[Kenneth Patchen]

I’m sort of piggybacking on the current/ongoing Hafler free surround sound circuitry discussion which brought to mind the Eno system.

In the liner notes of the LP for Ambient 4: On Land, Brian Eno wrote about a 3 speaker surround sound system and included a diagram of the suggested set-up. The third ‘ambent’ speaker was added by attaching it to the positive terminals of the left and right aux speaker outputs on your stereo, and then placed behind the listener’s chair  halfway between the two main speakers with the speaker placement forming an equilateral triangle, with the listener in the center.

Eno quoted: "I arrived at this system by accident, and I don't really know why it works. What seems to happen is that the third speaker reproduces any sound that is not common to both sides of the stereo - i.e., everything that is not located centrally in the stereo image - and I assume that this is because the common information is put out of phase with itself and cancels out."





I had a buddy on the West Coast who tried this and raved about hearing music ‘lost’ in a traditional 2 channel system. I never tried it for fear of blowing up my amp, or speakers or both.

Did anyone try this?

And not directly related, this interesting article on Hafler et al.
http://www.audiosignal.co.uk/Resources/A_year_of_surround_sound_A4.pdf

[who?me?]

Great esoteric thread for us Eno fans!

I will have to look up more of what you referenced,
And likely recreate the room speaker arrangement as you have shown us.
Cool!

[FullRangeMan]

A few weeks a go I mentioned a similar 3 channels system I have listened in a local shop in the early 1970s, it was called Stereocom, the source was a small Phillips cassete deck named hifi-1214 I dont remember much about the amp, but it was integrated, the sound effect was great in the room, at least I think it at the time;

[grsimmon]

I use a McCormack MAP-1 preamp;   it has an analog center channel "Ambient Recovery" mode that I leave on all the time and have a small center.  This is somewhat the same idea of what is described.   In my opinion,  2 channel stereo is fatally flawed,   and I'm never going back.   I'm willing to bet that Eno's setup idea is worth experimenting with. 

[FullRangeMan]

The regular 2 ch Stereo system have good 3D soundstage performance with a dipole OB or planar speakers, but with monopole speakers (even hi priced) the sound stage is 2D as expected from a speaker that emit sound only to front.

In this point OB guitar speaker cabinets are miles ahead of most hi-fi speakers.

[theking2]

I’m sort of piggybacking on the current/ongoing Hafler free surround sound circuitry discussion which brought to mind the Eno system.

In the liner notes of the LP for Ambient 4: On Land, Brian Eno wrote about a 3 speaker surround sound system and included a diagram of the suggested set-up. The third ‘ambent’ speaker was added by attaching it to the positive terminals of the left and right aux speaker outputs on your stereo, and then placed behind the listener’s chair  halfway between the two main speakers with the speaker placement forming an equilateral triangle, with the listener in the center.

Eno quoted: "I arrived at this system by accident, and I don't really know why it works. What seems to happen is that the third speaker reproduces any sound that is not common to both sides of the stereo - i.e., everything that is not located centrally in the stereo image - and I assume that this is because the common information is put out of phase with itself and cancels out."





I had a buddy on the West Coast who tried this and raved about hearing music ‘lost’ in a traditional 2 channel system. I never tried it for fear of blowing up my amp, or speakers or both.

Did anyone try this?

And not directly related, this interesting article on Hafler et al.
http://www.audiosignal.co.uk/Resources/A_year_of_surround_sound_A4.pdf

Greatto see people are still listening to Eno on vinyl.  I used this setup all the time but choosing Matrix on my Denon has the same effect

[rollo]

Cool. Learned that trick many moons ago from Scott Markwell. I run wires from the amp to two speakers behind listening chair 2 ft apart wired out of phase to front speakers. A passive preamp is used to control volume. Key is NOT to hear rear speakers. Fills the room more.


charles

[Kenneth Patchen]

Greatto see people are still listening to Eno on vinyl.  I used this setup all the time but choosing Matrix on my Denon has the same effect

How very odd, I was just spinning Eno on vinyl last night and this morning.

How many speakers are connected to your Denon, king2?

And good info there Charles.

Thanks all.

[FullRangeMan]

With this 3th speaker the impedance for the amp will drop?

[Kenneth Patchen]

Greatto see people are still listening to Eno on vinyl.  I used this setup all the time but choosing Matrix on my Denon has the same effect

If one wanted to play around with a Quadrophonic or ‘ambient’ set-up - and I really do  - should I:
- buy a Denon with a matrix function (as above)
- or a Mcormack Map-1 pre with Ambient Recovery (as above)
- or go old, old school with a Sansui QS-1 - Manual - Four Channel Synthesizer Decoder
https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sansui/qs-1.shtml

I already have 4 channels of amplification, what I want the ‘ambient’ system to do is to create the 4 separate channels of sound from the QS-1 or similar.

“An extraordinary stereo achievement, the QS-1 is having a profound impact on the entire world of stereo in two ways. First, it permits stereo enthusiasts to continue to use and enjoy their present 2 channel stereo equipment and program sources while moving into the new audio era.”

So many choices, so little time

[Rickh57]

I have my upstairs system wired using the Ambient 3D system Eno came up with and on some source material (a lot, actually), it will provide a much larger sense of envelopment than regular two-channel audio. It seems to be most effective with the volume turned up at least loud enough to impede conversation so the ambient info coming out of the single rear speaker is noticeable. I’ve not had any issues with blowing up the receiver or anything like that and I first tried this connection about 10 years ago. For folks who want to expand the ambient audio effect without going with full surround, you may want to give this a try. Personally, I’d love to hear the same set-up in a car audio system!