Is Surround Sound Worth It?
Bowers & Wilkins has hosted the latest in its series of sound debates at London’s Strongroom studios. This time the hot topic was surround sound, and how it compared to stereo. The round-table discussion was hosted by Martyn Ware, himself an advocate of multichannel audio through his company Illustrious, which uses three-dimensional sound imaging techniques and technologies to provide immersive sound environments.
Other panelists included the Editor of stereo institution Hi-Fi World, The Deputy Editor of What Hi-Fi and a former Pioneer product manager who was heavily involved in the first players capable of handling both the SACD and DVD-Audio multichannel music formats.
We expected there to be multiple opinions on a sound topic as contentious as surround sound and our panel of experts didn’t disappoint.
Martyn Ware (Musical innovator and sound artist)
“Stereo is a particularly ubiquitous format, which works for most situations. But it is far from impressive when you compare it with an equivalent that is deliberately mixed in surround.”
Dominic Dawes (Deputy editor of What Hi-Fi? Sound & Vision)
“Surround sound has very much succeeded in making people feel like they are in the cinema… I don’t know what it has really done beyond that for the average punter”
Andy Walter (Surround sound mastering engineer at Abbey Road Studios)
“The band are in front of you across three speakers. Bono is in the centre and you have The Edge and everything going on. But behind there is the ambience of being there at a gig with 80,000 people… it’s stereo plus!”
Click here to download an MP3 of the full discussion.
Alain Bourgie says:
If surround sound can bring back the sound and especially the “feeling” of vinyl records, I will be very happy. I have been comparing vinyl and cd for a while now, and the difference in overwlming. Cd sound is very good of course, but there is something missing in many levels.
Posted: Thursday, 23 October 2008
Mark DiPerri says:
Having been involved in these types of conversations about surround sound worth since 1994, I can see that not much has changed in 14 years. There is a place for surround sound but it has to be part of the original plan in every aspect of content playback. The most important issue is to use it to benefit the listeners expeirence and not as a gimmick or afterthought.
The sweet spot mentioned does impact the expeience. I believe that the lietening room impacts the quality of surround sound system playback. Small rooms can't always benefit from multiple speakers where large rooms do. If you are sitting too close to any one speaker the suround effect is spoiled. This is true for movie theaters also. Technically there are as few good seats in a surround system set up. The distance one sits from the speakers is important. which leads me to my next point. A properly set up 2-channel system ( with a good speaker like the 802D, in a live room can give great results for everyone seated. It can recreate the ambience that was captured in the 2 channel recording. And I will say that it too is not perfect.
I've had this discussion concerning the need for a center channel verses no center channel or to use the phantom center. The room size and seating position is dependent. Small rooms can remove the center without much notice. Using a speaker on each side of the screen for the center creates a more realistic sense of a centrally located sound.
I have spent many years studying the effects of different playback configurations and have come to the realization that the application dictates the system type.
this was a great Podcast and I look forward to listening to more of them from B&W.
Regards,
Mark D.
Posted: Thursday, 23 October 2008
Dan says:
I listen to all CDs in 2.1 and enjoy the experience. You are right on that LZ should never be listened to in 5.1. I too imagine the musicians playing for me in front of me and not surrounding me. However being a R&R photographer many years ago I have 200+ concert DVDs in my collection, which for the most part bring you into the venue itself! Although Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon 25th anniversary's CD surround mix was "fun" to listen to. Perhaps the record companies could put both a 2 channel on the front side of the CD and a 5.1 mix on the other? That way "WE" could get used to the format and embrace the technology as time passes. Every night after the last song is played I say "thank you" to my B&W speakers for the absolutely beautiful sonic experience.
Posted: Thursday, 23 October 2008
Matthias Broekema says:
If ,ixed well surround sound it can be a great experience. However some mixes are very poor (I believe one of them is The Eagles DVD's which was tauted as a very good 5.1 mix at the time) and have, as mentioned before, band members playing at my left and right. As long the music is mixed this poorly I will keep on listing to 2.0 stereo music.
