better speaker technology?

[xoxos]

despite the high spec of current devices, i find that there's a significant margin between what i can hear and what i can record, which i believe to be due to the reduced dimensionality. we all know that stereo/multichannel recording provides a rich sensory experience et c. but it seems like audio connoseurs would be ready for a richer medium by now, eg. a recording and playback technology based on fields rather than points (eg. microphone pickup patterns radiate around a pole) using plasma or something.

doesn't it? seen anything like this?

oh by the way my vsts are on sale now and there's an exciting very new synth coming out soon

[BertKoor]

If playback of a recording differs significantly from the original, blame the recording. Not the playback.

Wtf plasma???

[SODDI]

Audiophile gearheads have been pursuing the dream of the perfect speaker for decades. Lots of plans out there on the internets. Lots of debate.

I think it's a worthy endeavour.

[trimph1]

I think it is as well. There has been discussion on some model train forums as well about it.

[tapper mike]

Why the music industry still works in stereo is beyond me. One would think we could finally move on to surround sound as a primary format and hear what we've been missing in conventional mixdown.

[SODDI]

Why the music industry still works in stereo is beyond me. One would think we could finally move on to surround sound as a primary format and hear what we've been missing in conventional mixdown.

I think it's because we only have two ears.

edit: I shouldn''t be so flip, but there is a truth in that. Our hearing has evolved so that with fixed binaural points we can fairly accurately locate a sound source in a fairly large sphere of perception. Dogs and cats can pivot their ears so that they can more accurately determine a given sound's origin, but it is still binaural.

The stereo mix, if handled properly, is a wonderful audio slight-of-hand that can mimic the sphere of perception with volume control. But the environmental paradigm for most recordings, even the most electronic, is either the concert stage or a band playing live in a studio. And I think that's what most people (consumers) expect to hear - tricky mixes never go over that well.

At one point Pink Floyd was experimenting with a 16-channel surround environment for concerts - but they continued to mix in stereo for their records.

I personally like the current 5.1 configuration for only one channel - the center channel for dialogue. And that's because so many movie mixers get dialogue and ADR frequencies all mixed up in the foley and the music and it ends up like mud in my ears in the final stereo mix. Subwoofers are an abomination - they help make up for weak speakers, but just put out audio sludge.

But back to what xoxos started off with - yes, we could all use better monitors. What a working studio musician needs is completely different to what an audiophile needs. But their designs are a start.

[infectedpimple]

Why the music industry still works in stereo is beyond me. One would think we could finally move on to surround sound as a primary format and hear what we've been missing in conventional mixdown.

I think it's because we only have two ears.

Not to mention how in the traditional live experience, the audience doesn't find themselves standing in the middle of the band while they play.

[RunBeerRun]

If you saved up, you could buy an 8 inch Radio Shack subwoofer.

[Mister Natural]

Rurick - have you had the chance to listen to any current high-end "audiophile" loudspeakers ? There are some amazing models out there producing fully 3-D & detailed recordings.
Some flat-panel designs(big $$ however) are terrifically large-sounding . . .

[xoxos]

the thing to me is microphones and speakers smushing all that space into one point - an ear is not a single point, nor are acoustic sources.

try recording something distant and compare the recordings to what you can hear. even with augmentation/processing i find that it is easier to listen for intelligibility rather than record. the brain has more to go on working with a set of ears in a real environment than a binaural wavefile even with distant sounds that we would happily (and probably inaccurately) conceive of having a very defined relative directionality.