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What exactly is "imaging" ?

darrenyeats said:
A couple of years ago I attended a demo and heard a high hat 2m above and 1m to the left of the left speaker. Thinking it was comb filtering or some other weird effect I deliberately shook my ahead and repositioned myself. No, still there in exactly the same spot.

This is a particularly precisely located example of something that happens all the time IME.

That is an illusion, not imagination. Now if you're saying that an accurate illusion would have been the high hat in some other place, then I am willing to accept that, since the combination of recording acoustic, mic placement, speaker placing and listening room acoustic is likely to have unknown cumulative effect! Maybe another situation would have no effect, or a different effect, with the same recording. But if you say no height illusion can be conveyed by a stereo recording using speakers, you are wrong.
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What is the mechanism that creates that supposed illusion which you're imagining? :p

Have you tried the https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_ledr.php tests with your speakers and headphones?
 
tuga said:
P.S.: I expect the kick drum to be on the floor so that's where I perceive it to be positioned, whilst vocals, a solo violin or cybals I tend to perceive above the top of the speakers.
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I can’t usually tell where the kick-drum is, and that is something I hope to feel rather than hear. Depends on the recording.

Vocals, cymbals, higher frequency sounds are in different places depending on the production, so instruments can be in different places with each record or c.d. I play.

I do not preempt where the instruments are going to be. I expect them to be in different places.
 
davidsrsb said:
Thanks for that link.
So I am correct that I can estimate elevation from spectral cues and then get better accuracy with dynamic cues.
My thoughts are that subtle frequency response changes can affect sensed height and the effect will vary across the panning
Nodding your head will get misleading dynamic cues depending on reflected sound.
As this has nothing to do with what was recorded on a studio recording, it will be a lottery.
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The way I understand it is that if you hear a sound with a particular spectrum your brain won't know for sure what was in the orginal signal and what was angle of incidence/head created stuff. Now if you know what the orignal signal was perhaps because you know from experience (or vision) what the source was, your brain can immedately know what the hrtf added amount was and therefore judge the angle of incidence.

But if it doesn't know it can narrow it down by moving the head and seeing what happens then. It will then get a different spectrum but it can begin to guess what part comes from the angle of incidence and what part was in the orginal signal.

This is all in the real world. You might for some reason get a sense of height in an ordinary stereo recording, but if you move your head you won't get the sort of change your brain expects (because the spectrum will not change as expected if the sound really had been coming from above). This is a limitation even of ordinary binaural dummy head recordings. As I understand it there is a lot of work on getting head tracking to work in gaming (perhaps unsurprising since the gaming industry now dwarfs music) but I don;t know whether this is just on the horizonal plane or whether they are working on it in the vertical plane .

I would love to know how consistent the vertical effects (some) people perceive in recordings are across different people or even across different speakers/rooms. My guess would be "not very", but I'm not sure whether anyone has ever tried testing this.

Incidentally this is a really useful article (the bits on how -normal-hearing listeners hear)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4271773/
 
Big Tabs said:
I can’t usually tell where the kick-drum is, and that is something I hope to feel rather than hear. Depends on the recording.

Vocals, cymbals, higher frequency sounds are in different places depending on the production, so instruments can be in different places with each record or c.d. I play.

I do not preempt where the instruments are going to be. I expect them to be in different places.
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An orchestra tends to have the same layout depending on the period. Pop-rock tracks usually have the lead vocals centrally positioned. That is on the horizontal plane.
As @Tony L mentioned sometimes a piano can be perceived to be overly wide, mostly due to a recording or mixing distortion but sometimes due to poor speaker positioning/setup, room interference, perhaps even poor speaker design.
 
