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A must-listen album, IMHO... Especially for SH.


Daddyjt

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You're quite welcome, but the real thanks go to whomever captured them and put them up  to begin with.  ?

I'm going to very tentatively suggest Stephen Wilson's To the Bone as a good album for SH, but with a couple of caveats.

 

My reason for selecting it is that I just don't enjoy it without the SH now.  I accidentally left it off one time recently, and wondered why it sounded so flat.

 

Now the caveats, and they are big.  First, I actually have not listened to it with SH through my speakers, only headphones, so I don't really know how it will work under "real" conditions.  Given that my speakers are now set well for SH and I'm limited in how much I can move things around, if anyone does try this album properly, please let me know how you find it.

 

Second, and I did allude to this earlier, if you have a C-9, don't turn on the theoretical mode - there are tracks that essential;y degrade into horrific electronic noise.  I'm not prone to using that setting, but I will the first to admit I have no willpower against curiosity, and it gets the better of me all too often.

 

 

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Last night I endeavored to set up my bedroom system to experience Sonic Holography.  I have tried before, but my attempts have been unsuccessful.  As wifey watched a movie in the theatre room I started moving around speakers and furniture in the bedroom in an attempt to experience the elusory Carver Sonic Holography.  The speakers are large electrostatic speakers that are bi-wired and weigh 75lbs a piece.  Luckily they slide fairly easily on the carpet.  I broke out the tape measure, the C1 manual and the red wine.  I danced the speakers around the room with the recommended Angus and Julia Stone CD playing.  At times I felt like I could notice the sound field spreading out and getting wider than the physical speakers, but I never achieved that "aha" moment where a new depth and sonic bliss was realized.  I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or if I have unrealistic expectations since I have a multi channel setup in my theatre room that is immersive with 5 speakers surrounding my listening position. I'm going to keep trying, but up until now I have not experienced what I believe others have experienced with SH.  My next plan is to download the SH tracks and attempt to make SH happen for me.

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FWIW, @PhilDent, I have never bee able to get SH to work in my Bedroom. 

 

Too much furniture, I think, and putting a chair in the middle did not pass the wife test...,

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've found another excellent example of Sonic holography.

 

LIttle Axe - London Blues. 

 

There are so many different influences here -- jazz, blues, reggae, hip hop (don't sneer until you've heard it).

 

If you can find this in the bargain bin somewhere, it's definitely worth a listen. Here's a youtube link:

 

 

Edited by Sk1Bum
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  • 1 month later...

I found another great example for Sonic Holography, and I think I've discovered a common denominator, i.e., many layers of sound. The different layers seem to float about the room, and sometimes even beyond the walls.

 

 

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REDISCOVERING SONIC HOLOGRAPHY, AND LOVING IT......

 

As I mentioned in a prior message, I had been away from my music collection for a while, and I am rediscovering recordings using my new C-1 preamp, rebuilt by DaddyJT, who added the Gundry notch.  It sounds great, and seems to get better and better, thank you DaddyJT.

 

 It's entertaining and informative to appreciate the music on two levels simultaneously: the compositions and playing, and the decisions made by the recording and mixing team.  

 

We all wonder why some music sounds wider and deeper in Sonic Holography.  Gentle Giant's CD "Interview" literally amazed me - very wide, with specific clear instruments in space and others clearly in front of the speakers -  and I found an article in which the band members said that when relistening to their old stuff  for the Steven Wilson remixes and remastering, they were quite pleased with how aggressively they utilized the entire stereo field.  Looking up "stereo field", I think I found an indication of what the Gentle Giant musicians meant.   This is a quote from one article:

 

"When you’re at a live concert and you close your eyes, you can hear where each instrument is coming from onstage. You can hear that certain instruments are on the left side of the stage, others are on the right, and still others seem to come from the center.   You can also generally discern whether an instrument is at the front or the back of the stage.  Put all these sounds together, and you have a stereo field.

The stereo field consists of placement from left to right and front to back. When you mix a song, you can set your instruments wherever you want them on the “stage” that’s created by your listeners’ speakers.

You can do this with panning, which sets your instruments from left to right, and you can use effects, such as reverb and delay, to place your instruments from front to back in your mix. When you mix your song, try to visualize where on-stage each instrument may be placed.  Some people choose to set the panning and depth of their instruments to sound as natural as possible, while others use these settings to create otherworldly sounds. There is no right or wrong setting when panning and adding effects to simulate depth — just what works for your goals. Don’t be afraid to get creative and try unusual things."

 

Here's something from another article:  "Be bold with your panning decisions:   Sure, a panpot allows you to place a signal anywhere in the stereo sound field with pinpoint precision.  But ask yourself: How many listeners are going to be able to hear and appreciate all the subtlety that went into your carefully crafted stereo image?  Will they really be able to distinguish between that acoustic 12-string at 3 o’clock and the harpsichord sample painstakingly positioned at 4 o’clock?   Chances are they won’t – especially if they’re listening on earbuds of dubious quality, or, worse yet, the mono speaker in their smartphone or tablet. So be bold. If you’re panning a sound most of the way, go all the way. It can be especially effective to hard pan rhythmically opposed instruments – for example, a rhythm guitar on one side and horn stabs on the other. The results will be even more dramatic if the two instruments live in predominantly different frequency ranges."

