Surround Sound
Music CDs - Article No. 3 - November, 1996
By John Sunier
"The Classics in Surround"
Many new home theater owners are discovering that the surround
sound function of a properly set up system is not just for movie
soundtracks. Some dealers have told about introducing new
customers to home theater, and, after the standard action movie
scenes or "Wow" laserdisc, playing the type of music
(without visuals) that the customer enjoys. For some people this
is the first time they have ever sat down in the "sweet
spot" to listen seriously to music, and they are completely
blown away by the experience.
While a sizable library of specially-encoded Dolby Surround Sound
music CDs now exists, there is an even larger library of CDs
encoded with the Ambisonic/UHJ system. There are many other CDs
that decode extremely well on ambience-recovery surround sound
systems. Some are encoded with different systems from these two
approaches, but most are not deliberately encoded at all. This
time I'll survey a variety of classical releases of both
surround-encoded and standard stereo types that sound great in
surround sound systems.
DOLBY SURROUND
A knockout classical demo is the RCA Red Seal Dolby Surround CD,
"Fortissimo! -- The World's LOUDEST Classical Music."
This disc certainly delivers on its promise. The 16 tracks start
out with the fanfare from Also Sprach Zarathustra and conclude
with the rousing finale of the 1812 Overture. In between are
noisy climaxes from Mussorgsky, Wagner, Prokofiev and Stravinsky,
and several especially effective choral-orchestral excerpts. The
final scene from Puccini's Turandot and a portion of Vaughan
Williams' Sea Symphony are thrilling, with the additional depth
of soundstage clearly setting the choruses apart from the
symphony orchestra. The St. Louis Symphony and the Bamberg
Symphony are heard on many of the tracks of this album, which
should convince new collectors to go out to find the complete
album from which some of their favorite tracks were excerpted.
A different Also
Sprach Zarathustra is heard in Dolby Surround on another new RCA
Red Seal CD: Lorin Maazel conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony
in that work plus two other Strauss works -- Don Juan and the
Rosenkavalier Suite. These are excellent performances, and the
complex Straussian orchestrations are clearly delineated with
this crystal-clear sonic spectacular. Another quite different RCA
Surround CD is "Oracle" [09026-68063-2]. Guitarist and
producer Joe Taylor has recorded a seminary choir in meditative
chants and polyphony and mixed in nature sounds, his guitar and
synthesizer with various electronic effects. It may sound like a
gimmick bouncing off the current chant craze, but this is a
quieting, centering musical experience aided greatly by the
surround soundfield.
A surround-sound
version of Switched-On Bach honored the 25th anniversary of the
original path-breaking classical synthesizer record. Wendy Carlos
created new versions of some of the Bach selections on the
original and others for the first time in "Bach 2000"
[Telarc CD-80323]. The clean synth lines and the clear recorded
quality of Telarc's "4D" digital sound result in great
spatial fun. The Intersound/Fanfare label issues a portion of
their CDs in Dolby Surround Sound, most of them using Shure
Stereosurround (as used on the Telarc "Spies" album
covered here last time). This process is based on the matrix
portions of Dolby Surround, refined for consumer audio and for
broadcast use. It is compatible with Dolby Surround, but Shure no
longer manufactures the encoders or decoders. Intersound now has
several different opera for orchestra albums. Among them are
Bizet [CDS3670], Puccini [CDS 3671], Verdi [CDS3672] and Wagner
[CDS3673]. In addition to a suite of instrumental highlights from
"Carmen," the first includes music from Gounod's
"Faust" and St.-Saens' "Sampson and Delilah."
The Puccini album covers four of that composer's favorite operas:
three each on the Verdi and Wagner collections. Paul Freeman
conducts the National Opera Orchestra on all four albums. The
20-bit digital reproduction allows a distortion-free soundfield
to be reassembled in the listening room, drawing one deeper into
the opera house experience. And for those of us who are not heavy
vocal music fans, these opera-for-orchestra arrangements are just
the ticket.
The Delos record label has been issuing Dolby Surround CDs for
some time due to the interest in multi-channel reproduction of
its noted recording engineer John Eargle. Up to the present, the
albums have been encoded from two-track originals through the use
of mike techniques that randomize stereo pickup of ambient and
reverberant sound cues in the venue where recordings are made.
Direct in-phase program material is steered to the center channel
(phantom or actual), while random-phase ambient material goes to
the surround channel. However, Delos began a couple of years ago
taping all their masters with an eight-track digital format using
multiple channels so that even more specific surround information
will be available in the future, with DVD and Dolby Digital in
mind.