I have a system test CD, several in fact, usually freebies at shows and stuff. They usually have some track where a sound (maybe a click or a tick or rubbing sound, or something) pans from one side to the other, in an arch. You can follow the movement. The test is that if the movement is uneven, or stalls for a few beats, or suddenly jumps from one location to another, then your system isn’t optimally set up. But the important thing is that this is not a flat panning across from left to right, but an arch, with height. And I repeat, you can quite easily follow the movement, and you are clearly intended to be able to.
 
darrenyeats said:
A

That is an illusion, not imagination. Now if you're saying that an accurate illusion would have been the high hat in some other place, then I am willing to accept that, since the combination of recording acoustic, mic placement, speaker placing and listening room acoustic is likely to have unknown cumulative effect! Maybe another situation would have no effect, or a different effect, with the same recording. But if you say no height illusion can be conveyed by a stereo recording using speakers, you are wrong.
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No one is saying that no one can perceive a sense of height when listening to their stereo. The issue is whether height information can be reliably encoded so as to produce the correct result consistently amongst listeners.
The word illusion is itself dangerously ambiguous: the perception of a sound front centre between stereo speakers is in a sense an illusion, but it can be deliberately and reliably encoded so as to produce a consistent result amongst listeners.
 
Some may find these interesting:

Spatial Perception of Sound Source Distribution in the Median Plane
Pulkki, Ville ; Pontynen, Henri ; Santala, Olli
https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/42081

Controlling the perceived distance of an auditory object by manipulation of loudspeaker directivity
Mikko-Ville Laitinen, Archontis Politis, Ilkka Huhtakallio, and Ville Pulkki
https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/32708

Hearing Spatial Detail in Stereo Recordings
Siegfried Linkwitz
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/TMT-Leipzig'10/TMT-Hearing spatial detail.pdf

ON THE LOCALISATION IN THE SUPERIMPOSED SOUNDFIELD
Günther Theile
https://hauptmikrofon.de/theile/1980-2_Diss._Theile_englisch.pdf
 
tuga said:
An orchestra tends to have the same layout depending on the period. Pop-rock tracks usually have the lead vocals centrally positioned. That is on the horizontal plane.
As @Tony L mentioned sometimes a piano can be perceived to be overly wide, mostly due to a recording or mixing distortion but sometimes due to poor speaker positioning, room interference perhaps even poor speaker design.
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The real test would be to produce a stereo recording of an orchestra with the flutes and percussion seeming to be on the bottom row along with the singers, lying on the stage with the violins raised up above them. I look forward to hearing that one.
 
tuga said:
Some may find these interesting:

Spatial Perception of Sound Source Distribution in the Median Plane
Pulkki, Ville ; Pontynen, Henri ; Santala, Olli
https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/42081

Controlling the perceived distance of an auditory object by manipulation of loudspeaker directivity
Mikko-Ville Laitinen, Archontis Politis, Ilkka Huhtakallio, and Ville Pulkki
https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/32708

Hearing Spatial Detail in Stereo Recordings
Siegfried Linkwitz
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/TMT-Leipzig'10/TMT-Hearing spatial detail.pdf

ON THE LOCALISATION IN THE SUPERIMPOSED SOUNDFIELD
Günther Theile
https://hauptmikrofon.de/theile/1980-2_Diss._Theile_englisch.pdf
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Imaging was Linkwitz's favourite topic I think.
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/The_Magic/The_Magic.htm
"I claim that few stereo listeners, audiophiles, or audio professionals have heard what stereo is truly capable of because loudspeakers for domestic use are generally not designed with a reverberant playback space in mind. Furthermore, phantom sources, which are key elements of stereo reproduction, are unnatural phenomena; we are programmed by evolution to detect direction and distance of real sources of sound in a multitude of reverberant environments. Stereo sound reproduction in a reverberant room must therefore be treated like the creation of a magic trick for the ears - a trick in which the listener withdraws attention from the loudspeakers and the room. What remains to enjoy is the phantom auditory scene."
...
"The magic is difficult to describe in pictures or words but is recognized within 30 seconds when heard. It usually elicits a big smile or even laughter from the listener. Naive listeners, audiophiles and professionals alike recognize the naturalness of presentation. On many recordings it is 3D in front of the listener and resembles a concert experience."

When I heard the Orions in a decent space, they delivered in the above way.
 
tuga said:
An orchestra tends to have the same layout depending on the period. Pop-rock tracks usually have the lead vocals centrally positioned. That is on the horizontal plane.
As @Tony L mentioned sometimes a piano can be perceived to be overly wide, mostly due to a recording or mixing distortion but sometimes due to poor speaker positioning/setup, room interference, perhaps even poor speaker design.
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so what? I don’t hear music the same as you do (thank goodness) and this disturbs you, or something. Definitely a twist in your knickers.