 

So, it would seem that Bob Carver was really on to something.  Sonic Holography apparently provides an exact aural map of where the music was placed by the mixing engineer.   I argue that without a correctly-functioning Sonic Hologram set up, this is lost - the music cannot be precisely located in space, untethered to the speakers.  Otherwise,  the music comes seems to generally come from the right or the left, or the center.  

 

Now, back to "The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions" by Miles Davis, with John McLaughlin's guitar practically touching my left ear!   

 

John

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Thank you, John - very interesting writeup, and some fantastic recommendations, I will have to check out.  Great taste in music, BTW.

 

I've been listening a fair bit to both Camel and Gentle Giant, but I suspect I may have missed on Interview - I will have to fix that.  Likewise with the Miles Davis  ?

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Does anyone else have problems playing back the tracks linked above?  When I try and playback most of the tracks, they cut off after 10 - 15 seconds.  I've tried re-downloading and also just playing them back from the link, but so far no joy.  Am I doing something wrong?

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I had no trouble playing them from the link, Phil.  When you download them, are you getting a normal size file, or is it really small compared to most? 

 

If it's normal size, then the download is likely okay, but something is amiss in the playback buffering.

 

If it's small, something is interrupting your download/playback somehow.

 

Good luck!

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Pulp Fiction Original Soundtrack  - There is a variety of levels of channel separation between tracks.  "Jungle Boogie" and "Son of a Preacher Man" have very wide yet detailed image, others are lesser but you get the sensation of a large vs. narrow field.  If you can hear the differences you've got the SH (or stereo imaging) working properly.

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Listened closely to "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis yesterday, and for the opening song "So What",  this is what I heard,  in location:

 

1=Paul Chambers, double bass

2=Jimmy Cobb, drums

3=cymbals sounded brighter and closer

4=Bill Evans, piano

5=Miles Davis, trumpet

6=John Coltrane, tenor

7=Cannonball Adderley, alto

 

miles.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

The whole album works, but the percussion and lead guitar on track 3 especially. I just noticed that turning to make this post was enough to break the effect. 

 

Santana Caravanserai 

 

 

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  • 9 months later...
On 10/29/2018 at 12:07 AM, PhilDent said:

Last night I endeavored to set up my bedroom system to experience Sonic Holography.  I have tried before, but my attempts have been unsuccessful.  As wifey watched a movie in the theatre room I started moving around speakers and furniture in the bedroom in an attempt to experience the elusory Carver Sonic Holography.  The speakers are large electrostatic speakers that are bi-wired and weigh 75lbs a piece.  Luckily they slide fairly easily on the carpet.  I broke out the tape measure, the C1 manual and the red wine.  I danced the speakers around the room with the recommended Angus and Julia Stone CD playing.  At times I felt like I could notice the sound field spreading out and getting wider than the physical speakers, but I never achieved that "aha" moment where a new depth and sonic bliss was realized.  I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or if I have unrealistic expectations since I have a multi channel setup in my theatre room that is immersive with 5 speakers surrounding my listening position. I'm going to keep trying, but up until now I have not experienced what I believe others have experienced with SH.  My next plan is to download the SH tracks and attempt to make SH happen for me.

I think you were doing it right with the manual and the red wine.......grin. I have never tried to set it up. My room is not setup for it and speaker placement WILL not pass the WAF........grin

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On 12/1/2019 at 12:15 PM, Sk1Bum said:

The title track from the new Tool album, Fear Inoculum is a great example of SH:

 

 

 

Gave this album a good listen with SH engaged last night...Wow! Great album, really gives the system a good run. SH felt very immersive for just a 2.1 setup!

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59 minutes ago, DrummerJuice said:

 

Gave this album a good listen with SH engaged last night...Wow! Great album, really gives the system a good run. SH felt very immersive for just a 2.1 setup!

 

Silly question time - was there ever a "normal" CD release of this, or was it all just the "special" package with the screen, etc.?

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 7 months later...
On 12/5/2019 at 11:46 AM, Brian_at_HHH said:

 

Silly question time - was there ever a "normal" CD release of this, or was it all just the "special" package with the screen, etc.?

Several months later than your post, the answer is yes. I downloaded a flac copy from HDTracks.com.

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On 10/10/2018 at 9:01 PM, loner_t said:

It is small, but not small by any means. The 105 makes an excellent audio player. 

 

Future home of an Audio man-cave? 

 

Since you asked, yes...!

 

IMG_6559.thumb.JPG.48afe33070a8608f2740b140fe83be08.JPG

 

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