I would like to note that I am very happy with B&W's music club initiative, which provides good recorded music. Maybe it would be an idea for them to expand this to good 5.1 mixes which are more true to the real sound then to the hyped up 5.1 mixes we find an many dvd's
Posted: Thursday, 23 October 2008
Craig Wallace says:
I personally haven’t listened to anything other than multichannel for the past 6 years or so. I enjoy the benefits of what multichannel processing can bring out of any source, to include 2 channel. However, I think the biggest reason why it hasn’t caught on is the cinema aspect of surround. Many feel its place is only the movies because that’s what they are accustomed to and haven’t heard anything worth the trouble. Unfortunately, you won’t find may products “worth the trouble,” available to the average consumer. Even those within the reach of the more discerning audiophile just don’t cut the mustard. Their just overpriced, nicely wrapped consumer grade products. You don’t really see things begin to change until you get into the higher end products; but you end up either going beyond the budget of most or land in the market of audiophiles who have the money but don’t care because they are starchy. Of course, you have your exceptions but without proper guidance, you still can end up off track.
Discrete multichannel mixes in my opinion are a joke and the majority of the engineers have no clue what they are doing. There focus is more on the surround mix than the intended purpose of the mix; the reproduction of the event through multiple channels. Again, there are the exceptions, but they are few and far between.
I will go out on a limb here and say that a properly assembled and configured multichannel system, calibrated correctly will be heads above an evenly priced and assembled 2 channel system. Its a bold statement, but I have yet to find it to be any different. No, I haven’t heard absolutely every configuration, but those I have, ranging from low end consumer grade to $200K+ audiophile grade, haven’t been able to do it. Information on any disc, two or multichannel, shouldn’t have to be recreated, but only placed where it supposed to be. Any system that can accomplish this is well worth the trouble.
Posted: Thursday, 23 October 2008
Scott McNealus says:
I started out in the ‘hi-fi’ business and now I do custom installs of home theaters.
Here’s what most everyone forgets. Just like a camera tries to capture an image as accurately as possible, a sound system should do the same. Would you buy a camera where the faces were green and the sky was brown?
So the #1 priority of ANY sound system is to recreate the sound and where it was recorded as accurately as possible. If it’s a jazz quartet in a club, it shouldn’t sound like they’re in Yankee Stadium. Drums and bass should be at the back, lead guitar should be front left or right and lead vocals should be center. Just like you would if you went to hear them live. It’s called depth and staging.
Here’s another anatomical anamoly – humans have two ears – both of them face forward (stereo!). This arrangement means they must turn their head to pinpoint where the sound they are hearing is coming from. All other sounds – because they take more time to get to our ears – are reflections/reverberations of the original sound. They are not independent sounds.
Even in a battlefield situation, where explosions are going off all around you, if you tried to follow all the sound, you’d end up spinning like a top and pass out.
So there is primary sound stage from the front speakers, and a delay of that sound from the rear speakers.
That’s why so many 5.1 etc. systems/recordings sound weird. They pump four/or more independent tracks out to the room when our ears and brain are biologically wired to hear primary/delay sound. In fact, they cannot hear any other sound.
Reminds me of the QS/SQ Quad rivalry in the early 1970’s. What fun!
Hope that helps.
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Justin Nealis says:
It really depends on the source material you're listening to as to whether surround sound is necessary or not. When dealing with music, you're primarily listening to/experiencing a performance, which 90% of the time takes place directly in front of you with sound reverberating off the side and rear walls of the room/theater. Music doesn't cater well to Surround Sound due to its inherent performance nature, and 5.1 audio tracks of albums only serve to make use of your extra speakers for a 'novelty' (In my opinion) effect. High Quality audio formats such as SACD and DVD-Audio, I believe, would be used to greater effect if carrying a two channel (Stereo) 24/192 version of the music instead of a compressed 5.1 soundtrack.
