Deputy Dumbya Dawg wrote:

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in
message . ..

I've sometimes been thinking about exactly what you say
here,
i.e. a rear setup creating a natural ambiace, as it happens
in the
real theatre/hall due to reflections. Kindof a minimal
effect, just to
add what a spaciousness-wise 'flat' stereo recording don't
have.

Yes, I've tried some crappy consumer gear attempting to do
that,
of cause to no avail. I'll have a look at your suggested
gear.


One tweek I did that makes reverb in stereo much more audible
was to treat my room acoustically with bass traps, broadband
absorption and diffusers.

Well, this may eliminate some of the slap echo and
reflecting hot spots, but the net result is still a
recording that has the reverb mostly coming from up front.
This is not the way it is at a live performance.

Once the room acoustics were in check the reverb in the
recordings became much more a part of the music. Fact is if
the room is blowing back early reflections from your speakers
you are masking the low level detail that provides the reverb
in the recording. Adding after the fact reverb is not going
to fix your room.

It will not fix it. Nothing can fix it. However, done right
(with the levels not too loud and the timings not too
extreme) putting synthesized or extracted reverb out into
the room (even if that reverb is an ersatz simulation) does
a better job of simulating live sound than having just two
channels up front.

The problem with most surround sound set ups is that the
user will play the surround channels too loud. This
certainly is the case with store demos. I suppose the
demonstrator simply wants the guest to be extremely aware of
the surround channels. However, what you want is for the
listener to NOT be aware of the surround channels.

Howard Ferstler