Vertical Soundstage - Is it real?

"With drums, for example, I can clearly hear that cymbols are positioned fairly high up, toms lower, and bass drums low down"

Do you have 3-way speakers perhaps?

I think it could well be to do with the placement of the speaker units. As an experiment you could see if turning the speaker upside down makes the drummer seem upside down (but watch out for the stand spikes!).
It could also be your mind playing tricks because you know how the parts of a drum kit are laid out.

Paul Rowlands

Couple of thoughts...

1. If a recorded sound is likely to change according to height (maybe getting reflected more from a hard ceiling than a soft carpet in a recording studio) then you could (subconsciously?) be picking up on such cues in the recording?

2. Not quite what you were talking about, but binaural headphone recordings aught to be able to reproduce this.

3. If all else fails - the brain does tend to impose its own sense of order, so if you know it should be higher...

I'm thinking there's maybe something in my first thought - any takers?

J

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Could you please explain what this means Stevea?

Thx, Andy[/QUOTE]

I am surmising that notes produced by instruments further away from the microphone will take longer to get to the microphone than notes from those closer. Also, echo’s, however small, from the recording venue will arrive a bit later still.

Quality recording equipment will capture these timing differences. Audio equipment that is capable of both reproducing the original detail and maintaining the original timing relationships will deliver these timing differences to the listeners ear where the brain will re-assemble the information into a soundstage with apparent depth.

Soundstage depth could also be created artificially as can soundstage width, as I notice on one CD in particular where some sounds seem to come from beside me rather than somewhere along the front of the room.

Note: Now this is just based on my own theoretical assemblage of how it must work having spent some time pondering such matters as a consequence of some remedial tweaks that I have applied to my system revealing more and more musical components that were previously hidden. This could all be a load of bollocks as I have only used my brain to arrive at this theory and since it is easily fooled into thinking music is coming from strange places in my room it may not be all that reliable.

Steve

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Originally posted by Jason Milner:
Couple of thoughts...

1. If a recorded sound is likely to change according to height (maybe getting reflected more from a hard ceiling than a soft carpet in a recording studio) then you could (subconsciously?) be picking up on such cues in the recording?

J

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So basically the brain is fooled by detail into thinking it is detecting height... Makes sense.

Steve

Steve,

Don't forget that as a dweller of Wellington, or "Hobbiton" (as it is now called) your brain can be fooled into thinking anything the Dark Lord Sauron wants it to think. Forget about the preciouseses Steve. You'll feel a lot better for it mate.

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Originally posted by Minky:
Steve,

Don't forget that as a dweller of Wellington, or "Hobbiton" (as it is now called) your brain can be fooled into thinking anything the Dark Lord Sauron wants it to think. Forget about the preciouseses Steve. You'll feel a lot better for it mate.

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I'm trying, i'm trying. I even took the day off yesterday to avoid all the dark forces clogging up the streets. Peter Jackson has a lot to answer for...

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BTW, you know this is _science_ which is rarely discussed here [/QUOTE]

I'm always interested in the science behind what I see and hear but try not to think about it too much while I am actually seeing and hearing.

I also enjoy trying 'what if' tweaks, based on gut feeling and curiosity, and then thinking about the science later. This has been reinforced by being told by a horticultural scientist, who was observing the success of a system my brother and I devised for protecting young olive trees from frost, that based on the science, he and his graduate students would not have tried what we did and it was only our ‘ignorance’ of the science that caused us to just go ahead and do it. The Nike principal in action I guess.

just listen to the music, let the blue haze clear and let your mind drift Steva

Life is analogue

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I've read an article where Stanley Lipschitz asserted that in an anechoic chamber, two speakers were enough to place a sound anywhere relative to the listener - including behind (above/below) the listener. I've never know Lipshitz to screw up, but he didn't give a reference (it's probably covered in the book "Spatial Hearing" by Blauert though..)/QUOTE]

Yes. In the Round Earth world there is something called a LEDE room (Live End, Dead End). In a LEDE room everything in the front half of the room is heavily damped to get rid of early reflections of the walls. This makes the room not far of from a anechoic chamber. To check how succesful the LEDE room is, there is a test signal of some sort where the sound is supposed to travel from one speaker and up OVER the listener and then down to the other speaker. I even think it's available on the net somewhere.

[QUOTE]just listen to the music, let the blue haze clear and let your mind drift

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Of course, you are correct here, Wolf. Who cares where the musicians are placed (or not) when the music is good.

The earth is flat / JohanR

is a science still in its immaturity so we’ll hardly know the reasons but there is plenty of lateral information in any good quality system. May I call the attention to Chesky’s old test disc (Chesky JD37) where the above mentioned phenomena is used to show irregulatirities of room and/or speakers. It’s really funny. The digitally designed signals come from one of the speakers, then raise up to the ceiling, makes a bow to the other side’s upper corner etc.

graphoman

...other trick is making tambourine beats one foot, three feet, six feet, nine feet from the microphone etc. It’s rather demonstrative.

graphoman

"With drums, for example, I can clearly hear that cymbols are positioned fairly high up, toms lower, and bass drums low down."