When dealing with movies or (increasingly) games, surround sound is of higher importance. Movies (with the exception of plays and theater recordings) are designed to immerse you into the universe, and thus Surround Sound is used to much greater effect. Similarly, games use Surround Sound for positioning effects and atmosphere, such as the sound of a pistol shot to your immediate rear, or the slogging of a zombie to your rear left. Stereo speakers have difficulty conveying such precise locations unless they're of a high quality (B&W's, ML's, etc) and used with equally prestigious equipment, and even then it's not as precise or accurate as a dedicated Surround Channel(s). At this point you get into the debate of 5.1/6.1/7.1, but that's neither here nor there.
At the end of the day, it's the source material that matters. Music should stick to the Stereo realm at higher sampling rates, while Movies and Games should make use of the new lossless sound codecs and storage mediums to really work those surround speakers, assuming studios and developers make proper use of them.
On a final note, I will concede that some musical albums and songs do sound fantastic in a surround sound environment, though such tracks are usually specially recorded for the surround environment. However, a good pair of Stereo Towers can easily reproduce the natural (and minimal) surround effects in an adequate room, without the need for a dedicated surround mix. Remember, music is primarily a performance, while movies and games are primarily experiences, and the sound fields adjust or change accordingly to suit the material being listened to.
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Rohith says:
The reviews and comments on surround sound was a interesting and remarcable topic arrnaged by B&W. Many thanks to B&W.
I an looking forward to hear and read such a development in sound system as I am great listener on music and eagarly watching developments in sound systems.
Great work. Thanks,
Best Regards,
Rohith
Sr.Mechanical Engineer
ADMA-OPCO, Oil & Gas Operating Company
Oil & Gas Division
UAE
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Chris Geary says:
So apparently free speech isn’t allowed here. My posting got removed!
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Klemens Thoene says:
I think there is no discussion needed about surround sound. It’s just better than stereo, giving you a feeling for the room in which the sound happens. This benefit can be heard (experienced) equally in listening to music, especially life recordings and cinema. Even 1st class stereo can’t give you this illusion as perfect as surround sound does.
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Carlos Sanchez says:
As a Hi Fi music reproduction lover, well, the performer (be it a singer, a band, an orchestra) is in front of you, which is what a stereo or even multi channel speaker systems placed, in front, shall as accurately as possible reproduce. So why mess with an, albeit spectacular, fake effect? leave it to the cinema, doesn’t belong to Hi Fi.
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Begine Marc (Belgium) says:
For me it is clear that the experience of hearing a live concert in a concert hall can only be reproduced by a (high end) surround system. Stereo sound does not reproduce the stage and the different surround effects. You can really experience the (near) live concert (well not at 100% obviously) with a good (high end) surround system. SACD and DVD Audio give us now the possibility of experiencing this live feeling (if well recorded of course).
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Josep says:
Guilty is not the technology, but the men using it for the good or bad.
A nicely mixed multichannel music cut could make the listener happier than just a 2-channel mix. Trouble is, temptation is too big to make things “spectacular”… wrongly ugly.
In fact we all (?) know good examples of earlier stereo mixes with bad engineering (aka “ping-pong”).
Sorry for my bad english btw
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Mike Redman says:
I feel that there are strong arguments for both formats. Stereo is at it’s best with music programmes that have small groups of musicians where the clearer sound stage of stereo can be heard. Multi channel can also help focus as a good centre channel makes the best of a centrally placed singer. Music which has high levels of reverberation such as church music can be best heard on multichannel. Another area that I enjoy is DVDs of live concerts. I can’t get to the live concert, but I can get a good feeling of the atmosphere with multichannel.
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Chris Geary says:
You only have to listen to a score written for multi-channel in the first place to know that surround sound can be the most engaging and amazing experience. Two clear examples are both written by BT, one the soundtrack to the Charlize Theron movie ‘Monster’ and the other his latest album ‘This Binary Universe’. Both presented in DTS and both utterly sublime in terms of music, surround presentation and use of dynamic range. This is music at its best in every way.
