Quote:
Originally posted by kempfand
ursamtl: I have no problems that you are personally disappointed with Ambisonics/Ambiophonics. But for the rest of the readers, I would like to make a few (also subjective) comments from my side.
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Andreas,
Just to follow up on this, let me say that I retried your Ambiophonics dipole last night and was quite impressed with the results. First of all, for some reason the wave files in the
www.app.demon.nl download would not load into SIR. However, the version on Needfulthings did work.
While the separation was still lacking and the rears were disappointing, the biggest thing I noticed about the front sound was a significant enhancement to the bass. There was much more clarity, definition, and punchiness without it sounding over-EQed. On some tracks it was actually quite stunning. In addition, the overall mix seemed to possess the kind of clarity and richness I normally associate with 5.1 mix.
What was missing of course was the sense of width and depth to the rear. First of all, even if theoretically the speakers are supposed to be spaced at +-10°, this just collapsed the width of the soundstage too much for me. Returning my speakers to +-25° (the way my PC system is setup this is the maximum front width I have to work with), gave me a better sense of width. Still, on some music, it seemed too dry. For example, I have a beautifully remastered CD of Elton John's Madman Across the Water. Running "Tiny Dancer" through this bidule resulted in the vocals sounding incredibly dry, virtually devoid of any ambience. While one might argue that this is a more realistic recording of his actual voice, the effect was not as pleasant. I tried inserting a stereo expander VST and this improved the image significantly. There is a sweet spot at approximately 120-130% width. Anything over that improves the sense of ambience but starts to negatively affect that glorious bass response.
There remains the problem of the rears. I don't want to just slap some reverb on it as that can get tedious. But the Ambisonics rears in the original bidule just don't work for me. In fact, I find that they detract from the enhanced fronts.
I have a couple of ideas for both the front and rear that I'll try to work on this weekend. Nonetheless, this is truly an encouraging result and definitely a step in the right direction.
Ursa