You have fun now, and enjoy your knobs twiddling.
 
darrenyeats said:
"The magic is difficult to describe in pictures or words but is recognized within 30 seconds when heard. It usually elicits a big smile or even laughter from the listener. Naive listeners, audiophiles and professionals alike recognize the naturalness of presentation. On many recordings it is 3D in front of the listener and resembles a concert experience."
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Indeed, and it is sad to see so many of those who listen by semi-understanding textbooks can’t set a system up so that is the end result. As stated above, once heard, never forgotten.

PS Listening unsighted is a real gain here, just remove all visual clues and hear what the system can actually create rather than what you think is possible.
 
I was excited when I found out that Santa Claus didn't exist. But we're all different.
Big Tabs said:
so what? I don’t hear music the same as you do (thank goodness) and this disturbs you, or something. Definitely a twist in your knickers.

You have fun now, and enjoy your knobs twiddling.
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What are you talking about?
 
Tony L said:
Indeed, and it is sad to see so many of those who listen by semi-understanding textbooks can’t set a system up so that is the end result. As stated above, once heard, never forgotten.

PS Listening unsighted is a real gain here, just remove all visual clues and hear what the system can actually create rather than what you think is possible.
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There you go with your high brow... Of course you know better than the books.

Who says our setups are not setup properly and that we don’t get an illusion of soundstage with phantom images?
 
If stereo can do height, it must be possible for a recording engineer to vary the perceived height of a voice, say from down on the floor to up on the ceiling. How would they do that?
 
AndyU said:
If stereo can do height, it must be possible for a recording engineer to vary the perceived height of a voice, say from down on the floor to up on the ceiling. How would they do that?
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Exactly.
 
Tony L said:
Indeed, and it is sad to see so many of those who listen by semi-understanding textbooks can’t set a system up so that is the end result. As stated above, once heard, never forgotten.

PS Listening unsighted is a real gain here, just remove all visual clues and hear what the system can actually create rather than what you think is possible.
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Why make any of these assumptions?
 
tuga said:
Who says our setups are not setup properly and that we don’t get an illusion of soundstage with phantom images?
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Err, you! You proudly proclaimed upthread that all mic information lines up in a flat 2d row between your speakers “like hanging on a washing line”. No compression of recorded reflections and other spacial cues, no comprehension of how our hearing processes and decodes that information. Just ‘burp up a book’ fundamentalism. That is how it comes across anyway.

PS If you were talking about totally dry test tones from a signal generator, or sources recorded in an anechoic chamber you would be absolutely correct, but that isn’t music, it just isn’t how stuff is recorded or post-processed. In reality there is much more going on.
 
Tony L said:
Err, you! You proudly proclaimed upthread that all mic information lines up in a flat 2d row between your speakers “like hanging on a washing line”. No compression of recorded reflections and other spacial cues, no comprehension of how our hearing processes and decodes that information. Just ‘burp up a book’ fundamentalism. That is how it comes across anyway.

PS If you were talking about totally dry test tones from a signal generator, or sources recorded in an anechoic chamber you would be absolutely correct, but that isn’t music, it just isn’t how stuff is recorded or post-processed. In reality there is much more going on.
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The Naxos recording of the Missa Criolla has a massively deep soundstage. Cavernous. If your system doesn't recreate that, regardless of 'transparency' and all that guff, it's not hifi. :p
 
I don’t understand - how can a thread that started about imaging and what it is have turned into an argument about perceived height?! When I’m listening I switch the lights off, the GM75s are so damned bright I need to close my eyes as well. My tiny living room disappears into what is mastered into the recording - not just side to side and front to back, but also up and down. OK, getting my esls to optimal height (for me) has improved the up and down considerably, but it was always been there. Both on heavily mastered electronica and simple recordings such as my ex-ex wife’s mother singing in a choir at her local church (recorded I think, with a 2 mic Nagra and no further processing), or even that Trinity Sessions album.

For me it exists, and is the main reason music sucks me in. However, as said, I think we all look for different things when listening…and when „improving“ our systems to develop more of what we like. Hence we all end up at different endpoints - that’s fine for me, but why the evangelical „right or wrong“ posts - once you realise we are all looking for something different…guess what :)
 
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