Stereo vs surround is all well and good, but if we continue to allow studios to compress the life out of music, then it won’t matter whether its 2 or multi channel, the music will sound rubbish:
http://www.turnmeup.org/about_us.shtml
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Tim Aldiss says:
Although it’s a wonderful experience to close your eyes and listen to great music that you love mixed down well into five (or more) channels by a producer that you admire it’s only really when you have visuals as well that I find the multi channel sound medium really works.
Any live DVD (well most) can be such an immersive experience. For me it was the first experience that I had with DVD and it sold me! I think a 5.1 music mix down is much more of a test for your system than an explosive action movie!
I am an electronic music fan as well as accoutsic/orchestral fan and have really enjoyed efforts by the likes of LTJ Bukem to bridge the gap between a fairly flat two channel experience and something much more fully immersive (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Planet-Earth-DVD-Ltj-Bukem/dp/B0006ULVFC).
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
David (B says:
hi all (especially Chris!)
Just so everyone knows we had a glitch where we were “splitting the conversation” across a number of domains. We have now moved all the comments into one area so everyone can see what everyone else is thinking. apologies for the mix up.
please everyone carry on the debate there is some great stuff here.
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Chris Geary says:
David: thanks! :D
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Michael Read says:
Thanks, B & W, for presenting this discussion.
I listen primarily, though not exclusively, to classical, and I have the advantage of living alone. I therefore have a dedicated listening room, and the only listening spot is the sweet spot. I have two seperate systems in the room that share the same large main front speakers, but have totally seperate electronics- one surround; the other 2 channel.
I have found that surround is capable of the most realistic, enjoyable experience, but only if the recording is properly made. I agree that most of the pop recordings are usually mixed with exaggerated surround effects, and, while they may be fun sometimes, they are usually mainly annoying or worse.
Most of the comments I hear or read seem to almost exclusively assume pop music is being listened to. With classical SACDs, the story is quite different. Listen to almost any of the SACD multi-channel recordings from Linn, or Chandos, and you will hardly ever find any of the exaggerated surround effects. (IF your system is properly set up!) Instead you get a beautiful sense of ambience and seperation of instruments- more of the holographic effect one of the panelists mentioned.
I wonder how much all of this theory really matters though. I am very cynical about the future of quality recordings and playback equipment. If you judge by the popularity of I-Pods, listening to music seems to be more of a need for constant background noise, with quality of sound not even a consideration.
Talking constantly on the phone, and texting seems to be by far the most popular thing on the planet.
According to a current magazine article, the entry level cost for custom- install home music systems is now $20,000.00 to $50,000.00, and the most important aspect of these expensive systems is that they play music in every room of the house and outside, and that they not be seen. So you have extremely expensive sonic wallpaper; a background system for parties.
How many people actually sit down and deliberately listen to music anymore? In my opinion, high quality recordings and equipment demand this dedication.(In a lot of classical pieces, you won't even hear parts of the music otherwise)
I believe we just have too many distractions these days- more people are not willing to put any effort into the experience, and most things are getting "dumbed down"; they gravitate towards the easy, shallow, novel things.
Which is a shame, because they are missing many very rewarding experiences.
Posted: Friday, 24 October 2008
Chris Roberts says:
It is a pity the broadcasters don’t attempt surround demonstrations more. Try for example www. concertzender.eu/live5ch.php for an interesting experience, the Dutch broadcasting corporation. For me, the difference between stereo and surround sound really depends on where you are sitting, eg. if you are working at a computer with music around you or whether you want to sit in the “sweet spot” for a certain time in total listening mode. Perhaps the BBC can retry their Ambisonic system from the seventies (what about Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy?), updated into 5.1.
PS: I still keep all my old quadraphonic LP’s in case they become useful as test cases. I like Dan’s suggestion.