"In a Quiet Cathedral" [Delos DE 3145] is a wonderful
double-disc pipe organ recital of quieter music by many different
composers. It would be a fine first organ album for many new
listeners. Even some lovely jazz improvisations by Shearing and
Strayhorn are included. The surround processing successfully
captures the reverberant acoustic of the large cathedral and the
varied registrations of the Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ played by
Todd Wilson. Close your eyes and you could be in one of the pews
yourself -- but surely your "sweet spot" seating is a
great improvement on that! While we're on liturgical music, it
should be pointed out again that one of the most exciting spatial
experiences in music is hearing a large chorus -- whether live or
on recordings. The addition of surround sound can increase the
enjoyment of recorded choruses even further. "Voices of
Ascension -- From Chant to Renaissance" [3174] presents the
choral group of that name conducted by Dennis Keene in music of
Hildegard of Bingen, Dufay, Desprez, Isaac, Tallis, Palestrina,
Byrd and others.
Another choral
work in Dolby surround is the Magnificat of Alan Hovhaness. It is
joined by nine other Hovhaness liturgical works on Delos DE 3176.
Donald Pearson conducts the choirs and orchestra of St. John's
Cathedral in Denver. The tonal, exotically modal melodies and
harmonies of Hovhaness have a sizable audience of music lovers
today, though this contemporary American composer was ignored for
much of his long life. Again, some of the choral passages are
clearer in surround, and the support of the pipe organ in
climaxes is more palpable and separated in space. At first blush
it doesn't seem there would be much advantage to presenting a
string quartet in surround sound. But for an album devoted
entirely to Hovhaness works for this chamber music staple,
engineer Eargle felt that the ambience of the hall in which the
four string players performed contributed to the rather spacey
feeling of much of Hovhaness' music. He suggested that it might
not be appropriate for Mozart quartets but was perfect for this
composer's work. And when the balance of front-to-surround
speakers is properly achieved, there is in fact a good sense of
the hall acoustics with the quartet seated up front. The pieces
include "The Ancient Tree," "Reflections on my
Childhood," "Gamelan," "Hymn" and
others.
Pro-Arte is another label under the InterSound aegis, and they
have a series of Shure Stereosurround CDs featuring primarily
American symphony orchestras. Two standouts are Falla's
"Three-Cornered Hat" [CDS 581] and Rachmaninoff's
"Isle of the Dead" [CDS 3450]. The first has Eduard
Mata conducting the Dallas Symphony and is coupled with the
Iberia Suite by Albeniz. The Rachmaninoff collection also
includes five of the composer's Etudes Tableaux, the Capriccio on
Gypsy Themes and the gloriously melodic Vocalise for Orchestra.
Yoav Talmi is the conductor here, with the San Diego Symphony.
The contributions of the surround are more subtle in these
albums, and proper balance of the front and back channels is
vital to a realistic soundfield all around. Music surround CDs
such as these can also point up the value of having speakers of
similar timbre throughout the system so that the surround
channels will blend smoothly into the front channels without the
feeling of giant gaps on both sides of the listening area. It is
usually better to have four or five modest identical (or nearly
so) speakers than a pair (or trio) of more expensive speakers
from one manufacturer at the front and a pair from a different
manufacturer for the surrounds.
OTHER SURROUND APPROACHES
There are a number of competing processes that have been
developed in an effort to achieve a surround-like effect using
only a pair of stereo loudspeakers for playback. Spatializer,
from Desper Products, is one of these. If used during the mixing
of the CD, no decoding equipment is required; the listener need
only sit midway between the two speakers and equidistant from
them. While designed for normal two-speaker playback, the
increased L-R and R-L information processed into the recording
will decode extremely well on any Pro Logic Dolby surround
processor with multiple speakers. "Wagner for
Orchestra" [Telarc CD-80379] uses Spatializer instead of
Dolby Surround. Jesus Lopez-Cobos conducts the Cincinnati
Symphony in six Wagner preludes and overtures. With only two
speakers the orchestra does occupy a wider soundstage than with a
normal CD, extending to the left of the left speaker and to the
right of the right speaker. There is also plenty of ambient
information to feed to the surround channels, even with a passive
non-Pro Logic decoder.
