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  1. #1
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    Is home HIFI dead ???

    I rarely run into anyone anymore that seems to care about actual quality sound. Everybody just tells me of their "sound bar" and how great it sounds.
    Ya they have muddled 2 channel audio into home theater crap. Sad eh? The glorious days of "stereo sound " seems dead mostly. I don't know how the few high end shops survive really.
    Music just doesn't sound the same through a theater system to me. I love my mono center channel in my main setup though. It's a true left and right mono channel. Set just slightly lower in volume than the left and right sides. Makes a room filling soundstage. Highly recommend a center channel. The whole system just becomes better imo. My system sounds full and still has that stereo effect.
    Anybody else use a center mono channel?

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    Administrator Robh3606's Avatar
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    Not at my house! I get what you mean though. Some do, don't know how old you are. When I was a junior in high school there were 5 brick and mortar stores I could bring a record down to and they would cue it up. Those days are long gone and frankly if a sound bar is all you have ever heard??? It's all about what you have been exposed too.

    Rob
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    I'm continually amused by young people who tout the superiority of vinyl and then play their new records thru their Sonos glorified table radios.

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    In response to Ian's post;

    You're right about concert venue. I try to sit 10-12 rows back, as close to the center as I can afford. That way I can hear the orchestra and the hall. Seattle has a great concert hall and here in Tacoma, not so good. Even so, I have found that with the addition of a center channel does fill the hole, and widens the sweet spot. It also depends on the recording. many classical recordings from the past were recorded in 3 channel, and many today are multi channel recordings. both Talarc and Reference Records have releases in multi channel.
    I also do have THE CHAIR, but I like to have my best beloved next to me on the small sofa.

    As far as some noisy waste of protoplasm chewing on cheezits, that generally doesn't happen in classical music. But what does happpen is that some schlub's cell phone goes off during a quiet part
    of a piece. And I do remember listening parties (......Hey come over and listen to my new speakers! You bring the beer.....) Sony SQ, and slide rules.

    Ed
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    Putting it all in perspective if you in fact set up your two channel system properly within the equilateral triangle l personally don’t experience a hole. It’s not an easy thing to set up properly with precise level matching and absolute symmetry. Even with a multi way system the effect is an immersive experience for me. That is dictated to a degree by the way the stereophonic recording is produced and mixed.

    Do l prefer listening at home? It depends on what’s on in town. But with the worlds longest lockdown in Melbourne the concert hall was closed in recent times. I am more drawn to the authenticity of that live music in the shopping mall experience. To me it’s about “tone” and the visceral acoustic presence of a musical instrument that causes the emotional connection.

    IMHO the centre’s function is dialogue in movies. I have only heard a centre reproduce a musical sound via a JBL LS centre speaker with a $7,000 Acram receiver at home. Acram is part of the Harman Group. That thing was a less is more approach according to my industry connection. It was big jump on the SQ of your typical wonder box.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ian Mackenzie View Post
    Putting it all in perspective if you in fact set up your two channel system properly within the equilateral triangle l personally don’t experience a hole. It’s not an easy thing to set up properly with precise level matching and absolute symmetry. Even with a multi way system the effect is an immersive experience for me. That is dictated to a degree by the way the stereophonic recording is produced and mixed.

    Do l prefer listening at home? It depends on what’s on in town. But with the worlds longest lockdown in Melbourne the concert hall was closed in recent times. I am more drawn to the authenticity of that live music in the shopping mall experience. To me it’s about “tone” and the visceral acoustic presence of a musical instrument that causes the emotional connection.

    IMHO the centre’s function is dialogue in movies. I have only heard a centre reproduce a musical sound via a JBL LS centre speaker with a $7,000 Acram receiver at home. Acram is part of the Harman Group. That thing was a less is more approach according to my industry connection. It was big jump on the SQ of your typical wonder box.
    I sure don't know much about live classical sound. But most of the club or concert or theater gigs I went to were not just simple stereo.
    Our local "big theater" place which is quite nice and has a lot of Altec horns and drivers. They do have a center setup in that place too.
    Or at other places the band always has speakers and amp setup across the stage usually. So the sound stage to me always seems pretty wide. I've never really seen live music presented as pure stereo. Sometime obviously, they only have a couple of pole speakers but that's not the scenario I mean. For instance is a big rock concert stereo? I don't honestly know that.
    I do know that the center channel just seems to round out the stage better for me. Turned at the exact perfect level as I think Ian mentioned.

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    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jblguy View Post
    I rarely run into anyone anymore that seems to care about actual quality sound.
    Yep, very few folks these days care about quality. Their loss I guess. The hobby isn't dead, there are tons of videos on YouTube of people sharing their systems, but that is not like dropping by a buddy's house to hear his latest album purchase.

    Quote Originally Posted by jblguy View Post
    Music just doesn't sound the same through a theater system to me.
    Agreed, even the million dollar plus home theaters I've been in don't sound as good as a really nice two channel system. For movies or filmed concerts they are stunning, but for the "close your eyes" listening to a favorite tune... not so much.

    Quote Originally Posted by jblguy View Post
    I love my mono center channel in my main setup though. It's a true left and right mono channel. Set just slightly lower in volume than the left and right sides. Makes a room filling soundstage. Highly recommend a center channel. The whole system just becomes better imo. My system sounds full and still has that stereo effect.
    Anybody else use a center mono channel?
    If your speakers are very far apart, or you are not able to sit in the proper location in an equilateral triangle, a center channel can be helpful, but in general I don't think it is beneficial.