Posted: Tuesday, 28 October 2008
martyn ware says:
Hi everyone
Martyn Ware here…
A fascinating series of responses – it’s strange for me because surround sound is such an integral part of my creative and listening experience that i simply find mixing (and listening) in stereo a real turn-off – it just seems so arbitrary.
I know my opinion isn’t shared by many people, but it is a sincerely held view.
If the quest is for the highest of high fidelity, and we have the capacity to reproduce sonic reality more faithfully (let alone the added creative possibilities), then why shouldn’t top quality surround sound be the default setting?
I await your responses…
Yours immersively
mx
Posted: Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Ken says:
Great podcast. I must say I agree with Justin Nealis' post on 24 October. A musical performance is usually performed in front of you and the bulk of the information comes from the front. Whereas in movies and games you are being placed inside an environment where action is happening all around.(eg helicopters flighing overhead, bullets racing past and hitting someone behind you). This all comes with a series of visual clues also.
Well recorded stereo music played back via a quality properly configured stereo environment in a good listening room is in my mind the right solution for music listening. My B&W 804s along with my Arcam stereo components give me no end of listening pleasure.
Cheers,
Ken
Posted: Wednesday, 12 November 2008
JUAN CARLOS SALVADOR says:
ESTOY DE ACUERDO EN TODO LO QUE COMENTAIS.
TENGO INTENCION DE COMPRARME UN HOME CINEMA PARA MI CASA Y QUISIERA SABER SI ME PODEIS HACER UN DESCUENTO. TENGO QUE FELICITAROS POR VUESTRO ZEPPEILIN ES FANTASTICO, ESTE VERANO ME COMPRE UNO Y ESTOY MUY CONTENTO. ESTOUY MUY INTERESADO EN LA SERIE XT QUE DESCUENTO ME PODEIS HACER QUERIDOS AMIGOS.
Posted: Friday, 21 November 2008
Post Production says:
Surround sound just doesn't offer a big enough improvement over stereo. Given that we tend to face the object of interest (band, car, animal etc) sound comes mainly from the front. Our brains generally try to ignore all the reflections and reverberations.
Music: Surround sound mixes fight our natural intentional processes to place objects of regard front & centre, and so are doomed to fail for musical performances. Even when you are at a live concert (classical or rock) many of the noises around and behind you are distractions, not enhancements to the experience (rustling, screaming, clapping, sniffing, clunking…)
Movies: On the other hand surround sound mixes simulate acoustic spaces and add to the sense of realism, cars whizzing by behind you etc.
Just as quadraphonic failed for music so will surround sound. It just isn't natural.
BTW: I produce music for film & TV and making (sensible) mixes in surround is a lot more work than stereo. One thing the reviewers failed to discuss was the huge extra load this places on the crew…give me 2.1 any day.
Posted: Friday, 5 December 2008
John Malinowski says:
Some good points here for sure. Either will require the proper room and setup. Those two parts alone are a tall order. To properly setup a stereo system can drive one to insanity. Multichannel sounds great in theory. It has always fallen short in actuality. Cost is another problem with it. Equipment costs today for a good stereo is over 10k. Paying for multichannel is a scary thought.
I am also a vinyl only guy. These aging ears can’t stand cd’s for a very long listen. To each their own. There is no right and wrong. Enjoy what you enjoy, let others enjoy what they enjoy. Stereo is the answer for me. I am not saying it is the answer for anybody else.
Posted: Saturday, 13 December 2008
Gary Mraz says:
Why is everyone so reality based? Have we all forgotten that pushing the envelope of creativity and experimentation sometime creates enduring legacy of music we love for decades, Pink Floyd… or changes the way we listen to sound, musique concrète. Only a few artists have even begun to challenge us with surround. Questioning it worth implies an understanding of its potential; I don’t think that’s happened yet.
