Sam S Z

Sorry to post a 180 degrees sound here, but I think it is necessary.
Start at the roots again : First there was mono, but a more spatial sound was needed. First this was done by making quasi-stereo with some simple decoding filters. But soon it was realised that this was not the real thing, so then two
discrete channels were used, with different content -- Stereo. With left and right equally important.
But this time, the development in sound reproduction seems to get stuck for almost half a century now. Still it's just a system playing from an encoded stereo source. Instead of making a next step by, just as with mono2stereo, adding a new dimension by simply doubling the number of channels, this time from 2 to 4.
Which means 2-D by the way. (Calling surround 3-D is simply not correct according to the laws of physics).

TJ-

and the point of this is...............

its 2005 man, get with the future.

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new sig comming soon

Zelig

I like the surround concept, and media originally done in 5.1 sound, but I can't stand stereo music that's upmixed to surround, it sounds like junk to me.

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Sam S Z

2battleaxe187
Quite a pointless remark. The future ? I don't need that, I'm running octophonic already now.
And as long as Dolby dominates the market, the future of sound reproduction is simply blocked.
2Zelig
Let me emphasize that I'm not talking about what 'sounds the best'. That's a matter of personal taste. I'm talking just about logic and dimensions.

Judas

The logic is incorrect indeed.. i agree with you

To make a truely 3D surround sound unit... for say the cheapest way... would have to include at least 36 speakers to cover every cube point including the center being were your head is at.. because, you yourself can make a sound

Complexity of making such a thing is enourmous... not to mention the ammount of power and overall bandwidth needed to do so..

5.1 surround sound does work, it's terminology is correct.... 5 speakers surrounding you "equally" with a 6 channel producing the sub sonic sounds.

However, when creative and DX dubbed it 3DSound, it's a bit incorrect.. No matter how much effort a company pours into creating something that can give the feeling/sound of something coming from below or above... or to make it come from various angles.. 5.1 nor 7.1 sound could do it.

Apparently 13.1 surround sound is on it's way, but i really think they should be considering trying to feel the major gabs above and below first. i'd be happy with 15.1 surround sound with 5 speakers surrounding.... x 3 for low/mid/high points.

Although it's just a concept ive come up with.. it's only one of many

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Sam S Z

2Judas
Your post illustrates exactly in what direction the developments will end if we keep going on the 5.1 surround path :
36 speakers - 13.1 - 15.1 .. All very inefficient and complicated solutions and i.m.h.o. totally unnecessary.
Still remember stereo ? It was just 2 speakers Left and Right, and sources could come from any position between them,
simply by the percentage of volume the source had in each channel. No need for more speakers to fill that panorama.
Since L-R is a horizontal line between 2 points, this is the 1st dimension, the x-axis. (Mono is dimension zero : a point)
Now, nothing wrong with surround as an added dimension, but it comes just one step too early. Logically seen there is the z-axis added to the x-axis, which is the wrong order. It's a horizontal extension, but, as you mentioned, the needs for distinction of up and down are eminent. So : why not go vertical first ??
A short explanation is here :
http://www.xs4all.nl/~samzen/4c/4csh_uk.html

Judas

you nailed it.... i find it very unnessary to have a center channel.... imo, the it just causes sometimes sound clutter as depending on the program or audio source.. will only reproduce majority of everything through the center.. leaving nearly no stereo production..

Your concept of the 4 front and 4 rear is something i have thought of at one time or another. Excluding the center speakers as 2 speakers working together can create it..... for a rear and front leaving 8 speakers... then say if we wanted to exapand on the pure right and lefts.... that add another 4 channels.... which i think 12 is WAY more reasonable then 36......

I must also state that the .1 (subsonic) has a major impact when there are more then one in the room... imo, setting up one for the front and one for the rear gives a huge impact on the entire feeling of the sound. Specially durring movies or games. You can feel the rumbles coming from which ever direction. (currently have 2 4.1 system hooked up.. with one for front reproduction and one for rear)

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Socio

[color=#000000]Some people run dual 7.1 systems with one set stand mounted and the other ceiling mounted. Although I have never heard the a setup like that yet those who either run one or have heard one say it sounds pretty awesome almost enveloping. [/color]

[color=#000000] [/color]

[color=#000000]I have been tempted to try it my self, one day if I ever have the extra money I probably will. [/color]

[color=#000000] [/color]

Zelig

No you can't, not with high end speaker systems. High end systems usually cross over at around 85 Hz, and anything below that is non-directional, you can't tell from which direction it's from.

