Audio News for July 23, 2010

by | Jul 23, 2010 | Audio News | 0 comments

Conductor Charles Mackerras Dies at 84 – Australian conductor Mackerras died in London this week. His performances and recordings were known for their clarity and precision and unerring instinct for the correct inflections in period styles. He made important discoveries about vocal ornamentation in Mozart operas and played a crucial role in establishing the operas of Janacek in the West. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and the symphonies of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Brahms were other of his specialties. Growing up with Handel orchestrations by Beecham and others, he sought out the original scores and approached his own performances in a manner that would have been more accurate and familiar to Handel’s audiences.  

Smyth Headphone Processor Now Available – The Smyth Brothers are originally from Ireland and invented the algorithm that was used by DTS for its theater surround system. Years ago I heard a prototype demo of their headphone processor at CES. It is leagues ahead of Dolby’s poor Dolby Headphone processor, the Sony virtual surround headphone system, or Beyer’s Headzone processor. The original demo had a five-speaker surround system in the room and you could put on the headphones and remove them from your ears and the surround field sounded just the same regardless. You can use any headphones with the processor, but of course the better the headphones the better the results. None of the other virtual surround gadgets can match the SVS system.

Sales of the Smyth Realiser A8 now being produced are going half to music and film industry professionals and half to moneyed audiophiles – the complete system comes with a pair of Stax electrostatic headphones and amp and retails for $3360.  That still is less than the cost of a good seven-channel speaker system; this could be just the thing for those who only want a two-channel speaker system but would like to hear their movie soundtracks and SACDs in surround sound. The unit has eight channels of analog inputs and outputs.  To set up the unit one’s hearing is measured with in-ear mikes; you do it yourself in about two minutes. The unit can hold two personalized settings. Then you select 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 in the patented “audio virtualizing” algorithm, and you can play any source – from actual 7.1 down to two-channel. The SVS conveys a surround sound effect from only two channels, so if and when more modest versions of the technology come out, it could be perfect for any audio system or even mobile usage such as iPods. Some listeners may miss the deep bass support that headphones usually do not provide; if so a feed from the SVS can go to a subwoofer and even to a “butt-kicker” device running off the subwoofer. I would be very interested to try out the Realiser A8 with binaural recordings; I don’t know if that was considered in setting up the algorithm.

Less In-Your-Face 3D Effects – According to a 3D expert, 3D is going to succeed when it stops being a special effect and just starts being part of the storytelling experience. Unlike the cheesy  3D of old, today’s technology focuses on more realistic depth and realism, and is brighter and more colorful too. Perspective is being used to draw the viewer in, rather than objects coming out and jabbing you in the eye. 3D is happening in appropriate movies (but will never be in all movies), for sports videos and for video gaming. One industry observer feels that until we have the illusion of depth without needing the 3D glasses, it’s just a gimmick.  Early adopters will have to take the bundle approach to own top 3D titles: When Avatar comes out on home 3D in November, it will be packaged only with Panasonic 3D Blu-ray gear, and Alice in Wonderland will be an exclusive release with Sony 3D hardware this fall.  Whether that means the player or the display or both is unclear. 

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