Posted: Friday, 16 January 2009
Gary Mraz says:
Why is everyone so reality based? Have we all forgotten that pushing the envelope of creativity and experimentation sometime creates enduring legacy of music we love for decades, Pink Floyd… or changes the way we listen to sound, musique concrète. Only a few artists have even begun to challenge us with surround. Questioning it worth implies an understanding of its potential; I don’t think that’s happened yet.
Posted: Friday, 16 January 2009
Kaj S says:
I think that surround sound is the best thing I have ever heard. It is more exiting than stereo, and it is capable of reproducing the reality better than stereo.
But there are many surround recordings that I think are done wrong.
Placing a single instrument in the right or left rear channel is not a good idea.
But when I listen to Alan Parsons: On Air in stereo and from his DTS-CD, clearly, the surround recording is better, and much more interesting. On Cd, on track 1, the aircraft flys from the right to the deep left. On the DTS-CD it flys from your back side to the front. That can never be done in stereo. Now, with blu-ray we might finally get more surround recordings. An other great example of how to do interesting surround sound is the newly remastered genesis catalog on SACD.
Much more interesting in surround than in stereo. To bad there is not more surround sound out there. I use b&w 802d as fronts and b&w 705 as rears, but no center channel!?? But I do have a sub.
Posted: Saturday, 28 March 2009
Steven says:
Personally, I thoroughly enjoy surround sound music. It makes me sick that surround sound music didn’t catch on. I am a disc jockey in Kansas City. I’ve been on the air for almost 32 years. So as you can imagine, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home is turn on more music. But 96/24 music mixed in surround sound really got me back to listening to the music. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Many of the surround sound mixes were not great and could have been mixed better.
I think the problem with public acceptance was that it was too difficult to hook up. Plus, we didn’t do a good job educating the public as to what 5.1 sound actually is. It’s similar to the “educational” process that is going on with HD Radio right now….it’s not good at all. But in this age of iPods and squished down MP3 music, the general public are more concerned about loading tons of music on a small mobile device instead of the quality of the sound of the music. It’s quantity-not quality.
Posted: Saturday, 28 March 2009
Simon Leadley says:
I have to agree about the HD audio problems. While what I see is related to 5.1, and getting a reliable high-quality format that any director, musician, editor can play easily in their home system. It seems that we have failed. DVD a, SACD are more or less dead formats and there seems no simple way to be able to create and disseminate high-quality mixes to clients.
From our perspective, in the recording studio game, we are constantly being asked to upgrade and improve our quality of recordings and equipment, often at great cost. But to what end for the end consumer. Recent, surveys of young people seem to indicate that they are happy with MP3s or AAC files, in fact the evidence was that they preferred them to high-quality versions of the same files.
So there seems to be a great divide between the recording studio, the artist and the end result that is delivered to the consumer. The recording studio is expected to pay extremely high costs for esoteric equipment that delivers audiophile quality, but the end results of the work that we do is dumbed down to the lowest common nominator.
When I mix of film, it is not unusual to the director or composers to want to hear a 5.1 version of the mixes that we create not only at the studio, but also in their home environments. This may be to make value judgements on the mixes or simply to have a pristine version of the mixes of future enjoyment. In most cases the only version of the soundtracks that exist are stereo versions created from stereo fold downs that are made as afterthoughts by the film company to promote the film to consumers who were very fond of the film and music. These are generally not high Fidelity and very little expense is expended in making of these CDs of the highest quality.
I could count on one hand the number of CD or DVD a releases that included 5.1 mixes for the enjoyment of enthusiasts. Even less, do I see high sample rate high bit rate stereo versions as well. We all know this is driven by the economics of the situation as most CDs for film scores do not sell millions.
