What's so special about 'surround'?

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2001 2:54 am

Hi guysMy son just bought a brand new 'surround' set.5 small JBL speakers and a big sub plus the amp.I wonder what's so special, in the seventies the manufacturers tried to push us 'quadrophony' through the throat which was a major disaster for them.And now they add an extra mid speaker and call it 'surround' am I right or wrong?How about the 'Hafler' principle, we used it a long time ago and it can sound pretty 'surround'.
(you put an extra speaker in the back, connected to the both positive outs of the stereo amp)Many major (Dutch) studio's invest in surround monitoring. Ampex ATR tape machines are being 'upgraded' to 8 tracks and even two inch machines are upgraded to 8 tracks in order to master the 5 surround tracks.What will happen when most people have surround in their home, will the Sony/Pioneer/Technics/and many others, 'invent' a new system in order to let the customer buy their shit again and again?Why not invent a system with speakers in the ceiling and speakers in the floor?Having that said, why not invent a better speaker? most speakers are still a piece of paper driven by a copper coil, like in 1936, quite a bad and uneconomic system.

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2001 4:29 pm

Well thank you very much for your reaction Smile

You know what's really funny? there's band coming in this week and they want to make a mono recording Very Happy

Peace.

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 8:52 am

Hi fellas,You know I dont go out to the movies anymore (not since Travolta got fat Smile

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 9:44 am

I've been lurking around this site for quite a while now. I do enjoy some of the subtle and not so subtle discussions going on, but I've got to jump in at this point.What's so special about surround? I believe at this point surround has been proven as a desirable listening experience. That's why they tried to sell it to us in the seventies for home listening, and that's why the movies have been doing it since the forties. Anyone remember Fantasia?So what eh? The music is what's important, right? Well let's leave pop alone for now. Has anyone heard the classical surround releases from Telarc, or EMI or any others where the music of Mahler, or Tchikovsky is performed by musicians in a beautiful sounding hall and engineered by those who are really excited to capture the performance in that room. When's the last time listening to an orchestra has made your jaw drop? Well, it's happening.What else makes it so special now is that we are able to release these recordings in a discrete format. Not encoded like Quad or Dolby Surround. We can also release it at hi resolution. Not compressed with AC-3 or dts. For the home listener who has the luxury of listening with 5 full range speakers (not the satellites) and a sub, they are willing to sit and listen, which not very many of us are doing anymore. Maybe we are encouraging a new breed of listeners, who don't need a visual stimulus to enjoy music.Now the knee jerk reaction is to release the old catalogs. Why not? The stuff sold before, let's repackage it and sell it again. But what will truly be interesting will be the artists who choose to embrace it as a new creative canvas.Another reason, as an engineer, to embrace this format is that the rules haven't been written yet. Let's drop or forty or fifty years of "I know this works so I do it this way" and start to think outside the box. I'm trying to work the idea of surround into everything I do now.Let's quit being so crabby and cynical about this. As people who often say "I'm always learning in this craft" we should realise that if this thing flops (which I don't believe it will), at least we have reached a little beyond our daily ritual and trying to give a little more to our "art".Devin Workman

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 10:38 am

Hello Devin and welcome!I repect your position in trying to improve this new area of technology, but who is going to own these elaborate systems huh?Every apartment in every majior city? Who in our age is going to sit down and properly listen to surround sound, while thier bodies and ears are postioned just right?Yes I know all you classical listeners out there will apreciate the "Abience" , but for the world at large it is basically an inside box syndrom, where you have to position yourself to hear it in an unnatural way.Maybey the way people huddled around the new radios in the 20s and 30s?When I hear something brillant played of Mozart, the quality of the recording is the last thing I note, where the quality of the performence is what makes it Rock or Roll. Very Happy

That is incredible regarding Disney's 1941 Masterpiece, "Fantasia" that it was done in a type of surround...truly ingenius, but what is the advantage here? (Beyond some exceptions)Are we not hearing what we should, or are we frustrated colorizing wild bandits after a new way to view Laural and Hardy in deep rich plades (is that right? PL-add Wink

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 11:36 am

There is nothing elaborate about it. The DVD format is here and the number of owners is climbing (I believe it's 24 million in North America alone). Although personal preference would push me towards SACD instead of DVD-Audio for the new music format, both are set up for discrete surround playback. The number of available titles is also growing and as the major labels start to increase the budget towards surround production (and believe me, it is growing)we should expect to see more new music and not just the old releases. By the way, Bjork's new album was released in CD and DVD-Audio with the DVD-A having hi res stereo and surround. It's getting better, and there is no turning back. More work for everyone!