The odd thing is:- I'm sure when I hear someone playing the drums
(I mean actually playing the drums not a recording) The bass drum
hits you right in the chest as though coming straight at you, not
from low down....... so why should it have mysteriously moved on
a recording ?

When mucking about with my speaker supports, I gained vertical soundstage with some configurations and not with others. This was done with no re-positioning of the speakers or the contents of the room, and Pearcy was with me at the time to back me up. It really happened. It must be related entirely to the performance of the system changing and is not related to the room, as far as I can see. I have no idea how it works, but I have it full time now.

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The odd thing is:- I'm sure when I hear someone playing the drums
(I mean actually playing the drums not a recording) The bass drum
hits you right in the chest as though coming straight at you, not
from low down....... so why should it have mysteriously moved on
a recording ?

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This would tend to suggest that the position of the base driver or the floor is playing a part.

Alternatively it could mean that since the base note from reel drums effects you in the chest so much you are extrapolating that to mean that the sound is being generated at chest level and if it was powerful enough to knock you out you might infer that the sound was coming from head level.

Also, in a real set of drums the base skin is a lot larger then your average base driver and I would guess the center of the skin would be a good 50cm off the floor whereas some base units are a lot closer to the floor. It wouldn't be surprising if you were to find yourself standing in front of a base driver the size of a base drum your chest would notice it when it went off. (not to mention that the power required to move it would probable dim the lights).

In the end, as someone else has noted, it does not really matter where the instruments are positioned as long as you enjoy the music, but, not being a flatlander, http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/flatland/ I am always curious to understand the why behind the what.

Steve

Steve you have a PM.

Simon

“Originally posted by graphoman:
is a science still in its immaturity so we’ll hardly know the reasons – Poppycock.”

Well Andrew, it’s not the place where things like that should be discussed, especially not with my limited English. As regards on the more than 100-years-history: its the one of acoustics but not psycho-acoustics.

I don’t want to citate but only one saying, from the ones well-known researcher Matti Otala, known of his work on transient intermodulation in amps etc., you may find his findings and discussions in the British Press of 1-2 decades.

That time, when I was active as journalist and still interested in such topics I happened to get some personal letters from him. (My friends at the Hungarian Institute for Electric Testing wanted to make a replica of a certain measuring process invented by him, that’s why I had contacted him.)

Matti was the opinion that the whole history of acoustics should be re-written, improving all the errors made by Helmholtz(!) and all the others. The few readings of mine about acoustics/psychoacoustics all concur with Matti’s opinion. I was horrified by the nonchalance scientists worked on that field and called themself scientists.

I don’t think the whole matter deserves more attention. Hi-Fi was and will remain on the border of a premature science and mature praxis. Not unsimilar to the makers of good music instruments.

graphoman

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as can easily proved by listening not for a tuneless thump, the sort of thing that hits you violently in the stomach, but for pitch and separation in the extreme bass.

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Yes, as the title says "Nothing has changed", ie most people, half a century later, still prefers the former...

JohanR

Originally posted by dozy:
"I don't see how you can get imaging out of the plane, except through boundary reflection."


Is it possible to achieve a converse rotational acoustic affect between two loudspeakers reproducing very nearly identical signals? (Either in phase, wavelength or waveform). This might offer a "vertical plane" aural signal to account for height effects noticed by listeners to stereo sources.

Optical illusions are well known and many rely on simple 2-D patterns of lines on paper to achieve 'movement', artificial depth information and non-existant patterns. Sometimes beyond the boundaries of the printed images when viewed by our two eyes. Martian 'canals' are a known optical phenomenom. The eye makes up patterns from barely detectable point detail at the absolute limit of visibility in contrast, shade and colour detection.
Why shouldn't the same affect be possible with the ear seeking barely perceptible acoustic detail from amongst the multitude of complex wave and phase patterns emerging from the loudspeaker? Producing new 'virtual' aural signals from the complex pattern that reaches our ears. The ear discriminates from amongst the impossible complexity (of barely audible subtleties within the whole) to produce vertical response information.

The simplest obvious pattern would be overlapping concentric rings. Representing the two spaced loudspeakers acoustically instead of two overlapping bullseyes visually. Optical illusion might be a fruitful source for further study of aural illusion. (assuming there were any similarities of course) Fresnel effects are well known optically. Persistance of vision might also have an aural parallel.

I merely offer these ideas to be thrown into the pot for discussion (or outright dismissal by those with real knowledge of the subject matter).

Nime

Everyone has the right to be wrong.