The future, present, of audio...

Of course most people buy surround, or is it AV, because of helicopters, earthquakes and car chases, and I enjoy that too, but surround started just for music, and I use it most with music, including stereo with DPLII...

 

Sorry Antonio. I guess that my 'irony caked in irony' is a bit confusing. Music rules.

 

binaural recordings through headphones are indeed spookily realistic. In the late 80s Radio 4 occasionally broadcast radio plays in binaural with sound effects etc and it was unbelievably good. I guess the restriction of having to use headphones put the dampers on it because it seems to have all but disappeared

Michael.

 

You don't work at Dixons at weekends do you?

"Roll up, roll up, get yer virtual surround-sound TV - no need for extra speakers and messy cable - this does it just as well."

Joking aside, yes, surround sound is possible with binaural and, as you say, can be quite spooky. With just two conventional speakers? No, don't buy it - you want sound to come from behind you then you need speakers back there - simple as that.

Okay, so you get some sound bouncing around the room but if you want to try to recreate the acoustics of something other than your room then, as Antonio says, you need those rear speakers.

Matt.

 

Matt,

These guys might beg to differ I was also trying to find a link to another single speaker surround system which was much more expensive (something like £10K ) and it was a relatively large panel with hundreds of tiny drivers which could direct the sound individually. I'm not sure of the Niro technology is the same but people who have heard it say it is pretty impressive. I don't see that it's impossible at all to be able to create proper surround sound by bouncing sounds off walls etc.

Michael.

 

Just to add that the Niro 1 (like above) is not the product of some wannabe startup or college grad who thinks he has a cool idea or the latest thing from the "Innovations" catalogue - the guy behind it is Niro Nakamichi, yes, the Nakamichi.

Michael.

 

Anybody remember a particular episode of Tomorrow's World that had some very weird surround format on it ?

Radio 1 did a broadcast using it and it was VERY strange. You'd be in another room and it would sound as if it was being generated in the room you're standing in; not from the source in the other room :MILD: .

 

Then, every time you have more people in the room, move furniture, hang more pictures or other stuff, you have to calibrate the system again, plus it only works "properly" from the sweet spot...

 

Told you so

 

How do you know? Have you tried it? If it can replicated the effect of having a rear speaker then it won't be any more affected by room changes than a normal 5.1 setup - the same goes for the sweet spot.

Michael.

 

I know because I read tests...

5.1 properly setup has a large listening area, one of its great advantages, that's why there is a center channel, of course if the surround speakers are close to the listening position you will have a small sweet spot... :JPS:

 

Could you be thinking of Pioneer's Digital Sound Projector? I had a mental image of the product in my head but couldn't even think of who the manufacturer was (until I flicked through this month's Hi-Fi News - they've got a pic on the introductory page to their Heathrow Hi-Fi Show write-up).

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/article/0,,2076_4159_48023,00.html

http://www.1limited.com/news/2002.10.08.html

http://www.kaurus.com/audio/pdfs/pdsp.pdf

If I were ever to get back into home cinema (a big if ATM as I'm still very happy throwing all the money at my two channel audio/music only set-up ), I'd probably like to have one of those units or something similar, saves having lots of speakers everywhere.

Having not ever heard this multi-eyed monster, I'd probably just setttle for 4 Quad ESLs - the ESLs are so coherent and have such a big big sweet spot that you just don't need centres.

 

I just finished listening to Chopin's piano concertos and Beethoven's ninth synfony, using DPLII, even though I sat to the side of the room, I still had a very coherent image of the orchestra, in stereo I mostly heard the left speaker...

Not to mention feeling like beeing in a much larger room than mine...

 

Yep - that's the one. Thanks Henry I thought it was Pioneer but couldn't find any links.

Michael.

 

Surround from two speakers

For an interesting dem of what's possible, a listen to the first track of the OTT album 'Blumenkraft' is fascinating.

There's an opening sequence involving someone getting into a car and driving away, the final sound comes totally from behind my head and moves across from one side to another, really wierd and spooky.

The effect is slightly 'phasey' sounding, which is obviously how it's acheived, but it's very effective, for a special effect.

Rather listen to music, personally, it's a great album BTW

Andy