[ProtegeManiac]

  the problem in a car is to decide if other passengers matter or not ^_^.

 
They don't in my book. I don't have rear speakers and plugged that whole panel with Dynamat to keep it from ratting when the sub hits hard, but the rear seat passengers can hear it well enough. Either way, not even the front passenger is likely to care about the soundstage from their seat, and those who have hitched a ride with me that normally do, accept that it's not their car and the same thing will be the case if I'm hitching with them. Plus, in our car audio meets, I always ride in the back at some point - not listening, but I just want the wind from the A/C as I sit in the middle - and I can hear it all well enough to sing to it if we were on a road trip (provided that car didn't have anything louder than a G-Medallion exhaust). BTW, some EMMA events use two judges on both front seats, so one can't completely rely on time alignment in those cases.
 
That said, the time alignment setting that really screws up the soundstage on one seat while improving it for the other is just optimization. If one gets the installation as right as possible in the first place, vocals would only be slightly off center for each and the rest of the stage just a little bit more screwed up (as it is in my car). And the great thing about on-board processors aside from not having a separate box (I'm looking at you, Alpine) is that I'm sure to see all settings on the screen instead of only setting it with a laptop then hiding the processor after tuning. With my (old) 860MP I just need a stoplight to disable the time alignment, or even switch to the setting to bias the time alignment for the passenger seat. I often use this to illustrate to those uninitiated to hi-fi why my tweeters are mounted as they are without stopping to swap seats.

 

[dvw]

I think to understand imaging people really need to listen to test a CD from either Chesky, Telarc or Stereophile on both speakers and headphone, For example, there are tracks that shows a person walk from right to left. On a speaker system, you can hear exactly the right to left movement. And you can tell how wide the sound stage is. But on headphone, it goes across your head and you don't really get a sound stage. With headphones, I don't think you can really get a soundstage. All the instruments are stacked on top of each other. I think you get more of a sound space rather than a stage.

 

[White Lotus]

There was also a great one from STAX: 
 

 

[ProtegeManiac]

  But on headphone, it goes across your head and you don't really get a sound stage. With headphones, I don't think you can really get a soundstage. All the instruments are stacked on top of each other. I think you get more of a sound space rather than a stage.

 
It's just different, but I'd still use the term "stage." Look at the (hastily-drawn) diagrams I posted in the previous page - it's for the most part inside the listener's head, true, but what counts for more is whether the instruments are at a reasonable position relative to each other. Instead of a live band of normal size, you just need to imagine one of those beat-driven toys. Kind of like a complete set of the toy below (which starts moving when you play music next to it) - I had something like it when I was a kit.
 

 
Besides, even speakers can't always replicate the soundstage size to scale. What if you had near-field monitors? That'll scale down an entire symphony to roughly just a little larger than the toy above, except it'll be outside the head. 12ft wide room with standmounts? Oh, the orchestra just crammed into a space barely wide enough for a rocker to freely jump around in.

 

[bigshot]

One of my goals with my speaker setup was to create a spread that was scaled to a natural size. My room is about 18 feet across and the soundstage reaches all the way across and about four and a half to five feet high. It's about the same size it would be if a band was set up at the end of the room. To do this it took a strong centerr channel and two sets of mains. From a seated position, it's really big sounding.

For orchestral music it's a bit tipped up in the center, making it feel like being on the edge of the frist balcony in a concert hall.

 

[Copperears]

I think to understand imaging people really need to listen to test a CD from either Chesky, Telarc or Stereophile on both speakers and headphone, For example, there are tracks that shows a person walk from right to left. On a speaker system, you can hear exactly the right to left movement. And you can tell how wide the sound stage is. But on headphone, it goes across your head and you don't really get a sound stage. With headphones, I don't think you can really get a soundstage. All the instruments are stacked on top of each other. I think you get more of a sound space rather than a stage.

That's odd, that's not what I experience at all using any good headphone or IEM and running the different mic techniques track on Stereophile Test CD 3.

I hear John Atkinson moving around, left, right, front, back, banging on a cowbell with interestingly different reverb effects inside the church depending on the mic and mic technique being used.

If anything, the placement is more exact than I ever heard on my Sony ES/Definitive Technologies BP2000s setup, despite its having significant flexibility in the area of adjusting direct/indirect sound dispersion in the room.


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[dvw]

   
It's just different, but I'd still use the term "stage." Look at the (hastily-drawn) diagrams I posted in the previous page - it's for the most part inside the listener's head, true, but what counts for more is whether the instruments are at a reasonable position relative to each other. Instead of a live band of normal size, you just need to imagine one of those beat-driven toys. Kind of like a complete set of the toy below (which starts moving when you play music next to it) - I had something like it when I was a kit.
 

 
Besides, even speakers can't always replicate the soundstage size to scale. What if you had near-field monitors? That'll scale down an entire symphony to roughly just a little larger than the toy above, except it'll be outside the head. 12ft wide room with standmounts? Oh, the orchestra just crammed into a space barely wide enough for a rocker to freely jump around in.