Another two-speaker-surround process is Sensaura, developed by
EMI Thorn Laboratories and being used on some Angel, EMI Classics
and United releases. It begins with a sophisticated Aachen Head
Acoustics binaural mike system used at the original recording
sessions. Its two-channel digital signals are then processed
using complex algorythms to attempt to replicate the experience
of listening to the recording on stereo headphones rather than
loudspeakers. In other words, the signal from the right speaker
not intended for your left ear is electronically canceled out,
and vice versa for the left speaker signal. Again, it is
absolutely vital to sit equidistant from the two speakers and
equally between them in a triangular formation. Two examples of
Sensaura are a set of three Beethoven piano sonatas played by
Stephen Kovacevich [EMI 724355 52262] and liturgical works of
Herbert Howells and Frank Martin [United 88033]. The first seems
a rather peculiar choice to show off the new process (using just
a solo piano), but there is a somewhat stronger feeling of the
Royal Festival Hall where the recording was made than one might
have with a standard stereo CD. The choral album brings us some
lovely and affecting contemporary music in fine performances.
Jeremy Backhouse directs the vocal ensemble Vasari. Howells'
Requiem was written in 1932 after the death of the composer's
son. It is a tonal, radiant work that varies between meditative
passages and emotional outbursts. Martin's Mass of l926 is also
more tonal than his later works. The frontal soundstage seems to
cover almost the entire 180 degrees with only the pair of
speakers; I have a four-frontal-speakers setup and with the
"outside" speakers switched off one could swear sounds
were still coming from their vicinity. There is also a greater
depth and even a vertical component to the soundfield. The
speakers seem to disappear. Unfortunately, in addition to the
"sweet spot" situation, the processing that Sensaura
requires destroys the original binaural effect when heard on
headphones and reduces the ambient information available for
feeding to the surround channels.
AMBISONICS
Though little publicized, there are many more CDs available
processed with Ambisonics/UHJ surround sound than there are Dolby
Surround CDs. Just about everything on the Nimbus label has been
recorded this way from the founding of the label, and many CDs on
Conifer, Unicorn-Kanchana and others are Ambisonic. [A complete
list is available online at http://www.omg.unb.ca/~mleese/ambison.html]. This process grew out of a British audio
engineer's dissatisfaction with the various quadraphonic
processes in the early 70's. In the multi-channel B-format
version it can encode an entirely spherical soundfield of 360
degrees. The UHJ version works only with two channels and
horizontal information. The only consumer decoder of Ambisonics
easily available right now is one incorporated into Meridian's
top-of-the-line 565 surround processor. However, almost any
surround processor will latch onto the sizeable amount of ambient
information in the Ambisonics signal and use it to recreate a
surround soundfield that, while perhaps not duplicating exactly
what the original recording engineer had in mind, nevertheless
provides an enveloping surround effect to my ears. (By the way,
if your processor allows turning off the Pro Logic function, do
so for most music playback.) Another advantage of Ambisonics is
the improved playback on headphones -- the clustering of the
music at your left and right ears is mollified and the
intervening space is filled in. Old SQ and QS quadraphonic LPs
have the same quality, but mixed in with surface noise that can
become bothersome on headphones.
A few Ambisonics titles that will decode well on surround
systems: Haydn: Symphonies 9, 12, 13 & 40. Adam Fischer
conducting the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra [Nimbus NI 5321].
This is part of a series Fischer has recorded in the same hall
where Haydn originally conducted some of his symphonies. Other
reviewers have sometimes commented on the overly "wet"
acoustics of most Nimbus recordings, and one specifically pointed
out how inappropriate the rather distant, reverberant recording
quality was for this precise, classically "neat" music.
Their comments are due entirely to the fact that they only
auditioned the CDs on a pair of speakers. If even just a single
speaker is hooked passively to the + terminals of the amplifier
to access the L-R or R-L information, and then placed in the rear
of the listening room, a convincing hall surround field is
re-created, the orchestra sounds nearer and clearer, and the
acoustics no longer sound overly "wet!" Jean Langlais:
Works for Organ [Nimbus NI 5408] presents Kevin Bowyer at the
Carthy Organ in a program of virtuoso pipe organ pieces by one of
the major composers of the French "organ symphony"
school. The rich and reverberant sounds of the massive organ are
thrillingly conveyed in this Ambisonic/UHJ CD when fed to the
surround channels using the "ambience" or
"enhanced stereo"-type of function settings.
