Has Surround Sound Been Forgotten?

[marty1]

What I have found is that most of the time there is always sounds coming from the surrounds, I only notice this when I stand right next them, the sound is very faint, as discussed, it is obviously recorded at a lower volume.

Well when I am watching a film from my couch, about 4 feet from the rears, I cannot hear any sound at all, only when specific sounds occur, flyovers, bullets whizzing etc.

What I would like to know is why bother recording any sounds there at all? If it is going to be so faint it is inaudible unless your ears are right next to them then why not save more money and have nothing there apart from flyovers, bullets whizzing.

To me it is an all or nothing thing

I am firmly in the continuous surround sound camp, I agree with them not being too loud to distract but if you are bothering to put something in them then the lowest levels should be continuously audible!

Maybe it is a bipole placement issue but I dont think so as I have had great help from Dale in finding the best placement for my bipoles which are now on the rear wall either side of the 3 seater couch. I tested loud surround scenes and placed the speakers on ladders moving them around and found that the side walls (the other bipole placement option) were really localised. So for big surround scenes on the rear wall they sound great but any other time not so much??

If it is not placement issues then I would have to say that it is more frustrating for the HC perfectionist to put sounds there because I just keep thinking I am missing these effects

Kind Regards

Marty

[fractile]

Our hearing is pretty sensitive to low-level sounds. When given a clue from the main source of the sound, the surrounds provide spatial information about the ambiance of the environment, even if it doesn't register as a distinct source.

Are your main speakers outputting at a reference level of say 85dB? This would bring the levels up on the surrounds. Otherwise, you could individually adjust the ratios of the levels to your liking.

[MatrixDweller]

Bought a copy of King Kong on Bluray after Christmas. I have to say that movie has some great surround. I was recently in San Francisco and down at fisherman's wharf and it started get foggy so the horns started going. In King Kong when the ship enters the mist and the deep fog horn blares it sent shivers down my spine. The horns in the bay sounded pretty much identical.

[marty1]

fractile wrote:

Our hearing is pretty sensitive to low-level sounds. When given a clue from the main source of the sound, the surrounds provide spatial information about the ambiance of the environment, even if it doesn't register as a distinct source.

Are your main speakers outputting at a reference level of say 85dB? This would bring the levels up on the surrounds. Otherwise, you could individually adjust the ratios of the levels to your liking.

I have all my speakers set at 75db from listening position, I think the dilemma is going to be if I turn the db level of the rears right up so I can hear the ambient levels that are being outputted, when the loud sound effects come on it will be really overpowering, as I said through testing speaker placement they sound nicely balanced through high volume surround scenes.

From what I could tell from this thread you are probably not supposed to hear those faint sounds, or at least other people seem to feel like nothing is coming from the surrounds.

Marty

[fractile]

I tend to watch as many movies as I can, mainly what I get on standard sat TV and lately from the 80's onward. This thread is about surround sound, but I think it is related with the state of sound production in general. I get the impression that people have come to think that if the sound is done digitally, everything is automatically perfect.

I listen to the microphone technique and the actual record quality of dialog and especially to the quality of the music track. Sound effects are also important in movies like The Transformers. This is all mainly a study to help me be more aware of audiovisual production technique.

Maybe it's a learning lag that people with high definition people have to endure while the industry and their consumers catch up. Consider the downward trend toward iPhone mixes of music and movies.

I'm just going by the standard run of movies I've been watching, plus all the commercials and promos. Sometimes the sound jumps out as exemplary, othertimes it's so-so. Maybe I should take notes of who produced the sound and ask them what the secret is.

[fractile]

marty1 wrote:

From what I could tell from this thread you are probably not supposed to hear those faint sounds, or at least other people seem to feel like nothing is coming from the surrounds.

Marty

I mentioned that the hearing is sensitive to ambiance cued by the source sound. You can read about this in the Master Handbook of Acoustics. You hear the sound, call it subliminally, but not as a 'source' sound. Within 10- or 20 mS a sound correlated with the original source, from any other location, is attached to the perception of the original source as additional information.

You can hear those faint sounds if you listen for them. You can have surround-sound that swirls the room around you. Movies are generally centered on the screen.

As a disclaimer, my initiation into surround sound was a few years ago at the AES convention; a demonstration of 5.0 [no sub, with five 20Hz to 20kHz speakers in a ~100x100 foot room] sound, with related video on a front screen.

[marty1]

I find that I cannot hear them even when I concentrate, but if I turn my head sideways with ear pointing towards the tweeter I can.

Marty

[fractile]

If the sound is coming from behind or the side you'd probably hear it that way. You might agree that the overall sound that you get puts you more inside the scene?

[marty1]

fractile wrote:

If the sound is coming from behind or the side you'd probably hear it that way. You might agree that the overall sound that you get puts you more inside the scene?

Sorry not sure what you mean?

[fractile]

The Main speakers [and the center speaker] are where the general sound comes from in relation to the screen. Generally in a movie the screen is the source of the sound.

There is a lot of potential in true surround sound.

My suggestion is to watch a lot of movies and adjust your system as you go.