 
Your drawing is close to my experience with headphone except it's inside the head. I listen to music in my living room which is quite large and currently I'm using Time Windows 3 and for headphones I'm using HD580. Here's an example with imaging, with Roger waters' KAOS's intro, I can hear the dog barking in the back yard with the speaker. But with the headphone, I can hear the barking in a far away location but can't really pin point the location. The biggest drawback for me for headphone is your depiction of the drum all over the place in your drawing. In some of the older recording that simulate stereo, this effect is most pronounced. There are other recordings that have no distinction. I have a recording of the sound of whales with Leonard Nimoy. On both speakers and headphones, the experience are similar, you feel like you're in a boat.
 
The scale of the stage doesn't quite interest me, but the experience does. Modern Rock recording has very little sound stage any way. When I have a party, and push the spekers into the corners, No one ever told me; " hey, your sound stage is missing". All comments are about the bass. That's a good snap shot of consume mentality and why Beats is so successful.

 

[dvw]

That's odd, that's not what I experience at all using any good headphone or IEM and running the different mic techniques track on Stereophile Test CD 3.

I hear John Atkinson moving around, left, right, front, back, banging on a cowbell with interestingly different reverb effects inside the church depending on the mic and mic technique being used.

If anything, the placement is more exact than I ever heard on my Sony ES/Definitive Technologies BP2000s setup, despite its having significant flexibility in the area of adjusting direct/indirect sound dispersion in the room.


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That has not been my experience. I always hear sound in and around my head. May I inquire what is your set up to turn stereo recording into binaural recording? 

 

[Copperears]

I, too, hear sound in and around my head; I rather like it there. If I hear it in my stomach, it usually means I need some Pepto Bismol; if I hear it in my knees, I'm going to need some aspirin!

But to be serious, of course headphones bring the soundstage closer in to your head than speakers sitting outside at a distance.

But I'm perfectly comfortable with the precision of imaging and soundstaging and slam and slap and hunt and peck I experience with that closer environment. It's all more intimate.

Hate it when recordings pick up all the slurping and lip-smacking and breathing sounds of a pop diva, though, then I just feel like I need a bath.

 

[castleofargh]

it might be far fetched, but I know how unequal we all are when it comes to visualizing 3D shapes in our head. I'm guessing if visually there are real differences, those differences probably do exist also with audio perception.
like some see 3D pictures with a dip when it's a bump, or like some people are no good with modeling objects from schematics because they don't "see" the final form.
 
 
also experience must play its part. when you never asked yourself where was that instrument on your fav song, you won't wine when your new dap decides to place it right on the chorus. when god dammit with all that empty space all around you had to try and kill that poor girl with a guitar, you sadistic dap!!!!!!!  ^_^

 

[Copperears]

The artificiality of HP sound bothered me more a long time ago, before I got used to it. Now, I actually prefer it.


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[White Lotus]

The artificiality of HP sound bothered me more a long time ago, before I got used to it. Now, I actually prefer it.


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How so?

 

[Copperears]

More analytical, less distortion, smoother frequency spectrum, precise imaging without having to lock your head in one position to maintain it, no interruption of external sounds; with IEMs, I can listen at lower volumes that are still pleasing, so I experience radical reduction in ear fatigue and can listen for much longer, and thus tend to concentrate more on what I am hearing without getting distracted or falling asleep. Then there's portability..... that's my experience, at least.

Plus, here's the other thing: despite all the tweaking, positioning, balancing, room treating, equalizing, pure-straight-wire amplifying, crossover adjusting I spent years on with speakers, the only time they ever really sounded "natural" to me was -- not surprisingly -- when I was listening to small-ensemble music that would have fit appropriately into the space I was listening in. Chamber music, solo guitar, piano, that sort of thing.

Putting a full-fledged orchestra, chorus, arena rock band, EDM dance band, etc. into the same space? Always felt totally artificial. By the time I'd get to "realistic" volumes with all of those, people had to be a mile away in any direction. And even so, it ended up feeling kind of futile.

So with headphones and IEMs, there's none of that: NONE of the performance ensembles approach anything other than an imagined space in my head, extending out towards my ears. I use my brain to compensate rather than a room and setup, and it's fine. It's actually easier for me to imagine I'm in a non-small-ensemble space this way than with speakers in an average or even large-sized living room.

Plus there's no stress I'm possibly disturbing anybody else, and I can listen late into the night, next to someone sleeping, if desired. Which will be a factor for me until I find my 32-room mansion on 15 acres in the windless desert plain, with the nearest neighbor 20 miles away. Hmmm...... South Dakota! :rolleyes:

One other factor: with most if not all current non-classical music, the acoustic space summoned up by the engineering is so completely artificial that I feel like even if I were to chase "realism in a room" with such a recording.... I'd never find it. It sounds great in my IEMs and headphones, and is intimate and detailed that way, and thus, gripping.

 

[Copperears]

Listen to Gnawa Diffusion's "Shock el Hal," particularly "L'auvergnat" (the whole album is wonderful, though, really) with good IEMs....I can't imagine better imaging with speakers.

Get back to me and let me know if you agree.

 

[bagreallfues]

like unequal pathlength form your ears to each tweeter and midwoofer on either side plus the sub behind, and the soundwaves of each tweeter bouncing off the windshield (and they think both can be absolutely fixed just by EQ and Balance L-R bias). Not to mention the practical ergonomic issues of manipulating a device that is likely sitting on the front seat than on the dash.