Stereo with four speakers
Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2020 11:11 am
I tried summing stereo to mono and playing it through one speaker. It had some merits but I soon tired of it and it gave me a headache for some reason. So back to stereo through two speakers and normality was resumed.
My main aim with speakers is to produce an enveloping sound with lots of presence and a similar frequency response where ever you are situated in the room be that sat in a comfy sofa, stood up or sat on the floor playing with the kids.
Obviously, stereo point & squirt is just not going to cut it in this regard How about a full omni set up like Shahinian or Larsen. Well I haven't tried replicating the tweeter arrangement of the Shahinian for example. I did try just one tweeter up firing and it doesn't bring respectable results.
With semi omni the sound is much the same where ever you are in a small room but you can't get away from the fact that in most places you are going to be nearer to one speaker than the other. That's why I tried summing stereo to mono played through one speaker. I didn't work and B&O must be using some new devilry to get it to work so well in their speakers. Just buy one of those B&O jobbies I hear you say. In a word no. They are unsuitable for my needs in so many other ways including scale (they are tiny).
I intend to have the inner firing tweeters playing at a higher volume than the other four to try and get a bit more of the output from the speaker which is further away from you. That doesn't work with the mid bass drivers though
So I got reading about four speakers for stereo on Steve Hoffman forum and others. Some like it and others don't. Apparently Dr Floyd Toole did some tests years ago and about 50% of the listeners preferred a more spacious sound like that from surround sound rather than two speaker stereo.
So one speaker in each corner, alternately right ch, left ch, right ch, left ch. You can wire two of them out of phase or all the same phase. Now the pain in the arse objectivists may conclude that this is just madness just like doping speaker cones, firing mid bass drivers at the ceiling, gluing steel to the insides of your speakers or having no damping material in them. The theorists would say you will get all kinds of phase issues with four speakers playing stereo with lots of nasty comb filtering going on.
Always one to stick two fingers up at convention, I fancy giving it a go some time. Not that i could fit another two of the behemoth's I currently use in my lounge. Got to thinking about corner speakers fitted to the walls (much like corner display cabinets that are in a triangular shape) and all firing to a centre point. Taking that further, how about the corner speakers being a prism shape and at ceiling height firing down in to the centre of the room ? Probably to radical for most but at least it gets the speakers out of the way With that though, you couldn't do semi omni it would have to be P & S .
My main aim with speakers is to produce an enveloping sound with lots of presence and a similar frequency response where ever you are situated in the room be that sat in a comfy sofa, stood up or sat on the floor playing with the kids.
Obviously, stereo point & squirt is just not going to cut it in this regard How about a full omni set up like Shahinian or Larsen. Well I haven't tried replicating the tweeter arrangement of the Shahinian for example. I did try just one tweeter up firing and it doesn't bring respectable results.
With semi omni the sound is much the same where ever you are in a small room but you can't get away from the fact that in most places you are going to be nearer to one speaker than the other. That's why I tried summing stereo to mono played through one speaker. I didn't work and B&O must be using some new devilry to get it to work so well in their speakers. Just buy one of those B&O jobbies I hear you say. In a word no. They are unsuitable for my needs in so many other ways including scale (they are tiny).
I intend to have the inner firing tweeters playing at a higher volume than the other four to try and get a bit more of the output from the speaker which is further away from you. That doesn't work with the mid bass drivers though
So I got reading about four speakers for stereo on Steve Hoffman forum and others. Some like it and others don't. Apparently Dr Floyd Toole did some tests years ago and about 50% of the listeners preferred a more spacious sound like that from surround sound rather than two speaker stereo.
So one speaker in each corner, alternately right ch, left ch, right ch, left ch. You can wire two of them out of phase or all the same phase. Now the pain in the arse objectivists may conclude that this is just madness just like doping speaker cones, firing mid bass drivers at the ceiling, gluing steel to the insides of your speakers or having no damping material in them. The theorists would say you will get all kinds of phase issues with four speakers playing stereo with lots of nasty comb filtering going on.
Always one to stick two fingers up at convention, I fancy giving it a go some time. Not that i could fit another two of the behemoth's I currently use in my lounge. Got to thinking about corner speakers fitted to the walls (much like corner display cabinets that are in a triangular shape) and all firing to a centre point. Taking that further, how about the corner speakers being a prism shape and at ceiling height firing down in to the centre of the room ? Probably to radical for most but at least it gets the speakers out of the way With that though, you couldn't do semi omni it would have to be P & S .