Multimedia systems usually cross over higher though, around 120 Hz for the Klipsch and Creative subs, which is why they recommend placing the sub either directly in front or behind you, since the sound is not totally non-directional.

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Sam S Z

2Socio
If you just could visit my workplace and experience the vertical 4-C reproduction, which I use for some decades now as default... It would be lots more convicting than theoretical words.
Movie : the bird on the branch in the left upper corner of the screen actually sounds from that point, instead of
somewhere vague from the left.
2Zelig
This whole subwoofer idea has the same problem as with the fifth center speaker of 5.1. It's just not necessary.
It was stated once, that one could not hear the direction of the source of very low frequencies. This is simply not true. I have a record were a very LowF 'boom' is coming clearly from Left or Right in a bouncing way.
The front center channel was created to serve in cinema's with big screens. If two speakers for a stereo
reproduction are placed too far apart, there appears to come a sound-gap in the middle of the panorama, so
they filled it up with this middle-speaker. Also because usually the 'talking heads' are placed in the center.
But in house-room conditions this is not necessary at all.

Socio

So what does your setup look like? Somthing like this?


----X screen X

X ----------------- X



X ------------------X

----X----------X

Judas

I wasn't purely speaking Sound wise... it wasn't what i hear... its what you feel.. and some frequencies you can easily feel other are harder depending on distance and power. IF you are sitting for example in the center of a room that is approximately 15x15x8 (wxlxh) with a subwoofer placed in the fair front right and one in the fair rear left.... and each setup accordingly ..... i guarantee you, you will KNOW precisely were a specific THUMB is coming front.

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Zelig

No, it isn't possible... generate a 40 Hz test tone (lower if your speakers support it) and pan it from left to right, you won't hear a difference other than what is possibly affected by room acoustics.


Yeah, unfortuneatly, most of us don't have the luxury of rooms which are acoustically perfect, so subwoofers won't sound the same in every corner. Still, this difference will be minimal if you have a high quality set of speakers. (not referring to any multimedia speakers, since all of their subs play high enough to be heard directionally)

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Judas

I've setup a rather high quality system with dual sub woofers.....

1500 watts, 7.1 (actually .2)

Not a cheap system and even with a none acoustically perfect room at all... It still fills the room and you can still feel were it might be coming from...

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Socio

[color=#000000]I don't think your subs are calibrated right then, properly calibrated you should be able to sit any where in the room hear and feel the sub's lows but NOT get a sense of direction. Being that you have two it makes the task of calibration even trickier because you have to be careful not to cancel out one sub with the other. It is also advisable to place both subs in a two sub setup side by side in one corner about 12-18 inches apart from each other and 10-12 inches from the walls, you will actual gain about 6db that way. [/color]

[color=#000000][/color]

[color=#000000]How do I know this, I have two my self and you do not get a sense of direction from their output what so ever,[/color]

[color=#000000] [/color]

Sam S Z

2Socio
No, something like this :

---Floor (Down): _ _ _ _ _ _ Ceiling (Up):
X---screen---X _ _ Front _ _X---screen---X

-------pc


X-------------- X _ _ Rear_ _ X--------------X

I'm not always using the Rear four. And I don't use any tiny satellite speakers. Every stereopair has normal
hifi speakers of around 80 Watts with its own stereo-amplifier.
So my basic 4C concept has the channels Front Down L+R and Front Up L+R. Because my pc is also connected
to the installation with four discrete output channels, I make my compositions all straight in 4 Channels.
Some of them I prepare in 8 Channels, but I have to mix them to 4 to listen to it, because I am not able to
buy an 8 channel sound card yet.
2Zelig
Well, maybe not with a continous test-tone, but you can certainly hear the direction with e.g. a very low electronic basedrum.

Judas

Anyone with a could sence of feelling and a good ear can tell were a low sub sonic tone is coming from. It just depends on many things.... I can walk into a hall and with a combination of hear and feeling you can usually pinpoint. However, the reverb can throw you off if you opposite to....

Don't get me wrong... if you want to spend a crapload on the absalute highest quality pure sub sonic setup, i guarantee you that you wouldn't know were it's coming from. 50hz and lower i beleive. My father plays in a band and we all know and setup the system. thousands of watts and multiple speakers for thier own use. The Liquid cooled subs are imo, moving

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Logla

no-one - no matter how good their ears - can get a sense of direction from sub-bass sounds mate - its impossible because of the wave lengths involved. Any thing under 85Hz is going to be impossible to get true directional information from. Your brain may think that a sound is coming from a certain place but it will likely have been confused and guessed wrong. Human ears, and most definately adult human ears cannot pick sub bass up properly.