    Widget

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    Senior Member grumpy's Avatar
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    If your speakers are very far apart...
    For sure.

    Played with one of these (old link below) for awhile, back when I was actively fooling with a fixed-corner-placement K-brand LCR setup.
    Studios dropped the hardware for cheap when the software version came out.
    Was quite effective. Adding a small amount of delay to the center helped (image 'tuning' and easing ) as well,
    effectively pushing the center channel back to the same radial distance from the listening position as the LR units
    (at least that's where it sounded better to me ).

    Got to be too complicated to bother with (also EQd), they pop a bit more than most equipment on turn-on, and the power supplies finally quit...

    http://www.agmdigital.com/page3/page35/

    Was a fun experiment though and getting the processing and delay right was worthwhile

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    Administrator Robh3606's Avatar
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    If your speakers are very far apart, or you are not able to sit in the proper location in an equilateral triangle, a center channel can be helpful, but in general I don't think it is beneficial.


    Widget
    Hello Widget

    Have you ever listened to a movie mix with no L/R?? Just Center and rears?? Try it.

    Rob
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    Administrator Mr. Widget's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robh3606 View Post
    Hello Widget

    Have you ever listened to a movie mix with no L/R?? Just Center and rears?? Try it.
    I have. The results vary widely depending on the mix. Sometimes you only get dialog with ambient sounds coming through the surrounds. In other mixes it is more complete. I have done the reverse too. A L,R plus surround mix without the center can be completely unintelligible or sound vaguely normal. I think this is not to the point of JBLguy's original post though. I believe he was talking about having a summed or mono center to help fill in with a primarily 2 channel system.

    Also partially off topic, I recently had to replace my car and the only sound system that is available in the car I wanted is designed by our friends in Northridge. It is called a Harman/Kardon Premium Audio system. They boast about it being a 9 speaker plus sub 480watt system. On paper it sounds great! It has a 5 band graphic EQ, a series of preset EQs, subwoofer integration etc.

    In reality the best I could get out of it was, pretty poor sound. This system appears to have been designed by bean counters and marketing types and no one from engineering ever gave it a proper audition. That said, after living with it for awhile and exploring all of the settings, I found that getting out of stereo and putting it in surround mode gave me the best sound. This drives the vocals through the front center channel and most of the instruments, left and right with crowd noise and other slightly out of phase content appearing in the rear. Whoever engineered their surround synthesizer has developed an impressive algorithm. The sub is still very Bose like and the system isn't something I would brag about, but at least it stopped pissing me off.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Widget View Post
    I have. The results vary widely depending on the mix. Sometimes you only get dialog with ambient sounds coming through the surrounds. In other mixes it is more complete. I have done the reverse too. A L,R plus surround mix without the center can be completely unintelligible or sound vaguely normal. I think this is not to the point of JBLguy's original post though. I believe he was talking about having a summed or mono center to help fill in with a primarily 2 channel system.


    Widget
    Yes I was referring to your comment on the 2 channels setup. If I turn it off I find the system just not as nice to listen to. It doesn't over power but adds some sort of soundstage thingy that seem more coherent. I dunno I'm terrible a trying to describe this sort of thing.
    It defiantly turned lower than the left and right are. Rather hard to hear actually. But fils in the middle.
    Here's a pic. The center is a 3 way. That's a stage accompany Ribbon tweeter in this pics in three spots. One for each channel.
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    The box is an EV Eliminator with an EV 15 inch in it. The 2360 horn has a JBL 2485 Driver on it. As they all do. So all phenolic drivers for that low mid range. I like them very much. The plates have 2440's on them.
    They are all time aligned to the voice coils.
    IMO the Stage Accompany Ribbon is an amazing driver in itself. 2000watts....like WTH
    They sound great and are nuts efficient. at 107Db at a watt. 1k to 30k
    A good match for such efficient mid horns and drivers.

  13. #13
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    What kind of music do you listen too, Ian?
    KEEP ON LISTENING!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Kreamer View Post
    What kind of music do you listen too, Ian?
    All sorts. Classic rock, blue grass, metal, southern blues, jazz, opera. I often listen to Miles Davis or sometimes Neil Young. I have a reasonable classical vinyl collection.

    If your into vinyl there are some excellent real analogue pressings out of Berlin. It comes down to the recording. I had the pleasure of listening to some amateur recordings on mini disk once. It was an eye opener to hear a relatively un compressed or processed live concert.

    One of Greg’s old clients in HK a retired banker does his own recordings on a studer reel to reel. Pretty cool stuff.

    I come back to Greg’s comments about the shopping centre experience. For me sun rises and sets on the unmistakable sound of live musical instruments.

  15. #15
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    Colleagues

    Several subjects here;

    Is home Hi-Fi dead

    No. Not yet. I do think that It has been in a long torpor, and is just beginning to wake up.

    Muti-channel audio, I think that there is a music genre component here. How many of us are classical music listeners? I am. and I am a concert goer also. a center channel can fill the hole in the middle that 2 channel can leave empty.

    But much depends on the gear and speakers. I run 3 4410's across the front and am using an H/K AVR 354 receiver. I find that multi channel discs give a convincing playback of the concert hall experience, and that Dolby PLx II does a

    decent job of "hole filling" to 2 channel recordings. I've run 3 channel for years, beginning when I was using a McIntosh C-26, with the derived center, and that was 1974 I think.
    KEEP ON LISTENING!

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