[Bob in St. Louis]

Anybody heard of this?

http://www.ambiophonics.org/index.htm

Thoughts, feelings, impressions....???

Bob

[jhm731]

Anybody heard of this?

http://www.ambiophonics.org/index.htm

Thoughts, feelings, impressions....???

Bob

It's included as feature call XTC on the TacT RCS 2.2XP.

If you set up your speakers as described on the website it works and sounds great.

See:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/TacTAudioUsersGroup/?yguid=332166746

for more info.

[dwk]

I spent a few days playing with the 'RACE' implementation from the ambio web site, and it stands as by far the biggest jaw-dropping audio experience I've had since that initial 'wow' experience that started me on the audio path.

There are problems with ambio though
- doesn't work with some/most studio pan-pot recordings. you get too much hard-left/hard-right separation
- I'm not sure tonal balance is right
- power response is mucked up, so you really should have a pretty dead room
- further to above, if you have a dead room, you should have extra ambience channels.

Still, on good, natural recordings it's absolutely stunning.

[TRADERXFAN]

That topic went around a little while back...
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=49710.msg445935#msg445935

[Bob in St. Louis]

Alright, good to know. Not sure I need/want another project right now, but it certainly looks worthy of reading the particulars on. Very interesting, looks like it would be fun to play with, might have to give it a shot one of these days.
Thanks for the link, I'll check that out as well.

Anybody else have any impressions?

Thanks guys,
Bob

[ted_b]

This stuff has always fascinated me (I played around with the Carver Sonic holography back when) but I'm not a DIy'er and the examples and instructions are daunting.  And I'm really pleased with the great, albeit 60-80 degree, soundstage and image solidity I get with my hi-end rig right now.  Furthermore, those of us into 5.1 hirez bigtime usually have it somewhat incorporated into a HT setup.  In my case (see gallery or system) I have a 10 ft hidef video screen that can't be obscured by two closely spaced left-center and right-center speakers.

Anyway....questions:
*  Is image specificity/density good on Ambiophonics?  What I mean is, when listening to recordings that push the enveloped with crosstalk cancellation, such as Q-sound recordings like Roger Waters' Amused To Death, the soundstage is fabulously wide at times, but the effect is very unnatural and quite a bit phasey, even when done well.  The dog barking off axis is cool, but not exactly specific to a point in space.  I'd hate to lose solid imaging to gain 120 degree soundstaging....
* do the fronts have to be dipoles?  I'd have a chance to play around with this in my newly cobbled-together home office setup (pc readily available, etc.), but the speakers are the nice but direct radiating VMPS 626R's (edit:  did research and found out that the contrary, that they could be as point-source as possible).
* could the post-processed wav music be eventually delivered via a Squeezebox/streamer, or would this require a nasty set of Squeeze Center plug ins?

[Bob in St. Louis]

* could the post-processed wav music be eventually delivered via a Squeezebox/streamer, or would this require a nasty set of Squeeze Center plug ins?

I'd be very interested to know the answer to this as well.

Bob

p.s. Ted - I looked at your theater pics...... .....Aww dude.......
I was soooo happy with my room until I saw yours. Not anymore..... Why, oh why, did you have to go and do that.
Now my wife is going to be mad at me, and hate you.

 

[ted_b]

Bob,
Thanks for the nice comments...but c'mon, your room is gorgeous.   Very well done.   

P.S.  I certainly don't want to get your family mad at me (  pic w/ )   

[Bob in St. Louis]

  Thank you very much Ted, I appreciate it. But I'd trade my room for yours any day.
I took that photo soon after I got my new camera. The family was seated and ready to watch a movie, waiting impatiently for me to quit playing with the camera.
They weren't amused. 
My wife would most certainly NOT be amused if she knew I was displaying her in a less than stellar light.   

Bob

[dwk]

I'm far from an expert, but I'll take a shot at some questions.

I'm not a DIy'er and the examples and instructions are daunting. 

Given the pre-recorded samples on the ambio site, sampling the effect isn't really that tough. Simply temporarily move a set of speakers out front with about 12" between them, and listen at about a 6' distance. Not perfect, but it'll give you a taste.

  In my case (see gallery or system) I have a 10 ft hidef video screen that can't be obscured by two closely spaced left-center and right-center speakers.

Yeah, this would be a pretty insurmountable hurdle. Ambio and video don't really mix well as far as I can tell - ambio is pretty much a single-person sweet-spot approach.