In order to get directional information from sound, you need to have the smallest bit of HF included because that it what holds the details and thats what gets the hairs on your earbone going.

Dolby understands this and this is why they are one of the big names in audio. This is also why they have us by the nuts. They can keep DD going for a while and then release the next step when they cant make anymore money out of it.

Zelig

I made this mistake once... 2 subs... almost no bass... what the heck!?

After realizing my mistake, and researching why I got that effect, I usually try to stack subs now if I have more than one of them.


Perfectly correct.

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Socio

If you want some REAL sub driven bass just go here and start scrolling down the page

http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm#HORN%20SUBWOOFER

Two of the biggest horns you will ever see, with 16 ( 18 inch) woofers and a 24 speaker sound stage.

I dare you to try that at home!

Sam S Z

Hmm. While reading along I'm glad I am just dealing with the sonic part that's hearable.
All these problems with subsonic and supersonic . . .
The lower threshold frequency can be discussed, probably it is personal and environment dependent.
Logla is right, the human ear is not build for that, or better said, the human head. Distinction of left
and right is detected by phase differences between them, so with the ears at a distance of nearly 2 decimetres, there is
a border there.
Talking about the construction of the ears :
1) This also pleads for my concept of first fully dealing with the reproduction of the Front. The shell of our ears is primarily placed to pick up sounds from the front, whether it is left or right, from the ground or from above, so x- and y-axis.
2) There has been experiments in a deadroom, where it came out, that people could not distinguish if a sound came from the middle front or the middle rear.
2Socio
Sound stage is a bit off-topic here, but if the vertical concept of Up and Down stereo was realized at a concert, I'm convinced that there would be a great enhancement in performance : People at the back of the hall should hear it better, there would be less chance of stage-feedback, the mixer could create a 'picture' of the band on that 'wall of sound' with, for example, the singer right in the middle on top of it (instead of interfering with other sounds in the mid). No special equipment needed, just a mixer with 4 discrete outputs, a 2nd stereo-amp plus its speakers.
2Logla
Not my nuts. The 4C (so 8C) concept has to me been an easy escape from that.

dj_stick

and i still use a 2.0 system that works perfectly fine for me

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Sam S Z

2dj_stick
You're absolutely right. Nothing wrong with that. Most of my sound-material is 2C. But because I once got my hands on a so-called SQ-decoder of Sony, I implemented a second stereo-amp and placed an extra speaker set high on shelves.
Of course the position of particular sounds were unpredictable, the thing produced 4 outputs that had differences, (which is really the only condition that matters) so produced specific sound-positions in the field.
In fact, this could be done with any quasi-decoding thing ; if the outputs are somewhat different, the effect is there.
So I play my stereo-sources also default through this system and it enhances definitely. The sounds are clearer, because they are not 'in front of each other' any more, plus the distinction of very tiny sounds is nicely improved.

rushko

also usin stereo system and majority of my friends are usin it, some of them are lucky listenin to very expensive hi-fi systems.

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HyDa_DRUID

I dont know very much about sound at all, but i know a "sweet spot" when i sit in one. I have a 5.1 set, Inspire 5300, i paid 66$ a year and a half ago refurbished. It was shipped to my door in perfect condition by the way, with a note saying it was bought and sent back( I bet because it was 140$ new hehe).

Anyways, I strapped the rear channel to my high back leather executive hehe. In doin this I have created this perfect sweet spot that sounds amazing. Dont get me wrong, these speakers arent the greates so by keeping them close I dont have to turn them up loud and lose clarity. Know matter what im doing, flying my combat flight sims, listening to mp3's (emulated 5.1), or playing first person shooters, it sounds great to me.

Also, I agree this 3d sound in reality is untrue BUT....... when im flyin along in IL2, a combat flight sim, and I cant see my "six view" but i can hear an engine comein in and movin around. I know it sounds nuts but I know right wheres hes at and I can pull evasive manuevers, but i have to KNOW where hes at b4 I can pull away.

I wasnt able to do any of this until i found the proper sweet spot for these speakers.

Judas

ATM, i have my system setup like this



Counterstrike source, i can pretty much pinpoint were a gernade has gone off reguardless of how far away it may be,.... when i've got them loud enough, even people walking i can sneak up on them

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BiGBrOwNPimpsta

wheres rear center judas? haha

i think 5.1 is enough, 7.1 is more something that you would use to show off ive heard it before its nothing nutty unless your seriously blowing a load of cash and movies only have sound that truly show its crazy use. not enough good games

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