designing speakers as it seems to lower the bar for the build.

physically locating the components of any musical production is part and parcel a result. how well it was rendered depends on numerous concerns, yet the source media is the primary  ‘person of interest’ in unraveling the   soundstage’  conundrum. 

if a system does not image well,  on both sides of that coin, I lose interest quickly

erik:

I think you missed the point a little, Miller.

How natural is pin point imaging in acoustic music? Roy argued, as do I, that it’s really not.

Well, let's see. So Bruce is sitting right in front of me playing his acoustic guitar and singing. My eyes are closed but I can tell for certain right where he is. He's not some vague diffuse disembodied blob somewhere either. I can tell with my eyes closed to within a few inches exactly where he is. I can tell the guitar is just below his chest. I can tell all this with the same precision as when I drop a pencil and know where to look by sound alone.

I think you missed the point a little Squires. Might want to go read my post again. Pinpoint imaging is every bit as natural in music as it possibly can be because pinpoint imaging is part and parcel of reality. Deal with it.

The second question is whether you want it, and want it more than other features of reproduction.

Now here again it will help to go back and read again this time maybe with a little more comprehension. Since pinpoint imaging is inextricably interwoven in the reality of the original performance then it follows irrefutably that accurately reproducing that performance must necessarily entail replicating that information. Otherwise either your recording is crap, or your playback is crap.

Now granted you may have hit on the one thing that matters: some people, instead of wanting to hear what was recorded come what may, they prefer to impose their own preconceived notions on how their music should sound. They mess with it.

Or maybe they just don't care as much for accuracy, fidelity and realism as they let on.

Well, whatever floats your boat. 

For starters, images shouldn’t necessarily be points. There can also have size to the voices, instruments. A piano 🎹  should probably not appear as a point. It should have size. Especially a concert grand. The trick is to reproduce the correct size of whatever. 

Point taken, geoff.

I think a lot of that is in the reverb too, so there's something to be said for speakers with rear facing drivers.


Erik