*  Is image specificity/density good on Ambiophonics?  What I mean is, when listening to recordings that push the enveloped with crosstalk cancellation, such as Q-sound recordings like Roger Waters' Amused To Death, the soundstage is fabulously wide at times, but the effect is very unnatural and quite a bit phasey, even when done well.  The dog barking off axis is cool, but not exactly specific to a point in space.  I'd hate to lose solid imaging to gain 120 degree soundstaging....

This will be highly recording dependent, but in my experiments good recordings maintained solidity and density, but the impression of being in a listening room just vanished. For relatively natural recordings where the content is fairly center-weighted, things worked well (e.g. Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions). For more artificial recordings, solidity did suffer sometimes - for example Rodrigo Y Gabriella 'Tamacun' became cartoonish because one guitarist was way-over-there and the other was way-over-the-other-way, and spatially integrating these across a 120-150 degree arc just didn't work. (this was disappointing, as Tamacun sound spectacularly good on my 'conventional' set up)
 Remember that Q-Sound has a big barrier to overcome - trying to to xtalk cancellation in a generic/arbitrary way with a presumed 60-degree separation between speakers. Getting it to work at all is pretty impressive.

* do the fronts have to be dipoles?  I'd have a chance to play around with this in my newly cobbled-together home office setup (pc readily available, etc.), but the speakers are the nice but direct radiating VMPS 626R's (edit:  did research and found out that the contrary, that they could be as point-source as possible).

Your edit is correct - I think there is a confusion of terms here. In ambio the 'stereo dipole' refers to the physical arrangement of the two front speakers, not the design of the speakers themselves. I think having actual dipole fronts would be somewhat problematic in anything but very large rooms. (Another source of confusion may be that line source planar/ribbon speakers work well due to small physical extent, and these frequently are dipole in nature)

* could the post-processed wav music be eventually delivered via a Squeezebox/streamer, or would this require a nasty set of Squeeze Center plug ins?

In theory, no reason this couldn't work. The samples on the ambio site are done this way - pre-processed so that they can be played back without processing.  It may take some work to set up a batch-convert process, but for example the RACE implementation based on AudioMulch would probably work fine that way.  You would want to ensure a 24-bit output file format due to the processing/computation, so your output filter and playback chain would need to support that.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Sorry to bump an old topic, but my interest in this subject has been renewed by recent discussions.
Just "rattling cages" for more knowledge, thoughts, impressions, etc....
I still have lots of questions, but the Ambio section of my brain is still quite empty. I'm just looking to fill it with as much information as I can to see all the pros and cons.

Bob

[Bob in St. Louis]

Whoops, I forgot...

There's a quick demo of the movie "Ice Age" that can be found > HERE <.
After properly positioning my speakers, and with no fancy equipment used at all, I heard this on my home PC. 
I called the wife downstairs to torture her (she's usually not interested in my "listening sessions").
My PC desk at home sits directly between and below the rear surround speakers in my home theater. Call it "second row, center stage" if you will. During the demo my wife couldn't help but to look up and over her shoulders at the rear surround speakers a few times.
After the demo she points to one of them and said, "Are these turned on"?
"No...They're not" I said with a grin. 
What we heard from two very basic PC speakers was fantastic. Even she made comments about how great it sounded.
That fact that she acknowledges the improvement, is impressive in itself.  She thinks it's great.

Bob

[satfrat]

Ambio also has a financial issues to deal with, even tho Tact is coming out with a $2000 unit that will work for stereo, in order to convert a 4 loudspeaker hometheater would require a $20,000 Tact. Add more surround speakers to widen the footprint and the sweatbeads will really start to form on one's forehead. Plus the fact that an Ambio hometheater is a 1 man showroom,,, maybe 2 man with in line chairs,,, no side by side allowed. But for the single guy, TV or movies in Ambio would be breathtaking from what i witnessed at Ralph's. These drawbacks are the reasons why I really think the marketplace for Ambio lies in stereo laptops and the younger generation who lives on them for music and music videos. It's a 1 person virtual reality show for all laptop owners.


Cheers,
Robin

[zybar]

Ambio also has a financial issues to deal with, even tho Tact is coming out with a $2000 unit that will work for stereo, in order to convert a 4 loudspeaker hometheater would require a $20,000 Tact. Add more surround speakers to widen the footprint and the sweatbeads will really start to form on one's forehead. Plus the fact that an Ambio hometheater is a 1 man showroom,,, maybe 2 man with in line chairs,,, no side by side allowed. But for the single guy, TV or movies in Ambio would be breathtaking from what i witnessed at Ralph's. These drawbacks are the reasons why I really think the marketplace for Ambio lies in stereo laptops and the younger generation who lives on them for music and music videos. It's a 1 person virtual reality show for all laptop owners.