But where this all begins should be in a professional studio. We should have the tools to be able to create easily a high quality version of the material that we’ve recorded. There should also be able to be played in a majority of domestic play machines such as CD DVD and Blu-ray players without the need for any esoteric equipment. To this end I spent some time during the last trade shows to see what was available. I had been authoring DVD A’s using a reasonably inexpensive program called disk welder. But this was far from easy, and it required the user to have a DVD a player and it seems that these have become less and less available. What we needed was a much simpler and straightforward way to be able to present in a home environment, or in the studio, using standard equipment a reasonably high quality version of the mixes that we have spent so much time and effort creating. After some discussion with some people at one of the trade shows it became apparent to me that there is an alternative that seems reasonably simple and can be easily integrated into the workflow of standard DAW practice.
DTS has an encoding technique that allows users to create standard CDs that can be burned with toast, to create DTS CDs that will play in a conventional CD/DVD/Blu-ray player as long as it is DTS compatible. While creating this is not completely trivial it is way easier than what was available in the past. The results of these 5.1 disks that I’ve created has allowed the directors and composers to listen to better quality 5.1 mixes in the comfort of their home studios using standard equipment. Creating them is no more difficult, once you know how, than a lot of workflows that I currently have to deal with in audio production.
DTS have a stand-alone application that allows you to encode 5.1 mixes done at 44k/24 bit to create a DTS stereo wave file that can be simply dropped onto toast to burn a DTS CD. There is an expanded suite of tools and also allows higher bit rates and sample rates in stereo for audio file purposes.
Recently there was also a plug-in designed for pro tools that will encode DTS directly from within ProTools. http://www.neyrinck.com/Pages/scdts.html. This encoder is fast faster than real time audio suite encoding, DTS surround high-quality DTS Digital surround encoding, but 96/24 bit super high quality 96/24 bit mode to stereo and 5.1, and includes the ability to save time by punching in and punching out on the files.
So potentially this solves the problem of being able to create CDs or DVDs for reference the directors and composers but where does that leave the end user. So far there is no way to play high definition audio on the WEB or in embedded files. There was some great work done by Lake audio that was able to convincingly play 5.1 sounding tracks on stereo headphones. Much like 3-D pictures are being touted at the moment. While it was not entirely convincing it was a great step in the right direction. It seems that Microsoft and Frauhouf, of MP3 fame have also been experimenting with creating files that can be played over the web in multichannel format. Searching the web there are encoders that currently are free to testing but the mileage may vary and so far I am unconvinced. They seem little better than toys. At the moment, the void between the professional studio operating at high sample rates with extremely esoteric and expensive equipment and the end user is vast. The irony of all this is that it the gap was far closer when we had analog recording and records. The sample rate and bit depth of a CD was arbitrarily chosen because of the Sony unit that was used (a conventional video recorder of the time) to encode the digital information as video information on a tape. It was not chosen, for its high Fidelity or bit depth. Users were seduced by the lack of noise and the hardiness of the system rather than its inherent high Fidelity. Little has changed since then, in fact, it seems to have gone backwards as far as the consumer is concerned.
To me there seems little point in spending great amounts of money and time on equipment in the studio when the end result is for the current general consumer is damaged by the encoding techniques and the current crop of the loudness wars. I have this battle constantly with myself and with the people selling equipment to me as to why we bother trying to improve the situation at the front end when the backend is so poor, what is more galling is that the consumer doesn’t seem to care. Whether they don’t seem to care because of convenience or because they’ve lost the ability to critical listening is a matter of debate.
It seems to me that we should write an article that explains how to create higher quality higher bit rate multitrack or stereo files that could be posted to the web and allow the end user to experience the full quality of what we are able to produce in a professional quality studio. The technology seems to exist, but there is little real push from the end user or the record companies or from the distribution companies like Apple to improve the situation at the moment. I for one would like to see what the users think and if anybody really cares.
It is time for the studios and the audio files to stand up and get some sort of high definition audio standard up and running that is simple and applicable Right across the range from pro studios two home 5.1 systems and to iPods.
Or has the time come and gone and we are in the time when music is nearly a consumable item like McDonald’s that is consumed and thrown in the bin with little regard for quality and packaging.
My two cents
Simon Leadley
Posted: Friday, 6 November 2009