An interesting program of works for string orchestra inspired by
the folk music of various countries is "Folk Into
Classic" [Ondine ODE 766-2] with Juha Kangas conducting the
Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Finnish composer Nordgren used
fiddle tunes from his country in his Portraits of Country
Fiddlers, Grieg used two folk songs in his Two Nordic Melodies,
and Georgian composer Tsintsadze based his Six Quartet Miniatures
on folk songs of his native state. This Ambisonic CD gives the
strings a wide soundstage and preserves a feeling of the hall in
which they perform.
BINAURAL
Another format for recording that is brimming over with L-R and
R-L information that can be decoded by your surround processor is
binaural. While designed especially for listening on stereo
headphones for the full "you are there" effect, today's
binaural recordings are compatible for playback on standard
stereo loudspeakers. However, you lose the 360-degree sound
location and feeling of being where the recording was originally
made. But playing binaural solely through two front speakers
simply folds all the ambient information into these two channels.
Pluck out that information and send it to your surround speakers
and you will have a spacious and enveloping soundfield in the
rest of your listening room!
One of the best demos of this is one of the few full symphony
recordings in true binaural -- Also Sprach Zarathustra again,
plus the St. Saens Organ Symphony [Newport Classics AUracle NCAU
10001]. The Pasadena Symphony is conducted by Jorge Mester. This
premium-priced gold CD is smashing either on headphones or
surround sound. Another good binaural CD is "Concerto"
[Audio 2700039] The Gerd Zapf Trumpet Ensemble with Stefan
Klinda, pipe organ. The three trumpet players are right in front
of you, and the organ accompaniment reverberates around them and
the listening room.
Two binaural CDs by the Polish chamber orchestra Concerto Avenna,
also provide excellent rear-channel information: "Baroque
Concerto Avenna" [Audio Electronics AXCD 90201] with two
sprightly concerti grossi by Handel, one by Corelli, and a
quartet by Allessandro Scarlatti. "Polish Baroque: Warsaw
Baroque Soloists (Concerto Avenna)" [Midas CD 5088] with
tuneful works by three composers we've never heard of but it
doesn't matter. The special spatial attributes of a choir are
again demonstrated on "Folksongs and Motets" [Audio
Electronics AXCD 90209] as the Youth Choir of Wernigerode sings
25 short works ranging from early polyphony to several by Brahms.
ORDINARY STEREO CDs
Finally, nearly all stereo recordings carry some ambient
information in their two channels, which can be decoded and fed
to your surround speakers. About the only ones which will produce
very little sound or a distorted signal at your surrounds are
aggressively multi-miked, multi-tracked or overly-processed
recordings. This occurs more frequently in the pop realm than
with classics. However, though we're talking about classical this
time around, I can't pass up the tip that if you want an
astonishing demonstration of what's hidden in those stereo
channels just try any stereo Beatles CD. They only had four
tracks to work with in the studio and with George Martin's help
they used them creatively. The results - with a simple passive
surround decoder - will often have you swearing you are listening
to a discrete four-channel recording!
Minimal-miked recordings often work the best for
ambience-hunting. Productions made for radio are usually miked
this way due to time and money constraints. Therefore some of the
classical radio live symphony series have lots of ambient
information in the signal. You must be receiving a really clean
transmission without multipath though; otherwise your processor
will be dealing with noise and distortion on the surround
channels. Another source is some of the CDs produced by the BBC,
such as those that were supplied with BBC Music Magazine. A
recent BBC Philharmonic CD of Bruckner's Symphony No. 9,
featuring a conductor nobody's heard of (Bernard Klee) turns out
to have smashing surround sound that puts the listener right in
the middle of the concert hall.
The British contemporary piano ensemble Piano Circus has several
CDs on the Argo label. On Argo 433 522-2 they play minimalist but
fun works by Nyman, Fitkin, Seddon and Rackham. The last
composer's 30-minute-long work "Whichever way your nose
bends" proves spatial to the max on a surround system.
You'll feel like you are in a piano factory, with pianos all over
your listening room! One of the recent unexpected classical hits
as part of the chants craze was "Officium," with the
four vocalists of the Hilliard Ensemble plus jazz saxophonist Jan
Garbarek [ECM New Series 1525]. The unlikely combination of very
early, very pure, four-part polyphony and modern jazz saxophone
improvisation is one of the most creative recording projects in
recent memory. Producer Manfred Eicher has always had the highest
technical standards in addition to musical ones, and the clarity
and abundant ambience of these recordings decodes for an almost
spiritual experience of surround sound.
John Sunier
© Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997
Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity
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