Cheers,
Robin

You can do this way cheaper than that Robin.

My buddy Sean (Sunshinedawg) has an ambiophonic setup and he uses gear that isn't even close to the costs you mention above.

I will try and point him to this thread so he can provide his input and insight.

George

[satfrat]

Ambio also has a financial issues to deal with, even tho Tact is coming out with a $2000 unit that will work for stereo, in order to convert a 4 loudspeaker hometheater would require a $20,000 Tact. Add more surround speakers to widen the footprint and the sweatbeads will really start to form on one's forehead. Plus the fact that an Ambio hometheater is a 1 man showroom,,, maybe 2 man with in line chairs,,, no side by side allowed. But for the single guy, TV or movies in Ambio would be breathtaking from what i witnessed at Ralph's. These drawbacks are the reasons why I really think the marketplace for Ambio lies in stereo laptops and the younger generation who lives on them for music and music videos. It's a 1 person virtual reality show for all laptop owners.


Cheers,
Robin

You can do this way cheaper than that Robin.

My buddy Sean (Sunshinedawg) has an ambiophonic setup and he uses gear that isn't even close to the costs you mention above.

I will try and point him to this thread so he can provide his input and insight.

George

I'm just going by what Ralph said when I inquired what it would take to convert my 6.1 system over to Ambio (Ralph pointed out the various Tacts and they're pricetags). Because my main source is a computer i was under the assumption that it was a simple software download but I'm led to believe it's much more involved than that. Does Sean have a Ambio stereo system or is it more involved than that? If he went the Tact route,,, well you know the price tags on them all too well. Sean also might have modified some source gear that could be used in a stereo setup. I hope Sean will share his story,,,, I always love happy endings.

Regardless, it's all way over my head financially anyways. But I'm always wondering, what if,,,,,,

Cheers,
Robin

[zybar]

I'm just going by what Ralph said when I inquired what it would take to convert my 6.1 system over to Ambio (Ralph pointed out the various Tacts and they're pricetags). Because my main source is a computer i was under the assumption that it was a simple software download but I'm led to believe it's much more involved than that. Does Sean have a Ambio stereo system or is it more involved than that? If he went the Tact route,,, well you know the price tags on them all too well. Sean also might have modified some source gear that could be used in a stereo setup. I hope Sean will share his story,,,, I always love happy endings.

Regardless, it's all way over my head financially anyways. But I'm always wondering, what if,,,,,,

Cheers,
Robin

Robin,

Here is the list of what Sean is using based on his post in an different thread (linked above by TRADERXFAN):

Source: SB3 with Bolder Cable digital mods + bybee
PS for SB3: DIY Power One
Amps: Panny xr45 with Bolder Cable digital mods(low end), Panny xr25(top end) unmodified, Yamaha DSP-A3090(reflections, reverb)
PC: Bolder Cable (not sure of model)
Crossover: DCX with DIY digital output mod (3x S/PDIF)
DSP: Yamaha DSP-3000(extra reverb)
Speaker cable: Reality(lows) WireWorld Orbits(highs
Digital cables: VH Audio Pulsar, Belkin BNC's
Treatments: 10 DIY Bass traps (4" industrial insulation panels, 2'x4')
Speakers: CS2's(dipoles), Coincident Super Conquest's(first reflection), various crappy Sony bookshelf(ambient)

George

[Barry_NJ]

Watch/Listen to this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci144OUw-fI

Then this...

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&channelID=457580803&MyToken=4c27f3db-ce3a-4fc2-82b1-c107b815f7d5

[ted_b]

Barry,
The second link is same as Bob's above (>>here<<)  but the first is a nice "before" demo.

Ambiophonics is a startling auditory experience,. if done right.  It is, as Robin points out, a bit sweet-spot oriented, kinda like Q-sound's limitations, but then again maybe I'm doin it wrong.   

[nathanm]

Wow, I just learned that Mariusz is a GIANT!

Three members of New York RAVE at a time experience PanAmbio at the Ambiophonics Institute, posting comments and photos (courtesy Mariusz)

[Barry_NJ]

Barry,
The second link is same as Bob's above (>>here<<)  but the first is a nice "before" demo.

Ambiophonics is a startling auditory experience,. if done right.  It is, as Robin points out, a bit sweet-spot oriented, kinda like Q-sound's limitations, but then again maybe I'm doin it wrong.   

Sorry, I missed that in Bob's post, sometimes I just skim.

And yes, it is pretty sweet spot oriented, but so is most decent "Stereo", and "Ambio" is bigger