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2001 3:53 pm

Hi all,I would gently like to insinuate that the next revolutionary loudspeaker-design will be the embracing-sound-experience system.www.embracing-sound-experience.seI had the possibility to listen to the EMES OWL-system at the LLB-exhibition in October here in sweden.
It blew me away, far away.Why use 2 speakers when you get a perfectly balanced stereo from just one (1).
The sick thing about it is that you still have the left channel in your left ear even if you turn around 180 degrees.
It's like having loudspeakers attached to your head.
How's that for a "sweet spot"?And that fact actually makes it more like a cross between stereo and surround than just plain stereo.For your own sake, check out the system if/when you have the chance.Here's a quote by David Foster taken from the E-S-E site: <blockquote>quote:<hr>I was very pleased with what I heard and I worked on a song for about 20 minutes when, all of a sudden, I realized that my old speakers were not even connected. I was so excited I was just thrown back into my chair: is it possible I had been listening to that single box all the time? With this superb definition and depth of sound image, it totally blew my mind.<hr></blockquote>
Cheers
/clayfarm

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2001 11:51 am

There are angles here that nobody has mentioned...
Joe Shmoe goes down to the stereo store with $2000 in his pocket to buy himself a new "listening experience". Let's assume he already has all the peripherals...cd player, tape player, turntable, et cetera...all he needs is amp(s) and speakers.
A.) 5.1 Sorround system =
It'll cost $4-600 for the "receiver", at which point he must divide the remainder of his $2000 among the 6 speakers. So, let's say he has, roughly, an average of $250 to spend per speaker.
Hmmm...how "high-quality" is the sound coming from a $250 speaker?
B.) Stereo system =
It'll cost $3-400 for the receiver...with major wattage and specs. He then has at least $1600 left to buy two speakers.
Hmmm...$800 per speaker!
The salesman sits him down in the middle of the surround system, and Joe hears all these sounds coming at him from all over the place ... WOW COOL! Then he gets up out of the sweet spot to go look at a cool-looking pair of headphones on the other side of the store and realizes that the system has lost it's magic.
The salesman picks-up on the rather displeased look on his customer's face, quickly turns off the surround system, and turns on a 300 watt-per-channel stereo through a $1600 pair of speakers...
A big smile comes on Joe's face as he continues to browse the store. A few minutes later, Joe lays the headphones on the sales counter and says, "I'll take these...and I'll take that awesome STEREO system".
For sound quality and overall satisfaction, the consumer is still going to get the best bang for his buck when he buys a STEREO system for in-home use. But this is only one small part of the big picture.
Last year, I went to Guitar Center in Las Vegas to check out Nuendo. They had it all set up in 5.1 surround. To me, the extreme division of the sound was very undesireable. It sounded very incohesive, and literally nauseating. I told the salesman to PLEASE change it to STEREO. The problem was that it was a recording made by one of the salesman, and it was poorly done. It was apparent to me, at that point, that surround mixing is something that takes a lot of knowledge and experience to be done effectively and acceptably.
When I've gone to the movie theatre and they have "surround", I've found it frustrating that the sound is often only coming from speakers on the other end of the theatre, and it's very hard to hear the those sounds clearly. However, the action scenes where the surround effects are spinning all around the room are WAY cool. Overall, in my opinion, the occasional drawbacks in these experiences were far out-weighed by the excitement afforded to the soundtracks by the surround systems.
The real major consideration when it comes to "surround sound", as far as consumers' use is concerned, is the fact that the majority of the record-buying-public is between the ages of 12 and 30, most of whom sink a load of cash into their car audio systems. The hi-end car systems are all 5.1 now. If Joe Schmoe buys a CD from the record shoppe, runs out to his car and pops it in, and it doesn't sound as "Kewl" as "Band X" (who recorded in 5.1), he's going to say, "This band sucks! They don't sound as good as Band X!". Everyone in this "target age group" cruises and listens to "tunes". Industry pros are all aware of this.
Bottom line...if you are going to produce top end music for the masses, surrender to the fact that you WILL have to invest in the surround gear, and you WILL have to learn to mix in surround. PERIOD. This technology is not going to fade-away like "quadrophonic" did. It's here to stay, develop, and expand. On the other hand, if you know you are not going to be producing "top end music for the masses" in the next 2 to 3 years, and you are currently recording local bands and making music for the internet, it may be wiser to invest your money in higher quality stereo monitors than to spread that same budget around for a 5.1 surround system.

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2001 1:57 am

This all reminds me another great publicity 'stunt' by 'Bose Acoustimass' speaker systems.Two very small 'satelite' speakers on the wall and a crappy 'subwoofer' behind the couch.In the Netherlands it was a big success for Bose. Many 'music lovers' got rid of their decent sounding speakers because the wife thought they were much too big and so they bought an Acoustimass set of speakers, very expensive also.Two crappy harsh sounding satelite speakers and a sub with a lightbulb inside -wired between the amp and the speaker- in order to 'protect' the woofer for being blown all the time. (where is all that 'wooly' bass coming from? and where are the low mids?)I wonder what will be the next 'stunt'.

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